Long day... getting longer.
Anyway - I started on this story from a different place than most of you are. I read the early articles, I knew that more people than the mother were using the account, etc. It still does not paint a very good picture of the adult involved - she's clearly a bitch. However, she was unaware of the nasty turn the account communications took - unaware that an 'employee' of hers had ended the 'relationship' and was sending nasty messages using the account. That this 'employee' was the one that sent the 'world would be better off without you' message. The adult was clearly being a bitch, but played no role at all in the nasty turn the account took on that final sad day.
I already knew that Megan's response to the messages were nasty in nature themselves - that her own mother scolded her for sending them after repeatedly telling her to log off previously in the day; which resulted in the 'you're my mother, you're supposed to be on my side' cries by Megan right before she ran upstairs and hung herself.
I had already read that Megan had threatened to kill herself long before any of this began.
There was a lot going on here.
And anyone that thought I was equating this to schoolyard 'fatso' chants, well I apologize for not being specific. I witnessed more than once a kid telling another that everyone hated them and they would be better off dead. Very specific and applicable incidents to the one here. One resulted in the girl running home crying... to be out the next day playing again as if nothing happened. And a boy that wanted to beat up the kid that said it... I cannot recall who won the fight, I had no dog in that hunt. These are clearly incidents of intentional infliction of emotional distress - yet resulted in nothing. In this case, we're appalled by the result - a senseless suicide by a young girl. We're allowing the sad result to cloud our judgment on harassment law IMO. I'll say it again - its a slippery slope.
And now that I just looked up IIED, I find that its a Tort Law (not criminal, if thats the right term) and is often viewed unfavorably by courts because of the 'slippery slope'. My GRE results did not lie
