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Megan Meier
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Woburn, MA —
The father later said it was like someone had handed his daughter a loaded gun.
She was only 13, days shy of her 14th birthday, and she had recently shed 20 pounds from her once-plump frame. The braces she had worn for years were finally scheduled to come off.
And she had met someone – online, anyway. A handsome kid, judging by his MySpace picture, and he seemed interested in her, sending her frequent, upbeat messages.
She hoped he would come to her 14th birthday party, already planned.
By the good-looking kid on MySpace that Megan Meier thought she was messaging was in fact the mother of a former friend of Megan’s, with whom she had had a falling out, and the woman’s MySpace messages to the impressionable young girl ended up in a tragedy that has become all to familiar to parents concerned about cyberspace bullying.
The messages turned uglier. The last one read, “You are a bad person and everybody hates you… The world would be a better place without you."
Within hours of reading the message, Megan Meier was dead. She had hung herself in a closet.
Though her death happened in Missouri, the potentially lethal consequences of cyberbullying know no state boundaries. In January of this year, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, Mass., also killed herself after being victimized by classmates online.
Now, school and law enforcement officials in Woburn say they’re determined to do all they can to make sure such a tragedy never occurs here.
On Wednesday, May 19, the Woburn Police Department will host a meeting about bullying for parents, staff members and other adults concerned about the issue.
The guest presenter will be Tina Meier, mother of Megan Meier, who has started a foundation named after her daughter. The Web address iswww.meganmeierfoundation.org
The meeting will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Woburn Memorial High School auditorium, 88 Montvale Ave.
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