Megan Taylor Meier (November 6, 1992 – October 17, 2006) was an American teenager who died by suicide by hanging herself three weeks before her 14th birthday.

A year later, Meier's parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyberbullying through the social networking website MySpace.

She had been prescribed citalopram (an antidepressant that has a possible side effect of increasing suicide risk in young people[3]), methylphenidate, and the atypical antipsychotic ziprasidone.

[5] Meier was described by her parents as a "bubbly, goofy" girl who enjoyed spending time with her friends and family.

Soon after opening her own MySpace account despite her mother's objections, Meier received a friend request from a fellow user claiming to be a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.

According to her father, Ron Meier, and a neighbor who had discussed the hoax with Drew, the final message sent by "Josh" read: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows who you are.

The neighborhood mother who had told the Meiers that Drew had the hoax account said, "Lori laughed about it", and said she had intended to "mess with Megan".

Shortly after the first anniversary of Meier's death, her aunt, Vicki Dunn, saw an article written by Steve Pokin of the Suburban Journals about Internet harassment.

[7][20][22][23] At a press conference on December 3, 2007, Jack Banas, the prosecuting attorney of St. Charles County, said that Lori Drew's 18-year-old temporary employee, Ashley Grills, wrote most of the messages addressed to Meier and that she wrote the final "Josh Evans" message addressed to Meier.

Grills said she wrote the final message to end the MySpace hoax and get Meier to stop communicating with "Josh Evans".

[10] Banas stated that he did not interview Grills because, at the time, she was under psychiatric treatment for her participation in the Meier case.

According to Lori Drew's attorney, she had to close her advertising business in the wake of publicity about her role in the Internet account and messages.

[25] Internet webloggers posted photographs, telephone numbers, e-mail details, and addresses of the Drews and the employee on various websites.

Lori Drew was indicted and convicted by a jury of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 2008 over the matter.

Her conviction was vacated by a federal judge on a post-trial verdict, on grounds that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act did not intend to criminalize the conduct of which Drew was accused.

[1] When Megan Meier's story was first reported in the St. Charles Journal, readers were concerned about the unnamed adults implicated in the hoax.

[29] Banas said he was aware of the national outrage against the Drews, which originated on the Internet in response to the Steve Pokin article in the O'Fallon Journal.

A small piece of ground adjacent to the Drews' house was the scene of remembrances by friends of the Meiers.

[32] The ordinance prohibits any harassment that utilizes an electronic medium, including the Internet, text messaging services, pagers, and similar devices.

The city of Florissant, Missouri, also passed a "Cyber Harassment" law, with other municipalities, counties, and states considering following suit.

This is one of the first comprehensive cyberbullying and cyberstalking state laws that protects children and adults from harassment on social networking sites.

Both houses of the Missouri State Legislature voted unanimously on May 15, 2008, to criminalize usage of the Internet to harass someone, the existing statute was expanded to prohibit abusive "communication by any means" and is known as "Megan's Law.