LOS ANGELES — Upon hearing about the suicide of a 13-year- old neighbor, a Missouri woman ordered her business assistant and daughter to delete the Internet account they are accused of using to harass the girl, the assistant testified Thursday.
Ashley Grills, 20, told jurors it was her idea to set up a fake MySpace account using the name “Josh Evans” and that she sent the last message from “Josh” to Megan Meier in October 2006 saying that the world would be a better place without Megan.
Moments later, Megan responded: “You are the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over,” Grills said.
Megan, who was being treated for depression and attention deficit disorder, hanged herself that day.
Grills’ testimony came at the trial of her former boss, Lori Drew, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without authorization. Each count carries a potential sentence of five years in prison.
Prosecutors say Drew, 49, her then-13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and Grills created the MySpace alias in September 2006 to befriend Megan to find out whether she was spreading rumors about Sarah. The case is believed to be the nation’s first cyberbullying trial. Its results could set a legal precedent for dealing with the issue of online harassment.
