Bullying Today

In October of 2006, a 13-year-old middle school student, Megan Taylor Meier, was transferred to another middle school by her parents in the hope of helping her deal with effects of being bullied for several years (Megan Meier Story 2, 2007).

Soon after, Megan became friends with an 18-year-old boy named Josh Evans over the social network MySpace. However, his account had been created by a former friend of Megan, that friend’s mother, and her 18-year-old employee (Megan Meier Story, 2007). The three began sending Megan messages via MySpace under this pseudonym with the intentions of misleading Megan into believing that he was interested in her. He complimented her pictures and even sent her messages telling her that she was his “number one” (Megan Meier Story, 2007). Consequently, Megan quickly became fond of Josh.

Her spirits, however, were soon brought down when Josh sent Megan an email saying that he did not want to speak to her any longer, claiming he heard that she was not nice to her friends. The last message he sent her said: “Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you”, to which Megan answered, “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over” (Megan Meier Story, 2007). Soon after, Megan was found hanging from her closet.  

Countless other victims of bullying have taken their lives because they did not know where to turn, just like Megan. Select the pictures below for news stories about the following children and teens who we have lost and their stories.