Envy

TRUTH IN FICTION

WHILE THE CHARACTERS and the plot of Envy are fictional, the story line in the novel takes some cues from a famous case involving the October 17, 2006, suicide of Missouri teenager Megan Meier.

The case involved Megan, thirteen years old, who had a falling-out with her neighbor, Sarah Drew. Sarah’s mother, Lori Drew, created a phony MySpace account and pretended to be a teenage boy named Josh Evans. She and others used the account to harass and taunt Megan as retaliation for the fight with her daughter, which may have led to Megan’s suicide.

In 2008, Drew was indicted and convicted, but her conviction was reversed on appeal in 2009. Megan’s tragic case sparked a greater awareness of cyberbullying.

And though awareness has increased, so have the crimes. Cases in which adults are the perpetrators of cybercrimes against children have been widely reported. Crimes in which young people seek to discredit, inflict pain, humiliate, and embarrass others are on the rise.

In 2010, two teen-aged girls in Lee County, Florida, allegedly created a fake Facebook page, accumulated 181 friends, and systematically sought ways to humiliate their classmate by digitally combining photos of the victim’s head with a naked body and posting the manipulated photos online. The case led to charges against the fifteen- and sixteenyear old of aggravated stalking of a minor.

Unfortunately, cyberbullying crimes involving younger victims and perpetrators have also been reported. In the spring of 2011, two girls from King County, Washington, were arrested for hacking a classmate’s Facebook account and posting lewd content. The girls were eleven and twelve years old, and they have been charged with cyberstalking and first-degree computer trespassing.

Both the Florida and Washington cases are pending.

For more information about the nonfiction behind the fiction in Envy, as well as a discussion guide and resources about cyberbullying, visit www.emptycoffinseries.com.