Family’s Rage Grows: No Charges in MySpace Hoax Death

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoax.html?em&ex=1196398800&en=b1408a7356b77eef&ei=5087%0A

You may’ve heard about this, but the details are beyond shocking.

If this deeply malicious behavior toward a minor by a 47 year-old is not in fact a crime, then it should be criminalized.

That an adult would plot such a cruel hoax against a 13-year-old girl has drawn outraged phone calls, e-mail messages and blog posts from around the world. Many people expressed anger because St. Charles County officials did not charge Ms. Drew with a crime.

But a St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Lt. Craig McGuire, said that what Ms. Drew did “might’ve been rude, it might’ve been immature, but it wasn’t illegal.”

…

St. Charles County’s prosecuting attorney, Jack Banas, said he was reviewing the case to determine whether anyone could be charged with a crime. 

Is there at least an actionable civil tort here? Wrongful death? The minor’s suicide complicates that. Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Surely.

I feel so bad for the mother and father. I feel almost equally bad for the daughter and husband of the woman who conducted the hoax. Their quality of life and emotional well-being will be forever changed for the worse by the consequences of this woman’s immature, inhuman cruelty. 

B