A Myspace Hoax Leads to Death

I just finished reading an article about a teenage girl who committed suicide after she had her heart broken on MySpace. The twist is that the 'boy' who broke her heart was not real. The culprit behind the fake boy was an older woman. The parents of the teenage girl want justice for what this woman has done. They feel she is to blame for their daughter's death, and want some answers.

How do I feel about this? The internet is a very unreliable source for meeting people, and can be very dangerous. You never know who you are talking to, and you may never know. Its very unfortunate that this had to happen, and it is a very cruel prank. The woman behind the crime should feel guilty because she was messing with the emotions of a teenage girl, who was not yet mature enough to handle heartbreak, especially since she had already been going through depression. The damage was done, and the culprit does not feel any remorse. On the other hand, the girl went about it the wrong way. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem as they say, and in time she could have gotten over it, and laughed about it with her future friends, but instead, she took her own life. The hoax culprit was wrong for playing with a young girl's feelings, but the girl was wrong for taking her own life. If I were to choose a side however, I would take the side of the girl, simply because I do not agree with an older, mature woman hurting a teenager, a child, who did not know how to handle heartbreak.

Now, I believe that the woman should be punished because of what she did. I don't blame her one-hundred percent for this girl's death, but she did have part in it, and I believe that she should be punished. I would label this crime as either a Slander, or a False pretense. Why you ask? "False Pretenses describes a broad category of crimes that involve activities intended to deceive others by making false claims, or to obtain goods by using false pretenses" as quoted from Essentials Of Business Law written by Anthony L. Liuzzo, and Joseph G. Bonnice. Also, in the Essentials Of Business Law book, it states that "Slander is the spreading of damaging words or ideas about a person, directly or indirectly, in all other forms not considered libel". I feel that these two crimes are better suited for this situation, but I honestly feel slander would be the perfect match. Also, from reading the book, this crime seems to be a tort crime. I couldn't really decide a suitable punishment for this woman, because I really can't describe fully the matter at hand, and I was not there to witness what has happened, what has been said, and what lead the thirteen year old girl to kill herself. These are my feelings on this case.