After three months of chatting online with a cute, young girl who befriended him on an online message board for Ford Thunderbird enthusiasts, Greg Cardarelli, 16, had fallen in love.
But then, two former male friends came to the Rockville teen with news that broke this heart ? she didn?t exist.
The two had impersonated a girl interested in Cardarelli in revenge for some teenage fallout.
Hours later, Cardarelli drove his Thunderbird into a tree.
“Whatever they told him or maybe even threatened him with, it was so terribly bad in his teenage mind that he made a snap decision to avoid it all by ending his own life,” wrote his parents, Gary and Sharon Cardarelli, in a description of the December 2007 incident.
The couple and others with similar stories are urging Maryland lawmakers to expand harassment and stalking prohibitions to include postings on Internet chat rooms and Web sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com.
A House of Delegates Committee this week began work on several so-called cyber-bullying proposals, including one inspired by two students who said they were harassed on MySpace after coming out as gay.
Bill sponsor Del. Nicholaus Kipke, R-Anne Arundel, pointed to a 13-year-old Missouri girl who committed suicide after receiving harassing messages on her MySpace page.
“They had acquaintances at school that targeted them because they are homosexuals,” Kipke said.
“They peppered them constantly with aggressive, harassing, attacking messages.”
Current harassment laws cover e-mail exchanges but not public message postings. If passed, violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor subject to jail time up to one year and a $500 fine.
The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed opposition to the proposal, arguing it, like the law against harassing e-mails, infringes on free speech.
Other proposals include requiring schools to tighten investigations of complaints of online harassment.
