Oooh, She’s a Little “[MySpace] Runaway”
Ok, so this story unfolded last week. Basically, a 13-year old girl from Oregon ran away. After she did, her parents discovered that she was leading a double MySpace life. One profile was mostly accurate and claiming to be 17 (so, in reality, both accounts were false), but in another she presented herself as a 28-year-old college student. The parents feared she had run off with an older boy/man. Turns out she was just hiding at a friends house after an argument with mom and dad. Good old fashion ‘running away.’ Thankfully it wasn’t a dangerous situation, but it does show that parents, you most likely don’t know your teens. If they are online, you most certainly don’t. Or so I would wager next week’s check on…
Here are the two AP stories. Read and enjoy and think twice before just assuming your child is innocent and trustworthy… They ARE teenagers after all. Remember what you were like and you didn’t have the Internet. Know what your kids are doing. Use PC Pandora monitoring software to verify. Knowledge is power. Don’t be a weak 21st century parent.
13-year-old from Salem with double life MySpace pages disappears
Posted by The Associated Press May 23, 2008 06:40AM
The parents of a Salem runaway are worried she is with an older man, according to a story in the Statesman-Journal.
They reached that conclusion after learning that 13-year-old Melissa Gregory had been living a double life through her computer. On one MySpace account, she provided mostly accurate information about herself but claimed to be 17. On another, she presented herself as a 28-year-old college student.
Through one of those social networking accounts, Melissa apparently got involved with an older man.
“She told a friend she’d met a man online and was going to Washington or California with him,” mother Tana Gregory told the Statesman Journal newspaper. “I am so scared. If I don’t get her back, my life is over.”
Salem police are reviewing the MySpace accounts as part of the investigation, Sgt. Andrew Connolly said Thursday.
“Right now, we have not been able to confirm she went to anywhere out of state or out of the area,” Connolly said.
The incident started Tuesday when Melissa’s parents learned she had lied to them about her whereabouts, Gregory said. She was supposed to be with a known friend, but that girl told them Melissa was really at the apartment of a 16-year-old girl she had met online.
Gregory said they retrieved Melissa, yelled at her and sent her to bed about 10 p.m.
Melissa attends school through the Salem-Keizer School District’s online program and sleeps in mornings. Her parents left for work at 7 a.m. and did not see her.
At about 4 p.m., Melissa’s father went to speak with her and found her gone. Her bed did not appear slept in.
The Gregorys called police, and then started phoning her friends. They learned that at about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, Melissa had left a message with a friend saying she was running away.
Gregory thinks Melissa, whose cell phone is dead, ran away because she and her husband had threatened to take away her computer and send her to the middle school she had attended before taking online courses.
“I knew she had a MySpace, but I wasn’t particularly worried about it because she had a 17-year-old brother and a 21-year-old sister checking in on her page all the time,” Gregory said. “I feel really naive now. I feel I was really blind.”
Posted by The Associated Press May 24, 2008 13:58PM
SALEM — A girl whose parents said she was leading double lives online and may have run off with an older man has turned up hiding at a friend’s house.
Sister Ashli Litchfield says her parents tracked 13-year-old Melissa Gregory through her cell phone records.
She was at the last place she had called, and they picked her up Friday.
Her parents say they found she was posing on MySpace accounts as a 17-year-old and as a 28-year-old college student.
Litchfield says it appears that a fight with her parents on Tuesday led Melissa to run away.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:42 PM
Interesting news..! Just goes to show how far things can get beyond the hands of parents in the modern day cyber world.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:45 PM
She is one lucky girl indeed. A lot more could have happened and every single news of this type makes my decision of going for PC Pandora a wise one.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
I really agree with that statement of not being a weak 21st century parent. That is too much of a luxury nowadays. But it is all so overwhelming, confusing and endless trying to master the social networking technology out there.
That is why we turned to parenting experts to guide us in all these areas and I now feel secure in my parenting of my 4 kids. We have found the best of the best, especially in this afore-mentioned field, and we would like to share it with you in the most presentable and easily-digestible way. Check it out at:
http://www.easierparentingmiddleschool.com
May 29th, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Even though this is CLEARLY an advertising SPAM, I’m leaving the post because the pitched product doesn’t conflict with my views (personal or professional) or our PC Pandora. Though, out of curioristy, if you happen to see this reply, Caroline, what do you think about using monitoring software?