DARDENNE PRAIRIE, MO. - For nearly a year, the families who live along Waterford Crystal Drive in this bedroom community northwest of St. Louis have kept the secret about the boy Megan Meier met in September 2006 on the social networking site MySpace.com

He called himself Josh Evans, and he and 13-year-old Megan struck up an online friendship that lasted several weeks.

Then the boy abruptly turned on Megan and ended it. That night, Megan, who previously had battled depression, committed suicide.

The secret was revealed six weeks later: Lori Drew, a neighbor, had pretended to be 16-year-old "Josh" to gain the trust of Megan, who had been fighting with Drew's daughter, according to police records and Megan's parents.

After their daughter's death, Tina and Ron Meier begged their other neighbors to keep the story private. Let the local police and the FBI conduct their investigations in privacy, they pleaded.

But after waiting for criminal charges to be filed against Drew, neighbors learned that local and federal prosecutors could not find a statute applicable to the case.

This community's patience has dried up. Furious neighbors -- and in the wake of recent media reports, an outraged public -- are taking matters into their own hands.

Virtual vigilantism

In an outburst of virtual vigilantism, readers of blogs such as RottenNeighbor.com and hitsusa.com have listed the Drews' home address, personal phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photographs of the couple.

Dozens of people allegedly have called local businesses that work with the Drew family's advertising booklet company and flooded the phone lines this week at the local Burlington Coat Factory, where Curt Drew reportedly works.

"I posted that -- where Curt works. I'm not ashamed to admit that," said Trever Buckles, 40, a neighbor whose two teenage boys grew up with Megan. "Why? Because there's never been any sense of remorse or public apology from the Drews, no 'maybe we made a mistake.'"

Local teenagers and residents protest steps from their tiny porch. A fake 911 call, claiming a man had been shot inside the Drew home, sent police to surround the one-story, white-sided house. People drive through the neighborhood in the middle of the night, screaming, "Murderer!"

The Drews, who have mounted cameras and recording devices onto the roof of their house to track their neighbors' movements, declined to comment for the story.

The legal limits

Cyber-bullying has become an increasingly creepy reality, where the anonymity of video games, message boards and other online forums offer an outlet for taunts. Yet drawing the line between conduct that is illegal and constitutionally protected free speech can be difficult.

Still, Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org, points to one federal statute that might apply in the Meier case: the telecommunications harassment law. Amended in 2005, the law prohibits people from anonymously using the Internet with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person. Terri Dougherty, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis, declined to comment on whether prosecutors could apply the federal statute in the Meier case.

The mounting tension and heated emotions have local community leaders worried. The St. Charles County Sheriff's Department, which rarely visited the suburb, now regularly patrols there. County prosecutors are reexamining the case.

Last week, the city's board of alderman unanimously passed a law that makes cyber-harassment a misdemeanor with a maximum 90 days in jail, $500 fine or both for each violation. It's the most stringent punishment available to the city.