On Tuesday the St. Charles Journal in Missouri published a sad story about cyberbullying that drove a 13-year-old girl named Megan Meier (pictured left) to commit suicide last year. Meier had been harangued by one of her MySpace friends named “Josh Evans” who sent her a barrage of hateful comments that sent her over the edge.

It turns out that Evans was a pseudonym created by two adults — one of whom knew the Meier family very well. The St. Charles Journal decided to protect the privacy of the two adults and declined to name them in the story. Their names are Curt and Lori Drew. (If you’re so inclined, you can find the address and phone number for Curt and Lori Drew in the comments section here. We don’t know if it’s real, but that’s the Internet for you.)

That didn’t sit well with incensed readers, who tracked down what they say is the identity of one of the adults and posted it online. Now the paper is being criticized for giving the adults anonymity.

To give you a little background:

Megan Meier, who had trouble controlling her weight and was self-conscious about it, was thrilled when a 16-year-old hottie calling himself Josh Evans approached her online one day and asked to be added to her MySpace friends list. The two became fast friends, though they never met in person. Then one day Evans turned on Meier and began sending her hateful messages. His negative comments grew in intensity and left Megan feeling deeply wounded. Already prone to depression and low self-esteem, she took the attacks on her worth to heart and hanged herself.