The moral panic over online predators on MySpace was largely overblown, but there was some truth to these concerns. These stories ended up on the nightly news and further stoked people’s fears about who was actually behind MySpace profiles. And one story — the biggest scandal MySpace had faced yet — showed how the use of a fake account could result in circumstances confusing and surreal, and tragic beyond belief.

And it set in motion events that would lead to MySpace’s eventual collapse.