Reports that a 14-year-old Central Point girl was getting graphic, threatening e-mail through the Web site MySpace.com had Central Point police fearing the worst.

MySpace, a popular social-networking site that encourages users to build large circles of friends, has garnered headlines for its apparent link to sexual assaults, murder, and threats, The Associated Press reported this month.

But instead of a dangerous stalker, Central Point investigators found another teenage girl, also 14, posing as a 40-year-old man online to make the threats.

"This is a good reminder to everyone that while on the Internet you really have no idea who you are sharing your personal information with and who is on the other side of the keyboard," said Josh Moulin, a detective with Central Point’s high-tech crimes unit.

The string of electronic messages, escalating to phone calls and notes at the girl’s home, arrived between Jan 28 and Feb. 6, Moulin said. They purported to come from a 40-year-old single, white man in Medford who had an account on MySpace.

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The victim reported the stalking to a youth pastor and her mom and talked to teachers about her worries. Because the threats referred to school activities, Cascade Christian High School officials, where both the involved teens are students, also investigated, Moulin said.

Moulin prepared to subpoena MySpace records to determine which computer had created the account that was generating the threats. As he interviewed student suspects and discussed his plans and the technology that would lead him to the person making the threats, the girl who had made them confessed, he said.

Moulin said the case possibly could have resulted in identity theft charges for creating a false identity or harassment charges, but no criminal charges were filed. The victim’s parents, relieved that their daughter wasn’t targeted by a predator, agreed not to press charges, he said.

The girl making the threats was expelled from Cascade Christian for one year. Principal Mark Perry declined to comment on the case.

"I would just as soon MySpace didn’t exist," he said, adding that such sites and how kids use them are really an issue for parents more than for schools.

School administrators around the Rogue Valley and the rest of the nation are concerned about social-networking Web sites.

Medford schools have reported keeping an eye on gang and drug activity. Crater High School has dealt with online bragging about hacking into a school system that led to criminal charges, as well as threats and teenage taunts.

"The issue with any open-access site like this is now we have to determine a line for what is a student’s private life on their Web site and what is school life," Crater Principal Kirk Gibson said. "When Web activity crosses the line to affect school, we have to keep kids feeling safe."

Bullies who once made the rounds on playgrounds are using Web logs and home pages to spread rumors and lies faster than the schoolyard grapevine ever could. MySpace profiles have been used to threaten classmates and in at least one case, to mock a school principal, The Associated Press reported.

Many schools have responded by restricting Internet access from school computers. One private school in Newark, N.J., ordered students to remove all personal blogs from the Internet, even if accessed from home, to protect them from online predators.

MySpace has 54 million users, a quarter of them registered as teens.

MySpace forbids minors 13 and younger from joining and provides special protections for those 14 and 15 — only those on their friends’ list can view their profiles.

Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4485, or e-mail aburke@mailtribune.com.The Associated Press contributed to this report.