Woman who urged teen to suicide gets 15 months
Coaxed boyfriend to ‘take action’ in series of texts
Michelle Carter, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for urging her boyfriend through calls and text messages to commit suicide, was sentenced Thursday to 15 months behind bars.
A Massachusetts judge ruled Carter, 20, was responsible for Conrad Roy III’s death because she had placed him in a situation that led to his suicide.
During Carter’s sentencing, Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz called Roy’s death a tragedy for two families.
Roy’s f amily members — who asked she be imprisoned for 20 years — gave emotional statements before sentencing. Roy’s sister, Camdyn Roy, called him her “best friend” and “role model” and said she will always be haunted by his death.
Roy’s father, Conrad Roy Jr., said he was heartsick.
“I cannot begin to describe the despair I feel over the loss of my son,” he said. “I am heartbroken. Our family is heartbroken. My son was my best friend.
“Michelle Carter exploited my son’s weaknesses and used him as a pawn in her own well- being. How could Michelle Carter behave so viciously and encourage my son to end his life? Where was her humanity? In what world was this behaviour OK and acceptable?”
Roy and Carter met in 2011 and later struck up a romantic relationship — mostly online. Her attorney said they had met only a few times in person over the course of two years before Roy’s death.
Roy had a history of depression and had attempted suicide in the past, but his family was hopeful he would get through it. However, police said text messages they recovered suggest that by 2014, Carter had tired of Roy’s idle talk of suicide and wanted him to go through with it.
Weeks before Roy, 18, committed suicide, he texted Carter, telling her, “we should be like Romeo and Juliet at the end,” according to court documents.
“F--- NO! WE ARE NOT DYING,” she responded.
Days before his death, Carter urged him to get help. “But the mental hospital would help you. I know you don’t think it would but I’m telling you, if you give them a chance, they can save your life,” she wrote. “Part of me wants you to try something and fail just so you can go get help.”
But eventually, Carter’s tone appeared to change.
On July 12, 2014, a day before Roy was found dead, Carter, then 17, wrote: “So I guess you aren’t gonna do it then, all that for nothing. ... I’m just confused like you were so ready and determined.”
“I am gonna eventually,” Roy responded. “I really don’t know what I’m waiting for ... but I have everything lined up.”
“No, you’re not, Conrad. Last night was it. You keep pushing it off and you say you’ll do it but u never do. Its always gonna be that way if u don’t take action,” Carter replied. “You’re just making it harder on your- self by pushing it off, you just have to do it.”
“If u don’t do it now you’re never gonna do it,” she added.
In one message, Carter told him: “You’re finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain. It’s okay to be scared and it’s normal. I mean, you’re about to die.”
The judge said Roy had followed Carter’s instruction and placed himself in a “toxic environment” in his truck, where he used a gas-powered water pump to commit suicide.
Roy wavered in the final moments and stepped out of the truck — and Carter told him to “Get back in.” The judge said although Carter knew Roy was in trouble, she took no action.
“She admits in a subsequent text that she did nothing — she did not call the police or Mr. Roy’s family,” Moniz said in court. “Finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘ Get out of the truck.’”
Roy was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning on July 13, 2014, outside Boston.
Defence attorneys portrayed Carter as a teenage girl who was suffering from her own mental health issues when she encouraged Roy to take his own life.
“Ms. Carter will have to live with the consequences of this for the rest of her life,” her attorney, Joseph Cataldo, told the court.
He added t hat Carter had no criminal history and has expressed remorse and taken responsibly for her actions.
Legal experts have said t he decision could have national i mplications as courts grapple with how to apply long- standing laws as technological changes have taken interactions online. In Carter’s case, the ruling suggested that in effect, she was whispering in Roy’s ear, “kill yourself, kill yourself,” Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said after Carter’s conviction. And it essentially said that those words can lead someone to suicide.
“This is one of the most extreme cases we’ve seen,” Levenson said. She added that the question is: “When does bullying cross over into committing a homicide?”
Carter will not serve time behind bars until she has exhausted her appeals in state court.
HOW COULD MICHELLE CARTER BEHAVE SO VICIOUSLY AND ENCOURAGE MY SON TO END HIS LIFE?