Woman accused in suicide texting case goes to state Supreme Court

BOSTON — A woman who as a teenager encouraged her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself may have made bad choices but did not commit a crime, her lawyer told the Massachusetts’ highest court on Thursday.

Attorney Daniel Marx said Michelle Carter, now 22, was a misguided teen who was struggling with her own issues and had been trying to help Conrad Roy III. He said Roy was committed to ending his life and was responsible for his own death.

“We can all see from the text messages that Michelle Carter did not force Conrad Roy to kill himself,” Marx told the Supreme Judicial Court. “It was a tragic decision that he made.”

Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a trial last year that drew international attention due to the thorny legal questions and the insistent tone of her text messages to her boyfriend. The day Roy filled his truck with carbon monoxide in a Fairhaven, Massachusetts, store parking lot, then 17-year-old Carter texted him: “You keep pushing it off and say you’ll do it but u never do. It’s always gonna be that way if u don’t take action.”

In convicting Carter, the judge, however, focused on how she told Roy to “get back in” after he climbed out of his truck as it was filling with the toxic gas and told her he was scared. The judge said Carter had a duty to call the police or Roy’s family when she knew he was killing himself.

But the only evidence Carter instructed Roy to get back in the truck was a long, rambling text she sent to a friend two months later in which she called Roy’s death her fault, Marx said Thursday.