DA: Carter sought attention after boyfriend suicide
Post-death behavior questioned
TAUNTON — Michelle Carter knew Conrad Roy III had taken his own life, prosecutors say, but when his family and friends were hit with the shocking news, she wanted to be the grieving girlfriend at the center of attention.
Bristol Assistant District Attorney Maryclare Flynn built this image of Carter, 20, who faces involuntary manslaughter charges in Roy’s 2014 suicide. Carter is accused of using text messages to push Roy over the edge and kill himself by filling his truck with deadly carbon monoxide fumes.
“She talked him out of his doubts point by point,” Flynn said during her opening statement yesterday. “She assured him his family would understand.”
But Carter’s infamous texts to Roy were not the focus during the first day of her trial. Instead, prosecutors attempted to show Judge Lawrence Moniz that Carter was an attention-seeker with no remorse in the days and weeks after Roy was found dead in a Fairhaven Kmart parking lot on July 13, 2014.
Carter, for instance, created the “Homers for Conrad” fundraiser and held it in her hometown of Plainville. Roy’s family and friends, however, lived more than 40 miles away in Mattapoisett.
When Thomas Gammell, Roy’s best friend, asked her about this, Carter got frustrated and wanted to be sure he wasn’t moving in on her event, Flynn said.
“You’re not taking credit for my idea, right?” she said in a message to him that was shown in court.
Gammell’s team won the fundraising tournament, and when it was time to take a bittersweet victory photo, Carter made sure to put herself in the middle. In a photo shown yesterday, Carter nearly blocks out Gammell.
Some of Carter’s friends are expected to testify today before attorneys and Moniz go on a view of important locations in the case.
Carter was also texting Roy’s mother and little sister, Camdyn, during the time surrounding his disappearance and death, according to texts shown in court. However, Carter never mentioned that she was speaking with him the night he died, Flynn said.
“Find him yet?” Carter, then 17, texted Camdyn on July 13, 2014. “No,” Camdyn said. Soon after it was discovered that Conrad had died, Carter texted Camdyn and asked whether she could have some of his ashes.
Lynn Roy testified yesterday that Carter also texted her multiple times after her son’s death, yet never revealed her past messages with Conrad.
Carter decided to waive her constitutional right to a jury trial on Monday and put her fate in the hands of Moniz.
Carter’s lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, said his client tried to help Roy for months, and that he broke her down through a barrage of texts and social media messages indicating that he wanted to die.
“We should be like Romeo and Juliet, at the end,” Roy texted Carter, referring to the Shakespearian tragedy. Carter said she wanted to be his Juliet, but she didn’t want them to die.