FATAL ROMANCE
Michelle Carter stands trial for involuntary manslaughter for allegedly urging boyfriend Conrad Roy to kill himself in a series of shocking texts
Michelle Carter stands trial for involuntary manslaughter for allegedly urging boyfriend Conrad Roy to kill himself in a series of shocking texts.
In the final days before 18-year-old Conrad Roy III decided to end his life on July 12, 2014, by inhaling carbon monoxide, he was wavering. But his then 17-year-old girlfriend, Michelle Carter, didn’t want to hear any more excuses. “You’re ready and prepared,” she texted him. “All you have to do is turn the generator on and you [will] be free and happy. No more pushing it off, no more waiting.” After Roy’s body was found in his pick-up truck in a car park in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, Carter texted a friend to confess, “I could have stopped it. I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I [expletive] told him to get back in.” The chilling power of those words—and the influence they wielded over a teenage boy—are at the centre of a shocking case that could set legal precedent and is being watched closely by scholars of US law as well as parents of teens. Are a teen girl’s texts to her boyfriend protected speech or were they tantamount to being an accomplice to suicide? Those questions are being hotly debated by prosecution and defence lawyers in the Bristol County Juvenile Court in Taunton, Massachusetts, where Carter is on trial for involuntary manslaughter. Her defence team unsuccessfully tried to have the case thrown out and are now trying to prove her innocence to Judge Lawrence Moniz, who will decide the fate of the now 20-year-old Carter in lieu of a jury trial. “I think this is going to be a close case,” says Larry Cunningham, former prosecutor and vice dean at St John’s University School of Law in New York. “What’s going to make this case difficult is the fact that the assistance was verbal rather than physical. The question is, what was her role in the suicide?” Prosecutors maintain that her role was clear: in multiple phone calls and dozens of texts, they say she coaxed
Roy into committing suicide for her own purposes. Prosecuting lawyer Maryclare Flynn charges that Carter, who viewed herself as unpopular and friendless, played a “sick game” with Roy’s life and was motivated by a need for sympathy and attention by becoming the “grieving girlfriend.” According to court documents, Carter was on the phone with Roy for more than an hour as his vehicle began to fill with carbon monoxide, urging him to follow through on the suicide plan she had helped devise. “You always say you’re gonna do it, but you never do,” she previously texted Roy. “I just want to make sure tonight is the real thing.” And on the night Roy died, classmate Samantha Boardman testified at trial that Carter texted her: “I heard moaning like someone was in pain and he wouldn’t answer when I said his name. I stayed on the phone for like 20! mins and that’s all I heard ... Can we do something tonight to get my mind off it.”
But Carter’s lawyer Joe Cataldo points out that Roy had allegedly attempted suicide before and that her texts are protected speech that “did not contain anything remotely resembling a threat,” according to a court filing obtained by WHO. The defence has also maintained that Carter sent encouraging texts to Roy, including one that allegedly stated, “You aren’t going to get better on your own. You need professional help like me.” Psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin testified for the defence that Carter had been taking antidepressants at the time of Roy’s suicide— drugs that have been known to “disrupt the frontal-lobe function.” Breggin testified, “She’s not thinking she’s doing something criminal, she found a way to help her boyfriend.” Says Cataldo, “This is a tragedy, but it is not a crime.”
Roy and Carter met while their families were on separate holidays in 2012 and lived about an hour apart—roy in Mattapoisett and Carter in Plainville, Massachusetts. Most of their communications, which turned romantic, were on the phone or via text due to the distance.
“This is a tragedy but it is not a crime” —Carter’s lawyer Joe Cataldo
Roy, who had been accepted to Fitchburg State University to study business, was someone his friends say they felt they could count on. “He was a guy who had it all figured out,” friend Evelyn Murdock said of Roy in a 2015 interview with WHO. “He had a great sense of humour. He knew he wanted to work on boats and got his certification to become a captain. He knew what he wanted and went for it.”
Still, Roy’s emotional struggles were known to some of his friends, as well as his alleged previous suicide attempt. “I knew he had a history,” his pal Louie Pina told WHO in a 2015 interview. “Whenever I asked him about it, he would never give me details. I just told him if he ever needed someone to talk to, he should never feel like he was alone. I wish I was the one he talked to, instead of talking to Michelle.”
Roy’s body was found in his truck on July 13, 2014. The portable gas–powered generator found in the back seat supplied the carbon monoxide that police say killed him. In the final moments before his death, Carter clearly seemed to understand that what she was doing was wrong and urged Roy to “delete the messages” she’d sent him. Days later, she texted a friend to say, “If they read my messages to him, I’m done.”
Her parents issued a statement when charges were brought against their daughter insisting she would be found innocent. “Our hearts have and remain broken for the Roy family,” they wrote. “For everyone that does not know our daughter, she is not the villain the media is portraying her to be. She is a quiet, kind and sympathetic young girl. She tried immensely to help Mr Roy in his battle with depression.”
Whether or not a judge agrees will determine if Carter ends up doing jail time for her texts: if she is found guilty of manslaughter, she faces up to 20 years in prison. Legal questions aside, one fact is painfully clear, according to Roy’s friend, Murdock. “In the moment he needed a friend the most, when he needed the most help, she did the opposite,” Murdock said. “She’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life.”
By Johnny Dodd. n Reported by Chris Harris, Steve Helling and Jeff Truesdell
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, call Lifeline: 13 11 14