Rollins not buying ‘nice things’ You said
Cites ‘cycle of violence’ in manslaughter-by-text case
Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is pushing back at criticism in the manslaughter-by-text case against Inyoung You, whose defense attorney recently slammed Rollins for only releasing selected passages that show You repeatedly sending her boyfriend graphic texts telling him to kill himself.
This criticism of Rollins comes following a leak of text messages from a Boston public-relations firm that You’s defense hired. You, a 21-year-old who’s on leave from Boston College, has pleaded not guilty to a manslaughter charge stemming from the May suicide of her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula.
The 22-year-old jumped off a Boston parking garage roof just hours before his Boston College graduation — with prosecutors alleging You sent text messages repeatedly telling Urtula to kill himself.
“We are releasing the relevant texts to prove our case,” Rollins said in an interview that aired on WCVB on Sunday.
She also added, “In most homicides that we’re dealing with, in particular domestic violence or intimate partner violence, the murderer has done something nice to their spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend. That’s not why we’re here today.”
Rollins cited the recent guilty verdict of Revere man Andrew MacCormack. Prosecutors proved he murdered his wife — Vanessa Masucci, a beloved Lynn schoolteacher — when she tried to divorce him over his rampant cocaine abuse and erratic behavior.
“I’m sure Andrew said nice things about Vanessa,” Rollins said Sunday. “We believe the violent homicide overshadows any of the nice texts or messages he said about his wife.
“We’re not concerned with the nice things she may have said,” the district attorney added about You. “It’s a cycle of violence, and she is playing right into that.”
Prosecutors say that You was increasingly “physically, verbally and psychologically abusive” to Urtula over their year-and-a-half-long relationship, ramping up over the two months before his May 20 suicide.
Between March 29 and May 20, the couple exchanged 75,337 text messages, with You sending 47,130 of them, according to court documents.
“Texting is the way that people are interacting nowadays, and so this is a situation where the law has to catch up with what the world is doing right now, but we’re very confident in our case,” Rollins said.
You pleaded not guilty, and is free on $5,000 cash bail, under the condition that You, a native South Korean who’s a naturalized U.S. citizen, surrender her passport and remain in Massachusetts.