PUSHED PAL TO SUICIDE
Judge says woman drove teen to ‘do it’
A MASSACHUSETTS woman accused of sending her suicidal boyfriend a barrage of text messages encouraging him to kill himself was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter.
Sobs broke out as a shaken Michelle Carter listened to Judge Lawrence Moniz’s decision in Bristol Juvenile Court.
Carter could face up to 20 years in prison in the 2014 suicide of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III.
Roy was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his pickup truck.
The judge ruled that Carter, now 20, can remain free on bail — but ordered her not to make any contact with Roy’s family and remain in the state.
Carter wrote in one message: “I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!”
“You can’t think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don’t get why you aren’t,” Carter wrote on the day of the suicide.
In another text, Carter wrote: “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.”
Carter also had texted Roy to “get back in” his truck as it filled with carbon monoxide during the suicide attempt.
“This court finds that instructing Mr. Roy to ‘get back in’ the truck constitutes wanton and reckless conduct by Ms. Carter,” the judge said.
He said Carter had a duty to call someone for help when she knew Roy was taking his own life. Yet she did not call the police or Roy’s family, the judge said.
“She did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck,” the judge added.
In other messages, Carter said to a friend that Roy’s death “is my fault.”
“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 Sam because I knew he would do it all over again the next day and I couldn’t have him live the way he was living anymore I couldn’t do it I wouldn’t let him,” she texted a friend in September 2014, according to the Boston Herald.
Roy’s father said outside court that the family was pleased with the guilty verdict.
“This has been a very tough time for our family, and we’d like to just process this verdict that we are happy with,” said Conrad Roy Jr.
Assistant District Attorney Katie Rayburn told NBC News that ideally the verdict will bring Roy’s loved ones “some measure of justice.”
“Although we are very pleased with the verdict, in reality there are no winners,” she told the network. “Conrad is dead, and a young woman is convicted; two families have been torn apart.”
A psychiatrist had testified on Monday that Carter was a “very troubled youngster” who took antidepressants that made her “involuntarily intoxicated” when she told Roy to take his own life.
Prosecutors alleged that the then-17-year-old Carter harassed Roy to act on his suicidal thoughts. Carter’s lawyer argued that Roy had a history of depression and suicide attempts and was determined to take his own life.
The judge said he did not take into account in his verdict Roy’s previous attempts at suicide.
The ACLU of Massachusetts criticized the verdict, saying that Carter’s free speech protections were violated.
“Mr. Roy’s death is a terrible tragedy, but it is not a reason to stretch the boundaries of our criminal laws or abandon the protections of our Constitution,” legal director Matthew Segal said in a statement.
“There is no law in Massachusetts making it a crime to encourage someone, or even to persuade someone, to commit suicide.”
Segal said that the conviction “could chill important and worthwhile end-of-life discussions” between loved ones.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 3.