20-year-old Michelle Carter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
In 2014, Carter was accused of encouraging her 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy to kill himself.
Roy, who had a long history of mental illness, committed suicide on July 12, 2014. Though it was not his first attempt to kill himself, the testimony revealed that the high school graduate initially got scared after the first attempt and decided to leave the place.
It was Carter, who told him to “get back in” and he followed her instructions. His body was discovered later a few miles away from Boston.
In due course of the trial, several critical questions are being raised by the experts. Can a person be convicted of someone’s death even though the person was not present during the death? Can a person be charged guilty of killing or encouraging killing someone, solely by text messages? These questions are vital because in Massachusetts, assisting a person in suicide is not considered to be a crime.
But, the text messages sent by the 17-year-old Michelle Carter are spine chilling and testify as for the most vital evidence against her.
(Glenn C.Silva/Fairhaven Neighborhood News, Pool)
When Carter was tried in 2014 as a juvenile, she put the verdict in the hands of Judge Lawrence Moniz, the Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge who said that,“This court has found that Carter’s actions and failure to act where it was her self-created duty to Roy since she put him in that toxic environment constituted reckless conduct.
The court finds that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy.”
On Tuesday, prosecuting attorney Maryclare Flynn opened her statement saying that Carter played a “sick game” with her boyfriend’s life and played the role of a “grieving girlfriend” for attention and sympathy. Even Moniz believes in Carter’s role in Roy’s death. It is she, who assisted Roy to come up with a full-proof suicide plan and pushed him hard from backing out.
She wrote, “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,” in one of the text messages.
“I don’t get it either. I don’t know,” replied the nervous boy, to which Carter shot back, “So I guess you aren’t gonna do it then. All that for nothing. I’m just confused. Like you were so ready and determined.”
Despite being aware of how and when Roy was going to kill himself, Carter did nothing to save the poor boy. In fact, she was even connected to Roy, when he was committing the suicide, but instead of discouraging him, she pushed the scared boy back in the truck. And after his death, she admitted about her role in Roy’s death to her friend unhesitatingly in text messages.
“A couple of days before leading up to it I guess I kind of let him do it. I knew he was in the K-mart [expletive] parking lot. I knew he was going to use the generator to inhale carbon monoxide. I knew it all. I knew what he was going to do but I didn’t call anyone to stop him,” wrote Carter.
“[Conrad’s] death was my fault. Like, honestly I could have stopped it. I was the one on the phone with him and he got out of the car because he was working and he got scared and I [expletive] told him to get back in. If they read my messages I’m done. His family will hate me, and I could go to jail,” read the text.
According to the judge, Carter was found not merely on the basis of her text messages, but on the ground of her failure to instruct Roy to get out of the car, when she heard him suffocating to death. “She did not issue a simple additional instruction, ‘Get out of the truck,’” said Moniz, while announcing the final verdict.
Carter is charged with manslaughter for allegedly using text messages to encourage her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, 18, to kill himself. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Michelle Carter will face up to 20 years of imprisonment, from August 3, for being guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The court found her “virtual presence” with the victim at the time of the suicide and the “constant pressure” to kill himself, which were enough evidence for an involuntary manslaughter charge.