Teen who urged boyfriend to commit suicide via text faces manslaughter charge

"You just have to do it like you said. Are you gonna do it now?" one text said.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

A Massachusetts judge ruled that Michelle Carter can face an involuntary manslaughter charge for encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself, according to multiplereports.

Carter, 18, sent Conrad Roy, 18, a series of text messages that pressured him to commit suicide despite Roy's hesitation, according to prosecutors. One of Carter's texts said, "You just have to do it like you said. Are you gonna do it now?"

Roy's body was found in his pickup truck in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, in July 2014. He died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The defense motioned to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge against Carter, but Judge Bettina Borders refused. Carter's lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, argued that the text message exchange between Carter and her Roy only demonstrates that "she encouraged him to gather strength to do what he wanted to do. ...I don't see how that's a threat that she was going to harm him," Boston.com reported.

In her ruling, Borders cited Carter's 45-minute phone call with Roy while he was inhaling carbon monoxide, and said Carter could have called 911, but didn't. The judge also cited text messages that show Carter advising Roy to get back into his truck when he tried to stop the process.

“The grand jury could find probable cause that her failure to act within the 45 minutes, as well as her instruction to the victim to get back into the truck after he got out of the truck, caused the victim’s death," Borders wrote, according to The Associated Press. 

Carter is scheduled to appear in court for a pretrial hearing on Nov. 30.

Prosecution's motion against dismissal in suicide text case

 

Latest in Life