Seventeen-year-old Michelle Carter had a boyfriend, Conrad Roy, who was 18. Conrad was plagued by suicidal thoughts, which he talked over with Michelle, particularly via texts. Michelle urged him to do it.
One night he took a gasoline-powered water pump into his pickup truck and rolled up the windows. He started it, intending to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
But then he had second thoughts. He got out of the vehicle. He texted Michelle.
She replied, telling him to get back into the truck. He did.
Michelle has been convicted of manslaughter.
From Erin Moriarty, Death by Text: The case against Michelle Carter – CBS News:
A Massachusetts judge announced his verdict Friday in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michelle Carter for the death of her 18-year-old friend, Conrad Roy. After Roy took his own life in July 2014, investigators found thousands of texts from Carter on his phone, many of them encouraging him to kill himself.
Carter and Roy met in 2012. Though they lived an hour apart in Massachusetts, they communicated almost exclusively via texts, online and by phone. The case, which was being followed nationwide, hinges on the power of words – Michelle Carter’s words – and whether they could be deadly.
At the heart of the case is the question of whether Michelle Carter’s texts and messages pushed Conrad Roy to take his life, or if he would have done it anyway?
[Keep reading. . .]
Also read Kathleen Parker’s reflections on the case.
Photo by Helar Lukats [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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