Massachusetts teen Michelle Carter is facing involuntary manslaughter charges for pressuring her boyfriend to commit suicide, say prosecutors, which he eventually did a little more than a year ago. Much of that pressure came in hundreds of text messages.
Carter, 18, of Plainville, texted 18-year-old Conrad Henri Roy III that she loved him and that his family would recover from his suicide,
according to the Boston Globe.
"You have to just do it. . . . Tonight is the night. It's now or never," Carter texted Roy before he died from carbon monoxide poisoning in his truck on July 13, 2014.
Carter's attorney argued in Bristol County Juvenile Court last week that the charges should be thrown out.
Attorney Joseph P. Cataldo told Juvenile Judge Bettina Borders that it was actually Roy who "brainwashed" Carter in his suicide plan after she initially tried to get help for him,
according to South Coast Today. Cataldo said Carter tried to get Roy to meet him at a local psychiatric facility, but he declined.
"He ultimately persuaded a young, impressionable girl," Cataldo told reporters. "Eventually he gets her to endorse his plan."
Cataldo said Roy suggested in a text nearly two weeks before his suicide that they should both commit suicide together "like Romeo and Juliet." He said she replied "(Expletive), no we are not dying."
However, prosecutors said Carter and Roy exchanged hundreds of text messages in which Carter appeared to insist that her boyfriend should kill himself,
noted the Washington Post.
"You're finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain," Carter once texted Roy. "It's okay to be scared and it's normal. I mean, you're about to die."
Prosecutors said Carter and Roy started a romantic relationship, mostly online, in 2012.
Roy's grandmother, Madeleine Bozzi, said the teen was manipulated by Carter, noted the Globe.
"This should have never happened to him," said Bozzi. "He was sick and he believed everything she said."
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