Michelle Carter sentenced for texts that prompted boyfriend’s suicide

Michelle Carter, now 20-years-old, whose prompting text messages drove her 18-year-old boyfriend Conrad Roy III to kill himself back in 2014, was sentenced to only 15 months behind bars in a Massachusetts prison on August 3 after previously having been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Her actual sentence was for 2.5 years “with 15 months in jail and the balance suspended plus a period of supervised probation” according to CNN. Carter was 17-years old when her boyfriend committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes while sitting in his pickup truck. Roy was described by family members as a troubled young man who struggled with mental health issues.

Carter will remain free pending her appeals to that sentence. Regarding the sentence and the emphasis on Carter’s rehabilitation, Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz was quoted by CNN as saying as he delivered her sentence that, “this court must and has balanced between rehabilitation, the promise that rehabilitation would work and a punishment for the actions that have occurred. 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.” During her trial, hundreds of text messages between Carter and Roy were presented in evidence.

“Michelle Carter exploited my son’s weaknesses and used him as a pawn. She has not shown any remorse. The fact that he was convinced to him to kill himself is unimaginable. Where was her humanity? In what world is this behavior OK and acceptable?” Conrad Roy Jr., Roy’s father, told Moniz on Thursday. ~ per NBC News.

Prosecutors showed that Carter had sent Roy a variety of provocative text messages at the time urging him that it was time for him to carry out his threat of suicide. When he poisoned himself by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes, Carter listened to him over the phone as he died. She didn’t bother to alert the boy’s family or the authorities of the suicide. CNN shared one of the text exchanges between Carter and Roy:

Roy: “I’m overthinking”

Carter: “I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it! You can’t keep living this way. You just need to do it like you did last time and not think about it and just do it babe. You can’t keep doing this every day.”

Prosecutors also argued that when Roy sounded like he wanted to back out of the suicide that Carter egged him on. At one point, Roy actually apologized to his girlfriend because he had not yet killed himself. Roy’s lifeless body was discovered in his pickup truck in a Kmart parking lot in Massachusetts about 40 miles from his home.