Michelle Carter Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter In Conrad Roy III’s Suicide

Michelle Carter, a 17-year-old girl who allegedly urged her boyfriend to commit suicide, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for Conrad Roy III’s 2014 death.

Conrad Roy III parked his truck outside a Fairhaven Kmart last year and killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning. Prosecutors say Michelle played a major part in his death, even though she wasn’t physically there. Not only did she encourage him to do it, telling him to overcome his doubts, she even told him to get back in the truck when he had gotten out because he was afraid the plan was working, the Associated Press reported, via MSN.

“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,” Michelle Carter wrote to Conrad Roy on the day he took his own life.

Joseph Cataldo, Carter’s lawyer, said her texts should be protected by the First Amendment, and Conrad had already made up his mind to kill himself and she wasn’t responsible for his death. He went on to explain that Carter’s suicide texts didn’t even start until Roy suggested they die together “like Romeo and Juliet,” according to a previous report by the Inquisitr.

Michelle Carter pressured her bf to commit suicide until he did it and uses his death for attention. #JusticeForConrad pic.twitter.com/o2mvQ1wBb1

— Juan Direction (@JuanDirection57) September 2, 2015

“Even with the district attorney’s release of some text messages, nothing has changed,” Cataldo said. “It should be further noted the district attorney did not release all the various text messages which showed for months prior to Conrad Roy’s suicide Miss Carter continuously requested he seek help. Further, the Internet search evidence obtained from Mr. Roy’s cellphone also demonstrates Conrad Roy himself searched and planned his own death.”

Despite Cataldo’s arguments, the prosecutors want Carter to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. In their written response, prosecutors said the text exchanges support their claim that Carter caused her boyfriend’s death by “wantonly and recklessly” helping him poison himself.

Teenager’s text messages ‘pressured boyfriend to kill himself’ http://t.co/aa2rguP9Oc pic.twitter.com/NjLu1S1hGA

— The Independent (@Independent) September 1, 2015

According to Fox News, Roy, 18, had suffered from depression for years and had attempted suicide two years prior to his death. Because Massachusetts does not have a law against assisted suicide, some legal experts say it was a reach to charge Carter with manslaughter. However, the prosecutors point to a text Carter sent a friend following Roy’s death as proof that she coerced him into killing himself.

“… his death is my fault like honestly I could have stopped him I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I (expletive) told him to get back in… because I knew he would do it all over again the next day and I couldn’t have him live the way he was living anymore I couldn’t do it I wouldn’t let him,” Carter wrote.

Do you think Michelle Carter should have been charged in Conrad Roy’s death? Leave your comments below.

[Photo via Roy family]