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Michelle Carter: Conrad Roy III’s Girlfriend Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter For His Suicide

By Lindsay McCane
Published on: 10:42 PST, Sep 9, 2015

Michelle Carter, Conrad Roy III’s girlfriend, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter over his 2014 suicide. Prosecutors say Carter sent Roy dozens of texts in the weeks prior to him taking his own life, urging him to commit suicide.

As the Inquisitr previously reported, Conrad Roy III parked his truck outside a Fairhaven Kmart last year and killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning using a gasoline-operated water pump.

“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,” Carter said to Roy III the day he died. “But I bet you’re gonna be like ‘oh, it didn’t work because I didn’t tape the tube right or something like that,” she wrote. “I bet you’re gonna say an excuse like that… you seem to always have an excuse.”

Although she wasn’t physically there, prosecutors say Michelle Carter played a vital role in Roy III’s death. 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 reports.

“… 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 to a friend following Conrad’s death.

Joseph Cataldo, Carter’s lawyer, argued that her texts to Conrad, who had been suffering from depression and had previously attempted suicide, should have been protected by the First Amendment. He also noted that Carter had tried to persuade him from killing himself, and only started going along with his plan after Conrad had suggested they kill themselves together “like Romeo and Juliet.”

“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.”

According to his aunt Becki Maki, Conrad spent time in a psychiatric hospital and received counseling after his first suicide attempt.

“He did not have the signs of someone who was considering that,” Maki said.

Conrad’s grandfather by the same name said he seemed happy in the days leading up to his death.

“He was coming out of his depression,” Roy said. “We saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and she just blew that tunnel up. She shut the light off.”

Despite Cataldo’s arguments, prosecutors said Michelle “wantonly and recklessly” helped Conrad poison himself, and the text messages prove her intent. While some legal experts think it is a reach because Massachusetts does not have a law against assisted suicide, prosecutors have still charged her with involuntary manslaughter, according to Fox News.

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

[Photo via Roy family]

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