CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses suicide.
20-year-old American woman Michelle Carter is currently on trial for some extremely fucked-up shit: she’s accused of making her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, kill himself. Via text message.
It’s a dark and horrifying saga that involves Carter allegedly pressuring Roy into taking his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning in order to garner sympathy from her friends. Roy was 18 and already struggling with depression; Carter was just 17 years old. She’s charged with involuntary manslaughter, and if she’s convicted she could face 20 years in jail.
Michelle Carter engaged in a “sick game of life and death,” prosecution says in texting trial https://t.co/UDE9vNBlr4 pic.twitter.com/h4I4YZ626P
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 6, 2017
Today, the trial saw a number of Carter’s friends take the stand to read aloud some of the texts she’d sent to them before, during and after Roy’s suicide.
Buzzfeed News reported on the story from court records and from a live stream of the trial. Here are some of the texts Carter sent.
To high school friend Samantha Boardman:
“Sam, 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 [truck] because it was working and he got scared and I fucking told him to get back in Sam 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.”
To several others:
“He told me exactly what his plan was. And he told me he loved me. And then he just stopped talking.”“Yeah and I was on the phone talking to him when he killed himself. I heard him dying.”“I was talking to him on the phone when he killed himself. Liv, I heard him die. I just wish I got him more help.”
And to Roy himself:
Here are some of the texts that #MichelleCarter sent her boyfriend, Conrad Roy. Prosecutors say she pressured him to kill himself. pic.twitter.com/mWBtoTJMhd
— Tasneem N (@TasneemN) June 5, 2017
Defendant: “You’re gonna have to prove me wrong because I just don’t think you really want this. You just keeps pushing it off to another night and say you’ll do it but you never do”Defendant: “SEE THATS WHAT I MEAN. YOU KEEP PUSHING IT OFF! You just said you were gonna do it tonight and now you’re saying eventually. . . .”Defendant: “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’ . . . I bet you’re gonna say an excuse like that”Defendant: “Do you have the generator?”Victim: “not yet lol”Defendant: “WELL WHEN ARE YOU GETTING IT”
“It” is the generator Roy used to fill his truck with carbon monoxide.
The prosecution is alleging that Carter often complained to her friends about being an outcast who never got invited to parties, who struggled with an eating disorder and cutting (although one friend told the court they had never seen evidence of this self-harm).
They’re saying that she wanted Roy to kill himself so that she could assume the role of “the grieving girlfriend“. Apparently she asked him via text when he was going to kill himself more than 40 times.
You can read through the full report on the trial here, but be warned – it’s really bleak stuff.
Source: Buzzfeed News / Boston.com.
Image: YouTube.
If you or someone you know is dealing with a mental illness, call BeyondBlue on 1300 22 4636. If you are in distress, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
