US woman Michelle Carter, who is currently serving a fifteen-month sentence for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide via text, has been denied parole after a recent hearing.
Carter has served around half her sentence, but a Massachusetts state parole board rejected her application to be set free this week. Its decision read, in part:
“The (Board) is troubled that Ms Carter not only encouraged Mr Conrad (Roy III) to take his own life, she actively prevented others from intervening in his suicide … Ms Carter’s self-serving statements and behavior, leading up to and after his suicide, appear to be irrational and lacked sincerity. Given subject’s behavior in facilitating victim’s death, release (is) not compatible w(ith) best interest of society.”
Michelle Carter and her boyfriend Conrad Roy were aged 17 and 18 respectively at the time of his death on July 13, 2014.
They were in a long distance relationship, and he confided in her about abuse as well as ongoing mental health matters and suicide attempts.
Though she had previously urged him to seek professional help, a court found that she “wantonly and recklessly” assisted his suicide via a series of messages sent the day he died.
Although she has been denied parole, Carter will likely be released early, as she has been a “model prisoner”, working while in jail and attending educational programs.
Inmates in Bristol County can earn ten days a month off their sentence for this type of good behaviour, and as it stands, Carter will be due for release in March instead of May next year.
