Michelle Carter Pressured Boyfriend Conrad Roy III To Suicide Via Text Message

Michelle Carter sent her former boyfriend Conrad Roy III text messages that urged him to take his own life, and knew that her actions could send her to jail.

Michelle Carter’s Texts

Carter has been standing trial for an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection to Roy’s suicide. Prosecutors have been arguing that Carter used text messages to pressure Roy to carry out a plan to end his life, and even offered him suggestions on how to do it. Furthermore, Carter lied to police and Roy’s family about where he might be during and after his suicide.

“You’re finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain,” Carter told Roy in one message, according to the Washington Post. “It’s okay to be scared and it’s normal. I mean, you’re about to die.”

In some of his replies to Carter, Roy expressed trepidation about going through with suicide. When he showed some reluctance, Carter insisted that he keep his word about his plan.

“You always say you’re gonna do it, but you never do,” Carter complained. “I just want to make sure tonight is the real thing.”

In another message, she added, “You can’t think about it. You just have to do it.”

On July 12, 2014, Roy positioned a gas-powered water pump inside the cab of his pickup truck and turned it on. Eventually, the teen died of carbon monoxide poisoning and was found the following morning.

After Roy’s death, Carter revealed to a friend that she could be held partially responsible. “[If the police] read my messages with him I’m done. His family will hate me and I can go to jail,” Carter texted a friend.

Carter also admitted to a friend, “Like, honestly I could have stopped it. I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car” because the carbon monoxide from the pump was working. Carter added to the friend that she “told [Roy] to get back in.”

Carter’s attorney Joseph P. Cataldo is arguing that Roy “brainwashed” his client into encouraging his own suicide. “He ultimately persuaded a young, impressionable girl,” Caldato told reporters. “Eventually he gets her to endorse his plan.”