Michelle Carter-- Death by Text

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Have you guys been following this story? A girl was found guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter by a Massachusetts judge for the text messages she sent her boyfriend, which ultimately encouraged him to commit suicide.

I have some strong opinions on this case, but I'm interested to hear if anyone else has been following along...

[Calliope68]

I know the the story . Haven't followed he trial closely but imho she deserved some kind of punishment. She egged him on and didn't really seem to care about him. how could you ever tell someone you are supposed to love to just get it over with. There should be consequences for her actions. Not sure if she will have serve jail time but at least she knows her actions were not acceptable.

[funky-rat]

It's a slippery slope, but I do agree some sort of punishment was necessary. There were times where you could see he clearly wasn't sure if he really wanted to kill himself, and she just kept egging him on. She could have called for help when he was really going through with it, but chose not to. I had to stop reading the texts - it was too upsetting.

[BlueGalexy]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

Have you guys been following this story? A girl was found guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter by a Massachusetts judge for the text messages she sent her boyfriend, which ultimately encouraged him to commit suicide.

I have some strong opinions on this case, but I'm interested to hear if anyone else has been following along...

Thank you for starting this thread OP, as this case has intrigued me for a little while now. I'm trying so hard not to give into my knee-jerk reaction, and keep an open mind on this one. I'll admit that I'm struggling with this thanks to my intense dislike of most forms of social media. What the hell...no one's perfect right?
Like you, I also have some strong opinions regarding this case, and others like it that seem to be cropping up more often lately. I believe that as much as we may wish otherwise, our words have consequences every bit as much as our actions do, and I'm glad to see the defendant in this case is being held accountable for those consequences. Whether the punishment fits the crime in this case will be a matter of opinion I guess, and only time will tell on that score.
Sadly, this case reminds me of the recent Tysen Benz tragedy, which also appears to have been the result of a social media prank gone haywire. I realize that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I just don't see the humor in a lot of these social media pranks. Especially the ones that result in a fatality. Maybe I'm just lacking a sense of humor. I just don't know anymore...

[Awsi Dooger]

She did win the gold medal in the shot put last year. That's how I'll always remember her.

In '84 I was there when her dad won silver.

[Dude111]

Its sad she could send something that would push someone over the edge

[JamesG]

Woman Sentenced to 15 Months in Texting Suicide Case
by Ray Sanchez, Natisha Lance and Eric Levenson for CNN
August 3, 2017


Michelle Carter, whose own words helped seal her involuntary manslaughter conviction in the suicide of her teenage boyfriend, was sentenced to 15 months in a Massachusetts prison Thursday -- but will remain free pending appeals.

"This court must and has balanced between rehabilitation, the promise that rehabilitation would work and a punishment for the actions that have occurred," said Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz, emphasizing rehabilitation as a primary component of juvenile justice.





Hundreds of Carter's text messages presented as evidence over six days of testimony in June convinced Moniz of her guilt in a criminal case that hinged largely on intimate cellphone exchanges between Carter and 18-year-old Conrad Roy III.

Moniz sentenced Carter to a two-and-a-half-year term -- with 15 months in jail and the balance suspended plus a period of supervised probation. Moniz granted a defense motion to stay the sentence, meaning she will remain free pending her appeals in Massachusetts.





Before imposing his sentence, the judge heard impassioned statements from relatives of Roy -- a troubled young man who struggled with mental health issues and had attempted to take his life before his 2014 suicide.

Camdyn Roy broke down on the stand as she spoke of waking up and going to bed each day thinking of her brother. She lamented not being able to attend his wedding or to be an aunt to his children.

Conrad Roy Jr. told the court that Carter "exploited my son's weaknesses and used him as a pawn" for her own interests.

And Lynn Roy, in a statement read by a prosecutor, said she prays that her son's death "will save lives some day," voicing her support for a state law making it a crime to coerce or encourage suicide. "There is not one day that I do not mourn the loss of my beloved son," she said.

Carter appeared to be close to tears as she listened, holding a tissue near her mouth.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/us/mic...ing/index.html

[SPD Yellow]

Originally Posted by funky-rat

It's a slippery slope, but I do agree some sort of punishment was necessary. There were times where you could see he clearly wasn't sure if he really wanted to kill himself, and she just kept egging him on. She could have called for help when he was really going through with it, but chose not to. I had to stop reading the texts - it was too upsetting.

I am with you. This wasn't a one-off "LOL Kill Urself!" text. This was repeated unrelenting coaching. At some point, he had gotten out of the garage because the fumes made him sick and she proceeded to chew him out for cowardice and order him to go back into the garage.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by SPD Yellow

I am with you. This wasn't a one-off "LOL Kill Urself!" text. This was repeated unrelenting coaching. At some point, he had gotten out of the garage because the fumes made him sick and she proceeded to chew him out for cowardice and order him to go back into the garage.

Exactly. I had some pretty strong feelings about this one FOR THAT REASON.

From what I could see (and I researched this one pretty extensively due to my emotions--I wanted to make sure I saw most of what the judge saw), this is a girl who absolutely egged her boyfriend on to end his life.

Yes. He was depressed, but in his last moments, his brain was trying to survive and he GOT OUT OF THAT TRUCK. Instead of telling him to call his parents, other friends, or a suicide hotline and instead of trying to help him herself, she instead belittled him and ordered him back into that truck. (He was actually in a close-to-empty Kmart parking lot with a portable generator in his truck to produce the C02 needed to kill himself.)

If he had stayed out of the truck, he'd be alive today. She is absolutely responsible for playing a role in his death.

Then-- from what I can tell, the little **** BASKED in the attention she got in his death. She got to play the role of the grieving girlfriend.

I found one of her last texts to him VERY VERY revealing-- after all this discussion and ridicule of his failure to follow through, she sends him a text that reads something to the effect of "Did you delete all the texts?" Meaning she knew that she would be implicated if Conrad hadn't cleared his text history.

Thankfully, he didn't. She's lucky I wasn't the judge. Fifteen months is a joke. I would have hit her a heck of a lot harder.

[BlueGalexy]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

Exactly. I had some pretty strong feelings about this one FOR THAT REASON.

From what I could see (and I researched this one pretty extensively due to my emotions--I wanted to make sure I saw most of what the judge saw), this is a girl who absolutely egged her boyfriend on to end his life.

Yes. He was depressed, but in his last moments, his brain was trying to survive and he GOT OUT OF THAT TRUCK. Instead of telling him to call his parents, other friends, or a suicide hotline and instead of trying to help him herself, she instead belittled him and ordered him back into that truck. (He was actually in a close-to-empty Kmart parking lot with a portable generator in his truck to produce the C02 needed to kill himself.)

If he had stayed out of the truck, he'd be alive today. She is absolutely responsible for playing a role in his death.

Then-- from what I can tell, the little **** BASKED in the attention she got in his death. She got to play the role of the grieving girlfriend.

I found one of her last texts to him VERY VERY revealing-- after all this discussion and ridicule of his failure to follow through, she sends him a text that reads something to the effect of "Did you delete all the texts?" Meaning she knew that she would be implicated if Conrad hadn't cleared his text history.

Thankfully, he didn't. She's lucky I wasn't the judge. Fifteen months is a joke. I would have hit her a heck of a lot harder.

You hit the nail on the head here Ricci...at least IMO anyway. Cell phones were just hitting their stride when I was a teen (God, I feel old), and my parents refused to let me own one, lol. They told me I was more than welcome to borrow one of theirs when I was out with friends. They also refused to let me have a computer in my room. I remember my mom and I going rounds about it once and she told me straight out, that if I was doing something on the cell phone or computer that I was afraid to let her and Dad see, than I was doing something I shouldn't be. I didn't really have an argument for that because she was right. Kind of makes me wish more parents felt that way...

[JamesG]

Court Upholds Michelle Carter's Guilt in Suicide-by-Text Case
by Max Jaeger
Feb. 6, 2019


The Massachusetts woman who taunted her teenage boyfriend via text into killing himself will spend 15 months in prison, the state’s top court ruled Wednesday in batting down her appeal.

Michelle Carter, 22, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last year for pressuring her beau Conrad Roy III into inhaling car fumes until he died. She appealed the conviction, but the Massachusetts Supreme Court shot her down.

“The evidence against the defendant proved that, by her wanton or reckless conduct, she caused the victim’s death by suicide,” Justice Scott Kafker wrote in the state high court ruling.





Carter badgered Roy with texts to “get back in” his running Ford F-250 as it filled with carbon monoxide in a Kmart parking lot in Fairhaven in July 2014.

“And then after she convinced him to get back into the carbon monoxide filled truck, she did absolutely nothing to help him: she did not call for help or tell him to get out of the truck as she listened to him choke and die,” Kafker wrote.

Her lawyers argued she could not be responsible because she wasn’t there. Carter has remained free while she appealed the 2017 decision.

https://nypost.com/2019/02/06/court-...-by-text-case/

[JamesG]

Michelle Carter is Going To Jail Nearly 5 Years after she Convinced her Boyfriend via-Text to Kill Himself
by Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
February 11, 2019


A Massachusetts judge on Monday ordered Michelle Carter to start serving her sentence for persuading her boyfriend to kill himself in 2014.

Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in June 2017 after a judge determined that her texts to Conrad Roy III persuaded him to kill himself. Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz sentenced Carter to 15 months in jail in August 2017, but he allowed her to remain free while she appealed her conviction.

In a ruling this month, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld Carter's conviction, saying the evidence showed that her conduct caused Roy's death by suicide.





On Monday, deputies led Carter out of the Taunton, Massachusetts, courtroom after Moniz granted the Commonwealth's request to revoke the stay of her sentence.

The case raised free speech questions about whether a person should be held responsible through their words for someone else's actions.





Carter's lawyers said they filed an emergency motion on Monday asking to extend the stay of her sentence while she appeals her conviction to the US Supreme Court.

"The Roy family is glad to have this aspect of the case over," the family's attorney, Eric S. Goldman, said in a statement. The family continues to pursue a civil claim for damages and hopes to establish a fund in their son's name to educate people about suicide prevention.





Carter's lawyers argued that her words encouraging Roy's suicide, "however distasteful to this court, were protected speech."

"Massachusetts would be the only state to uphold an involuntary manslaughter conviction where an absent defendant, with words alone, encouraged another person to commit suicide," the attorneys said in their motion.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/11/us/mi...nce/index.html

[Dude111]

Yes its very sad what she did.......... Maybe he could have been helped thru the hardness

[JamesG]

[JamesG]

For some reason this isn't making the news as much as Michelle Carter has, but there is another "suicide by text" case going on.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...de/4266001002/