A young woman who sent a barrage of text messages to another teenager urging him to kill himself was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter by a US court in a case that many legal experts had expected to result in an acquittal.
The verdict, handed down by a judge in a non-jury trial, was a rare legal finding that, essentially, a person’s words alone can directly cause someone else’s suicide.
The judge, Lawrence Moniz, of Bristol County Juvenile Court in southeastern Massachusetts, said the conduct of the woman, Michelle Carter, toward Conrad Roy III was not only immoral but illegal. She faces up to 20 years in prison.
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Carter was 17 in July 2014 when she encouraged Roy (18) whom she called her boyfriend, to kill himself. On July 12th, while she was miles away, he drove alone to a Kmart parking lot and hooked up a water pump that emitted carbon monoxide into the cab of his truck.
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When he became sick from the fumes and stepped out, prosecutors said, Carter ordered him by phone to “get back in.” He was found dead the next day.
Knowing that Roy was in his truck and in a toxic environment, the judge said, Carter took no action.
“She admits in subsequent texts that she did nothing; she did not call the police or Roy’s family,” Moniz said. “And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘Get out of the truck.’”
As a result, he said, her actions and her failure to act constituted wanton and reckless conduct.
Asking Carter, who was sobbing, to stand, the judge concluded: “This court, having reviewed the evidence, finds you guilty on the indictment with involuntary manslaughter.”
Relying heavily on voluminous online correspondence, the trial exposed the interior lives of two troubled teenagers, putting their thoughts, their secrets and their rock-bottom self-images on display.
Moniz said both of their families had been “immutably changed” by the case, and as arguments closed Tuesday, Roy’s family and Carter herself were left in tears.
- New York Times