Texting Allegedly Caused Teen’s Suicide, Friend Said 'You Just Need To Do It'

The trial of a young woman accused of encouraging a friend to commit suicide via text began Tuesday in Massachusetts.

Michelle Carter is charged with involuntary manslaughter for the death of Conrad Roy III, who at the time was eighteen. Roy died in the summer of 2014 from carbon monoxide poison from a truck’s exhaust system, according to the Boston Globe.

Read: Why Do More Men Than Women Die By Suicide In The United States?

Roy and Carter spoke to each other via text leading up to the suicide and spoke on the phone as Roy sat in the truck dying. The texts back and forth were released in court and paint a dark tale of youth.

“Everyone will be sad for a while but they will get over it and move on. They won't be in depression. I won't let that happen,” said Carter via text. “They know how sad you are, and they know that you are doing this to be happy and I think they will understand and accept it. They will always carry you in their hearts.”

Another gripping text comes from the day Roy died.

“You're hesitant because you keeping over thinking it and keep pushing it off. You just need to do it, Conrad,” texted Carter.

The final text Carter sent read, “Okay. You can do this.”

“Okay. I’m almost there,” Roy replied, his final text back.

Carter is twenty now and is facing a sentence that could last up to twenty years. Carter’s lawyers sought to have the case dismissed, but Massachusetts’s highest court — the Supreme Judicial Court — allowed the case to proceed. According to the New York Times, her lawyers argued that the speech was protected, and she wasn’t at the scene where he died so she couldn’t have caused it. Carter was thirty miles away at the time.

In court, Roy’s mother testified that he had attempted suicide before and that he had a tough relationship with his father. Carter too had her own mental health issues according to her lawyers.

Read: Facebook Live Suicide: Alabama Man Shoots Himself In Live Video

The case is being tried in a jury-waived juvenile court. The outcome of the case will be decided by the lone judge, Lawrence Moniz. Massachusetts doesn’t technically have a law against encouraging someone else’s suicide, hence the manslaughter charge.

The Boston Globe reported that Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Maryclare Flynn, who is trying the case, used her opening statement to establish that Carter was a needy girl using Roy and was playing a “sick game of life and death.”