The Michelle Carter texting suicide case set a legal precedent on criminal liability for encouraging another person's suicide via electronic communication.
Key Facts
- Victim
- Conrad Roy III, age 18
- Defendant
- Michelle Carter, age 17 at time of offense
- Verdict
- Guilty of involuntary manslaughter
- Initial sentence
- 2.5 years in prison
- Time actually served
- 11 months and 12 days
- Roy's cause of death
- Carbon monoxide poisoning (suicide)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Conrad Roy III, who had a history of mental health struggles and had been under psychiatric care, repeatedly expressed a desire to die to his girlfriend Michelle Carter. Over the course of their relationship, Carter sent Roy numerous text messages encouraging him to act on these desires, culminating in a phone call on July 12, 2014.
On July 12, 2014, Roy died by suicide in his truck using carbon monoxide. During a critical phone call, Carter instructed a hesitant Roy to return inside the vehicle as it filled with the gas. A Massachusetts bench trial, presided over by Judge Lawrence Moniz, found Carter guilty of involuntary manslaughter, concluding her words coerced Roy to his death.
Carter was initially sentenced to two and a half years in prison, later reduced to 15 months, of which she served just over 11 months. The case, widely called the 'texting suicide case,' prompted broad legal and ethical debate about the limits of criminal responsibility for speech and the role of electronic communications in coercion.