Judge finds Michelle Carter guilty of manslaughter in texting suicide case

[edbermac]

Source: CNN

A Massachusetts judge found Michelle Carter, 20, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2014 death of her boyfriend, who poisoned himself by inhaling carbon monoxide in his pickup truck. Prosecutors had said she sent Conrad Roy III, 18, numerous text messages urging him to commit suicide.

....

The case was built largely on Michelle Carter's own words, in the form of hundreds of texts messages exchanged with a vulnerable young man who killed himself in July 2014 by inhaling carbon monoxide in his pickup truck.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/michelle-carter-texting-case/index.html

[Stuart G]

1. What a truly awful person..

I had not followed that part of the story. ..."..numerous text messages urging him to commit suicide."

[snooper2]

8. Look poor asshole is having a sad going to prison now

[Raster]

2. Manslaughter was NOT ENOUGH. IMO, she was guilty of MURDER.

I hope she gets the maximum possible sentence, and I hope his death haunts her for the rest of her miserable life.

Carter: "You just need to do it Conrad or I'm gonna get you help"
Carter: "You can't keep doing this everyday"
Roy: "Okay I'm gonna do it today"
Carter: "Do you promise"
Roy: "I promise babe"
Roy: "I have to now"
Carter: "Like right now?"
Roy: "where do I go? "
Carter: "And u can't break a promise. And just go in a quiet parking lot or something."

[bucolic_frolic]

3. There are witches in Massachusetts?

Last edited Fri Jun 16, 2017, 01:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Who'd have thought it?

He must have been troubled and had a very weak ego. She should have been helping, not encouraging, but
she's also not responsible for his actions. Whoops. Guess she is now.

**To clarify my original post: She should have been helping him, as in getting the help he needs, not encouraging his demise.

[IronLionZion]

7. Are Trump and hate radio not responsible for actions of deplorables?

inciting violence makes someone guilty of something. The US has used drone fired missiles to execute US citizens who incited others to commit terrorism with their words.

The dude was troubled and suffering from depression. It sounds like both of them were on meds.

"She called no one, and finally she did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck," Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz said as Carter stood to receive the ruling.
"This court has found that Carter's actions and failure to act where it was her self-created duty to Roy since she put him in that toxic environment constituted reckless conduct," the judge said. "The court finds that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy."

[hamsterjill]

9. I see your point.

I think this opens up a wide net for others to be held accountable for conversations that may not be exactly as they seem.

That said - the lesson here is that if she could not encourage him to get help, she should have ceased any and all communication with him.

There are people in this world who threaten suicide as a means to get attention. I've actually known a couple that broke off their relationship after a couple of years together, and one of them was so distraught that a verbal threat of suicide was made to the other member. This situation was a constant back and forth and became a distraction for the one person (who had wanted the break up) at work, at home and in trying to move forward with their life. It got so bad that a TRO was issued. I think everyone involved pretty much knew that the person threatening suicide wasn't going to do anything. That's always a gamble, of course, but at some point, the person threatening needed to simply move on and realize that the relationship was over, and to preferably get some mental health help. But it was not the first person's responsibility to be the therapist for the one threatening suicide.

[christx30]

11. But it was more than just not helping.

She was encouraging him to do it. "Find a quiet parking lot or something."
From what I read about the case months ago, she wanted him to kill himself so she could get sympathy as the girlfriend of a suicide victim. She wanted the attention that usually comes with something like this.

[hamsterjill]

13. It's horrible that he died.

And this situation is extreme. She should not have done what she did.

But I can imagine a different scenario of someone getting tired of hearing over and over and over and over "I'm going to kill myself" from someone seeking attention and replying sarcastically in exasperation "then go ahead and do it". Would that person be guilty? My point is simply that we do not live in a perfect world.

The goal should always be to get anyone that needs mental health help that help as soon as possible so that they have the means of resisting any kind of pressure from someone who would wish ill upon them.

[christx30]

14. From another post in this thread:

Carter: "You just need to do it Conrad or I'm gonna get you help"
Carter: "You can't keep doing this everyday"
Roy: "Okay I'm gonna do it today"
Carter: "Do you promise"
Roy: "I promise babe"
Roy: "I have to now"
Carter: "Like right now?"
Roy: "where do I go? "
Carter: "And u can't break a promise. And just go in a quiet parking lot or something."

And more:
"You're finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain. It's okay to be scared and it's normal. I mean, you're about to die," Carter wrote in one message.

Her texts later became more insistent after Roy appeared to delay his plan.

"I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you're ready __ just do it babe," she wrote.

In another text sent the day Roy died, Carter wrote: "You can't think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don't get why you aren't."

[hamsterjill]

16. Yes, I'm aware of the texts.

And as I said - this is an extreme situation.

[LanternWaste]

18. I can only imagine your internet diagnosis is predicated on years of academic study...

I can only imagine your internet diagnosis is predicated on years of academic study... else you are simply unaware of the meaning of 'must.'

Whoops. Guess it is not now.




(space provided below free of charge for further justifications and pretense)

[bucolic_frolic]

20. I have no idea what you're talking about?

and choose not to engage in your thinly disguised attack if that's what it is

[yallerdawg]

4. The Twitter-in-Chief better take notice.

Could we call this an example of 'legal president?'

Being held accountable for what we say to each other - in any medium, including verbally - would seem to be the only way out of this coarsening of discourse.

We have always had "freedom of speech" - and we have always had some restrictions when it can hurt others..

[irisblue]

5. His poor family. nt

[titaniumsalute]

6. I never read the tweets because I knew I'd get very pissed off

Glad the judge threw the book at her.

[Raster]

10. I've been following this story for awhile, and I have read all of the tweets...

... to sum it up: Kill yourself or I am going to get you help or force you to get help.

I have had several near and dear friends that took their own lives.

[defacto7]

19. She's playing a pretty bad psychologist....

Pushing buttons to cause vulnerable people to be submissive is a narcissist's power game. It's done all the time and it's one of the most dishonest and ugly tools in the box. Sometimes it's pure stupidity where they think they are controling them for thier own good; maybe they got the idea from too many reality shows. Other times it's just plain self loathing narcissism.
Personally, I think there's just too much lying and disingenuousness in our society. It seems to twist people's reasoning.
I see the twisted personality of a self loathing person who found a vulnerable person that makes her feel better about herself through control and taunting. Pure narcissist.

[titaniumsalute]

26. Yeah I knew the gist of it so I didn't bother reading them...very sad indeed

[JenniferJuniper]

12. I haven't studied the case too closely but

I don't think this is a good precedent.

I see civil liability here, for sure, and she sounds like an awful person but she did not participate in or force him to do what he did. He was adult who made that choice. He could have cut off ties, blocked her texts. But instead he chose to take affirmative steps to end his own life.

Seems like slippery slope to me.

[hamsterjill]

15. I agree.

It's a horrible thing that happened, and this situation is an extreme one. But it is not a good precedent for other situations down the line.

[AngryAmish]

17. Don't worry, white girls don't go to jail.

[defacto7]

21. Some people are vulnerable...

Other people feed on the vulnerable. Are people who take advantage of the vulnerable to feel superior, or to profit from them, lawfully excused from their action?
I can see a distintion between civil liberty and psychologically twisted actions that harm. That's one of the things I would like to see dealt with in society. It's getting more and more prevalent at all levels.

[MissMillie]

22. I don't know all the details, but I know she was texting him while he was in the truck

and he was trying to kill himself by carbon dioxide poisoning...

She was texting him telling him to kill himself, but she never made a call to 911.

Slippery slope, maybe. Not so sure.

Manslaughter, maybe not. Recklessness endangerment... most definitely

[Tanuki]

23. At one point, he got out of the vehicle after it was already

filling up with fumes, and she texted him and told him he had to get back inside. The judge cited that particular text in handing down his decision.

[ailsagirl]

24. Saw it on 48 Hours last night-- she has to be some kind of NUT

That poor boy.

[Hekate]

25. Psychopath. Keep her away from other humans.

Part of her sentence should definitely be loss of all social media privileges, or she'll kill again the same way.