Prosecutors have charged a Massachusetts teen with involuntary manslaughter after text messages to her boyfriend appeared to show her urging him to commit suicide.
Conrad Roy III parked his truck outside a Fairhaven Kmart last year and killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning. Prosecutors say Michelle Carter, his girlfriend at the time, assisted him by urging him to overcome his doubts about taking his own life, pressuring him to do it and even telling him to get back in his truck after becoming frightened that the plan was working.
"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," Carter allegedly wrote to Roy on the day he died. Carter’s lawyer has denied that she pushed him to kill himself and has asked the judge to dismiss the case.
In their written response, prosecutors included text exchanges between Carter and Roy that they say support their claim that Carter caused her boyfriend's death by "wantonly and recklessly" helping him poison himself.
Roy, 18, had a history of depression and had previously attempted suicide two years earlier, taking an overdose of the painkiller acetaminophen.
"You can't keep living this way. You just need to do it like you did the last time and not think about it and just do it, babe," Carter texted him.