In 2017, Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, for urging—via text message—her boyfriend to commit suicide. After serving nearly half her sentence, the 22-year-old is seeking parole.
Carter, who began her 15-month sentence in February for her role in the death of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III, is set to appear before a parole board Thursday, reported CBS Boston.
According to The Hill, in 2014, when Carter was 17, she and Roy allegedly talked on the phone while he committed suicide by inhaling carbon Monoxide while inside a truck at a Kmart parking lot in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
During the alleged phone call, Carter, who never took the stand during her trial, reportedly ordered Roy back into his truck causing his death, ruled the judge that presided over the case.
There is no recording of the phone call, but the judge made the decision based on a text Carter sent her friend in which she claims she told Roy to re-enter the vehicle.
“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,” said the judge, CNN reported.
“The court finds that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy,” he added.
The Prosecution claims Carter also sent Roy text messages urging him to follow through with the suicide after he became scared and hesitant.
“The time is right and you are ready … just do it babe,” she wrote in a text the day Roy killed himself.
“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,” read another text from Carter.
Carter’s defense team—before a Massachusetts Supreme Court in July—appealed the guilty verdict claiming the First Amendment protected her words.
The Supreme Court, however, sided with the initial judgment saying the evidence demonstrates that “by her wanton or reckless conduct, she caused the victim’s death by suicide.”
Carter’s Attorneys also argued that the conviction violated her Fifth Amendment rights by enforcing assisted suicide laws arbitrarily and without due process.
The case was later discussed in a two-part documentary on HBO.
Massachusetts lawmakers have also proposed a “Conrad’s Law,” which would make manipulating someone into suicide punishable by up to five years in prison.
Lynn Roy, Conrad’s mother, said—in a statement read by a prosecutor, supporting the lawmaker’s proposal—she prays that her son’s death “will save lives someday.”
“There is not one day that I do not mourn the loss of my beloved son,” she added.
