By Luz Mosquera

In the summer of 2014, Conrad Roy III texted his girlfriend his plan to kill himself. Ray was an 18-year-old boy who battled depression and had suicidal thoughts. He was found dead in the parking lot of Kmart by inhaling carbon monoxide in his pickup truck in July 2014. 

His then 17 year old girlfriend, Michelle Carter, was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Now three years later, the trial is back in session and raises a new question: Can a person be charged and convicted in someone’s death even if she was not with the victim when he died? Also, can a person be charged and found guilty of killing someone based on what they said through a text messages?

For now, the prosecutors have evidence against Carter: the text messages. Adding to that, during the summer when Roy was telling his girlfriend his plans to commit suicide, Carter did nothing but encourage him – even when he said he was scared she encouraged him to continue on with his plan, at times pressuring him into doing it.

Carter’s attorney argued that it was Roy’s idea to take his own life  and not Michelle’s. However, seven months after Roy died, Carter told a friend that she was talking to him on the phone when he was going to commit suicide and that she helped him go through it when he got scared pressuring him to “get back in”  adding that she could’ve easily stopped him.

In April 2017, the prosecutors have to prove whether Carter’s encouragement resulted in his death. In the ruling, the court found that Carter’s “virtual presence” at the time of the suicide and the “constant pressure” she had placed on Roy, who was in a delicate mental state, were enough proof for an involuntary manslaughter charge.

However, Carters attorney argued that, “usually, manslaughter charges involve direct action by the defendant … some type of horrific unintentional killing where the behavior disregarded a risk, like firing a gun into a crowd.” However in Carter’s case “This is different.”

Now in July, the court found Carter guilty of involuntary manslaughter. According to CNN News “Conrad Roy III. Moniz sentenced Carter to a two-and-a-half-year term — with 15 months in jail and the balance suspended plus a period of supervised probation.”