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The sick and twisted case of Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy has fascinated the country since it happened three years ago in 2014. The two teenagers met years ago when they were on vacation in Naples, Florida and entered into what Carter's attorney Joseph Cataldo calls an almost entirely "digital" relationship, despite the fact that they didn't live far apart from each other in Massachusetts. In fact, Conrad's parents said the two almost never met in person, even being only an hour away.
The young lovebirds communicated mostly through texts, and it would be these texts -- over 1,000 of them -- that would ultimately lead Conrad to commit suicide. In July of 2014, an already suicidal Conrad was coerced into actually killing himself by his girlfriend Michelle, who relentlessly pressured, shamed, and quilted him into suicide. One of the hardest facts about this to grasp is that at one point, he actually got out of the car that was filling with deadly fumes and said he was scared, and through text, she convinced him to get back in and finish what he had started.
One June 16, 2017, a judge ruled that Michelle Carter was guilty of manslaughter, a ruling that was surprising to legal specialists since she was not physically present at the scene of his death. But if you get into the horrifying details of the suicide and Michelle's role before and after it, it becomes clear that she probably deserves the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison (she'll be sentenced on August 3rd). Here are 15 deplorable facts about the sick suicide aide, Michelle Carter.
Glee
"Glee" is hardly the word anyone would use to describe this situation, but it's a word that plays an interesting role in it. Michelle Carter has apparently used quotes from actress Lea Michele and the television show Glee while discussing Conrad's death with her friends. Portions of her texts to two friends about her planned future with Conrad were almost word for word from the Glee episode "The Quarterback," which was a memorial episode for Cory Monteith, who died of a drug overdose. In the episode, Lea Michele had been talking to a friend about the future she had planned with Cory's character. Lea's spoken words and Michelle's texted ones were practically verbatim, and it's eerie. Michelle also used a line from Glee to describe her relationship with Conrad in a text to his friend one month after he died. And there are plenty more creepy similarities when it comes to Glee, Lea Michele, and some of the things Michelle said and texted.
Her Reasons
For a person to do such a thing, surely, there must've been a reason, right? No reason would ever be good enough to do what Michelle Carter did, but she did have one, twisted as it may be. It's been stated numerous times in various news outlets that Michelle wanted to play the part of the so-called grieving widow. This essentially means that she wanted attention, plain and simple. In one of her texts, in the midst of arguing with her boyfriend about him committing suicide, she even told him that she already told people that her boyfriend was suicidal, and if he didn't go through with it, she'd look bad. This is taking the notion of attention-seeking to a whole new -- and very scary -- level. Convincing a person to end his own life so that she would receive sympathy is beyond sick, and therefore, it's my opinion that she must be sick in the head and that her mental illness is another reason this tragedy happened.
Post-Mortem Manipulation
There was definitely a high degree of thought and manipulation behind Michelle's actions, even after Conrad had died. She reached out extensively to Conrad's mother, whom she had only ever met in person a few times in her life. She told her, regarding her attempts to stop Conrad from killing himself, "I've never tried harder at something in my life." This was 12 days after his death, at which point Michelle had already been pretending to his family that she knew nothing about what had happened. In reality, she knew everything. It was even reported that prior to his death, she had isolated him from his family, only to then reach out to them so extensively when he was gone.
Disrespectful Demands
In a particularly disrespectful show of faux agony, after Conrad died, Michelle Carter made some very inappropriate requests from his family. Keep in mind that she had only ever met them in person a couple of times, and for that matter, she had only met Conrad in person infrequently as well, as theirs was primarily a digital relationship. But after her "boyfriend" had passed, Michelle asked to go through his things as if she were part of the family, or at least a person much closer to him than she really was. Michelle was even texting people that Conrad's mother had asked her to come over to get some of his things, but his mother testified that that was not true. Then, even more shockingly and inappropriately, she asked his sister if she could keep some of his ashes!
Conrad's Last Moments
When the moment came that Conrad was "finally" going to do it, at first, he got scared and got out of the car. Michelle convinced him to get back into the car, which, in itself, is so cold-hearted and evil that there are no words to adequately describe it. But when he was actually dying, Michelle sat on the other end of the line listening to it and then described it all in detail for her friends. She texted them details of how he cried in pain for 20 minutes, then took his last breath, and then died. Soaking up the attention, Michelle later texted one friend, "I helped ease him into it and told him it was okay. I was talking to him on the phone when he did it. I could have easily stopped him or called the police but I didn't... Sam, [the police] read my messages with him. I'm done. His family will hate me and I can go to jail."
Class Clown
Quite contradictory to the images of Michelle Carter as a cold-blooded, evil woman are the images painted for us by her former classmates at King Philip Regional High School. They described her as a bubbly, popular athlete to New York Magazine. She was even named "class clown" and "most likely to brighten your day." This makes no sense when you think about the terrible thing that she did, and, in fact, is exactly the opposite of what the world has come to think of Michelle Carter as. Was her time in school all an act, a façade to cover her inner demons? More likely, it's that she was both people, the bubbly athlete and the mentally ill girl whom some of the classmates suspected her of being underneath the cheery façade.
Psychiatric Hospital
It turns out that Michelle had made vague references to those same classmates about time spent at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility. This is what led them to suspect that she may have had more sinister thoughts going on in her head than just high school and boys. Located in Belmont, Massachusetts less than 45 miles from Michelle's hometown of Plainville, McLean Hospital is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School and has the world's largest neuroscientific and psychiatric research programs in a private hospital. It's known for having many famous people who were treated there, such as Ray Charles, Sylvia Plath, and James Taylor. Now it has one more, Michelle Carter, although not much is known about her time at the facility.
Awaiting Trial and Sentencing
Now that her trial is over and Michelle has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Conrad Roy, the next step will be her sentencing on August 3rd. She faces up to 20 years in prison. While she was awaiting her trial, and now, while awaiting her sentencing, Michelle Carter is a free woman, living at home. Many have been disgusted that during this time before and after the trial, she has traveled to Disney World with friends, attended her high school prom, and went to school competitions. Although Michelle is 20 now, this all began back in 2014 when she was just 17. So even though in 2015 she was ordered not to use social media, her mother posted the photos to Facebook for her, and Conrad's family said they found it "hurtful and confusing" and like Michelle didn't really understand the gravity of what she had done. Since the June 16 verdict, she's been spotted out and about at the tanning salon, leaving some to speculate that once again, she just doesn't get it.
Tried to Cover Her Trail
Evidence that she knew what she was doing was wrong and that she could get into a lot of trouble for it is the fact that before Conrad died, Michelle tried to get him to delete all of their text messages regarding his suicide. Luckily, she was unsuccessful, but the mere fact that she did this speaks volumes. In court, it's imperative to prove that a defendant knows the difference between right and wrong, especially with young children. Michelle was no young child, but at the time, she technically was a minor. However, she wanted the trail of evidence (in this case, the 1,000-plus text messages) erased. As the world knows now, they were not pretty -- in fact, they were downright evil, and Michelle was right to be afraid of anyone seeing them.
The Suicide Note
One of the sickest things of all in this case is that Conrad wrote a suicide note thanking Michelle for all she had done for him. Obviously, since he was suicidal in the first place, he was not thinking clearly, but to thank her is something that most people cannot understand in the slightest. When he was already so depressed that he wanted to die, and in the midst of her convincing him to kill himself, Michelle somehow also convinced him that she was some sort of angel or saint that he should be grateful for. The note reads (in part), "You taught me how to be strong and carry on... I love you and greatly appreciate ur effort and kindness towards me." To most people, the way Michelle treated Conrad was anything but kind, and it goes without saying that she most definitely didn't teach him to "be strong and carry on."
Convicted Killer
On June 16, the judge in this case decided, much to the surprise of legal specialists everywhere, that Michelle Carter was, in fact, guilty of manslaughter. One Assistant District Attorney named Katie Rayburn may have summed up Michelle's crime best when she said, "She was in his ear, she was in his mind, she was on the phone, and she was telling him to get back in the car even though she knew he was going to die." Michelle, in that respect, is evil in a way that most young people are not. The way A.D.A. Rayburn describes it, which is entirely true, shows just how evil she's capable of being, and her depiction of Michelle as evil may have played a part in the judge's decision. After all, Conrad did get out of the car because he was afraid to die, and without Michelle in his ear telling him to get back in, he very well may not have.
The Grieving Girlfriend
We've already established that Michelle Carter wanted Conrad Roy to kill himself so she could play the grieving girlfriend and get the attention she so craved. Plus, she had told people he was missing and suicidal, so if he hadn't gone through with it, she would've looked bad, according to her. But taking things to a sick level, she took to social media after his death and even started a fundraiser in his name. Friends say she always needed constant reassurance, self-esteem boosts, and had a history of embellishments and half-truths. Detective Scott R. Gordon of the Fairhaven Police Department said that judging by Facebook messages and texts with friends, "Carter wants everyone around her, and everyone that she speaks with about Conrad, to believe that she tried tirelessly to save him and that she can’t believe that he took his own life, when in reality, the investigation has shown the complete opposite."
Social Anxiety
It came out during the course of the trial that Michelle Carter suffered from the same kind of social anxiety that Conrad Roy did. She took Celexa, had spent time in a psychiatric facility, and admitted to having eating disorders and cutting. She would always text friends about these issues and complain that she was never invited to parties. She would say to them that she always stayed home crying on Friday nights. This is all disturbing not only because it contradicts her classmates' accounts of her being bubbly and popular (and because if it's true, it's sad) but also because if she was suffering in the same way that Conrad was, she should've been empathetic. Instead, she coerced him to kill himself. As someone who allegedly suffered depression and social anxiety and would, therefore, appreciate others' empathy, she did the exact opposite for Conrad.
The 80 Texts After He Died
What's especially disturbing is that after Conrad died, Michelle sent over 80 text messages to him professing her love, updating him on how she was doing, and even apologizing for her actions in one of the messages. This is so sick because the show of love and support and just being there for him came after it was too late. While he was alive, she was trying to get him to kill himself. After he was dead, she became the kind of loving person toward him that she should've been in the first place. Michelle also sent him one text a day after he had died that was especially twisted, and it read, "Did you do something??! Conrad I love you so much please tell me this is a joke." Of course, at that point and all along, she knew very well that he had definitely "done something" and was already gone.
Thoroughly Twisted
Michelle Carter showed her sick motive no better than in certain texts to Conrad before his death. We've already discussed the fact that she did it for attention, but she planned everything to make sure she would get as much attention as humanly possible. Through text, she asked him to tweet about her before his suicide, and she demanded that he give her credit for the memorial baseball tournament she was going to organize (and later did). She even did a "dry run" of the actual suicide the week before the real thing, in which she texted friends that he was missing, even though she was in contact with him the whole time. She didn't want to look like a liar that Conrad was suicidal, so she upped the pressure on him to kill himself. A.D.A. Rayburn said, "She keeps up the charade. Now she's a little bit stuck because unfortunately, Conrad keeps showing up alive."
Sources: boston.com, nbcnews.com, masslive.com