FALL RIVER — Michelle Carter was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in jail for goading 18-year-old Conrad Roy III into committing suicide in July 2014, but she was allowed to remain free while her appeal is pending.
Judge Lawrence Moniz sentenced Carter, 20, in Bristol Juvenile Court, in a dramatic end to a case that drew national media coverage and generated widespread outrage over the text messages she sent Roy in the days and moments before his death, urging him to kill himself by any possible means.
Moniz sentenced Carter to a 2½-year term with 15 months suspended. He stayed the sentence, at the request of Carter’s lawyers, while her appeal makes its way through the state court system.
He said he did not believe Carter’s young age at the time of the offense, or her own mental health issues, contributed to the crime.
“I am satisfied that she is mindful of the actions for which she now stands convicted,” Moniz said.
Before handing down his sentence, Moniz heard from Roy’s father, Conrad Roy Jr., and sister, Camdyn Roy, both of whom fought back tears as they describe the ordeal of losing their loved one.
“I cannot begin to describe the despair I feel over the loss of my son,” Roy Jr. said. “I am heartbroken.”
He said Carter, who appeared distraught as she listened from the defense table, “exploited my son’s weaknesses” and “has not shown any remorse.”
“How could Michelle Carter behave so viciously and encourage my son to end his life?” he asked. “Where was her humanity? In what world was this behavior OK and acceptable?”
Case of Teen Who Urged Her Boyfriend to Kill Himself: Key Moments from Her Trial and Conviction
Slideshow by People
Camdyn Roy said she will always remain haunted by her brother’s death.
“Not a day goes by without him being my first thought waking up and my last thought going to bed,” she said. “I know that he loved me more than any big brother ever could.”
Prosecutors also read a statement from Roy’s mother, Lynn, who wrote that Carter inflicted “so much pain on myself, his dad, his sisters, and all who loved him deeply.”
Roy’s mother also described her son as “the most amazing human being. He would have had a bright future. He accomplished more in his short life than some do in a lifetime.”
Prosecutor Maryclare Flynn had sought a jail sentence of 7 to 12 years. Carter “ended [Roy’s] life to better her own,” by garnering sympathy as a grieving girlfriend.
Carter’s lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, requested probation and noted that his client has a lengthy history of her own mental health issues, including depression and eating disorders.
In June, Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the case, which focused on whether words should make someone criminally responsible for another person’s actions.
She was 17 when she urged Roy, of Mattapoisett, in a series of bizarre, chilling messages and phone conversations to end his life in July 2014 — even after he told her he was too scared to go through it.
© Matt West/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool Michelle Carter awaits her sentencing in a courtroom in Taunton, Mass., Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017, for involuntary manslaughter for encouraging Conrad Roy III to kill himself in July 2014. Carter was…The two called themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, though they only met in person a few times.
From 30 miles away, Carter ordered him back into a truck that was filling fast with carbon monoxide, then listened on her phone as he choked to death on the fumes in a Fairhaven parking lot.
Those actions, Moniz said from the bench in finding her guilty, led directly to Roy’s death.
“She did not call the police or Mr. Roy’s family,” Moniz said when he delivered his verdict. “She called no one. And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck.”
At times, Carter’s tone was shockingly blunt as she implored Roy to end his life, writing to him in one text exchange days before his suicide, “I still don’t think you want to do this so you’ll have to prove me wrong. . . . Hang yourself, jump off a building, stab yourself. I don’t know. There’s lots of ways.”
The case sparked debate among legal specialists, who noted there is nothing under Massachusetts law that explicitly forbids someone from encouraging someone else to commit suicide.
Cataldo had argued that Roy was a troubled young man who was intent on committing suicide and had tried multiple times.
On Tuesday, in response to a media request, court officials released a Facebook message Carter wrote shortly after Roy’s death.
In the message, Carter described Roy as “the bright light and love of my life, my hero, my best friend, the most genuine and perfect boyfriend any girl could ask for.”
No one “will ever understand our love story” and said she knew “how it was supposed to end, he did too,” she wrote. “We were endgame.”
