A tragic event occurred in Fairhaven, Massachusetts this past month. A Massachusetts teen was charged with manslaughter after she encouraged her friend to commit suicide. After news broke out of this suicide, many thought that a mental illness caused him to commit suicide. The teen girl accused of coercing him into taking his life, Michelle, even raised money for mental illness in his name.

18-year-old Michelle Carter of Fair Haven, Massachusetts, is accused of urging  her friend, 18-year-old Conrad Roy III, to kill himself. Roy did commit suicide in an idling truck last July in the parking lot of a K-Mart; he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Police found him there after his parents reported him missing. On February 5th, Michelle Carter who was an honor roll student involved in many charities, was indicted on manslaughter charges as a youthful offender.

Local police went through Conrad Roy’s cell phone and found text messages from Carter right up to the time he died. In the texts, Carter supposedly urged Roy to go through with the suicide. In a police report, Detective Scott Gordon said “not only did Conrad tell Carter in several of his texts prior to his death that he was scared and didn’t want to leave his family, she continued to encourage him to take his own life, and when he actually started to carry out the act, he got scared again and exited his truck, but instead of telling him to stay out of the truck … Carter told him to ‘get back in.’”

The spokesperson for the Bristol County District Attorney Quinn said in a statement that not only did Carter have knowledge of his suicidal thoughts, “instead of attempting to assist him or notify his family or school officials, Ms. Carter is alleged to have strongly influenced his decision to take his own life, encouraged him to commit suicide and guided him in his engagement of activities which led to his death.”  After the suicide, Carter then went to  social media where she went off about the death of Conrad with posts about how much she loved him and missed him.

Michelle Carter even organized a fundraiser for him called “Homers for Conrad” where she wrote “life can be tough, but helping others makes it easier.” She also started to write about suicide prevention on her twitter and Facebook pages in honor of Roy. Carter later was released on a $2,500 bail and is not allowed to use the internet other than for school work, must stay off social media, and can’t send text messages to anyone other than her parents. Carter’s attorney, Joseph P. Cataldo , believes her manslaughter charges will be taken away stating “they’re trying to claim there is manslaughter, when they freely admit the boy took his own life. You can’t have it both ways.” Conrad Roy was planning to attend Fitchburg State University. Conrad has just graduated from Old Rochester Regional High School in June.