A Massachusetts woman identified as Michelle Carter who encouraged her boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages and told him to 'get back in' a truck filled with toxic gas was sentenced to prison on Thursday.
The 20-year-old will only have to serve 15 months behind bars and the rest of the two-and-a-half years sentence will be suspended. Once she is released, she will be on probation for five years. Carter was convicted in June on a charge of involuntary manslaughter by Moniz who said her final instruction to Conrad Roy III caused his death. Prior to the sentencing announcement, several family members of the victim provided heartbreaking statements that shared how much he is missed and called for Carter to be sentenced to the maximum 20-year prison term.
The victim's father, Conrad Roy Jr., cried while reading his emotional statement to the judge.
'We all felt he was heading in the right direction and over the worst of it,' his father said of his son's depression. 'He had such a bright future and Michelle Carter exploited my son's weaknesses.
'She used him as a pawn and she has not shown any remorse. Where was her humanity? How he could she behave so viciously?'
'I will never be an aunt to Conrad's children, he was my best friend,' his sister, Camden, told the judge while on the stand.
Carter was tried as a youthful offender, so the judge had several options for sentencing and could have committed her to a Department of Youth Services facility until she turns 21 on August 11. The prosecution argued for a sentence of 7 to 12 years in prison, while her defense attorney, Joseph Cataldo asked to give her five years of probation.
The judge called the case, which has garnered international attention, 'a tragedy for two families.'
'The fact that [Carter is] still at that young age offers a greater promise of rehabilitation,' Moniz said prior to issuing the sentence Thursday.
'I have not found that her age or level of maturity or even her mental illness, have any significant impact on her actions. She is bright young lady, did well In school.
'And I am satisfied that she was mindful of the actions she delivered.'
He could have also combined a DYS commitment with an adult sentence, or gave her an adult sentence of anything from probation to the maximum 20-year term. Carter was 17 when the 18-year-old Roy was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in July 2014. In dozens of text messages, Carter urged Roy to follow through on his talk of taking his own life.
'The time is right and you are ready ... just do it babe,' Carter wrote in a text the day he killed himself.
The sensational trial was closely watched on social media, in part because of the insistent tone of Carter's text messages
'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,' Carter wrote in one text.
Carter's lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, argued that Roy was determined to kill himself and nothing Carter did could change that. He said Carter initially tried to talk Roy out of it and urged him to get professional help, but eventually went along with his plan. Cataldo also argued that Carter's words amounted to free speech protected by the First Amendment.
In convicting Carter, the judge focused his ruling on Carter telling Roy to 'get back in' after he climbed out of his truck as it was filling with carbon monoxide and told her he was afraid. The judge said those words constituted 'wanton and reckless conduct' under the manslaughter statute.
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