Court upholds conviction of woman who encouraged boyfriend to kill himself through text messages

A US court has upheld the conviction of a woman who encouraged her boyfriend to kill himself in 2014.

Michelle Carter, now 22, was convicted of manslaughter and ordered to serve 15 years in prison in 2017, but has remained free as she pursued appeals.

US courts heard that she bombarded boyfriend Conrad Roy III with text messages urging him to take his own life, and ordered him to get back into a truck full of toxic gas.

Conrad, then 18, took his own life after filling his parked truck with carbon monoxide from a generator in a car park in 2014.

Carter’s lawyers had argued that she didn’t force him to take his own life, but prosecutors said she could have stopped him and instead encouraged him.

She was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for two-and-a-half years in 2017 – and ordered to serve at least 15 months of it.

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Now Massachusetts’ top court has upheld Carter’s conviction, so she will serve her sentence behind bars.

The Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts ruled that the evidence proved Michelle Carter’s conduct caused the suicide of Conrad Roy III in 2014.