Woman who repeatedly told boyfriend to kill himself charged with manslaughter after his suicide

The girlfriend of a university student who killed himself hours before his graduation ceremony has been charged with manslaughter after she allegedly repeatedly told him to take his own life.

Inyoung You, 21, sent a series of text messages telling Alexander Urtula, 22, to “go kill yourself” or “go die” in the two months leading up to his suicide, according to prosecutors.

Ms You also used her phone to track Urtula’s location to a parking garage in the Roxbury neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, and was present when he leapt to his death at around 8.35am on 20 May.

“She had complete and total control over Mr Urtula both mentally and emotionally,” said Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins at a news conference.

During their 18-month relationship, Ms You was “physically, verbally and psychologically abusive” towards her boyfriend, a fellow student at Boston College, it is claimed.

“The investigation revealed Ms You used manipulative attempts and threats of self-harm to control Mr Urtula and isolate him from friends and family,” said Ms Rollins.

“It also found that Ms You was aware of his spiralling depression and suicidal thoughts brought on by her abuse. Even still, she continued to encourage Mr Urtula to take his own life.”

The abuse was not only witnessed by friends and classmates but also recorded in Urtula’s diary entries.

In the two months before his death Ms You sent her boyfriend 47,000 text messages that included “repeated admonitions for Mr Urtula to ‘go kill himself’, to ‘go die’ and that she, his family, and the world would be better off without him”.

Urtula, a biology major, had completed his coursework and was working as a researcher at a hospital in New York.

On the day of his death, his family from New Jersey were in Boston to watch the graduation ceremony that was due to start at 10am.

Ms You was studying economics at the same university but dropped out in August and returned to her native South Korea.

She was indicted with involuntary manslaughter by a Suffolk County grand jury earlier this month and prosecutors are in negotiations with her lawyer to get her to return to the US voluntarily.

It comes two years after Michelle Carter, 20, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend Conrad Roy to kill himself in 2014. She was sentenced to 15 months in jail.

Carter’s lawyers claimed her texts were constitutionally protected free speech and have appealed to the US Supreme Court, which has not yet decided whether it will take up the case.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

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