This post deals with the subject of suicide and may be triggering for some readers.
Five years ago, 17-year-old Michelle Carter encouraged her boyfriend to end his own life.
“You can’t think about it. You just have to do it,” Carter texted her 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy, hours before he ended his life in July 2014. “You said you were gonna do it. Like I don’t get why you aren’t.”
This is just one of the thousands of texts examined during court, after Carter was convicted for involuntary manslaughter in June 2017. A few months later, she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Michelle Carter and Conrad Joy’s complicated relationship is the subject of HBO’s new documentary, I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter, directed and produced by Erin Lee Carr.
The documentary will air in Australia on the five year anniversary of Conrad Roy’s death, after he was found not breathing in his car.
Watch the trailer for HBO’s documentary ‘I Love You, Now Die’ below. Post continues after video.
Carter and Roy fell in love after meeting in 2012 during a family vacation in Florida. The had only met a handful of times, but maintained a long distance relationship.
Though they referred to each other as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”, their relationship was largely online.
Both struggled with mental health issues. Roy had been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety, and was undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy. Carter had first developed an eating disorder at eight years of age, and was seeing a counsellor to address self harm.
Carter was initially supportive of Roy, encouraging him to seek help between 2012 and 2014. But then, it seems, something switched.
Over text and phone calls, the Massachusetts teen began sending increasingly worrying text messages, persuading her boyfriend to end his own life. When Roy communicated hesitance, Carter, as proven, urged him to go through with it.
The suicide texting case captured international headlines, captivating the public as the harrowing, heartbreaking texts were published.
Now, the new HBO documentary will feature unprecedented access to the families, friends and communities of those directly involved in the atypical court case.
It features footage from Michelle Carter's trial, using the only camera permitted in court. According to HBO, the documentary will further include interviews with Conrad Roy's immediate family, Joseph Cataldo, Michelle Carter’s defence attorney, Dr Peter Breggin, an expert witness for the defence, police detectives, and journalists who covered the case extensively.
I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter is produced by HBO. In Australia, it will air on Saturday night from July 13 at 8.30pm on FOX Showcase.
If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner or in Australia, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for support or beyondblue 1300 22 4636.
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Top Comments
Unpopular opinion. I don’t think she should have been jailed. I have depression and anxiety and there is no way I could ever project my feelings onto a 17 year old teenager and expect them to help me. Conrad needed professional help. His parents needed to get him professional mental health help. I don’t agree with her actions or the texts at all but I don’t believe she should have been sentenced for it. At the end of the day he took his own life and first and foremost it was his parents that needed to help him followed by healthcare professionals.
She told him to get back in his truck and go through with killing himself when he was having second thoughts and doubts!
She deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law.
She is a despicable person for what she did.
That poor boy. My heart breaks for Conrad and his family.
He did need help. And it wasn't up to her to solve all his problems. But at the very least she could have told him not to kill himself. Instead, if you read all her texts, she bombards him over and over demanding he makes a plan to kill himself, question why he isn't doing it, and telling him to get back in the truck. It is tragic. She deserves to go to prison. He would not have died that day if it had not been for her actions.