Girl whose texts drove her boyfriend, 18, to suicide is JAILED

Daily Mail

A Massachusetts woman 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.

Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz said that Michelle Carter 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.

However, the judge granted a defense motion that would keep Carter out of jail until her appeals in Massachusetts courts are exhausted. 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.’

Assistant District Attorney Maryclare Flynn said: ‘Michelle Carter – her actions – killed Conrad Roy. She ended his life to better her own. She has been convicted of a very serious crime that merits serious punishment.’