The suicide of Conrad Roy III and his girlfriend Michelle Carter’s subsequent trial is the focus of the new HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die.
It airs in two parts starting tonight on HBO at 8pm, with the first part taking a look at the trial of Carter and the second part taking a closer look at Carter herself, and her own troubles.
She had been dating Roy for two years, and while they had exchanged thousands of texts the pair only met in person five times over the course of their relationship.
It was the fact that the two both had clinical depression and had attempted suicide that drew them to one another, and their text messages reflected this as they spoke of ending their life on multiple occasions.
Roy finally did take his life though, and four years later Carter found herself sentenced to time behind bars.
Her fate was sealed based on those texts, like one on which she responded to Roy’s fears about how to end his life by stating: ‘Drink bleach. Why don’t you just drink bleach? Hang yourself. Jump over a building, stab yourself, idk. There’s a lot of ways.’
Difficult subject: I Love You, Now Die is an new documentary that takes a look at the trial of Michelle Carter (above), who was convicted in her boyfriend’s suicide
Victim: The two had bonded over their attempts at suicide and both having clinical depression when they met, but saw one another only five times in two years
It was a text she sent months after the suicide however that had the biggest impact on the case.
‘His death is my fault like honestly I could have stopped him,’ she said in a message to a friend.
‘I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I f***ing told him to get back in.’
When Conor Roy III could not think of a way to kill himself, she wrote in one text: ‘Drink bleach … Hang yourself. Jump over a building, stab yourself, idk’
And she also seemed to encourage Roy in other texts, but more often than not her texts seemed to be outright lies.
She passed off lines from the television series Glee as her own, responded to Roy saying he had seen the devil be echoing him and saying she saw the deal ‘a lot actually.’
So is the young woman a criminal or a victim?
That is the question that will be asked, but not answered, in the new documentary.
‘There was this very simple story put forth that Michelle Carter was this good-looking ice queen that set about to kill a young man to become popular,’ said the director of the project, Erin Lee Carr.
‘I knew that that wasn’t going to be correct, but it would ultimately be the narrative that was set forth by the prosecution.’
The case put forward by the prosecution did ring loudest, and will be the focus of the first part of he documentary.
Part two however will look at Carter’s defense and present some lesser known facts about the young woman, who was sentenced to 30 months in prison after a judge found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter following a bench trial.
That sentence was cut in half on account if time served, which means Carter will be released in a year.
That sentence was put forth by the judge despite no concrete evidence of what transpired on the day that Conrad Roy III took his own life.
Tragedy: Carter was sentenced to 30 months in prison after a judge declared she was guilty of involuntary manslaughter following the suicide of Conrad Roy III
Damning: A text she sent two months after the suicide in which she claimed to have told Roy to get back in the car was the strongest piece of evidence in the case
The most damning piece of evidence against Carter, who was 17 at the time of Roy’s death, was her claim in a text two months after he passed away that she told him to get back into his vehicle knowing that it was filled with carbon monixide.
Carr points out that this bit of evidence has some serious flaws.
‘Michelle Carter has a lot of issues with deception with lying for attention,’ Carr said in a interview with The Associated Press.
‘How are we to trust that one sentence that it actually happened?’
Carter will not be answering that question, as neither she or her family agreed to speak with Carr.
Members of Roy’s family did however, much as they did throughout the trial.
The defense wrote in its appeal that Roy would have taken his life with or without the influence of Carter.
Roy took his own life after several years of personal struggles that cannot be attributed to Carter, as reflected in over 1,800 pages of his medical records,’ read the appeal.
‘Roy’s extensive troubles included the divorce of his parents, violent abuse by his father that, at times, required emergency medical attention, severe anxiety and depression, hospitalizations for depression and suicidal ideation, chronic difficulties at school, including dropping out for part of one year, his sudden decision not to pursue college and drug use.’
It goes on to state: ‘Most importantly, long before Carter did anything that could be construed as encouraging Roy to commit suicide, Roy suffered persistent suicidal ideation and repeatedly attempted to kill himself.’