A Massachusetts woman whose text messages encouraged her boyfriend to kill himself was sentenced to 2-and-a-half years in jail on Thursday, local media reported.
The Bristol County judge ruled Michelle Carter would become eligible for probation after 15 months and would stay on probation for five years, US broadcaster ABC News reported.
The judge also ordered Carter not to have any contact with members of her dead boyfriend’s family, told her to get a mental health evaluation and said she must not to profit from the publication of details about the crime.
Roy and Carter met in 2011 and later struck up a romantic relationship – mostly online. Her attorney said they had met only a few times in person over the course of two years before Roy’s death.
Roy had a history of depression and had attempted suicide in the past, but his family was hopeful he would get through it. However, police said text messages they recovered suggest that by 2014, Carter became tired of Roy’s idle talk of suicide and wanted him to go through with it.
Weeks before Roy committed suicide, he texted Carter, telling her, “we should be like Romeo and Juliet at the end,” according to court documents.
“F— NO! WE ARE NOT DYING,” she responded.
Days before his death, Carter urged him to get help. “But the mental hospital would help you. I know you don’t think it would but I’m telling you, if you give them a chance, they can save your life,” she wrote. “Part of me wants you to try something and fail just so you can go get help.”
But eventually, Carter’s tone appeared to change.
Watch the clip where all messages were read out in court.
Authorities found Roy dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his truck near Boston in July 2014.
