‘Do it, babe’
IT was the teen death that shocked the world.
When police arrived to a Massachusetts car park in 2014 to find 18-year-old Conrad Roy had gassed himself to death in the driver’s seat, it looked like a tragic suicide.
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But when they logged into his phone, they found hundreds of texts from his girlfriend, Michelle Carter, 17, encouraging him to kill himself.
It then emerged that while the car was filling up with gas, Conrad got scared and jumped out of the car - but when he called Michelle and told her he’d had a change of heart, she told him to “get back in.”
Police then came to the chilling realisation she had listened to him die a slow and painful death on the phone for her own pleasure, and she quickly became the most hated woman in America as she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
But a new Sky Crime documentary, I Love You, Now Die, which examines Conrad’s shocking death has left viewers split as to whether his death was really Michelle’s fault, as it reveals the untold story of her mental health battle and how she was manipulated by Conrad.
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Joint suicide bid
Michelle met Conrad 18 months before his death while on a family holiday in Florida the pair began a very intense relationship via text.
Both teenagers had struggled with depression and self-image, with Michelle having an eating disorder and Conrad had attempted suicide numerous times following his parents’ divorce.
The young couple both took antidepressants, and spent hours talking about their mental health struggles - but they only met in real life five times.
For the first time, this new groundbreaking documentary explores the idea that Michelle was actually the one being manipulated by Conrad, and, that after 18 months of trying to stop him killing himself, she reached breaking point.
Footage from the trial shows the defence explaining how Michelle had struggled to make friends at school and felt lonely and isolated - and that she had a strained relationship with her parents.
She’d often ask to hang out with girls from school at the weekend - but they told her she was ‘awkward’ and avoided her at all costs.
So when she met Conrad, she felt, for the first time in her life like she had someone who cared about her.
But Conrad wasn’t going to be the support she so desperately needed.
Instead, Conrad repeatedly text Michelle, telling her he planned to kill himself, leaving her distraught.
He told her that if she told anyone of his plans, he would hate her - something isolated Michelle was terrified of.
He even suggested they embarked on joint suicide bid - and told her his mum had seen him researching suicide methods and ignored it.
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‘You just need to do it’
Then, ten days before his death, Michelle’s tone changed drastically.
Rather than desperately trying to save her boyfriend as she had been trying for months, she began actively encouraging him to take his own life.
When Roy texted Carter that "I keep regretting the past it’s getting me upset," her response was: "Take your life?" and later added, "The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!"
In response to Roy expressing trepidation about killing himself, Carter sent him a series of texts appearing to encourage him.
"Don’t be scared. You already made this decision and if you don’t do it tonight you’re gonna be thinking about it all the time and stuff all the rest of your life and be miserable," she wrote.
"You’re finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain. No more bad thought and worries. You’ll be free.
"It’s OK to be scared and it’s normal. I mean, you’re about to die.
"I would be concerned if you weren’t scared, but I know how bad you want this and how bad you want to be happy. You have to face your fears for what you want."
She also sent Roy a list of various ways he could kill himself.
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In one text exchange, she chastised Roy for not going ahead with plans.
"You’re gonna have to prove me wrong because I just don’t think you really want this. You just keeps pushing it off to another night and say you’ll do it but you never do," she said.
"SEE THAT’S WHAT I MEAN. YOU KEEP PUSHING IT OFF! You just said you were gonna do it tonight and now you’re saying eventually... I bet you’re gonna be like 'Oh, it didn’t work' ... I bet you’re gonna say an excuse like that."
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'Do it, babe'
A few days later, Conrad drove his pick-up truck to a local K-Mart store carpark and began suffocating himself.
But when he started to feel the effects, he jumped out of the car in a panic and phoned Michelle.
It was then that Michelle told him to get back in. She had listened to the whole thing.
Police found him a few hours later and informed his devastated family.
In his room they found a suicide note with the password to his phone and opened it to find a thread of harrowing messages from Michelle.
That night, detectives split the task of reading 1,000 each.
“When we got in the next morning, we all kind of looked at each other. It was clear if there was no Michelle Carter in his life, Conrad wouldn’t be dead,” an officer who worked on the case explains. “One said: ‘Do it, babe.”
Detectives travelled to Michelle’s school with a warrant and seized her phone.
On it, they found dozens of texts to her friends expressing remorse.
"His death is my fault like honestly I could have stopped him," she wrote to one friend.
"I was on the phone with him and he got out of the [truck] because it was working and he got scared and I f***ing told him to get back in [redacted] because I knew he would do it all over again the next day and I couldn’t have him live the way he was living anymore I couldn’t do it I wouldn’t let him."
Wanton and reckless behaviour
The teen was charged with involuntary manslaughter and put on trial.
During the defence testimony, psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin described how Carter believed she was helping Roy, and how the antidepressants she was taking may have influenced her actions.
“She thought she was this grand, helping person who was going to help her boyfriend get what he wanted,” he said.
He explained how Carter was prescribed Celexa for depression–and said that medication could affect impulse control.
The defence argued that Roy chose to take his own life, and that Carter shouldn’t be held responsible for it.
“It’s sad, it’s tragic,” her lawyer said said. “But it’s just not a homicide.”
He pointed to a text to Carter in which Roy wrote, “There is nothing anyone can do to make me want to live.”
Court sees video diary of Conrad Roy he filmed months before his suicide
While the defence tried to paint a picture of a teenager who was desperately trying to help her boyfriend while she needed help herself, Judge Lawrence Moniz found her guilty of “wanton and reckless conduct”.
He stated prior to his ruling that it was Carter's phone calls with Roy when he was in his truck gassing himself rather than the preceding text messages, that caused him to go through with killing himself.
In August 2017, Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail.
It was said she wanted to win sympathy and attention that came with being the “grieving girlfriend” after struggling to make friends.
On February 11, 2019, Carter was ordered by a Massachusetts judge to begin serving her sentence following a failed appeal attempt.
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'I'm wired differently'
In tragic videos filmed before his death, Conrad said he was struggling with social anxiety and depression, but that he knew things would get better if he talked about it.
“People say I have got a lot going for me,” he said. “I just feel like I’m wired differently. The serotonin in my head has all gone.”
Conrad also left a heartbreaking suicide note thanking Carter for her “kindness”.
The teen’s handwritten suicide note read: “This life has been too challenging and troublesome to me but I’ll forever be in your heart and we will meet up someday in Heaven."
He told Carter to “keep strong” and “hold her chin up”, adding that he was “sorry about everything”.
He said he had been depressed after his parents’ divorce and had been physically and verbally abused by family members.
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Viewers have admitted they’re now more torn over Michelle’s part in Conrad’s death than ever.
“Having just watched both episodes of I Love You, Now Die on, this case certainly wasn’t as cut and dried as I first thought and press made out. A story of love and two f****d up kids. It’s actually very very sad. ,” one tweeted.
“Two emotionally disturbed teenagers manipulating one another ends in tragedy. Really not sure how it ended up in court. No crime took place as far as I'm concerned.,” added another.
“The Michele Carter case is nuts. I was so sure of what I thought about it, but documentary spills new info that can’t be ignored. The girl needs serious help, but she’s not a killer. And Conrad was a very manipulative person.”
I Love You, Now Die, airs Sunday at 9pm on Sky Crime.
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