Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / BONUS: Death by text. Supreme Court will not hear Michelle Carter's appeal

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BONUS: Death by text. Supreme Court will not hear Michelle Carter's appeal · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: And Michelle Carter was convicted in the death of her
0:11
Speaker 1: very tenderhearted eighteen year old boyfriend, Conrad Roy the Third,
0:17
Speaker 1: who parked his truck, filled it up with carbon monoxide,
0:20
Speaker 1: and killed himself after several failed suicide attempts. Evidence that
0:25
Speaker 1: trial shows Michelle Carter sends text messages leading up to
0:30
Speaker 1: the suicide demanding he'd go ahead with his plan, spoke
0:33
Speaker 1: to him on the phone the day he took his
0:36
Speaker 1: own life, and was most likely on the phone listening
0:41
Speaker 1: as he died a police station about a blot away
0:45
Speaker 1: from where his truck was found in a grocery store
0:48
Speaker 1: parking a lot, but in the last hours a major
0:51
Speaker 1: break Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Can you imagine thinking
1:08
Speaker 1: all your love, all your heart, your time, your energy,
1:11
Speaker 1: your money into your child, only to have your teen
1:18
Speaker 1: son meet up with a woman who bobards him with
1:23
Speaker 1: literally thousands of texts urging him to commit suicide, even
1:31
Speaker 1: giving him a tutorial about how to make a generator
1:35
Speaker 1: work so he can hold up in his vehicle and
1:38
Speaker 1: die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Well, it didn't set well
1:43
Speaker 1: with a fact finder, and Michelle Carter was convicted in
1:48
Speaker 1: the death of Conrad Roy the third, who parked his truck,
1:52
Speaker 1: filled it up with carbon monoxide, and killed himself after
1:56
Speaker 1: several failed suicide attempts. I mean, grace, this is crime stories.
2:02
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. In the last hours,
2:04
Speaker 1: a major development in the case. The defense appeal this
2:09
Speaker 1: case all the way up to the US Supreme Court,
2:13
Speaker 1: and in the last hours the Supreme Court rules straight
2:18
Speaker 1: out to John Limley, what's the latest, Limley, Nancy, The
2:21
Speaker 1: defense of Michelle Carter appears to have come to an
2:24
Speaker 1: unsuccessful end, the Supreme Court announcing that they will not
2:29
Speaker 1: take up Carter's case, this ruling keeping in place her
2:32
Speaker 1: involuntary manslaughter conviction. The appeal honestly seems to have been
2:37
Speaker 1: a long shot from the very beginning. Four of the
2:40
Speaker 1: nine justices would have to agree on oral arguments, and
2:44
Speaker 1: this only happens in about one percent of the cases.
2:47
Speaker 1: But Carter's case was one of the first of its kind,
2:51
Speaker 1: not just in Massachusetts but the world. The idea that
2:54
Speaker 1: someone could be convicted of killing someone without inflicting any
2:58
Speaker 1: harm physically made the verdict a landmark decision. And that's
3:03
Speaker 1: not all go ahead, John Lemley, Nancy. It was just
3:06
Speaker 1: hours after the Supreme Court left her conviction and place
3:09
Speaker 1: that it was announced that Michelle Carter is being released
3:12
Speaker 1: from jail next week. The Bristol County Sheriff's Department telling
3:16
Speaker 1: us that Carter will be released next Thursday, that's January
3:20
Speaker 1: twenty third. She was originally sentenced to fifteen months behind bars,
3:25
Speaker 1: with release set for May of this year, but inmates
3:29
Speaker 1: at the Bristol County House of Corrections where Carter is
3:32
Speaker 1: serving time, are able to earn time for good behavior.
3:36
Speaker 1: Bristol County tells us that there have been no problems
3:39
Speaker 1: and that she's been doing all that's been asked of
3:42
Speaker 1: her while at the facility. According to the Sheriff's office,
3:45
Speaker 1: she's been attending programs, getting along with inmates, she's been
3:49
Speaker 1: polite to the center's staff and volunteers, and that they've
3:52
Speaker 1: had no discipline issues with Carter at all. All of
3:55
Speaker 1: this meaning that she can exit the prison some four months.
4:00
Speaker 1: Go ahead and do it. Why haven't you already killed yourself?
4:05
Speaker 1: You always say you're gonna do it, and then you don't.
4:08
Speaker 1: Just a few of the thousands of texts sent by
4:12
Speaker 1: Michelle Carter to her young and very impressionable boyfriend. Listen
4:20
Speaker 1: the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michelle Carter, the twenty year
4:24
Speaker 1: old plan Bill woman accused of causing her boyfriend Conrad
4:27
Speaker 1: Roy's death by pushing him to kill himself back in
4:30
Speaker 1: July twenty fourteen. She used quadad as a pawn. Prosecutors
4:35
Speaker 1: say it was all in act, though from a teen
4:37
Speaker 1: who wanted attention from her boyfriend's death. Prosecutors in her
4:41
Speaker 1: trial claim that she told the eighteen year old to
4:43
Speaker 1: kill himself numerous times over text messengers and phone calls.
4:48
Speaker 1: Text between Carter and Roy show she pushed him to
4:51
Speaker 1: drive out to a remote spot and poison himself with
4:55
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide in his car. Do it, babe? Do it?
5:00
Speaker 1: Go ahead? Aren't you gonna do it? How does a
5:04
Speaker 1: young woman become so evil that nothing will please her
5:08
Speaker 1: until her boyfriend kills himself. She wanted his head on
5:13
Speaker 1: a platter. How did we get here? As his truck
5:18
Speaker 1: was filling with carbon monoxide? He was scared, he got out.
5:22
Speaker 1: It was the defendant on the other end of the
5:25
Speaker 1: phone who ordered him back in. Did she use her
5:30
Speaker 1: boyfriend as a pawn and a sick game? Persuading him?
5:36
Speaker 1: Just a young boy? Attain a sensitive boy that had
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Speaker 1: bouts of depression, that had tried to kill himself before.
5:45
Speaker 1: Did she use him, convince him to commit suicide in
5:50
Speaker 1: order to get attention as a quote grieving girlfriend, even
5:54
Speaker 1: carrying out a dry run Two days before con ad
6:00
Speaker 1: Roy the third committed suicide, joining me. A renowned attorney,
6:06
Speaker 1: Robin Thicker out of the Maryland jurisdiction, he practices all
6:13
Speaker 1: across the country. Thicker, Have you, first of all, welcome Thicker.
6:18
Speaker 1: Have you actually read the thousands of text messages she
6:23
Speaker 1: sent him on top of phone calls, to emails, the works,
6:28
Speaker 1: trying to get him to kill himself. I certainly have
6:32
Speaker 1: read them. But here I think the case is simple.
6:36
Speaker 1: The question is do you believe or not that actions
6:41
Speaker 1: speak louder than words. Look at his actions. He drove
6:47
Speaker 1: the truck there where he could do this. He installed
6:50
Speaker 1: the generator that was going to produce the gas. He
6:53
Speaker 1: put up the windows. He attempted suicide many times before.
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Speaker 1: He reads hundreds of times the internet how to do this.
7:04
Speaker 1: He turned on the engine. He's responsible his actions cause
7:10
Speaker 1: the death, not her words. Really knowing that he was
7:15
Speaker 1: so incredibly prone to depression. Let's take a listen to
7:21
Speaker 1: some of the things that she actually said to him. Okay,
7:24
Speaker 1: let's hear her words that mister Ficker is so anxious
7:29
Speaker 1: to discount, because there are plenty of them, such as,
7:34
Speaker 1: you need to stop thinking about this and just do
7:36
Speaker 1: it because overthinking always kills overthinking. You can't think about it.
7:42
Speaker 1: You just have to do it. You said you were
7:44
Speaker 1: gonna do it, like I don't get why. I don't
7:47
Speaker 1: get why you aren't so in another so I guess
7:52
Speaker 1: you're not going to do it. Then all that for nothing.
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Speaker 1: I'm just confused, Like you were so ready and determined.
8:00
Speaker 1: Then the guy Conrad Roy, a teen boy who was
8:06
Speaker 1: in love with this girl. He wants to get out
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Speaker 1: of it. He wants to not kill himself. She says,
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Speaker 1: you kept pushing it off. You say you'll do it,
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Speaker 1: but you never do. It's always gonna be that way
8:17
Speaker 1: if you don't take action, you're just making it harder
8:20
Speaker 1: on yourself by pushing it off. You just have to
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Speaker 1: do it. Do you want to do it now? I mean,
8:26
Speaker 1: she's like the devil on his shoulder quote. It's probably
8:30
Speaker 1: the best time to do it now because everyone is sleeping.
8:33
Speaker 1: Just go somewhere in your truck. No one is really
8:36
Speaker 1: out there right now because it's an awkward time. And
8:38
Speaker 1: if you don't do it now, you're never gonna do it.
8:41
Speaker 1: And you can say you'll do it tomorrow, but you
8:44
Speaker 1: probably won't. And Conrade, I told you I'll take care
8:48
Speaker 1: of your family. Don't worry about them. Everyone will take
8:51
Speaker 1: care of them to make sure they won't be alone.
8:53
Speaker 1: People will help them through it. We talked about this.
8:56
Speaker 1: They'll be okay and accept it. People who commit sue
9:00
Speaker 1: I don't think this much. They just do it. Did
9:03
Speaker 1: you know all that? This is a lot of chit chat.
9:08
Speaker 1: If he had done nothing, her words would have meant
9:12
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. Her words do you mean something? Only because
9:17
Speaker 1: of his causative acts which caused his depth. He turned
9:23
Speaker 1: on the engine, he drove there, he put the windows up,
9:26
Speaker 1: He took the drugs that made his thinking unclear. He
9:31
Speaker 1: researched this. If a terrorists had researched how to set
9:36
Speaker 1: off a bomb and then did it, he would be
9:39
Speaker 1: the cause, not someone on the telephone Time Stories with
9:59
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
10:09
Speaker 1: In the last hours a bombshell the United States Supreme
10:12
Speaker 1: Court takes a stand on an appeal brought by Michelle Carter,
10:19
Speaker 1: a young woman who insists her teen boyfriend commit suicide
10:27
Speaker 1: in the last hours. The Supreme Court essentially lets her
10:32
Speaker 1: conviction stand by refusing to listen to her case. But
10:37
Speaker 1: how did it all start? Consecutors saying, Massachusetts woman pressured
10:40
Speaker 1: a friend to take his own life because she wanted sympathy.
10:44
Speaker 1: She used Cardred as a pawn. What about this before
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Speaker 1: I read more of her malicious texts. I have spoken
10:51
Speaker 1: at length with his defense attorney. I've spoken at length
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Speaker 1: with his family. The family blames her thinking but for
11:01
Speaker 1: Michelle Carter, their boy would be alive. The mother went
11:04
Speaker 1: for a walk with him on the beach just before
11:08
Speaker 1: he committed suicide and had no indication anything was going
11:12
Speaker 1: to happen. But then he gets on the phone and
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Speaker 1: the text with Michelle Carter, and he goes, you gotta
11:18
Speaker 1: do it right now. In fact, she says, if you
11:21
Speaker 1: want it as bad as you say you do, it's
11:23
Speaker 1: time to do it right now. Don't be scared. You
11:26
Speaker 1: made this decision. If you don't do it tonight, you're
11:30
Speaker 1: going to be thinking about it all the time. And
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Speaker 1: you'll be miserable the rest of your life. Not only that,
11:38
Speaker 1: we're talking about Michelle Carter, a twenty year old woman
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Speaker 1: charged with manslaughter of a teen boy who killed himself.
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Speaker 1: She sent him thousands of texts emails encouraging him to
11:52
Speaker 1: take his own life, even telling him exactly how to
11:57
Speaker 1: do it, exactly how to jerry re rig a generator
12:02
Speaker 1: so he will be able to kill himself. Quote. You
12:06
Speaker 1: can also just take a hose and run that from
12:09
Speaker 1: the exhaust pipe to the rear window of your car
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Speaker 1: and seal it with duct tape and shirts so it
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Speaker 1: can't escape. You'll die within like twenty thirty minutes. All
12:18
Speaker 1: pain free, Conrad, all pain free. In fact, she actually
12:23
Speaker 1: got mad Robin Ficker when a friend of Conrads try
12:32
Speaker 1: to move her tribute baseball tournament to her dead boyfriend
12:37
Speaker 1: to the dead boyfriend's hometown instead of her hometown, and
12:43
Speaker 1: she actually got mad at him and wrote in a
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Speaker 1: techs you're not trying to get credit for this, are you?
12:48
Speaker 1: It's my idea. I mean, really, seriously, Robin, you know
12:54
Speaker 1: there's no law in Massachusetts against someone assisting in a suicide.
13:02
Speaker 1: There's no law here, but for his acts. You use
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Speaker 1: the term but four. But for his acts, he wouldn't
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Speaker 1: be dead. If he'd done nothing, he wouldn't have been dead.
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Speaker 1: His acts caused this death. Her words standing alone did not.
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Speaker 1: Her words didn't cause that. If he could all me
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Speaker 1: and said the same thing, I wouldn't have committed suicide.
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Speaker 1: In my mind, she prayed on an innocent boy. Depression
13:34
Speaker 1: and teen boys is very common. She knew he had
13:38
Speaker 1: tried to commit suicide in the past, and all it
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Speaker 1: took was basically a feather on his back for him
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Speaker 1: to jump off a cliff. In my mind, it's like
13:48
Speaker 1: instructing someone how to create a bomb and then telling
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Speaker 1: them when, where, how, and then standing back when the
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Speaker 1: bomb goes off, wiping their hands of it's saying, oh,
14:00
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with that. It's like the
14:02
Speaker 1: getaway driver out in the car during the bank robbery.
14:05
Speaker 1: Oh I wasn't there. I didn't have anything to do
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Speaker 1: with it. I mean, do you not see that analogy?
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Speaker 1: Robin Thicker, I see your analogy, but it doesn't carry
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Speaker 1: the day. She was also taking drugs herself to treat
14:19
Speaker 1: her psychiatric condition, and she wasn't thinking clearly a play.
14:25
Speaker 1: She was taken Selexa or whatever that is for depression.
14:30
Speaker 1: And there is a very controversial doctor, and let me
14:36
Speaker 1: just say controversial, that is stating that because she was
14:41
Speaker 1: on the antidepressant Selexa, which is prescribed widely, it's doctor
14:48
Speaker 1: Peter Briggin I believe is his name, Peter Briggin or Breggan,
14:56
Speaker 1: very controversial psychiatrist, claiming she was basically involuntarily intoxicated at
15:04
Speaker 1: the time because she was on an antidepressant. That's going nowhere.
15:08
Speaker 1: All right, that's a crazy argument. That's not working. It
15:12
Speaker 1: may not be working, but it's certainly one that the
15:15
Speaker 1: defense has to make. They have to throw in all
15:19
Speaker 1: possible winning arguments. Well, that's true to be competent, it's
15:23
Speaker 1: an argument in the alternative. If the judge doesn't believe
15:27
Speaker 1: that he caused his own death, then perhaps the judge
15:30
Speaker 1: can take some solace in that argument. I think the
15:33
Speaker 1: state's attorneys just doing their job. You're right, and that's
15:38
Speaker 1: a very common and accepted and traditional defense theory. You
15:45
Speaker 1: try this, that she's not the one that actually manually
15:49
Speaker 1: killed him, too, you would go the fallback argument. As
15:54
Speaker 1: Robin Ficker, who is a very well known defense attorney
15:58
Speaker 1: throughout the country, arguing that she was under the influence
16:02
Speaker 1: of selects. Okay, nobody's going to buy that, but also
16:05
Speaker 1: what about the traditional concepts of causation. That is why
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Speaker 1: I believe, Robin Ficker, that the defense took the case
16:15
Speaker 1: away from a jury, and are they waived a right
16:18
Speaker 1: to a jury trial and they are having a bents
16:22
Speaker 1: trial with a judge only. Why do you think they
16:26
Speaker 1: did that, Robin, Well, I think they may have made
16:28
Speaker 1: a mistake because jury has to be unanimous. It's I
16:34
Speaker 1: have found, and I have a jury trial starting here shortly.
16:38
Speaker 1: I have found that there's always one or two holdups, holdouts,
16:44
Speaker 1: one or two people who have serious doubts. It's more
16:48
Speaker 1: difficult to convince twelve people than just one. They may
16:53
Speaker 1: have made a mistake in going with the judge. You know,
16:56
Speaker 1: I have the exact opposite reaction, and for this reason,
17:00
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying you're wrong, but I was thinking, Robin,
17:04
Speaker 1: that it was a very wise move to go with
17:06
Speaker 1: the bench's triumph because it takes out all emotionality. Because
17:10
Speaker 1: when you read, for instance, when he got out of
17:13
Speaker 1: the car and said he didn't want to kill himself,
17:15
Speaker 1: that night. She says, get back in the car, get
17:19
Speaker 1: back in there, and just do it. When you read
17:22
Speaker 1: things like that, it's very incendiary. A judge may be
17:27
Speaker 1: able to put emotions aside and focus on the fact
17:32
Speaker 1: that she was not there at the time of the suicide. Okay,
17:38
Speaker 1: he may be able to look at it more calmly
17:41
Speaker 1: than a jury would. But I see what you're saying.
17:44
Speaker 1: It's easier to convince one than twelve and the whole concept, Robin.
17:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I've looked up a few similarities. There was
17:54
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties cases where people were charged playing Russian
17:58
Speaker 1: roulette and the other people at the table were charged
18:02
Speaker 1: with the victim's murder. There was also a case where
18:05
Speaker 1: a man loaded a gun for his wife and offered
18:08
Speaker 1: her tips on how to use it before she killed herself.
18:13
Speaker 1: Those have come under fire for the reasons that you're stating, Robin.
18:17
Speaker 1: In those cases there was actually some act committed by
18:23
Speaker 1: the accused. Here, there really were no act. She didn't
18:27
Speaker 1: purchase the generator or the truck or drive it there.
18:31
Speaker 1: She did nothing. As a matter of fact, there was
18:35
Speaker 1: you talk about their relationship, it was simply a textual relationship.
18:41
Speaker 1: They weren't physically in love. They saw each other very
18:46
Speaker 1: few times. This was an imaginary relationship. If you're saying
18:52
Speaker 1: they never had sex, we're taking her word for that.
18:55
Speaker 1: But also they did meet many times, but they texted
18:59
Speaker 1: you're rock many, many more times than they mad crime
19:15
Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace. The defense of Michelle Carter appears
19:24
Speaker 1: to have come to an unsuccessful end, the Supreme Court
19:27
Speaker 1: announcing Monday they won't take up the case other than
19:30
Speaker 1: seventeen year old from Plainville convicted in twenty seventeen and
19:33
Speaker 1: the death of Conrad Roy, after a judge ruled her
19:36
Speaker 1: demanding text messages were enough to hold her criminally responsible
19:40
Speaker 1: for Roy's suicide. It's not terribly surprising. The New Center
19:43
Speaker 1: five legal analyst Vince de Mori says the appeal was
19:46
Speaker 1: a long shot from the start. For of the nine
19:48
Speaker 1: justices have to agree to the oral arguments, which happens
19:52
Speaker 1: and only about one percent of cases. They hear cases
19:55
Speaker 1: all across the country. When the various different courts are
19:57
Speaker 1: treating the cases differently, that's when it's most important for
20:01
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court to step in. But Carter's case was
20:04
Speaker 1: one of the first of its kind. Not just in
20:05
Speaker 1: Massachusetts but the world. The idea that someone could be
20:09
Speaker 1: convicted of killing someone without inflicting any harm physically made
20:12
Speaker 1: the verdict a landmark decision, and while this is likely
20:16
Speaker 1: Carter's final legal battle, it doesn't have to be. Massachusetts
20:19
Speaker 1: is one of the few states where there's no time
20:22
Speaker 1: limit to ask for a new trial, so if the
20:24
Speaker 1: highest court makes another ruling about what constitutes free speech
20:28
Speaker 1: versus criminal behavior, she could always give it another go.
20:32
Speaker 1: As the case law develops, and as the sort of
20:34
Speaker 1: situation on the ground, so to speak, changes, she may
20:37
Speaker 1: in fact seek to come back to the state court
20:39
Speaker 1: here and try again. The one thing she may want
20:41
Speaker 1: to get back is her name. The Supreme Court takes
20:44
Speaker 1: a stand in the case against Michelle Carter, who was
20:48
Speaker 1: believed by Conrad Roy's family to single handedly have pushed
20:53
Speaker 1: their team son to suicide. He goes all the way
20:59
Speaker 1: up through the court system. That means there's the trial court,
21:03
Speaker 1: the state appeals court, the District Court of Appeals, and
21:07
Speaker 1: then the Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally the US
21:12
Speaker 1: Supreme Court weighs in, how did we get here? What
21:18
Speaker 1: happened to poor Conrad Roy? Prosecutors in her trial claim
21:22
Speaker 1: that she told the eighteen year old to kill himself
21:25
Speaker 1: numerous times over text, messengers and phone calls. Text between
21:29
Speaker 1: Carter and Roy show she pushed him to drive out
21:33
Speaker 1: to a remote spot and poison himself with carbon monoxide
21:37
Speaker 1: in his car. Do it, babe, do it? Go ahead.
21:41
Speaker 1: Aren't you gonna do it? There were thousands, I'm talking
21:46
Speaker 1: ten twenty thousand texts, thousands of emails, phone calls, the works.
21:54
Speaker 1: But when I hear these words and I think about
21:57
Speaker 1: I think about my boy and my daughter. You know
22:00
Speaker 1: they're going to be teens in just a year. Robin Ficker.
22:05
Speaker 1: Think if someone says the more you push this off,
22:08
Speaker 1: the more it's going to eat at you. You're ready.
22:10
Speaker 1: All you have to do is turn on the generator
22:12
Speaker 1: and you'll be free and happy. No more waiting, no
22:17
Speaker 1: more pain. Twenty minutes, Max, and you'll be in heaven.
22:21
Speaker 1: Everything will be fine. If you want it as bad
22:24
Speaker 1: as you say you do, it's time to do it now.
22:27
Speaker 1: Don't be scared. You've got to do it tonight. If
22:31
Speaker 1: you don't, the rest of your life will be miserable.
22:35
Speaker 1: You know what if somebody said that to one of
22:37
Speaker 1: my children, I would want them under the jail. Okay,
22:42
Speaker 1: what about that Vicker. There was no real relationship there.
22:47
Speaker 1: You have been a teenager and I have too. When
22:51
Speaker 1: there's a real relationship, you want to spend as much
22:55
Speaker 1: time as you possibly can with that other person on
22:59
Speaker 1: a daily basis, not infrequently like these two were spending.
23:06
Speaker 1: This was not a relationship. That was a make believe.
23:10
Speaker 1: She refers to him as her boyfriend, and then she
23:16
Speaker 1: played it up as the graving girlfriend. That was meaningless talk.
23:20
Speaker 1: They were not boyfriend and girlfriends. They were just people
23:25
Speaker 1: in the cloud talking to each other. Listen, tonight is
23:30
Speaker 1: the night. It's now or never. When he delayed, she
23:33
Speaker 1: expressed frustration and even anger. You better not be bullshitting
23:37
Speaker 1: me and saying you're going to do this than purposely
23:39
Speaker 1: get caught. She pressured him not to procrastinate. In one text,
23:43
Speaker 1: when he simply asked her how was your day, she replied,
23:47
Speaker 1: when are you going to do it? Stop ignoring the question.
23:50
Speaker 1: She helped him devise a plan to kill himself, using
23:52
Speaker 1: a combustion engine to poison himself with carbon monoxide gas.
23:56
Speaker 1: She encouraged him to google ways to make carbon monoxide
24:00
Speaker 1: but she also proposed other painless and even effective suicide methods,
24:05
Speaker 1: such as hanging by or by using a bag. Hanging
24:09
Speaker 1: is painless and it takes like a second if you
24:11
Speaker 1: do it right. When they finally decided on a portable
24:14
Speaker 1: generator as mechanism of his death, she told him to
24:18
Speaker 1: take some brenadal just in case when the original generator malfunction.
24:24
Speaker 1: She told him to get a different gas machine. It
24:26
Speaker 1: was then that he found the gas powered water pump.
24:31
Speaker 1: She encouraged him to conceal the suicide plan from his parents.
24:36
Speaker 1: She told him to lie to his mother about where
24:38
Speaker 1: he was going so that she would not interfere with
24:42
Speaker 1: him leaving the house to commit suicide. She warned him
24:45
Speaker 1: not to let his father see him get the gas machine.
24:48
Speaker 1: She advised him on how not to get caught, telling
24:51
Speaker 1: him not to do it in his driveway where he
24:53
Speaker 1: would be easily instructed him to go to a secluded
24:56
Speaker 1: parking lot. Just park your car, sit there. It's not
25:03
Speaker 1: a big deal. She made him promise that he would
25:06
Speaker 1: go through it the plan. You need to do it, Conrad. Okay,
25:09
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it today, he said. You promise, Conrad,
25:13
Speaker 1: I promise babe, I have to now, Carter, you can't
25:17
Speaker 1: break a promise. Go somewhere you know you won't get caught.
25:22
Speaker 1: You can find the place I know you can. And
25:26
Speaker 1: he made good on that promise. Just after six pm
25:29
Speaker 1: on July twelve, he left his mother's house, telling her
25:33
Speaker 1: that he was going to his friend's house instead. He
25:36
Speaker 1: drove to the Kmart parking lot. His last text at
25:39
Speaker 1: six twenty five was to the defendant, Okay, I'm almost here.
25:44
Speaker 1: She then asks did you delete all the text messages?
25:48
Speaker 1: But it doesn't end with text messages. After that last text,
25:53
Speaker 1: Conrad called the defendant at six twenty eight pm, where
25:57
Speaker 1: they spoke for thirty I'm sorry. They spoke for forty
25:59
Speaker 1: three minutes after. Immediately after that phone call, at seven
26:04
Speaker 1: to twelve, the defendant called him back and their phones
26:07
Speaker 1: connected for another forty seven minutes. Three minutes later, at
26:12
Speaker 1: eight o two, the defendant texts a friend that she
26:16
Speaker 1: was just on the phone, loud noise, she heard moaning,
26:20
Speaker 1: and after twenty minutes he wouldn't answer when she called
26:23
Speaker 1: his name. I would suggest that the records will show
26:26
Speaker 1: that call was the last call that Conrad Roy ever made.
26:31
Speaker 1: He never used his phone again and at eight twenty five,
26:35
Speaker 1: the defendant was texting another friend. I think he just
26:39
Speaker 1: killed himself, Urana. This case is a suicide case. It
26:44
Speaker 1: is a suicide, it is not a homicide. And older
26:50
Speaker 1: than Michelle Cotta, who has had a long, long history
26:55
Speaker 1: of suicidal suicidality, suicide attempts, suicidalation finally caused his own death.
27:04
Speaker 1: Michelle Kada was not present. Michelle Kada had been texting
27:09
Speaker 1: with him the she did not physically see this individual
27:13
Speaker 1: for over one year. The evidence will show at times
27:17
Speaker 1: to the texting. Conrad Roy even acknowledges that Michelle doesn't
27:22
Speaker 1: have influence over her. And the evidence of the texting
27:26
Speaker 1: is overwhelming that Conrad Roy was on this path to
27:30
Speaker 1: take his own life for years. And I would also
27:35
Speaker 1: suggest to this court go through this case methodically and
27:39
Speaker 1: read in a chronological order. The Commonwealth is trying to
27:44
Speaker 1: have it so that the evidence is all about Michelle Kada.
27:49
Speaker 1: There is so much evidence about Conrad Roy and his
27:54
Speaker 1: decisions and his choices that he made. For instance, the
28:01
Speaker 1: power water power pump that caused the death of Conrad Roy.
28:07
Speaker 1: We had told how did that pump? What will the
28:10
Speaker 1: evidence show How the pump physically got into the car.
28:15
Speaker 1: The evidence will show that the pump was placed in
28:19
Speaker 1: the car by Conrad Roy two days prior. How did
28:24
Speaker 1: a generator get into the back of his truck, not
28:27
Speaker 1: the water pump that ultimately took his life? What about
28:32
Speaker 1: a generator two days before? The evidence will show that
28:35
Speaker 1: Conrad Roy tried to take his own life two days prior.
28:54
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I Nancy Grace, this is
28:59
Speaker 1: crime Story. Thank you for being with us and our
29:01
Speaker 1: awesome guests. Today, in the last hours, the US Supreme
29:04
Speaker 1: Court brings down the hammer on a young woman, Michelle Carter,
29:09
Speaker 1: who coaches aids a beets, ridicules and bullies her teen
29:14
Speaker 1: boyfriend into his death. And to top it all off,
29:20
Speaker 1: now we learn Michelle Carter set to walk free early release.
29:27
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friends at wh DH seven Boston.
29:31
Speaker 1: This is Kimberly Bookman. Carter is heading home in days.
29:34
Speaker 1: We understand while she was here she had a cellmate
29:37
Speaker 1: and got along well with the prison population. This case
29:41
Speaker 1: legally is not over. Michelle Carter's attorney vowed to appeal
29:44
Speaker 1: her conviction for involuntary manslaughter even if it meant taking
29:47
Speaker 1: the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but
29:50
Speaker 1: today the highest court in the land announced it will
29:53
Speaker 1: not hear Carter's appeal on what is now known as
29:55
Speaker 1: the suicide texting case. Her attorney issued this statement on
29:59
Speaker 1: the ruling. The US Supreme Court not accepting Michelle Carter's
30:02
Speaker 1: petition at this time is unfortunate. Clearly, many legal scholars
30:06
Speaker 1: and many in the legal community understand the dangers created
30:09
Speaker 1: by the unprecedented decisions of the Massachusetts courts. To that end,
30:13
Speaker 1: we will be weighing our next steps and correcting this injustice.
30:16
Speaker 1: I'm surmising that they would want to go to the
30:19
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to try to have the case o return
30:22
Speaker 1: so that there would be no record for her, But
30:26
Speaker 1: whether the slate was wiped clean or not, Carter has
30:28
Speaker 1: spent the last year serving time in the Bristol County
30:31
Speaker 1: House of Corrections. Time served as time served, so there's
30:34
Speaker 1: no way to turn that clock back. In twenty seventeen,
30:37
Speaker 1: a judge rule that Carter caused her boyfriend, eighteen year
30:39
Speaker 1: old Conrad Roy's death by urging him in a phone
30:42
Speaker 1: call to get back into his carbon monoxide filled truck
30:45
Speaker 1: and go ahead with his plan to commit suicide. There
30:48
Speaker 1: were text messages that Carter sent leading up to Roy's
30:51
Speaker 1: death where she encouraged Roy to kill himself. Sentenced in
30:54
Speaker 1: February to fifteen months in prison, Carter is getting out
30:57
Speaker 1: early for good behavior. Michelle Carter's been a model prisoner.
31:01
Speaker 1: She's been involved in programs. She's gotten a certificate in
31:05
Speaker 1: food services, and she's been very active in social programs
31:08
Speaker 1: as well as some self help programs. Take a listen
31:11
Speaker 1: to Conrad Roy's family speaking to our friend doctor Oz.
31:16
Speaker 1: But she tried to console me. She told me that
31:18
Speaker 1: how much he loved me. I did nothing wrong. But
31:22
Speaker 1: when she sent me a message in August and she
31:24
Speaker 1: said I tried to save him. You tried to save him,
31:28
Speaker 1: don't feel guilty, and I was like, red flag, what
31:31
Speaker 1: is going on? So I sent the message to the
31:34
Speaker 1: detective and I said she had something. She knew. She
31:38
Speaker 1: knew that he passed, she knew that he was going
31:41
Speaker 1: to commit suicide. We had no idea. We've spent the
31:45
Speaker 1: day with him. The day he died. I walked the
31:47
Speaker 1: beach with him. We smiled, we laughed, kend You've spent
31:51
Speaker 1: the last day of your brother's life with him. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 1: we all three listed. Did you have any idea? Um? No,
31:58
Speaker 1: He even took us out for ice cream after then
32:01
Speaker 1: right after that he went and went to the parking
32:05
Speaker 1: lot and I guess now we learned Michelle Carter set
32:11
Speaker 1: to walk free early release Nancy Grace Crime Story, signing
32:16
Speaker 1: off Goodbye Friend,