I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter

Reviews (1)

Stephen Campbell
Written 5 year(s) ago
7
A balanced overview of an unprecedented case

There's nothing anyone can do for me that's gonna make me wanna live.
- Conrad Roy, III; Text sent to Michelle Carter (June 29, 2014)
Jesus will take care of you babe, you'll be happy and protected in heaven. I just want you to finally be happy, so so happy. Heaven needs a hero.
- Michelle Carter; Text sent to Conrad Roy, III (July 2, 2014)
I hope they see that he had his mind set on it. Like it may seem like I wanted him to but I didn't at all you know I loved him like, I read the thing online where it said if u agree w__ith the person, then it makes them realize how stupid they're being and so they'll stop it but it didn't work and I just idk I hope that the cops don't see it that way like I didn't bully him at all or anything.
- Michelle Carter; Text sent to Sam Boardman (July 21, 2014)
His death is my fault like honestly I could have stopped him I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I fucking told him to get back in because I knew he would do it all over again the next day and I couldnt have him live the way he was living anymore I couldnt do it I wouldnt let him.
- Michelle Carter; Text sent to Sam Boardman (September 15, 2014)
When does irresponsibility become criminality? When do words attain the power to kill? If you're standing with a gun pressed against your temple, I encourage you to pull the trigger, and you do so, am I legally culpable in some way? What if you take the gun away from your head and I actively demand you place it back? Is your death in part my responsibility, in a legal sense? My words may have been abhorrent, immoral, and inhuman, but are they criminal? To a certain extent, it's the inverse of the saying, "just because someone tells you to jump off a bridge doesn't mean you have to". Which is true. But what if you want to jump? What if you've tried jumping before? What if jumping is one of the only things you talk about? Does that make any difference? What if the person telling you to jump isn't even present, but is talking to you on the phone? What does change things? This moral, ethical, and legal quagmire is the subject of Erin Lee Carr 's two-part HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, the story of the 2014 case where a 17-year-old woman encouraged her suicidal 18-year-old boyfriend to follow through on his threats to end it all, and was subsequently charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Attempting to tell a more comprehensive story than the sensationalist narrative adopted by the media at the time, which was basically "evil devil woman secretly bullies vulnerable boyfriend to death so she can get sympathy", the series expands on some of the lesser-known details of the case; the bizarre, almost entirely online nature of the relationship; his four prior suicide attempts; her months of constantly talking him out of suicide; their mutual mental illnesses, which includes her own suicide attempt, an eating disorder, and crippling loneliness; a theory about notions of self-identity, revolving around, of all things, the TV show Glee; a legal system which finds itself out of step with the digital era in which we live; a psychiatrist of questionable merit and his controversial theory; and the ramifications of a ground-breaking legal ruling. Looking at issues of technology, mental health, the ethicality of prescribing powerful SSRIs to teenagers, a reductionist media that pushes an easy-to-digest narrative based on familiar tropes and themes at the expense of the more multifaceted, complex, and uncomfortable reality, and, of course, whether one person can be held legally responsible for another's suicide, the show doesn't so much take a side as work to remind viewers that more than one side exists. And although there are some notable problems, it does a pretty decent job overall.

Massachusetts; July 2014. 18-year-old Conrad Roy, III has been 'dating' 17-year-old Michelle Carter for around 18 months, although their relationship exists almost exclusively through text messages, with the odd phone call. Despite living only an hour's drive from one another, and both possessing cars, they have met only five times. Conrad suffers from depression and had previously tried to kill himself on four separate occasions, and shortly after they met, he told Michelle that he wanted to die and was doing research to find a method that would be 100% guaranteed to work. He had even suggested they die together, á la Romeo and Juliet, although she had refused. Conrad's home life is also rather volatile – on one occasion, he had gotten into a physical fight with his father, Conrad Roy, Jr., resulting in Roy being arrested and Conrad suffering a concussion. Roy and Conrad's mother Lynn are also in the midst of an acrimonious divorce, with Roy having Lynn charged with domestic assault and battery. As would later be revealed, Michelle has her own mental health issues – oppressive loneliness and an eating disorder. In the past, she'd taken to cutting, and on one occasion she tried to hang herself, but was too scared to see it through. At the time of his death, both Conrad and Michelle were on powerful SSRIs, drugs which can exacerbate suicidal ideation.

For 18 months, Michelle steadfastly refused to endorse Conrad's desire to kill himself, continuously asserting he had much to live for and reminding him how much he was loved. On June 21, she gets him to admit that he doesn't want to die, he just wants the pain to stop, but on July 1, she concedes that she can't talk him out of it and from the following day, she seems to begin to actively encourage him. On the morning of July 13, the day he died, beginning at 09:45, Conrad and Michelle had the following exchange;

Conrad: idk why I'm like this

Michelle: Sometimes things happen and we never have the answers why

C: like why am I so hesitant lately

C: like 2 weeks ago I was willing to try everything. and now I'm worse really bad and I'm lol not Falling through. it's eating me inside.

M: You're so hesistant because you keep overthinking it and pushing it off. You just need to do it Conrad. The more you push it off, the more it will eat at you.

M: You're ready and prepared. All you have to do is turn the generator on and you bee free and happy. No more pushing it off, no more waiting

C: youre right

M: If you want it as bad as you say you do, its time to do it today

C: Yup no more waiting

M: Okay, I'm serious. Like you can't even wait til tonight. You have to do it when u get back from your walk

C: Thank you.

M: For what

C: still bring here

C: being

M: I would never leave you, you're the love of my life, my boyfriend. You're my heart, I'd never leave you

They continued;

M: so are you gonna do it?

C: I guess

M: Well I want you to be ready and sure

C: :P

M: What's that mean haha

C: Idk I'm freaking out again

C: I'm overthinking

M: I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you're ready, you just need to do it! You can't keep living this way. You just need to do it like you did last time and not think about it and just do it babe. You can't keep doing this everyday

C: I do want to. but like I'm freaking out for my family. I guess

C: idkkk

M: Conrad. I told you I'll take care of them. Everyone will take care of them to make sure they won't be alone and people will help them get thru it. We talked about this, they will be okay and accept it. People who commit suicide don't think this much and they just do it

C: I know I know lol. thinking just drives me more crazy

M: Exactly. You just need to do it Conrad or I'm gonna get you help

M: You can't keep doing this everyday

C: Okay I'm gonna do it today

M: Do you promise

C: I promise babe

C: I have to now

M: Like right now?

C: where do I go? :(

M: And u can't a break a promise. And just go in a quiet parking lot or something

C: Okay

M: Go somewhere you know you wont get caught. You can find a place I know u can

M: Are u doing it now?

C: still have no clue

M: Not finding a place to go isn't an excuse...

At 17:08 that evening, they spoke again;

M: Are you gonna do it now?

C: I'm home.

M: Okay

C: Ahhh

M: What?

C: Idkk I'm stressin

M: You're fine, it's gonna be okay. You just gotta do it babe, you can't think about it

C: okay. okay I got this

M: Yes you do, I believe in you. Did you delete the messages?

C: Yes but ur gonna keep messaging me?

M: I will until you turn on the generator

Similarly, at 18:07;

M: Are you gonna do it now?

C: i just don't know how to leave them ya know

M: Say you're going to the store or something

C: Like I want them to know I love them

M: They know, that's one thing they definitely know

M: You're overthinking

C: I know I'm overthinking, I've been overthinking for awhile how

M: I know, you just have to do it like you said

M: Are you gonna do it now

C: I haven't left yet haha

M: Why...

C: leavin now

M: Okay. You can do this

C: okay I'm almost there

M: Okay

Shortly thereafter, Conrad drove his truck to a Kmart parking lot, and hooked up a portable carbon monoxide generator. At 18:28, he called Michelle and they spoke for 43 minutes. At 19:12, she called him and they spoke for 47 minutes. Three minutes after the end of the last phone call, she called him again, then two minutes later, then another two minutes, and then a further 25 times over the next two hours, but all calls went to voicemail. She also sent a series of frantic text messages asking him if he is okay. Following Conrad's death, police discovered the tens of thousands of text messages sent between himself and Michelle, noting that in the last 48 hours of his life, she had asked him over 40 times some variation of "are you gonna do it now". The case ignited a media firestorm with Michelle painted as an evil narcissist void of emotions or empathy – a dangerous sociopath through and through.

As there is no law against encouraging suicide in Massachusetts, the DA made the controversial decision to prosecute the case as a homicide. In February 2015, a Grand Jury returned an indictment for involuntary manslaughter ("wanton and reckless conduct resulting in death"). The case hinged on the fact that Michelle had told a friend that she was on the phone to Conrad as he died, and at one point, he had gotten scared and got out of the truck, but she had told him to get back in. It didn't help her case that an hour after she already knew Conrad was dead, Michelle was texting his sister Camdyn asking if she knew where he was, or that she had asked Conrad if his last Tweet could be about her. It helped even less that two days prior to his death, she was texting friends and telling them Conrad had gone missing, whilst simultaneously texting Conrad himself, something the prosecution would later call a "dry-run" to see if she got the attention she was looking for. Her lawyers lodged an appeal with the Massachusetts Supreme Court arguing that although her behaviour was reprehensible, it was not "wanton and reckless"; as Conrad had killed himself, her actions didn't directly cause his death. The court, however, upheld the indictment. The case came to trial in 2017, with Michelle waving her right to a jury trial, instead leaving the decision up to Judge Lawrence Moniz. Whatever he decided would set a landmark legal precedent.

I Love You Now Die interviews a number of people involved in the case, including Lynn Roy (Conrad's mother), Conrad Roy, Jr. (Conrad's father), Jesse Barron (Esquire), Dr. Peter Breggin (clinical psychiatrist called by the defence), Joseph Cataldo (Michelle's attorney), Camdyn Roy (Conrad's sister), Scott Gordon and Glenn Cudmore (the detectives who discovered the text messages), Conrad Roy (Conrad's grandfather), Marin Cogan (New York Magazine), Emily Bazelon (The New York Times Magazine), Bob McGovern (Boston Herald), Caroline McGonagle (Roy family friend), Becki Maki (Conrad's aunt), Prof. Anne Glowinski (child psychiatrist), and John Suler (author of Psychology of the Digital Age: Humans Become Electric).

Given how many issues are involved with Conrad's death and Michelle's role in it, the show naturally covers a lot of themes, from the psychology of an online relationship to mental health issues in teenagers, from questions of morality to notions of self-identity, from the effects of media sensationalism to the fact that legislature has fallen behind technology to the point where it no longer has the capacity to judge the ethical implications of how such technology is used. I've seen the show accused of being too pro-Michelle, essentially positing that she's as much of a victim as Conrad and trying to excuse her actions. And whilst there is certainly an attempt to paint her in a more positive light than the mainstream media, Carr is, in fact, more concerned with arguing that the case is more complex than many people assume. All things considered, the show is fairly balanced (the first episode focuses on Conrad and his family, the second on Michelle and her legal team), although there are some issues with its method of presentation and what it leaves out, which will be discussed below.

According to Barron, "the biggest mystery of this story is not why Michelle Carter did what she did, but what Michelle Carter thought she was doing", and this is a central point – Michelle's own understanding of her actions are at the centre of everything, yet this is the one aspect that many people tend to ignore and dismiss in favour of the "she's evil" interpretation. Certainly, her actions were inhuman, immoral, and abhorrent, but did she intend them as such? Breggin argues that Michelle became overwhelmed by the caretaker role Conrad had assigned to her and pinpoints July 2, the day when she began to encourage him to kill himself, as the point at which she became "involuntarily intoxicated"; a result of her being on Prozac (this became the crux of her defence during the trial). However, in an example of the show's balance, we immediately cut to Glowinski pointing out that there's no agreement in psychiatry that involuntary intoxication as a medical diagnosis is even real.

The show paints Michelle as a teenager with no idea who she was, and so she projected a fantasy onto her own life to achieve a sense of self-identity. In specific, she had a habit of quoting directly from the TV show Glee, primarily Lea Michele's character, Rachel Berry. When Michele's real-life and on-screen boyfriend Cory Monteith died of a drug overdose in 2013, Michelle began to quote the actress as well as the character. Along the same lines, a few days before Conrad killed himself, Michelle saw Josh Boone's The Fault in their Stars, where the female lead is able to convince the male lead not to kill himself. Did she see herself in a similar role concerning Conrad? We all know what it's like to feel as if we're in a movie, to project a fictional character onto our own life (it's a form of introjection). But Michelle seems to have taken it much further, seeing her life as a narrative she had to control to achieve the desired dénouement. As Barron argues, "the question is whether or not she was writing some story in her head or some movie that, for some reason, had to end with him dying, or whether she literally has no idea what she's done".

Indeed, the show makes a solid argument that, in this case, Occam's razor does not apply; the simplest explanation for Conrad's death – that Michelle manipulated him into committing suicide so she could elicit sympathy from those around her – is not necessarily the most likely explanation. Carr points out that that interpretation of events involves the least amount of understanding of just who these two people were, why they were drawn to one another, and how things got to the point of Conrad killing himself. This is not simply a case of hideous sociopathy; it's far more psychologically complex, and Carr does a fine job of peeling back the layers to illustrate this complexity, restoring context to much of the information that the media presented in a streamlined fashion to advance the "devil woman" narrative. Such context does not, in any way, excuse what Michelle said or how she acted in those last two weeks, nor does the show suggest as much. But it does go some way to explaining her psychology; in a case where context has been ignored, yet context is everything, the show attempts to provide the viewer with that context. And it's broadly successful in that attempt.

However, there are some problems. Take Breggin's centrality and, ironically, the lack of context surrounding his theories. Should a psychiatrist who says something like, "she's clearly out of her mind and so is he" really have such a prominent role in a show of this nature? And although Carr does acknowledge that involuntary intoxication is not without its opponents, she fails to explain that Breggin himself is a hugely controversial figure. There's no mention of the fact that he's against psychiatric drugs in general, nor is there anything about how, in 1987, after appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show and telling psychiatric patients not to take their medication, he was brought before a disciplinary board. There's also no mention of the fact that, since 1985, he has been an expert witness in over 90 cases, but in two of those cases, the judge threw out his testimony, with one calling him a "fraud".

Aesthetically, although the replication of the text messages as on-screen text without narration was a wise decision, there are also some questionable aesthetic choices. For example, when Conrad suggests he and Michelle should be like Romeo and Juliet, there's a clip of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), which is rather on the nose, to say the least. The use of a sentimental piece of piano music when discussing how Michelle had no real friends is also questionable, and the chronology of events is a little confusing, jumping around a lot between the suicide in 2014 and the trial in 2017. There are also a couple of examples of information being introduced which seems to go nowhere. The best example is the fight between Conrad and his father, which Carr makes no effort to tie back to events concerning Michelle. Indeed, it's never mentioned after its introduction. So why is it included at all?

The biggest problem, however, is that neither Michelle nor any of her family participated in the film. This isn't surprising, but given how concerned Carr is with understanding what was going on in Michelle's head, this is a considerable problem. Several of Conrad's family appear, and the cumulative effect is to convey just how crippling his mental health issues were. In terms of Michelle, however, the only person who speaks to her mindset is Breggin. Along the same lines, Conrad's background and family life are sketched pretty thoroughly, but Michelle's is left completely blank – we learn absolutely nothing about her childhood or parents, who are never even mentioned. This is a significant misstep on Carr's part, and the lack of background contextualisation renders Michelle as something of an impenetrable question mark, which works against the show's attempts to elucidate her mindset and motivation (ironically enough, her impenetrability and apparent emotionlessness were two of the things the media seized upon in painting her as a sociopath).

Nevertheless, I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter is an informative engagement with a case of huge complexity and importance. Challenging the prevailing media depiction of Michelle, Carr sets out to remind the viewer that things are more complicated than they may have been led to believe. And for the most part, she does a fine job. Never advocating for Michelle's complete innocence nor endorsing the devil woman persona, Carr stays fairly balanced throughout, although some will undoubtedly take issue with the fact that the show is even making an attempt to depict Michelle in a less harsh light. Carr acknowledges that Michelle's actions and words were indefensible and inhuman, but so too does she argue sociopathy may not have been the primary cause. The central question of the case is whether Conrad would have killed himself had Michelle not encouraged him to do so. The easy answer is "no, he wouldn't". Carr, however, suggests that that question may be unanswerable. What happened is clear. But Carr is attempting to remind us that why it happened is shrouded, for now, in impenetrable fog.