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Woman who told boyfriend to kill himself asks family to take home his ashes and belongings

‘She wanted to go through his room and take some of his belongings’, said victim’s aunt

Rachael Revesz
Monday 07 August 2017 10:49 BST
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Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail after facing 20 years behind bars
Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail after facing 20 years behind bars (Faith Ninivaggi/The Boston Herald/AP)

A woman who encouraged her boyfriend in text messages to take his own life reportedly requested to take home his ashes after the funeral.

Michelle Carter, the 20-year-old from Massachusetts who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in June, reportedly attended former boyfriend Conrad Roy’s funeral and requested to have a look around his room.

The pair only met three times but exchanged hundreds of text messages and phone calls, where Carter, then 17, repeatedly asked Roy when he would kill himself and researched ways he could do it.

Roy’s aunt, Kim Bozzi, told ABC News that Carter’s behaviour after her nephew’s death in 2014 was “disturbing” and that the woman had a “damaged moral core”.

“She wanted to go through his room and take some of his belongings,” Ms Bozzi said.

“That’s when things started to get a little weird. Yeah, you don’t do that.”

Carter also emailed, texted and called the family to say she had "never tried so hard in my life to fix someone" and lamented that she "didn't do enough".

She also organised a charity baseball game for Roy, and continued to text him after his death.

Ms Bozzi said she believed that Carter was “responsible” for Roy’s death when he was 18 years old.

"If it wasn't for her, he'd still be here," she told the network.

Carter texted a school friend several months after Roy died of carbon monoxide poisoning that she had told him to go through with it.

“I could’ve stopped him,” she wrote.

“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**king told him to get back in.”

Carter faced up to 20 years in prison as a youth offender but was sentenced to 15 months in jail. She will remain out of custody pending appeals.

Roy reportedly battled depression, and recorded private video diaries in which he said he felt he had "made a monster of [himself] over the past two years".

He met Carter when they were both visiting relatives in Florida, and kept in touch.

Early in their relationship, Roy told Carter he was planning to kill himself, and sent her pictures of a noose hanging from a tree and a gun, and even hinted they could act together, "like Romeo and Juliet".

Over two years, his girlfriend encouraged him to seek help and said he had "so much to live for". She was also hospitalised for an eating disorder and took anti-depressants.

But as time went on, she switched her tone and started encouraging him to end his life.

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