Amanda Knox says woman convicted in texting suicide case deserves sympathy

The former American student knows all about sensational trials

Amanda Knox was cleared in 2015 of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher (Getty)

Amanda Knox, the American exchange student who was convicted and subsequently cleared of murdering her British roommate, has defended the young woman found guilty of encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself.

Michelle Carter was this week sentenced to 15 months in jail after she was convicted of the manslaughter of her teenage boyfriend, by sending him text messages in which she encouraged him to take his own life. At one point, she sent a message telling him to “get back” in a truck where he was poisoning himself with carbon monoxide fumes.

Ms Knox said that Carter, who remains free on bail while her appeal is pending, deserved sympathy and help, and not a jail sentence. Carter was 17 when she encouraged her 18-year-old boyfriend Conrad Roy III, to take his own life; she is now 20.

Defence lawyer Joseph Cataldo talks to his client, Michelle Carter, (AP) (Faith Ninivaggi/The Boston Herald/AP)

“By holding her accountable for Roy’s death, we increase the tally of victims in this case, we ignore the mental health factors that lead to suicide, and we learn nothing about how to prevent it,” Ms Knox wrote in an article in the Los Angeles Times.

“Conrad Roy III needed our sympathy and our help and didn’t get it in time. Michelle Carter deserves the same sympathy and help now.”

Ms Knox, 30, was convicted along with her Italian boyfriend in the 2007 killing of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy. Ms Knox spent four years in jail but was exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.

The Associated Press said Ms Knox said she felt a “sickening sense of deja vu” as she watched prosecutors try to depict Carter as a “femme fatale”, the way she said the media tried to portray her during her trial.

Ms Knox said it was difficult to feel sympathy for Carter, who sent Mr Roy dozens of text messages urging him to follow through on his plan to kill himself.

But Ms Knox pointed out that for months leading up to Mr Roy’s death, Carter had tried to talk the 18-year-old out of it and urged him to seek mental health counselling. She also wrote that Carter - who herself struggled with depression, bulimia and anorexia - was ill-equipped to help the young man, who also suffered from depression.

Relatives of Mr Roy have condemned the sentence handed to Carter and the decision to let her out on bail. The family is pursuing a civil action against Carter.

“I was just sick, just sick to my stomach [over] the fact that she can be free, and my cousin, he’s not here,” Mr Roy’s cousin, Makenna O’Donnell, told ABC News. “She should be behind bars.”