A teenager who allegedly encouraged her friend to kill himself last year has enjoyed her senior prom and a trip to Disney World while awaiting her manslaughter trial, it has emerged.
Michelle Carter's mother, Gail Carter, has been posting images to her daughter's social media pages showing her on trips and hanging out with friends - activities her alleged victim, 18-year-old Conrad Roy III, will never get to do, his aunt has said.
'We will never see him enjoy these milestones,' Becki Maki told.
'To see her awaiting her manslaughter trial on a trip to Disney World with her friends, going to school competitions and going off to prom - it just seems like she doesn't understand the gravity of the actions that have led to the case against her.'
After his death, Carter expressed her heartbreak on her Twitter page and even organized a suicide prevention fundraiser in his name.
'Such a beautiful soul gone too soon,' she wrote on the day of his death. 'I'll always remember your bright light and smile. You'll forever be in my heart, I love you Conrad.'
Three days later, she added: 'I will never understand why this had to happen.'
After her arrest, Carter, a senior at King Philip Regional High School, was banned from social media by a judge but her mother has been updating her page with images.
Carter's attorney, Joseph Cataldo, said that the teenager was not violating the court order and was simply continuing 'with her day-to-day activities and her life'.
Following a court appearance in April, he said that Carter had not committed a crime and that they will prove Carter was actually trying to help Roy.
'Taking all the texts in context, she tried to talk him out of it,' Cataldo said.
Carter is accused of involuntary manslaughter after Roy, 18, had siphoned carbon monoxide into his truck—a method recommended by Carter in text messages—in July 2014.
Defense attorney Joseph Cataldo argued in New Bedford Juvenile Court last week that his client was “brainwashed” by Roy into helping him commit suicide, and that her text messages violate no law in Massachusetts.
One day, when Roy went to Sears to purchase a generator with a combustion engine, he spotted a man dressed in a Jesus costume and texted Carter about it. “Ha, ha, ha. It’s a sign it’s your calling,” she said. On several occasions, Carter expressed frustration with Roy’s reluctance.
Days before his death, Roy suggested siphoning carbon monoxide from his truck’s exhaust pipes into the cabin of his truck. Carter provided step-by-step instructions.
CARTER: Yeah, it will work. If you emit 3200 ppm of it for five or ten minutes you will die within a half hour. You lose consciousness with no pain. You just fall asleep and die. You can also just take a hose and run that from the exhaust pipe to the rear window in your car and seal it with duct tape and shirts, so it can’t escape. You will die within, like, 20 or 30 minutes all pain free.
After Roy’s death, Carter allegedly texted one of his sisters, “Do you know where your brother is?”
In September, Carter appeared to show some remorse in texts to her friend, Samantha.
CARTER: Sam, his death is my fault. Like, honestly I could have stopped it. I was the one on the phone with him and he got out of the car because he was working and he got scared and I fucken [sic] told him to get back in, Sam, because I knew he would do it all over again the next day and I couldn’t have him live that way the way he was living anymore. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t let him.
And therapy didn’t help him and I wanted him to go to McLeans with me when I went but he would go in the other department for his issues but he didn’t want to go because he said nothing they would do or say would help him or change the way he feels.
So I, like, started giving up because nothing I did was helping and but I should have tried harder. Like, I should have did more.
And it’s all my fault because I could have stopped him but I fucken [sic] didn’t and all I had to say was I love you and don’t do this one more time and he’d still be here. And he told me he would give me signs to know he was watching over me but I haven’t seen any.
And I just I don’t know. I’m sorry about this rant. I just need to get it off my chest that it’s finally all starting to sink in?