'I Love You, Now Die' Subject Michelle Carter Currently In Prison — But She May Not Be For Long
Could Michelle Carter get out of prison early?
Instagram Ever since the premiere of the gripping HBO documentary, I Love You, Now Die, people have been fascinated by the trials and tribulations of Michelle Carter, the woman who was ultimately found culpable in the death by suicide of her troubled boyfriend, Conrad Roy. However, people have also been wondering: is Michelle Carter in prison currently?
1. Michelle Carter only started serving her sentence this year, even though she was sentenced back in 2017.
2. Even though she was still considered a "juvenile" when the trial began, she's currently in an adult prison.
According to Esquire, Michelle Carter was only 17 years old when the Conrad Roy murder trial began. As a result, the case was originally adjudicated in juvenile court. However, by the time her sentencing happened, she was 22 years old. So, she was sentenced to an adult prison.
"Though Roy died when Carter was 17 and the case was adjudicated in juvenile court, she was 22 by the time she was ordered to prison and Carter is serving her sentence at the Bristol County House of Correction adult facility," reported the outlet, who added that the lead sheriff in charge said that Carter was "adapting well" to prison life. (Interestingly, the lead sheriff is someone by the name of Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who first made headlines back in 2017 when he told Donald Trump that he'd like to send prisoners to help build his border wall. Classy.)
3. Michelle Carter was only sentenced to 15 months in jail.
According to Marie Claire, Carter was only convicted of involuntary manslaughter. As a result, she was only sentenced to 15 months in prison. Her lawyers were able to successfully keep her free while they appealed her case, but in February of 2019, her time on the outside ran out.
"Earlier this year, the courts decided they'd given Carter enough free time. In February, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected her defense attorney's motion to delay her 15-month sentence. Carter was taken to Bristol County Jail and House of Correction in Dartmouth, Massachusetts to begin serving her jail time immediately," reported the outlet.
4. The details of the crime are rather gruesome.
TRIGGER WARNING: Description of death by suicide.
According to Women's Health Magazine, one of the most shocking parts of the Michelle Carter case was just how gruesome, and descriptive, the crime was. The outlet reports that when Carter began dating Conrad Roy, she was only 15 years old. And while there's some question as to how "serious" their relationship truly was, what's clear is that Roy had some suicidal ideations for a long time before he, ultimately, took his own life.
Carter, however, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, not because she'd sent texts to Roy encouraging him to take his own life (although, frankly, that's pretty terrible), but because Roy had made a phone call to her prior to taking his own life, in which she'd encouraged him to "get back in the truck" and take his own life.
"On July 13, 2014, the body of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III was found dead in his grandfather's pickup truck in the back of a Kmart parking lot in in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. He had committed suicide by attaching a hose from a portable generator and filling the truck with poisonous carbon monoxide," reported the outlet, who added that Carter didn't warn either Roy's parents or the authorities about what Roy was about to do, even though she clearly knew what was coming. And that failure to act, said the outlet, contributed to her culpability.
5. Could Michelle Carter be released from jail early?
According to Radar Online, Michelle Carter could be released from jail early. The outlet reports that Carter has what's called a "trustee" job, in which she has a job working inside the prison (usually in the kitchen or in the laundry room), and this trustee job is helping her get released early.
"She has a job in the kitchen or the laundry, inside the female part of the jail. You could get time off your sentence. For every month you work you can earn 5-10 days taken off your sentence," said Bristol County Sheriff Spokesman Jonathan Darling to the outlet, exclusively. Darling also said that an inmate can earn up to 10 days per month, and that comes based on a number of factors — including having a trustee job, taking classes inside the prison, and avoiding any prison gangs.
It should be interesting to see if, indeed, she is released from jail before her time!
6. She was denied parole
According to People, Michelle Carter asked the Massachussetts parole board for early release in September 2020, but was denied. Carter's attorney gave a quote saying he was disappointed in the ruling: "I was certainly hopeful [she would be granted parole], given that she was 16 when she knew him then 17 [when he died], and given her age and mental health issues she was struggling with at the time."