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Michelle Carter left the nation shocked when she was found guilty of convincing her boyfriend Conrad Roy III to commit suicide in the infamous “texting suicide case” of 2014.
A webseries, titled The Girl from Plainville, based on the grim tale was announced by Hulu, starring Elle Fanning in the lead role. As the first set of images from the show dropped on January 20, 2022, viewers were stunned by Fanning’s first look and uncanny resemblance to Carter.
In one photo, the actress can be seen wearing a replica of the same dark plum print blouse Carter wore to one of her hearings. She was also seen with a similarly stoic expression while sporting side-parted blonde hair and thick eyebrows identical to the convict.
The eight-episode series has been inspired by an Esquire article of the same name. It also stars Colton Ryan as Conrad Roy, Chloe Sevigny as his mother, Cara Buono as Michelle Carter's mother and Michael Mosley as her attorney Joseph Cataldo.
What happened in the Conrad Roy III suicide case?
On July 13, 2014, 18-year-old Conrad Roy III was found dead in his truck outside a Kmart parking lot in Massachusetts. It was reported that the teenager took his own life by filling his truck with carbon monoxide after attaching a hose from a generator.
Officials also mentioned that the honor roll student had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression prior to his demise. Further investigation revealed Roy was encouraged to commit suicide by his long-distance girlfriend Michelle Carter.
Investigators unearthed dozens of text messages exchanged between the victim and his girlfriend and showed that the latter provided Roy with a step-by-step guide to take his own life:
“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.”
On the day of Roy’s death, Carter continued to convince him to kill himself through text messages:
"You keep pushing it off and say you'll do it but you never do. It's always gonna be that way if you don't take action… You just need to do it. No more pushing it off, no more waiting… If you want it as bad as you say you do, it's time to do it today."
On February 4, 2015, Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter for "wantonly and recklessly" assisting Conrad Roy’s suicide based on direct evidence found by the grand jury. The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter trial began in 2017.
During the trial, prosecutors even claimed that the 17-year-old ordered her boyfriend to go back inside his truck after he had second thoughts about his decision and briefly exited the carbon monoxide-filled vehicle.
However, the defense team claimed that prosecutors “cherry-picked” Carter’s texts and ignored the ones where she asked her boyfriend to seek help. They also mentioned that Roy had contemplated taking his own life even before his final conversation with Carter.
Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy III reportedly met in 2012 during a vacation in Florida with their respective families. The duo met in-person five times only despite staying an hour away from each other. Much of the conversations were exchanged through texts, emails and phone calls.
Court documents also revealed that both Carter and Roy had shown signs of mental illness in the past and had been prescribed psychiatric medication.
Exploring Michelle Carter’s current whereabouts
Michelle Carter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on June 16, 2017. Judge Lawrence Moniz stated that her conversations with Conrad Roy III served as his immediate cause of suicide.
Judge Lawrence Moniz sentenced Carter to two-and-a-half years in prison, with 15 months in the Bristol County House of Corrections and five years probation on August 3, 2017.
However, the two-and-a-half-year sentence was suspended in February 2019 and the defendant began serving her remaining sentence that same month. Carter was released from prison on January 23, 2020, three months before the completion of her 15-month sentence due to “good conduct.”
According to Buzzfeed News, she was a “model inmate” in Bristol County as she maintained polite behavior with staff, found herself a job and had no other disciplinary issues. Michelle Carter was last photographed outside her prison on the day of her release two years ago.
Carter has mostly stayed out of the public eye since her release but her trial has been the subject of several projects over the years.
A Lifetime telefilm Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill was released in 2018. The following year, HBO released a two-part documentary on the case titled I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth Vs. Michelle Carter.
Hulu’s upcoming series The Girl From Plainville was announced in 2019 and is scheduled to be released sometime this year.
