Michelle Carter to Be Sprung from Jail

Michelle Carter, the Plainville woman convicted in a notorious texting-suicide case, will walk out of Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth today at the age of 23.

Carter has been behind bars since January of 2019 serving a 15-month sentence. She is being released several months early for good behavior, according to the office of Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson. Hodgson said that Carter has been a "model inmate."

Carter was only 17 when she used text messages to relentlessly hounded her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III of Mattapoisett, to kill himself. His body was found in a vehicle in a Fairhaven KMart parking lot in July of 2014 after he killed himself with carbon monoxide from the vehicle's exhaust pipe. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2017 after a bench trial at Taunton District Court.

The case drew national attention because it was the first time such a case had been prosecuted. The US Supreme Court recently rejected an appeal of Carter's conviction on First Amendment grounds. Roy's family is now advocating for passage of a bill called Conrad's Law that would make it illegal to coerce someone who is known to be vulnerable to suicide.