The extraordinary story of the Massachusetts teenagers Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy III has already been told at least three times. Once in the news reports and lurid headlines that accompanied Carter’s arrest, trial and conviction for manslaughter, then – as is legally required in the US – a Lifetime movie and a meticulous, sober, brilliant two-part documentary by Erin Lee Carr called I Love You, Now Die.
That film laid out the case against Carter as the prosecution (and headlines) had written it. Carter had, over the course of thousands of text messages with her boyfriend, Roy – who was already prone to depression and suicidal ideation – persuaded him to kill himself. Halfway through that terrible event, he got scared and abandoned the attempt. She convinced him to resume it. It was, clearly, the act of a narcissist, a psychopath, a monster.
