Now that The Girl From Plainville is streaming, audiences are looking for the true story behind how Conrad Roy died in real life.
The Girl From Plainville, which premiered on March 29, 2022 on Hulu, explores the relationship between Massachusetts teenagers Michelle Carter, played by Elle Fanning, and Conrad Henri Roy III, played by Colton Ryan. Based on journalist Jesse Baron’s 2017 Esquire article of the same name, the eight-part series spans seven years as it follows the events leading up to Roy’s death in 2014 and the fallout that ensued, including a trial that saw Carter accused of involuntary manslaughter over her then-boyfriend’s death.
The trial, along with the Hulu series, cited hundreds of text messages, emails and phone calls recorded between Carter and Roy before he died as evidence in his case. By 2017, Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for Roy’s death. She was later released from prison early due to good conduct in January 2020, having served a total of 11 months and 12 days out of her 15-month sentence.
But today, some viewers may still have questions about where Carter is now and how Roy died. Keep on reading ahead for everything we know about the real story behind Hulu’s true-crime series.
Who is Conrad Roy?
Conrad Henri Roy III was born in the Massachusetts town of Mattapoisett in 1995. As a child and teen, he struggled with social anxiety and depression. He worked with his father, grandfather and uncle at his family’s maritime salvage company, Tucker-Roy Marine Towing and Salvage Inc., while attending high school. In 2014, he earned his captain’s license from the Northeast Maritime Institute, along with graduating from Old Rochester Regional High School with a 3.88 GPA. He was a standout student and athlete, landing himself on the honor roll and competing in baseball, rowing crew and track and field events. After graduating from high school, Roy was admitted to Fitchburg State University, but he elected not to pursue his degree in business at the time.
Roy met Carter before graduation. The pair reportedly met for the first time in Florida in 2012 when they both happened to be in the state on family vacations. They discovered that they lived less than an hour apart from each other in Massachusetts. From there, Roy and Carter struck up a romantic relationship and dated for two years. Although they were both from neighboring suburbs in Massachusetts, they only saw each other in person a handful of times after their plans to meet up kept falling through. However, the pair had an intense relationship that they kept alive over texts, as they exchanged thousands of messages on serious topics ranging from Carter’s experience with eating disorders, to Roy’s struggles with depression.
What happened to Conrad Roy?
Image: Steve Dietl/Hulu.
Following his parent’s divorce in 2012, Roy attempted to commit suicide for the first time. According to court documents, Carter initially discouraged Roy’s suicide attempts and urged him to “get professional help.” However, after two years together, Carter’s attitude seemingly shifted.
In 2014, Carter, 17, sent Roy instructions on how to kill himself. Roy ultimately died by suicide on July 13, 2014, after poisoning himself with carbon monoxide fumes in his truck in a K-Mart parking lot. He was 18 years old at the time. In her last text to him, Carter instructed Roy to “get back in” the truck after he tried to stop his suicide attempt.
Fanning, who plays Carter in Hulu’s The Girl From Plainville, believes that the series portrays Roy’s death in a way that can hopefully help viewers in the future. “Ultimately, it had the most tragic ending that anything could have, but our show really explores the grieving process, it explores loneliness, it explores mental health and young people,” she told Entertainment Tonight in March 2022. “I think that it pushed forward conversations of destigmatizing mental health and, in a way, it serves as a cautionary tale as well of, ‘If you see someone showing signs of this, to get help and to not be afraid to talk about those feelings that a lot of us share and have.’”
What were Conrad Roy’s texts with Michelle Carter?
Image: Steve Dietl/Hulu.
Within the dozens of pages of text messages gathered by investigators, the conversations carried out on the day of Roy’s death are among the most unsettling in the case. Carter started out the day texting Roy about his plans to kill himself and urging him not to put it off any longer. “You keep pushing it off and you say you’ll do it but u never do. Its always gonna be that way if u don’t take action,” she wrote, adding, “You’re just making it harder on yourself by pushing it off, you just have to do it.”
In her texts, Carter went on to instruct Roy about taking his truck to a parking lot in broad daylight. When Roy voiced concerns that this might look “suspicious,” Carter insisted that it wasn’t. “Its less suspicious, you won’t think about it as much, and you’ll get it over with instead of waiting until the night,” she wrote in one message. Later, she asked if he was ready. “I guess,” Roy replied, mentioning he was “freaking out again” and “overthinking” the decision.
“I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it! You can’t keep living this way,” Carter wrote. “You just need to do it like you did last time and not think about it and just do it babe. You can’t keep doing this everyday.”
Roy said he did “want to” move forward with his plan, but admitted again that he was “freaking out” for his family. Carter went on to suggest that she would be there for them after his death. “I told you I’ll take care of them. Everyone will take care of them to make sure they won’t be alone and people will help them get thru it,” she wrote. Later, Roy and Carter continued to exchange texts until a final string of messages yielded no response from Roy. That evening, Roy drove his pickup truck to an empty parking lot and turned on a gas-powered water pump, causing lethal carbon monoxide to seep into his vehicle. His funeral was held six days later on Saturday, July 19, 2014, at St. Anthony’s Church in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.
The Girl From Plainville is available to stream on Hulu. Here’s how else to watch it for free.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
Source: Stylecaster.com
