There is an old children’s saying, “Stick and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” When we were kids we said it after another child insulted us. It was a way to tell them that we weren’t hurt by what they said. Deep down inside we might have admitted to ourselves that what they said did hurt.
Words are powerful and can impact our lives. Proof of this just happened, which cost a person his life. But was it the person who said the words guilty of manslaughter or did the person who received the words commit suicide.
Recently, 20-year old Michelle Carter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison. This is an unprecedented case in that Carter sent texts to her friend, Conrad Roy III, telling him to kill himself. Roy, who was 18, rigged a generator to his pickup truck, jumped in the vehicle and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The fatal incident occurred in 2014 in Massachusetts. There has never been a case of manslaughter where words alone caused someone’s death.
