TAUNTON, Mass. — A young woman who sent a barrage of text messages to another teenager urging him to kill himself was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter in a case that many legal experts had expected to result in an acquittal.
The verdict, handed down by a judge in a nonjury trial, was a rare legal finding that, essentially, a person’s words alone can directly cause someone else’s suicide.
The judge, Lawrence Moniz, of Bristol County Juvenile Court in southeastern Massachusetts, said the conduct of the woman, Michelle Carter, toward Conrad Roy III was not only immoral but illegal. She faces up to 20 years in prison.
Ms. Carter was 17 in July 2014 when she encouraged Mr. Roy, 18, whom she called her boyfriend, to kill himself. On July 12, while she was miles away, he drove alone to a Kmart parking lot and hooked up a water pump that emitted carbon monoxide into the cab of his truck. When he became sick from the fumes and stepped out, prosecutors said, Ms. Carter ordered him by phone to “get back in.” He was found dead the next day.
Knowing that Mr. Roy was in his truck and in a toxic environment, the judge said, Ms. Carter took no action.
“She admits in subsequent texts that she did nothing, she did not call the police or Mr. Roy’s family,” Judge Moniz said. “And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘Get out of the truck.’”
As a result, he said, her actions and her failure to act constituted wanton and reckless conduct. Asking Ms. Carter, who was sobbing, to stand, the judge concluded: “This court, having reviewed the evidence, finds you guilty on the indictment with involuntary manslaughter.”
As Judge Moniz slowly read his verdict, the only other sound in the courtroom was Ms. Carter’s quiet sobbing. A spectator let out an audible “wow” as the judge pronounced her guilty.
In the courtroom’s front benches, the two families on either side of the aisle — Ms. Carter’s and Mr. Roy’s — were also sobbing. Mr. Roy’s mother, Lynn, left the courtroom with a tissue in hand and a tight smile, while Ms. Carter rocked ever so slightly back and forth at the defense table, her chin in her hands.
Ms. Carter is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 3.
Relying heavily on voluminous online correspondence, the trial exposed the interior lives of two troubled teenagers, putting their thoughts, their secrets and their rock-bottom self-images on display. Judge Moniz said both of their families had been “immutably changed” by the case, and as arguments closed on Tuesday, Mr. Roy’s family and Ms. Carter herself were left in tears.
The judge’s decision surprised many legal experts, who had said that, despite the callousness of Ms. Carter’s conduct, the case presented a stiff challenge to prosecutors because Massachusetts, unlike dozens of other states, has no law against encouraging suicide.
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