You might not recognise the name Michelle Carter, but you probably recall the criminal case that was covered around the world, starting in 2015.

The transcripts of the conversations between Michelle and her then-boyfriend Conrad Roy III, shortly before he took his own life, have been well documented.

In August 2017, Michelle was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail and convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and that seemed to be the end of that.

Now documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr is on the case, and the Guardian says she “discovered a layered saga with the potential to speak volumes about the public beyond the courtroom”:

Carter had landed in the middle of a media frenzy when the shocking details of her relationship with the deceased came to light. Carter had spent a little over two years exchanging text messages and other online communiques with one Conrad Roy, a young man she had met while on vacation in Florida.

Though they only lived a brief drive from one another back in New England, their interactions were limited almost solely to the realm of the digital, where the intense bond between them slowly soured. Carter began sending increasingly disturbing sentiments to Roy, eventually building up to exhortations for him to take his own life.

When a distraught Roy sealed himself in his exhaust-filled car and stumbled out after having second thoughts, it was Carter that encouraged – commanded, some alleged – him to get back inside.

The case was literally unprecedented, a new standard-setter for manslaughter allegations with its assertion that a killing could be carried out secondhand via text message.

We know that social media bullying runs rampant (Instagram has recently taken new measures to try and curb it), but this case was certainly the first of its kind.

Here’s the trailer for the two-part doccie:

For those who love the true-crime genre, this looks like riveting viewing.

Carr, who has already made her name with a string of very popular doccies (Mommy Dead and Dearest and Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop in particular), offered her take on why we can’t stop watching:

“True crime has a way of creating a visceral, physical reaction,” Carr firmly states. “There’s nothing like hearing about other people’s hurt. We’re herd animals, and we don’t want to see other people hurting. It’s like sports, with built-in stakes that you get invested in. This is a story about human beings, people also struggling with mental health issues will see it, and so we have to make sure to be compassionate while reporting on scandal.”

The first part of I Love You, Now Die aired last night over in the US.

[source:guardian]