Alice Felzmann: The Woman At The Center Of Michelle Carter/Conrad Roy 'I Love You, Now Die' HBO Documentary
She was rumored to be Carter's love interest.
getty Can you coerce someone to commit suicide? Though many states have statutes that define whether or not someone’s words can be held against them in this way, one case out of Massachusetts made for murky water on the subject.
In July 2014, 18-year-old Conrad Roy III died by committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his truck. Roy had been struggling with depression and social anxiety for quite some time, seeking out professional health weeks prior to his passing.
He had previously tried to commit suicide in October 2012 after his parents revealed they were divorcing, overdosed on cetaminophen when he was 17, and made videos talking to the camera that detailed his struggles with mental health. But his long-distance girlfriend, Michelle Carter, encouraged him to kill himself that night in July 2014, and the case was dubbed the “texting suicide case.”
The new HBO documentary, I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth Vs. Michelle Carter, discusses Roy and Carter’s relationship, the events leading up to the suicide, the thousands of text messages between the teens, and Carter’s day in court. However, the documentary also talked about a woman named Alice Felzmann.
Just who is Alice Felzmann? In the documentary, we are introduced to another side of Carter’s life, and her relationship with Felzmann, in an attempt to uncover what led her down this path and ultimately had her encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself.
Though Carter and Roy met in the summer of 2012, when vacationing with their families, that same summer, Carter began a friendship with Felzmann while playing on a traveling softball team. As the documentary explains, the two friends became extremely close, almost “inseparable” during their away games. It appears they did everything together, getting food on their own, sleeping over at each other’s homes, and bonding.
However, Felzmann ghosted Carter out of the blue. In a text to one of her friends, Sam Boardman, Carter wrote, “I don’t have a best friend that wants to hang out with me when they’re not doing anything. I mean Alice was my best friend but I guarantee that was all my fault that we aren’t now, too. And the worst part is she won’t even talk to me now and it just makes me feel like absolute s***.”
From the texts, we can form our own conclusions, but it appears she may have either been in love with Felzmann, or deeply obsessed with her.
Her texts to her classmates and other friends included exchanges, saying things like: “I’m obsessed with her like idk how to stop. Every love song or whatever, it’s her I think about,” and, “I thought it was a phase at first like I thought we were just really good friends. But we started talking like a relationship would, flirting and stuff. Like idk if I am bi. I guess because I never had that type of relationship with another girl to really tell.”
Jesse Barron, the writer of “The Girl from Plainville,” managed to get Felzmann, and her mother, Kelly, to agree to an interview to discuss what happened to their friendship, and the fallout of Carter’s texts. As Barron posed: What was Michelle Carter thinking?
Just as she had texted Boardman about her relationship with Felzmann, she also messaged other classmates. A text to friend Emmy Lambalot read, “Do you remember me being best friends with a girl named Alice?” and another said, “I just have to find a way to get closure.” It’s clear that Felzmann was on her mind.
During the interview with Felzmann, which took place at a Panera, Barron said that her mom Kelly did most of the talking. According to her, Felzmann was depressed when they first met.
“I personally think Michelle picked up on that,” she revealed, admitting a dislike for Carter from the beginning, and calling her a bad influence. “Super nice. No kid is that nice.” Kelly eventually took away her daughter’s phone, and told Felzmann, “You’re going to end all ties,” to which she obliged.
One year later, Felzmann received a handwritten letter believed to be from Carter, which Kelly never showed her daughter. The letters were written in a way that would make one believe they were love letters.
Felzmann didn’t show Barron the letters, but eventually spoke about how Carter spoke about their friendship in “romantic terms.” Carter said Felzmann was her first kiss, but Felzmann disputed this, saying their relationship was never physical and that Carter made it up.
Considering how Carter was in a dark place when she encouraged Roy to take his own life, it’s clear she wanted attention. And when Felzmann’s mother knew that Carter was a bad influence on her daughter, cutting ties may have driven Carter to do the unthinkable.
Samantha Maffucci is an editor for YourTango who focuses on writing trending news and entertainment pieces. In her free time, you can find her obsessing about cats, wine, and all things Vanderpump Rules.