On the initial search, they found nothing and headed back up river.

And that’s actually when we found his raft.

That’s a raft.

It’s uh blue.

They landed on a sandy bank of the river and were in for a surprise.

There was a small dog that was there and barking at us.

He had a sweater on which was pretty dirty, but I’m quite certain that that sweater saved his life.

There were three of us on the ground the whole time.

Aside from the raft and his dog, we could find really nothing else.

No backpack, nothing.

Leo seemed frightened, but Aaron eventually coaxed him to eat a cliff bar the pilot had on board.

And at the point where we had to leave, I had a big thick jacket and I just threw it over him and scooped him up and brought him on the helicopter.

Kathy saw the heartbreaking news on TV.

Only Leo had been rescued.

It was uh probably one of the worst days of my life.

The treasure hunting community got word of this and many of these people wanted to help.

Determined to find Ry’s body, drone pilots shot hours of footage that was posted online so the treasure hunt community could go through it frame by frame looking for signs of Randy.

Other searchers put boots on the ground.

It was rugged.

I mean, it was harder than any treasure searching any of us had done.

It was rough.

We searched very very hard every day for over a month.

Forest Fen rode in a helicopter to look for Randy.

Fen also met with Kathy when she came to Santa Fe.

Fen was sympathetic, but told her he wasn’t willing to call off the treasure hunt.

I think a lot of people could argue that his priorities are perhaps not what they should be.

That instead of the people or the human cost, he cared a lot more potentially about his treasure hunt.

And the treasure hunt was everything to fend.

Even though it put his family at risk.

Forest was harassed over the years.

His family was harassed.

There’s a man who’s done prison for stalking Forest’s granddaughter.

Get on your knees.

Get on your knees.

And this man, Robert Miller, was arrested for burglary in 2018 at Fen’s Santa Fe home.

So, what the hell is going on? I thought the poem directed me into here.

I thought it said poem.

Yeah, the the treasure map, the treasure hunt, you know.

So, you came on the property because of the poem? Are you serious? Yeah.

What did his family think about all this? Uh, I think his family had a hard time with it, honestly.

Even with all of that, Forest saw how much good his treasure hunt did for how many people, and he know that the good far outweighed the bad.

The search for the treasure continued as did the search for Randy.

6 months after he went missing, his body was found on the riverbank.

Obviously, we were devastated that he wasn’t alive.

He was a great father, grandfather, and uncle to my son.

With Randy gone, Leo was adopted by none other than Aaron Johnson.

Leo, the nurse who rescued him.

Good boy.

In the five years with his new family, the ultimate rescue dog has even learned some new tricks.

Okay, turn around.

Kathy is happy he’s found a new home.

Good boy.

But she thinks about her brother every day.

I wished he’d been more careful.

I wished he hadn’t gone out that day, but you know, he was enjoying what he was doing.

Randy was not the last to die searching for Fen’s gold.

The next year, the hunt claimed three more lives.

He had become obsessed by Ven’s treasure, and that was the only thing that mattered to him.

In June 2017, a year and a half after Randy Billu died, three more men lost their lives in a matter of weeks.

Jeff Murphy was searching in Yellowstone National Park, very tragically just misststepped and ended up falling off of a cliff and passing away.

Around the same time, writer Dan Barbaresi went on his first search with his treasure hunting partner Jay Rener.

What was it like going from 4 months of research on a computer to being out there in the wilderness? The first thing that stood out to me, how much bigger a point on a map is in real life.

You know, you look on a map, oh, this isn’t that big.

I can cross this area with just my finger alone.

Once you’re actually out in the wild, you see how big those distances are and how much land there actually is out there pretty quickly.

It really hits you in the face pretty fast.

Reality wasn’t the only thing hitting Dan and Jay in the face.

We’re out there thinking that we’re, you know, adventurers, explorers, and all of a sudden it starts hailing.

And we very quickly realize that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

Days later, in that same exact area, a Colorado pastor named Paris Wallace set off to search the Rio Grand near the Tal Junction Bridge.

As you move through life, there are those points where you have to seek God to find out what he wants you to do.

And he crossed the river by himself, and it was high waters.

Then Paris’s body was recovered 4 days later a few miles down river.

His death spurred the New Mexico State Police Chief to ask Fen to call off the hunt.

Fen refused.

There was a huge amount of anger at Fen over this.

I mean, you can understand why.

I mean, this is a treasure hunt.

It doesn’t need to exist.

And yet, he wouldn’t stop it even after multiple people had died.

That’s a pretty hard stance to take.

Fen justified continuing the hunt by pointing out that any outdoor activity came with risks.

In the summertime, we jump in a swimming pool.

But if somebody drowns in the swim pool, should should we drain the pool or should we teach people to swim? That’s the way I feel about it.

And the treasure community rallied around Fen in support of the hunt.

Here I go.

99.

9% of people who go out looking for his treasure make it home safely with tons of memories and new experiences to treasure.

And Fan did keep warning searchers to be safe, be more careful, be more mindful.

He constantly reminded everyone to not go anywhere a 79 or 80-year-old man couldn’t go.

Many searchers, Dan says, set off on the treasure trail with great excitement, but sometimes were unprepared for how wild the wilderness can be.

Searchers like Eric Ashby understood the risks and were willing to take them.

Fear was not part of his game.

He didn’t know how to be afraid.

Paul Ashby raised his son Eric as a single father in the mountains of Tennessee.

Eric grew up playing sports, riding motorcycles, and was taken by the quest at the center of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Eric was a great kid.

Everybody who knew him loved him.

In 2016, Eric moved to Colorado.

He told his dad he was headed west to take part in his own quest.

Fen’s thrill of the chase.

He became obsessed.

Dad, I can do this.

Was he motivated by the money the treasure represented or by the recognition solving it? Oh, sincerely the recognition.

The money to him was totally irrelevant.

Eric told his father he was going out to search the Arkansas River outside Canyon City, Colorado.

More than a week later, Paul got a phone call from a woman who said her name was Becca.

She told me on the phone, “Mr.

Ashby, your son is drowned.

” And she says, “I’m sorry, Mr.

Ashby, your son is dead.

” And she hung up.

Becca turned out to be Rebecca Ny, who had worked with Eric.

She and three men were with Eric at the river and they had drawn up this contract outlining exactly how they had split the treasure.

She later told police what happened that day.

He said he had swam the river that we were about to cross 10 times before.

And so, you know, we we figured though we should be fine.

Becca said they’d bought a twoperson raft, but Eric got in alone and had no life preserver.

So, he just um jumped out.

It looked like he had made it to the rock, but then we didn’t see him anymore.

And that was right where the rapids, you know, would have taken him.

Becca told police two of the men went down river to look for Eric, where they saw a photographer who told them he called 911.

The photographer also captured this photo of Eric’s empty raft.

Hearing someone had called police, Becca and the others went back to their car and went home.

A decision Becca tried to explain.

I want to know why why no one stayed there to tell us this information because again now I’m easily harm to see what we should have done.

But in the moment, we never been involved with things like that.

Eric stepped into a situation that was impossible.

Nobody could have done it.

The thing that makes it worse is that nobody stopped him and that it was just a case of oh well.

Eric was worth so much more to me than oh well.

After Eric’s body was recovered, Paul traveled to the river to see where his son had died.

I took the excursion train that comes down the gorge and one of the company managers was on the train with me and he went into the bar, the lounge car, and come back with a beer.

He says, “This is for you and your son, and we shared our last beer right there.

” Paul says he never heard from Forest Finn.

If you had been able to reach Forest Fen, what would you say to him? Say, “Mr.

Finn, is this something one day you’re going to have to go to whoever our maker is and say, “Yes, these people were drowning or dying, falling off cliffs, whatever.

” And I could have stopped it, and I chose not to.

I was honestly surprised that it didn’t end in that summer of 2017.

But the hunt did not end.

And in March 2020, a fifth man died.

About 2:00 in the morning, I looked up, the stars were out.

I looked over, you know, to my left, and there was Mike.

It was like, “Oh, I I I remember telling myself, “Oh, no, Mike.

” What do you think of Forest Fen’s decision to continue the treasure hunt? Learn more about the search for the treasure at 48 hours.

com.

Mike was the kind of guy that walked into a room smiling and made everybody feel better just by coming around.

Beth Van O says her longtime boyfriend Mike Sexon knew about Randy, Jeff, Paris, and Eric, the others who died while searching for Fen’s treasure.

I think Mike knew of the dangers.

He just maybe ignored a little bit of it or thought he could get around it.

It had been nearly 3 years since any searchers had died.

I think people thought that maybe they had gotten past that point where people aren’t going to die anymore looking for this.

Mike was convinced he knew where the treasure was along the Colorado Utah border in Dinosaur National Monument.

He made nearly a dozen trips there, but he needed someone with a four-wheel drive truck to help.

That’s how his poker buddy, Steven Enloow, got involved with the hunts.

I was very excited to be with Mike on these trips.

I just enjoyed traveling with him.

This is the first time Steven has spoken publicly about their ordeal that began in late February 2020.

The men rented snowmobiles in Denver and set off for Mike’s spot.

The snowmobiles proved to be too heavy for the depth of snow that we had.

Mike and Steven got stuck, but managed to call 911.

Is anybody injured? No.

No, we’re not injured.

Just stuck.

Looks like I’ve got a pretty good location on you.

I’m going to get you some help headed your way.

Okay.

They were rescued, but the close call didn’t deter the pair from going back out just a few weeks later on March 17th, 2020.

Days into the COVID pandemic, Mike was adamant that he wanted to make another trip before the quarantine started.

Mike and Steven drove to Salt Lake City where they rented snowmobiles they thought would be better on the terrain.

On the second day in the wilderness, they left their truck 5 miles from the main road and headed off for a day trip on the snowmobiles.

We left a lot of our provisions back in the truck thinking we were just going to be gone three or four hours.

We take off from the snowmobiles and we’re on the south side of the mountain this time and we ran out snow.

It became dry.

They left even more supplies on the snowmobiles and set off on foot with a sled to carry home the treasure, which Mike believed was close.

We had some some candy bars, a couple of energy bars, and uh maybe a gallon and a half of water between the two of us.

It didn’t look that far away, but it proved to be uh ridge over ridge over ridge that took a a lot longer than I thought it was going to take.

By 6:00 on Wednesday, I was kind of nervous.

I hadn’t heard from him.

When the men hadn’t returned the snowmobiles Wednesday night, the rental company called the police who called Beth and Steven’s wife.

Not knowing was just the worst.

Just the most awful thing.

Mike tried to hike to higher ground to get a cell signal, but hours later returned unsuccessful.

At that point, both men were so exhausted, all they could do was lay where they were.

The next day, it began to snow.

They had no more water.

I remember my hands and knees eating the snow crystals and blood was dripping from my mouth, staining the snow.

I cried for help.

I asked God.

I asked Jesus.

Just anyone call 911.

We need help.

Desperate for hydration, Steven began drinking his own urine and felt warmth spread throughout his body.

And I I could just feel that was a moment that I’m going to live.

And I told Mike he’s got to quit eating the snow when he was shivering and told him what he needed to do.

And he said he’d rather die.

On Friday, we could hear helicopters on the other side of the mountain side and we knew they were out searching for us.

And so that gave us hope, but we never saw the helicopter.

That night, I woke up about 2:00 in the morning and Mike was about 6 feet away from me.

He was on his hands and knees with his arms cupped around his head, his head flat on the ground, and he had no shirt on.

And so I knew he had died and I knew why.

Hypothermia.

People suffering from extreme cold can feel hot in the moments just before they die.

I I remember telling myself, “Oh no, Mike.

” Later that Saturday, Steven heard the helicopters again, louder this time, and saw them down in the canyon below.

With all the strength he could muster, he grabbed the orange sled and he waved it toward the helicopter.

And then just like in the movies, the helicopter rose up above the cliff and I knew I was saved and I passed out.

Next thing I knew, two guys were picking me up, asking me if I could walk.

I couldn’t even stand.

And I I just remember whispering, “Goodbye, Mike.

” Mike was later taken off the mountain in a body bag.

Beth got the devastating news that afternoon.

I mean, you can say I love you, but until somebody’s really gone and you can’t say it anymore, you just don’t realize you have more than that to say.

A year later, Beth and Mike’s friend Liz Key finds solace in that last photo.

His grand smile, the look in his eye of yes, this is where I want to be.

I am very sad that he’s gone, but I’m glad that he he did what he loved to do.

Mike was the fifth person to die seeking Fen’s treasure.

He was also the last because only 3 months later, Forest Fen made a stunning announcement.

The message was very short and simple.

It said, “The treasure has been found.

[Applause] Early last summer, just as thousands of treasure hunters were about to begin looking yet again for Forest Fen’s chest of gold, they got a piece of news that left them reeling.

My heart stopped, honestly.

I was like, “Oh my god.

” Uh, I cannot believe this has actually happened.

Did somebody really find it or you know and if so who? The news broke on June 6th, 2020 when Fen made the stunning announcement in a brief post he sent to a blog used by the searcher community.

Fen wrote, “The treasure has been found and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago.

I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot.

Overnight, the gold rush that had sustained the searchers was over and many were left feeling a bit cheated.

We didn’t have a name.

We didn’t have where it had been found.

We didn’t have any other any other information other than it had been found where he had left it.

And is it really really really true that they found it? I want to see, you know.

So the guy did send pictures.

For the first time, searchers could see Forest pouring over the contents of his famous treasure chest.

It looked pretty authentic to me, you know, very authentic.

But like everyone else, Katya yearned to know the finder’s solve.

How had he deciphered those clues in the poem? The finder wouldn’t say, but a month later, Fen revealed the treasure had been found in Wyoming.

Then two months later on September 7th, 2020, Forest Fen died at his home where he had just turned 90 years old.

I find myself thinking of Forest often and um I miss our conversations very much.

The Finder may have remained anonymous forever, except for a lawsuit that required the Fen family to reveal his name.

The Finder knew it was only a matter of time.

So, he came out to Dan Barbaresi, who wrote an article for Outside magazine.

Who did find the treasure? A man named Jack Stew found the treasure.

and he was uh you know a medical student who had gotten obsessed with this chase uh around 2018.

He you know was very very committed to his sol.

Hey guys, this is Jack in this online message to other searchers.

Our challenge is to try not to make guesses.

Jack Steuf had shared his approach to cracking fence poem.

It is simple and clear and straightforward.

You need simplicity in yourself.

Dan says Jack had been searching for at least two years.

And then one day in a Wyoming forest, Jack says he uncovered the chest.

It had almost been covered by leaves and debris, but Jack said the lid was still visible.

He became very paranoid that somebody was going to stumble upon him in that moment.

Jack says he hightailed it to Santa Fe where these photos were taken.

They seemed to back up Jack’s story, but fan watcher Toby Eunis was skeptical.

Here is my theory.

The hunt was moving forward.

Forest was aging.

The family, Forest’s family, was frustrated with the state of the search.

Their houses had been broken into.

Their children had been threatened with kidnapping.

They were never lovers of the Forest Fen treasure hunt.

Toby has no evidence, but believes that Fen, knowing he had only months to live, looked around for someone who was close to finding the treasure.

Toby believes Fen reached out to Jack.

I imagine this is how it went.

I want you to know that I’m dying.

I want you to know that I don’t want to leave this treasure hunt to my family and I’m going to ask you for a favor.

Forest had a a saying that he used often.

There’s an old saying, two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

Jack refused our request for an interview, but denied he had any help from Fen.

As he wrote online, “I am not and was never employed by Forest, nor did he pick me in any way to retrieve the treasure.

I was a stranger to him and found the treasure as he designed it to be found.

” I do not believe it is part of a conspiracy engineered by Fen to give Jack the treasure or anything else of that sort.

Dan is in a unique position because he’s the only journalist who has interviewed Jack.

Jack even allowed Dan to examine the treasure.

These photos have rarely been seen.

You were able to actually hold the treasure, to touch it, to see it in person.

Yes.

You know, I have seen and touched and felt and gone through the chest.

It was kind of an incredible moment.

Honestly, Jack told Dan he will not reveal the exact spot where he found the chest because he fears it would become a tourist attraction that would ruin the area’s serenity and natural beauty.

I think we will never find out truly where it was found.

And there could be another reason.

Fen’s original intent to lay down and die at the very spot where he hid his treasure.

I don’t want to be buried.

If I had my way, I’d lay down under a tree and go and uh just like a big old buffalo lays down and dies.

Go back to nature.

Become become part of the earth again.

Jack says he offered to put Fen’s ashes in that special spot, but will not say if the family accepted his offer.

Dan says he doesn’t know what Jack intends to do with the treasure, whether he will sell it peace meal or as one, or perhaps lease it for display.

What is in the end the legacy of Forest Fen? I think the legacy of Forest Fen is extremely complicated.

I think that there were a lot of good things that happened because of it.

There are also some really bad things that happened because of it.

But if you’re Paul Ashb who lost his only son Eric to the hunt, one of the five men to die chasing the thrill, Fen’s legacy is not complicated at all.

He was reckless.

He was willing to ignore the fact that people were dying because all these other people worshiped him.

A lot of people still do look up to Forest Fen and maybe that’s not so surprising when you feel a dream you know live your dream out follow your heart and okay so I didn’t find the treasure but I found many treasures this in itself is the biggest treasure of all that I found so many magical wonderful things I could never replace um without that treasure hunt.

I’m so grateful for Forest.

Thank you.

Thank you, Forest.

CBS next Saturday.

48 Hours brings you backtoback episodes all summer long.

This week, killer contestants.

He is the serial killer that we always suspected him to be.

You just want to wake up and have it not be real.

48 hours prime time double feature next Saturday 98 central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.

Hi, this is Conrad Rug and I’m going to talk to you about social anxiety.

social anxiety, depression, it’s controlling me.

There’s people that love me.

I have a great mom, great dad, but I’m so depressed.

We spent the day walking the beach and we had a conversation and I asked him about school and he’s like, “Um, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

” And I said, you know, don’t worry about it.

Everything is going to be okay.

It was a nice day out with the family.

Nothing to give any hint of what was to come later in the day.

There was no indication anything was going on.

I’ve created a monster out of myself past few years because of my depression.

Racing thoughts, suicidal thoughts.

Do you remember when is the last time you saw your brother? He was like going at the door.

I thought he was just going to his friend’s house.

You got up in the morning and how did you know he hadn’t come home? He wasn’t there and we just like couldn’t find him.

This is not like Conrad not to come home.

Then they found his body and around 5:30 in the afternoon and he died in his truck.

carbon monoxide poisoning.

I will live with this forever.

Um the pain.

Right away we heard from investigators that medical examiner found that it was a suicide.

It wasn’t until they started looking at his phone that they realized that there was something else going on here because on that phone were hundreds and hundreds of texts from Michelle Carter to Conrad Roy urging him to end his life.

You can’t think about it.

You just have to do it.

You said you were going to do it.

Like, I don’t get why you aren’t.

And Michelle Carter admittedly said, “Do it.

” She was kind of making fun of him for for not taking his own life.

I thought you really wanted to die, but apparently you don’t.

I feel played and just stupid.

You’re going to have to prove me wrong because I just don’t think you really want this.

And she kept pressuring him to do it.

You’re ready.

and prepared.

All you have to do is turn the generator on and you be free and happy.

No more pushing it off.

No more waiting.

There was one point where he actually got out of the truck.

Mhm.

And changed his mind.

Yeah.

He was scared and she told him to go back in the truck.

Yes.

Carter charged with involuntary manslaughter.

She faces up to 20 years in prison.

This is totally out of left field.

I coached Michelle.

I know her as a good kid.

I don’t believe that she has a conscience.

She knew exactly what she was doing and what she said.

Hang yourself, jump off a building, stab yourself, I don’t know.

There’s a lot of ways.

And it’s the texts that become the weapon.

How could she cause a death when she was 35 m away? In these circumstances, this is almost akin to loading the gun and handing it over.

Who knows? Who knows when you have your hand in the trigger when you’re sending a text? It’s not realistic what what’s going in my head that keeps on piling and piling and piling.

One month before 18-year-old Conrad Roy took his own life, when the minds of many teens wandered to carefree summer days, Conrad’s thoughts were more serious, introspective.

I need to be comfortable with my skin.

Sitting at his computer and his home in Fair Haven, Massachusetts, Conrad recorded his thoughts on coping with his depression.

I need to relax.

I really do.

He wanted to excel.

He was just wanted to be this like great person.

But in my eyes, Conrad’s mother, Lynn, explains that her son could be his own toughest critic.

It was rough on himself.

He really really struggled with um just disappointing I think myself and his dad.

The sooner I like myself, the better I’m going to be.

Lenroy thought her son was getting better.

I I do have a lot going for me.

He was getting professional help and on an anti-depressant, Selexa.

He had been licensed to be a tugboat captain like his dad.

That’s a huge accomplishment to be a captain.

had just graduated high school and college with a scholarship was on the horizon and he was doing everything that was positive that was, you know, looking towards his future.

But on July 12th, 2014, Conrad drove to a parking lot and using a gasoline powered water pump, sat in his pickup truck as it filled with carbon monoxide, knowingly inhaling the deadly fumes, killing himself.

All the while, his friend Michelle Carter, then 17, was encouraging Conrad from more than 30 miles away on her phone to take his own life.

I don’t understand why you would want someone that was so beautiful inside and out, that had so much that was such a kind person to die.

How do you describe what this young woman did? I cannot only only she she can.

The intersection of the lives of Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy has left a trail of heartbreak and questions about the circumstances that led to such a tragic death.

He’s one of the kindest persons.

He grew up very sensitive, very humble and kind, happy child.

Very happy.

Many pictures of him smiling, laughing until he became a teenager.

And I don’t know if it was the hormones, he just, you know, became anxious.

Conrad was the oldest child in the family with two sisters, Morgan and Camden.

Lynn and Conrad’s father separated when Conrad was 16, and their divorce hit him especially hard.

I think he was just more worried about me.

That’s what boys do.

They worry about their moms um a lot.

Conrad would confide in his friend Ariana Taylor as they spent hours walking along the water.

He didn’t really wasn’t able to explain it to me in a way that I could understand.

So, he kind of just described it as a darkness and how there would be times where he just kind of wanted to isolate himself from everybody.

Conrad’s anxiety and self-doubt had troubled Lynn since he was 16.

He started uh having trouble sleeping and we got him treated and then he had his first uh suicide attempt a year after the age of 17.

Conrad had overdosed on acetaminophen.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital and I never imagined that one of my children would um have those feelings.

Do you think he really intended to kill himself at that point? He did contact a friend.

That friend was Ariana.

He told me that he was really sick and that his mom had just left and that he wanted her to come back.

Ariana immediately got in touch with Conrad’s parents who brought him to the hospital.

He told me, “Mom, I will never do that again.

” He was sorry, and I was sorry as well that he felt that way.

The fact that he wanted you to call his mother, what does that say to you? It just says that he was calling out for help, that he didn’t actually mean what he was doing, but he really needed help and that this was the only way he kind of thought that he would really get help.

And that help seemed to be working.

He actually was getting a lot better.

He told me about how he was going out and he was going to like, you know, the high school parties and just hanging out with everybody.

I was like, “That’s amazing.

” Michelle Carter was another friend of Conrads.

They met in 2012 while both were vacationing in Florida.

Conrad and his sisters were visiting relatives who happened to know Michelle.

How would you describe Michelle? Friendly.

Yeah, she’s really friendly.

She always made Conrad laugh.

As it turned out, Michelle lived just a few towns over from the Roy in Massachusetts.

And the relationship continued after the vacation.

But while Michelle called Conrad her boyfriend, his family says the two rarely saw each other.

And like so many teens, their interactions were mostly over text messages.

Had your son ever mentioned Michelle Carter? Yes.

After they met in Florida? I met her 2013 at his baseball game and that was the only time I ever met her.

Second time was at his week.

Michelle and Conrad shared something in common that Lynn did not know.

Michelle had her own struggles, including an eating disorder, and both teens at times took anti-depressants.

You know, probably the interaction was they both had their issues.

Softball coach Ed McFarland has known Michelle Carter and her family for a decade.

The Michelle he knows is an ideal teammate.

I’ve never seen her do a mean thing.

I’ve never seen her be mean.

Michelle’s high school yearbook paints a picture of an active, well-liked student, one voted class clown, and most likely to brighten your day.

But that would not be how her actions would be described on the last day of Conrad’s life.

That day started out seemingly happy for Conrad, spending time with his family.

That morning on the 12th, what was his mood like? It was fine.

He wanted to, you know, go to the beach with the girls.

While there, Camden at one point noticed her brother sitting alone texting.

Did you know who he was texting with? No.

Now you think he was texting with Michelle Carter? Yeah.

But you didn’t know that at the time.

And what was his demeanor? I don’t know.

He I don’t know.

He kind of seemed like anxious like when he was like texting.

Conrad then took his sisters out for ice cream where his mood seemed to lift.

I mean, when you think back on that, would you have ever guessed there was anything wrong that afternoon? After going home, Conrad left at about 6:00 pm telling his mother he was going to see a friend.

And I asked him if he was going to be back for dinner, and he said he didn’t think so.

And that was the last words that he spoke to me.

It was July 12th, 2014, the heart of summer in New England.

Conrad Roy had headed out in his pickup truck around 6:00 pm As the evening passed, Lynn checked to see when he’d be home.

And I texted him, I don’t know, before I went to bed, maybe around 10:30, 11.

And then I texted him again in the middle of the night.

Conrad didn’t respond.

Still, Lynn figured everything was okay.

She believed he had beaten back much of his anxieties.

That night, Conrad’s sister, Camden, unexpectedly heard from Michelle Carter, that 17-year-old who had battled her own mental health issues and lived about an hour away.

How surprised were you that you suddenly got a text from Michelle? And I thought she was just like just like his friend.

And but in the text she said like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now.

And I was just like I looked at my mom I was like they are whether teenage love or something else.

Michelle was sending out the word.

Had anyone heard from Conrad Roy? And what did she text you exactly? She was like um hey Camden like do you know where your brother is? Was that unusual for him not to come home? Oh yeah, absolutely.

That was not like him at all.

It was sunrise and still not a word.

So in the morning I went to by Ariana’s house and he wasn’t there.

And so that’s when I began to search where is he? What happened? We went by dad’s house.

There’s no sign of him.

Maybe an hour later, I felt like like this um rush go through my body that I’ve never felt in my life.

And I felt at that point that he wasn’t with me.

On the afternoon of July 13th, police found him inside his pickup truck parked at the local Kmart, his cell phone right next to him.

And he died in his truck.

Carbon monoxide poisoning.

like got in the car and my mom was just like crying like the most I ever seen her cry and she was like, “He’s gone.

” And like she was just like, “Your brother’s gone.

” It still hurts just as much as it did then, doesn’t it? I will live with this forever.

Um the pain.

I don’t get why it happened.

Why did it happen? Why did it happen to him? And Michelle seemed to take Conrad’s death as hard as anyone.

Once again, a text was her choice of communication.

This time to Lynn.

I am so very sorry.

Conrad meant so much to me.

No one questioned the suicide until cops got a hold of Conrad Royy’s phone.

It would prove to be an investigation like no other.

No gun, no knife, no crucial DNA in this case.

Only this, a trail of words starting with those on the cell phone.

Messages with Michelle Carter.

And once investigators found this dialogue, they knew that there was something else up and they wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Former Boston Herald legal columnist and 48 Hours consultant Bob McGovern.

And so this thing turned from a suicide investigation into a homicide investigation.

Michelle seemed to be encouraging Conrad not to live, but to die.

Text flew between the two of them for more than a week, right up to the moment he took his own life.

I’m determined.

I’m happy to hear that.

When you get back from the beach, you got to do it.

No more thinking.

Yes.

No more thinking.

you need to just do it.

But now with Conrad Roy dead, Michelle seemed devastated, acting as if his death was a total surprise.

When it came to the funeral, she sat up close to kind of where the family area was.

I always described her seen as the grieving widow.

She was just um constantly like sobbing.

And two months later, Michelle even held a fundraiser to honor Conrad in her town of Planeville.

That fall, investigators interviewed Michelle Carter at her high school.

Did you do you think you had contact with him that day? I think so.

But Michelle’s story was riddled with holes and police weren’t buying it.

They poured through her cell phone.

Her texts ranged from urgent to ominous.

Like one sent to her friend Samantha Boardman on July 12th at 8:02 pm Just minutes after police believe Conrad killed himself.

He just called me.

I heard moaning like someone was in pain and he wouldn’t answer when I said his name.

That text was followed by another.

I think he just killed himself.

Michelle was texting her friend, but what she wasn’t doing was calling for help.

And there was at least one more text found on Conrad’s phone that now seems telling.

Only moments before he died, Michelle asked him this.

Did you delete the messages? Police would extract more than a thousand deleted text messages between Conrad and Michelle.

Some showed his fear and reluctance to take his life on the very day he died.

I don’t know.

I’m freaking out again.

I do want to, but like I’m freaking out for my family.

But even as Conrad panicked and considered abandoning his plan to die, Michelle egged him on.

She described it to her friend Samantha that September in this text.

Sam, his death is my fault.

Like honestly, I could have stopped him.

I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I effing told him to get back in.

The road to justice would be complicated.

Massachusetts has no law against encouraging or assisting suicide.

And Michelle was miles away when Conrad died.

People don’t realize in our generation texting does a lot.

It’s like having the person right there in front of you when you’re texting somebody.

And the Supreme Court of Massachusetts seems to agree.

In the summer of 2016, the court ruled that even though Michelle was an hour away when Conrad Roy died, she had a virtual presence that night in that pickup truck.

It’s a controversial legal theory born out of a digital world.

And so nearly 3 years later, Michelle Carter will stay on trial in this courtroom for involuntary manslaughter.

Michelle’s attorneys, fearing how the text would play, advised her to wave her right to a jury trial.

She put her fate in the hands of a veteran judge, Lawrence Monz.

Are you doing that of your own free will, known only involuntarily? Yes.

See more of Michelle Carter’s texts to Conrad Roy on Facebook at 48 hours.

She assisted and devised and advised and planned his suicide.

Inside this Massachusetts courtroom, Michelle Carter, now 20 years old, looks more like a prep school student than a criminal defendant.

And on July 12th, 2014, as his truck was filling with carbon monoxide, he was scared.

He got out.

It was the defendant on the other end of the phone who ordered him back in, then listened for 20 minutes as he cried in pain, took his last breath, and died.

The alleged weapon in this case, Michelle Carter’s own words.

What she did in theory, according to prosecutors, is she recklessly caused Conrad Royy’s death.

The state’s case revolves around Michelle’s chilling text messages to Conrad as he was apparently having second thoughts the day he took his life.

The defendant texted Conrad, “You can’t think about it.

You just have to do it.

You said you were going to do it.

I don’t get why you aren’t.

” And then there was this.

10 days before he died, Michelle sent him this text message assuring him not to worry about his family’s feelings.

Yeah, they’ll probably blame themselves for a while, but they will get over it and learn to accept it.

A notion that baffles and upsets Conrad’s mother.

I think she needs to be uh held responsible for her actions cuz she knew exactly what she was doing.

Linroy testified that on the last day of his life, Conrad was in a good frame of mind.

He was eating tortilla chips and guacamole on the way to the beach.

In um July of 2014, did he ever mention he wanted to harm himself? No.

I knew he was a little depressed, but I thought he was he was doing great.

But prosecutors contend that Michelle and her incessant texting had immense influence over Conrad.

Even though Michelle was more than 30 miles away from him when he took his life, that her virtual presence caused him to do it.

She helped him devise a plan to kill himself using a combustion engine to poison himself with carbon monoxide gas.

Michelle sent Conrad this text message.

I’m not going to sleep until you are in the car with a generator on.

Your honor, this case is a suicide case.

It is not a homicide.

But defense attorney Joseph Cataldo painted a very different picture.

The evidence of the texting is overwhelming that Conrad Roy was on this path to take his own life for years.

Michelle Kata was not present.

Michelle Kata had been texting with him.

She did not physically see this individual for over one year.

The defense brings up Conrad’s acetaminophen overdose when he was 17 and claims he had been suicidal for years, in part because of his parents’ divorce and he had a contentious relationship with his father.

And if the judge is considering Michelle’s text messages, he should look at all the messages between the teenagers.

Even up to a month before Conrad’s death, Michelle seemed like a concerned friend, trying to help a socially awkward and emotionally fragile Conrad.

On June 19th, Michelle texts Conrad, “Are you 100% positive you’re never going to commit suicide? Be honest with me.

Do you think about doing it?” “No, I’m not.

” In other messages, she talks about wanting to take him to a therapist or a mental health hospital.

But on July 1st, 11 days before his suicide, text between Michelle and Conrad took a sinister turn.

Prosecutors let the words tell the story.

She talked him out of his doubts point by point.

She assured him that his family would understand why he did it.

She researched logistics.

Michelle had been sending Conrad suggestions on how to kill himself for weeks.

Hanging is painless and takes like a second if you do it right.

But what would drive anyone to send a text like that? Prosecutors say Michelle was desperate for friends and attention.

And she got it when she talked about her suicidal boyfriend.

Just days before he died, she sent texts to girls she wanted to be close with in an effort to get their attention and sympathy.

Lexi Elyn, please.

Pretending Conrad was missing.

Do you remember getting a message about Conrad being missing? Yes, he’s missing like they don’t know where he is.

Prosecutors say Conrad still being alive presented a problem for Michelle.

She could be exposed as a liar.

So, it was important he kill himself.

On July 12th, the night he did take his life, Conrad drove to a Kmart parking lot and texted Michelle, “Leaving now.

Okay, you can do this.

Okay, I’m almost there.

” That was the last text Conrad ever sent to anyone.

But there was also a 46-inute phone call.

Michelle called him.

She was the last person to speak with him.

After that call ended, Michelle texted her friend Samantha.

I’m going to ask you to read that text message, please, aloud.

Sam, he just called me and there was a loud noise, like a motor, and I heard moaning like some was in pain and he wouldn’t answer when I said his name.

I stayed on the phone for like 20 minutes and that’s all I heard.

Then 27 minutes later, Michelle sent Samantha another text message.

I think he just killed himself.

Prosecutors say Michelle within hours began building a virtual alibi.

Knowing that he was likely dead, she began acting like a concerned friend, sending Conrad this text message.

I’m scared.

Are you okay? I love you.

Please answer.

Michelle showed little emotion at the trial.

Her defense relies on this psychiatrist, Peter Ban, to explain her behavior, even though he was not treating Michelle at the time.

He testifies that she was involuntarily intoxicated by an anti-depressant drug she started taking 3 months earlier.

Selea, she was imshed in a delusion where she’s thinking that it’s a good thing to help him die.

But prosecutors completely dismiss that theory.

She does not tell the Roy family about being on the phone with Conrad the night before, does she? His dead body is in a car 24 hours, and she withholds that information.

Inexplicably, Michelle sent more than 80 texts to Conrad after he died.

In some, she even apologizes for not saving him.

But it wasn’t just Conrad she texted.

The prosecution is hoping the judge pays particular attention to this text that she sent to her friend Samantha a week after Conrad’s body was discovered.

They have to go through his phone and see if anyone encouraged him to do it on texts and stuff.

They read my messages with him.

I’m done.

His family will hate me and I could go to jail.

Her actions, your honor, on July 12th, 2014 caused the death of Conrad Roy.

They were reckless, and she knew it.

According to the prosecution, Michelle Carter helped put Conrad Roy in his grave.

It was a felony and she caused serious bodily harm.

According to the defense, she didn’t know what she was doing.

Good morning.

She was psychotic, delusional, involuntarily intoxicated from taking the anti-depressant Selexa.

Michelle Carta underwent an involuntary intoxication in June and July to prominent child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr.

Harold Coplowitz.

That makes no sense at all.

Though not a witness in this case, he says those drugs called SSRI are remarkably safe.

They don’t make you delusional.

They don’t make you psychotic.

And they don’t make you intoxicated.

They don’t make you drunk.

Dr.

Coplowitz believes the act of texting was more mindaltering than any drug.

And the problem with text is that it separates you.

It makes you feel less responsible.

But no amount of distance can explain her behavior, especially the prosecution’s contention that Michelle ordered Conrad back into the truck, says the doctor.

It’s very hard to understand where the man says to a friend, listen, I’m feeling pain.

I don’t want to do this.

I’m going to get out of the car.

There there’s no way to seem to make sense of the fact that someone then says a friend says get back in the car and kill yourself.

This really has a vicious and a very very malicious quality to it.

No matter how malicious, Dr.

Copit says Michelle really couldn’t have convinced Conrad to kill himself if he hadn’t already been suicidal.

So while Michelle could not force Conrad to kill himself, she could enhance his risk of killing himself.

She could encourage him to complete the act because he was already on his way.

And simultaneously, she could have screamed out for help, which might have prevented this deadly outcome.

I want to recover from this, and I feel like I haven’t recovered from it yet.

I feel like I still have a long way to go.

Clearly, these heartbreaking videos now posted on YouTube show a young man looking for that different outcome, says Dr.

Coplowitz.

You expose yourself like this.

It says, “Please help me.

I’ve created a monster out of myself past few years because of my depression.

” Sadly, Conrad Roy is not alone.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we lose approximately 4600 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 to suicide each year.

One reason is that teenagers are simply more prone to depression.

Another reason, they’re more susceptible to peer pressure.

which is why the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why has caused such an uproar.

In the show, a teenage girl dies by suicide and leaves 13 recordings to other teens whom she blames.

I think it’s one of the most dangerous programs on the air right now for the simple reason that it glamorizes suicide.

Unfortunately, suicide’s very contagious.

We know that teenagers who watch these kind of TV programs are more likely to think about suicide, are more likely to attempt suicide, are more likely to commit suicide.

It appears that Michelle Carter may have been one of those teens influenced by what she saw on TV.

Not 13 Reasons Why, but perhaps an episode of Glee.

When an actor on Glee died of an overdose in real life, the show wrote his death into the script.

Listen to the similarities between what the character Rachel says about the loss of her boyfriend and what Michelle later says about losing Conrad.

I had it all planned out and we would live happily ever after.

It’s a good plan.

Did you tell him? I didn’t have to.

He knew.

Michelle’s text to a friend after Conrad’s death is almost word for word.

I had it all planned out.

He knew, too.

I didn’t have to tell him.

He was my person.

Michelle writes the exact same line.

He was my person.

Poor her.

Her boyfriend died.

They were going to get married one day, and now she’s the grieving girlfriend.

According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it all boiled down to that starring role as the grieving girlfriend.

The Commonwealth’s position, your honor, is that she wanted attention.

After six days of testimony, closing arguments begin.

The defense is up first.

The evidence actually establishes that Conrad Roy caused his own death.

Joe Cataldo reminds the judge that Conrad had attempted suicide before and points to a text Conrad wrote to Michelle.

There’s nothing anyone can do for me that’s going to make me want to live.

It’s very bad to hear, but I want to let you know that truthfully.

The decision to die was Conrad’s, not Michelle’s, says Cataldo.

He created this situation, your honor.

Most importantly, Michelle was nowhere near Conrad when he killed himself.

There’s no evidence that Michelle Carter has any physical actions whatsoever in this case with Conrad Royy’s decision.

It was all of his physical activity.

But prosecutor Katie Rburn gets the last word.

Although she wasn’t physically present, she was in his ear.

She was in his mind.

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