BOSTON (WHDH) - A former Boston College student who for months allegedly “physically, verbally and psychologically” abused her boyfriend before he jumped to his death in May 2019 — just hours before he was slated to receive his diploma — returned to court Tuesday.
Inyoung You, 21, who pleaded not guilty in November to an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with the texting-suicide death of 22-year-old Alexander Urtula, appeared again in Suffolk Superior Court as her attorney argued that global media attention is impacting the case against her client.
“This basically tainted the jury pool,” defense attorney Steven Kim told the court. “To demonize my client as being a monster, who by the government’s own allegations, constantly over, and over, and over, wore this person down.”
During You’s initial court appearance, the prosecution laid out what they say was a campaign of abuse that led to the suicide death of Urtula, a biology major from Cedar Grove, New Jersey.
In the two months prior to his death, the couple exchanged more than 75,000 texts, of which You sent more than 47,000. A prosecutor said Urtula “felt trapped” in the relationship because You frequently threatened to harm herself if he didn’t do what she wanted him to do.
The prosecutor said the thousands of text messages “demonstrate the power dynamic of the relationship, how she owned him and that he was her slave. At one point he messaged her, ‘you own me.’”
She then went on to read some of the texts recovered from Urtula’s phone.
“Do everyone a favor and go (expletive) kill yourself. You’re such a stupid (expletive) worthless (expletive). Dude, just do everyone a (expletive) favor and go kill yourself, (expletive) worthless (expletive) piece of (expletive). You deserve nothing in the (expletive) world,” one text read.
Prosecutors also said the texts showed You was aware that what she was doing was criminal and threatened to kill herself and leave a suicide note so that her family would sue him.
The abuse became “more frequent, more powerful and more demeaning” in the days and hours leading up to Urtula’s death, according to Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins.
You was also allegedly aware of Urtula’s “spiraling depression” yet she still allegedly “persisted in encouraging him to take his own life.”
Urtula jumped from the roof of the Renaissance parking garage in Roxbury around 8:30 a.m. on May 20, Rollins said. His family was in town to watch him walk in the Boston College graduation ceremony that began that same day at 10 a.m.
You studied economics at the college before withdrawing from classes in August. She was scheduled to graduate in May 2020.
She is due back in court on Feb. 20.
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