Ms. Parker's columns are often insightful, but on this one I must disagree with her analysis.  In this case words were lethal.  Teenage boys are enormously vulnerable to opinions from their peers, especially females.  Whatever her motive for wanting Roy dead, Michelle Carter did know what she was doing.  She taunted him, not a momentary whim but repeatedly, and even though she was not physically present at his death, she was virtually present and knew just what to say.  The urge to take the final step came not from his own mind, but Michelle Carter's.