I could not imagine what it was like to be Alexander Urtula, a student at Boston College seeking a degree in biology who had his whole life ahead of him, only to have someone tearing him down at every opportunity and actively encouraging him to “go die.”

The 22-year-old man was just hours way from graduating with his degree when he took his own life by leaping off the top floor of a parking garage. It’s another life cut too short, and it’s a story that brings some disturbing things to light.

Urtula had been dating Inyoung You for 18 months prior to his death, according to a story from the Washington Post. Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is charging You with involuntary manslaughter because of what happened in the months prior.

Urtula received over 47,000 text messages from You in the two months before his death in May, with hundreds of those messages, if not thousands, encouraging him to take his life, saying that she, his family and the world would be better off if he was dead.

Sending 47,000 text messages in a two-month period is definitely bizarre, and you have to wonder what it was doing to Urtula’s psyche having his phone blow up all day, every day, with messages telling him to die. Other people would have changed their number, filed a restraining order or thrown the phone down a sewer drain, but You apparently had Urtula completely under her power, according to the Post story.

Of course, the abuse isn’t limited to psychological and emotional. Rollins claimed You was physically abusive, too. The abuse was witnessed by classmates and family members and documented in Urtula’s journal.

A grand jury that issued the indictment described You’s behavior as “wanton and reckless.” For some reason, the adjectives that sprang up when I read about her behavior were “psychotic” and “sinister.”

Those adjectives stuck when I read that You was actually in the parking garage when Urtula jumped. She had apparently used her cell phone to track his location. How dominating and twisted do you have to be to follow your boyfriend around everywhere, especially when you’re getting him to kill himself? Was she afraid she was going to miss the big moment or something?

This case brings up questions of how far the First Amendment should protects free speech. Most of what we say is protected as expressing ourselves however we see fit, but You’s barrage of texts encouraging Urtula to die seems to fall under the same boundaries as crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

You’s texts are essentially death threats. While she’s not vowing to do the killing herself, it’s similar to when someone calls in a threat or sends threatening messages. If someone says they’re going to shoot up a school or detonate a bomb at a marathon, they are arrested and convicted of crimes, even if they don’t carry out those threats. You’s case should be treated no differently.

This case also brings up the standard image of domestic violence and turns it on its head. In most cases shown in the media, domestic violence is painted as something where women are victims and men are perpetrators. Not so with the You case. Women can be scorpions just as easily as men can, and men can be just as susceptible to the stings.

Proof positive is another Massachusetts case, Michelle Carter, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for also encouraging her boyfriend via text messages to kill himself in 2014. She is now serving a 15-month prison sentence.

I think Rollins said it best when she said: “Domestic violence is not perpetrated by one type of abuser. A perpetrator is not limited by their gender or the gender of their partner. Domestic violence may not always look the same, but it is always about power and control.”

Unfortunately, it looks like there might be some snags in bringing You to justice. She made it back home to South Korea before the district attorney could indict her, although authorities are cautiously optimistic she will return voluntarily to face the charges. Perhaps America’s special operation forces could swing by South Korea on the way back from Syria and pick her up.

Massachusetts is considering a law, named for the young man who died from Carter’s texts, Conrad Roy III, that would make suicide coercion punishable by up to five years in prison.

Judging from the fact that another man has already died as a result of vicious texts from his girlfriend, I’d say the law is overdue. Way overdue.