"Go die." Inyoung You sent her boyfriend 47,000 text messages. Then he ended his own life.

This post deals with suicide and might be triggering for some readers.

75,000 text messages were exchanged between Alexander Urtula and his girlfriend, Inyoung You, in the two months before Urtula died by suicide.

Most of them came from You, who told the 22-year-old hundreds if not thousands of times to “go die” or take his own life.

The young couple were both studying at Boston University and they had been together for 18 months, but it was a relationship in which You had “complete and utter control,” said Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins.

Here’s the District Attorney’s Office announcing an indictment against You. Post continues after video.

You, 21, subjected her boyfriend to physical, emotional and psychological abuse, making constant threats and demands which Rollins said showed a clear power dynamic between the pair.

In those last two months, the messages became more frequent, more powerful and more demeaning, and were witnessed not just in text messages, but in Urtula’s diary and by both classmates and family members.

Urtula was a standout model student. He’d been studying biology and was due to graduate on May 20, 2019. His proud parents were in town to watch him walk out on stage and receive his diploma.

But at 8:30am that morning, hours before he was due to graduate, he leapt to his death from the top floor of a parking garage in a nearby neighbourhood.

You watched him do it, she'd tracked his iPhone there.

Now, the former US college student has appeared in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston for the first time to face charges.

Prosecutors alleged that their relationship was abusive and You would message him to "kill himself or go die."

She also allegedly threatened to harm him, in one text saying: "I want to bash your head against a wall."

During the arraignment, assistant prosecutor Caitlin Grasso said: "The defendant became physically, verbally, and psychologically abusive...

"The defendant and Urtula discussed how the defendant owned Urtula, how he was her slave, and how Urtula ceded his autonomy to the defendant as a condition of the relationship."

You pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and her trial date has been set for November next year.

The case has drawn immediate comparisons to Michelle Carter, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison earlier this year, after she was found guilty of pressuring her boyfriend to take his own life in Massachusetts in 2014.

Carter was 17 when she helped to convince her 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to end his life, texting him "The time is right and you are ready... just do it babe. You can't think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don't get why you aren't?"

But District Attorney Rollins says that while there is a similarity in the fact they were both girlfriends, "in Carter there was very little physical contact prior and some very egregious contact in the moments leading up to death.

"We have quite frankly the opposite of that, we have a barrage of a complete and utter attack on this man's very will and conscious and psyche to the tune of 47,000 text messages (from You) in the two months leading up and an awareness we would argue, of his frail state at that point."

Carter's case inspired "Conrad's Law," a bill under consideration that would make coercing someone into suicide a crime punishable by up to five years.

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner. If you're based in Australia, please contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for support or beyondblue 1300 22 4636.

This article was originally published on October 30 and was updated on November 23.