Fairhaven, Mattapoisett Recreated in Georgia for Michelle Carter Series

Production crews in Savannah have been spending the past couple of weeks re-creating the towns of Fairhaven and Mattapoisett down in Georgia.

Crews are preparing for the making of a new eight-episode Hulu series, The Girl From Plainville, which will tackle the heartbreaking story of Mattapoisett's Conrad Roy III.  Locals will remember the horrific story of Plainville's Michelle Carter bullying the Mattapoisett boy into taking his own life. Carter repeatedly tried to convince Roy into the act in a series of disturbing text messages.

Roy finally succumbed to Michelle Carter's direction to use carbon monoxide poisoning to take his own life behind the K-Mart in Fairhaven. While people here on the SouthCoast carry a heavy heart for the Roy family, this Hulu series is just the latest version of Hollywood making an attempt to tell the painful story of bullying to the point of suicide.

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Creating a K-Mart

Needless to say, the Fairhaven K-Mart is a pivotal backdrop for the series, and it has posed a challenge for producers. Even if they were willing to bring cameras up to Fairhaven to film the exterior of the building, K-Mart is long gone from the plaza. In fact, believe it or not, you'd be hard pressed to find a K-Mart anywhere in the country. Remarkably, there are only 18 stores left. Instead, the production company created a K-Mart sign and hung it on a vacant building in a plaza in Savannah.

Casting

According to IMDB, Michelle Carter will be portrayed by Elle Fanning, Dakota Fanning's younger sister. Conrad Roy will be portrayed by actor Colton Ryan. Earlier this summer, the Plainville production company was seeking Georgia residents to play the roles of people from Fairhaven and Mattapoisett. Because the towns will be portrayed as small in the series, they wanted the same extras to appear repeatedly in scenes that are supposed to be set in public.

This isn't the first time a movie has been filmed about the local tragedy. Three years ago, Bella Thorne was cast as the convicted Michelle Carter in the Lifetime Original movie called Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill.