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| “ | They don't remember. No one remembers! | „ |
| ~ Shelley demanding that her late son be acknowledged. |
Shelley Chamberlain is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Hanley Waters". She is a mass murderer who is driven insane by grief from the death of her young son.
She was portrayed by Kelli Williams.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Shelley is from Tampa, Florida. She was married to firefighter Don Chamberlain, with whom she had a son, Damien. On Damien's 10th birthday, Shelley took him with her while she ran errands. She took her eyes off the road for a split second to tell Damien to stop kicking her seat, when her car was struck by criminal Hanley Waters, who was in the midst of a high-speed chase with police after robbing a liquor store. Shelley suffered only minor injuries, but Damien was killed. A police officer was also killed, and his death got all the attention in the press, while Damien's was all but ignored.
Shelley blamed Don for Damien's death because he did not get to the scene quickly enough. Their marriage deteriorated until Don filed for divorce, and got a restraining order against Shelley when she called him repeatedly and showed up unannounced at his new place, demanding that he take responsibility for the loss of their son. The loss of her family sent her into a deep depression, and she began contemplating suicide. Her depression mixed in with her anger at Don, and she began planning to kill him and as many other people as she could along the way, desperate to inflict her pain on someone else.
"Hanley Waters"[]
One morning, Shelley wakes from a nightmare about Damien's death, and goes to the bathroom to take antidepressants. She finds the bottle empty, however, and smashes the bathroom mirror in a fit of rage. She instantly regains calm, however, and takes out a box of .38 bullets Don had left behind from the closet. She goes to a neighborhood gun store and tries to buy a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. While filling out the paperwork for a gun permit, she surreptitiously loads the bullets into the revolver and opens fire, killing everyone in the store.
As she flees the scene, Shelley leaves a message on Don's voicemail asking to meet him at a mall in Oaksford Park. When she gets there, however, he is nowhere to be found. She sees a young boy fall down and scrape his knee, and tries to comfort him. A security guard asks if the boy is her son, and Shelley frantically responds that he needs her help. When the guard tells her to leave, she flies into a rage and shoots him dead. She then hits a roadblock and attacks the police officers stationed there. She then turns back to Oaksford Park and forces Don to meet with her at a nearby restaurant.
During a tense dinner, Shelley asks the waiter to bring them a "Birthday Surprise". When the waiter replies that that item is meant for children, Shelley becomes angry and holds both Don and the waiter at gunpoint. She allows the waiter to evacuate the customers except for a family who are celebrating their son's birthday, whom she tells, also at gunpoint, to keep celebrating.
Meanwhile, agents from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), who had been investigating Shelley ever since she shot up the gun store, arrive at the restaurant to arrest her. Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner attempts to talk Shelley down by showing her a picture of her, Don, and Damien in happier times, giving the waiter the chance to sneak the family outside to safety. Shelley breaks down and admits that the person she truly blames is herself. When Hotchner gives her the photo, she surrenders the revolver and begins sobbing uncontrollably. She is then arrested and institutionalized.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Shelley is inspired by multiple real-life spree shooters:
- Scott Harlan Thorpe, a spree killer and the perpetrator of the 2001 Nevada County shootings, starting with the county's Behavioral Health Department because he was unsatisfied with his mental health treatment, then a restaurant that was targeted from his paranoid delusions. Like Shelley's ex Don was a fireman, Thorpe's brother was a sheriff's deputy, who Thorpe called to report his crimes and surrender.
- Laurie Dann, a paranoid spree shooter originally waging a vendetta against her ex-husband and committing increasingly escalating crimes as a consequence of her instability, culminating in a mass shooting resulting in the murder of Nicky Corwin.
External Links[]
- Shelley Chamberlain on the Criminal Minds Wiki
