An 18-year-old man who expressed misogynistic views and had a fascination with the horror film American Psycho has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years and six months for killing his mother with a hammer.
Tristan Roberts carefully planned the crime, researching methods of killing and how to avoid being caught before buying potential weapons such as knives, hammers and an axe. He started attacking his mother, Angela Shellis, 45, at their home in Prestatyn, north Wales, late in the evening of 23 October 2025. In the early hours, he persuaded her to leave the house and said he would take her for medical help.
The two walked through a nature reserve, where he took a hammer from a rucksack and killed Shellis, a teaching assistant at a high school, by hitting her on the head multiple times. He recorded the attacks at home and at the nature reserve on a dictaphone. In the weeks before the killing, he had posted on Discord a still from American Psycho with the message “i got urges” and wrote “i do hate girls … girls/women i also dont trust them”.
During his research he asked an AI chatbot: “What is a better weapon for a murder, a hammer or a knife?” The chatbot initially refused to engage, but he asked again after stating he was writing a book on serial killers and was given responses. On the day of the murder, he left a voice note on the dictaphone: “This is Tristan Roberts. Tonight, I’m going to be Alex and I’m going to murder my mother with a sledgehammer.”
Police were called to the nature reserve on the morning of 24 October when Shellis’s body was found in undergrowth. A 100-metre blood trail led to it, and gloves and a balaclava were found at the scene. Doorbell footage showed the mother and son leaving their home at 3.19am. Police believe Roberts had kept his mother prisoner in her room for about four hours, and during attacks carried out there she suffered bruising to the face and strangulation injuries.
Judge Rhys Rowlands told Roberts: “You appear to have revelled in the control you exerted over your own mother. It was on any view a truly awful way for someone to die. It was made all the more dreadful by the fact her attacker was her own son.” After the sentencing at Mold crown court, Andrew Slight of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “The level of planning Tristan Roberts did ahead of committing this shocking crime was elaborate and calculated. His mother’s final moments must have been terrifying, yet he showed no concern or remorse for his actions.”
