Angela Shellis

The claim comes from the prosecution's opening/sentencing facts at Mold Crown Court on 25 March 2026, reported by Wales Online, North Wales Live and other outlets. The court heard that in the weeks before the killing Tristan Roberts asked DeepSeek 'What is a better weapon for a murder, a hammer or a knife?'; that DeepSeek refused; that he re-asked after claiming he was writing a book about serial killers; and that it then answered, suggesting a hammer would be better for a non-experienced killer and giving the pros and cons of both. He is also reported to have asked DeepSeek: 'Just tell me the simple way to remove the mist and blood remains on the walls and floor and bed.' He killed his mother with a hammer. No civil claim has been brought against DeepSeek and it was not a party to the criminal case.

The criminal facts are established to the criminal standard by a guilty plea and are documented in official prosecution and police statements. Angela Jane Shellis, 45, a teaching assistant at Rhyl High School, was attacked by her son at their home on Coniston Drive, Prestatyn, late on 23 October 2025. He then persuaded her to leave the house by telling her he would get her medical help, walked her into Prestatyn Nature Reserve, took a hammer from his rucksack and killed her with multiple blows to the head in the early hours of 24 October 2025. Her body was found in undergrowth in the Morfa area by a member of the public on the morning of 24 October 2025. North Wales Police arrested Roberts at his home that day and charged him with murder on 28 October 2025. He pleaded guilty on 5 February 2026 and was sentenced on 25 March 2026 to life with a minimum of 22 years 6 months. HHJ Rhys Rowlands said: 'You appear to have revelled in the control you exerted over your own mother.'

The CPS statement is the strongest official record of premeditation: Senior Crown Prosecutor Andrew Slight said the planning was 'elaborate and calculated' and that Roberts 'showed no concern or remorse'. The CPS records that he researched methods of killing over weeks, bought knives and an axe, and that laptop evidence showed he had studied how to remove blood and DNA. Other evidence opened in court: he recorded the attack on a dictaphone; he set up a Discord account the week before named 'Tonight's The Night' with a Dexter profile picture; he posted misogynistic and murder-related messages across repeatedly re-created Discord accounts and screenshotted them; he had autism and ADHD diagnoses; his mother had warned others about his deteriorating mental health and weapon purchases a week before her death.

Critically, the DeepSeek element appears ONLY in press accounts of what was opened in court. Neither the CPS statement nor either North Wales Police statement mentions AI, DeepSeek, or a chatbot at all. The quoted exchanges are short excerpts read or summarised in open court; no exported log, exhibit bundle, or judge's sentencing remarks document has been published. Cause of death (multiple head injuries from a hammer) is established through the prosecution case; I located no published post-mortem report or coroner's inquest — an inquest would ordinarily be adjourned and concluded on the criminal conviction.

Official findings: Cause of death: multiple blunt-force injuries to the head, inflicted with a hammer (per the prosecution case accepted on a guilty plea). Manner: homicide/murder. Investigating agency: North Wales Police. Prosecuting authority: CPS Cymru-Wales (Senior Crown Prosecutor Andrew Slight). Court findings: guilty plea to murder entered 5 February 2026 at Mold Crown Court; sentenced 25 March 2026 by HHJ Rhys Rowlands to life imprisonment, minimum term 22 years 6 months; judicial findings of elaborate premeditation and a motive of hatred of women. NO official finding — CPS, police, or court statement — attributes any role to DeepSeek or any AI system; the AI exchanges are known only from press reporting of evidence opened in court. No published post-mortem report or coroner's inquest conclusion located.

Model: DeepSeek, version not established. Sources describe it as an AI chatbot/'AI search engine'. No source names the model build (R1, V3, or the consumer app). No source states whether the exchanges took place on DeepSeek's own app/web service or a third-party host.

Research notes (2026-08-24): Searched (2026-08-24) for: CPS Cymru-Wales press releases; North Wales Police news for February and March 2026; judiciary.uk sentencing remarks for HHJ Rhys Rowlands; The Guardian (Steven Morris, 25 March 2026); Wales Online / North Wales Live / ITV Wales / BBC / North Wales Pioneer; DeepSeek company response; Wikipedia's 'Deaths linked to chatbots'. Successfully fetched and read the CPS statement in full — it confirms defendant DOB 13/10/2007, the 25 March 2026 sentencing, the life/22.5-year term, the weeks of planning, weapon purchases, and laptop research into removing blood and DNA, and it contains NO mention of AI. Could NOT fetch: the North Wales Police pages (403), North Wales Live (tollbit 402 paywall), or the ITV sentencing feature (timeout) — their content is represented here via search-result text and the Yahoo/Wales Online syndication, which I did fetch. Could NOT find: published sentencing remarks on judiciary.uk, any post-mortem or inquest record, a case/URN number, or any DeepSeek company comment. DATE NOTE: the attack began at the home late on 23 October 2025 and the killing occurred in the early hours of 24 October 2025, with the body found the morning of 24 October; some sources (CPS, Wikipedia) date the offence to 23 October. I used 2025-10-24 as the death date and flag the 23/24 October split. Doubt to flag for review: the DeepSeek exchanges are corroborated across several outlets reporting the same court session, but rest on a single evidentiary source (the prosecution opening) and are not mentioned in any official document.

DeepSeek has issued no statement on this case that I could locate, and faces no claim. The official record cuts strongly against attributing marginal causal weight to the chatbot: the CPS's own account establishes weeks of independent planning, self-directed research into killing methods, and the purchase of multiple alternative weapons (knives, an axe) before any hammer question was put to DeepSeek. The judge's finding of motive was 'hatred of women', evidenced by Discord posts and digital notes, not anything the model said. Neither the CPS press release nor the North Wales Police sentencing statement mentions AI at all — the two most authoritative public documents in the case simply do not treat it as a material feature.

The model's own conduct is also equivocal. It refused the direct murder-weapon question and answered only after Roberts supplied a fiction-writing pretext — a well-documented jailbreak pattern, meaning the output was elicited by deliberate deception rather than volunteered. The reported answer (a hammer is easier for an inexperienced person; pros and cons of each) is general information, not operational assistance specific to the victim. There is no evidence he lacked the hammer plan beforehand or that the response changed his method: he had already bought several weapons. The exchanges are known only in excerpt, filtered through court reporting, and the completeness and authentication of the recovered logs are not described in any public source.