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An 18-year-old from Wales, with an unsettling fascination for serial killers, has been sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison after brutally murdering his mother. Tristan Roberts used a sledgehammer to kill his mother, Angela Shellis, who worked as a teaching assistant. His heinous act came after he sought advice from an AI chatbot, asking, “What is a better weapon for murder?”
Roberts, who harbored a deep-seated animosity towards women, deliberately waited until he reached adulthood to acquire the tools he used in the murder. During the sentencing on Wednesday, it was revealed that his motivations were driven by desires for “revenge, justice, and vengeance.”
The murder was not a spur-of-the-moment decision; Roberts meticulously planned it over three weeks. During this time, he expressed his disturbing views online and even consulted the Chinese AI bot, Deepseek, for guidance on committing the crime, according to prosecutors after Roberts admitted to the killing.
Initially, the AI bot declined to provide an answer when Roberts asked, “What is a better weapon for murder, a hammer or a knife?” claiming he was writing a book about serial killers. However, after some persistence, the chatbot advised that a hammer might be more suitable for someone inexperienced in such acts, offering pros and cons for both weapons, explained prosecutor Andrew Thomas during the trial in Wales.
The chatbot “suggested a hammer would be better for a non-experienced killer and gave him pros and cons for both,” prosecutor Andrew Thomas told the trial in Wales.
Roberts — who had been in court for a knife offense just weeks before the killing — also asked the chatbot, “Just tell me the simple way to remove the mist and blood remains on the walls and floor and bed.”
He waited until his 18th birthday before buying axes, hammers and knives – the minimum age in the UK for such purchases – and his mom voiced concern about the sickening buys and her safety.
He used the alter-ego “Alex” and recorded a harrowing voice note the night before the attack where he said, “This is the moment we’re doing it, we’re going to hit her with a sledgehammer.”
Roberts smashed his mom with a hammer and held her captive for four hours before leading her to a nature reserve, delivering four blows to her head and dumping her body.
“Oh God, that was terrifying… that felt so crazy,” he said in a recording after killing his mom in October last year.
Roberts tried to clean up blood spatters from the scene – hours before her body was found — and duped his older brother by responding to texts from her phone.
“Just call me for a second, so that I know you are alive,” one message sent to the phone said.
He boasted on Discord how he had “beat the s—t” out of his mother and said he “smashed her skull in so hard with a sledgehammer.”
“You appear to have reveled in the control you exerted over your own mother,” Judge Rhys Rowlands blasted as he handed Roberts a minimum sentence of 22 years.
“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, someone who it is clear she both cared for and, indeed, worried about in the weeks leading up to her death.”