An 18-year-old in Wales lured his mother into a nature reserve for a brutal hammer attack, then police found his trophy

We have heard about a man killing his colleague with a sledgehammer, but now a teenager in Wales has been handed a life sentence for killing his mother with a hammer. The teenager reportedly held misogynistic views and had an affection for crime thrillers, and was under the influence of movies like American Psycho. Later, he ended up killing his own mother.​

As per The Guardian, Tristan Robert planned the crime in a way that he spent a lot of time researching the ways he could avoid being caught while buying the potential killing weapons. These weapons included axes, hammers, and knives. He did not murder his mother at once and completed the killing in two acts, one within the house and the second outside the house.​

The reports suggest that he started attacking his mother, Angela Shellis, in their house on the evening of 23 October 2025. During the first act of hitting, he took her for medical help, and after persuading her mother to leave the house, Robert took her to a nature reserve. While passing through it, he took a hammer from a rucksack and killed her mother brutally. He recorded both attacks on his dictaphone, which became considerable evidence against him.

His social media posts expose an abusive mentality and an obsession with gore

His social media posts before the incident revealed a questionable mentality, in which he was bragging about quotes from the movie American Psycho. He stated, “I got urges.” In another, he said, “It’s gonna be some american psycho sht haha”. His comments and posts revealed his prior planning for the killing of his own mother. His comments revealed that he had an obsession with crime thrillers, which turned him into a killer who ended up committing the crime against his own mother.

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In the other social media posts before this incident, he bragged about his misogynistic views on social media as he wrote, “I do hate girls … girls/women I also don’t trust them” and “she is gonna just vanish off the earth … now it’s time”. He was seemingly hinting at doing something absolutely horrific, and he executed it on his mother. Before attempting the murder, he recorded a voice message himself on the same dictaphone saying, “This is Tristan Roberts. Tonight, I’m going to be Alex, and I’m going to murder my mother with a sledgehammer.”

​The North Wales Police issued a statement on the incident saying, “Through a thorough investigation, the Major Incident Team, supported by specialist teams, were able to piece together the final hours of Angela’s life, as well as evidence the extent to which Tristan Roberts had gone to, over several weeks, as he planned to kill his mother.”

We thought a quadruple amputee attempting murder was too much, but Robert’s case is something extremely serious and terrifying. Later, on the 25th of March, Tristan was sentenced to at least 22.5 years in prison by the court.