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“ | Karma's a bitch, isn't it? | „ |
~ Ellen Russell as she prepares to kill Paul Montgomery. |
Ellen Russell is one of the two main antagonists of the Criminal Minds episode "The Pact", alongside Darlene Beckett. She is a vigilante serial killer who, along with Darlene, targets the people responsible for tragic losses in their lives.
She was portrayed by actress/musician Mackenzie Phillips.
Biography[]
Early life[]
In 1994, Ellen's two-year-old nephew Sam was killed by Brenda Wipley, a 17-year-old drunk driver. Wipley's wealthy father managed to get her a lenient jail sentence, while Ellen's family was destroyed; her sister committed suicide, and Ellen herself fell into a deep depression and became obsessed with avenging Sam's death.
She sought help in an online grief support group, and bonded with Darlene Beckett, whose eight-year-old daughter Kelly had been raped and murdered, over their mutual desire for revenge.
Ellen concocted a plan with Darlene to murder the people who killed their loved ones in the most painful way she could think of, chaining them to the back of a car and dragging them across the pavement at top speed. Ellen is the dominant partner in the killing team, giving the orders and taking increasingly sadistic pleasure in their brand of vigilante justice.
"The Pact"[]
Ellen comes up with a plan to lure Wipley into their trap by sending her text messages posing as a man from a dating site who wanted to connect with her. She sets up a place and time for the meeting, where she has Darlene knock her unconscious. They chain Wipley to the back of Ellen's car, and Ellen orders Darlene to drag her to her death. Unbeknownst to Ellen, however, Darlene kills Wipley quickly with a blow to the head from a shovel and drags her body post-mortem, aghast at the idea of making another human being - even a child murderer - suffer so horribly.
Ellen lures Mark Taylor and Paul Montgomery, two of the men who raped and murdered Darlene's daughter, with the text message ruse, and they kill both men by dragging them across the pavement. By now, Ellen has grown to enjoy torturing and killing their victims, while Darlene is horrified and stricken with guilt.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates the murders, and theorize that they were committed by two women who had personal relationships with the people their victims killed, and who met in a support group for people coping with grief. Technical analyst Penelope Garcia finds the social network of such a support group in the area, on which Darlene and Ellen had repeatedly chatted about their desire to kill the people responsible for their losses, intensifying after Taylor was released from prison.
Ellen and Darlene kidnap Jason Nelson, the ringleader of Kelly's murderers, and torture him until he admits what he did to Kelly, as well as to raping and murdering several other little girls. Nelson then taunts Ellen that she enjoys killing as much as he does, and even offers to make her his "partner" in serial murder. Rattled, Ellen tells him to shut up and makes him take them to the place where he buried Kelly and dig up her body. Nelson says he will show them the burial site if Ellen kills a random person for his enjoyment, Ellen complies without hesitation, shooting at a passing pickup truck and severely wounding the driver.
Nelson takes them to the burial site, where he unearths Kelly's skull. When he says that the rest of Kelly's body is buried in several different places, implying that he dismembered the corpse, Darlene beats him to death with a shovel as Ellen looks on.
They go to Mexico, and agree to split up to avoid being caught. Ellen tries to get Darlene to admit that she enjoyed killing their victims, but Darlene replies that it had only made her feel empty inside. Moments after Darlene gets on a bus, BAU agent David Rossi sits down next to Ellen and arrests her, having deduced where they were going after examining Darlene's personal effects. As Rossi takes Ellen into custody, she exchanges a sad smile with Darlene as the latter escapes on the bus.
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Ellen Russell on the Criminal Minds Wiki