Darlene Beckett

"When I wake up in the morning, I see Kelly's face. When I close my eyes, she's still there. I don't know how long I can go on like this..."

Darlene Beckett is a killer and the submissive partner of a two-person killing team led by Ellen Russell. She appeared in Season Eight of Criminal Minds.

Background
Darlene was happily married and had a very close relationship with her daughter, Kelly. One day, on March 2002, the two planned a vacation to Mexico and Kelly got out of school early to meet her mother so they could leave. Unfortunately, Kelly never arrived, as she suddenly went missing. Sometime later, her underwear was found in Mark Logan's car, covered in semen. He confessed to raping her, but the jury wasn't able to connect him to her disappearance. Darlene was enraged when she learned that the man who hurt her daughter would only get ten years. Broken by her daughter's disappearance, Darlene developed chronic depression which led to her divorce. She frequented several online support groups, eventually coming into contact with Ellen Russell, the aunt of a two-year-old boy named Sam Dolan, who was killed by a drunk driver. The two women bonded over their shared experiences, believing that the justice system had failed them. When Mark was about to be released, the two women formulated a plan of revenge. They equipped themselves with items from Ellen's workplace at a local boat shop.

The Pact
See section on the Ellen Russell and Darlene Beckett page

Modus Operandi
With the exception of her first victim, Brenda Whitley, who was killed for causing the death of Ellen's nephew Sam, Darlene targeted people associated with her daughter Kelly Taylor's disappearance. She killed her victims by bludgeoning them with some sort of object, like a baseball bat or a shovel. Also, after her death, Brenda's body was dragged with a car post-mortem; Darlene was supposed to drag her while she was still alive, but couldn't bring herself to make her suffer like that.

Known Victims

 * 2012:
 * October 8, San Diego, California: Brenda Wipley
 * Los Angeles, California:
 * October 9: Paul Montgomery
 * October 10: Jason Nelson

Appearances

 * Season Eight
 * "The Pact"