| “ | YOU'VE done all this, Kat! That's the story. There is no choice here! Because if you drag me into this, you'll ruin everything for her, okay? Think about it... You can go to jail or you can just go to sleep. | ” |
— Shelly to her sister Kat
| ||
Michelle "Shelly" Gorman (née Mackrel) is a sociopathic budding serial killer, robber, one-time cop killer, and one-time abductor who appears in the Season Thirteen episode of Criminal Minds, "Full-Tilt Boogie".
Background
"Joe and I just want to provide her a safe home, one you and I never had!"
Michelle and Kat Mackrel were originally from Baltimore, and they were raised in a violent home by an abusive, alcoholic father, which had a profound effect on both of them. When they were teenagers, their father was brutally attacked, and there was a trial that put Kat in juvenile hall. Michelle had brutally beaten their father for everything he did to them and talked Kat into taking the fall for it. Michelle dropped out of high school, and started working a lot, and got fired a lot. She had a long list of court-ordered anger management classes. She cleaned up her act, moved to Hitchens, Virginia, met a doctor named Joe Goreman, and went on to marry him, and build up a good life for herself after suffering so much for so many years. What Kat and Michelle suffered during their childhood, it led to Kat becoming addicted to pills as a way to numb the pain of it. In 2014, she almost overdosed, with her newborn daughter Justine in the car. Michelle and Joe were given custody of Justine. Justine is now 3-years-old, and Michelle actually had been providing Justine with the safe home that Michelle and Kat never had.
There is a community board at the hospital in Hitchens, and almost every flyer on it is for an addiction hotline. There were seven addiction helplines in the area, all run by Michelle. Because Joe is a doctor, and Michelle was dealing on the side in order to bring in extra money, Michelle was paranoid enough to go to extraordinary lengths to keep tabs on pill addicts after they called. It was only a matter of time before someone triggered Michelle. Chief Steve Gaines' wife Trish had been fighting an addiction to oxycodone that started after a miscarriage two years ago. Her doctor had stopped prescribing pain medication for her when she became addicted. Chief Gaines wanted Trish to go into rehab, but she didn’t want anyone else to know about the addiction, because of the shame that she felt. Joe started prescribing oxycodone to Chief Gaines because of the pain from a slipped disc in his back, but unknown to Joe, Chief Gaines had been able to manage on aspirin. Without Joe knowing it, Chief Gaines had been giving the pills to Trish in progressively decreasing amounts in order to wean her off of them, because he felt that quitting oxycodone would be dangerous and it would not work on Trish. While Chief Gaines, his daughter Dana, and son Trevor were on a camping trip, Trish had called one of the hotlines, the Fairhope Center Helpline, because she didn't want to relapse, and Michelle answered. When Trish told Michelle how Chief Gaines got her the pills from Joe, Michelle got enraged. Michelle was paranoid about anything that might mess up the life that she built for herself, and she thought Trish was going to do exactly that by getting Joe in trouble, which would make Michelle’s dealing known to the police. Michelle went into survival mode, willing to do whatever it took to protect the life that she built for herself, so she made a plan to attack Trish in an attempt to keep her quiet.
Full-Tilt Boogie
Michelle initiates her plan to attack Trish one night. First, Michelle cuts out the power, then she attacks Trish in her bedroom when she steps in and Michelle shuts the door behind her. She beats Trish half to death, then in the morning, Michelle takes her to a wooded area and partially buries her alive. She stops after she sees a few passersby approaching and Michelle acts like she found Trish and after they dial the police, she takes off and Trish goes into a coma. After Assistant Police Chief Jimmy Mackenzie and Kat tell Michelle about the BAU's presence Michelle agrees to meet with Jimmy, but instead, she plans to kill him. When Jimmy arrives at Cedar Bridge the following night, Michelle shoots him twice, but he survives by a bulletproof vest. Then, Michelle grabs his handkerchief and proceeds to smother him, killing him. The following day, when the BAU tries to question Kat, she doesn't know what to do so, she goes to Michelle's house where she arrives with Justine. When Michelle sees her, she asks her what is she doing there. Kat replies that she wants to see Justine. But, Michelle replies that she shouldn't be there. Kat tells her about the team trying to contact her and says she is scared about what if they find out about her helping Michelle. She replies that she just has to hold them off. Michelle agrees to meet Kat at her apartment with her niece. While Justine is playing, Michelle tells Kat that she isn't going to get her life back. Kat tells her she is trying. Michelle tells her that Trish was going to get her and her sister in trouble and tells Kat to think about Justine by reminding her that she "loved these pills more than her". Michelle tells her that she and her husband Joe want to provide her that the best home is possible for the one they both didn't have during their childhood. Kat agrees to overdose herself and Michelle leaves with Justine. The BAU, who found out about Michelle's dealing arrive at her residence and arrest her. Afterward, the team is also able to save Kat.
Modus Operandi
"You made your choice after she was born. You love these little pills more than you love her! The courts... the courts agree. That's why they took her away from you."
Michelle targeted people in an attempt to cover up her drug trafficking. When she attempted to kill Trish, she brutally beat her unconscious, took her to a park, then buried her alive in a shallow grave. When she killed Officer Mackenzie, she shot him once in the chest and in the stomach. However, Mackezie was protected by a bulletproof vest and the shot to the stomach proved non-fatal, so Michelle held a cloth over his mouth and nose until he suffocated. When she tried to kill Kat, she gave her a jar of opioids and told to overdose on them. She did this in an attempt to frame Kat for the murders.
Real-Life Comparison
Goreman may have been partially based on Jean-Claude Romand - Both are serial killers (budding in Goreman's case) with some experience in medical training (Romand went to medical school, but he didn't complete his exams to become a doctor, while Goreman ran addiction crisis lines and married a doctor), previously attacked a father figure (suspected in Romand's case, whose father-in-law was allegedly pushed down a flight of stairs, while Goreman beat her abusive father), maintained elaborate, meticulous covers for criminal activities in their routines (Romand embezzled from his family, Goreman dealt drugs), resorted to violence when their ruses began to fall apart, killed and attempted to kill by means of shooting, beating, and asphyxiation, targeted at least one family member, had at least one surviving female victim, and ended their sprees in some form of suicide that ultimately failed (Romand tried to commit suicide by setting his house on fire, while Goreman tried to manipulate her sister Kat into a suicide by overdosing on pills).
Profile
No official profile of Michelle was made by the BAU as they were focused on several suspects throughout the investigation.
Although Michelle was not officially referred to as such by the BAU, she displayed obvious signs of sociopathic behavior; a callous and calculating individual with a long history of lying, manipulation and a clear lack of genuine emotion.
Known Victims
- Unspecified date: Her unnamed father (attempted; was brutally beaten; forced Kat to confess to attacking him)
- 2018:
- January 2: Trish Gaines (attempted, but barely survived; savagely beaten like the previous victim, later partially buried alive)
- January 2-3: Assistant Police Chief Jimmy Mackenzie (shot twice then smothered with a handkerchief)
- January 3: Kat Mackrel (her sister; attempted; forced to commit suicide by overdosing on oxycodone but was revived)