Elaine Tillman (Numb3rs)

Psychotic murderess Elaine Tillman

Elaine Tillman (Robin Weigert) is the main villainess from "Killer Chat," episode 3.11 of Numb3rs (airdate December 15, 2006).

Introduction

Elaine Tillman is the wife of Scott Tillman, as well as the mother of their children, Tom and Susan Tillman. Scott was the first of three men who were beaten to death in vacant houses--the other two being Jared Holt and John Santos, and regarding Elaine, she was interviewed by Megan Reeves regarding her husband, who was killed six weeks prior to the events. Elaine was introduced as being mournful in regard to Scott, adding that Tom missed his father while Susan appeared to be the opposite.

However, the investigation revealed that all of the victims--including Scott--were molesters, with all of their victims being underage. Megan confronted Elaine with the facts about Scott, suspecting that she had known due to the fact that they had moved around several times. After denying it at first, Elaine stated that she and Scott had been married for 16 years and couldn't break up their family, while adding that they tried counseling, which failed--though Elaine stated that Scott swore that she never touched Tom and Susan.

Reveal

Elaine holding her latest victim at knifepoint

A fourth intended victim, Wendell Henderson, was shown on video bloodied and beaten, while confessing to molesting 40 victims on video. Suspicion was directed towards Brendan McCrary, as his daughter, Katie was assaulted and killed by her molester prior to the episode's events. However, while Brendan was cleared, it was revealed that his son, Matt McCrary, had vented about his father's beliefs that counseling would work on molesters on a chatroom, and he had given the killer a list containing the names of sexual predators; doing so without actually believing that they would be killed. Megan realized that Matt's rant was similar to her interview with Elaine, and it led her to realize that Elaine was the villainous culprit.

Megan and the rest of the agents found Elaine's car parked at another house that was up for sale, where the villainess berated her next intended victim before holding her at knifepoint following Megan's arrival. As revealed during the confrontation, Scott had lied about not touching their children, as he had molested Susan, and after finding out, Elaine turned heel and murdered her husband six weeks prior to the events. The villainess set up an appointment under the pretense of buying a house, after which she used the empty house as a lair to torture and beat her husband to death. Elaine's heel persona deepened when she saw Brendan's notification letter voicing his stance about counseling for sexual predators, and after meeting Matt in a chatroom, she received the list of predators and decided to kill them in the same fashion as her husband.

The maniacal villainess murdered Jared Holt shortly before the events, and did the same to John Santos and Henderson in the episode--committing the murders after releasing video confessions from her victims. While threatening to kill her latest victim, the evil Elaine ranted about Scott's deception and his assault towards their daughter, and responded to Megan's statement that her latest intended victim didn't hurt Susan by speaking about the other daughters that were victims, adding that she had to stop the predators. Megan managed to talk Elaine down from her rampage by stating that the man would be going to jail for his crimes, after which Elaine put down her knife and was arrested for the murders.

Trivia

• Robin Weigert later played vengeful murderess Eliza Green on The Mentalist, as well as the villainous Bo Peep on Once Upon a Time.