Missing Shawna

The house on South Main Street where Shawna Marie Chellis grew up sits on top of an embankment that overlooks part of the wetlands near the Merrimack River just north of Exit 12. The light roar of I-93 can be heard in the background, as children, still dressed in their Sunday best, were running around the front yard, frolicking without a care in the world.

Inside, the home was brimming with activity and sorrow since everyone had just returned from a memorial service at St. John the Evangelist for Chellis, a 30-year-old mother who lost her life at Lakes Region Hospital on Nov. 12, after a long battle with substance abuse and a tumultuous life that have left family and friends wondering what could have happened differently to save the woman’s life.

Chellis’ mother Irene McCallion sat on her couch clinging tightly to Misty Griffin, another daughter, and holding back tears while sharing the ups and downs of her daughter’s life.  

Early life

Chellis was a model student at Concord High School – she played softball and soccer, did well in classes, played viola for the president, and was pre-med. She was the daughter, McCallion said, “I never had to worry about” due to the activities she was involved in and the company she kept.

“It was funny too because a teacher wrote up a paper,” she said, “I still have it someplace ... that she was, out of (all) of her sisters, she felt as though she was going to be the one that was going to excel.”

All the problems seemed to have started after an accident 14 and half years before which left Chellis with unbearable pain throughout the rest of her short life.

The day before her 16th birthday, in February 1998, Chellis was practicing her driving with her father on Loudon Road when they were rear-ended at a stoplight by an alleged drunk driver who was reportedly an off-duty New Hampshire State Police dispatcher.

The accident left Chellis with a broken back that never healed correctly due to misalignment, with her left leg shorter than her right, causing chronic sciatica. A case between all involved was settled. 

But because the pain of the accident was unbearable and she couldn’t get the medications she needed, Chellis throughout her life sought out self-medication that led her down a different life path that neither family nor friends could save her from. 

Chellis was also diagnosed with unknown seizures that would continue throughout her life and may have been the initial cause, the family speculated, of her problems.

“She had several neurological tests,” McCallion said, “and they scanned her … she had several sleep tests and they showed something but they scared her to death with and she refused to go back and have anymore testing done.”

The doctors thought it might be epilepsy but they weren’t exactly sure.

Chellis though soldiered on, focusing on schoolwork, sports, and graduated from CHS in 2000. She was accepted to go to school at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

McCallion said she always wanted to be involved in the medical profession with Griffin adding that Chellis thought about becoming a veterinarian as a child, but later, desired to be involved in helping people instead.

However, while working at the Ninety-Nine Restaurant in Concord as a waitress, she became involved with a former drug dealer with a conviction record and alleged ties to gang activity who also worked at the restaurant. This one meeting and later, relationship, the family believed, was what set Chellis off on a course that ultimately took her life.

“It ended up kinda leading her down this path and choosing self-medication versus, you know, getting tested and really finding out what the underlying issues are … she probably had years and years of doctors appointments ...“ Griffin said, her voice trailing off.

When she went off the college, the man, who was originally from Lawrence, Mass., joined her.

Chellis, family and friends said, excelled at school and earned admission into the student leadership program that allowed her to live off campus. She was also enrolled in a nursing program at Suffolk.

But by 19, she was using heroin to self-medicate and was allegedly assisting her boyfriend with drug deals.

Upon returning home to New Hampshire one day, she was involved in another car accident, breaking her back again. There was no explanation for the crash, according to the family, and they believed that she may have had a seizure, which she became prone to after the original accident.

Chellis graduated with a nursing degree but was arrested for sale of narcotics a number of times and sent to prison.

Attempted recoveries

Chellis was incarcerated at one point in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown, where she received counseling and assistance.

Due to overcrowding, Chellis was transferred to Strafford County Jail, where the services were not as good, according to a column she wrote in 2007 for the Concord Monitor.

Chellis called the conditions at the jail deplorable for low level inmates and said she had been “subjected to incidents above and beyond what would be considered a violation of rights,” including ceiling tiles and cinderblocks that had fallen onto the heads of prisoners during a meal period, lack of access to proper recovery personnel who were available in Goffstown, and a long list of basic living standard issues.

Officials at the Strafford County challenged Chellis’ assertions calling the portrayal of the prison “inaccurate” and noted that she never filed official complaints with the prison about her concerns.

After being released from prison, Chellis seemed to turn her life around, entering drug programs but would always relapse, according to boyfriend Michael Guglielmo.

In one instance, while living in the Keene area, Chellis was in a methadone program and while driving home from an appointment, was involved in another accident and was transported from the scene to Dartmouth Hitchcock. Police thought she may have been under the influence but testing proved that she wasn’t. Doctors also found out that unbeknownst to Chellis, she was with child at the time of the accident.

Later, by emergency C-section, her son Owen would be brought into the world and would require medical attention and detoxification, according to McCallion.

Chellis, her son, and the son’s father, lived together for a time, although both Griffin and McCallion stated that they encouraged Chellis on a number of occasions to move back home. 

Medical problems continued and so did problems with the law, including a number of arrests between 2010 and 2012, and Chellis moving home to Concord. Custody battles over Owen only compounded the problems.

But at critical moments in her life, there were times when Chellis would claw back, attempting to set her life straight again, according to her family, only to fall back into the same pattern of pain.

Meeting Giovanni

Guglielmo met Chellis in the fall of 2011, after mutual friends shared Giovanni’s story of a rare blood disorder that eventually took his life earlier this year. They had lunch a few times with friends, he said, and brought their children to the Steeplegate Mall for rides. The two shared the history of their lives over a course of lunches and meetings, and began dating earlier this year, with Guglielmo assisting Chellis in kicking her drug and alcohol habit.

However, Guglielmo and family members say, other people who knew Chellis were getting her drugs and alcohol, which threw off her medication stabilization plan. Trips to the hospital that discovered other health issues created more crisis and started a downward spiral in the last two months that eventually ended her life.

“She was a natural beauty … she would light up a room and she had an amazing personality,” Guglielmo said, choking up. “I loved her so much … I would plead with her, ‘Please stay straight,’ but she couldn’t do it.”

Protecting Owen

The loss of a daughter is never an easy thing to live with. But losing a mother at such an early age for Owen has the family concerned about his future welfare.

They are hoping for the best, with one family member stating that there seemed to be a détente between all the parties involved in Owen's wellbeing.

But the family hopes to do everything it can to protect Owen, who is now 2.

“We’re going to do the very best we can, to make sure, that he has us as much as possible in his life,” McCallion said. “Because he definitely needs it.”

Guglielmo, who has a legal background, also assisted Chellis and the family with custody issues, filing briefs and attempting to make sure her rights as a parent were preserved.

“[Owen] loves Michael,” McCallion said, calling him his hero, as Guglielmo wiped frosting from a donut off Owen’s chin.

The service at St. John was a moving one. It closed with the playing of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," by Israel Kamakawiwoole, a heartfelt tribute to a life taken from everyone far too early.