Samantha Winslow

Samantha Winsow
Aliases	Amy Shenfield
Additional Information
Gender	Female
Status	Alive
Family/Relatives
Father	Hugh Winslow
Mother	Celia Winslow
Show Information
Portrayed by	McKenzie Applegate
Episode	The Signs in the Silence

Samantha Winsow introduced to the team as Jane Doe, also known for a time as Amy Shenfield was a young deaf woman who became heavily involved in the investigation in The Signs in the Silence.

History

Early Life

Under unspecified circumstances, Samantha was abducted from her birth parents when she was around three years old, and was subsequently raised by Mike and Denise Shenfield as their daughter Amy. The Shenfields subjected her to numerous cases of physical abuse while 'justifying' it as claiming that Amy needed to learn how to mind others and have a normal life. Amy tried to report what was happening to her, but nobody ever believed her, accepting the Shenfields' reports that she was just acting out.

Eventually, Amy attempted to run away, but the Shenfields worked out where she was going and contacted a friend of theirs, Duval Price, to catch Amy when she got off the bus to prevent her reporting their abuse. Traumatised and scared at the prospect of further abuse, Amy tried to escape, but ended up stabbing Price in the heart when he fell on top of her while she was trying to escape. Further horrified at what she had done, Amy ran away, only to be eventually found in a nearby alley covered in blood, still holding the knife that she had killed Price with.

Meeting the Team

With no way to make Amy talk even after Grace Meacham was brought in from Child Protective Services to communicate with Amy and act on her behalf, she was brought to the Jeffersonian so that the team could analyse the blood all over her and work out what had happened. Despite the difficulties in analyzing 'Jane Doe' due to her fear of being sent back to her family, Angela Montenegro was eventually able to work out where Amy came from based on minor 'quirks' of her sign language (The equivalent of a local dialect), as well as Seeley Booth analyzing the money found on her and tracing it to the ATM that issued it. Having tracked Amy to her town of origin based on a bus ticket and receipt in her pocket, the team were able to identify the Shenfields, but their analysis of Amy's skeleton via X-ray to determine her age had already presented hints that she had been a victim of abuse.

After Doctor Temperance Brennan convinced Amy to consent to further X-rays, the analysis of her skeleton revealed such extensive damage that Arastoo Vaziri commented that she had basically been used as a human punching bag. This discovery prompted Caroline Julian to come in with a court order preventing the Shenfields from taking Amy 'home'. A quick 'test' performed by Brennan subsequently confirmed that the Shenfields couldn't be Amy's biological parents as Amy's deafness was caused by the genetic condition known as Waardenburg Syndrome, and neither parent had the right traits to be a carrier for the appropriate genes to create the disorder.

Her Real Family

After Booth and Doctor Lance Sweets provoked the Shenfields into admitting to their past abuse, the team confirmed that Amy killing Price had only been done in self-defence, assuring her that she wouldn't be charged for his murder. Although Amy couldn't remember anything prior to the Shenfields apart from a stuffed bunny, Brennan asked for consent to extract one of her wisdom teeth, hoping that the isotopes it had absorbed from her surrounding environment would be enough to determine where she had been born. Once this was explained, Amy happily agreed. Brennan was able to use the isotopes to trace Amy to Los Angeles. Booth found a girl who went missing in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles in the Missing Person's Database and sent the picture to Brennan. The picture showed a young Amy, who's real name is Samantha Winslow with her stuffed bunny. Booth quickly contacted Samantha's parents who flew in from Los Angeles to reunite with their daughter.

With this evidence, Booth, Brennan and Grace accompanied Amy/Samantha to a tearful reunion with her biological parents, the Winslows, who produced her old stuffed rabbit as they assured her that they had never given up, Booth and Brennan walking away as the Winslows exchanged a tearful reunion.