Charleen Hughes

Charleen Hughes is a fictional ghost and a minor character featured on the WB Network television series Charmed. Played by actress Rebecca Cross, she appeared in the nineteenth episode of season 2|season two, "Ex Libris".

Biography
Charleen Hughes was a college student from San Francisco, California. Her father was a college professor of metaphysics, who felt that his daughter's aptitude on the subject was not quite satisfactory.

Charleen began studying demonology, and planned on writing a thesis proving the existence of demons. One day, while studying at the library, she met another college student named Phoebe Halliwell and broached the subject of demonology with her. Phoebe was caught off-guard by this, and was a bit leery, owing to her own experiences as a witch who has fought up against demons on several occasions.

A particular breed of demon, known as a Libris, was responsible for killing mortals who came too close to uncovering the true nature of demonic entities. A Libris demon found Charleen in the library and pulled her through a dimensional portal, after which, it decapitated her, and left her body outside in a nearby alleyway.

San Francisco police detective Darryl Morris was called to the crime scene after the body was discovered the following day. Phoebe Halliwell was on her way back to the library when she came upon the crime scene. She asked Darryl about it, and told him that she had met Charleen the previous day.

Once she got inside the library, she saw Charleen enter the room complaining of a headache. Phoebe realized that Charleen was as yet unaware that she was deceased, and now a ghost. Phoebe returned home to tell her sisters, Prue and Piper about the experience. They told her that she needed to inform Charleen about her current state.

Phoebe encountered the ghost again, and discretely tried to explain to her that she was dead. Charleen didn't believe her at first and stormed off in a huff. She quickly deduced the truth however, and later materialized inside of Halliwell Manor. The Charmed Ones theorized that if they could destroy the Libris demon, then Charleen's spirit would be able to move on.

Diving information from the Book of Shadows, they discovered a method to dispel the demon. When the Libris came to kill Phoebe, they succeeded in destroying it, but its destruction did not alter Charleen's presence on the mortal plane in any way.

They deduced that they only way she could move on was helping someone else move on with their lives. This tied into another situation that Prue was entangled in, which involved a grieving father named Cleavant Wilson, who wanted justice against the man who murdered his daughter, Tyra.

The prime suspect in the murder was a pawn shop owner named Gibbs. Prue tried coercing a confession out of Gibbs when she entered his shop, but when this failed, Charleen decided to use her own ghostly talents. Like a poltergeist, she began typing out Tyra Wilson's name on a typewriter to scare Gibbs. She also began tormenting him by playing a guitar, which to his perception, was simply floating in the air playing itself.

Gibbs was suitably terrified and dove through the glass door of his establishment just to escape the ghost. Charleen threatened to torment him for all of eternity unless he confessed to Tyra's murder. Gibbs did so publicly, and Daryl Morris was on hand to arrest him. Cleavant Wilson now had a sense of closure in his life. Because she helped Cleavant to move on, Charleen's spirit was ready to ascend to the afterlife.

Notes & Trivia



 * When the episode is viewed with subtitles, it indicates that the ghost character's first name is spelled as "Charleen", not the traditional "Charlene".


 * Charleen Hughes is the only character to die during the events of "Ex Libris".


 * Actress Rebecca Cross also made an uncredited appearance as a waitress in the season three episode "Primrose Empath".

Appearances

 * Charmed: Ex Libris