Indeed, awful as their crime was, 70 years of hindsight and understanding certainly helps cast both women in a more sympathetic light than the monstrous reputation they gained at the time.Īnne's family arrived in New Zealand from the UK in 1948 for Dr Henry Hulme to take up his rectorship. Did they find the redemption they desperately sought? The Mail spoke to sources close to both women this week to shed light on their extraordinary lives since the crime. Three years later, in an uncanny case of parallel lives, Pauline was also found living in the UK, and working as a riding instructor in Kent.Īfter her cover was blown, she fled and ended up living 90 miles from Anne, in the Orkneys - although the pair never met again. The world's Press promptly descended, shattering her carefully constructed existence.

Then, in a dramatic twist, just before Heavenly Creature's cinematic release, Anne's past was exposed and she was discovered living quietly in the small Scottish fishing village of Portmahomack, Easter Ross. Yet what came next for the teenage murderesses is maybe even more gripping.Īnne, successfully concealing her identity, became a bestselling crime author, writing of killings, justice and morality, while her own sins remained buried for 40 years. Pauline became Hilary Nathan and Juliet, Anne Perry. The pair served five years in different prisons and changed their names on release. The combination of matricide, Anne's well-to-do family - her scientist father Dr Henry Hulme was Rector of Canterbury University College in Christchurch, her mother Hilda a marriage guidance counsellor who'd been having an affair - and the suggestion of a lesbian relationship between the girls, rocked the quiet, conservative country. The attack was brutal, the coroner recorded 45 separate head wounds. On June 22, 1954, the girls battered Honorah Parker to death with a brick knotted into a sock, leaving her lying in a pool of blood in deserted Victoria Park, Christchurch.

Pauline's mother forbade her daughter from leaving the country with Anne and Pauline hatched a horrifically misplaced plan to kill her. The triggers which led a mere girl of 15 to become a killer gave the film its fascination, as it recounted the real-life story of how, Anne - born Juliet Hulme - had befriended teenager, Pauline Parker, at school in 1950s New Zealand.įriendship turned to obsession, they sometimes shared a bed and baths, and when Anne's father announced he was sending Anne to sunnier South Africa to convalesce after a bout of tuberculosis, the girls were terrified of being separated. Melanie Lynskey (left) pictured as Pauline Parker, with Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme in 1994 film Heavenly Creatures

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