Pauline Parker
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Pauline Yvonne Parker was born on May 26, 1938 in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Together with her friend Juliet Hulme, she murdered her own mother, Honora Parker, on June 22, 1954. The two girls killed Honora because Juliet and her father were leaving shortly for South Africa and, though Pauline wanted to accompany them, her mother forbade it. According to their own accounts, Pauline and Juliet were devoted friends who collaborated on a series of adventure novels which they hoped would be bought by a Hollywood studio and made into epic films. The girls' friendship was documented in detail by Pauline in a series of diaries during her teenage years.
The girls met in their early teens, when Juliet's family came to Christchurch from England. Both girls had suffered from debilitating sicknesses as children, and they initially bonded over this fact. Juliet allegedly romanticized the idea of being sick, and Pauline, having an imaginative spirit and a passion for tragedy herself (she loved the opera), took very well to this attitude. During their friendship, the girls invented their own personal religion, with its own ideas on morality. They worshipped their own saints, and envisioned a parallel dimension called The Fourth World, a place where they would go in lieu of Heaven when they died, and a place which they felt they were already able to enter occasionally, during moments of spiritual enlightenment. The girls felt their genius was unappreciated by their parents and schoolteachers so, according to Pauline's diary entries, they formulated a plan to flee to Hollywood with their goldmine of imaginative ideas. Shortly prior to this, Juliet had discovered her mother was having an affair, and her parents had announced they were getting a divorce. This devastated both Juliet as well as Pauline, who, because of having spent so much time with the Hulmes, thought of Juliet's parents as her own. Both girls were unaware of the fact that both sets of parents were collaborating in an effort to separate the girls, as they viewed their close friendship as potentially unhealthy and/or homosexual. Homosexuality was seen as an illness at the time. The Parkers and the Hulmes' efforts culminated in the plan for Juliet to accompany her father when he moved to South Africa, leaving Pauline behind in New Zealand. Pauline's mother was particularly vocal in her concern about Pauline's obsessiveness, and was adamant that Pauline could not accompany her best friend.
On June 22, the girls beat Mrs. Parker about the head with a half brick concealed in a stocking, in a park in Christchurch. They immediately ran to a nearby tea shop and claimed that Pauline's mother had slipped and fallen, though as soon as the body was discovered by police, the story did not hold up in explaining the forty-five wounds on the woman's head. The torn, blood-soaked stocking with the brick in it was found nearby.
Pauline and Juliet were tried by jury in Christchurch and were found guilty. A plea of insanity was rejected by the court. As the girls were too young to be considered for the death penalty under New Zealand law at the time, they were convicted and sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure. In practice, this sentence meant they were to be detained at the discretion of the Minister of Justice. They were released separately some five years later.
Prior to the trial, Pauline Parker had been known as Pauline Rieper. Her mother, Honora Parker, had been living with her father, Herbert Rieper, in the manner of marriage, but during police investigations, it was revealed that they were not in fact married. Thus, during the trial, both Honora and Pauline were referred to with the "Parker" surname.
Upon release, Pauline apparently spent some time in New Zealand under close surveillance before being allowed to leave for England. As of 1997, she was living in the small village of Hoo near Strood, Kent, under the name "Hilary Nathan," and running a children's riding school. She has become a devout Roman Catholic and extremely remorseful about having killed her mother.
The story of the girls was made into a film, Heavenly Creatures, by New Zealand producer-director Peter Jackson, in 1994. Pauline was played by Melanie Lynskey and Juliet by Kate Winslet.
