Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Little Darlings

Two teenage girls have an intense fantasy life.
Their parents, concerned the fantasy is too intense, separate them.
The girls take revenge, killing Pauline’s mother armed with a brick in a stocking.
You may have seen the movie starring Kate Winslet.
That murder took place in lil’ ol’ New Zealand today in history, June 22nd., 1954.
There’s plenty of material written about the case: in the end the girls – Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme – each served around five years. Pauline was sent to Paparua prison near Christchurch. Juliet initially went to Mt Eden prison and then to Arohata prison in Tawa near Wellington. They were ordered to never see each other again and, on release, the Justice Department gave them new identities.
Parker, under another name, became a devout Catholic and worked in an Auckland bookshop, before moving to England. Hulme’s life, under the name Anne Perry, revolves around her Mormon religion and making a living ironically as a murder mystery writer in Scotland.
She has sold more than three million of her 20+ titles. She says she’s not drawn on her own experience, much of which has been blocked out of her memory, in any of her stories. Perry also says the two have not had any contact since their prison sentences.
This murder remains one of NZ’s most infamous and has inspired a play, Daughters Of Heaven and Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-nominated film Heavenly Creatures.

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