In 1954, 16-year-old Pauline Parker and her friend Juliet Hulme made headlines around the world when they killed Parker’s mother in Christchurch.
Now, Parker, has died age 88 in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, three years after Hulme’s death.
As per Scottish newspaper The Orcadian, Parker died this month in a retirement home in Kirkwall in the Orkney islands where she had been living under the name of Hilary Nathan.
Parker and Hulme killed Parker’s mother, Honorah Mary Parker, in Victoria Park, Christchurch. The 46-year-old was hit around 20 times with a brick concealed in a stocking.
The pair became friends after bonding over their love of storytelling and vivid imaginations. Their friendship developed into an intense relationship that Parker’s mother was reportedly trying to break off.
In his final address to the jury, Parker’s lawyer Alec Haslam said that the two girls, who pleaded not guilty, had killed Pauline’s mother because she was a threat to their remaining together.
“We have these girls planning their dreadful act, carrying it out so clumsily, and then, after it was over, not showing any remorse,” he said.
Though both were convicted, as both were under the age of 18, Parker, who was 16 at the time and Hulme, who was 15, couldn’t face the death penalty. In 1959, the pair were released from prison and given new identities.
Whilst some UK media outlets reported that Parker worked in a stable in the Orkney Islands before retiring, Juliet Hulme went on to write crime fiction under the name of Anne Perry. The writer wrote over 120 books but died in 2023.
The murder inspired Peter Jackson’s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures that starred Melanie Lynskey as Parker and Kate Winslet as Hulme in their film debuts.
“Nobody was with me when we were shooting,” Lynskey told Vulture in 2022 when asked if her parents objected to the dark subject matter.
“I was there by myself. I had an apartment, and I was working adult hours. I don’t remember anyone being like, ‘Oh, she’s gotta get off the clock.'”
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