Author(s): Peter Graham

True Crime

The brutal, premeditated murder of Honorah Parker in 1954 in a lonely park by her 16-year-old daughter Pauline and Pauline's 15-year-old friend Juliet Hulme made shock headlines around the world. International media flocked to New Zealand to follow the trial. Still today, the murder remains one of the most interesting criminal cases of all time, and a source of intense public fascination throughout the world - especially since one of the murderers was revealed to be the murder-mystery writer Anne Perry, whose books sell in the millions. Lawyer and true crime writer Peter Graham writes of the secrets and lies that permeated the girls' families, the bizarre lead-up to the murder, the girls' conviction and imprisonment, and their lives following their release. He also examines Parker's and Hulme'' actions in the light of modern psychology. In the 1950s the two girls were suspected of lesbianism, and judged and imprisoned as inherently evil. Would this happen today?