{"id":639721,"date":"2026-10-24T05:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T05:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/639721\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T05:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T05:36:09","slug":"pauline-parker-killer-in-heavenly-creatures-case-dies-aged-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/639721\/","title":{"rendered":"Pauline Parker, killer in Heavenly Creatures case, dies aged 88"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">Pauline Parker, who murdered her mother alongside her friend Juliet Hulme in a Christchurch park in 1954, in a case that later inspired Peter Jackson\u2019s film Heavenly Creatures, has died in Scotland aged 88.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Scottish newspaper The Orcadian reported Parker, living under the assumed name Hilary Nathan, died this month in Orkney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">In June 1954, Parker and her friend Juliet Hulme killed Parker\u2019s mother, Honorah Mary Parker, on a walkway in Victoria Park, Christchurch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">They hit the 46-year-old about 20 times with a brick in a stocking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Parker was 16 and Hulme was 15. Because of their ages, they could not face the death penalty after their conviction. They were released in 1959 and given new identities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Peter Jackson\u2019s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures retold the case and starred Melanie Lynskey as Parker and Kate Winslet as Hulme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Hulme went on to write crime fiction as Anne Perry and sold millions of books. She died in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pauline Parker, who murdered her mother alongside her friend Juliet Hulme in a Christchurch park in 1954, in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,67,42,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-639721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}