Heavenly Creatures: The Parker-Hulme Murder | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is more [Music] bed it sure is it's Morad it's Memorial
Day Monday Morad yeah happy Memorial Day a couple weeks late yep happy Memorial Day two weeks ago I
hope that you had a day off I hope that you got to Vibe Vibe so hard and I hope that you had a good beach day yeah or
however you chose to do your day to celebrate your day yeah okay we're doing a little half day we're doing a half day
a little half day I want to get some wings after this let's [ __ ] go let's [ __ ] go except everything is closed
so I have to find a place that makes Wings got to find some wangs maybe I'll make my own wangs there you go really
not I don't want to no definitely not um yeah I think I'm trying to think of any
any business we have you got some book [ __ ] I know you do the only business I really have is uh there's a giveaway
contest give away give it away give it away now exactly where you can win a personalized video from me Elena
personal hello enter your name here and in the video I'll discuss with you some behind the scene [ __ ] about the butcher
game oh that's cool um we can chitchat a little bit I can tell you about my day I
can tell you all kinds of stuff that's cool I didn't know it was that yeah I'll give little sneaky peeky into all this I
would like to do that with like an author that I listen to that I listen to that I read Listen to I love that well
the way you can do that is by taking you got to pre-order the butcher game I did
that's the rub everybody that's the catch you got to pre-order the butcher game so if you put in your pre-order or
if you already have pre-ordered you can submit your receipt a picture of your receipt for your pre-order at the link
in my bio I put it in my link Tree on Instagram I think it says like the butcher game video contest I like in the
link you'll find contest yeah it's contest we're going to pick a few people a sweep Stakes a giveaway a
contest ition will pick a few and you'll get a personalized video so like the only way to win is to pre-order
pre-order pre-order pre-order porter porter porter and you can go to the butcher game.com and it'll lead you to
all the links to all the different book sellers and all the different Outlets that you can get your book and you can
choose which one you would like to support that's that's on you man I support you book adventure yeah and once
you pre-order you can submit that receipt and you are entered to win and I hope you do it cuz I want to chat with
you part this is cool want give you a little video I like this idea a lot it's fun
where' you get this idea just kidding where'd you get this idea get this idea you're like my mind tell me about it
tell me everything no I like that that's fun yeah it'll be fun so submit those pre-orders my friends yeah do it yeah
that's fun and exciting yippee I don't have anything fun and exciting I just have a morbid case um and it's an
interesting one it's very very uh Folly ad do themed I've heard I saw the name of this one and I know this case like
very briefly yeah but I don't know a lot of the details so I had never heard of this case I've heard I'd heard of the
movie we're talking about the Heavenly Creatures case today it's the Parker Hume murder yeah I definitely I know the
like literally the overview of this but I know none of the details yeah I was just looking for you know we're in a
place of like old timey it's I don't know it's it's an interesting look into the path it is for sure cuz there's
other factors that always come into it are just not here today yeah exactly and it's just like wow people have always
been [ __ ] up yeah but yeah I hadn't heard of this particular case I had heard of the movie Heavenly Creatures
I've never seen it yeah but like I knew it was a movie but I didn't know any of the details and um if you're going into
this like I was wow prepare you're in for a wild ride so let's get into it Juliet Maran Hume was born October 28th
1938 in Greenwich London to Henry and Hilda Hume Henry and Hilda he Henry and H Henry was a physicist and Hilda was a
homemaker they both welcomed the birth of their daughter but motherhood didn't really come naturally to Hilda she
believed and this is a quote babies had to learn their place and not be pandered
to and fussed over a wild statement I don't even know where to begin with that statement
imagine looking at a small baby and being like to learn your your [ __ ] place Place baby I don't even know my
name and not be pandered to and fussed over they are literally brand new humans like that's that rely on you for
literally everything that's actually all of it you do have to Pander to them and
fuss over them whole point yeah I was just having a baby confused by people a lot I'm seeing it was a very different
time though this was like a time of like children are to be seen and not heard kind of thing like it's not the gentle
parenting that we know and practice today definitely not but as the look at how well we're all doing I know
Millennials are doing a much better job Generations later we're still dealing with all this [ __ ] that started way back
when tell me about it yeah but as the daughter of a presbyterian Minister Hilda was usually rigid in her beliefs
around the world but she maintained a poised and Polished exterior that kind of appeared to be somewhat conflicting
with the realities of motherhood like we all know moms were running out here like
crazy people you're running out there like crazy like here you're out there running around like crazy people yeah
like we we're a mess but she was like very polished very poised like never had a hair out of place anything like that
I'm always amazed at moms that can do that but it was also like I'm actually I'm like impressed I'm not saying like
oh my God yeah I mean some moms like really can do that but I mean and also attend to their children exactly but she
was more like a more more focusing on her yes exactly that's not good so years later Friends of the couple would recall
Hilda as aloof and not very warm to children to make matters worse the year that Juliet was born there was talk of
War breaking out across Europe because Hitler and the Germans ramped up their rhetoric at that point in time and less
than a year later World War II had broken out and as the British government readied themselves for the inevitable
attacks it put the entire country in a state of constant anxiety and vigilance that obviously would last for years mhm
so from a very early age Juliet showed herself to be a very imaginative child she she seemed to have a lot of
difficulty transitioning back and forth between fantasy play and reality ah years later yeah years later Hilda would
describe Juliet as a very demanding and sensitive daughter who resisted discipline and resented
correction so is she just a kid yeah it sounds like it and it sounds like perhaps I mean there are kids that are
tougher than others it's just the way that life works and it sounds like she might have just been a little bit of a
tougher kid yeah than what her mom expected kids are sensitive kids are demanding super demanding kids don't
really love discipline yep they don't really like I don't know that just seems like
and what you think when you think of like what discipline was back then I think most kids would resist discipline
because a lot of times discipline was physical I was gonna exactly like discipline back then especially like you
said was scary and fear-based no child was welcoming that discipline it's human nature to resist a physical punishment
yeah when you're being when it's fear-based of course you're going to resist it yeah but these behavioral
problems worsened when her brother Jonathan was born in 1944 or at least in the eyes of people at the time by then
uh used to being the focus of her parents attention Juliet resented her new sibling which that's not good and
obviously that became a problem for Hilda and Henry so the the war and her mother's poor health due in part to a
difficult pregnancy Juliet was often separated from her parents for short periods which caused her to develop a
rich inner Fantasy Life where she could Retreat whenever she was feeling anxious
or uneasy it sounded like it was a coping mechanism that like breaks my heart it's sad it really is while Juliet
struggled to develop a healthy relationship with her mother her relationship with her father was equally
tenuous as a mid-century British man Henry Hume was kind kind of like stereotypical to a degree he was
reserved buttoned up and exceedingly proper I just picture this man pinkies up at all times yeah but as a physicist
his skills were essential in the fight against the threat of the German invasion and by the early 1940s he was
promoted to the position of deputy director of Naval Operational research so like a big deal damn throughout the
early 40s he would play an increasingly significant role as a consultant to the scientist on The Manhattan Project W
working with many of those who actually developed the atomic bomb damn yeah an interesting part of History right there
that like he was directly connected to and a big part of but given the importance of the role and the urgency
of his work he was often distracted and didn't have a lot of time for his kids that's really sad well and if you think
of dads today yeah like dads today are not what dads used to be like obviously there's an exception to every rule of
course yeah you're not across the board in in the' 40s like dads weren't hands on weren't Millennial dads you know what
I mean it Millennial dads are different a dad's it was a mom's job so you really
have to like think about the yeah the social differences oh absolutely it's a totally different situation across the
board moms dads everything parents in general yeah yeah so when the war ended in 1945 Henry accepted a job as the
scient or as a scientific adviser to the air Ministry the job was really prestigious but when the war ended in
1945 he didn't really want to raise a family in the same place so he looked for other options and luckily he came
across an advertisement seeking applications for academic positions at the Canterbury University College in New
Zealand so he jumped at this at this chance and his resume being what it was he was a very promising candidate for
the position and in January of 1948 he was offered a job with the university which he gladly accepted look at him so
big moves here let's go New Zealand here we come New Zealand now for Juliet the news that the family would be relocating
to New Zealand was really neither here nor there yeah she's just like whatever well she's been shuffled around a lot at
10 years old she'd already gone through tons of upheaval she had been sent away before to stay with relatives she had
spent a lot of time in the hospital so she'd kind of grown accustomed to being away from her parents so it kind of
seems like she was most likely unsurprised when she was again sent away first she was sent to live with family
friends in the Bay of islands New Zealand months in advance of her parents arrival Jesus which it's like okay I
don't I'm not entirely sure why like it's like why can't you all just move at once yeah I'm not understanding this
family Dynamic but you know what like yeah I don't know if it was a school thing like maybe maybe but uh if Juliet
was unmoved by the disruption her parents seemed equally unaffected by the separation cool although it was never
explicitly stated Author Peter Graham wrote it seems that hen Henry Hume were happy to fgo for as long as they could
the company of their daughter whose quote defects in temperament and personality made her difficult and
Troublesome to handle she's 10 it was it was like a vacation for them too to be rid of her for there's really no better
way to say it I don't I don't get this but it she had a tough upbringing 100% there's no way around that and again I
don't know who Juliet is in this story so I'm not even coming from a place of knowing who she is yeah become someone
that you don't necessarily want to root for yeah but the the child and listening
to this without knowing who Juliet ends up being is me saying like that's a bummer for her yeah 10 it is like that's
just the reality of the situation yeah but once all the arrangements were made and hand and hurdles were cleared the
family settled in Christ Church the second largest city in New Zealand where 10-year-old Juliet started at the
prestigious St Margaret's college junior School in November of 1948 I feel like in other parts of the world their school
have like way cooler names than we do in the US yeah they're more intense it feels they all sound like colleges yeah
or like universities un I'm going to University going to so much better I know but despite its good reputation
former students of the school remembered it as a deeply serious and miserable place oh classrooms would darken for no
reason no one ever wanted to be alone in a in a locker room they said and pupils
felt like extras in some kind of horror movie wait a [ __ ] sec this place had a good reputation but former students
are like oh no it's literally the set of a horror movie like what the [ __ ] it had
a good reputation I think because of um like like test scores and that kind of thing like it had a good reputation on
paper classrooms would darken for no reason is this the omen Reon no one wanted to be alone in the locker room
like it this [ __ ] was haunted like this is the Exorcist legit What so um needless to say Juliet was happy to
leave St Margaret's behind when she finished e8th grade so she was there from the time she was 10 until she was
in eighth grade damn uh and it was at that point that she transferred to the Christ Church girls high school and it
was there that she would meet one Pauline Parker okay born May 26 1938 Pauline Parker was what her father later
described as an average normal child until age five when she developed uh osteomyelitis it's an INF inflammation
of the bone marrow damn and she got it in one of her legs it's like a ridiculously painful condition and in a
time before antibiotics it was typically fatal especially in children wow holy [ __ ] as it was Pauline's condition was
still very serious and she spent almost N9 months in a hospital she underwent numerous surgeries and endured two long
years of dressing and caring for what was essentially an open wound on her leg oh God yeah in addition to the
psychological stress of that experience the the physical pain was intense oh yeah and for years after she endured
episodes of leg pain that actually required Codine and aspirin damn which like Cody that's a lot crazy the
surgeries also left her with a limp and precluded any participation in sports or
strenuous play so there was no way she was going to be able to yeah really do any kind of sport ever mhm according to
her older sister Wendy Pauline developed more sedentary Hobbies including model making and at one point and this is a
quote went through a period of religious mania oh my so a lot of a lot of turmoil
a lot of turmoil happening around here and just trauma really like that's traumatic to go through at a young age
and then to be put on medication like that at a young age like yeah we don't really know what that does to people's
brains nope but unlike Juliet Pauline's family was solidly middle class her father Bert worked as a fisherman and
before she had children her mother Nora was an office assistant for years the children assumed that their parents were
happily married but it would be later revealed that they were in fact actually not married at all because Bert had
never divorced his first wife Louisa oh so they kind of were like they functioned as a married couple but they
couldn't be married on paper at least they were happy yeah it sounds like they were pretty happy Bert did his best to
provide for his family but a long period of economic depression had done a lot of
damage to New Zealand's middle class and B was one of many who struggled to make
any kind of Headway leveling up at all yeah like that sucks it's it was a cycle Rosemary Davidson whose family lived
next door recall the Parker being a Shabby and shambolic house with an air of poverty oh which like that's like
heartbreaking you're snoody an air of poverty yeah that's snoody you're a snoody toy you're a snoody tooty Judy
Rosemary Rosemary okay but it sounds like they were happy enough yeah they didn't have money for luxuries they
didn't have like much to do extra but it sounds like the Parker at least like the
parents had a small group of friends they were relatively social they were well-liked amongst their neighbors
except Rosemary except Ro yeah Rosemary thought they smell like poverty but Pauline struggled to make friends same
old Rosemary Davidson here Rosemary's got a lot to say she really does she she did recall though being afraid of
Pauline when they were children she said Pauline had a filthy temper filthy temp
filthy temper and yell and scream if she didn't get her own way okay which like sounds like facts wow but at home things
were different Pauline had a close relationship with her parents she got along well with her siblings her father
recalled if she ever did anything wrong she would always say she was sorry she knew she was wrong and that she tried to
do better I mean that's all you can ask that's literally literally Bert Parker's
memory of Pauline's childhood is obviously colored by a Father's Love for his daughter and maybe the passage of
time yes because he remember remembers Pauline as a happy well-mannered girl but others had a decidedly different
impression of her according to Peter Graham when Pauline entered the girls high school in the winter of 1952 she
was quote angry and rebellious felt different from the other girls resisted discipline and spoke sarcastically to
the teachers I do Wonder though and I I'm not saying anybody's lying here anybody's being disingenuous I do always
wonder in every case when somebody talks about somebody what they were like after
finding out some something horrible that they did if it suddenly is like a confirmation bias kind of thing where
you're like well she acted like this you know I mean like if if it seems like it's more uh prevalent than it actually
is defitely and again I'm not saying that's the case here I just it's something I always think of in these
cases and this is just happens to be one of those moments where I'm like huh you
wonder yeah you do and I think a lot of times too like even now when things come
out people just want to be part of the story so they'll tell you what you want to hearly
not saying it about this one I'm just it just happened to make me think of it it
sounds like Pauline was pretty well adjusted at home but it does sound like there's like multiple accounts she was
Wy outside of school she was Wy in in school or outside of home I mean yeah yeah yeah but this would all change I
guess when she met Juliet Hume a short time after she started at the school like Pauline Juliet was something of an
outcast at school she had an IQ of 170 so she was exceedingly intelligent she was confident and she seemed to have
little interest in forming relationships with the other girls at school she felt
like their interests were trivial and juvenile she was kind of above it yeah so instead she spent a lot of her time
fantasizing and coming up with ideas for stories that she hoped to write someday
oh that's nice yeah she told herself and the other girls who were pretty much as
uninterested in her as she was in them that they weren't worth her time wow yeah it's entirely likely that Juliet
would have ignored Pauline just like the other girls but they happened to meet because they were the only students
Exempted from gym class Pauline because of her leg and Juliet because of some of
her pulmonary conditions oh yeah cuz she had pneumonia and yeah uh bronchitis like multiple times so as the only two
not participating they naturally got to talking found that they had a lot in common and became Fast Friends Juliet
maybe recognized something of herself and Pauline she was a loner she seemed will like willfully and sometimes even
happily defined of authority and Pauline probably admired Juliet's intelligence Beauty and obvious creativity and while
the other girls seemed interested in ordinary culture Pauline had also uh developed an interest in poetry
literature and the other more adult interest that Juliet had developed so they kind of It kind of sounds at least
at this point like obviously later on more things happen but at this point it almost sounds like they're like two old
souls that don't really relate to people there age no it does sound like that actually but they find that in each
other yeah and most importantly they also bonded over their history of childhood illness like not a lot of
people know what that's like yeah and especially at the time going through it is I mean childhood illness is always
something you know horrifying and traumatic and it's like back then it was it was a totally different story cuz
there wasn't even the Comforts that we have now yeah so like she was going through I think it was Pauline was going
through what was going on with her leg before they even had antibiotics you that's a different story wow and
like Juliet Pauline's history of physical trauma and isolation at such an early age was something like we were
just saying the other kids just didn't understand so in Juliet she finally found somebody who understood the
serious effects that such an intense experience can have on a person years later Hilda Hume would recall Juliet
returning home from school one afternoon and enthusiastically announcing mommy I've met someone at last with a will as
strong as my own I actually love that yeah in the beginning it's cool you're like I know I'm like this is nice I'm
glad you found each other now oh no you won't be soon uhoh The Narrative of Pauline and Juliet's relationship tends
to portray their friendship as one of equals but there was probably some part of Juliet that knew she had the upper
hand if you will she obviously enjoyed having somebody she could share her world with and pass the time with but at
the same time she also wasn't desperate for social connection she was the one who was happy to be on her own
PA on the other was frustrated and she was lonely and she saw in Juliet everything she wanted in a friend so
simply put Pauline needed and wanted Juliet more than Juliet wanted or needed her and that fact was definitely not
lost on Juliet and neither was the power that such a position gave her over Pauline and this is a kid who never had
control or power over anything over anything she was just shuffled around shuffled around sent away moved from
home to home you know told told that her Defiance and her demanding quote unquote
nature was a negative were negative tra negative quality Y which is not good yeah it's like you got to try to spin
those qualities into something positive with a kid you can't tell them their bad
qualities because that's what they're going to live they're going to they're going to validate that on their own mhm
and it's like this is her finally seeing a way where she can take control of a situation and have it and boy did she oh
boy and again I don't know the details I very brief overview hon boy did the both
of them they both they fed off of each other like I said it's a very Folly Ado kind of thing seems that way yeah before
long Juliet and Pauline were completely immersed in each other's worlds they spent almost all of their time together
coming up with elaborate stories and Fantasies they rode horses they dressed up to perform plays where Juliet was
almost always the star and as it seemed fine like they it just seemed like they formed this Bond and they became best
friends who did everything together like I think we've all had a relationship or
most of us have where you meet this best friend and you start devoting all your time to them yeah absolutely but it got
to a point where it got to be too much yeah as the months went on they seemed to be completely wrapped up in each
other and as the nights became warmer Pauline would sneak out of her house at night and ride her bike to Juliet's
house where they would steal Wine and Food from the kitchen and sneak off to have Moonlight picnics or head to the
beach which still very like very relatable to a sense like oh like I'm going to sneak out and hang out with my
best friend yeah but everybody's been there everybody's been there but as one year passed into the next the girls seem
to shut out the world around them preferring instead to live in a fantasy of their own making just barely
attending their few real world responsibilities like school workor they were everything was falling by the
wayside there needs to be a balance yes it's okay to be you know you're creative
you're you know in you like fantasy you like you know that kind of stuff that's fine they're just they're always needs
to be a balance yeah it can't sweep you away one thing can't take over everything yeah and that's what happened
here and the older they got the more their fantasies came to include adult Concepts that they maybe weren't ready
to fully process process and yeah dive into yeah their dramas and stories were still those of an adolescent but as
Louise Chun wrote their characters regularly slaughtered and raped their way across the girl's imagination and
increasingly blood soaked Adventures I wasn't ready for what you just said yeah I don't think many people
would be you what like you what that escalated very quickly they started they because they would write these these
like stories back and forth and they damn got very dark in nature very quickly as you can see
yeah and a lot of them had very highly sexual themes but like like what I just said like featuring rape and that kind
of thing like it got it got dark yeah and if it was just coming up with stories that's one
thing but I think at the age that they were at it was concerning yeah and would be like if and the way they were pulled
away from reality in the way they were you know it was it sounds like it's becoming an us against the world's kind
of yes uh relationship and whenever it's a you and me baby against the world that's that's [ __ ] and it's going to
crash and burn in some way and it's not going to be good that always reminds me of Rob Zombie we going to crash and
burn it's that's literally what happens and that is what happens oh boy but Juliet and Pauline stories weren't the
only place that they explored romantic or sexual themes like a lot of girls their age they both loved Cinema and
they had a particular fond for popular male Stars at the time like Mario Lanza James ma James Mason and Orson Wells
after they were both arrested so we see where this is going well yeah and throughout what would become their trial
the press and particularly the tabloids made a lot of their uh sexuality eventually going as far to imply that
they were having a lesbian relationship which if they were whatever I was just going to say why would that
have anything to do with it no one really knows but but the time oh of course it was horrible Chen points out
their experimentation was probably no more than what many teenage girls get up to they sometimes slept in the same bed
they hugged each other when they were excited one night they practiced making love the way their Idols would so
definitely teetered over cuz like I was going to that last one I'm like I okay yeah okay I don't know any other teenage
girls experiences except the ones that I had with my friends and we did not practice making love I can tell you that
we also did not yeah like we hugged each other when we got excited slept in the same the same bed like very platonically
but we did not practice making love no I don't know if that's somebody else's experience though if they but you know
what that's you know it's none of my business yeah whatever but years later when asked for a comment on Juliet and
Pauline's supposed sexual relationship one classmate acknowledged the intimacy and told a reporter it was considered
normal for girls to have crushes on each other it was part of life at a single sex school that makes sense which it
does make sense you take the opposite sex out of the equation you're in the middle of puberty you're developing
these feelings like you're going to direct them at someone you know yeah and I always think like you know especially
like um like girls I feel like are so much more like can appreciate the beauty of another woman you know you know what
you mean I feel like that's just such a more fluid situation so you put them in a all girl school it's of course that's
going to happen it's bound to happen I agree but while they might not have been in a romantic or sexual relationship by
their third year in school Juliet and Pauline were certainly in mesed in one another's lives to the exclusion of
almost everything and everyone around them see that's that's where the problem comes it's the us against the world baby
and that's exactly what it is Pauline wrote in her diary which her diary becomes a big subject of this case we
have decided how sad it is for other people that they cannot appreciate our genius that's pretty hilarious Ela and I
have that conversation of I was just going to say that's pretty hilarious but and that kind of [ __ ] is just like that
if nothing else had happened that would just be like funny to look back on and be like look at at us just being like
[ __ ] everyone no context whatsoever you'd be like oh wow what a hot [ __ ] you'd be like that's hilarious like good
for you with your confidence but like yeah yeah and I feel like that goes back to what you were saying about like when
people are interviewed later on and they have that kind of bias of something happening it changes how you look at
things it's context all of it is context absolutely because now you read that and
you're like well [ __ ] that's not good that's that's leading to something bad but without the context like I don't
have all the details I know something bad happens though so I can at least go off of that and say like uh oh yeah
that's not good but if you don't know what the hell happens later and you're just thinking this is a tale of two
which you're not on morbid to do that but you're just thinking this is a tale of two women who like you know go
conquer the world together you're like well look at you you like you badass little confident [ __ ] just sitting
there being like nobody appreciates our genius how sad for them exactly interesting but then we we keep walk
keep on going keep on spiraling down the well we sure do so while they saw their
own relationship and increasingly romantic and grandiose terms the girl stories were becoming more like negative
and violent especially when it came to their imagined relations with others Peter Graham wrote as early as March of
1953 Pauline was writing about highway robbery and often more than one violent death a
day I mean that's a lot yeah that's a lot as somebody who writes about murder for a living that's a lot and that's the
thing like that's your literal job that's my job and that's my job too but we don't write about more than one in a
day no and it's true stories that we're writing which well I'm talking about I make them up oh like for my other job so
like I actually make it up for my other job like I have to do the the fantasizing in the creative writing
portion of it and even that's a lot well and also your brain is fully developed so it's not having the impact on you
necessarily that it would have on a teenage girl and it's having um healthy relationships and healthy bonds with
other people yes and healthy outlets and the ability to walk away from that for a
couple days if it becomes too much to separate that world that fantasy world from reality yes and that's where the
issue is coming in here it seems like that's all she could think about yeah and that's where it becomes unhealthy
and they were living in these fantasies like at points they would literally meditate into these worlds that they
created wow yeah that's interesting which is if the world that they were coming up with was less uh violent yeah
just lovely and something that could calm them or make them feel at peace somehow or yeah then that's lovely but
it wasn't really that yeah it seems like this was seems like there's just a lot of uh lot of Darkness around them a lot
of like there's not they're they're not having any positive relationships or any cu even
their relationship doesn't seem positive it seems very entrenched in a power Dynamic that isn't exactly balanced and
isn't isn't healthy at all and it's like if they had these like you know I don't
know it just seems like there's a lot of uh the the there's a lot of like knives
held in the air that I just feel are just going to all come crashing down yeah yeah so for the first couple years
of their relationship like we were just saying there was that power Dynamic Juliet always had the upper hand knowing
that Pauline was more dependent on her than she was on Pauline but over the course of 1953 as Juliet's life became
more and more tumultuous the imbalance of power started to even out a little bit in addition to a serious
hospitalization for what turned out to be tuberculosis wow she's really struggling with pulmonary stuff she is
yeah Juliet's relationship at the time also uh with her parents got even more strained so she turned to Pauline and
their Rich Fantasy Life as her only source of social or emotional support damn and when you're hospitalized like
they would write letters to each other while she was in the hospital but that was it all she had was her parents and
their relationship was not they didn't have a good relation comforting sad yeah so the more Juliet pushed her parents
away the closer she Drew Pauline unaware that while she had been in the hospital
Pauline had started dating a local boy named Nicholas oh of course with Juliet and Pauline being so close it was only a
matter of time before Juliet found out about Nicholas which she did in the fall of
1953 it's unclear what transpired exactly between them when Juliet found out of what she viewed as her
competition but in late October Pauline told Nicholas she was quote no longer very much in love with him and it was
quote better if they discontinued seeing one another as Graham put it it was as it
was as if she felt her affair with Nicholas had been an act of disloyalty to Juliet and by getting rid of him she
had returned their relationship to its rightful place as her primary concern and we've we've now ventured into
completely and utterly unhealthy yeah not okay we were teetering before now we're fully in that
real we entrenched in unhealthy [ __ ] right here yeah and PA's relationship with Nicholas was the first real test of
loyalty that the girl's relationship had faced and given how quickly and easily she dumped the boy that she had so
recently claimed to love it's clear that neither Juliet nor Pauline was willing to tolerate any threat to their
relationship damn and I say threat because that's how they viewed it like quote unquote threat quote unquote
exactly so while most people really paid little attention like at school to Paul
Pauline and Juliet's relationship the people who were familiar with them like a little more close to their Circle or
their twers Circle couldn't help but notice that they had an unusual and to some unhealthy attachment to one another
in late 1952 a lot of their classmates had started to notice the intensity of their bond but most considered it normal
because of the Dynamics of going to an all girl school classmate Jan southernland recalled you were allowed
to have a special friend as long as it was kept within bonds or I think bounds excuse me there's a lot happening
that I don't understand there's a lot there's a lot of Dynamics and like systems in place here that I have never
been a part of like all girls school and like in this in the ' 50s you know what
I mean like that I'm like wow it's interesting I didn't know about any of this I feel like it would make a really
good like obviously Heavenly Creatures as a movie it would be a great movie I feel like the concept of just like all
the Dynamics out an all girl school I'm I mean I'm sure it's been like a million
times but like you know what I mean yeah no it's an interesting probably kind of heartbreaking at times
I'm sure yeah cuz we don't know any of the the ins and outs of this the logistics yeah but while other girls
thought little of Juliet and Pauline's relationship the school's head mistress Miss Stewart had concerned that their
friendship might be headed in an unnatural direction oh I see what you're saying 50s head mistress over there she
was like I think they might be lesbians and we don't tolerate that here quote unquote exactly eventually she ended up
calling a meeting with Juliet's mother Hilda to discuss her belief that Juliet and Pauline's friendship quote might be
going Beyond normal healthy friendship which that say that yeah like I can I can understand that one like their bond
is unhealthy here and I don't know she might have meant unnatural direction as like this is simply not healthy yeah
regardless of what whether they are in a relationship that is romantic or platonic or somewhere in the middle
doesn't really matter no matter where it sits on the Spectrum here here it's unhealthy because of the way they are
like reacting to the world around them and the direction in which it's headed it's only going to get worse like so
let's nip this in the butt so she might have meant that there were a lot of people at the time who also were like
and I think they were lesbians and that wasn't okay so nobody who's to say you know but not one to overpar her children
Juliet's mother made it clear to Miss Stewart in no uncertain times that she was neither interested in nor prepared
to interfere with her daughter's friendships but particularly since she at that time saw nothing wrong with
Juliet and Pauline's relationship okay I bet she didn't hindsight yeah so Juliet's mom might not have seen
anything wrong with the unusually intense bond between the girls but Juliet's father was another matter
entirely remember he's a physicist he's a smart [ __ ] dude in December of 1953 Dr Hume consulted with his colleague Dr
Francis Bennett a psychiatrist whom he asked to evaluate Pauline wait yes Juliet's Dad yes asked to is it is
evaluate having his friend evaluate Pauline yes his daughter's friend yep okay y was there consent here like
what the [ __ ] it sounds like there was consent want call up her parents real quick I I think I think I think her
parents were like yeah but it's strange I know I had did when I was looking at that I was like wait did I have this
wrong no no it's really Pauline wow yeah okay when asked about this several years
later Hilda Hume said I had noticed Miss Parker was concerned about Mrs Parker was concerned about that friendship she
sought medical advice largely at my suggestion and my husband's okay so they talked about it and it seemed
like that Pauline's mom had more concerns than Juliet's parents so I don't know if they assumed that maybe
Pauline was the one who was too immersed in this that they were having okay they were like we're not
really seeing any any issue with Juliet but so maybe Pauline is the problem wow yeah and and her own mom was like yeah I
think this relationship is a little much like happened is these parents should have got together and me like what are
our concerns here yeah and then maybe we talk to both the girls yeah but I'm not
here I'm not in the 50s so that's how I would have done it I think but according
to Dr Benedict it was Dr Hume who was quote worried over what he regarded as an unhealthy Association and wanted me
to see Pauline from a psych a psychiatric point of view oh so it was Dr Hume yeah who was the one that was
like go go take a peek at paen you're not her father that's according to his friend but then according to Hilda she's
like well Mrs Parker also thought it was a problem so all of us came together and
Pa was the problem I mean I'm more inclined to believe the doctor here yeah his name is on this but who knows so
during Benedict's evaluation Pauline was overall pretty un cooperative and resistant to his questions but she did
say she was mostly unhappy oh and when he uh suggested she should widen her circle of friends she insisted she
didn't really care much for other girls and thought they were quote unquote silly it's like okay but sometimes
Silly's fun yeah you know you need a little fun in your life live in the silly everything doesn't need to be
serious yeah but she said besides she had Juliet she didn't need anybody else uhoh that's that's a ding ding
ding despite her providing very limited information and just giving like pretty sparse responses Benedict concluded that
Pauline was quote unquote strange I mean okay my diagnosis is you're [ __ ] strange same and and here it is he told
Nora Parker Pauline's mother that there was a quote homosexual attachment between her daughter and Juliet Hume oh
which of course at the time would have been s put everybody into such a [ __ ] tizzy and I like how it was like the
psychiatric evaluation that was like in my other diagnosis it's like homosexual it's like okay yeah I don't
understand but I don't think that's our biggest problem here I think it's the actual too intense Bond that's happening
right now ex the shutting out of reality that's the problem focus on that exactly
but the surprise evaluation did little to mend the increasingly fractured relationship between Pauline and her
mother because at this point even Pauline and her mom are having problems and I think that's I I just said I'm I'm
inclined to believe the w doctor but I it does sound like Nora Parker had her yeah her concerns I'm sure she did I
mean I don't know how any parent couldn't and especially because like I said Pauline seemed to be more affected
even at home at this point but despite Bert Parker's insistence that his daughter had been perfectly normal
before she'd met Juliet the fact was there had never been a really strong bond between Pauline and her mother huh
yeah that's the same with Juliet the relationships between mothers and daughters in this story very interesting
is very interesting like huh so I'm sure they bonded over that they did Big Time
most people recognized that Nora Parker meant well but like hild de Hume motherhood did not come naturally to her
interesting she was a very Stern woman who was quick to anger and Pauline almost constantly irritated her mother
without meaning to oh in fact Pauline's fractured relationship with her mother like we were just saying was among the
things that she and Juliet had bonded over when they first met according to her and this is really sad according to
Pauline her mother quote didn't understand her and didn't love her oh that's heartbreaking yeah that's awful
and a lot of times their arguments ended with physical punishment oh boy yeah so
Pauline's claims of abuse and pretty much neglect or a testament to how far she and her mother's relationship had
already even deteriorated by the time she even reached high school so that was already a problem there was already an
issue there and then her attachment to Juliet made things even worse you got to try to be good parents everybody it's an
important job of course it is by 1954 though Pauline's relationship with her mother wasn't the only familial bond
that was in danger of falling apart in late 1953 while working at the marriage guidance Council Juliet's mother Hilda
met a Canadian immigrant named Bill Perry Bill had sought services from the council because his marriage was falling
apart and while her initial intentions may have been to help him repair his marriage the relationship between Bill
and Hilda soon became flirtatious shut up and in no time at all their relationship had escalated from a fling
to something far more serious and in early 1954 Bill ended up leaving his wife and moving into an apartment
literally adjacent to the Humes Family House you you're okay okay um your child is going through something that's
concerning to everybody well nobody was as concerned with Julia the head mistress was concerned and like some of
the classmates were concerned PA's parents seem concerned Pauline's parents seemed concerned about her not
necessarily Juliet but like as a whole but there's an isue relationship is a problem like there's a problem here like
and even she's retreated into herself even Henry the father yeah the father seems to be a little concerned here
moderately at least and it's like what's going on like why are we adding more well to this H does not
really want to fuss over children that's true children should learn their [ __ ]
place as far as she's concerned babies should learn their place yeah that's babies should babies children all the
like like why would you add more into this chaos I it sounds to me like she was a woman who was very concerned with
her own needs yeah it does seem that way and not anyone else's cuz I mean she doesn't even give a [ __ ] about her
husband damn it just seems I'm like wow what a choice what a time to be alive yeah well
well this next part will just uh solidify the statement I just made of she really seemed only concerned with
her own [ __ ] oh my according to Hilda's own friend Nancy souland Hilda had cheated on her husband many times before
Bill and he was just quote one of Hilda's lovers oh okay yeah all right so with her husband consumed by his work
and rarely at home Hilda seemed to be less Vigilant than she should have been when it came to her affair with Bill and
in no time at all Juliet and Pauline had picked up on the relationship probably because he [ __ ] lived adjacent to
their house oh and that's going to [ __ ] you up yeah but rather than seeing it as
the inevitable end to her parents marriage Juliet instead saw it as a potential Financial opportunity stop it
by 19 by mid 1954 I'm just laughing because it's just like what the [ __ ] this is soar like this is uncomfortable
and bizarre cuz it's just like it just keeps getting getting more chaotic the layers Yeah by uh by mid 1954 the girls
fantasies had begun to center around running away together something that would require money and a good amount of
it so they hatched a scheme where they would catch Bill and Hilda in their Affair and blackmail them thus gaining
the funds needed to run away together that's such a Detachment from reality from reality and such a
Detachment from your mother as a as a mother you're just seeing her is like an opportunity to get to you need to go
she's [ __ ] up so let's there's so much like the bond between mother and daughter in both of these girls like
Pauline's bond with her mom and Juliet's bond with her mom are not yeah the typical bond between mother and daughter
yeah there's a lot of coldness here there's Detachment in on both sides big time between mother and and daughter and
between daughter and mother like it's from both sides like one has to the other and it's just well and I think a
lot of times and like obviously we're not going to get like too far into it but like we said punishment at this time
was physical that creates trust issues yeah absolutely that's just the fact of the matter yeah it just was biology it
just is and so I think that can lead to the Detachment of like I don't trust you
you're going to hurt me yeah cuz in the 50s [ __ ] was Wily like punishments were
not normal punishments like kids were literally getting hit with belts and stuff like and getting the [ __ ] kicked
out of them like it was like this was not bounds of anything right so yeah and physical to you know that's just the way
it is so I think though I think those Bonds were just damaged at a really early age and I mean punishment aside
Juliet was sent to live with other family members all the time she was separated from her parents in really
early developmental years so I don't really think Juliet ever formed a typical bond with her mom and then
Pauline I think is more the result of the the punishment style yeah and I think and they both say that they never
really took to Motherhood right like that wasn't something they were comfortable with and it just wasn't they
weren't really nurturing which is something a kid needs and it's sad ultimately because at the same time back
then you didn't really get the option to choose whether or not you wanted to be a
mother yeah so it kind of just like that's what you do and it was the kid who really suffers for it right mhm it's
it's just very sad overall it's very it's all very sad so Juliet and Pauline's plan to back uh blackmail
Juliet's mother and run away together was obviously somewhat childish in the whole like running away sense and
thinking that they would be able to and even though Juliet actually did catch the two of them in bed together she
never got a chance to blackmail her mom or Bill wow that's all [ __ ] up yeah in
May of 1954 after their blackmail scheme and Hilda hum's Affair had been exposed
Hilda and Henry called both girls to the kitchen one afternoon for a discussion because they were also always at each
other's houses of course particularly Pauline was always at Juliet's house it was then they learned that not only were
Juliet's parents going to separate but also that there had been some problems at the University and Henry had actually
resigned from his position so without employment and unlikely to stay married there was no
reason for the Humes to remain in New Zealand because remember they had only moved there because of a job opportunity
yeah and like nothing's really tethering them there so they tentatively decided to return to England in the coming
months oh wow Juliet's family the news was obviously upsetting for Juliet and Pauline but it's unclear whether they
truly understood what it meant for their friendship by that point they had been completely wrapped up in this grandiose
fantasy world where they believed among other things that they were uh telepathic and had an unbreakable Bond
and received an assurance from Juliet's father that they would not be separated in their minds he had made a promise to
them that he wouldn't separate them but that never actually happened yeah it was
delusions I was going to say it's just a lot of dulu happening yeah and none of it's going to come true Lulu no Pauline
wrote in her in her diary in early May Dr Hume really is to be relied upon so she like she had a legitimate trust she
really believed it what exactly he promised them is unknown but it seems pretty unlikely Dr Hume would have made
any kind of Promise under the circumstances especially when you think of the fact that he was the one that
wanted Pauline evaluated yeah that's the thing yeah I don't see that happening I
don't know if it was like a thing where the conversation kind of got like heated
and he was like we'll do our best to keep you guys together like like he said something that could in their very
delusional very Fantastical very desperate worlds yes look to them like any suggestion of a promise you know
like anything they could twist into one and it could have been that that he said
something like very small that they twisted or it could have been that in their minds they were so detached from
reality that they just believed he promised them something that he never promised like didn't even say anything
even close to a promise yeah I could see that so by early June Henry Hume had formally resigned from his position and
it was announced that he had accepted a new position in England so the family had a move coming in their future it
turned out that he actually hadn't accepted a new position but the second part was true he was to return to
England alongside his soon to be ex-wife however they decided under the circumstances it would be best if Juliet
went to live with Henry's sister in South Africa oh like okay okay given her precarious health and the fact that his
sister AA ran a girl's boarding school sending Juliet there seemed a better alternative than returning to London for
her they didn't think it was like a good place for her to be so the news was obviously a devastating blow to both
girls but they resolved to stay together and decided that Pauline would simply go
to South Africa with Juliet oh yeah obviously I'll just obviously my family will let me move away and go to your
aunt's place with you definitely definitely but in their mind the Humes had always welcomed Pauline into their
home they'd even taken her on vacations at this point so it seemed entirely reasonable that they would allow her to
accompany their daughter to her new temporary home yeah of course overnight stays and vacations were one thing but
this was um something entirely different and Pauline's mom was like you're not moving to South Africa with your friend
Pauline like yeah you're in high school no what are you doing what no the decision that Juliet would be leaving
without Pauline came as a shock but the girls remained committed to staying together and had already come up with a
backup plan that would allow them to stay together forever oh my Pauline wrote in her diary in late June our main
idea for the day was to murder mother this notion was not a new one but this time it is a plan which we intend to
carry out we have worked it out carefully and are both thrilled by the idea naturally we feel a trifle nervous
but the pleasure of anticipation is great I shall not write this plan down as I shall write it out when we carry it
out wow that escalated that went from zero to 100 and you I stopped in the middle of that
sentence because you feel like it escalated so quickly but there is years and years of just
wild attachment Styles going on between these two girls and some people trying to get in the mix there and try to you
know figure this out and rectify this but wow the damage had been done that's unbelievable it and that's the thing
like you feel like it goes to Zer to 100 but it hit every number along the way no
it's true it did it's just I think what's bothering me the most is the callousness with which this is oh the
callousness is being said and I think it comes from the I mean and this is just me like theorizing but I feel like it
comes from the fact that they were just so detached from the regular world that she was like yeah we'll kill my mom and
then we'll just go to that world it almost seemed like that was a real tangible place for them to go to yeah
like in her mind I I don't know if she thought like we can run away to that world that we made up I I think I could
absolutely see that their reality that they can run to that fake reality it's like you can't and I
just I was looking up the the diary things and they spelled murder M moer yeah I was like was was that on purpose
why'd you do that I think it's actually British is it it's like a British thing M oh really I didn't know that cuz I
Googled it really quickly and I was like does like does she mean something else she mean murder mean it's murder cuz I
when I see that I think like mua mua like how Spencer Henry Spencer Henry I know so the next day June 20th Pauline
spent the day with her family years later her father Bert recalled she seemed much brighter in the house than
she had before she was much nicer to us than she had been for a long time oh that's awful two days later Pauline and
Juliet would brutally murder Nora Pauline's mother holy [ __ ] yeah later after the
arrest and the trials many people would theorize that they had conspired to kill
Nora Parker in the misguided belief that if she were out of the picture Pauline would then be allowed to join Juliet and
South Africa uh it's pretty likely that this was the Catalyst for the murder but
at the same time Pauline had hated her mom for a long time and had fantasized for a long time about killing her EK
Peter gaham wrote Pauline would never forget the unhappiness of her childhood and seemed to blame most of that
unhappiness on her mother oh boy so on the morning of June 22nd 1954 Pauline woke up and wrote in her diary the day
of the happy event oh my God and referred to her mood as in the as a quote the night before
christmas-ish wow about murdering her own mom wow that afternoon Juliet left her house to meet Pauline grabbing a
broken brick off the ground from the side of the house and putting it in her bag as she walked at Pauline's house
they both sat down and enjoyed lunch with Nora she prepared them a nice little lunch and they all ate together
after lunch they went upstairs to Pauline's room where Juliet slipped the half brick into one of Pauline's old
stockings and then they tied a knot around the ankle to keep the brick in place and
then stuffed it into Pauline's bag after they eaten and readied their murder weapon Juliet Pauline and Nora all set
off for a walk through the woods Nora just wanted to go on a walk with them Pauline took the lead as they walked
with her mother in the middle and Juliet behind her after some time the vegetation started getting more dense
and muddy and difficult to manage they weren't going for a hike so Norah suggested like let's turn around let's
head back the girls tried to convince her to continue on but she was like no I don't want to go any further let's go
back to the house so this time it was Pauline who was in the rear as they turned around walking behind her mother
fumbling with the buckle on her bag at one point Nora stopped along the trail and bent down to look at something on
the ground and that was when Pauline came up fast behind her and swung the brick as hard as she could striking her
mom in the back of the head with it whoa so Nora got knocked to the ground and she covered her head in pain and
confusion and Pauline just swung the brick over and over again until Juliet appeared and took the makeshift weapon
from her and then took her own turns hitting Norah holy [ __ ] eventually the brick Broke Free from the stocking and
fell to the ground near Norah's almost lifeless body and sensing that the woman was almost dead Juliet kneel beside her
and grabbed her by the throat to hold her head in place while Pauline took up the brick again and started bashing her
mom in the head repeatedly until she ran out of energy oh my God like that is frenzied
as that I was going to say the frenzy holy [ __ ] although still not dead it was clear to both girls that Nora
wouldn't survive without immediate medical attention so they tried to drag her into the brush but they had
underestimated the the fact that she was going to be dead weight yeah obviously and they were only able to drag her a
few inches before she was too heavy with Nora rasping and choking on blood in the
bushes they ran off in the direction of town to carry out the next phase of their scheme the [ __ ] is the next phase
we'll get there okay but later when the autopsy was completed the pathologist counted 45 external injuries holy [ __ ]
including 24 lacerations to the head and face that had penetrated to the Bone and
extensive fractures of Norah's face nearly all of the blunt force injuries to her head were serious wow and the
pathologist wrote in his report it would not take many of them only a few to produce
unconsciousness wow so this was complete Overkill yeah when they reached Town Juliet and Pauline went into the nearest
business an ice cream parlor they had to were they like covered in blood I imagine you would
think like you would think they would be you would absolutely think and that's where the owners Agnes Richie and her
husband contacted the police in the mean metime Agnes's husband and another man ran out to the spot where the girl said
they left Nora hoping that they might be able to help when they reached the spot
where the woman lay in the brush Kenneth immediately felt that something wasn't right yeah cuz what the [ __ ] did they
tell them they said that Nora had slipped and fallen on the trail and hit her head on a rock 45 times 45 times
this woman appeared to have been viciously beaten uh yeah and they had left the broken brick beside her body
that was covered in her hair and blood holy [ __ ] it was brutal and I'm like you
guys really like you guys are creative writers that's you thought was going to work believe that she had fallen 45
times I mean come on the duu damn now it was dark by the time investigators made
their way down to the wooded area where Nora was still lying and they had to work by flashlight but even under those
circumstances it was very clear to everybody what had happened to Nora it was no accident no she hadn't just
fallen and hit her head on a rock she'd been brutally bludgeoned brutally presumably with that Bloody Brick by her
side so she also had multiple defensive wounds that suggested she fought hard and this is so gnarly one of them was a
broken finger on her left hand that was hanging on by a small piece of Flesh oh my God that's how hard she that is yeah
oh yeah one of the detectives told a journalist the deceased had been attacked with an animal ferocity seldom
seen and the most brutal of murders holy [ __ ] as several officers and Pathologists worked to process the scene
detectives were dispatched to the Hume house where the girls had been taken immediately following the report wow
just the brutality of that is like that's some anger that's and for for Juliet to to have taken part in that
like that's not even that's a lot of that's two very angry very [ __ ] up girls and it's like you not going to
separate us no at like you will not come in between this friendship which holy [ __ ] that's on
another level um as we know teenagers make notoriously bad criminals though yeah they sure do and this was no
different in their fantasy it's likely that Juliet and Pauline assumed they would just kill Nora deny any knowledge
of what happened and nobody would ask any follow-up questions whether it was Agnes Richie their parents are the
police asking questions both of them provided little information and just tried to stick to the explanation that
Nora had fallen wow but everybody was like no like there's no way we know you're not telling the truth yeah so
while Pauline and Juliet told a nearly identical story to interviewing detectives the story was thoroughly
unbelievable yeah and when they were confronted with the more unbelievable elements both girls started to seem
shaken and they gave weak answers for instance when detective Archie Tate asked Pauline why there was an old
stocking at the scene Pauline told him I usually carry an an old one in my bag wow that's all you got why wouldn't
you say that's not mine that's that's not mine I don't know I mean I'm glading I'm glad that you that you gave
a shitty answer and it worked out but it's like that's what you came up with I carry an old stocking in my bag just one
not even a pair just one it's one old stocking it's old what yeah detectives were looking for any part of either girl
story that they could grab onto that might pull their whole lie part and eventually they got it from Juliet ah
according to both girls' earliest accounts they had been walking together when Nora who was walking behind them
slipped and fell but in her statement to the detectives Juliet said she had been
walking far ahead of the two and when she turned around she saw Nora lying on the ground and she was bleeding when
confronted with that inconsistency Juliet claimed she thought Pauline and her mom had been arguing and she didn't
want her friend to get any in any trouble so she said they were together when Nora fell uhoh she's turning here
we go she's turning the change in the narrative obviously put suspicion for the murder squarely on Pauline who
detectives now believed was her mother's killer now when confronted with this new
version of events Pauline immediately knew that Juliet had changed her story and implicated her in the death but
rather than feeling outraged or betrayed she didn't nope Pauline was entirely willing to accept the blame believing
that she was protecting her friend because remember that shows you right now the power Dynam power D there Juliet
had it from the beginning and she kept that [ __ ] till the end I thought you were going to say that
she just broke no like that betrayal just destroyed her but for her just to turn around and be like yep I think in
her mind she didn't even see it as a betrayal she just saw it as well Juliet must have to this what we have to do and
and I'll take the fall for it yeah this is part of her plan so I'm just going to
go with it yep wow yep so upstairs in Pauline's bedroom detectives informed her that she was now being arrested for
for murder and advised her of her rights DN Pauline declined to answer most of the questions being asked by the
investigators but when they asked how many times she hit her mother she replied I don't know a great many times
I should imagine holy [ __ ] cold that's cold I don't know a lot wow no longer feeling
the need to lie she dropped the innocent grieving daughter act and stoically listened as detectives read the
interview record back to her essentially asking her to confirm that her confession was accurate she listened to
every detail she agreed and signed the document saying as much but before she did she wanted to make one thing clear
on the record she said I wish to state that Juliet did not know of my intentions and did not see me strike my
mother I took the chance to strike my mother when Juliet was away holy [ __ ] completely damn taking the wrap
completely wow yeah that's different level a different level cuz cuz I feel like we have covered
cases before where there's been two people that have committed a murder together like formed this really close
Bond over time always turn on each other but they all even married couples oh most of always married couples nine out
of 10 times and these two teenage girls one of them is like she had nothing to do with it and I'll never say she did
like look at Rose and uh and Fred West yeah or myose tried to be like I had nothing I don't know I wasn't even there
and Fred was like [ __ ] that she was there she was part of it not here they don't wow mm that's really unbelievable
that's incredible on another level in a bad way yeah it didn't take investigators long uh to realize that
while they initially thought the murder to be the act of Pauline alone Juliet not only knew about it but also
participated in the killing because Pauline had refused to give any kind of coherent response to investigators
questions the Press started proposing their own theories as to why the girls had Mur murdered Nora Parker
this is just silly Brisbane Telegraph reported the detectives have been told that Pauline had been pestering her
mother to buy her a pony paulen had become so obsessed with her desire to join the Pony Club police say she
threatened her mother that she would kill her if she were not given a pony that cannot be real it is Brisbane
Telegraph 1954 Brisbane Telegraph you're not all right you're not all right y'all
you're not all right y let's not let's not minimize this to opponent get right with yourself
that's that's not okay silly goose behavior that is such silly goose Behavior now it's unclear whether
investigators actually believed that Nora had been killed for refusing to buy her daughter a pony but whatever the
case they soon found Pauline's diary which brought the case into a completely different Focus despite being written
actually mostly in coded language that's been described as a quote Jolly school girl tone mixed with Hollywood crime
lingo that's terrifying isn't it the entries in the diary made the motive clear and over the course of several
years the girls had developed an intensely strong bond that when threatened by Juliet's potential move to
South Africa they were willing to defend with violence damn when the girls appeared in court for their arraignment
cuz they had a trial together oh wow yeah they appeared in uh court for their arraignment reporters were struck by
their bizarre behavior and just indifference to the charges one reporter wrote the girls looked embarrassed at
first they chattered and made finger signs to each other w they're literally like communicating with one another [ __ ]
when photographs of Norah's body were shown in the courtroom the girls allegedly smiled and grinned at one
another holy [ __ ] seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of this situation that
they had created wow however when Juliet testified in the pre-trial hearing she slipped back into that sympathetic
teenager act telling the court she'd only been trying to help a friend wow she said they were quarreling I saw
Pauline hit Mrs Parker with the brick in a stocking I took the stock talking and
hit her too I was terrified I thought one of them had to die I wanted to help Pauline wow while the girls seemed to be
trying to frame the murder as a situation that got out of control those diary entries told a completely
different story of a murderous plan malice a forethought baby so much malice a forethought set into Motion in order
to prevent being separated so they were jointly charged with murder on August 23rd 1954 Juliet and Pauline's trial
began at the Christ Church Supreme Court before Justice Adams and an all male jury huh which is interesting 50s I know
at which time both girls pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder in his opening statements the prosecutor aw
Brown told the jury that the crown would present evidence quote which will make it terribly clear that the two young
girls conspired to kill the mother and carried it into effect according to Brown they developed a quote intense
Devotion to each other and their main purpose in life was to share each other's secrets and plans so much that
anyone who came between them must be removed yeah I mean that's it it's literally black and white it's literally
written in the diary yeah it literally is in black and white I have it right here shall we continue I can just read
it from her own mouth legit as the prosecution presented the evidence to the jury and read long passages from
Pauline's diary the girls yawned and this is a quote yawned and exchanged smiles and they appeared to be
thoroughly enjoying themselves something's wrong yeah something is wrong yeah because even
even if they are callous enough to commit that act and cold enough and and Disturbed enough to commit that act
seeing how they're acting afterwards when they know that that was wrong and they know they're going to be punished
for it like they're not going to get out of this they have to know that to care for them to have no care of that there's
something else wrong there's a there's a a off exactly switch needs to be rewired
because like that's the fact that they're just like laughing through this I'm like oh you don't know like some you
are going to get in trouble for this yeah and I think I don't necessarily think that mattered to them because do
because also they had the the belief that they were uh telepathic and that they could Retreat to this world
together it's like but it's also like you know you're you're going to be separated if you get in trouble too mhm
I don't I don't think they're going to stick you in the same cell I wonder if they knew that I I feel like they have
to or if they thought that they would somehow end up in the same prison you know what you might be right absolutely
cuz they are young girls so it's like and they're in such a fantasy world that maybe they were like we're going to be
in the same cell it's going to be wonderful we'll live together forever jail we committed this this crime
together so Bonnie and Clyde like let's go yeah yeah it was either that or I think they thought that they could still
like they could still communicate and go into that world together then they would
have thought they could do that whether she was in South Africa or not but I I wonder if they thought like the distance
would make it harder being South Africa and New Zealand you know I don't know I think you were right the first time I
think that either they must have thought that they were going to be in the same prison yeah or they just didn't realize
it yeah damn it's weird but describing them both as precocious and dirty-minded girls Brown read passage after passage
that detailed their sexual fantasies and experimentation as well as the growing resentment and
eventually hatred that Pauline had for her mother the sexual implications of the relationship were emphasized by
Henry Hume who testified that he had become concerned about the intensity and the relationship and had tried to quote
break it up in the months leading to the murder but because the girls had confessed to the murder the defense
didn't need to argue their innocence only why they had committed the crime in his opening statement defense attorney
ta grion told the jury the sanity of the girls was an all important and vital question which like yeah yeah I mean
question that one fa fair enough ta gon according to him the evidence clearly showed that the girls were quote
mentally ill and their interest in sexual and homosexual matters would show that they were not ordinary but ill they
were suffering from a paranoia of exalted type and Folly Ado communicated Insanity I love that we're throwing in
like the gay in there as like [ __ ] up so remember that everybody like that's probably why and
it's like nope I think I nope I think you're on to something with the Folly ad do of it all I think the Folly ad do is
absolutely it and I think it was these two girls were Disturbed well before they met each other and they met each
other and the Folly Ado was ripe for the picking because they were Disturbed I don't think their their sexual identity
had anything to do with it well and you can also see like that you know the prosecutor saying like these are
dirtyminded little girls because they're looking at their diary where they talking about sexual fantasies and stuff
and it's like no no no no they're just they're just girls right they're allowed to have sexual fantasies and they're
allowed to put them in their diary that's where they should put them actually and you don't really have to
focus on not dirty the dirty mindedness of it all because again it's not dirty it's so even a nor even a quote unquote
regular sexual fantasy from a girl would beong dirty right and that means something's with it's like stop focusing
on the sexual aspect of this so much and look at the fact that they are now convicted murderers almost well I'm
assum going to like they're charged with murdering a human being because of the bond that they formed that is so beyond
anything that you can even comprehend conceive and this crime is not a sexually motivated crime there's nothing
sexual in nature at the scene whatsoever so there's just no need to focus on the
the things that they wrote in their di diary that were sexual in nature if they had killed Nicholas mhm the boyfriend
did you think that's where it was going I thought for a second if they had killed Nicholas then then take a peek at
What's Happening Here CU that could be a sexual motivated crime definitely it could definitely be something around
there like at least take a peek at what's happening but this has nothing to do with sexual anything and even the
manner in which Nora Parker was murdered was not none of it makes any sense and it's like so to focus so heavily on that
it seems very 50s to me verys girls shouldn't have any kind of sexual fantasies regardless of whether they are
gay straight whatever what have you I think they're literally like they are dirty because they they're you know they
think about they think about sex yeah even though they're teen girls exactly but you're not allowed to it's it's very
50 like you said it really is but the defense argued that while oh and by the way anybody that doesn't know what Folia
do mean we've been saying it like a ton it's the madness of two yeah I meant to say that earlier it's when two people
can form such a bond that their their Madness kind of intertwines yeah we covered um the papine sisters yes papine
sisters yes that that was um a case that we covered that and I think we like heavily focused on The Madness of two
folad aspect mhm you are correct so yeah just in case anybody was like what the [ __ ] are you going saying why are you
speaking French all the sudden now the defense argued that while the diary entry did confirm that the murder had
been enthusiastically planned they claimed it also demonstrated the girl's shared delusional State and evidence of
psychosis which I can see that I do agree with that yeah testifying in her daughter's defense Hilda Hume told the
jury quote so much I read in the 1954 diary was incorrect things were described in the diary in a very
distorted and untruthful way which and then you think about that promise that was made quote unquote made
or wasn't made wasn't like you you have to wonder how much of the Diary was just
their own delusion and I think probably 98% of it was I think there was a lot going on with these girls that was not
being paid attention to as heavily as it could have been mhm and I think a lot of
it had to do with where Society was at the time absolutely now in support of their argument the defense called
several psychiatrists to testify all of whom evaluated Pauline and Juliet following the murder according to Dr
Reginald medicott which like what a [ __ ] name Reginald medicott that's a name a doctor yeah he had to be a doctor
yeah he evaluated both girls just days after the murder and said both both girls are sensitive selfish imaginative
and show inability to tolerate criticism Pauline has ruled her Temper by birth September week so he's like she gets
angry and angry and angrier yeah the comment about Pauline ruling the friendship was critical to the defense's
argument that Juliet had essentially been manipulated into helping murder Nora which is so interesting to see that
flipped on its head the way it was absolutely but I think Juliet actually was much better at flicking that switch
on of like I was just I needed to help my friend and I didn't realize what I was doing yeah it seems that way whereas
Pauline I don't think that she can turn that switch on and off I think she just gets [ __ ] pissed when criti she's
ruled by her emotions and I think Juliet Juliet is like intensely intelligent I me her IQ alone you can tell in just the
way she acts and so it's like I think her her mind the way it works she's able to compartmentalize things in a
different way that you know normal people can't understand and that sometimes worked in her favor yeah
absolutely now also testifying for the defense was Dr Francis Bennett that same Doctor Who had evaluated Pauline the
previous year at Dr hume's request he told the jury Juliet and Pauline quote had a wild infatuation for each other
and spent as much time together as possible discussing their gods and books bathing and bedding together and
photographing each other which was all true they also had come up with like their own religion and followed the the
tenants of that I guess wow okay this was this was deep not only did they have a world they had like a social structure
with I just going to say they had a social structure you're right while medicott testimony focused mostly on
their shared psychosis Bennett's conclusion was of a more lurid nature he told the jury I agree with Dr medicott
that they were were suffering from paranoia if separated they have to revert back to their unhappy conflict
with others only in their homosexual aspect they think they are secure so again my God like what the [ __ ] I'm like
I don't think just doesn't have anything to do with it in my opinion it doesn't at all it really doesn't and it's it's
not the it's not them being like lesbians or homosexuals or what have you it's the bond that they have with one
another whatever that bond is it doesn't matter I even think it is like a a love
or like a no I think it's some I think it is I don't think it's it's a anything that we can it's I don't think it's
anything we can label I think it's a twisted bond that doesn't fall within any of the categories of a normal
relationship yeah goes beyond comprehension yeah I don't think this is like a love I don't think it's a
friendship I don't think it's either one of those things it's something entirely
different that doesn't end well it's that Folly ad do just what it you can label it as nothing really beyond that
have scope of and it's just it's strange to me that I mean it's not strange considering the time how much they
[ __ ] obsessed over that every like the the prosecution and the defense both it's so strange but again the time but
both doctors agreed that the girls were suffering a shared mental illness and both declared them quote unquote
certifiable I WR now the murder of Nora Park Nora Parker shocked all of New Zealand mostly because of the brutality
of the crime and the fact that the ACT had been committed by her own daughter and her friend yeah to wrap your head
around that is wild their behavior like we were just saying it defied all social
norms not just in the violence aspect of it but in the intimacy and the fantasy that led up to it people just couldn't
wrap their brains around it and I think people found themselves very interested in the story because of that aspect yeah
cuz like what happened here which like I feel that same way that's what drew me to the story
but in response the press and public sought to distance themselves from the crime by defining Juliet and Pauline as
singularly evil throughout the trial reporters repeatedly emphasized their strangeness citing everything from their
childhood illness to their foreign born status as an explanation for the horrible act and if that was how the
press and public had framed the case for themselves it's fair to assume that some
of the jurors had a similar opinion of the house I'm sure so on August 28th 1954 the jury retired for deliberation
and the next day returned to deliver a guilty verdict damn they rejected the defense's argument of mental illness
which is very interesting sh by that it's an all male jury yeah you're right I got to say it I and it's
1954 yeah that's the only thing that makes sense the understanding of mental illness is just not there I think they
were like throw them in jail yeah regarding their sentence Justice Adam said as you were both under the age of
18 the the sentence of the court is detention during Her Majesty's pleasure and handed down I know what a weird way
to work what what the [ __ ] is that how they say I'm sorry I'm like what during
Her Majesty's pleasure the [ __ ] does that mean let's Google it because Google that [ __ ] like what the [ __ ] I'm sorry
that just struck me I've never heard it said like that a phrase colloquially uh used to describe the period of detention
imposed upon a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity but in this case that's not what
happened huh someone who was put in prison at his or her Majesty's pleasure is kept there until it is officially
decided that it is safe to release them and that's because they're under 18 yes so yeah during Her Majesty's pleasure
what a way to say it what the [ __ ] yeah I'm glad you also thought that was weird
cuz I was like I'll see if I can dance over it maybe I'm the only one that thinks it's weird but you cannot you
cannot I'm going to stop you in your tracks with that one well about to stop you in your tracks because this judge
handed down a sentence of 5 years in prison for the both of them five years five years they brutally beat a
woman with a brick with a brick yeah and then dragged her in the bushes and then
just said she fell and clearly were like Disturbed in many other ways and planned
this for a long time yep a according to the reports both girls smiled at one another when the verdict was read see
what the [ __ ] but Spectators in the courtroom were outraged after the verdict was read many among the crowd
loudly protested and nearly 125 people had to be removed from the courtroom cuz they were [ __ ] pissed that's scary so
both girls served their 5year sentence at separate adult prisons Juliet at Mount Eden prison and Pauline at Christ
Church prison and after their Le they just faded back into society they changed their names to protect their
privacy years later when asked about her time at Mount Eden as the only prisoner
under the age of 18 Jes Juliet said it was cold there were rats canvas sheets and Calico underwear I had to wash out
my sanitary towels by hand and they put me on physical labor until I passed out D it was Bleak yeah that's wow however
while it might have been a difficult experience she nonetheless calls it quote the best thing that could have
happened wao so I think see that coming it sounds like she may have been rehabilitated rehabilitated yeah it it
does sound that way I mean both of them kind of retreated into society and never
offended again so want you want that to happen so yeah during her time in prison
Juliet found religion and became a member of the Mormon faith which ultimately led her to express remorse
and openly take responsibility for the Murder She said that's how I survived my time While others cracked up I seem to
be the only one saying I'm guilty and I'm worri I I should be wow so she accepted it okay I mean still [ __ ]
terrifying damn in the Years following their release from prison Pauline and Juliet sought to establish new lives for
themselves under those new identities Juliet left New Zealand immediately for the UK where she established herself as
Anne Perry and went on to build a successful career as a novelist an Perry yeah Bill Perry was
the guy that her mother was having an affair with with what the that's there's a psychology there don't
you dare tell me that's not on I didn't even catch that good call good was the one that she was trying to
catch her D her mom with so that they could get the money to run away together good [ __ ] call I didn't even
think of that well she was a very successful novelist she wrote more than a 100 po popular Thrillers what the [ __ ]
isn't that insane I mean she'd been she had plenty of [ __ ] practice holy [ __ ]
they created that whole world that was a thriller that wow I mean their lives were a thriller yeah Pauline meanwhile
changed her name to Hillary Nathan and attempted to become a nun but that didn't work I don't know why uh and she
went on to study at Auckland University before becoming a librarian in Auckland and then moving to UK when she was no
longer on parole wow living in anonymity allowed both women to live normal lives
until the mid 1990s when a new moov movie titled Heavenly Creatures which by the way is a term pulled directly from
Pauline's diary I was wondering where that came from that's she calls her herself and Juliet Heavenly Creatures it
is a great name for a movie oh it is Heavenly Creatures I mean that's a great name I want to see it now yeah but um
they had a life of anonymity until that movie was announced directed by then little known Peter Jackson just little
little Peter Jackson you know unnamed man the announcement generated a lot of Buzz and reported started digging in
order to find out who these women were and what had inspired the film Ann Perry my God said in a 2003 interview it
seemed so unfair everything I had worked to achieve as a decent member of society
was threatened and once again my life was being interpreted by someone else it happened in court when I was a minor I
wasn't allowed to speak and I heard all these lies being told and now there was a film but nobody bothered to talk to me
I knew nothing about it until the day before release all I could think of was that my life would fall apart and that
it might kill my mother whoa which luckily it didn't the two women like we just said were eventually outed by the
Press but by then so much time had passed that Beyond General curiosity few people were interested in villainizing
or demonizing either of them yeah I mean they if they seem to have made productive members of society out of
themselves I guess there's really no point yeah leave it alone you know you know and Perry otherwise known as Juliet
Hume died from a heart attack on April 10th 2023 oh wow at her home in Los Angeles and as of today uh Hillary
Nathan who was uh previously Pauline Parker is believed to be alive and somewhere in the UK
wow what a wild story though that wow and the fact that they both seem to have been rehabilitated after 5 years in
prison as miners that's the thing like that's really wild and it's and that makes you question what would have
happened had somebody stepped in sooner I know that's like where been able to step in sooner obviously tried to and
people were more like taking note of these things and trying to think of ways to you
know that yeah it is it's one of those things cuz it's not like they want around killing people no or losing their
[ __ ] on people or assaulting people later you know like the the penchant for violence outward violence was didn't
seem to be something that was innate no until their relationship was threatened and I think I think that was the biggest
part of it because at that point that Dynamic and their relationship was at its highest point you know yeah and you
know what it if they had been separated yeah at one point like if if they had been separated I think it would
have gone a different way because look at when they were they had a forced separation in prison yeah and they
thrived exactly so it's like I think they were keeping each other in this [ __ ] whole place yeah where neither of
them could grow because they were just this festering wound together and if you break them apart they're able to thrive
on their own it's really too bad that there wasn't some way to do the move like I I feel like it sounds traumatic
to to figure out the move without telling one of them yeah but maybe that would have resulted in yeah you wish it
had happened earlier yeah just that relationship having to Die the way that she having to die one and having to Die
the way that she did wow what a story it is yeah that's wow something to sit on yeah that really is
there's a lot to take in there interesting case for sure yeah so with that being said we hope you keep
listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you form an unbreakable bond with somebody and then
murder somebody over it because you guys should really just go uh get coffee by yourselves away from each other yeah
enjoy yourself yeah Solitude find peace in oneself home [Music] [Music]

On the afternoon of June 22, 1954, Agnes Ritchie was preparing ice cream for two customers in her shop when two teenage girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, burst through the front door, screaming for help and saying one of their mothers had been killed. Agnes and her husband followed the girls into the nearby wooded area, where they found the badly beaten and obviously dead body of Honorah Parker. The couple wasn’t able to get much out of either girl, only that the woman had slipped and hit her head, but their behavior was strange and something about the whole scene didn’t feel right.

Just two days later, Parker and Hulme were charged with the murder of Pauline’s mother, Honorah Parker. According to the prosecution, the girls had developed an intense bond and had created romantic fantasy in the months leading up to the murder that bordered on obsessiveness. In 1954, the girls’ relationship became threatened when Hulme’s parents divorced and began talking of relocating. Fearing they would be separated and never see one another again, Parker and Hulme killed Honorah, believing that her death would put an end to any plans to relocate.

The story of Honorah’s murder and the trial that followed quickly spread across New Zealand and Australia and eventually made its way around the globe. Among other things, the case challenged existing beliefs about young women and their capacity for violence, but just as important were the sensational and salacious mentions of insanity and homosexuality that were often more implied than explicitly stated.

Thank you to David White, of the Bring Me the Axe Podcast, for research :)

References

Brisbane Telegraph. 1954. "Conspired to Kill." Brisbane Telegraph, August 23: 1.

—. 1954. "Teenagers remanded, police blame girl's passion for horses." Brisbane Telegraph, June 24: 1.

Chun, Louise. 1995. "Slaughter by the innocents: The case of the schoolgirl killers shocked New Zealand." The Guardian, January 30.

Graham, Peter. 2011. So Brilliantly Clever: Parker, Hulme and the Murder that Shocked the World. Wellington, NZ: Awa Press.

Neustatter, Angela. 2003. "‘I was guilty. I did my time’: Anne Perry, the novelist whose past caught up with her." The Guardian, November 20.

Newcastle Sun. 1954. "Girls shrugged at charge of murder." Newcastle Sun, July 16: 1.

The Age. 1954. "Girls smile at N.Z. sentence." The Age , August 30: 1.

—. 1954. "Defence says N.Z. girls insane as mother killed." The Age, August 25: 9.

—. 1954. "Description of quarrel." The Age, July 17: 3.

—. 1954. "Doctor says both girls certifiable." The Age, August 27: 5.

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Brief Summary

Juliet Hume and Pauline Parker murder Nora Parker in a brutal act fueled by their intense friendship and psychological turmoil.

Key points

The Butcher Game Contest. Enter to win a personalized video by pre-ordering The Butcher Game.
The Dark Reputation of St Margaret's. Juliet's school, despite its good reputation, was remembered as a miserable place.
Fast Friends. Juliet and Pauline bond over shared experiences and become inseparable friends.
Unhealthy Attachment. Their friendship intensifies, leading to an unhealthy dependence on one another.
Parental Concerns. Hilda Hume notes concerns about her daughter's friendship with Pauline.
Unhealthy Attachment. Dr. Hume evaluates Pauline's relationship with Juliet, noting a homosexual attachment.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Juliet had a rich inner Fantasy Life where she could retreat.

Juliet's coping mechanism due to her upbringing.

8:39WatchJun 10, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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