Parker-Hulme Pt 3 (What happened subsequently)

By John Stringer.

Pauline Parker/Hilary Nathan, Juliet Hulme/Anne Perry

Immediately after the murder, the girls faked and play acted to throw off suspicion but it was obvious Honorah was brutally murdered and the girls were responsible.  The police came to the same conclusion quickly and the girls were interviewed at length, separately, by several people.  The key for them both, was to stay together.  They were incredibly arrogant, manipulative, deceitful, and conniving throughout.

Hilda Hulme’s live-in-lover Bill Perry realised what was happening and threw Juliet a life line, suggesting she had helped cover up ‘Pauline’s murder,’ and had lied to the police to help Pauline as her friend.  Juliet grabbed this, throwing Pauline under the bus.  Later, in jail, Pauline wrote some notes, immediately grabbed by the police, that skillfully manipulated the police, and Juliet, that subtlety implicated Juliet, who then turned tail again, and told police she had lied, twice.  Hilda Hulme had Juliet’s diary burned before the police arrived at their home but letters and Pauline’s diary were recovered.

The trial was quick and obvious, although horrifying.  The girls were intolerable: arrogant, enjoying the celebrity attention, laughing and joking.  They were both convicted, but being under 18 not sentenced to hang.  Juliet went to Mt Eden, and Pauline to better conditions in Christchurch.  They were supposed to be swapped over, to both ‘enjoy’ the harsher Mt Eden, but this never happened.  They never saw each other again after this. The girls full and final separation occurred I think during the trial, when it became clear Pauline had been having sex with one of their borders, and a law student.  Juliet did not know this, and it seems to have enraged her and separated the two during the trial, exploding their tight lesbian fantasy bubble. Juliet was/is such a complete narcissist that this was unforgivable and a deep betrayal of her very ethos as connected to Pauline.

It is a myth their parole conditions specified they could not meet.  There is some speculation they may have, but this is unlikely. Juliet/Anne seems to be totally disinterested or to despise Parker (I think because of the underlaying sexual betrayal that had gone on throughout their fantastical relationship, which she may never have forgiven.  I’m sure dedicated readers of her books will find the answers concealed in characters somewhere).

Each girl served approx. 5 years and then was sent abroad, separately.  Pauline changed her name to Hilary Nathan and ended up in remote Scotland, raising horses, something she had been associated with in Christchurch (she even had a secret horse her parents did not know about).  When the Jackson film came out, she sold her home and moved to an even more remote farm. She appears to have become a dedicated eccentric Catholic, surrounded by dolls (perhaps representing her Down Syndrome sister Rosemary or as some kind of ‘family’). She has a fiery temper.  Attempts by journalists to speak with her in recent years have been rebuffed, sometimes violently. She is deeply reclusive.  However, the house she sold had a large and disturbing mural painted on its walls illustrated in Graham’s book) which illustrates some of the psychopathy between Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme which seems to persist in Parker/Nathan’s mind to this day. Her sister Wendy has remained in touch, and been something of a bridge between her and the media.

Juliet went to Australia and then England where she had contact with her mother and Bill Perry.  She was unable to get into America due to her conviction (where she had Hollywood aspirations) but succeeded in working as an air hostess for another airline that flew into America, where she eventually jumped ship (something she planned at length).  She lived in America for some time. Juliet/Anne ended up in Scotland, not that far from Pauline/Hilary (probably a coincidence) and began a successful writing career in her 40s.  She was eventually joined by her brother Jonty and elderly mother Hilda, after Bill died, and ‘came out’ when finally exposed, which at first she dreaded.  However, it has helped her book sales and the story has been carefully managed.  Her small local community gathered around her and she has several enamored (mostly female) supporters, several of whom have made documentaries (a few bordering on the educated but ridiculous). She has given several interviews, which when considered, are revealing about her narcissistic personality and a dismissive attitude about the suffering of others.  She does not appear to have expressed any sorrow or regret.