7.6 Press articles contemporary with the "Parker Hulme" murder.

**These articles come primarily from 'non-tabloid' broadsheet international press:

Daily Mail (London) Los Angeles Times The Manchester Guardian The New York Times The Oakland Tribune The Press (Christchurch) San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Examiner The Sun-Herald (Sydney) The Sydney Morning Herald The Times (London) Time

The articles give a reasonably sober, representative and complete (in terms of timeline) view of the world-wide publicity given to the case--this is how the world learned of the murder and followed the case. The case was sensational in British Australasia, was followed intently in the United Kingdom, and made a small impact in North America.

Articles have not been edited for length or content, so there is some repetition and there are inconsistencies &/or inaccuracies. These have generally not been noted except in the case of important typographical errors or ambiguities.

This set of articles tells a compelling story, and it illustrates how evidence often has to be filtered and collected piecemeal from many secondary sources. It is interesting to compare these straightforward press reports with the sometimes-sensational (and often inaccurate) book chapters in the next section.

Articles are arranged in order of their filing date. [jp]

The Press (Christchurch), Wednesday June 23, 1954. p. 10. [mk] "WOMAN'S BODY FOUND // Police Called to Victoria Park // MURDER CHARGE LAID" The body of a middle-aged woman was found in a hollow in Victoria Park, below the tearooms, about 4 p.m. yesterday. An arrest has been made and a charge of murder will be preferred in the Magistrate's Court this morning. The woman was Honora Mary Parker, aged 45, of 31 Gloucester street. Her body was found by the caretaker at Victoria Park. He reported the discovery to the police. Officers of the uniformed brance were sent to Victoria Park, and Detective-Sergeant A.B. Tate with Detective G.F. Gilles, of the Criminal Investigation Branch, and Constable A. Griffiths, of the women's division, arrived about 5 p.m. to make further inquiries. An hour later Inspector D. McKenzie took charge of the investigations with Senior Detective McDonald (sic) Brown. Police inquiries were continued until early this morning. The Coroner (Mr E.B.E. Taylor) and a pathologist (Dr C.T.B. Pearson) were among those to visit the scene. Photographs were taken in the area by the police photographer, Constable W.M. Ramage.

The Times (London), Thursday June 24, 1954. p. 5. [jp] "SCHOOL GIRLS CHARGED WITH MURDER" Christchurch, New Zealand, June 23.--Police here today charged a 16-year-old school girl with the murder of her mother and soon afterwards arrested her 15-year-old school friend on the same charge. The police said that the two girls went walking with Mrs. Honore (sic) Parker, aged 45, at Cashmere Hills, a suburb of Christchurch, yesterday, and that afterwards her body was found on the hillside with a bloodstained brick near by. Her daughter, Pauline Yvonne Parker, was remanded at the magistrates' court this morning. Juliet Marion Hulme, aged 15, will appear in court to-morrow.--Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday June 24, 1954. p. 1. [sb] "Schoolgirls On Charge of Murder" Wellington (N.Z.), Wednesday [June 23]--Two schoolgirls have been charged with the murder of Mrs. Honora Mary Parker, 45, whose body was found near Christchurch yesterday, badly battered about the head and face. One of the girls--Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, the daughter of the dead woman--was arrested late last night and remanded in the Magistrate's Court this morning. The other girl, Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, was arrested to-day and will appear in court to-morrow. The two girls went walking with Mrs. Parker yesterday afternoon in the Cashmere Hills. They later reported to a nearby teashop that Mrs. Parker had been injured in a fall. The shopowner called the police, who found a blood-stained brick near the body.--A.A.P.-Reuter

The Press (Christchurch), Thursday June 24, 1954. p. 12. [mk] "MURDER CHARGE // Woman's Death In Christchurch // GIRL REMANDED TO JULY 1" Pauline Yvonne Parker, a student, aged 16, was charged in the Magistrate's Court yesterday with the murder of Honora Mary Parker at Christchurch on June 22. On the application of Detective-Sergeant G.W. Alty she was remanded to appear on July 1. Mr. Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., was on the bench. Parker was not represented by counsel. "// SECOND GIRL ARRESTED //" Juliet Marion Hulme, a schollgirl, aged 15, was arrested by Chief-Detective Macdonald Brown and Detective-Sergeant A.B. Tate at her home in Ilam road yesterday afternoon. She will appear in the Magistrate's Court this morning on a charge of murdering Honora Mary Parker at Christchurch on June 22. "// INQUEST OPENED //" An inquest into the death of Honora Mary Parker was opened before the Coroner (Mr E.B.E. Taylor) at 9 a.m. yesterday. Detective-Sergeant A.B. Tate represented the police. The inquest was adjourned sine die after evidence of identification had been given by Herbert Rieper, a company manager, of 31 Gloucester street.

Daily Mail (London), Thursday June 24, 1954. (from clipping) [sb] "GIRL, 15, ACCUSED OF MURDER // Friend, 16, is also charged: Woman dead under pines" Auckland, New Zealand, Wednesday [June 23].--Juliet Marion Hulme, 15-year-old daughter of Dr H.R. Hulme, the British scientist, was charged today with the murder of Mrs. Honora Mary Parker, 45. Earlier Pauline Yvonne Parker, aged 16, Mrs. Parker's daughter, had also been charged with murder. Police say that Mrs. Parker, also known as Mrs. Herbert Rieper, was found dead under pine needles in the Cashmere Hills, near Christchurch. A doctor inspected the body. Later, detectives were called and a bloodstained brick and knotted stocking were found near by. Pauline Parker was arrested subsequently at Dr Hulme's residence in Christchurch. She appeared in court and was remanded until July 1. Juliet Hulme will appear in court tomorrow. Dr Hulme, 46, was director of Naval Operational Research during the war. He was to have returned to England in a few days.--from Daily Mail Correspondent.

The Manchester Guardian, Friday June 25, 1954. p. 7. "GIRL, 16 (stet), CHARGED WITH MURDER // Parents in Court" Wellington (New Zealand), June 24.--Juliet Marion Hulme, 16-year- old (stet) daughter of a former Director of Operational Research at the British Admiralty, was charged here to-day with murdering Mrs Honora Mary Parker (45), mother of one of her school friends. Her parents, Dr and Mrs Henry Rainsford Hulme, were in the crowded courtroom when Juliet was remanded until July 1. Dr Hulme is a former lecturer at Liverpool University, chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and scientific advisor at the Air Ministry. He recently resigned as Rector of Canterbury University College here to take Juliet to South Africa for three months. She had just been discharged from a tuberculosis sanatorium. Dr Hulme planned to return later to England. Mrs Parker's daughter, Pauline Yvonne, who is also sixteen, was charged with murder yesterday morning. According to the police, the two girls went walking with Mrs Parker in Cashmere Hills, a Christchurch suburb, on Tuesday. Her body was later found on a hillside, with a bloodstained brick near by.--Reuter.

The Press (Christchurch), Friday June 25, 1954. p. 12. [mk] "MURDER CHARGE // Woman's Death In Christchurch // SECOND GIRL REMANDED" Juliet Marion Hulme, aged 15 years 8 months, a student, the second of two girls to be charged with the murder of Honora Mary Parker at Christchurch on June 22, was remanded to July 1 when she appeared in the Magistrate's Court yesterday before Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M. Hulme was escorted into the dock by a uniformed policewoman. She was represented by Mr T.A. Gresson, and Detective- Sergeant G.W. Alty appeared for the police.

The Times (London), Saturday July 17, 1954. p. 5. "TWO GIRLS ON CHARGE OF MURDER // DIARY EXTRACTS READ" Christchurch (N.Z.), July 16.--Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, a former Liverpool schoolgirl, were committed to-day for trial in the Supreme Court on a charge of murdering Mrs. Honora Mary Parker, 45, whose body was found in Victoria Park, a Christchurch suburb. Both girls were alleged to have admitted in statements to the police, read in court, that they took a part in hitting Mrs. Parker with a brick carried in a stocking. On April 28, Pauline had written in her diary that anger against her mother was boiling up inside her. "It is she who is one of the main obstacles in my path," she wrote. "Suddenly the means of ridding myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die." A detective read another diary extract, dated June 19, in which she wrote of a plan to "moider"(sic) mother. "We have worked it out carefully and both are thrilled with the idea. Naturally, we feel a trifle nervous. But the pleasure of anticipation is great." On June 21, she recorded: "We decided to use a rock in a stocking rather than a sandbag. We discussed the 'moider'(sic) fully. I feel very keyed up as though I was planning a surprise party. Mother has fallen in with everything beautifully and the happy event is to take place to-morrow afternoon. Next time I write mother will be dead. How odd, yet how pleasing." On June 22--headed "day of a happy event"--Pauline noted: "In the morning before the death I felt very excited. Last night I didn't have pleasant dreams, though." According to a post mortem report, Mrs. Parker had received 45 injuries. Death was due to shock, associated multiple head wounds, and a fractured skull.--Reuter.

The Manchester Guardian, Saturday July 17, 1954. p. 5. "TWO SCHOOLGIRLS FOR TRIAL ON MURDER CHARGE // New Zealand Court Told of Attack with Brick" Christchurch (N.Z.), July 16.--A sixteen-year-old girl accused of murdering her mother by beating her about the head with a brick is alleged to have headed an entry in her diary for that day: "The happy event." This was part of the evidence given in a magistrate's court here to-day when Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, were committed for trial before the Supreme Court on a charge of the murder of Honora Mary Parker, Pauline's mother, in Victoria Park, a Christchurch suburb, on June 22. Juliet is the daughter of Dr Henry Rainsford Hulme, a former director of operational research at the Admiralty in London, who recently resigned as Rector of Canterbury University College, New Zealand. He has also lectured at Liverpool University and was a scientific advisor at the Air Ministry. Evidence was given of the intense friendship which had developed between the two girls. Herbert Rieper, a company manager, who stated that he had lived with Mrs Parker for 23 years, said that Pauline met Juliet Hulme at a girls' high school, and that he and Mrs Parker became worried about the friendship which developed between them. Dr Hulme also discussed the subject with him, and as a result Pauline was taken to a doctor by her mother. Pauline was always anxious to go to the Hulmes's home to be with Juliet, he added. Gasps arose in the crowded court when Detective Brown gave evidence of a diary found in Pauline's bedroom. Among the extracts read to the court were the following: February 14: "Why could not mother die? Dozen (sic) of thousands of people are dying, so why could not mother and father, too? Life is hard." April 28: "Anger against mother is boiling inside of me as she is the main obstacle in my path. Suddenly the means of ridding myself of the obstacle occur to me. If she was to die. ..." Also on the same day: "I wish to make it appear accidental." June 19: The entry mentioned "a plan to 'moider'(sic) mother," and added: "We have worked it out together and both are thrilled with the idea. Naturally, we are a trifle nervous, but the pleasure of anticipation is great." June 20: "... Afterwards we discussed our plans for 'moidering' (sic) mother and made them clear, but peculiarly enough I have no qualms of conscience. Or is it peculiar?" June 21: "We decided to use a rock in a stocking rather than a sandbag. We discussed the 'moider' (sic) fully. I feel very keyed up as though I was planning a surprise party. Mother has fallen in with everything beautifully and the happy event is to take place to-morrow afternoon. Next time I write mother will be dead. How odd, yet how pleasing." June 22: The entry headed "The happy event" read: "In the morning before the death I felt very excited. Last night I didn't have pleasant dreams, though." //"Blood on Clothes"// The story of how Mrs Parker died was told by two witnesses. The first was Mrs Agnes Ritchie, owner of a tearoom in the park. She told how she served Mrs Parker and the two girls with tea, and then how all three set off along one of the park's winding paths. An hour later, she said, the girls rushed back, agitated and breathless. Pauline told her: "Mummy--she's terribly hurt. She slipped. I think she is dead." Both girls had blood on their clothes and also on their hands, and after they had washed this off, Pauline told her: "We were returning and somehow she slipped on a plank." She said that her mother hit her head on a plank and that her head kept bumping and banging as she fell. Both girls told her that it seemed like a dream and that they would wake up soon. The other story of how Mrs Parker died was told, according to the police, by Juliet Hulme herself in a statement which she made to the police. This went, in part: "I left home with the brick wrapped in newspaper. I arrived at the Riepers' (Parkers') house with the brick and gave it to Pauline. ... Pauline wanted to come to South Africa with me. I wanted her to come, too. We both thought Mrs Rieper (Mrs Parker) might object and we decided to go with her to Victoria Park to discuss the matter and have it out. I knew it was proposed that we should take a brick in a stocking to the park with us." //"Expecting Attack"// In the park, the alleged statement said, she was expecting Mrs Parker to be attacked. It went on: "I heard noises behind me. It was a loud conversation and an angry one. I went back and saw Pauline hit Mrs Rieper with a brick in the stocking. I took the stocking and hit her too. I was terrified. "I thought one of them had to die. I wanted to help Pauline. It was terrible. Mrs Rieper moved convulsively. We both held her. She was still when we left her. The brick had come out of the stocking with the force of the blows." Mrs Hilda Marion Hulme, Juliet's mother, said that her daughter suffered bomb shock at the age of two. She and Dr Hulme had discovered "a very distressing plan" this year. Both girls intended to go to America together "to have their books published." The two girls seemed unconcerned as they were committed for trial. They left the dock chatting together at the end of the hearing. Neither was asked to plead.--British United Press and Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday July 17, 1954. p. 1. [sb] "Strange Diary Of Girl Read At Murder Hearing" Christchurch, N.Z., Friday [July 16]-- Extracts allegedly from a 16-year-old girl's diary, describing plans for her mother's "moider," and adding "I have no qualms of conscience" were read in the Christchurch Magistrate's Court at a murder hearing today. At the end of the hearing two girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, were committed for trial on a charge of having battered to death Honora Mary Parker, 45, in Victoria Park, Christchurch, on the afternoon of June 22. Both girls smiled and whispered together unconcernedly at intervals throughout today's hearing. Twice they were rebuked by a police orderly and matron. Senior Detective Macdonald Brown told the court he had taken possession of a diary from Pauline Parker's bedroom. Among the extracts he read to the Court were:-- February 13, 1954: "Why could not mother die? Dozens of thousands of people are dying. Why could not mother and father, too?" April 28: "I felt rather tired to-day, but fortunately the time at Digby's went rather quickly. Mother went out this afternoon so Deborah and I talked (stet) for some time." [Mrs. Hulme's evidence showed that Deborah was Pauline's pet name for Juliet Hulme.] //SUICIDE THOUGHT// "However I felt thoroughly depressed afterwards--and even quite seriously considered committing suicide. Life seemed so much not worth living and death such an easy way out. "Anger against mother boiled up inside me, as it is she who is one of the main obstacles in my path. "Suddenly a means of ridding myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die..." April 29: "I did not tell Deborah of my plans for removing mother. "I have made no ----- (stet) yet and the last fate I wish to meet is one in a Borstal. "I am trying to think of some way. "I do not ----- (stet) to go to too much trouble, but I want it to appear either a natural or an accidental death." June 19: "We practically finished our books to-day and our main 'Ike' (stet) for the day was to moider mother. "This notion is not a new one, but this time it is a definite plan which we intend to carry out. //"THRILLED"// "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 the plan down here as I shall write it up when we carry it out (I hope). June 20: "Afterwards we discussed our plans for moidering mother and made them a little clearer. "Peculiarly enough, I have no qualms of conscience (or is it peculiar, we are so mad?)" June 21: "I rose late and helped mother vigorously this morning. "Deborah rang and we decided to use a rock in a stocking rather than a sandbag. "We discussed the moider fully. "I feel very keyed up as though I were planning a surprise party. "Mother has fallen in with everything beautifully and the happy event is to take place to-morrow afternoon. "So next time I write in this diary mother will be dead. "How odd, yet pleasing: I have discussed various saints with her to-day as I thought it would be interesting to have her opinion." June 22: "The Day of the Happy Event: I am writing a little of this up in the morning before the death. "I felt very excited and the 'Night before Christmassy.' "Last night, I didn't have pleasant dreams though. I am about to rise." Detective-Sergeant A.B. Tate said accused Pauline Parker after being taken to the police station wrote something on a piece of paper, something she probably intended to put in her diary the next day. She threw it in the fireplace but a police matron retrieved it. The only decipherable part was: "They have questioned Deborah, but I have taken the blame." //WROTE NOVELS// In one of the strangest stories heard in a New Zealand courtroom, evidence was given of the intense affection of the girls for each other, the concern of the parents for this intensity, and how the girls faced a separation because Juliet Hulme was going to South Africa. Evidence was given that the girls had written novels and an opera, in some of which the murder was mentioned. They were planning to save up to go to the United States together to publish their books. Reading of the diary brought gasps from the crowded court. The date for the Supreme Court hearing has not yet been fixed. --From a Special Correspondent.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday July 17, 1954. p. 6. [sb] "Mention Of "Murder" Novels As Girls Committed For Trial" Christchurch, N.Z., Friday [July 16]-- Two girls, aged 15 and 16, were committed for trial from the Christchurch Magistrate's Court to-day on a charge of battering the mother of one of them to death. In an alleged statement, which police read to the Court, one girl said: "Pauline and I have been engaged in writing novels for some time. In the plots of these books, the question of murder has arisen. We often discuss murders in this connection." During the day's hearing the Court heard the story of a passionately affectionate friendship between the two girls. Showing no signs of emotion, both girls left the dock chatting together at the end of the daylong hearing. //"ONE OF THEM HAD TO DIE"// At the end of the day's hearing, the magistrate, Mr. R. Ferner, committed the two girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, for trial in the Supreme Court. The girls are alleged to have killed Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker, also known as Rieper, in Victoria Park, Christchurch, on June 22, a few minutes after having afternoon tea with her in the park kiosk. //BRICK IN BAG// Senior Detective Macdonald Brown told the magistrate that Pauline Parker, in her statement, said she had made up her mind to kill her mother a few days previously. She had not told anyone and Juliet Hulme took no part in the killing. He quoted from her alleged statement that she had used a half-brick inside the foot of a stocking. The alleged statement continued: "I took them with me for that purpose. I had a brick in my shoulder bag. I wish to state that Juliet did not know my intentions, and she did not see me strike my mother. I took the chance to strike her when Juliet was away. I still do not wish to say why I killed my mother. "As soon as I had started to strike my mother, I regretted it, but I could not stop then." Christchurch police gave evidence that Juliet Hulme had made two statements when interviewed. In the first she said that on the visit to Victoria Park she went ahead at one stage and was separated from Pauline and her mother. She heard one of them call out. She returned and found Mrs. Rieper lying on the ground with blood all around her head. Pauline, who seemed hysterical, had told her that her mother had slipped and banged her head against a stone. This alleged statement added: "Pauline and I have been engaged in writing novels for some time. In the plots of these books the question of murder has arisen. We often discuss murders in this connection and might well have done so at Pauline's place to-day before we left home." //AFRICAN VISIT// Police said the next day Juliet made her second statement in which she said the girls had decided to take Mrs. Rieper to Victoria Park to discuss taking Pauline to South Africa. The girls wanted Pauline to accompany Juliet and her parents to South Africa, but the parents had said it was out of the question. In this alleged statement Juliet said she knew it was proposed they should take a brick in a stocking. She had taken a brick from near her garage, wrapped it in newspaper, and carried it the Riepers' for lunch. She gave the brick to Pauline and she knew it was put in a stocking. //"HIT HER TOO"// This alleged statement detailing the incidents at Victoria Park, continued:-- "I heard noises behind me. It was loud conversation and anger... "I went back. I saw Pauline hit Mrs. Rieper with the brick in the stocking. "I took the stocking and hit her too. "I was terrified. I thought that one of them had to die. "I wanted to help Pauline. "It was terrible. Mrs. Rieper moved convulsively. "We both held her. She was still when we left her. "The brick had come out of the stocking with the force of the blows... "I was not quite sure what was going to happen when we went to Victoria Park. "I thought we may have been able to frighten Mrs. Rieper with the brick and she would have given her consent then for Pauline and I to stay together. "After the first blow I knew it would be necessary for us to kill her. I was terrified and hysterical." //WORRIED BY FRIENDSHIP// Herbert Rieper, company manager, gave evidence that he had lived with the dead woman for 23 years and she was known as Mrs. Rieper. Three (stet) children had been born to them and the accused, Pauline Yvonne, was the second (stet). She was an average child, but she had osteomyelitis at the age of five, spent several months in hospital and took more than three years to recover. //INTENSE AFFECTION// Rieper said Pauline became friendly with Juliet Hulme at Christchurch Girls' High School. They were in the same form. The friendship became very intense and their affection for each other increased. He said Dr. Hulme, Juliet's father, had called at his house and discussed with Mrs. Parker the question of the girls' friendship. [Dr. H.R. Hulme was formerly rector (sic) of Canterbury University College, Christchurch.] As a result Mrs. Parker had Pauline to a doctor. Mr. Rieper said that in the last year Pauline had bought a horse without telling him. When he found out about it some months later he agreed she should keep the horse. He believed it would make her friendship with Juliet less intense. Pauline was always anxious to go to the Hulme home "Ilam," so she could be with Juliet. //WRITING OPERA// Lately Pauline had been doing a "terrible lot" of writing--books, novels. It was interfering with her school work this year. One night sitting in front of the fire, she said she was writing an opera. As far as he knew Pauline and her mother had agreed she should leave school and go to another school, and this had been done. Dr. Hulme again saw Mrs. Parker and told her he was leaving New Zealand in about three weeks and taking Juliet with him. This meant that the friendship between the two girls would be broken. Rieper said he was very pleased at this. He allowed Pauline to see Juliet pending her departure. He could not remember if Mrs. Parker ever refused Pauline permission to see Juliet. //HAPPY LUNCH// Mrs. Parker sometimes remonstrated with Pauline. One cause was the way Pauline just ignored her parents. On June 22 Juliet came to their house for lunch before the Victoria Park trip. Lunch was a very bright and happy affair. //"REMOVED FROM TRAGEDY"// Mrs. Hilda Marion Hulme in evidence said her daughter, Juliet, was born in England in October, 1938. She suffered bomb shock at the age of two. Later, while Dr. Hulme was in America during the war, Juliet became ill and spent two years away from school. Mrs. Hulme said she and her husband came to New Zealand about six years ago. //"DEMANDING CHILD"// Last year Juliet spent three and a half months in Cashmere Hills Sanatorium with TB. (Cashmere Hills is a suburb of Christchurch.) Juliet's rating in an intelligence test was very high. She was always a demanding child. "I and my husband were always very fond of her and gave her every attention," Mrs. Hulme said. She said that at first the friendship between Pauline and Juliet seemed a normal, happy one. The friendship increased considerably after Juliet was discharged from the sanitorium. Mrs. Hulme said that when her husband decided to leave New Zealand it was first agreed that she and Juliet should stay to avoid the English winter. This was altered because of a "very distressing plan" she discovered. The plan was that both girls should go to America together to have their books published. When this was discovered, Dr. Hulme decided to take Juliet as far as South Africa. Juliet pressed her parents to let Pauline go with her. //TWO NOVELS// Mr. (sic) Hulme said she knew Juliet had written two novels. The girls lately had not used their Christian names in addressing each other. Juliet became "Deborah" and Pauline became "Gina." Questioned by Mr. T.A. Gresson (for Juliet), Mrs. Hulme said that Juliet was always a difficult girl to bring up. After her return from the sanatorium, the friendship with Pauline seemed to dominate Juliet's thoughts. Mrs. Hulme said Juliet's writings struck her as grandiose and unreal. Parts of her second book appeared unpleasant and unbalanced. The night after the tragedy she slept with Juliet in her arms. Mrs. Hulme said: "One repeated sentence of Juliet's was she didn't wish to talk about it. She wanted to go to sleep and forget it. "She seemed elated and removed from the tragedy. "Before she went to sleep and the next morning she recited poetry." Mr. Gresson: Does she appear to you over recent weeks to have realised her position? Mrs. Hulme: She seems quite removed from the seriousness or the reality of the situation altogether. Walter Andrew Bowman Perry, industrial consultant, said he went to live in a separate flat in the Hulme's home at Christmas. He was aware of the girls' writing and would describe it as voluminous. Their first novel was innocuous, something like "The Prisoner of Zenda." However, in the plots of later books there was a certain amount of amorality. The girls play-acted among themselves. //"THINK SHE'S DEAD"// Mrs. Agnes Ritchie, proprietress of the tea rooms at Victoria Park, said the woman and two girls appeared perfectly normal and quite at ease at afternoon tea. Half an hour later the girls burst into the tea room. They were very agitated, breathless, gasping, and speaking almost incoherently. One girl said: "Mummy, she's terribly hurt. I think she's dead." One, whom she later found was Juliet, was almost hysterical. The other, Pauline was very white. Both girls had a lot of blood on their clothes and particularly on their hands. Pauline had a blood splash on her face. They were worried about the blood, which they washed off in the servery right away. She asked the girls how it happened. Pauline said: "Somehow she slipped on a plank. Her head kept bumping as she fell." Juliet then told her she would always remember the woman's head banging. Both girls said it seemed like a dream. They would wake up soon. //45 WOUNDS// Dr. Colin Thomas Busby Pearson, pathologist, said he examined the body of Mrs. Parker on the path, and later carried out a post- mortem. Cause of death was shock associated with multiple wounds to the head, and a fractured skull. Dr. Pearson listed 45 injuries, some minor, but many serious. There were 24 lacerated wounds to the face and scalp, some of which penetrated to the bone.--A.A.P-Reuter

Daily Mail (London), Saturday July 17, 1954. p. 3. (incomp) [sb] "PLAN FOR MURDER--IN A GIRL'S DIARY // Court told of entry: 'Next time I write, mother will be dead--how odd'" Christchurch, New Zealand, Friday July 16.--Sixteen-year-old Pauline Parker wrote in her diary "Day of a happy event." That afternoon she and her 15-year-old friend, Juliet Hulme, battered Pauline's mother to death. So it was alleged in Christchurch today. The two girls were sent for trial, accused of murder. They were in court for seven and a half hours. During that time, they giggled, whispered, yawned and scribbled notes. During that time, too, they heard a detective read six extracts from a diary alleged to have been written by Pauline. These were the extracts: [material missing]...--from Daily Mail Correspondent and Agencies.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday July 18, 1954. p. 2. [sb] "Music in Gaol For N.Z. Girls" Christchurch, (N.Z.), Saturday July 17.--Pauline Parker, 16, and Juliet Hulme, 15, who are in a women's prison waiting trial on a charge of murdering Parker's mother, listen to classical music for an hour each morning and afternoon. The mother was found battered to death in a bush-clad valley in a Christchurch suburb June 22. The girls are in the modern cottage-type Paparua prison, 10 miles from Christchurch. The cell block, built two or three years ago, has four bedroomed cells which are shared by seven women prisoners there at the moment. The girls are kept apart from the others. They spend much of their time on the block's sun verandah. The girls are free to write and they write voluminously. They are very happy when together, and seem completely unconcerned at the seriousness of their position. They commented to the police Matron at the end of Fridays' daylong Magistrate's Court hearing that it was "all very boring." Psychologists have been to the prison to examine the girls.

Time, 64:24, Monday July 26, 1954. "New Zealand: Collaborators" As schoolmates in Christchurch, Juliet Hulme, 15, and Pauline Parker, 16, often collaborated in the writing and production of amateur plays--plays which, according to equally amateur critics, were "not bad at all." They both liked detective stories, and as if to strengthen their status as best friends, both had been visited by similar misfortune: each had missed long periods at school through illness. They also both wanted to go to America "to have novels published and filmed," but their parents would not let them. One day three weeks ago, Pauline and Juliet, like many other fashionable New Zealanders, sat taking tea with Pauline's mother at a restaurant in lofty Victoria Park. After tea the two girls and Mrs. Parker took advantage of the brisk, sunny afternoon to stroll down the park's winding hillside tracks. A few minutes later, Pauline and Juliet came racing back to the restaurant. Mrs. Parker, they said, had fallen and was desperately injured. When the doctor arrived, Pauline's mother, her face and head cruelly cut and bruised, was already dead. It was a shocking end to an afternoon of quiet enjoyment, but for respectable Christchurch a worse shock was still to come. That evening the police stopped by at Ilam, the official residence of Dr. Henry Hulme, rector of staid Canterbury University College, and arrested Pauline Parker on suspicion of murder. Next day they came back and picked up Dr. Hulme's daughter Juliet on the same charge. Near the blood-soaked ground where Pauline's mother had lain, police found a brick and near it a bloodstained stocking in which the brick had been inserted and swung like a bludgeon. Last week, in several grisly hours at the Christchurch lower court, the police charged that Juliet and Pauline had killed Mrs. Parker with the brick-filled stocking. Their principal evidence: confessions from both girls, and excerpts from Pauline's own diary, in which Mrs. Parker's death was listed as the "Day of the Happy Event." Dozens of people die every day, sometimes thousands, said the schoolgirl's diary: so why not Mother too? [Only reference to either Parker, Pauline or Hulme, Juliet in "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" found in Apr. 1953 - Feb. 1955, p. 1764. jp]

The Times (London), Tuesday August 24, 1954. p. 5. "ALLEGED MURDER OF MOTHER // TWO GIRLS CHARGED" Christchurch (N.Z.). Aug. 23.--Juliet Hulme, aged 15, formerly of Liverpool, and her friend, Pauline Parker, aged 16, were accused to-day of the murder of Pauline's mother, Mrs. Honora Mary Parker, aged 45, on June 22. Both pleaded Not Guilty. The court was told that there were 69 (stet) injuries to the head and hands of Mrs. Parker and that she died of shock after being beaten with a blunt instrument. Juliet's mother, Mrs. Hilda Marion Hulme, and Pauline's father, Mr. Herbert Rieper, spoke of an "intense devotion" that sprang up between the two girls while they attended Christchurch Girls' High School. Juliet's father is Dr. H.R. Hulme, former director of operational research of the Admiralty. Mrs. Hulme said that Juliet was born in England and suffered shock from bombing when she was two years old. Nightmares and illness kept her from school for two years. After they came to New Zealand in 1948 Juliet went to Christchurch Girls' High School. But she was in a sanatorium for four months in 1953 and was not described as "cured" when she was discharged. Mrs. Hulme said she discovered that the girls had been planning to go to America to have their writing published. Both girls spent much time writing. Dr. Hulme had intended to go to England in March, leaving Juliet in New Zealand, but when the girls' plan was discovered it was decided to take Juliet to South Africa. //LAUGHS AND JOKES// Mr. Rieper said that he and Mrs. Parker had been pleased that Juliet was going away because then the friendship would end. Pauline went to stay with Juliet for 10 days and the two of them came back to Pauline's home on the morning of the day of the killing. They were laughing and joking at lunch when he came home. It was that afternoon when the girls hurried into the teashop of Mrs. Agnes Ritchie, at Victoria Park, covered in blood. Pauline said, "Mummy. She's been terribly hurt," Mrs. Ritchie said. The prosecutor, Mr. A.W. Brown, read a statement, alleged to have been made by Juliet, which said that Pauline had hoped to go to South Africa with her. They thought Mrs. Parker would object, so they decided to discuss it with her during a farewell visit to Victoria Park. According to the alleged statement, Juliet knew that it was planned to take a brick wrapped in a stocking. It continued: "I was not sure what was going to happen when we went to the park. I thought we may have been able to frighten Mrs. Rieper with the brick to have given her consent to Pauline and I staying together. After the first blow was struck I knew it would be necessary for us to kill her. I was terrified and hysterical."--Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday August 24, 1954. [sb] "Teenagers On Trial Called "Dirty-Minded"" Christchurch, Monday [Aug. 23]--The battering to death of a woman on June 22 was described in the Christchurch Supreme Court to-day as "a premeditated murder conducted by two dirty-minded little girls." Parents of the girls gave evidence that they had suffered severe illnesses, one of them having been bomb-shocked in England. The girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15 years and 10 months, were charged with having murdered Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker. Both girls pleaded not guilty, and sat quietly throughout the day's proceedings. Juliet Hulme is the daughter of Dr. H.R. Hulme, who retired recently as rector (sic) of Canterbury University College to take up a post in England. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Alan W. Brown, who had described Parker and Hulme as "dirty-minded little girls," said that Mrs. Parker was known as Mrs. Rieper. She had lived with Herbert Rieper and nobody knew that they were not married. //No Place for Sentiment// Mr. Brown said that the motive for the murder was that Mrs. Parker opposed the plans of the girls to go overseas together. He said the friendship of the girls was one of intense devotion. They spent a good deal of time in each other's beds and scribbled what they called novels. Mr. Brown said: "You may feel pity for these girls, but pity and sentiment have no part in British justice." Mr. Brown told the Court that the Crown believed it had been planned that Hulme was to have gone ahead of Mrs. Parker in Victoria Park with Pauline behind her mother. //Plan To Visit America// Hulme was to have placed a pink stone in a convenient spot and Mrs. Parker asked to examine the stone. Then Pauline would have hit her on the back of the neck with a stocking containing the brick. "There was no evidence that Rieper and Mrs. Parker had not been good parents," said Mr. Brown. "The circumstances in Dr. Hulme's home were unhappy. "The girls planned to go to America together, and later, Parker wanted to go to South Africa with Dr. Hulme and Juliet Hulme. "They knew Mrs. Parker would protest and they decided to kill her. "The girls coldly and calculatingly desired to kill Mrs. Parker and they decided on a farewell outing to the Hills at Victoria Park. "Shortly after 2:30 p.m. that day, Mrs. Parker and the two girls arrived at the park and had drinks at the tea kiosk. "The girls later came running up the steps of the tea rooms, their hands and clothing covered in blood, and said that mummy was hurt. "Parker said that her mother had hit her head on a board. "Close to the dead woman's head was part of a brick, and further away, a bloodstained portion of a stocking." Mr. Brown said that on the day Mrs. Parker was killed, Juliet Hulme made a statement to Senior Detective Macdonald Brown. //Part Of Brick In Newspaper// He said that Juliet had said she did not see any blow struck and that Pauline told her that Mrs. Parker had slipped and hit her head against a stone. Mr. Brown said that next day police interviewed Hulme again and she made another statement after apologising for misleading police the previous night. After describing plans for the visit to the park, the second alleged statement said: "I knew this was the trip we had planned. "I left home about 10:30 a.m. I had part of a brick which I wrapped in a newspaper. I had got it from near the garage. "I gave it to Pauline. I know the brick was put into a stocking at the Rieper's house. I did not put it there... "I saw Pauline hit Mrs. Rieper with the brick in the stocking. "I took the stocking and hit her, too." "I was not quite sure what was going to happen when we went to Victoria Park. "I thought we may have been able to frighten Mrs. Rieper with a brick and she would have given her consent for Pauline and me to stay. (stet) "After the first blow was struck I knew it would be necessary for us to kill her. I was terrified and hysterical." In an alleged statement by Pauline Parker she said that she had killed her mother and had made up her mind to do it a few days previously. //Hit "Great Many Times"// Mr. Brown said that when asked what her mother said when she was struck, Pauline replied "I would rather not answer that." He said that when she was asked how many times she had hit her mother, Pauline replied, "I don't know. A great many times, I imagine." Mr. Brown then read the following extracts from a diary found in Pauline Parker's room:-- February 13, 1954: "Why could not mother die? Dozens, thousands of people are dying; why not mother, and father, too? Life is very hard." April 28: "Anger against mother boiling inside me as she is the main obstacle in my path. Suddenly means of ridding myself of the obstacle occur to me. If she was to die..." //Diary Plan To "Moider Mother"// April 29:--"I did not tell Deborah of my plans for removing mother. The last fate I wish to meet is one in a Borstal. I wish to make it appear a natural or accidental death." [Deborah was Pauline's pet name for Juliet Hulme.] An entry in the dairy for June 19 referred to a plan "to moider mother" and said "naturally we are a trifle nervous but elation is great." June 20.--"Deborah and I talked for some time. Afterwards we discussed our plans for moidering mother and made them clear. But peculiarly enough I have no qualms of conscience. Or is it peculiar? We are so made (sic)." June 21.--"Deborah rang and we decided to use a brick in a stocking rather than a sandbag. Mother has fallen in with plans beautifully. Feel quite keyed up." June 22.--"I felt very excited last night and sort of night- before-Christmas, but I did not have pleasant dreams. I am about to rise." Mr. Brown said the diary for that day was headed "The day of the happy event." //Had Several Operations// Herbert Rieper, company manager, said he had lived with Mrs. Parker for the last 23 years and they had three children, Pauline being the second. She had been a normal child, but suffered from osteomyelitis when she was five and had spent eight or nine months in hospital. He said that at lunch time on the day Mrs. Parker was killed, Pauline and Juliet were laughing and joking. Rieper said that Pauline had several operations. He had seen her with other girls but very seldom. She had treated him personally with disdain and was easily upset. Rieper said that Pauline had been interested in a boy who had stayed with them during 1953, but the boy had been sent away. Hilda Marion Hulme, mother of Juliet, said her daughter was born in England on October 28, 1938, and the family came to New Zealand in 1948. //Bomb Shock As Two-year-old// When two years old Juliet suffered bomb shock and had nightmares. At one time Juliet had been very ill and was away from school for two years. Juliet had been in a sanatorium at Cashmere, outside Christchurch. She was there for about four months during 1953. She was not discharged cured. Mrs. Hulme added: "We loved Juliet dearly and did all we could for her." Reason for the girls going to America was to have their books published. "Juliet had to spend a lot of time resting on her bed and Pauline would keep her company," said Mrs. Hulme. It became increasingly difficult to draw them into the family circle." Mrs. Hulme said that on June 21 "Juliet was radiantly happy" over the proposed outing to Victoria Park. //Resentment For Brother// About Christmas time the girls changed their names. Juliet was called Deborah and Pauline was called Gina. To Mr. T.A. Gresson, for Juliet Hulme, Mrs. Hulme said Juliet was very sensitive and demanding. "Juliet appeared to resent her brother and this was a problem," she added. Mrs. Hulme said she had read one of Juliet's books. It was quite ordinary, not overexciting. On one occasion she had talked to Juliet and asked her not to be so extreme in her views. The hearing was adjourned until 10 a.m. to-morrow.--A.A.P.- Reuter.

The Times (London), Wednesday August 25, 1954. p. 5. "MURDER CHARGE AGAINST GIRLS // PLEA OF INSANITY" Christchurch (N.Z.), Aug. 24.--A plea of insanity was submitted by defence counsel to-day on behalf of Juliet Hulme, aged 15, formerly of Liverpool, and her friend Pauline Parker, aged 16, who are accused of the murder of Pauline's mother, Mrs. Honora Mary Parker. Mrs. Parker was found dead in Victoria Park, Christchurch, on June 22. It is alleged that Pauline and Juliet beat her to death with a brick in a stocking. Their alleged motive was fear that she would stop Pauline going to South Africa with Juliet, her inseparable companion, who was being taken abroad by her father. A psychiatrist, Dr. R.W. Medlicott, told the court that a "reversal of the moral sense" was apparent in both girls. They suffered from "paranoia--a form of delusion--of an exalted type, in a setting of folie a deux," a term used to describe "communicated insanity." Opening the defence, Mr. T.A. Gresson said it would be shown that the girls were insane at the time of the crime. They were not ordinary dirty-minded little girls, as the prosecution alleged, but were mentally ill and not legally responsible for their actions. Insanity, he said, was often accompanied by a high degree of intelligence. "The barbarity and hopelessly irrational confidence of the accused, their youth, and Parker's diary, in which is reflected the deterioration of the two girls like an evil mirror, might already have raised doubts in the jury's mind as to their sanity." The court adjourned until to-morrow.--Reuter.

The Manchester Guardian, Wednesday August 25, 1954. p. 5. "TRIAL OF TWO SCHOOLGIRLS ON MURDER CHARGE // Court Hears Evidence of Insanity" Christchurch (N.Z.), August 24.--Two girls charged with murdering the elder's mother were said in court at Wellington to-day to have had "their own paradise, their own god and religion, and their own morality." The diary of the elder, Pauline Parker, 16, spoke of their having discovered "the key to the fourth world." Only about ten people, it claimed, had this key. Pauline's mother, Mrs Honora Mary Parker, 45, was found battered to death in Victoria Park, Christchurch, on June 22. It is alleged that Pauline and her 15-year-old friend Juliet Hulme murdered her with a brick wrapped in a stocking. According to the prosecution the motive for the murder was the girls' fear that Mrs Parker would stop Pauline from going to South Africa with Juliet, her inseparable companion, who was being taken abroad by her father, Dr H.R. Hulme. A psychiatrist, Dr R.W. Medlicott, said that a "reversal of the moral sense" was apparent in both girls. They suffered from "paranoia--a form of delusion--of an exalted type, in a setting of folie a deux," a term used to describe "communicated insanity." The prosecution case closed to-day. Mr T.A. Gresson, opening the case for the defence, said it would be shown that the girls were insane at the time of the crime, and not legally responsible for their actions. Dr Medlicott had stated that when he interviewed them the girls "exulted over their crime" and showed no reasonable emotional appreciation of their situation. Both girls, Dr Medlicott went on, had had a difficult adolescence and their association proved tragic for them. There was no proof it was a physical relationship, but "there is a lot of suggestion in their diaries that a physical relationship occurred." Pauline's young sister was an imbecile, and her baby sister died shortly after birth. Both girls were sensitive, selfish, and imaginative, and showed an inability to tolerate criticism. It seemed clear, he added, that they always wrote to each other as imaginary characters. Mr Gresson said that insanity was often accompanied by a high degree of intelligence. He continued: "The barbarity and hopelessly irrational confidence of the accused, their youth, and Parker's diary in which is reflected the deterioration of the two girls like an evil mirror, might already have raised doubts in the jury's mind as to their sanity." Juliet's mother, Mrs Hilda Marion Hulme, who gave evidence when the trial was resumed this morning, was questioned about an entry in her daughter's diary. She told the Court how she had prepared a cup of tea for Walter Perry, an engineer who occupied part of the Hulmes' home, who was ill at the time. Mrs Hulme said that it was while she was in Perry's bedroom, and also having a cup of tea, that Juliet appeared and laughingly said something like: "The balloon has gone up." Asked to explain, Juliet said: "I hoped I'd catch you out." Mrs Hulme said she felt that Juliet's sense of humour was in bad taste. //Question of Divorce// Walter Perry told the Court that Mrs Hulme's account of the incident was correct. "In fact," he said, "I was admitted to hospital the next week. Juliet discussed the fact that she was going to blackmail me on the night she found Mrs Hulme giving me tea." Perry admitted that he had fallen in love with Mrs Hulme, but at no time had there been any deception with Dr Hulme about their state of affairs. Mrs Hulme had told the Court that the question of divorce was under discussion. An entry in Juliet's diary alleged that when Juliet asked for an explanation of the incident Mrs Hulme said: "Well, you see, we are in love." According to the diary, Mrs Hulme further explained that Dr Hulme knew all about it and that they intended to live "as a threesome." The Court adjourned until to-morrow.--Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday August 25, 1954. p. 4. [sb] "INSANITY PLEA FOR GIRLS CHARGED WITH MURDER" Christchurch (N.Z.), Tues. [Aug. 24]--Two doctors would say that two teenage girls were insane when they killed the mother of one of them, the Supreme Court was told to-day by counsel for one of the girls. Counsel said it was "clear beyond dispute" that the girls had killed the woman, and that the "vital and all-important" question was their sanity or otherwise. //DISCUSSION OF DIVORCE// "We must prove they are insane by competent evidence," he said. A psychiatrist said the girls were suffering from paranoia (a form of delusion) of an "exalted type." The girls are Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15. They are charged with having murdered Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker, known as Mrs. Rieper, 45, at Christchurch on June 22 last. Juliet is the daughter of Dr. H.R. Hulme, former Rector of Canterbury University College, Christchurch, who sailed to take up an overseas appointment some weeks ago. During to-day's hearing, Juliet's mother, Mrs. Hilda Marion Hulme, said that divorce had been "under discussion." Walter Andrew Bowman Perry, who last Christmas went to live in a flat which was part of the Hulme's home, told the Court he had fallen in love with Mrs. Hulme. Mrs. Hulme and Perry denied an entry in Pauline's diary that Juliet had said she had found them in bed together one night. At the trial, Pauline Parker is represented by Dr. A.L. Haslam, with Mr. J.A. Wicks, and Juliet Hulme by Mr. T.A. Gresson, with Mr. B. McClelland. The Crown Prosecutor is Mr. A.W. Brown, with Mr. P.T. Mahon. Mr. Justice Adams is on the bench. Mr. Gresson told the jury: "Neither Dr. Haslam nor I would advance a defence of insanity if there were no competent medical evidence to support it. "The Crown has referred to the girls as ordinary, dirty- minded little girls. Our evidence will show they are mentally ill. "Their interest in sexual and homosexual matters will show they are not ordinary, but ill." He said the girls were suffering from paranoia of an exalted type and folie a deux (a term used to describe communicated insanity). Dr. Reginald Warren Medlicott, superintendent of Ashburn Hall private psychiatric hospital, Dunedin, said: "Both girls are sensitive, selfish, imaginative, and show an inability to tolerate criticism. Pauline has ruled her friendships by bursts of temper." //FORM OF INSANITY// Dr. Medlicott said he considered the girls were suffering from paranoia of an exalted type. In a setting of folie a deux, paranoia was a form of systematised insanity. It was not unusual for adolescents to become arrogant. They frequently went through a stage of forming passions for members of their own sex. There was no proof that there was a physical relationship, he said, adding that homosexuality was love for a member of one's own sex. Dr. Medlicott added: "On my second visit on the second week- end, they could not be bothered giving up a walk in the sun to talk to me. "There was a gross reversal of moral sense. They admired what was evil, and condemned that which the community considered good. "They said they had their own god and religion." After a short time with them, he was convinced they were insane. Each girl would have sudden spells of intentness. They would "click into gear"; they showed a conceit which was quite out of the world of normality; they were prepared to accept their books as world-shattering; their arrogance, like their conceit was not normal; they persistently abused him. //ENTRY IN DIARY READ// Dr. Medlicott said Pauline's younger sister was an imbecile. Juliet's ill-health and separations from her parents would tend to break normal associations. Both girls had a difficult adolescence, and their association had proved tragic for them. When he interviewed them, the girls exulted over their crime, and showed no reasonable emotional appreciation of their situation. When the trial resumed to-day, Mrs. Hulme re-entered the witness box. //"SECRET JOKE"// Asked by Dr. Haslam about an entry in Pauline's diary for April 23, Mrs. Hulme said: "One night Mr. Perry took ill. "I heard a disturbance in the house and went to the dividing door which leads to his flat, and called out to him. He was in obvious pain." She made him a cup of tea and sat on the side of his bed and drank a cup of tea, too. She heard the door move and Juliet appeared. Mrs. Hulme added: "Juliet seemed amused at a secret joke of her own. Asked why she was laughing, Juliet said something like 'The balloon has gone up.' "Asked to explain, she said, 'I hoped to catch you out.' "I felt Juliet's sense of humor was in bad taste, and I was upset with her." Mr. Brown (for the Crown) read the entry from Pauline's diary about the incident on the night of April 23, as follows:-- "This afternoon I played Tosca and wrote before ringing Deborah (her name for Juliet). "Then she told me the stupendous news. Last night she woke at 2 a.m. and for some reason went to her mother's room. "It was empty, so she went downstairs to look for her. Deborah could not find her, so she crept as stealthily as she could into Mr. Perry's flat. "She heard voices from inside, and she stayed outside for a little while, then opened the door and switched on the light. //BEDROOM INCIDENT// "Mr. Perry and Mrs. Hulme were in bed drinking tea. Deborah felt an hysterical tendency to giggle. She said, 'Hello.' She was shaking with emotion and shock, although she knew what she would find. They giggled at her for a minute and her mother said, 'I suppose you want an explanation?' "'Yes,' Deborah replied, 'I do.' "'Well, you see we are in love,' her mother explained. Deborah was wonderful. Her mother explained that Dr. Hulme knew all about it, and that they intended to live as a threesome." Mr. Brown (to Mrs. Hulme): Had you told Dr. Hulme of the incident of the night? Mrs. Hulme: Yes. The diary states, "Dr. and Mrs. Hulme are going to divorce." Was that so?--Do I have to answer that? Mrs. Hulme then said it was under discussion. Mr. Brown: Why should Dr. Hulme talk to the girls about divorce? Mrs. Hulme: Because of the incident in Perry's bedroom the night before. Walter Andrew Bowman Perry, engineer, said he went as a guest to Dr. Hulme's home at Christmas, 1953, and lived in part of the house. He, Dr. Hulme and Mrs. Hulme were very friendly. Perry said he had read Pauline's 1954 diary. Mrs. Hulme's version of the incident in his room was correct. Perry said he had fallen in love with Mrs. Hulme. Mr. Gresson: Has there at any time been any deception with Dr. Hulme about that state of affairs? Perry: Definitely not. The Hearing was adjourned until to-morrow.--A.A.P.-Reuter.

The Times (London), Thursday August 26, 1954. p. 5. "GIRLS ON MURDER CHARGE // EVIDENCE ON INSANITY" Wellington (N.Z.), Aug. 25.--Dr. R.W. Medlicott, medical superintendent of Ashburn Hall psychiatric hospital, to-day continued evidence for the defence in the trial of the two girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Marion Hulme, who are charged with the murder of Mrs. Parker (mother of one of the accused girls.) He said that both girls, in his opinion, were certifiably insane. They knew what the law was but did not acknowledge that their action was morally wrong; they thought killing Mrs. Parker was morally right--by their own standards, not the standards of the community. The Crown prosecutor (Mr. A.W. Brown) asked: "Why then did they try to escape detection?" Dr. Medlicott replied: "Because they had a plan and they knew that being caught would prevent their carrying it out. They considered they were unique geniuses. ..." Mr. Brown: Why then are the accused insane? Dr. Medlicott: Because all these actions were done inside a delusional setting. Mr. Brown: The killing of Mrs. Parker was carefully planned, was it not? Dr. Medlicott: Yes. Mr. Brown: Then where was the delusion? Dr. Medlicott.--Simply this: if they had not been suffering from delusions they would not have wished to do that. //TERRIFIC EXALTATION// Mr. Brown spent some time cross-examining Dr. Medlicott about poetry found in the back of Parker's diary and asked in what way it convinced Dr. Medlicott that the girls were insane. Dr. Medlicott said: "Because of its terrific exaltation." Mr. Brown thereupon recited more poetry without informing Dr. Medlicott who wrote it: but later he informed the witness that the poetry was a Shakespeare sonnet and a poem of Walter de la Mare. Mr. Brown.--Is there not evidence of exaltation in these? Dr. Medlicott replied that he could not regard these on their own as evidence of the writer's insanity. A description of a vision was then read to Dr. Medlicott, who was invited by Mr. Brown to comment upon it. He answered that he could not agree that insanity was a reasonable inference from the description of the vision. Mr. Brown then informed the court that the quotation was from the Fourth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John. The court adjourned with Dr. Medlicott still giving evidence.--from our correspondent. // Christchurch (N.Z.), Aug. 25.--Dr. Medlicott to-day read several alleged items from Pauline Parker's diary to the court trying the two girls for murder. --Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday August 26, 1954. p. 5. [sb] "Girls On Murder Charge Had A "Fourth World"" Christchurch (N.Z.) Wed. [Aug. 25]--A leading psychiatrist said to-day that two teenage girls charged with having murdered the mother of one of them, had told him of their "fourth world," and their own gods, religion and paradise. The psychiatrist told Christchurch Supreme Court that the girls were insane at the time of the killing, and he would have no hesitation in certifying them. The girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, are charged with having murdered Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker (known as Mrs. Rieper), 45, at Christchurch on June 22. Juliet is the daughter of Dr. H.R. Hulme, former Rector of Canterbury University College, Christchurch. The psychiatrist, Dr. Reginald Warren Medlicott, of Dunedin, told the Court to-day that Juliet Hulme had told him that "in their own religion they went to paradise." Pan was their favorite god. Juliet had also said that they had discovered the "fourth world" at Port Levy. She had said that the "fourth world" was definitely there, and added: "Our god is a more powerful version of the humans' God. He has the same powers, only greatly magnified." Another time Juliet had said: "I do not want to place myself above the law; I am apart from it." Pauline had said: "We don't believe God could be satisfied with the world and be omnipotent." Dr. Medlicott said the girls believed that what they had done was morally right, by their own standards. Even now, they showed no remorse. Pauline had told him: "We are both sane. Everybody else is off the mark. Our views are much more logical and sensible." He said the nearest he got to remorse with Pauline was when she said that when she slept on her right side, her mother seemed to come back. She could not stand this, and immediately turned on her left side. //DEVELOPED T.B.// An entry in Pauline's diary had referred to Juliet having developed tuberculosis, and added: "I spent a wretched night. We agreed it would be wonderful if I could get tuberculosis, too." Another entry in Pauline's diary for January 29 was: "We have worked out how much prostitutes should earn, and how much we should make in this profession." The "should" gradually changed to "shall," said Dr. Medlicott. The entry continued: "We have spent a really wonderful day messing around and talking over how much fun we will have in our profession." A diary entry for June 6 read: "Eventually we enacted how each saint would make love in bed, only doing the first seven, as it was 7:30 a.m. by then. We felt exhausted and very satisfied." //"CAREFULLY PLANNED"// To the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Alan W. Brown, Dr. Medlicott said that Juliet had told him if she were running the country, she would make laws for others to stick to but, "as king, of course, the laws would not apply to her." He said both girls knew what the law was but did not recognize it. They considered their action in killing Pauline's mother to be morally right by their own standards, not by the standards of the community. They had tried to escape detection because of their plans for the future. [According to earlier evidence the girls had wanted to go abroad together, but their parents would not agree.] "They considered they were quite unique geniuses, with their own paradise and could do exactly as they liked," said Dr. Medlicott. "It was quite right for them to indulge in shoplifting and to steal, because they were merely raising money to further their own plans." //AFFAIR WITH BOY// Dr. Medlicott agreed with Mr. Brown that the killing had been carefully planned. After the killing the girls knew intellectually that they were in trouble, but never realised it emotionally, he said. Mr. Brown: Was it not a fact that Pauline had sexual intercourse with a boy? Dr. Medlicott agreed, but said the fact that a person had sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex did not disprove homosexuality. Mr. Brown: But she had sexual intercourse over and over again? Dr. Medlicott: No, only once. That is what she told me. Mr. Brown quoted extracts from Pauline's diary, referring to nocturnal visits by Pauline to a boy named Nicholas. Mr. Brown: Was she not in Nicholas's bed as far back as July, 1953, and was she not there from 11:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Dr. Medlicott: That is so. //"NOT HAPPY"// Mr. Brown read later diary references to visits paid by Pauline to Nicholas at his new address after he left the Rieper household. Dr. Medlicott said he thought Pauline was not happy in these relationships. She attempted to break away, but went back, and described all these events to Juliet. Mr. Brown asked if there could not be several explanations for the ending of Pauline's relations with Nicholas. One might be that they were caught. Dr. Medlicott replied: "The visits to Nicholas continued for a long time after that." In earlier diary references it was Nicholas who was "making the pace," he said. Mr. Brown suggested it could be that Nicholas grew cool, possibly realising the implications of Pauline being under the age of consent. Dr. Medlicott said that, according to her diary, Pauline sat on a chair most of the night during her later visits to Nicholas in his bedroom. //"MOIDER"// On June 19 the diary entry read: "Our main idea (stet) for the day is moider. We have worked it out clearly." Dr. Medlicott said: "The diary rises to a quite fantastic crescendo as it goes on. "Evil becomes more and more important, and one gets the feeling that they became helplessly under its sway." Mr. Brown referred Dr. Medlicott to a diary entry for April 17, which read: "Mrs. Hulme was perfectly beastly to Deborah (nickname for Juliet). "She made her apologise for taking a record from Mr. Perry's flat. [Walter Andrew Bowman Perry, an engineer, lived in a flat at Hulme's home. He has told the Court that he fell in love with Mrs. Hulme.] "This made us feel very cross and childish in a sort of I'll-show-them-so-there-and-that-will-make-'em-sorry feeling. "We went for a walk in a field and sat on a log, shouting nasty jeering remarks to every rider that passed. About fifty did. "This cheered us greatly, and we came back and wrote out all the Commandments so that we can break them." Dr. Medlicott was still being cross-examined when the Court adjourned until to-morrow.--A.A.P.-Reuter.

The Times (London), Friday August 27, 1954. p. 5. "GIRLS ON MURDER CHARGE "INSANE" " Wellington (N.Z.), Aug. 26.--Dr. Francis Bennett, a witness for the defence at the trial of Pauline Parker, aged 16, and Julian (stet) Marion Hulme told him that she had no regrets whatever. Dr. Bennett said that the girls once wrote out the 10 Commandments and then set out to see how many they could break. Hulme told him that not only was the murder of Mrs. Parker justified, but other murders might be justified if anyone threatened the girls' association. Dr. Bennett added: "To us the murder was bestial, filthy, treacherous. On the occasion of the murder these girls were insane and they never will be sane." The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.--from our correspondent.

The Manchester Guardian, Friday August 27, 1954. p. 7. "ALLEGED MURDER OF MOTHER // Girls' "Night Orgies" " Christchurch (New Zealand), Aug. 26.--It was stated in court here today that Pauline Parker, happily doing housework with her mother, broke off to discuss by telephone with her school friend how they should kill the mother next day. The defence is seeking to prove that Pauline (16) and her friend, Juliet Marion Hulme (15), accused of murdering Mrs Parker with a brick in a stocking, are insane. Dr. Francis Bennett said: "There was the happy harmony of mother and daughter on Monday, the slaughter on Tuesday. To us, who are sane, I hope, it was a murder that was bestial, treacherous, filthy. It is outside all the kindly limits of sanity. It is a thousand miles away from sanity." The prosecutor, Mr Alan Brown, objected to what he called "this prose poem," but the Judge allowed it as a legitimate statement of the grounds for the doctor's opinion. Dr Bennett said that the girls had a wild infatuation for each other and spent as much time as possible together, discussing their gods, their books, "bathing and bedding together, and photographing each other in fancy and party dresses and in the nude." They had "nightlong verbal orgies." They did not hate people but despised them. After the murder both Pauline and Juliet told him that they had no regrets whatever, Pauline adding: "Of course I did not want my family to get involved in this; but we have been terribly happy since it happened, so it has all been a blessing in disguise." In their own opinion, Dr Bennet (sic) went on, this crime of matricide was right. They knew the nature and quality of their act but did not think it wrong. They believed that Pauline's mother would be in "heaven" but that they would go to "paradise." Juliet said there was no hell--"the idea is so primitive." They had their own "saints," based on film stars. The girls used to get up in the night and act on the lawn, he added. They made a little cemetery and later turned it into a temple, where a dead mouse was buried under a cross. They also put up crosses for "dead ideas." The Crown will call three witnesses to rebut the medical evidence of insanity. The case was adjourned until tomorrow.-- Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday August 27, 1954. [sb] "INSANITY PLEA AT N.Z. MURDER TRIAL" Christchurch, Thurs. [Aug. 26]--Dr. Francis O. Bennett told the Supreme Court to-day that two teenage girls on trial for murder "were not sane then, are not sane now and never will be sane." Dr. Bennett is the second doctor called by the defence to testify that the girls are insane. To-morrow the Crown will call three witnesses to rebut the defence's medical evidence. //"MATRICIDE WAS RIGHT"// The girls are charged with battering to death the mother of one of them with a half-brick in a stocking. Dr. Bennett said, "In their opinion this crime of matricide was right. They knew the nature and quality of their act but did not think it wrong. "The girls knew what they did was wrong in the community's eyes but I doubt whether that entered into their considerations." The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. A. Brown: But is not that the outlook of all criminals? Dr. Bennett: Yes, but these happen not to be criminals. Mr. Justice Adams: That is for the jury to decide. Dr. Bennett: Yes, your Honor, I should not have said that. Dr. Bennett said the day before the murder one girl was helping her mother with the housework when the telephone rang and she broke off her work to discuss "moider plans" with the other girl. He added, "There was the happy harmony of mother and daughter on Monday: the slaughter on Tuesday. "To us--sane, I hope--it was a murder that was bestial, treacherous and filthy. It is outside all the kindly limits of sanity; it is a thousand miles away from sanity. Mr. Brown: Your Honor, I object to this prose poem. Mr. Justice Adams: I think it is a legitimate statement of the grounds for his opinion. Dr. Bennett said the girls were suffering from paranoia. They lived in a world of their own--a world of delusions that had no reality or values, as the community knew values. To-day was the fourth day of the trial. Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15 years and 10 months, are charged with the murder of Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker (known also as Mrs. Rieper), 45, at Christchurch, on June 22. Mrs. Parker and the two girls went for a walk on Cashmere Hills. Later, the girls returned alone and said Mrs. Parker had slipped and fallen to her death. The Crown alleges that the girls planned to murder Mrs. Parker and beat her to death with a half-brick swung in a stocking. Mr. Justice Adams and a jury are hearing the case in the Supreme Court. Dr. A.L. Haslam and Mr. I.A. Wicks are counsel for Pauline Parker, and Mr. T.A. Gresson and Mr. B. McClelland are appearing for Juliet Hulme. The Crown Prosecutor is Mr. Alan W. Brown. //Necessary To Give Full Picture// Dr. Haslam, opening the defence case for Pauline Parker, told the jury, "Both girls were insane on the day of the murder to such a degree that they did not know what they were doing. "We are not here to waste your time with flimsy medical opinions. We ask you give due weight to our medical evidence. "It is necessary for doctors to give the full picture, but it is the overall picture you must consider and weigh." Dr. Haslam then called Dr. F.O. Bennett, who, he said, would give evidence agreeing with that of Dr. Medlicott earlier, that the girls were suffering from paranoia and folie a deux. Dr. Bennett said he had been consulted by Dr. Hulme on December 9 last regarding the association of the girls and again on May 8. On December 14, he saw Mrs. Parker and Pauline at his surgery. Dr. Hulme was worried about the unhealthy association of the girls. Mrs. Parker was worried about Pauline's weight. The interview was not a success. Pauline would answer only "Yes" or "No." Pauline said her mother frequently nagged at her, her only friend was Juliet and she thought other girls silly. He could not get beyond that. He had told Mrs. Parker that he thought there was a homosexual relationship between the girls. Dr. Bennett said that the next time he saw Pauline was at the police station on June 24. He saw each girl separately for about an hour. On August 6 he saw Juliet at Paparua Prison and Pauline on August 13. He had read both Pauline's diaries and a large part of her novel. The girls' recent activities, he said, could be explained only on the basis of mutual insanity. "I agree with Dr. Medlicott that they are suffering from paranoia," he said. "They follow delusion wherever it is and become antisocial and dangerous. "They think they are superior to the general race of man. They have written a great deal, but I do not consider it of outstanding literary merit. "Intellectually they are a little higher than girls of their own age, but they are not intellectual giants." //Delusions of Grandeur// Dr. Bennett said the two girls had delusions of grandeur. They formed a "society" of their own and lived in it. In this new society they were no longer under the censure and nagging of mothers. "They fill it out with their 'saints' and fictional characters," he said. //"FOURTH WORLD" OF OWN// Dr. Bennett read extracts from Pauline's diaries. One, dated April 3, 1953, read:-- "To-day Juliet and I found the key to the fourth world. We realise now that we had it in our possession for six months but we only realised it today. "We saw a gateway through the clouds. We sat on the edge of a path and looked down a hill out over a bay. The island looked beautiful, the sea was blue and everything was full of peace and bliss. "We then realised we had the key. We know now that we are not genii, as we thought. We have an extra part of our brain which can appreciate the fourth world." //Had Left This World Behind// After reading other extracts, Dr. Bennett said: "These illustrations show the wild infatuation of these two for each other and their grandiose ideas. "They bathed and went to bed together. They dressed up. They got up at night and went onto the lawn and acted, ignoring other people. "They made a little cemetery and later turned it into a temple where a dead mouse was buried and a cross put up. They put up other crosses for dead ideas. "They had no friends of their own age and never read newspapers." During the Royal visit to Christchurch the girls made no attempt to see the Queen or the decorations. There was increasing elation as the story approached its climax. They had the impression that they had left this world behind them. "The girls have assured me that they don't hate people individually but that they despise them," Dr. Bennett said. "They believe in survival after death. Juliet said there is no hell--the idea is so primitive." //No Regret Over Murder// Dr. Bennett said Juliet Hulme had told him, "The day we killed her I think she knew beforehand what was going to happen and she did not bear any grudge." He had asked Juliet if she had any regret and she replied, "None whatsoever." At one stage the girls wrote out the Ten Commandments and set out to see how many they could break. They claimed Pauline had broken 10 and Juliet only nine. The girls, he said, always spelt the word murder as "moider." It was a "murder" that was bestial, treacherous and filthy. Dr. Bennett added, "It is outside all the limits of sanity." Mr. Brown: This is comment, not evidence. Mr. Justice Adams: I do not think one can object to such terms. Dr. Bennett said that had the girls never met they might at least for some years have lived difficult lives before paranoia occurred. But they met. They lived in a world of elation and despised the lowly world around them. "They took a delight in breaking its conventions," he said. "In my opinion they are both folie a deux homosexual paranoics of the elated type. "They are definitely certifiable. "They knew they were killing a woman, who she was and the nature of their act. They did not think their act was wrong. They knew it was against the laws of the country but they had a loyalty to their delusion." Mr. Brown: Did they know what they were doing? Dr. Bennett: They did. Mr. Brown: You know they are liars? Dr. Bennett: Not all the time. Is their relationship homosexual physically?--I don't know. I am inclined to think not. They don't like being called that?--They have no holds barred. Dr. Bennett said that in his first interview with Juliet Hulme she had no idea what he was talking about when homosexuality was mentioned. Mr. Brown: Didn't the girl Parker have sexual relationships with a number of boys? Dr. Bennett: Not over a long period. //Film Characters Were Used// Dr. R.W. Medlicott, psychiatrist, earlier concluded his evidence for the defence under cross-examination by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Brown. The girls' "saints," he said, were fictional characters, constituting their "families." They used characters from films to personify their characters. Mr. Brown: These characters represented not only the faces of film stars, but other parts of their anatomy, didn't they? Dr. Medlicott: That might have been so. Mr. Brown read an entry from Parker's diary written on May 29, 1953, which stated, "We did not get up early as we were feeling so tired. We did the saints and played records. "We were very truthful about the saints, especially their figures. This was not hard as we decided that we like a large amount of man." Dr. Medlicott said the girls "played" with these characters. Mr. Brown: You think they played like innocent little children then? Dr. Medlicott: There is no suggestion that they played like innocent little children. How did they act among themselves?--There were love scenes. Love is a mild word. These two people, we will assume, are homosexuals in the physical sense?--There is no proof of that. I am doubtful if they were telling me the truth. //All The "Saints" Were Males// Dr. Medlicott said the "saints" were all males. He thought the girls were homosexual. Mr. Brown: You agree that references in the diary on May 29 refer to the physical characteristics of various saints? Dr. Medlicott: They were figures from the films. Real life figures?--Yes. "He" at one stage is Mario Lanza?--Yes. Mr. Brown then read from a diary entry written on June 12, "We returned home and talked for some time about it (sic), getting ourselves more and more excited. Eventually, we enacted how each saint would make love in bed, only doing the first seven as it was 7:30 a.m. by then. We felt exhausted and very satisfied." Dr. Medlicott, after further questioning about Pauline's diary, agreed that the girls behaved "over and over again as normal human beings." Mr. Brown: You said earlier that they were both insane and readily certifiable? Dr. Medlicott: They were both insane and certifiable. Are you disconcerted to know three competent psychiatrists do not consider them certifiable?--It does not disturb me. The hearing was adjourned until to-morrow.--SMH staff reporter.

The Times (London), Saturday August 28, 1954. p. 5. "ALLEGED MURDER OF MOTHER // MEDICAL EVIDENCE OF GIRLS' SANITY" Wellington (N.Z.), Aug. 27--Evidence was continued in the fifth day of the trial of the two girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Marion Hulme, who are charged with the murder of Parker's mother. The Crown called three medical witnesses in rebuttal of the expert evidence of the defence. Dr. Kenneth Robert Stallworthy, senior medical advisor at Avondale Mental Hospital at Auckland, told the Crown prosecutor, Mr. A.W. Brown, that he had examined both girls and it was his opinion that neither had any disease of the mind. They had written down what was going to happen and had given clear accounts of what they had done. Both knew the nature and quality of their act. After the killing of Mrs. Parker both had full realization of their predicament and a very sane desire to get out of it. He did not consider either girl to be paranoic, but admitted to the presence of delusions. Dr. James Edwin Saville, the second Crown expert, who is medical officer at Sunnyside Mental Hospital, gave evidence that in several interviews the girls tried to make out that they were insane, arguing that by the time they became 18 or 19 they would be released from a mental hospital, whereas they could not see themselves getting out of prison if found sane as early as that. Dr. James Dewar Hunter, superintendent of Sunnyside hospital, said he would not certify the girls because he believed both to be quite sane. Addresses of counsel are to be heard to-morrow.--from our correspondent.

The Manchester Guardian, Saturday August 28, 1954. p. 5. "ACCUSED GIRLS "BOTH SANE" // N.Z. Murder trial" Wellington, Aug. 27.--Three experts to-day told a Wellington court trying Juliet Marion Hulme (15) and Pauline Yvonne Parker (16) for the murder of Pauline's mother that both girls were sane. Yesterday two defence witnesses contended that they were and always would be insane. The first witness to-day, Dr Kenneth Stallworthy, superintendent of Auckland Mental Hospital, told the Court that Pauline had said: "We knew we were doing wrong. We knew that we would be punished if we were caught and we did our best not to be caught. I would have been an absolute moron not to know that murder was against the law." Dr Stallworthy said that his conclusion was that neither girl had any disease of the mind. After quoting Pauline, he said that Juliet had told him: "I knew it was wrong to murder, and I knew at the time that I was murdering somebody." The prosecutor: Do you know of any paranoiacs who went through the various stages the girls did--lying, cheating, blackmailing, and thieving? Dr Stallworthy: No. I have seen sane murderers show such a callousness as has been commented on in this case. In my experience, liking for games of bloodshed and violence are exceedingly common among adolescents. The type of literature in such demand to-day by adults, and embodying just these things, shows this, I think. Is there any connection between homosexuality and paranoia?- -There is, in my opinion, no relation between active homo- sexuality and paranoia. I do not know of any practising homo- sexual who is a paranoiac. I do not consider homosexuality, which is by no means uncommon, as any indication of insanity. Are these girls homosexual?--I think there is no doubt that the girls have been engaged in some form of physical homo- sexuality. It is usual for adolescents to outgrow that stage. There is, I think, clear evidence that Parker was sufficiently interested to let members of the opposite sex make love to her, one way or another. Dr Stallworthy's evidence was supported by the two other medical witnesses, Mr D.D. Hunter, superintendent of Sunnyside Mental Hospital, and Mr J.E. Saville, a Sunnyside medical officer. Mr Saville told the court that he would not certify either girl insane, emphasising that he did not know of any crime committed by two insane people in combination. Pauline and Juliet are accused of murdering Mrs Parker by hitting her with a brick enclosed in a stocking while they were walking through a Christchurch park. The evidence was ended to- day, and the court adjourned until to-morrow, the sixth day of the trial, when counsels' final addresses and the judge's summing-up will be heard. It will be the first time for many years in New Zealand that a murder trial has continued on a Saturday.--British United Press.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday August 28, 1954. [sb] "Doctors' Conflict On Sanity As N.Z. Murder Trial Nears End" Christchurch, Friday [Aug. 27]--Three medical witnesses called by the prosecution in the Christchurch murder trial to-day gave evidence that the two accused girls were sane now and had been sane when Honora May (sic) Parker was battered to death. Evidence in the case concluded in the Supreme Court to-day. The trial will resume at 9:30 a.m. to-morrow for counsel's addresses and the jury will retire, probably about the middle of the afternoon, to consider its verdict. The public gallery was crowded to-day for the fifth day of the trial, which has held New Zealand's attention throughout the week. The Court had been expected to adjourn until Monday, but at the conclusion of the evidence to-day, Mr. Justice Adams consulted the jurors, who said they preferred to sit to-morrow. It will be the first Saturday sitting of a New Zealand Court in a murder trial for many years. The accused, Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15 years and 10 months, are charged with the murder of Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker (known also as Mrs. Rieper), 45, at Christchurch, on June 22. Mrs. Parker was found dead with her head battered in Cashmere Hills, a suburb of Christchurch, after going for a walk in the park with the two girls. Two medical witnesses called for the defence had previously described the girls as insane. To-day's medical witnesses were called by the Crown. //"Clear Accounts," Says Specialist// Dr. Kenneth Robert Stallworthy, senior medical adviser to Avondale Mental Hospital, Auckland, told the Court he examined Pauline Parker at Paparua prison on July 26 and 27, and on August 19. He had also examined her twice at Mount Eden prison. He had examined Juliet Hulme at Paparua prison four times. He did not consider that either had any disease of the mind. The Crown prosecutor, Mr. Alan W. Brown: What were the factors that made you think the girls knew what they were doing? Dr. Stallworthy: That they had written down what was going to happen and their clear accounts of what they had done. Dr. Stallworthy said they knew the nature and quality of their act. They both knew at the time that their action was wrong, and that they were breaking the law. He read an entry from Pauline Parker's diary dated April 29, which said: "I have made no definite plans yet as the last fate I wish to meet is one in Borstal." He said that was a very clear indication of her awareness that she was running the risk of such punishment. He said Pauline Parker had told him at their last interview: "We knew that what we were doing was wrong; we knew we would be punished if we were caught, and we did our best not to be caught." At the second interview with Juliet Hulme she had told him: "I knew it was wrong to murder and I knew at the time that I was murdering somebody. I would have to be an absolute moron not to know murder was against the law." He had no doubt that they knew the nature and quality of their act and that it was against the law and the moral code. Mr. Brown: Do you consider they, or one of them, insane when they killed Mrs. Parker? Dr. Stallworthy: I do not. They were carefully weighing in their minds the prospects of concealing the crime. He said both girls had told him they had at least an even chance of escaping detection. The girls wanted to be found insane because if convicted they could regain their liberty earlier. He had dealt with dozens of paranoiacs and their behaviour was entirely different from that displayed by the girls. A primary requisite for paranoia was the presence of delusions. He did not admit to delusions with these girls. //"Commonly A Conceited Age"// Dr. Stallworthy continued: "The presence of conceit does not constitute a delusion of grandeur. I have seen on many occasions criminals with conceit who felt justified in breaking the law. "Adolescence is commonly a conceited age. Often in the diaries of adolescents are to be found the most conceited opinions without the adolescent's having a firm belief in what has been written." He said the girls had some justification for conceit. Juliet Hulme in interviews had displayed the vocabulary and shrewdness in answering difficult questions of a highly intelligent person of much greater age. Pauline Parker was considerably above average intelligence. //"Thrill" Of Shoplifting// Dr. Stallworthy said there was no relationship between expressed homosexuality and paranoia. Homosexuality in this case was not repressive. There was no doubt the girls had been engaged in some form of physical sexual activity with each other. But the girls dreamt of members of the opposite sex and always pretended they were making love to members of the opposite sex. For those reasons he felt homosexuality in the situation had been rather overstressed. There was evidence of Pauline Parker's interest in the other sex. The fact that she wrote of having received no satisfaction with her intercourse with Nicholas was no indication of homosexuality. There was no relation between their shoplifting and insanity. The girls had shoplifted because of the fun of it and the thrill of it. They were not devoid of moral sense. The fact that they were pleased with themselves was not exaltation in the sense that a psychiatrist would use the word. //"Apparently Lucid Thinking"// The theme of bloodshed and violence in the evidence was in no way abnormal or evidence of insanity. Dr. James Edwin Saville, medical officer at Sunnyside Mental Hospital, gave evidence that he had examined the girls separately on five occasions. At the first two examinations the girls were inclined to make out that they were insane, but at the last three interviews they wished to be regarded as sane. Dr. Saville said: "Juliet told me--I think it was on the third occasion--that if they were found insane they would probably be out of the mental hospital by the time they were 18 or 19. They could not see themselves getting out of prison as early as that if they were found sane and convicted." He said he was satisfied they understood the nature of their act. They knew it was wrong in law and wrong morally. He would not certify them as insane. They were sane now and they had been sane when they killed Mrs. Parker. Dr. James Dewar Hunter, superintendent of Sunnyside Mental Hospital, said he examined the girls on five occasions. In his considered opinion they were sane when they killed Mrs. Parker and sane now. //Nicholas "Not A Real Friend"// Earlier yesterday Dr. Francis Oswald Bennett, medical witness for the defence, continued his evidence under cross-examination by Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown: Might these girls not have found some foundation to think that they were approaching genius? Dr. Bennett: I must reject that. Why do you say they had no friends of their own age?--It depends on what they meant by friends. What about Nicholas?--He was not a real friend. You say they believed in survival after death; is that an insane belief?--No. Was removing Mrs. Parker a delusion?--Part of a delusion. She was a threat to their remaining together?--Yes. There was no delusion about that?--No. Dr. Bennett said the girls showed no contrition or remorse whatsoever. //"Desperate" At Separation// Mr. Brown then read a sentence from Pauline Parker's diary, dated June 17. It was: "We didn't misbehave last night." He asked Dr. Bennett if the girls had not told him they meant by that extract that they did not raid the pantry, and whether he believed that. Dr. Bennett: Yes. Mr. Brown: You said they always spelt the word "murder" as "moider," they often did that with funny words? Dr. Bennett: They just altered them round for whim or fancy. Is it not a common spelling in many American crime books?--I did not know that. Mr. Brown asked which was the dominant personality and had the stronger mind. Mr. Brown suggested Juliet Hulme. Dr. Bennett: I am not very sure, and I doubt if it would ever be decided. At the conclusion of evidence the Court adjourned to the Judge's chambers for legal argument, and then adjourned until 9:30 a.m. to-morrow.--A.A.P.-Reuter.

The Times (London), Monday August 30, 1954. p. 5. "NEW ZEALAND GIRLS FOUND GUILTY // "KNEW MURDER WAS WRONG" " Wellington (N.Z.), Aug. 29.--After two hours' (stet) retirement the jury at Christchurch found Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Marion Hulme Guilty of the murder of Pauline's mother, Mrs. Honora Mary Parker. Mr. Justice Adams sentenced the girls to be detained during her(sic) Majesty's pleasure. Under New Zealand law this is the sentence passed on persons under 18 years of age who are convicted of an offence punishable with death. In summing up the Judge said that two doctors expressed the opinion that the accused were insane and three doctors had sworn that they were sane. To some extent, in some way their minds were abnormal. Did it amount to disease of the mind? "All the doctors have sworn the accused did know the nature and quality of their act. As I have understood the case, that has not been disputed." Both knew the act was wrong and contrary to the moral code of the community. The accused showed no emotion when sentence was passed.-- from our own correspondent.

San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday August 28, 1954, p. 1. "2 Girls Convicted For Killing Mother" Aukland (sic), New Zealand (Saturday), Aug. 28. (AP)--Two teen- age girls, Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Yvonne (stet) Hulme were found guilty today of murdering Pauline's mother by battering her with a brick. During the closing speech by Prosecutor Alan Brown, who described the defendants as "two dirty-minded little girls," Juliet sat with her fingers in her ears. As both girls are under 18, their crime is not punishable by death but by imprisonment. Neither Pauline, 16, nor Juliet, 15, showed any emotion when the verdict was returned after the 12-man jury had deliberated for 90 (stet) minutes.

The Oakland Tribune, Saturday August 28, 1954, p. 2. "THRILL KILLERS // 2 Teen-Age Girls Guilty Of Murder" Christchurch, N.Z., Aug. 28.--(UP)--An all-male jury found two sullen teen-age girls guilty of a "thrill" killing today, but their age saved them from the hangman's noose. Pauline Parker, 16, and Juliet Hulme, 15, sat staring woodenly at the floor as the jury brought in its verdict after only two hours and 14 minutes (stet) deliberation. They showed no emotion as they heard their sentence to an indefinite period of imprisonment for clubbing Pauline's mother, Mrs. Honora Mary Parker, with a brick wrapped in a stocking. "This was a coldly, callously planned and carefully committed murder by two precocious and dirty-minded girls," Crown Prosecutor A.W. Brown said in his final statement to the jury. "They are not incurably insane but incurably bad." Juliet held her fingers in her ears as Brown lashed out at the girls for killing Mrs. Parker because she wanted to separate them. Both girls admitted killing Mrs. Parker in a plot to make her death look like an accident. Pauline noted in her diary that she was "very excited" on the eve of the killing. Defense Atty. Terence Gresson pleaded that the girls were latently homosexual and irresponsible. "These are two mentally sick girls who should not be treated like ordinary people," Gresson said. "Their true crime was appalling but at the time they committed it they didn't appreciate what they were doing."

Los Angeles Times, Saturday August 28, 1954. p. 6. "Jury Convicts Girl Slayers, 16 (stet)" Auckland, New Zealand (Saturday) Aug. 29 (stet). (U.P.)--Two teen-aged girls were convicted today of murdering the mother of one of them because she sought to part them. Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Marion Hulme, both 16 (stet), showed no emotion when the jury's verdict was announced. Sentence will be pronounced later. The girls were tried on charges of fatally beating Mrs. Mary (stet) Parker, 45, while on an outing in the nearby Cashmere Hills. Mrs. Parker was bludgeoned with half a brick in a stocking. The prosecuting attorney said the girls planned to kill Mrs. Parker after they decided she was going to separate them by refusing to allow Pauline to accompany Juliet and her parents to South Africa.

The New York Times, Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 30. "Girl Guilty of Slaying Mother" Auckland, New Zealand. Aug. 28. (AP)--Pauline Parker, 16 years old, was convicted today of killing her mother last June. Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, was also convicted. They were sentenced to indefinite prison terms. Since they are under 18, the girls cannot be punished by death.

San Francisco Examiner, Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 44. "Girl, 16, Convicted of Thrill Murder of Mother; Sent to Prison With Pal" Auckland (New Zealand), Aug. 28.--(AP)--A stocky 16-year-old girl who wrote in her diary she felt "very night-before-Christmas" on the eve of the thrill killing of her mother was convicted of the murder today. A teen-age accomplice also was convicted. An all-male jury found Pauline Parker and 15-year-old Juliet Marion Hulme guilty in the brick beating of Mrs. Honora Mary Parker last June. They were sentenced to indefinite prison terms. Prosecutor Alan Brown told the jury that the slaying was "coldly premeditated murder, committed by two dirty-minded little girls." The defense did not deny the crime, but contended the pair were insane. Since they are under 18, the girls cannot be punished by death. Instead, they were ordered "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure"--a British legal device often used in cases involving adolescents, where there is a chance conditions may change later and a review would be warranted. It took the twelve-man jury only ninety (stet) minutes to reach a verdict. The girls left the dock for their prison cells solemn and dejected. Juliet, tall and blue-eyed, had sat with her fingers in her ears as the prosecutor made his closing statement at the end of a six-day trial. The body of Mrs. Parker was found in a Christchurch public park last June 22 with forty-five (stet) head, face and hand injuries. The girls claimed at first she had slipped and hit her head.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 1. [sb] "JURY FINDS TWO N.Z. GIRLS SANE" "Tense Murder Verdict Scenes" Christchurch, Saturday [Aug. 28]-- In a dramatic, tense atmosphere, a jury to-day found that Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, were sane when they murdered Pauline Parker's mother. Mr. Justice Adams sentenced the girls to be detained during her Majesty's pleasure. //Minimum of Five Years' Gaol// //Law authorities said to-night that this could mean a minimum of five years' gaol, or a maximum of at least 25 years.// As sentence was passed a middle-aged man in the public gallery jumped to his feet and shouted, "I protest! I object!" The Court crier called "silence," and police rushed into the gallery and hustled the man out of the court. Honora Mary Parker (known as Mrs. Rieper), 45, was found battered to death on June 22 in a picnic reserve outside Christchurch. The girls' trial lasted six days. Neither showed any emotion as sentence was passed. //Air Of Calm// Throughout the trial they had maintained an air of calm, contemptuous detachment. The two girls are likely to be placed in separate prisons. One of them will probably go to Paparua prison near Christchurch and the other to Mt. Eden prison, Auckland. "During her Majesty's pleasure" means that the two girls will be kept in prison for an indefinite period and only released at the discretion of the Prisons Department and by order of the Executive Council. New Zealand law provides that where a convicted murderer is under 18 years the sentence shall be detention at her Majesty's pleasure instead of the death sentence. Juliet Hulme's mother sat with her eyes closed and hands tightly clenched as sentence was passed. Earlier, while the jury was out, she had walked about near the courthouse smoking cigarettes and looking nervous and tense. The jury was out for two hours 13 minutes. Immediately it returned the two girls were led into the courtroom by a police matron. They smiled and laughed at each other as the jurymen took their places. The girls were standing when Mr. Justice Adams asked the jury foreman what verdict they had reached. They showed no emotion whatever when he replied, "Guilty," thus rejecting the insanity plea. Parker, however, glanced quickly up in surprise as the man in the public gallery jumped to his feet and cried out. //No Reply// The man was a stranger who had no connection with anyone concerned in the trial. During discussion on the girls' ages, the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. A.W. Brown, appeared upset and several times had to stop as though he was finding it difficult to speak. The girls were the only ones in the court who did not seem to be affected. They looked straight ahead at the Judge as he asked each of them in turn whether there was anything they wished to say before sentence was passed. Neither replied, but their counsel told the Court they had nothing to add to the evidence already given. Mrs. Hulme sat only a few feet away from the girls, but neither looked at her. After Mr. Justice Adams had passed sentence, he said: The prisoners may now be removed." The two girls walked out looking straight ahead and were taken through a side door to a prison van. Immediately after the trial, Mrs. Hulme left the court accompanied by Mr. Walter Perry, an engineer, who lived in a flat at the Hulme home. During the trial Perry told the Court he had fallen in love with Mrs. Hulme. Mrs. Hulme is believed to be staying at a seaside resort about 35 miles from Christchurch. Pauline Parker's father, Mr. Herbert Rieper, was not in court. "I have nothing to say about it," he said later at his home. //Tired, Pale// Juliet Hulme's father, Dr. Henry Hulme, left New Zealand with his 10-year-old son, Jonathan (sic), soon after her arrest. He left the liner Himalaya at Marseilles and London newspapers since have been unable to trace him. When the trial resumed this morning, Hulme and Parker looked a little tired and pale as they were led into court by a police matron. They stared intently at the jury before sitting down to hear their defence counsel attempt to prove them insane. At the outset to-day Dr. A. Haslam (for Parker) said there was no disputing the fact that Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker had killed Mrs. Parker but they were insane to a degree that excused them. The atmosphere was tense as Mr. Brown rose to address the jury. Even the two girls, who had been whispering and smiling to each other, were silent as he began to speak. The accused were depraved, but not insane, Mr. Brown said. //Bowed Head// "They were not incurably insane, but incurably bad." At this stage Juliet Hulme bowed her head and blocked her ears with her fingers. The girls sat pale-faced in silence as the Judge told the jury that if they accepted the evidence that the girls had known the murder was against the law and moral code of the community they were bound to find them guilty. In the morning, football fans wearing striped caps and team ribbons had queued with housewives and teenagers for admission to the grey stone court building.--A.A.P. and Special Representative.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 2. [sb] "GIRLS 'INCURABLY BAD'--CASE PUT BY CROWN" Christchurch, Saturday [Aug. 28]--The two girls charged with the Christchurch murder were "not incurably insane, but incurably bad," the Crown Prosecutor said to-day. The prosecutor, Mr. Alan W. Brown, was addressing the Supreme Court jury which later found the girls guilty. //"Callously Planned"// The girls are Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16--she will be 17 on May 26 next--and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15--she will be 16 on October 28. They were tried on a charge of murdering Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker, 45, on June 22. Mrs. Parker was found dead with her head battered in Cashmere Hills, a suburb of Christchurch, after going for a walk in the park with the two girls. Defence counsel asked for a verdict of not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Mr. Brown said the Crown had called three doctors with far greater medico-legal experience than those called by the defence. The Crown doctors had said the girls were sane by all standards. Even the doctors called for the defence had admitted the girls knew that what they were doing was wrong in the eyes of the law and the community. //Own Standards// Dr. F.O. Bennett, one of the doctors called by the defence, had added that the girls' action was not against their own moral standards. "The accused are depraved but not insane," Mr. Brown said. "Without fear of contradiction, I submit they have unhealthy minds. "But it is badness. It is not a question of insanity at all. "As I said in my opening address, this was a cold, callously planned and premeditated murder, committed by two highly intelligent but precocious and dirty-minded little girls. "They were, and have been proved, sane at the time they killed Mrs. Parker. "They were not incurably insane, but they were incurably bad." //Paranoia// Dr. A.L. Haslam, for Pauline Parker, said: "There is no dispute about the facts of the crime. "But we have tried to give evidence to you that the girls were insane to a degree that would excuse them." The particular form of insanity (paranoia) from which the girls suffered was something very different from idiocy and imbecility, which lay on the surface, he said. Pauline Parker's diary showed that the girls' friendship very early assumed an intensity which was alarming. It also showed the deterioration of the girls' mental condition. //"Fourth World"// About April, 1953, there had happened what Dr. R.W. Medlicott, one of the doctors called by the defence, had described as the "Port Levy incident." The girls had then been about 14 and experienced a vision of what they called "the fourth world." Dr. Haslam said that in January this "disastrous association" was a source of anxiety to both sets of parents. Both doctors called by the defence had said both the girls were mad when they murdered Mrs. Parker. Dr. Haslam said that although the girls appeared normal outwardly, underneath was "this rottenness, this disease." "They saw their dream world threatened so they struck," he said. "In their imagination they had toyed with violence for so long. "Now they broke out and committed it." //"Same Stable"// Mr. T.A. Gresson, for Juliet Hulme, said he accepted all Dr. Haslam's arguments. The three doctors called by the Crown were "from the same stable," he said. There was a tendency for Crown doctors to approach the subject not quite neutral. The girls had a temple and had crosses over the ideas they had buried. They planned a masked ball for plasticine characters. They had their absurd saints and a group of gods. By killing Mrs. Parker they had hoped to achieve two things- -to send an unhappy woman to heaven and to protect their paranoiac delusions of grandeur. The girls were incapable of forming a moral judgement of what they had done, although their crime was appalling. Mr. Gresson told the jury: "I suppose some of you have daughters. "If any of them showed half the symptoms which these two showed, do you mean to say you wouldn't send for a doctor?" --Special Correspondent and A.A.P.-Reuter.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 2. [sb] "Pity Must Not Sway The Jury" "JUDGE SUMS UP" Christchurch, Saturday [Aug. 28]--In his summing up Mr. Justice Adams said that the crime which the two schoolgirls had committed was dreadful, but the jury must not be swayed by any feelings of pity. He said he agreed with doctors called by both Crown and defence, who had said the girls knew their act was contrary to law and to the moral standards of the community, but not contrary to their own moral standards. "If you accept that view you have no option but to find the accused guilty of murder, holding that the defence of insanity of the required nature has not been proved,' he added. The jury's choice lay between a verdict of guilty or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Under section 43 of the N.Z. Crimes Act, everyone must be presumed sane at the time of committing an offense until the contrary was proved. The jury must decide what was meant by insanity and be guided by the views of competent medical men. In this case two doctors had said the girls were insane and three called for the Crown in rebuttal had said they were sane. //Knowing Wrong// Although it might well be that the girls suffered from some degree of mental disorder to make them unusual and abnormal, the question then arose whether this amounted to a mental disease. But the law also required a person must be proved incapable of understanding the quality of his action and of knowing it was wrong. It would be sufficient if the defence could satisfy the jury that the accused would not know the quality of their action and understand it was wrong. //Undisputed// But all the medical men said that, in their opinion, the girls knew and nothing had been put forward by the defence in cross- examination to dispute this. Four of the doctors had said both girls knew what they did was wrong in the eyes of the law and the generally accepted standards of the community. If no other evidence on this score was available the duty of the jury was plainly to bring in a simple verdict of guilty. It was not sufficient to suggest that an accused person had erected some peculiar moral standards of his own so that he knew he was breaking the law or moral code but believed himself to be above this code. //Evidence// In his review of the evidence his Honor said that Parker's father had told the jury about Parker becoming friendly with Hulme at school. He said she suffered from osteomyelitis from the age of five to seven and had several operations, and later was unable to participate in sports. Dr. Pearson had spoken of 45 injuries to the victim and the crushing nature of her injuries. Mrs. Hulme had told of her daughter's childhood bomb shock and breakdown and the visit to the Bahamas. Mr. Justice Adams addressed the all-male jury for an hour and 20 minutes.--Special Correspondent and A.A.P.-Reuter.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 2. [sb] "Teenage Murderers Showed No Regret" Christchurch, Saturday [Aug. 28]--Not once in the six days of their trial did Pauline Yvonne Parker or Juliet Marion Hulme show any signs of remorse. On the contrary, their attitude at the time suggested that they were enjoying the opportunity to hold the centre of the stage--even in so sordid a drama as this. To baffle sightseers and newspaper cameramen the van which taken to and from the court each day was backed right up against the wall through which a door leads to the cells. However, on the first two days they appeared at the barred windows of the cells on the first floor, put on an air of disdain for the people outside, and were clearly pleased and flattered to see newspaper photographers aiming their cameras at them. //Ghastly Detail// Later the authorities stopped this by pasting brown paper over the lower halves of the windows. Pauline Parker, dark and sullen-looking, wore throughout the trial a brown dress and a small brown hat. Juliet Hulme, taller and fair, with high cheekbones and a slant to her eyes, wore a green coat and a pale green paisley scarf instead of a hat. When the pathologist, Dr. C.T.B. Pearson, described in ghastly detail the fatal injuries inflicted on Pauline's mother, the whole scene on the track down the valley of Victoria Park in which they had been the principal actors must have been vividly before their eyes. There were few people in Court whose horror and pity did not show plainly on their faces. The accused, however, maintained an air of calm and contemptuous detachment, occasionally leaning towards each other to exchange a smiling remark across the police matron who sat between them. Nor did they blanch when the Court was shown the bloodstained half-brick that had been their weapon, or the bloodsoaked stocking in which they had wielded it until it tore under force of the blows that rained on Mrs. Parker's head. //Bitter Jealousy// The only time either showed any emotion other than contemptuous amusement was when counsel read long extracts from Pauline's diary of 1953 recording how she slipped out of her parents' house night after night to meet her boyfriend, Nicholas, in his boardinghouse bedroom, and recounting in frank detail their lovemaking. Then Juliet Hulme's expression was savage. She leaned forward grinding her teeth and spitting silent words through her rage-distorted lips--possibly in jealousy. Meanwhile, Pauline bowed her head down to her knees. It seemed that the only passages in the whole sordid story capable of touching any emotional chord in the couple in the dock were the diary passages that seemed to arouse Juliet's bitter jealousy by disclosure that there had been a time when she and Pauline Parker had not been all-in-all to one another.--A.A.P.- Reuter.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday August 29, 1954. p. 29. [sb] "SMILING, THEY FACED THE MURDER CHARGE--NEW ZEALAND'S TWO Girls From The "FOURTH WORLD"" (Features) Two schoolgirls in bobbysocks sat in a high-walled dock of the Supreme Court in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week and listened as charges of murder were read out to them. They smiled and whispered to each other as witnesses described how the mother of one had been battered to death with a brick, and they smothered giggles with their hands as evidence piled on evidence to point the finger at them as the world's most terrifying schoolgirls. For the two girls, Pauline Parker, 16, and Juliet Hulme, 15, were on trial for the murder of Pauline's mother, Honora Mary Parker (known as Mrs. Rieper), wife of a Christchurch fish-shop proprietor. On one side of them sat the mother who had lived--Mrs. Hilda Marion Hulme, a neatly pretty Englishwoman in a fawn suit and felt hat, listening in deepening horror to the story of the two girls. And behind, at the back of the courtroom, with bowed head, sat the man whom all Christchurch now pities--Herbert Rieper, thin, spectacled, balding, the father of Pauline Parker and husband, in everything but law, for 23 years to the dead woman. Twelve thousand miles away, in Europe, was the father of Juliet Hulme, a distinguished scientist and educationalist. In the court a "not guilty" plea was entered for the two girls, but there was no pretence that Honora Parker was killed by anyone else. Their own counsel admitted that it was clear beyond dispute that they killed her. The vital issue was the question of their sanity or otherwise. And it all happened in Christchurch, New Zealand's quietest, staidest, most Victorian-English city-a city founded by colonists selected by the Anglican Church, a cathedral city of bicycles, lace and old ivy. To many people, both in New Zealand and the world, the murder of Honora Parker was the crime of the century. There had been teenage murders before, but never one planned so carefully, so precisely--and against such a fantastic background. There was no riddle in the fact that a woman had been bashed brutally to death. The riddle lay in the two girls sitting so calmly in the box. Were they two characters who might have stepped out of a page of St. Trinian's--two bland and angelic-looking schoolgirls in tunics who had suddenly decided, "Let's murder mother"? Or did it go further than that? //The Diaries// The answer was in two books that lay on a table in front of the Crown Prosecutor. They were the 1953 and 1954 diaries of Pauline Parker, written in a large, schoolgirlish scrawl. And like an evil mirror they reflected the hopes, the plans, the anxieties and the strange world of fantasy in which the two girls had lived so disastrously. Day by day as the diaries were read out in court the two girls took on shade, shape and colour. Like sleepwalkers, they seemed to move through a society peopled by fictional characters, in which time meant nothing. Their minds conjured up character after character, some good, some of them horrifyingly evil. They lived in a world of their own, in which they had their own laws, their own commandments, and their own god. They did not merely see life through rose-coloured glasses, they had stepped right inside the glasses themselves. //The Families// The two girls were born a few months and half a world apart-- Juliet Hulme in England and Pauline Parker in New Zealand. They met for the first time two years ago when, in navy-blue tunics, red and blue ties, and white blouses, they sat in the same classroom of Christchurch Girls' High School. They were startlingly different in looks, background and temperament. Juliet, the younger of the two, was the taller by nearly six inches. Slim, with a pale, clear complexion and grey eyes, she wore her long, fair, brown hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. She was a sensitive, lonely child, brought up in wartime England (where she suffered bomb shock) and later sent to the Bahamas. She liked to talk to people but was difficult to pin down and hard to discipline. Some people considered her hopelessly spoiled. Pauline Parker, on the other hand, had a closed-up, almost secretive, look about her round, plumpish face. The Hulmes were among the upper crust of Christchurch society. Dr. Henry Reinsford (sic) Hulme, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., had arrived in 1948, at 40, to take up a post as Rector at Canterbury University College. Behind him was a brilliant reputation as one of Britain's top wartime scientists, both with the Admiralty and the Air Ministry. He was a member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand and a close acquaintance of the Bishop of Christchurch. Leading scientists and educationalists visited the Hulme home, a huge, old-fashioned, two-storeyed stone mansion set in magnificent grounds. Mrs. Hulme was prominent in Christchurch activities, including the Marriage Guidance Council. They had a country cottage at Port Levy, 35 miles from the town. There was a son, Jonathan, aged 10. The home life of Pauline Parker, in contrast, was quiet and unpretentious. Her father, Herbert Rieper, was a director of a fish retailing firm. Her sister, Wendy, was two years older (stet). There was a third (stet) child, born late in Mrs. Rieper's life, who was a mongoloid at an institution. A fourth had died as a "blue baby." Pauline formed no early attachments until she met Juliet Hulme. A leg infirmity which developed when she was five prevented her from taking part in active sports. The friendship between the two girls began as any normal one. They walked home from school together, shared their homework and visited each other on weekends. Each still had a small circle of acquaintances. Their notes and diaries were at first the usual schoolgirl scribbles about movies, books, food, outings and occasionally-- though very occasionally--boys. Then something seemed to click suddenly into gear as the friendship progressed. Slowly the two girls seemed to move away from normal family relationships and grew closer together. Other friends dropped out of the picture one after the other. Soon the two became almost as one--living, thinking, even bathing and sleeping together. They spent hour after hour walking arm in arm through the rambling gardens of the Hulme home, endlessly discussing "saints" (their name for the fictional characters they wrote about) and the plots of books, operas, and film scenarios they were writing or hoped to write. Sometimes, in the dead of night, they would slip noiselessly out of the house and in the moonlight on the lawns reenact their plays. The grounds, planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers, became a place of hidden mysteries for them to explore. They made a temple where they buried a dead mouse, with a little white cross over it. They put up other crosses in what they now called their "cemetery," to represent the burial (they said) of dead ideas. At first their writings were extravagant, grandiose, full of courts and royalty. Later the mood of passion, violence, bloodshed and sex began to emerge. //The "Bible"// They worked out elaborate plans for the elimination of everyone in the world except themselves and a chosen few. They went to no dances or parties. Sports were of no interest to them, mainly because of Pauline's leg infirmity and Juliet's weak chest, which for a time had put her into a sanatorium in Christchurch with an attack of tuberculosis. They had begun to change their own names, Pauline calling Juliet "Deborah" and Juliet calling Pauline "Gina." Another name for Pauline by Juliet was also "Jezebel." By the beginning of this year [1954] the two girls had retreated almost entirely to a tight little society peopled by themselves and their fictional families. They ignored all outside concepts of morality. They wrote down the Ten Commandments and then tried to see how many of them they could break. They shoplifted, and planned blackmail to raise money for a proposed trip to America. They intended to produce their own bible, with Juliet writing it and Pauline illustrating it. //"A Vision"// At Port Levy they claimed to have seen a vision of "a fourth world," which they described as a place of exquisite bliss. They found they could turn this "fourth world" on and off like a water tap, seeing it only when they wanted to. In it the two girls lived as geniuses, both indescribably beautiful and intelligent. Other people seemed to them ordinary and beneath their notice. More and more Pauline Parker visited the Hulme home. Before the visits she became excited and elated, but on her return she retreated once more into moodiness and solitude. She would shut herself away in her room writing long entries in her diary and listening to music. //The Climax// Finally, towards the fateful June of this year, the strange fantasy of the two schoolgirls came to its disastrous climax. By now they had become hopelessly infatuated with each other, to a point where they were desperate at the thought of being parted. Their one plan was to stay together at all cost. Without each other the artificial world that they had built, piece by piece like a castle of playing cards, would collapse. The crisis came with the decision to separate the girls. An engineer, Walter Perry, who lived in a flat at the Hulme home, had fallen in love with Mrs. Hulme (a divorce from her husband had been "under discussion" the Court was told), and Dr. Hulme made plans to return to England. He planned to take Juliet with him as far as South Africa. Pauline begged to go with Juliet; but both the girls knew that Honora Parker would not give her consent to this. In their minds became fixed the idea that without Pauline's mother they would be able to stay together. On the afternoon of June 22, the girls went with Mrs. Parker to Victoria Park, a Christchurch picnic spot. They had tea at the kiosk and walked down a path. Juliet, the girls said later, had brought part of a brick, wrapped in newspaper, and had given it to Pauline. Half an hour later the girls came back, covered with blood, and the body of Honora Parker lay twisted grotesquely, on the path a quarter of a mile behind them. //The Father// Six weeks ago Dr. Hulme did leave for England, taking 10-year-old Jonathan (sic) with him. Interviewed during the voyage he said: "The world will just have to think of me as an unnatural father. "I cannot say why I decided to leave New Zealand at this time. It would involve too many people. "But there is nothing I can do there just now. "My only concern now is for my son. I want to spare him all I can. "I've told him his sister is mentally ill--as indeed she is." Dr. Hulme told of his prison goodbye to Juliet. It lasted only a few minutes. He said Juliet knew he had been offered a post in England. ("It might be a Government department job or scientific."); and she told him before he kissed his daughter goodbye, "I want you to go." [Dr. Hulme is now somewhere in England or the Continent, and virtually hiding from the Press. He and his son disembarked at Marseilles on August 10, although their passages had been paid to London. The British national newspapers have been publishing long reports of the case, but have been unable to trace him.] So the story of the two girls came to its terrible climax-- the story of two girls with weaknesses which fed on each other like a cancerous growth as they turned their backs on an everyday world. And the epilogue is totally unlike the many epilogues they themselves used to write while sprawled on the lawns of the Hulme home. It came last week when, in sunshine, they climbed from a grey police van and entered the Supreme Court to face a trial for murder. The only real question before the jury was: Were they sane? The jury found that they were. Photo--A photograph taken four years ago of Juliet with her father, Dr. Hulme. Photo--Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, looking out of a barred window in the courthouse.

The Manchester Guardian, Monday August 30, 1954. p. 5. "GIRLS SENTENCED FOR MURDER // Insanity Plea Rejected" Wellington, Aug. 29.--The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Mr S.T. Barnett, will decide tomorrow how Pauline Yvonne Parker, 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, 15, found guilty yesterday of murdering Pauline's mother, will serve their sentence. They were sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, which means that their detention is indefinite, and will be reviewed by the authorities from time to time. Persons so detained may be released on licence on such conditions as may be directed. Mr Barnett, who is the chief executive controlling prison administration, said to-day that he would come to a decision after consulting his psychiatric advisers. After considering the evidence for more than two hours, the jury rejected defence counsel's plea that the girls were insane when they battered Mrs Honora Mary Parker to death with a brick tied in a stocking in a Christchurch park on June 22.--Reuter.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Monday August 30, 1954. p. 2. [sb] "Pauline Parker And Juliet Hulme" (Editorial) When the Judge in Christchurch was sentencing the two girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, to be detained in prison during her Majesty's pleasure for the brutal and carefully premeditated murder of Pauline's mother, a man in the public gallery cried "I protest." He was no doubt reacting to the sentence--a sentence which, however, was the legal and proper culmination of a trial conducted with scrupulous regard for justice. In the minds of thousands of others who followed with horror and fascination the revelations in this terrible and unique case a voice cries "I protest" for a different reason. It is that two young human beings should ever be in such a way the victims of a dark conspiracy of circumstance so evil in its purpose and so appalling in its outcome. The psychiatrists will explain it all, of course, and contradict each other in the explanation. Less knowing people will ponder upon the fact that it was the same world of the normal child's imagination which Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme extended into a universe of sinister fantasy and gross design. They had vicious and depraved tendencies and without each other they still may have remained problem children; but their coming together as if by the magnetism of some strange force in the hinterland of their minds, was a fatal conjunction of abnormality. Sane, legally, the girls may have been when, threatened with separation, they committed the murder, but it was surely the kind of sanity that mocks at all reality. The normal mind shrinks from the implications of this tragic story. In many other crimes lessons of some sort or other are to be found. Here there is little but horror, sadness and bafflement.

The Times (London), Thursday September 2, 1954. p. 5. "SCHOOLGIRLS' SENTENCES // IMPRISONMENT IN SEPARATE INSTITUTIONS" Wellington (N.Z.), Sept. 1.--Mr. Clifton Webb, as Minister of Justice, announced to-day that two schoolgirls who were convicted of murder at Christchurch last week are to serve their prison sentences in separate institutions. Pauline Yvonne Parker, aged 16, and Juliet Marion Hulme, aged 15, were found Guilty of murdering Pauline's mother by battering her to death with a brick in a stocking, because they believed she stood in the way of their friendship. They were sentenced to be detained during her(sic) Majesty's pleasure. After consulting with Cabinet colleagues, psychiatrists, and departmental officers, Mr. Webb said that the greatest punishment the girls could suffer was to be separated. Juliet Hulme is being kept in Auckland gaol, and Pauline Parker is to be moved from Paparua prison at Christchurch to a new compound at a Borstal institution north of Wellington in about three weeks.--Reuter.

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday September 12, 1954. [sb] Hilda Perry (her name was changed by deed poll on Sept. 5, 1954) left NZ with Walter Perry on 11 September, 1954. The couple stopped in Sydney long enough for Walter to tell the newspapers that "Mrs Perry and I are going as fast as we can to join her son Jonathon. ... We firmly believe Juliet is mad. We have the evidence of two psychiatrists to say so. Mrs Perry is sorry to leave Juliet, but she believes that Jonathon now has the greater need of her. Mrs Perry has had almost as much as she can stand. We will be moving on as fast as we can." And, in case you were wondering - "She carried the same brown leather bag she had with her at the trial." [sb]

The Sun-Herald (Sydney), Sunday December 6, 1959. p. 3. [sb] "ECHO OF MURDER: NZ girl came to Sydney" Wellington, Saturday December 5--Juliet Hulme, one of the Christchurch schoolgirl murderesses, has been walking the streets of Sydney--unrecognized. A prominent New Zealand justice official disclosed this yesterday. //A Fresh Start// He said she had gone to Australia to make "a fresh start" after being released from gaol last month. She had now gone overseas but her destination was unknown to all except a few officers of the Department of Justice. Five years ago, at 15, Juliet helped her closest friend, Pauline Parker, to beat Pauline's mother to death because she wouldn't let them go overseas. Miss Parker is still in New Zealand. The authorities say neither girl knows where the other is living. The girls, both now aged 21, were released separately during November--Miss Parker from Paparua Prison, Christchurch, and Miss Hulme from Arohata Women's Reformatory, in Wellington. They were convicted in Christchurch Court of murder in August, 1954, for battering to death Mrs. Honora Mary Parker with a brick in a silk stocking while taking a walk in Victoria Park, Christchurch two months before. Mrs. Parker had objected to the girls' projected "unusual friendship" and their plans to go overseas together. Miss Parker was then 16; Miss Hulme was 15 years and 10 months. Both were sentenced to "detention during Her Majesty's pleasure." //Not Recognised// The N.Z. Secretary for Justice, Mr S.T. Barnett, said yesterday no official announcement had been made concerning their release because the department wished to give them an opportunity to make a fresh start in life without being identified. He added that Miss Hulme had walked about the streets of Sydney without being recognised or attracting publicity. Mr Barnett said: "We realised that eventually--and inevitably--their release would become known, but we wanted to give them as fair a start as possible." Mr Barnett said the girls had been kept apart throughout their detention. //"No Comment"// "Miss Hulme's release is unconditional," he said. "She has left the country. "Miss Parker's release is subject to general control as to her residence, employment and the like." Mr. Barnett was asked if the girls had given, or had been asked to give, an understanding to keep apart or refrain from corresponding. He said they were not released on this condition. The place of residence of one was entirely unknown to the other, however. Asked if it was true that Miss Hulme had gone overseas to join her father, Professor H.R. Hulme, who until just before the trial was Rector of Canterbury University College, Mr. Barnett replied: "No comment." Later he said: "I have no doubt that the fact they spent the whole of their adolescent years in prison was a consideration in their release. "The girls have been under closest study and they have developed in a highly satisfactory manner. "Both advanced their education, and both obtained their school certificate and university entrance examination qualifications while in prison. "One has gone forward with a great measure of success towards a Bachelors of Arts degree. [This was PYP. jp] "As prisoners they could not have been more satisfactory in their behaviour. "Throughout both have pursued wholesome interests."

© Laurence S Moss
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