Author Anne Perry

[bronte]

I was shocked when I discovered this: The author Anne Perry's real name is Juliet Hulme and in 1954 she helped commit a murder. The following is copied from Wikipedia: On June 22, 1954, the body of Honora Rieper was discovered in Victoria Park, in Christchurch, New Zealand.[1] That morning Honora had gone for a walk through Victoria Park with her daughter Pauline Parker, and Pauline's best friend, Juliet Hulme. Approximately 420 feet down the path, in a wooded area of the park near a small wooden bridge,[2] Hulme and Parker bludgeoned Honora Rieper to death with half a brick enclosed in an old stocking.[1] After committing the carefully planned murder, the two girls fled, covered in blood, back to the tea kiosk where the three of them had eaten only minutes before.[2] They were met by Agnes and Kenneth Ritchie, owners of the tea shop, whom they told in a horrified panic that Honora had fallen and hit her head. The body of Honora Rieper was found by Kenneth Ritchie where she had been killed by the girls. Major lacerations were found about Honora's head, neck, and face, with minor injuries to her fingers. Police soon discovered the murder weapon in the nearby woods. The girls' story of how Honora was killed by a slip and fall quickly fell apart. The trial was a sensational affair, with speculation about their possible lesbianism and insanity. The girls were convicted on August 30, 1954, and each of them spent five years in prison. They were released with the condition that they never contact each other again.

The murder was touched upon as strong evidence of moral decline less than four months later by the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents in what became known as the Mazengarb Report, named after its chair, Oswald Mazengarb. After her release from prison, Juliet Hulme travelled to the United States and went on to have a successful career as a historical detective novelist under her new name, Anne Perry. She has been a Mormon since about 1968.[3] She now lives in Scotland. Pauline moved to England and became a Roman Catholic.
In March 2006, Perry said that while her relationship with Pauline Parker was obsessive, they were not lesbians.

[Charybdis]

I loved the movie, "Heavenly creatures". Had forgotten it was a true story.

[Penfeather]

For a long time this fact kept me from reading Anne Perry's books. But it as also come to light that she had been on heavy medication during the period of the murder, and that certain of the drugs prescribed to her have since been determined to cause psychotic behavior. I am at least willing to consider that Anne Perry (née Hulme) was literally not in her right mind when she participated in this brutal event. But who can say for sure?

[bronte]

It bothers me quite a bit that she write books about murder given her past. It seems that she would never want to think about such things again (even fictional murders). It is scary to me to think about an author that really killed.

[Penfeather]

It bothers me quite a bit that she write books about murder given her past. It seems that she would never want to think about such things again (even fictional murders). It is scary to me to think about an author that really killed.

That she writes about murder makes a kind of macabre sense to me; she's "working out" her past and examining the underlying motives and capacity for violence and murder in human nature, over and over again. Naturally this would be her life's obsession.

Yet I agree with you that it is scary. For this reason I have a hard time giving myself to her books, because so frequently I'm taken out of the story to consider: "This person who writes so beautifully and with such sensitivity once bludgeoned another person to death with a brick in a stocking." True, there is the question of her being medicated and not herself at the time. But that doesn't comfort one out of all reservations. Many people on the same medications did not commit murder.

But mind you -- moral judgment, reluctance to contribute to her royalties, are actually not ultimately what makes me squeamish about reading her books. Instead, it's a reluctance to dwell in her mind. Call it fear of the dark.

[Miranda]

I've always enjoyed her books and read many of them before I found out about her past. She was involved in the murder as a very young woman and is now in her 60's. As far as I know, she's lived a blameless life since. I remember her saying once that she feels like she's a different person now. While what she did is horrific, she served the penalty society required at the time.