Julie Glamuzina

Parker & Hulme : a Lesbian View, is an account, first published in 1991, of the murder of Honorah Parker, by her daughter, Pauline Parker, aged 16, and the daughter's close friend, Juliet Hulme, aged 15, in Christchurch, New Zealand. This was the first book length, nonfiction investigation of the case, although it had been included in crime anthologies, and had inspired nonfiction works. Authors Glamuzina and Laurie (hereafter G&L) decided not to attempt to trace the present circumstances of girls. The case was a sensation in New Zealand, and not unknown internationally, but the story really became well-known after the release of the movie Heavenly Creatures, (1994).

I found this interesting, but it is something of a niche book and may be of interest to readers interested in lesbian history or in everything written about the crime. It has a decent if concise description of the crime and its background, but if that is the primary interest of the reader, Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century, originally titled So Brilliantly Clever (2011), by Peter Graham is a better choice. It is more of a typical true crime book, going over the material relating to the girls, their families, the crime and the aftermath in more detail.

The book focuses on the effect on lesbians at the time of the crime. The book includes a number of short interviews. G&L describe the setting in 1950s racist, class-conscious, sexist, homophobic, anglophilic Christchurch. G&L are somewhat reluctant to label Pauline and Juliet as lesbians if they did not so label themselves, although I believe that they think it is true,. Psychological experts who read Pauline's diary and talked with the girls reached different conclusions. Years after this book was written, Anne Perry (Juliet Hulme) declared that the relationship was not homosexual. Nonetheless, the girls were widely regarded as lesbians at the time, and G&L argue that the case associated lesbians with violence, and frightened many women into closeting themselves. Some women, on the other hand, knew no women like themselves who loved women, and were encouraged to seek them out.

G&L argue that the nature of the adversarial trial forced a binary view of the case: the girls were “bad” or “mad.” Since they had confessed, their defense attorneys could only argue that they were insane under the McNaghten rules. The defense failed and the girls were sentenced to prison for an indefinite period of time. They were permitted to continue their educations, and released after about five years. G&L examine their prison experience.

In an effort to get beyond the mad/bad dichotomy, G&L explore the girls' families, which they argue were under particular stress at the time, and argue that this was the background of the crime, while the threat of being separated as the Hulmes left New Zealand was the trigger for the crime. Oddly, they complain because a newspaper said that fear of separation caused the killing, apparently because that put lesbians in a bad light. Their theory seems plausible, but I am not so sure that the lawyers and psychologists were quite so oblivious to these ideas as G&L think; family did testify to some of the problems that the girls had; both had histories of serious illness involving confinement to hospital, sanitariums, and separation from their parents. I have my doubts that this constitutes much of an alternative to the “bad” conclusion, especially in the legal sense. G&L also asked a Maori tohunga (presumably a priest or wise man) to interpret the facts of the case; he said that inadvertent violations of tapu by the girls may have lead to their belief in the fourth world paradise, to which very few people other than themselves would be admitted. It may also have inspired the violence against Honorah Parker, as expiation for the tapu violation required the death of a person related by blood. I am not convinced by this latter explanation, but it does make me wonder if the girls and learned some Maori lore.

According to the autopsy, Honorah Parker had 45 wounds; a single blow of the brick with which she was beaten could have caused multiple wounds. G&L are indignant that one newspaper recorded that she was hit 65 times, and that a psychologist wrote that she was hit 45 times. They do not record how accurate accounts in general were. Even so, if every blow caused three wounds, Honorah would still have been hit 15 times, which would not qualify as a minor injury, an accidental death, or even second degree murder, given that the crime was planned in advance. They are also indignant that the psychiatrist Reginald Medlicott described the plan as naïve, although they themselves admit that it was immature. I am left a little mystified as to what exactly they mean to say about the crime that would not constitute “bad” or “mad”. Occasionally, they seem to forget that the trial is a focussed procedure, not a general social consensus on all aspects of the situation. As an example, they criticize Medlicott, who wrote about the case repeatedly afterwards, for still discussing the folie à deux since it had been discredited in the trial. But it was only rejected as a sufficient cause to invoke the McNaghten rule; that has nothing to do with whether or not it is an accepted psychological phenomenon.

Another relevant book is The Search for Anne Perry by Joanne Drayton, a literary biography of Anne Perry, as Juliet Hulme renamed herself. It includes information about the crime, as well as much more information about her life afterwards and her books.… (més)

In 1954, two New Zealand girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, killed Pauline's murder. This book explores the social and economic status of the girls, the Christchurch society and the overall conditions of the time period. It explores why children or women murder and discusses the anti-lesbian hysteria surrounding the trial. I picked up this book in order to read more about the case. Overall, the book contained few details about the girls life. It was more of a social commentary about the time period than about the girls themselves. Overall, I was a bit disappointed, not because of the writing style, but because I wanted to know more about the girls backgrounds, interactions and the murder itself.… (més)