Author Profile: Who is Anne Perry?

On June 22, 1954, a teenaged New Zealander named Juliet Marion Hume went for a walk with her friend Pauline and Pauline's mother Honora Rieper. The two teenagers had a plan. Juliet dropped something and Honora bent to pick it up. At this point, Pauline took a brick, wrapped in a stocking, and beat Honora to death with it.

It was a brutal and notorious plot, hatched so that the two girls could stay together. Juliet's parents were separating and sending her to South Africa to stay with a relative. With Pauline's mother dead, the girls believed they would go to England with Juliet's father. Juliet's father was a distinguished physicist, while Pauline was working class.

The two girls had both been sickly all of their lives and formed elaborate fantasies that they shared. Their parents worried that the relationship was sexual in nature. At the time, homosexuality was viewed as a mental illness, as well as a crime. Their parents tried to keep them separate.

After bludgeoning the woman to death, the two girls ran back to the little tea shop where they had eaten only minutes before. They told the tea shop owners that Honora had fallen down and hit her head on the ground. The two teenagers were covered in blood. The owner found the body of Honora Rieper where the girls had left her. She was covered with major lacerations of the head, neck, face and even her fingers. The police came and found the brick and stocking in the woods. It didn't take long for the girl's story to fall apart.

They stood trial in Christchurch, New Zealand and on August 29, they were found guilty. Throughout the trial and its coverage, Honora and Pauline were referred to by the last name of Parker, since it was discovered that Honora had never actually married Henry Rieper, who was known as her husband. The teenagers were too young for the death penalty and the two girls were released five years later, under the condition that they were never to speak to each other again.

They never have.

Juliet returned to England where she had been born. She became a flight attendant. She later went to live in Portmahomack in Scotland with her mother. She took the last name of her step-father and re-christened herself as Anne Perry.

Anne Perry published her first novel in 1979. It is called The Cater Street Hangman. Almost all of her novels are mystery novels. She is best known for the William Monk mystery series and the Thomas Pitt series, both set in Victorian England. She has published around fifty novels.

In 1994, Kate Winslet played Juliet Hume in the film Heavenly Creatures which was based on the crime.

Wikipedia- Anne Perry- www.wikipedia.com