BBC
Crime author Anne Perry, who helped murder her friend’s mother as a teenager, has died aged 84.
The writer served five years in prison from the age of 15 for bludgeoning Honoah Mary Parker to death.
Perry died in a Los Angeles hospital, her agent confirmed. She had been declining for several months after suffering a heart attack in December.
The author was the inspiration for Peter Jackson’s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, which starred Kate Winslet.
At the time Perry bludgeoned her best friend’s mother to death, she was known as Juliet Hulme, later adopting Anne Perry as a pen name for her writing career.
The murder took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1954, and was plotted by Perry and her friend Pauline Parker, the victim’s daughter.
The details were later discovered in journals found by police.
Honora Mary Parker died after being hit with a brick about 20 times. When the case went to trial, a court heard the two girls had plotted the murder in an attempt to avoid being separated when 16-year-old Parker’s parents were planning to send her abroad.
As both were aged under…
