New Zealand murderer Pauline Parker was BOTD in 1938. Born in Christchurch to a working-class family, she was known as Pauline Rieper. An intelligent and enthusiastic student, she suffered from osteomyelitis as a child, preventing her from joining in school sports. In 1948, she befriended her classmate Juliet Hulme, an English girl from a wealthy middle class-family who were recent immigrants to New Zealand. The two formed an intense friendship, isolating themselves from other students and creating a private fantasy world, recorded carefully in their diaries. Parker’s parents, concerned about her dependence on Hulme, took her to a psychiatrist, who suspected the girls of having a lesbian relationship. After the breakdown of the Hulmes’ marriage, Juliet’s parents proposed to send her to South Africa, ostensibly to improve her health. Parker became convinced that Honoroh was actually responsible for separating them, and plotted with Hulme to murder her, then run away to America and work in Hollywood. In 1954, they battered Honorah to death in a public park, using a brick wrapped in a stocking. Initially claiming that Honorah had suffered an accident, they were arrested and charged with murder. At the trial, it was revealed that Parker’s parents had never married, and she was subsequently referred to by her mother’s surname. Their trial became a national sensation, particularly when evidence of their “unnatural” attraction was used to advance an insanity defence. Found guilty of murder but too young for the death penalty, they were imprisoned indefinitely. Four months after their conviction, the New Zealand government to launch a public investigation into “moral delinquency in children and adolescents”, resulting in the 1954 Mazengarb Report, which blamed teen promiscuity on working mothers, the ready availability of contraceptives and young women enticing men to have sex. Parker was sent to Paparua Prison in Christchurch, where she later converted to Roman Catholicism. Released in 1959, she was given a new identity as Hilary Nathan. After an unsuccessful attempt to become a nun, she completed a degree at Auckland University and worked as a librarian in Wellington. She moved to England in 1965, becoming a recluse and eventually reconciling with her siblings. Interest in the Parker-Hulme case was renewed in 1994, following the international success of Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures starring Melanie Lynskey as Parker and Kate Winslet as Hulme. Reporters subsequently traced Parker to Hoo, an isolated village in Kent where she ran a riding school. She later released a statement via her family, expressing regret for the murder. In 1997, shortly before Heavenly Creatures was due to screen on British television, Parker fled her home and moved to Burray, a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Hulme, who had changed her name to Anne Perry, claimed in a 1994 interview that she and Parker were not lesbians, had never been lovers and had not contacted each other since the trial. Nonetheless, their story has been of interest to lesbian writers and historians. In the 1991 book Parker and Hulme: A Lesbian View, New Zealand academics Julie Glamuzina and Alison Laurie argued that Parker and Hulme were lesbians and victims of a puritan heteronormative society. Michelanne Forster’s 1992 play Daughters of Heaven similarly portrayed Parker and Hulme in a lesbian relationship. As of 2024, Parker was reported to be alive and living in Burray.