Hey weirdos, before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about a place where the darkness never ends, Wondery Plus.
It's like stepping into a haunted mansion where the floorboards creak with ad -free episodes and early access to new episodes lurks around every corner.
So come join us, if you dare.
Morbid is available one week early and ad -free only on Wondery Plus.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or an Apple podcast or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. originals all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones, explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time.
Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
I never want to pause it.
I'm literally like loading the dishwasher listening to it, on the treadmill listening to it, constantly.
It's so awesome. I love being being able to listen anytime, anywhere I want to.
And there's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30 -day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible .com slash morbid.
You guys, I tried my mochi ice cream the other day, and I was lifted off of this planet into just another galaxy entirely.
It is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in in a soft, chewy dough.
It's literally like a little sweet ice cream dumpling.
It's pillowy soft, D to the E to the L -I -C -I -O -U -S, and it just feels very indulgent.
I loved it. I tried the cookies and cream flavor, and I still have the mango flavor to try.
I'm so excited to try the mango because if it's half as good as the cookies and cream, I'll probably just like fall on the floor and start crying.
Tears of joy. My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece.
My mochi is is gluten -free, and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
And guess what? MyMochi is the original mochi ice cream, the founder of MyMochi invented mochi ice cream.
That makes MyMochi the mochi OG.
Feel joyfully chill this summer with every bite of MyMochi ice cream.
Look for the purple box of MyMochi ice cream at Walmart or visit MyMochi .com to find a store near you.
Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena. And this is More Bad.
it sure is it's more bad it's memorial day monday more bad yes happy memorial day a couple weeks late yep happy memorial day two weeks ago i hope that you you had a day off i hope that you got to vibe the vibe so hard and i hope that you had a good beach day yeah or however you chose to do your day to celebrate your day yeah okay we're doing a little half day we're doing a half day a little half day i want to get some wings after this let's fucking go let's fucking go except everything is closed so i have to find a place that makes wings just gotta find some wangs maybe i'll make my own wangs
there you go i know i don't want to no definitely not you um yeah i think i'm trying to think of any any business you got some book i know you do the only business i really have is uh there's a giveaway contest give it away give it away give it away now exactly where you can win a personalized video from me elena personal personal hello enter your name here and in the video i'll discuss with you some behind the scenes shit about the butcher game oh that's cool um we can chit chat a little bit i can tell you about my day i can tell you all kinds of stuff that's cool i didn't know it was that yeah
that's fun well sneaky peeky into all this i would like to do that with like an author that i listened to or that i listened to that i listened to i love that yeah well the way you can do that is by By taking, you got to pre -order the butcher game.
I did. That's the rub.
Everybody, that's the catch. You got to pre -order the butcher game.
So if you put in your pre -order or if you already have pre -ordered, you can submit your receipt, a picture of your receipt for your pre -order at the link in my bio.
I put it in my link tree on Instagram.
I think it says like the butcher game video contest. I like it.
In the link. You'll find it.
Yeah. It's a contest. Is it a sweepstakes?
We're going to pick a few people, a sweepstakes, a giveaway, a contest. a competition we'll pick a few and you'll get a personalized video so like the only way to win is to pre -order pre -order pre -order pre -order pre -order pre -order and you can go to the butchergame .com and it'll lead you to all the links to all the different booksellers and all the different outlets that you can get your book and you can choose which one you would like to support that's on you man i support you book adventure yeah and once you pre -order you can submit that receipt and you are entered to win and i hope you do it
because i want to chat with with you.
Party! This is cool.
I want to give you a little video.
I like this idea a lot.
It's fun. Where'd you get this idea?
You should do that.
Just kidding. Where'd you get this idea?
You like my mind? Tell me about it.
Tell me everything.
No, I like that. That's fun.
Yeah, it'll be fun.
So submit those pre -orders, my friends.
Yeah, do it. Yeah. That's fun and exciting.
Yippee! I don't have anything fun and exciting.
That's okay. I just have a morbid case.
And it's an interesting interesting one.
It's very, very, uh, folly -a -do themed.
Oh, yes. I've heard, I saw the name of this one, and I know this case, like, very briefly.
Yeah. But I don't know a lot of the details.
So, I had never heard of this case.
I've heard, I had heard of the movie.
We're talking about the Heavenly Creatures case today.
It's the Parker Hume murder.
Yeah, I definitely, I know the, like, literally the overview of this, but I know none of the details.
Yeah, I was just looking for, you know we're in a place of like old timey it's i don't know it's it's an interesting look into the path it is for sure because there's other factors that always come into it that are just not here today yeah exactly and it's just like wow people have always been fucked up yeah but yeah i hadn't heard of this particular case i had heard of the movie heavenly creatures i've never seen it yeah but like i knew it was a movie but i didn't know any of the details and um if you're going into this like i was wow prepare you're in for a wild ride so let's get into it juliet
marion hume was born october 28 1938 in greenwich london to henry and hilda hume henry and hilda hhh henry and hilda hume henry was a physicist and hilda was a homemaker they both welcomed the birth of their daughter but motherhood didn't really come naturally to hilda she believed and this is a quote babies had to learn their place and not be pandered to and fussed over a wild statement i don't even know where to begin with that statement imagine looking at a small baby and being like learn your fucking place learn your fucking place baby i don't even know my name and not be pandered to and fussed
over they are literally brand new humans like that's that That rely on you for literally everything.
That's actually all of it.
You do have to pander to them and fuss over them.
That's the whole point.
Yeah. That's just happen to baby.
I'm confused by people a lot I'm seeing.
It was a very different time, though.
This was like a time of, like, children are to be seen and not heard kind of thing.
Yeah. It's not the gentle parenting that we know and practice today.
Definitely not. And look at how well we're all doing.
I know. Millennials are doing a much better job.
generations later we're still dealing with all this shit that started way back when tell me about it yeah but as the daughter of a presbyterian minister hilda was usually rigid in her beliefs around the world but she maintained a poised and polished exterior that kind of appeared to be somewhat conflicting with the realities of motherhood like we all know moms were running out here like crazy people or you're running out there like you're like we're out here You're out there running around like crazy people.
Yeah. Like, we're a mess most of the time.
But she was, like, very polished, very poised.
Like, never had a hair out of place, anything like that.
I'm always amazed at moms that can do that.
But it was also because— Like, I'm, like, impressed.
I'm not saying, like, oh, my God.
Yeah, I mean, some moms, like, really can do that.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
And also attend to their children.
Exactly. But she was more, like, a— More focusing on her.
Yes, exactly. That's not good.
So years later, friends of the couple would recall Hilda as aloof and not very warm to children.
To make matters worse, the year that Juliet was born, there was talk of war breaking out across Europe because Hitler and the Germans ramped up their rhetoric at that point in time.
And less than a year later, World War II had broken out.
And as the British government readied themselves for the inevitable attacks, it put the entire country in a state of constant anxiety and vigilance that obviously would last for years.
So from a very early age, Juliet showed herself to be a very imaginative child.
She seemed to have a lot of difficulty transitioning back and forth between fantasy play and reality.
Ah, interesting. Years later, yeah.
Years later, Hilda would describe Juliet as a very demanding and sensitive daughter who resisted discipline and resented correction.
So is she just a kid?
Yeah, it sounds like it.
And it sounds like perhaps.
perhaps? I mean, there are kids that are tougher than others.
It's just the way that life works.
And it sounds like she might have just been a little bit of a tougher kid.
Yeah. And it's also expected.
Kids are sensitive.
Kids are demanding.
Super demanding. Kids don't really love discipline.
Nope. They don't really, like, I don't know.
That just seems like.
And what you think, when you think of, like, what discipline was back then, I think most kids would resist discipline Because a lot of times discipline was physical.
I was going to say, exactly.
Like, discipline back then, especially like you said, was scary and fear -based.
And no child was welcoming that discipline.
It's human nature to resist a physical punishment.
Yeah. When it's fear -based, of course you're going to resist it.
Yeah. But these behavioral problems worsened when her brother Jonathan was born in 1944, or at least in the eyes of people at the time.
By then, used to being the focus of her parents' attention, Juliet resented her new sibling, which, that's not good.
And obviously, that became a problem for Hilda and Henry.
So between the war and her mother's poor health, due in part to a difficult pregnancy, Juliet was often separated from her parents for short periods, which caused her to develop a rich inner fantasy life where she could retreat whenever she was feeling anxious or uneasy.
It sounded like it was a coping mechanism.
That, like, breaks my heart.
It's sad. It really is.
While Juliet struggled to develop a healthy relationship with her mother, her relationship with her father was equally tenuous.
As a mid -century British man, Henry Hume was kind of like stereotypical to a degree.
He was reserved, buttoned up, and exceedingly proper.
I just picture this man pinkies up at all times.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But as a physicist, his skills were essential in the fight against the threat of the German invasion.
And by the early 1940s, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Director of Naval Operational Research. Wow.
So, like, a big deal.
Damn. Throughout the early 40s, he would play an increasingly significant role as a consultant to the scientists on the Manhattan Project.
Whoa. Working with many of those who actually developed the atomic bomb.
Damn. Yeah. Holy shit.
An interesting part of history right there that, like, he was directly connected to and a big part of.
but given the importance of the role and the urgency of his work he was often distracted and didn't have a lot of time for his kids that's really sad well and if you think of dads today yeah like dads today are not what dads used to be like obviously there's an exception to every rule of course yeah you're not across the board in in the 40s like dads weren't hands on weren't millennial dads you know what i mean it was millennial dads are a different kind of dads It was a mom's job.
So you really have to like think about the social differences.
Oh, absolutely. It's a totally different situation across the board. Moms, dads, everything, parents in general.
Yeah. Yeah. So when the war ended in 1945, Henry accepted a job as a scientific advisor to the air ministry.
The job was really prestigious.
But when the war ended in 1945, he didn't really want to raise a family in the same place.
So he looked for other options.
And luckily, he came across an advertisement seeking applications for academic positions at the canterbury university college in new zealand so he jumped at this at this chance and his resume being what it was he was a very promising candidate for the position and in january of 1948 he was offered a job with the university which he gladly accepted look at him so big moves here let's go new zealand here we come new zealand now for juliet the news that the family would be relocating to new zealand was was really neither here nor there yeah she's just like whatever well she's been shuffled around
a lot yeah at 10 years old she'd already gone through tons of upheaval she had been sent away before to stay with relatives she had spent a lot of time in the hospital so she'd kind of grown accustomed to being away from her parents so it kind of seems like she was most likely unsurprised when she was again sent away first yeah she was sent to live with family friends in the bay of of Islands, New Zealand, months in advance of her parents' arrival.
Jesus. Which it's like, okay, I don't, I'm not entirely sure why.
Like it's like, why can't you all just move at once?
Yeah, I'm not understanding this family dynamic, but you know what, like.
Yeah. I don't know if it was a school thing.
Like maybe. But if Juliet was unmoved by the disruption, her parents seemed equally unaffected by the separation.
Cool. Although it was never explicitly stated, author Peter Graham wrote, it seems that Hilda and and Henry Hume were happy to forego for as long as they could the company of their daughter, whose, quote, defects in temperament and personality made her difficult and troublesome to handle.
She's 10. It was like a vacation for them, too, to be rid of her.
There's really no better way to say it.
I don't get this. She had a tough upbringing.
Yeah. 100%. There's no way around that.
And again, I don't know who Juliet is in this story, so I'm not even coming from a place of of knowing who she is yeah she becomes someone that you don't necessarily want to root for yeah but the the child listen and listening to this without knowing who Juliet ends up being is me saying like that's a bummer for her yeah and it's 10 it is like that's just the reality of the situation yeah but once all the arrangements were made and hurdles were cleared the family settled in Christchurch the second largest city in New Zealand where 10 year old Juliet started at the prestigious St. Margaret's College Junior School
in November of 1948.
I feel like in other parts of the world their schools have like way cooler names than we do in the U .S. Yeah they're more intense it feels.
They all sound like colleges.
Yeah. Or like universities.
I'm going to university.
I'm going to uni. I like that so much better.
I know. But despite its good reputation former students of the school remembered it as a deeply serious and miserable place.
Oh. Classrooms would would darken for no reason no one ever wanted to be alone in a locker room they said and pupils felt like extras in some kind of horror movie way to fucking say this place had a good reputation but former students are like oh no it's literally the set of a horror movie like what the fuck it had a good reputation i think because of um like like test scores and that kind of thing like it had a good reputation on paper classrooms would darken for no reason is this the omen no one wanted to be alone in the locker room like this shit was haunted like this is the exorcist legit
what so um needless to say juliette was happy to leave saint margaret's behind when she finished eighth grade so she was there from the time she was 10 until she was in eighth grade and it was at that point that she transferred to the christ church girls high school and it was there that that she would meet one Pauline Parker.
Okay. Born May 26, 1938, Pauline Parker was what her father later described as an average normal child until age five when she developed osteomyelitis.
It's an inflammation of the bone marrow.
Damn. And she got it in one of her legs.
It's like a ridiculously painful condition.
And in a time before antibiotics, it was typically fatal, especially in children.
Holy shit. As it was, Pauline's condition was still very serious, and she spent almost nine months in a hospital.
She underwent numerous surgeries and endured two long years of dressing and caring for what was essentially an open wound on her leg.
Oh, God. oh my god yeah in addition to the psychological stress of that experience the physical pain was intense oh yeah and for years after she endured episodes of leg pain that actually required codeine and aspirin damn which like codeine that's a lot crazy the surgeries also left her with a limp and precluded any participation in sports or strenuous play so there was no way she was going to be able to yeah really do any kind of sport ever according to her older sister wendy pauline developed more sedentary hobbies including model making and at one point and this is a quote went through a period of religious
mania oh my so a lot of a lot of turmoil a lot of turmoil happening around here and just trauma really like that's traumatic to go through at a young age and then to be put on medication like that at a young age like yeah we don't really know what what that does to people's brains.
Nope. But unlike Juliet, Pauline's family was solidly middle class.
Her father, Burt, worked as a fisherman and before she had children, her mother, Nora, was an office assistant.
For years, the children assumed that their parents were happily married but it would be later revealed that they were in fact actually not married at all because Burt had never divorced his first wife, Louisa.
So they kind of were like they functioned as a married couple but they couldn't be married on paper.
At least they were happy.
Yeah, it sounds like they were pretty happy.
Okay. Burt did his best to provide for his family, but a long period of economic depression had done a lot of damage to New Zealand's middle class, and Burt was one of many who struggled to make any kind of headway leveling up at all.
Yeah, and that sucks.
It was a cycle. Rosemary Davidson, whose family lived next door, recalled the Parkers being a shabby and shambolic house with an air of poverty.
Which, like... That's, like, heartbreaking.
You're snooty. An heir of poverty.
Yeah, that's snooty.
You're a snooty tooty.
You're a snooty tooty Judy.
Yeah. Rosemary. Rosemary.
But it sounds like they were happy enough.
Yeah. They didn't have money for luxuries.
They didn't have, like, much to do extra.
But it sounds like the Parkers, at least, like, the parents, had a small group of friends.
They were relatively social.
They were well -liked amongst their neighbors.
Except Rosemary. Except Rosemary.
Yeah, Rosemary thought they smelled like poverty.
But Pauline struggled to make friends.
Same old Rosemary Davidson here.
rosemary's got a lot to say she really does she she did recall though being afraid of pauline when they were children she said pauline had a filthy temper a filthy temper and would yell and scream if she didn't get her own way okay which like sounds like facts wow but at home things were different pauline had a close relationship with her parents she got along well with her siblings her father recalled if she ever did anything wrong she would always say she She was sorry.
She knew she was wrong and that she'd try to do better.
I mean, that's all you can ask.
That's literally all you can ask.
Burt Parker's memory of Pauline's childhood is obviously colored by a father's love for his daughter and maybe the passage of time.
Yes. Because he remembers Pauline as a happy, well -mannered girl, but others had a decidedly different impression of her.
According to Peter Graham, when Pauline entered the girls' high school in the winter of 1952, she was, quote, angry and rebellious, felt different from the other girls, resisted discipline and spoke sarcastically to the teachers i do wonder though and i i'm not saying anybody's lying here anybody's being disingenuous i do always wonder in every case when somebody talks about somebody what they were like after finding out something horrible that they did if it suddenly is like a confirmation bias kind of thing where you're like well she acted like that you know you mean like if it if it seems like
it's more uh prevalent than it actually is yeah i could definitely and again i'm not saying that's the case here i just it's something i always think of in these cases and this is just happens to be one of those moments where i'm like huh you wonder yeah you do and i think a lot of times too like even now when things come out people just want to be part of the story yeah so they'll tell you what you want to hear and again written not saying it about this one i'm just it just happened to make me think of it it sounds like pauline was pretty well adjusted at home but it does sound like There's multiple
accounts. She was wily outside of school.
She was wily in school.
Or outside of home, I mean.
Yeah. Yeah. But this would all change, I guess, when she met Juliette Hume a short time after she started at the school.
Like Pauline, Juliette was something of an outcast at school.
She had an IQ of 170, so she was exceedingly intelligent.
She was confident, and she seemed to have little interest in forming relationships with the other girls at school.
She felt like their interests were trivial and juvenile.
Nile. She was kind of above it.
Yeah. So instead, she spent a lot of her time fantasizing and coming up with ideas for stories that she hoped to write someday.
Oh, that's nice. Yeah.
She told herself and the other girls who were pretty much as uninterested in her as she was in them that they weren't worth her time.
Wow. Yeah. It's entirely likely that Juliette would have ignored Pauline just like the other girls, but they happened to meet because they were the only students exempted from gym class pauline because of her leg and juliet because of some of her pulmonary conditions oh yeah because she had pneumonia and yeah bronchitis yeah like multiple times yeah so it's the only two not participating they naturally got to talking found that they had a lot in common and became fast friends juliet maybe recognized something of herself in pauline she was a loner she seemed will like willfully and sometimes even
happily defiant of authority authority and pauline probably admired juliet's intelligence beauty and obvious creativity and while the other girls seemed interested in ordinary culture pauline had also developed an interest in poetry literature and the other more adult interests that juliet had developed so they kind of it kind of sounds at least at this point like obviously later on more things happen but at this point it almost sounds like they're like two old souls that don't really relate to people No, it does sound like that, actually.
But they find that in each other.
Yeah. And most importantly, they also bonded over their history of childhood illness.
Like, not a lot of people know what that's like.
Yeah. And especially at the time.
Yeah. Going through it is, I mean, childhood illness is always something, you know, horrifying and traumatic.
And it's like back then, it was a totally different story because there wasn't even the comforts that we have now.
Yeah. So like she was going through, I think it was Pauline was going through what was going on with her leg before they even had antibiotics.
Yeah. You know, so that's a different story.
Wow. And like Juliet, Pauline's history of physical trauma and isolation at such an early age was something like we were just saying, the other kids just didn't understand.
So when Juliet, she finally found somebody who understood the serious effects that such an intense experience can have on a person.
Years later, Hilda Hume would recall Juliet Juliet returning home from school one afternoon and enthusiastically announcing, Mommy, I've met someone at last with a will as strong as my own.
I actually love that.
Yeah. In the beginning, it's cool.
You're like, I know.
I'm like, this is nice.
I'm glad you found each other.
Like, damn. Now. Oh, no. You won't be soon.
Uh -oh. Smallwoodhome .com turns your favorite photos into gallery -quality framed prints or wrapped campuses, all handcrafted in the USA, shipped in days and priced to make your whole home smile.
It's nice to have something on the wall that's not just design -y, but it's personal.
They sell custom framed prints that are made just for you.
Pick your favorite photo and they're going to turn it into a beautifully framed piece, handcrafted with care.
Every single piece is made to order, so there's no assembly lines or robots involved.
And you can choose from natural wood finishes for the frames like stained, almond, black, or white, and if you want a little more, you can even add an acrylic front for a little polished touch. I love that option.
There are also more than just frames.
Wrapped canvas options give you even more ways to elegantly customize your space.
It's big style without the big price.
There are high quality prints that bring warmth and personality to your home, but it's not going to break the bank.
And there's a fast turnaround, which I absolutely love.
These prints are made to order in just a few days and are shipped straight to your door.
Right now, get 30 % off when you use code MORBID at smallwoodhome .com.
That's promo code MORBID to get 30 % off your first order at smallwoodhome .com.
Give your memories the showcase that they deserve.
You know what time it is?
It's time for a fresh approach to dog food, and that's where the Farmer's Dog comes in.
Developed by board -certified nutritionists, which is pretty impressive, The Farmer's Dog is human -grade dog food that's made with real meat and veggies and gently cooked to preserve those nutrients.
Traditional pet food is highly processed and difficult to portion correctly, but the Farmer's Dog, it's changed that with their freshly made food.
They take the guesswork out of serving sizes by precisely portioning your dog's food based on their very unique nutritional needs.
Sydney and Blanche are eating the Farmer's Dog right now, and we absolutely love it.
What's really fun is each packet has their name on it.
So it says Blanche's food, Sydney's food, which is just fun.
They love it. They can't read, but I kind of pretend that they do.
Maybe they can. Maybe they can.
Who am I to say? Get 50 % off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Plus you get free shipping.
Just go to thefarmersdog .com slash morbid to get 50 % off.
That's thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
the narrative of pauline and juliet's relationship tends to portray their friendship as one of equals but there was probably some part of juliet that knew she had the upper hand if you will she obviously enjoyed having somebody she could share her world with and pass the time with but at the same time she also wasn't desperate for social connection she was the one who was happy to be on her own.
Yeah. Didn't really need anybody.
Pauline, on the other hand, was frustrated and she was lonely and she saw in Juliet everything she wanted in a friend.
So simply put, Pauline needed and wanted Juliet more than Juliet wanted or needed her.
And that fact was definitely not lost on Juliet.
Ah. And neither was the power that such a position gave her over Pauline.
and this is a kid who never had control or power over anything she was just shuffled around around sent away moved from home to home you know told told that her defiance and her demanding quote unquote nature was a negative were negative negative quality yep which is not good yeah it's like you got to try to spin those qualities into something positive with a kid you can't tell tell them their bad qualities because that's what they're going to live.
They're going to they're going to validate that on their own.
And it's like this is her finally seeing a way where she can take control of a situation and have it.
And boy, did she. Oh, boy.
And again, I don't know the details.
Honestly, very brief overview.
Boy, did the both of them.
They both they fed off of each other.
Like I said, it's a very folly ado.
Yeah, it seems that way.
Yeah. Before long, Juliet and Pauline were completely immersed in each other's worlds.
they spent almost all of their time together coming up with elaborate stories and fantasies they rode horses they dressed up to perform plays where juliet was almost always the star and as it seemed fine like they it just seemed like they formed this bond and they became best friends who did everything together like i think we've all had a relationship or most of us have where you meet this best friend and you start devoting all your time to them yeah absolutely but it got to a point where it got to be too much yeah as the months went on they seemed to be completely wrapped up in each other and as
the nights became warmer pauline would sneak out of her house at night and ride her bike to juliet's house where they would steal wine and food from the kitchen and sneak off to have moonlight picnics or head to the beach which still very like very relatable to a sense like oh like i'm gonna sneak out and hang out with my best friend yeah but everybody's been there everybody's been there but as one year passed into the next the girls seemed to shut out the world around them preferring instead to live in a fantasy of their own making just barely attending their few real world responsibilities like
schoolwork they were everything was falling by the wayside there needs to be a balance yes it's okay to be you know you're creative you're you know in you like fantasy like you know that kind of stuff that's fine.
There always needs to be a balance.
Yeah, it can't sweep you away.
One thing can't take over everything.
Yeah, and that's what happened here.
And the older they got, the more their fantasies came to include adult concepts that they maybe weren't ready to fully process and dive into.
Yeah. Their dramas and stories were still those of an adolescent, but as Louise Chun wrote, their characters regularly slaughtered and raped their way across the girl's imagination and and increasingly blood -soaked adventures.
I wasn't ready for what you just said.
Yeah, I don't think many people would be.
You, what? Like, you, what?
That escalated very quickly.
They started, because they would write these stories back and forth, and they got very dark in nature very quickly, as you can see.
Evidently. Yeah, and a lot of them had very highly sexual, themes but like like what i just said like featuring rape yeah that kind of thing like it got interesting it got dark yeah and if it was just coming up with stories that's one thing yeah but i think at the age that they were at it was concerning yeah and would be like and the way they were pulled away from reality and the way they were yeah you know well it was it sounds like it's becoming an us against the world kind of yes uh relationship and whenever it's a you You and me, baby, against the world.
That's fucked. That's fucked, and it's going to crash and burn in some way, and it's not going to be good.
That always reminds me of Rob Zombie.
We're going to crash and burn.
That's literally what happens.
And that is what happens.
Oh, boy. But Juliette and Pauline's stories weren't the only place that they explored romantic or sexual themes.
Like a lot of girls their age, they both loved cinema, and they had a particular fondness for popular male stars at the time like mario lanza james may james mason and orson wells after they were both arrested so we see where this is going yeah and throughout what would become their trial the press and particularly the tabloids made a lot of their uh sexuality eventually going as far to imply that they were having a lesbian relationship which if they were whatever i was just gonna say why would that have anything to do with it no one really knows but but the time oh of course no it was horrible.
Chen points out their experimentation was probably no more than what many teenage girls get up to.
They sometimes slept in the same bed.
They hugged each other when they were excited.
One night they practiced making love the way their idols would.
So definitely teetered over because like.
I was gonna that last one I'm like I okay.
Yeah. Okay. I don't know any other teenage girls experiences except the ones that I had with my friends and we did not practice making love.
we. I can tell you that we also did not.
Yeah. Like we hugged each other when we got excited.
We slept in the same bed like for sure.
Well very platonically but we did not practice making love.
No. I don't know if that's somebody else's experience.
But you know what that's you know it's none of my business.
Yeah whatever. But years later when asked for a comment on Juliet and Pauline's supposed sexual relationship one classmate acknowledged the intimacy and told a reporter it was considered normal for girls to have crushes on each other it was part of life at a single sex school that makes sense which it does make sense yeah you take the opposite sex out of the equation you're in the middle of puberty you're developing these feelings like you're going to direct them at someone you know yeah and I always think like you know especially like um like girls I feel like are so much more like can appreciate
the beauty of another woman you know you know you mean i feel like that's just such a more fluid situation so you put them in an all -girls school it's of course that's gonna happen it's bound up yeah i agree but while they might not have been in a romantic or sexual relationship by their third year in school juliet and pauline were certainly enmeshed in one another's lives to the exclusion of almost everything and everyone around them see that's that's where the problem comes it's the us against the world baby and that's exactly what it is pauline wrote in her diary which her diary becomes a big
subject of this case.
We have decided how sad it is for other people that they cannot appreciate our genius.
That's pretty hilarious.
Elena and I have that conversation often.
I was just going to say that's pretty hilarious.
And that kind of shit is just like, if nothing else had happened, that would just be like funny to look back on and be like, look at us just being like, fuck everyone.
With no context whatsoever, you'd be like, like oh wow what a hot shit you'd be like that's hilarious like good for you with your confidence but like yeah yeah and i feel like that goes back to what you were saying about like when people are interviewed later on yeah and they have that kind of bias of something happening it changes how you look at things it's context all of it is context absolutely because now you read that and you're like well and you're like oh that's not good that's that's leading to something bad but without the context like i don't have all the details i know something bad
happens though so So I can at least go off of that and say like, oh, that's not good.
But if you don't know what the hell happens later and you're just thinking this is a tale of two, which you're not on morbid to do that.
But you're just thinking this is a tale of two women who like, you know, go conquer the world together.
Yeah. You're like, well, look at you, like you badass little confident bitches just sitting there being like nobody appreciates our genius.
How sad for them. Exactly.
Interesting. But then we keep walking.
We keep on going. We keep on spiraling down the well.
We sure do. so while they saw their own relationship in increasingly romantic and grandiose terms the girls stories were becoming more like negative and violent especially when it came to their imagined relations with others peter graham wrote as early as march of 1953 pauline was writing about highway robberies and often more than one violent death a day i mean that's a lot yeah that's a lot as somebody who writes about murder for a living that's a lot and that's the thing like that's your literal job that's my job and that's my job too but we don't write about more than one in a day no and it's
true stories that we're writing well i'm talking about i make them up oh like for my other job so like i actually make it up for my other job like i have to do the the fantasizing and the creative writing right portion of it and even that's a lot Well, and also your brain is fully developed, so it's not having the impact on you necessarily that it would have on a teenage girl.
And it's having healthy relationships and healthy bonds with other people.
Yes. And healthy outlets.
And the ability to walk away from that for a couple days if it becomes too much. To separate that world, that fantasy world from reality.
Yes. And that's where the issue is coming in here.
It seems like that's all she could think about.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where it becomes unhealthy.
And they were living in these fantasies.
At points they would literally meditate into these worlds that they created.
Wow. Yeah. That's interesting.
Which is if the world that they were coming up with was less violent.
Yeah, just lovely and something that could calm them or make them feel at peace somehow.
Yeah. Then that's lovely.
But it wasn't really that.
Yeah, it seems like this was, seems like there's just a lot of, a lot of darkness around them.
A lot of like, there's not, they're not having any positive relationships or any, because even their relationship doesn't seem positive.
It seems very entrenched in a power dynamic that isn't exactly balanced and isn't, isn't healthy.
At all. and it's like if they had these like you know I don't know it just seems like there's a lot of uh there's a lot of like knives held in the air that I just feel are just gonna all come crashing down yeah yeah so for the first couple years of their relationship like we were just saying there was that power dynamic Juliet always had the upper hand knowing that Pauline was more dependent on her than she was on Pauline but over the course of 1953 as Juliet's life became more and more or tumultuous, the imbalance of power started to even out a little bit.
In addition to a serious hospitalization for what turned out to be tuberculosis.
Wow, she's really struggling with pulmonary stuff.
She is, yeah. Juliet's relationship at the time also with her parents got even more strained.
So she turned to Pauline and their rich fantasy life as her only source of social or emotional support.
Damn. And when you're hospitalized, like they would write letters to each other while she was in the hospital, but that was it.
All she had was her parents.
And their relationship was not warm and comforting.
Exactly. Which is sad.
Yeah. So the more Juliet pushed her parents away, the closer she drew Pauline.
Unaware of that, while she had been in the hospital, Pauline had started dating a local boy named Nicholas.
Of course, with Juliet and Pauline being so close, it was only a matter of time before Juliet found out about Nicholas, which she did in the fall of 1953.
it's unclear what transpired exactly between them when juliette found out of what she viewed as her competition but in late october pauline told nicholas she was quote no longer very much in love with him and it was quote better if they discontinued seeing one another as graham put it it was as it was as if she felt her affair with nicholas had been an act of disloyalty to juliette and by getting rid of him she had returned their relationship to its rightful full place as her primary concern and we've we've now ventured into completely and utterly unhealthy yeah not okay we were teetering before
now we're fully in that realm entrenched in unhealthy shit right here yeah and pauline's relationship with nicholas was the first real test of loyalty that the girl's relationship had faced and given how quickly and easily she dumped the boy that she had so recently claimed to love it's clear that neither juliette nor pauline was willing to to tolerate any threat to their relationship damn and i say threat because that's how they viewed it like quote unquote threat quote unquote exactly so while most people really paid little attention like at school to paul pauline and juliet's relationship the people
who were familiar with them like a little more close to their circle or their two -person circle couldn't help but notice that they had an unusual and to some unhealthy attachment to one another in late 1952 a lot of of their classmates had started to notice the intensity of their bond but most considered it normal because of the dynamics of going to an all -girls school classmate jan sutherland recalled you were allowed to have a special friend as long as it was kept within bonds or i think bounds excuse me there's a lot happening that i don't understand there's a lot there's a lot of dynamics
and like systems in place here that i have never been a part of like all -girls school and like in this in the 50s you know i mean like that i'm like wow it's interesting i didn't know about any of this i feel like it would make a really good like obviously heavenly creatures as a movie but a great movie i feel like the concept of just like all the dynamics at an all -girls school i'm i mean i'm sure i'm sure there's a million times yeah but like you know what i mean yeah no it's an interesting and probably kind of heartbreaking yeah i'm sure yeah because we don't know any of the ins and outs of the logistics
yeah but while other girls thought little of juliette and pauline's relationship the school's headmistress miss stewart had concerns that their friendship might be headed in an unnatural direction oh i see what you're saying 50s headmistress over there she was like i think they might be lesbians and we don't tolerate that here quote unquote exactly eventually she ended up calling a meeting with juliette's mother hilda to discuss her belief that Juliette and Pauline's friendship, quote, might be going beyond normal healthy friendship.
Which that, saying it that, yeah, like I can understand that one, like their bond is unhealthy.
And I don't know, she might have meant a natural direction.
And maybe she did, yeah.
As like, this is simply not healthy.
Yeah, regardless of what, whether they are in a relationship that is romantic or platonic or somewhere in the middle, doesn't really matter.
Right. No matter where it sits on the spectrum here, it's unhealthy because of the way they are like reacting to the world around them and the direction in which it's headed it's only going to get worse yeah like so let's nip this in the yeah so she might have meant that yeah there were a lot of people at the time who also were like and i think they were lesbians and that wasn't okay yeah so nobody who's to say you know but not one to over parent her children juliet's mother made it clear to miss stewart in no uncertain times that she was neither interested in nor prepared to interfere with her
daughter's friendships particularly since she at that time saw nothing wrong with juliet and pauline's relationship okay i bet you don't hindsight yeah so juliet's mom might not have seen anything wrong with the unusually intense bond between the girls but juliet's father was another matter entirely remember he's a physicist he's a smart fucking yeah in december of 1953 dr hume consulted with with his colleague, Dr. Francis Bennett, a psychiatrist, whom he asked to evaluate Pauline.
Wait. Yes. Juliette's dad?
Yes. Asked to, is having his friend evaluate Pauline?
Pauline, yes. His daughter's friend?
Yep. Okay. Yep. Was there consent here?
Like, what the fuck?
It sounds like there was consent.
Want to call up her parents real quick?
I think her parents were like, yeah.
But it's strange. I know I did.
When I was looking at that, I was like, wait, did I have this wrong?
No, no. It's really Pauline.
Wow. Yeah. Okay. When asked about this several years later, Hilda Hume said I had noticed Ms. Parker was concerned about Mrs. Parker was concerned about that friendship.
She sought medical advice largely at my suggestion and my husband's.
okay so they talked about it and it seemed like that Pauline's mom had more concerns than Juliet's parents so I don't know if they assumed that maybe Pauline was the one who was too immersed in this yeah that they were having okay they were like we're not really seeing any any issue with Juliet but so maybe Pauline is the problem wow yeah and her own mom was like yeah I think this relationship is a little much like I think what should have happened is these parents and should have got together, I mean, like, what are our concerns here?
Yeah. And then maybe talk to both the girls.
Yeah. But I'm not here.
I'm not in the 50s.
That's how I would have done it, I think.
According to Dr. Benedict, it was Dr. Hume who was, quote, worried over what he regarded as an unhealthy association and wanted me to see Pauline from a psychiatric point of view.
Oh, so it was Dr. Hume.
Yeah. Who was the one that was like, go take a peek at Pauline.
You're not her father.
That's according to his friend.
But then according to Hilda, she's like, well, Mrs. Parker also thought it was a problem, so all of us came together and said Pauline was the problem.
I mean, I'm more inclined to believe the doctor here.
His name is on this, but who knows?
So during Benedict's evaluation, Pauline was overall pretty uncooperative and resistant to his questions.
But she did say she was mostly unhappy.
And when he suggested she should widen her circle of friends, she insisted she didn't really care much for other girls and thought they were quote -unquote silly it's like okay but sometimes silly's fun yeah you know you need a little fun in your life live in the silly everything doesn't need to be serious yeah but she said besides she had juliette she didn't need anybody else oh that's that's a ding ding ding there it is despite her providing very limited information and just giving like pretty sparse responses benedict concluded that pauline was quote unquote strange i mean okay my diagnosis is you're
fucking strange yeah same and and here it is oh he told nora parker pauline's mother that there was a quote homosexual attachment between her daughter and juliet hume oh which of course at the time would have been put everybody into such a fucking tizzy and i like how it was like the psychiatric evaluation that was like and my other diagnosis is it's like homosexual it's like okay yeah i don't understand but i don't think that's our biggest problem here i think it's the actual too intense bond that's happening right now exactly shutting out of reality that's the problem focus on that exactly but the surprise
evaluation did little to mend the increasingly fractured relationship between pauline and her mother because at this point even pauline and her mom are having problems And I think that's I just said I'm I'm inclined to believe the doctor, but it does sound like Nora Parker had her.
Yeah. Her concerns.
I'm sure she did. I mean, I don't know how any parent couldn't.
And especially because, like I said, Pauline seemed to be more affected even at home.
Yeah. At this point.
But despite Burt Parker's insistence that his daughter had been perfectly normal before she'd met Juliet, the fact was there had never been a really strong bond between Pauline and her mother.
Huh? Yeah. That's the same with Juliet.
The relationships between mothers and daughters in this story is very interesting.
Huh. I'm sure they bonded over that.
They did. Big time.
Yeah. Most people recognize that Nora Parker meant well, but like Hilda Hume, motherhood did not come naturally to her.
Interesting. She was a very stern woman who was quick to anger, and Pauline almost constantly irritated her mother without meaning to.
In fact, Pauline's fractured relationship with her mother, like we were just saying, was among the things that she and juliet had bonded over yeah when they first met according to her and this is really sad according to pauline her mother quote didn't understand her and didn't love her oh that's heartbreaking yeah that's awful and a lot of times their arguments ended with physical punishment oh boy yeah so pauline's claims of abuse and pretty much neglect are a testament to how far she and her mother's relationship had already even deteriorated by the time she even reached high school so that was already
a problem there was already an issue there and then her attachment to juliette made things even worse you gotta try to be good parents everybody it's an important job of course it is by 1954 though pauline's relationship with her mother wasn't the only familial bond that was in danger of falling apart in late 1953 while working at the marriage guidance council juliette's mother hilda met a canadian immigrant named bill Bill had sought services from the council because his marriage was falling apart, and while her initial intentions may have been to help him repair his marriage, the relationship
between Bill and Hilda soon became flirtatious, and in no time at all their relationship had escalated from a fling to something far more serious.
And in early 1954, Bill ended up leaving his wife and moving into an apartment literally adjacent to the Humes' family house.
your okay okay um your child is going through something that's concerning to everybody well nobody was as concerned with julie the headmistress was concerned and like some of the classmates were concerned and pauline's parents seem concerned pauline's parents seem concerned about her yeah not necessarily juliet but like as a whole but there's an issue relationship is a problem like there's a problem here yeah and even she's retreated into herself even henry the father yeah the father seems to be a little concerned here moderately at least and it's like what's going on like why are we adding more
to this well does not really want to fuss over children that's true children should learn their fucking place as far as she's concerned babies should learn their place yeah that's baby should babies children but all the like like Like why would you add more into this chaos?
It sounds to me like she was a woman who was very concerned with her own needs.
Yeah, it does seem that way.
And not anyone else's because, I mean, she doesn't even give a fuck about her husband in this scenario.
Damn. It just seems I'm like, wow, what a choice.
What a time to be alive.
Yeah. Well. Well. hey there my weird weirdos i want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called who took misty copsey in september of 1992 14 year old misty copsey leaves the washington state fair with her best friend and is never seen again her body is never found at the time western washington is home to prolific serial killers like the green river killer which leads leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.
Over the course of eight episodes, host and cold case investigator Sarah Kalin speaks with Misty's friends and family, looks at police records and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if Misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her.
No suspects are ruled out.
After 33 years, Sarah Kalin hopes to answer the question, who took Misty?
You guys are going to love this.
If you listen to Morbid, we know that you love a cold case.
And we always tell you, a cold case is never cold.
So definitely give this a listen.
Definitely look into the case.
Listen to Who Took Misty Copsie wherever you get your podcasts.
Happy Egg believes in spreading happiness through the simple pleasure of high quality and delicious eggs.
And when I say delicious, I am not joking you.
Their eggs are the highest quality eggs that have ever, ever come into existence, in my opinion.
They're free -range Farming standards working with small family -owned farms to raise their happy hens outside on a pasture, coupled with the care and treatment that their hens receive, lead to tasty, tasty, ridiculously tasty, yummy orange yolks that are rich and full of flavor.
Happy egg hens spend their days outside and they're better for that.
They have those deep orange yolks that just look incredible.
If you're like a, you know, you want to put that on your food Insta, that's the kind kind of egg you want on your Insta.
And you want that egg in your body as well because it just tastes so yummy, yummy, yummy.
Taste the difference and look for that yellow carton at the store near you.
Visit HappyEgg .com slash Morbid to find a store near you.
This next part will just solidify the statement I just made of she really seemed only concerned with her own shit.
According to Hilda's own friend Nancy Sutherland, Hilda had cheated on her husband many times before Bill and he was just quote one of hilda's lovers oh okay yeah all right so with her husband consumed by his work and rarely at home hilda seemed to be less vigilant than she should have been when it came to her affair with bill and in no time at all juliet and pauline had picked up on the relationship probably because he fucking lived adjacent to their house oh and that's gonna fuck you up yeah but rather than seeing it as the inevitable end to her parents' marriage juliet yet instead saw it as
a potential financial opportunity.
Stop it. By mid -1954, I'm just laughing because it's just like, what the fuck?
This is so bizarre.
I'm uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable and bizarre because it's just like, it just keeps getting more chaotic.
The layers. Yeah. By mid -1954, the girls' fantasies had begun to center around running away together, something that would require money and a good amount of it.
So they hatched a scheme where they would catch Bill and Hilda in their affair and blackmail them thus gaining the funds needed to run away together.
That's such a detachment from reality.
From reality and such a detachment from your mother as a mother.
You're just seeing her as, like, an opportunity to get to where you need to go.
She's fucking up, so let's – there's so much, like – The bond between mother and daughter in both of these girls, like Pauline's bond with her mom and Juliette's bond with her mom, are not yeah the typical bond between mother and daughter there's a lot of coldness here there's detachment and on both sides big time like between mother and and daughter and between daughter and mother yes like it's from both sides like one has created the other and it's just well and I think a lot of times and like obviously we're not going to get like too far into it but But like we said, punishment at this time
was physical. That creates trust issues.
Yeah, absolutely. That's just the fact of the matter.
Yeah, it just is biology.
It just is. And so I think that can lead to the detachment of like, I don't trust you.
You're going to hurt me.
Yeah, because in the 50s, shit was wily.
Punishments were not normal punishments.
No, kids were literally getting hit with belts and stuff.
And getting the shit kicked out of them.
Like this was not bounds of anything.
Yeah, and physical, you know, that's just the way it is.
So I think those bonds were just damaged at a really early age.
And I mean, punishment aside, Juliet was sent to live with other family members all the time.
She was separated from her parents.
In really early developmental years.
So I don't really think Juliet ever formed a typical bond with her mom.
and then Pauline I think is more the result of the the punishment style yeah and I think and they both say that they never really took to motherhood right like that wasn't something they were comfortable with and it just wasn't they weren't really nurturing you know which is something a kid needs and it's sad ultimately because at the same time back then you didn't really get the option to choose whether or not you wanted to be a mother yeah so it was just like That's what you do.
And it was the kid who really suffers for it.
Right. It's just very sad overall.
It's all very sad. So Juliet and Pauline's plan to blackmail Juliet's mother and run away together was obviously somewhat childish in the whole like running away sense and thinking that they would be able to.
And even though Juliet actually did catch the two of them in bed together, she never got a chance to blackmail her mom or Bill.
Wow, that's all fucked up.
Yeah. Yeah. In May of 1954, after their blackmail scheme and Hilda Hume's affair had been exposed, Hilda and Henry called both girls to the kitchen one afternoon for a discussion because they were also always at each other's houses.
Of course. Particularly Pauline was always at Juliet's house.
It was then they learned that not only were Juliet's parents going to separate, but also that there had been some problems at the university and Henry had actually resigned from his position.
so without employment and unlikely to stay married there was no reason for the Humes to remain in New Zealand because remember they had only moved there because of a job opportunity yeah and they like nothing's really tethering them there so they tentatively decided to return to England in the coming months oh wow Juliet's family the news was obviously upsetting for Juliet and Pauline but it's unclear whether they truly understood what it meant for their friendship relationship by that point they had been completely wrapped up in this grandiose fantasy world where they believed among other things
that they were telepathic and had an unbreakable bond and received an assurance from juliette's father that they would not be separated in their minds he had made a promise to them that he wouldn't separate them but that never actually happened yeah it was delusions i was gonna say it's a lot of delulu happening yeah and none of it's gonna come true her Lulu no Pauline wrote in her in her diary in early May Dr. Hume really is to be relied upon so she like she had a legit trust really believed it what exactly he promised them is unknown but it seems pretty unlikely Dr. Hume would have made any
kind of promise under the circumstances especially when you think of the fact that he was the one that wanted Pauline evaluated yeah that's the thing yeah I don't know that happening I don't know if it was like a thing where the The conversation kind of got like heated and he was like, we'll do our best to keep you guys together.
Like he said something that could, in their very delusional, very fantastical, very desperate world, look to them like any suggestion of a promise, you know, like anything they could twist into one.
And it could have been that, that he said something like very small that they twisted, or it could have been that in their minds, they were so detached from reality that they just believed he promised them something that he never promised.
But he never did. Like, didn't even say anything even close to a promise.
Yeah, I could see that.
So, by early June, Henry Hume had formally resigned from his position, and it was announced that he had accepted a new position in England.
So the family had a move coming in their future.
It turned out that he actually hadn't accepted a new position, but the second part was true.
He was to return to England alongside his soon -to -be ex -wife.
Hmm. However, they decided under the circumstances, it would be best if Juliet went to live with Henry's sister in South Africa.
Oh. Like, okay. Okay.
Given her precarious health and the fact that his sister Ina ran a girls boarding school, sending Juliet there seemed a better alternative than returning to London for her.
They didn't think it was like a good place for her to be.
so the news was obviously a devastating blow to both girls but they resolved to stay together and decided that pauline would simply go to south africa with juliet oh yeah obviously i'll just obviously my family will let me move away and go to your aunt's place with you definitely definitely but in their mind the humes had always welcomed pauline into their home they'd even taken her on vacations at this point so it seemed entirely reasonable that they would allow her to accompany their daughter to her new temporary home yeah of course overnight stays and vacations were one thing but this was um
something entirely different and pauline's mom was like you're not moving to south africa with your friend pauline like yeah you're in high school no what are you doing what no the decision that juliet would be leaving without pauline came as a shock but the girls remained committed to staying together and had already come up with a backup plan that would would allow them to stay together forever oh my pauline wrote in her diary in late june our main idea for the day was to murder mother this notion was not a new one but this time it is a definite plan which we intend to carry out we have worked
it out carefully and are both thrilled by the idea naturally we feel a trifle nervous but the pleasure of anticipation is great i shall not write this plan down as i shall write it out when we carry it out wow that escalated that went from zero to a hundred and i stopped in the middle of that sentence because you feel like it escalated so quickly but there is years and years of just wild attachment styles going on between these two girls and some people trying to get in the mix there and try to you know figure this out and rectify this but wow the damage had been done that's unbelievable and that's
the thing like you feel like it goes to zero to a hundred but it hit every number along the way no it's true it did it's just i think what's bothering me the most is the callousness with which this is oh the callousness is being said and i think it comes comes from the i mean this is just me like theorizing but i feel like it comes from the fact that they were just so detached from the regular world that she was like yeah we'll kill my mom and then we'll just go to that world yeah it almost seemed like that was a real tangible place for them to go to yeah like in her mind i don't know if she thought
like we can run away to that world that we made up i think i think i could absolutely see you know their reality it's but they can run to that fake reality it's like you can't and i just i was looking up the the diary things and they spelled murder moiter moiter yeah i was like was was that on purpose why'd you do that i think it's actually british is it it's like a british thing moiter oh really i didn't know that because i googled it really quickly and i was like just like does she mean something else yeah what does that mean it's murder because i when i see that i think like moira moira like
that spencer henry said that i know so the next day june 20th pauline spent the day with her family years later her father bert recalled she seemed much brighter in the house than she had before she was much nicer to us than she had been for a long time oh that's awful two days later pauline and juliet would brutally murder norah pauline's mother holy shit yeah later after the arrest and the trials many people would theorize that they had conspired to kill nora parker and the misguided belief that if she were out of the picture Pauline would then be allowed to join Juliet in South Africa.
It's pretty likely that this was the catalyst for the murder but at the same time Pauline had hated her mom for a long time and had fantasized for a long time about killing her.
Eek. Peter Graham wrote Pauline would never forget the unhappiness of her childhood and seemed to blame most of that unhappiness on her mother.
Oh boy. So on the morning of June 22nd 1954 pauline woke up and wrote in her diary the day of the happy event oh my god and referred to her mood as and this is a quote the night before christmas -ish wow about murdering her own mom wow that afternoon juliet left her house to meet pauline grabbing a broken brick off the ground from the side of the house and putting it in her bag as she walked at pauline's house they both both sat down and enjoyed lunch with Nora.
She prepared them a nice little lunch and they all ate together.
After lunch, they went upstairs to Pauline's room where Juliet slipped the half brick into one of Pauline's old stockings and then they tied a knot around the ankle to keep the brick in place and then stuffed it into Pauline's bag.
After they'd eaten and readied their murder weapon, Juliet, Pauline, and Nora all set off for a walk through the woods.
Nora just wanted to go on a walk with them.
pauline took the lead as they walked with her mother in the middle and juliet behind her after some time the vegetation started getting more dense and muddy and difficult to manage they weren't going for a hike so nora suggested like let's turn around let's head back the girls tried to convince her to continue on but she was like no i don't want to go any further let's go back to the house so this time it was pauline who was in the rear as they turned around walking behind Whoa.
turns hitting Nora holy shit eventually the brick broke free from the stocking and fell to the ground near Nora's almost lifeless body and sensing that the woman was almost dead Juliet kneeled beside her and grabbed her by the throat to hold her head in place while Pauline took up the brick again and started bashing her mom in the head repeatedly until she ran out of energy oh my god That is frenzied as fuck.
I was going to say the frenzy.
Holy shit. Although still not dead, it was clear to both girls that Nora wouldn't survive without immediate medical attention.
So they tried to drag her into the brush, but they had underestimated the fact that she was going to be dead weight.
Obviously. And they were only able to drag her a few inches before she was too heavy.
With Nora rasping and choking on blood in the bushes, they ran off in the direction of town to carry out the next phase of their scheme the fuck is the next phase we'll get there but later when the autopsy was completed the pathologist counted 45 external injuries holy shit including 24 lacerations to the head and face that had penetrated to the bone and extensive fractures of nora's face nearly all of the blunt force injuries to her head were serious wow and And the pathologist wrote in his report, it would not take many of them, only a few to produce unconsciousness.
Wow. So this was complete overkill.
Yeah. When they reached town, Juliet and Pauline went into the nearest business, an ice cream parlor.
Were they like covered in blood, I imagine?
You would think. Like you would think they would be.
You would absolutely think.
And that's where the owners, Agnes Ritchie and her husband, contacted the police.
In the meantime, Agnes' husband and another man ran out to the spot where the girl said they'd left Nora, hoping that they might be able to help.
When they reached the spot where the woman lay in the brush, Kenneth immediately felt that something wasn't right.
Yeah, because what the fuck did they tell them?
They said that Nora had slipped and fallen on the trail and hit her head on a rock.
Forty -five times? Forty -five times.
This woman appeared to have been viciously beaten.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. And they had left the broken brick beside her body that was covered in her hair and blood.
Holy shit. It was brutal.
And I'm like, you guys really, like, you guys are creative writers.
That's what I'm like, you really thought that was going to work?
And you thought that people were going to believe that she had fallen?
45 times? I mean. Come on.
The deluglu. Damn. Now, it was dark by the time investigators made their way down to the wooded area where Nora was still lying and they had to work by flashlight.
light but even under those circumstances it was very clear to everybody what had happened to nora it was no accident no she hadn't just fallen and hit her head on a rock she'd been brutally bludgeoned brutally presumably with that bloody brick by her side so she also had multiple defensive wounds that suggested she fought hard and this is so gnarly one of them was a broken finger on her left hand that was hanging on by a small piece of flesh oh my god that's how hard Archie.
That is... Yeah. Oh.
Yeah. One of the detectives told a journalist the deceased had been attacked with an animal ferocity seldom seen in the most brutal of murders.
Holy shit. As several officers and pathologists worked to process the scene, detectives were dispatched to the Hume house, where the girls had been taken immediately following the report.
Wow, just the brutality of that is like...
That's some anger. That's some...
It's a lot of anger.
And for Juliet to have taken...
part in that and like that's not even that's a lot of that's two very angry very fucked up girls and it's like you are not going to separate us no like you will not come in between this friendship which holy shit that's on another level um as we know teenagers make notoriously bad criminals though yeah they sure do and this was no different in their fantasy it's likely that juliette and pauline assumed they would just kill nora deny any knowledge of what happened and nobody would would ask any follow -up questions whether it was agnes richie their parents or the police asking questions both of them
provided little information and just tried to stick to the explanation that nora had fallen wow but everybody was like no like there's no way we know you're not telling the truth yeah so while pauline and juliet told a nearly identical story to interviewing detectives the story was thoroughly unbelievable yeah and when they were confronted with the more or unbelievable elements, both girls started to seem shaken, and they gave weak answers.
For instance, when Detective Archie Tate asked Pauline why there was an old stocking at the scene, Pauline told him, I usually carry an old one in my bag.
Wow, that's all you got?
Why wouldn't you say, that's not mine?
That's not mine. I don't know.
I mean, I'm glad that you gave a shitty answer and it worked out, but it's like - that's what you came up with i carry an old stocking in my bag just one not even a pair it's one old stocking it's old what yeah detectives were looking for any part of either girl's story that they could grab onto that might pull their whole lie apart and eventually they got it from juliet ah according to both girls earliest accounts they had been walking together when nora who was walking behind them slipped and fell but in her statement to the the detectives juliet said she had been walking far ahead of the two
and when she turned around she saw nora lying on the ground and she was bleeding when confronted with that inconsistency juliet claimed she thought pauline and her mom had been arguing and she didn't want her friend to get any in any trouble so she said they were together when nora fell oh she's turning there we go she's turning the change in the narrative obviously put suspicion for the murder squarely on pauline who detectives now believed was her mother's killer now when confronted with this new version of events pauline immediately knew that juliette had changed her story and implicated her
in the death but rather than feeling outraged or betrayed she didn't nope pauline was entirely willing to accept the blame believing that she was protecting her friend because remember that shows you right now the power dynamic power dynamic right there juliette had it from the the beginning and she kept that shit till the end she sure did i thought you were gonna say that she just broke no like that betrayal just destroyed her but for her just to turn around and be like yep i think in her mind she didn't even see it as a betrayal she just saw it as well juliet must have had to do that we have to
do and and i'll take the fall for it yeah this is part of her plan so i'm just gonna go with it yep wow yep so upstairs in pauline's bedroom detectives informed Damn.
Holy shit. Cold. That's cold.
I don't know, a lot.
Wow. No longer feeling the need to lie, she dropped the innocent grieving daughter act and stoically listened as detectives read the interview record back to her, essentially asking her to confirm that her confession was accurate she listened to every detail she agreed and signed the document saying as much but before she did she wanted to make one thing clear on the record she said i wish to state that juliet did not know of my intentions and did not see me strike my mother i took the chance to strike my mother when juliet was away way holy shit completely damn taking the rap completely wow yeah
that's different level a different level because i feel like we have covered cases before where there's been two people that have committed a murder together like formed this really close bond over time but they oh even married couples oh most of them always married couples nine out of ten times and these two teenage girls one of them is like she had nothing to do with it and i'll never say she did like look at rose and uh and fred west yeah or my rose trying to be like i had nothing i don't know i wasn't even there and fred was like fuck that she was she was absolutely like she was part of it
not here they don't wow that's really unbelievable that's incredible on another level in a bad way yeah summer is in full swing whether you're traveling taking kids to summer camp or heading to the pool we are all looking for ways to stay healthy and save money this summer with good rx you can save up to 80 on prescriptions for you and your family pets too check good rx before every single trip to the pharmacy for big savings on both brand and and generic medications.
GoodRx is free and it's easy to use.
Just search for your prescription on the website or the app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70 ,000 local pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CBS, Publix, Kroger, and many more.
And now you can enroll in GoodRx Rewards and earn points every time that you use a coupon at the pharmacy.
Remember, GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your insurance co -pay price.
Today, I saved $5 on a prescription for my grandpa because I pulled up the GoodRx app and I said, look at this.
So you could save too.
Save at the pharmacy this summer with GoodRx.
Go to GoodRx .com slash morbid.
That's GoodRx .com slash morbid.
It didn't take investigators long to realize that while they initially thought the murder her to be the act of Pauline alone, Juliet not only knew about it but also participated in the killing.
Because Pauline had refused to give any kind of coherent response to investigators' questions, the press started proposing their own theories as to why the girls had murdered Nora Parker.
This was just silly.
Brisbane Telegraph reported, the detectives had been told that Pauline had been pestering her mother to buy her a pony.
Pauline had become so obsessed with her desire to join the pony club, police say she threatened her mother that she would kill her if she were not given a pony.
That cannot be real.
It is. Brisbane Telegraph, 1954.
Brisbane Telegraph, you're not all right.
You're not all right.
Y 'all. You're not all right.
Y 'all, let's not minimize this to a pony.
Get right with yourself.
Brisbane Telegraph, because that's not okay.
Silly goose behavior.
That is such silly goose behavior.
Now, it's unclear whether investigators actually believed that Nora had been killed for refusing to buy her daughter a pony, but whatever the case they soon found pauline's diary which brought the case into a completely different focus despite being written actually mostly encoded language that's been described as a quote jolly school girl tone mixed with hollywood crime lingo that's terrifying isn't it the entries in the diary made the motive clear and over the course of several years the girls had developed an intensely strong bond that when threatened by juliet's potential move to south africa they
were willing to defend with violence damn when the girls appeared in court for their arraignment because they had a trial together oh wow yeah they appeared in court for their arraignment reporters were struck by the bizarre behavior and just indifference to the charges one reporter wrote the girls looked embarrassed at first they chattered and made finger signs to each other so literally like communicating with one another shit when photographs of Nora's body in the courtroom, the girls allegedly smiled and grinned at one another.
Holy shit. Seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of the situation that they had created.
Wow. However, when Juliet testified in the pretrial hearing, she slipped back into that sympathetic teenager act, telling the court she'd only been trying to help a friend.
Wow. She said, pauline wow while the girls seemed to be trying to frame the murder as a situation that got out of control those diary entries told a completely different story of a murderous plan yeah it's a forethought baby so much malice a forethought set into motion in order to prevent being separated so they were jointly charged with murder on august 23rd 1954 juliet and pauline's trial began at the christ church supreme court before justice adams and an all -male jury huh which is interesting 50s i know at which time both girls pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder and his opening statements the prosecutor aw
brown told the jury that the crown would present evidence quote which will make it terribly clear that the two young girls conspired to kill the mother and carried it into effect according to brown they developed a quote intense devotion Yeah, I mean, that's it.
It's literally black and white.
It's literally written in the diary.
It literally is in black and white.
He's like, I have it right here.
Shall we continue? I can just read it from her own mouth.
Legit. As the prosecution presented the evidence to the jury and read long passages from Pauline's diary, the girls yawned, and this is a quote, yawned and exchanged smiles, and they appeared to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.
something's wrong yeah something is wrong yeah because even even if they are callous enough to commit that act and cold enough and disturbed enough to commit that act seeing how they're acting afterwards when they know that that was wrong and they know they're going to be punished for it yeah like they're not going to get out of this they don't they have to know that care for them to have no care of that there's something else wrong there's a there's a there's a switch off a switch off a switch needs to be rewired because like that's the fact that they're just like laughing through this i'm like
and you don't know like some you are gonna get in trouble for this yeah and i think i don't necessarily think that mattered to them because because also they had the the belief that they were uh telepathic and that they could retreat treat to this world together it's like but it's also like you know you're you're gonna be separated if you get in trouble too i don't i don't think they're gonna stick you in the same cell i wonder if they knew that i i feel like they have or if they thought that they would somehow end up in the same prison you know what you might be right absolutely because they're
young girls so it's like and they're in such a fantasy world that maybe they were like we're gonna be in the same cell it's gonna be wonderful we'll live together forever yeah because we committed this this crime time together so like Bonnie and Clyde you know like let's go yeah yeah it was either that or I think they thought that they could still like they could still communicate and go into that world together but then they would have thought they could do that whether she was in South Africa or not but I think I wonder if they thought like the distance would make it harder being South Africa and New
Zealand yeah you know I don't know I think you were right the first time I think that either they must have thought that they were gonna be in the same prison yeah or they just didn't realize it yeah damn it's weird but describing them both as precocious and dirty -minded girls brown read passage after passage that detailed their sexual fantasies and experimentation as well as the growing resentment and eventually hatred that pauline had for her mother the sexual implications of the relationship were emphasized by henry hume who testified that he had become concerned about the intensity and the relationship
and had tried to quote break it up in the months leading to the murder.
But because the girls had confessed to the murder, the defense didn't need to argue their innocence, only why they had committed the crime.
In his opening statement, defense attorney T .A.
Greeson told the jury the sanity of the girls was an all -important and vital question.
Which, like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you gotta question that one.
Fair enough, T .A. Greeson.
According to him, the evidence clearly showed that the girls were, quote, mentally ill and their interest in sexual and homosexual matters would show that they were not ordinary but ill they were suffering from a paranoia of exalted type and folly ado communicated insanity i love that we're throwing in like the gay in there fucked up so remember that everybody like that's probably why and it's like nope i think i nope think you're on to something i think with the folly ado of it all i think the folly ado is Which is absolutely it.
And I think it was these two girls were disturbed well before they met each other.
Exactly. And they met each other and the folly ado was ripe for the pickin' because they were disturbed.
I don't think their sexual identity had anything to do with it.
Well, and you can also see, like, that, you know, the prosecutor is saying, like, these are dirty -minded little girls.
Yeah. Because they're looking at their diary where they're talking about sexual fantasies and stuff.
and it's like no no no they're just they're just girls right they're allowed to have sexual fantasies and they're allowed to put them in their diary right that's where they should put them actually and you don't really have to focus on the dirty the dirty mindedness of it all because again it's not dirty it's the 50s so even a nor even a quote unquote regular sexual fantasy from a girl would be wrong dirty right and that means something's wrong with them and it's like stop Stop focusing on the sexual aspect of this so much and look at the fact that they are now convicted murderers almost. Well,
I'm assuming going to.
They're charged with murdering a human being because of the bond that they formed that is so beyond anything that you can even comprehend.
Conceive. And this crime is not a sexually motivated crime.
No, that's the thing.
sexual in nature at the scene whatsoever.
So there's just no need to focus on the things that they wrote in their diary that were sexual in nature.
If they had killed Nicholas, the boyfriend.
Did you think that's where it was going?
I thought for a second, if they had killed Nicholas, then take a peek at what's happening here.
Because that could be a sexual -motivated crime.
Definitely. It could definitely be something around there.
Like, at least take a peek at what's happening.
But this has nothing to do with sexual anything.
And even the manner in which Nora Parker was murdered was not sexual.
Exactly. None of it makes any sense.
And it's like, so to focus so heavily on that, it seems very 50s to me.
And I think they knew.
Very 50s girls shouldn't have any kind of sexual fantasies, regardless of whether they are gay, straight, whatever, what have you.
I think they're literally like, they are dirty because they think about sex. Yeah, even though they're teen girls.
Exactly. But you're not allowed to.
It's very 50s, like you said.
It really is. but the defense argued that while oh and by the way anybody that doesn't know what foliado means we've been saying it like a ton it's the madness of two yeah i meant to say that earlier it's when two people can form such a bond that their their madness kind of intertwines yeah we covered um the papin sisters yes papin sisters yes that that was um a case that we covered that and i think we like heavily focused on the madness of two foliado aspect you are correct so yeah just Just in case anybody was like, what the fuck are you going to say?
What are you talking about?
Why are you speaking French all of a sudden?
Now, the defense argued that while the diary entries did confirm that the murder had been enthusiastically planned, they claimed it also demonstrated the girl's sheer delusional state and evidence of psychosis.
Yeah, I can see that.
I do agree with that.
Yeah. Testifying in her daughter's defense, Hilda Hume told the jury, quote, so much I read in the 1954 diary was incorrect.
Things were described in the diary in a very distorted and untruthful way.
Okay. And then you think about that promise that was made.
Yeah. Quote unquote made.
Or wasn't made. Or wasn't.
Like, you have to wonder how much of the diary was just their own delusion.
Absolutely. And I think probably 98 % of it was.
I think there was a lot going on with these girls that was not being paid attention to as heavily as it could have been.
And I think a lot of it had to do with where society was at the time.
Now, in support of their argument, the defense called several psychiatrists to testify, all of whom evaluated Paulina and Juliet following the murder, according to Dr. Reginald Medikot, which, like, what a fucking name.
Reginald Medikot. That's a name and a half.
Yeah. He had to be a doctor.
He evaluated both girls just days after the murder and said both girls are sensitive, selfish, imaginative, and show inability to tolerate criticism.
Pauline has ruled her temper by bursts of temper.
Eek. So he's like, she gets angry and angry and angrier.
The comment about Pauline ruling the friendship was critical to the defense's argument that Juliet had essentially been manipulated into helping murder Nora.
Which is so interesting to see that flipped on its head the way it was.
But I think Juliet actually was much better at flicking that switch on of like, I was just, I needed to help my friend and I didn't realize what I was doing.
was doing yeah it seems that way whereas pauline i don't think that she can turn that switch on and off i think she just gets fucking emotional yeah she's ruled by her emotions and i think juliet juliet is like intensely intelligent yeah her iq alone like you can tell and just the way she acts and so it's like i think her her mind the way it works she's able to compartmentalize things in a different way that you know normal people can't understand and that sometimes worked dinner favor yeah absolutely now also testifying for the defense was dr francis bennett that same doctor who had evaluated
pauline the previous year at dr hume's request he told the jury juliet and pauline quote had a wild infatuation for each other and spent as much time together as possible discussing their gods and books bathing and bedding together and photographing each other which was all true yeah they also had come up with like their own religion and followed the the tenants of that, I guess.
Wow. Okay, this was deep.
Not only did they have a world, they had, like, a social structure within that world.
I was just going to say they had a social structure.
You're right. While Medikot's testimony focused mostly on their shared psychosis, Bennett's conclusion was of a more lurid nature.
He told the jury, I agree with Dr. Medikot that they were suffering from paranoia.
If separated, they have to revert back to their unhappy conflict with others.
Only in their homosexual aspect, they think they are secure so again my gosh like what the fuck i'm like i don't think it just doesn't have anything to do with it it doesn't at all it really doesn't and it's it's not the it's not them being like lesbians or homosexuals or what have you it's the bond that they have with one another whatever that bond is it doesn't matter i don't even think it is like a a love or like a no i think it's something i think it is i don't think it's it's a anything that we can I don't think it's anything we can label.
I think it's a twisted bond that doesn't fall within any of the categories of a normal relationship.
Yeah, it goes beyond comprehension.
Yeah, I don't think this is like a love.
It's not romantic. I don't think it's a friendship.
I don't think it's either one of those things.
It's something entirely different that doesn't end well.
It's that folly adieu.
That's just what you can label it as.
Nothing really beyond that that we have a scope of.
And it's just it's strange to me.
I mean, it's not strange considering the time, how much they fucking obsessed over every like the prosecution and the defense.
It's so strange. But again, the time.
But both doctors agreed that the girls were suffering a shared mental illness and both declared them, quote unquote, certifiable.
Yeah, I mean, something's wrong here.
Now, the murder of Nora Parker shocked all of New Zealand, mostly because of the brutality of the crime and the fact that the act had been committed by her own daughter and her friend.
Yeah. To wrap your head around that is wild.
Their behavior, like we were just saying, it defied all social norms, not just in the violence aspect of it, but in the intimacy and the fantasy that led up to it.
Yeah. People just couldn't wrap their brains around it.
And I think people found themselves very interested in the story because of that aspect.
Yeah, because like what happened here.
Which like I feel that same way.
That's what drew me to the story.
But in response, the press and public sought to distance themselves from the crime by defining Juliet and Pauline as singularly evil.
Throughout the trial, reporters repeatedly emphasized their strangeness, citing everything from their childhood illness to their foreign -born status as an explanation for the horrible act.
And if that was how the press and public had framed the case for themselves, it's fair to assume that some of the jurors had a similar opinion of the girls yeah i'm sure so on august 28th 1954 the jury retired for deliberation and the next day returned to deliver a guilty verdict damn they rejected the defense's argument of mental illness which is very interesting to me by that it's an all -male jury yeah you're right and they gotta say it it and it's 1954 yeah that's the only thing that makes sense the understanding of mental illness is just not there i think they were like throw them in jail
yeah regarding their sentence justice adams said as you were both under the age of 18 the sentence of the court is detention during her majesty's pleasure and handed down i know what a weird way to work what the fuck is that how they say i'm sorry i'm like what during her majesty's pleasure pleasure the fuck does that mean let's google it because google that shit like what the fuck i'm sorry that just struck me i've never heard it said like that a phrase colloquially uh used to describe the period of detention imposed upon a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity but in this case that's
not what happened huh someone who was put in prison at his or her majesty's pleasure is kept there until it is officially decided that it is safe to release least them probably and that's because they're under 18 yes so yeah during her majesty's pleasure what a way to say it what the fuck yeah i'm glad you also thought that was sorry because i was like help me if i can dance over it maybe i'm the only one that thinks it's weird you cannot i'm not i'm gonna stop you in your tracks with that one well i'm about to stop you in your tracks because this judge handed down a sentence of five years in prison for the both
of them five years Years?
Five years. They brutally beat a woman.
With a brick. With a brick.
Yeah. And then dragged her in the bushes.
And then just said she fell.
And clearly were, like, disturbed in many other ways.
And planned this for a long time.
Yep. According to the reports, both girls smiled at one another when the verdict was read.
See? What the fuck?
But spectators in the courtroom were outraged.
after the verdict was read many among the crowd loudly protested and nearly 125 people had to be removed from the courtroom because they were fucking pissed that's scary so both girls served their five -year sentence at separate adult prisons juliet at mount eden prison and pauline at christ church prison and after their release they just faded back into society they changed their names to protect their privacy.
Years later, when asked about her time at Mount Eden as the only prisoner under the age of 18, Juliette said it was cold, there were rats, canvas sheets and calico underwear.
I had to wash out my sanitary towels by hand and they put me on physical labor until I passed out.
So it was bleak. Yeah, that's, wow.
However, while it might have been a difficult experience, she nonetheless calls it quote, the best thing that could have happened.
Whoa. So I think - I didn't see that coming.
It sounds like she may have been rehabilitated.
Rehabilitated. Yeah, it does sound that way.
I mean, both of them kind of retreated into society and never offended again.
You want that to happen.
Yeah. During her time in prison, Juliet found religion and became a member of the Mormon faith, which ultimately led her to express remorse and openly take responsibility for the murder.
She said, that's how I survived my time while others cracked up.
I seem to be the only one saying I'm guilty and I'm where I should be.
Wow. So she accepted it.
Okay. I mean, still fucking terrifying.
Damn. In the years following their release from prison, Pauline and Juliet sought to establish new lives for themselves under those new identities.
Juliet left New Zealand immediately for the UK, where she established herself as Anne Perry and went on to build a successful career as a novelist. Anne Perry?
Yeah. Bill Perry was the guy that her mother was having an affair with.
with what the that's there's a psychology there don't you dare tell me that's not i didn't even catch that good call good perry was the one that she was trying to catch her debt her mom with so that they could get the money to run away together good fucking call i didn't even think of that well she was a very successful novelist she wrote more than a hundred popular popular thrillers What the fuck?
Isn't that insane? I mean, she had plenty of fucking practice.
Holy shit. They created that whole world that was a thriller.
Wow. I mean, their lives were a thriller.
Yeah. Pauline, meanwhile, changed her name to Hillary Nathan and attempted to become a nun.
Wow. But that didn't work.
I don't know why. And she went on to study at Auckland University before becoming a librarian in Auckland and then moving to UK when she was no longer on parole.
Wow. Living in anonymity allowed both women to live normal lives until the mid -1990s when a new movie titled Heavenly Creatures, which, by the way, is a term pulled directly from Pauline's diary.
I was wondering where that came from.
She calls herself and Juliet Heavenly Creatures.
It is a great name for a movie.
Oh, it is. Heavenly Creatures.
It is. That's a great name.
I want to see it now.
Yeah. Yeah. But they had a life of anonymity until that movie was announced, directed by then little known Peter Jackson.
Just little little Peter Jackson, you know, unnamed man.
The announcement generated a lot of buzz and reporters started digging in order to find out who these women were and what had inspired the film.
And Perry said in a 2003 interview, it seemed so unfair.
Everything I had worked to achieve as a decent member of society was threatened.
And once again, my life was being interpreted by someone else.
It happened in court when I was a minor.
I wasn't allowed to speak and I heard all these lies being told.
And now there was a film, but nobody bothered to talk to me.
I knew nothing about it until the day before release.
All I could think of was that my life would fall apart and that it might kill my mother.
Whoa. Which luckily it didn't.
The two women, like we just said, were eventually outed by the press.
But by then so much time had passed that beyond general curiosity, few people were interested in villainizing or demonizing either of them.
I mean. if they seem to have made productive members of society out of themselves like is this really no point yeah leave it alone you know you know Ann Perry otherwise known as Juliet Hume died from a heart attack on April 10th 2023 oh wow at her home in Los Angeles and as of today Hillary Nathan who was previously Pauline Parker is believed to be alive and somewhere in the UK wow what a wild story though that wow and the fact that they both seem to have been rehabilitated after five years in prison as miners that's the thing like that's really wild and it's and that makes you question what would have happened
had somebody stepped in sooner i know that's like where been able to step in sooner obviously people tried to and people were more like taking note of these things and trying to think of ways to you know that yeah it is it's one of those things because it's not like they went around killing people no or losing their shit on people or assaulting people later you know like the the penchant for violence outward violence was didn't seem to be something that was innate no it just held their relationship was threatened and i think i think that was the biggest part of it because at that point that dynamic
and their relationship was at at its highest point you know yeah and you know what it if they had been separated yeah at one point like if if they had been separated i think it would have gone a different way i think because look at when they were they had a forced separation in prison yeah and they thrived exactly so it's like i think they were keeping each other in this shithole place yeah where neither of them could grow because they were just this festering wound together and if you break them apart they're able to thrive on their own it's really too bad that there wasn't some way to do the move
like I feel like it sounds traumatic to to figure out the move without telling one of them yeah but maybe that would have resulted in yeah you wish it had happened earlier yeah just happened earlier in that relationship having to die the way that she having to die one and having to die the way that But she did.
Wow. What a story. It is.
Yeah. That's wow. Something to sit on.
Yeah. That really is.
Yeah. There's a lot to take in there.
Interesting case for sure.
Yeah. So with that being said, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you form an unbreakable bond with somebody and then murder somebody over it because you guys should really just go get coffee by yourselves away from each other.
Enjoy yourself. Yeah.
Solitude. to find peace in oneself.
© transcript Emily Beynon You can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.
Shopify's point -of -sale system helps you sell at every stage of your business.
Need a fast and secure way to take payments in person?
We've got you covered.
How about card readers you can rely on anywhere you sell?
Thanks, have a good one.
Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in -person sales?
That's kind of our thing.
Wherever you sell, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify.
Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify .com slash listen.
Shopify .com slash listen.
