Heavenly Creature Anne 'I HAD TO FORGIVE MYSELF'

The infamous author's past was as chilling as the murders she wrote

When bestselling author Anne Perry died on April 10, her one unfulfilled wish died with her the hope she could be judged on what she had become as an adult and not for the murder she committed as a teenager. The past, however, casts a long shadow and Anne simply couldn't escape it.

In 1954, Anne, then known as Juliet Hulme, shocked New Zealand when she and her best friend Pauline Parker bludgeoned Pauline's mother, Honorah Rieper, to death in a Christchurch park.

Juliet was 15, Pauline was 16. At the time, they believed Honorah was standing in their way of true happiness and the only way around it was to kill her.

After being found guilty of their grisly crime, the girls never saw each other again. They spent five years in prison - at opposite ends of the country - and when they were released, they changed their names and were never heard of again.

Until, that is, 35 years later when filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson turned their story into the acclaimed movie Heavenly Creatures, starring Kate Winslet.

Just before the film's 1994 release, a journalist followed a paper trail that eventually revealed Juliet's new identity as Anne Perry, a successful crime novelist who lived as a recluse in the secluded Scottish fishing village of Portmahomack.

Her cover was blown and, just like that day in June 1954, when she helped murder Honorah, Anne’s life would never be the same.