Anne Perry, killer turned crime writer, dies aged 84

After murdering her friend’s mother as a teenager, as dramatised in film Heavenly Creatures, she turned to writing period thrillers

A British crime writer who helped bludgeon her friend’s mother to death as a teenager and was the inspiration for Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures has died in Los Angeles, her publisher announced Wednesday. She was 84.

Anne Perry, a prolific author whose period thrillers have sold over 25 million copies worldwide, was 15 years old when she and her friend Pauline Parker murdered Pauline’s mother in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954. Honora Mary Parker died after being hit with a brick around 20 times, in a killing that shocked and captivated the country.