The Search for Anne Perry

by Joanne Drayton

  The girls’ behaviour before and after the murder was outlined in detail by tearoom manager Agnes Ritchie, and her caretaker husband Kenneth Ritchie described finding the body and his observations of the girls. Brown then called Hilda, Herbert and Bill in turn to give background evidence about the girls’ childhoods, the development of their friendship and the events leading up to the murder.

  The defence disputed very little of the evidence given in support of the prosecution. The main point Gresson made in his cross-examination of William Ramage, the police photographer, was that the girls had chosen a highly improbable spot to stage a murder intended to look like an accident, as it was flat and well away from any rocks. Ramage reminded him that it was also secluded. Haslam’s questioning of Herbert revealed that, although he and Honorah were worried about the girls’ friendship, Pauline had been taken to Dr Bennett ‘not so much [for] that as the fact that she had lost a lot of weight’.57

  Some of the most sensational material of the trial was revealed on 24 August when scrutiny of Pauline’s 1954 diary exposed the affair between Bill Perry and Hilda. The description of the awkward moment when Juliet allegedly discovered Hilda and Bill in bed for the first time was read out in court. According to Pauline’s account, Juliet had woken up at 2am and gone to look for her mother. When she discovered that Hilda’s bedroom was empty, she went on a search that took her to Bill Perry’s flat. She climbed the stairs and heard voices, crept to the bedroom door, listened for a while, then threw the door open and turned on the lights to reveal her mother and Bill in bed, sipping tea.

  ‘She was shaking with emotion and shock although she had known what she would find.’ Hilda and Bill stared at her in stunned disbelief. ‘I suppose you want an explanation,’ her mother said as soon as she could collect herself. ‘Yes,’ Juliet replied, ‘I do.’ Hilda said that they were in love. ‘But I know that,’ Juliet exclaimed. Hilda ‘explained that Dr Hulme knew all about it and that they intended to live as a threesome’.58

  Hilda vehemently rejected Pauline’s version of events. She made the point that there were many inaccuracies in the diaries and that this event was ‘recorded in a very distorted and untruthful way’.59 Hilda’s sworn testimony was that she had heard a noise and left her bedroom to make sure nothing was amiss. When she went into Bill’s flat she found him in pain, so went downstairs to make tea and brought it up. They were drinking it when she heard the dividing door open.

  She called out and there was no reply, until Juliet appeared in her bare feet. ‘So you are here,’ Juliet said. Hilda went on to say that ‘Juliet seemed to be amused at a secret joke of her own, and when I asked her what it was she replied, “Oh, the balloon has gone up.” When I asked her to explain, she replied “I was hoping to catch you out.” Bill was, in fact, admitted to hospital the next week.’60

  There were indeed inaccuracies, imaginings and exaggerations in Pauline’s diaries, which were given inappropriate weight at times in the trial, but it is clear from both accounts that Juliet was well aware that her mother and Bill were having an affair. This would have been disturbing and stressful, even if she had not caught them in bed or coitus interruptus. To find the couple in an ambiguous and apparently illicit liaison brought things to a head for Juliet. As far as she was concerned, the balloon had gone up and that felt like permission to act out. Although she may not have blamed them directly, her parents had disappointed her.

  This feeling was exacerbated the next morning when Henry announced to Juliet, and Pauline, who had biked over, that he and Hilda were divorcing. This was an enormous shock to both girls. It was also the stuff of scandal in a town that took an ostentatious pride in the purity of its institutions. Hilda was a figure of respectability in the community, and such seemingly promiscuous behaviour by a prominent marriage guidance counsellor made her appear outrageously hypocritical. The impact of her affair with Bill is rumoured to have set back marriage guidance in the country 35 years.61 There was little public sympathy for her situation. She had betrayed not only her husband and her family, but also the belief invested in her by Christchurch institutions — the university, the church, the education and health systems — that quietly condoned the shallowness of snobbery, breeding and privilege.

  In the public imagination Hilda and Henry became neglectful, remote parents. Henry’s selfish absence, combined with Hilda’s lack of discipline and insufficient support for her daughter, made them figures of contempt. When asked if she had seen Juliet in prison over the two-month remand period, Hilda answered: ‘Yes, I have seen her several times.’ For many, this did not signal a high degree of commitment. Some of her testimony also seemed to undermine her daughter. She told the court that ‘she and Dr Hulme were anxious about defects in Juliet’s personality before these events’. When asked by Brown ‘Have you called any experts in?’ she replied:

  Not professionally but privately … These people, who knew Juliet intimately, said that Juliet was highly emotional and would be a responsibility until she developed and acquired a less intense attitude to living … She was always difficult to discipline, and resented discipline.62

  Hilda was in an unenviable position. Regardless of what she may or may not have done wrong as a parent, whatever she said must have been influenced by the defence counsel’s decision to argue a case of folie à deux. Defending her daughter amounted to helping prove she was mad.

  When asked to name the people whose opinions she had sought privately, she refused. One of these was certainly Dr Bennett, who would take centre-stage along with Medlicott in the next phase of the trial. The case for the defence began late in the afternoon of the second day. Gresson opened with his address:

  Telling the jury that his case would rest on medical evidence … that would show that the two girls were insane at the time they killed Mrs Parker … the Crown had seen fit to refer to the accused as ordinary, dirty-minded little girls, but the evidence for the defence would be that they were nothing of the kind, but were mentally sick and were more to be pitied than blamed. Their homosexuality was a symptom of their disease of the mind.63

  Dr Medlicott, first up for the defence, spent nine long hours in the witness box — the whole of one day, then a lengthy cross-examination by Brown the next. He outlined his programme of interviews with the girls, and explained in more detail his professional diagnosis which formed the cornerstone of the defence case: namely that the girls were suffering from ‘paranoia … in the setting of Folie à deux. Paranoia is a form of systematized delusional insanity.’ The most common form of paranoia was persecution; in this case the paranoia was of the ‘exalted’ type. Medlicott outlined his argument for how the girls came to think of themselves as special. He discussed what he described as their homosexuality, suggesting there was no proof it was a physical relationship and that in the longer term it might have proved to be an ‘adolescent pash’. He did, however, relate it directly to their paranoia.

  He explored the agency of evil in their psychosis, likening Pauline’s diary to an ‘evil mirror’ reflecting the pair’s moral deterioration.

  It was obvious that the normal personalities [sic] defences against evil had almost completely gone. It became obvious when I started to discuss borderline religious and philosophic topics with them that they were harbouring weird delusional ideas … they said they had their own paradise, their own god and religion and their own morality.64

  He drew special attention to Pauline’s diary entry made at Port Levy in April 1954, where she referred to their finding the key to the 4th World and discovering that they had an extra part to their brain. In addition to this, when Brown read a poem titled ‘The Ones I Worship’ from Pauline’s diary, Medlicott said it was symptomatic of their ‘terrific exaltation’ of themselves:

  … The outstanding genius of this pair,

  Is understood by few, they are so rare.

  Compared with these two every man is a fool

  The world is most honoured that they should deign to rule

>   And above us these Goddesses reign on high.

  I worship the power of these lovely two

  With that adoring love known to so few

  ’Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel,

  That two such heavenly creatures are real …65

  He discussed their shoplifting, attempted burglary, cheating at games with Jonathan, and quoted from a diary entry made in March 1954 that described the Temple of Minerva they had built in the garden at Ilam. They were going to rewrite the Bible, on vellum parchment, and Pauline would illustrate it.

  Their fictional writings, he believed, grew more violent the more time they spent together, and Pauline’s diary was an increasingly fantastic and fevered account of possession. ‘As the diary goes on evil becomes more and more important and one gets the feeling they ultimately become helplessly under its sway.’66 Medlicott concluded his evidence like this: ‘if I were asked today if I considered Parker and Hulme certifiably insane I would answer yes. I myself would have not the slightest hesitation in certifying them.’67

  Brown’s cross-examination of Medlicott was merciless. Brian McClelland remembered it as ‘a very rough passage. With the wind behind him from Adams (the judge), he made a mess of Medlicott.’68 Brown forced the doctor to publicly acknowledge his dearth of experience, especially as an expert witness. He then proceeded to challenge Medlicott’s interpretation of the diary entries he used as supporting evidence and almost every one of his contentions, including his conclusion that there was hereditary insanity in the family because the Riepers had had a blue baby and a Down’s Syndrome child. This was vigorously challenged:

  [Brown]: Do you not consider you were being unjust to the Riepers when you said on Tuesday: ‘I consider that background raises a query as to the stock from which she came.’

  [Medlicott]: No. I don’t think so.

  [Brown:] Does it not mean that insanity is hereditary?

  [Medlicott:] No, it simply suggests that the stock is defective.69

  Brown’s questioning was intended to highlight the fact that the murder was a consciously pursued, premeditated act both girls knew was wrong. He drew particular attention to Pauline’s nocturnal activities with Nicholas, the boarder, to emphasize her heterosexual misconduct — thereby reinforcing his premise that the girls were dirty-minded rather than mad.

  The next person called to give evidence for the defence was Dr Bennett, whose connection to the case preceded that of all the other medical witnesses. He was a general practitioner rather than a qualified psychiatrist, and the experience he brought to the case was gained through military service during the Second World War with shell-shock victims. He had seen Pauline in December 1953 and had spoken with Henry about the girls’ relationship in May 1954. He had also worked at the Cashmere Sanatorium, knew Hilda through the Marriage Guidance Council and had socialized with the Hulmes at Ilam.

  Bennett’s testimony, which would take more than five hours, began with his history of visits. He was one of the first medical practitioners to see the girls after the murder: he saw both of them separately on 24 June and on 6 and 14 August. He agreed unreservedly with Medlicott’s diagnosis. He discussed the quality of the girls’ fictional writing. They had written a great deal, he explained, but he did ‘not consider it of outstanding literary merit’. Intellectually, he found them a little higher than average, ‘but they are not intellectual giants’. This was further substantiated during interviews when he challenged Juliet about her concept of the afterlife and death. She said everyone she knew on Earth she would meet in Heaven. ‘Even Pauline’s mother … with blood on her face?’ he had asked. ‘Yes,’ Juliet responded. ‘Even if we did meet her we would not worry, there is nothing in death.’70 Bennett saw her concept of Heaven and apparent lack of regret as clear signs of her insanity.

  He read extracts from Pauline’s diaries and described the girls’ deviant behaviour at Ilam, where they endlessly discussed the Saints and the plots of their books, bathed together and slept in the same bed, photographed each other in fancy dress and in the nude, talked until all hours and went out at night, and acted out their plays and fantasies on the lawn.

  He was confounded by the little cemetery they had made in the grounds of Ilam that became a temple to Raphael Pan, where they buried a mouse and erected crosses to ‘dead ideas’. What stupefied him the most, apart from the murder, was the girls’ behaviour when the Queen visited Christchurch in January 1954: in their madness they had neglected to see Her Majesty or the decorations for her visit. Almost as despicably, they cheated at cards and board games with Jonathan. They were deceitful betrayers of trust like ‘Judas Iscariot’.

  To us sane I hope, it was a murder that was bestial and treacherous and filthy. It is outside all the kindly limits of sanity. It is a thousand miles away from sanity. They are still not sane and in my opinion they never will be sane.71

  Brown’s destruction of Medlicott’s testimony had been comprehensive, but his discrediting of Bennett’s was so complete that Judge Adams was prompted to ask, before Bennett stepped down, if his argument could be summarized in the words ‘that in your opinion they knew the act was contrary to the ordinary moral standards of the community but nevertheless it was not contrary to their own moral standards?’ Bennett’s response was: ‘Yes. You have completely summarized it.’72 In one sentence this catastrophic admission swept away the defence’s argument.

  Judge Adams acted swiftly, calling both counsels into his office to discuss his view that the defence had failed to offer a feasible case. His inclination was to dismiss the defence and instruct the jury that ‘there was no evidence of insanity at all’. When Peter Mahon said that the prosecution wanted the case decided by the jury, ‘Adams said that he did not mind what the Crown wanted. He was telling him that as a matter of law he was going to direct the jury.’73 That night Peter Mahon and Brian McClelland, assistants for the prosecution and the defence, respectively, combed the law library together, looking for precedents. They found only one, but this — along with Peter Mahon’s vehement support for the defence to continue — convinced Adams to resume the trial.

  The prosecution’s rebuttal began on Friday, 27 August, with Kenneth Stallworthy, the first of three psychiatrists called by the Crown. The senior medical adviser at Avondale Mental Hospital in Auckland, Stallworthy had 15 years’ experience in psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand and abroad. He had examined Pauline at Paparua on 26 and 27 July and on 19 August. He had also seen her at Mt Eden on 30 July, and 9 and 11 August. Juliet had been seen at Paparua on 26, 27 and 28 July, and 19 August.

  Stallworthy contended that the girls were completely sane. Pauline’s diaries were a record of intent. Subsequent to their arrest both girls had given lucid accounts of exactly what happened and repeated these frequently almost verbatim. He refused to accept that their behaviour was paranoid or that there was any reliable medical evidence linking paranoia to homosexuality. In his experience, the only kind of paranoia linked to homosexuality was ‘the kind which the individual because of his background and upbringing is unable to accept within himself … It is repressed homosexuality that is related to paranoia and I think in this case there was nothing repressed about the homosexuality.’74

  He offered compelling commentary on the diaries. ‘I have some experience of adolescents’ diaries. I would say that adolescence is commonly a very conceited age and that very often … [diaries record] the most conceited opinions without the adolescent concerned having any firm and fixed belief in what had been written.’ He did not even see the girls’ apparent lack of remorse as anything strange. ‘It is my experience that it is extremely unusual for criminals to show any regret except at being caught.’75 This was not beyond the boundaries of normality, and nor were their shoplifting or crazy delinquent escapades.

  His experience of the girls was that they were completely rational. ‘Hulme, in my interview with her … displayed a vocabulary, a shrewdness in understanding and answering difficult questions of a highl
y intelligent and sophisticated person of a much greater age.’76 She and Pauline never seemed to have any difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, and their passion for ‘games, bloodshed and violence is exceedingly common in adolescents’.77 With regard to their religious ideas and ceremonies, Stallworthy said, ‘Adolescence is for many people a time of intense questioning of beliefs and I see nothing insane in two highly intelligent adolescents being preoccupied with the hereafter and in even toying with a religion of their own.’78

  He thought their homosexuality, which he believed had a physical aspect to it, was a common stage for teenagers in their emotional development. ‘I feel the homosexuality in this situation had been rather overstressed.’ In Stallworthy’s mind they were two girls who ‘were very, very fond of each other’ and the most important thing in their lives was to be together. ‘There have been other great loves in the world where one person would stick at nothing to be with the other’ — and this was one of them.79

  The one glitch in Stallworthy’s testimony was when Gresson challenged him during cross-examination about the time lapse of more than a month between the murder and his first seeing the girls: Stallworthy admitted that this might have influenced his diagnosis. Gresson also asked him when he had read Pauline’s diaries; he had done so after he had written and submitted his report. Stallworthy’s evidence was followed by that of James Savill and James Hunter, the medical officer and the superintendent who ‘had been attached to the Department of Mental Hygiene for 29 years’ at Sunnyside mental hospital in Christchurch.80 Savill saw Juliet and Pauline separately six times; Hunter saw them three times separately, and interviewed Juliet when Pauline was at Mt Eden. Neither Hunter nor Savill believed they were insane. The medical witnesses were questioned only briefly by the defence counsel.