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Kiwi of the Week

Rene Shadbolt

René Shadbolt led the only New Zealand contingent to the Spanish Civil War. She and fellow nurse, Isobel Dodds, cared for wounded soldiers, particularly those from the International Brigades, from July 1937 to November 1938.

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Today in History

22 June

1954 Parker-Hulme murder in Christchurch

Armed with a brick in a stocking, 16-year-old Pauline Parker and her best friend Juliet Hulme, 15, became two of New Zealand's most notorious murderesses when they killed Pauline's mother, Honora, in Victoria Park, Christchurch.

Entangled in a classic folie-a-deux, the teenagers shared a fantasy world of princes, damsels, heroes and villains. Dreams of Hollywood stardom were threatened when their parents decided the girls' friendship had become obsessive and co-dependant. Plans were afoot for Juliet's family to leave New Zealand.

Their week-long trial was fraught with sensation. Testimony arguing the pair's insanity was rejected. The pair were found guilty, sentenced to indefinite imprisonment, and ordered never to contact each other again.

In a decade when − if the Mazengarb Report is to be believed − teenagers terrorised the nation, this case drew extraordinary attention both here and overseas. It remains one of New Zealand's most infamous murders and lives on in popular culture, having inspired both a play, Michaelanne Forster's Daughters of heaven, and Peter Jackson's Academy Award-nominated film Heavenly creatures.

Image: Parker and Hulme (Chch City Libraries).