




Commit murder, on prison release write successful murder mysteries. Almost a cliché of truth stranger than —. But the background story of Anne Perry’s folie a deux with her childhood friend, Pauline Parker, which ended in the brutal death of Parker’s mother when both were fifteen is even stranger.
Living in New Zealand, the two school girls formed an intense bond which included an elaborate fantasy life about which they wrote plays and books. They invented their own personal religion, with their own ideas on morality, rejected Christianity and worshipped their own saints, envisioning a parallel dimension called The Fourth World, essentially their version of Heaven, which offered spiritual enlightenment. By their account, they achieved this spiritual enlightenment because of their friendship. Perry would become ill and withdrawn if Parker was not with her.
Perry’s parents ran into difficulties and decided to leave New Zealand. Heartbroken at the prospect of being separated, the teenagers decided that killing Parker’s mother would allow them to be together. Their long term plan was to head to Hollywood or New York City, where they would publish their writing and work in film.
They bludgeoned her over the head with a brick twenty times, were caught and sentenced to five years imprisonment and never saw each other again. Perry lived in the USA, became a Mormon, moved to Scotland, started publishing award-winning murder mysteries in her forties and her background only became known when Peter Jackson’s 1994 well-received film Heavenly Creatures was released in 1994 when she was in her late fifties.
Anne Perry born 28 October 1938 was a Sun Scorpio square Pluto; with Mercury, North Node also in Scorpio opposition Uranus conjunct the South Node square Jupiter in Aquarius. Certainly intense and controlling/possessive but not short of confidence with a focal point Jupiter.
When the murder was committed on 22 June 1954, tr Pluto was on the opposition to her Jupiter pumping up her boldness to a degree where she felt she couldn’t lose; with her Solar Arc Pluto square her North Node exactly (tugging on her Mercury opposition Uranus).
Pauline Parker, 28 May 1938, was a Sun Gemini with Mercury, Moon, Uranus in Taurus and her South Node also in Taurus was conjunct Algol. When the murder took place her Mars in Gemini was being stoked up by tr Neptune trine and tr Pluto sextile; with an exact head-in the-clouds Solar Arc Jupiter opposition Neptune. And tr Pluto heading to square her North Node in the aftermath.
Their synastry, without birth times, is not noteworthy. But their relationship chart is. There was an over-confident composite Sun opposition Jupiter square North Node, which was being ramped up to boundless proportions in 1954 by tr Pluto magnifying the effect. The composite Sun was was in a competitive, over-excitable conjunction to Mars and square Uranus, provoking them to seek thrills and excitement. Venus was in an illusory, can-be-delusional, spiritual-yearnings conjunction to Neptune in a wide yod to Saturn sextile Mercury. A fated connection.
Pluto in hard aspect to the North Node either by transit or Solar Arc repeats in these instances – dark Lord of the underworld clashing with the spirit of the age. It also recurs in a recent modern murder case – but that is still on trial so will have to wait a dissection.
Gemini and Scorpio seem an odd combination but is often found in thrill-seeking partnerships, where Gemini’s wish to walk on the dark side chimes with Scorpio’s depths.