This one has haunted me for years... There's movie called Heavenly Creatures staring Kate Winslet based on a true story of two teenage girls who premeditate and murder the mother of one of the girls. Both girls were convicted. One of them, Juliet Hulme, later joined the church, changed her name to Anne Perry and became a well known writer.

I saw her on 20/20 years ago explaining how she and her friend murdered her friend's mother, did time, and then she converted to Mormonism and was forgive for her sin. I find it soooo disturbing!

Here are the links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Perry
http://www.anneperry.net/aboutanne

Here's how the church publications portray her life story. A crime fiction writer who deplores violence. No mention of the murder she committed. The Holy Ghost must have washed away the murder. What the Holy Ghost erases, did not happen.

http://lds.org/ensign/1984/01/anne-perry-lds-british-novelist-with-a-commitment-to-morality?lang=eng

Makurosu Wrote:
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> n/t

I bet she DID masturbate. AND drank tea at the same time!

If you're a Mormon. Actually, we used to have a baptism interview questions, and people could not be baptized without permission from the mission president if they had been involved in abortion or murder. I guess whats-her-name got permission.

>>>and people could not be baptized without permission from the mission president if they had been involved in abortion or murder.


Since my prior girlfriend had undergone an abortion, my TBM girlfriend discussed its implications with the bishop before my baptism. No problemo - the abortion was dismissed as unimportant since it predated my impending baptism.

The morg wants tithe-payers ...

>murder the mother of one of the girls...

I happen to be one of those people who do believe in
redemption --- that it is possible for a criminal to
undergo such a life-changing experience, as to truly
be a "new person."

I do not know how frequent such a life-change might be;
perhaps it is a rare thing and many claims for it are
actually devious falsehoods. But I believe it happens.

Whether or not my belief is factual, its basic premise
is interwoven into Christianity, going back at least
as far as Saul/Paul, who claimed redemption and a huge
life-change. That may be true history, or perhaps not;
but whatever the case may be, the tenet of being "born
again" lies at the base of Christianity.

How should society look at the criminal who professes
not only sorrow for his/her crimes, but an entire
change of heart, in regard to the rights of other
people? An entire change of belief -- say, from a
skinhead racist, to a toleration-preaching good citizen?

UD

I saw the movie, what a horrible crime. I also researched the case after I saw it. Those girls sure got off easy. I don't think the LDS church should have ran a story on Perry. Puke. I do wonder if the Ensign knew about the murder. I read somewhere that they don't fact check well. I think most of their magazine stories are made up.

is a sub plot where the girls read the first four chapters of the BOM & find the murder of Laban to be absolutley exhilarating, then get baptized, then do their geneaology to discover they are long lost direct descendents of Joe Blood Lust Smith & Brigham Young.

As my name implies, I'm an ex-convict. When I was 21, I committed an armed robbery and subsequently served eight and a half years in South Carolina's Department of Corrections. During my incarceration I had ample time to think about what I'd done, the way my crimes had hurt others, the impact that my actions had on my friends and family. I lost a fiancée while I was there, and lost the respect and the close relationship that I had with my family before I went to prison. I went in at 21, I was released at the age of 30. I watched the best years of my life, the years that I was supposed to better myself and become productive in life, wash down the drain. I have no one to blame but myself; I committed the crime, I was sentenced justly, and I had to accept my punishment.

Here's the thing, right. When I was back there I realized that I didn't like the person I'd been up until that point. I determined that I would never be that person again. I started teaching GED courses in the prisons, I taught literacy programs in the units after the schools were closed. I've gotten out and I continue to talk to ex-convicts who get out of prison and need the ear of someone who understands what they've been through. I've re-established a good and loving relationship with my immediate family and many of my extended family.

It just dawned on me that I'm sitting and writing this on the nine-year anniversary of the day that I was arrested. On December 3, 2001 I was in handcuffs in a detention center waiting to be processed. Now, on December 3, 2010 I can tell you all that I am a totally different person. My family has forgiven me, as has my victim. My question to you, Cristina, is this: what's so hard to accept about forgiveness? Granted, armed robbery is not murder, but the point still stands.

I'm only posting this to say that people do change. The proof is in how those people live. You can say anything you want in any forum you want but if you don't live what you say then you're a liar. Plain and simple. This lady came forward about her past and everything that was shown in her life that I can find indicated a change of heart. I guess all I can say is that if you've never been in this position of having been forgiven of something terrible then you have no means of understanding. Please try to examine your willingness to accept people despite their pasts.

"Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." (Luke 7:47)

Have to keep in mind she joined the church in the 70's when the church actually served the members and gave them a positive outlet for personal expression.

I don't see anything wrong with publishing an article that focused on her accomplishments. Her past is known and she hasn't tried to cover it up. She openly talked about it and gave interviews. Any mention of this murder would have totally overshadowed the purpose of the article, which was to highlight her accomplishments.

In the LDS church, one is excommunicated when convicted of murder. Fine. Makes good sense. But when a murderer dies, he or she can be re-baptised by proxy, which makes no sense. If you go to www.famousdeadmormons.com, you can see there are several serial murderers that were baptised "for the dead." Even Mormon serial murderer Ted Bundy was re-baptised. John Wayne Gacey was baptised. And to add real insult, Adolf Hitler was baptised by the Mormons after his death, although they eventually removed the accessible record of that because of the understandable embarrassment of people finding on-line.

A large mistake in America's detention system is the general belief by many that rehabilitation is not possible or not worth the money.

They excommunicate people who are convicted of murder?! I personally find that horrible--the church (mine, at least) is for sinners, not for saints. Those who have committed grevious sins are MORE in need of guidance as they repent and are redeemed than anyone; to cast them out as unfit to commune with is cruel, incompassionate and judgemental in the extreme.

That aside--one thing I know for damn sure--whatever power the Mormon church thinks it has through nonsense rituals, it's fooling itself. The only real forgiveness, the only real redemption, comes from God and the persons wronged.

You said it yourself, the victims have forgiven you. Victims of murder do not have that opportunity. Absolutely everything was taken away from them.

The victims do not get a second chance.

Christianity at its core is about repentance, personal transformation, and forgiveness. Any Christian church that teaches or practices otherwise is not worthy of the name.

I think that forgiveness stems from understanding and compassion. If you are the victim, you have to be at a point where you can have enough emotional space from the offense to look at your transgressor more dispassionately, in order to understand what brought him or her to the point of offending you. The transgressor has to repent of the wrongdoing, and make some sort of amends to the victim and/or society -- even if it's just a very sincere, "I'm sorry. I now know that what I did was wrong, and I will never do that again."

But as you know, forgiveness and trust are two different things. Trust, whether it's from your family or the larger society, is built back very slowly. From the larger society, it will never be 100% (as an example, there are certain lines of work that will forever be closed to you.) But that doesn't mean that a former offender can't live a highly productive, happy, fulfilled life with many creative possibilities open to that person.

as the woman and her friend were basically, children. We generally (not always) don't hold children to the same level of responsibility as we do adults.

I've seen several cases where children kill a parent, or parents.
I'm sure we all have.

How and why that happens is unfathomable to many of us.
I'm a strong believer in change, especially when the criminal behavior happened when the person is young, or relatively young and the person goes on to live a productive life

.

I'm actually going to step in here and defend Miss Perry.

I'm a junior working on my undergrad in psychology. I just studied conduct disorders for a class last month.

There are multiple types of conduct disorder. There is Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which typically manifests at a young age. Only about 25% of kids with ODD go on to develop full-blown Conduct Disorder.

Now, not every teenager with Conduct Disorder will come to develop Anti-Social Personality Disorder (the legal term is "psychopathy"). A lot of them do grow out of it. What can and does happen at times, is that these kids meet up with someone who is a true psychopath, and they develop whats call "Adolescent limited" Conduct Disorder.

Its possible this is what happened to Ann. Its very possible that she was a mentally ill teenager who met the wrong person and was manipulated into committing a murder that she would never have been capable of completing on her own.

She was lucky, in my eyes. She got a 2nd chance. In my opinion, too many kids out there have had their lives destroyed because the law is so over eager to send them to jail instead of helping. Once they get into the prison system, those antisocial tendencies get cemented, and we make them criminals for the rest of their lives.

Let me be clear, too, I'm not condoning murder.

I find her case very fascinating. I thought it happened through the older girl's manipulation as well, but apparently it was the culmination of their relationship together.

Both grew up with childhood illnesses that left them isolated and alone before they met. They were both highly imaginative and created a fictional version of real life that they existed in together, excluded everyone else and they believed was real. It even went so far as for them to both reject Christianity, inventing their own religion. They created a type of heaven in which they could enter a parallel universe together through their relationship. Both believed they had done this before a couple of times.

The parents of the girls, being heavily Catholic, became concerned that they were actually lesbian lovers and decided to separate them. This pending separation was so traumatic for them that they became desperate. The other girl's mother became the focus of their delusions and paranoia about being separated. They believed if they got her out of the way nothing could stop them from being together.

The other girl planned the murder to look like an accident. She would strike her mother over the head with a bag full of bricks, then they would run for help saying her mother had fallen. Once the other girl attacked it became apparent that killing her was not as easy as they had planned. It took a total of 45 blows to kill her, with Anne taking over at some point with the thought that she had to choose between her friend and her friend's mother.

At the time of the murder they had no remorse, but by the end of their sentence, after being separated for over five years they grew to realize the gravity of their crime. Neither had any contact with each other after their release, and her friend eventually moved to England to work for the Catholic church in a youth program. BOTH have said they regret what they did, and say it was a grievous mistake.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2010 05:13PM by vhainya.

vhainya Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I find her case very fascinating. I thought it
> happened through the older girl's manipulation as
> well, but apparently it was the culmination of
> their relationship together.
>
> Both grew up with childhood illnesses that left
> them isolated and alone before they met. They
> were both highly imaginative and created a
> fictional version of real life that they existed
> in together, excluded everyone else and they
> believed was real. It even went so far as for
> them to both reject Christianity, inventing their
> own religion. They created a type of heaven in
> which they could enter a parallel universe
> together through their relationship. Both
> believed they had done this before a couple of
> times.
>
> The parents of the girls, being heavily Catholic,
> became concerned that they were actually lesbian
> lovers and decided to separate them. This pending
> separation was so traumatic for them that they
> became desperate. The other girl's mother became
> the focus of their delusions and paranoia about
> being separated. They believed if they got her
> out of the way nothing could stop them from being
> together.
>
> The other girl planned the murder to look like an
> accident. She would strike her mother over the
> head with a bag full of bricks, then they would
> run for help saying her mother had fallen. Once
> the other girl attacked it became apparent that
> killing her was not as easy as they had planned.
> It took a total of 45 blows to kill her, with Anne
> taking over at some point with the thought that
> she had to choose between her friend and her
> friend's mother.
>
> At the time of the murder they had no remorse, but
> by the end of their sentence, after being
> separated for over five years they grew to realize
> the gravity of their crime. Neither had any
> contact with each other after their release, and
> her friend eventually moved to England to work for
> the Catholic church in a youth program. BOTH have
> said they regret what they did, and say it was a
> grievous mistake.

From what I read you are right except that neither family was particularly religious.Neither was devout Catholic. Pauline's mother was actually living with a man she wasn't married to. The parents were concerned about a lesbian relationship, but in 1954 most parents, religious or not, would have felt that way. At the time, homosexuality was looked on as a mental illness.Anne denies that homosexuality was involved although she admits they were obssessed with each other. Both girls later became religious. Anne became Mormon and Pauline became Catholic. I read several articles online after I read this thread. Interesting case and I do agree that people can change. The lady was 14 or 15 when the crime occured. She is in her 70s now and hasn't reoffended.

Interesting. Thank you for this. I was reading this thread before I went to class this morning, so I didn't have time to read the articles on Ms. Perry before I posted.

Bottom line-If you can commit murder OF YOUR OWN MOTHER OR HELP TO DO SO, there is no help for restitution of this action. If a cult decides to "forgive" does not mean a pile of SH**. Would you trust Ted Bundy if you saw him "in the spirit world" Hell NO! So, why would any sane person say forgiveness and trust a person who murdered another just to see if they WON'T DO IT AGAIN??? WHAT ABOUT CHILD MOLESTERS/RAPISTS???. WISE UP YOU DO GOODERS AND PUT YOUR ENERGY TO PUT THESE PEOPLE SIX FEET UNDER WHICH IS WHERE THEY BELONG (THEY WILL END UP IN HELL ANYWAY)!

I disagree with you that those who have made mistakes, even horrible, evil, malevolent mistakes, are worthless and should lose any right to love and forgiveness.

Of course Jesus showed us how to treat each other with forgiveness, which may or may not hold any meaning for you depending on your beliefs.

If you're not interested in Jesus' teachings, you would still find, if you did some reading on this topic, of how powerful a force redemption is, and how it changes the lives of both the forgiven and the forgiving.

I'm pretty sure that they're in a hell of their own making, npangel. Of course, this begs the question: since you obviously believe in judgement and the afterlife, would you want to get judged with the same intensity that you're showing to judge them? I'm pretty sure you'd want some mercy and grace for those areas of your life that you haven't told anyone about and that you don't want anyone finding out about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2010 02:32PM by xcon601.

... the fact that she is "fully repentant" -- and yet her LIVELIHOOD is based on messages of murder and mayhem.

Tell me this: Can a child molester be considered fully recovered if he/she obsesses over childp0rn?

Crime novels typically end with the murderer being caught and often focus on the impact of the crime.

Once again, parallels are being drawn that don't need to be. Sitting and looking at porn is seeking sexual gratification vicariously, by wishing you were in the position of one or more of the participants, or by fixing the object of the pornography as a sexual fantasy. That's obsessing over something that doesn't need to be obsessed over.

In her books, she addresses crime as something that needs to be solved and handled. She's not glorifying the crime, she's not encouraging it, she's not excusing it. She's not living vicariously through her work; I'd be willing to bet that she's attempting a catharsis of her past through her writings.

Why is forgiveness such a difficult concept to come to grips with? We expect forgiveness to be given when we ask for it, yet we're quite reluctant to give it or acknowledge it when it's asked for.

Regardless of theology, surely a murderer (or any wrong-doer) can sincerely regret and atone to some degree for crimes committed.

But as to murder, Mormon teachings are contradictory. Can a murderer be forgiven by repentence and baptism?

* BoM 3 Nephi 30:2, Alma 39:6 (also the Bible at Matthew 12:31, Jeremiah 33:8) say that murder is forgivable.

Joseph Smith said: "All sins, and all blasphemies, and every transgression, except one, that man can be guilty of, may be forgiven; and there is a salvation for all men, either in this world or the world to come,... unless he has committed that unpardonable sin [the sin against the Holy Ghost]..." JoD 6:8 (the "King Follett Discourse")

BUT:

* D&C 42:18 says murder is not forgivable.

Joseph Smith said: "A murderer, for instance, one that sheds innocent blood, cannot have forgiveness... They [can] not be baptized for the remission of sins for they [have] shed innocent blood." TJS 339

Thanks for pointing that out. I think there are other teachings by BY as well stating the only way to to be forgiven of murder is through blood atonement. I'm too lazy to look up references though. Maybe someone else will.

That makes a great deal of sense. :o/\

I wasn't implying there is never any redemption for a person for crimes committed. Though I do make great distinction between crimes of murder or rape that harm someone to such an extent there can be no real "restitution" and those of property. (And I mean in this life which is the only one that matters for these purposes.) You can't just "do time" to pay for something as heinous as murdering someone. No amount of time or repenting or getting GEDs or accomplishments restores that person's life or undoes the suffering they experienced.

But my point was a doctrinal hypocrisy. That a church can say through an ordinance that the person has been forgiven, the crime washed clean, and that it is as if it NEVER HAPPENED. The Holy Ghost erases it. Yet the murdered person was still murdered!

No one on this earth has any real power to know for sure whether this person has "repented" and an ordinance that states as a fact that the person has been washed clean of murder is prone to create the very kind of personality disorders that allow people to murder and then go on their way focused on magnifying their talents, so to speak. Narcissism, in my opinion.

I am bothered by the Mormon doctrine that the way to deal with inconvenient facts is to make them go away rather than integrate them.

Personally I don't believe conduct or personality disorders are mental illnesses like an organic brain illness. (Which would include children so severely neglected and maltreated like Russian orphans whose brain structures are affected.) They are character choices mainly, in my opinion, choices on how to respond to deprivations of the kinds we have all faced in this hard world, which lead to a certain organization of the personality just like the rest of us make choices that cause a certain organization of our personalities. Some people have given empathy, conscience, and the well being of others low priority in the way they have structured and organized their personality. Its a disorder because the rest of us don't order our personalities that way not because it happened to them without their involvement.

Joseph Smith is a good example of a malignant narcissist who cared nothing at all about others. All such people have a disorder--a disorder they created.

Some crimes are yours for life. Baptism has no moral power to wipe the slate clean. She's a murderer today as she was the day before she got baptized. She may say she has repented. I hope she has changed. Maybe she has. But she's still a murderer.

But this is exactly how the Catholic church and Mormon church has dealt with child molesters. They confessed and repented, therefore just pretend they are normal members of the flock/priesthood, conceal the information from others, and let them roam freely sharing their many gifts and talents....

I think that her culpability can be debated until we are all blue in the face. My question is, however, why would the church hold her up as a novelist with a "COMMITMENT TO MORALITY"???!!!

WTF

It does not bother me that she was allowed to join the church and it doesn't bother me that she is considered forgiven. It would bother me if she had been denied membership because of her past. After all, churches are supposed to be for everyone and Jesus said that the well have no need of a physician. However, the it does bother me that the church holds her up as an example of moral rectitude without mentioning her past. Either they don't know or they are hiding it.If they had given the whole story and held her up as an example of how people can change, that would have been honest. If the lady didn't want it dredged up again, they should have just let it be and not written a story about her at all



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2010 03:42PM by bona dea.