They had it all planned. According to published reports of the court proceedings, Parker and Hulme had at first considered bludgeoning the woman with a sandbag, but rejected that in favor of a far more brutal method. Juliet, it was reported, had fetched a half brick from a pile alongside a garage at Ilam. The brick was to be wrapped in a stocking to be used as a cruel cudgel.
The pair had decided that they needed to get Honora Parker to a secluded place, and to that end, prosecutor's alleged, they planned an outing with the woman to Victoria Park, a pleasant mountainside expanse overlooking the city. According to their plan, they would lead the woman on a stroll along a remote stretch of the path, and along the way, Juliet would drop a small pink stone along the path. When Honora stopped to pick it up, Pauline would strike her.
That morning, Pauline wrote with anticipation in her diary. "I felt very excited and the night-before-Christmassy last night. I did not have pleasant dreams, though. I am about to rise."
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| Diary entry, "Day of Happy Event" |
In the days before the killing, the girls apparently tried to lull Honora into a false sense of security, pretending they had come to terms with their pending separation. And on the day of the killings, they played their roles to the hilt, enjoying what Pauline's father would later describe as a pleasant and good-humored lunch at the Rieper house before catching the bus to Cashmere and making the roughly one mile walk to Victoria Park.
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