AUTHOR Anne Perry has died at the age of 84 in Los Angeles, her publisher has confirmed.
Perry passed away on April 10 following poor health after suffering a heart attack last December.
She is survived by her brother Jonathan Hulme.
Her literary agent Meg Davis confirmed the death and said in a statement that the author would be remembered for her literary creations.
The statement added that people will treasure her "memorable characters, historical accuracy, the quality of her detective stories, and also for her exploration of social issues.”
The prolific British crime writer had her own dark past revealed in Peter Jackson's movie Heavenly Creatures, released in 1994.
As a teenager, Perry served five years in prison for murdering her friend's mother.
At 15 years old in 1954, Perry and her friend Pauline Parker murdered Pauline's mother in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Honora Mary Parker died after being attacked with a brick and hit approximately 20 times.
During the trial, the court was told that Perry and Parker plotted the murder in a bid to stop Pauline from being sent abroad by her parents, which would have split the girls up.
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Joanne Drayton, Perry's biographer, explained how the trial captured and shocked the nation.
According to Stuff, she said: "The matricide, the betrayal of a daughter by a mother, the lesbianism – homophobia was rife and undoubtedly in the mix – it was looked at with horror and a degree of repugnance."
Following her release from prison, Perry left New Zealand and began her writing career with her new name after giving up her given name Juliet Hulme.
Perry was known as Juliet when she went into prison and ditched it upon her release for a clean slate.
Her first novel was published in 1979, launching her successful career selling over 26million books worldwide.
Journalists managed to track Perry down to her new home in Scotland, where she lived as a devout Mormon.
Drayton said in a telephone interview that while Perry never watched the film about the murder, Heavenly Creatures (1994) starring Kate Winslet, which "turned her life upside down."
She added that it "blew her evolved identity out of the water and she was absolutely terrified."
Drayton spent several days with the author, who she compared to Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote to research her best-selling biography The Search for Anne Perry.
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The London-born novelist reportedly moved to Los Angeles to help turn her novels into movies.
Perry's last novel, The Traitor Among Us, is due to be published in September.
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