CRIME author Anne Perry, who was jailed as a teenager for murdering her friend's mother, has died at the age of 84, her agent has confirmed.

The writer - who was famed for her Pitt and Monk detective novel series, alongside her dark past that was turned into the Oscar-nominated Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures - died on Monday in Los Angeles, where she had been living. Previously, she lived in Scotland.

In 1954 at the age of 15, Perry, who was born Juliet Hulme, was convicted along with her friend Pauline Parker of murder.

The pair had bludgeoned Parker's mother to death with a brick in a stocking in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming two of the country's most notorious killers.

The events would later be the inspiration behind Jackson's 1994 psychological drama, starring Kate Winslet in a break-out role and Melanie Lynskey, and received an Academy Award nomination for screenplay writing.

As both Perry and Parker were under 18 at the time of the killing, neither could be sentenced to death and they were instead subject to "detention during Her Majesty's pleasure", according to the New Zealand government website.

After serving a five-year prison sentence, Perry was released and changed her name, returning to the UK and later beginning her writing career.

Perry successfully rebuild her life and she would become one of Britain's wealthiest and most successful authors. In the early 1990s she settled in a striking, four-bedroom property on the outskirts of the peaceful Easter Ross fishing village of Portmahomack.

But in 1994, upon the release of the film Perry was targeted there by tabloid journalists. The sequestered and secluded world she had built for herself, her family and extended family of close friends fell apart.

In March 2002 Perry, then aged 63, was interviewed at her home by The Herald. The interviewer observed that for almost half a century she had lived with the knowledge that she was never going to escape the shackles of her past.

Perry asked, wearily: ''Do you think the day will ever come when I am judged for my work alone, when newspapers will want to write about me simply because I have written all these books people want to buy and love reading? Will I ever be judged for what I am and not for what I was?''

Of the murder itself she said: ''It was all such a long time ago. Nations have fallen since I was a 15-year-old girl.''

She said she could not understand why people would wish to be spectators at the tragedy of others. ''I have no interest in gazing on other people's misery.''

When asked: ''Do you remember?'' she replied: ''Of course I don't remember anything about it because I was so very ill at the time. Why would I choose to remember?''

Perry was a sickly child, who suffered from chest trouble, and at the time of the killing was being treated experimentally with drugs, which have since been removed from the market.

In a 1997 interview she said her time in prison had been "unimaginably awful ... It was just ghastly. I didn't think anyone cared.''

A statement from Ki Agency today said: "Anne was a loyal and loving friend, and her writing was driven by her fierce commitment to raising awareness around social injustice.

"Many readers have been moved by her empathy for people backed into impossible situations, or overwhelmed by the difficulties of life.

"Her characters inspired much love among her fans, and comforted many readers who were going through tough times themselves."

Perry's writing career began with the publishing of The Cater Street Hangman in 1979, the first in a series of books featuring Victorian policeman, Thomas Pitt, and his wife, Charlotte.

She had this month released another novel in the sequence called The Fourth Enemy and in 2017 released 21 Days, which follows the couple's son, Daniel.

Perry's second series of crime novels revolve around private detective William Monk and the volatile nurse, Hester Latterly.

In 2000, she won the Edgar Award, which celebrates mystery novel writers, with Heroes, a short story about a murder that takes place in the trenches during the First World War.

Prior to her death, she had been working on more titles in both the Pitt and Monk series and her works have regularly appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Perry was born in Blackheath, London, in October 1938, and moved first to the Bahamas at the age of eight before originally settling in New Zealand.

She said on her website that she had been fostered as a child due to illness and missed a lot of school as a result.

Perry, who would return to the UK when she was in her 20s to live in Hexham, Northumberland, was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

She would also publish the mystical novels, Come Armageddon and Tathea.

Perry, who has also lived in southern California, is survived by her brother Dr Jonathan Hulme and his family.