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Man admits Australia child suitcase murder
SYDNEY, July 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A man pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing
a young mother and her toddler, whose skeleton was found in a suitcase on the
side of a road, ending a case that baffled police and shocked Australians.
Daniel James Holdom, 43, admitted the double murder in 2008 of Karlie Jade
Pearce-Stevenson, then aged 20, and her two-year-old daughter Khandalyce
Kiara Pearce, when he appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Court.
Pearce-Stevenson’s bones were discovered in 2010 in Belanglo State Forest
in New South Wales, notorious as the site where seven backpackers’ bodies
were dumped during a serial killer spree in the 1990s.
Police were unable to identify her until 2015, when her child’s remains
were found by a passerby in a suitcase near a highway close to a small South
Australia town some 1,100 kilometres (684 miles) away.
The child’s discovery prompted two calls to a police hotline that
eventually helped investigators identify the pair through DNA.
Holdom, who had a short relationship with Pearce-Stevenson, allegedly
stamped on her throat and crushed her windpipe before leaving her body in the
forest, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph reported, citing court documents.
Police also alleged he kept photos of Pearce-Stevenson’s body as a
“trophy”.
A few days later, Holdom claimed he was driving her daughter to South
Australia to her grandmother’s house. But he killed her, placed her body in a
suitcase and dumped it alongside the highway.
He will be sentenced in late September.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1157 hrs