When bubbly two-year-old Khandalyce Kiara Pearce giggled happily, her mum’s eyes would light up. “Khandles”, as her 20-year-old mother Karlie Pearce-Stevenson affectionately called her, was the apple of her eye.
After having a child so young, the single mum from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory had dreams of finding someone special one day. Then in 2008, Daniel Holdom came into her life.
Friends and family were wary of the man who was considerably older – he had an unnerving presence and a drug problem. Years later, they would find out their worst fears had come true, and Karlie and Khandalyce had been murdered four days apart in December 2008.
Now, almost 15 years on from the tragedy, Holdom is serving two life sentences for the crimes. Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi said, “Both murders fall within the worst case … atrocious, detestable,
