Update: Murder case of Chinchilla toddler Kaydence Mills subject of Supreme Court application

The murder case of a two-year-old girl, who was dead for years before anyone noticed she was missing, is getting closer to being heard before court. Here’s why it’s being held up.

Kaydence Mills murder, investigation photos from Burbank Street/Inverai Road home in Chinchilla, on the Western Downs. Picture: News Regional Media/Peta McEachern and supplied

A regional Queensland judge has set a tentative time frame for when the murder case of missing two-year-old girl Kaydence Mills will be heard before a court.

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warned that the following article contains images of the deceased.

It has been almost a decade since the Chinchilla toddler was last seen alive, seven years since her death, and four years since her remains were found on the banks of the Condamine River.

Chinchilla toddler Kaydence Mills was known to the Department of Child Safety.

Investigators charged the little girl’s mother Sinitta Dawita, 32, and stepfather Tane Desatge, 44, with a number of offences including murder, torture, and interfering with a corpse.

The couple were arrested and charged when the child’s skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave at the Chinchilla Weir in early March 2020.

A few months prior, a crime scene was declared at the pair’s Chinchilla rental on the corner of Burbank St and Inverai Rd.

In December 2019 officers from the State Crime Command declared the child’s home a crime scene and dug up the floor of a laundry.

An application to trial the pair separately is before the Toowoomba Supreme Court, which was submitted by Mr Desatge’s legal team.

It was mentioned before the court on Friday, June 7.

Tane Desatge and Sinitta Mills moved to the Western Downs from north Queensland a year or so before Kaydence was last seen alive.

Barrister Frank Martin said the multifaceted application submitted that Mr Desatge’s trial was at risk of prejudice.

“My submission is that the combined effect of all the prejudicial evidence is such that no direction from the trial judge could cure the prejudice he faces,” he said.

The Crown disagreed.

Kaydence’s remains were found near the Chinchilla Weir, which supplies the towns water.

Both parties relied on their written submissions, which were not read into the public record.

The application is currently being considered by Justice Martin Burns, who noted it was the “last sort of case that you want to be separating, but there will be exceptions to that rule”.

He said he needed time to consider the application and would hand down his judgment before an open court in the coming week.

“I need to give it my sole attention,” he said.

The court was told if the pair were trialled together, it was likely to occur in July 2024.