Fatal attraction: Day Karlie Pearce-Stevenson met Daniel Holdom

She was occasionally dubbed ‘Mouse’, due to her tiny frame, but Karlie Pearce-Stevenson never liked it. She may have been little, but she was vivacious and adventurous. With a new baby and new partner life was good. Until she met Daniel Holdom.

• ‘This has destroyed me knowing he had done that’

To mark the release of her book The Lost Girls — the untold story of the murders of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her daughter Khandalyce, Sunday Telegraph crime reporter Ava Benny-Morrison tracks down the key players, who have spoken about the heinous crime for the first time. This edited extract tells of the day Karlie met Daniel — the man who would become her lover and her killer.

As a child, she was occasionally dubbed ‘Mouse’, due to her tiny frame, but Karlie Pearce-Stevenson never liked it.

She may have been little, but she was vivacious and adventurous, and made the most of growing up in the Australian outback.

The brown-eyed, sociable little girl came from a loving family, raised by a stepfather who crisscrossed the country in roadtrains with an inquisitive Karlie peering over the dashboard and a mother who became a close friend.

Growing up in Alice Springs, Karlie’s life was quintessentially Australian; weekends were spent in her aunt’s backyard pool, on the netball courts with her cousins or at campsites dotted across the Northern Territory.

She doted over her younger relatives and dreamt of having her own child one day.

That became a reality when Karlie, at the tender age of 17, found out she was pregnant with a little girl.

Khandalyce Kiara Pearce came into the world in 2006 with her mother’s endearing cheekiness and almond-shaped eyes.

As a teenager, Karlie had rebelled against her stepfather’s rules in her family home, left school in year 10 and moved in with her grandmother.

She started a relationship with Robbie Frampton, who adored her and Khandalyce, and they built a home of their own in a caretakers unit at the Alice Springs Speedway.

Life was simple. Then Karlie met Daniel James Holdom.

In late 2007, Robbie Frampton was at work at Prime Cut Meat Supplies when a man he recognised from a car yard down the road walked in and introduced himself.

The man said his name was Daniel Marshall and he was relatively new to town. Did Robbie

know of anyone who smoked marijuana, he asked. Daniel had been sourcing drugs from a warehouse in Adelaide, driving the haul back to Alice Springs in Central Australia and selling it for an impressive profit.

His customer base wasn’t bad but he could see there was more money to be made.

The two men became friendly, and Robbie came to learn that Daniel had spent the past several months travelling around Australia in a caravan with his partner, Hazel, his stepkids, Willow and Ryan, and daughter Lauryn.

They’d settled in Alice Springs in search of work.

When they first came to town, they’d stayed at the Stuart Park Caravan and Cabin Tourist Park across the road from Araluen Park.

Daniel had picked up work at a used car yard and a mechanic’s workshop until he’d earned enough income for the family to upgrade from the caravan park to a two-bedroom apartment and finally a townhouse.

Daniel appeared to have taken on the role of father to Willow, Ryan and Lauryn, but Robbie felt that he didn’t treat Hazel with as much care.

Nevertheless, eventually Robbie started taking his girlfriend Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her young daughter Khandalyce with him when he went to visit Daniel at home.

Growing up Karlie Pearce-Stevenson was occasionally dubbed “Mouse”.

Karlie was introduced to Daniel Holdom — who went by the name Daniel Marshall — by her boyfriend in late 2007.

Khandals and Lauryn were about the same age and they’d play together in the backyard.

When Karlie and Robbie’s bathroom was being renovated, Karlie would shower at Hazel and Daniel’s house, and afternoons were spent in the backyard as their daughters played.

A couple of times a month Daniel would take off to Adelaide on a drug run and return with a haul of cannabis to sell around Alice Springs.

He was usually discreet with his earnings but occasionally he’d proudly lay out the fifty dollar notes on the kitchen bench in front of Robbie and Karlie. And then there were the drugs.

While Hazel only smoked marijuana, Daniel was into the hard stuff — ecstasy and speed.

It was a world Karlie had never explored but as she came to associate with Daniel and Hazel more and more in mid to late 2008, she began to pick up their habits.

It is with the benefit of hindsight that Robbie can say he had a feeling something was developing between Daniel and Karlie.

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Years later, as he reflected on the signs of deceit, he still chose his words carefully, reluctant to speak ill of the girl he loved.

He remembered in 2008 turning up unannounced at home, in between deliveries for work, and finding Daniel’s car parked in the driveway.

There were also text messages on Karlie’s phone from Daniel, thanking her for a ‘great time’, about which Robbie had no idea. However, despite his niggling suspicions, Robbie chose to believe that Karlie wouldn’t go behind his back and kept quiet.

According to Robbie, it was around this time that Karlie, influenced heavily by Daniel, moved from smoking cannabis to using methamphetamines, commonly known as ice.

On 16 September 2008, Robbie woke to an alarming text message from Daniel on his phone. Daniel said he’d been in a bad car accident and needed Robbie to come to Alice Springs Hospital. In the hospital emergency department, Robbie found Daniel inconsolable.

Karlie’s mother Colleen Povey and her friend Tanya Webber.

Apparently, Daniel had been driving in the middle of the night from Alice Springs to Adelaide when he’d swerved to avoid a kangaroo and had lost control of the car.

Willow and Ryan, who had been in the back seat, were dead and Hazel, who had to be airlifted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, was in a bad way. Like Daniel, Lauryn had survived with minor injuries.

Over the following weeks, Daniel travelled between Alice Springs and Adelaide to see Hazel in hospital, and Robbie watched as his drug use spiralled out of control.

Around the same time, Robbie felt Karlie growing more distant and their relationship began to buckle.

Then, in late October 2008, they had an argument that ended in Karlie telling her boyfriend she wanted to leave him.

When Robbie returned home from work later that day he found their apartment empty.

A note from Karlie informed him their relationship was over.

While the warning signs had been there, Robbie felt blindsided; he’d figured they loved each other enough to get through whatever issues they had.

He raced around to Karlie’s grandmother Connie’s house in search of Karlie but she wasn’t there.

Then he went to her stepfather and mother Scott and Colleen’s place but Karlie wasn’t there either.

Finally, he spotted Karlie’s car at a friend’s house in town.

On the windscreen of the maroon-coloured 1996 Holden Commodore station wagon that Scott and Colleen had given Karlie, Robbie left a heartfelt letter. He never got a response.

Holdom started a relationship with Karlie, much to her family’s disapproval.

Holdom’s partner Hazel Passmore, who he was cheating on with Karlie. Picture: Simon Cross

Karlie returned to stay at Connie’s house.

Her family were as perplexed as Robbie as to why she’d left him. He seemed like a nice, decent bloke and someone who genuinely cared for Karlie and Khandals.

One night, as they sat around Connie’s dining table, her aunt Ray asked Karlie what had happened. ‘I just don’t love him anymore,’ Karlie said with a shrug of her shoulders.

The family were also worried about the change in Karlie’s physical appearance.

She’d always been naturally small and slender; when she was little, her mum and aunties would tie her underwear in a knot to ensure it stayed on her tiny hips while she ran around playing.

But towards the end of 2008, Karlie’s slight frame alarmed even those closest to her.

‘Are you on drugs?’ an unapologetic Ray asked once.

Karlie had scoffed at the idea, but tried to put her aunt’s mind at ease.

‘No, Aunty Ray,’ she replied with a subtle eye roll.

‘I smoke a joint every now and again but that’s it.’

‘I’m not talking about that,’ Ray pressed. ‘You’re so skinny. You’ve lost so much weight.’

The concern seemed lost on Karlie, who lightheartedly assured Ray there was nothing to worry about.

‘I promise, Aunty Ray, I’ve always looked like this,’ she said.

Karlie loved and was utterly devoted to her daughter Khandalyce Kiara Pearce.

Subtle changes in Karlie’s behaviour were also fuelling her family’s suspicions about her drug abuse.

One day she’d be her normal, happy self and the next she’d be moody and agitated.

Once, at Colleen and Scott’s, a cup of coffee had fallen from Karlie’s shaking hands and she’d glanced at her stepdad sheepishly.

Her pupils had been as big as saucepans, Scott recalled.

In November 2008, Karlie dropped by Colleen’s workplace, Territory Surgical Supplies, to see her mother and to use her work computer.

A post on social media hinted at her buoyant mood. Karlie Stevenson ‘is being very bored trying to work this all out.! Xoxoxo’, the Facebook post read in a reference to trying to navigate the new social media platform.

Colleen wasn’t in her office when Karlie visited that day, but she returned to her desk to find a bunch of flowers and a note: ‘To Mum, love KJ xo’.

A day or two later, Karlie and Khandalyce dropped by Colleen and Scott’s home with a man whom Karlie introduced as Daniel.

Colleen Povey immediately felt uneasy about the stranger.

Lovey's Deli in Alice Springs where Karlie worked for five weeks. Pic Mark Brake

He didn’t seem to be her daughter’s type but it was difficult to tell whether they were just friends or something more.

Colleen hoped it was the former. As she talked to her daughter, Colleen couldn’t take her eyes off the tall, brooding man.

The deep lines etched in his forehead made him appear older than his thirty-four years.

He avoided eye contact and muttered only a few words; it seemed like he wanted to get the pleasantries over and done with as quickly as possible.

Tanya arrived. The man took two steps up to the patio, shook her hand without looking her in the eye, then retreated again.

As the three women chatted, he stood by himself watching Khandalyce, dressed in a pair of silk boxer shorts in the sweltering Northern Territory heat, run around the backyard with a toy pram.

The little girl was just like her mother had been as a child; energetic, happy and fascinated by anything to do with babies.

When the man yelled at Khandalyce for running around the entertainment area, it didn’t sit well with Colleen, and she had to bite her tongue.

This bloke barely knew the family; who was he to be dishing out fatherly discipline?

'The Lost Girls' written by Ava Benny-Morrison.

Colleen expected Karlie to pull him up on his behaviour, but Karlie didn’t react. Karlie had other things on her mind, and she announced that she was going on a trip to Adelaide with the man and Khandalyce the following day.

In fact, it would be the second trip Karlie was to make to South Australia in a month.

She’d gone south with Daniel in late October, a few days after breaking up with Robbie.

But Colleen and Tanya knew nothing about that trip.

According to Scott, Colleen sensed that something wasn’t right and asked Karlie to leave Khandalyce with her this time.

While Colleen trusted her twenty-year-old daughter to make the best decisions for Khandals, there was something unsettling about this man that made her insist on keeping the toddler in Alice Springs.

But Karlie refused to leave without her daughter and Colleen had no other choice but to accept her decision.

Dressed in a camouflage skirt, a white cotton halter top and a red jacket, Karlie smoked in silence, sharing an ashtray with Colleen and Tanya. She seemed sullen and stressed, like something was on her mind.

No longer was she the giggling, sociable young woman her family knew and loved.

Soon it was time for them to leave.

As Karlie walked out the front door of her family home that day, she stopped to hug her mum and Tanya goodbye.

Years later, Tanya would recall wrapping her arms around Karlie and Khandalyce and wishing them safe travels to South Australia.

The stranger, still skittish and avoiding eye contact, followed the girls out the door towards Karlie’s car, which was parked in the driveway.

Tanya stopped him. ‘Look after them,’ she said.

This is an edited extract from The Lost Girls. $32.99. Available Thursday May 2. Published by ABC Books (an imprint of HarperCollins).