Friend of double murderer Daniel Holdom breaks 10-year silence

A man who was under investigation for concealing a double murder has never been charged for failing to come forward, with the case exposing a legal loophole. Dereck Dover is a former friend of Daniel Holdom, who killed young mother Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her daughter Khandalyce.

• ’Look after them’: Friends last words to a killer
• Holdom pleads guilty to murdering of Karlie and Khandalyce

A man who was under investigation for concealing a double murder has never been charged for failing to come forward, with the case exposing a legal loophole.

Dereck Dover is a former friend of Daniel James Holdom, who killed young mother Karlie Pearce-Stevenson in 2008, dumping her body in the Belanglo State Forest.

There is no suggestion Mr Dover had anything to do with the crime and he said this week he was “destroyed” by being linked to the high-profile case.

However, two days after her murder, Holdom got Mr Dover to trade in Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s Holden Commodore for an older model Holden Statesman at a Canberra car yard.

Dereck Dover pictured outside his Canberra house this week.

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Holdom and Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s two-year-old daughter Khandalyce then left the ACT in that car, driving to southwest NSW where he murdered the toddler.

Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase on the side of the Karoonda Highway in South Australia in July, 2015.

Mr Dover, who denies any knowledge of the murders, said: “It shits me to tears that police think I had anything to do with it.”

In 2017, NSW detectives referred evidence to police in the ACT to consider charging Mr Dover with concealing a serious indictable offence. But the case has exposed a legal loophole between ACT and NSW law because the offence doesn’t exist in the national capital.

Today and tomorrow, The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph will reveal new information about the case to mark publication of the book The Lost Girls — The Untold Story Of The Double Murder That Haunted The Nation. It will include details of how police ultimately cracked the case and Holdom’s desperate attempts to falsely lay the blame on Mr Dover.

Holdom, who is now serving two life sentences, was staying with Mr Dover in Canberra’s northern suburbs before the murders. Mr Dover was married to Holdom’s cousin for 16 years.

While police quickly pinpointed career criminal Holdom as a key suspect in, they also scrutinised his associates.

It is not alleged that Mr Dover knew that Ms Pearce-Stevenson, 20, had been murdered or of Holdom’s plans when he traded in the car.

According to court documents, years later Mr Dover told detectives that Holdom had a scratch on his face when he returned from Belanglo State Forest on December 15, 2008, without Ms Pearce-Stevenson.

Mr Dover also recalled Holdom pulling out a blanket from Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s car before cleaning the vehicle.

Approached at his home in Canberra this week, Mr Dover confirmed he never saw the mother and child again after Holdom left his house with them, but denied knowing anything about the murders.

“Definitely not,” he said. “If I knew about it, it would have been dealt with back then.”

According to Mr Dover, Holdom claimed he had Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s car as payment for money she owed him.

online art for lost girls

An undated photo of Dover.

Karlie Pearce-Stevenson who disappeared after leaving Dover’s home with Holdom.

“He came back and I told the cops that he got the car from Karlie because of him supporting her all this time,” he said. “He said he didn’t want the car and to trade it in. He threw the blanket at me that was already rolled up and I threw it out.”

In 2009, following up on a missing persons report regarding Ms Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce, police found Dover’s name on paperwork for the trade-in.

An officer called and asked about the whereabouts of the mother and child.

According to police records, Mr Dover claimed he dropped Ms Pearce-Stevenson at a bus stop in December 2008.

But this week, he told The Sunday Telegraph: “Last thing Holdom said to me is he dropped them off to South Australia or Adelaide and I thought ‘OK their relationship is over’.”

Asked about the conflicting accounts, Mr Dover denied ever telling police he had dropped the young mother at a bus stop.

'The Lost Girls by Ava Benny-Morrison.

Some time later the friends came to blows and Mr Dover said he told Holdom to “get out of Canberra”. He didn’t hear of him again until detectives turned up on his doorstep in 2015.

“They were accusing me of trying to be involved in it and I said, ‘Don’t you dare put me in that category ever’,” he said.

“This has destroyed me knowing he had done that and they were living in my house.”

During his interview with homicide detectives in 2015, Holdom wrongly and desperately attempted to pin the blame for the murders on Mr Dover and offered to go “Crown witness”.

The father-of-five, who is no longer married to Holdom’s cousin, has spoken to detectives on several occasions as part of the murder investigation.

Under NSW law, someone who knows or believes someone has committed a serious crime and doesn’t tell police faces up to two years behind bars. However, there is no equivalent offence in the ACT, where any possible charge against Dover had to be laid.

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Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and daughter Khandalyce.

Daniel James Holdom.

“At the time there was no specific offence in the ACT for knowing about a crime but

failing to report it, such as the NSW offence for concealing a serious indictable offence,” an ACT policing spokesman said.

“A review of all material in relation to possible ACT connections to the murders of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce Pearce in 2008 was conducted in 2017.”

The spokesman said the review “determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge Dereck Dover” with other offences, including accessory after the fact to murder and destroying or concealing evidence.

While attracting seven years jail, the latter offence only applies to a person who “destroys or conceals evidence” with the intention of influencing a decision about starting legal proceedings or their outcome.

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