Hazel Passmore’s new life after lover convicted of double murder

She harboured her lover Daniel James Holdom’s secrets for years but Hazel Passmore is now living a new life in north Queensland — thanks to a $1m payout and a deal cut with prosecutors over the murders of a young mother and daughter.

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She harboured her boyfriend Daniel James Holdom’s horrific secret for years and profited from his murders.

Now Hazel Passmore is living a new life in north Queensland after receiving a lucrative payout from a devastating car crash caused by Holdom.

As revealed in The Lost Girls — the untold story of the double murder that haunted the nation and detailed exclusively in The Sunday Telegraph — Passmore uprooted her life in suburban Adelaide after providing police an induced statement that detailed the confessions Holdom, 44, made during their volatile relationship.

Hazel Passmore at her north Queensland property this week.

Holdom was late last year sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment for the murders of Alice Springs mother Karlie Pearce-Stevenson, 20, and her daughter Khandalyce, 2.

The mother and child were killed days apart in December, 2008, and dumped in different states. But they weren’t identified until 2015 in a sensational breakthrough that uncovered the theft of Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s identity to steal her money and pretend she was alive and a group of people loyal to Holdom who kept quiet.

In September 2008, Passmore and her three children were passengers in a car Holdom was driving from Alice Springs to Adelaide when it crashed.

Two of Passmore’s children were killed and Passmore suffered horrific injuries that left her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

When she woke from a coma weeks later and discovered Holdom was with Ms Pearce-Stevenson, Passmore was livid.

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Passmore speaking to major crime detectives in 2015.

Passmore was in a relationship with Holdom, who cheated on her with Karlie Pearce-Stevenson.

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Unpublished transcripts of police interviews reveal Holdom, after killing Ms Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce, returned to live with Passmore after she filed a lawsuit against him over the car crash. It is not alleged Passmore knew at that point about the murders.

Between 2008 and 2012, Holdom drip fed confessions to Passmore, including that he stomped on Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s throat and tried to sexually assault Khandalyce before she died.

Passmore became a key witness in the murder investigation when she agreed to divulge the information in an induced statement in November, 2015.

The inducement, a commonly used tool in homicide investigations, meant the valuable information provided during that interview with South Australian detectives couldn’t be used in a case against her.

As to why she didn’t come forward to police when Holdom claimed he’d killed, Passmore told police: “To be honest I didn’t really want to know if it was the truth.

Between 2008 and 2012, Holdom drip fed confessions to Passmore about what he did to Pearce-Stevenson and her daughter Khandalyce.

“And if it wasn’t the truth, well, I didn’t need to know he was just lying to me.”

She also revealed she found a SD card with photographs of Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s body on it and the card eventually ended up in her sister’s possession in 2012.

The discovery formed the tipping point and preceded her break up with Holdom.

During the interview, she also admitted to pretending to be Ms Pearce-Stevenson at Centrelink in 2010 to claim her welfare benefits.

Passmore has since moved from the home in Adelaide’s north that police raided after linking the murders in 2015.

It is understood Passmore received an out-of-court settlement, with multiple sources saying the payout was up to $1 million, as a result of her personal injury claim from the car crash.

Property records show she bought a “rambling country retreat” with three bedrooms and three bathrooms on 37 acres for $635,000 in Queensland in June 2016.

Passmore was spotted at the property — not far from where she grew up on the Fraser Coast — with her partner, James, and their children this week.

Originally published as Hazel Passmore’s new life after lover convicted of double murder