Episode 30 - Karlie and Khandalyce (The Lost Girls)

0:15 Welcome back to crime besties to episode 30 of two crime besties did. You get the name, did you? Look it, I was like, welcome back to crime besties and then I'm like to another episode, two crime besties. You'd think I'd be a little more over it all over it by now, but I'm not. So anyway, welcome to episode 30. I always feel like when we when we reach a decade milestone, we're doing really well. So totally again, cheers to us. Yay. Well, I read somewhere recently that like most podcasts, don't make it past episode 30 and those that make it to 20 are like here to stay.

0:53 Oh, wait, so Wednesday, I think we've already decided that yeah. And thanks to everybody for your amazing feedback. We so this is actually we're recording this very, very early January 2025, our first recording session of 2025 actually. And I think this will be episode. 3 won't. Yeah, so drove back of the year. Yeah, but we were just commenting that we have had so much lovely feedback over the holidays. So we can see that a lot of you have gone back and been listening to old episodes or maybe catch up on episodes that you've missed.

1:26 Yeah. So I really, really, we really, really appreciate that. And I love there's a few extra comments coming through like on on Spotify or on socials and that too around some older episodes, which is so good. It's it's nice to sort of go back and refresh on those and have a banter about that, yeah. It's great. In particular, I'd like to shout out Nudes. Nudes. Nudes has commented a couple of times and they're both lovely, lovely comments. So thank you so much and thank you to everybody who comments and shares and likes.

1:56 We, we see them all. We can't necessarily always reply to everything, but we try our very, very best. They're finding that it's like it's getting harder now because there's more like it's, yeah, it's a good problem to have that damn sure that's. It on Christmas Day, one of my cousins, Nick, he came up to me and he's like, I actually did not even know you had a podcast because he doesn't have any social media or anything like that. And he's a he's a school teacher. So he's on holidays at the moment and he's like, I absolutely love true crime podcasts.

2:28 I've already subscribed and I'm gonna give it a listen. So Nick, if you're listening, thanks. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, we've had that a bit over the summer holidays with a few catch ups with various people. I was at a family ish sort of gathering and someone started up to me that was a friend of my my brothers and stuff, and they're like listening to your podcast and I'm like, oh, OK, hi. Yeah, so it's kind of people I don't know necessarily, but you know, family friends who have been telling fit, you know, friends who have, you know, said, you know, I'm into true crime podcast and have passed it on to other people and you know, yeah, so it's kind of nice to have people come up and kind of go.

3:04 I've been listening and yeah, that's really what really positive feedback. So loving that love. Thank you. How are your summer holidays going so far? Yeah, you have a nice Christmas. I know for everyone listening this will be a little bit delayed, but you know, the Christmas New Year period was good. Yeah, no, really good. We had a really lovely New Year's, just myself and the boys. We went to a nice hotel and really nice fireworks display that we got to watch out the window. And yeah, it's just really nice quality time with the kids, you know, so really good.

3:31 And I enjoyed that. And Christmas has been amazing with lots of food and lots of, you know, catching up with people. We've had visitors from overseas, you know, that we haven't seen in like 13 years, which was just like, you know, it was really lovely that we could sort of like kicked off as if we had. There hasn't been that kind of space in between. So and we've all got kids now that we're all similar ages that we're all just like, they just got along so well, so quickly. And although God, it's embarrassing, my youngest, who is the social butterfly, I said to them in the car on the way home that night, I'm like, I loved how, you know, you guys just embraced them.

4:03 You know, you were like really friendly really quickly and bring us what's because I've worked it out. Mom, how do you make friends is you just make them laugh, which is really nerve wracking. So like, oh God. So he said. His tag hashtag class clown. Oh yeah, here he comes. Yeah, he's so he is funny. He's. Very. So he decided that immediately because his little niece, a little, my little niece, his cousin had these tattoos that she was like, oh, let's put these, you know, little tattoo things on.

4:31 And so he was like, oh, I'll break the ice, you know, I'll be the funny kid. And he put one on his face and like he's they laughed, mum. And so then we're just friends. Oh, that's gorgeous. I love that kids. So it's so easy. Do you remember being a kid and being like that? Like you'd go to some, you'd meet somebody and they could be besties in no time. Yeah, yeah, as. An adult, it's so much harder to. Make so many more complicated. Complications to things and you also know what you like and don't like when you're an adult.

4:57 This is it, Yeah, Yeah. No fucks to give, Yeah? Yeah, no, you're not my people, so. Yep, Yep, definitely. Yeah. So that was really gorgeous. Yeah. How about you? We had a lovely Christmas at another one of my cousins houses and we hosted a big Christmas Eve do here at our place which I just love doing it. It's my favorite event of the year. I just say the food was amazing. The meat in particular. Yeah, he was very Yeah, he was really proud of the meat. He did like this. I don't know if anyone cares, but he did this full pack of brisket, whatever that means.

5:36 It was it was 9 I. Am not a meat eater like by any means. I legit could if I was almost like gonna have bacon. I would be vegetarian. So but I literally beat into that and was like Oh my God. Yeah, it was really, it was. It was probably the best one he's ever done. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Really. Good. I feel special. Yeah. So we did that. And then a couple of days after Christmas, Peter had said, Hey, how about we go camping for a couple of nights in that dull week where we normally do nothing and at the time.

6:05 Where I call it airport rules. Yeah, airport rules. Total airport rules. Anything goes. And it literally you'll spend $100 to. I saw a meme it was like spend $100 to get a coffee delivered. Sure, money means nothing in the airport. Yeah, cereal at 10:00 PM and a wine at 10:00 AM Why not? Absolutely. So we packed up and went camping for two nights not far from where we live, about an hour and a half away. And you're such the camping type. I fucking hate it. I hate camping. The boys love it. So I'm like, now I'm gonna grin and bear it.

6:39 So we found this place called this website. My husband found it called hip camp and it's people who put they list their own properties on there right. And you can just like. Airbnb for campers. Yeah, basically, yeah, right. And you so you don't have to camp with riffraff. You're guaranteed a spot. You know all that did. You bring your. Kids. Oh yeah, yeah. And the dog, actually. I love the dog and had a ball. It was actually great and it had a flushable toilet at the house that you could access from an outside room sort of thing.

7:10 So at least there was a flushable toilet. We saw a fair hike away. By the sounds of things, it. Was only about 50 meters away. Oh, OK, right. And there was a river there. The kids were, you know, just loving life. The dog loved herself sick there. That's so gorgeous. So look as far as when we were by the time we got there and set up the actual camping bit I was actually semi OK with. I actually think I might have even enjoyed myself. What? Yeah. We were camping in New G for anybody who knows Victoria, and there's a really good pub in New G so the next day we went to New G pub and my dad rode his motorbike there and met us for lunch, which is awesome.

7:50 Yeah, I had maybe one too many wine. No, that's so not you. You. Probably wouldn't, yeah. Wouldn't guess it, No. So it was really good. It was really good fun. But then it's bookended by so much work. So it was like a day preparation to pack the car, pack everything we needed, And then when we got back, I counted no fewer than 9 loads of washing. Oh my God. Unfortunately, the first night we were there, it rained. It wasn't heavy, and we were well protected. We had all the gear that we needed. Yeah, but everything got wet and muddy and so literally everything we took needed washing.

8:25 Yeah, thankfully when we got back, it was really warm, so everything dried really quickly. But it took a good couple of days to wash and dry everything and put pack everything away, and then it was time to pack away all the Christmas stuff, so I'm just done. Oh. Yeah, no, you need a holiday from your holiday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless you have a little bit more time before you get back. To it. Yeah, I've got another week now before I go back to work. So happy with that. But Oh no, that's yeah, camping's not my thing.

8:53 Nah, it's not. It's not mine either. My kids love it and Peter's happy to do it with them and without me. So which is great. Most of the time I let that happen a bit of quality time with Dad. Yes, yeah, that's good bonding time. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we'll go with that anyway. Yeah, should we get into today's episode? Oh, let's I'm ready for this one to like exit my brain. I'll have to be really honest like it's it's hard this one to have in there. So I. Think we should probably maybe state a bit of a warning today, definitely this episode.

9:27 So we're talking about Carly Pierce Stevenson and Kandelice Pierce. This episode got me. I was in tears researching this yesterday. It's there are so many really, truly awful things that happened to these girls. And look, we'll try and warn you when we're about to say something that's particularly awful, but if this is something that you don't feel you can listen to at the moment, please skip ahead because, yeah. Well, we'll be obviously talking about children as well-being murdered. So that's. Children being murdered and sexual, sexual assaults against, you know, women and children.

10:04 So if that's not something you can listen to, please. Skip. Yeah, look after yourself, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because yeah, it's been been a tough one to, to look into. I've I've found. Yeah, yeah. It's really heavy. Really, really heavy. So Carly Jade Pearce was born on the 7th of August in 1988 in Alice Springs. Her dad was named Bruce Pearce and her mum was Colleen Stevenson. And they weren't married at the time when when Carly was born. And I think they, their relationship, I think was very in its infancy when they kind of got together.

10:43 And they didn't last very long. After Carly was born, Colleen, who is Carly's mom, then remarried a man by the name of Scott Povey, who became obviously Carly's stepdad in 1995. And by for all intents and purposes, Scott was Carly's dad. Yeah. They had a very good relationship. They did. He was a truck driver, a long distance truck driver, so he used to commute. He used to drive trucks from Adelaide to Alice Springs and back. Yeah, he actually did a lot around Australia, but I think he's his main route.

11:19 Yeah, that was his main route. And sometimes Carly would go along with him on these long haul journeys and they'd camp in the Outback and they just had a really lovely bond. And he he says to this day that he loves her like his daughter. There's. I know I read of like the typical kind of stuff, you know, of like teenagers and that sort of thing, you know, having conflicts with parents, but there was certainly nothing that was untoward in terms of family life. It was very much a, a typical family of, you know, yes, a a blended family, but one that very much worked.

11:52 Yeah, there's a funny story that I that I heard where apparently Scott was having a bit of a go at at Kali for having a messy room when she was a teenager. Yeah, and he'd just had enough. So he's like, I'm gonna throw all this shit out in the front lawn because this is just ridiculous. I've threatened that before, yeah. And so and so he like, you know, he's throwing all this stuff out and she was at home and she's like bring, trying to bring it all in. And, you know, as this kerfuffle sort of ensued, they both saw the humour in it and just started laughing.

12:24 And he's like, well, I couldn't be angry at her anymore, could I? You know, like, it was just a funny situation. Yeah. And she promised it on that day. She's like, I promise. I'm gonna keep my room really nice for you now. Never happened. No, no, of course not. Were you a messy teenager?

12:41 Not particularly. I would. My mum probably disagrees with me. I don't. Know I was terrible. Oh, really? Yeah, I can't imagine you being me. I. Know like my house now. I like things neat and tidy. Yeah, but I know I was foul. I was. I think I was. On, you know, average. I wouldn't say I was overly messy, but I wasn't like a neat freak either. Did you have, like, clothes on the floor and stuff? Oh yeah. OK. And I was probably about on par with that. Yeah, yeah, I've always said, like my mum was always surprised by how like how neat and stuff I kept my workplace.

13:11 Like and I'd talk about how organised I'd be at work 'cause that was not how I behaved at home. Like yeah, So there was definitely a difference, OK. Yeah. Yeah. But your house now is lovely. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's always, I mean, it gives me anxiety when things aren't neat and tidy. And my boys realise that now, like, and they're starting to learn to put things away, like, because I just can't handle it because it does, like it does, it sets me off. Yeah. Yeah. But that's great. You know, that's another therapy session.

13:40 We'll. Do that another day. Sorry I've just gone on a tangent. We're like 3 seconds into. Here God, here we are. In 1992, Ali's brother Luke was born. So he was her half brother and so he's his dad is Scott. Even though he, Colleen and Scott actually married a few years later, he was born out of wedlock. But but again, I think Carly and Luke got along really well. I've, I've heard him speak in the media. There's not a lot of lot of videos or necessarily interviews of the family in this case because.

14:15 They care very, very quiet about all of this, which I think to their credit in terms of, you know, getting to the truth of things. They came out later with, with, with, you know, a little bit here and there, but they weren't that weren't one of those families who are front and center of all this. Absolutely not. They were just a very quiet and unassuming family. Yeah, and you know, salt to the earth type of people. Yeah, they've lived in Alice Springs all their lives. I mean, you've got to be like, you know, pretty straightforward and easy going to live in, out in the Outback like that.

14:45 I think, you know, you're not a Sidious liquor, that's for sure. No, not. Not at all. Not at. All good people, hard workers. Like that. Yeah, absolutely. I think they absolutely were.

14:58 Kandelise Kiara Pierce was born on the 19th of June in 2006 to Carly and a boyfriend that she'd had for not very long, but he wasn't all that interested in being a dad. But Carly decided she was 18 years of age, I believe. When, Well, when Carly was born. Oh, sorry. When Kandelise was born, she was 18. Yeah, and she was really excited to be a mum too, like she was really. Into it, her auntie said that she'd always wanted to be a mum. You know she's one of those kids. Yeah, she just fell into it and was, you know, from all the family accounts of like of, of Carly as a mum was all very positive.

15:40 The only negative comments around her being a mother came from particularly to people that we'll mention later like that's. Right. And we'll mention that when it when it comes. Yeah. Because Carly was so young when she had Kandalis. Now I'll just spell Kandalis for everyone because it's it's one of those names when I when I hear the name, it's not spelt the way I think it's spelled. So Karly is actually Karl i.e. and Kandalis is KHANDALYCE. Yeah. You know, spelling to me is like a a big deal. So anyway, that's, that's the way it is when Carly would go out at night because she's a 19 year old kid, she's going out with her friends.

16:23 Friends are the most important thing in your life. Then she would either leave Candelice with her mom or with her grandma. So with Connie. And Connie tells this story about, you know, Carly would go out at night, She'd come back the next, you know, come back, she'd be inebriated. And the next morning, Connie would wake her up when Kandelise woke up and was like, no, no, no, You're her mum. Yeah. You need to get up and feed her. You need to take some responsibility. Happy to look after her when you go out.

16:49 But, you know, motherly duty start the next morning. Yeah. What? Mothering hungover is the worst. Absolute worst and stupidly, we never learn. Never. You might you might give yourself a week or two reprieve, but. Yeah, it's too much fun. Like you just. Yeah, you're having so much fun, you forget to what? What you're going to get up to with the next morning, I reckon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, I think I was. It's lovely that that whole family, you know, support system that she had. It was certainly raising candy laces in a village.

17:20 Yeah. But at the same time, it was, it wasn't, you know, that she had this child, 18 and it got passed on to her mum and grandma to raise her at all. It was Carly was her mom. Carly was the one who did you know 80%. I would say if not 90% of the raising of her with then support a support network. Which they expected her to get a job. So they were happy to look after Candelice when Carly was working. They were more than happy to do that. The aunties were the same. Yeah. So Colleen's sisters were more than happy to help out in that way because they actually had young kids of their own.

17:52 So they were all kind of being raised together. And, you know, it's, it's lovely. Yeah. And but yeah, as you said, Carly was responsible for Cantalis and was a bite from everything that I've read, aside from those two people's accounts, was a wonderful, devoted mum. Yeah. As an 18 year old. Yes, yeah, which I mean close my mind put on there. We're on there. Yeah. So I'm gonna start off. Yeah. On the 29th of August in 2010, there were some trail bike riders riding through the Blengolow State Forest.

18:29 Now, you might recognize that area as a call in relation to a different case that we will cover at some point, and that's the Ivan Malap case. Yeah, he dumped all of his victims in a different part of the Blenglow State Forest in New South Wales. Come back to the other. Day absolutely come back to him Oh yeah. And he look, you know the fact that anyway, sorry I'm getting ahead of myself. Trail bike riders, they'd gone out for a day of riding and they come upon skeletal remains basically and someone one of them is a vet a vet and he stops and he's like well these these don't look like animal remains.

19:20 They look like like potentially human remains. And everyone's like Nah, Nah, there's no way Nah, it's a it must be a dingo. It must be a maybe not a dingo, I don't know. It must be something else. And they keep going. And then their trail actually LED them back around to where they had originally found these these remains. And this particular trail bike rider was like, no, this is absolutely something that I think we need to call in. So they contact the police, the nearest police station, which, oh, I can't remember, it might be Glebe police station.

19:53 I might be wrong with that. But anyway, a local police station to the Blenglow State Forest. And they say, look, we think we found human remains. And apparently that happened a lot. And it would 9 times or 99 times out of 100, it would turn out to be animal remains. And so the officer who took the call was like, oh, let me transfer you to my superior. The superior was like, look, can you just send me? There was one person apparently who had mobile phone reception in this whole group. And he said, look, can you just text me a photo of it?

20:28 Because I just need to know whether I need to send officers out immediately or not. Yeah, they sent the photo. And apparently as soon as this officer saw the photo, it was like, oh, that's 100% a human skull. Yeah. So they said, can you go and meet the trail bike riders? Can you go and meet the police at this particular point? They've done that, taken, directed them, directed them into the remains and within I think 4 hours it was swarming with police. They tented the area they'd like, they'd brought in the homicide, the cold case, they brought in every, you know, specialist unit that they needed and they brought in a forensic pathologist also.

21:08 What the forensic pathologist determined on autopsy was that the body was aged between 13 and 25 years. Yeah, was of a female and had been sitting in that forest for between six months and 10 years. Yeah, So a huge time frame, but it was really difficult to say. But the. Only thing that ruled out was it being Ivan Malap. It couldn't have been Ivan Malap. So he was in jail in 96 I think it was. It was, Yep, 96. Yep. Yep. So that meant that there was no way that this was an Ivan Malap case. This was something else.

21:46 So yeah. The forensic pathologist and an anthropologist who were at the scene also, they were obviously conducting the post mortem. They determined that this these skeletal remains had endured fractures, SO2 ribs on both sides and a blunt force trauma to the sternum also, which would have been lethal to soft organs. So they basically said that that the amount of trauma to the rib cage and sternum meant that that would have been lethal. Yeah, yeah. And they suggested that perhaps by the way of the forcefulness that it was potentially stomping or kneeing.

22:30 Yeah. Of the area, yeah. Because it was like a wide blunt force. Yeah, Yeah. It wasn't like a hammer or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. So the other things that were found with this with these remains were AT shirt. It was a white cotton T-shirt with a pink love heart motif that had the words angelic like typewritten across the across the heart. Yeah, a single white sock and a single silver sleeper earring. The police had nowhere really to go with this. They had no like DNAI guess in terms of like soft tissue, there was nothing that they could get off of any of that to like identify this body.

23:13 But they assumed that they'd be able to get DNA from the bone, which they were able to do. Yes, that's right. That's. Right. They then tried to like figure out from like their missing persons list. Would any people on that list necessarily meet this 13 to 25 years of age and having been missing for between six months and 10 years? And they basically went through everyone on that list and I think there were, I think it was like 75 odd people matched that in NSW match that firm from a missing persons perspective.

23:51 They went through each one of those and determined that another, none of those people belong to these remains. So they were kind of really stuck. They've got ADNA profile but they've got no match. No. Any DNA that they've got, where do they go from here? There's nowhere to go. No, there's nothing to do. They really tried hard to figure out where the T-shirt had come from. Yeah, that was really highly publicized at the time on news. Like, I mean, we're in Victoria. This was, this occurred in New South Wales, that we, it was definitely all over our news here.

24:25 It was widespread. You know that T-shirt? I remember seeing that very clearly, Yeah. Yeah, but it nothing sort of came of that. Nobody came forward. They named this Jane Doe, the Angel of Blenglo Forest. Yeah. Because. You know the word Angel was written across her T-shirt. I. They did a facial approximation image as well have. You seen an interview with the woman who did? This. No, I haven't. Oh my God. Oh, really? Oh.

24:56 Yeah. So that wasn't 2. 1000 she's interesting all. Right. OK, I know that they she was like some sort of anthropologist. Yeah. Something. Yeah. I mean, they said that once they did work out what the person actually looked like and compared to what their approximation was, that they learned a lot from that. But. So they say, they did say also they did some kind of, I don't know how they did this, but they thought the remains potentially belong to a European person, right? So then they were giving all of these details and sending the DNA profile like around the world, seeing whether there were hits in other countries where people had reported family members missing in Australia.

25:43 And the area is highly, you know, trafficked with backpackers and stuff, which, you know, yeah. So I guess that's that's not, you know, unfeasible. Again, I think that was to the tune of roughly 50 or 60 police departments around the world that they sent her this DNA profile to. Again, it was not fruitful. Can you imagine being one of the families of a missing person saying, hey, we, we, we're matching. We're going to compare the DNA of this person to your missing loved one. You'd get your hopes up every time, every time that you were gonna get a a hit and know what happened to your loved one.

26:20 I mean, we've talked on other episodes about that whole not knowing the. Ambiguous. Loss. Biguous loss. Yeah. I mean, that you would grapple onto anything like that to find out, like, what happened. So it would be horrific constantly being like, you know, we think we might have found them. And, I mean, at the same time, you wouldn't want it to be them because you want them to be alive. Like, I can't imagine that that pull from me the direction of like, you know, this could be them of like wanting it to be them.

26:45 So, you know, but also not wanting it to them be them because you want them to be alive. Like, that would be just awful. Yeah, it would. Be absolutely horrific. What the police did find out about the T-shirt was it was produced between 2003 and 2006, but it was mass produced in China. Yeah. Do you remember that, that chain reaction? Yes. Store, Yeah. Yes, I had. I had quite a number of chain reaction pants. I used to wear their pants and it was actually girl size 10. So they're like, this was a very small framed girl, which is why they thought maybe the person was as young as 13 because they were, it was, you know, it was on a very slight and yeah, person all right.

27:27 About 1000 kilometres away from Belangalu in Wanaka SA and a half kilometres out of the town in July 2015. So the original skeletal remains were found in 2010 in Belanglo. In 2015, a group of blokes or three blokes I think, were on a road trip and driving out of Wanaka in South Australia along the Kurunda Highway and nature called. They needed to do away. So they pulled over to the side of the road, side of the highway, and sort of, I guess, in order to disguise themselves a little bit, went into the brush.

28:13 And this particular man was, you know, relieving himself. And he sort of glanced something called, his eye glanced over and he saw a suitcase and it was partially open. There were bits and pieces sort of around it or coming out. Yeah, just sort of. Coming out so it looked like animals had maybe tried to get into it but hadn't necessarily succeeded. And curiosity got the better of him. I need to know this because when I was listening to this, I was like, I wouldn't go near it. Yeah. Would you? If you just saw a discarded suitcase on the side of a highway, would you go near it?

28:48 Probably not. I just feel like many times like like, you know, I mean, unfortunately there's been a few cases where like there's been bodies on the side of the road like, you know, like, and that's in a similar situation. And I now have this whole thing of like now that I drive past like something that looks a bit sauce, I guess, you know which people dump all sorts of things, not necessarily bodies on the side of the road. I do, I keep going, keep driving and often then I'll go, hmm, should have stopped.

29:10 And you're like, no, don't be an idiot. Like it'll just be nothing but. But it might not be nothing. Yeah. Like you just don't know. No. Anyway, this guy cured I. Think number of people had literally done that though. For sure because if I had of been taking one of my kids for a wee down there it would have been like don't touch that nut it's probably gross nut don't. Because it could have been like, to me on a highway like that, it could have literally been someone's got a suitcase on the roof of their car.

29:36 It's come flying off, you know, that's. What I would have assumed. You just kind of go, you know? Yep, just leave it alone. I would have. I wouldn't have touched it anyway. This guy. Curiosity. Thankfully, curiosity got the better of him. He's opened up the suitcase and he's seen what he thinks is a small human skull. Yeah. Now, again, not sure of what he's seeing, although there are children's items in the suitcase, which kind of really throws him in that when I say throws him at it really gets him into a bit of a tease because he's like, holy shit.

30:10 Like, what the fuck? So he ends up obviously calling the police. The police come immediately. They were there very, very swiftly. Yeah. And again, within an hour or so, the whole place was tented and the police forensics were there, and they were sort of like combing through, seeing what was there, taking photographs, doing all of the things that they needed to do. Yeah. What they found were about 30 items in that suitcase, including a black Tutu with colorful polka dots, satin Holden boxer shorts.

30:48 So Holden being a car brand, a purple T-shirt, which was had a Dora the Explorer motif on it, pink suede coat, among other things. So the police were like, well, let's have a look. And you know, again, skeletal remains of a very young person. I think it was pretty evident that this child was of two roughly 2 years of age. They're they're in this between 1.2 and 4.8 years of age. They're OK, Yeah, yeah. OK. So it's, so it's slightly wider. I mean, you know, yeah, yeah, a slightly narrower time frame.

31:24 But I mean, it was tiny little, little Beadle bones. Oh my gosh. So she was found, they found 2 balls of cotton of dishcloth, kind of stuff like in the mouth, 2 balls of that within the mouth of the skull. They found that there was a disposable nappy had been applied around the side of the in the front of the skull and that towels were wrapped around the torso of the body. There was also gaffer tape wrapped all the way around the head, so near the mouth, so by this stage obviously all of the flesh was gone.

32:01 There was, yeah. No soft tissue whatsoever left, Yeah. But they could still see the gaffer tape was around the victim's mouth. Yeah. And the victim was in sort of a

32:15 like kind of curled up in a fetal position in the suitcase at the time. They don't from what they from the the autopsy they could see what kind of they could do in terms of autopsy was that there was no damage to the skull or to the bones of the body of the body. So therefore they were able to determine they weren't able to determine what the cause of death was because there was no flesh left, no soft tissue, and because there was no no damage to the body. They were, they were assuming that potentially was suffocation due to the fact of the gaffer tape and things being on the mouth and things being in the mouth and that there was no, yeah, breaks of bones, etcetera, or skull fractures.

32:56 So it was a fair assumption that suffocation would have been the cause of death, yeah. Yeah, again, they've tried to look for missing persons records because who wouldn't be missing the two and two or two year old or between what, 1 1/2 and 4 year old child? Yeah, they thought the Tutu might be a good lead, so they looked into that, but it turned out it was sold at a Cotton On store, so there were. Everywhere. Thousands of them. The one thing that they did have in the suitcase, which really helped later on, not at the at the time exactly, but there was a hand stitched quilt in there.

33:34 It had octagonal panels. It was around 90cm by 90 centimeters. Each panel had like animal motifs or animal prints on it. And then there was a very distinctive border made of musical notes, like the the fabric was made of like had musical notes all over it. It was the only unique item that was really found. The even the suitcase was one that you could buy a dime or dime a dozen at Kmart. So it was. Also a dress that she that was in there to a pink dress that was quite it wasn't distinctive at all in terms of it was sold very highly, but there was a pink dress that was recognizable potentially.

34:10 Right. Yeah, yeah. But that sort of was fruitful and wasn't fruitful anyway. They didn't. They weren't able to follow any of this up really at the time. Yeah. Not at the time, no. So again, we've got, so now we've got a deceased woman in Belenglo State Forest who we don't know the whereabouts of. And we've got a, you know, around approximately a 2 year old in South Australia who again, we don't know who she belongs to. And how could a 2 year old or roughly 2 year old not be reported missing? It's bizarre.

34:45 Oh, yeah, absolutely. But so in October 2015, there was, they were able to put together by through basically Crime Stoppers. There was a phone call and it was actually the 1200 and 71st phone call. They had come through about this little baby that, you know, this little young person that was in the suitcase who was able to recognize the pink dress in the suitcase and that they hadn't seen this child in a while. And so that she was actually able to pull out a photo of her wearing that exact dress and also then a photo of her in a stroller with the blanket.

35:29 And she named the child as Candelice Kiara Pierce. So the person who reported this, her name was Tanya Webber. Tanya Webber was Carly's mom, Colleen's best friend. There were two decades of difference in age for these women, but they met working together at, I think it was at a clothes shop, actually, right? And they became really, really good friends. So Tanya was basically halfway between Colleen's age and was actually closer to to Carly's age. But because she and Colleen were such good friends, they spent so much time time together.

36:10 They'd go camping together. And Tanya would say was saying that like, you know, she'd spent so much time with Kandalise and so much time with Carly just through being friends with Carly's mom. And so she had an intimate knowledge of these two. Well, this girl and this woman and yeah, she recognized. And, you know, to her, it was bizarre because at that point in 2015, they hadn't heard from Carly and Candelis in a very long time. And any contact that, you know, they had had, which we will get into a little bit later, was only ever by phone.

36:51 They'd never seen them. Interesting. Yep. So that was on the 6th of October that Tanya originally rang Crime Stoppers. Now, as you said, it was in amongst, I think over 3000 phone calls that they received. Yeah, on the 8th of October. She was getting impatient. She was like, this is ridiculous. No one's called me back. I've got information and I know I need to get this to the police. So she rang Crimes, Crime Stoppers again. She said she has three photos in particular that they must see. Yeah. And that night, a detective did phone her back, gave her his e-mail address and said, can you please e-mail them through?

37:27 She did that that night, went to bed. Yeah. The next morning, he basically emailed her back and said, can you answer all these questions for me? And it was things like, when was the last time you saw them? What do you know about them? What was their last known address? Yeah, as much information as she could possibly give, and she even says there wasn't a lot that she could really give, but she was able to say she was with this person. This is the last address that we have for her, you know? Yeah, Give them something to go on.

38:00 I. Guess. Absolutely. When the police saw the photos, they say now in hindsight that that was an absolute turning point in the investigation for them because they didn't really have any viable leads at this point. So you've got to keep in mind that at this point they're only looking, this is the South Australian police and they're only looking into the death of what we now think may be cantalice. Yeah. Because they had this information from Tanya, the South Australian Police contacted Alice Springs Hospital and asked for the DNA or asked for the Guthrie card that was taken.

38:39 So this is the heel prick test that is taken on every baby born in Australia in a hospital. And they were able to then positively match, Yeah, the DNA from the Guthrie card that was taken when Candalese was born in Alice Springs with the DNA of the bones. Yeah. That were found in the suitcase on the highway.

39:04 The other thing that the police looked into at this point, So now they know the identity of this child they were then looking into. OK, let's figure out, try and figure out some more information. The child was immunized at 18 months, and there were no further records of this child anywhere. There was no Medicare record. She was never enrolled at a school. She would have been nine years old at the point where where this was all found. Yeah. She'd never been enrolled in a school. She'd never attended a hospital or a doctor, or no.

39:36 Because at this point they don't know when that suit, that suitcase was put on that side of the road. So even though they're guessing, you know, we've got a guess here between 1.2 and 4.8 years, they don't know how old that or how old she was even like when she was in put in that suitcase. Yeah, so. How long ago? Yeah. I mean, they they can estimate how long. I actually didn't see an estimate of how long they thought she'd been there, did you? Find that no, I didn't answer no, but it was through DNA that they were able to then link Candleice to Carly.

40:10 Is that correct? That's right, yeah. So this is amazing police work, by the way. So the police are sort of then looking, OK, the fact that we don't have a missing persons report for this child then. So they're thinking, OK, well, where's the mother? Obviously, Tanya's given them the information about Carly and said this is Carly. This is the last known address. They've gone to that address. Carly's not there. Carly. These people legitimately didn't know where Carly was, what was going on with Carly at the time.

40:42 So they're like, OK, well then where's Carly? So then they decided this was over the course of, I think, about seven months, was it? They've looked at missing persons reports for young women all around the country and they have basically sent the DNA off, you know, here, there and everywhere to try and figure out whether there was a match between any of the current missing persons and candy lease and eventually. Eventually it was pretty quick. It was October 21st that the police stood in front of media and announced it so.

41:19 It was only a few months. Yeah, not Even so. She reported it in mid-october and it was by the end of October they'd had the results.

41:29 Wow, that is really quick. Yeah, I thought it was way later than that. OK, that's amazing then. So anyway, they've obviously figured out that these two are related and a mother and daughter. They've got a, you know, a genetic match to at. The same time it's NSW and Adelaide, like they're 100 kilometres, 1000, a thousand sorry, kilometres from each other. Yeah, like it's how on earth is mother and daughter so far away? How'd they end up in these this predicament where they clearly have been in some sort of horrific situation?

42:01 That's it. So let's go back now to 2007. In late 2007, Carly was in a relationship with a man named Robbie by from everything I've heard, he was actually a really lovely bloke, took Kandelise on as his own and, you know, worked really hard to try and give them a life that that he wanted to give them. They moved in together or moved into his family's home, I think and. I think they moved in with his family and then that was getting a little bit tough, which it absolutely would be. So one of Robbie's friends, I think he, I don't even know how this came about, but through a friend of Robbie's, they ended up becoming caretakers at a Speedway near wherever they were, like in Alice Springs somewhere.

42:48 Yeah, I can't remember the name of the Speedway off the top of my head, but they what they basically did was if they were going to caretake the grounds, they could rent there for less than $100 a week. So they were like, Yep, happy to do it, mow a lawn here, put a licker paint on the House and, and it'll be great. And I think they had a really nice six to six odd months in this house and they were really getting along well. Carly's family say that Robbie was a really lovely, a genuinely lovely man and he really loved Carly and really, really loved Candolese.

43:22 Unfortunately, Robbie met a man, a man by the name of Daniel Marshall. At the time. At the time, yeah. So an alias it was, but Robbie didn't know that. This Daniel Marshall worked at a warehouse near Robbie's work. And he rocked up one day and he's like, hey mate, I'm new to town. Do you know where I can score some drugs or do you know anyone who wants any drugs? Because I actually run a bit of a racket between Adelaide and Ellis and, you know, I'm trying to distribute a bit more. And you know, I'm also looking for a hookup for some, for some dope.

44:01 Yeah. And they kind of became friends. So they. Had a they as a child that was similar age to Candelice. Yeah, that's right, Lauren, wasn't it? So they kind of became friends in a sense. And I think at the time, Robbie and Carly would smoke a joint every now and then, but they weren't drug you like, you know, massive drug users by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah. Daniel's partner, Hazel.

44:31 Well, they had three children now. Do you? Paternity. Paternity. Of those children, so Hazel. Hazel had three children from a previous relationship. Well, but all. Three of them were definitely someone else's. They definitely, definitely. So yeah, Daniel claimed that the youngest was his, but she wasn't. No, their names were Willow, Ryan and Lauren and Daniel and Hazel. So description of Hazel at this point, Carly was a very attractive, slim, just beautiful. Like tiny, tiny, Yeah, tiny, tiny young thing.

45:09 I've heard Hazel described in a bit of an opposite way. Yeah, I mean, it's quite some photos up on social media, but she wasn't wasn't the most. Not really all that attractive. Woman, not, I don't know, rough around the edges. Or. Put it nicely. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. But at this point, I mean, you know, she's got a child similar age to Carly that, you know, they play together. They did like, but there was there was a big age gap. I mean, we're talking Carly here is like 19198 coming up for 20. Yeah, Daniel was 34 and I believe Hazel's similar in age.

45:48 So I mean, not you wouldn't have thought a lot in common to become friends. And so the drugs became, I think, more of. And unfortunately, Daniel in particular introduced Carly to much harder drugs. So he introduced her to ecstasy and speed and ice. Yeah. So methamphetamine and it, it led to a definite change in Carly. Her family all say it. She lost weight where she had none to lose, from what I can gather. Yeah. She looked just really unwell. She wasn't eating. She was just not herself. She didn't have that spark that she normally had.

46:30 That'd be a really hard thing to to watch as a parent. Totally. Or as a family member. Absolutely awful. Awful. But come to September 15 of 2008 and Daniel is doing his one of his regular trips down to Adelaide and back where they do their drug run. And Hazel Passmore, his girlfriend, along with the the three children have all joined him on this run this particular time. And on the way back from Adelaide, heading towards Alice Springs, they're on the Sturt Highway and they hit the Aboriginal community of I'm going to, I'm going to murder it in Dalcana, in Dalcana.

47:12 I believe that's right. I think that's right. I think that's right where Holden starts to. Holden starts to sort of pass, sort of start falling asleep. So can I just say Holden is actually Daniel Marshall? So. He's sorry his real. Name is actually Daniel Holden Holden, sorry. Yes, yeah. So he was. Yeah. Telling everyone his name was Daniel Marshall, but he's actually Daniel James Holden. So Holden starts falling asleep in the car and Hazel apparently is trying to wake him up and, you know, keep him going.

47:40 But this does not apparently work because all of a sudden the car flips three times and completely, oh, it's horrific. The car accident must have been horrendous. From the car is thrown Hazel as well as her three children. Not the not the youngest. Not the youngest, the youngest. Who is it? Oh my God, sorry. That's my dog trying to play the youngest. The youngest Lauren, was in a car seat and she was not thrown from the car, but Willow and Ryan were thrown from the car. I believe it was about 11:50 meters from the car and when Daniel came to and was trying to assess the situation, he found them lying both face down in the dirt, you know, 10 odd meters from the car and they were clearly deceased.

48:35 Yeah, so a truck driver was the first to come onto the scene and find them, to which he found Daniel wandering around the scene like so he was physically able and not injured in that extent that much of an extensive way at all, whereas Hazel was clearly he saw her laying on the ground with her baby, with the youngest next to her. And then then, and apparently Daniel has said to the truck, the truck driver, the other two kids are dead and they're over there and points to the Bush to which then the truck driver goes to assess them immediately before calling for Triple O. Now I think help was about an hour away and the help unfortunately was nurses from the local District Hospital.

49:19 I don't think they would have been able to help anyway, really. In terms of the kids, I think they were not really. Kids, they were. They were. Killed on impact. Unfortunately, absolutely, but Hazel had sustained some absolutely horrific injuries. Yeah, so she ended up having a leg amputated and was wheelchair bound from that point on. Yeah. So both of her knees were dislocated. There was a compound fracture to the left knee. Both of her arms were degloved.

49:46 She was airlifted eventually to Alice Springs Hospital but then they needed to move her to the Royal Adelaide Hospital because they couldn't deal with her that much trauma. At the Alice Springs Hospital she was an induced coma for two weeks and as you said, they had to amputate her left leg above the knee. She had to undergo skin grafts for her arms, and she ended up needing a bowel resection as well due to the soft tissue damage that she'd sustained in the accident. And she was wonder. Hand to a wheelchair for life.

50:16 Yeah, you gotta wonder how he walked away. Well, he had a broken collarbone and a broken thumb. The other thing they found in the car was $10,000 in cash. He also had. What else was he like, honestly? So they also did do obviously drug tests and things and they did find drugs in his system, which he said that that yes, he had taken drugs like, you know, a few days ago, but he wasn't under the influence of them at that point of driving. I don't know, really. To me, honestly, I reckon that's the only way he walked away to me.

50:49 He would have had that, you know, limp, limp, kind of, you know, that's, I think that's unfortunately what protected him. Yeah. So, I mean, God, I can't they the the two youngest kids. Just awful. Yeah. I think the youngest, Lauren, So she was the one in the car seat. Yeah. She actually sustained very minimal injuries herself. She had a laceration to her head and that was about it. I think, yeah. But yeah, the other two, they put off obviously funerals for the two other children until Hazel was able to exit the hospital.

51:24 So that was put off by a couple of months. But on, I think it was August, they had the in August they had the funeral for the two children. During the time whilst Hazel was in hospital, Daniel would rock up to visit her with Carly in Candace and even at this point Hazel was something's going on here, so I think. Daniel had contacted Robbie in the middle of the night and said fuck, man, this is shit. Like things are so bad, like the kids are dead. And, and so with that, Robbie actually mobilized and went straight to Alice Springs Hospital to figure out what was going on.

52:06 And then, like, there was obviously not a lot that he could do. So he's gone back home and he's told Carly that Hazel was being airlifted down to Adelaide Hospital. Yeah. At the Royal Adelaide Hospital. And so Carly, somehow Carly and Daniel got in a car together with candle ease and went down to to visit Hazel. Now Robbie says now that he he had suspected for a few months that there was something going on between Carly and Daniel. He'd come home one day for lunch and unannounced, as you are more than entitled to do in your own home.

52:46 And he'd seen Daniel's car in the driveway and he decided not to go inside. He decided just to go back to work and Edie's lunch at work because he said he just didn't want to know, but he he suspected there was something going on between the two of them. So I guess at the time Carly basically said, so this was in, what was it, late October of 2008. Carly left him a note, I think, and basically said, don't want to be with you anymore. I'm leaving me and candles. So, yeah, candles is what they called candles.

53:20 Yeah, me and candles are leaving. And he never saw her again. Oh, he heard from her. Yeah. Well, but he never saw her. Yeah, he did Well, did he? Yeah, did he just really quickly. Daniel James Holden. He had a very troubled past. Yeah. So his his mother neglected him, something shocking didn't and he she was not maternal whatsoever. His birth father didn't have anything to do with him. His stepfather was an abuser, so he either. Says that the way that he was conceived meant that she couldn't envelope him because she.

54:07 I don't know, Yeah. Like as in she was raped? Or it's kind of inferred that it's never said. It's never been said anywhere, but it has been inferred within the court documents because this is the thing. Look, a lot of that information around his childhood, there's not a lot of stuff that's consistent, so. Or verifiable. Yeah, exactly. So although. His mother does. I mean that there are certainly bits. There are there are docs documents, Yes, Department of Children's Services documents. Yeah, but they don't align them with his story and then her, then the mother's story.

54:39 They don't all line up. And so it's kind of like, who do you believe? Yeah, I just think it's really sad because it at 8 years of age, they've put him into foster care because they were like, we can't handle this child. No, that we don't. Want him? The stepfather was heavily abusing him. Right. Yeah, but then they've at 9 years of age, he's placed back in the home with her mother. So did she leave her? Stepfather at 9, he was placed with his dad, with his biological father, right. Who then who was apparently that went quite well for a brief period, yeah.

55:07 And then he was placed in the care of his grandparents, his paternal grandparents. Yeah, that wasn't going so great. And so. Then they couldn't handle they. Couldn't handle him. He started going backwards again. Yeah. So then he went into a group home. Yeah. Which, I mean, they look and there's the documentation from the group home is quite positive. There's a lot of documentation of he's happy and he's making friends and he's. Which places? Yeah. I don't know how much he put into what that those documents say.

55:36 Yeah. Because his account of that was that it was fucking awful. So. But then I wouldn't believe a word that came out of his mouth. No, because he fucking lies just to I think the. Trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma, Yeah, of like generationally speaking. I just, I mean, yeah, fucked up is really all you can say. So fucked up. Yeah, so fucked up. Yeah. But I mean, there's a point where you kind of go. How much of that can you blame on then who he's become? Like, I get it, that definitely shapes him for sure.

56:12 But I I don't even think that calling him a piece of shit is enough. Of Oh no. This is. That doesn't cover it. Agreed. And also, I think we say this so, so frequently on this show, just because you've endured abuse doesn't make you an abuser. I understand there's a cycle there and it can absolutely inform future behaviour. But we know that there are so many people out there who don't, who endure this abuse, who then don't go on to perpetrate. And he's, we'll get into this definitely as well, but he's gone on to do some fucking heinous.

56:54 Oh God. It's deplorable. Like it's absolutely awful because look, he's been, he's had opportunities in his life to turn things around at points, but he's also had a whole lot of shit points in his life where he's basically, you know, it's given him no other opportunity but to be a shit person. Yeah, not to this degree. I'm saying like, that's, I think that's where I kind of go, OK. I can't like, yeah, because I mean, there was a one where I was reading where he, he would run away because his dad was his father, his stepfather, sorry, was abusing him like physically, emotionally, everything, every abuse under the son, his stepfather was doing to him.

57:31 Apparently he's the stepfather and the, and his and his brother, the stepfather's brother and him would sexually abuse him. So he would then run away. Daniel would run away. The cops would then pick him up and take him back. Now that's just, that hurts my soul like that. There weren't people then, you know, stepping in at those points either. So there were certainly points where they where people did step in, but there were other points where they didn't so. Yeah, it's just it's, it's absolutely horrible.

58:01 Yeah. So Carly's mom, Colleen was diagnosed with breast cancer and her dying wish was that she wanted to see Carly and Kandelise. So the last all, all she really knew at this point was that Carly and Kandelise had gone down to Adelaide with Daniel, who they'd met once, I think, and they didn't like him. They thought he was he didn't make eye contact with them. He was rude. He was not very nice to Carly. They. Loved Robbie. They were going, yeah, yeah. Their story was that they were going to look for work.

58:38 Yeah, even though Carly had a job in Alice Springs. Yes, Yeah, yeah, that was the story. Was it though when they left was that they were looking for work? Yeah, so they, so Colleen's husband, Scott, so Carly's stepfather, they were doing everything they could to try and reach them. They oh, it's, it's, it's horrible because in the preceding years, they hadn't seen Carly in candy leaves, but they'd heard from them, or so they thought. Yeah. They had received phone calls to say that they needed money.

59:11 They'd received text messages and various other sort of forms of contact like that. I don't think there was any social media contact. I think that was one thing that that they hadn't done. Carly's cousin. So I think this was. Yeah. So this is one of Colleen's sister's daughters. She'd actually to try and locate Carly and Candace had put out like a missing person, not a missing persons thing. But hey, who's seen Carly? Last known address was in Adelaide. We're trying to find her because Auntie Colleen's, you know, would like to see her.

59:48 They tried, you know, the mobile number that they had for her and just no contact. And apparently on her deathbed, Colleen basically hallucinated that Karlie and Candy leaves were in the corner of the room. And. Apparently she's her last words that she spoke that were able to be understood was a Karlie and candles here yet, but she had actually reported the missing officially with police in on the 4th of September in 2009 and so the police did make some contacts and try and find Karlie. This actually gives me the shit.

1:00:26 Oh, absolutely. I mean, and look, this has changed since then and they won't accept this now, but unfortunately, and not only this case, but also I think lady vanishes, that Lady vanishes. Oh. Yeah, the Lady vanishes. Marian respects this Marian. What was her name? No. Barlow, Barlow but but. Oh my God. But something bar, bar something. It'll come to me now. But yeah. So in September, September 4th, she reported them missing. The police then contacted people and did get in touch with Daniel because that was the name that like the mother had, Colleen had said, you know, like she's with Daniel Holdem, you know, all these sorts of things.

1:01:02 And that last known in Adelaide. So the Adelaide police had contacted Daniel and he said to them, oh, I haven't seen her since February 2009. We separated and she, she went to the NT. But then I last I heard she was in Queensland with a new bloke, right? That was his story. He told them and then he said I've, I do have another number for her. Call me back this afternoon and I'll go. I'll get it for you. Call me back this afternoon and I'll give it to you. This other number. They were unable to contact him for further information from there.

1:01:31 However, in the meantime, on September 10th, 2009, Carly's mother received a number of messages from Carly saying text messages saying that she was fine. Candles is fine. We're all OK, but we don't want to have contact. We don't want contact with family but we're fine. Can you please send me some money? Yeah, can you send me money? So which then Colleen's gone and rung the police back and said, oh, it's OK. I've I've got text messages from text messages from her. She's saying she's fine but doesn't want contact with family.

1:02:03 So they've got said, oh, tick box done. No longer a missing person. So we're in September 2009, she's no longer now a missing person. That's and so that's why when in 2010 a body is found in the Belanglo Forest, there's no missing person report for Carly or Candelice because it's been it had. Been withdrawn. So the, when the police are looking into, into this, you know, initial missing persons report, they could see that her bank cards had been used and that there was activity on her mobile phone and they kind of just took it at that.

1:02:39 Yeah, we know for sure, yeah, 100% for sure that Carly wasn't alive at the time. So a total of $72,000 was accessed accessed in her bank account between 2008 and 2011. Sorry, 2012. Yeah. Unbelievable. So this was Centrelink payments or social support payments? Yeah. And it was all withdrawn. So it was either used through her card. So that was used for things like Ubers and hotels, flights. There was some food items on there. All cash was withdrawn from ATMs. There was a person so identified as a woman in a wheelchair with quite a frumpy appearance attending a Centrelink office and then a credit union office to change the address details that then matched, surprisingly enough, where Hazel was living with Daniel.

1:03:42 Because she claimed to be Carly and also brought along Kandalisa's birth certificate with her and therefore that released that actual interaction with Centrelink on that particular moment. Released a payment of $7806.00 for arrears of family tax benefit and rent assistance. Yeah. So she basically said at the time that she did not want to claim child support anymore and that it then entitled her, who they thought was Carly, to get back payment for for those. Things. So, yeah. And that money immediately obviously was siphoned out of that account slowly as well.

1:04:18 Just awful. So that was in 2010, that particular incident. Yeah, Yeah. Should we go back to well, I guess, I guess. Should we say what we now know happened? Yeah, yeah. So. So basically from the point of Carly and Daniel Holden leaving Adelaide and leaving his girlfriend of the time, Hazel in a wheelchair in Adelaide. After having killed her two. Children, yeah. So they disappeared, the two of them, they ran off and they ended up in Canberra in on the 17th of December. Oh, sorry, that was a bit earlier that we ended up in Canberra visiting.

1:04:59 They went and visited with Daniel's cousin, I believe it was. Yeah, Christine. Cousin Christine and her husband Derek. Yeah. So that was the three of them obviously that were staying there with her, with them. There was candles as well as Carly and Daniel. And on the was it the December 15th I wanted to say? 14th of December 2008. They were the last two people to see Carly alive. So their account of that night is that Daniel and Carly had an argument. They left Kandelice with the couple, so with Christine and Derek with the cousin and her husband, and they took off in Carly's car the next day at Around was it about 2:00?

1:05:47 So what we do know is that due to the phone data that was then recovered from Daniel's phone, he was at the Bulenglo State Forest for 7 1/2 hours that following morning. So he's driven from Canberra to the Bulenglo State Forest. He was there a bit after midnight, I believe. Oh, it was about sorry, it was about 4:00 in the morning. Yeah, they left Canberra at 2:30 in the morning. Yeah, so they were there from they would have arrived in the Blind Globe, more like. 430 sort of stuff. 4430 Yeah, he was there for 7 1/2 hours or his phone was in.

1:06:24 This time, he'd actually taken some really horrific photos of Carly. Absolutely disgusting. So in the execution of her murder, not only had he done exactly what the coroner ascertained in that he stomped on her chest and crushed her internal organs, he sexually assaulted her. There's photographic evidence of this. He used implements like glass bottles. He defaced her with all manner of like scratches and cuts and that kind of thing and took plenty of photos for his pleasure I guess. I don't know for him to look back on afterwards and gross, Yeah, Horrible, horrible.

1:07:18 What a. Fucking sick prick. In the court documents, it does talk very explicitly about what is in those photos. Yeah, I'm not going to repeat it because it's absolutely beyond. It's beyond compilation. But not only that. So this same SD card that was in that camera, they found all sorts of photos on that camera that were deleted, but still on the card. And a particular photo that was found was also that on the night of the car accident with the children in the car, he had taken a photo of one of the children's skull fragments on the ground near that accident.

1:08:00 So somehow, in that moment of staggering around that horrific accident, he had decided to take a photo of that. Yeah, and his account of it is, oh, I was rendering first aid to Hazel the whole time. He he is quite possibly one of the most evil people. I've ever come absolutely pure evil. So these photos that they were taken of of Carly in these in these disgusting photos, it is unknown whether or not she was alive or dead at that time. They can't determine that.

1:08:37 Disgusting. Absolutely. Horrific. It's horrible. He'd covered her face in a lot of them, which is why it makes it difficult to determine whether she was alive or deceased, but it was very, very close either way. Yeah. The last photo was taken about 45 minutes before he left the forest. Yeah, yeah, he returned then back to Canberra where Candelis was obviously without Carly, to which his cousin is Christine was how would why would she just leave without candles? And he made this statement of she just does that sometimes, you know, we have arguments and she just UPS and leaves and goes.

1:09:13 So. So that was just. Carly's family said that would literally never happen. She would never, ever do that. She would never leave candles. Yeah. So in all of this, the only two people that would ever comment negatively around his around Carly's parenting is Christine because she believed what her cousin told her, Daniel. So they were the only two that was within had statements that said negative things around Carly's parenting. So just putting that out there. Yeah. So basically Christine took it on face value that, yeah, Carly was still alive, obviously, and off on her own run, run off from this argument and they'll sort that out couple of days later.

1:09:54 Hold him. Actually, he gets rid of the car that he had that was actually Carly's car. He went and got rid of that, traded it in, traded in. He got another car, a Holden Statesman, and on the 19th of December. Which was in Derek's name. Yeah, that's right. So the cousin's husband's name, because Holdem didn't have a license after the accident, could have been taken off him, but he's still driving around. He's still driving around, Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, on the 19th of December, him and Candles pack up their stuff from his cousin Christine's house and hit the road.

1:10:29 But Candles is never to be seen alive again. So I think Daniel said to Christine that he was going to drop candles at her grandmother's place. And so Christine, I reckon she took that on face value because he wasn't going to keep his girlfriend's kid. Yeah, assumed that had been pre arranged and didn't ask any further questions. No, but. So he headed South towards headed towards SA, but he stopped off at a supermarket in Wagga Wagga. Along the way he purchased body wash gel, multi purpose wipes, garbage bags and duct tape.

1:11:06 Did you know that however many years later when they were going to court about this, yeah, Woolworths, still Woolworths, were actually able to pull up this receipt. Wow. Out of their records. That's impressive because if I went down there and tried to return something, they'd tell me. Have you got your receipt? Don't even get me started. I had a bit of an issue with Woolworths this morning with my cherries. Wasn't very happy. But anyway, sorry, that's the story for another day. But yeah, that blew my mind.

1:11:35 Yeah. It was like how many 8 odd years later or six years later? Yeah, they were able to go through their records and match they and so they knew exactly. What I thought they have exact. Brands. CCTV footage or no they. Didn't, No, but they had the receipt. Wow. Pinpoint like the exact I mean how many stores they have. I guess you married down to A. Store, but in which store roughly they were looking within this time frame, Yeah. And then they were. Able to. Well, yeah, I guess the next point would be that they checked into a hotel at 11:00 AM So I guess looking at timeline, yeah, you could probably say within this hour.

1:12:09 Yeah, look at all the receipts. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. So they checked into a hotel in Narandera, in a motel at 11:00 AM. But there from his, his phone, his phone, like the phone data, they can tell he was only there for about 2 1/2 hours. However, this is where they believe that unfortunately, he killed Carly Candelice. Yeah. So when he checked into the hotel, he checked in under his real name. Yeah, records were kept. So the records of this were incredible, the way this came about. But he checked in under his own name and he checked in that there was one adult and one child checking into the room.

1:12:46 The people who, when the police were investigating this many years later, the people who owned the motel at the time were no longer owners. Right. So the people who were owned, who owned it once the police were were looking into this were like, well, sorry, we actually don't have. We've only got records for X amount of years. We don't have all those. Yeah. So they were able to find where the old owner was living. They went to visit her there. Yeah. And they were like, do you have any records? She was like, look, I really don't think I do.

1:13:17 And they were like, well, the other thing we're actually looking for is this particular brand of towel that they found. Yeah. With the body. Body. Yeah. And the owner was like, I actually use our old motel towels as my dog towels now. Let me go and see, they were able to match the serial number on the towel from this random woman's house in, like, I think she was living in country SA at the time, Right. And they were able to match the serial numbers, like, incredible police work. Yeah. To show that he'd be that place, in that place at that.

1:13:49 Time and that matches up with them a. Couple of weeks later, apparently this old motel owner thought got the the better of her. She's like, I'm gonna go and check and see everything that we brought back from the motel and see if we can find it. He she found the actual receipt. He'd paid $85 for the night. Oh, wow. And it was in his real name and it was room 32 and. Wow. Yeah, that's impressive. I mean, I mean, that would have been great to know in what room because I mean, they could. Have checked, I guess they did.

1:14:17 But I mean I don't know how. Much of it. They did luminal testing. They tested some, They tested the bed, which apparently the beds hadn't been changed in that time, but the carpets had and the rooms had been painted, so it didn't come up with anything. And they decided it was way too much work to forensically test every single bed sheet. Yeah. In the whole place. Because the chance they would have found something was very minimal because, I mean, how many times would they have been watched? Thousands in that time.

1:14:43 So yeah, they decided that was not worth. Yeah. Resource. The resource to for an absolutely one in a trillion chance, probably, Yeah. So, yeah. Incredible police. Work. Oh God, yeah. So. Well, I mean, yes, we still don't. I mean, we won't ever know. I don't think exactly what happened to Candelice because he is the only person that knows, but the one thing that we do know and that is agreed upon from the prosecution's point of view as well as as his defence that there was a sexual motive involved in the murder of Candace.

1:15:16 Which again, fucking disgusting piece of shit. Hazel was interviewed in the course of all of this because they wanted to know what involvement she had and because after Carly was murdered, Daniel and Hazel re entered into their relationship. She just took him. Back, he literally couldn't know after after so basically he he murdered Candelice, put her in that suitcase and dropped her off on the side of the road in, in then SA yeah, on his way because the next spot he stopped at yeah was literally Hazel's house.

1:15:51 Yeah, knocked on the door and they started their relationship. Again. Yeah, she just took him back in. He had some kind of weird hold over. It well, let's get into that maybe. Well, he track. Yeah, Hazel, so you know, when she was interviewed by the police after all of this came, came to a head, they basically offered her. So they offered her an inducement, which is different. It's different from like an indemnity. So basically what it means is if she provided a true and accurate statement, she could not be prosecuted for any information she gave.

1:16:29 However, if she perjured herself in the statement, they could prosecute her for that. And so if they were able to gain evidence for that, then the police could choose to then prosecute her for her lies. So it's not an absolute, like it's not an absolute immunity. It's called an inducement. And apparently this is a tactic that police use all the time because they get the information that they want and then they can still. Can still prosecute? Prosecute. The person because if they don't do the right thing, they're all.

1:17:00 Crimes, but I'm sorry, but she's she is equally piece of shit as he is. Like in that. Well, probably not, but still not quite. The single fact of the matter is this guy's rocked back up. He, he tells her eventually, because she finds Carly's possessions in the car, the boot of her car, of his car, and she's like, Oh my God, they're still together, like, and he's going, no, no, she's like, she ran off to Queensland, that old story. Eventually he breaks down and he tells her that he's murdered Carly and Candle.

1:17:29 He says she's gone for good and then Hazel doesn't ask any further questions to that. Eventually, he. Does eventually he confesses fully. Doing both to what he did to both of them with some detail, well. He says, he says to her, this is this is Hazel's statement. Yeah. He says he raped her with a bottle. He stomped on her throat and crushed her throat. Yeah. And you know his response to when she said, why did you do that? His response was, I did it for you because I wanted to come back to you. And she turned around and went, oh, the love of my life.

1:18:05 What the fuck I why would you not like heading down to the police station to go, holy fuck, this guy who now has murdered my two children in a car accident has now murdered another girl and her child. Get the fuck out, love. She didn't. They stayed together until 2010 and even then they split up and at two in 2010, we still didn't know that the candy list had still not been found on like in that that suitcase. No. So in 2010 she splits up with him and it's all really bad and he's an asshole. She still didn't even go.

1:18:39 I'm going to the cops on you. No, I don't can't even Oh God. I mean, and then not not to mention all the phone calls she made on, you know, to his PIN being telling her, you know, like I need to now phone call, phone this person or text that personal rock up at a Centrelink and, you know, make sure that Carly looks like she's still alive. Disgusting. It's her. It's fucking horrible. Yeah, she should be in jail. He admitted to Hazel. This is the bit that gets me. This is the bit that I'm like, why the fuck?

1:19:08 When you heard this? Yeah. Were you not down at the police station knowing that you've got a young daughter and now she also had a Well, no, not yet, but. She knew all this stuff before. Yes, sorry, but she had a young daughter. She still had Lauren at this point. He admitted to her that he was sexually abusing Kandelise and Kandelise died while they were doing it. I think I just vomited in my mouth. That's disgusting. That is beyond revolting. This is the bit that I can't get over, like as a mother.

1:19:46 But I mean, she knew that of him way before that. Like that. Like that statement is next level evil, but she knew that he was capable of that. Yes, because he'd been. He used to ask her to detailily tell him the story of her own abuse, sexual abuse as a child, so that he could Jack off to it. Yep. And he asked her to even write it down in stories, and so she used to write him stories about it, of it. Yep. Oh, it's just horrific. So by the time we get to where we've now identified Candy Lisa's body and we've identified Carly's body and all these sorts of things, they very quickly catch on to Daniel Bing being a personal suspect, right?

1:20:37 And they can find him very easily because he's already in jail. So he was in waiting sentencing for a a sexual assault case of a child under the age of 10 at a caravan park in New South Wales Central Coast. So this poor little girl, she was nine years of age and you can I don't even know that we want to go down the account, her account of what happened, but she actually to her, you know, what a strong little girl, she told her mom and dad straight away about what had happened. So at the time Daniel was so he and Hazel had broken up at this point and he had actually entered into a relationship with a 17 year old girl.

1:21:23 I just, I can't even with this. I mean, at this point, he's, you know, put over 40. Yeah. Because, like, what is he? He's 44 by the time what in 2000 and when he gets sentenced? Yes, so I think so. I think he was, he was like 42 or something when all this happened. In fact, I've got that written down somewhere. No, he was 43. He was 43. Oh, So what an absolute yeah fucking asshole going out with a 17 year old. Like fuck off you absolute pedo but. Where are they? Where are people stepping in with this?

1:21:52 I just, that's, I don't know. Yeah, but he was sorry. He was also found with a notebook, right? Oh, yes. Where there were thirty name children's names in this book with their it was either their name or an age that was sort of identified them and next to each of them it was written either rape, forced or consent. What does rape? This is what I didn't get when I was reading this. What's the difference between rape and forced? Oh don't get me started on that. Like what the fuck? And then consent. Consent.

1:22:25 If you're under the age of what, 16, you cannot provide consent. And these ages were all well under that. Absolutely. And also if he, if you know, he was in his fucking 30s and 40s when he was doing this shit. Yeah. Yeah, so Candle's name was on that list. They can't verify and they know that what was written in that book was accurate, but the things that were in there. Because he only had given names. Yeah. So he could they the police, as much as they tried, they couldn't actually narrow down to these people these girls were.

1:22:58 No, but what they could work out was that there was definitely locations in the book where he they could prove he was that in those in that time frame of 2000 and six, 2007. There was also the stuff that was in there that he's he claims that he was he had done were very much in line with what the photos of like Carly's body and things showed. So it from it, you could deduce that these were quite possibly accurate, but not enough evidence of obviously to declare outright that this wasn't false because as you were talking about before, he was also into stories.

1:23:33 So we we don't know what level of it was fantasies. And so it's possible that some of this was just fantasies. And I think you were alluding to this before as well. He just lied all the time. Well he lied for things that would potentially get him into more trouble that weren't true, and then he lied about things to get himself out. It was. He was a fucked unit. He's a fucked unit. He was interviewed when when they arrested him originally for this, which at that point he was. He was said no, he had no partner to the point of when they arrested him for it.

1:24:01 He said. You've got the wrong guy. He he pleading guilty. Yeah. He, he did plead guilty eventually, but he actually implicated Derek that his cousin's husband. No, that was that was the first thing he was interviewed by police. And the police were like, well, we put it to you that blah, blah, blah, that you've done all these things. Yeah. And he was like, no, no, no. Then the police said, look, this was a multiple hour interview. Yeah. They then gave him, he was in, as you know, he was in prison awaiting sentencing at the time they gave him their card.

1:24:31 And they're like, if you can think of anything else, let us know. And he'd gone overnight, obviously had to think about how he's going to sort of spin this to make it work for him. And he was like, the next one. He's like, look, I didn't want to say anything yesterday, but yeah, it was Derek. It's actually Derek. Yeah. Yeah. He's a piece of shit, that Derek. I mean, Derek has bit turns before, to be fair, Right. But not in the murder of Carly or Candela. Stay, say like, Oh no, I didn't do it and try and get yourself out of it.

1:25:03 It's a whole other level of things to put someone else in. It and someone you know. Point at someone like and go. Get a family member I. Just that's really shit. Like that is really, you know, disconnected from any kind. Of he actually said to them as well, he's like, I'll be a Crown witness and I'll, I'll, I'll never speak to my family again. You've got to give me a new identity though, a new name, and that needs to be paid for by the Crown. Pay for me to be to. Be a new person and I'll disappear.

1:25:29 And they're all like, I mean, the police knew at this point that he'd done it. And they're like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. Tell us a bit more about that. And in in the telling of this story that he'd conjured up, he actually couldn't keep the story straight. And he told three different versions of events. And when they then challenged him with that, he was like, I need a lawyer. Good one mate. Yeah, it's about time. Yeah. He ended up getting a legal aid lawyer who he didn't like, and then he asked for the government to pay for a proper criminal attorney, which they did.

1:26:04 I think eventually the justice in the case was not happy about any of it, but obviously wanted a fair trial because he didn't want anything coming. Oh, you know. Well, this is the other stuff here. Psychologically, he he dragged this out as long as he possibly could once there was on the cards a trial. So at first it was, you know, Yep, he was innocent. By the time he'd got legal counsel, he was yeah, OK, probably gonna gonna plead guilty His that was the on advice of them. So he got all the way up to the day of the hearing, to which he then decided to, he told his counsel as they arrived, because obviously he's coming in from the docks, from the jail underneath.

1:26:48 He comes into it with his counseling. He goes, oh, yeah, actually, I'm not going to plead guilty to Candelice's murder. So that. So then they were in this position of having to put present that to the judge on the spot, which didn't go down too well. It it got sorted out eventually. And he what he did plead guilty to both, both of them. But I mean, he just wanted to find any way possible to drag this out and make it take longer than it needed to. Did you know that Mark Tedesky? Yes, the prosecution.

1:27:17 He's the same prosecutor for Kelly Lane. Lane. Now I'm not a big fan but. Not at all, but he actually did a really good. Job a good job on this one. Yeah, yeah. Go back and listen to our Kelly and Tegan Lane episode and you can get our real thoughts on Mark Tedeski, especially in that. And we're not the only. Ones. Oh no, we're not. There's a lot about him. I mean he he actually resigned as senior prosecutor in the February of that year the 2018. So I'm not sure that he was there actually for the final sentencing and stuff of of Daniel, but yeah, he's certainly part of the original hearings and things because I was back in August of 2017 when it first started being heard.

1:27:56 You can find the court documents online. There's the the actual statement by the judge when he sentences Daniel is quite lengthy, but worth. Three with lengthy. He hit the nail on the head. He's a massive evil motherfucker. Like I'd it's. He's he received two life sentences on the 29th of November in 2018 and he will rush in jail thank fuck because there's no rehabilitation for a piece of shit like that. I imagine him in jail like and just. I think he has to be in like a solitary wing because he's a child rapist and child murderer and I don't know why we protect.

1:28:36 I don't know why either. Really. Fucking let him add him. Oh, he deserves it. Oh, he's just, it's really gross what he did to those two people. And I I can't even imagine that the number of other people have been impacted by him. And his behaviors we wouldn't even know. No, I think that where he's where he belongs absolutely in prison. And that's what I mean, I know Carly's stepdad actually asked for the death penalty to be invoked again for him. I think that's too good for him personally. I think he can rot it out in jail for as long as possible.

1:29:08 Yeah. Yeah. As we said, Colleen, Carly's Mama, unfortunately passed away in 2012, so she didn't know where they were. Well. She didn't know that they were deceased. No, I had no idea of anything. Maybe that's a small mercy because she didn't have to have the pain of knowing this. Because this is the thing the the long term effects of this on Carly and Candice's family. It's untold. Absolutely. So her stepbrother or half brother, sorry, and her stepdad still live in Alice Springs and you know, living, living their lives.

1:29:44 But this is it's huge the impact this had. Absolutely. Forever. For them, this is forever. Their lives are forever changed. Yeah, yeah, Carly and Candelice were actually buried in the same coffin. An extra wide coffin was made so that they could be together forever, and they were buried next to Carly's mom and Candelice's grandma in Alice Springs. Yeah, I hope they're together somewhere. I'm sure they are. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Speak one. It was. It was. It was. There's actually so, so, so much more to this case that we haven't even touched on.

1:30:18 I listened to a really great audio book called The Lost Girls by Ava Benny Morrison about this. You can purchase the book through Amazon, but I just listened to it through audible. If you want to really deep dive into this case, have a listen or, or pick up the book and have a read because it's it's so detailed. It'll get you, you can just be be prepared for that because there's a lot of detail in the book that I mean, it's absolutely horrific. And I think similarly can be said of the court transcripts if you get your hands on those.

1:30:54 Yeah, it took me a bit to find them actually. But once I did and and had a read through, yeah, it's a lot. That's a lot, definitely a lot, yeah. Next week's kind of. Next week's episode's a little a little lighter. Glad. You brought this stuff down because I always forget. Yeah, we're actually doing Carol Baskin, the Tiger King. Oh. That's actually, I just literally like breathed. It's just, that'll be, that'll be like, I mean, it's still murder, but it's a lot lighter. A lot lighter, yeah. And we can reminisce about our lives in 2020.

1:31:27 We're going to talk about stuff that episode, actually, before we get into about somewhere I've been that we could go in these holidays. Oh cool, that's. Very reminiscent of Tiger Let's. Do it. Cool, cool, cool. All right, Well, thank you, everybody for joining us for another episode of Two Crime Besties. As always, please, you know, like, comment, subscribe, all of the things that the kids say these days. We really appreciate it. And if you'd like to buy us a coffee, you can do so at buymeacoffee.com/two Crime Besties.

1:31:57 For sure check your own socials. Stay curious. Crime besties. Bye.