WEBVTT - The girl in the suitcase 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:07.000 This unknown killer or associates had been spooked by something 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.840 and it hidden the body in the suitcase and moved it. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:18.720 DNA in those child's bones match up with DNA from 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.960 some unidentified bones found in New South Wales in twenty ten, 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.480 and those bones were found in the Bilanglo State Forest. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.760 I'm Andrew Rulis's Life and Crimes. The recent search for 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.160 a little lost boy called gus Lamont in the Upback 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:43.360 area of South Australia reminds us of another awful thing 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.480 that happened in South Australia more than a decade ago. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.880 In fact, it's a crime that spanned several years from 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.480 the time it happened until the time it was resolved. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.000 And that is a case that some listeners will vaguely remember. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.360 But it's the case of the body in the suitcase. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.160 It's the case of a little missing girl whose remains 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:14.000 turned up in an old, faded suitcase by the side 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.959 of a highway at a tiny, little one horse town 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:23.399 called Wanaka, which is right out there in what they 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:29.360 call the Murray Malley, which is emptied out farming country 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.800 where the communities have shrunk to nothing much more than 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.680 a pair of road signs. Just west of Winaka on 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.720 the Karunda Highway, there's a patch of bush just before 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.080 the big wheat paddocks start pushing up to the road, 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.320 and it was there on the fifteenth of July twenty fifteen, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.600 so that's just over ten years ago that a curious 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.520 Matra has turned up when something caught his eye. This 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.600 driver wasn't the first to notice the faded suitcase that 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.840 had been abandoned under a bush. Others had been there 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.280 over previous weeks and seen it, but no one before 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.280 had noticed what he saw. Among the pile of clothes 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.320 that were scattered around the old suitcase, which had burst open. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:20.160 It was a human jawbone, a very small one. When 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.080 the police arrived, they found the rest of the skeleton 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.600 was obviously a child's, almost certainly a girl's, judging from 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.320 the clothes that were also in the case. It took 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.600 forensic scientists to confirm the police's working assumption that the 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.160 dead child was a female age between thirty months and 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:44.080 four years. What investigators would not say at the time 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.560 was whether they could extract a strong enough DNA sample 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.520 from the bones to compare with samples already on record. Obviously, 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.640 they'd be looking at samples taken from offenders, especially sex offenders. 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.880 Their assumption, of course, was that it was highly possible 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.160 the child was a victim of a sex offender and 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:09.440 may well have been related to that sex offender. Having 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.720 DNA in such cases gives police a tool to eliminate 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.200 or implicate any person of interest. From the police point 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.880 of view, anyone closely related to the child should be 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.639 able to unlock the macabre mystery of what had happened 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.400 to her. South Australia's Major Crime Squad made an educated 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:31.200 guess that the person they wanted was probably in their state, 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.280 and quite likely within close range of where the body 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.640 had been found. They set up a task force called 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.680 Task Force Malley, and it began its investigation by door 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.560 knocking every house within twenty five kilometers of that scene 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:55.280 of the little hamlet of Wanaka Warnaca permanent residents. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:56.440 List of eight people. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.200 At this point, the police were conscious of how many 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.480 notorious murder cases in the past had been ruined from 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.560 the start by slap dash investigations, and they were keen 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:11.920 not to let that happen again, which. 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:12.920 Is a good thing. 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.480 The task for investigators did not reveal all they knew 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.920 about what happened to the child because they had to 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:24.080 keep some vital detail secret, something that only the killer, 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.560 you and that time wasters did not know. Police interview 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.680 rooms produced some bizarre and detailed confessions, and not all 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.880 of them are true. It's a funny thing out in 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.120 the world that people turn up at police stations and 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.400 beg to confess and then make long, rambling confessions that 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.839 are totally bogus. And this is one of the problems 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.480 of investigating notorious crimes. The police knew that the victim 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.360 was a little under a meter tall, tiny child, and 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.000 had shoulder length fair hair, which would probably describe it 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.920 about half the little girls you know, pre kindergarten kids 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:09.320 in Australia. They knew she had died extremely violently. Certain 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.280 factures suggested she was bashed to death. It looked as 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.400 if the unknown killer or someone close to the killer 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.760 had covered the body in a pile of clothes, maybe 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.719 in an empty room or a cupboard or a shed, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.440 and then left it for years, long enough to be 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:31.520 reduced to a skeleton. Then, probably sometime in twenty fifteen, 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:37.800 they thought this unknown killer or associates had been spooked 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.680 by something, and it hidden the body in the suitcase 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.640 and moved it. Whatever the reason, it seems that someone 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.160 took the suitcase from an earlier hiding pace to Wanaka. 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.320 It was tempting to assume it must have been moved 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.160 in a vehicle, but that did not tally with a 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.040 fact that ended up being a red herring. But the 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.000 fact that at the time seemed a very strong clue, 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:09.760 and that is this strange coincidence that in early twenty fifteen, 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:15.480 between March and May sometimes in the tiny township of Warnaka, 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.359 which is just a flyspeck on the map, two of 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:23.880 the town's eight permanent residents, Denise Edwards and Monica Martin, 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.279 were out walking their dogs when they saw something that 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.799 stuck in their memory. It was a man aged about sixty, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.320 they thought, walking briskly up the main street towards the highway. 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.680 The man was average height, lightly built, a neat looking 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.440 with short gray hair. He was a complete stranger to 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.039 both women, who are locals, born and bred. The most 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.680 unusual thing about the stranger was that he had a 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.960 large suitcase and was carrying it rather than wheeling it, 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.840 as if it wasn't especially heavy. In other words, if 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.000 it had a big suitcase, be very heavy. If it's 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.799 full of clothes and shoes and books and things, they're 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.880 shocking things. But if it only had a handful of 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.640 clothes and a skeleton. 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:09.680 Of a child, it would be very light. 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.320 And I think it's fair to say that in modern times, 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.200 you say this century, you could drive around Australia and 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:23.240 probably never see someone walking along a highway with a suitcase. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.560 Carrying a suitcase, it's just not something people do much 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:28.000 these days. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:29.440 They had backpacks or whatever. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.600 The stranger with the suitcase had been close enough to 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.040 see both women, but he made no eye contact, that 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.440 made no greeting, which was unusual in the country. When 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.960 these two women told the police about it, it did 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.280 obviously seem like a really good clue. If they find 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.440 the man who had been carrying the suitcase and eliminate him, 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.960 it would be a very good start on an investigation. Meanwhile, 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.880 of course, the forensic experts are back at the labs. 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.119 They're doing their best to extract usable DNA from these 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.960 bones found at Gwanaka. The other things they were looking 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.480 at were the clothes that were in the case and 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.560 a quilt, an unusual quilt that was with it. The 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:19.280 clothing was mostly cheap and mass produced, and most of it. 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.400 Was available all over Australia. 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.080 From dozens and dozens and hundreds of stores like Target 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.600 and those sort of bargain stores. The most distinctive garment, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.760 much more rare, really, was a. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:34.800 Glittery, dark blue tutu. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:40.080 There was also one pink slipper like shoe with a 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.080 butterfly emblem, the sort of thing that people buy for 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.240 little girls. Police traced the likely origins of most of 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.240 the fifty odd items of clothing they'd found, but five 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.760 brand names took longer. There was Sally Brand, there was 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.480 miss x Australia, there was HF and GAFF, and there 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.080 was another quite strange under the long complicated name. But 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:07.800 they found out that the blue tutu was sufficiently rare 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.960 that only twenty eight of them had been sold in 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.360 South Australia in the previous eight years. But it was 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.400 the quilt that was found in the suitcase or near 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.880 the suitcase that seemed the most intriguing clue. It was 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:26.480 a one off. It was custom made, homemade, apparently homemade 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:31.199 from mostly hexagonal patches of bright material, but had been 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.400 machine stitched, not hands sewn, so someone had made this now. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.439 Of course, it could have been made by some relative 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.800 of the child, grandmother or aunt or something, or just 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.160 as likely it could have been picked up at an 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:49.079 opshop or from some charity group. Either way, investigators were 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.080 very keen to know who thought they might recognize the 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.520 quilt and tell them about it, even anonymously. There was 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.480 not much value in the suitcase itself. It was the 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.199 Lands brand. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.720 Of suitcase, which is a budget. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.640 Line about the cheapest line of suitcases sold by one 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:14.040 of the big national luggage retail chains. Police learned that 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.000 the still gave away a large number of these Lands 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.880 Of suitcases for as little as nine dollars each over 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.360 the preceding years, so there were hundreds and hundreds of 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.240 them scattered around the place and the chances of tracing 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.199 one of them were very remote. So as the investigation 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.240 moved into its second month, so we're now getting very 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:39.120 late in two thousand and fifteen, the unknown neat man 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:44.760 who carried a suitcase in Wanaka early that year seemed 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.240 to be the only lead. Every day that he failed 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.880 to come forward to clear himself seemed to confirm him 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.960 as a potential suspect. Fair enough, you would think that, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.080 but it's a lesson for all of us that you 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.560 can't look to those conclusions because, as with so many 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.079 promising leads, it turned out to be a dead end. 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:11.800 What actually happened was the breakthrough that investigators needed came 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.480 with two calls made within days of each other in 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:22.160 October twenty fifteen. On the eighth of October, caller number 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.280 twelve hundred and sixty seven, that's quite a few callers 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.160 on this case, inform police that the mystery child could 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:38.240 be called Candalise Kiara Pierce, who had in effect been 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.360 missing with her mother, Carly Piers Stevenson since two thousand 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.000 and eight, when they'd left their hometown of Alice Springs. 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.559 A second call, this is soon afterwards, number twelve hundred 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.240 and seventy one, so it's only four calls later confirmed 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.160 police interest in the missing mother and daughter that is 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.839 Candalesse and no mother Carly, because it's it seemed that 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.640 the pair's family and friends had not physically seen them 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.920 since they'd left the Northern Territory back in two thousand 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.920 and eight, so that's years before, seven years before a 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.960 quick check showed a missing personal report have been filed 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.280 in the territory in September two thousand and nine. 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.880 But that it had lapsed after Carly's. 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:27.120 Mother, Colleen Povey. So we've got Candillies and her mother, Carli, 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.480 and Carly's mother Colleen, all starting with the same sound. 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.480 So the little girl's grandmother, Colleen Povey had reported hearing 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.640 from her daughter. Now that was a genuine. 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.719 Report by her because she believed she had heard from 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:43.160 her daughter. 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.679 Police were intrigued by the reasons for the family's misplaced 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.800 confidence that the pair, the missing pair, was safe. 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:53.000 But now they had. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.680 Names to work with, they could really focus on those 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.640 two people, a little girl and her mother, both missing 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.760 for years. The search narrowed drastically. The more the investigators looked, 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.160 the more they didn't find about Carli and Candlease, which 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.880 reenforced the growing suspicion that something had gone terribly wrong 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.120 for them. Medical records showed that little Candlease had received 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.599 the usual vaccination shots at eighteen months old, but she 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:27.520 had not reappeared in any database in Australia after that. Significantly, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.640 she had never been enrolled in any kindergarten or school, 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.720 which sort of tells you that she's missing gone missing. 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:41.840 Something happened back then before kindergarten age. Now. The South 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.400 Australian Police called a media conference on the twenty first 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:50.079 of October, this is months after the skeleton was found, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:55.200 and he announced the lead investigator that's detected, Superintendent There's Bray, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.920 announced that he had DNA evidence to back up what detected. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.160 He has already felt in their bones that the child's 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.679 remains in the suitcase were all that was left of Candalase, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:15.079 and by comparing the little girl's DNA with DNA obtained 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.960 from bones found in far away rural New South Wales 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.120 in twenty ten, they cleared up a second mystery. So 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.000 what they've said is we've just tested the bones from 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:31.920 the suitcase that is certainly the small girl Candalise, who 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.080 hasn't been seen since two thousand and eight. And not 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:40.200 only that, DNA in those child's bones match up with 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.480 DNA from some unidentified bones found in New South Wales 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.680 in twenty ten. And those bones were found in the 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.600 Bilanglo State Forest, which of course is notorious because it's 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:58.920 where the several victims of the Terrible murderer Ivan Malatt 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:04.200 had been found and these unidentified bones found in twenty 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:09.160 ten at Blanglo State Forest had been called They had 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.720 been named in the media as the Angel of Blanglow 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.040 because I think there was a T shirt or something 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.200 with the angel on it, but the police didn't know 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.400 who the bones belonged to. But now the suitcase bones 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.680 had shared DNA with the Blanglow bones, and what the 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.160 police had was a scenario where the mother and daughter 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.680 had both been killed and disposed of a thousand kilometers 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:38.520 apart in two states. And once they'd established that, I 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.840 think they were very keen to talk to the last 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:47.560 people to see the mother and daughter alive, which person, 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.240 which male person they would be thinking had been with 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.640 Carli and candales Now it didn't take the police long 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:59.920 to work out that they were probably looking for a 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:06.320 called Daniel Hold them, that's h O l M hold them, 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:11.160 not hold them as in car hold on, and to 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.440 go back and work out what probably happened. One of 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.840 the reasons the police had such good DNA results was 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:23.280 that they were able to obtain a tiny sample of 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.320 Candalesse's blood from her medical records, so they weren't just 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:29.720 looking at these old dry bones that have been kicked 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:34.200 around out beside a road somewhere. They were able once 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.960 they knew who it was that they were probably looking for, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.720 that is Candalesse, they were able to access her medical records, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.880 and in the medical records was a tiny sample of 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:49.000 her blood which gave them really good DNA results, and 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.840 that led them to the match up on the database 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:57.280 with her missing mother, Carli. So the scenario is now 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.560 doubly sinister to apparent murders young mother and then her daughter, 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.560 bodies dumped one thousand kilometers apart. The police go looking 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:11.199 for their prime suspects. They found a witness who had 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.320 seen Candalise and her mother at Adelaide's Marion shopping center 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.880 in November two thousand and eight. Now, this witness, who 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.879 was not a bad person, this witness who's helping police 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.520 at this stage, photographed to Candlease in a pink dress 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.359 identical to that found in the suitcase. So that was 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:32.320 a great piece of evidence for the police to get. 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.199 Police also obtained photographs of Candlease in a stroller a 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.720 pusher with the handmade quill that had been found in 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.320 the suitcase. Each of these findes moved them closer to 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:50.120 the people they wanted. But even when Detective Superintendent des 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:54.040 Bray was outlining the facts at his big media conference 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:59.240 on twenty first of October in Adelaide, he already had 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.600 a suspect in mind, and he knew that that suspect 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.320 was in fact behind baths on unrelated charges. 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.320 Surprised surprise, Top. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.919 Adelaide crime reporter Nigel Hunt, one of our colleagues here 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.080 at News Corp, broke the story next day. Nigel Hunt 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.879 is one of the great South Australian news reporters of 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.440 all time, and he was able to tell the world 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.479 that police had identified a man who'd been seen with 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.720 Carli and Candalies around the time they'd last been seen. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.640 It turns out that Carly's family, that is, her mother 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.919 and I think a grandmother, had falsely believed that the 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:46.000 missing pair was still alive because they'd received text messages 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:51.439 from Carl's mobile phone purporting to be from Carli. Naturally, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.880 when you get a text message from somebody's mobile phone, 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.760 you tend to think it's from them, and on one occasion, 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.919 one of these texts had been a begging from money 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.320 from home, which was sort of classic Carli behavior anyway, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.760 so they believed it. They had obligingly placed money in 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.800 her account, from which it was then withdrawn, so you know, 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.359 they were, oh, yeah, Carli's out there somewhere, she needs 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.159 some money. We'll put some money in her account and 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.919 it's been withdrawn. Happy days. She's alive somewhere now. In 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.240 the seven years from when Carli and Candalesse were last 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.639 seen on the Stuart Highway just south of kober Pedy 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:35.040 in November two thousand and eight until the suitcase bones 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.840 were found at Wenaka in two thousand and fifteen, that's 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.199 a seven year gap. Ninety thousand dollars had been harvested 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.600 from Carl's bank account because her bank account was replenished 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:54.679 by her Center Link payments. And this is all very Snowtown, 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:00.639 very similar. It says a lot about the private ingreed 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.920 of some people that someone had killed a young mother, 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:10.440 probably before her twenty first birthday, presumably to steal a 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.480 benefits money, which of course is much like the Snowtown 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:19.000 killers had around Adelaide a few years earlier. And if 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.439 killing Carly young mother, you know, twenty twenty one whatever 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.760 wasn't sickening enough, the killer had then murdered her tiny child, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.080 It's hard to imagine a more cold blooded crime. If 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.560 one death wasn't premeditated, if it was a crime of 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:41.400 passion or you know whatever, the other one surely must 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.560 have been premeditated. If there was one small mercy, it 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.960 was that Carly's mother, Colleen, had died in twenty ten, 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.840 not actually knowing that her daughter and granddaughter had been 0:20:54.920 --> 0:21:00.720 murdered so foully. The killer's cruel trick of sending false 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.879 messages on Carli's phone was a sort of an accidental kindness. 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.600 It had lulled her mother, her worried mother, into believing 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.800 they were safe out there on the road somewhere, out there, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:19.320 on the road to nowhere. Okay, for the police, having 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.920 a prime suspect exactly where you wanted him, that he's 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.480 behind bars on other charges was one thing, a good thing, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.919 but proving the case against him was another. So the 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.639 police worked out that the victims mother and daughter had 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.320 visited Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and Canberra at different times. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.000 They appealed for people from those places and the roots 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:47.240 between them to think about possible contact and to think 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.439 about who was with them, who was the last to 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:55.040 see the victims alive. This is always the big question. 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:01.000 Police asked hotel and caravan park owners to check records 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.760 for Carlly P. Stevenson, and for landlords to check leases 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:09.080 for the same more similar names. They also appealed to 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:13.240 the public to study photographs of Carly and Candales and 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.040 scan their memories of whether they'd seen either of them. So, 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.439 while friends and family of Carly and Candales started an 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.800 online appeal to bring home their remains and to give 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:28.560 them a decent farewell, the police doggedly built their case 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:35.399 against the man in jail. We can now name this 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:40.040 fellow openly in a way that we could not do 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.960 back in twenty fifteen, because at that stage, of course 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:50.199 he faced looming murder charges. Daniel James Holdham. He was 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:54.680 then forty one. In twenty fifteen, the police were able 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.160 to establish that his mobile phone news put him at 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:03.359 both crime scenes. The mobile phone triangulation put him at 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.440 both scenes. Very very good evidence. But there's a more 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:13.040 sinister thing. When the police looked through Holdham's belongings, they 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.920 found a digital camera, and in digital camera they found 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.960 a data card, and on the data card they found 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:27.439 an image of Carly's body. Holdham had killed his so 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.240 called girlfriend by stomping at a death essentially a brutal, 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.119 brutal murder, and he'd taken a trophy photograph and he 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:38.639 kept it and the police found it. This would seem 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:43.119 to be overwhelming evidence, and so it proved to be. 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:47.960 He was arrested in jail and prison in Cessnock and 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:52.960 he appeared by video link within days now. Back when 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:55.720 we were writing about this story back in twenty fifteen, 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:59.760 we weren't naming him, and he's had charges to face. 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:05.320 But the reality is that he eventually worked his way 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:10.600 through the court system, and in twenty and eighteen, just 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:13.280 before the day before, two days before he's due to 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:18.280 appear in a Supreme court to face double murder charges, 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:21.879 he pladed guilty and that was locked up for a 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:24.439 very long time. You'd like to think that he has 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:29.480 locked up with people that would take offense at his offenses, 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.520 but we'll never know. A view sort of postscripts to 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:38.320 this story look back on without exploring the relationship between 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:43.760 the victims and Holdham, one thing is overwhelmingly clear. As 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:48.520 with so much crime at every level, from the top 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:52.399 end to the very bottom street crime, drugs are at 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:56.159 the center of it in one way or another. The 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:58.720 dead rode only the truth, and the truth is that 0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:04.480 this little girl, Candeleise, even as a baby, was condemned 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:08.520 from the time she was born, to suffer from the 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:13.760 so called lifestyle choices of those around us, especially, but 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:19.199 not only her mother. Reporters who uncovered a photograph of 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:21.760 Carli as a six year old, this is Carli, This 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:25.000 is the mother of Candlease. They found a photograph of 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:27.600 Calie as a six year old, and reporters were struck 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:31.920 by the similarity with Candleise, that the mother and daughter 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:35.679 looked so similar it was hard to believe. One reporter 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:40.040 wrote that the child, with her strawberry blonde hair and 0:25:40.040 --> 0:25:44.520 angelic face gazing at the camera she blew up a 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:48.360 balloon at a birthday party, would so soon be drifting 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:52.400 to the dark side. That birthday party snapshot was taken 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:57.840 in nineteen ninety four. Just fourteen years later, almost to 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:02.440 the day, Carli would be dead, obviously at the hands 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:07.280 of the reptile boyfriend who was heavily involved in the 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:12.960 drug scene and had snared Carly into his world when 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:17.240 she was a rebellious teenager with no real friends. Police 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:19.359 came to believe that carl had run up a twenty 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:22.639 five thousand dollars drug dead in the months before she 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:26.600 was murdered. In fact, they believed that she fled Ella 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:30.480 Springs with money meant to buy drugs to be smuggled 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:34.760 from Adelaide to the Northern Territory along the Inland Highway. 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:37.680 Route, which was used. 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:41.920 By, among others, the convicted Falconio murderer Bradley John Murdoch, 0:26:42.040 --> 0:26:45.840 who of course has now left us. He exited the building. 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:49.959 Tone Now, Carly's family knew a bit about drugs. Police 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:54.440 dole report us that Carl's grandmother, Connie Duffy. All these 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:59.919 names is Connie, There's Colleen, there's Carli and his candle. 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:04.240 There's a line here, four generations. Police stile reporters that 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:08.600 her grandmother, Connie Duffy, then eighty, was charged with possession 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:12.959 of a commercial quantity of cannabis in twenty ten. Carlie 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:16.240 had lived with that old woman as a young teenager. 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:19.160