EXCLUSIVE BOOK EXTRACT: THE TRAGEDY OF KARLIE AND KHANDALYCE
TO mark the release of her book The Lost Girls — the untold story of the murders of Alice Springs’ Karlie PearceStevenson and her daughter Khandalyce, crime reporter Ava Benny-Morrison tracks down the key players, who have spoken about the heinous crime for the first time. This edited extract tells of the day Karlie met Daniel — the man who would become her lover and her killer.
As a child, she was occasionally dubbed ‘Mouse’, due to her tiny frame, but Karlie Pearce-Stevenson never liked it.
She may have been little, but she made the most of growing up in the outback.
The brown-eyed, sociable little girl came from a loving family, raised by a stepfather who crisscrossed the country in roadtrains with an inquisitive Karlie peering over the dashboard and a mother who became a close friend.
Growing up in Alice Springs, Karlie’s life was quintessentially Australian; weekends were spent in her aunt’s backyard pool, on the netball courts with her cousins or at Northern Territory campsites.
She doted over her younger relatives and dreamt of having her own child one day.
That became a reality when Karlie, at the tender age of 17, found out she was pregnant.
Khandalyce Kiara Pearce came into the world in 2006 with her mother’s endearing cheekiness and almondshaped eyes.
As a teenager, Karlie had rebelled against her stepfather’s rules, left school in year 10 and moved in with her grandmother.
She started a relationship with Robbie Frampton, who adored her and Khandalyce, and they built a home.
Life was simple. Then Karlie met Daniel James Holdom.
****** In late 2007, Robbie Frampton was at work when a man he recognised walked in and introduced himself.
The man said his name was Daniel Marshall and he was relatively new to town. Did Robbie know of anyone who smoked marijuana, he asked. Daniel had been sourcing drugs from a warehouse in Adelaide, driving the haul back to Alice Springs and selling it.
The two men became friendly, and Robbie came to learn that Daniel had spent the past several months travelling around Australia in a caravan with his partner, Hazel, his stepkids, Willow and Ryan, and daughter Lauryn.
They’d settled in Alice Springs in search of work.
When they first came to town, they’d stayed at the Stuart Park Caravan and Cabin Tourist Park across the road from Araluen Park.
Daniel had picked up work at a used car yard and earned enough for the family to upgrade a townhouse.
Daniel appeared to have taken on the role of father to Willow, Ryan and Lauryn, but Robbie felt that he didn’t treat Hazel with as much care.
Nevertheless, eventually Robbie started taking his girlfriend Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her young daughter Khandalyce with him when he went to visit Daniel at home.
****** Khandals and Lauryn were about the same age and they’d play together in the backyard.
When Karlie and Robbie’s bathroom was being renovated, Karlie would shower at Hazel and Daniel’s house.
And then there were the drugs.
While Hazel only smoked marijuana, Daniel was into the hard stuff — ecstasy and speed.
It was a world Karlie had never explored but as she came to associate with Daniel and Hazel more and more in mid to late 2008, she began to pick up their habits.
It is with the benefit of hindsight that Robbie can say he had a feeling something was developing between and Karlie.
Years later, as he reflected on the signs of deceit, he still chose his words carefully.
He remembered in 2008 turning up unannounced at home, in between deliveries for work, and finding Daniel’s car parked in the driveway.
There were also text messages on Karlie’s phone from Daniel, thanking her for a ‘great time’. However, despite his niggling suspicions, Robbie chose to believe that Karlie wouldn’t go behind his back and kept quiet.
According to Robbie, it was around this time that Karlie, influenced heavily by Daniel, moved from smoking cannabis to using methamphetamines, commonly known as ice.
On 16 September 2008, Robbie woke to an alarming text message. Daniel said he’d been in a bad car accident and needed Robbie to come to Alice Springs Hospital. In the hospital emergency department, Robbie found Daniel inconsolable.
Apparently, Daniel had been driving in the middle of the night from Alice Springs to Adelaide when he’d swerved to avoid a kangaroo and had lost control of the car. Daniel
Willow and Ryan, who had been in the back seat, were dead and Hazel, who had to be airlifted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, was in a bad way. Like Daniel, Lauryn had survived with minor injuries.
Over the following weeks, Daniel travelled between Alice Springs and Adelaide to see Hazel in hospital, and Robbie watched as his drug use spiralled out of control.
Around the same time, Robbie felt Karlie growing more distant and their relationship began to buckle.
Then, in late October 2008, they had an argument that ended in Karlie telling her boyfriend she wanted to leave him.
****** When Robbie returned home from work later that day he found their apartment empty.
Robbie raced around to Karlie’s grandmother Connie’s house in search of Karlie but she wasn’t there.
Then he went to her stepfather and mother Scott and Colleen’s place.
Finally, he spotted Karlie’s car at a friend’s house in town.
On the windscreen of the maroon-coloured 1996 Holden Commodore station wagon that Scott and Colleen had given Karlie, Robbie left a heartfelt letter. He never got a response
Karlie returned to stay at Connie’s house.
Her family were as perplexed as Robbie as to why she’d left him.
One night, as they sat around Connie’s dining table, her aunt Ray asked Karlie what had happened. ‘I just don’t love him anymore,’ Karlie said with a shrug.
The family were also worried about the change in Karlie’s physical appearance.
‘Are you on drugs?’ an unapologetic Ray asked once.
‘No, Aunty Ray,’ she replied with a subtle eye roll.
‘I smoke a joint every now and again but that’s it.’
‘I’m not talking about that,’ Ray pressed. ‘You’re so skinny. You’ve lost so much weight.’
The concern seemed lost on Karlie. ‘I promise, Aunty Ray, I’ve always looked like this,’ she said.
****** Subtle changes in Karlie’s behaviour were also fuelling her family’s suspicions.
One day she’d be her normal, happy self and the next she’d be moody and agitated.
Once, at Colleen and Scott’s, a cup of coffee had fallen from Karlie’s shaking hands and she’d glanced at her stepdad sheepishly.
Her pupils had been as big as saucepans, Scott recalled.
In November 2008, Karlie dropped by Colleen’s workplace, Territory Surgical Supplies, to see her mother and to use her work computer.
Colleen wasn’t in her office when Karlie visited that day, but she returned to her desk to find a bunch of flowers and a note: ‘To Mum, love KJ xo’.
A day or two later, Karlie and Khandalyce dropped by Colleen and Scott’s home with a man whom Karlie introduced as Daniel.
Colleen Povey immediately felt uneasy about the stranger.
He avoided eye contact and muttered only a few words; it seemed like he wanted to get the pleasantries over and done with as quickly as possible.
As the women chatted, he stood by himself watching Khandalyce, dressed in a pair of silk boxer shorts in the sweltering Northern Territory heat, run around the backyard with a toy pram.
The little girl was just like her mother had been as a child; energetic, happy and fascinated by anything to do with babies.
When the man yelled at Khandalyce for running around the entertainment area, it didn’t sit well with Colleen, and she had to bite her tongue.
This bloke barely knew the family; who was he to be dishing out fatherly discipline?
Colleen expected Karlie to pull him up on his behaviour, but Karlie didn’t react.
Karlie clearly had other things on her mind, and she announced that she was going on a trip to Adelaide with the man and Khandalyce the following day.
According to Scott, Colleen sensed that something wasn’t right and asked Karlie to leave Khandalyce with her.
But Karlie refused to leave without her daughter and Colleen had no other choice but to accept her decision.
Karlie smoked in silence, sharing an ashtray with Colleen. She seemed sullen and stressed.
No longer was she the giggling, sociable young woman her family knew and loved.
Soon it was time for them to leave.
As Karlie walked out the front door of her family home that day, she stopped to hug her mum goodbye.
The stranger, still skittish and avoiding eye contact, followed the girls out the door.
This is an edited extract from The Lost Girls. $32.99. Available Thursday May 2. Published by ABC Books (an imprint of HarperCollins).