A man who murdered a young mother and her toddler daughter in NSW and dumped their remains 1200 kilometres apart will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
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Daniel James Holdom, 44, pleaded guilty in July to the December 2008 murder of his girlfriend of two months, Karlie Pearce-Stevenson, 20, and Khandalyce Pearce, aged two-and-a-half, about four days later.
Ms Pearce-Stevenson's remains were found in the Belanglo State Forest in 2010, but were not identified until her daughter's remains were discovered in 2015 in a suitcase dumped beside a South Australian highway.
In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Robert Allan Hulme imposed life sentences on Holdom for both murders.
Holdom made a last-minute bid to withdraw his guilty plea for Khandalyce's murder but the judge refused his application after a brief adjournment.
"His treatment of her (Karlie) showed complete disdain for her existence as a human being," Justice Hulme said, labelling it a murder of "extreme gravity and appalling depravity".
"For him, she was just flesh with a life that could be extinguished for his vile pleasure."
Justice Hulme then described Holdom's killing of the "completely defenceless two-year-old" girl as "despicable".
Ms Pearce-Stevenson's unidentified skeleton was for years known as "the Angel of Belanglo" due to a t-shirt found with the remains with the word "angelic" on it.
She had bone fractures indicative of being forcefully stomped on or kneed in the chest, the agreed facts state.
Her blonde toddler, suffocated by Holdom "probably" in a hotel room in Narrandera, was found with balls of dishcloth stuffed in her mouth, layers of tape wound from her chin to her eyes, and a disposable nappy wrapped around her skull.
Holdom also used bank cards and personal papers to steal more than $70,000 from Ms Pearce-Stevenson's accounts, and a mobile phone to create "false indications" to her family that she and Khandalyce were alive.
"The offender, for at least for the foreseeable future, represents a danger to society," Justice Hulme said.
Australian Associated Press
