When two-year-old Khandalyce Pearce vanished, police were baffled that her mother, Karlie, hadn’t reported her missing. What no one realised was that Karlie Pearce-Stevenson had already been murdered years earlier, her remains discovered in Belanglo State Forest in 2010—eight years before Khandalyce’s name would make national headlines.
The true shock came from the killer’s calculated deception: for years after Karlie’s murder, her killers and their associates sent fake text messages and made calls using her mobile phone, convincing family and friends she was still alive.
Author Ava Benny Morrison joins Jessie to step through the case of Karlie and Khandalyce and explain how law enforcement agencies around the country managed to solve the case of The Lost Girls.
This episode first aired in 2019 and marked one of the earliest major cases on True Crime Conversations. We're re-releasing it today for listeners old and new.
CREDITS
Guest: Ava Benny Morrison
Host: Jessie Stephens
Senior Producer/Editor: Elise Cooper
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We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
