Karla Josephine Cardno

The Cardno family's nightmare began on the evening of Friday 26th May 1989 when 13 year old Karla set off from home to go to the Taita shops. These shops were only a few blocks away and it was a journey she had made many times before. As time passed, Karla's mother became concerned that she had not arrived home and went looking for her. As she came to the intersection of Churton Crescent and Taine Street, she found the bicycle Karla had been riding to the shops, and after checking the surrounding streets, she hurried home to phone the police about her daughter's disappearance. The police had received disturbing reports from witnesses in the local video parlour who had seen Karla that night in a highly distressed state in the shopping centre. Fears for her safety were now valid. Police began a large scale search including a door to door canvas, questioning all residents in the surrounding area. By Sunday, 28th May, Karla had still not been found. The Police inquiries led them to question Paul Joseph Dally who was living in Churton Crescent, Taita. He told police he was at home with his wife and three children on the night Karla disappeared. When the police approached him, he was vacuuming the boot of his car. Upon further investigation, it was established that Dalley's wife and kids had left him three weeks before. Witnesses told police they had seen Dalley at different times on the Saturday and Sunday after Karla's disappearance around the Pencarrow coastal area. He was re-interviewed and attempted to commit suicide by pill overdose. Police then conducted a comprehensive search of Dally's home, where forensic examination of the hair and fibres taken from the house were found to be those of Karla. On the 8th of July, 1989, Paul Dally was charged with murder. He confessed to killing Karla and led police to her body on a beach at Pencarrow Head, at the entrance to Wellington harbour. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. It is believed that Dally was put under protection from other inmates while in jail, however his victim had no such protection from him.... Source: http://www.crime.co.nz/c-files.aspx?ID=8

Churton Cres, Taita, could be suburbia, anywhere. Except for that house. "You just don't walk past it," a neighbour says. The two-storey Lower Hutt home is where Paul Dally took 13-year-old Karla Cardno and put her through unimaginable hell in 1989 - 30 years ago. Her naked and beaten body would be found face down six weeks later, her hands tied behind her back in a shallow grave on an isolated beach at Pencarrow. There was evidence of sexual assault. It is a bike ride of 579 metres from Karla's former home to the Four Square shop she went that night, May 26, 1989. At the 257m-mark she rode past Dally's home. Tarunika Gandhi was behind the counter at Four Square Taita when Karla came in and bought a large bottle of Fanta and three Jelly-Tip ice-creams. "She screamed, he silenced her, which I think would have been a chop to her neck [he was a martial arts expert] and he dragged her off to the bushes." Hindsight may give her a better idea of what happened but on May 26,1989, Veronica was just a concerned mum out looking. The first tangible evidence was finding Karla's bike and the bottle of Fanta abandoned on the corner. Normally, Karla's younger brother George would have gone with her to the shops but that night she went alone. Veronica's then-partner Mark Middleton this month recalled how he immediately drove back from Whanganui. A search was organised. "By that stage we were pretty worried," Middleton remembers. He was sure Karla wouldn't run away, which left only one, more sinister, option. Middleton and his father began knocking on doors along the street asking if they could come inside and look for Karla. When they reached Dally's home - where Karla was captive - the police told them to stop. Frustratingly, the duo were told what they were doing wasn't legal. Hours later, around 3am, Middleton was still searching the streets when he saw Dally drive away from his house in the dead of night. "I think Karla would have been in the boot of that car," Middleton says. "Crazy, eh. We came so close. So close." Veronica Cardno revisited Churton Cres in 2001 and stood outside Dally's old house. "I ran up and down this street [while the search was on] and the bugger was watching me out that window," she told The Sunday Star-Times. She looked out that same window: "I stood up there and from there you could see the whole street. He could watch the kids playing ... He knew where we were, we just didn't know where he was." The days blurred into one long nightmare for Karla's family. Search parties scoured every inch of the Hutt area. Helicopters hung in the sky. The nation's eyes were trained on Taita. Then one day she came home to an almost-deserted street with police road blocks. That was the moment police had finally hit on the horrible truth: Dally had abducted and killed Karla and buried her in a shallow grave near Eastbourne. At Taita Mini Mart Suresh Patel remembers getting the horrific news of the "nice, smiley girl" who was a regular in his store. "To hear she was killed and buried alive - it was quite shocking." It was July, 8, 1989, that Dally finally gave in, under intense questioning from police, who appealed to his morality - by allowing Karla to be returned to her family. He led police to the remote Pencarrow grave. The area had already been searched. Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/117196572/emotions-still-raw...

The murderer who raped and tortured schoolgirl Karla Cardno has admitted to the Parole Board he enjoyed the crime. Paul Joseph Dally, 53, who has spent 24 years in jail for the 1989 killing, was seen by the board on Tuesday. In the full decision released today, it was revealed Dally did not seek parole and "considerable reservations" were held about him being safe for release. Dally kidnapped 13 year-old Karla as she cycled to her Lower Hutt home. He raped and tortured her in his nearby home, watching from the window as her frantic family searched outside. Later he drove to the Pencarrow coast, south of Eastbourne, where he smashed her skull with a piece of driftwood and buried her. Her body was found several weeks later. After the killing her stepfather, Mark Middleton, campaigned for tougher sentences. He received a nine-month suspended sentence for threatening to kill Dally. Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9646434/Karla-Cardnos-killer...