A WEEK before he was to stand trial for double murder, a man has pleaded guilty to killing young mother and her two-year-old daughter, before dumping her remains in a suitcase on the side of a road.

Karlie Pearce-Stevenson was murdered in Belanglo State Forest in 2008 and her daughter Khandalyce was killed five days later.

Their bodies were found 1200 kilometres and years apart — in NSW and South Australia.

Daniel James Holdom, 43, appeared in NSW Supreme Court this morning via video link to make his eleventh-hour guilty plea to the double murder.

The convicted sex offender pleaded guilty to murdering 20-year-old Karlie Pearce-Stevenson between December 14 and 15, 2008, in the NSW Belanglo State Forest, and Khandalyce Pearce, aged two, between December 19 and 20, 2008, in the Wagga Wagga area of NSW.

His NSW Supreme Court trial was listed to start on Monday, but he entered his guilty pleas on Tuesday and the matter was put over for a sentence hearing on September 28.

Holdom was committed to stand trial for the two murders in August last year.

Ms Pearce-Stevenson, 20, was dumped in the notorious Belanglo State Forest — infamous for its link to the killing spree of backpacker murderer Ivan Milat — while Khandalyce’s remains were found in a suitcase next to a South Australian highway in 2015.

Holdom had been in a relationship with Ms Pearce-Stevenson, and the pair had left the Northern Territory together with her daughter in late 2008.

The committal hearing was told a post-mortem examination of Ms Pearce-Stevenson was consistent with one of the alleged admissions Holdom made about the way he killed Ms Pearce-Stevenson — by stomping on her throat and crushing her windpipe.

Her remains were found in 2010, but it was another five years before her body could be identified, during which she was known as the “Belanglo Angel”.

Police alleged Holdom killed Khandalyce — suffocating her and leaving her in a suitcase — while on the way to South Australia close to Wagga Wagga on either December 19 or 20, 2008.

He allegedly took photographs of Ms Pearce-Stevenson’s body and kept the “graphic” images as a “trophy of sorts”, the committal hearing was told.