By ALISON HORWOOD
The killer of Wellington schoolgirl Karla Cardno should stay in jail until he dies as far as her family are concerned.
They are fighting Paul Joseph Dally's bid to be freed from Paremoremo prison.
The Parole Board's decision is expected to be made public next week.
Dally, now 39, has served 11 years of a life term for the torture, rape and murder of the 13-year-old in 1989.
He made his second annual appearance before the Parole Board on Wednesday.
Both Karla's family and the police have told the board they do not believe Dally is fit to rejoin the community.
Karla's grandmother, Louise Duffin, is emphatic that she wants Dally kept in jail. "I don't care what anyone says, or how he fools people, he is still dangerous. If they let that guy out, he will do it again."
An aunt, Georgina Duffin, said: "There are different degrees of murder. What Paul Dally did was one of the worst. He should never be given the chance to do it again."
Lower Hutt Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Small, who made a submission on behalf of the police, said: "We have no information from any quarter, which includes profiles from people who have been part of his care, that suggests circumstances changed in the last 12 months and that he no longer poses a threat to the public."
He said the killing had had a marked effect on all police staff and resulted in the inquiry head and two other detectives taking early retirement.
Detective Senior Sergeant Small said he had been in charge of "trying to get inside the head" of Dally.
Dally confessed to him almost six weeks after the killing and led him to a desolate beach on the Pencarrow Headland where he had buried Karla's naked, bound and gagged body.
"Nothing else in my career has had the impact on me of that case and nothing will. It was one of those horror investigations."
Because of the nature of his crime, Dally has spent most of his time behind bars in isolation. In prison, he befriended another Maori, Taffy Hotene, who later killed Auckland journalist Kylie Jones after he was released on parole. The pair helped with an anti-violence programme.
Dally's criminal record shows moderate violence which appears to escalate in the late 1980s.
In 1988, Dally - a karate instructor - took a young female student into a park at night and simulated a rape scene to test her self-defence skills. The same year he kicked and punched an elderly woman he believed pushed an ice-cream into his baby's face outside Victoria Park Market in Auckland.
In 1989, Dally's long-suffering and emotionally battered wife grabbed their three children and left.
By then, police believe, he had already noticed Karla. The teenager, her brother, mother and stepfather, Mark Middleton, lived in the same Taita street as Dally.
Dally went into a deep depression when his wife left, and one month later - on May 26, 1989 - snatched Karla as she cycled home from the local dairy in the rain.
Police say Karla saw Dally pursuing her, and did a lap around the shopping centre to escape.
Cutting through a side-street, Dally grabbed her and dragged her 170m to his home.
A neighbour heard a scream at 7.30 pm but did not investigate.
Once inside his house, Dally raped and sodomised the teenager in the upstairs bedroom he used to share with his wife.
Through a window Dally could see Karla's frenzied family searching. Probably between 2 am and 3 am, he moved Karla - naked, bound and gagged - into the boot of his car in the driveway.
The following afternoon he drove her - probably unconscious but still alive - for 40 minutes to Pencarrow.
At the beach, he turned back because too many people were around. He went home, leaving Karla in the boot until nightfall before returning to the beach and burying her 1m under pebbles.
A pathologist said she died of severe head injuries caused by "one or more" blows.
Dally's lawyer in 1989, Peter Kaye, said this week that he had not been in contact with his client since he was imprisoned, and he not had any involvement in the parole hearing.
Convicted murderers serving a mandatory life sentence are eligible for parole - release under supervision - after 10 years, or a period specified by a judge at sentencing.
In considering each case, the Parole Board considers the nature of the crime, how likely the prisoner is to re-offend and public safety.
The board considers reports from prison, probation and health officials and often hears submissions from the police and victims' families.
Cardno family fight killer's parole
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