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Daily Mirror
16-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
Mysterious slaying of Peter Falconio from grisly scene to false girlfriend suspicion
British backpacker Peter Falconio, 28, disappeared while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees on the evening of July 14, 2001 - Bradley John Murdoch being convicted of his murder four years later Peter Falconio and his girlfriend Jonanne Lees were on the trip of a lifetime when a seemingly innocent roadside encounter ended in unimaginable horror. Peter, who was 28 at the time, was murdered on July 14, 2001 after Murdoch persuaded him and his girlfriend Joanne Lees, both from Yorkshire, to pull over at around 7.30pm as they were driving through the outback in a camper van between Alice Springs and Darwin while on a backpacking holiday. The couple had noticed a car behind them since they stopped at a roadhouse in Barrow Creek, but thought the driver just wanted to overtake them. The driver of the white Toyota 4WD with a green canopy, instead gestured for them to pull over and claimed he had seen sparks shooting out of the van's exhaust. Peter got out to investigate and Joanne slid into the driver's seat, ready to rev the engine. Instead, she heard a loud bang and saw the man - later proved to be 'Outback Killer' Bradley John Murdoch brandishing a silver handgun. He climbed into the van, secured her hands behind her back with black cable ties and dragged to the Murdoch's vehicle. Fearing she would be raped, she managed to flee into the bush while he was distracted, presumably moving Peter's body. The gunman searched for Ms Lees before fleeing the scene, but she hid before flagging down a driver at 12.35am who took her back to Barrow Creek. The Alice Springs Police were called at around 1.30am and searched for the vehicle Murdoch had been driving. At the scene, police discovered a dirt-covered pool of blood and the couple's Kombi hidden some 80 metres in the scrub. Police searched the area in the following months, only finding Joanne's footprints. Due to inconsistencies in her statements and demeanour in the following weeks, attention wrongly shifted to her. Eventually, police put up a $250,000 reward and released CCTV footage of the suspect from a service station in Alice Springs, but the only new evidence was an unidentified male's DNA on Ms Lees' t-shirt. Murdoch was eventually arrested on August 22, 2002 for an unrelated kidnap and assault charge by South Australia Police. DNA examination then linked him to the crime scene. After police released images of Murdoch in November 2002, Jonanne identified him and came face to face with the killer on October 18. Traces of his DNA were found on a pair of homemade handcuffs used in the attack, as well as the DNA match on Ms Lees' t-shirt. Murdoch's defence argued that the DNA match could have been due to an accidental blood transfer in Alice Springs Red Rooster restaurant where he said he had stopped to buy chicken for himself and his dog. On December 2005, Murdoch was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with non-parole. He was also convicted of other assault-related charges on Ms Lees. Despite this, Murdoch has always insisted he is innocent. The 67-year-old was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 2019 and was moved to palliative care from Alice Springs Correctional Centre last month but died on Tuesday. Mr Falconio's remains have never been found. The Northern Territory Police Force said they remain "committed to resolving this final piece of the investigation", and reiterated that a reward of up to A$500,000 (£240,000) is available for information leading to the discovery of the remains of the murdered British backpacker. The father of Mr Falconio said he doesn't know if he and his wife Joan will "live long enough" to ever find out where their son's body is located. "Today is an important day," the 83-year-old said on Monday, 24 years to the day that his son was killed. "It is very significant, I wish I could find him and make an end to it, bury him. [I want to] find where he is buried and what happened to him, even me, I don't know. I know what happened but I don't know where he is. "I still hope, yeah I still hope, but I don't know, if we [will] live long enough." He said the torment he and his wife have lived with for years not knowing where their son is has never subsided and the feeling of tragedy, heartbreak and pain never eases. "It is important [to find Peter]...but we won't find anything today," Mr Falconio said. "It's 20-odd years so it's (the feeling is) not particularly any different. Twenty years is a very long time." Joanne, who returned to the UK, told Australian current affairs programme 60 Minutes in 2017 that she still wanted to "bring him home". "Pete lost his life on that night, but I lost mine too," she said at the time. "I'll never be fully at peace if Pete's not found, but I accept that that is a possibility."
The Age
16-07-2025
- The Age
Family of outback killer Bradley John Murdoch speaks out
'He was deeply loved. He will be deeply missed,' the statement concluded. Police say Falconio was shot on a remote stretch of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek, about 300 kilometres north of Alice Springs, in July 2001. Falconio's blood was found where police believe he was murdered before his body was moved. The British backpacker was travelling around the country with his girlfriend Joanne Lees, who survived Murdoch's attack. The pair, both from Yorkshire, had travelled across South-East Asia before arriving in Australia. Lees told police that at about 7pm on July 14, 2001, the pair became aware that a car was following them as they travelled north up the Stuart Highway towards Devil's Marbles in their orange Kombi van. Driving a white Toyota 4WD ute, Murdoch gestured at Falconio, who was driving the van, to pull over, which he did. Murdoch then told Falconio he'd seen sparks shooting out of the Kombi's exhaust. Lees was sitting in the front of the parked van when the two men went to examine the exhaust, and she heard a loud bang. Murdoch then appeared in the front window, brandishing a silver handgun, which he pointed at Lees' head. 'I just kept thinking this was not happening to me. I couldn't believe that this was happening. I felt alone. I kept shouting for Pete and thought I was going to die,' Lees told the jury at Murdoch's 2005 trial. 'I was more scared of being raped than being shot by the man,' she said. Murdoch moved Lees to his vehicle and tied her wrists behind her back, punching her in the head as she struggled. Murdoch then became distracted, with Lees reporting that she heard 'gravel scraping on the ground, as if he was moving something'. Lees slid out of the vehicle, dropped to the ground and scrambled to a hiding spot behind a bush where she stayed for up to five hours in the dark. Once she was sure Murdoch was gone, she flagged down a truck that took her to Barrow Creek. A widespread manhunt was launched, and the search for Falconio's body began. The case received intense media interest, both in Australia and the UK, with Lees facing particular scrutiny over her recounting of the attack. The murder is cited as one of the inspirations for the 2005 Australian horror film Wolf Creek. The first breakthrough came early in the investigation when a man reported that Bradley John Murdoch was responsible for the crimes. Murdoch was under arrest in South Australia, facing charges over the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl and her mother. A DNA sample was taken in the hopes it could be linked to evidence found at the Northern Territory crime scenes. While Murdoch has always maintained his innocence, his defence was ultimately undone by his decision to keep an elastic hair tie that belonged to Lees. The case's lead investigator, former NT police officer Colleen Gwynne, told the ABC in 2016 that an officer had noticed the hair tie wrapped around Murdoch's holster in a search of his possessions, speculating that he was likely to have kept it as a 'trophy'. In 2003, Murdoch was acquitted of the South Australia rapes and immediately rearrested and extradited to the Northern Territory, where he was charged with Falconio's murder. In 2005, Bradley John Murdoch was convicted of murdering Falconio, and assaulting and attempting to kidnap Lees. He was serving a life sentence in Alice Springs prison with a non-parole period of 28 years when he died. 'Your conduct in murdering Mr Falconio and attacking Ms Lees was nothing short of cowardly in the extreme,' Northern Territory Supreme Court Justice Brian Martin said in his sentencing. Loading Murdoch never revealed the location of Falconio's body, and under the Northern Territory's 2016 'no body, no parole laws', he may have never been granted parole. He twice appealed to overturn his convictions, but was unsuccessful. Born in the West Australian town of Northampton in 1958, Murdoch spent most of his life in Broome working as a mechanic. Murdoch had a history of violent crime, serving time in a Western Australian jail in the mid-1990s for shooting at a crowd of Aboriginal football fans. As with all deaths in custody, Murdoch's death will be investigated by the Northern Territory Coroner. On Tuesday this week, Luciano Falconio pleaded for assistance in locating his son's body so that Peter could be buried while he and his wife are still alive. 'I still hope, yeah I still hope, but I don't know if we [will] live long enough', he told News Corp. 'I wish I could find him and make an end to it, bury him.' In a statement, NT Police said it was 'deeply regrettable' that Murdoch had died without ever disclosing the location of Peter Falconio's remains. 'His silence has denied the Falconio family the closure they have so long deserved. Our thoughts are with the Falconio family in the United Kingdom, whose grief continues,' the statement read. 'The Northern Territory Police Force remains committed to resolving this final piece of the investigation.' Less than a month ago, NT Police upped its cash reward to $500,000 for information that would lead to the discovery of Falconio's remains. 'We recognise the passage of time that's transpired, however it's never too late to reach out and start that conversation with police,' NT Police Acting Commander Mark Grieve told a press conference on June 25, adding that he still had hope. 'You just never know how beneficial that information that you may hold, may be – essentially, you just don't know what you know.' The renewed bid for information was made amid reports that Murdoch was in palliative care in Alice Springs Hospital. Grieve said Murdoch had never positively engaged with the police despite 'numerous approaches' including in the same week.
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Afternoon Update: Ita Buttrose's explosive letter; conservatives win in Germany; and Pamela Anderson's renaissance
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