Murder of Peter Falconio
Peter Falconio was a British tourist who disappeared in a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia on the evening of 14 July 2001,[1] while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
Peter Marco Falconio (born 20 September 1972) was the third of four sons in a family who lived in Hepworth, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom.
Around 7:30pm on the night of Saturday 14 July 2001, Falconio and Lees were travelling on the Stuart Highway bound for the Devil's Marbles in their orange Kombi.
[3] The gunman searched for Lees before leaving, passing nearby three times, but she hid before finally flagging down a road train driver at 12:35 am, who with his co-driver took her back to Barrow Creek.
The Alice Springs Police were called around 1:30 am, arrived to collect evidence and testimonies at around 4:20 am, and (accompanied by the road train driver) commenced a search for Falconio, the Toyota, and the gunman at 7:00 am.
[citation needed] Given the unusual nature of the attack, and the lack of corroborating evidence (i.e. Falconio's belongings or body), it took the police some days to appreciate the significance of the crime.
But in the wake of the backpacker case, the media were quick to sensationalise Lees' story as one of survival in a crime of unusual horror against all odds.
[3] However, inconsistencies in Lees' statements and her demeanour in the following weeks shifted attention to the veracity of her version of the incident (e.g. the perpetrator's facial composite, the actual type of vehicle or dog, and assumed CCTV footage of the suspect from a service station in Alice Springs), similar to what had happened in the Azaria Chamberlain case.
A $250,000 reward was posted, but the only new evidence in the Falconio case was an unidentified male-DNA trace on Lees' T-shirt, and some related DNA on the cable ties and Kombi gearstick.
[3] Based on these results, police interviewed Bradley John Murdoch in Broome on 1 November 2001, though Lees' descriptions did not immediately connect the case to him and no DNA sample was collected.
To cope with the demands of the trial and the huge media contingent covering the proceedings, the court building in Darwin was renovated at a cost of A$900,000.
[11] His DNA was also found on the gearstick of the Kombi in which Falconio and Lees had been travelling, and which, subsequent to the attack on the Stuart Highway, was driven by the perpetrator into the bush.
Murdoch's defence argued during the trial that the DNA match could have been due to accidental blood transfer in an Alice Springs Red Rooster restaurant prior to the alleged offence, or could have been simply planted by persons unknown.
Prosecutor Rex Wild QC dismissed these claims, arguing that each account gave conflicting information, in particular about the man's hair colour.
[13] On 13 December 2005, Murdoch was found guilty by a jury in a unanimous verdict and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of twenty-eight years.
[14] Only after the sentencing was it revealed that Murdoch had previously been acquitted of aggravated sexual assault on a mother and daughter in South Australia some years earlier.
Subsequent to the High Court of Australia refusing to grant his application for Special Leave, there was media speculation that Murdoch would lodge a further appeal.
[26] In April 2017, the NT News received an anonymous letter claiming that Murdoch had "cut [Falconio]'s body up" and placed it in two large bags.
She later testified in court that she had agreed to the interview to raise awareness of Falconio's murder in Australia, as she felt the public profile of the case had diminished.
