Before the Falconio trial, Bradley John Murdoch was accused and acquitted of rape and abduction

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Before Bradley John Murdoch was arrested for English backpacker Peter Falconio's disappearance and the attempted kidnapping of Joanne Lees, the killer faced charges of raping a woman and her 12-year-old daughter.
WARNING: This story contains content that some readers may find upsetting.
He was eventually acquitted of all charges relating to the case, but the events of the alleged 20-hour kidnapping ordeal that were relayed in the South Australian District Court have some similarities to the Falconio and Lees case.
In 2003, more than two years after Murdoch had killed Mr Falconio at Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory, a court heard the mother and daughter, who were allegedly abducted from their Riverland home, were also bound, gagged and sexually assaulted during the 20-hour ordeal.
The mother, who cannot be named, told the court that as the alleged incident came to an end, she did not know if she and her daughter would survive.
"After the trailer was packed up, he sat near the trailer staring at us … and I didn't know if he was going to let us go or not," she said in 2003.
"Are you going to kill us?" she asked.
In the South Australian case, Murdoch was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of abduction, assault and two counts of indecent assault, but he was later acquitted.
According to the court transcripts, Murdoch, who died on July 15, had been a regular guest at the Riverland home the mother and daughter shared with the mother's de facto partner, who was away receiving cancer treatment in Adelaide.
They had known each other for 18 months.
It was alleged that when he stayed, Murdoch used a small guest house at the back of the property as an occasional base for his drug-running operation between the Riverland and Broome, in Western Australia.
On his last visit to the property in August 2002, Murdoch, who the court heard was using amphetamines and cannabis daily, put black plastic on the windows of the small flat.
The court heard on the pretence of helping him unpack maps, Murdoch asked the 12-year-old daughter to come out to the guest house before he allegedly raped her.
"I think he said: 'If you move, I'll give you brain damage'," she told the court.
She said Murdoch carried her out to his LandCruiser and chained her up before going inside to the main house to abduct her mother.
Prosecutor Liesl Chapman, now District Court Judge Liesl Kudelka, said in her opening statement to the jury that Murdoch told the mother: "Shut up and put some warm clothes on" before he took her outside.
"The accused was wearing a gun in his shoulder holster," Ms Chapman said.
"She saw the LandCruiser and [her daughter] in the back.
"The accused said to [her], 'I need some insurance to get away from this place, get in the back or I'll shoot you'."
The prosecution said that Murdoch had spoken about the disappearance of Peter Falconio several times before and during the abduction.
"[The mother] asked the accused, 'Why are you doing this?'" Ms Chapman said.
"He said words to the effect, 'you were in the wrong place at the wrong time'.
"He said that the cops had framed him for the Falconio murder and that's why he was on the run.
"He kept saying that he was being framed."
Ms Chapman said he told the mother he was going to Western Australia to kill a fellow drug associate and planned to turn the gun on himself.
"The Crown case is that his state of mind about being framed for a very high-profile murder explains his extreme criminal behaviour in South Australia," Ms Chapman said.
"He was paranoid that he was being set up.
"He was using amphetamines, commonly known as speed, which … can increase paranoia.
"At that stage he didn't care anymore, he raped a 12-year-old girl and then took her and her mother as insurance in order to get out of there."
Bradley John Murdoch's defence team argued in court that the case against him was a "made-up story".
The court heard that there was a "conspiracy against" Murdoch created by his enemies, to frame him for the murder of Peter Falconio and that the claims of rape, abduction, assault and sexual assault were part of a "set-up".
Just three days before he arrived in the Riverland, Murdoch's brother had given DNA evidence to Northern Territory police and the Falconio investigation team had Bradley Murdoch in its sights.
The court heard in the early hours of Thursday, August 22, 2002, Murdoch drove away from the Riverland property with the mother and daughter shackled in the back.
"I did what I was told because he had a gun," the mother said in court.
"I was so scared I didn't know if he was going to shoot me and [my daughter].
"She [the daughter] was white as a ghost and she was terrified."
The mother said they were initially handcuffed, and Murdoch stopped the LandCruiser three times over the next 20 hours, during which he was also alleged to have raped the mother.
He also bound them with cable ties, similar to the ones used when Murdoch abducted Joanne Lees.
She described him at one point as like "a raging bull".
"He was verging on psychotic, like really angry and terrifying," the mother said.
Eventually, she demanded Murdoch cut the cable ties off as they were hurting their wrists and cutting her daughter's circulation.
The court heard the mother told the accused he was "pathetic for tying up a 12-year-old child".
Then the court heard his mood changed, he brought clothes out for the pair and became "more sympathetic".
"To me it seemed like he thought that he had done nothing wrong and he was just talking to us normally like he used to when we used to be friends," the mother said.
The court heard he eventually dropped the pair at a Port Augusta service station and gave them $1,000 to get home, before allegedly making a final threat to kill them if they went to police.
The mother and daughter said even after being released they remained fearful that he was still in the area watching them.
They caught a cab to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where the mother's partner was, but a report wasn't made to police for another five days.
Murdoch was arrested by heavily-armed police outside a Port Augusta supermarket, and was remanded in custody to face court in South Australia.
Inside the LandCruiser after Murdoch's arrest police alleged they found chains, clothes, cannabis, methamphetamine and $5,000.
But, during a two-week trial, the prosecution failed to make its case and Murdoch was acquitted.
Seconds later, as he walked out of the court, he was arrested inside Adelaide's Samuel Way building for Peter Falconio's murder and the abduction of Joanne Lees and escorted through a media scrum outside.
He was then taken to Darwin where he was found guilty in 2005.
Central Queensland University criminologist, Associate Professor Xanthe Mallett, said while there were obviously similarities between the Falconio and Lees case and the Riverland allegations, ultimately the South Australian jury could not be convinced of Murdoch's guilt.
"It is a big deal to come forward, it turns your life upside down, it re-traumatises the victim-survivors and so to go through all of that and then for the perpetrator to be found not guilty is heartbreaking," Dr Mallett said.
"We are talking 20 years ago, if there was gap between the alleged crime and somebody reporting then that certainly made it harder to prove … and sex crimes are very hard to prove anyway.
Dr Mallett said it could be very hard to prove criminal cases beyond what a jury considered reasonable doubt.
"Even if, on the balance of all the evidence, they think they probably are [guilty], that doubt is what makes the difference and that can be a very difficult level to achieve," Dr Mallett said.
South Australia's Commissioner for Victim's Rights Sarah Quick said sexual assaults remained difficult to successfully prosecute, in part, because victims' evidence was often "fragmented, confused, and non-linear recollections are common".
"The cumulative effect of giving evidence, being cross-examined, and then not being believed is deeply distressing," Commissioner Quick said.
"Research demonstrates that harmful misconceptions and stereotypes about sexual assault remain widespread."