Mysterious slaying of Peter Falconio from grisly scene to false girlfriend suspicion
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."
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