Latest news with #Outback
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Bizarre' moment caravan family's outback stay gatecrashed by 'best buddies'
A family of five had two pairs of beady eyes watching over them the entire night during a recent stay at a remote campsite in the Australian outback. Krystelle Schneider, her partner and their three children, all from the Gold Coast, rolled into Silverton Outback Camels campground last week, situated just outside Broken Hill along the NSW and South Australia border. The family were busying themselves organising their camp, when all of a sudden something caught their attention. Two large birds strutted towards them. "This ostrich and emu just walked over like they were best buddies," Krystelle laughed, recalling the incident for Yahoo News. "They sat down and sat there the whole night, just watching us... we spent the night around the campfire with an ostrich and emu." Incredible footage captured by Krystelle shows the birds making themselves right at home around the family, sitting on the red dirt near the campfire as the outback expanded behind them. "There's absolutely nothing there... One other caravan was around the corner, but it's just bush. There's nothing there," she said. "It was a bit bizarre." The birds stayed close to the campsite overnight, with the family spending more than 10 hours with them. In the morning, Krystelle explained they were woken up by the ostrich pecking their washing off the clothesline. 😲 Families flock to remote campground in search of $10,000 treasure 💩 Aussies impressed by 'brilliant' camping solution when nature calls 👀 Camper's warning to Aussies after deadly discovery near tent Caravanners continue to be stunned by Australian wildlife It's not the first time Krystelle and her family have been stopped in their tracks after spotting the best of Australia's wildlife on their travels. They recently had a dingo "walk straight past us" while they made a pitstop along the Nullarbor. Yahoo News has reported on countless incredible encounters caravanners have had with wildlife during their treks through the country, such as the couple who spotted an "amazing" algae octopus underneath a piece of drift at Portland Roads near Queensland's Lockhart River, and the family who heard a "massive splash" only to spot a crocodile "literally 10 to 15 steps away from our caravan". Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Caravan family stunned by emu and ostrich strutting through campsite
Krystelle Schneider and her family spent time with an ostrich and an emu while camping at Silverton Outback Camels campground last week. Video transcript Welcome to our campsite. Who's this today, Clara? An ostrich, an emu, and lots of goats. An ostrich and an emu have come to visit. Oh, what was that? You just did math.
News.com.au
3 days ago
- News.com.au
Key witness in Peter Falconio's murder trial remembers Bradley John Murdoch as ‘bad, bad man'
A key witness in Peter Falconio's murder trial and supporter of Bradley John Murdoch has remembered the outback killer as 'a p**ck of a man'. Murdoch, one of Australia's most notorious murderers, died of terminal throat cancer earlier this week, aged 67. In an eerie coincidence, his death came just one day after the 24th anniversary of him infamously killing the British backpacker. Greg Dick was one of the last people to see Mr Falconio alive on July 14, 2001, before the 28-year-old was shot in the head by Murdoch while travelling on the Stuart Highway north of Barrow Creek, about 208km north of Alice Springs. Mr Dick is also one of the few men to publicly back Murdoch. Yet in an interview with the Herald Sun on Saturday, the 79-year-old said there was one thing he was sure of: 'He did it. I think that's the case.' 'He's a p**ck of a man, and that's it. That's all there is to say,' Mr Dick said. 'He's just a bad, bad man.' Until recently, Mr Dick ran the Aileron Roadhouse where Mr Falconio and his girlfriend Joanne Lees ate their final meal together. Despite being a witness for the prosecution at Murdoch's 2005 trial – which concluded with him being found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict and sentenced to life in prison – Mr Dick went on to cast doubt over the verdict. 'I still reckon they've jailed the wrong man,' he said as recently as 2016, claiming that an unidentified 'fella' who was 'definitely not Bradley John Murdoch' may have been responsible. The theory was one of many floated by former defence lawyer Andrew Fraser in Murder in the Outback: The Falconio and Lees Mystery, an AACTA-award winning, four-episode documentary that explored the circumstances of the case – and the unanswered questions over it – two decades on. The location of Mr Falconio's body – a secret Murdoch took to the grave – remains the biggest mystery, one that police in the Northern Territory have vowed to solve. In a statement acknowledging Murdoch's death on Wednesday morning, NT Police said it was 'deeply regrettable that (he) died without, as far as we are aware, ever disclosing the location of Peter Falconio's remains'. 'His silence has denied the Falconio family the closure they have so long deserved,' the statement read. 'Our thoughts are with the Falconio family in the United Kingdom, whose grief continues.' Last month, NT Police Acting Commander Mark Grieve made a renewed appeal for information on the whereabouts of Mr Falconio's body, offering a potential reward of up to $500,000. Authorities 'still hold out hope that someone will be able to provide some vital information to assist in this search', Acting Commander Grieve said at a press conference. 'We're asking for anyone that may believe they have information that can assist to please come forward and contact police … We recognise the passage of time that's transpired, however it's never too late to reach out and at least start that conversation.' Murdoch family's staggering statement Despite his crimes, Murdoch's family issued a gushing statement in the wake of his death, describing him as 'much more than the headlines' and noting he had 'always denied responsibility (for Mr Falconio's murder) from his arrest until his death'. 'When given the opportunity, Brad was a devoted father, father-in-law, and proud Poppy who never missed a chance to brag about his grandchildren,' the statement read. 'He was a beloved brother, uncle, and friend. Throughout his years in custody, Brad was well liked and respected by fellow inmates and correctional officers alike. He earned the affectionate title of 'Uncle' from many Indigenous prisoners, recognising his efforts to offer guidance, support, and practical help whenever he could.' They claimed Murdoch had a 'generous spirit' and was 'a gentle giant with a heart of gold'. 'Above all, he was someone who, no matter the circumstances, always extended a helping hand to those around him,' the statement continued. 'We understand that the public perception of Bradley will always be shaped by his conviction, but our intention is simply to share the man we knew, the version of him that was rarely, if ever, seen beyond our family and close friends. 'He was deeply loved. He will be deeply missed.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
How I looked into the eyes of the Outback killer and asked him if he did it... and ended up convinced the official story is full of holes. The case haunts me: RICHARD SHEARS
For a time, the face in that photograph was one of the most famous in the world. Instantly recognisable: the craggy, weather-worn skin, the belligerent, challenging stare, Bradley John Murdoch was a man not to be messed with. The sort of rough, bush-dwelling, hard-living, authority-defying Aussie you wouldn't want to lock eyes with across a bar. How many times had I looked at that face... and wondered. After his arrest in August 2002, nearly a quarter of a century ago, Murdoch's face was all I saw, in newspapers or flashed up on TV, where it was usually accompanied by another set of pictures, of a smiling young couple: a woman with shiny, bobbed black hair and toothy grin sitting alongside a young man with a wide, friendly face. They were Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio, a pair of British backpackers who were ambushed as they drove their VW camper van along a remote highway, north of Alice Springs, Australia, one bitterly cold night in July 2001. Peter, 28, was murdered – probably shot in the head at close range – and his girlfriend, Joanne, 27, trussed up and bundled into the assailant's truck, before she staged a dramatic escape, hiding in bushland for five hours as the killer stalked her. At the time, I was working as the Mail's Australia correspondent, covering this case that had gripped the world. And it was not long after his arrest that I found myself face to face with the man the police were convinced did it. In a stroke of blind luck, Murdoch, a 47-year-old drifter, mechanic and drug-runner, with a string of convictions, had been picked up by police on an unrelated case and a DNA match had placed him at the scene of the Falconio murder. What's more, he wanted to talk, and the prison authorities gave permission for me to visit him at the Berrimah jail, in Darwin. He was awaiting trial for the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl and her mother – charges he denied and for which he was subsequently cleared. But of course, all everyone wanted to talk to him about was the Falconio case. A burly figure, towering over my own 6ft 2in frame, there was no hesitation as he walked towards me across the prison yard in his blue and yellow prison uniform. He wasted no time in getting to the point: 'You're going to ask me, did I do it?' he said with a smirk. 'Even from inside here, if I could get a few bucks for answering that question I'd be a rich man,' he said. 'But did you do it?' I asked. 'Joanne has her story and I have mine,' he said. We went back and forth with this frustrating exchange for 15 minutes with no definitive response. His attitude was almost playful. ghoulishly mischievous. Murdoch, who travelled extensively through the Outback in his white four-wheel-drive vehicle delivering cannabis, was no stranger to the law, and how to play it, and here he was playing me. I came away from that interview feeling no closer to the truth. Along with the rest of the world, I caught my breath when that same face appeared on TV again this week, after the news that Murdoch, serving life for Peter's murder and Joanne's attempted kidnap, had died of throat cancer at the age of 67. He died still protesting his innocence and, most cruelly for Peter's family, refusing to reveal where he had buried his body. I spent around five years immersed in this deeply disturbing story, travelling through some of the world's most remote and hostile terrains, to speak to those who knew Murdoch. I was granted exclusive access to his parents, former workmates, girlfriend and ultimately the prisoner himself. They were encounters I will never forget. Of all the crime cases I have covered in more than 50 years as a journalist this is the one that has troubled me above all others. Murdoch had been arrested in a supermarket in South Australia on August 28, 2002. Like everyone closely following this story, I rejoiced at the news as the manhunt over the previous year had been intense. After his arrest, he was found to be carrying a gun, and his white Toyota truck fitted the description Joanne had given. A DNA sample was taken and forensic scientists compared it with a tiny smear of blood on the T-shirt Joanne had been wearing. It was a definite match – 150 quadrillion (150 million billion) times more likely to have come from Murdoch than from anyone else – prosecutors were told. Although he was cleared of the rapes, as far as the Falconio case was concerned, the police had their man. Yet as I investigated further, troubling questions emerged in the prosecution's case, which weren't helped by Joanne's sometimes confused and inconsistent testimony about what happened to her that night. So let us remind ourselves of the events of July 14, 2001, when Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio set off on their ill-fated trip. She was a travel agent from Hove, he was a building contractor from Huddersfield, and they were driving along a highway, about 200 miles from Alice Springs. At around 8pm, a white truck caught up with them, and the driver indicated there was something wrong with their van's exhaust. They pulled over, and Peter got out and joined the other driver at the back of the vehicle while Joanne moved over to the driver's seat. Joanne said she then heard a bang – like a gunshot or the exhaust backfiring as she revved the engine. Then a stranger appeared at the driver's door, a man of average height, with a moustache and long, straggly hair, who pointed a gun in her face. He managed to restrain her with a pair of homemade cuffs and partially bound her ankles. He then threw a sack over her head and forced her into his vehicle. But she escaped and, still shackled, crawled into the wilderness, before being picked up by a passing driver five hours later. Peter's death was confirmed by a pool of his blood found on the highway, but soon questions started being asked about Joanne's version of events. Murdoch, his family and friends emphasised time and again, was a giant of a man, 6ft 4in tall, and had always worn his hair short, nothing like the description of the long-haired attacker provided by Joanne. And why did this big, heavy man leave no footprints in sandy bushland as he, and his dog, walked around looking for Joanne? I'd spoken to Aborigine trackers, brought in to hunt for clues, and they'd found only Joanne's sandal marks in the sand – not Murdoch's prints or those of his dog. Also, Murdoch had no teeth – a fact I could vouch for, having stared into that grotesque grin in the prison room – yet Joanne never mentioned it, despite being face to face with him. Then there was his truck: Joanne claimed she'd escaped by climbing from the front through to the rear, yet the cab was sealed. Also, his trusty hound Jack was a Dalmatian, but Joanne recalled seeing an animal with a reddish-brown coat. But superseding everything was that irrefutable DNA sample: DNA doesn't lie. Yet even that wasn't as clear-cut as everyone hoped. Forensic experts who picked up the tiny speck of blood questioned why there wasn't more, given how close the two were and how violently she had struggled. The next time I spoke to Murdoch was in 2005, as he awaited trial for the Falconio case, this time at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre. Again, he was coolly confident, and, for a man with little or no education, had an awful lot to say about DNA. He was being framed, he said, by a police force that was terrified by the world attention and desperate to salvage its reputation. 'It's got to be obvious what they are doing,' he said. 'They are going to throw a DNA case at me because there's nothing else. 'It will be all part of their plan to close me down and lock away the Falconio case,' he said, before adding, cryptically: 'I have one particular enemy who's been collecting my DNA.' Intertwining his big fingers, he said: 'Everybody knows that the van Peter and Joanne were driving had all manner of people in it and that's where the confusion will arise in my case. 'They'd picked up a couple of German tourists at Kings Canyon and there are people bumping up against one another all the time.' In a reference to carrying guns – police found a fearful collection of weapons in his truck, including an electric cattle prod, a shotgun, a box of ammunition, two pistols, several knives, a crossbow with 13 bolts and Russian-made military-style night-vision glasses, rolls of tape and ten cable ties – of course he was 'tooled up', he said. 'The business I was in, everybody knows about that, was very dangerous,' he said. (His drug-running, taking cannabis between South Australia and the north west town of Broome, was well-documented and never denied.) 'I'm not in the motorcycle gangs any more. I don't have their protection. It was generally known I was driving through the desert with a big amount of money. I was very careful, there could be no risks of any kind.' He was convinced he'd be cleared. Around this time, Murdoch's parents, Colin and Nance, agreed to meet me at their home in Perth, western Australia. A friendly, working-class couple, then in their 60s, they could have been anyone's mum and dad. They served me tea and biscuits in their humble bungalow and were keen to talk about their wayward boy. Yes, he was a tough man, they said, but not the psychopath depicted in the media. 'Please understand this,' Colin told me, clutching my arm. 'My son is not a killer. If I thought he had done this, believe me I would know it.' 'Big Brad' as he was known, hadn't had an easy childhood. Money was tight and they'd led a transient life, travelling around the country, looking for work. There was tragedy, too. The couple's 23-year-old son, Robert, died of cancer when Bradley was ten, affecting him badly. 'He would have turned out good, but he got pulled away by the wrong people as he was growing up – those bike types, the gangs, a bad marriage. [Murdoch married a woman called Diane in 1984, and they had a son together before separating two years later.] It all worked on his mind,' said Colin. Yes, there were 'skirmishes' with Aborigines who lived nearby, and with 'druggies', his parents said. Murdoch had served 21 months in jail for shooting at a group of Aborigines he claimed were harassing him. 'It's true he got into fights with some local gangs but he ended up on top, except that time he got his leg broken in a fight.' Colin gazed at family photos on display in a cabinet, pointing out they were from Bradley's boxing days. 'He didn't win everything,' said Nance, as she showed me one photo of Brad, with his missing front teeth. 'So he got his teeth knocked out?' I asked. 'Oh no,' she quickly corrected me. 'He lost them because he was eating too much chocolate.' I stared into his face for seven long weeks during his trial in Darwin in 2005 and watched him, stony-faced and impassive, as the guilty verdict was read out. It was the last I saw of him – until this week, when his image dominated headlines again and I was reminded of something he said the last time I interviewed him. 'Let me tell you this, mate, the truth will come out some day. I just have to be patient.' Peter Falconio's family may never have peace, may never be able to bury their boy. And, I fear, we will never know the full story about this case, which continues to haunt me to this day.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Chances of locating Peter Falconio's body remain ‘high' despite passage of time, search expert says
The former British government expert who identified several possible disposal sites for the body of Peter Falconio says he believes further searches have a 'reasonably high' chance of locating the murdered backpacker's body. Dr Mark Harrison was the UK's national police search adviser in the early 2000s and is considered a world-leading consultant in 'no-body' homicide cases. He is referred to by the US FBI as 'doctor search' and has been involved in high-profile cases including the searches for Madeline McCann, Daniel Morecambe and William Tyrell. Harrison became involved in attempts to locate Falconio at the request of the Northern Territory police in 2006, not long after Bradley John Murdoch was convicted of the backpacker's outback murder. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Murdoch, 67, died of throat cancer on Tuesday. He never confessed to the crime, or spoke about where he left Falconio's body. Harrison says he produced two separate search strategy reports – paid for by the British government – for the Northern Territory police operation Taskforce Regulus, dated 2007 and 2008, which narrowed the possible disposal sites for Falconio down to five likely locations. Harrison said he was not aware whether the search strategy he proposed was ever followed; he said the recommendations required international expertise and specialist equipment beyond the typical capacity of Australian policing agencies at the time. 'I was requested by assistant commissioner Graham Kelly in 2006 to review the police searches for the body of Peter Falconio and advise on what, if any, further searches could reasonably be conducted,' Harrison told the Guardian. 'I then undertook, with a team of experts, a detailed review of the case and search records and produced a report over 70 pages in length. I then travelled to Australia in 2008 and spent two weeks in and around the crime scene with my team and the NT police.' He says the report states in detail where and how further searches could be undertaken, and what specialist 'experts, assets and techniques' would be required. Guardian Australia understands the NT police revisited Harrison's report about a decade ago, and that there had been some 'excitement' at the time about a breakthrough in the case, but it is unclear whether new searches took place or if the report's recommendations had been followed. The NT police did not respond to questions. Harrison says further searches would still have 'a reasonably high' chance of locating Falconio's remains. He said technological and forensic advances during the past 15 years, combined with the availability of specialist search techniques, meant more could be done. He said he believes the 2007 and 2008 reports are still the best information for authorities to use to find Falconio. 'All those locations are grounded in the intelligence that we have: the statements of evidence and forensics that were collected by the NT police; the behavioural, geographical and geological profiling by my team; and that each site has been physically visited in daytime and night-time and assessed for its body disposal attributes,' Harrison said. 'I consider the NT police have worked tirelessly to locate the remains of victim Peter Falconio and I would very much welcome the opportunity to discuss with them the search strategy report I completed for them in 2008 and how further search activity might be undertaken.' Harrison is a specialist in geo-forensics – the 'science of search' – which combines policing and law-enforcement profiling techniques with geological ones. He is also a former head of forensic services and intelligence for the Australian Federal Police, and is the only person to have a PhD in and international casework experience on no-body homicide. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion He says he has worked on more than 300 such cases and recently helped the FBI develop its own specialist search capabilities. Harrison says he is not critical of the Northern Territory police, and that policing agencies typically do not have the highly specialised expertise or equipment required to conduct such searches. He recounts cases where a body was located in an area that had previously been searched repeatedly. Much of the Northern Territory's recent efforts to locate Falconio's remains had been premised on the idea that a confession by Murdoch – who maintained his innocence until his death – or some other information might reveal the burial site. Those efforts included 'destabilisation' tactics to prevent Murdoch from settling in prison; 'no body, no parole' laws that would have denied him release without information leading to the discovery of Falconio's remains; and most recently the announcement of a $500,000 reward for new information. Harrison says it was unlikely that Murdoch – even if he had confessed – could have led police to the disposal site. 'Some may believe that because Northern Territory is vast then ipso facto it's really difficult to find people. The belief is that people will exploit that vastness to hide bodies but body disposal doesn't work that way. 'The idea was that they could shortcut that and get a confession and then X marks the spot. 'But again the behavioural profile that we provided to them was that he would never confess, would never give you the location … but in addition we further added that it's highly unlikely that he would be able to give you the location, because it was a functionary disposal. 'So this is where our understanding of human behaviour and the volume of cases and research that the British police and FBI have on 'body disposal' can be applied. 'These were used along with a detailed behavioural profile of Murdoch to identify likely body disposal areas he would have chosen following this unplanned homicide, even if he was on amphetamines and drug affected, as his focus wasn't on disposing a body to come back to.' Harrison also says he is unsure whether Falconio's family was aware of his search strategy reports, though it would be standard practice in the cases he reviews.
