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Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Still people ask me: Did Murdoch really kill Falconio? I have only one response
In his prison cell, Bradley John Murdoch read the book I wrote about him – that and the other five detailing his crimes. Further feeding his ego were the blanket media coverage and five documentaries. Then there were the W olf Creek and Wolf Creek 2 horror films, and the TV spin-off – also called Wolf Creek – all loosely based on a mix of two backpacker killers, Murdoch and Ivan Milat. Murdoch, a bastard until the end, refused until his death on Tuesday night in a hospital palliative care unit in Alice Springs – his only respite from jail – to reveal where he'd hidden the body of British tourist Peter Falconio. Monday had marked 24 years to the day that Murdoch shot dead Falconio and attempted to abduct his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, near the remote Northern Territory town of Barrow Creek, on the lonely road from Adelaide to Darwin. Murdoch had hoped that continually protesting his innocence, while flinging mud at Lees – with the vile insinuation that she was somehow involved in Falconio's death – would fire up his motley band of deluded supporters and conspiracy theorists and even put enough doubt in the minds of authorities to force his release. The drug-peddling thug was convicted in December 2005. I went to every single court hearing Murdoch sat through, interviewed nearly everyone involved with the case, and closely traced his background and that of Falconio and Lees. I'm regularly interviewed for TV and radio, and by those documentary makers. And the one question I'm invariably asked is: Did he really do it? Surely, without the body, there's always going to be doubt? Well, no, there isn't. Loading But still they asked. There is the appalling three-part British Channel 4 'true crime' series in 2020, Murder in the Outback: the Falconio and Lees Mystery. It wasn't a mystery at all, yet that dross compounded the absurd doubts fanned by the late, disgraced defence lawyer for Falconio, Andrew Fraser, who himself was sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security jail for being knowingly concerned with an importation of cocaine. To begin with, as Murdoch told a snitch planted in his cell in the early days, he didn't want his elderly widowed mum to know the truth about her youngest son. But after she died, what excuse could he have had for refusing to tell police the location of Falconio's body, to allow his family to take him home for burial? Murdoch had been sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 28 years and every appeal had been quashed. He had nothing further to lose by finally pinpointing the body. He knew how much more suffering he was inflicting on his victim's grieving parents, and on Lees. Instead, as Falconio's mother told me, every time there was a knock at her door, every time the phone rang, she thought it might be news about her son. Can you imagine such pain?
The Age
6 days ago
- The Age
Still people ask me: Did Murdoch really kill Falconio? I have only one response
In his prison cell, Bradley John Murdoch read the book I wrote about him – that and the other five detailing his crimes. Further feeding his ego were the blanket media coverage and five documentaries. Then there were the W olf Creek and Wolf Creek 2 horror films, and the TV spin-off – also called Wolf Creek – all loosely based on a mix of two backpacker killers, Murdoch and Ivan Milat. Murdoch, a bastard until the end, refused until his death on Tuesday night in a hospital palliative care unit in Alice Springs – his only respite from jail – to reveal where he'd hidden the body of British tourist Peter Falconio. Monday had marked 24 years to the day that Murdoch shot dead Falconio and attempted to abduct his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, near the remote Northern Territory town of Barrow Creek, on the lonely road from Adelaide to Darwin. Murdoch had hoped that continually protesting his innocence, while flinging mud at Lees – with the vile insinuation that she was somehow involved in Falconio's death – would fire up his motley band of deluded supporters and conspiracy theorists and even put enough doubt in the minds of authorities to force his release. The drug-peddling thug was convicted in December 2005. I went to every single court hearing Murdoch sat through, interviewed nearly everyone involved with the case, and closely traced his background and that of Falconio and Lees. I'm regularly interviewed for TV and radio, and by those documentary makers. And the one question I'm invariably asked is: Did he really do it? Surely, without the body, there's always going to be doubt? Well, no, there isn't. Loading But still they asked. There is the appalling three-part British Channel 4 'true crime' series in 2020, Murder in the Outback: the Falconio and Lees Mystery. It wasn't a mystery at all, yet that dross compounded the absurd doubts fanned by the late, disgraced defence lawyer for Falconio, Andrew Fraser, who himself was sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security jail for being knowingly concerned with an importation of cocaine. To begin with, as Murdoch told a snitch planted in his cell in the early days, he didn't want his elderly widowed mum to know the truth about her youngest son. But after she died, what excuse could he have had for refusing to tell police the location of Falconio's body, to allow his family to take him home for burial? Murdoch had been sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 28 years and every appeal had been quashed. He had nothing further to lose by finally pinpointing the body. He knew how much more suffering he was inflicting on his victim's grieving parents, and on Lees. Instead, as Falconio's mother told me, every time there was a knock at her door, every time the phone rang, she thought it might be news about her son. Can you imagine such pain?
