Bradley John Murdoch, attacker of Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees, was evil to the end

Bradley John Murdoch is dead, but his false cries of innocence will ensure the suffering of his victim’s family continues, says the chief investigator who put him away.

British tourists Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees were attacked by Bradley John Murdoch on a remote stretch of the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory in 2001.

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Bradley John Murdoch is dead, but his false cries of innocence will ensure the suffering of his victim’s family continues, says the chief investigator who put him away.

Murdoch stalked and murdered Peter Falconio and attempted to abduct Joanne Lees on a remote stretch of highway in the Northern Territory 24 years ago this week.

He denied it, and right up until his death on Tuesday from throat cancer at the age of 67, he used every means possible to sow seeds of doubt.

Bradley John Murdoch being led out after court after he was found not guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl.

An appeals court found the evidence was overwhelming, his ­denials were fanciful and that there was no injustice for the ­accused in a crime that was straight out of a nightmare.

“Everyone forms an opinion. Some are well informed. Some are not well informed,” says Colleen Gwynne, the former NT detective who led the investigation and is in no doubt of Murdoch’s guilt.

“With justice, everyone has a right to question it, but what I say is that I’m happy for people to question it, but only after you’ve read the full court transcripts and understand the evidence fully.”

Murdoch’s family released a statement yesterday saying he was “much more than the headlines”.

“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 said.

The family described Murdoch as a “gentle giant with a heart of gold” who was “well liked and respected by fellow inmates”.

“Above all, he was someone who, no matter the circumstances, always extended a helping hand to those around him,” they said.

Murdoch’s blood was on Lees’ shirt. His DNA also matched samples recovered from cable ties used to bind Lees, and from the gear stick of the British backpacking couple’s Kombi.

A vehicle resembling his ute and a man matching his appearance were recorded on a service station CCTV, putting him in the vicinity. Lees looked her attacker directly in the face at point-blank range, searing in her mind an image she would never forget. She later identified Murdoch as her ­assailant without a shred of doubt.

Colleen Gwynne, chief investigator on the murder of Peter Falconio and attempted abduction of Joanne Lees. Photo: Helen Orr

She was extremely credible and a remarkable woman, despite attempts to suggest otherwise in the years since her horrific ordeal, said Gwynne.

Yet Murdoch, a violent thug, drug runner and accused rapist, insisted he was wrongly convicted and refused to give up the location of Falconio’s remains.

An enraged Murdoch stood over Gwynne, yelling and spitting at her after his arrest, but in 2005 a jury unanimously agreed he killed Falconio and attempted to abduct Lees, and a judge jailed him for a minimum of 28 years.

On Wednesday, Gwynne started receiving phone calls from around 2am to inform her of ­Murdoch’s demise.

After almost immediately speaking to Falconio’s family, she felt their grief and pain. Family members had wanted her to visit Murdoch in a last-ditch bid to draw out the location of his remains, she revealed.

Murdoch’s death was “an opportunity lost”, she told The Australian. “Today is about thinking about Peter and a young life lost.

“The family agony, it’s prolonged, and it continues on. We got a conviction and I’m really proud of what my team did to get where we got, but unfortunately that loop is still open because we haven’t been able to find Peter.”

Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio pictured at Uluru.

Falconio’s parents Luciano, now 83, and Joan released a statement on Wednesday expressing hope they would still find the remains of Peter.

“Upon hearing that Bradley John Murdoch had died our first feeling was of relief, it’s like a weight that’s been lifted,” it read.

“We are only forced to think about him now that he’s died, we don’t want to let him to ruin our lives more than he already has.

“The awful thing is our family’s future with Peter was cruelly taken away.

“Today we instead focus on the three children we have left and our grandchildren.

“We didn’t have much faith but we were hoping Bradley John Murdoch would reveal where Peter was before he died.

“But even now we still hold out hope that his remains will be found.

“Finally, we wish to express our profound thanks to the Northern Territory Police for the support and continuing efforts to investigate our son’s murder.”
Falconio is also mourned by his brothers Paul and Nick.

A judgment in the NT Court of Criminal Appeal in 2007 rejecting Murdoch’s claims of a miscarriage of justice outlines the facts.

Lees was 27 and Falconio 28 at the time of the attack. They had met in 1996, started living together the following year, and set off on an overseas adventure after Falconio graduated from university in 2000.

On July 14, 2001, after attending the Camel Cup in Alice Springs, they headed north on the Stuart Highway, stopping in Ti Tree to watch the sunset before continuing on. They had driven past Barrow Creek when they ­noticed a vehicle following them about 8pm.

The white 4WD ute that pulled alongside their orange Kombi had its interior light on and was being driven by a man wearing a black baseball cap, with a Mexican moustache drooping down past the sides of his mouth, Lees would recall. A dog was in the passenger seat.

The driver gestured for the Kombi to pull over. Falconio, behind the wheel, complied, and the ute pulled up behind the travellers.

As Falconio got out to speak to the other driver, Lees slid into the driver’s seat to see what was happening, and watched as the two men spoke near the rear of the Kombi.

She overheard talk of sparks coming from the exhaust before Falconio returned to collect his cigarettes and asked her to rev the engine.

As she did so, she heard a sound like a vehicle backfiring, before the ute’s driver appeared at her door holding a silver revolver.

After holding the gun to Lees’ temple, Murdoch bound her wrists with handcuffs made of tape and cable ties. She was eventually moved into the back of the ute, but when Murdoch was preoccupied, she made her escape into the bush.

As she hid, Murdoch came after her, torch in hand, but did not find her. An engine started up and one of the vehicles moved away, only for Murdoch to return for the second vehicle.

Lees and Falconio in their Kombi.

While unsuccessfully trying to free herself of the manacles, Lees retrieved some lip balm from her pocket, bit the top off and spat it out and rubbed the balm on her wrists, before dropping the tube.

Some people questioned how she could escape the detection of her pursuer and his dog. Gwynne says there was a simple explanation. “When Joanne escaped, she ran into the bush but she didn’t run straight into the bush. She then took a very sharp left and ran a couple of hundred metres, so the dog wouldn’t have found her.

“By virtue of the fact that she did, that probably saved her life.”

A passing road train rescued her when she ran on to the road, still manacled. There was duct tape on her legs, she had lost a lot of skin from her elbows and knees, and appeared to be in shock.

Police found blood stains on the road that were matched to Falconio, and discovered in the bush the lip balm’s top and container.

In October 2002, on holiday in Sicily, Lees unexpectedly came across a picture of Murdoch on the internet in a news story that named him as a prime suspect. She told police she “recognised immediately” it was “the same male who’d attacked me”.

She later picked Murdoch out of a photo board of 12 men with varying facial features, moustaches and beards. Murdoch’s legal team argued the identification was tainted, but it was allowed into evidence in a decision upheld on appeal.

“I’d recognise him anywhere,” she told the trial.

Murdoch always travelled with his dog, Jack, and took amphetamines to stay awake on long drives smuggling cannabis across the country. With police closing in on him over Falconio’s murder, he was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in South Australia, but was acquitted of those charges.

Murdoch claimed he was nowhere near Barrow Creek at the time of the attack, insisting he was in the Tanami Desert on his way to Broome in Western Australia.

The crown said in the early hours of July 15, 2001, hours after the attack, he was recorded on CCTV at a Shell truck stop in Alice Springs in his Toyota ute.

Witnesses testified to the similarities between Murdoch and the man in the footage.

Murdoch suggested his blood could have ended up on Lees’ shirt because they went to the same Red Rooster in Alice Springs.

The NT appeals court rejected his evidence of attending the store.

Gwynne adds that when Murdoch was arrested, he still had Lees’ hair tie. She said it was possible Murdoch couldn’t recall where he disposed of Falconio “because he lost control of that scene, he went into a panic, there’s no doubt about that”.

She added: “There’s a little bit of frustration with the Falconio family, because I think they would have liked for me to have gone in and spoken to him. They thought it would be best if a woman tried to speak to him.

“It’s difficult, because they’re so far away. With that, it’s an added dimension of feeling like you don’t have much control. But they are an amazing family, they’re extremely resilient and close, and that’s including Joanne, who stays very close with the Falconio family … my heart just goes out to them.”

Joanne Lees recounts the horrific experience of losing boyfriend Peter Falconio in a television interview.

The case, like Lindy Chamberlain’s before it, exposes biases against women who didn’t act in the way they were expected to after becoming victims of crime, she said.

Lees was a complex person who defied expectations that she should appear broken in public.

“Women who survive such events and trauma, when they don’t behave in a way that matches public expectations, they’re often unfairly judged and dis­believed,” she said.

With Murdoch dead, discovery of any remains would now appear to be down to pure chance.

“It’s a needle in a haystack,” Gwynne said.