Bradley John Murdoch refused to reveal where Peter Falconio’s remains were before he died (Image: Express)
It is the startling, unsettling picture of a cold-blooded killer. A hulking Bradley John Murdoch stands 6ft 5in tall, his heavily tattooed arms by his side, dressed in an orange t-shirt and blue shorts. His mouth is turned down, his chin slightly raised – but it is his wide eyed menacing stare at the camera that disturbs most of all. Police in Australia released the shocking image this week, along with other previously unseen photographs from their investigation, to mark 25 years since Murdoch murdered British backpacker Peter Falconio in the Australian Outback. The 28-year-old’s body has never been recovered.
Murdoch was convicted of Peter’s murder in 2005 and of attacking and attempting to kidnap his girlfriend, Joanne Lees. Right up to his death from throat cancer last June, he refused to tell police where the Yorkshireman’s remains are buried. Now, police hope that releasing the new images could jog memories and lead to a tip-off about Peter’s remains. They include a picture of a shocked Joanna Lees wearing a blood spattered blue t-shirt, another showing injuries to her elbow and arm, and a close-up of the orange Volkswagen Kombi camper van in which the couple were travelling when they were attacked on a remote stretch of road near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory on July 14, 2001.
The newly released picture of Bradley John Murdoch who was convicted in 2005 of murdering Peter Falconio, 28, and assaulting Joanne Lees at gunpoint (Image: Northern Territory Police/PA Wire)
While Peter was shot before he disappeared, 27-year-old Joanne managed to escape Murdoch by hiding in scrubland for hours, her wrists bound with cable ties. She eventually hailed down a passing truck who cut her ties and drove her to Barrow Creek Hotel before raising the alarm with police.
Northern Territory Police Force Commissioner Martin Dole said 25 years was a “significant milestone” in the investigation. “This was a traumatic and horrific event for Ms Lees, and for Peter’s family, who have now gone such a long time without the answers they deserve,” he said.
“While a murderer has been held accountable for his crimes, this investigation can never be considered closed until Peter’s remains are found and his family can lay him to rest. It is deeply regrettable that Murdoch died without, as far as we know, ever disclosing the location of Peter’s remains. His cowardly silence has denied his family, friends and loved ones the closure they deserve.”
A reward of up to $500,000 (£260,000) has been offered for information leading to the discovery of Peter’s remains. The extraordinary mystery which shocked the world has long baffled detectives. Murdoch was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole at a jail in Alice Springs in 2005 but has famously refused to speak about what happened.
Officers visited the 67-year-old a final time last June after he was moved from his prison cell to a palliative care hospital, pleading with him to reveal what he did with Peter’s body. Incensed and unrepentant, he shouted at them to “get out”. Six days later he died, taking his secret with him to the grave.
“It was a final act of defiance,” said retired police superintendent Colleen Gwynne this week, the senior investigating officer in charge of the investigation into Peter’s murder, who experienced Murdoch’s defiance firsthand in face-to-face meetings.
“Right to the end he was desperate to maintain control,” she said. “It was like he was saying. ‘OK, you’ve got me but this is the one thing you can never get from me. I’m going to keep it.’ It made him feel powerful.”
Gwynne believes Murdoch, whose wife Dianne had left him two years into their marriage taking their son with him, may have become obsessed with Joanne after spotting her in Alice Springs.
Then there is the date of July 14 itself. “It was his wedding anniversary,” said Gwynne. “I think that date was significant for him and he could have been holding anger towards women on that day.”
Just one month after Murdoch’s death, Peter’s parents Joan and Luciano Falconio said they still “hold out hope” that his remains will be found.
A previously unseen picture from the investigation showing Joanna Lees in a blood stained t-shirt hours after the attack (Image: Northern Territory Police/PA Wire)
Speaking from their home near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, the couple said their first reaction to Murdoch’s death was “one of relief” and that it felt “like a weight has been lifted”.
In a statement, they said: “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.”
Joanne Lees, now 52 and a social worker living in her native Huddersfield, has only spoken on rare occasions of her ordeal in the years since that terrible night.
In an interview with Australian news channel Nine’s 60 Minutes in 2017, she said: “Pete lost his life on that night but I lost mine too. I’ll never be fully at peace if Pete’s not found, but I accept that that is a possibility.”
She met Peter, from Hepworth, in a nightclub in Huddersfield in 1996 and they began living together a year later. Following Peter’s graduation from Brighton University, they embarked on their trip of a lifetime travelling through South East Asia before arriving in Sydney where they lived for five months before setting off in their Kombi.
Peter and Joanne were travelling on a remote part of the Stuart Highway between Alice Springs and Darwin when Murdoch ambushed them. After stopping at a roadhouse for snacks and drinks, they noticed a Toyota van following them. At around 7.30pm it pulled up beside them and a man inside gestured wildly at them to pull over, which they did despite Joanne’s nervousness.
The man was Murdoch. He said he had seen sparks coming from the exhaust pipe of the couple’s vintage campervan. While he and Peter went to the rear of the vehicle to investigate, Joanne slid into the driver’s seat ready to rev the engine.
When Peter told her to start the car, a loud bang followed – not the exhaust backfiring but Murdoch shooting Peter.
He then appeared at Joanne’s rearview mirror with a gun and ordered her to put her hands behind her back before tying them with cable ties and tape. She managed to resist having her legs bound.
After Murdoch bundled her into his van, he was momentarily distracted and Joanne seized her chance to escape by running into the desert. Lying close to the ground, terrified, her heart pounding, she listened as Murdoch and his dog searched for her in the dark with a torch. He finally gave up but Joanne waited for five hours until she felt safe enough to go back to the road and flag down a passing HGV at around 1am.
Peter Falconio and girlfriend Joanna Lees in their Kombi campervan (Image: Northern Territory Police/PA Wire)
Officers found the couple’s campervan around 100 metres off the Stuart Highway in the early hours of the next morning. There was no trace of Peter Falcanio.
By then Murdoch had returned to Alice Springs to stock up on supplies. He and his Toyota were captured on CCTV at a truck stop at 12.38am before he drove more than 1,000 miles north-west to the town of Broome.
It would take two years before Murdoch was caught. Initially, Joanne’s statements were inconsistent – it has since been said she was in shock – and detectives struggled to pinpoint the perpetrator after narrowing the list of suspects to less than a dozen.
Mistakes were also made in the initial hours of the investigation. Roadblocks were only set up several hours later, potentially contaminating evidence from the scene.
When Colleen Gwynne took over the case four months after Peter’s disappearance, Murdoch was still a suspect but not a prime one. Previously known to South Australian police as a drug trafficker, they insisted he didn’t match Joanne’s description of her attacker.
“The problem was they looked at an old photo of him,” said Gwynne this week. “He’d lost weight so they dismissed him even though he actually fitted the profile of our killer perfectly. Thankfully we never fully eliminated him.’
When Joanne was shown photos of suspects, she identified Murdoch as her attacker.
DNA evidence, obtained through a sample provided by Murdoch’s estranged brother, matched the blood on Joanne’s t-shirt, as well as on the cable ties and van’s gearstick.
At Murdoch’s trial, a forensic scientist told the court a blood smear found on Joanne’s t-shirt was “at least 150 quadrillion times” more likely to be from Murdoch than anyone else.
He continued to deny the killing but a jury unanimously found him guilty of all charges after a nine week trial.
Peter’s shocking murder made waves across the world, sparking articles, books and debates about what happened. It is also said to be the inspiration behind the 2005 horror film, Wolf Creek, in which a serial killer stalks backpackers in the Outback.
Retired postmaster Luciano is now 85, his wife Joan, 79, yet they still have no certainty about what happened to their son.
Appealing for information that might help police, Joan said earlier this month: “We haven’t found Peter’s body, so there is no moving on. There can never be closure unless we find him.”
The hope is now, with the release of these new photos, that Joan Luciano and Joanne will one day finally get the answers that they deserve and the chance to lay their beloved son to rest.
