As always, let us start with the legal system in Australia. Australia operates in a constitutional monarchy. The Australian legal system is a combination of inherited laws from Britain, known as English common law and the numerous statutes that have been enacted by the various states and federal government since federation. The country's legal system comprises of a written constitution, unwritten constitutional conventions, statutes, regulations, and the judicially determined common law. The High Court of Australia is the highest court in Australia, equivalent to US Supreme Court. Australia is host to a bunch of crazy cases, some of which I learned researching this story so expect some more Australian cases to come your way!
Now I want to set a bit of geographical background of Australia’s Northern Territory before I hop into the crime story. The Northern Territory is in the center north of the country and is home to the famed Australian outback and the iconic Ayers Rock or Uluru. Now the Northern Territory is vastly scarce of people but has a large area of about 1.3million km. In fact, more people live in Tasmania then in the Northern Territory because the land is so unforgiving. The capital of the Northern Territory is Darwin, which is located at the very top of the territory. Most of the major towns in the Northern Territory run off of the Stuart Highway (which is a large road that runs right in the middle of the country. The Stuart Highway runs from Darwin to Port Augusta. Tourism runs the Northern Australia economy as just under half a million people flock there every year to see the outback. Now with some legal and geographical background, let us discuss the disappearance of Peter Falconio and the attempted abduction of Joanne Lees.
Peter Falconio was born in 1972 and was the third born son of four sons to a family that lived in West Yorkshire, England (which is close to Manchester). Peter was described to really smart with bit of a class clown nature to him. In college he was studying construction while working part time jobs to help pay his way. After college he landed a nice job and actually was able to buy a house in West Yorkshire. In 1996 he met his future girlfriend Joanne Lees while at a nightclub. Now Joanne who has been described as a shy girl, was born in 1973 to a single mother in Yorkshire, England, but eventually her mother remarried and she had a half-brother. Her family did not grow up in the laps-of-luxury but they made ends meet. Joanne had a job at a Travel Agency when she met Peter. When Joanne and Peter met, they were inseparable and could not get enough of each other. They moved to Brighton, England for Peter’s schooling but they had a desire to get out and travel (me to!) They had taken some vacations but they wanted to do a huge vacation and 1998 they stated planning this massive trip.
Peter and Joanne had gotten working-holiday visas in Australia. Which allows you to stay in Australia for up to year and allows you to work half of that time. Now their parents and friends were a bit wary of the plans to travel to Australia. There have been recent murders especially against backpackers (which they were planning to do) like the backpacker murders in which two of the victims were British, the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire and the recent Port Arthur killings. But Joanne and Peter reassured their parents and off they went. Before Australia they had traveled to Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia. In Cambodia, their traveler’s cheques and return ticket were stolen. So, they were ready for Australia, where they though there would be a sense of safety. To note: In Joanne’s book she stated that they were going to go to New Zealand and Bora Bora after Australia before they returned home to England to get married in Bora Bora. It really was the trip of a lifetime.
In January 2001, they landed in Australia and had planned to work in Sydney for 3 months. Joanne got a job in a Bookstore and Peter got a job selling furniture. Now Joanne loved life in Sydney, she made amazing friends, enjoyed the nightlife and they ended up working in Australia for 6 months instead of the intended 3. But Peter was a bit restless, he wanted to get back to traveling. Peter wanted to get a car to go to Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin then Brisbane after they were going to sell the car. All while stopping to take in the sights in between the places. Peter bought a car in Sydney the car was an orange Volkswagen T2 Kombi. If you are not good a knowing cars, like me. It can best be described as like a hippie van. The car was outfitted with a fridge, a bed, a sink, and gas stove. It was perfect to travel with, they were ready to hit the road!
On June 25, 2001 they started the next leg of their journey. Driving up to Melbourne, then down to Adelaide then over to start driving up Australia on the Stuart Highway which I described earlier. They drove the desolate road up to Uluru which is almost an 18-hour drive and keep in mind their van did not go over 50mph.
Around this time also on the Stuart Highway three British tourists had a strange incident. They also had a van, two of the tourists who were girls were in the front seat and the other who was man was laying down on the bed in the back. When they noticed another car, which was unusual because the road was sooooo desolate. But the other car started to tailgate them for a while which of course made the 3 tourists worry. The car then went beside them in a motion to pass the car but they did not pass the tourists. The car matched the tourists speed and the other driver who was man was just staring at them before the man just drove away. After a bit, the tourists noticed the same car was pulled over on the side of the road smoking a cigarette, they passed the car but then a minute later the man in his car was right behind them tailing them. Then the man matched the tourists van speed again where the man was making odd gestures at them including a pantomime handgun pretending to shoot at them. This is when the male tourist who was lying down for this whole encounter finally sat up and when the man saw him, he drove off. CREEPY! The three tourists wanted to report this but did not until the incident with Joanne and Peter took place.
Anyway, Joanne and Peter had made their way to campground close to Uluru (in fact the same campground where the “a dingo ate my baby incident happened”). The next morning, they did the dawn hike to the rock, where the last photo of Peter is taken. They then drove over to Mount Olga about an hour away to hike, then they make their way to King’s Canyon then to Alice Springs with another backpacking couple they met at Mount Olga. They said goodbye to their new friends in Alice Springs, as well as fixed up their car and saw the Camel Cup (which is a Camel Racing Festival). They stayed in Alice Springs for a few days before making the 16-hour journey to Darwin on the Stuart Highway. Just for some geographical reference Alice Springs is like right in the middle of Australia and Darwin is a straight shot up from it.
On Saturday July 14th, 2001 Peter woke up and retrieved his car from the mechanic, then went to an accountant because he would be able to get back his taxes be paid to Australia while Joanne was at the library in town checking emails and made a phone call to a friend back in Sydney before they had breakfast together before they went to the Camel Cup. They had such a great time at the Camel Cup that they lost track of time and ended up leaving for the road later then they wanted to. Which meant now they would be driving in the dark to get to their next little destination Devil’s Marbles about 250 miles away.
At 6pm Joanne recalls in her and Peter stopping at Ti Tree to share a joint and switch places with Peter now driving. 60 miles north of Ti Tree they passed through the super—duper small town of Barrow Creek when they noticed headlights in the review mirror. Like I have stated before this road is super desolate and it is a bit odd to see other cars but Peter and Joanne did not think much of it. But the lights kept getting closer and closer and Peter was having a hard time seeing. A man in a white Toyota four-wheel drive with a green canvas canopy drove up alongside them and gestured to them to pull over they heard the man say the words exhaust. The car was having exhaust issues so they did pull over. Peter went to speak to the man who said he had seen sparks coming from their exhaust pipe. Joanne said would later the two men went to the rear of the vehicle to check it out, she moved into the driver's seat, ready to rev the engine. That is when Joanne heard a BANG, she thought it was the car backfiring but said later on in court it was most likely a gunshot.
The man then appeared at the window of the Kombi and pointed a gun at Joanne. “I just kept thinking; this was not happening to me. I could not believe that this was happening. I felt alone. I kept shouting for Pete and thought I was going to die," she later recalled. “I was more scared of being raped than being shot by the man," she said. Joanne then that she realized Peter might have been shot. Desperately, she tried to escape, but the man with the gun grappled with her, eventually tying her hands behind her back with homemade cuffs fashioned from cable ties and masking tape. Joanne kicked and screamed as he tried to bind her ankles. Eventually, the man gave up with the ankle ties. Instead, he punched her hard in the side of her head, then dragged her to the rear of his vehicle and dumped her in the tray. Then, he went back outside. Joanne could hear scraping and dragging. She was absolutely terrified, but as the sounds became more distant, she managed to roll out of the vehicle, run away and hide in the bushes. The man looked for her with a flashlight then gave up. When he backed his car up, he pointed his headlights at the bush in a last-ditch effort to see her. Joanne tried to use to Chapstick to butter up her hands to slip off the handcuffs but could not but she did manage to maneuver her body so the handcuffs were in the front of her body and not behind her back. Joanne remained in the bush for five hours. She was able to flag down a road train who took her to the nearest town but of course the outback being so scarce and desolate it took the police 4 hours just to get to the town Joanne was at to take her statement and start setting up barricades on the highway about 10 hours after the crime.
At 12:38am the night of the attack there was CCTV footage of a man who looked similar to the man Joanne described to police as her attacker at a truck stop in Alice Springs. The vehicle he was driving was a white Toyota four-wheel drive with a green canvas canopy just like the one from the attack. When Joanne talked to the police, they took the handcuffs and clothes she was wearing as well as they took photos of her injuries. She described her attacker to be in his mid-40’s, tall, long face, sunken eyes, shoulder length brown hair with gray speckles and a mustache that looked like a upside down U around his mouth. The police released a sketch of the man as described and with shorter hair and a shaved mustache. At 7am the day after the attack a search group was sent out to look for Peter and the attacker. When they returned to the scene of the crime, they found a dirt-covered blood pool and the couple's car hidden about 240 feet into the scrub. The blood was later matched to be Peter’s. The only other thing they found was Joanne’s footprints. The police then asked for Aboriginal trackers to help look for evidence.
This case then became HUGE in Australia, the UK and all over the world as far as media coverage. And the media did not like Joanne. Joanne did not talk to the media for 10 days and the press and public did not think this was a good look. When Joanne finally talked to the press, she was wearing a pink tank top with a zebra bra underneath. The top had the words cheeky monkey on it and the press ripped her to sherds for this. Joanne later stated she wore this top because the police has taken most of her clothes. The media was also finding inconsistencies in her story and really did not like her they were even questioning if an attack took place. The night before she went home to England the police brought her in for questions where they kind of accused her of either be involved in the attack for knowing more than she was saying. 3 weeks after the attack she flew back home to England which the press saw as her running away.
Later in the investigation, they found DNA on Joanne’s shirt that was not hers or Peter’s. This started to convince people that Joanne was not involved in anyway. The Australian DNA Register was not yielding a match to DNA. There was also a small amount of DNA of the handcuffs that Joanne was put in. A couple of weeks after the crime a new search was held around the crime scene where they found Joanne’s Chapstick, and the Northern Territory police were ripped to shreds over their poor investigation and new investigation team took over. The new team looked at the CCTV footage of the car from the truck shop and pulled records of everyone who owned that car or a similar car to compile a suspect list.
One of which was Bradley John Murdoch. Let us talk about Bradley…Bradley was born in 1958 in Western Australia, just north of Perth. Bradley was a surprise to his parents who had already raised two boys and really did not care to raise Bradley. Bradley was not the greatest kid; he had an authority issue. He got involved in gang activity, he dropped out of high school, involved with drugs, alcohol, and illegal guns. When he was 21, he was involved in a hit-and-run a received a suspended sentence. He stared working as a car mechanic and was quite good at it and had his own trucking business, but it went bankrupt. He then went back into gangs and got involved in drug smuggling across Australia where he would take speed to drive for long periods of time. There are also rumors he was involved in the KKK, he even had a racist tattoo on his arm. In 1995, there was an aboriginal party which he decided to take a gun too, he received 15 months for this incident. Also, in 2003, before his arrest he was charged with seven counts of abduction and rape but was ultimately acquitted. So, it is safe to say Bradley was not an upstanding member of society.
Police caught the big break in the Peter and Joanna case when Bradley’s roommate was arrested and started talking in hopes for a lighter sentence. The roommate describes he saw Bradley making handcuffs like the one found of Joanne and after the crime he changes his appearance. This is when police discovered that Bradley had a brother Gary and asked for his DNA sample and the DNA sample matched to a family member of Gary. Gary gave Bradley a heads up and Bradley ran. He was eventually found in August 2002 in South Australia during the arrest of the rape charges and realized they got their guy for Peter and Joanna’s case! Joanna had also identified Murdoch from police photographs shown to her in November 2002.
First there was a committal trail, which I can best describe as the equivalent to a US grandy jury to decide if there is enough evidence to go to trial. The defense stated that the DNA on Joanne’s handcuffs was too small to be admitted into trail and the testing they used was not feasible. BUT they went to a criminal trial. In the criminal trail Joanne’s character was called into question, it had come out that she had an affair while in Sydney and had even contacted the man in the weeks after the attack. They also questioned how she was able to maneuver her handcuffs from behind her back to the found of her, she actually demonstrated this in court and her character was not called into question again. It also came to light that two men in New South Wales stated that they had seen Peter along with another man after the attack. Bradley’s lawyer fueled the rumors that Bradley was still alive. But nevertheless, Bradley was convicted of murdering Peter Falconio and assaulting Joanne Lees and depriving her of her liberty. He was sentenced to life, with a minimum parole period of 28 years. Murdoch, who still protests his innocence, will never be released unless he reveals the location of Peter Falconio's body.
So, what happened to Peter Falconio? Well I am going to go off the deep end an tell you some conspiracy theories. In the documentary Murder in the Outback, Vince Millar who rescued Joanne revealed new information. He claimed that just before Lees leaped out of the bushes; he had seen a suspicious scene with two men standing beside a red car. Slowing down to see if they required help, Millar recalled how the men appeared to bundle another man, who looked "like jelly", into the vehicle. "There was something they didn't want me to see," Millar recalled. "I am fairly sure that guy in the middle very well could have been Peter Falconio. “Police took Millar's statement after he returned Lees to Barrow Creek, but he said in the documentary they lost the first two pages of his statement before the trial. He said police asked him to sign a replacement two pages, which did not mention the car. Millar said he had not wanted to but felt pressured to oblige. Is that where Peter’s body is?
The documentary also revealed that one of Falconio’s colleagues had come forward to the Australian authorities anonymously, to suggest that he may have faked his own death. “There is no doubt in my mind that Peter Falconio is capable of carrying out the scam,” said the unnamed friend. “I would not be in the least bit surprised if he attempted to defraud a life insurance policy just for the money. Before he went away, he told me he had taken out a policy.” In the statement, he describes himself as a friend of Peter’s and says he was called ‘dodgy Peter’ because “he was always scamming”. Falconio’s body has never been found, leaving some people believing there could be truth to the theory he is still alive. Former defense lawyer Andrew Fraser explained the ‘friend’ and colleague said Peter joked about people trying to scam the company he worked for. The Australian police have discounted the theory that Peter faked his own death. A former journalist who covered the case said: “There’s no way a son could have faked his own death and maintained his absence for so long knowing that his family were so upset. “That proves to me that the insurance scam allegation was perhaps unfounded.”
But the obvious is most likely what happened, Bradley Murdoch killer Peter. I cannot get past the DNA on Joanne’s shirt. In the years since Joanne Lee has explored a site near the crime scene for a memorial for Peter. Joanne has also discovered she has a sister in Sydney and can get Australian citizenship through her. She also wrote a book about her life and the attack called No Turning Back. Today Joanne is a social worker. In Nine’s 60 Minutes, she also spoke about the murder more recently saying: “Pete lost his life on that night but I lost mine too.” She returned to the site of the murder as she tried to get into the “attacker’s mind” claiming it was “because I love Pete so much.”
Sources: Law Teacher, Legal Translations, Bella Fiori, mamamia.au, The Guardian, Radio Times, iNews, Reddit, 60 minutes Australia
Comments