Outback horror killer’s guilt ‘riddled with doubt’
EVIDENCE relied upon in the Peter Falconio murder trial was “riddled with doubt”, an upcoming TV documentary claims.
Bradley Murdoch was convicted of shooting the 28-year-old Briton and assaulting his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, on a highway in the Australian Outback in July 2001.
Mr Falconio’s body has never been found and the 2005 conviction was based largely on DNA found on the T-shirt of Ms Lees, then 27.
Now a legal team acting for Murdoch have gained access to previously unseen police documents and videos and have re-interviewed witnesses.
They claim to have raised a number of unanswered questions about the crime scene and explored new possible causes of death for Mr Falconio. They say Murdoch would not be convicted if the trial took place today.
The four-part documentary by Channel 4 follows Andrew Fraser, once one of Australia’s foremost criminal defence lawyers, who is heading the reinvestigation and trying to start a petition to get Murdoch parole. A forensic scientist claims blood found on the road is not consistent with the amount he would expect from a fatal gunshot. Professor
Barry Boettcher said: “Based on the DNA and blood evidence, I would not expect a guilty verdict today. I do not believe he should have been convicted.”
Prof Boettcher said he found the way DNA evidence was collected “worrying” and said manacles used to tie up Ms Lees, which were said to have Murdoch’s genetic material on them, were “contaminated”.
Forensic scientist Brian McDonald added: “When I started looking at the DNA evidence in this case it became very obvious there was very little clear evidence at all.”
Vince Millar, the truck driver who picked up Ms Lees after the horror, also gives an exclusive new interview. He claims that, just before he saw her run out into the road, he also saw two men bundling a third man “like jelly” into a red car.
He added: “There was something they didn’t want me to see. I am pretty sure that guy in the middle could have been Peter Falconio.”
Doubt was also cast on CCTV footage which Ms Lees said she believed showed Murdoch at a truck stop on the night of the attack. Fraser, who was disgraced in 2001 when he was convicted of cocaine smuggling, has spent 10 years looking into the case for Murdoch since leaving prison himself.
He said: “The more we have delved into this case the more obvious it has become to us this case is riddled with doubt.”
Joanne and the Falconio family declined to be interviewed.
●Murder In The Outback: The Falconio And Lees Mystery starts on Channel 4, Sunday at 9.15pm.