Cold case files
Read our cold case file and see if you correctly predicted the killer’s identity…
It’s a crime that has fascinated – and confounded – many people and, as the 20th anniversary of the ‘Outback Murder’ looms, there are still a multitude of unanswered questions.
Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio were just like any other couple and they’d taken a once-in-a-lifetime aroundthe-world trip. They’d travelled to multiple countries, including Thailand and Cambodia, before ending up in Australia. They’d been together for six years after meeting in a nightclub and it should have been the happiest time of their lives for the couple, originally from Huddersfield. They were rumoured to want to marry in Bora Bora at the end of their trip, which they’d embarked upon in November 2000. But one night, on 14 July 2001, the couple were driving their orange and white campervan on a remote stretch of highway near Barrow Creek, in the Northern Territory. It was late and, according to Joanne, a white four-wheel drive had suddenly overtaken, and waved the couple down, indicating there was something wrong with their exhaust.
They’d pulled over where the white 4x4’s hazards were flashing. Pete, then 28, got out to speak to the man, who had a dog with him, and Joanne could hear them discussing exhaust pipes. He’d asked her to rev the engine, which she did, but a bang had rung out.
It could’ve been the exhaust… but it was a gunshot.
Joanne, then 27, says she was terrified – it was the dead of night, she was in the middle of nowhere – and she feared for her life… and wondered what had happened to her boyfriend.
Suddenly, Joanne was pulled out of her vehicle, hit on the head, her hands were bound
with cable ties and she was gagged. Joanne was forced into the back of the attacker’s truck. The assailant must’ve gone to check on the fate of Pete, and while he seemed distracted, Joanne managed to escape, running – still bound – into the moonless night.
Cowering in fear, she hid in some bushes for five or six hours, while the attacker stalked around with his dog, searching for her. Goodness knows what must have been going through her mind during those hours. The fear, the concern for Pete…
Eventually, the assailant had given up and driven off. Joanne had finally come out of the bush and managed to flag down a passing motorist, who cut her free and alerted police. There was no sign of her boyfriend.
She gave a description to the police, but it wasn’t until 10 days later that Joanne spoke at a press conference. Wearing a tight, pink, singlet top, she urged the attacker to tell police what he had done with Peter Falconio. Despite there being a similar attack some weeks before, her story was met by some with scepticism and she was criticised for her clothing.
Whilst Peter’s distraught family also appealed for information, desperate to know what’d happened to their loved one, the police set to work trying to ascertain who would do this – and why.
‘Cowering in fear, she hid in some bushes for five or six hours’
1. DNA
The evidence that helped secure Murdoch’s conviction was DNA found on Joanne’s T-shirt after the ordeal. Not all experts believe this to be definitive, though. Brian McDonald, an Australian DNA expert, said it could have been possible for Murdoch’s DNA to have been transferred at another time. During their travels, Joanne and Pete had called into an Alice Springs restaurant called Red Rooster and McDonald claims the DNA could have transferred if Murdoch had sat at the same seat as Joanne.
2. COULD PETER STILL BE ALIVE?
As Pete’s body has never been found, some experts claim that Mr Falconio could still be alive. Since his murder, several witnesses claim to have seen the backpacker, including a brother and sister working in a remote town, who were convinced they’d seen him ‘or his twin’ after the attack .
3. WHERE WAS THE BLOOD?
Joanne talked of a gunshot during the attack that she believes killed Peter, and while there were pools of blood at the scene and some of it was Peter’s, there was no blood trail. Joanne has always said she didn’t see what happened to the body, but thought that Murdoch dragged Pete away from the roadside while she managed to escape. ‘There was no blood trail in this case,’ blood expert Professor Barry
Boettcher said at the time. ‘Further than this, there was no blood spatter found at the scene.’
4. WAS THERE SOMEONE ELSE ON THE HIGHWAY?
After spending hours in the bushes, hiding from the assailant, Joanne was finally picked up by truck driver Vince Millar. Lawyer Andrew Fraser, who was campaigning to have Murdoch’s conviction overturned, claims Vince reported seeing other headlights on the highway, but these were never followed up by the police. Just before he picked up Joanne, Vince is said to have claimed seeing ‘two blokes’ standing outside a red car on the side of the road. Assuming they’d needed help, he’d stopped and spotted a third man who was ‘like jelly’ and being shoved into the car. Andrew believes the third man could have been Peter.
5. WHERE IS JOANNE NOW?
She returned to the scene of the crime in 2017 in the hope of getting closure and renewing efforts to find Peter’s body. She was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after the ordeal but also appeared on a TV programme, 60 Minutes, and released a book. During that trip, she also discovered she had a half-sister, Jess – the daughter of her estranged Australian father. But where is Ms Lees now, though? She is believed to be living in Huddersfield, has a job as a social worker and has never married or had kids.
‘There was no blood spatter at the scene’