Peter Falconio - Missing Person or Murder?

Missing Person or Murder?

Lees stated that while travelling at night along the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek (between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek) in the Northern Territory on 14 July 2001, the pair were stopped by a man waving for the couple to stop their Volkswagen Type 2 "Kombi" van and indicating trouble with their vehicle's exhaust.

At the committal hearing in December 2004 Lees told the court that her assailant then tied her wrists together behind her, put a sack over her head and forced her into his ute (pick-up truck). She also stated that the person forced her between the seats of his vehicle and into the rear of his vehicle. She said she escaped from his ute and fled into the dark, hiding under bushes, while he tried to find her with a torch. Expert Aboriginal trackers, called from a nearby settlement could find no sign of tracks other than Lees' in the vicinity. Tracker Teddy Egan stated, "I see tracks where she run and fall down beneath tree. She lie there, hiding". It was also noted that a pool of Falconio's blood that had been covered in soil had attracted no ants or flies, considered to be much more out of the ordinary by Territorians than a roadside fire.

Falconio's body has not been found despite a massive police search. Much doubt has been cast on how Lees may have been able to escape from her bindings, as when she flagged down a passing truck for assistance, her hands were in front of her body. Lees however was able to demonstrate in court how easily she was able to bring her bound hands from behind to front. Police, however, found no vehicle that was able to be accessed from the front seats to the rear canopy area without leaving the vehicle.

Some two years after the disappearance, Bradley John Murdoch, a man living in Adelaide and previously acquitted of a rape charge, was found to have a possible connection to Barrow Creek on 14 July 2001. Murdoch was found not guilty of the rape but Northern Territory police applied for extradition to face charges of abduction and murder. Lees identified his photograph as being the man who abducted her after being shown a photograph of a person in custody in Adelaide by a journalist in the UK, and the DNA from the bloodstains on Lees' clothing matched Murdoch's DNA.