Did Bradley Murdoch murder Peter
Falconio?
Peter
Falconio is a British man who visited Australia with his fiancé,
Joanne Lees. They spent a lengthy period of time travelling throughout the
country in a camper van they had bought from Sydney. On a lonely stretch of road,
which people familiar with the area say it is not unusual for only one
vehicle to travel along each day, Falconio and Lees
stopped their vehicle. Lees has spoken of how they
had seen a man who was having problems with his truck and he had motioned
them to stop so that he could be helped. She later stated that the vehicle
had been travelling behind them and had pulled up alongside, the driver
signalling for them to stop. Falconio, Lees says,
got out of the van to see what the problem was. Moments later a gunshot was
heard and Falconio has not been seen since.
Lees claims that moments later the man opened the door to the camper van and
grabbed her and bound her, with her hands tied behind her back. During the
struggle her assailant was seemingly cut as a quantity of blood was left on
Lees' t-shirt. The DNA from this blood would later be matched to Bradley
Murdoch. Lees was bundled into the back of the man's truck, she says.
Strangely she did not see Falconio's body at any
point in time and did not notice any blood, which would later be seen on the
road.
Lees somehow managed to escape. Her hands were behind her back the whole
time, she claims, although when she was found her hands were still tied but
in front of her. She was able to demonstrate how she did this, at Murdoch's
trial, but this is irrelevant because she admitted to practicing this
activity on several occasions with Falconio's
brother (source - the Martin Bashir interview).
Lees then ran into bushes and hid for around two hours as the man searched,
with his dog, before driving away. If Lees is accurate he must have driven
away with Falconio in his truck. Aborigine
trackers, renowned for their abilities, could not find any footprints or
other traces of anyone having been in the bushes or in the area at all,
except for Joanne Lees which is odd if the man and his dog spent hours
searching for her. Her supporters have argued rain could have destroyed
tracks but could they have destroyed the man's tracks when he covered a large
area and not at all destroy the tracks of Lees who stayed almost in the same
place throughout? How come her tracks were present but the attacker's were
not?
It has been shown Lees was having an affair. She even emailed him from Australia. Falconio
had health insurance.
The only evidence against Bradley Murdoch is DNA. This might sound very
compelling proof of his guilt, even though Lees has never identified him as
the man who attacked her and possibly killed Falconio.
And how come so much blood was on Lees’ t
shirt when her attacker was not injured? There was hardly a struggle and Lees
had her hands bound behind her back very quickly. Interestingly there was
none of Bradley Murdoch’s blood in the vehicle or on the road.
There is one witness who claims Murdoch discussed with him how easy it would
be to dispose of a body so that no one would ever find it. The conversation
allegedly took place when the news reported on Falconio's
disappearance. Therefore it is not necessarily indicative of Murdoch having
disposed of the body. He could just have been talking about the case like so
many people across the world have. When any person disappears members of the
public will discuss the case and question how someone could dispose of a
body. As no forensic evidence was found in Murdoch's truck it seems hard to
believe he travelled any large distance before disposing the body and
therefore surely if he killed Falconio, who must
have been bleeding as he had been shot and his blood was found at the alleged
crime scene, the body would have been disposed of before news broke of Falconio's disappearance.
Murdoch's motive to commit this crime was allegedly to rape Joanne Lees. He
recently stood trial for a rape, but was acquitted. I see one monumental flaw
in this argument; the stretch of road on which the incident allegedly took
place is, as has been stated, one where very little traffic passes along. It
would be incredibly odd for a man to lie in wait, standing beside his truck,
on the off chance that a vehicle containing a woman he would like sex with to
arrive. He could be waiting there for days. And what if no one stopped? Lees
apparently told Falconio to carry on driving and
they had argued about this. In this case he could have been there for more
than a week. This is hardly the action of a man eager to commit rape.
The prosecution placed great emphasis on the fact Murdoch was in a service
station near Alice Springs on the night of the alleged murder, and that this is close to
where the 'crime' took place. However, Alice Springs is well over one hundred
miles away from Barrow Creek and therefore Murdoch's presence at the service
station does not actually implicate him in any way to the crime. The media
has commented on how Murdoch was known to be in 'the area' at the time of the
incident. The same newspapers had, at the time of Falconio's
disappearance, claimed the area was massive. Some stated that the area in
which Falconio's body could be is twice the size of
England.
In December 2005 Murdoch was convicted of Falconio's
murder. At a pre-trial hearing the defence determined that Lees had been
having an affair, even though she denied this until confronted with evidence.
A number of witnesses said they had never seen Murdoch with a gun and did not
think he had any interest in guns. Meanwhile Falconio's
body has still not been found.
I may one day write a piece about this case. Not from a miscarriage of
justice angle, but merely showing the inconsistencies in Lees' evidence and
the facts on this high-profile case to determine whether murder has occurred
and to see whether Murdoch is Falconio's murderer.
At this moment in time I do not have an opinion over whether Murdoch is
guilty or innocent. I am merely of the opinion that there are many, many
questions surrounding the evidence of the only witness in this case; Joanne
Lees.
Even
if Murdoch is guilty, there is still the issue of where Peter Falconio’s body is. Let us hope that this case can
be fully resolved at some point in the future.
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