EXCLUSIVE
Outback killer Bradley John Murdoch is dying of cancer in a Northern Territory jail and set to take his secret of where he buried Peter Falconio’s body to his own grave, Daily Mail Australia can reveal.
Murdoch, 67, is being treated for terminal throat cancer at Alice Springs Correctional Centre, where he will likely take his last breath, 200km away from the remote spot near Barrow Creek where he murdered the British backpacker 24 years ago.
His cell in the 500-inmate facility is just off the same Stuart Highway where he shot dead the building surveyor before tying up Mr Falconio’s girlfriend Joanne Lees.
The ruthless drug runner shot Mr Falconio, 28, in the head on the night of July 14, 2001, after tricking the couple as they drove between Alice Springs and Darwin in their distinctive orange VW Kombi campervan
After shooting Mr Falconio, Murdoch threatened Ms Lees before he bound her hands behind her back with cable tie restraints and bundled her into the back of his ute.
But while Murdoch disposed of Mr Falconio’s body, Ms Lees managed to escape, running barefoot through the bush where she hid while Murdoch hunted for her with his dog.
Five hours after her boyfriend’s murder, Ms Lees eventually flagged down a truck and raised the alarm, but no trace of Falconio’s body has ever been found.
Bradley John Murdoch tricked Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees (pictured together) into stopping on a remote Outback highway where he shot Peter in the head and tied up Ms Lees, who managed to escape
Outback drug runner turned killer Bradley John Murdoch (above) is dying of throat cancer in an Alice Springs jail near where he murdered Peter Falconio and likely dumped his body in a secret spot
The remote stretch of the Stuart Highway (left) where Joanne Lees and Falconio in their distinctive orange Kombi van (right) were tricked into stopping by Murdoch, intending to kidnap Lees after shooting him
The road trip-turned-outback nightmare has been the subject of multiple books, TV programs and documentaries as well as wild theories about where Falconio’s body lies, and the fruitless searches for it.
Murdoch has steadfastly refused to end the mystery of what he did with Mr Falconio’s corpse, which remains one of the greatest riddles in Australian crime.
The only trace of Mr Falconio was a small blood stain on the tarmac of the highway where the shooting took place.
Murdoch has always denied being the killer, and protested his innocence throughout a murder trial which saw him convicted in December 2005, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The former mechanic, who drove road trains and trucks across the outback lodged two unsuccessful appeals, and was refused special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia in 2007.
Daily Mail Australia understands prison staff have been warned that Murdoch is considered manipulative, but can be personable, and is renowned behind bars for his ability to fix anything broken.
His life sentence carried a non-parole period of 28 years, which would expire in 2032, but can never not walk free without revealing the location of Mr Falconio’s body under the Northern Territory’s ‘no body, no release’ laws.
However, Murdoch is now expected to die from cancer before the end of this year.
Bradley Murdoch is incarcerated in Alice Springs prison just a few hundred kilometres south of where he murdered Peter Falconio near Barrow Creek and disposed of his body at a location which the killer has never disclosed
Bradley John Murdoch (pictured) is not expected to give up the location where he dumped Peter Falconio’s body
On their fateful road trip to Australia via South East Asia, Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees visited Uluru, Alice Springs and then drove north into an ambush by Bradley Murdoch who was later charged, although acquitted, of abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl
Mr Falconio’s mother broke a long silence about her son’s murder in 2022 to beg for information about the location of Peter’s body.
On what would have been his 50th birthday, Joan Falconio and husband Luciano, 80, issued a heartfelt plea backed by a demand for Northern Territory police to put up a $1million reward to fund a renewed hunt for Peter’s body.
Despite several searches, including a five-day operation in 2019 when police emptied an outback well, Murdoch’s hiding place remains a mystery.
‘His life stopped on a lonely road … shot dead by cowardly Murdoch, who will not reveal where or what he did with him,’ Mrs Falconio said.
‘Our pain is always with us. We want to bring Peter home where he belongs, near his family.’
After arriving in Australia via south east Asia, Mr Falconio and Ms Lees visited Uluru and Alice Springs before driving 200km north to the Ti-Tree Roadhouse to watch the sun set as they smoked a cannabis joint.
They set off again, bound for the tourist attraction known as the Devil’s Marbles, before they noticed they were being followed by a white 4WD with a green canopy, which they expected to overtake them.
Around 7.30pm, the vehicle drew alongside and signalled for the couple to pull over, indicating there were flames supposedly coming from the back of their van.
Lees and Falconio’s distinctive orange Kombi was found the morning after the murder dumped 80m into the scrub near the site north of Barrow Creek where Peter had been shot and Joanne had escaped
Murdoch argued that CCTV footage of a man entering Barrow Creek store on the night of the murder might look like him but that it wasn’t him
Ms Lees could see a dog in the cabin next to the driver. Behind the wheel was Murdoch, a mechanic from Broome, who had no front teeth and a history of violence.
Mr Falconio got out of the van and Ms Lees heard a bang, and then the 4WD driver appeared at her window and forced her into the back of his vehicle, from which she then slipped from under its canopy into the scrub.
At about 1am, believing Murdoch had given up looking for her, she came out and stopped a passing road train, whose driver took her to Barrow Creek roadhouse.
Murdoch would not be charged in relation to Falconio’s murder until 2003.
An illicit drug smuggler with white supremacist leanings who had been convicted in Western Australia and South Australia for shooting and dangerous driving charges, he was arrested shortly after being acquitted in SA of the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl.
After a seven week trial, Murdoch was found guilty after he denied murdering Mr Falconio and assaulting and attempting to kidnap Ms Lees.
Murdoch disputed the evidence of his DNA on Ms Lees’ T-shirt and on the gearstick of the Kombi, which police found dumped the morning after the murder, 80m into the bushes off the highway near Barrow Creek.
In 2008, Ms Lees instructed NT Police to destroy the van she and Falconio had bought at a used car market in Sydney.
Bradley John Murdoch’s distinctive vehicle in which a terrified Joanne Lees was placed in the rear, her hands cable tied behind her back, and from which she escaped
A recreation of Joanne Lees’ capture in the rear of Murdoch’s white 4WD from which she managed to flee and hide for five hours in roadside scrub
Bradley Murdoch, a Broome mechanic whose distinctive appearance included having no front teeth, is living out his final days at Alice Springs Correctional Centre (right)
In the years since, as she dealt with her trauma, Ms Lees has given various interviews and written No Turning Back, one of six books published about the case.
Cult horror movie Wolf Creek, a fictional film about a serial killer, was reportedly based on both Murdoch and backpacker murderer Ivan Milat.
Now aged in her early 50s, Joanne Lees has never married or had children following the tragic death of her boyfriend, and lives in a home she owns in Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire UK.
