To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
New footage released ahead of the 25th anniversary of Peter Falconio’s murder shows killer John Murdoch refusing to reveal where the British backpacker’s remains are.
Murdoch died of throat cancer last year while serving a life sentence for the murder of Mr Falconio, 28, and assaulting his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
Huddersfield-born Mr Falconio was shot dead on a remote stretch of road near Barrow Creek in Australia’s Northern Territory on July 14, 2001.
Ms Lees was kidnapped but managed to escape by hiding out in some scrub for several hours until she was able to wave down two men in a passing truck.
NT police have now released body-worn footage from one of the final attempts at getting Murdoch to reveal where he hid Mr Falconio’s body.
Recorded weeks before his death, it shows an officer saying: ‘I need you to have a think about if Peter Falconio was your son … and somebody knew something about where his body was.’
But Murdoch replies: ‘Don’t beat around the bush because I’m just going to cut you short every time OK?
‘I know nothing. I’ve said this for 22 years. I know nothing.’
When the officer invited him to think about his answer, Murdoch again denied any knowledge, saying: ‘I’m not thinking about it. I’ve thought about, I thought about it for 22 f*****g years.
‘I’ve been with these fellas for 22 years. They’ve all understood what’s going on, I’ve said the same story over and over and over, and now you’re here at the last minute because I’m f*****g dying.’
After he died, police said Murdoch had not provided any fresh information.
They said in a statement: ‘The Northern Territory Police Force acknowledges the death of Bradley John Murdoch, the man convicted of the 2001 murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio near Barrow Creek.
‘It is deeply regrettable that Murdoch has died without, as far as we are aware, ever disclosing the location of Peter Falconio’s remains.
‘His silence has denied the Falconio family the closure they have so long deserved.
‘Our thoughts are with the Falconio family in the United Kingdom, whose grief continues.’
Mr Falconio’s father, Luciano Falconio, said he wished that Murdoch had ‘left something’ to help him recover his son’s body.
‘I don’t wish anybody dead because you have only got one life and I think if you’ve been given that gift of life… I don’t even know what to say,’ Luciano Falconio told Newscorp.
‘I tell you what I think, I wish he (Murdoch) left something for me to find him.’
Peter Falconio and Ms Lees had been driving near the tiny settlement of Barrow Creek, around 188 miles north of Alice Springs, when Murdoch pulled up beside them claiming to have seen sparks coming from their van.
He shot Mr Falconio in the head as he inspected the vehicle, before forcing Ms Lees into his vehicle and binding her wrists with cable ties.
She managed to escape, hiding in the Outback for hours before flagging down a passing truck.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Murdoch was likely to have disposed of the backpacker’s body somewhere in the vast, remote expanse of desert between Alice Springs and Broome, covering more than 1,200 miles.
Despite repeated searches, Mr Falconio’s body has never been found.
Ms Lees, who returned to the UK, told Australian current affairs programme 60 Minutes in 2017 that she still wanted to ‘bring him home’.
‘Pete lost his life on that night, but I lost mine too,’ she said at the time.
‘I’ll never be fully at peace if Pete’s not found, but I accept that that is a possibility.’
Murdoch lodged several unsuccessful appeals over the years, with Australia’s highest court refusing to hear his case in 2007.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.