All language subtitles for 4murderoutback

This programme contains strong
language from the outset.

Bradley Murdoch, a self-confessed
drug runner, has been convicted

of murdering the British backpacker
Peter Falconio four years ago.

He's also been found guilty
of abducting and assaulting

Mr Falconio's girlfriend,
Joanne Lees,

during their holiday in Australia.

Peter Falconio's parents left Darwin
Supreme Court for the last time,

having sat through the eight-week
trial, the guilty verdict

and today's sentence.

Because of the intense
public interest,

the judge allowed a camera into
court to record his blunt remarks.

I must sentence you on the basis
of facts that I find proven

and that are consistent with
the verdicts of the jury.

In July 2001, Mr Falconio and
Ms Lees were aged 28 and 27 years.

On 14 July, 2001,
you destroyed not only their plans

but the life of Peter Falconio.

I am satisfied that you
pretended there were sparks

coming from the rear of the Kombi.

While Mr Falconio was looking
to see if sparks were emitted

and, as Ms Lees revved the engine,
you shot Mr Falconio in the head.

You then confronted
Ms Lees with the gun

and you tied her hands behind her
with handcuffs made from cable ties.

Ms Lees either fell or
was pushed from the Kombi

onto the gravel verge
of the Stuart Highway.

In that process, she sustained
abrasions to her knees

and, probably, to her elbows.

I am satisfied that you put the body
of Mr Falconio

into the rear of your vehicle

and you travelled across the Tanami
to Broome.

Somewhere on that journey,
you buried the body of Mr Falconio.

I am satisfied that there is
a complete lack of any remorse.

I fix a non-parole period
of 28 years

commencing on 10 November, 2003.

Would you please
remove the prisoner?

Police in Australia say they fear
the worst for a British tourist

who disappeared after being attacked
in a remote part of the Outback.

Peter Falconio was shot
by a gunman who attempted to

abduct his girlfriend, Joanne Lees.

The search for Peter
Falconio goes on.

The jury unanimously found
Bradley John Murdoch

guilty of murdering Peter Falconio.

Bradley Murdoch will
spend at least 28 years in prison.

That's who did it.

Most definitely did not do it.

I'm not a fucking murderer!

This was a real
Agatha Christie thriller.

No-one really knew quite
what had happened.

He says, shut up
and I won't shoot you.

Why didn't she see the body?

How do you even know he's dead?

No-one doubts me. It's only media.

We will find the key to this.

The answer to this case
lies in the police file.

People that think they know
the story probably don't.

Bang!

I'm looking straight at this bloke
I've just seen in the paper.

That's him, all right.
Bad news, that bloke.

I couldn't believe this had
never seen the light of day.

This case never goes away -
it just sleeps for periods of time.

Things like this just don't happen.

Somebody knows what happened
that night, really knows.

There is so much more to this
story than people ever imagined.

To understand how Murdoch became
a major suspect,

you have to go back
right to the very, very beginning

of the police investigation.

The police were under an enormous
amount of pressure

to find the man responsible
for Peter Falconio's murder.

They had the pressure of the media.

The police, you know,
realised they had to find someone,

otherwise there would be questions
about their investigative ability.

And also, if people thought that
there was a madman

going around killing people,

it might deter tourists from
visiting the Northern Territory.

The police discovered a quite
a significant piece of evidence

very early on in the enquiry
into the murder of Peter Falconio.

And that came in the form of
a tiny speck of DNA

which they found on
Joanne Lees' T-shirt.

Now, that wasn't Peter Falconio's
DNA, it wasn't Joanne's DNA.

They couldn't identify where
that DNA had come from.

And they realised that
if they could identify that DNA

that had been transferred to her
clothing,

they would almost
certainly find their killer.

We are currently searching
the Australian databases.

We have currently notified
our friends and colleagues overseas,

including New Zealand,
United States, Great Britain.

The police didn't really make
any progress for about a year

until they got a tip-off
by a man called James Hepi.

Hepi provided the evidence

which police believed could convict
Bradley Murdoch.

James Hepi had a good business
going down in South Australia,

growing cannabis.

Murdoch was essentially
his business partner.

Hepi wasn't very happy with Murdoch.

A certain amount of cash
had disappeared

and a certain amount of
cannabis had disappeared,

and Hepi believed that Murdoch had
done him over in some way or other.

Hepi was arrested by the police
one morning for drug smuggling.

And he realised that he could
get a fairly lengthy jail term

as a result of this.

He said to the police, well,
maybe I can give you a bit of help

regarding the Falconio case
in exchange for a lighter sentence.

So he drew the police in.

He said, I believe it was
Bradley Murdoch, and this is why.

James Hepi claimed that Murdoch
had said to him, back in 2001,

you know, it's very easy to
hide a body -

you just bury it in a spoon drain,

which is an area of mud
by the side of the road.

And on another occasion,

he remembers Murdoch working with
cable ties -

the sort of ties
that were eventually used

to tie Joanne Lees' wrists together.

He gave the police the
information and, in return,

when Hepi appeared in court, he got
his get out of jail free card.

And once the police had
Murdoch in their frame,

they had to find DNA evidence
from Murdoch

to compare with the DNA they'd found
on the back of Joanne's T-shirt.

A 44-year-old man was arrested
in Port Augusta Wednesday night

and charged with the rape
and abduction

of a woman and her teenage daughter.

Three months later,

Murdoch was arrested for the rape
of a mother and her daughter...

..and that gave police
the opportunity to obtain his DNA.

Advice from South Australia that
Bradley Murdoch had been arrested.

Obviously, it's quite a significant
breakthrough in this investigation.

And the exciting thing
about it was we believed,

at that point in time, we can
get a DNA sample from Murdoch.

Getting a sample of Murdoch's DNA

was incredibly important
to the whole case.

I'll admit that this whole case
has exercised my mind

for a very, very long time.

I'm the chief court reporter of
The Advertiser newspaper,

which is the main newspaper
in South Australia.

I cover the Supreme,
District and Magistrates' Courts,

and have done for almost 20 years.

At the time of the Falconio case,

I was a very young, very new
journalist,

and I ended up smack dab
in the middle of the whole thing.

We got word very early on
that Murdoch had been arrested

in South Australia, so I was tasked
to go along and cover the case.

The allegation was that, following
the Falconio incident,

Murdoch had kidnapped a woman
and her daughter

and sexually assaulted both of them.

Oh, if I can't beat it
and I get found guilty, well,

I'll just have to sit and wait it.

But I'll tell you what -
I'll be a bloody angry man

when I come out.

They said this was
in all the evidence,

and all the fucking rest of it.

I said, "Well, that's what I've
said right from the start.

"There fucking won't be
because I never fucking did it!"

In the hearing,

the prosecution sought
permission to DNA test

blood and swab samples
taken from Murdoch -

but his lawyer, Grant Algie,

told the court, the application
in the rape case

is only a smokescreen to get the DNA
for the Falconio investigation.

His defence has always been
that he was falsely accused

and set up with respect
to these offences.

Bradley Murdoch's DNA has been
checked against material

left on Joanne Lees' T-shirt -
the results enough to convince

the police he is the man that
they've been looking for.

I was advised that it was a match.

How I felt personally was some
relief, considerable relief.

All of a sudden,
significant circumstantial evidence

started to grow
around his prosecution.

At an appropriate time
in the not too distant future,

we'll be seeking to swear
out a warrant for the arrest

of this person for the murder
of Peter Falconio.

Meanwhile,
in the rape case in Adelaide,

the jury goes out to
consider their verdict.

We had Northern Territory Police
officers

with a warrant to arrest Murdoch
on his release, if he got released.

Four hours and 12 minutes later,
the jury walks back in.

The jury says,
we find him not guilty.

Judge Michael David says,
Mr Murdoch, you're free to go.

Nobody in the court room
knows quite what to do.

Murdoch, all seven feet of him,
looks around, wild-eyed...

..dashes out the dock
and toward the door.

The Northern Territory Police

and the South Australian Police
leap up from the public gallery

to try to intercept him
and crash tackle him into the wall.

Journos are caught
in the middle of all this -

we're being pushed
all over the place.

Judge David yells out, "Stop, stop!"

"You can't arrest a person
inside a courthouse - it's illegal!"

Next thing you know,
a flood of coppers

comes in from the other direction,

catch Murdoch on the middle landing,
handcuff him,

turn him around backwards and start
frog marching him down the stairs.

Within seconds of him getting
out of the court,

he was rearrested by the police
from the Northern Territory

over the Falconio murder.

The defence obviously
objected to this,

but there was nothing they could do.

Brad, did you kill Peter Falconio?

Get in the car, come on.
Come on, let's go, come on.

Any hopes of release, any hopes of
freedom were dashed there and then.

And you could see not
only the disappointment

but the rage that
created within him.

One of the things that Murdoch's
defence counsel insisted

was that it was a frame-up, that
no sexual offending had occurred,

that this was all staged simply to
get Murdoch's DNA into the record.

Oh, mate, it's all happening
out here! They're recording now.

It's fucking chaos!

And I just can't shake the feeling
that that's what it was all about.

When we first discovered
Jo on the side of the road...

..geez, the emotions.

I've seen a lot of things
over a lot years,

but that, I have never
seen before in anybody's face.

That girl was that scared.

She had what we referred
to as "100-mile an hour" tape.

She had that wrapped around her neck
fairly tight through her hair.

Cable ties around her wrists
were fairly tight.

And she had a bit of tape
around her leg. I pulled that off,

and I thought, "Oh, I better
keep this stuff.

"You know, she's been tied up.

"She's out here in the desert,"
you know,

"I better keep this stuff
as evidence." You know.

When we got to the Roadhouse
at Barrow Creek, I told Rod to

stay in the truck with her,
keep her...keep her calm.

While I went in to make a phone call

and let people know about
what just went down,

Rod took Joanne to the toilet block
and then he just cleaned her up.

She had scratched knees and shit.

And then after
the coppers said to me,

"Don't wash your hands, don't clean
up, don't do nothing, wait till

"we get there," I thought,

"Oh, well, that's blown that
out the window." You know.

I couldn't clean her up too much -

and this was the whole problem

because if I'd clean
her up too much,

there would've been too much
evidence contaminated and destroyed,

so I had to sort to leave her as
best we could without going too far.

I had no criticism whatsoever over
destorying evidence or trying

to clean her up.

In fact, we were praised
for what we did.

Up until the trial,

the only clear evidence against
Bradley Murdoch was a tiny

speck of DNA they identified on the
back of the Joanne Lees's T-shirt.

When the trial got under way,

it became clear that the
police had more DNA.

And that DNA was provided by
a laboratory in the UK.

They revealed that they had found
Murdoch's DNA on the kombi's

steering wheel, from the gear stick,
and interestingly enough,

from within the manacles
that had tied Joanne up.

Prosecutors have now
revealed for the first time how

they say science can place
Murdoch precisely at the scene.

It's claimed there is only
a one in 640 billion chance that

blood on Miss Lees's T-shirt
is not Murdoch's.

A similar match also made with
a swab from the steering wheel

of the couple's kombi van.

Now, I was floored
when I found that out.

That was quite a revelation to me
because if that was true,

it would've put him at the
scene of the crime.

I think it's fair to say that
when the DNA match came up,

it exposed a weakness, I suppose,
in the defence's case.

And when you put that sort of
information to a jury,

you have to assume that they come
down on the side of the prosecution.

Convicted Outback Killer
Bradley Murdoch will

spend at least 28 years in
prison for the murder of

British backpacker
Peter Falconio.

A Darwin judge today jailed
Murdoch until 2031,

saying he's shown no
remorse for his crime.

Victor and I have been looking
at this case for over ten years now.

And Brad's always wanted to know
whether, in our view, there was

enough evidence for a retrial based
on the ground of fresh evidence.

At trial, the ultimate piece
of evidence against Brad was DNA.

I think without the DNA,

the case against Murdoch
would've gone nowhere.

In this case,
the DNA testing was carried

out by members of the Northern
Territory Forensic Science Unit.

At Brad's trial, there were
lots of little pieces that came

out about the conduct of the
exhibits, particularly the manacles.

I'm a geneticist by training
and my area of expertise is DNA,

body secretions and blood groups.

I have appeared in a number of legal
cases in which the accused has been

exonerated, the most high-profile
one of course is Lindy Chamberlain.

I was the forensic scientist whose
work enabled Lindy Chamberlain

to be acquitted.

I became involved
in the Peter Falconio case

when I was approached by
Legal Aid Northern Territory

to read documents of the
laboratory work in the case.

There are two actions that
I found worrying.

One is that DNA from Dr Thatcher,
the head of the department

looking after forensics, was found
to contaminate the manacles.

Once you recognise that the
DNA from the manacles had been

contaminated, then,
in my opinion,

you couldn't rely on any
later results from the manacles.

The second point that worried me was
that a senior policewoman took the

manacles into the room with Bradley
Murdoch when he was in prison.

The court heard from
Superintendent Colleen Gwynne,

who visited Bradley Murdoch while
investigating Peter Falconio's
disappearance.

She took with her the handcuffs
used to restrain Joanne Lees

on which Murdoch's DNA
was allegedly found.

Asked by prosecutor
Rex Wild QC, why,

Ms Gwynne said she had intended
to show them to Murdoch.

Under cross-examination,
Grant Algie asked...

That is a complete no-no.

You do not take an exhibit that
you are wanting to say was

handled by the accused into the
same room as that person.

Once that is done, to me,

any results obtained later
should be completely ignored.

Since there's a number of events
that could have influenced

the DNA results during the case,

these events could well have
influenced the court case.

NEWS REPORT: Peter Falconio's
killer has been found.

They're now hoping the suspect,

who's being held in an Adelaide
prison,

will lead police to Peter's body.

In November of 2003,

I read an article in the paper

about this gunman being arrested
for the murder of Peter Falconio.

His name was Bradley John Murdoch.

His photo was all over the internet,

because, you know,
they'd found the man.

The first time
I met Bradley Murdoch,

I wasn't sure what to expect,

but I actually spent more than
60 hours with him

over two-and-half years, which is
quite a lot of time.

I took her to be a nice person.

OK, she's writing a book
and what have you,

but she sort of said to me,

"Well, I've got to ask you this
question, Brad, did you do it?"

And I said, "No."

And then I turned around
and I said, "Next question."

And she said, "What do you mean,
next question?" I said,

"Well, that's what they've been
fucking saying to everybody else.

"When he tells you where the body
is, let us know."

Brad's an interesting enigma,
actually.

He comes across, when he wants to,
as a really hard, tough man...

..and anyone who has crossed him
would endorse that.

He was quite a well-known
character around Broome.

He used to be a member of the
Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club.

And he ran drugs up and down
the highway.

About once a month,
Murdoch did a run from Sedan

in South Australia through
the Northern Territory to Broome,

carrying in a big load of hydro,
hydroponically grown marijuana.

They'd sometimes call him
Brad Eastwood,

because he does have a rifle that
he saunters around with

from time to time.

Got him into a bit of trouble
a few times.

INTERVIEWER: Some Australians will
sit there and watch this and say,

"She loves a killer."

Well, you know, um, that's up
to them to make that decision.

Um, you know?
They don't know the man.

Murdoch's girlfriend had only good
words to say about him.

She said he was kind,
he was gentle,

generous,

loved his animals,

he was considerate of her
and her kids.

She was a single mum.

All those sort of nice things,
really, that you want in a bloke.

So, he had varying reputations
depending on, you know,

which circles you're talking about,

but by the time he was arrested

for the murder of Peter Falconio,

alleged murder of Peter Falconio,

um, the media had done a pretty good
job on him, to be honest.

And I hold them quite responsible
for the way that he was

depicted before the trial.

And then just slightly turn
to your right, please.

That's it.

He is a bad man in one way,

but, you know,
do I think, all this time later,

Brad Murdoch is innocent or guilty
of the murder of Peter Falconio?

That's a hard question...

..because I don't think
he had a fair trial.

When DNA is found on an item,

it doesn't tell us that the
DNA got from the person

to the item by the person directly
touching it,

or the person ever
being anywhere near it,

because their DNA can be
transferred without them

actually being involved.

In this case, what the police found
was one spot of Brad Murdoch's DNA

on the back of Lees' T-shirt

around about the shoulder blade
area.

The thing that has bothered me
the most

is why is there so little of
Brad Murdoch's DNA on Joanne Lees?

So, we're going to run a little
experiment.

We've got two actors.

One's playing
the part of Brad Murdoch.

One's playing
the part of Joanne Lees.

Are you a True Crime buff?

Do you know this case?

Yeah, yeah. You do?

I've been following it
on the TV news.

And we're going to relive
Joanne Lees' explanation

of what happened that night

and see how much DNA might be
transferred.

And also, we've got Dr Brian
McDonald, a DNA expert, here

to effectively supervise
the experiment.

He was part of the defence
team at trial.

He's considered one of the DNA
experts in this country.

We won't shake your hands,
you're all gloved up.

All gloved up
so I don't transfer my own DNA.

Skin cells from our skin,

one square centimetre of our
skin will shed,

on average,
1,000 cells per hour.

It's unbelievable, isn't it?

That's a big number,
and so, and we're shedding these

all the time - onto our clothes,
onto things that we handled.

Things we're touching.

In our homes, in our vehicles,
all that sort of stuff.

In a criminal investigation,
if someone's DNA gets transferred

onto an item after it's been seized,

it's classified as contamination.

If it's transferred onto
an item

before the crime was ever committed,

then it's irrelevant.

So, the only DNA that becomes
relevant for, you know,

the purposes of deciding whether
someone's guilty or innocent,

is DNA that's transferred
during the commission of a crime.

It would be expected

to be found on the items
handled by the perpetrator.

OK, DNA, if it's not in blood,
for example, is invisible.

So, this is, for simulation purpose,

is to look at the transfer,

OK, which can occur,

which you're not conscious of
or being able to see upfront.

Put your right hand in...

Once the transfer has occurred,
turn on the UV light

and we can see where this has gone

in much the same way that DNA
might be transferred.

What occurred next?

OK. He opens the door...

OK. ..which was already open. OK.

The attacker opens the kombi door...

..and he tells Joanne to
turn off the ignition.

I go to turn the engine off, but I
don't know whether I do or he does.

But I know
he touches my hand at some point.

Their hands touch.

He is pushing me
and he is putting his knees on here.

With the gun still in his right
hand, the attacker

moves into the kombi, pushing Joanne
towards the passenger door.

He says, "Put your head down
and your hands behind your back."

He's closer to me.

And then the attacker ties Joanne's
hands with the manacles.

The attacker then pushes Joanne
out of the passenger door.

And Joanne finds herself lying
face down on the ground.

He gets my ankles.

He is wrapping tape
around my ankles.

The next thing I recall is being
on my feet.

He is wrapping tape around my mouth.

I'm moving my head all around
and it goes around my neck.

The attacker pushes Joanne
from behind

to walk her to the passenger
side of the ute.

I'm not sure what happens next,
but he's pushing me

and pulling me to get through.

The attacker pushes her through the
gap between the seats into the back.

A little while later, Joanne escapes
out the back of his ute

and that is pretty well
the description of it.

OK.

Oh, there you go.

Here we go. Wow, look at that.
It's on her shoulder, on the sleeve.

On her hands.

On her hands, on her wrists, arms,
but look on the ankles,

on the tape on the ankles?

All the spots where there's been
real action,

like, putting the...
The cable tie cuffs on, yeah.

It's on her shorts
and it's on her legs.

It's everywhere.

So, what we've got on the fabric is
varieties of intensity.

Bright areas on there would suggest
that there's more DNA

on some areas than on others.

All the bits of tape which were
handled by the male actor

have clear evidence
of fluorescence on them. Yeah.

What we can see is, you know,
the handling on these items

will clearly transfer fluorescent
material and, as a consequence,

would potentially transfer...

DNA. ..DNA.

Joanne Lees never mentioned her
attacker was wearing gloves,

so if there'd been all
the struggling and wrestling

that Lees gives evidence about,

wouldn't you expect there to be more
of her assailant's DNA on her

than one spot on the back
of the T-shirt?

Looking at the police file,
we know that Lees and Falconio

were in Alice Springs on the day
of the incident,

running a few errands.

Looking at Brad's evidence

we also know he was in Alice Springs
on one of his drug runs.

So, the question is,

was there any opportunity for there
to be a cross-contamination?

Lees and Falconio start off early
at the Green Frog Cafe.

Well, they parked their car there
and then they go

and see the accountant, and Joanne
Lees goes and does some shopping.

Then they have
brekkie at the Green Frog.

We know all of these,

because these are the timeline that
Joanne's provided to the coppers.

We know from the police
reports that Lees

and Falconio visited
Red Rooster between 1 and 1.30.

Joanne says she ate nothing,
but Peter had something to eat.

Murdoch said he went to Red Rooster
around 10.30 in the morning

and bought some chicken nuggets for
his dog, the Dalmatian Jack.

Let me give you a hypothesis.

He goes into Red Rooster.
He has got a weeping wound.

You know
when you grab the back of a chair?

A bit goes on the back of the chair.

If she went and sat on the same
chair that Murdoch had touched...

..all of a sudden she gets the one
spot on the back of her top.

It certainly is not beyond the
realms of possibility

that this is how Brad's DNA
got on the back of her shirt.

If there hadn't been the DNA
evidence in this case, you

have to ask yourself, would
Bradley Murdoch have been convicted?

Because a lot of the evidence
was circumstantial.

The only real evidence was the DNA.

Dr Jonathan Whitaker
is a British expert on DNA.

Today, he told a Darwin court
of discovering the DNA of the

accused, Bradley Murdoch, on cable
ties used to restrain Joanne Lees.

Swabs from the gear stick from the
couple's Kombi van were also tested.

On those samples, Dr Whitaker
told the court it was 19,000 times

more likely to be Bradley Murdoch's
than anyone else's.

Certainly, the jury must've
concluded that there was

a strong possibility that Murdoch
was at the scene of the crime

after they'd heard this DNA
evidence, you know.

It was pretty compelling.

18 years on, I am very keen to
find out whether the DNA evidence

was as strong as the
prosecution made out.

Dr Brian McDonald was originally
asked to give an opinion

about this case by the defence.

I've been in the DNA business
for nearly 30 years now.

The numbers of cases that I've done,
which now amounts to, you know,

approaching 1,000, would involve
sexual assaults, drug matters.

Murders often rely
very heavily on DNA.

When I started looking at the
DNA evidence in this case, it

became very obvious that there was
very little clear evidence at all.

We'd like to have sort of to
start with get a bit of your

general view of the strength of
the DNA evidence against Murdoch.

OK, so what was presented in court
were DNA profiles from four

samples - the stain from the back
of Ms Lees' T-shirt, a swab from

the gear stick of the Kombi,
a swab from the steering wheel of

the Kombi, and a sample from
the manacles that were put

together for the purposes
of handcuffs.

The DNA profiles in those samples
was dramatically different.

The first sample that was
tested and identified

Bradley Murdoch's DNA was
the T-shirt sample.

And she had been wearing this
T-shirt for some time, hadn't she?

That's my understanding, yes, yes.

There's a number of different
samples taken from it.

The only one that I can see any
real evidence of Bradley Murdoch

is just this one spot on
the back-shoulder area.

It was a full single profile
matching Bradley Murdoch.

The likelihood that it is
him is very, very high.

The likelihood that it is
someone else is very, very low.

But it does not tell us
how it got there.

It certainly does not tell us
that there was direct contact

between Mr Murdoch and this T-shirt.

All the other samples - the
steering wheel and the gear lever,

the manacles - are complex
low-level mixtures.

And when you say complex, does
that mean there's more than one

DNA profile in what they
were finding? That's right.

So a complex mixture is one with
very small amounts of DNA and

multiple individuals
contributing to them.

The chance of identifying someone
clearly is very, very small.

The types of mixtures that
were present in the Kombi van

would probably not exclude a large
proportion of the population.

Brian's told us that the DNA
found in the Kombi is so weak that

it's difficult to attribute
to any one person.

I wonder if the DNA in the Kombi
being described as a match

with Murdoch could have meant the
jury thought it was definitely his?

This evidence should never be
reported as that person's DNA.

Being Bradley Murdoch's DNA? Yeah.

Describing the evidence as
containing Mr Murdoch's DNA

I think is misleading.

And I certainly wouldn't conclude
that Mr Murdoch's DNA was present.

Most lawyers will deny this, but the
presentation of a criminal trial

is essentially telling a story.

It's a scenario based on the
evidence laid out by the prosecution

to the jury, and it's up
to the jury then to look at

the story and decide whether, on
the evidence, that story has been

proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

The story here is the gruesome tale
of a bad man in cold blood,

shooting a young man, and then
trying to kidnap his girlfriend.

The prosecution claimed at trial
that, beyond all reasonable doubt,

Brad Murdoch was the killer.

However, the more we have delved
into this case, the more

obvious it has become to us
this case is riddled with doubt.

During the trial, the Crown
presented Joanne Lees as

a witness of truth.

But we now know that even
the police doubted her story.

Also, there was a lot of controversy
about the way Joanne Lees

went about identifying Murdoch.

I think it's number ten.

Then there's the
so-called crime scene.

There is no shell casing, no blood
spatter, brain matter, drag marks -

absolutely no
evidence of a murder.

And, more importantly,
there's no body.

And there are other holes.

The analysis of the CCTV footage
taken at the truck stop that

is said to be Murdoch today
may not stand up to scrutiny.

And the account given by
the truck driver who picked up

Joanne Lees could put a number
of other people in the frame.

Knowing what we know today,
my very firm view is that

Bradley John Murdoch would
have been found not guilty.

I don't think he did it
because he's not stupid.

You've got a big load of drugs on,
you don't go mucking around

up the highway, shooting people
and kidnapping women -

it just doesn't fit.

In a circumstantial case, we
never know whether the person

did it or not - hardly ever.

But I think it's quite a
strong case against Murdoch.

It's one thing to have his DNA
on her shirt, but then what are

the chances the person who's
matched that DNA has a gun, has

a dog, has a similar car, similar to
the person in the truck stop video?

I was pleased that they found
Murdoch guilty because,

particularly because, that gave
some closure to the Falconio

family, it did give some closure
to Joanne Lees, and it also gave

closure for the police,
which was really important.

I do not believe that Bradley
Murdoch should have been convicted.

In my experience, juries do not
really understand DNA evidence

and, if DNA is led,

the jury simply equate the
presence of DNA with guilt.

I'm absolutely convinced the
police got the right person.

My only slight doubt is did
Bradley Murdoch have an accomplice?

Was there somebody else on the road
who helped him get rid of the body?

I do believe that Bradley Murdoch
killed Peter Falconio and

I do believe Joanne Lees' account.

I don't think there is anything
unjust with Murdoch's conviction.

Sometimes, I still question
the way they got there.

I don't think anybody killed him.

Well, I know for a fact he's
still alive, unless something

happened to him after the day
he walked out the shop but,

yeah, he's still alive
and kicking somewhere.

There's only one thing that can
really unravel the mystery -

that is, if you find
the body of Peter Falconio.

And if you find the body of Peter
Falconio, then you can almost

be certain how he died and
possibly who killed him.

I hope we do find Peter Falconio.

But there's only one person
who knows where Peter's buried,

and that's Murdoch.

Has he got anything in him to stand
up and say where it is? I hope so.

I hope so.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media