Melbourne
AP
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Brad Legion Murdoch, known as the “outback killer,” who was found guilty of killing British backpacker Peter Falconio, who disappeared in central Australia 24 years ago, said he died Wednesday. He was 67 years old.
Murdoch passed away Tuesday night at the Palliative Care Unit at Alice Springs Hospital, according to a statement from the Northern Territory Corrections Department. He was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 2019 and was recently transferred from Alice Springs Prison to hospital.
His death did not solve the mystery of Falconio’s body’s location. Territory police did not immediately respond to questions from the Associated Press whether Murdoch provided clues before his death.
In 2005, Murdoch was convicted by the Supreme Court of Darwin’s territory in the 27-year-old murder of Falconio, 28, from Huddersfield, Yorkshire, at the age of 27, who attempted to lure Falconio’s girlfriend Jo Ann Leeds in 2001.
The crime attracted global attention and was one of the inspirations for the 2005 Australian horror film Wolf Creek, about a serial killer who caught a backpacker and left a witness who became a suspect.
Leeds, who wrote about her ordeal in her 2006 memoir, No Tunding Back, accused police of treating her as a suspect in the years before Murdoch was indicted.
The court’s orders feared it could prevent the release of the film in the Northern Territory during Murdoch’s trial and could affect the ju-decision. Murdoch, who was arrested in the case in 2003, was not charged with any other murders.
Maintain his innocence
Murdoch consistently maintained his innocence and did not help authorities search for Falconio’s body.
At the time of the murder, Murdoch was an interstate drug runner who used amphetamines to sleep on days of driving and marijuana.
On the night of July 14th, 2001, he tricked Falconio and Leeds into stopping the camper van on a dark, far-flung highway north of Alice Springs.
Leeds saw her boyfriend leave the van and inspected the exhaust pipe that was likely to spark. She heard the gun shot and testified that she had never met her boyfriend again.
Murdoch, 193cm tall (6 feet, 4 inches), tied his wrists with a cable tie before escaping in a desert scrub for hours. She testified that she was watching Murdoch looking for her with a flashlight and his dog.
Leeds later waved the truck and raised the alarm.
Last month, police doubled the reward for information that led to $500,000 ($330,000) in Falconio wreckage following news that Murdoch was in palliative care.
“The police hope that someone can provide some important information to assist in this search,” said police commander Mark Greave. He added that over the years he spent in prison, Murdoch had not revealed where his victim’s bodies were located.
Colleen Gwynne, a former police officer who led the investigation during Falconio’s loss of failure, said Murdoch may have panicked after Lees escaped and forgot what he had done with his body amidst the chaos.
“When that panic began… he might have disposed of his body somewhere.
In 2005, Murdoch was sentenced to life in prison for Falconio’s murder and ordered to serve at least 28 years ago, where parole could be considered. He was also sentenced to six years in prison to be served simultaneously to attack Leeds.
The earliest he could have applied for parole would have been in 2032, but it was unlikely that Murdoch was released without providing information about what he did with Falconio’s body. The territory passed the law in 2016 to prevent prisoners convicted of murder from being eligible for parole unless they provide police with the location of the victim’s body.
Murdoch was born in Geraldton, the west coast town of Geraldton, the third child of an auto mechanic and his wife, the hairdresser.
As a teenager, he was involved in a biker gang crime and was first sentenced to prison for being shot in 1995 by an indigenous group in Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia. He was sentenced to 21 months, 15 months.
After judging Murdoch for Falconio’s murder, Judge Brian Martin said he doubted words that could express the trauma and fear that Reese had suffered.
“It must have been close to the worst nightmare you could imagine,” the judge said.
