The Disappearance of Peter Falconio

The discovery of English tourist Joanne Lees on a remote highway in outback Australia, cut and bleeding, her hands bound together with plastic ties and tape wrapped around her neck and ankles, on the night of 14 June 2001, sparked one of the biggest manhunts in Australian history. Lees and her boyfriend, 29-year-old Peter Falconio, had been travelling north from Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway when they were pulled over by another driver. Falconio was shot as he talked to the driver of the other car, but Lees’ miraculous escape, and the failure to locate her boyfriend’s body or identify the man responsible for the attack, originally raised doubts about her version of events. Lees was finally vindicated when Western Australia man Bradley John Murdoch was charged with the crime, but not before a sensational trial.