As with the Bamber case, I suspect they got the right person but the evidence is not quite unimpeachable. The paradox arises in all law-governed criminal justice systems, but especially where the adversarial mode of trial predominates. It leaves us the core ethical dilemma of what should happen when, intuitively, 'everybody knows he did it' but the evidence isn't quite right. Really, it's not a dilemma at all. You have to release him.
The video linked above - the one with the Australian - is interesting and when I first heard about this case years ago, my gut thinking was along similar lines: that Murdoch and Lees were both covering up some sort of dealings involving drugs. But on reflection, I'm inclined against the theory. Murdoch caught up with them out in the middle of nowhere. It looks to me more like essentially some sort of road rage incident, with Murdoch high on whatever drugs and stimulants he was partaking in.
I doubt Murdoch is some sort of Outback 'serial killer'. More likely is that he is just a regular troublemaker, was high and angry, had a gun, he took umbrage at them (it could have been anybody) and it all got out of hand.
The legal position is that Peter Falconio is dead, but we don't know for sure that is the case in actuality because the forensic evidence doesn't really support it and the conviction does seem unsafe in the legal sense. However, I don't find the idea of Falconio faking his own death and disappearing very plausible. There would have to be a compelling motive. He had a stable life and an attractive girlfriend.
He's dead. The probable killer, Murdoch, will have dumped his body somewhere: probably down a well or mine shaft, or sunk the corpse in a river or similar.
R.I.P. Peter Falconio.
Very good post QC, it’s about where I’m at. The only difference being I think he was more than just a troublemaker. He had a long list of previous, but it all depends how one views this list. I don’t buy into this new documentary, like all documentaries they Can and have a habit of leaving out whatever they choose. It was beyond circumstantial, the fact his DNA was on Lee’s t shirt and his DNA was on the black tape puts him there. He would have had to be very very unlucky for this to be cross contamination? The Documentary never mentioned the hair slide from Lee, which was found on Bradley’s gun holster.
They keep harping on the fact there wasn’t a body and lack of blood, he had thousands of miles in the outback to dispose of the body, there was blood from Peter, depending on where he was shot and dying instantly would result in lack of crime scene blood. Not long after the murders, he changed his vehicle from a soft canvas back covering to a hard top covering, changing his appearance and number plates quite frequently.
ANNE BARKER: Hamish, Jonathan Whitaker is a forensic scientist at the labs in Wetherby in England, and he received several swabs of DNA evidence from several items that had been found at the crime scene near Barrow Creek, in particular he was sent a loop from the cable ties that were taken from Joanne Lees' wrists, that the hours after the attack that she alleged happened on the Stuart Highway.
From the DNA expert
In particular, he said he did tests on the layers of black tape that made up the cable ties, and he also received known profiles of the DNA for Joanne Lees, Peter Falconio, and the accused Bradley John Murdoch, and he peeled away a lot of those layers of tape, and on one particular swab that he tested, it wasn't a complete DNA profile, he said, but he was able to calculate the probability that that particular DNA came from Bradley John Murdoch, and he said that it was 100 million times more likely to have been his DNA than any other person in the population selected at random.
Hair elastic convicts Murdoch
The item that ultimately convicted Murdoch was a small, non-descript everyday item, an elastic hair-tie.
The discovery of this item during the investigation confirmed for Ms Gwynne her carefully calculated team selection had paid off.
The officer she had described as the OCD individual was meticulous in trawling through the thousands of Murdoch's belongings confiscated as evidence from his car and trailer.
The officer went through every detail and what she found among those belongings was a hair-tie that was taken from Ms Lees when she struggled to survive at the hands of Murdoch.
"He probably didn't know how significant the hair-tie was and had it wrapped around his holster inside his belongings,"