The unofficial policy of the Northern Territory Department of Corrections was to “destabilise” prisoner number 257128.
For more than 20 years, Bradley John Murdoch was sent back and forth from the Alice Springs correctional centre, surrounded by outback red dirt and scrub, to the maximum security prison at Berrimah in Darwin’s industrial outskirts.
Murdoch, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio, died in custody on Tuesday, aged 67.
The “outback killer”, whose crimes partly inspired the horror film Wolf Creek, was convicted of murder by a jury in 2005.
He maintained his innocence until his final breath.
Falconio’s body has never been found.
The 1,500km prison transfer bus trip up the Sturt Highway between the Northern Territory’s two maximum security prisons would have passed through Barrow Creek, the remote town with 11 inhabitants, where Murdoch ambushed the VW Kombi van of Falconio and his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, in July 2001.
Most of the searches for Falconio’s body have focused on the area that surrounds the town, but the outback is vast. The distance from the nearest towns – Alice Springs, in one direction, to Tennant Creek in the other – is more than 560km, the equivalent of a journey from London to Düsseldorf.
The search for Peter Falconio
Kate Vanderlaan, the retired former acting commissioner of the NT Police Force, was the head of the Alice Springs crime division in 2001 and recalls the days and weeks immediately after Falconio went missing.
Lees told police she managed to escape and hide in the bush for hours while Murdoch searched for her, with the help of his dog, until she flagged down a truck driver and called for help.
“My most significant memory was that it was a very difficult investigation in the early days,” Vanderlaan said.
“It wasn’t clear cut [at the outset] as to who did it, [and] there was significant media interest.
“I’d never dealt with such media scrutiny before. We had a description of the vehicle and the recollection [of Lees], but at the end of the day, it was starting from scratch because you don’t know the motive … other than it was such a random thing.
“We got so much information, sometimes that was quite overwhelming – how to deal with it.”
Vanderlaan recalls searching for Falconio’s body in the first few weeks after he disappeared.
“The initial search was concentrated along the road or within a kilometre of the road. But it’s vast, and the burial evidence would probably dissipate pretty quickly. They were pretty thorough in their searches, but it’s like a needle in a haystack,” she said.
“We’ve had so many different suggestions and thoughts since, and they’ve all been followed up. It was always the case that if we had some leads, it was always followed up. We had the psychics and those people thinking they knew where the body was.”
Responsibility denied until end
Murdoch was convicted by a jury in December 2005 and sentenced to life in prison, with a non-parole period of 28 years.
In the time since, he has steadfastly maintained his innocence, including several unsuccessful attempts to appeal against his conviction.
His family released a statement on Wednesday, acknowledging his death.
“To many, Bradley Murdoch is known only for the events that led to his conviction in 2005 for the murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio, a crime for which he has always denied responsibility from his arrest until his death,” the statement said.
“But to those who truly knew him, he was much more than the headlines.
When given the opportunity, Brad was a devoted father, father-in-law, and proud Poppy who never missed a chance to brag about his grandchildren. He was a beloved brother, uncle, and friend.”
The family said Murdoch maintained his innocence until his death.
“We understand that the public perception of Bradley will always be shaped by his conviction, but our intention is simply to share the man we knew, the version of him that was rarely, if ever, seen beyond our family and close friends,” his family said.
“He was deeply loved. He will be deeply missed.”
The statement said Murdoch had assisted First Nations prisoners, who had called him uncle.
Such accounts are at odds with others that have emerged about Murdoch, including from within the prison system over the years.
Murdoch spent 21 months in prison after he shot at a group of Aboriginal people who had been celebrating after an Australian rules football match in Western Australia in 1995. He was known to have a racist tattoo, depicting an Aboriginal man.
Within the prison system, he was reported to have developed significant influence.
A secret taken to the grave
The search for Falconio’s remains has fascinated police, journalists and amateur sleuths for years.
In 2014, Australian current affairs program Today Tonight claimed to have discovered a possible location for Falconio’s body in a well at Neutral Junction, about a kilometre from the crime scene at Barrow Creek.
It later emerged the segment had been filmed three years earlier.
After decades of fruitless searches, the best hope remained the possibility, however remote, that Murdoch might confess and reveal where Falconio was buried.
Sources familiar with the Northern Territory’s dealings with Murdoch say they tried “all manner of things” to elicit a confession.
In 2016, the NT introduced “no body, no parole” laws. There was only one prisoner in the Territory’s jails who was affected. But Murdoch remained silent. He contracted throat cancer in 2019, and the possibility of parole would have seemed impossible.
Last month, as the 67-year-old appeared close to death, Northern Territory police announced a new reward of $500,000 for information about Falconio’s disappearance.
Murdoch died in palliative care at the Alice Springs hospital. He took the secret – the best hope of finding Falconio – to his grave.
“Let’s hope someone might come forward now that he’s dead,” Vanderlaan said.
