This is story happened about two thousand kilometrs from Wolfe Creek National Park , in the Northern Territory.
On July 14. 2001 two British tourists Peter Folconio and Joanne Lees travelled at night time on the Stuard Highway from Alice Springs in the direction of Darwin.
Roughly half way between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek a mechanic called Bradley John Murdoch managed to make them pull over and told them that sparks were coming out of the exhaust of their van.
Peter went to the back of the van with Murdoch to have a look and Joanne was asked to rev the engine.Later she heard a shot she thought. Then she saw Murdoch was holding a gun came to her window. He bound her hands and dragged her into his four wheel drive.
Then he disappeard for a while. It is assumed that he dealt with Peter's body during that time.That's when Joanne managed to escape. She hided in the bush as Murdoch was serching for her whit his dog.
Joanne waited for hours to make sure that he was really gone and not coming back.When she finally straggered back onto the highway two truck drivers stopped helped her.
Murdoch was cought in the Largest Northern Territory police investigetion ever. He had been in Alice Springs in the same day as Joanne and Peter ,he had also vsited the same fast food outlet.
Many questions remain. No weapon or body was found. The motive is unclear too.Murdoch is a self confessed drifted ,drug runner and regular transported large amounts of cannabis between Alise Springs and Broom in Western Australia.
His lowyer couldn't explain how his DNA had ended up on the makeshift handcuffs that Joanne was tied up with,if he'd been nowhere near her.After a two month triel he was found quilty in December 2005 he will serve at least 28 years of a life sentence unless his appeal is successful.