A Ghost - from the Past !

One of Australia's crime mysteries revealed hauntingly new detail that makes us wonder what happened to the victim's body.  In 2001 English tourists Peter Falconio and Joanne Lee were driving the Stuart Highway in central Australia when another car driver signalled for them to pull over near Barrow Creek.  Fearing something was wrong with their car, they complied and this other driver shot Peter Falconio in the head and imprisoned Joanne Lee using gaffer tape and cable ties, putting a sack over her head.  While he was preoccupied she managed to escape and hid in the bush all night, finally emerging to flag down a passing road train in the morning.

The police discovered a pool of Falconio's blood on the highway and despite a huge search his body was never discovered.  A man named Bradley Murdock became the main suspect.  He was known to have a fascination with guns and after a long circumstantial case he was convicted and is now serving a twenty-eight year non parole sentence in a Darwin prison.   It is a remaining mystery of where Peter Falconio's body has been buried.

In 2010 a contractor was pumping out one of the roadside toilets dotted about the Stuart highway for the comfort of travellers.  These are known as " long drop dunnies " because they consist of a deep bore and when the suction hose jammed the operator discovered that the cause was a metal object wrapped in cloth.  It turned out to be a 1858 model of a Remington .44 pistol that was a favourite weapon in the American civil war of the 1860's.  These did not use modern cartridge ammunition but were served by a percussion cap and black powder.   The police commented that it was the type of weapon favoured by Australia's famous bandit, Ned Kelly.

It is unlikely that this weapon was used to kill Falconio.  The police think that a lighter .22 was used because the bullet would have lodged in his skull and the resulting blood would have pooled on the road.  The heavier weapon would have destroyed bone and brains and scattered this type of evidence widely.

It is believed that Bradley Murdock owned several pistols and none of these were recovered when he was arrested.   To complicate the issue, this roadside toilet was not constructed until well after this murder on the Stuart highway, making the police believe that Murdock - discovering that Joanne Lees had escaped - probably hid his cache of weapons somewhere in the vast surrounding desert.  It is possible that a prospector fossicking for minerals came across the weapon and decided to dispose of it by dropping it down a public toilet.   There is no record of it's serial number ever being registered in Australia.

Bradley Murdock has never confessed and still vigorously claims to be innocent.  The Falconio murder is now part of Australian folklore.  It was a grisly event carried out in what to travellers must seem to be an endless panorama of inhospitable desert.   Somewhere out there the body of Peter Falconio awaits discovery, but that is unlikely to happen unless sheer luck enters the picture.

The emergence of that antique pistol adds conjecture to the mystery !