Dead Centre

Dead Centre: The real story behind the disappearance of Peter Falconio

When British tourist Peter Falconio vanished at night in the heart of the outback in 2001, it made front page news around the world.

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· · · Having been pulled over by a passing stranger in the Northern Territory on the major arterial highway linking the north and south of Australia, Falconio climbed out of his Kombi van and was never seen again. Still in the van, his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, heard a ‘bang’ and then was attacked, bound and gagged and thrown into the stranger’s 4?4. But Lees escaped, and hid in sparse bushland for hours in the desert until she was finally picked up by a passing truckie.

· · · Falconio’s disappearance ignited a massive police hunt and unprecedented media attention. Thirteen months later Bradley Murdoch, a drifter arrested for an unrelated crime in South Australia was charged with Peter’s murder and the attack on Joanne Lees. He was ultimately tried and found guilty.

In Dead Centre, true crime expert Robin Bowles strips bare the story behind the headlines, taking you on her own personal journey through the outback to get to the heart of what happened to Peter Falconio. Based on over 50 hours of exclusive interviews with Murdoch himself, who had unrestricted access to the police file on the case in his cell, as well interviews with key police investigators and comments from the Falconios and Joanne Lees, Bowles paints a vivid picture of a convicted murderer and exposes the behind-the-scenes workings of a difficult investigation.

Audience
adult

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