by Sue Williams
When Gwynne was older, she went back, with two of her siblings, to rescue her mum. She packed up all her belonging and moved her out of the house and to a secret location. When their father came home, everything had gone. He drove around the streets, looking for his wife, until eventually being forced to give up. ‘I have enormous respect for my mother,’ says Gwynne. ‘She virtually brought up eight kids single-handedly. She worked sixteen hours a day. She’s so strong, yet she’s tiny and so timid.’ When the film eventually premiered, Gwynne took her mother along and they both watched, spellbound, as the tale of a family of eight kids growing up with a violent, alcoholic, racist father, played by Simon Westaway, unfolded on the screen. Some scenes were almost too painful to take. Her mother sat quietly, and obviously felt very emotional. ‘She loved it,’ says Gwynne. ‘It was her story up there. It was somehow freeing.’ Later, however, she ticked off her brother for not warning her about what it contained. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,’ she says. ‘He said it was fiction, but it was us up there.’
Phillip says he too still finds it painful. ‘Maybe because I grew up with all this as a kid and got over it, I find it very painful to go there again,’ he says. ‘My brothers and sisters saw the movie and some scenes for them, particularly where the children escape from the house out of the window and spend the night in the hen house, were too unbearable for them.’ The film went on to be shown at festivals all around the world, including Hollywood star Robert Redford’s prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Phillip heard later that his father had also been to see it. Appropriately, having been the one who finally rescued her mother from that real life living Hell, one of Gwynne’s first promotions in the police force was to run the Domestic Violence Unit.
COLLEEN GWYNNE HAD JUST RETURNED from a one-year stint in Papua New Guinea when she was called into the office of Commissioner Paul White in March 2002 and told to take on the Falconio case. Her first thought was, ‘What have I done wrong?’ The case had been running for a year, and there was still no suspect arrested. She felt this could be the end of her career. The investigation was slowing down and many on the team were disillusioned and unmotivated after working so long without a result.
She decided, however, to make the best of a bad job, and soon won the respect of the Regulus team with her determination and dedication. A tall, slim, wiry, straight-talking woman with short brown hair flecked with blonde, she took over the task of talking to Joanne whenever there was positive news. She immediately warmed to the young woman, and felt for her. ‘I got to know her and liked her,’ says Gwynne. ‘She’s never faltered, even though she’s had such a tough time.’
On the desk of Gwynne’s office in Alice Springs is a picture of the red desert and a desert flower blooming in the midst of the harsh sandy terrain. On her whiteboard is a photo of the village of Hepworth in Huddersfield, where the Falconios live. ‘It looks nice, doesn’t it?’ she says. ‘It keeps me going. It reminds me all the time why I’m doing this and what I’m doing it for.’ She has become obsessed with finding Peter’s killer. She nods and pauses for a moment. ‘There’s not a night that I don’t wonder where his body is.’
JAMES HEPI’S INFORMATION ABOUT Bradley Murdoch had fired Gwynne’s interest, and galvanised her into action. Murdoch was still a person of interest in the investigation, despite the earlier report from Broome that he didn’t resemble the photo-fit image and that his ute was different. There were still some things about him that hadn’t added up. He was on the police list for further questioning and now, with the extra information Hepi had supplied, the police were keener to talk to him than ever. But when they returned to Murdoch’s flat in Broome to pick him up for questioning, there was no sign of either him or his vehicle. They started asking for him around town. He was nowhere to be found. No-one seemed to know where he was. In late May 2002, the Northern Territory police put out a nationwide police alert. The whole country was on the lookout for Bradley Murdoch.
JAMES TAHI HEPI, THIRTY-FOUR, appeared in the district court of WA sitting at Broome on 29 July 2002 to answer the charge that in the May he’d had in his possession a prohibited drug, cannabis, with intent to sell or supply. He pleaded guilty. Judge Antoinette Kennedy told him that being in possession of 4 kilograms of the drug was extremely serious, particularly as it was imported from another state. ‘Under normal circumstances, I would sentence you to an immediate term of imprisonment, but I take into account what [your lawyer] Mr [Gordon] Bauman has said, that you have pleaded guilty, that it’s a fast-track plea, that you cooperated with the police in the way in which Mr Bauman has outlined, and that you have really a fairly good record. I also have an absolutely glowing reference for you and one hopes that you will now return to leading a law-abiding life. This warrants an eighteen-month term of imprisonment and so you are sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment but that sentence is suspended for a period of twelve months.’
Hepi had done his deal and had got out of jail, almost free. And now the police were in possession of a great deal more information about Bradley Murdoch.
THE ONLY PROBLEM WAS finding him. Once again, he appeared to have slipped through the net. When the national police alert failed to produce any sign of him, police visited his parents and his brother, Gary. They all said they had no idea where he would be. Then, desperate to be sure that they weren’t wasting time chasing false leads, police asked if Gary would be prepared to give a DNA sample to compare with the DNA on Joanne’s T-shirt. It’s unclear whether Gary agreed purely in order to rule himself out of inquiries, or because he was so convinced his brother was innocent it would help him too. But on 14 August 2002, he had a swab taken. If the DNA on the shirt was Bradley Murdoch’s, Gary’s would show up as a close match.
But even that wasn’t much good if they couldn’t find Murdoch himself. And he seemed to have vanished into thin air.
PART FOUR
THE PURSUIT OF JUSTICE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A TALE OF ABDUCTION AND RAPE
NO-ONE WHO HEARD THE LITTLE girl’s terrifying story would ever forget it. One moment, the twelve-year-old was baking a batch of cakes with her mum, and offering one to the family friend who was staying in the annex of their house. The next, she was being handcuffed, blindfolded with a seatbelt cover, gagged with tape over her mouth and round her head, chained to his bed, stripped and then raped. ‘If you move,’ she claimed the man had threatened her, ‘I’ll give you brain damage.’ And her assailant, she alleged to police, was someone she’d known for eighteen months. His name was Bradley Murdoch.
But that wasn’t the end of her ordeal, she claimed. After that, she said Murdoch had grabbed her thirty-three-year-old mum too and, with his gun clearly visible in his body holster, bundled them both into the aluminium cage canopy at the back of his white Landcruiser, chaining them up by the hands and feet and securing them with cable ties to ensure they couldn’t escape, and drove off through the backblocks of SA. During their next twenty or so hours of imprisonment, the pair alleged Murdoch had hit the mother and sexually assaulted her, before giving them both $1000 in cash, dumping them at a service station just outside Port Augusta, 300 kilometres north of Adelaide, and threatening to shoot them with a high-powered rifle if they went to the police. When the mother had asked Murdoch why he was doing such a thing, she claimed he’d replied he wanted hostages because, ‘I need some insurance to get away from this place.’ He’d threatened to shoot her if he didn’t do as he’d ordered and went on to say he was on the run from the police. ‘He said the police were after him for the murder of Peter Falconio,’ the woman claimed, ‘and had framed him for it.’
Murdoch would later deny all their allegations, with his lawyers saying the girl and her mother had made the whole thing up as part of an elaborate ruse to deliver him to the police — and claim the $250,000 reward on the head of the killer of Peter Falconio.
THE TERRIBLE STORY TOLD BY the mother and child was the big break police all around Aust
ralia had been waiting for. At last, Bradley Murdoch had surfaced. As soon as the girl’s mother had reported the alleged crime, police circulated descriptions of Murdoch’s white Landcruiser and canopy. It was eventually spotted later that day at 4.50 p.m., Wednesday 28 August 2002, on Highway One outside Port Augusta. Senior Constable Robert Michael followed the vehicle until it turned into the car park outside the massive Woolworth’s supermarket, came to a halt, and Murdoch climbed out and walked into the shop. Michael called for back-up and within minutes heavily armed police were on their way.
While Murdoch wandered around the shop buying himself a chicken, sausages, soup, rice, custard, milk, safety pins, and batteries, all shoppers and bystanders were herded into nearby shops while police in bullet-proof jackets took up their positions outside, police snipers crawling underneath cars and crouching on neighbouring rooftops. They feared their target might choose a shootout with police rather than being taken into custody. When he finally emerged carrying two bags of groceries, three officers raced over to confront him. As he appeared to reach for a loaded semi-automatic pistol in a shoulder holster, Senior Constable Sean Everett raised his 12-gauge pump action shotgun and yelled at him to stop. ‘Get down on the fucking ground,’ he shouted. Murdoch let his shopping bags fall and dropped to his knees. Everett ordered him to lay face down on the ground but, when he didn’t move, put his foot in the small of his back to force him down. Then the rest of the contingent pounced, handcuffing him and tying his ankles together. His time on the run was finally over.
SEARCHES OF MURDOCH’S VEHICLE and possessions revealed a prize haul of drugs, guns and cash, a court was later told. The arresting officer, Senior Constable Andrew Dredge, found a loaded gun in his shoulder holster, with a spare magazine containing seventeen rounds. In Murdoch’s wallet were two bags of white powder which were tested and found to be amphetamines. In the Landcruiser, police found a backpack with a Beretta semi-automatic .38 pistol, together with a box of bullets, and a rifle. In addition, Senior Constable Peter McKenzie found a knife by the steering wheel, cable cutters, a number of chains, rolls of tape, an electric stock prod, shovels, $5000 in cash, some pearls and camping gear. There were also five containers of cannabis inside the canopy’s lockable steel mesh. Senior Constable Charmaine Cowling found a piece of a pair of black tights and a quilt stained with the young girl’s urine. There was also a bag containing a number of highly detailed maps showing even the most obscure dirt tracks across Australia.
THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL was the daughter of the friend James Hepi had introduced to Murdoch, who was now helping him in his own drug-running operation. Her mother was the man’s de facto. None of them can be identified for legal reasons.
The three had been living in a rundown house on an isolated backblock of the Riverlands of country SA, 100 kilometres outside Adelaide, for the past eight years. With neither mains water nor mains electricity, or a phone they could afford to ring out on, they only just got by from year to year. Times had got harder since the mother’s de facto, a much older man for whom she’d once worked, had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and found it much harder to hold down a job. He was therefore grateful when his friend James Hepi offered him a few jobs around his property, helping him clean up his block, and organising generators and water tanks. Later, he started packaging cannabis for Hepi’s drug-runs, and acted as a scout, sniffing out new sources for the lucrative trade. Occasionally, the girl’s mum would clean up after them but she refused to have any drugs prepared in their home, although she did smoke cannabis herself.
About six months later, Hepi introduced them to another friend of his, Bradley Murdoch. They’d see Murdoch regularly at Hepi’s place, and then sometimes Murdoch would come and stay at the annex they had on their ramshackle property, 8 metres away from their house.
After Hepi and Murdoch fell out, and then Hepi and the friend fell out in March 2002, the woman said Murdoch started employing the friend himself to help out with his own drugs business he’d just set up, giving him a car and a gun for protection. Murdoch then started staying more often at the annex, and the girl said she often went over to help him with little jobs. She said he always had a lot of cash on him and, for her birthday in July that year, he’d given her a present of $500, delivered with a hug. Her birthday was five days after the first anniversary of the Barrow Creek murder.
BACK IN ENGLAND, JOANNE LEES was unaware of the latest developments. Instead, she was wrestling with a fresh outrage: it had been revealed that she’d put in a claim for up to $28,000 in compensation from the Northern Territory government as a victim of crime. In August 2002 two claims had been lodged on her behalf under the Territory’s victims of crime assistance legislation. While she stood to receive $3000 for the grief of losing her de facto, there was also the possibility of an award of up to $25,000 in personal injury as a victim of crime.
When Luciano Falconio was phoned by the media for his reaction, he said he’d had no idea.
FOR THE GIRL AND HER mother, everything had been sweet with Murdoch until the last time he’d come to stay in the annex on Saturday August 17. The reason was simple, claimed a lawyer for the woman and her daughter: Murdoch had just discovered his brother Gary had given a DNA sample to police and was getting worried that they might be on their way to arrest him. His paranoia was exacerbated by the heady cocktail of drugs he’d consumed.
That evening, the two women said they were mystified to see Murdoch putting black plastic up at the doors and windows of the annex. But they hadn’t had much time to think about it. The girl’s stepfather was in hospital, having fluid drained off his lungs, so they visited him the next day, the Sunday, staying overnight in the nurses’ quarters. On Monday, the pair returned. The girl said she’d been chatting to Murdoch and showed him an article in an old copy of a New Idea magazine, headlined ‘Mystery At Barrow Creek’. At another point during that day, a car had pulled up in the driveway of their house and then pulled out again. The mother said Murdoch thought the police were coming after him, and stormed into the house to confront her about it. ‘He said the police were getting too close to him and he’s got to move, keep being on the run,’ the woman told a court. But, she said, the motorist had simply been using the driveway for a U-turn.
The next evening, August 20, the girl claimed she’d gone to the annex to help him unpack his shopping, and seen him cutting up medical tape. She also happened to ask him where he’d got one of his T-shirts from. It was an innocent question, but Murdoch responded, she said, with a statement about Peter Falconio.
Over the next two days, the mother claimed she noticed Murdoch smoking cannabis ‘countless’ times, and either snorting speed or drinking it in tea or other drinks. The next day, Wednesday August 21, there was no school, so the girl baked some cakes and asked Murdoch if he’d like to come over to the house for some. He did, and then asked her to visit him in the annex later to help him with something. When she arrived, she said he asked her to sort out his map bag. He was smoking cannabis and drinking Jim Bean and Coke, and was ‘a bit weird, grumpy and picky’. When she finished, she went to go, but she alleged at Murdoch’s trial later that he became angry and said she had to stay. He got a pair of handcuffs from the bag, put a blindfold on her, pushed her to the bed, handcuffed her hands behind her back and put tape over her mouth, wrapping it all around her head. The girl, at that time a virgin, alleges he then pulled off her clothes, put his finger into her vagina, and then had sexual intercourse with her. After that, she claimed he shackled her ankles which he connected to the handcuffs on a chain. He left for a few minutes then returned to try to dress her, and carry her out to the Landcruiser, where he chained her up.
Murdoch then woke the mother up, she said. The woman asked where her daughter was, but he told her to shut up and put some warm clothes on. She saw he was wearing his shoulder holster. When she went outside, she alleges she was horrified to see her daughter chained in the back of the ute. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him
. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘He said he needed hostages for his insurance to get out of there,’ the woman alleges. ‘He said that the cops might be there any minute and he’s got to get out of there. I went into shock. I was so scared. I thought he might shoot us.’ She alleges that her daughter, ‘was as white as a ghost and she was terrified. I’ve never seen her terrified like that in my whole life.’ As they drove Murdoch’s mood worsened. He was ‘like a raging bull’ the woman later told a court. ‘To me, he was verging on psychotic, like really angry and terrifying. I didn’t know whether he was going to shoot us or what.’ She said Murdoch was convinced James Hepi had told the police he was bringing drugs into Broome and that the police were after him. Now, he said, he planned to go to WA to shoot Hepi and a couple of bikies, and then shoot himself in the head, ‘because he couldn’t take being on the run any more’.
When she and her daughter were finally freed, they called the hospital, and then a taxi, from the service station. Manager Derek Riding remembers seeing them, huddled together, sitting on the kerb, waiting for the taxi to pick them up.
MURDOCH, BY NOW FORTY-THREE, was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of false imprisonment, two counts of indecent assault and one count of common assault. He would deny all the charges, saying they were all part of a conspiracy to frame him for the rich reward. But at last, he was back behind bars — and in circumstances no-one could possibly have imagined.