Police win DNA battle in Falconio investigation

Australian police today won the right to analyse DNA samples taken from a man they want to question in the disappearance and suspected slaying of British backpacker Peter Falconio in the Australian outback last year.

Australian police took the samples after Bradley John Murdoch, aged 44, was arrested in early September in connection with another crime – the abduction and rape of a woman and her daughter in South Australia.

But Murdoch’s lawyers appealed the use of the DNA samples as evidence in the rape case – a move that, if successful, would have also blocked their transfer to the authorities in neighbouring Northern Territory.

Police in Northern Territory said Murdoch was a “person of interest” in Mr Falconio’s suspected killing there in July 2001.

They want to compare Murdoch’s DNA with a sample gleaned from a blood stain found on the clothing of Mr Falconio’s British girlfriend, Joanne Lees, who was tied up by her boyfriend’s abductor, but later escaped.

Mr Falconio, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, was last seen alive on a remote Outback highway, 1,000 miles north of where Murdoch was alleged to have raped the woman and daughter in August.

Police found a pool of his blood at the scene and fear Mr Falconio is dead, but a manhunt has failed to find his body.

Murdoch’s appearance matches a description of Mr Falconio’s attacker that Miss Lees gave to police.

South Australia state Supreme Court Judge Ted Mullighan today gave approval for the samples to be analysed by police in connection with the rape – thus freeing up the DNA to be passed on to the Northern Territory police.

Murdoch’s lawyers said they would appeal the decision to the Full Court of the South Australia Supreme Court. No date was given for the appeal.