Falconio killer investigated over unsolved murders

Bradley Murdoch, who murdered British backpacker Peter Falconio, is being investigated in connection with several unsolved killings and disappearances of women in Western Australia, police said today.

Murdoch, from Broome, Western Australia, was jailed on Thursday in the Northern Territory for a minimum of 28 years after being found guilty of murdering Mr Falconio and assaulting Mr Falconio’s girlfriend, Joanne Lees.

Murdoch tricked the couple into stopping their camper van in the central Australian desert on July 14, 2001.

Western Australian police said today that Murdoch was being checked for possible links to “cold cases” in which authorities had few solid leads on several missing women across the state.

“His profile has been looked at on a number of occasions and we are looking at him again,” Sgt Graham Clifford said.

He said details of the Falconio case would be examined for additional information on Murdoch’s whereabouts at the time of the other unsolved crimes, or for any links to disappearances.

The cases being investigated include Perth’s so-called Claremont serial killings, in which three young women vanished between 1996 and 1997 after attending parties in the affluent Perth suburb of Claremont.

Murdoch is also being examined in relation to the disappearance of teenager Hayley Dodd, 17, who was last seen in 1999 north of Perth, and an unidentified Broome woman missing since 1996, Clifford said.

“Police have been aware of him (Murdoch) for a while, and that doesn’t mean he won’t come to our attention again,” Clifford said.

“Maybe something has come out of this latest court case that will be of some interest.”