by Sue Williams
God help anyone who got in his way.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE GREAT TRIP
IT’S SAID THAT AUSTRALIA HAS more enemies of humankind than anywhere else on the planet. If it’s not 100-tonne roadtrains careening through the outback that get you, it could be sharks, crocodiles, or any one of the ten most venomous snakes on earth. Then there’s the lethal red-back spiders that lurk under outdoor toilet seats, the fierce sun that can kill a traveller stranded in the outback without water or shade within two hours, and the perilous riptides that catch you in the ocean and spit you out too far from land ever to hope to swim to safety. When Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio broke the news to their families that they were planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia via Asia, their parents were understandably anxious. Aside from the natural dangers, Australia had enjoyed a reputation as one of the safest destinations in the world but, back in 2000, when the pair were planning their visit, several horrific incidents had recently tarnished the country’s near-pristine image.
Seven other bright-eyed young backpackers had also once planned such trips. Their bodies were subsequently found, horribly disfigured and tortured, buried in shallow graves in the lonely Belanglo State Forest in southern New South Wales. Their killer Ivan Milat with the help of possibly one accomplice who is still at large, had picked them all up hitchhiking, tied them up, blindfolded and gagged them, then raped the women and used them all as a gruesome target practice. After a long police hunt he was eventually caught and given seven life sentences in July 1996; one for each murder.
Earlier that year, a lone gunman had opened fire one sunny Sunday afternoon at sleepy Tasmania’s Port Arthur and massacred thirty-five people — many of them tourists. Twenty more were injured, and their assailant, Martin Bryant, aged twenty-nine, was arrested as he ran from the scene, his clothes on fire. He was given thirty-five life sentences, with a recommendation never to be released.
Then, in Sydney, twenty-two-year-old Dorset university graduate Gawen Whalley, in Australia on a working holiday, was stabbed to death by a thirteen-year-old boy said to be prone to violent mood swings. Whalley had been camping with friends.
Just as the memories of these horrors started to fade, and even as Peter and Joanne were putting the finishing touches to their travel plans, yet another terrible tragedy unfolded. A few minutes after midnight on 23 June 2000, a raging fire swept through a backpackers’ hostel in Childers, Queensland. Sixty-nine people managed to crawl their way to safety through the choking black smoke, but tragically fifteen did not. Four of the dead were British. Itinerant Robert Long, who’d been kicked out of the same hostel earlier, was convicted of starting the fire and sent to jail for life. That blaze brought back terrible echoes of the 1989 arson at the Down Under backpackers’ hostel in Sydney’s Kings Cross which killed six. And, worryingly, just three days after the Childers fire, another hostel in Kings Cross went up in flames, this time thought to have been caused by a faulty heater. No-one, thankfully, died.
So it was little wonder that Joanne’s mum, Jenny James, was nervous. ‘When they eventually announced they were giving up their jobs and the flat to go travelling, we were excited for them,’ said her husband Vincent. ‘Of course, like any parents, we were also concerned about their safety.’ Quite apart from the big headline-grabbing crimes, there were also those lone events that send a shiver down the spine of any parent whose child might be planning a trip to Australia: like the young Essex pharmacist Susan Zack who was murdered by ‘a friend’ she met in Cairns; or London postman Brian Hagland, a cousin of British TV soap EastEnders star Sid Owen, who was killed in Bondi when he fell under a bus while being bashed by a street thug. Then there were the unsolved mysteries, perhaps the most agonising of all, where the parents were left waiting and wondering. American tourists Thomas and Eileen Lonergan took a day’s diving trip in 1998 to a popular spot at the Barrier Reef off Queensland’s Cairns — and never returned. It’s thought they were left behind by their boat, and they perished on the reef. Similarly, no-one is sure what happened to young English tourist Daniel Nute who disappeared in 1997 on a six-hour hike up Mount Sorrow in dense Cape Tribulation rainforest in the State’s Far North, nor the fate of environmentalist Celena Bridge from Carlisle, 160 kilometres north of Huddersfield, who vanished from the same state while on an outback bird-watching trip the following year.
But while Jenny worried, Joanne and Peter tried to allay her fears. They were made of sterner stuff, they reassured her, and no harm would come to them. Yes, a number of young tourists had died in the past, but those kind of tragedies could happen anywhere. They weren’t planning to hitchhike, and Peter was eminently sensible about taking risks. Besides, the number of tragic incidents was small when you considered the 750,000-odd international backpackers that visited Australia each year, a quarter of them British. And, on TV, Australia was looking so glorious in the run-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. They would be fine.
Their travel plans had to be delayed in any case following Peter’s graduation. Just as he was finishing the course, he was asked if he’d like to finish off a project he’d been doing in his sandwich year. It was an exciting opportunity, and his dad was keen for him to take it up. ‘Me and his brother, we dissuade him,’ recalls Luciano. ‘We said why don’t you keep your job?’ So Peter asked Joanne, apologetically, if she’d be prepared to hang on a few more months. She agreed, and the new date for their departure was set for 15 November 2000.
They spent their extra time in Britain saving hard, and watching the Games on TV, excitedly anticipating their forthcoming trip. England was enduring its wettest autumn since 1766 and they were both growing sick of the incessant rain. A dark, sodden November felt like the perfect time to be heading off overseas and they couldn’t wait to see the sun again. Joanne was also looking forward to spending time alone with Peter; in between work and his studies, it sometimes felt like they rarely relaxed. They’d grown close and she had no doubts their relationship could withstand whatever trials and tribulations their travels flung at them. ‘Because I was living away from my family, Pete had to be everything to me,’ she says. ‘He had to be my family, my boyfriend and my best friend. And he was. Pete meant the world to me, really. He was my future.’
Peter slipped a medallion of St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, around his neck to keep him safe as friends kept calling to tell them how envious they were of their adventure. ‘Sydney looks so beautiful,’ Karen Biggins remembers telling them. ‘I wish I could come with you. You’re going to have the time of your life. It’s going to be something you’ll never forget.’
FLYING INTO KATHMANDU ON THE first stop on their grand tour, Joanne and Peter craned their necks to glimpse the mighty snow-tipped Himalayas out of the window of the plane. Below lay the tiny mountain kingdom of Nepal, home to the world’s tallest mountain, Everest. Some of the most scenic, challenging and thrilling walking trails on earth beckoned. The pair loved Nepal, and spent a few days in Kathmandu before heading off on a trek in the nearby Annapurna region. Both had come well-equipped with good hiking shoes and light, casual clothes and, already keen walkers, made easy work of the tracks. With snow-capped peaks towering above them, crystal clear lakes below, fast-flowing rivers thrusting through deep gorges and stunning Tibetan monasteries and pretty little villages, they were enchanted. It was their first real experience of a world far from home, and they were struck by the warmth and friendliness of the Nepalese people, the cultural diversity of the country and its raw natural beauty.
From Nepal they flew to Singapore, then caught a bus into Malaysia, travelling north past lush palm plantations and thick jungle into southern Thailand. From there, they continued by train, stopping off at a picturesque beach resort along the way to celebrate Christmas in the sun, and visiting the tiger sanctuary at a Buddhist Temple at Karnchanaburi, where they experienced the thrill of feeding milk to a young orphaned cub. Every few days, they’d email or call home to let everyone know the
y were fine — and having the time of their lives. Heading back to Bangkok, they decided to take a side-trip to Cambodia. Joanne emailed her mum and Vincent replied. ‘Think again,’ he urged his stepdaughter. ‘It could be dangerous. What about all those landmines? Why not spend a bit more time in Thailand instead? Cambodia sounds too risky.’
But Peter and Joanne were eager to see some of the ancient temples, stunning remnants of the mighty Khmer Empire which once ruled much of what is now Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. The elegant French capital, the empty beaches and untouched forests were also major attractions and they’d heard from other backpackers that Cambodia was not to be missed. Besides, flights were cheap from Bangkok, and they bought a return ticket to Phnom Penh and set off, thrilled that they were now beginning to have the confidence to move more off the beaten track.
Once in Phnom Penh, however, they struck problems. Although they’d been warned about the city’s street crime, they were still very much innocents abroad, and easy pickings for a skilled thief. On their second day there, it was with a sick thud in the stomach that they realised their money, travellers’ cheques and return air tickets to Bangkok had all been stolen.
They went along to the British Embassy to ask for help, and were told the only assistance the authorities could provide would be to send them back to the UK, and charge them for the full-priced tickets. They advised them instead to report the crime to the police for insurance purposes and then to arrange for their travellers’ cheques and tickets to be replaced. The cash, sadly, would be long gone. The easiest place to sort this all out was Bangkok, home to the headquarters of all the major banks, and far more English-speaking people. Another traveller they met lent them the money for a single plane ticket back to Bangkok, and they hastily returned to Thailand to sort themselves out. Shaken by the experience, they briefly considered going home.
‘But we’ve lost all our money and survived,’ Peter reasoned. ‘It’d be such a shame to give up now when we’ve already come so far.’ They agreed that on the morning of 16 January 2001, they would bid a bittersweet farewell to Asia and set off on a flight to Sydney. ‘We might as well continue,’ said Peter. ‘We’re over the worst that can happen.’
CHAPTER SIX
A SHOT IN THE DARK
THE SHOT RIPPED THROUGH THE flickering darkness, smashing the rear window of Joe Ross’s car, tearing through the headrest of the front passenger seat and slamming into the dashboard. Just seconds before, Ross’s girlfriend had been sitting in that seat, laughing at something he’d said. But a shout from outside the car had attracted her attention and, leaning forward, she’d seen it was a friend with her newborn baby. She’d wound down her window and was just craning sideways to speak to her when the bullet whistled past, grazing her shoulder, and ripping through the leather rest where her head had just been. She screamed and Ross jumped. At first he’d thought it was a stray firecracker from the bonfire up ahead but, as he sniffed the pungent odour of the gunpowder, he realised it wasn’t. ‘Get down!’ he yelled, pushing his girlfriend towards the floor of the car. ‘Someone’s shooting at us!’
The pair crouched down as two more bullets whistled past their heads. Ross scrambled from the car and raced to where the revellers were gathered, listening to the band on the old bridge over the dry riverbed at Fitzroy Crossing in WA’s remote Kimberley region. He screamed at the people dancing by the bonfire to get down, but no-one could hear him over the music, so he climbed up onto the makeshift stage and shouted at the band to stop, trying to warn them that they were all being used as some lunatic’s target practice.
When the lead musician with the Fitzroy Xpress realised it was Ross and understood what he was saying, they all stopped playing, threw down their instruments and leapt from the stage. In the sudden lull, Ross yelled at everyone else to get away from the light of the fire and into the darkness. It was bedlam.
The group had been celebrating the historic second grand final footy win in a row of the local Aboriginal Bunuba Magpies AFL team. It was the middle of winter, 20 August 1995, and the mighty Fitzroy River on whose banks the town lay had dried to a trickle. In the wet, water regularly surged over the old bridge, but in the dry, the river shrank, exposing the sandy riverbed. That winter had been particularly dry, and the 500-strong Aboriginal community had arranged a party to celebrate their grand final game — win or lose. They’d been planning it for days, and everyone in town knew the old bridge and riverbed would be busy that evening, particularly when the news filtered through that the Magpies had won. A bonfire had been lit to provide light, a BBQ was underway, the local band Fitzroy Xpress had been called in to play, and between 200 and 300 people had gathered as the sun went down to toast their team’s great victory.
There had only been one puzzling incident earlier that evening. A visiting backpacker had raced down to the gathering, clearly distressed, waving his hands about and shouting in Russian. No-one could understand him, so they merely offered him a drink and gestured to a warm place by the fire. Frustrated he couldn’t make himself understood, the backpacker raced back off. No-one thought any more about it at the time, and the party began in earnest soon after.
No celebration, however, would have been complete without Joe Ross, the lanky, good-looking, thirty-four-year-old who was one of the most respected members of the local Bunuba people. With a natural charm, easygoing manner and great mediator skills, he’d successfully bridged the divide between white and black and had won the respect and loyalty of all. On that dark night in 1995, when someone started shooting at his car, Ross kept his head, and his girlfriend, a child protection officer, ducked down in the car, as the shots kept coming. After about ten rounds had been fired, Ross turned the car around to shine the headlights onto the bank where they could see the red flashes of light. As yet another shot tore through the bullbar and into the headlight, Ross dived from the vehicle and shouted to four of the other men to join him to scramble up the bank under cover of darkness. As they reached the crest, they heard the sound of someone blundering away through the bushes, and saw a parked car. Ross recognised it immediately. It belonged to Bradley Murdoch.
BY 1994, MURDOCH’S PASSION FOR guns had landed him in trouble again, with two more firearms offences, and he felt he was ready for a change. While driving trucks, he’d met a couple of people who’d been working at a large cattle station, Brooking Springs, 18 kilometres outside Fitzroy Crossing, 400 kilometres inland from Broome on the far northwest coast of Australia. It was a massive property — just under a million acres with 10,000 head of cattle — and there was a demand for good mechanics and stationhands. Murdoch decided to give it a go. He enjoyed the work, being outside, and spending long hours on his own.
‘We employed him as a mechanic and a grader driver, maintaining the station roads between the bores,’ says Vera Fielder, the then owner of Brooking Springs with her husband Brian. ‘I had no problems with him. I got him to do a few jobs around the house, too. He was pretty handy. He didn’t say much.’
When Murdoch did want company, he generally mixed with the other stationhands. He also had a few friends in town but it didn’t take him long to realise that Fitzroy Crossing wasn’t his kind of place: whites were in the minority, and the Aboriginal community owned many of the businesses. Local Joy Motter, who works at the hospital, says the whites that live there are mostly transient. ‘Unless you’re into fishing, and more fishing, there’s nothing to do here,’ she says. ‘People move here to experience something different, but most people move on fairly quickly. What he [Bradley Murdoch] did was a pretty awful thing. You don’t do that with a crowd of people and kids there.’
Murdoch would go into town at night, drinking with mates, before sleeping at a friend’s place, an old shed by a diesel garage at the new bridge built across the river in 1974. Sometimes he’d call into a local pub, the Crossing Inn, which until recently still segregated blacks and whites, despite being owned by the Aboriginal community for years. But Murdoch preferred the more upmarket
Fitzroy Lodge, which the Aboriginal community also owns but rarely frequents, perhaps because of the pub’s ban on both thongs and bare feet in a ruling that’s seen by some to be deliberately aimed at black customers. Indeed, The Lodge has become somewhat of a focal point for strained race relations. In January 2003, after a seventeen-year-old Aboriginal boy fell to his death from the back of a police van, a group of mourners gathered at the Lodge to drink. Someone at the pub panicked at the sight of so many black faces, tried to close the bar and the police waded in. Following that, the Lodge was attacked, resulting in a great deal of damage.
Even in Murdoch’s time, it was rumoured that the Lodge was frequented by local whites with Ku Klux Klan connections. No-one said to be involved will confirm or deny the existence of the KKK in the area, but Joe Ross is adamant there were active members. When police stopped a group of whites with KKK hoods on who insisted they were on their way to a fancy dress party, their leniency was roundly criticised. ‘By not doing anything to stop them, these people thought they had protection,’ says Ross. ‘It was almost as if they condoned it. It felt like they were looking after each other rather than looking after issues in the community.’
While no-one can say for sure whether Murdoch had links with those people, he undoubtedly possessed a strong streak of racism against the Aboriginal community. On his left upper arm he had tattooed a picture of an Aboriginal man hanging from a noose by his neck above the flames of a fire, as well as the initials KKK. But, extreme as they were, his attitudes didn’t single him out from any number of the people he mixed with in an area known for its casual racism.
