Joanne Lees relives her outback horror

Ten years after her boyfriend Peter Falconio was slain in the desert, Joanne Lees remains a victim of gossip, spite and innuendo, report Sue Williams in Alice Springs and William Langley in London.

Joanne Lees stands on the doorstep of her neat terrace house on the outskirts of her home town in England, and her eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry,” she says, as she contemplates the upcoming 10th anniversary of her boyfriend Peter Falconio’s murder on a lonely road in the dark heart of central Australia. “It’s always difficult for me.”

For Joanne, now 37, that moonless night a decade ago – and half a world away – changed her life forever. She and Peter, who was 28 at the time, were ambushed on July 14, 2001, by an interstate drug runner as they toured Australia in a Kombi. Not only did Joanne lose the man she hoped to marry, she lost her innocence.

Although she escaped killer Bradley Murdoch’s attempts to hunt her down by hiding in the freezing scrub off the Stuart Highway north of Alice Springs, Joanne then had to endure the agony of being suspected of involvement in her boyfriend’s disappearance. Murdoch was arrested following one of the biggest manhunts in Australia’s history, and convicted on DNA evidence from blood he had left on Joanne’s T-shirt in the struggle to bind her hands and feet. He was eventually found guilty and jailed for life… but Joanne’s torment is far from over.

Peter’s body is yet to be found, and in both Australia and the UK, there continue to be many people who pour doubt on her version of events. Northern Territory Police Commander Colleen Gwynne, who took charge of much of the investigation after the attack, says while the huge amount of publicity around the trial of Murdoch erased a lot of the doubt, a few determined non-believers remain. “There is still an element of suspicion in some people’s minds,” says Commander Gwynne. “I guess some aren’t interested in the real story. They want it to be some sort of conspiracy, like a crime novel. They want to make it more interesting by adding things on.”