Brit backpacker Joanne Lees whose boyfriend Peter Falconio was shot dead in Aussie outback relives terrifying moment she escaped killer
A BRIT backpacker whose boyfriend was shot dead in the Australian outback 15 years ago broke down in tears as she relived the terrifying moment she escaped the killer.
Joanne Lees has returned to Australia to find Peter Falconio's body and "bring him home" after he was brutally murdered by Bradley Murdoch in 2001.
The couple were travelling in a van on a remote highway when they were flagged down and brutally attacked by Murdoch.
Murdoch shot Mr Falconio, 28, but Joanne managed to escape and hide in bushes, despite the notorious killer’s attempts to find her by torchlight.
"It was either run, or be raped and killed," she told in an episode due to air on Sunday.
She revealed she made her getaway in the “hope that Pete was still alive”.
Murdoch was jailed for 28 years for the murder, but Mr Falconio's body has never been found.
Joanne, who is originally from Yorkshire, has vowed to find his remains and “bring him home”.
She has returned to Australia to help re-start the search and says she is prepared to “step into the killer's mind” in order to find her former partner.
“I love Pete so much and I want to bring him home... I need to bring him home,' she said.
“I know that he's somewhere here.”
Joanne and Mr Falconio were travelling in a VW Kombi van towards Darwin when they were flagged down by Murdoch in 2001.
Murdoch then turned his gun on 28-year-old Mr Falconio before handcuffing Joanne and dragging her into his vehicle.
Joanne managed to escape and she hid in the Outback for five hours until a passing truck driver saved her.
"Pete got out of the Kombi... Who would expect it to be a gunman? Horror movies have been made about some of the events that happened to me," she told the show.
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Joanne told the TV show how she heard a gun shot but didn't know if her boyfriend had been killed.
Some even pointed the finger at Joanne, originally from Yorkshire, claiming she appeared emotionless after the incident.
However, it was later revealed she had taken the sedative Valium to help her handle her horror ordeal.
"How could they think that? It was like a stab to the heart," she said.
Murdoch was convicted of Mr Falconio's murder in 2006, largely on DNA evidence which included a speck of Joanne's blood on his T-shirt.
Police were never able to locate Mr Falconio's remains.
Murdoch, now 58, is serving a life prison sentence in the Northern Territory.
He has always protested his innocence saying he can't reveal where Falconio's body is because he was never there.
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