Relatives of an English tourist who was apparently shot dead on a remote highway in Australia's Northern Territory on Saturday were last night on their way to the place where the incident occurred. Meanwhile, the search for the missing man and his captor continues.
A solitary gunman is thought to have shot dead Peter Falconio (28), from West Yorkshire, and then tried to hunt down his girlfriend, Ms Joanne Lees (27), for hours in the bush after she managed to escape.
Northern Territory police have closed a 400-km stretch of the state's Stuart Highway in a massive search for the Englishman and his apparently motiveless killer.
The missing man's brother, Mr Paul Falconio, said yesterday he and his father, Luciano, planned to catch a flight to Australia last night. "We spoke to him [Peter] on Friday and he said he was having the time of his life. He was in Alice Springs and said they were planning to go up country," he told reporters.
The missing man's mother said she was still hoping her son would be found alive, despite the fears of the Australian police that he has been murdered.
"Peter is a very outgoing man, who lives life to the full," Mrs Falconio said. "He is the kindest boy in the world. He would go and help anybody who was in trouble. When we heard he had stopped to help this motorist, we thought that was just typical of him. Joanne is safe and her parents are very relieved but we're going through hell."
The couple's ordeal began on Saturday evening shortly after sunset at around 7 p.m. They had been driving south along the Stuart Highway and had just passed through Barrow Creek, a roadhouse stop about 300 kms north of Alice Springs, when a man driving a van pulled alongside their Kombi camper van signalling for them to stop.
Mr Falconio stopped his van and got out to talk to ask the other driver if he needed help. Moments later a gunshot rang out, Ms Lees later told the police.
The gunman appeared immediately at the camper and dragged her onto the roadside, she said. She struggled with him but he punched her into submission and then bound her hands and feet and dragged her into the back of his van.
However, she managed to stumble from the van into the bush where she lay terrified as the gunman passed within yards of her several times, using his hunting dog and a torch to try and locate her.
After six hours she staggered back to the roadside where she flagged down a passing motorist. She was taken to a nearby hotel at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, suffering from severe bruising and shock.
Yesterday she was being cared for in Alice Springs awaiting news of her missing boyfriend. But the Northern Territory police were not holding out much hope of finding him alive.
A huge air and ground search is concentrated in bush surrounding Barrow Creek. "I'd hate to use the expression, a needle in a haystack, but that's what we're dealing with at this stage," the regional commander of the Northern Territory police, Mr Bob Fields, said yesterday.
"I'd have to say, nearly 36 hours after the incident, there's no sign of [him] and ... we absolutely fear the worst here."
The assistant commissioner, Mr Bruce Wernham, stressed that the police had no doubts about the truth of Ms Lees's story.
"The account she's given us is consistent with what's there [at the crime scene]," he said.
The couple's orange van was found in bushland away from the Stuart Highway.