Detectives are investigating if the remains of British backpacker Peter Falconio may have been discovered near the last place he was seen alive.
Bone fragments were found this week near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory just a few hundred kilometres from where he was shot in 2001.
The area where the remains have been found is consistent with where authorities have always believed his body was dumped by his convicted killer, Bradley Murdoch.
Forensic experts will find out if they belong to the backpacker using DNA and dental records.
Murdoch has refused to tell police where the body is located and has maintained his innocence.
The remains of backpacker Peter Falconio (pictured, with his girlfriend Joanne Lees) may have been discovered near the last place he was seen alive.
Northern Territory police have done multiple searches for the British tourist’s body over the years and remained hopeful of finding his remains (pictured, Mr Falconio and Ms Lees)
Bradley Murdoch (pictured) who was convicted of murdering Mr Falconio has maintained his innocence
Police said the age and location of the bones found this week are a close match to Mr Falconio’s case, Nine newspapers reported.
Murdoch admitted he was in Alice Springs on the same day as Mr Falconio and Ms Lees, just hours before the attack, which happened six miles outside the tiny settlement of Barrow Creek.
And he conceded he looked similar to a suspect captured on CCTV footage filmed at a Shell truck stop in Alice Springs, central Australia, a few hours after the alleged murder.
While on trial for Mr Falconio’s murder at Northern Territory supreme court in Darwin in 2005, Murdoch admitted even his father and friends had told him he looked like the man in the footage, but he denied it was him.
Murdoch admitted smuggling large quantities of drugs from Sedan, South Australia, to Broome, Western Australia but insisted to the court: ”No. I was not at the truck stop.’
Mr Falconio and girlfriend Joanne Lees were in a campervan driving along the remote Stuart Highway on July 14, 2001 when they were pulled over.
Murdoch conceded he looked similar to a suspect captured on CCTV footage (pictured) filmed at a Shell truck stop in Alice Springs, central Australia, a few hours after the alleged murder – but he denied it was him
Mr Falconio and girlfriend Joanne Lees were in a campervan driving along the remote Stuart Highway (pictured) on July 14, 2001 when they were pulled over
Ms Lees told detectives when the men went to investigate what was wrong with the campervan (pictured) she heard a shot
Murdoch drove up behind them on the stretch of road between Alice Springs and Darwin and indicated there was a mechanical problem with their van.
Murdoch claimed there were sparks coming from the exhaust, convincing the couple to pull over on the lonely road.
Ms Lees told detectives her boyfriend got out to investigate at the back of the campervan before she suddenly heard a gunshot.
The drug runner came back had pointed a gun at her, bound her hands, used tape to bind her ankles and bundled her into the back of his ute, covered by a green canvas canopy.
She managed to escape, hiding in the bush for hours while Murdoch searched for her until she flagged down a truck and raised the alarm – but no trace of her boyfriend’s body has ever been found.
Four days after the attack, police took Ms Lees back to the isolated stretch of the Stuart Highway to reconstruct the horrific events.
In the video, Ms Lees sits inside the orange Kombi van, as police try to find out key details such as how Murdoch was holding the gun when he threatened her, and how she was attacked.
She demonstrated how her hands were tied behind her back, how she had been pushed out of the passenger side of the orange Kombi onto the red dirt on the roadside verge.
Murdoch was found guilty of the murder in December 2005 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 28 years.
During his trial the court heard he had put Mr Falconio’s body in his car before disposing of him somewhere between Alice Springs and Broome – which are almost 2000km apart.
Northern Territory police have done multiple searches for the British tourist’s body over the years and remain hopeful of finding it.
Previous remains discovered in 2003, 2004 and 2007 proved to be unrelated to the Falconio investigation.
‘We have been down this track before so we are not jumping to any conclusions,’ one Northern Territory detective said this week.
Ms Lees and Mr Falconio had stopped and shared a sunset joint at Ti Tree, a one-horse town between Alice Springs and Barrow Creek, as they drove north on their way to the Devil’s Marbles