Sunday Mirror

Peter Falconio & Joanne Lees … 25 Years On …

… 25 years ago today, 14th July 2001, Brit tourist Peter Falconio was murdered on the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek NT. Falconio’s girlfriend Joanne Lees, bound with cable ties by the murderer, escaped the scene into the bush and hid for five hours before flagging down a road train.

The story exploded around the planet and gained momentum over the next near five years until Bradley John Murdoch was found guilty of Falconio’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

I spent a total of several months over those years covering the story in Barrow Creek, Alice Springs and Darwin working for Associated Press (AP), the UK Sunday Mirror, Fairfax papers and many other media outlets.

I made the very first image of Joanne after her abduction … a fortuitous single frame grainy grabbed image of Joanne in the front seat of a speeding unmarked police car leaving the crime scene re-enactment at Barrow Creek in total darkness. (in those days the ‘new’ digital cameras (in this case a Nikon D1) were absolutely terrible at images in bad light.)

I made portraits of Joanne when she first defiantly faced the media throng in Alice Springs … and was the only photographer to get a pic of her during the entire Darwin committal hearings stay when she arrived at Darwin airport from the UK in the early hours of the morning.  

All my Joanne encounters she documented in her eventual 2006 autobiographical true-crime book “Joanne Lees – No Turning Back”. When describing that first Barrow Creek police car encounter she states “a photographer jumped out in front of our car, risking his life to take a photograph of me, Senior Sergeant Turnbull only narrowly missed him”.

That’s her story – mine is a touch different 😉.

In a little twist, two of the photographs in Joanne’s book are mine … her arrival at that first media event and a pic of the crime re-enactment at Barrow Creek.

Below are five of my images … the first shot of Joanne after the murder, Joanne emotionally facing the first media event (X 2), the crime scene re-enactment … and a my pic of Joanne arriving in Darwin in the early hours of the morning for the committal.

Bradley John Murdoch died in custody without telling of the whereabouts of Peter Falconio’s body, coincidentally, a year ago tomorrow,

There’s much much more to this story and that’s what Google is for 🙂 … here’s just two of the links that contained my pics … here & here.

All Images © Brian Cassey

20 Years Ago on Boxing Day … the Asian Tsunami …

… 20 Years Ago … this Boxing Day marks the twentieth anniversary of the largest tsunami disaster of modern history … the Asian tsunami that took the lives of near a quarter of a million around the Indian Ocean in 2004. 

I photographed the aftermath in Thailand, Myanmar and the epicentre of Banda Aceh Indonesia for the UK Sunday Mirror alongside gun Brit journalist Susie Boniface. Yes … it was harrowing work that greatly impacted the media contingent covering the disaster.

In Khao Lak, Thailand we told the story of Patrice Fayet and his fruitless search for his wife Samantha and six month old baby Ruby Rose amongst the many thousands of bodies. It was heart breaking watching Patrice search the tiny body bags rising on dry ice in a Khao Lak temple morgue. Samantha’s remains were discovered months later … Ruby Rose was never found … 

The story and my images of Ruby Rose and Patrice’s fruitless search also featured in the tenth anniversary documentary “After the Wave” in 2014.

In Banda Aceh … amongst total destruction … we covered the stories of now parentless children amongst the survivors. Getting there  was a twelve hour overnight drive with a well rewarded local, much of it through civil war rebel held territory. We arrived in the decimated city centre at dawn. The only building we could see still standing in the early light was the Grand Mosque, floodlit by a bank of generators. As we settled down to try and get an hours sleep in the car the call to prayer peeled out from the mosque. Nobody came … 

The worst affected countries were India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Thailand and Somalia.

Certainly, it was an assignment that one would never forget.

Here are just some of the images from my coverage … and a warning some are indeed graphic. (and Yes … some were far too graphic to be shown anywhere)

Fom top – 1, Banda Aceh orphan – 2. Banda Aceh – 3. Khao Lak – 4. A Banda Aceh child victim – 5. Patrice Fayet searches for his wife and baby in Khao Lak – 6. scenes from Phuket, Khao Lak and Banda Aceh

More of my images from the Asian tsunami and the earlier tsunami in Sissano Papua New Guinea may be found on my web site here … https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/photographs/tsunami/ .

Images © Brian Cassey