Joanne Rachael Lees was born on 25 September 1973 and is a British woman who was attacked and subjected to an attempted abduction while travelling in Australia with her partner Peter Falconio.
14 Facts About Joanne Lees
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Joanne Lees later wrote a book about her experiences, which was made into a television film.
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Joanne Lees was born on 25 September 1973, and lived her first 11 years with her mother Jenny.
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Joanne Lees first met Falconio in a nightclub in Huddersfield in 1996 and began living with him the following year in Brighton, England where Falconio was studying at Brighton University.
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Joanne Lees then transferred her job to a local Cook agency, before the couple took short trips to Italy, Greece, and Jamaica.
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Falconio and Joanne Lees were travelling at night along the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory, outback Australia, on 14 July 2001, when a man in another vehicle flagged them down, and told them that he had noticed that their camper van had engine trouble.
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Joanne Lees hid for five hours in nearby bushes before running out onto the road and flagging down a truck driver who took her to safety.
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Joanne Lees identified Murdoch from police photographs shown to her in November 2002 by Northern Territory Police and finally face-to-face during the trial on 18 October 2005.
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This, combined with the DNA match on Joanne Lees' T-shirt, formed the case for Murdoch being charged with the murder.
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Joanne Lees later testified in court that she had agreed to this interview to raise awareness of the case in Australia, as she felt the public profile of the case had diminished.
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Joanne Lees went to the UK for the launch of the book in October 2006 and a serialisation appeared in The Times newspaper on 2 and 3 October.
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On 10 October 2006, Joanne Lees was interviewed by BBC News 24.
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In July 2011, Joanne Lees was interviewed by Australia's Woman's Day in the lead-up to the tenth anniversary of the murder of Peter Falconio.
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Joanne Lees stated that she was still single and living a solitary life, and had worked at a travel agency and as a social worker with disabled people.