AN aboriginal woman said today she saw a "big white vehicle" pull on to a remote desert highway on the night Huddersfield backpacker Peter Falconio disappeared more than four years ago.
Bradley Murdoch, 47, of Broome, Western Australia, is on trial at the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin, accused of murdering Mr Falconio, 28, after flagging down his camper van on a highway north of Barrow Creek, near Alice Springs, on July 14, 2001.
Pamela Brown, from the small community of Ti Tree, said she saw the big vehicle pull on to the Stuart Highway on the same night Mr Falconio disappeared and his girlfriend Joanne Lees, formerly of Almondbury, was attacked.
Mrs Brown said she knew the area well and told the court she then saw an orange camper van parked further along on the side of the road, with its lights off. She said she did not see anybody outside the van.
Questioned by Crown Prosecutor Anne Barnett on the fifth day of the trial, Mrs Brown said she was a passenger in a station wagon which her partner Jasper Haynes was driving south when she saw the big white vehicle after they had passed through Tennant Creek, north of Barrow Creek.
She said: "We were coming down through the gorge. There are two ridges there, and we past one and we saw this car pull on to the bitumen on the right hand side with its headlights on, pointing north. I just saw a glance of it. It was a big car and it was white."
She said it looked like a Toyota or a land cruiser.
Earlier this week, the court heard Miss Lees describe her attacker's car as a four-wheel-drive vehicle that was "bright and shining".
Mrs Brown told the jury she then passed the Kombi (camper van) that was parked on the opposite side of the road, pointing north, with its headlights off.
