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A New Film About Australia Outback Murder

A movie about the horrible murder of British tourist Peter Falconio in the Australian outback is being filmed, with a former star of British entertainment soap opera "Coronation Street" to play Falconio`s girlfriend, Joanne Lees. Australian truck driver Bradley John Murdoch was found guilty last December and later sent to prison for at least 28 years for the 2001 attack on Falconio and Lees. He has lodged an appeal against his conviction.

The tourist`s body was found. Lees was kidnapped after the pair were ambushed, but managed to escape after being forced into Murdoch`s truck. Australia`s Network Ten entertainment television has teamed with Britain`s ITV and Granada to bring the drama, "To Catch a Killer," to the small screen. Filming began late in August in Sydney and in the outback mining town of Broken Hill.

English actress Joanne Froggatt, who starred as a teenage runaway in ITV`s long-running soap opera "Coronation Street" in the late 1990s, will play Lees whose ordeal will be the main focus of the film. Froggatt said she had not met Lees but hoped the movie would help soften her image as the Englishwoman endured a rocky relationship with the media, who saw her as distant and unfriendly. Australian actors play the rest of the main characters.