The only person charged over an outback triple homicide has admitted he lied to police, as a court heard evidence that his father claimed “the little bastard done it”.

Bruce Preston, 70, was charged with the 1978 shooting of Timothy Thomson, 31, his girlfriend, Karen Edwards, 23, and their friend, Gordon Twaddle, 21, who were found dead at a bush track at Spear Creek outside Mount Isa in Queensland’s north-west.

For the first time in years, Preston has spoken of the police investigation, telling the inquest he spent 11 months in custody after he was charged, and he had done nothing but think of the case.

Thomson, Edwards and Twaddle had been on a motorbike trip from Alice Springs, with plans to head to Cairns then on to Melbourne for Christmas.

But the group never made it. Their bodies

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