The man once charged over the Spear Creek triple murders had the keys to one of the dead men’s BMW motorcycle 24 hours after the trio disappeared and was riding it, a court has heard.

Bruce Preston, 69, was charged with the 1978 shooting of Timothy Thomson, his girlfriend, Karen Edwards, and their friend, Gordon Twaddle. The charges were dropped in 2023 by prosecutors.

The trio, who were on a motorbike trip together, were found dead on a bush track at Spear Creek outside Mount Isa in Queensland’s north-west on October 24 that year.

One of the last photos taken of the trio – at Devils Marbles in the Northern Territory – days before their deaths. Credit: Queensland Police Service

They had been planning to end their trip in Melbourne to spend Christmas with family, but never made it.

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