Ivan Milat - Australian Serial Killer
He would take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat is also suspected of having committed many murders around Australia...
Short Version
Ivan Milat was an Australian serial killer known as the "Backpacker Murderer." Born on December 27, 1944, Milat committed a series of gruesome murders in the 1990s.
His crimes involved the abduction, assault, and murder of young backpackers traveling through New South Wales.
The victims were often hitchhiking when Milat lured them into his vehicle taking them to remote forest locations where he brutally murdered them. The bodies of seven young people were found in the Belanglo State Forest between 1992 and 1993.
Milat was arrested in 1994 after an extensive investigation. Police linked him to the crimes through various pieces of evidence, including items belonging to the victims found at his home. He was convicted in 1996 of seven counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Ivan Milat died in prison on October 27, 2019 due to esophageal and stomach cancer. His case remains one of the most infamous in Australian criminal history.
The Backpack Murders
By the time of the initial discoveries in the Belanglo State Forest several backpackers had been reported missing. One case involved a young Victorian couple from Frankston named Deborah Everist, 19, and James Gibson, 19, who had been missing since December 30th, 1989.
Another related to Simone Schmidl, 21, from Germany who had been missing since leaving Sydney for Melbourne on January 20th, 1991.
A German couple also had disappeared after leaving a Kings Cross hostel for Mildura on December 26th, 1991. Another involved missing British backpackers Caroline Clarke, 21, and Joanne Walters, 22, who were last seen in Kings Cross on 18 April 1992
Discovery of the Victims
On September 19th, 1992 two runners discovered a hidden corpse while orienteering in Belanglo.
The next morning police discovered a second body 100 feet from the first. Police quickly confirmed via dental records that the bodies were those of Clarke and Walters.
Walters had been stabbed fifteen times four times in the chest, once in the neck, and nine times in the back which would have paralysed her. Clarke had been shot ten times in the head at the burial site and police believe she had been used as target practice.
Ivan Milat was just a brutal monster.
After a thorough search of the forest investigators ruled out the possibility of further discoveries.
On October 5th 1993 a local man searching for firewood discovered bones in a particularly remote section of Belanglo. He returned with police to the scene where two bodies were quickly discovered and later identified as Gibson and Everist.
Gibson's skeleton showed eight stab wounds. A large knife had cut through his upper spine causing paralysis, and stab wounds to his back and chest would have punctured his heart and lungs.
Everist had been savagely beaten and her skull was fractured in two places her jaw was broken and there were knife marks on her forehead.
She had been stabbed once in the back. The presence of Gibson's body in Belanglo puzzled investigators as his camera had previously been discovered in December 1989, and his backpack later in March of 1990 by the side of the road.
On November 1st 1993 a skeleton was found in a clearing along a fire trail in Belanglo during a police search. It was later identified as that of Schmidl and had at least eight stab wounds. Two had severed her spine and others would have punctured her heart and lungs. Clothing found at the scene was not Schmidl's but matched that of another missing backpacker, Habschied.
The bodies of Habschied and Neugebauer were then found on a nearby fire trail 3 days later in shallow graves 160 feet apart. Habschied had been decapitated and despite an extensive search her skull was never found. Neugebauer had been shot in the head six times. There was evidence that some of the victims did not die instantly from their injuries.
Many believe that he purposely paralyzed some of his victims so they had to watch what he did to the other.
Search for the Killer
Examination of the remains showed evidence that some of the victims had been tortured. In response Task Force Air, containing more than twenty detectives and analysts, was set up by the New South Wales Police.
The Search was on.
On November 5th the New South Wales government increased the reward in relation to the killings to A$500,000. After developing their profile of the killer the police faced an enormous amount of tips.
Investigators applied link analysis technology and as a result the list of suspects was narrowed from a short list of 230 to an even shorter list of 32. Speculation arose that the crimes were the work of several killers given that most of the victims had been attacked while as pairs had been killed in different ways and buried separately.
On November 13th police were contacted by Paul Onions in the United Kingdom. A few years earlier Onions had been backpacking in Australia and while hitchhiking from Liverpool station towards Mildura had accepted a ride south out of Casula from a man known only as "Bill".
South of the town of Mittagong Bill pulled out a revolver and some rope to rob Onions, at which point he managed to flee while Bill shot at him. Onions flagged down a passing motorist and together they described the assailant and his vehicle to the Bowral police.
On April 13th, 1994 detectives re-found the note regarding Onions' call. His statement was corroborated by Berry, along with the girlfriend of a man who worked with Milat.
Police surveillance of the Milat house began on February 26th, 1994. Police soon learned that Milat had recently sold his silver Nissan Patrol shortly after the discovery of the bodies of Clarke and Walters.
Police also confirmed that Milat had not been working on any of the days of the attacks and acquaintances also told police about Milat's obsession with weapons.
When the connection between the Belanglo murders and Onions experience was made, Onions flew to Australia to help with the investigation. On May 5th, 1994 he positively identified Milat as the man who had picked him up and attempted to shoot him.
Milat was arrested at his house on May 22nd on robbery and weapons charges related to the Onions attack after fifty police officers surrounded the house. The search of the residence revealed various weapons, including a .22-calibre Anschütz Model 1441/42 rifle and parts of a .22-calibre Ruger 10/22 rifle that matched the type used in the murders.
Also uncovered were items belonging to several of the victims. Homes belonging to Milat's mother and five of his brothers were also searched uncovering several more items belonging to victims.
Milat's trial opened at the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Milat is reported as having been confident he would be found innocent. In phone recordings made for the ABC's Australian Story program in 2004 Milat stated his grounds for believing he would be found innocent at trial: "My basic defense in my trial was that it wasn't me. I don't know who did it. It was up to them to prove my guilt, not for me to prove my innocence."
On July 27th, 1996 after eighteen weeks of testimony a jury found Milat guilty of the murders. He was given a life sentence on each count without the possibility of parole. He was also convicted of the attempted murder, false imprisonment and robbery of Onions for which he received six years imprisonment each.
Victims
1989
December 30th - Australians Deborah Everist and James Gibson, both 19, left Melbourne. The couple first went to Sydney where they stayed at a backpacker hostel in the inner-city suburbs. After checking out they were last seen heading for ConFest, planning to hitchhike to Albury. A day after they were last seen a bushwalker found Gibson's camera by the road at Galston Gorge in northern Sydney. The person took the damaged camera home and only reported it when Gibson's empty backpack was found in the same area a month later and was linked to the couple's missing persons report. Both were found in Belanglo State Forest on October 5th, 1993 and had been stabbed repeatedly.
1991
January 20th - German Simone Schmidl set off to hitchhike from Sydney. She told acquaintances that she was off to Melbourne to meet her mother, who was flying in from Germany to join her for a camping holiday. She was last seen at a train station preparing to leave for western Sydney where she was attempting to hitchhike. On November 1st 1993 Schmidl's body was found in Belanglo State Forest. She had died after suffering numerous stab wounds, one of which went through her spinal column.
December 26th - German backpackers Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20 left the Backpackers Inn at Kings Cross to hitchhike to Adelaide and Darwin. On November 4th, 1993 both were found in Belanglo State Forest, where it was determined that Neugebauer had been bound and shot six times while his partner, Habschied, had been beheaded.
1992
April 18th - British citizens Joanne Walters, 22, and Caroline Clarke, 21, left Kings Cross to hitchhike together around Australia. They were headed for Victoria to pick fruit and made it to the Bulli Pass where they reportedly asked for directions to the Hume Highway. On September 19th, 1992 both were found in Belanglo State Forest. Walters had been stabbed and Clarke had been shot 11 times.
Police maintain that Milat could have been involved in more murders than the seven for which he was convicted.
State and territory-wide investigations into the unsolved deaths and disappearances of young people were started in 1993 by Task Force Air by comparing Milat's known criminal and victim profile along with his known modus operandi to cold cases.
Milat was taken into consideration in several of the 58 cases on the list. Experts have highlighted how it is unlikely for any serial killer to start killing at such a late stage (Milat was aged 45 when the 1989 murders were committed) and that serial killers almost always start killing before their mid-thirties.
This indicates that Milat likely killed before in his life. Milat's brother Richard once opined that there would be "heaps more bodies" out there waiting to be discovered. Milat was very geographically mobile as he started working as a truck driver in the mid-1970s.
We will probably never know his exact number of victims and crimes.