When and where did the murder take place?
Ivan Milat is Australia’s biggest serial killer, who became famously known as the ‘backpack killer’. Ivan Milat was convicted of seven murders, which occurred between 1989 and 1992, but he is suspected of even more. The first bodies were not found until September 1992, years after the first murders Milat was convicted of. All of these murders took place at Belanglo state forest, 15km south west of the New South Wales town of Berrima, a vast area of bush and eucalyptus trees.
Describe the murder
Many hitchhikers disappeared off the streets of Australia, nobody knowing what happened to them. Before 1992, Australia was unaware they had a serial killer on the loose.
One British tourist, Paul Onions, 26, escaped from the killer. On January 25, 1990 he had reached liverpool, and planned to hitch hike to Melbourne along the Hume highway. A man in a four wheel drive pulled up, and offered him a lift. The journey began with small talk, but Paul became concerned for his safety when Milat began ranting. Hehad pulled over to the side of the road, and jumped out of the car, but when Onions tried to get out, he was instructed to keep his seatbelt on. Then man then came back to the driver’s seat holding a revolver. Despite the man’s threats to shoot, Paul escaped the car. The attack happened just 400m before the turn off to Belanglo state forest.
On the 19th of September, 1992, at a place called executioners drop in Belanglo forest, two runners were training. A few metres from a dirt track they discovered a corpse, and 30 metres away was another body. Dental records identified the bodies as Caroline Clark, 21 and Joanne Walters, 22, British backpackers reported missing five months earlier. The pair had met in the Sydney backpackers hostel, and decided to team up. In April 1992 the pair left Sydney looking for a lift to Melbourne, when they were picked up by Ivan Milat, and driven off course into the forest. Caroline had been shot in the head 10 times; the police thought she had been used as target practice. Joanne was stabbed 14 times. She had been stabbed four times in the chest, once in the neck and nine times in the back. The differences in the way the girls had been murdered led the police to believe there were two killers.
Police tried Ballistics for evidence. Ten bullets were retrieved from Caroline’s skull and the soil around her, along with ten cartridge cases. Gerad Ductins was called to identify the gun that was used, and he came to the conclusion that the marks could only of been left by a ruger 10/22. This was of limited help as there were 55000 of them in Australia. Months went by when nothing was found.
Bruce Prier lived near Belanglo state forest, and knew the forest well. He started his own search for clues, and searched Belanglo every week for 9 months. In October 1993, he found a human skull on the ground, and unknown to him, 22 metres away lay another skeleton. With this find, a task force was put together to search for more bodies and investigate the murders, it became the biggest search team in Australia. The bodies that were found were within 50-60m of a dirt track, which based the search to continue along those lines.
As the search began, the bodies were identified by dental records, they were Deborah Everist and James Gibson. In 1989 they planned planned to hitchhike south to a festival. When their bodies were found, they had been missing for four years. James Gibson had been stabbed 8 times, and a large knife had been cut through his upper spine; this would’ve caused paralyses. The stab wounds to his back and chest would’ve punctured his heart and lungs. Deborah Everest had been beaten, her skull fractured in two places, and jaw broken. She had been slashed across her face. The bodies had lain just 600m from where Caroline and Joanne were discovered a year before. There was still, little evidence.
A man called Alex Milat told police he and a friend had seen two girls being abducted. They had been in the forest and had seen the car, and had seen people in the back who looked as if they were tied up. This didn’t ring true, but it raised suspicions about Alex Milat. Immediately striking about him was the size of his family. There were fourteen siblings. They had grown up together in a small house, south west of Sydney, 100km from Belanglo forest. They were known to be a tight knit group, but tough reputation. Most of the boys had been in and out of juvenile detention centres and jails. The Milat family were now persons of interest, but were not yet prime suspects.
On November 1 1993 the police search team had located a skeleton, buried. The body belonged to Simone Schmidl, who had travelled from Germany and had only been in Australia for four months before she went missing. Unlike the other victims, Simone was alone when she was abducted. Her bones showed evidence of 8 stab wounds. Two had severed her spine whilst the others had punctured her heart and lungs.
It was at this time, it was announced that Australia had a serial killer on the loose. The police payed close attention to media coverage, looking for vital clues and leads. Paul Onions read about the case in a British newspaper, saying that the bodies had been found close to where he was attacked 4 years earlier. Paul called the Australian hotline, in April 1994 describing his attacker. His statement was lost Among the 5000 calls made in the first 24 hours of the announcement.
In November 1993, 20 year Old Anja Habshied and her boyfriend 21 year old Gabor Neaugebaur’s bodies were found. They had been missing since December 1991. Gabor was shot six times in the head, Anja had been decapitated, her neck severed with one blow. Her head was never found. It appeared Gabor had been used as shooting practice just like Caroline Clark, suggesting the same person was responsible, but police had to prove the same gun was used. Unfortunately, the rotting brain tissue from Gabor’s skull had damaged the surface of the bullets and destroyed the markings they relied on. However, they were able to analyse the cartridge cases and establish the same gun was used. Police undertook a process of tracing each gun and testing it, in order to see if it was, or was not responsible.
A profiler was called in, and they suggested the crime could’ve been undertaken by brothers who had a close relationship, had grown up with guns, and may have gone shooting with the family. This report linked them back to the Milat family. The family were known to have firearms, the brothers went shooting together and some had criminal convictions. Some of the brothers were eliminated as suspects with no criminal backgrounds, others underwent investigating. Paul Gordon investigated Ivan. He lived in a neat suburb called Eaglevale, and his criminal days seemed to be in the past. He was a road worker; a steady job he had for 16 years. The neighbors knew him as a man who was always tending his garden or washing his car, and he’d always look out for the community around him. The police discovered Ivan loved guns like his brothers, and had a powerful four wheel drive. His ex-wife said he hadn’t always been as pleasant as the neighbors thought, and was told to be a control freak. Gordon tracked down Ivan Milat’s four wheel drive which had a new owner, and went to him for questioning. He had found a bullet under the front seat; the same type of bullet that had been used in the murders.
The police looked at the dates in which all of these people disappeared, and checked the movements of the Milat family. Ivan was the only person who was unaccounted for on the days of all the murders. Investigators went through everything again, and in a 23 year old file was a criminal charge that made Ivan the prime suspect. In 1971 Ivan had been charged for abducting two women near the Belanglo forest, and had been charged with raping them. The case had similarities to the murders. He picked them up hitchhiking and had driven them off the highway, and onto a dirt track. Detectives went back to Alex Milat to talk to him about the statement he had given. After hours of questioning, Alex mentioned that Ivan had given them a backpack. This backpack belonged to Simone Schmidl, the killers third victim.
The police found Paul Onion’s statement five months after he called the hotline, and police realised the attack on Paul fitted everything they knew about their suspect. They arranged for British police to interview him, and they were convinced that he was genuine, and had quite a bit of detail. He was brought out to Australia and positively identified Ivan. This gave them the excuse to seek a warrant to search the house. At 6:30am on the 22nd of May, 1994 armed police surrounded the home of Ivan Milat. With Milat under arrest, search for evidence began. They found Simone Shmidl’s tent, Deborah Everist’s sleeping bag and more camping equipment in the garage. They found fire arms, a large hunting knife, a sword, and in a wall cavity was a plastic bag, containing a ruger 10/22 rifle. After examination, it was established the gun was the one used in the murders.
On July 27 1996, following a 15 week trial, Ivan Milat was convicted of the murders of all seven backpackers, although police believe he has killed more, and the attack on Paul Onions. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment and seven consecutive life sentences. To this day, Ivan still pleads not guilty, and claims that his family has set him up.
Why did the murder occur?
Ivan Milat, despite the large amount of evidence against him, has never admitted to the murders of the seven backpackers, thus we don’t know exactly why he did kill them. However, his background, as well as his targets, can offer us an ideas as to his motive. Ivan Milat grew up in a large family, who mostly kept to themselves. The family was quite uninterested and ignorant about others ideas, cultures and peoples, which shows that Ivan would of only thought if his own pleasure, and not the consequences when he committed his crime. Throughout his life he had been around guns and violence and he’d even gone shooting with his family, so the violence of the murders would’ve been normal to him.
As well as this, Ivan Milat would’ve chosen backpackers as his victims as they were easy targets. Their willingness to get into a car and travel made it easy for Ivan Milat to trap them, and coming from all around the world they would’ve had little sense of directions and/or shortcuts, so Milat could easily fool them. Hitchhiking on the highway also left them with little protection, which meant Ivan could abduct them without being seen, and with little danger.
Ivan Milat would’ve conducted the murders at Belanglo State forest as he knew the area well. He would’ve felt safe in that area, thinking that nobody would ever find him or the bodies. The forest was a very large, vast area, where very little people went to meaning lower risk of any bodies being found. This is why the Ivan Milat murders happened the way they did, even if, Milat still pleads innocence.