ExamineIvan Milat (1944-2019) again. He was one of 14 children born to an impoverished migrant family, rural, isolated and gun obsessed. He’d shown psychopathic behaviour at a young age eg hacking animals with machetes, sending him to a care-home at 13. At 17, he was in a youth detention centre for theft & at 19 for shop break-ins. In 1964 he received to 18 months for breaking & entering, and a month after release he was arrested for driving a stolen car. In Sept 1967 at 22, he got 3 years' gaol for theft. Despite showing psychopathic tendencies from his early teen years and an active criminal record as an adult, it took a long time to identify Ivan as a suspect for rape or murder.
60 Minutes
In Apr 1971, Ivan Milat abducted 2 teenage female hitch-hikers at Liverpool Station with a knife. He raped one of the girls before they escaped. Milat was arrested that day, charged with rape and armed robbery. While awaiting trial, he was involved in a string of robberies with his brothers before faking his suicide at The Gap. Milat drove a truck in 1975, and by the time of his arrest he’d worked for the Roads & Traffic Authority for 20 years. In 1977, Milat apparently attempted to rape and murder two women hitchhiking to Canberra, but failed .
So all this evidence made no difference. It WAS very hard to detect who did The Backpacker Murders in the Belanglo State Forest NSW, an hour from Sydney. This spate of serial killings started in Jan 1990 and may have been carried out by 1-2 people. In case Milat did not have to appear in court (robbery & weapon charges) until May 1994!
As reported, the bodies of 7 missing young adults were eventually discovered partly buried in the state forest in 1992-3. 5 of the victims were touring European backpackers; the others were Australian backpackers from the southern states. 300+ police officers were assigned to the case!!
Even when Ivan was doing time in minimum security for robbery, his mum Margaret loyally visited her son in prison. Milat met a teen in 1983 who was pregnant by his cousin. They married in 1984 and had one daughter of their own. However she left Milat in 1987 due to domestic violence and divorced in Oct 1989. At trial, she described Milat as gun-obsessed, shooting wildly while in Belanglo State Forest.
Detectives take suspected backpacker killer Ivan Milat into custody in 1994.
Allthatsinteresting
Following endless police investigations, Milat was finally charged with the murders of the 7 back packers. In Mar 1996 the trials opened and he was eventually convicted. He had to serve 7 consecutive life sentences, without ever admitting guilt. So why is this horrid case of interest now?
The best rock-solid evidence was provided by a British backpacker survivor, Paul Onions. He was ex-Navy man who’d backpacked around Australia, telling investigators that a man had tried to kill him during his travels; that the same man could be responsible for the other backpacker murders.
Milat had long confessed his crimes to his mother Margaret and his loved young sister Shirley. Yet in 1996, days before Ivan’s guilty verdict in the Belanglo murders, Margaret still insisted Ivan was innocent, as were his brothers who Ivan had blamed in his defence case. Margaret testified “the boys were living here when those murders were meant to happen. I did all their washing, there was no blood. They’re good boys.” Ivan was her favourite.
I am assuming the police would have in any case doubted the confessions because his mother greatly loved Ivan and because sister Shirley had a very close sexual relationship with Ivan. Shirley and Ivan were even sharing a house in Eagle Vale when he was arrested in Feb 1994.
news.com
Serving 7 life sentences for Australia’s most infamous serial murders, 56-year-old Ivan’s regular attempts to escape had earned him a cell in the new escape-proof prison. In fact the last time Margaret visited Ivan he had moved into the newly opened High Risk Management Unit in Sept 2001. By then Ivan’s brutal slayings and reputation in prison as a cold, callous psychopath suggested no respect for life. But where were the psychiatric reports and treatments?
When Milat (74) in May 2019, he was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer and, after hospital treatment, was gaoled at Long Bay where detectives unsuccessfully visited him to extract a confession. When Ivan’s cancer seemed in remission, the race to get him to confess to the Belanglo backpacker murders etc became urgent.
Clive Small was the commanding officer of Task Force Air that charged Ivan when the 7 young backpackers’ bodies were found at Belanglo. In Milat, Inside Australia’s Biggest Manhunt, Small said Ivan’s brother George pulled the information from his mother Margaret. After Margaret returned from visiting Ivan, Small said she had lunch with George who noticed something strange. George asked “Mum, did he tell you something?” Margaret said he’d admitted he was guilty. Only after Margaret died in Oct 2001, was Shirley and Ivan’s home found to be filled with items from the Belanglo victims.
At that time, the house was strewn with camping gear and possessions of the backpackers whose murders were as yet unsolved, and gun parts were secreted in the walls and ceilings. After Ivan’s arrest, Shirley removed an unlicensed .45 calibre pistol hidden in a waterproof bucket in the backyard and gave it to brother Walter and told him to get rid of it. Six months after her big brother received 7 life sentences, Shirley was fined $1000, dying in 2003.
too late to protect Milat's victims
Sydney Morning Herald