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The Beast of Belanglo

Australia’s most prolific (convicted) individual serial killer of the 20th century, Ivan Robert Marko Milat, was born in Sydney on 27 December 1945, the fourth child in a family of nine brothers and four sisters.

At 17, he received his first criminal conviction, for stealing, and was placed on probation. Later that year, he served six months in a juvenile institution for breaking and entering. Two years after his release from the institution, he was charged with two counts of breaking, entering and stealing and was sentenced to 18 months.

In 1965, Milat was convicted of car theft and sentenced to two years. In April 1967 he was charged with multiple counts of larceny and car theft and sentenced to three years, with an 18-month non-parole period. He was released in 1969 and began a series of armed robberies with his brother Michael and other accomplices. Ivan was soon charged with an armed hold-up at a bank in Canley Heights.

In April 1971, he was charged with the rape of two girls who had left a mental institution and were hitchhiking to Melbourne. Milat fled to New Zealand while on bail. Three years later he returned, and the court found there was insufficient evidence to convict him for armed robbery. He defended the rape charges by saying the girls had consented.

On 25 January 1990, English tourist Paul Onions was at Liverpool, on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney, looking for a lift. He was approached by a man sporting a bushy moustache. The man introduced himself as Bill. After an hour and a half on the road, Bill turned nasty. Onions later told 60 Minutes reporter Charles Wooley of his scrape with death.

 

Onions: His speech became aggressive, and instead of being a friendly kind of guy he changed all of a sudden … Then he pulled over to the side of the road and got out and started messing round with the seat. I was a bit nervous and I thought I’d just get out and stretch my legs and try to suss things out.

 

Milat was furious. He ordered Onions back in the car. Moments later, Onions was staring down the barrel of a revolver.

 

Onions: Next thing he had produced a coil of rope, and when I saw it I thought, that’s it, I’m getting out of here. With that I undid my seatbelt, opened the door, jumped out and ran up the road for my life.

 

Milat chased, firing several shots. Onions tried to flag down passing cars. None would stop. Milat grabbed Onions. Again he broke free.

 

Onions: I turned round and faced the traffic, and when the next vehicle, a family van, came across over the rise I put both my hands out in front for it to stop. And as soon as it did I pulled around to the side and opened the sliding door on the passenger side and got in and locked it. There were two women and five children inside; they were all yelling at me to get out and I was saying, ‘He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun.’

 

The driver could see Milat walking back to his vehicle. She drove Onions to Bowral police station, where he provided a thorough description of his assailant and of his assailant’s vehicle.

On 19 September 1992, two orienteering enthusiasts found the remnants of a black T-shirt in the Belanglo State Forest in the NSW southern highlands. Both recoiled in horror when they saw the heel of a shoe protruding from a stack of branches and leaves. Police cordoned off the area. The next day, they found a second body. Forensic evidence established the victims as British backpackers Caroline Clark, 22, and Joanne Walters, 22. They had last been seen in Kings Cross in December 1989. They had been going to hitchhike to Melbourne.

Joanne had been stabbed in the chest, neck and back 14 times. Five of the wounds had severed her spine and broken two ribs. There were no defensive wounds to Joanne’s hands or arms, indicating that perhaps she had been tied up. The zip on her jeans was undone, which signalled the possibility of sexual assault, but the top button was still done up.

Caroline had been stabbed just below her neck once with the same knife and shot 10 times in the head. It appeared she had been tied to a tree, with her head used for target practice.

On 5 October 1993, a man collecting firewood in Belanglo came across partially buried human remains. Detectives were called again and another body was found. The bodies were later identified as Deborah Everist and James Gibson, friends who had last been seen on 30 December 1989 on the Hume Highway, looking for a lift to Melbourne.

Deborah had been stabbed in the spine and had numerous fractures to the skull. Pantyhose and a black bra were found nearby. The bra had been slashed. James had multiple stab wounds to his spine, breastbone and chest. As with the previous victims, one stab wound had penetrated his mid-thoracic spine, slicing upwards, effectively paralysing him. The zip on his trousers was open but the top button remained closed.

Authorities conducted a search of the whole area. On 31 October 1993, the body of German hitchhiker Simone Schmidl was found. She had been stabbed numerous times in the chest. Again there was a downward stab wound in her upper back, severing her spinal cord.

Two days later the bodies of Anja Habschied and Gabor Neugebauer were found. The German backpackers had disappeared on Boxing Day, 1991. It took three police officers to lift a heavy log off Gabor’s body. There were six bullet wounds to his skull. The zip on his jeans was undone but the top button was done up.

Anja had been decapitated, and her clothing had been pulled above her chest. Her head had been removed with a long, sharp instrument such as a sword. It appeared she had been forced into a kneeling position and then beheaded.

Most of the seven victims had been paralysed by a knife to the spine. All had been tortured and, in all probability, sexually assaulted. Investigators believed the killings were linked. The huge log on the body of Gabor Neugebauer was almost certainly lifted by more than one man.

A woman came forward, telling of a man named Ivan Milat, who lived near Belanglo. Detectives turned up at a worksite that was his last-known address. Ivan’s younger brother Richard also worked there.

They found that Richard had been working on the days the backpackers had disappeared. Ivan hadn’t. Most interestingly, he had been charged with rape in 1971. Although he was acquitted on that charge, statements indicated that the two girls had been hitchhiking when offered a lift by Milat.

Workers at a concrete manufacturing company also came forward about one of their workmates, Paul Miller. When the bodies of Joanne Walters and Caroline Clarke were discovered in 1992, Miller told co-workers: ‘There’s more bodies out there. They haven’t found the two Germans yet. Oh yeah, I know who killed those two Germans.’ Later, Miller said: ‘Stabbing a woman is like cutting a loaf of bread.’ He also told workmates: ‘You could pick up anybody on that road and you’d never find them again. You’d never find out who did it either.’ A check revealed that Paul Miller was Richard Milat.

Now back in England, Onions heard of the discovery of the seven bodies. He went to authorities and told them what had happened to him. Onions was flown to Australia in April 1994. Shown a video line-up of 13 men, he identified Milat.

In dawn raids on 22 May 1994, more than 300 police officers hit Ivan Milat’s home in Eaglevale, as well as the homes of his brothers Richard, Walter and Bill, a property owned by two of the Milat brothers in the southern highlands and the Queensland home of Alex Milat. The raids provided a horde of evidence. A dismantled Ruger .22 was found, as was a drinking bottle belonging to Simone Schmidl, and Caroline Clarke’s camera. A photo of Milat’s girlfriend, in which she was wearing a windcheater belonging to Caroline Clarke, was found. Sleeping bags belonging to Simone Schmidl and Deborah Everist were also found.

In the other raids, police found ammunition and weapons as well as camping gear belonging to the victims. At the home of Milat’s mother, a long curved cavalry sword was found. Police believed it to be the weapon used to decapitate Anja Habschied.

Ivan Milat was found guilty of seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on Saturday, 27 July 1996. He will spend the remainder of his life behind bars.

While there has been much debate over the years that Ivan Milat didn’t act alone in some of the killings, there has never been any evidence produced to substantiate these suspicions.

But police have good reason to believe that Ivan Milat is responsible for more than just the seven backpacker murders. In 1987 an unclothed female skeleton believed to be that of a female backpacker who went missing while hitchhiking around Australia, was found in bush near Taree in northern New South Wales. At the time of her disappearance it is believed that Ivan Milat was working for the Department of Main Roads as part of a resurfacing gang. Milat is also suspected of knowing about other mysterious disappearances in the district.

In January 1988, the body of 18-year-old hitchhiker, Peter Letcher, who had gone missing around 14 November 1987, was found in the Jenolan State Forest, 160 kilometres west of Sydney. He had been shot in the head with five .22 bullets and his head was wrapped in material in an identical fashion to that of Caroline Clarke. Letcher had gone missing on the weekend before Milat’s road crew was due to start roadwork nearby. Police have little doubt that the teenager was murdered by Milat. Milat is also suspected to be involved in the disappearance of two hitchhikers, Alan Fox and his fiancee Anneke Adriaansen who went missing between Sydney and the New South Wales north coast in January 1979.