Backpacker Murders
Pictured above: Ivan Milat
When: 1989–1993
Where: Belanglo State Forest, NSW, Australia
The Backpacker Murders is one of the worst serial killings in Australia’s history after Ivan Milat killed seven backpackers across the span of four years. Due to the lack of the death penalty in Australia he’s still alive residing in Australia’s most secure prison Goulburn Correctional Centre.
Lead up to crime
Milat was raised by his Yugoslavian father and Australian-born mother among thirteen other siblings.
He’s been described by a brother as showing psychopathic tendencies at a young age but, however, that comment’s been disputed many times by several other family members.
As a teenager he had a fascination in hunting and guns, and later on he was involved with crimes varying from home break-ins to armed robberies. Police regularly visited the Milat household to follow-up on crimes Milat and his brothers had been committing. However, none of those crimes were anywhere as bad as the crimes he’d later commit in his adulthood.
In 1971 at age 26, Milat was accused of raping two female hitchhikers and was consequently put on trial. The two women testified saying that he had even held them at knifepoint, but the prosecution failed to make a convincing case against Milat which resulted in him getting acquitted.
Fifteen years later in 1985, Milat married teenage Karen Duck and subsequently divorced four years later in 1989, the year Milat’s first victims went missing.
Paul Onions
In 1990, Paul Onions, a British backpacker, hitchhiked with Milat. Milat introduced himself as Bill and seemed friendly to Onions at first but soon started making racist and xenophobic remarks. Luckily when Milat pulled over the car to the side of the road, Onions escaped in another vehicle despite Milat pulling out a revolver and threatening to kill him if he left the car.
In an interview with British media he said this of the experience:
As the car sped off, I just remember this stupid grin on Milat’s face and that look has stayed with me ever since.
Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters
In September 1992, two orienteers found a decaying corpse in a part of Belanglo State Forest known as Executioners Drop. The day after, two police officers discovered a second corpse less than fifty metres away from the other.
At first media reports had suggested the corpses belonged to two British backpackers Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters who had been missing since April that year. However, there were five other people who had gone missing in the nearby area during the past three years.
It didn’t take long for police to confirm the identity of the corpses as indeed being Clarke and Walters. Both had been stabbed repeatedly and Clarke had been shot ten times. A wound to Walters’ spine is believed to have paralyzed her during the attack. Clarke also had a similar wound to the spine.
Walters’ jeans were found unzipped which potentially meant she was sexually assaulted by Milat. However, her remains were so decomposed that it couldn’t be established if a sexual assault had even occurred.
Four bullets that remained in Clarke’s skull were preserved by detectives for forensic analysis. This evidence provided a confidence boost that they’d find the killer.
Near the bodies detectives found .22-caliber cartridge cases, cigarette butts and a brick fireplace. Despite no more bodies being found after an extensive search, the press speculated that there was a serial killer on the loose.
Sadly the police made little progress with the case despite the colossal amount of evidence they had gathered from the scene.
Deborah Everist and James Gibson
Only a year later, two more dead bodies were found in the same forest. The remains were identified as Deborah Everist and James Gibson—two Australian nationals who had been missing since 1989.
Gibson’s zipper was found unzipped and the first button fastened, in a similar manner to Joanne Walters’. Autopsies of the corpses revealed similar spinal wounds to the previous victims. Again, there was the killer’s signature brick fireplace near the bodies.
Simone Schmidl, Anja Habschied and Gabor Neugebauer
After the discovery of Everist and Gibson’s corpses, police started a manual search across the extended part of the Belanglo State Forest. Less than a month after the beginning of the search, the body of Simone Schmidl, a German hitchhiker, was found after being missing since January 1991.
Near Schmidl’s body, there was a brick fireplace and shells of .22-caliber ammunition. Her remains also had the trademark spinal injury.
The search continued and three days later, two more bodies were found. Anja Habschied and Gabor Neugebauer’s corpses were found after their disappearance two years prior. The couple were also German hitchhikers.
Habschied’s corpse was missing the skull completely; she’d been decapitated with a sword or machete.
Yet again, .22 ammunition was found near the bodies.
Search by police
The superintendent had to announce to the public that the police were now looking for a serial killer. However, due to the range of methods used to kill the seven victims, it wasn’t going to be easy for them to find the killer.
Police was suspicious that Ivan Milat was linked but they had no evidence against him at the time. Due to international media coverage, Paul Onions contacted Australian authorities recounting his encounter with Milat.
After Onions was flown to Australia he picked Milat in a video line-up. Not long after, the Milat home was raided where a vast amount of the victims’ personal belongings were found. Police also found a .22-caliber rifle, and at Milat’s mother’s home, a curved cavalry sword.
Arrest and trial
On 22 May 1994, fifty police officers surrounded Milat’s home on Cinnabar Street at Eagle Vale along with Tactical Operations Unit officers. Among his home, numerous of Milat’s siblings’ homes were searched giving police enough evidence to bring Milat and two of his siblings into custody.
Milat was charged with all seven murders and the attempted murder of John Onions. He hired the defence attorney he used in his last trial in 1971, John Marsden. Marsden suggested he plead guilty and got sacked by Milat for the suggestion. Milat pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.
Wolf Creek
Ivan Milat inspired the main character Mick Taylor in 2005 horror movie, Wolf Creek. The character (played by Australian actor, John Jarratt) is a “sadistic psychopath” that befriends and tries to kill three backpackers in the Australian outback.
