Bones may unlock grisly Milat mystery

The Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales. Photo / Wikimedia Commons

SYDNEY - The discovery of human bones, especially a skull, in the forest where serial killer Ivan Milat did his gruesome work is sure to revive fascination in the grisly "backpacker murders".

One of Milat's seven victims was decapitated, and the head was never found.

Speculation about the number of victims has raged ever since the gun-crazy road worker was charged and convicted of executing seven young backpackers in the NSW southern highlands in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Ten other backpackers went missing around the same time in NSW and Queensland.

Police involved in the Milat case are wary of linking the new find to the backpacker murders because the bones were close to a fire trail (investigating officers concluded Milat buried his victims away from fire trails) and because the search for Milat's victims had been extensive.

But police once ruled out the possibility of finding any more than the first two bodies, only to uncover five more over the following year.

Like the original discovery of a corpse by hikers which led to Milat's conviction, the latest find by trail bike riders was also accidental.

The Milat saga started to unravel by chance on September 19, 1992, when two hikers found a rotting corpse in the dense Belanglo forest, 100km southwest of Sydney.

The body of 22-year-old British tourist Joanne Walters proved to be the first uncovered in the serial killings that became known as the "backpacker murders".

Over the next year, a massive team of several hundred police officers unearthed the remains of six more bodies in a forest that was starting to resemble a cemetery.

The episode shattered Australia's standing as a safe haven for budget-conscious young travellers.

It also numbed the genteel southern highlands area famous for its tulips and antiques, and as the peaceful boyhood home of cricket great Sir Donald Bradman.

The prosecution alleged in court that the victims were picked up, abducted, slain and mutilated.

One was decapitated. The head was never found.

Another was shot 10 times in the head.

Joanne Walters' blue T-shirt had at least 20 slash and stab holes in it.

Many were stabbed so savagely their bones were chipped.

Some had been gagged or bound.

A sexual element was "strongly suggested" in six of the deaths, the Crown said, because of cuts to bra cups, unbuttoned flies and the positioning or absence of clothing.

Five victims were European: Ms Walters from Wales, her friend Caroline Clarke, 22, from England, and three Germans - Simone Schmidl, 20, Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20.

The other two, James Gibson and his girlfriend Deborah Everist, both 19, were from Melbourne.

After an 18-month investigation, police raided a home at Eagle Vale on the outskirts of Sydney on May 22, 1994.

They seized evidence and charged 51-year-old roadworker Ivan Robert Marko Milat, one of 14 children of Yugoslav-Australian parents.

No eye witnesses to the killings were ever found.

The prosecution's premier witness was an English hitchhiker, Paul Onions, who testified that Milat drove him to the edge of the Belanglo forest in 1990 and held him at gunpoint before he escaped.

Mr Onions was one of more than 150 witnesses.

More than 400 exhibits included backpacks, camping gear and other items belonging to the victims which the prosecution alleged were found at the homes of Milat and some of his relatives.

Parts of the gun used to shoot Caroline Clarke were found walled up in Milat's house, prosecutors said.

Milat, under cross-examination, had no explanation as to why these items were found where they were.

The case played to packed houses in the wood-panelled St James court.

Media from around the world covered the four-month trial.

Queues formed daily for public seating.

Witnesses in the intimate courtroom, including relatives of the slain backpackers, had to walk past Milat, and give evidence from just a few metres away.

The Crown said it did not have to prove whether Milat acted alone and said the evidence strongly suggested that he may not have done so.

Milat's own barrister, Terry Martin, said there was a reasonable possibility that the killer was one, or both, of Milat's brothers, Richard, 40, or Walter, 44.

Mr Martin submitted to the jury that Ivan Milat had not committed the murders either alone or in company.

He also submitted that items including gun parts that had been linked to the murders had been planted at his client's home.

"Do you think a person capable of these most brutal crimes would give two hoots about planting gear on a brother?" he asked.

Evidence had been given by workmates that Richard Milat had once told them stabbing a woman was "like cutting a loaf of bread", Mr Martin said.

"Why would anyone say anything as hideous as that in a joking fashion?"

Richard Milat denied making the comment when he gave evidence in court.

"It is absolutely irrefutable that whoever has committed these ... offences must be in the Milat family or so very closely associated to it that it doesn't matter," Mr Martin told jurors.

"The question is do you have a reasonable doubt that it was Ivan Milat as opposed to someone else in the family?"

The jury had no doubt.

On July 27, 1996, Ivan Milat was found guilty of murdering the seven backpackers and kidnapping Mr Onions.

He is serving seven consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

On his first day in Maitland jail, Milat was beaten by another inmate.

A year later, he made an escape attempt alongside convicted drug dealer and former Sydney councillor George Savvas.

Savvas was found hanged in his cell the next day and Milat was transferred to the maximum-security prison at Goulburn.

Milat has reportedly swallowed razor blades and staples while in prison and in 2009 cut off his little finger with a plastic knife.

His killing spree is regarded among the most chilling in Australian history because it was so calculated, his method of execution was so gruesome and his happy-go-lucky victims were so young, led like lambs to the slaughter.

- AAP