Ivan Milat laughs as he leaves the Supreme Court after representing himself in his appeal against conviction in July last year of the murders of seven backpackers. Photo / Getty Images
Ivan Milat laughs as he leaves the Supreme Court after representing himself in his appeal against conviction in July last year of the murders of seven backpackers. Photo / Getty Images
Ivan Milat confessed his crimes to his mother, and at least one other family member was aware he was a killer — the little sister with whom he had a close personal relationship, it has been revealed.
As the serial killer's cancer has reportedly temporarily retreated, buying him more time, the race to get Milat to confess to the Belanglo backpacker murders and his other crimes continues.
Milat 74, was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer in May and, after hospital treatment, is incarcerated at Long Bay where detectives have visited him to extract a confession, without success.
Ivan Milat, the serial murderer of seven backpackers killed and dumped in Belanglo State Forest, NSW. Photo / Getty Images
But the man who put Milat behind bars says Ivan's mother, Margaret, received her son's confession during a visit to Supermax prison just before her death.
Clive Small, author of Milat, Inside Australia's Biggest Manhunt, says Ivan's youngest brother George extracted the information from their mother Margaret.
Margaret had publicly always proclaimed Ivan's innocence. He was her favourite son among her 13 children that included nine boys, three girls and a daughter named Margaret killed in a car crash.
Margaret Milat with another son, David. Photo / News Corp
In 1996, days before Ivan's guilty verdict in the Belanglo murders, she insisted he was innocent along with his brothers who Ivan had blamed for his defence case.
Margaret said: "They were living here when those murders were meant to happen. I did all their washing, there was no blood. They're good boys.''
Margaret had always visited her son — known as "Mac" in the Milat family — in prison, from the early days when he was doing time in minimum security for robbery.
But the last time Margaret visited Ivan he had moved into the just opened High Risk Management Unit nicknamed Supermax in September 2001.
Ivan Milat, the serial murderer of seven backpackers killed and dumped in Belanglo State Forest, NSW. Photo / Getty Images
Serving seven life sentences for Australia's most infamous serial killings, 56-year-old Ivan's persistent attempts to escape had earned him a cell in the new "escape proof" prison.
By then, Ivan's brutal slayings and his reputation in prison as a "cold, callous psychopath … with no respect for human life" had relegated the Milat name to the annals of infamy.
Clive Small was the commanding officer of Task Force Air that charged Ivan after the bodies of seven backpackers Joanne Walters, Caroline Clarke, Deborah Everist, James Gibson, Gabor Neugebauer, Anja Habschied and Simone Schmidl were found at Belanglo.
After Margaret returned from visiting Ivan, Small says she had lunch with her youngest child who noticed something was up.
George had "looked at her" and said, "Mum, did he tell you something you didn't want to hear?"
Ivan Milat, centre in blue shirt, with siblings from left: Michael, William, Shirley, Mary and Alex holding baby Walter. Photo / Supplied
George said Margaret replied: "He admitted he was guilty."
Margaret died around October, 10, 2001, aged 81.
Ivan's younger sister Shirley, with whom family members acknowledged he had a close, probably sexual relationship, also maintained his innocence and also likely knew.
Shirley and Ivan were sharing a house in Eagle Vale in southwestern Sydney when he was arrested in February, 1994.
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.
George later said: "Shirley was in on it. I can't really say Shirley did (commit murders), all I can do is say she was involved", Small's books says.
Mother Margaret, second left, with some of Ivan's brothers and sisters, considered Ivan her favourite, even after he confessed his guilt before she died in 2001. Photo / Supplied
There was "incest in the family … and Ivan had been having sex with Shirley since the 1950s when she was in her twenties".
Another Milat brother, Richard, had said about Shirley and Ivan: "What's the difference, one or the other, if you're doing it with your sister or your mate up the road?"
After Ivan's arrest, Shirley removed an unlicensed .45 calibre pistol hidden in a waterproof bucket in the backyard and gave it to her brother Walter and told him to "get rid of it".
