Real Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Book III

Backpack Murders: Ivan Milat

The backpacker murders were aspate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales,Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. Thebodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discoveredpartially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi)south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of thevictims were foreign backpackers (three German, two British) and twowere Australian travelers from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of themurders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive lifesentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on27 October 2019, never having confessed to the murders of which hewas convicted.

Murders

Background

Up until the mid-1990s, hitchhiking inAustralia was viewed as an adventurous and inexpensive, if notcompletely safe, means of travel. Encouraged in the 1980s bysuccessful tourism campaigns such as Shrimp on the barbie andarticles in travel publications such as Lonely Planet, backpackers onlimited budgets sought ways to travel cheaply, such as purchasingused cars or using buses. However, unsolved Australianmissing-person cases such as that of Trudie Adams (1978), Tony Jones(1982), Naoko Onda (1987) and Anna Rosa Liva (1991) led to those whostill hitchhiked to begin to travel in pairs for safety.

By the time of the first Belanglo StateForest discoveries, several other backpackers had also disappeared.One case involved a young Victorian couple from Frankston, DeborahEverist (19) and James Gibson (19), who had been missing sinceleaving Sydney for ConFest, near Albury, on 30 December 1989. Another related to Simone Schmidl (21), from Germany, who had beenmissing since leaving Sydney for Melbourne on 20 January 1991. Similarly, a German couple, Gabor Neugebauer (21) and Anja Habschied(20), had disappeared after leaving a Kings Cross hostel for Milduraon 26 December 1991. Another involved missing British backpackersCaroline Clarke (21) and Joanne Walters (22), who were last seen inKings Cross on 18 April 1992.

First and second victims

On 19 September 1992, two runnersdiscovered a concealed corpse while orienteering in Belanglo. Thefollowing morning, police discovered a second body 30 meters (98 ft)from the first. Police quickly confirmed, via dental records, thatthe bodies were those of Clarke and Walters. Walters had beenstabbed 14 times; four times in the chest, once in the neck, and ninetimes in the back which would have paralyzed her. Clarke had beenshot 10 times in the head at the burial site, and police believe shehad been used as target practice. After a thorough search of theforest, investigators ruled out the possibility of furtherdiscoveries within Belanglo State Forest.

Third and fourth victims

In October 1993, a local man searchingfor firewood discovered bones in a particularly remote section of theforest. He returned with police to the scene where two bodies werequickly discovered and later identified as Gibson and Everist.Gibson's skeleton, found in a foetal position, showed eight stabwounds. A large knife had cut through his upper spine causingparalysis, and stab wounds to his back and chest would have puncturedhis heart and lungs. Everist had been savagely beaten; her skull wasfractured in two places, her jaw was broken and there were knifemarks on her forehead. She had been stabbed once in the back. Thepresence of Gibson's body in Belanglo puzzled investigators as hiscamera had previously been discovered on 31 December 1989, and hisbackpack later on 13 March 1990, by the side of the road at GalstonGorge, in the northern Sydney suburbs, over 120 kilometers (75 mi) tothe north.