Ivan Milat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ivan Milat | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name: | Ivan Robert Marko Milat |
| Born: | December 27, 1944 Guildford, New South Wales |
| Penalty: | Life Imprisonment |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | seven confirmed |
| Span of killings: | 1989 through 1994 |
| Country: | Australia |
| State(s): | New South Wales |
| Date apprehended: | May 22, 1994 |
Ivan Robert Marko Milat (born December 27, 1944 in Guildford, New South Wales) is an Australian serial killer, convicted of the murder of seven local and international hitchhikers during the 1980s and 1990s. His crimes became known in Australia as the Backpacker murders. Milat is currently serving seven life sentences in Goulburn Supermax Correctional Prison in New South Wales. To this day, he still proclaims his innocence to all of the charges against him.
Ivan Milat's father was born in Croatia and his mother was Australian of English origins [1]
Milat's sister-in-law, Lisa Milat, ran for the Australian Senate in the 2007 Australian federal election.
Contents |
[edit] Backpacker murders
 |
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.(March 2008) |
In September 1992 two orienteers came across the bodies of British tourists Joanne Walters and Caroline Clarke while running in the Belanglo State Forest, south-west of Sydney.
In October 1993, the bodies of James Gibson and Deborah Everist, both 19, were discovered in the same vicinity. They had disappeared in 1989 while hitchhiking. With the discovery of the second set of bodies it became apparent that a serial killer was responsible for the four murders.
On November 1 the same year, a fifth body was found, identified through dental records as Simone Schmidl, a 20-year-old German woman who had vanished in January, 1991.
More than 300 police officers conducted a search of the area on November 4, and found two more skeletons, identified as the remains of 21-year-old Gabor Kurt Neugebauer and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Anja Susanne Habschied, both German tourists who had vanished two years previously. Neugebauer had been shot repeatedly. Habschied had been decapitated.
Forensic examinations of evidence gathered at the scene revealed cartridges from a .22 Ruger rifle near Clarke's body[citation needed]. These were tested against cartridges that had been taken from a farmhouse outside Sydney. A possible eighth victim was provisionally added to the list in November. An examination of unsolved murders turned up the name of Diane Pennacchio, a 29-year-old mother whose body had been found in bushland in 1991. She had been stabbed to death and the body had been placed face down with hands placed behind her back near a fallen tree, as had those of the previous victims. A triangular canopy of sticks had been built over the bodies and covered with ferns.
In February 1994 there was a breakthrough in the investigation. A 20-year-old woman told police that while hitchiking in January 1990 in New South Wales she was offered a lift, which she had accepted. While in the vehicle the driver had behaved strangely, and she got out of the vehicle and ran into the Belangalo State Forest. As she ran, the driver fired shots at her, but missed.[citation needed]
Further information came from a second witness, British tourist Paul Onions, who told police that on 25 January 1990 he accepted a lift from a driver in the same area. The driver told him that he needed to stop the vehicle to get music cassette tapes out the rear of the car. However Onions was suspicious as there were already tapes inside the vehicle. When the driver produced a gun from the glove compartment, Paul Onions ran away, and the driver fired shots at him. A passing driver rescued Paul Onions from the scene. Much later, after police attention was once again drawn to the case following a public appeal, Onions was able to identify the driver from police photographs and identify the vehicle.
[edit] Arrest
In May 1994 police carried out dawn raids on seven properties, taking three men into custody. One of these men was 49-year-old Ivan Milat, who was charged with armed robbery and discharging a firearm; he was later to be charged with the murders. Another was Milat's brother Walter. During the raids police found parts of a .22 calibre rifle that matched the type used in the backpacker murders, along with personal items from several of the victims.
Ivan Milat appeared in court for the initial robbery and weapon charges on May 23. He did not enter a plea. On May 30, following continued police investigations, Milat was also charged with the murders of seven backpackers. At the beginning of February 1995 Milat was remanded in custody until June that same year. In March 1996 the trial finally opened and, in July, he received seven life sentences, one for each of his victims.
[edit] Appeals
Ivan Milat appealed against his convictions on the basis that the quality of legal representation he had received was too poor, and therefore constituted a breach of his common law right to legal representation, established in the landmark case of Dietrich v The Queen. However, Gleeson CJ, Kirby P and Mahoney JA of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal held that the right to legal representation did not depend on any level or quality of representation, unless the quality of representation were so low that the accused were no better off with it. The Court found that this was not the case, and therefore dismissed the appeal.
In 2004, Milat had an application to the High Court heard by Justice McHugh. The orders sought were that Milat be allowed to either attend to make oral submissions in an impending appeal for special leave to the court and that, alternatively, he be allowed to appear via video link. The application was dismissed on the grounds that the issues raised could be adequately addressed by written submission.
The grounds of his impending appeal were that the trial judge had erred by allowing the Crown to put a case to the jury unsupported by its own witnesses and had also put forward alternative cases to the jury, one of which had not been argued by the Crown. McHugh J [1]indicated that this appeal may be defeated because it has been brought out of time.
[edit] Further controversies
In June 2006 Milat was embroiled in controversy when it was found that he had a television and toaster in his prison cell. Martha Jabour, leader of a group calling itself the Homicide Victim's Support Group, described the privileges as "an insult to the families of his victims". The privileges were quickly withdrawn after a media campaign stirred up the NSW Parliament and Department Of Corrective Services. [2] After his privileges were withdrawn, he again threatened suicide, and was moved to a "safe cell" and placed under 24-hour video surveillance.[3] [4] However, the NSW authorities changed their minds and returned the television and toaster to Milat. This followed from a review carried out on the orders of NSW premier Morris Iemma. This has once again caused consternation among the families of some of Milat's victims. "He didn't give any privileges to any of our children," said Ian Clarke, the father of English backpacker Caroline Clarke who was murdered by Milat. [5]
[edit] Other possible murders
In May 2005, Boris Milat (one of Ivan's older brothers) said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Australian Story "wherever Ivan has worked, people have disappeared". He also said when asked how many people he thinks Ivan killed, "about 28..."
At present there are at least ten unsolved murder cases where Milat is a suspect.[citation needed] If ten are proved, the 17 murders would make him the second worst murderer in Australian history behind Martin Bryant, who shot 35 people dead at Port Arthur in 1996. However, Milat will not confess to the murders he has been convicted of, let alone any unsolved murders.
[edit] Hunger Strike
In September 2007, Milat announced that he was undertaking a hunger strike unless he be released from jail. The convicted murderer of 7 backpackers between the 80's and 90's has written to state Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, blaming him for his plight at the Supermax facility inside Goulburn jail. He stated, "it's your wish that I just sit and rot here." VCAL (Victims of Crime Assistance League) spokesman Howard Brown said Milat's only departure from prison will be in a pine box. Brown also stated, "We have an exit strategy for him. It's called White Lady Funerals, and that's what should happen to him." [6]
[edit] On film
- The 2005 film Wolf Creek was inspired by "the backpack killer". [7]
[edit] On television
- Nine Network's Comedy Inc sketch show continually run gags about the Ivan Milat character and his backpacking murders.
[edit] References
- Mark Whittaker and Les Kennedy (1998) Sins Of The Brother
- Australian Story: Into the Forest Part 1
- Australian Story: Into the Forest Part 2
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
