Ivan Milat

In 1996, road worker Ivan Robert Marko Milat was convicted of murdering seven tourists between 1989 and 1992 in the Australian State of New South Wales. Known as the “Backpacker Murders,” the torture and execution-style killing of the young hitchhikers is still considered Australia's largest homicide investigation.

Born in 1944 to Croatian immigrant, Steven, and his much younger wife, Margaret, Ivan was the fourth of 14 children raised on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, in working-class Liverpool. Ivan mirrored his father's strong work ethic and obsession for order, starting his working life as a heavy manual laborer at the age of 15. All the Milat boys were infamous for their love of guns, knives, and criminal exploits. Ivan, like his brothers, began his ongoing battle with the law at age 17, including charges of breaking and entering, stealing, car theft, and robbery.

In 1971, Ivan was charged with raping one of two female hitchhikers he picked up near the area from which backpackers would start disappearing 20 years later. After jumping bail and leaving the country, he was rearrested in 1974 and found not guilty when one of the women changed her story. In September 1992, the first of the seven murdered backpackers were discovered in Belanglo State Forest, situated off the Hume Highway, 150 kilometers southwest of Sydney. They were British tourists Joanne Walters, age 22, and her friend Caroline Clarke, age 21. In October 1993, the bodies of 19-year-old Australian tourists Deborah Everist and James Gibson were found close by. Special Task Force Air, under the command of Superintendent Clive Small, was established at this time to begin the meticulous search for more bodies and the killer(s).

In November 1993, the remains of German backpacker Simone Schmidl, age 21, were found. Three days later, the bodies of German tourists Anja Habschied, age 20, and Gabor Neugebauer, age 21, were discovered. All the victims were bound and stabbed multiple times, some suffering violent blows to the spine that probably resulted in paralysis before death. Some victims suffered sexual assault, strangulation, and multiple shots to the head. Anja Habschied was decapitated with what forensic experts believed to be a sword or machete while still alive, kneeling, her head bowed. Her head was never recovered.

Milat was initially arrested for the armed robbery of Paul Onions, a British hitchhiker who identified Ivan as the man who attacked him in January 1990 while he was traveling in Australia. Police were able to further charge Ivan with the seven murders following the discovery of a plethora of evidence at his home and other Milat family dwellings. Sentenced to jail for the term of his natural life, experts still presume that Milat did not act entirely alone. Other cases of missing persons who disappeared under similar circumstances are still being investigated.