NSW detectives tried eight times to get Ivan Milat to confess to on his deathbed
Detectives made eight separate attempts to persuade Ivan Milat to make a deathbed confession to murders he was convicted or accused of but not even videos of grieving relatives or pictures of victims prompted any show of remorse.
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A dying Ivan Milat was shown photos of his victims and played videos of interviews with grieving relatives as they tried to coax a deathbed confession from the serial killer.
However Milat showed no empathy and told two female NSW detectives interviewing him that he was totally innocent, a senior NSW police investigator said.
The pair spent hours on eight occasions with Milat, who would only interact with female cops and not respond to any questions from male police officers trying to interview him.
“He was cold hearted to the end. Even when the videos were shown there was no emotion, no empathy, just nothing,’’ the officer said.
NSW Homicide detectives made numerous attempts to get dying serial killer Ivan Milat to confess to the murders of the seven backpackers he was convicted of killing, as well as a number of others they believed he had carried out.
Police visited Milat a final time last week when it was apparent the 74-year old was close to death to give him one last chance to admit to his crimes.
“A number of different approaches were made and different people used to try and get him to make admissions,’’ a senior police source said. “He talked about some things, but not any confessions,’’ he said.
Homicide detectives first attempted to engage Milat in a confession soon after he was told he had terminal cancer.
Over the next few months they used a variety of strategies in consultation with their own profilers to devise tactics to get him to talk. Police will not elaborate on what the strategies were.
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“Good on them for trying,’’ said criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Monro.
“The deathbed confession is more of a myth than a fact but the police had a duty to the families of the victims to try,’’ he said.
“Although with Milat, it was all about having power over everyone else and not telling authorities also gave him power.’’
Dr Watson-Monro said there was always a slim chance he would talk to police.
“Who knows — he may have confessed to a whole lot more murders in a way to boost his ego and say ‘look how many I did’ and you never knew,’’ he said.
“They had to try and it looks like they tried hard. There will be a lot of parents out there who now probably think ‘Milat killed my child’ and now they have no hope of resolution.’’
MILAT’S LAST DAYS
A heavily medicated Ivan Milat was dosed up on painkillers and declaring his innocence in one of his final conversations with his family in his jail cell only two days ago.
The serial killer died alone in cell 32 in the medical acute unit of Long Bay Hospital and was found by prison staff who were doing routine rounds just after 4am Sunday.
Milat’s nephew Alistair Shipsey visited the 74-year-old two days ago and told The Daily Telegraph there was no deathbed confession when he saw his uncle heavily dosed on morphine.
“They had him on morphine, you could tell he was dosed up, but he was still able to talk about everything clearly and never stopped … I thought he only had a very short time to live when I saw him … he wasn't well at all,” Mr Shipsey said.
Milat, who murdered seven young backpackers south of Sydney in the early 1990s before being jailed in 1994, had been undergoing chemotherapy since being diagnosed with cancer in May.
He murdered three German, two British, and two Australian backpackers after giving them rides while they were hitchhiking.
But some family members insist he is innocent and died as a framed man.
Ivan’s brother, Bill, told The Daily Telegraph he was upset the family had not been notified of his death until hours later.
“We weren’t notified until ten to seven, nobody knew what time he was going to die, but at least I thought they would have let us know before the media,” he said.
“It’s just crap, it’s just ridiculous.
“They keep saying now the family will be relieved for their victims, well I feel sorry for their families that they’ve lost their loved ones, but the fact is none of us had anything to do with it.”
Mr Shipsey — who still insists Ivan was framed — took aim at former detective and assistant commissioner Clive Small, who led the team that captured Milat and appeared in media on Sunday morning.
“I’m glad that he is out of pain for something he didn’t do, he’d been victimised with lies and with no proof — even the judge said in his summing up that we have no proof Ivan murdered anybody,” Mr Shipsey said.
“(Ivan and I) talked about different things in the case, we always discussed things in the case, about how he was framed and why, that’s what we talked about in our letters and when we saw each other — he was able to explain every single thing.
“I know he's innocent, I know he’s been framed — Clive Small cannot produce one thread of evidence,” Mr Shipsey said.
“He just uses his favourite line that Ivan was in the area — he’s got no proof of that.
“(Caroline) Clark had two sperm samples in her and Joanne Walters had hair and skin on her nails and none of the DNA matched Ivan.
“My question to Clive Small is that I challenge him to produce one thread of evidence that Ivan murdered anybody.”
Mr Shipsey said he felt annoyed about the way his uncle had been portrayed.
“It really annoys me to see the lies that they keep saying, that he was this murderer when there’s no proof," he said.
“Clive Small is doing this to protect the system. Can you imagine if this came undone? The Olympics were coming up, the Olympic Board said how do we know this is a safe place? All they thought about was millions of dollars.”
Originally published as NSW detectives tried eight times to get Ivan Milat to confess to on his deathbed