Names like Ivan Milat, Robert Farmer, Kevin Bou-Antoun and the ‘Little Pebble’ cult leader have stunned with their high profile cases and convictions over the past decade and many have never spoken publicly about their horrific crimes.

But now through an astonishing series of letters written from their maximum security jail cells, News Corp Australia can today reveal some insight into their warped minds and crimes.

The trove of compelling letters and cards were written by some of the nation’s most notorious names as they poured their hearts out in handwritten scrawls to a NSW spiritual healer in the hopes of making a friend, organise contraband or just distract from their mundane life behind bars.

Some of the 100-plus letters are intimate and express sorrow over the most inconsequential daily burdens of jail life while others are disturbed with musing of dark dreams and railing against perceived injustices meted by police, the judiciary and the media as they plead their innocence and seek support for early release.

None express any remorse for their actions or victims, instead they offer sympathy for their sick mothers or the death of pets they have never seen as in the case of Milat, who claims to know what it’s like to lose someone or something close.

MORE: Ivan Milat’s bizarre, unseen letters

“I can understand your feelings over it (cat’s death) quite intense ... at such times the right words just won’t come to my mind, you have good memories left hopefully they will inspire you and lessen the hurt,” Milat wrote from the country’s most notorious high security prison Supermax in Goulburn.

Ruth Hodkinson, who has five cats, started writing to various prisoners more than 28 years ago by way of offering “spiritual healing” through letters about her daily life and pets and in return received reams of mail from up to 20 prisoners asking for visits, favours or solace through correspondence.

She was moved by some enough to drive several hours from her NSW home to visit them in jail. In two decades, she’s made 60 trips and has visited six different jails.

Other prisoners became deranged and threatening, impelling her to break off contact.

Iranian-born Arash Farzad, aka Arthur Fairwell, was 39 in 2006 when he was sentenced to six years for drugging a woman he met through a chatline so he could rape her 13-year-old daughter as he thought he was rock star turned reality TV star Ozzy Osbourne.

In his letters he asks for help to find a girl in his photo so they could be together and place an ad in a online chatline for help to prove he was innocent.

Khater Bou-Antoun was sentenced to 20 years in 2006 for the 2003 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in North Bondi that made national headlines when from behind bars he plotted with his Lebanese-born father to hire a hitman to kill the girl to stop her from testifying at trial. The then 21-year-old even gave instructions, to the undercover police officer posing as a hitman, she was to be raped first then shot in the stomach so she could feel the pain then in the eye and forehead.

For seven years he wrote to Ms Hodkinson claiming to be innocent and showed empathy when she mentioned she was once assaulted.

“I am so sorry about your gruesome attack,” he wrote in 2010. “I hope you don’t live with this for the remainder of your life and I hope that these animals will be brought to justice and they will spend their life dwelling in severe pain and constant shame. They are not human. If they ever entered the gates of this place their lives will be hung on a thread.”

Over the years he details how he yearns to find a “sexy chick” to know and even asked his sister on a visit to “pick up” a girl for him who happened to be in the visitors section.

Farmer, who in 2008 was sentenced to 24.5 years in jail for the brutal bashing and attempted murder and setting on fire of TAFE student Lauren Huxley, also writes about his innocence and David Weightman jailed for 33 years for murdering his parents over a motorbike, apparently is still obsessing about riding free on a motorbike, as he recites 18th century poetry.

IVAN MILAT

Sentenced to life in 1996 for murdering seven young backpackers and dumping their bodies in the Belanglo Forest, the 72-year-old continues to insist he was unfairly convicted.

From condemning profits made from ghost tours where he slew his victims in Belanglo State Forest to offering sympathy to a dead cat, serial killer Ivan Milat provides an intriguing insight to his thinking through more than four years of regular lengthy letter writing.

When Ruth Hodginson first offered herself up as a pen pal to the notorious Backpacker Killer she never imagined he would reply let alone remain in constant contact with dozens of letters — many signed by “Ivan Innocence from my sunless cement cave” — revealing his deepest and at times disturbed thoughts.

He offered his thoughts on climate change and its effect on soaring power prices and general cost of living, love life advice on how men think, countering depression, what he sees as the “meandering mediocrity” of current politics, musing on who may have killed others in Belanglo and even finds time to have a go at the cast of the ‘60s sitcom Brady Bunch, for the cast’s real life sexual preferences.

He also detailed enthusiastically how years ago he grew flowers in the prison yard, meticulously using tweezers to tray-grow seeds for replanting, and why he gave up the hobby after watching a TV documentary and prison officials describing him “worst of the worst violent killer”.

But consistent throughout his musing is his claim to have been framed by the courts and police, notably decorated detective Clive Small, for the murder of seven backpackers between 1989 and 1993 and the futility for Australia to try and pin more deaths and missing persons on him.

He also suggests in his letters, the pages of script stapled together using small Batlow apples stickers, he may again “dismember” himself to get the attention of the Corrections Minister David Elliott to review the perceived injustices of his case.

On the proposed ghost tours of Belanglo, cancelled in July 2015 due to a backlash, Milat said the enterprises slogan of extreme terror no doubt had excited many.

“A lot of people cash in on me, newspaper, TV programs, Book etc all absolute rubbish and nothing said,” he wrote in one letter in August 2015.

“So I am not sure what was wrong with this tour besides ripping off the tourists. It never upset me but it sure upset a lot of people.”

On the death of Ruth Hodkinson’s cat Milat said in a letter dated January 2016 he felt “terribly sad”, and adding “the passing of a family pet is the same sad feeling as if it was one of the family”.

He heads the letter: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow Learn as if you were to live forever,” quoting Gandhi by way of his own personal mantra.

In another he declares: “Politics came into my confinement since day one of my conviction. I have been in segregation-solitary confinement and it’s based solely on prison management catering to the media. Whilst I am in here it permits the management to declare me in any way they wish as the perception is that only the worst people are confined to this place.”

He threatens to “dismember some parts of myself” to post to the justice minister to get someone to look at his plight behind bars and his claim to have been framed by now retired detective Clive Small who he condemns in numerous letters for taking personal credit for capturing him.

“Clive Small, yes it may appear that I get concerned over him, not really, I simply like to rubbish the tragic … I would probably say that he (Clive Small) has some self-aggrandisement syndrome, he claiming personal credit for capturing the serial killer and hopes to cash in by having a book ghost written about his own imaginary power of detection….”

A bemused Mr Small said yesterday he often gets references in letters written by Milat who he said could not accept he was caught nor convicted for being a cold blooded killer. He said he even admitted to his mother being a murderer before she died.

“None of the references are very complimentary,” he said with a laugh.

“He still doesn’t accept or admit his guilt, claims he is innocent and framed and carries on with this stuff all the time. I guess being criticised by him all the time in a sense, I accept as praise.”

KHATER BOU-ANTOUN

Sentenced to 20 years in 2006 for the 2003 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in North Bondi then plotted from behind bars with his Lebanese-born father to hire a hitman (posed by an undercover policeman) to rape, torture and kill the victim to stop her from testifying at trial.

In one of his earliest letters in 2010, “Kevin” as he likes to call himself shows sympathy for the letter writer about an assault she suffered.

“I am so sorry about your gruesome attack. I hope you don’t live with this for the remainder of your life and I hope that these animals will be brought to justice and they will spend their life dwelling in severe pain and constant shame. They are not human. If they ever entered the gates of this place their lives will be hung on a thread.”

He claims there was no such thing as healing and life was a struggle.

But 2016, his hand writing has noticeably changed as has his tone, his letters expressing anger at his continued incarceration and his desire for a girlfriend as he asks his sister to “pick up for me” a “sexy chick” he saw in the prison visitors’ section. Appeals to know her name, age and nationality; his sister does not get the detail.

He writes: “I remain single and strongly desire a sexy girlfriend. The minute I was born life’s been a mystery.”

In a later letter he states he had met another woman and now wanted to lose 15kgs to be at 65kgs but by March 2017 his parole is rejected.

“Frankly, I remain being poisoned in my vegetarian meal. I have a mental illness because I exhibit nil symptoms according to the doctor and I never have been sick. Nevertheless I stated stressed to the doctor that no one is stupid enough to cause me harm because the authorities will probe everyone. There’s been a continuation of placebo medicine dispensed upon me … there's been discrepancies to me going to the toilet as well as I consume abundant food but there are plenty of times I don’t excrete for days, weeks, months, years and when I do excrete finally it is always once a day and it is insignificant.”

“It’s been extremely difficult to shield myself from all this because the psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses who have been responsible for me have been interpreting my symptoms as a insane and schizophrenic person or patient.”

WILLIAM KAMM

(aka The Little Pebble and William Costellia) was founder and leader of a religious cult group Order of St Charbel when in 2005 the German-born 55-year-old was sentenced to 10 years for ordering two 15-year-olds to have sex with him on god’s orders to repopulate the Earth ahead of Judgement Day; dozens of other females were also made his “queens” and he is believed to have fathered 20 children.

In December 2011, he encourages his letter writer to send him a photo of herself and reveal her intimate thoughts to him and he will not judge her and that Jesus had offered compensation to him for wrongful conviction.

“Prison has crushed my spirit and my body but I believe when I am free I will be renewed,” he writes.

He bemoans how the media had branded him a cult leader and doomsday prophet but all he had said was Jesus was coming and the world as we know it was going to end. Then it happened in his jail cell.

On New Year’s Eve in 2011 at 3pm, Kamm writes about how his guardian angel had advised Jesus was coming to visit him in his jail cell to pass on an important message moments before a white cross and seven angels with scrolls and another seven with trumpets turned up.

“Jesus glided into my cell and greeted me with His Blessing and a kiss on my forehead,” he wrote as he was told very soon he would be made “Vicar of my House upon Earth”.

He details in his letters how the end of time was close because of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) probing the origins of the universe and causing a great earthquake.

Sydney would be hit hardest as well as the rest of the Eastern seaboard but Little Pebble would be elevated because he had already suffered greatly from the judicial system. He suggested she take sanctuary with his self-sufficient community in Nowra which still numbered 31 adults, 15 children, three bishops, eight nuns and three priests.

“I am a Catholic Seer Mystic — one who has visions and messages from Jesus and Mary for the world — since I was 17 years old. There are over 1000 seers in the world preparing mankind for the Great Warning God will send the world possibly mid next year and to prepare mankind for the coming of the antichrist and the second coming of Jesus.”

He suggested she start stockpiling canned and dried food, water and blessed wax candles and look for signs of “The Warning”.

“When the pope flees Rome through a major disaster that will hit Rome the warning will be near,” he wrote.

By July 2012 the end was still coming but he had other concerns too.

“I have pain in my groin, possibly because I have not had a woman for a long time as I had a strong sexual life with my wife before I went to prison,” he details.

In further letters be bemoans the attorney-general was not looking at his conviction as he had been asked, warns that the second coming was still coming and he was to be free by April 2013. But he doesn’t get released then and has to wait until the following November.

ARASH FARZAD

(aka Arthur Fairwell and Claws Mayhem) was 39 when he was jailed in September 2006 for six offences related to the drugging of a 50-year-old woman he met on a chatline so he could sexually assault her 13-year-old daughter in their south west Sydney home. Three years earlier he had been acquitted by a jury of raping a pregnant teenager he met on a chatline.

Begins writing in 2008 talking about the “evil, sick, screwed up world” everyone was living in.

“Everyone’s using everyone for something (OK almost everyone because I’m not included), lies deceit, fakeness … definitely seems this planet is not for honest, decent, truthful, moral, understanding, kind-hearted people etc how sad. It definitely seems like the only way to be successful in this life is to be dishonest, evil, with no conscience etc ie politicians, business people, corporate sector, pigs, judges, prosecution, solicitors, barristers, doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, a woman who says she’s been raped when she hasn’t (80 per cent of females who say they’ve been raped haven’t been raped), sports which are rigged too because its business, etc etc.”

By 2009 the theme of the letters remain the same with courts and other colluding against him.

“That’s why there’s a Judgement Day and I get compensated, I refuse to lose, I’m only a winner and will win, there’s no other option, losing is not an option,” he writes.

He adds how real men don’t get turned on by strippers and prostitutes or have sex with women but rather make love to them.

By January 2009 he takes pity on a cat and talks about how good he was with his cat Blackie.

“Why is one of your cats so fat, like you wrote on the back of the envelope? That’s called animal cruelty, I don’t like cruelty to animals. I really should report you but Im not a dog. Im really depressed over that cat, he’ll obviously live a very short life. You mean person.”

Then asks for Ms Hodkinson to put ad in chatsites that reads: “Goulburn Jail inmate with evidence of being a victim of corruption, conspiracy, collusion by judges, prosecutions, jail nurses, jail psychiatrists, psychologists, or who work for jail etc seeks philanthropic humanitarian/ civil libertarian, pious servant of God for assistance to prove his innocence please contact Arthur Fairwell (address provided)…”

He finishes by detailing a dream he had about a girl he saw only in a photo at Junee prison and how someone needed to find her to confirm she had had a romantic dream about him and how they were meant to be together.

DAVE WEIGHTMAN

Jailed for 33 years in 2012 after he confessed in 2004 to four years earlier drugging and strangling his parents at their Glen Alpine home because as the sole beneficiary in their will he could purchase an expensive high-performance motorbike. Their bodies were put in a car and pushed over a cliff in what for years was believed to have been a car accident.

In his 2016 letters Weightman reveals how he had found God and writes “Jesus is Lord” on the backs of his envelopes.

“I’m in for double murder, they were my parents. I have no family. I hope you don’t think Im a psycho, off my head or mental or hate me. I confessed, and turn’d myself in after a few years, that’s why I got a discount and it was all my co-es (co-accused) idea, I hate him …. I was 20 and on a lot of drugs but that’s a different story. I really like reading 18th century romantic poetry. I really like Lord Byron — mad, bad and dangerous to know, that was him and that’s me.”

Tries his own poetry: “Hello my darling, waters wet, sky is blue, doing jail time thinking of you. I would love to one day go on a nice big long bike ride with my future wife ….”

He writes countless notes and letters and sends prison photos of himself. When Ms Hodkinson visits him in jail, he impresses her by his ability to do a push-up on two fingers before he asks her to marry him. In anticipation of their magical big day, he writes poems about their future together.

“I lie in an early bed, thinking late thoughts, waiting for the black to replace my blue. Give me the first taste. Let it begin heaven cannot wait forever. Darling just start the chase — I’ll let you win but you must make endeavour. Oh your love give me a heart contusion. Adagio breezes fill my skin with sudden red. Your hungry flirt borders intrusion, Im building memories on things we have not said. Full is not heavy as empty, not nearly my love, not nearly my love, not nearly.”

He tells her he is in love with her and motorbikes.

“What I would wish for in my life is a motorcycle to ride, Godlyness (sic) and contentment and a beautiful sexy wife to love over and over….”

RUTH’S STORY

Ruth Hodkinson has been corresponding with Australia’s most dangerous criminals for 28 years.

In a bid to provide “spiritual comfort” to prisoners, she lends her ear to murderers, serial rapists, violent assailants — men who have committed crimes so heinous their papers are marked “never to be released”.

Names like Ivan Milat, Robert Farmer, Kevin Bou-Antoun and the ‘Little Pebble’ cult leader have stunned with their high profile cases and convictions over the past decade and many have never spoken publicly about their horrific crimes.

Since her first visit to a jail in 1989, her contact details have been passed from prisoner to prisoner. Then in September 2005, she took out an ad in the Wagga Daily Advertiser, after finding herself at a loss for how to fill her days when she was rejected from employment at her local op shop.
“Inmate support. Spiritual comfort, kindness and understanding given to inmates from warm and caring lady (P.O. Box supplied),” it read.

The 41-year-old has made close to 60 visits at six different jails, travelling for hours from her home on public transport at her own expense.

In the two days this paper spent in Ms Hodkinson’s presence, her mobile phone rang twice with collects calls from the inside.

“I think my warm and caring nature can benefit their existence,” she said. “I just want to try and ensure they have the same health and wellbeing as the rest of us, everyone deserves to feel safe and supported.”

A former burlesque dancer, Ms Hodkinson volunteers at her local pool, teaching hydotherapy to breast cancer survivors but keeps mostly to herself.
Her home is filled with piles of letters, a stack from serial killer Ivan Milat sits on her kitchen bench, where she makes her tea and toast in the mornings, another rests on the arm of her couch. Occasionally one of her five cats leaps across the room, threatening to scatter a pile across the floor.

“I want to shed light on the plight of the prisoner and the daily challenges they face. I think a lot of them would be traumatised and unable to recover,” she said.