Early Milat rape victim Margaret Patterson dies after stroke, still battling mental health issues

EXCLUSIVE: One of Ivan Milat’s earliest rape victims has quietly passed away, just months out from having the grim satisfaction of witnessing the serial killer himself die from terminal cancer.

• Backpacker serial killer questioned by police at Long Bay jail
• Ivan Milat has terminal oesophagus cancer

EXCLUSIVE: One of Ivan Milat’s earliest rape victims has quietly passed away, just months out from having the grim satisfaction of witnessing the serial killer himself die from terminal cancer.

The reclusive woman, Margaret Patterson, 66, who was living on her own in the Blue Mountains, recently had a stroke and was living in a nearby nursing home when she died in August last year.

Milat victim Margaret Patterson two decades ago.

As an 18-year-old, she had been hitchhiking near the Hume Highway at Liverpool with a friend in 1971 and narrowly escaped with her life after being picked up and raped by the infamous killer, who went to trial over it but ended up being acquitted.

After Milat finally went to jail for killing seven backpackers in 1996, Ms Patterson spoke about her nightmare ordeal that night, recalling “his eyes were like wolves” when he abducted her and her 18-year-old friend “Greta”.

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Notorious Sydney lawyer John Marsden, who got Milat acquitted at the 1974 trial, later admitted he was not proud of his tactics smearing the women as alleged lesbians and bringing up their psychiatric history during that trial.

Ms Patterson’s Springwood neighbours told the Daily Telegraph that she was a troubled soul who still fought inner demons during the time they knew her, as she struggled with mental illness and depression.

“She told us how she’d escaped Milat and how lucky she was, but she was a very troubled,” one of her neighbours said. “When she was on her medication she was all right, but didn’t get married or have children, she was very much on her own. It’s too late for her now to get any satisfaction over the end of him.”

Imprisoned Ivan Milat leaving Prince of Wales Hospital after treatment for terminal cancer. He was returned to Long Bay jail.

Ms Patterson’s chilling encounter with Milat began on the night of 9 April, 1971, when she and Greta, a telephonist living at Elizabeth Bay, decided to hitch-hike to Melbourne, to save money. They had met four months before at a psychiatric ward at Cumberland Hospital.

They caught a 9pm train to Liverpool, then started walking towards the Hume Highway when Milat pulled up in a V8 Falcon and offered to take them to Canberra.

Decades later, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, several more of Milat’s victims would also be picked up from that area.

Court files show Greta thought Milat appeared “clean and respectable” but near Goulburn he pulled onto a dirt road and stopped the car near a secluded spot.

In her later years, Patterson lived a quiet life in the Blue Mountains. Picture: The Australian

He threatened both girls with a sheath knife and a second knife with a curved blade, and tied them up using two pink cords, saying he would cut their throats if they did not have sex with him.

“I told him that we both had been in psychiatric hospitals for depression and that his attitude was not helping us at all,” Greta said in her statement to police.

Milat ignored that, saying he would murder them both if one of them did not have sex with him. Ms Patterson agreed to have sex with him if he promised to let them go.

Afterwards, Greta said she need a drink as she felt sick and Milat drove to a service station in Goulburn, where Ms Patterson told the waitress what had happened and both girls escaped after several customers surrounded the car.

Before being convicted of backpacker murders, Ivan Milat was found not guilty of Ms Patterson’s rape.

Milat took off, but police caught him at a roadblock. He later absconded on bail to New Zealand, but was finally brought to trial in 1974.

During her evidence, Margaret changed her story and blamed herself for the incident. She told the jury said she was undergoing psychotherapy and did not want to be in court, then said didn’t remember much of the night because she’d taken sleeping tablets.

She also said she was confused about her sexuality, and that Milat had not forced her to have sex but was kind to her.

Greta stuck to her story and told the court Milat had brandished the knives and threatened to cut their throats. In evidence not admitted to court, she said Milat admitted he “often picked up hitchhikers” and always carried knives and ropes.

Milat claimed the sex was consensual and was acquitted.

Later, Ms Patterson turned to religion and even wrote to Milat in jail, saying “Greta still hates you”. But Milat callously described her as a “crazy sheila” who send him weird photos, in letters to his relatives.

Ms Patterson described Ivan Milat’s eyes as being like wolves’.

Ms Patterson has since led a very quiet life, and only spoke out only once more on the public record about that horrific night, saying she “felt very lucky” when she heard about the fate of the backpackers.

“His eyes were like wolves’,” she recalled.

She said she’d been embarrassed during the trial, especially when they showed her old knickers to the jury.

“It was hard to stay calm and answer questions,” she said. “I don’t want to keep going over it. It was a few hours of my life I want to forget. I don’t think I could have defended myself against him but I wish I had been more assertive and had more self confidence.”