My ‘friendship’ with Ivan Milat: Secrets from solitary confinement from Australia’s worst serial killer

A ‘friendship’ with Ivan Milat began with a grubby envelope and in it, some truly shocking responses from the killer to unsolved crimes.

“What’s it like to be penfriends with a serial killer?”

It’s a question that’s often asked of me by dinner parties of eager - yet bemused – friends. Those who have chosen more noble pursuits than spending their professional days making chit chat with maniacal murderers.

My penpal ‘friendship’ with backpacker killer Ivan Milat began innocently enough.

I wanted to know if he might have been involved in the disappearance of a string of young women, who went missing from the Newcastle -Hunter region of NSW, and whose cases have remained unsolved for four decades.

Convicted serial murderer Ivan Milat during a prison transfer.

Milat had been questioned about the disappearance of Leanne Goodall, Robyn Hickie and Amanda Robinson – who all disappeared from the same stretch of Newcastle highway over a period of months between late 1978 and early 1979 – and the abduction and murder of schoolgirl Gordana Kotevski at inquest many years ago, but had always denied involvement.

Perhaps time and the wisdom of old-age had helped the convicted seven-time murderer find his conscience?

Perhaps …

So, I jotted Australia’s most infamous backpacker killer a cordial note, directed to his residence in solitary confinement at Goulburn “Supermax” Maximum Security Prison, and asked. No need for small chat over tea and scones, I thought.

What I didn’t necessarily expect was a response.

News Corp Australia journalist Amelia Saw corresponded with Ivan Milat for several years. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Then one day, a grubby envelope, from sender: “I. Milat” landed on my office desk.

It was thick, the plentiful fine paper pages folded neatly and stuffed into the envelope.

The first thing I noted was the even, orderly lilt of the penmanship.

Judging by his hand, this serial killer was the type of to enjoy barbaric homicide, finely ruled margins and calligraphy.

The letter was signed with the familiar ‘Ivan’, (in fact, during our correspondence the killer took it upon himself to refer to me by the unnervingly familiar first initial of my name, ‘A’ – as if we could have been childhood beaus).

And beneath the signature was a stick-figure illustration, perched above the tiny written word ‘Innocent’.

I learnt this to be his self-created stamp, which he used to sign-off every letter forthwith.

Indeed its sentiment would form the theme of most of our correspondence over the next few years.

Milat would pour over the minutiae of his case and conviction, exploring points at length to ‘prove’ he had been wrongly convicted.

A victim of the justice system, if you will, which he claimed to be greatest corruption of the modern age.

“Those banks and other financial companies and, in particular, the churches in Australia, are novices when it came to conspiracies, to protect the system, The Supreme Court judiciary are the masters in protecting the system,” he wrote.

Ivan Milat’s letter to one of his female penpals featured a little drawing of a cat.

Milat signs his name with a saint figure on a letter received by one of his early rape victims after she wrote to him in prison.

Milat also revealed himself as aligned with Donald Trump, who at the time was being critical of the media’s reporting of him.

“Trust or not the media!” Milat exclaimed in his letter. “Even the USA President is often critical of the veracity of media reporting, ‘fake news’.

Despite his distrust for the media, Milat diligently read all newspaper reports referring to himself, and would regularly refer to them in his correspondence to me, by headline and date – suggesting he kept a diligent filing system of his own press.

Teenager Gordana Kotevski who was last seen in Charlestown, Newcastle in November 1994.

“I refer to the Sunday 8 July 2018 True Crime (Australia) story, missing females in the Newcastle region, how did I get involved in it?” he wrote.

He used the opportunity to once more deny involvement in the disappearance and suspected murders of Goodall, Robinson, Hickie and Kotevski. Again, reiterating his victimisation by a corrupt system.

“The police commander of the Newcastle area command came up with a most ingenious solution to clear the police books of many unsolved disappearances, since mid-seventies to the mid nineties numerous females aged from 14 to early 20s seemly just vanished off the face of the earth, no trace of them emerged …

“The solution was to lay it all on Ivan Milat and a relentless police campaign abley (sic) assist by all media services accused Ivan Milat for the disappearances/ murder of eight, nine or 11 female young persons.”

Serial killer Ivan Milat offered bizarre “advice” to female penfriends in his letters. Picture: AFP

However, Milat’s most curious utterances involved his expression of empathy. His outpouring of adoration for his former pet cat Gizmo, for example, including one puzzling reflection that “losing a family pet is as devastating as losing a relative”.

Could it be possible that a man who deprived seven families of their loved ones could appreciate the grief that losing a relative, or indeed, family pet could bestow?

Then, there was the difficult issue of dating and friendships while in solitary confinement. Despite receiving a bountiful number of letters from aspiring female penfriends, Milat said “no one expresses an interest in anything more than friendship and I do not encourage it”.

And the perturbing issue that the only “neighbours” he has in solitary confinement are indeed, terrorists, which does make socialisation tricky.

“No friendships developed with fellow prisoners,” he wrote, “my program does not permit, plus they, fellow prisoners, are terrorists or alleged ones, government policy does not permit my contact, though we (are) all in proximity of each other. They mix and appear quite friendly with each other.”

But the most bizarre offering of “advice” appeared as an unsolicited motoring warning regarding the potential confrontation of supernatural creatures, while driving.

“Some driving advice, when driving about, if you were to hit a were wolf, don’t stop,” he wrote.

Originally published as My ‘friendship’ with Ivan Milat: Secrets from solitary confinement from Australia’s worst serial killer