NSW govt refuses to pay for Milat funeral

One of serial killer Ivan Milat’s final wishes was that the government pay for his funeral. The fight is on to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The NSW Corrections Minister says “hell will freeze over” before his department pays for the funeral of notorious serial killer Ivan Milat.

The backpacker murderer died in the hospital of Long Bay Jail on Sunday morning after being diagnosed with oesophageal and stomach cancer in May.

He wrote a one-page letter on Thursday to his brother Bill and sister-in-law Carol with instructions for it to be sealed until his death.

A video still from the final police interview with Australia’s most notorious serial killer Ivan Milat.

In it, the 74-year-old insisted the NSW government should pay for his funeral.

“Please don’t pay for my funeral services or contribute in any way,” he wrote.

Milat signed off the letter with his name and a small illustration of a figure with a halo above the word “innocent”.

Ivan Milat’s final letter to his brother. Picture: 10 News

A Corrective Services spokeswoman on Monday said it would “under no circumstances” be paying for the funeral, and Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts today reiterated that message.

“Hell will freeze over before Corrections pays a cent for Ivan Milat’s funeral,” Mr Roberts told 2GB Radio.

Milat was sentenced in 1996 to seven consecutive life sentences for murdering seven backpackers, whose bodies were found in makeshift graves in the Belanglo State Forest in the 1990s.

A youthful Ivan Milat.

He is suspected of having committed many more murders, including the killings of at least three people whose bodies were found in three other forests between 1971 and 1991.

But he told the detectives he could not tell them anything about the deaths of three women in the Newcastle area.

“His body will remain on ice until the family stumps up cash or can tell NSW Police where the bodies are buried,” Mr Roberts said.

Ivan Milat in a police car after attending court in Sydney. Picture: AP/Rick Rycroft

Detectives interviewed Milat eight times in jail and hospital in the weeks before he died, Channel 9 reported yesterday.

“You could put a blowtorch to me ears or eyes or whatever and … I can’t help ya,” Milat told detectives, saying there was no evidence against him.

Milat’s daughter Lynise, meanwhile, said yesterday she was depressed by her father’s death, even if the “whole world” was pleased.