Ivan Milat dead: His letters, a secret survivor and proof he acted alone
The letters of Ivan Milat take us inside the serial killer’s sick mind and deliver the final verdict on whether he acted alone.
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Serial killer Ivan Milat has died, aged 74, taking the final secrets of his sickening murder spree to the grave.
The backpacker killer, whose terminal cancer diagnosis was revealed in May, was always suspected of more murders that the seven he was convicted of, but never confessed, not even on his deathbed.
Still, of all the stories that have been written about Ivan Milat, the most chilling draw on his own words from behind the walls at Supermax.
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Here are the stories that take us inside the mind of a serial killer; reveal the previously unknown victim who got away and deliver the final verdict on whether he acted alone.
Serial killer’s bizarre rant and life advice from jail
When Ivan Milat wrote to True Crime Australia, he started his letter with an unexpected tip: “Some driving advice, when driving about, if you were to hit a werewolf, don’t stop.”
The bizarre utterance acts as a preface for a full 10 pages in which Milat fastidiously debates the minutiae of his case and his claims of being an innocent victim of a corrupt judicial system.
He also seems somewhat baffled by the nation’s fascination with him, referring to strangers showing his letters on TV “as if it was something akin to getting a message from God”.
• Read more here and check out the Ivan Milat letter in full
‘It was Ivan Milat, and yes, he did try to murder me’
British backpacker Colin Powis says the difference between escaping notorious serial killer Ivan Milat and dying a savage death, all came down to the changing of a traffic light.
Powis spoke exclusively to True Crime Australia about his terrifying escape after accepting a lift in 1982, revealing it was only a lucky break that stopped him being bashed.
He is now certain it was Milat who creepily asked him: “Who knows you’re here?”
“I am not mistaken, nor I am paranoid; it was definitely Milat,” he said.
• Read the full story here
How Milat ‘accomplice’ mystery was finally solved
For more than 20 years after Milat was sentenced to life for the Belanglo Forest backpacker slayings, there were persistent claims the style of the killings and some forensic evidence suggested he did not act alone.
Most telling were several strands of hair found still clasped in the hand of one of his victims, British backpacker Joanne Walters, from when she was murdered in 1992 — with initial testing finding they did not belong to the killer or his victim.
It was only this year that Clive Small, the former detective who headed the Task Force Air police team that made the Milat conviction, revealed to True Crime Australia that any suggestion of an accomplice had finally been ruled out.
• Discover how here
Milat supporters fight on after damning DNA result
In the wake of True Crime Australia’s revelations about the accomplice theory, Ivan Milat’s supporters refused to give up on their campaign to prove his innocence.
Milat’s nephew Alistair Shipsey, who has spent decades publicly campaigning for a retrial for his uncle, was enraged by the claims, dismissing them as lies.
“How about it, Clive?,” he challenged Mr Small. “Me and you, (TV show) 60 Minutes. You bring your evidence, I’ll bring mine.”
• Read the five arguments for Milat’s innocence put forward by supporters
The man who tried to break out of jail with Milat
It was less than a year after he was jailed that Ivan Milat and another notorious inmate — who already had form for simply walking out of one prison in a wig — hatched a plot to escape.
The backpacker serial killer and drug baron George Savvas were desperate and prepared to kill to get away, according to Ron Woodham, then NSW’s Corrective Services assistant commissioner.
It was in many ways a straightforward plan — no tunnels or hijacked helicopters — they were simply going to overpower their guards and go over the wall at Maitland jail, but the authorities were one step ahead.
• Read about Savvas and Milat’s various escape bids; their joint breakout plan and how the plot was foiled here
What it takes to earn a serial killer’s sympathy
After his foiled escape bid, Milat served out most of his prison term at Goulburn Supermax, from where he shared dozens of letters with burlesque dancer Ruth Hodkinson.
The jailhouse missives reveal signs of compassion from Milat — but unfortunately it was reserved for his penpal after the death of her cats and not the young men and women he slaughtered and dumped in bush graves.
The pair wrote repeatedly about the animals, with Milat even using a former pet to explain his feelings about life locked behind a “1000lb steel door”.
“My old cat I had would yowl all day and night in such a place, I certainly do,” he wrote.
“This place would send a cat screaming insane, it would shred its poor little claws to the bone in its madness. You ought to see what it does to me. I wouldn’t put a blind goldfish in here it would be too cruel.”
• Read more from Milat on everything from cats and The Brady Bunch to gardening and movies here
Originally published as Ivan Milat dead: His letters, a secret survivor and proof he acted alone
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