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Milat refuses to speak about unsolved murders

Serial killer Ivan Milat will begin chemotherapy this week and insists he has nothing to add about unsolved crimes linked to him.

Ivan Milat refuses to talk about the backpacker murders. Picture: Diimex
Ivan Milat refuses to talk about the backpacker murders. Picture: Diimex

Serial killer Ivan Milat will begin chemotherapy this week and ­insists he has nothing to add about the backpacker murders and unsolved crimes linked to him.

NSW detectives have visited Milat at least twice since he was moved to Sydney’s Long Bay prison hospital with cancer in May, according to relatives.

His nephew, Alistair Shipsey, said he visited Milat on Saturday — the third time he’d been to see Australia’s most notorious killer since the Long Bay transfer.

Milat had previously been held at Goulburn’s Supermax prison and was moved so he could receive medical treatment and in preparation for his death.

He may have longer to live than expected after initially dropping more than 20kg from 88kg in two months, and there was no sign of his reported ­dementia.

“He does chemo this week. He had to put some weight on,” Mr Shipsey said. “He doesn’t talk slow. He’s as smart as. He can answer every single question.”

The first time police visited Milat in Long Bay, one of the ­officers “got the shits” and walked out when he refused to co-­operate, Mr Shipsey said.

He said in a second visit, different detectives asked Milat only whether he had been questioned about the backpacker murders at the time of his arrest.

Milat told detectives that police had questioned him only about gun parts, found in a plastic bag in a wall cavity at his house.

The gun parts became key pieces of evidence at his trial, along with ammunition and the victims’ possessions that were found at Milat family homes.

Convicted in 1996 of murdering seven young men and women who were hitching from Sydney between December 1989 and April 1992, he has always ­denied involvement.

Despite having oesophageal cancer that has spread to his stomach, there appears little chance the 74-year-old will offer any insights into the murders. “He’s got nothing to say about them, he’s not a murderer,” said Mr Shipsey, a long-time supporter.

Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro previously said police had to attempt to talk to Milat despite the slim prospects of a deathbed confession.

The only hope was Milat, with nothing to lose, would talk for “perverse glory” from his crimes. “It’s absolutely worth trying,” Mr Watson-Munro said.

Among the many questions that remain open to debate is whether he acted alone or with others, and whether there are more bodies. Milat’s other suspected victims include 18-year-old Peter Letcher, who disappeared in November 1987 and was initially thought to be a victim of Bathurst’s drug trade. A bushwalker found Letcher’s ­remains in the Jenolan State Forest in January 1988.

Retired detective Clive Small, who led the backpacker murders investigation, said the Ruger rifle used in Letcher’s murder was the same model used in two of Milat’s killings.

Milat was working at Jenolan Caves about the time Letcher went missing.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/milat-refuses-to-speak-about-unsolved-murders/news-story/858abeccddf804005c0a6bbe76a68416