Police set to press Milat on cold cases

Police are preparing to talk to serial killer Ivan Milat about crimes linked to him since his conviction.

Ivan Milat is escorted from hospital by prison officers to be returned to Goulburn Prison.

Police are preparing to talk to ­serial killer Ivan Milat before he succumbs to terminal cancer about his crimes and the unsolved homicides linked to him.

Milat, who has tumours in his throat and stomach, has never shown any sign he is prepared to confess to the murders of seven backpackers — signing off a letter to a relative as recently as May 1 with the words “Ivan the Innocent” — nor has he ever co-operated with police over a string of unsolved killings that occurred before he was jailed.

But NSW police are readying to attempt to quiz him in the event Australia’s most notorious serial killer changes his stance before he dies, with widely varying ­estimates of how long he has to live.

In a move that may upset and anger families of his victims, Milat was approved for a family visit at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, where he is being held in a ­secure wing for prisoners, after being transferred from Goulburn’s Supermax jail earlier this month.

Relatives, including his sister Diane, visited Milat last week, according to his nephew and supporter Alistair Shipsey.

Despite losing more weight since being moved to the hospital — down to 62kg from 88kg just over two months ago — Milat was in “good spirits”, has been inserted with a feeding tube and may be ­undergoing chemotherapy.

While there have been reports Milat has the early stages of dementia, the 74-year-old is conversing freely and clearly, leaving a sliver of hope he will admit to his crimes.

However, detectives past and present believe there is almost no chance Milat will show mercy on his victims’ families.

Former NSW police assistant commissioner Clive Small, who led the taskforce that captured Milat, has publicly urged police to attempt to speak to the killer despite the slim prospect of success.

Milat has been linked to, among other crimes, the unsolved murder of Peter Letcher, 18, found dead in the Jenolan State Forest in January 1988, shot five times in the head. Letcher, from Bathurst, went missing after visiting a former girlfriend in Sydney in 1987.

His murder was suspected at the time of being connected to Bathurst’s drug scene, but there is a theory the cash-strapped teenager was picked up by Milat while hitchhiking. Milat started work on the Jenolan Caves road around the time of the murder, and there were striking similarities to the way he killed and disposed of his other victims in the Belanglo State Forest between 1989 and 1992.

Mr Small says there was evidence the rifle model used to murder Letcher was the same as the one used in the Milat killings of German backpacker Gabor Neugebauer and English backpacker Caroline Clarke.

Letcher’s father, Brian Letcher, was contacted last month by the NSW Forensic and Analytical Science Service requesting a meeting, The Weekend Australian revealed.

Two people travelled to see him at his Queensland home with news they still had some of Letcher’s remains. Mr Letcher says he subsequently had a conference call with a senior NSW homicide detective, who said the murder would be reassessed as part of ongoing reviews of all of the state’s cold cases.

Mr Letcher said he was left satisfied after the call, “proving to myself they never really closed the case, they’re still at it”.

Detectives in Task Force Air, investigating the Milat murders, identified 43 missing persons and 16 unsolved murders with similarities. Suspicions emerged that Milat was involved in three murders, those of Keren Rowland, 20, found dead in a pine plantation in Canberra in 1971; hitchhiker Dianne Pennacchio, 29, found dead in the Tallaganda State Forest in 1991; and Letcher.