WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Okay, I want you to imagine something. Imagine 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:05.540 you're standing in a forest, but not just any 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:08.400 forest. I want you to picture a plantation. It's 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:11.380 artificial. It's organized. You have these towering 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:13.880 radiata pines, and they're planted in these perfect 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:16.780 symmetrical rows. Yeah, they stretch on for miles. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.559 For thousands of hectares. And from the air, 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:22.920 it looks like this lush green carpet. But when 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.879 you're on the ground, it's... Well, it's a cathedral 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:27.899 of shadows. And the floor is covered in pine 00:00:27.899 --> 00:00:31.239 needles. It dampens every sound, every footstep. 00:00:31.379 --> 00:00:34.780 It is incredibly quiet. It's a silence that feels 00:00:34.780 --> 00:00:37.820 heavy. It's not the chaotic noise of, you know, 00:00:37.859 --> 00:00:40.560 a natural bushland with birds and scrub. This 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.539 is a managed stillness. Exactly. We are talking 00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:46.000 about the Belanglo State Forest in New South 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.429 Wales, Australia. And today... If you go there, 00:00:48.509 --> 00:00:50.770 it's still beautiful. It is on the surface. But 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.350 for anyone who lived through the early 1990s 00:00:53.350 --> 00:00:56.530 in Australia, that name Belanglo, it doesn't 00:00:56.530 --> 00:00:58.990 conjure up images of camping trips or mushroom 00:00:58.990 --> 00:01:02.409 picking. No. It is synonymous with a very specific, 00:01:02.549 --> 00:01:05.390 a very particular kind of horror. It became the 00:01:05.390 --> 00:01:08.489 setting for a national trauma. It really did. 00:01:08.629 --> 00:01:10.810 It's a place where that natural isolation, which 00:01:10.810 --> 00:01:15.469 is usually the appeal of a forest, was... It 00:01:15.469 --> 00:01:17.370 was turned against people who were just out there 00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:19.609 looking for adventure. And the man responsible 00:01:19.609 --> 00:01:22.150 for turning those pine rows into a graveyard 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:26.569 is the subject of our deep dive today. Ivan Malat, 00:01:26.730 --> 00:01:29.569 the backpacker murderer. A name that sends a 00:01:29.569 --> 00:01:32.230 shiver down your spine even now. And I know what 00:01:32.230 --> 00:01:35.150 you're thinking. If you follow true crime, or 00:01:35.150 --> 00:01:37.549 if you're Australian, you know the name. You 00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:40.030 know the headlines. You probably know about the 00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:42.250 seven confirmed victims found in that forest. 00:01:42.310 --> 00:01:44.719 The main story, yeah. But we are on a different 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.859 mission today. We are. Because the headlines, 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:49.459 while, you know, horrific, they're really just 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:51.799 the surface level, we've got a massive stack 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:54.640 of source material here. A comprehensive dossier 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:57.060 on Malat's entire life, court transcripts, police 00:01:57.060 --> 00:01:59.099 intelligence reports, post -conviction investigations. 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:01.620 Everything. And when you actually wade through 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:04.579 all of this, you realize the story isn't just 00:02:04.579 --> 00:02:07.040 about the seven people found in Belanglo. It's 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:09.060 about the making of a monster. We're going to 00:02:09.060 --> 00:02:11.539 unpack the near misses, these moments where... 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:14.099 The system had him in its grip decades earlier 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:17.759 and just let him go. It's infuriating to read. 00:02:17.939 --> 00:02:19.680 And we're going to look at the truly chilling 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:22.599 possibility, and I do not say this lightly, that 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:25.099 his victim count is significantly higher than 00:02:25.099 --> 00:02:27.560 seven. When you look at the timeline and you 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:31.150 look at his mobility, the math is. It's terrifying. 00:02:31.349 --> 00:02:33.729 This isn't just a story about one man's evil. 00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:36.789 It's a story about a failure of systems to connect 00:02:36.789 --> 00:02:39.310 the dots. Yes. It's about the terrifying freedom 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:42.550 of a predator who spent 20 years working as a 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:45.430 truck driver on lonely highways across a continent 00:02:45.430 --> 00:02:48.469 that is, for the most part, empty space. I have 00:02:48.469 --> 00:02:51.000 to say, just diving into this material. The sheer 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.680 volume of what -ifs and the number of unsolved 00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:55.780 cases that are linked to him is shocking. It's 00:02:55.780 --> 00:02:57.719 not just one or two question marks. It's a map 00:02:57.719 --> 00:03:00.000 full of them. It is. And to understand how we 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.500 end up with a map like that, how a predator operates 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:04.759 in the shadows for that long, we have to look 00:03:04.759 --> 00:03:06.879 at the soil he grew up in. We have to go back 00:03:06.879 --> 00:03:10.560 to the Millat household back in the 1940s. Monsters 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:13.740 aren't born in a vacuum. Ivan was born in 1944. 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:17.419 And he wasn't an only child. Far from it. He 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:21.969 was the fifth of 14 children. 14 kids. I can't 00:03:21.969 --> 00:03:24.490 even begin to imagine the noise level, let alone 00:03:24.490 --> 00:03:27.050 the logistics of that. It's a massive family 00:03:27.050 --> 00:03:29.310 unit, especially when you consider the economic 00:03:29.310 --> 00:03:32.030 circumstances. They were living in semi -rural 00:03:32.030 --> 00:03:34.110 poverty, first in a place called Bosley Park 00:03:34.110 --> 00:03:36.409 and then Liverpool, which is on the outskirts 00:03:36.409 --> 00:03:38.650 of Sydney. And at the time, this wasn't the suburbs 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:40.930 as we know them today. This was the fringe. The 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:43.849 absolute fringe. And the family dynamic described 00:03:43.849 --> 00:03:47.030 in the reports is. Intense. Intense is a good 00:03:47.030 --> 00:03:49.449 word. You've got the father, Stjepan, Stephen 00:03:49.449 --> 00:03:51.590 Milat, who was a Croatian immigrant, a laborer. 00:03:51.629 --> 00:03:53.849 Right. And the mother, Margaret, who was Australian. 00:03:54.289 --> 00:03:56.310 From what I've read, the household was like a 00:03:56.310 --> 00:03:58.550 fortress. That's a good word for it. The sources 00:03:58.550 --> 00:04:01.509 describe a very specific vibe. The parents were, 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:03.729 on the outside, very conscientious. They were 00:04:03.729 --> 00:04:05.569 strict. They sent the kids to Catholic schools. 00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:07.770 They were big on discipline. But inside the walls? 00:04:07.969 --> 00:04:10.189 Inside the walls. The father, Stephen, was an 00:04:10.189 --> 00:04:12.389 alcoholic with a ferocious temper. So it was 00:04:12.389 --> 00:04:15.300 an incredibly volatile environment. And... In 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:18.620 a house with 14 kids and a volatile father, you 00:04:18.620 --> 00:04:22.000 create this us against the world mentality, I 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.240 imagine. You do. But there's one detail from 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:26.399 their childhood that really stood out to me as 00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:29.779 a precursor to what was coming. It wasn't just 00:04:29.779 --> 00:04:31.800 the roughhousing. It was their relationship with 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:35.019 weapons. This is crucial context. It is. The 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:38.470 Milat boys. and there were 10 of them, were well 00:04:38.470 --> 00:04:40.129 known to the local police. They were the bad 00:04:40.129 --> 00:04:42.529 boys of the neighborhood. Right. But beyond just 00:04:42.529 --> 00:04:45.329 being rowdy, they grew up in a culture where 00:04:45.329 --> 00:04:48.290 handling knives and firearms was completely normalized. 00:04:48.629 --> 00:04:50.670 They spent their afternoons in the backyard shooting 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:53.170 at targets. And we aren't talking about Red Ryder 00:04:53.170 --> 00:04:55.810 BB guns here, are we? No, we are talking about 00:04:55.810 --> 00:04:59.699 high -powered rifles, shotguns, machetes. This 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.160 was a complete immersion in gun culture. They 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.079 were comfortable with lethal weapons from a very 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:06.579 young age. It was their form of play. And for 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:09.680 Ivan specifically, that comfort with violence 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:11.920 started to manifest in some pretty disturbing 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:14.639 ways very, very early on. We always look for 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.439 the red flags, right? The classic signs of sociopathy. 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:20.100 And when you look at Ivan's childhood dossier, 00:05:20.259 --> 00:05:23.399 they're flashing neon lights. They are textbook. 00:05:24.110 --> 00:05:27.350 Siblings recalled Ivan displaying really antisocial 00:05:27.350 --> 00:05:29.910 behavior as a child. The most chilling example 00:05:29.910 --> 00:05:32.990 is his aggression toward animals. He wasn't just 00:05:32.990 --> 00:05:36.389 hunting for food. No, no. He was known to attack 00:05:36.389 --> 00:05:39.370 animals with machetes. That is a very specific 00:05:39.370 --> 00:05:41.769 kind of violence. I mean, shooting a rabbit for 00:05:41.769 --> 00:05:44.449 dinner is one thing. Attacking an animal with 00:05:44.449 --> 00:05:47.470 a machete implies a desire to be a close. To 00:05:47.470 --> 00:05:51.129 see the damage. Yes. Precisely. It shows a desire 00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:53.850 to inflict pain and a total lack of... of empathy, 00:05:54.029 --> 00:05:55.769 which are the hallmarks of psychopathy. It's 00:05:55.769 --> 00:05:58.069 all about dominance. Oh, well, unsurprisingly, 00:05:58.189 --> 00:06:00.750 this escalated. Of course it did. At 13, he is 00:06:00.750 --> 00:06:03.290 sent to a residential school. By 17, he's in 00:06:03.290 --> 00:06:06.529 juvenile detention for theft. By 19, he's involved 00:06:06.529 --> 00:06:09.069 in breaking and entering shoplifting. So it's 00:06:09.069 --> 00:06:10.850 a clear progression. He starts with property 00:06:10.850 --> 00:06:13.209 crime, but you can feel that violence is just 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:16.529 simmering underneath. It's there. And then we 00:06:16.529 --> 00:06:20.649 get to 1971. This is the what -if moment that 00:06:20.649 --> 00:06:24.100 really blew my mind. Because I hadn't fully realized 00:06:24.100 --> 00:06:27.459 how close the system came to stopping him nearly 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:29.879 20 years before the backpacker murders. This 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:33.879 is the critical juncture. April 7th, 1971. Ivan 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:37.279 Milat is 26 years old. He picks up two 18 -year 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:40.379 -old female hitchhikers near Liverpool Railway 00:06:40.379 --> 00:06:43.839 Station. And you have to remember, in 1971, hitchhiking 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:45.920 was common. It was just part of the culture. 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.519 It was, but this wasn't a friendly ride that 00:06:48.519 --> 00:06:50.480 went wrong. This was calculated from the second 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:52.459 they got in the car. Immediately. Immediately. 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:54.680 He threatens them with a knife. He abducts them. 00:06:54.740 --> 00:06:57.019 He drives them to a secluded spot and rapes one 00:06:57.019 --> 00:06:59.439 of the women. But, and this is the miracle of 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:01.779 the story, they manage to escape. He stops at 00:07:01.779 --> 00:07:04.040 a petrol station cafe and the women, showing 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:06.410 just incredible bravery, make a run for it, they 00:07:06.410 --> 00:07:09.350 bolt. Yeah. And the system worked, at least initially. 00:07:09.509 --> 00:07:11.310 He didn't just vanish into thin air. No, he was 00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:13.750 arrested that same day. That same day. He was 00:07:13.750 --> 00:07:16.269 charged with one count of rape and two counts 00:07:16.269 --> 00:07:19.730 of armed robbery. The police had him. The victims 00:07:19.730 --> 00:07:22.529 identified him. This should have been the end 00:07:22.529 --> 00:07:24.689 of the Ivan Milat story. He should have been 00:07:24.689 --> 00:07:28.149 locked away for a decade or more. But this is 00:07:28.149 --> 00:07:30.069 where the story takes a turn that feels like 00:07:30.069 --> 00:07:33.029 something out of a movie script. While he's awaiting 00:07:33.029 --> 00:07:36.930 trial... He's out on bail. Right. And he decides 00:07:36.930 --> 00:07:40.370 to pull a stunt that just shows you how manipulative 00:07:40.370 --> 00:07:43.970 he was. He fakes his own suicide. It's incredibly 00:07:43.970 --> 00:07:46.009 dramatic. He goes to a place called The Gap, 00:07:46.029 --> 00:07:48.670 which is this notorious suicide spot on the ocean 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:51.149 cliffs in Sydney. Everyone in Sydney knows the 00:07:51.149 --> 00:07:53.490 gap. Everyone does. And he leaves his shoes there, 00:07:53.610 --> 00:07:56.069 neatly placed right at the edge. He wants the 00:07:56.069 --> 00:07:57.990 authorities to believe he's jumped into the ocean 00:07:57.990 --> 00:08:00.550 and been washed away. And meanwhile. Meanwhile, 00:08:00.709 --> 00:08:02.750 he's already on his way to New Zealand. So he's 00:08:02.750 --> 00:08:04.589 on the run. He lives in New Zealand for two years, 00:08:04.589 --> 00:08:07.170 is that right? Roughly, yes. He was living under 00:08:07.170 --> 00:08:09.709 the radar, working odd jobs. But eventually, 00:08:09.910 --> 00:08:13.189 he comes back to Australia. The authorities suspect 00:08:13.189 --> 00:08:15.290 he used a fake passport or came in through a 00:08:15.290 --> 00:08:17.050 loose border check. And he's still a fugitive. 00:08:17.389 --> 00:08:19.470 He is. He's living interstate to avoid detection. 00:08:20.069 --> 00:08:22.810 But the law has a long memory. He eventually 00:08:22.810 --> 00:08:26.110 gets rearrested in 1974. His mother had a heart 00:08:26.110 --> 00:08:28.790 attack. He risked a visit to the hospital. And 00:08:28.790 --> 00:08:31.089 the police were watching. They got him. They 00:08:31.089 --> 00:08:34.129 got him. So finally, three years late, but he 00:08:34.129 --> 00:08:36.830 is going to trial for the 1971 rape and abduction. 00:08:37.090 --> 00:08:40.330 The victims are ready to testify. This is it. 00:08:40.429 --> 00:08:43.120 It should have been. But Ivan Milat had a very 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.860 effective, very expensive lawyer named John Marsden. 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:49.559 And the defense strategy was ruthless. They just 00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:51.279 attacked the victims. They attacked the credibility 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:54.139 of the victims. They poked holes in the timeline. 00:08:54.259 --> 00:08:57.460 They created doubt. And somehow the case failed 00:08:57.460 --> 00:08:59.480 at trial. He was acquitted. It makes your blood 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:01.659 boil to read it. He kidnaps two women at knife 00:09:01.659 --> 00:09:04.259 point, rapes one, fakes his own death, flees 00:09:04.259 --> 00:09:07.039 the country, gets caught, and then... Just walks 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:08.919 away a free man. And you have to think about 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:11.120 the psychological impact of that acquittal on 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:13.299 someone like Millett. He's a narcissist. He's 00:09:13.299 --> 00:09:15.379 a psychopath. This didn't teach him to be good. 00:09:15.559 --> 00:09:19.220 No. It taught him a very dangerous lesson. He 00:09:19.220 --> 00:09:21.320 was smarter than them. He could rape and attack. 00:09:21.580 --> 00:09:23.659 And even if he got caught, he could manipulate 00:09:23.659 --> 00:09:26.960 the court and win. It emboldened him. Significantly. 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:29.399 It gave him a sense of invincibility. And it 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:32.120 gave him another 20 years of freedom. 20 years 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:35.210 to refine his methods. Which brings us to the 00:09:35.210 --> 00:09:39.169 horrific events that made him infamous. The backpacker 00:09:39.169 --> 00:09:41.710 murders. We're jumping forward now to the period 00:09:41.710 --> 00:09:46.070 between 1989 and 1992. By this time, Millat is 00:09:46.070 --> 00:09:47.669 working for the Roads and Traffic Authority, 00:09:47.850 --> 00:09:51.649 or the RTA. He's driving a 4WD Nissan Patrol. 00:09:51.950 --> 00:09:55.090 He's tough. He's fit. And he's hunting. Let's 00:09:55.090 --> 00:09:56.929 talk about the modus operandi. Yeah. Because 00:09:56.929 --> 00:09:59.389 it was terrifyingly simple, wasn't it? Deceptively 00:09:59.389 --> 00:10:01.590 simple. He targeted international travelers, 00:10:01.809 --> 00:10:03.990 people who were miles from home, often trying 00:10:03.990 --> 00:10:06.269 to save money, who trusted the Australian tradition 00:10:06.269 --> 00:10:08.629 of hitchhiking. And he would ply the Hume Highway, 00:10:08.870 --> 00:10:11.070 the main artery connecting Sydney to Melbourne 00:10:11.070 --> 00:10:13.149 in the south. Right. And he'd present himself 00:10:13.149 --> 00:10:16.230 as this helpful local. Bill was the name he often 00:10:16.230 --> 00:10:19.190 used. A rugged, friendly guy offering a lift 00:10:19.190 --> 00:10:21.649 to southern New South Wales. And once he had 00:10:21.649 --> 00:10:24.620 them in the car. Trapped in that metal box, moving 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:27.659 at 100 kilometers an hour. He was in total control. 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:30.019 And the destination was always the same. The 00:10:30.019 --> 00:10:32.600 Langlois State Forest. The kill zone. He would 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:34.519 take them off the highway, drive down those fire 00:10:34.519 --> 00:10:36.899 trails deep into the pines where the trees just 00:10:36.899 --> 00:10:39.720 block out all sound. It was there that he would 00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:42.419 incapacitate them and murder them. I want to 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:45.559 walk through. the discovery of the victims because 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:48.000 the way this unfolded for the public wasn't all 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:51.059 at once it was a slow motion nightmare that really 00:10:51.059 --> 00:10:54.100 gripped the country it starts in september 1992. 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:56.860 right starts with two runners they were orienteering 00:10:56.860 --> 00:10:59.159 in the forest you know navigating through the 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:01.500 bush with a map and compass yeah they stumble 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:04.460 upon something that just looks wrong a mount 00:11:04.460 --> 00:11:06.700 of earth a shoe sticking out they realize it's 00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:08.980 a concealed corpse and the police come in They 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:11.139 cordon off the area, and the next morning, just 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:13.559 30 meters away, they find a second body. And 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:16.559 these are the first two confirmed victims, Carolyn 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:19.039 Clark and Joanne Walters, British backpackers. 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:21.500 And when the details of their deaths eventually 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:24.179 came out, this is where we see that this wasn't 00:11:24.179 --> 00:11:27.659 just murder. It was sadism. It was horrific. 00:11:28.139 --> 00:11:31.580 Joanne Walters had been stabbed 15 times. But 00:11:31.580 --> 00:11:33.840 the forensic analysis revealed something very 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:37.159 specific and chilling. Her spine had been severed. 00:11:37.659 --> 00:11:39.659 Just shall I pause on that for a second? Severed? 00:11:39.659 --> 00:11:42.159 Yes. The medical examiner found that the spinal 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:44.919 cord had been cut. This causes immediate paralysis. 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:48.360 It implies she was likely alive, conscious, but 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:50.720 completely unable to move or fight back while 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:52.559 the attack continued. You wanted her to watch. 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:54.860 That's the terrifying implication. God, that 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:57.279 is nightmarish. And Carolyn Clark. Her death 00:11:57.279 --> 00:12:00.200 was different, but equally disturbing. She had 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:02.899 been shot ten times in the head. The police described 00:12:02.899 --> 00:12:04.940 it as if she had been used for target practice. 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:07.440 So one is stabbed and paralyzed, the other is 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.740 executed with a rifle. It's like he was experimenting. 00:12:10.059 --> 00:12:12.059 Or enjoying different methods. It shows he carried 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:14.960 a kit, knives, guns, ropes. He was prepared for 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:18.159 anything. And at the time, the police searched 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:20.899 the forest, found nothing else, and declared 00:12:20.899 --> 00:12:23.220 it an isolated double murder. But they were wrong. 00:12:23.419 --> 00:12:26.559 Very wrong. Because a year later, October 1993, 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:29.759 a local guy is out looking for firewood. And 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:32.899 he finds a skull and a large bone in a remote 00:12:32.899 --> 00:12:35.220 section of the forest. And this was the discovery 00:12:35.220 --> 00:12:37.980 of Deborah Everest and James Gibson, a young 00:12:37.980 --> 00:12:40.159 couple from Victoria who had been missing since 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:42.799 1989. They were actually some of the earliest 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.759 victims, but they were found later. Okay, now 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.820 this is where a really strange puzzle piece comes 00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:52.240 in. Regarding James Gibson's gear. Yes, this 00:12:52.240 --> 00:12:55.100 baffled investigators. Gibson's camera had been 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:57.919 found way back in late 1989 and his backpack 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:00.799 in early 1990. But not in Belanglo. Not even 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:03.279 close. They were found at Galston Gorge, which 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:05.840 is in the northern suburbs of Sydney, over 120 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:08.120 kilometers away from the forest. So the bodies 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:10.500 are deep south of Sydney, but their stuff is 00:13:10.500 --> 00:13:12.480 dumped north of Sydney. Exactly. It suggests 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:15.320 Millett was moving items around. Was it to confuse 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:17.460 police or was it just convenience? He kept the 00:13:17.460 --> 00:13:19.019 bag in his truck, drove around to work for a 00:13:19.019 --> 00:13:20.659 few days. weeks and then just dumped it when 00:13:20.659 --> 00:13:22.639 he was sick of looking at it. It highlights his 00:13:22.639 --> 00:13:25.139 mobility. He was all over the map. So now the 00:13:25.139 --> 00:13:27.179 police have four bodies. The panic is setting 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:29.879 in. They launch a massive police sweep in November 00:13:29.879 --> 00:13:33.320 of 93 and they find three more. Three more. Simone 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:37.490 Schmidl, a German tourist, stabbed. And again, 00:13:37.549 --> 00:13:39.850 the spine was severed. That signature injury. 00:13:40.129 --> 00:13:42.330 The same one. The same one. And then the German 00:13:42.330 --> 00:13:44.690 couple, Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Hopschied. 00:13:44.870 --> 00:13:47.250 And this discovery was perhaps the most gruesome. 00:13:47.429 --> 00:13:50.409 It was. They were found in shallow graves. Gabor 00:13:50.409 --> 00:13:53.190 had been shot six times in the head. But Anja, 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:56.029 Anja had been decapitated. And despite extensive 00:13:56.029 --> 00:13:58.850 searching of the entire forest floor, her skull 00:13:58.850 --> 00:14:01.710 was never found. It's just unthinkable brutality. 00:14:01.809 --> 00:14:04.049 Looking at the patterns here, the couples, the 00:14:04.049 --> 00:14:07.200 spinal injuries, what was the... Expert consensus 00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:09.620 on his psychology. What does this tell us? It's 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:12.539 about two things. Overkill and control. The severing 00:14:12.539 --> 00:14:14.919 of the spines appears in multiple cases. That 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:17.360 is a very specific, deliberate act. You don't 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:19.539 do that by accident. You don't accidentally sever 00:14:19.539 --> 00:14:22.600 a spine. He wanted them helpless. He wanted total 00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:26.039 dominance. And interestingly, the couples were 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:28.440 often attacked together but buried separately. 00:14:28.779 --> 00:14:31.399 He separated them in death. It was his forest, 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:34.820 his rules. So by late 1993... The police know 00:14:34.820 --> 00:14:36.879 they have a serial killer. They set up task force 00:14:36.879 --> 00:14:40.919 air. And they are facing a needle in a haystack 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:43.580 problem. It was a massive operation. They had 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:46.159 a list of suspects that started at 230 people. 00:14:46.419 --> 00:14:48.919 They had to narrow that down. And this is where 00:14:48.919 --> 00:14:50.639 we need to talk about the technology of the time. 00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:53.279 They used something called link analysis. Which 00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:56.399 sounds fancy, but in 1993, this wasn't AI doing 00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:58.879 the work. This was old school. No, this was grueling 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:01.779 manual labor. Imagine a Venn diagram. They took 00:15:01.779 --> 00:15:04.690 a list of everyone who owned a 4WD. specifically 00:15:04.690 --> 00:15:07.570 a Nissan Patrol, because witnesses had seen one 00:15:07.570 --> 00:15:10.149 near the forest. That's a huge list. A huge list. 00:15:10.769 --> 00:15:13.090 Then they took a list of everyone who had registered 00:15:13.090 --> 00:15:16.309 a Ruger 10 -22 rifle or similar parts. Another 00:15:16.309 --> 00:15:19.169 huge list. Then they looked at work records from 00:15:19.169 --> 00:15:21.149 the RTA who was working near the forest. And 00:15:21.149 --> 00:15:22.789 they just looked for the name that appeared on 00:15:22.789 --> 00:15:25.769 all the lists. Exactly. They were manually cross 00:15:25.769 --> 00:15:29.279 -referencing thousands of data points. And slowly, 00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:32.220 the name Malat started to float to the surface. 00:15:32.299 --> 00:15:34.679 He owned the car. He owned the guns. He worked 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:37.340 on the roads. But circumstantial evidence isn't 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:39.440 enough for a conviction. They needed a witness. 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:42.639 They needed a breakthrough. They did. And incredibly, 00:15:42.779 --> 00:15:45.139 there was one walking around in the UK, a man 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:48.240 named Paul Onions. Paul Onions is the absolute 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.840 hero of this story. Without him, Malat might 00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:52.960 have kept going for years. Tell us about Paul. 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:56.740 Paul was a UK backpacker. Back in January 1990, 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:00.019 so years before the bodies were even found, he 00:16:00.019 --> 00:16:02.799 was hitchhiking south of Sydney. Okay, so take 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:05.279 us into that moment. It's 1990. Paul gets picked 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:07.340 up. He gets picked up by a guy who introduces 00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:10.240 himself as Bill. Friendly enough. But as they 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:12.720 get closer to the Belanglo turnoff, Bill's demeanor 00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:15.740 changes. He starts asking weird, invasive questions. 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:17.779 He slows the vehicle down. And this is where 00:16:17.779 --> 00:16:19.960 the survival instinct kicks in. Bill pulls the 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:22.019 car over to the side of the road. He reaches 00:16:22.019 --> 00:16:24.000 under the seat and pulls out a revolver and a 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.059 length of rope, and he tells Paul to put his 00:16:26.059 --> 00:16:28.340 seatbelt on. I can't even imagine the terror. 00:16:28.639 --> 00:16:30.620 You're in a foreign country in the middle of 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:33.519 nowhere. And a gun is pointed at you. But Paul 00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:36.139 Onions made a split second calculation. He realized 00:16:36.139 --> 00:16:39.200 if he stayed in that car, he was dead. So he 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.820 unbuckled his seatbelt. Threw the door open and 00:16:41.820 --> 00:16:43.940 he bailed out. He just scrambled out of the car 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:45.659 and started running. And he didn't run into the 00:16:45.659 --> 00:16:47.740 woods. He ran onto the highway. Right into traffic. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.139 Midlife gets out and starts shooting at him. 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:52.899 Bullets were whizzing past him. And Paul is waving 00:16:52.899 --> 00:16:55.200 his arms, trying to flag down cars that are doing 00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:58.139 110 kilometers an hour. Most people just swerved 00:16:58.139 --> 00:17:00.700 and drove past. One person stalked. One person 00:17:00.700 --> 00:17:03.019 stalked, a woman named Joanne Berry. She was 00:17:03.019 --> 00:17:04.779 driving a van with her sister and her children. 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:07.880 She saw Paul, saw the absolute terror in his 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.779 face, and she braked. Paul dived into the van, 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.660 shouted, he's got a gun, and she floored it. 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:15.339 And they went straight to the police, right? 00:17:15.460 --> 00:17:18.380 They did. But here's the tragedy of bureaucracy. 00:17:19.259 --> 00:17:22.740 In 1990, the police treated it as an isolated 00:17:22.740 --> 00:17:26.140 attempted robbery. They filed a report and it 00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:28.500 sat in a drawer in the barrel police station 00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:31.299 gathering dust. It's agonizing to think about. 00:17:31.789 --> 00:17:34.150 If they'd connected the dots then, the later 00:17:34.150 --> 00:17:37.609 victims might still be alive. It is. But in 1993, 00:17:37.930 --> 00:17:41.029 when the news of the Belanglo bodies broke internationally, 00:17:41.569 --> 00:17:45.789 Paul Onions saw it on TV in the UK. And he remembered. 00:17:46.069 --> 00:17:48.390 He recognized the location. He called the task 00:17:48.390 --> 00:17:50.910 force hotline. He said, I think I met this guy. 00:17:51.390 --> 00:17:53.369 That call must have been electric for the task 00:17:53.369 --> 00:17:55.930 force. It was the missing link. It corroborated 00:17:55.930 --> 00:17:58.009 with Joanne Berry's statement, which they dug 00:17:58.009 --> 00:18:01.069 up. Paul Onions agreed to fly back to Australia 00:18:01.069 --> 00:18:05.089 in 1994. He walked into a police station, looked 00:18:05.089 --> 00:18:07.869 at a photo lineup, and pointed straight at number 00:18:07.869 --> 00:18:10.609 four. That's the man. And that gave them probable 00:18:10.609 --> 00:18:15.460 cause. May 22, 1994. The arrest. They didn't 00:18:15.460 --> 00:18:17.980 take any chances. They authorized a massive raid. 00:18:18.099 --> 00:18:20.480 Fifty heavily armed police officers surrounded 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:23.700 Millat's home in Eagle Vale at dawn. They breached 00:18:23.700 --> 00:18:25.880 the door. And what they found inside wasn't just 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:28.319 evidence. It was an Aladdin's cave of horror. 00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:31.079 The trove. This is what nailed him. They found 00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:33.779 the weapons, or Anschitz rifle, and parts of 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:37.599 the Ruger 10 -22 hidden in a wall cavity. Ballistics 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:39.619 eventually matched these perfectly to the bullets 00:18:39.619 --> 00:18:42.160 found in the victims. But even more damning were 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.079 the souvenirs. The camping gear. The clothes. 00:18:45.299 --> 00:18:47.740 Yeah. They found sleeping bags, tents, water 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:49.759 bottles, and clothing that belonged to the victims. 00:18:49.779 --> 00:18:51.700 And he wasn't just hiding them in a box. He was 00:18:51.700 --> 00:18:54.299 using them. There are photos of the Millat family 00:18:54.299 --> 00:18:56.799 using the victims' camping equipment. He had 00:18:56.799 --> 00:18:59.099 given shirts belonging to the murdered backpackers 00:18:59.099 --> 00:19:01.339 to his unsuspecting girlfriends. That is just 00:19:01.339 --> 00:19:04.500 deeply, deeply psychological. Why do that? Why 00:19:04.500 --> 00:19:06.779 keep the evidence that can hang you? It's trophy 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:09.539 keeping. For a serial killer, the act of murder 00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:12.059 is a high, but it's fleeting. Keeping a trophy, 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.539 wearing the victim's shirt, using their tent. 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.599 It allows them to relive the kill. It extends 00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:20.160 the fantasy. Exactly. It's also an act of total 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.819 ownership. I took your life and now I own your 00:19:22.819 --> 00:19:25.819 things. It's the ultimate narcissism. So he's 00:19:25.819 --> 00:19:27.799 caught red -handed. We move to section four, 00:19:28.019 --> 00:19:31.019 the trial. Malat pleads not guilty. And this 00:19:31.019 --> 00:19:33.259 was not a quick trial. No, it was a spectacle. 00:19:33.700 --> 00:19:37.140 Malat was incredibly arrogant. His defense was 00:19:37.140 --> 00:19:40.579 audacious. It wasn't me. It was my family. He 00:19:40.579 --> 00:19:42.940 tried to frame his own brothers, specifically 00:19:42.940 --> 00:19:45.299 Richard and Walter Millott. Can you imagine sitting 00:19:45.299 --> 00:19:47.200 in court and watching your brother point the 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:50.339 finger at you for serial murder? It tore the 00:19:50.339 --> 00:19:52.220 family apart, although the family was already 00:19:52.220 --> 00:19:55.319 a mess of secrets. But the prosecution, led by 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.460 Mark Tedesi, was brilliant. Tedeschi didn't just 00:19:58.460 --> 00:20:01.180 present the facts. He engaged Malat in the witness 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:04.380 box. And Malat got cocky. He got so cocky he 00:20:04.380 --> 00:20:06.259 started tripping himself up. He knew too much 00:20:06.259 --> 00:20:07.960 about the weapons. He knew too much about the 00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.160 geography of the forest. And the jury saw right 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:13.839 through it. They did. In July 1996, the verdict 00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:16.579 came down. Guilty on all counts. Seven murders 00:20:16.579 --> 00:20:19.400 and the imprisonment and robbery of Paul Onions. 00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:21.720 And the sentence. Seven life sentences without 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:24.579 parole. And even then, as he was being led away, 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:27.690 he remained defiant. He never showed a shred 00:20:27.690 --> 00:20:30.349 of remorse. Never. He maintained his innocence 00:20:30.349 --> 00:20:32.970 until the day he died. He viewed the trial as 00:20:32.970 --> 00:20:35.230 a game he had temporarily lost, not a judgment 00:20:35.230 --> 00:20:38.029 of his morality. But here is where the story 00:20:38.029 --> 00:20:41.470 gets really dark. If that's even possible. It 00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:43.970 is. We've covered the seven victims. But the 00:20:43.970 --> 00:20:46.410 deep dive mission today is to look at what we 00:20:46.410 --> 00:20:49.269 don't know. Because Ivan Milat wasn't just a 00:20:49.269 --> 00:20:52.029 killer in a forest. He was a truck driver. This 00:20:52.029 --> 00:20:54.369 is the truck driver factor, and it is the thing 00:20:54.369 --> 00:20:56.990 that keeps cold case detectives awake at night. 00:20:57.690 --> 00:21:00.029 Millat started working as a truck driver in the 00:21:00.029 --> 00:21:03.230 mid -70s. He worked for the RTA for 20 years. 00:21:03.529 --> 00:21:05.930 And for our international listeners, or even 00:21:05.930 --> 00:21:08.049 locals who haven't done the drive, we need to 00:21:08.049 --> 00:21:10.750 paint a picture of Australian trucking. We aren't 00:21:10.750 --> 00:21:12.730 talking about a drive from London to Manchester. 00:21:13.009 --> 00:21:15.789 No, we are talking about vast, vast distances. 00:21:15.970 --> 00:21:18.769 The Nullarbor Plain, for example, is a stretch 00:21:18.769 --> 00:21:20.869 of road that goes for over a thousand kilometers 00:21:20.869 --> 00:21:23.710 without a single tree. Nothing. It's just red 00:21:23.710 --> 00:21:26.809 dirt, scrub, and heat haze. You can drive for 00:21:26.809 --> 00:21:29.589 six hours and not see another car. And Millot 00:21:29.589 --> 00:21:33.130 was driving these routes. Sydney to Perth, Brisbane 00:21:33.130 --> 00:21:36.019 to Melbourne. He was... everywhere. He had total 00:21:36.019 --> 00:21:39.500 mobility, and he had a vehicle that was a mobile 00:21:39.500 --> 00:21:42.339 room. If he picked up a hitchhiker on the air 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:45.160 highway in Western Australia, he could kill them 00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:47.940 and bury them in a shallow grave 500 kilometers 00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:50.359 from the nearest town. The body would never be 00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:52.940 found. Never. So let's look at the specific cold 00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:55.160 cases that experts believe are linked to him, 00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:57.480 because the patterns are just too close to be 00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:00.440 a coincidence. Let's start with Karen Rowland. 00:22:00.750 --> 00:22:04.549 Karen Rowland, 1971. The same year as his first 00:22:04.549 --> 00:22:07.089 known attack. She was 20 years old. She was pregnant. 00:22:07.309 --> 00:22:09.789 She disappeared near Canberra. Her car was found 00:22:09.789 --> 00:22:12.789 abandoned, but she was gone. Months later, her 00:22:12.789 --> 00:22:15.730 remains were found in a pine plantation. A pine 00:22:15.730 --> 00:22:18.410 plantation, just like Belanglo. Exactly. And 00:22:18.410 --> 00:22:20.430 we know from his work records, Millat was working 00:22:20.430 --> 00:22:22.950 in that specific area at that exact time. There 00:22:22.950 --> 00:22:24.930 are even witness statements from old co -workers 00:22:24.930 --> 00:22:28.130 who claim Millat boasted about murdering someone 00:22:28.130 --> 00:22:30.450 and burying the body in the bush. And they just 00:22:30.450 --> 00:22:32.210 thought he was talking tough. At the time, yeah. 00:22:32.410 --> 00:22:35.269 Then there's Peter Letcher in 1987. This one 00:22:35.269 --> 00:22:37.690 is chilling. Peter was a hitchhiker found in 00:22:37.690 --> 00:22:40.599 the Genolan Caves area. Millat knew that area 00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:42.460 well. It's documented he took his girlfriends 00:22:42.460 --> 00:22:45.619 there on trips. Peter was found shot five times 00:22:45.619 --> 00:22:48.079 in the head and stabbed in the back. That sounds 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.680 exactly like the backpacker murders, the overkill, 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:52.740 the combination of methods. It's almost a rehearsal, 00:22:52.980 --> 00:22:55.599 shooting and stabbing. And stabbing in the back 00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:58.380 suggests an ambush or a desire to incapacitate. 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:01.460 It's got his fingerprints all over it, metaphorically 00:23:01.460 --> 00:23:03.059 speaking. Look, the one that really convinced 00:23:03.059 --> 00:23:05.579 me, the one that feels like a smoking gun, is 00:23:05.579 --> 00:23:09.089 Diane Pinocchio. In 1991. Diane Pinocchio is 00:23:09.089 --> 00:23:11.309 the strongest link. She was a hitchhiker. She 00:23:11.309 --> 00:23:14.450 disappeared. When her body was found, the pathology 00:23:14.450 --> 00:23:16.950 report showed a knife wound to the spine. It 00:23:16.950 --> 00:23:19.250 had severed her spinal cord. The signature. The 00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:21.650 signature. You have to understand, severing a 00:23:21.650 --> 00:23:23.930 spinal cord with a knife isn't easy. It requires 00:23:23.930 --> 00:23:27.029 significant force and a specific angle. It's 00:23:27.029 --> 00:23:29.250 not a common injury you see in frenzied attacks. 00:23:29.589 --> 00:23:33.470 To find that exact specific injury on a victim 00:23:33.470 --> 00:23:36.170 in 1991, right in the middle of the blanglo... 00:23:36.269 --> 00:23:38.829 timeline is practically a fingerprint. And yet 00:23:38.829 --> 00:23:41.390 he was never charged with any of these. No DNA, 00:23:41.509 --> 00:23:45.309 no physical evidence linking him directly. But 00:23:45.309 --> 00:23:47.789 circumstantially, it's overwhelming. And then 00:23:47.789 --> 00:23:49.549 you have the cluster up in the Hunter region. 00:23:49.809 --> 00:23:52.589 Leanne Goodall, Robin Hickey, Amanda Robinson. 00:23:53.470 --> 00:23:55.970 Three young girls who vanished in the late 70s. 00:23:56.029 --> 00:23:58.210 And guess where Milat was working? On a road 00:23:58.210 --> 00:24:00.910 crew. On a road crew in that exact area. In fact, 00:24:00.910 --> 00:24:04.569 during a coroner's inquest years later, Milat 00:24:04.569 --> 00:24:06.589 actually admitted he used to pick up hitchhikers 00:24:06.589 --> 00:24:09.089 in Newcastle all the time. He puts himself there. 00:24:09.329 --> 00:24:12.109 The task force eventually looked at a list of 00:24:12.109 --> 00:24:14.630 potential victims. How big was that list? They 00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:17.930 started with 58. 58 missing persons were unsolved 00:24:17.930 --> 00:24:20.410 murders that fit the timeline and the geography. 00:24:20.750 --> 00:24:23.250 They couldn't prove them all, obviously. But 00:24:23.250 --> 00:24:25.630 the consensus among the detectives who worked 00:24:25.630 --> 00:24:28.549 the case is that the seven in Belanglo were just 00:24:28.549 --> 00:24:30.490 the ones he got lazy with. They were his garden. 00:24:30.630 --> 00:24:32.809 The ones he kept close to home. Exactly. The 00:24:32.809 --> 00:24:35.250 others. The others are out there in the vastness 00:24:35.250 --> 00:24:37.730 of the Australian bush. It's a haunting thought. 00:24:37.930 --> 00:24:40.190 A serial killer with a truck is the ultimate 00:24:40.190 --> 00:24:43.009 predator. He was a shark in an ocean of highway. 00:24:43.349 --> 00:24:46.880 Eventually, though. The shark was caged. He spent 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.660 the rest of his life in prison. But he didn't 00:24:49.660 --> 00:24:53.140 exactly go quietly, did he? He made sure we kept 00:24:53.140 --> 00:24:56.200 talking about him. Prison became his stage. He 00:24:56.200 --> 00:24:59.200 was a narcissist, and he was bored. He tried 00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:02.559 to escape in 1997 from Maitland Jail with a drug 00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:05.579 trafficker named George Savas. They planned to 00:25:05.579 --> 00:25:08.450 scale the walls. And it was busted. But the plan 00:25:08.450 --> 00:25:11.390 was busted. Savas realized it was over and hanged 00:25:11.390 --> 00:25:13.730 himself in his cell the next day. Mellup just 00:25:13.730 --> 00:25:16.029 shrugged it off and got moved to Supermax. And 00:25:16.029 --> 00:25:18.690 then came the self -harm. But it wasn't. It wasn't 00:25:18.690 --> 00:25:20.369 out of depression, was it? It felt like performance 00:25:20.369 --> 00:25:23.210 art. It was manipulation, pure and simple. In 00:25:23.210 --> 00:25:26.029 2001, he swallowed razor blades and staples. 00:25:26.190 --> 00:25:28.529 He wanted to get transferred to a hospital. He 00:25:28.529 --> 00:25:30.529 wanted a change of scenery. But the most bizarre 00:25:30.529 --> 00:25:33.009 incident was the plastic knife. The plastic knife. 00:25:33.719 --> 00:25:36.779 2009, he took a serrated plastic knife, the kind 00:25:36.779 --> 00:25:39.119 you get with a cafeteria meal, and he sawed off 00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:41.339 his own pinky finger. I can't even process the 00:25:41.339 --> 00:25:43.480 pain tolerance required for that. It's unbelievable. 00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:46.079 And the reason why he did it, he put the finger 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.119 in an envelope and addressed it to the High Court 00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.380 of Australia. What for? He was trying to force 00:25:50.380 --> 00:25:52.619 an appeal. He thought, if I send them a piece 00:25:52.619 --> 00:25:55.180 of me, they have to listen. It's just madness. 00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:57.880 It's a desperation for control. He couldn't control 00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:00.160 his victims anymore, so he turned that violence 00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:02.319 onto his own body to try and control the legal 00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:05.769 system. It didn't work, of course. And then the 00:26:05.769 --> 00:26:07.890 ultimate act of pettiness. Right. The hunger 00:26:07.890 --> 00:26:10.130 strike for the PlayStation. That sums him up 00:26:10.130 --> 00:26:13.009 perfectly. In 2011, he went on a hunger strike. 00:26:13.109 --> 00:26:17.109 He lost 25 kilograms. He was emaciated. And his 00:26:17.109 --> 00:26:19.809 demand wasn't for better rights or a review of 00:26:19.809 --> 00:26:22.450 his case. He wanted a PlayStation 3 in his cell. 00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:25.259 You're kidding. He starved himself for a game 00:26:25.259 --> 00:26:27.839 console. He was deadly serious. It just shows 00:26:27.839 --> 00:26:30.460 you the level of childish narcissism we're dealing 00:26:30.460 --> 00:26:32.880 with. It wasn't about justice. It was about, 00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:35.539 I want this toy and I will make the authorities 00:26:35.539 --> 00:26:37.900 panic until they give it to me. Unbelievable. 00:26:38.299 --> 00:26:41.779 So he spends decades rotting in Supermax. But 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:44.720 outside, the Malat legacy continued to poison 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:47.420 things. It did. The name Malat became a curse. 00:26:47.980 --> 00:26:50.539 And in 2010, history repeated itself in the most 00:26:50.539 --> 00:26:53.059 tragic, horrifying way. We're talking about Matthew 00:26:53.059 --> 00:26:55.920 Malott. Ivan's great nephew. Matthew was 19. 00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:59.000 He had grown up with this dark family legend 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:02.880 of Uncle Ivan. He took a friend, a 17 -year -old 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:05.519 named David Octorlani, into Belanglo State Forest. 00:27:06.009 --> 00:27:08.490 The exact same forest. And he killed him. He 00:27:08.490 --> 00:27:10.809 killed him with an axe. And he had another friend 00:27:10.809 --> 00:27:13.809 record it on a mobile phone. On the audio, you 00:27:13.809 --> 00:27:15.930 can hear Matthew bragging. He says, this is what 00:27:15.930 --> 00:27:19.049 my family does. That is just, it breaks your 00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:21.930 heart. It forces you to ask that impossible question. 00:27:22.269 --> 00:27:25.809 Is it nature? Is there a murder gene? Or was 00:27:25.809 --> 00:27:29.170 it the nurture, the mythos of Ivan corrupting 00:27:29.170 --> 00:27:31.750 a young mind? Most psychologists would say it's 00:27:31.750 --> 00:27:34.039 the latter. Growing up in the shadow of that 00:27:34.039 --> 00:27:36.359 infamy, hearing the war stories, for a disturbed 00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:38.859 young man, Ivan wasn't a monster to be feared. 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:41.700 He was an idol to be emulated. Finally, we reached 00:27:41.700 --> 00:27:44.960 the end of the man himself. Ivan Milip died in 00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:47.460 October 2019. He was diagnosed with terminal 00:27:47.460 --> 00:27:49.859 esophageal and stomach cancer. It was a slow, 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:52.059 painful, wasting away in the prison hospital. 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:53.960 The police tried one last time, didn't they, 00:27:54.019 --> 00:27:56.839 to get a confession? They did. Detectives visited 00:27:56.839 --> 00:27:59.180 him eight times on his deathbed. They pleaded 00:27:59.180 --> 00:28:01.339 with him. Just tell us where the others are. 00:28:01.420 --> 00:28:03.339 Give the families closure. And did he give them 00:28:03.339 --> 00:28:05.980 anything? Not a word. He just looked at them 00:28:05.980 --> 00:28:08.539 and stayed silent. He took his secrets to the 00:28:08.539 --> 00:28:12.019 grave. It was his final act of control. He knew 00:28:12.019 --> 00:28:14.579 that by staying silent, he was inflicting pain 00:28:14.579 --> 00:28:17.420 on those families one last time. And his final 00:28:17.420 --> 00:28:19.839 act of spite regarding the funeral. He requested 00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:22.680 that the taxpayer pay for his funeral. The audacity. 00:28:22.859 --> 00:28:25.140 Thankfully, the government refused. The costs 00:28:25.140 --> 00:28:27.720 were taken from his small prison account. He 00:28:27.720 --> 00:28:31.039 was cremated. No funeral. No memorial. Just gone. 00:28:31.799 --> 00:28:35.099 So what does this all mean? We've unpacked the 00:28:35.099 --> 00:28:37.839 childhood, the crimes, the investigation, the 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:40.440 near misses, and the cold cases. When you look 00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:42.380 back at the devastation, what is the legacy? 00:28:42.700 --> 00:28:45.519 The legacy is a loss of innocence. Before Millat, 00:28:45.700 --> 00:28:47.619 hitchhiking in Australia was a rite of passage. 00:28:47.720 --> 00:28:49.779 It was how you saw the country. It was. Millat 00:28:49.779 --> 00:28:52.000 ended that. He turned the open road into a place 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:54.259 of suspicion. He taught an entire generation 00:28:54.259 --> 00:28:56.240 that the friendly stranger might be a monster. 00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:58.599 And that's the thought I want to leave you with 00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:02.059 today. I want you to think about Ivan Millat's 00:29:02.059 --> 00:29:05.839 work history again. 20 years. Driving trucks 00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:09.019 across the entire continent. The emptiness of 00:29:09.019 --> 00:29:12.039 the outback. The long, lonely stretches of the 00:29:12.039 --> 00:29:14.119 Pacific Highway where the phone signal just drops 00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:16.279 out. The thousands of hours of opportunities. 00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:18.700 If the bodies in Belanglo were only found because 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:20.599 he got arrogant and clustered them in his own 00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:23.700 backyard, how many lone victims are still out 00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:26.400 there? How many people accepted a ride from a 00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:28.960 friendly truckie named Bill and are still waiting 00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:31.750 to be found in the red dirt? That is the question 00:29:31.750 --> 00:29:33.470 that keeps the file open, and it's the reason 00:29:33.470 --> 00:29:36.170 why, even though he's dead, the story isn't over. 00:29:37.170 --> 00:29:39.630 Thanks for listening to this deep dive. And seriously, 00:29:39.829 --> 00:29:41.190 stay safe out there.