2 weeks Ago By Glen Humphries
Government documents relating to backpacker killer Ivan Milat will be released amid the belief he may have committed dozens more murders. Login or signup to continue reading In state parliament independent MP Jeremy Buckingham called for the release of documents held by the Attorney General, the Police Minister, Minister for the Hunter, the NSW Police Force and the Department of Communities and Justice and Corrective Services NSW. Government minister Penny Sharpe told parliament there would be no objection to releasing the documents relating to the "scumbag" killer who murdered seven backpackers and buried them in the Southern Highlands' Belanglo State Forest.
Mr Buckingham referred to claims from former NSW detectives Neville Scullion and the late Paul Gordon, who worked on the Milat case that Milat was responsible for up to 80 murders as far back as the 1960s. For that reason the MP disputed the idea of Milat as being a "lone wolf". "It is a view that I share with an increasing number of people - that the picture of Ivan Milat as a reclusive, lone-wolf serial killer is incorrect or at best incomplete," Mr Buckingham said.
"It is my strong view that Milat was a participant in organised crime and human trafficking, feeding men, women and children into paedophile and sadistic, murderous sex rings. "The idea that Milat was an antisocial loner, hiding out in southwest Sydney, patrolling lonely highways for hitchhiker victims is not the complete picture. "I also believe that he was highly social and active, moving and working across the state, particularly in the Kings Cross area, where he worked on the Kings Cross Tunnel.
" Buckingham said Milat admitted to his brother that at age 17 in 1962, he shot Neville Knight in the spine, paralysing him from the waist down. Milat later served time for theft, being released in 1971. Later that same year 20-year-old Keren Rowland was murdered; the next day Milat boasted to his workmates that he had killed a man and buried his body in the bush.
He also picked up two female hitchhikers, raped one and threatened to kill them both. They said Milat told them he had done that before, though the 18-year-olds managed to escape. In 1974 Milat was captured and told his cellmate that Kings Cross was "a goldmine" for picking up girls and boys then raping and killing them.
"Milat told him in gory detail how he had tortured and murdered a succession of young people in the early 1970s, burying their bodies in bushland near Liverpool," Buckingham said. "In 1977 two 18-year-olds were attacked hitchhiking from Liverpool by a man in his early 30s with black, straggly hair. They managed to escape in the bush.
One of the women later identified Ivan Milat. "In 1978 Stephen Lapthorne, 21 years old, and his girlfriend, Michelle Pope, 18 years old, were last seen in a distinctive lime green Bedford CF van. In 2019 a matching van with one number difference in the serial number was located by a member of the public close to the Belangalo murdering grounds of Ivan Milat.
" The MP felt Milat - who killed seven backpackers between 1989 and 1993 - was responsible for a number of unsolved murders in the state. "Twenty-year-old Leanne Goodall was last seen in 1987 at the Star Hotel in Newcastle, where Ivan Milat was staying," he said. "Robyn Hickie, 17, went missing in 1979 while waiting for a bus.
Ivan Milat was working a few kilometres away. "A fortnight later Amanda Robinson, aged 14, was abducted in Swansea. Amanda Zolis, aged 16, was last seen in the midafternoon on April 21 1979 walking to a coffee shop in Hamilton.
Former NSW coroner John Abernathy said, 'These are missing teenagers; they just don't disappear into thin air'. "In 1987, 18-year-old Peter Letcher, a young hitchhiker, was murdered. Bullets at his murder scene came from the same gun used in some of the future backpacker murders.
In 1987, 16-year-old Debbie Ashby was last seen leaving her family home at Leumeah at 1pm. Ivan Milat lived in Eagle Vale, less than five minutes away." While the government would not block Mr Buckingham's motion, Ms Sharpe said it will be hard to meet his requested 28-day turnaround to supply all the documents.
"There are records being asked for that go back to the 1960s from both Corrections and police," she said. "Government is going to seriously struggle to meet that within a 28-day time frame. "I also flag with the House that there is likely to be material that people might want that we will not be in a position to release.
But at this time we understand what people are trying to do. We will not oppose the motion." I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers.
I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading. I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers.
I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team.
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