Claims that Ivan Milat murdered women for decades and, after faking his own death, secretly returned to Sydney, living in bachelor flats around the city while hunting for victims, will be examined at a new parliamentary inquiry next month.
Milat – Australia’s worst serial killer and the inspiration for Netflix’s new Outback thriller film Apex – is suspected of having freely roamed the country, from inner-city Kings Cross to remote corners of nearly every state and territory, killing as he went.
The inquiry will investigate up to 100 unsolved murders or missing-persons cases linked to Milat, suggesting that he may have been far more prolific than police records show.
Apart from the infamous Belanglo Forest, where he buried his seven known backpacker victims in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ivan is also known to have boasted about two other burial grounds.
While briefly jailed in 1974 – having been caught following an attempt to stage his own suicide – Milat told cellmate Noel Manning about his secret southern graveyards near Heathcote and the adjacent Royal National Park.
Then, while facing prison for rape and the armed robbery of two women – charges that were later miraculously dropped – Milat bragged about the young people he had lured and killed in the nightclub district while working on the Kings Cross tunnel.
There was also another suspected vast burial ground linked to Milat, which police searched briefly during heavy rain after the Belanglo bodies were discovered. They found nothing and gave up after four days.
It was a massive 150-hectare property on Wombeyan Caves Road in Goodmans Ford, New South Wales – once owned by Milat family members and since sold – which was either the site of, or next to, a huge black monolith known as Bantry Castle.

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Ivan Milat (right) imported millions of rounds of ammunition to a family property he called ‘the big block at Wombeyan’, which investigators now believe may have been used as a burial ground. The site was only briefly searched after the Belanglo bodies were found

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Ivan Milat’s brutality partly inspired Netflix’s cat-and-mouse thriller Apex, about a killer (played by Taron Egerton) who hunts women in the Outback, with Charlize Theron starring as one of his potential victims

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Milat drove his lime green Charger around Sydney while on the run after faking his own death. According to Jeremy Buckingham, during this period, Milat murdered several women

Jeremy Buckingham, a member of the NSW Legislative Council who is leading the inquiry into ‘Unsolved murders and long-term missing persons cases in NSW between 1965 and 2010’, said Milat referred to the property as ‘the big block at Wombeyan’.
Milat is believed to have imported millions of rounds of ammunition from Queensland to that family property.
Mr Buckingham’s months-long inquiry aims to prompt a new search for Milat’s victims, though he admits the area to cover is enormous.
Part of the inquiry will focus on murders linked to Milat, including cases where his work records place him near the scene and where victims were disposed of using his signature, brutally savage methods – often targeting women or travelling couples.
Notably, the investigation will also examine murders that occurred in the years after Milat faked his own death and audaciously lived in plain sight around Sydney.
Before this, Milat had spent three years in prison after being locked up for theft at the age of 22.
Already familiar with detention – having been sent to juvenile facilities at 13 for attacking animals, then for stealing, and later graduating to hard labour as an adult – Milat was determined to avoid further incarceration.
Milat was released from jail at the start of 1970, and within six months managed to buy a Phase 3 XY Falcon worth about $5,000 to $6,000.

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Wombeyan Caves Road, where the Milat family once owned a huge property, was a favourite spot for Ivan to fire off millions of rounds in target practice. A new parliamentary inquiry will investigate it as a possible burial ground

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Milat fired millions of rounds on his favourite hideaway property along Wombeyan Caves Road, which could be the site of more of his victims’ bodies

 Backpacker killer Ivan Milat’s FIFTY new victims – as haunting photos of his ‘kill kit’ are released

Three key events then occurred in quick succession before he faked his own death the following year.
In early February 1971, Ivan’s 16-year-old sister Margaret was injured in a car accident when one of her brothers crashed on Campbell Hill Road, Guildford.
She sustained head trauma and died a few days later.
Nine days after Margaret was buried, Keren Rowlands, a dental nurse, was reported missing on February 26, 1971, after she failed to arrive at a party.
Her white Mini Morris 850 sedan was found abandoned on Parkes Way in Campbell with no petrol and witnesses told police at the time they had seen Rowland accept a ride from a dark sedan.
It was later ascertained that Milat was working for the Water Board in the area at the time.
Three months later, Keren’s body was found strangled, raped and covered with branches in the Fairburn Pine Plantation, near Canberra’s Air Disaster Memorial.
Then, on April 7, 1971, Milat abducted two 18-year-old female hitchhikers at knifepoint after picking them up in his XY Falcon near Liverpool railway station.
He raped one of the hitchhikers before they stopped at a petrol station café, where they managed to escape.

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A man nicknamed ‘the cowboy killer’ for his large black hat was suspected in the murders of Robin Hoinville-Bartram, 18, and Anita Cunningham, 19. Only Robin’s body was found – she had been shot in the head with a rifle

Milat took off but his Falcon was blocked when a truck rolled over and he was arrested and charged.
He was granted bail after his lawyer John Marsden personally drove to the police station to get his client freed.
While awaiting trial, Milat was allegedly involved in two armed robberies in south-western Sydney: a deli in Revesby on July 23, and a bank in Canley Heights four days later.
One of his brothers, Michael, and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 and 16 years for the offences, but the charges against Milat later mysteriously disappeared.
But first, Milat decided to vanish to take the heat off himself.
At the end of 1971, after a committal hearing on the rape charge suggested he was facing 20 years’ jail, he left his shoes and car at The Gap, a well-known suicide spot in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

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Milat’s years of opportunistic, brutal killings extended far beyond the timeframe of the Belanglo backpacker murders

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Nine days after Milat’s sister Margaret was buried, dental nurse Keren Rowland was murdered

After creating the impression he had fallen to his death and his body washed out to sea, Milat fled to New Zealand for eight months to live with his uncle Ivan in Mount Eden, Auckland, until he became known to police there as well.
He returned to Sydney in mid-1972, rented a flat in Ashfield, and bought a lime green VJ Valiant Charger – beginning a new double life, barely in hiding.
Mr Buckingham said Milat returned to Kings Cross and travelled up and down the east coast, continuing his killing spree. The parliamentary inquiry will examine murders in New South Wales and southeast Queensland that fit Milat’s modus operandi.
Milat was eventually rearrested in 1974 when he visited his mother in hospital after she suffered from a heart attack.
In December 1974, he was acquitted on the rape charge and later, the armed robbery charges. Milat’s lawyer Marsden, who died in 2006, later expressed regret at helping him avoid conviction, given the killings he would ultimately be found guilty of.
These are some of the unsolved murder and missing-persons cases from around the time period that Milat faked his own death and before his arrest in 1974:
JOAN WECH
Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW. October 2, 1971

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The body of Joan Maree Wech was found in a storeroom in a petrol station in Darlinghurst on a Saturday night in 1971

Joan Maree Wech was only 19 years old when she was brutally stabbed at a petrol station in Sydney’s inner-city Darlinghurst.
A New Zealand national, she was popular, with many friends, and had previously worked as an attendant at a car wash centre in Rushcutters Bay.
But at about 10.35pm on October 2, 1971, Joan’s body was located in a small storeroom of the Sydney Service Station, a servo on Flinders Street.
She had suffered seven stab wounds to her chest and upper body and died at the scene.
ANITA CUNNINGHAM & ROBIN HOINVILLE-BARTRAM
Coolangatta. November, 1972
Robin Hoinville-Bartram, 18, and Anita Cunningham, 19, were hitchhiking from Melbourne to Bowen in northern Queensland in November 1972 to visit Ms Hoinville-Bartram’s parents when they were last seen near Coolangatta.
They might have vanished on the Gold Coast, but their remains would be found further north on what has since been called ‘the highway of death’.

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Anita Cunningham’s body has never been found, but police believe the 19-year-old met the same fate as her friend, who was shot in the head

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The remains of Robin Hoinville-Bartram were found four months later, protruding from a shallow grave. She had been shot twice in the head

The remains of Robin Hoinville-Bartram were found four months later, protruding from a shallow grave under a bridge at Sensible Creek, near Pentland.
The death scene was about 80km west of Charters Towers, a rural city 136 km south-west of Townsville.
She had been shot twice in the head with a .22 rifle.
Ms Cunningham’s body has never been found, but police believe she met the same fate.
A suspect known as ‘the cowboy killer’ – so called for his large black hat – resembled Ivan Milat, who often dressed as a cowboy and carried firearms, including rifles.
LYNETTE WHITE
Coogee, Sydney’s eastern suburbs. June 8, 1973

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Lynette White was a cleaning product saleswoman and mother of a three month-old son

Lynette White, a wife, mother, and hairdresser who occasionally performed Hawaiian hula dancing at the local surf club, was a popular figure around the eastern Sydney suburb of Coogee in the early 1970s.
With her husband Paul, she was also involved in direct-selling the cleaning product Swipe, holding sales introduction meetings at their Beach Street apartment.
On June 8, 1973, Paul White found the body of his 26-year-old wife in that apartment, with multiple stab wounds and her throat cut.
Nearby, their three month-old son lay unharmed in his cot.

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Lynette White loved hula dancing at the local surf club in Coogee

Police and homicide detectives who cleared Mr White of any suspicion were unable to come up with a suspect, although police theorised that Lynette’s dancing may have attracted unwanted attention.
In the months before her murder, Ms White reported accounts of what would now be considered stalking.
The murder of another young woman, Maria Smith, in her Randwick unit a year later led investigators to believe that a serial killer may have been operating in the area.
In 2017, more than four decades after Lynette’s death, police assigned a new detective to the case.
The parliamentary inquiry welcomes any new leads or submissions that might help solve it.
JEANETTE HANNINGTON
Grays Point, southern Sydney. September 28, 1973

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Schoolgirl Jeanette Hannington, 14, was found sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped on a road near the Royal National Park, which may have been one of Ivan Milat’s burial grounds

Schoolgirl Jeanette Marie Hannington had frequent arguments with her parents and, in defiance, began leaving home late at night and staying out unsupervised.
Sometime after 1am on September 28, 1973, she was found dead on the side of North West Arm Road in Grays Point, a southern Sydney suburb which borders the Royal National Park.
She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. A coroner would later find that Jeanette had a ‘foolhardy belief’ in her ability to look after herself.
No suspects were ever identified and the murder remains unsolved.
GABRIELLE JAHNKE & MICHELLE RILEY
Petrie, Queensland. October 6, 1973
Gabriel Ingrid Jahnke and Michelle Ann Riley were last seen alive exiting a black-and-white taxi near Petrie Bight, near the Brisbane River, at about 10am on October 6, 1973.
Having known each other only two months, the teenagers chose to hitchhike to save money for nights out in Surfers Paradise and Coolangatta, their chosen destination.
At 8am on October 13, Ms Jahnke’s body was discovered at the bottom of a steep embankment next to the Pacific Highway at Ormeau. It looked as if it had been thrown down there.

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Gabriel Ingrid Jahnke’s body was discovered at the bottom of a steep embankment next to the Pacific Highway at Ormeau. The teenager had probably been raped

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Ten days later, the remains of Michelle Ann Riley were located about 12 metres from the Mount Tamborine Highway, also suffering from massive head injuries

Her black caftan dress had been pulled up and she wore no underwear, suggesting she had been raped.
The body of Michelle Riley was discovered ten days later, about 12 metres from the Mount Tamborine Highway, approximately 6km south of Logan Village.
Her body was found at about 6pm on October 23. She had suffered massive head injuries, and her clothes were pulled up.
Both victims had sustained fatal skull fractures.
The murders are unsolved. A $250,000 reward remains on offer from the Queensland Government for information leading to the conviction of those responsible.
MARIA SMITH
Randwick, Sydney’s eastern suburbs. April 22, 1974

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At the time of her murder in 1974, Maria Smith had only been married for eight weeks and was found bound, sexually assaulted and strangled with pantyhose

Dubbed ‘the bride murder’, the body of 20-year-old Maria Smith was found by her husband on the evening of April 22, 1974, in the bedroom of their flat on St Marks Road in Randwick, in Sydney’s east.
Stephen Smith had left home just after 7.30am that morning and Maria was due to leave for work an hour later, but never arrived.
Maria was found bound, sexually assaulted and strangled with pantyhose.
An inquest the following year found that she had been strangled by an unknown person. A one-million dollar reward was offered in 2017.
At the time of her murder, Maria and Stephen had only been married for eight weeks.