The Back Packer Murders
Darragh Scully
2004413
Justice and Forensic Science
Jus 3105
Edith Cowan University
Instructor: Wayne Snell
A man picks up
a hitchhiker on the highway. They are getting along quite well, talking and laughing,
when suddenly the car breaks down. "Damn,” says the driver "We'll
have to hike through the woods to the garage to get someone to fix it."
The hitchhiker commiserates and says, “Well, these things happen. Let's get
going. “They are hiking through the woods, when the driver says, “Did you know
these are the Belangelo woods. That murderer cut a guy's head off and buried it
under that tree right over there!"… They continue through the woods a bit
further, and the driver says, "See those bushes over there...Well that's
where they found that girl's hands that the killer cut off and threw under
there. “Not long after, the driver says again, "This is where the murderer
tied up a Swedish backpacker and cut her throat, while her boyfriend waited in
the car." The hitchhiker is unnerved by all this and says "Would you
mind not talking about it? You're giving me the creeps!!” Giving you the
creeps!!" the driver says, “I have to walk back to the car alone!".
(Anonymous)
The
back packer murders were one of
The 7 murders began first with the
disappearance of James Gibson and Deborah Everest. They were murdered that day
on
On
Table 1. The
Backpacker Murderer Timeline.
year |
month |
day |
details |
1971 |
April |
8th |
Two women, Greta and Margaret
decided to hitch hike to |
1971 |
April |
9th |
At approximately |
1977 |
? |
? |
Milat allegedly picked up Therese
Tran and Mary Treglis at |
1989 |
December |
30 |
Last sighting of James and Deborah
Everest. |
1989 |
December |
31 |
Michael James finds Ricoh Camera at
in Galston Gorge. (didn’t report it until 1990, march, 27 see below) |
1990 |
Jan |
? |
Paul Onions was taken on the |
1990 |
Jan |
5 |
James Gibson reported missing. |
1990 |
march |
13 |
Wendy Dellsperger finds ruck-sack
in Galston Gorge with the name and phone number of James Gibson on it. |
1990 |
march |
14 |
Wendy Dellsperger calls James Gibson
mom about the Rucksack after police fail to take finding seriously. |
1990 |
march |
27 |
Michael James sees newspaper report
about Wendy finding rucksack and calls police to tell them about how he found
a Ricoh Camera that belonged to James Gibson. |
1990 |
April |
29 |
Police search Galton gorge and fail
to find any further clues. |
1991 |
January |
24 |
Simone Schmidl Disappeared after
hitching a ride on Hume highway never to be seen again. |
1991 |
December |
26 |
Anja Habshied and Gabor Neugebaur
last seen at the Original Backpackers in |
1992 |
April |
13 |
Last Sighting of Joanne Davies and
Caroline Clarke (Easter Saturday 1992) |
1992 |
June |
17 |
A missing person’s media alert is put
out across the nation for Davies and Clarke. |
1992 |
September |
17 |
Davies bodies discovered in
Belangelo State Forrest. |
1992 |
September |
18 |
Clarke's bodies discovered in
Belangelo State Forrest about 20 metres away. |
1993 |
October |
5 |
Bruce Pryor searches long acre fire
trail and finds a femur bone and skull and calls the police. Police identify
these as James Gibson and Deborah Everest. |
1993 |
October |
18 |
Alex Milat makes report to police
about 2 suspicious vehicles filled with men with guns and 2 women bound and
gagged. |
1993 |
November |
1 |
Police search Miners Despair, an
abandoned coal mine and discover the remains of Simone Schmidl. |
1993 |
November |
4 |
Rod Lynch sets up the Net Map the computer
generated criminal profiling system. |
1993 |
November |
4 |
Dr Bradhurst finishes the autopsy
on Simone Schmidl corpse and at similar time receives a call that 2 more
bodies were found. Police identified these to be the bodies of Gabor and
Anja. |
1993 |
November |
13 |
Paul onions reports how Milat
attempted to abduct him on Hume highway. He noted Milat's Merv Huges
moustache. |
1994 |
December |
10 |
Therese Throng reports the incident
in 1977. The girls identify both Ivan and his brother as the culprits and
police decide it won’t stand up in court. |
1994 |
may |
|
Evidence being still being
processed through Net map |
1994 |
may |
22 |
Police Raid Milat’s home in |
1994 |
may |
22 |
Police raid the homes of Ivan
Milat’s Brothers and the home of Ivan's Mother and discover more evidence
linking Ivan to the murders. Ivan was arrested and charged and the
forensic evidence was used to convict him. |
Mercer (2002); Whittaker & Kennedy 1998.
In December 1993 Rod
Lynch a detective in task force Eyre had set up a special computer system to analyse
the murder data. The Milat case had thousands of pieces of information flooding
in each day, and how this information related to the murders isn’t so obvious
and may keep the investigators minds focused on menial evidence analysis and
still make no connections. These aberrant activities can be analysed with net
map. For example net map may take
information regarding offender behaviour and use it to link the offender’s
behaviour to the scene. Open ended analysis techniques used to find origin
points or behaviour and resting places or outcomes of behaviour is what net map
is about. Parameters include important variables such as names, addresses,
vehicles, times, dates and locations of all pieces of data. Net map analyses
the connections between data sets such as communications, locations, and
resting place of evidence. These connections are mapped out along a circle
based on the strength of the relationship to a given event allowing better
prioritization of leads (Brue, 2004). According to the creator of net map Rob
Galloway (Gliddon, 2002); the data is referred to as non-linear data. The Data
is ordered and then it produces a Spirograph profile of the data. When an
anomaly shows up it is quite obvious to the eye for example, Net map found that
Ivan Milat wasn’t at work on the days the victims disappeared and that he
worked in the area near the Hume highway and in the Belangelo region. The need
to use a computer system in such a big case is only apparent when you consider
the full extent of the information incoming to investigators. For example on
Caroline Clarke’s autopsy x-ray revealed spent
bullets in her skull. Ten separate entry holes from small calibre weapon (.22)
were found. Seven spent bullets were found in the head and skeleton. Dutton
(1999) estimated that she had been shot at from 3 directions, left of the head,
right side of the head and the back of the head. Six bullets had exited with
four separate exit wounds. Two .22
Neugebaur was shot in the head with a small calibre
.22. Anja's head was never found however so if she was also shot one can only
have a stab! About 165 m south Neugebaur's body a
Dutton identified the components of a weapon hidden
at Milat’s home as belonging to a Ruger 10/22 self loading rifle. There was
tons of evidence found though some of this evidence was crucial. There was the
fired cartridge case found in Milat’s bedroom that was discharged from the same
gun used to murder Clark and Neugebaur’s. Then there was the home made silencer
that when tested produced marks similar to the bullets found in Clarke’s head.
Test firing some of the cartridges using the bold assembly found in Milat’s
wall cavity was however the most significant finding of Dutton’s investigation.
The exhibit bolt assembly was fixed to the Ruger 10/22 rifle from the weapons
library. Test firing consisted of firing the bullet into the water recover
tank. This tank allows the bullets to be recovered for examination undamaged
though it gives pristine markings form being fired through the barrel bore.
Dutton was ecstatic at this because he was 100% sure of this finding and
believed the markings had been duplicated meaning this was the bolt assembly
used to murder Clark and Neugebaur. The findings were thus a positive ID of the
breach bolt assembly as fitted to the rifle used in Clarke’s murder. Then there
was the Positive ID of cases from two scenes by chamber marks only. The barrel
of the rifle however was never recovered. Dutton was not sure about his initial
findings with the exception of one so he asked Superintendent Prior who was the
Authority on Ruger 10/22 weapons. His findings were similar to Dutton’s however
he was more confident in that all the findings were more than just consistent
they were absolute. He found that all
When Milat’s home was searched a number of other pieces of
evidence was found. One item was Simone Schmidl's water bottle. Milat had
attempted to conceal the identity of the bottle by scratching out the name.
Detectives had noticed that there was scratching and that there was something
written there in what appeared to be a felt tip pen however what was written
had been obliterated. The technique to detect obliterated writings in such a
case is done by and Australian invention, the Poli light (Whittaker &
Kennedy, 1998). The Poli light utilized the infra red range of light from the
14 light bands it has in its range. The infra red light was able to detect from
the inside of the plastic bottle that absorbed the ink that the bottle had the
name Simi encrypted on it. Another piece of evidence was a sash cord with blood
on it found in Milat’s carport. This piece of cord was identified as the same
cord used in the ligatures in the murders. Clarke's parents gave blood and a
DNA test produced a positive match. In fact it was stated by Hunt J that the
results of the DNA were to be interpreted as positive in that the odds of the
blood belonging to another individual was 1 in 185000. This and other evidence
was so damning that the Jury returned 8 guilty verdicts (for more evidence see
appendix). Milat is now serving 7 consecutive life sentences and will be
imprisoned for the rest of his natural life. He still insists he was set up and
is innocent.
Clearly Milat is an
evil man. There was a time when evil people would be executed. Milat was given
the opportunity to write in a column and he made a fatal error. This is what he
wrote "When working alone in the open, a medium sized backpacker can be
restrained easily by using a clove-hitch around the neck, running the rope
along side the flank and forming a double loop tie-off under the left foot. The
backpacker can then be easily brought to ground for subsequent sadistic rituals
by pulling on the rope at a 45 degree angle". Milat plagiarised the work
as well and changed some of the words to fit his fantasy. In years past Milat
would have gotten the death penalty. Now the Justice system takes at least $265
per day from the tax payer to keep this person in prison and as if the initial
investigation didn’t cost enough as it was. Clearly this is an amazing piece of
forensic science.
References
Brue, D. (2004) Magna Data: An Australian scientist leads
the way in linking reams of data to fight crime. The bulletin: news week April
21st
Dutton, G., (1999)
Gliddon, J (2002) Non-linear rhythm. The bulletin: news week January 16.
Mercer, N. (2002) Fate: Inside the
backpacker murders investigation.
Whittaker, M and Kennedy, L. (1998) Sins
of the Brother: The definitive story of Ivan Milat and the Backpacker Murders.
The Bug: Milat sacked as
bug columnist http://www.thebug.com.au/milat.html
(cached)