Australians are known for world-class performances in many fields. Mostly, our achievements are a source of national pride, but one field of achievement causes us only horror and shame. Our serial killers are some of the most prolific and brutal anywhere. And none are more brutal or prolific than the late, unlamented, Ivan Robert Marko Milat.

Milat took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture

Milat took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture

The facts of Milat’s known killing spree are gruesome and horrific. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Milat turned the Belanglo State Forest, a bushland reserve off the main highway to Melbourne, and eighty miles from Sydney, into his personal killing field. A labourer who worked the area for the New South Wales roads authority, Milat used his time off to cruise the nearby highway. There, he abducted female and male hitchhikers, including British backpackers Caroline Clarke, 21, and Joanne Waters, 22. He took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture. Their remains, and the crime scenes, reveal that they were viciously beaten, stabbed and mutilated with hunting knives, and shot both before, and after, death.

Police concluded Clarke’s body was used for target practice, and that she may have been alive when the shooting began. Other victims suffered as awfully as Clarke and Waters; one was beheaded, her skull never found. For Milat’s victims, death........

© The Spectator