On the afternoon of September 19, 1992, two outdoor enthusiasts in Australia were hiking in the forest, but just as they were breathing the fresh air in the forest, a sudden gust of wind blew through and blew a fishy smell.
Picture 丨 Australian serial killing of backpackers
The smell was very pungent, it seemed that the carcass of some kind of animal had rotted, and out of curiosity they followed the stench, and when they passed through a dense forest, they found a small mound full of fallen leaves.
On the small mound, not only were torn clothes and shoes scattered, but also some human bones and long hair were faintly revealed, and it was obvious that someone had an accident here, which frightened them both.
They quickly marked the location on the map, then returned to the city in a panic and reported the case to the local police station, and then the police quickly arrived at the scene.
However, because it was late at night, the police only conducted a preliminary investigation of the scene, then withdrew to the police station and prepared to conduct a detailed investigation of the scene the next day.
As a result, early the next morning, when the police arrived at the scene, they found another human remains less than 30 meters away from the remains.
The forensic preliminary investigation found that the two remains were women, but because the remains were highly decayed and there were no items at the scene that could indicate the identities of the two people, it was impossible to determine the true identities of the two remains at the first time.
Picture 丨 Police inquest the scene
But based on the location of the remains and some of the remaining clothes, the police judged that the two remains were likely "backpackers," that is, hikers.
Initially, the police believed that this was just an isolated murder, but as the investigation deepened, more and more remains were found, which gradually unveiled a horrific series of serial murders.
In this series of cases, the victims were subjected to inhuman torture before their deaths, including but not limited to beatings, knife slashing, suffocation, assault, shooting, beheading... The murderer not only has a variety of modus operandi, but also has extremely cruel modus operandi.
Moreover, all the victims were backpackers hiking in this forest, so why did the murderer kill these backpackers? Hello everyone, I am a student of history, today we will talk about this famous serial murder of backpackers in Australia:
The case took place in Australia's Birangallo Forest Park, which is about 150 kilometres southwest of Sydney and has a total area of 3,800 hectares.
The interior of the forest park has a very pristine natural scenery, and near this park, there is an intercity highway called hume highway, which is very convenient, and it is for these reasons that it attracts many backpackers to hike.
Picture 丨 Bilangalo Forest Park
The biggest feature of backpackers is that they have limited funds, so the convenient and cost-saving way of hitting a hitchhiker is the most commonly used method for backpackers, but no one expected that someone would specifically target these hitchhikers.
The first victims to be found were the two remains mentioned at the beginning of our article, and the Australian police, after painstaking forensics, finally determined that the deceased were girls who came to Australia from the UK 5 months ago: Carolyn Clark and Joann Walters.
The two girls were very young, Caroline was 21 and Joanna was 22, they disappeared on a trip on April 18, and although the police began an investigation after they disappeared, they found nothing until 5 months later, when their remains were inadvertently found.
After an examination of their remains, the forensic examiner found that both girls had been brutally tortured during their lives, including 10 bullet holes in Caroline's head, many stabs in the chest, and her clothes torn.
Joanna's chest and back were stabbed 35 times, her spine was also broken, and she was also subjected to inhuman torture, as to whether they had been violated, because the remains were highly decayed, the forensic doctor could not judge.
So who killed the two British girls? If it is a vendetta, how can someone chase here from Britain? But if it is said that it is a murder for money, the police found the girl's jewelry at the scene, which is also unreasonable!
Pictured: Caroline and Joanna
With these questions, the local police began a long investigation, but a year later, the police still had no clue, and the case gradually reached an impasse.
But just when the police were at a loss, on October 5, 1993, another backpacker reported to the police that human remains had been found in the ravine of the forest park.
When the police arrived at the scene, they quickly found 2 human remains, which, unlike the last time, had turned into dead bones, which seemed to indicate that they were killed much earlier than Caroline and Joanna.
The police then brought the two dead bones back to the police station and immediately compared the missing cases in recent years, only to find that the two victims were couples who had come here on foot from Melbourne four years ago: Deborah Everest and James Gibson.
The couple was also very young, both were only 19 years old, disappeared on December 30, 1989, and the forensic doctor found that they had also been brutally tortured during their lives.
Deborah had at least 2 fractures in her skull, a broken jaw, and multiple knife wounds around her; James was even more miserable, his heart and lungs were punctured, his spine was broken, and he also had multiple knife wounds on his body.
Pictured by Deborah and James
With the discovery of these two remains, the local police finally paid attention to the case, and in just one year, the remains of 4 backpackers were found, which seems to indicate that there are special killers hidden deep in this forest park.
In order to find out how many people were killed in this forest park, the local police mobilized a large number of police forces and gathered a large number of volunteers to jointly enter the forest to conduct a carpet search.
As a result, after nearly a month of searching, a new discovery was finally made on November 1, 1993, when the police found another human remains in a hidden dense forest, and after investigation, it was learned that the victim was a female backpacker from Germany.
Her name is Simone Schmidt, 21 years old, disappeared in January 1991, her spine was also broken, there were at least 8 knife wounds on her body, and her heart and lungs were also punctured, it can be said that the modus operandi of this case is almost exactly the same as the previous 2 cases.
The police determined that the same group of murderers was responsible, but after the family's identification, the police found a strange place, Simeone was wearing torn clothes that were not hers, but another 20-year-old female backpacker from Germany, Anya Habshid.
Moreover, the police found that Anya came to Australia on a hike with her boyfriend Newgbauer, and the time of their disappearance was also in January 1991, and the police believed that Anya and Newgbauer were also fierce, so they immediately carried out an in-depth investigation of the surrounding area.
Pictured by Simone, Anya, Andyer, Nugbauer
As a result, 3 days later, the police found their remains in a mound 50 meters away from Simone's remains, and in addition to their cruel torture, Anya was actually cut off alive, and Newgbauer was shot 6 times in the head.
So far, the police have found a total of 7 victims in this forest park, and these 7 victims have suffered inhuman torture and brutal killing in the three years from 1989 to 1992.
Moreover, they are all hiking enthusiasts who come to visit, except for those who are traveling together, they do not know each other, which means that the murderer is random to the backpacker, and it is possible that the murderer is more than one person.
With the announcement of the 7 victims, this series of serial murders has caused a great sensation in the society, and many backpackers dare not go hiking in Langalo Forest Park.
Suddenly, this park was called "death park", and the mysterious murderer was also called "backpacker killer", and people asked the police to solve the case quickly, severely punish the murderer, and avoid the recurrence of similar tragedies.
The police are under tremendous pressure, but all the victims have been killed for a long time when they are found, and there is no valuable clue at the scene, which also makes the case deadlocked for a while.
Pictured: Seven victims killed in the local area
The police, who had no way, issued a huge reward to the public, hoping that the public could provide useful clues, and finally with the efforts of the police and the help of the people, the police successfully classified the suspects among 32 people.
Although it seems that this number is not very large, due to the lack of key evidence, it is difficult for the police to further lock in the suspect in a short period of time.
On November 11, 1993, just when the police were at a loss, a phone call from far away in England turned the case around, and the caller was Paul Aniens, a Britishman.
Paul said he had seen the killer and was willing to help the police solve the case, so why did Paul see the murderer? It turned out that in January 1990, he had come to Australia alone from the United Kingdom to hike.
Due to limited funds, Paul basically worked to earn money while traveling to Australia, when Paul was near that scary park and he wanted to hitchhike to his next destination.
So Paul stood on the side of the intercity road and began to stop the car, and soon a "enthusiastic" driver stopped and offered to take him for a long distance, which made Paul very happy.
Figure 丨 Paul
After Paul got into the car, he chatted happily with the middle-aged uncle, and the atmosphere of the chat had always been very good, but when the driver heard that Paul was from England, his attitude suddenly changed.
The driver was very emotional and began to scold the British immigrants and make a lot of xenophobic remarks, which made Paul very scared, but the car was still moving, and he couldn't do anything about it.
However, when the car was driven for almost an hour, the driver suddenly parked the car in a remote place on the side of the road, and Paul was horrified to see the driver pull out a pistol and push the car door and run out.
Several gunshots rang out from behind Paul, but fortunately Paul was not injured, and he continued to run forward without turning his head, and then met a kind female driver driving a truck on the side of the road.
The female driver was very kind to let Paul get into the car, and then sent Paul to the nearby police station, and the police immediately went to the scene of the incident to check the situation, but the driver had already escaped.
Because Paul did not see the driver's license plate number, coupled with the technical conditions of the year, the case was later closed, and Paul subsequently returned to England.
The picture shows newspapers at the time reporting on the case
It wasn't until more than 3 years later that Paul saw the Australian report on the 7 victims on TV, and he suddenly realized that the murderer of these 7 young people was probably the same person as the murderer who attacked him, so he immediately called the Australian police.
The police were so excited when they received Paul's call that they immediately invited Him to Australia, and then carefully studied the files of Paul's attack, and became more convinced that the same person had done them.
However, although Paul offered to assist in the investigation, he said that he had some things to deal with at that time, and he had to wait until everything was done before he could go to Australia to help the police solve the case.
Because Paul was the victim, and the police believed that even if he came, it might not really work, so the police did not ask Paul to come immediately, for the sake of confidentiality, and did not pass on the photos of the 32 suspects to Paul.
In this way, the police continued to investigate for a while, and finally among the 32 people, a person named Ivan Mirat was found to be seriously suspected.
This Ivan was born on December 27, 1944, his parents had a total of 14 children, including 10 boys and 4 girls, Ivan ranked fifth in the family and was a truck driver.
Because there were so many children in the family, his parents did not discipline Ivan much, Ivan was arrested and imprisoned for theft several times, and he was also prosecuted by prosecutors for kidnapping and assaulting women, but was later acquitted for lack of evidence.
Picture of Ivan who was full of evil deeds when he was young
At the same time, the police also found that ivan quickly sold one of his silver cars after the police found 7 remains, and Paul once said that the driver who attacked him before was driving a car that happened to be silver.
It is a bit of a coincidence that the police have listed Ivan as a key suspect based on Ivan's previous evil deeds and Ivan's sudden sale of cars after the incident.
As a result, the police soon found that on the day the 7 victims disappeared and on the day Paul was attacked, Ivan did not go to work for various reasons, so the police sent someone to fully follow Ivan.
It was also at this time that Paul finally finished his business and came to Australia, which was already May 5, 1994, and after Paul arrived in Australia, the police immediately mixed Ivan's photo among more than 30 suspects for Paul to identify.
As a result, when Paul saw Ivan's picture, he did not hesitate to tell the police that Ivan was the person who attacked him, he was so impressed with this person that with Paul's identification, the police finally made up their minds to arrest Ivan.
On May 22, 1994, more than 50 police officers who had been carefully prepared quickly surrounded ivan's house and successfully arrested Ivan, who had not yet reacted to what was going on.
At the same time, the police immediately searched the house where Ivan lived and found guns that matched the scene of the murder, as well as a large number of clothing, photos, cameras and other items carried by the victims.
The police search Ivan's home
Subsequently, the police searched the houses of Ivan's parents and other siblings, where they found more of the victim's belongings, such as camping tents, cooking utensils, and windbreakers.
Ivan's parents and siblings all said in unison that ivan had given them the items, and they didn't know where Ivan got them from.
At this point, the police confirmed that Ivan had tricked the hitchhikers into trusting the hitchhikers by posing as a "kind" driver, and then took them to the depths of the forest and brutally killed them.
The reason for killing these people, in addition to coveting the belongings of backpackers, is more likely to be because most of these backpackers are foreigners, and Ivan is extreme and very xenophobic.
However, after being arrested and arrested, Ivan did not admit his evil deeds, but did everything in his power, saying that the items he had picked up while wandering around the forest park did not know that they belonged to the victims.
In the face of Ivan's denial, the judge did not take him personally, but sentenced Ivan to life imprisonment without parole on the grounds of murder, and since Ivan entered prison, he has not stopped for almost a day.
First of all, from the first day Ivan entered the prison, other prisoners took the initiative to provoke and beat him, because Ivan committed the evil deeds, which made them feel disgusted, and Ivan could not stand it, and conspired with people to escape from prison, but did not succeed.
Picture 丨 Ivan
Subsequently, Ivan continued to threaten and accuse the prison of abusing him through self-harm, hunger strikes, etc., and he also kept complaining that he had been wronged, but the court never paid attention to him.
In this way, the time came to 2019, the 75-year-old Ivan finally tossed and turned, he was diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer, and finally died in the hospital of the prison on October 27, 2019, ending his sinful life.
Although Ivan was punished, many people speculated that Ivan also had accomplices, because of the 7 people he killed, there were companion victims, and if no one else helped, even if Ivan had a gun in his hand, it was difficult to control 2 people at the same time.
So who can be Ivan's accomplice? The biggest possibility is Ivan's family, and later the police learned through investigation that at least 7 of the 10 brothers in Ivan's family were men who had committed crimes.
Moreover, Ivan's family has passed on this terrible idea to the next generation, for example, in 2012, Ivan's nephew Matthew Milat, took an axe and slashed his 17-year-old friend in the forest park where Ivan killed people.
When the police arrested Matthew, Matthew did not regret or fear in the slightest, but frantically said to the police: "This is Ivan's style of doing things, I just passed it on!" In the end, Matthew was sentenced to 43 years in prison.
In the face of the evil deeds of Ivan's family, more and more people believe that Ivan still has accomplices, and later the police found the remains of several backpackers in the forest park.
The police found a number of remains there
However, due to the long time, the true identity of these backpackers has not been verified, and the real perpetrators who killed them have not been found, but the police suspect that these are all done by Ivan...
This world is very beautiful, it is indeed a good thing to go out and look at the beautiful scenery, but no matter how beautiful the scenery is, we must pay attention to safety, because human life is only once, and if it is lost, it can never be repeated.
And now there are still some young people who like to travel alone as backpackers, and in order to save money, they often take a ride, which is actually a very dangerous thing, because you don't know what the strange driver really thinks.
Dear friends, have you ever hitchhiked as a backpacker? Do you think Ivan has any accomplices? Welcome to leave a message to discuss, if you like, don't forget to like, pay attention, your support is the best motivation for my codeword, thank you!
Literature/History knows the present