Background
Belanglo State Forest is a large area of pine plantation and native bush in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, about 15 kilometres south-west of Berrima. Because it lies close to the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne, backpackers and hitchhikers often passed nearby in the 1980s and 1990s.
Between December 1989 and November 1993, seven young people aged 19 to 22 disappeared while travelling. They were Australians Deborah Everist and James Gibson, Germans Simone Schmidl, Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied, and Britons Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters.
What happened
Everist and Gibson were last seen on 30 December 1989 after leaving Melbourne. Schmidl vanished in January 1991, Neugebauer and Habschied on 26 December 1991, and Clarke and Walters on 18 April 1992.
In September 1992, orienteering runners noticed human remains in the forest, and police found a second set the next day; dental records identified Clarke and Walters. Everist and Gibson were found in October 1993, Schmidl on 1 November 1993, and Neugebauer and Habschied on 4 November 1993. The scattered locations within one forest pointed investigators towards a single offender.
Investigation and trial
NSW Police formed Task Force Air in October 1993, bringing together more than twenty detectives and analysts. The reward was raised to A$500,000. Cross-checking vehicle, gym, firearm-licence and police records reduced a long list of possible suspects to 32, while matching .22 calibre cartridge cases tied the scenes together.
In November 1993, British backpacker Paul Onions telephoned police from the United Kingdom. In January 1990 he had accepted a lift near Belanglo from a driver who then attacked him, and he had escaped. His account and information from other witnesses led detectives to Ivan Milat, who was arrested at his home in Eagle Vale on 22 May 1994. Searches turned up weapons and belongings of several victims.
The trial began in March 1996 and ran for about 18 weeks, with 145 witnesses. On 27 July 1996 the jury found Milat guilty of all seven murders. He received seven life sentences without parole, plus a separate sentence for the attack on Onions.
Where it stands today
Milat died in prison on 27 October 2019 and never admitted guilt. Police have examined other unsolved cases in which his name has been raised, but no further convictions followed. The case is widely seen as having ended the image of hitchhiking as a cheap, carefree way to travel in Australia. Above all, it is remembered as the loss of seven young travellers whose families are still mourning them.