Park Predators - The Backpackers

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

A vicious serial killer terrorized and hunted young backpackers in Australia’s Belanglo State Forest in the early 1990’s. The impact of his heinous crimes still resonates with residents to this day. How he committed his crimes made even the most seasoned investigators shudder and the true number of victims he’s suspected of murdering may never be known. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit parkpredators.com Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. Can you believe we're nearing the end of Season 3 already? I hope the stories I've shared with you this summer have honored the victims, while at the same time reminding us how dangerous the elements and people lurking in the great outdoors can be. There's one more episode next week, but after that I'll be taking a break for a few months. Don't worry, though. I'll return with new episodes. Before I took the time away, though, I knew I needed to tell you today's wild story. It's about a series of crimes that span several years in Australia's Belangelo State Forest, a stretch of bush and wilderness where seven murders occurred in the early 1990s. The victims were all innocent young people backpacking and exploring the beautiful landscape of southern Australia. When I first started researching

Belangelo State Forest, I expected it to be in a desolate area of New South Wales, but it's not. It actually sits about an hour and a half southwest of Sydney, just off well-known Hume Highway. The forest is predominantly filled with pine trees and is regularly logged, leaving sections filled with downed timber that just sort of stack up on one another. It's pretty easy to get turned around if you don't know where you're going. The park itself is roughly 9,400 acres, and you can camp, hike, go off-roading, or mountain bike. A lot of visitors check it out for just a day or two. But back in the early 90s, one man visited every day and wasn't taking in the beautiful

sights of the towering pine trees. He was busy burying bodies, at least seven of them, and authorities now believe possibly more. This is Park Predators. On December 29th, 1989, Pat Everest was at her home in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, when her phone rang. On the other end of the line was her 19-year-old daughter, Debra. Debra was calling to let her mom know that she and her boyfriend, 19-year-old James Gibson, were okay, and they'd just checked out of their hotel in Sydney. They'd be back in Melbourne in a few days from their backpacking trip. Debra felt like the phone call was necessary because 24 hours earlier, a devastating earthquake had rocked the city of Newcastle, which sat just north of Sydney.

So to ease any worries her mom might have had, Debra wanted to let Pat know she and James were nowhere near Newcastle. They were headed south, and they would be taking the next week or so to travel to a music festival in the town of Albury, which is sort of right in between Sydney and Melbourne. Pat was relieved to hear this news from her daughter and honestly just relieved in general that Deborah was keeping good on her promise to check in with her mom every two days, either over the phone or by sending postcards. You see, James and Debra had only known one another for a few months, and at first, Pat had been a little apprehensive about letting the pair take off together on a

backpacking trip for a week, where they'd be with a lot of strangers and hitchhiking rides on the highway. But Debra was almost 20 years old. Pat couldn't keep her at home forever. This was the first time Debra had ever been backpacking, so she and her mom had made a special pack to make sure they touched base often. Debra promised her mom she'd check back in right after the new year and send her a postcard when she and James got to Albury. But a few days came and went, and Pat never received another call from Debra. New Year's Day passed, and she didn't receive a postcard either, which she knew wasn't a good sign, because Debra was normally really good about sending reminders and cards for holidays

and special events. Plus, they'd made that pact to stay in touch. The source material isn't super clear on what day specifically Pat reported Deborah and James missing to authorities, but at some point by the end of the first week of January, Pat contacted James' parents, Peggy and Ray Gibson, and both families went to the Melbourne Police Department in Victoria to let investigators know they were concerned about the young couple's whereabouts. Melbourne police quickly got in touch with New South Wales police officials, and together the two agencies tried to figure out the last time anyone had heard from or seen Deborah and James. It didn't take long before

missing persons bulletins went out for the young couple, and those flyers described James as being five foot nine with a slim build, had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a fair complexion. Deborah was described as having black dyed hair, blue eyes, and standing just five feet tall. Law enforcement in New South Wales conducted several foot searches for the teens in Sydney, in an area they had been staying at known as Surrey Hills. But those searches weren't really that targeted, because police had no way of knowing if the pair had already left the city or were anywhere between Sydney and Albury. Authorities didn't outright say it, but it seems from the source material I read

that their sense of urgency in locating Deborah and James wasn't very high. I think they thought, hey, here are two young people who've been traveling and hitchhiking. They'll turn up soon. But the problem was, the couple didn't turn up. James and Deborah's families got really concerned when James was a no-show at his sister's wedding in late January. Even more red flags went up when he failed to attend the first day of a geology class he'd enrolled in back in his hometown near Melbourne. Then there was Deborah, who also failed to ever contact her mother again. And so despite the police's assumption that nothing bad had happened to the couple, James and Deborah's families definitely felt otherwise. Unfortunately, two months passed with no information or sightings of the pair,

and investigators had little to go on until a vital clue showed up. On March 14th, three months after the couple vanished, James's father Ray got an interesting phone call. A woman called the Gibsons' home in Melbourne and told Ray that she believed she'd found his son's backpack on the side of a road that led to a popular nature area called Galston Gorge. Now, the gorge is about 45 minutes northwest of Sydney, so very far from Melbourne and not in the direction of Albury. The woman described the bag she found as being a red and black rucksack, but its top had been cut or ripped off. Inside, though, was a strip of fabric that had James' first and last name written on it. Ray immediately went to the police and told them about this woman's discovery,

and that same day the authorities in New South Wales had the bag in their possession. The source material doesn't go into detail as to what all police found in the bag. It's only described as being in pretty decent shape with a few personal belongings tucked into it. But the one thing James' parents said was missing, though, was their son's camera. Eight days later, a resident who'd been visiting the gorge came forward after watching news reports about the backpack's discovery. And this person told investigators they'd found a camera in a drainage area near the gorge months earlier, but they'd never told the police about it because they figured it was just abandoned by the owner. They treated it like a finder's keeper's situation. According to the

Sydney Morning Herald, the person who found the camera reported picking it up on December 30th, 1989, the day after Deborah last spoke with her mother. Thankfully, this person still had the camera, and they turned it over to investigators. James' family positively ID'd it as belonging to their son. By the start of April 1990, police ramped up their search efforts to find Deborah and James, and I guess at this point they realized they needed to be taking the case a little more seriously. A question that popped into my mind at this point of the story, though, was whether or not police actually processed any film from James's camera, but I couldn't find any source material that

confirmed that. Whether or not there was film in the camera or if it showed anything is just something that we'll never know, but I think finding James' belongings near the gorge at least gave search teams a starting point of where to look for him and Debra. For two days, teams of divers scoured creeks near the gorge, but no sign of the couple turned up. To make matters worse, bad weather and rainfall had come into the area, and that hindered the authorities' ability to thoroughly search.

Water levels in certain spots in the gorge were constantly changing, and strong currents made it difficult for the divers to navigate where to even look. In the end, the search at the gorge was fruitless, and the case yet again went cold. The one-year anniversary of the couple's disappearance came and went with no reported sightings, no new leads, and no new information coming in. Shortly after the anniversary, on Tuesday, January 22, 1991, authorities in Victoria, Australia received another report of a backpacker vanishing. A woman named Irvina Schmiedl had flown from Germany to Melbourne's airport to meet her 22-year-old daughter, Simone, who everyone called Simi. The plan had been for Irvina and Simi to spend time together since they'd been living apart for several months.

You see, Simi had spent the fall and winter of 1990 backpacking all over Australia. And by January of 1991, she was staying temporarily with friends in Sydney. On the afternoon she was supposed to meet her mom, though, in Melbourne, Simi had been a no-show. Right away, Irvina knew something was wrong because Simi was normally a very punctual person, and if she'd

been delayed in her travels from Sydney to Melbourne, she would have called or written a letter informing her mother she was going to be late. No communication from Simi and no sign of her were major red flags, so within a day of arriving from Germany, Irvina went to the Melbourne Police Department to report her daughter missing. She tried to explain to officers how unusual and alarming it was not to hear from Simi, but the police didn't fly into action right away. They tried to assure Irvina that Simi was probably just delayed or had taken time to explore on her own, but Irvina disagreed. She knew her daughter and she knew this was not normal behavior for Simi. According to reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald, police investigators didn't just sit

on their hands and do nothing in Simi's case. They did actually do some investigating to try and establish a timeline for the missing 22-year-old. Detectives ended up speaking with some friends Simi had stayed with in Sydney and learned that she'd left the city the morning of January 20th with plans to catch a train south to Liverpool and then hitchhike to Melbourne, where she was scheduled to meet her mother at the airport. The Age reported that her friends had walked with Simi to the train platform in Sydney to see her off,

but when they'd arrived, they all learned that every train scheduled for that day had been cancelled. After that, Simi hopped on a bus to Liverpool and then said she would hitchhike to Melbourne from there. Authorities put out a be-on-the-lookout bulletin for Simi, in which she was described as five foot four inches tall with blue eyes, black curly hair, and a fair complexion. One specific detail, though, that set her apart from others was that she always wore round-rimmed glasses because without them, she only had 20% vision. The last outfit her friends in Sydney had seen her wearing

was a yellow singlet top, long green shorts, and hiking boots. As her case started getting a little bit of attention, calls from several people living between Melbourne and New South Wales noted that the last known sighting of Simi had been somewhere on the side of the road near Albury. Now, the distance between Sydney and Melbourne can be anywhere from nine hours to 11 hours, depending on which route you take. It's remote in some parts, and you can pass by several national parks and state forests that stretch between New South Wales and Victoria. The main road anyone would have been on, including Simi, would have been Hume Highway. In the early 1990s, hitchhiking was known to be an unsafe practice in southern Australia.

But to save money and time, many backpackers, like Simi, asked truckers or motorists for a lift anyway. They knew full well the long route had its fair share of crime, but it was either hitchhike a ride for free or pay a pretty penny for a bus ticket, and most people chose the former. According to a woman named Jeanette Mueller, who'd traveled with Simi for several months before she vanished, Jeanette and Simi often hitched rides with truck drivers between Melbourne and Sydney. Rarely did they get into cars. Jeanette told the Sydney Morning Herald that in January of 1991, Simi had said she wanted to get from Sydney to Melbourne as fast as she could to meet her mom. Jeanette remembered Simi mentioning that instead of getting a ride with a trucker and having to possibly stick with the driver's delivery route that would slow her down,

she was going to hitch a ride from a regular motorist in a car. And because it wasn't their normal practice, Jeanette had said she cautioned Simi against that idea because it was dangerous, but Simi promised she would be careful. After her mother reported her missing, several months passed and no sign of Simi turned up. Irvina stayed in Victoria and traveled between Melbourne and Sydney several times looking for her daughter, but in the end, it was in vain. Nothing surfaced.

Until a few months later, in May of 1991, Sandra Harvey reported for the Sydney Morning Herald that a bushwalker in the woods near the town of Bright, which was about an hour and a half south of Albury, stumbled upon a pair of prescription round-rimmed glasses and a German brand sleeping bag that had been dumped in the bush. None of the source material specifically says

how authorities tied these two items to Simi, but I think just based on the fact that she was German, and the brand of the sleeping bag that had been found was also German, was a hint. Also, the eyeglasses were sort of unique, so maybe that was a dead giveaway too. I don't know. I couldn't find any articles that detailed the connection, but I think it might be safe to assume that maybe the police could have showed these items to Irvina and maybe she identified them as belonging to Simi. Either way, it seems like right after the glasses and sleeping bag were located is when investigators really started to get concerned that something bad might have

happened to Simi. She was still technically just a missing person, but the fact that her essential personal belongings had been tossed like trash and no one had heard from her in months just seemed extremely odd. A homicide detective for the Melbourne Police Department told the Sydney Herald, quote, if she were alive, I am sure that in some way she would have contacted friends or relatives. We just have no leads at all." At that point, investigators in New South Wales and detectives in Victoria knew they had a growing number of missing backpackers between their two jurisdictions, but nothing so far indicated Simi's case was related to Deborah and James's. However, news reports began to group Deborah, James, and Simi's cases together,

simply based on the fact that they were all missing. But in reality, there had been months and even a year between their disappearances, so it wasn't appropriate, at least in the investigators' minds, to consider them connected in any way. But that quickly changed, because by the end of 1991, another young couple visiting southern Australia vanished without a trace. And that marked the official start to a pattern authorities could no longer ignore. Anka Neigebauer could barely hear her son Gabor when he called her on Christmas Day 1991.

The 21-year-old told his mom that he and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Anya Hobscheid, were crouched down on the hallway floor of the Backpackers Inn in the Kings Cross neighborhood of Sydney. It was 4 o'clock in the morning and he forewarned his mom that the long-distance call from the hostel's payphone back home to Germany might not last. So through the crackled and static line, Anka listened patiently as her son explained that he and Anya had plans to fly out of Australia on January 1st, 1992 and head to Bali. He said between Christmas and New Year's, they would hitchhike from Sydney and make a pit stop in Darwin before jetting out of Darwin Airport to Indonesia. According to reporting by Mark Riley, Gabor told his mom during that phone call that

he wanted to leave Australia as soon as possible, as fast as possible. The couple had been backpacking for two months and they wanted to see new countries. Gabor told his mom that he'd made arrangements with the postal service to have he and Anya's mail forwarded to Darwin and then on to Indonesia, so if she sent them any letters before January 1st, those letters wouldn't get to them until after the new year. According to Karen Davies reporting, after island hopping in Bali, the couple was scheduled to fly home from Indonesia to Germany on January 23rd. Unfortunately, the phone connection worsened during this part of Gabor and his mom's conversation, and a line abruptly cut off. Anka figured her son had run out of money or the hostel's telephone service was just crappy, so she waited a few minutes for a call back, but it never

came. Several days went by, and neither Gabor nor Anya's families heard from them. No postcards or phone calls arrived in Germany, letting their parents know if they'd made it to Darwin. The Age reported that Anya had been pretty good about regularly checking in with her parents, and so had Gabor, so their silence and lack of communication was definitely out of character. Finally, when January 23rd rolled around and Gabor and Anya didn't step off their flight at the Frankfurt airport in Germany, their families alerted authorities in New South Wales. The Neigebauers explained to detectives that no one had heard from the couple in weeks, there had been no activity in either of their bank accounts, and also $3,000 worth of traveler's checks had gone unused.

The families also told police that upon further investigation, they discovered the pair had missed their flight from Darwin to Bali on January 1st, and they'd never punched their ticket for their flight from Bali back home to Germany on January 23rd. So that meant they'd been missing for roughly three weeks, and they never left Australia. Police started looking into the case, and in early February, officers visited the hostel in Sydney's Kings Cross neighborhood, where Gabor and Anya had been staying. Investigators learned from speaking with staff there that on December 26, the pair had checked out and left to hitchhike towards Darwin, but after that, no one at the hostel had seen them. Right away, the authorities realized they

had yet another set of missing backpackers on their hands. Gabor and Anya's case was headed up by New South Wales investigators, but according to multiple news reports, there were conversations going on between investigators in Sydney and the Melbourne Police Department in Victoria about the now five backpackers that had been reported missing since December of 1989. The one thing detectives felt was going to be helpful when it came to hopefully locating Gabor and Anya was the fact that they stood out from the regular backpacking crowd.

Gabor was reported to be six feet tall with a distinct dirty blonde shaggy haircut that was long on the top and short on the sides. Anya had long reddish brown hair with bright red extensions sewn in on one side. Both of them had ear and nose piercings too, which authorities hoped would make them stick out even more to people. But even with those unique physical descriptions floating around and detailed bulletins circulating their information all over southern Australia, nothing came in about Anya and Gabor's whereabouts.

In April, their parents and siblings flew to Australia and rented camper vans to travel along Hume Highway. For weeks, the families drove up and down roads and into nature areas looking for the couple. They spent $20,000 and hired their own search and rescue teams as well as private investigators. But in the end, they found nothing. Both families were genuinely concerned the couple had been abducted or killed.

Gabor's dad told the Sydney Morning Herald that during searches, he'd learned from other tourists that Australia was branded as a dangerous country for visitors to hitchhike. Around that same time, the Daily Express ranked Australia as one of the five most dangerous destinations for anyone looking to bum a ride from a stranger. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Anya's brother Norbert said, quote, We decided the only way to know what was happening was to come here to look for ourselves. For us, there are only a few possibilities. If somebody is murdered, the first thing you do is steal their money, but no checks have been cashed. Karen Davey reported that by the end of April 1992, Anya and Gabor's families were beginning to feel like their searches were

no longer of use. Police agencies involved in the case, which at that point included federal police investigators, had volunteered some resources to help the families, but in the end, no one knew where Anya and Gabor were or what had happened to them. The authorities were forced to file the case away, hoping new leads would emerge, just like the investigators looking into Deborah Everest, James Gibson, and Simone Schmiedel's cases had been forced to do. But then, almost on cue, two more foreigners who'd been backpacking outside of Sydney vanished. A week after April 16th, 1992, Ian Clark, who was living in London, England, didn't receive a scheduled phone call from his daughter, 22-year-old Caroline Clark. Ian hadn't expected to hear from Caroline every day, but on a regular basis, she'd called home to keep her parents updated on her plans.

keep her parents updated on her plans. Since the start of 1992, Caroline had been traveling with her friend, 22-year-old Joanne Walters, who she'd met after arriving in Australia. By the end of April, though, the pair was winding down their adventures, and they were making plans to leave the country to head to China. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Caroline had sent a letter to her friends back home in London on April 8th, explaining that they were going to hitchhike west from Sydney to work as fruit pickers in Victoria. From there, she and Joanne would head to Darwin to fly out of the country. Caroline and Joanne had also communicated these plans to their parents the last time they'd each called home on the evening of April 16th. But after failing to hear from them several days after their phone calls on the 16th, Caroline and Joanne's families reported them missing to police in New South Wales.

Their parents explained that the women's travels had to wrap up by the end of the month because their visas were going to expire on April 28th. So, literally, they couldn't legally travel in Australia later than that date. Police got the women's information out to the public, and hundreds of phone calls and tips came in, which included a potential sighting. Staff at the Backpackers Inn in the Kings Cross neighborhood of Sydney reported that Joanne and Caroline had stayed at the hostel the night of April 16th, but they checked out on the morning of April 17th. Now, the name of that hostel may sound familiar

because it's the same place Anya and Gabor stayed about six months earlier during Christmas of 1991. And you're not alone if you think that's weird or a red flag. Investigators looking into Joanne and Caroline's case early on recognized the strange similarities between the two cases, and they told reporters for The Herald and The Age that they were considering the disappearances of all four backpackers linked. In June of 1992, about a month and a half after Joanne and Caroline vanished, newspapers in Australia went wild with the young women's stories. No other case of missing foreign backpackers

had gotten as much attention as theirs. I don't know if that's because they were two young women from affluent families in the UK, or if there was just more interest in their story than others before them, but there was definitely a lot more source material out there on their case than, say, Anya and Gabor's, and certainly much more than Deborah Everest or James Gibson's disappearances. Throughout May and June of 1992, unconfirmed sightings of Joanne and Caroline were reported in the press every few days,

which hurt investigators' ability to kind of contain the flow of information. A lot of the alleged sightings were false, and they caused more confusion than help. The only sighting police really took seriously came in July of 1992. A witness came forward and said they'd seen two women matching Joanne and Caroline's descriptions, accepting a ride at a service station outside of Sydney. The car they'd gotten into was a small pickup truck

and was being driven by a man. The vehicle was said to have a Victoria license plate and was either silver or white. Unfortunately, the witness didn't get a good look at the guy driving the truck, and several searches for that type of vehicle around the service station didn't turn up anything. To make matters worse,

Joanne and Caroline's families reported no activity in their bank accounts since April 17th. The last transaction on record was a withdrawal of a few hundred dollars from Caroline's account at a local bank in Sydney. By the end of July, the situation was looking pretty dire. A police detective told the Sydney Morning Herald, quote, as time goes on, our concerns get worse and worse. There's about a thousand different theories about why they disappeared, end quote. Reporter Sandra Harvey wrote a long piece for the Herald, unofficially linking all of the missing backpacker cases together. She basically summarized the circumstances surrounding the disappearances

of Simone Schmiedl, Caroline and Joanne, and Anya and Gabor into one speculative story, but strangely, she left out details about Deborah and James. The authorities' reaction to that kind of press was unofficial agreement. They went on record saying that they agreed it was extremely odd none of the missing foreigners had contacted their families or used their bank accounts. But detectives wouldn't go as far as saying they thought any of the missing young people were dead. All police would confirm is that they were working on finding answers, and the best way they knew how to do that was to bring in homicide detectives who had the skills to work the cases as if they were murders. Nick Papadopoulos reported for the Sydney Morning Herald that in August of 1992, Joanne Walter's parents, Jill and Ray, traveled to Australia to search for their

daughter and her friend. They spoke with newspapers and TV stations trying to stir up new leads. In every one of their interviews, they emphasized how much of a planner Joanne was, saying, quote, She didn't do anything on the spur of the moment. If she turned right or if she turned left, she let us know, end quote. Unfortunately, despite the media blitz, the rest of the summer of 1992 dragged on, and nothing materialized in any of the cases, including Joanne and Caroline's. But then, in mid-September of 1992, everything changed. Around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on September 19th,

two men running between old fire access trails in Belangelo State Forest stumbled upon something horrific. The men were out training for a race when they noticed a bunch of leaves and brush piled up underneath a large boulder. As they got closer and closer, they started to smell a strong odor of decomposition. And by the time they were right up on whatever was stinking so bad, they realized it was a pile of bones, clothing, and what looked

like human hair covered by a mound of debris and dirt. The guys quickly stepped away and hightailed it back to the rest of their group. By four o'clock, they'd phoned the police in the nearby town of Barrel in New South Wales and reported what they'd found. Within a half hour of receiving that 911 call, investigators from Sydney's Homicide Division arrived on scene, and the men took them back to where they'd found the strange items. Authorities spent the remainder of that night processing the scene, and by the next morning, September 20th, they announced they'd found human remains that appeared to belong to a young woman. Crime Library reported that about 100 feet away from

the body, investigators found decomposing remains of a second body tucked under a bush and covered with leaves. Right away, detectives' assumptions were that the remains likely belonged to Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters. On September 22nd, two days after the bodies were found, a forensic pathologist in Sydney used the women's dental records to confirm their identities. In his report, the pathologist noted that Joanne had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and back, to the point where one of the wounds had been so deep that it had severed a few of her ribs and her spinal cord, which caused her to be paralyzed before her death. Caroline had also been stabbed a few times in the neck, but in addition to that, she'd suffered several gunshot

wounds to her skull that indicated someone had shot her at close range. During the pathologist exam, he found four bullets in Caroline's head and determined that based on the angles the shot had entered and exited, Caroline had possibly been used as target practice before she died. Meaning every time she'd been shot, she'd been repositioned with her arms over her head and then shot again. It's absolutely horrific. On or next to both victims' bodies were articles of their clothing and shoes, along with strips of fabric that investigators believe had been used as gags or restraints. Both women's state of decomposition indicated they'd been killed

roughly five months before being found, which would have been in April when they vanished. Right away, homicide investigators started working the case, and they determined that more than likely the victims had been killed in the woods, not killed elsewhere and then dumped in the forest after the fact. The detectives quickly ruled out robbery as a motive because both women still had expensive jewelry on their hands. However, it was noted as peculiar that neither of the women's backpacks, sleeping bags, or tents were in the immediate area around their bodies. Whether the crime was sexually motivated

was a bit harder to determine. Joanne was shirtless and still had her jeans on and unzipped, but the top of her pants still had the button hooked in place, which meant she was either never assaulted or her attacker had buttoned the pants after assaulting her but not zipped up the zipper. Due to the state of Caroline's remains, investigators were unable to determine if she'd been sexually assaulted. She did, however, still have her bra and pants on. According to Crime Library, physical evidence collected near the bodies also indicated the killer or killers had spent some time with the women either before killing them or after the crime. On the ground, detectives had

found several cigarette butts that were all the same brand and at least nine spent bullet casings for.22 caliber ammunition. To help create a profile of who could have committed such a heinous crime to two innocent young women, New South Wales investigators brought in a forensic psychiatrist named Rod Milton to characterize a potential suspect. What Rod came up with was a profile of a man in his 30s who likely lived near Belangelo State Forest. This man would have had extremely good knowledge of the woods, owned firearms and knives, had a four-wheel drive vehicle, and was 100% motivated by rage and pleasure. Rod also said it was possible at least two people committed the crime, but one of them was definitely a ringleader. Now, that description wasn't necessarily a profile police could take around town asking the public to identify. So for the time being, authorities kept the information to themselves and continued digging.

News of Joanne and Caroline's murders and their bodies being discovered reached far and wide by October and November of 1992. Publications in Australia and England ran stories about the crime nonstop. The women's families were obviously devastated. Jill Walters, Joanne's mother, told the Sydney Morning Herald, quote, got to be some system whereby we destroy these people for their evil genes, end quote. As angry as the women's families were, they at least had answers as to what happened to Joanne and Caroline. The parents of Gabor, Anya, Simi, Deborah, and James were all left to wonder if their kids were out there somewhere in the forest, just waiting to be found.

But authorities in Sydney and Melbourne quickly shut down rumors that there could be more bodies in the park, and they assured the public that it was still safe to backpack in southern Australia. But that announcement didn't really go a long way, though, because many tourists and backpackers stopped hitchhiking Hume Highway, and word spread around Sydney that visitors should stop going to the park. After Joanne and Caroline were identified, leads in the case dwindled, and law enforcement couldn't figure out who had killed the young women or really develop any viable suspects.

Investigators told the Herald that they'd fielded 7,500 tips and questioned at least 500 people, but nothing led them to one prime suspect they could focus all their energy on. A year went by, and just when everyone thought there was no end in sight, something unbelievable happened. The Age reported that on October 6, 1993, a man metal detecting in Belangelo State Forest near a dirt trail stumbled upon an intact skull and an assortment of what looked like human bones. He quickly reported his finding to police in Sydney,

and some source material even says he removed the skull to bring to the authorities. By two o'clock in the afternoon, detectives and forensic teams had arrived on scene, and it didn't take them long to unearth a partial human skeleton. It had been haphazardly buried underneath some leaves and branches, just like Caroline Clark and Joanne Walter's bodies had been. A few hours later, not far from the first set of new remains, authorities located another badly decomposing skeleton. remains, authorities located another badly decomposing skeleton. No IDs or personal belongings were found with either set of remains, and it was hard for investigators to tell at first glance whether the bodies were male or female because they were in such bad shape. Both skeletons were found about a half kilometer away from where Caroline and Joanne had been buried. The reality that investigators were dealing with four potential victims

buried in the same geographic area of Belanglo alarmed everyone. Identifying the two new bodies was kind of a guessing game for investigators, though, until official autopsies could be done. At that point, the possibilities were sort of big. The skeletons could belong to the young German couple, Anja and Gabor, who vanished in October of 1991. Or they could be James Gibson and Deborah Everest, who'd been missing since December of 89.

Or one of the bodies could be Simi Schmidl. Or the remains belonged to two people that police didn't even know about yet. Within a few days, though, law enforcement got their answer. Forensic pathologists had come out to the grave sites and compared dental records and positively confirmed that the two victims were James Gibson and Deborah Everest. According to Crime Library, there were also several articles of clothing and jewelry that helped share up the identities. A black felt hat that James was always known to wear was sitting next to his remains, and on Deborah's bones, police found several bracelets with semi-precious stones,

as well as a necklace that her family said belonged to her. The pathologist who conducted their autopsies found that James had been stabbed several times in the chest and back, which included a devastating wound to his spine that paralyzed him before his death. Deborah had also been stabbed multiple times, mostly to her face, chest, and head. In the wake of James and Deborah's remains officially being identified, Pat, Deborah's mother, spoke with reporter Mark Riley for the Sydney Morning Herald. She said she never imagined something like this would happen to her daughter on her first backpacking trip. She told Riley, quote, it worries me. This was the first time my daughter had ever done it. So don't think that just because you're doing it once, it won't

happen. It does. I would just like anyone who has information to come forward and talk to the police. We must save this from happening to other young people and other families suffering, end quote. After finding Deborah and James, police continued to scour the forest and widen their search. They brought in more officers and utilized as many scent dogs as they could. A spokesman for the departments told news outlets they didn't expect to find more bodies, but they couldn't know for sure until they looked. Unfortunately, there were more bodies waiting to be found. On November 1, 1993, less than a month after Deborah and James were found, a police officer searching the forest floor discovered a human skull in a clearing. Next to it was a shirt, green shorts, pieces of jewelry, a pair of women's pink jeans, and.22 caliber bullets,

along with some blue and yellow rope. Dental charts confirmed the body belonged to Simi Schmiedl, but all of the clothing didn't appear to belong to her. The pink jeans, for example, were not her size. That particular clothing item was something investigators knew from talking with Anya's family could belong to her. Two days later, on November 3rd, authorities found two more bodies in shallow graves a few hundred yards away from Simi's makeshift burial site. All of the bodies were transported to Sydney for autopsies, and just like the other victims

before them, the pathologist determined that each victim had been stabbed multiple times with a large knife. One of the skeletons was fairly intact, but the other was missing the skull. The full skeleton was quickly identified as belonging to Gabor, and the other was presumed to be Anya. In addition to being stabbed in the back and chest, Gabor had also been shot several times and strangled. Wound angles on Anya. In addition to being stabbed in the back and chest, Gabor had also been shot several times and strangled. Wound angles on Anya's skeleton showed she'd been purposely decapitated. Where her skull was, though, was still a mystery. Authorities couldn't find it in the woods. Right around this time, ballistics results from the bullets found in Caroline Clark's body,

as well as the shells from around that crime scene, came in. The techs had determined that all of the cartridges came from a.22 caliber, U.S.-made semi-automatic Ruger rifle. They realized the murder weapon had a unique style. It had a shorter-than-normal barrel. Detectives sent off the bullets recovered from Gabor's body, and preliminary results showed those bullets were also fired from the same style gun.

Crime Library reported that authorities looked into how many Ruger rifles with short barrels were imported into Australia, but unfortunately, more than 50,000 had been purchased in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. 70s and 80s. A lot of the gun stores in southern Australia had kept records of sales for these types of guns, but many didn't keep receipts for cash transactions. So essentially, that lead was kind of a dead end, because going through every purchase for the last three decades was going to take too much time, according to the investigators. Instead, authorities visited local gun clubs near Belangelo State Forest, and they questioned gun owners about their firearms. The effort didn't help police identify a potential shooter, but they did take an interesting report from a man some members of a club near the town of Burrell recommended detectives speak with.

This witness's name was Alex Millat, and he told authorities that in 1992, he'd seen something kind of odd in the forest one night. He said while coming home, he'd noticed two vehicles, a sedan and a four-wheel drive truck driving on one of the old fire trails. As the truck passed him, he said he saw a man behind the steering wheel, and in the back seat were two other men and a woman. The woman had some kind of fabric tied around her head that appeared to be gagging her. In the sedan, he saw the same thing, a few men and a

young woman, who also appeared to be gagged or bound. Alex said he tried to take down one of the car's license plate numbers, but didn't get the full numeric, and in between now and then, he'd lost the few numbers he'd written down. Police were extremely interested in Alex's story, and they pressed him for more details. Most importantly, they asked him why he hadn't reported this sighting to police sooner, but his answer was vague, and police moved on. By the end of November 1993, homicide detectives from New South Wales and Victoria officially launched a task force of 40 detectives to investigate all seven murders. They told the public they believed the same person or people were responsible for the brutal slayings,

and more than likely they were dealing with one or two sadistic serial killers operating together. Law enforcement released the profile forensic psychiatrist Rod Milton had worked up months earlier, and they emphasized that the main killer was likely a man who was local, owned a bayonet-style knife, and had multiple firearms, including a Ruger rifle. The lead detective for the task force said the fact that James Gibson's rucksack and camera had been purposely planted at Galston Gorge, so far away from where he and Deborah's bodies were buried, indicated the killer or killers were trying to manipulate the police's investigation and had intended to draw detectives

away from the state forest. He said the killer was smart, very knowledgeable with survival skills, and more than likely owned a four-wheel drive pickup truck in order to be able to get to the burial sites he placed the bodies in. The task force set up a public hotline and asked people to help them be on the lookout for any individuals who looked suspicious and were driving near the entrance of the park on Hume Highway during the times that the victims vanished. After that plea for the public's help went out, a report from 1990 surfaced that changed everything. As it turned out, the suspected Belangelo State Forest killer,

who nobody knew the identity of, might have had a surviving victim. In January 1990, so this is right after Deborah Everest and James Gibson vanished, a 23-year-old English backpacker named Paul Onions had reported to police in Barrow that a man who'd picked him up as a hitchhiker on Hume Highway near Belangelo State Forest had tried to kill him. on Hume Highway near Belangelo State Forest had tried to kill him. According to articles by Strange Outdoors and Crime Library, Paul's story was that he'd been trying to get from New South Wales to Victoria, and while at a cafe off the highway, a man driving a four-wheel drive pickup truck offered to give him a ride. A few minutes after getting into the truck,

Paul said the guy introduced himself as Bill and started up friendly conversation. Bill was asking Paul questions like, are you traveling alone? When are you due back in England? Who's waiting for you in Victoria? Paul said the questions seemed repetitive, but he just brushed it off as someone wanting to know more about the backpacking lifestyle. But when the men got close to the turnoff for Belangelo State Forest, Paul said Bill pulled over, stopped the truck, got out, and said he needed to look for some cassette tapes underneath his driver's seat. After searching for a minute or two, Paul said Bill got quiet and then pulled out a revolver and a bag of rope and threatened to kill him if he didn't cooperate.

At the sight of the weapon and rope, Paul said he sprang into action and tried to kill him if he didn't cooperate. At the sight of the weapon and rope, Paul said he sprang into action and tried to run towards the open highway for help. But along the way, Bill had caught up to him and dragged him on the ground. Somehow though, Paul said he continued to fight against his attacker and he made it into traffic. Paul told the police that he jumped into the path

of an oncoming minivan and told the driver he was being chased. He begged the woman behind the wheel to get him out of there, and despite having a van full of kids with her, this woman allowed Paul to get in the back seat. Together, the Good Samaritan and Paul sped over to the Borough Police Department to report what had happened. Paul gave a detailed description to officers of what Bill looked like and his vehicle.

He said the truck was a four-wheel drive and Bill had a distinct thick mustache. Unfortunately, investigators looking into the seven Forrest murders in 1993 didn't know anything about Paul Onion's survival story from 1990. Apparently, the local police department never followed up with his initial report, and for years it sat in a filing cabinet at their station, and Paul flew home to England within days of his horrific ordeal. I don't blame him. But in November of 1993, when news broke about the seven victims being found in the state forest, Paul took it upon himself to call New South Wales investigators to remind them about his assault and his near-death experience, but his call went unreturned for five

months. It wasn't until April of 1994 that a detective named David Gordon on the task force unearthed Paul's initial assault report from 1990, and he contacted him for more details. initial assault report from 1990, and he contacted him for more details. After getting Paul's full story, Detective Gordon also uncovered another report from 1971. This one detailed how two young women who were hitchhiking away from Sydney, headed south on Hume Highway, had been abducted and raped, but they'd survived. The man both women accused of the crime was named Ivan Malat, who drove a four-wheel drive pickup truck and had a distinct mustache. Ivan was 49 years old and had a criminal history in New South Wales and had even served time in prison. According to multiple news reports, even after fleeing Australia and pretending to fake his own death to avoid prosecution for the rape charges, Ivan was acquitted of the 1971 crime after prosecutors

failed to prove their case. But in early 1994, by the time Detective David Gordon got a chance to speak with them, Ivan was working at a concrete plant in Borough with his brother Richard. Time cards for Ivan's shifts showed that he'd been absent from work when each of the seven state forest murders had taken place, which was super suspicious. So from January 1994 until May, Detective Gordon and other members of the task force surveilled Ivan and his family members, which included several of his brothers and his sister Shirley. According to Strange Outdoors' piece on this case, authorities learned that Ivan and his brothers were employed for several years

as road construction workers on a new extension of Hume Highway near Belangelo State Forest. They each had expert survival skills and were known to hunt in the pine forest on a regular basis. On top of all of that, Ivan had sold a Nissan four-wheel drive pickup truck right after police discovered the seven bodies. If that didn't look bad enough, Ivan also owned several firearms and his friend said he had an extensive knife collection. So on May 5th, 1994, task force investigators flew Paul Onions to Australia

and had him take a look at pictures of Ivan. And sure enough, Paul positively identified him as the man who called himself Bill, who tried to kill him back in 1990. Three weeks later, Detective Gordon and other investigators had what they needed to execute search warrants at Ivan's house and two homes and properties that belonged to his family members. Nick Papadopoulos reported for the Sydney Morning Herald that at several locations, investigators found backpacks, camping gear, canteens, and personal belongings with some of the murder victim's initials scratched out on them. and personal belongings with some of the murder victim's initials scratched out on them.

Hidden in several spots around Ivan's house were pieces of a.22 Ruger semi-automatic rifle that had been disassembled. When police found all the parts, they realized it had a shortened barrel. They also found bags of rope that was very similar to the rope found at some of the burial sites. In addition to all of that incriminating evidence, authorities found dozens of boxes of firearms, ammunition, and young people's clothing stashed in an underground workshop built on the back of Ivan's house. It took hours and several days for the task force to gather and seize all the evidence, but once they got it all together in one place, everything police needed came together. Detectives arrested Ivan for firearms offenses

and the armed robbery and assault of Paul Onions from 1990. Even though they had all that evidence, they didn't have a solid enough case at that point to charge Ivan with the multiple backpacker murders. But they did have enough to keep him in jail for the time being. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Ivan's brothers Richard and Walter were arrested as well for firearms and drug charges. It only took a few days after nabbing Ivan for Paul's assault that police were able to beef up their case and obtain indictments and officially charge Ivan with the seven backpacker murders. Throughout his first few court hearings, a judge repeatedly denied Ivan

bail, despite him fully denying the accusations. Ivan fired his defense attorney in June of 1994 and opted to represent himself. During many of his pretrial hearings, he argued with the judge and lashed out at the media for hyping up what he claimed were false charges against him. Ivan didn't make it long, though, on his own, and by July, he hired a new defense attorney to represent him. Unfortunately, it took another year and a half for Ivan to finally go to trial in March of 1996. The proceedings lasted 15 weeks, and the Crown introduced more than 450 witness statements and nearly 1,000 documents and exhibits, all pointing to Ivan Milat as the serial killer police had been after for years. Ivan's brother Alex, who'd initially reported to

police back in the day that he'd seen a suspicious truck and sedan in the state park a year before Joanne Walters and Caroline Clark's bodies had been discovered. Yeah, he was supposed to testify as a witness, but at the last minute, prosecutors decided to axe him from the witness list. The Crown told the Sydney Morning Herald he was a, quote, unreliable witness, end quote. I guess the prosecution did this because Alex's testimony was so vague, and since several of Ivan's other brothers were suspected of being involved with the crimes to some degree, the government felt it was best not to introduce any family members of Ivan's as witnesses in the event that those people turned out to be accomplices. in the event that those people turned out to be accomplices.

I'm not really 100% sure, but the source material isn't super clear about why Alex didn't testify. Someone who did testify, though, and really packed a punch was Paul Onions. He detailed the circumstances around his terrifying ride with Ivan, and jurors responded in awe. All of the backpacking victim's parents took the stand too to testify about how much Ivan had taken away from them when he brutally killed their children. When it was time for the defense to make its arguments, Ivan and his lawyer denied everything. Ivan's strategy was blaming Richard and Walter, his brothers, for the crimes and said they planted

all of the incriminating evidence inside of his house. The prosecution's rebuttal to this was that it was Ivan who'd kept trophies of all of his victims, and in a sick, twisted way, had even gifted some of those belongings to his siblings after the crimes, which is why some of those articles had been found in their homes. Thankfully, the jury didn't buy Ivan's defense argument, and on July 27, 1996, the panel convicted him for seven counts of first-degree murder and the assault on Paul Onions. The judge sentenced Ivan to life in prison on each count, as well as six years in prison for Paul's case.

is six years in prison for Paul's case. After he was incarcerated, Ivan tried multiple times to escape prison, but failed. His brothers Richard and Walter were never charged with any crimes related to the seven backpacker murders, though many members of law enforcement believed they were involved in some way. According to Crime Library and 60 Minutes, authorities believed Ivan's sister Shirley also might have been present during some of the murders and even helped conceal evidence, but she too was never charged. One of the reasons police thought that she was at some of the crime scenes was because of those piles of cigarette butts they

found near some of the victims. The butts were all the same brand, and Shirley was the only person in the Malotte family who smoked that brand of cigarettes. The only family member who never came under suspicion, though, was one of Ivan's younger brothers, Boris. Boris moved away from his family at a young age, and when reporters tracked him down after Ivan's conviction, he said he'd gone into hiding because he was fearful of his family members. He told news reporters, quote,

All of my brothers are capable of extreme violence given the right time and place individually. The things I can tell you are much worse than what Ivan's meant to have done. Everywhere he's worked, people have disappeared. If Ivan has done these murders, I reckon he's done a hell of a lot more. Boris later told 60 Minutes that while he and his brothers had been growing up, Ivan had never expressed empathy or love for anyone. He had a fetish for violence that Boris said made him primed to be a killer. News Australia reported that Ivan petitioned for parole several times, but every time the court denied his request.

As he got older and older, authorities went back to him several times to question him about dozens of other murders and mysterious disappearances. All of those cases were from the 70s and 80s and involved backpackers who disappeared near Belanglo State Forest, but Ivan refused to cooperate. He also never confessed or took responsibility for the seven murders he was convicted of. In October of 2019, Ivan died of esophageal and stomach cancer. He was 74 years old. died of esophageal and stomach cancer. He was 74 years old. He passed away alone in a prison hospital room,

and within days of his death, prison officials cremated his body, and they paid for the process with the balance from his inmate account. To this day, police in Australia believe Ivan could have been responsible for upwards of 20 murders along Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne. They've never been able to definitively prove

he's connected to any deaths beyond the seven backpacker murders, but perhaps there are still more bodies and secrets waiting to be uncovered in Belanglo State Forest. Secrets that could help bring answers to several families still waiting for justice. Park Predators is an Audiochuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck?

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