Backpacker Murders Victims

Between 1989 and 1992, seven backpackers were murdered in the Belanglo State Forest, a dense pine forest about 150 kilometers southwest of Sydney, Australia. The victims were young travelers from Australia, Britain, and Germany who had been hitchhiking along the Hume Highway.

The first remains were discovered on September 19, 1992, when orienteers found two decomposed bodies. Over the following months, the remains of five more victims were found at separate sites within the forest. All had been brutally murdered, most by multiple stab wounds, and some had been bound or shot.

The investigation, codenamed Task Force Air, was one of the largest in Australian history. A breakthrough came when British backpacker Paul Onions, who had survived an attack by a driver on the Hume Highway in January 1990, came forward and identified Ivan Robert Marko Milat as his attacker after seeing media coverage.

Milat was arrested in May 1994 at his home near the forest. Physical evidence including victims' belongings was found at his property. He was convicted of all seven murders in 1996 and sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without parole. Milat died of cancer in prison in 2019.