{"id":795840,"date":"2026-07-12T16:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795840\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T16:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:57:13","slug":"ivan-milat-is-notorious-serial-killer-behind-dozens-of-other-unsolved-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795840\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Milat: Is notorious serial killer behind dozens of other unsolved murders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not in dispute Ivan Milat was an evil, violent criminal.<\/p>\n

One of Australia\u2019s worst serial killers.<\/p>\n

\"Responsible<\/p>\n

Responsible for the brutal killings of seven backpackers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ivan Milat is one of Australia\u2019s worst serial killers.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he murdered <\/a>seven young backpackers in the Belanglo State Forest, south of Sydney<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s long been suspected though, but not proven, is that Milat\u2019s killing spree actually began years earlier, and that he\u2019s responsible for many, currently unsolved homicides.<\/p>\n

Milat died in 2019 but a NSW parliamentary inquiry has now been set up to try to establish the true extent of his depravity.<\/p>\n

Its aim is to uncover information which might not only assist police, but also the families of possible Milat victims.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

20-year-old Keren Rowland was five months pregnant when her body was found dumped in a shallow grave in Fair Bairn Forest near Canberra airport.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Remarkably, it has already made some stunning progress.<\/p>\n

For Steve Rowland and his cousin, Hugh Hughes, visiting a forest on the outskirts of the ACT is haunting and heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

Fifty-five years ago, Steve\u2019s sister was found dumped in a shallow grave, almost three months after vanishing from the side of a road in Canberra.<\/p>\n

Twenty-year-old Keren Rowland had been five months pregnant.<\/p>\n

Whoever murdered her has not been found.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Ivan Milat\u2019s arrest following the infamous backpackers murders alerted some people to encounters with the notorious serial killer.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cruel. They must be so mentally crook, I suppose,\u201d Steve said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable. I mean, what sort of person does that? We know one sort of person that\u2019s sort of made a bit of a career out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than five decades, Steve and his family have searched for clues about Keren\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Now they believe they\u2019re close to an answer.<\/p>\n

She was likely Milat\u2019s first murder victim.<\/p>\n

Hughes is a retired British detective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Keren<\/p>\n

Keren Rowland\u2019s family have been fighting to know whether her death is linked to Ivan Milat.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

He says similarities between Keren\u2019s death and Milat\u2019s murderous rampage in the Belanglo State Forest almost 20 years later are striking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe positioning of the body, the fact that shrubbery and old twigs were laid over to conceal, similar to the seven that we know of in Belanglo, and also suggestions that the body had been interfered with. Another hallmark of Milat\u2019s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus the fact that there was a beer bottle found right next to her. \u201d<\/p>\n

Of course parallels between the cases, no matter how compelling, don\u2019t constitute proof, but what\u2019s given the family fresh hope is the recently launched NSW parliamentary inquiry.<\/p>\n

Already the state\u2019s homicide commander, Joe Doueihi, has revealed that police too have long suspected that Milat killed Keren.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an extraordinary admission for the Rowland family to hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cStunned, it\u2019s taken eight years for a serving police officer to say the words that Ivan Milat is highly likely to be the man who was responsible for Keren Rowland\u2019s murder,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

\"NSW<\/p>\n

NSW politician Jeremy Buckingham has made it his mission to prove whether a handful of historical unsolved homicides and missing persons cases have links to Ivan Milat.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Milat is notorious for his brutal crimes in the Belanglo State Forest.<\/p>\n

But the mission of the parliamentary inquiry is to scrutinise the possibility that Milat\u2019s killing spree started decades before anyone realised.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a contention that raises uncomfortable questions.<\/p>\n

Could one of Australia\u2019s worst serial killers have been stopped years before the backpacker murders? And if so, why wasn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

Watch the full episode of 60 Minutes on 9Now.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not in dispute Ivan Milat was an evil, violent criminal. One of Australia\u2019s worst serial killers. Responsible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-795840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}