‘I’LL NEVER KNOW IF IVAN MILAT KILLED MY DAUGHTER’
Even the evil monster’s death doesn’t end the nightmares for the heartbroken mum of missing schoolgirl Amanda
He was the country’s most notorious killer. A monster with biceps like tree trunks who used his evil mind and his frightening strength to kill seven backpackers – and probably many more.
Some say the oesophageal cancer that took the life of Ivan Milat, 74, did not come soon enough. And even on his deathbed, the infamous backpacker killer refused to admit his chilling crimes.
He was convicted of killing Caroline Clarke, 21, Joanne Walters, 22, James Gibson, 19, Deborah Everist, 19, Simone Schmidl, 21, Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20, after their bodies were found in Belanglo State Forest between 1989 and 1993.
But police, criminologists and the tortured parents of multiple missing young Australians believe he may have killed many more, including 14-year-old schoolgirl Amanda Robinson.
“I cannot bear the thought of it,’’ says Amanda Robinson’s mum Anne, even though she’s haunted by the thought that Milat may have taken the life of her “little girl” and two other young women from NSW’S Lake Macquarie district.
Amanda, Leanne Goodall, 20 and Robyn Hickie, 18, all went missing within four months of each other in 1978-1979. They have never been found – and Milat had worked in road gangs in the area at the time the girls went missing.
LOOKING FOR THE TRUTH
Their families have always suspected Milat but prayed that he was not responsible. Now with his death last week, Anne and Amanda’s father Ron may never find out what happened to their cherished daughter.
“It’s just so hard,” says Anne. “It doesn’t get easier. It is there all the time. I still can’t sleep. I am awake half the night. You don’t know where they are, what happened to them, what they did to them. It is with you all the time.
“She was only a little girl who had just turned 14. And she wasn’t a worldly little girl either. She was just a gorgeous girl.”
Anne and the families of the other girls sat through Milat’s cold and dark testimony during a 2001 inquest into their
disappearances – in which he showed not a shred of empathy or decency.
Anne says she’ll never forget the moment he leaned forward and starred at her and Ron, and asked how they could “let a 14-year-old run around at midnight” in response to his possible involvement.
Milat also wrote to the families following the inquest, protesting his innocence and insisting he was framed, saying even if he was given millions of dollars he would not assist them.
The truth of what happened to Amanda and the other missing girls may have followed Milat to the grave, leaving Anne and Ron and other parents to forever wonder what happened to their precious children.
To add insult to injury, most of Milat’s family were last week still insisting he was innocent, but their claims were as ludicrous then as they were when he was convicted all those years ago.
And he remained unrepentant to the very end, resisting a secret three-month police campaign to get the serial killer to make a deathbed confession in the months leading to his death.
‘It’s just so hard. It doesn’t get easier. It is there all the time’