476 - The Backpacker Killer: Ivan Milat

Timesuck with Dan Cummins

Dan Cummins

True Crime, Society & Culture, Religion, Conspiracies, History, Biographies, Education, Adult Humor, Comedy, Dark Humor, Conspiracy, Cults

4.7 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 157 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When seven backpackers vanished in the early 1990s, the vast Australian bush became the hunting ground of a sadistic killer. For years, hikers stumbled upon shallow graves in Belanglo State Forest—each revealing new horrors and the same gruesome pattern of torture and execution. The man responsible, truck driver Ivan Milat, would become known as the “Backpacker Murderer,” one of Australia’s most infamous serial killers. This week, we dive into his brutal crimes, the survivor who helped catch him, and the darkness hiding along the open road.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In September of 1992, two dead bodies were found in New South Wales in Australia's Belangelo State Forest.
0:08.3	The heavily decomposed victims were soon identified as 21-year-old Caroline Clark and 22-year-old Joanne Walters,
0:15.4	two British backpackers who have been exploring Australia.
0:18.6	They've been missing since April the latest in a series of backpackers
0:22.1	who had disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
0:25.3	They'd also been brutally murdered.
0:27.9	Joanne had been stabbed repeatedly.
0:29.9	Her killer had deliberately paralyzed her,
0:32.7	severing her spinal cord with his blade
0:34.4	in a way that would have left her alive
0:36.2	to be, in all likelihood tortured.
0:39.4	Caroline was shot in the head multiple times. The press speculated that the murders were committed
0:43.8	by an unknown serial killer, someone likely behind the disappearances of the other missing
0:48.8	backpackers, but the police were reluctant to make that kind of official statement. Within the following year, in October of 1993,
0:57.4	two more sets of human remains were found in the Balangelo State Forest,
1:02.0	quickly identified as 19-year-olds, James Gibson and Deborah Everest,
1:06.9	two Australians who have been missing since 1989.
1:10.4	Similar to the first crime scene, James had suffered paralyzing spinal wounds that would
1:15.4	have left him immobilized, but still alive, aware but completely helpless to avoid whatever
1:21.1	his killer still had in store for him.
1:23.7	Deborah had been stabbed as well.
1:25.7	And now the New South Wales police acknowledged that yes,
	...

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