273: True Crime Theater 2: Ivan Milat Part 1

In this episode we discuss a series of murders that occurred in the Belanglo Forest in Australia and the man behind it, Ivan Milat. We discuss Milat's family life and the investigation that led to him being caught.

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Our merch store can be found at teepublic.com/stores/corpus-delicti-podcastMusic by:Kai Engel"Daemones"Blooper music by:Art of Escapism"Coal Miners"This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Sources:Timeline of Ivan Milat's crimes and trialLife never a picnic for the dirt-poor, troubled Milat clanGrowing up with Ivan Milat: An insight into the backpacker killer | Australian Story (2004) - YouTubeOn the trail of a ... serial killerDoes crime run in the Milat family tree?Ivan Milat: How brother Alex led to serial killer’s arrest and conviction | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news siteIvan Milat - Paul Onions, Family & MurdersDid Australia's backpacker killer have an accomplice? | The Independent | The IndependentIvan Milat: Australia's 'backpacker killer' and unanswered questionsBorn to Kill - Ivan MilatBackpacker murders - WikipediaIvan Milat, the notorious Australian Backpacker serial killer -- — Profile of a Killer — Crime Library on truTV.comMaitland Correctional Centre Escape Attempt - 20/05/1997 - QWN - NSW ParliamentSkeleton key to unlock Milat mystery? | Herald SunRegina v Milat Matter No Cca 60438/96 [1998] NSWSC 795 (26 February 1998)Milat says brothers innocent - ABC News.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, everyone is Jen, and this is Lindsey and this
is Corpus Delicti the podcast. Super excited to be back.
Please pardon my voice. It is pollen season where we
are Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, it's so bad everywhere. Quick little pause because it's
been several weeks since we recorded and a lot happened
in that time. I'm sure if you have looked at
the podcast speed you probably know that by now. But
Rocky Myers, his sentence has been commuted. And just to confirm,
because we have not officially gotten to say this on

(00:56):
the podcast yet, he is off out, gone, off of
death row. He is now in Saint Clair Correctional Facility,
which is closer to his family and to us, which
doesn't matter as much. You know that he's close to us,
but we want to try to go see him. But
he is closer to his family now. But he is

(01:16):
safe and sound in Saint Clair Correctional Facility. We have
not heard from him yet, but just keep him in
your thoughts because I mean perspective on this. He was
in Holman for thirty one years. That's a long long
time and this is prison we're talking about. You got
to relearn who the good guys are, who you can trust,
who you can't trust, Who are the guards that are safe?

(01:38):
All that. So it's a huge adjustment. But he is
off of death row.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
We are so happy. We are so happy. But it
does not end our journey with Rocky. There are a
lot more steps that are in the works, so we
will keep you up to date with those and any
other updates as they come in. But now his story
is not done.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Absolutely cheers to that. So back to our true crime
Theater too series. Tonight's episode is going to be part
one of a two parter. Yes, this is going to
be a two parter, so let's go ahead and jump in.
We have a lot to talk about and we are
going to be talking about a serial killer named Ivan Malatt.

(02:21):
Ivan was born on December twenty seventh, nineteen forty four,
in Guilford, New South Wales, Australia, to Stephen and Margaret.
His father Stephen. Stephen was the Australian spelling and pronunciation
of his name because he was a Yugoslav immigrant and
his mother was from right there in Australia. When his

(02:42):
parents first met Margaret, his mother was only fourteen and
she was sixteen when they married, and Ivan is the
fifth of fourteen children, So this is a very very
large family and we're going to talk a lot about
how those dynamics play into what happened growing up.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
He was there in a rural weatherboard hottage farm in
Bosley Park. It literally had a dirt floor. Again, fourteen kids,
there's a lot of people to feed. Money as tight.
His father worked very hard, but it wasn't enough and
it just wore him to the point where he just
didn't have anything else to give. He would get up

(03:23):
super early in the morning, take the train and then
work a ten hour shift. At one point they did
move into a larger shed and all the kids slept
on piled up mattresses. Now, according to the kids, the
parents aren't bad parents, but his dad did have a temper,
especially when the kids would fight. They tried to focus

(03:48):
on raising and educating and discipline their kids, but when
you have fourteen kids and they're fighting, dad's going to
lose his temper. Now, some sources later on say that
their dad started drinking a lot and did sometimes strike
their mother. So wondering if the stress, the poverty and

(04:08):
the house and the family situation was one of those
leading factors into this. There are some stories that their
mother hit the kids at times, including once with a
knife on borses, which is one of his brother's arm
So much for this whole happy family dynamic.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
So what it sounds like, and we're going to talk
a lot about this, There are a lot of reports
on the family life and they differ, and keep that
in mind because in part two that's going to come
up in a very big way. But it sounds like
maybe when they were younger, you know, they were doing

(04:47):
the best they can. They were trying to raise and
discipline them, and then as time went on, perhaps some
things shifted, so all the kids were expected to pitch in. Again,
it's a large family, lots do but as some of
them described, it was just hard to keep control with
that many kids. Where is so and so? Did this
person finish their chores? Did this person, you know, sneak

(05:10):
out of the house? And they were playing in the woods.
And this also affected them socially because they worked and
played together. But it was all right there on the
very very very small family property, not much outside the
family because there were so many needs and expectations, and
they had to pitch in so they were very much

(05:31):
this tight knit unit. Now, they they went outside and
played and they did things, but it was brother and
sister because they're all right there and oh, we can't
go far. We got to be back to do this later.
So then Iven's sister, Margaret was very unfortunately killed in
a car accident, and that brought a lot of stress
and grief for the family as well. Not really sure

(05:52):
if that's where you see the turning point with the
parents at all. Not really clear there, but of course
that would have a very big impact on the family.
But let's talk about Ivan as he's growing up specifically,
because obviously that is the reason we're here. Ivan displayed
antisocial and psychopathic behaviors from a young age, at least

(06:13):
according to his brother Boris. Now we've mentioned Boris once already,
and he comes up a lot, and Boris says that
he would do things like laugh at inappropriate times. He
would do all these really risky things that he didn't
take seriously, like climbing on roofs, and they'd be like,
get down, you're gonna hurt yourself, and he would just
laugh it off. And Boris said that it was simply

(06:34):
built into him. And he had a cruel streak that
ran deep. And this is a quote from Boris. He said,
Ivan was pretty normal up until twelve fourteen. I heard
about it from his mates. You know, they'd all boast
about how they'd go out at night and do things
with machetes. I heard he cut a dog in half
with a machete. While he was growing up.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
In high school, he was sent to Boystown, which is
an institution for wayward boys, kind of like a military
type of school where the kids need that extra structure
and a little bit more discipline. His siblings said that
he was always well dressed and he ironed his clothes.
When he had cars, they were pristine as well. He

(07:17):
was described as a loner and that he wasn't one
to start to share private information or make a lot
of small talk. When he worked, he wasn't there to
make friends, so you know, he had his core family
group and for him, I'm there to do a job.
I'm gonna do my job. I'm not gonna talk to anybody.

(07:37):
I even was involved in theft and other criminal activities
during his teenage years, but he wasn't the only one.
So his brother Michael got into trouble as well. The
very eldest brother said that this was just part of
the social isolation and they started to do what they
wanted to do. Allegedly, when the police would come knocking

(08:00):
when there had been an instant, their mother would just
defend them hardcore, Mama bear, my son didn't do that.
My son's an angel. My son would never and this
did make them have some troublesome reputation around town.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
So Ivan was also obsessed with guns as early as
his teen years. He actually stole. One of his criminal
charges was for stealing a sawed off shotgun from his job. Now,
to be fair, their dad owned a lot of guns
and took them shooting out in the woods all the time,
but he really latched onto that that was something that
he really really loved. Ivan was also known as the

(08:39):
attractive one. His brothers and sisters say that women were
always looking at him. He was a good talker and
he knew what to say, and he was very muscular.
So on that note, at one point, his oldest brother, Boris,
was with a woman named Marilyn. He and Marylyn get married,
Marilyn and Boris have a baby. Turns out that Ivan

(09:01):
ends up having an affair with his sister in law, Marilyn.
His brother's wife. Marilyn actually gets pregnant again, and Boris
swears up and down to this day that it's Ivan's baby.
He's like, I know that that is Ivan's baby. So
Boris's distraught, he doesn't know what to do. He goes

(09:21):
to their dad and he's like, look, here's the situation,
and his dad gets mad, and his dad allegedly to Boris, says,
you gotta kill him, you got to kill him for this,
and then he ends up saying no, no, no, no,
I'm talking out of anger. He's my son. I don't
mean that. But point being loyalty, as we will learn,
is a very very big thing in this family. Again,

(09:45):
more on that in part two, but you can start
to see it here. You don't turn your back on
your own family. This is our core unit. We are
all we need type of type of mentality. So just
keep that in mind. But this was not the only
time something like that happened. He actually had an affair
with another brother, Wally. His wife Maureen. Now Maureen said,

(10:09):
oh he was charming, he was attractive, and so he
has an affair with another brother's wife. Then in nineteen
eighty three, Ivan met Karen Duck. Karen is sixteen, Karen
is pregnant, and the baby is Ivan's cousin's baby, So
now he's with his cousin's girl. So the two fell

(10:32):
in love and they actually married. He married Karen Duck
in nineteen eighty four and they had one daughter together.
They divorced in nineteen eighty seven, with Karen citing domestic
violence and saying he was quote gun crazy. Now to
hear Ivan say it, he had no idea what was coming.
He treated her so well, he was so in love

(10:52):
with her, and this was basically just like a death
in the family to him. He was just distraught. He
had no idea. He said, I loved her, and obviously
she didn't love me or whatever. Now some think that
this was a turning point for him, which we are
about to get into and start talking about very soon.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
So let's talk about his criminal activities. So early on,
we know he got into some trouble and had multiple
convictions for theft, but also breaking, an entering, and an
armed robbery. When he was a teenager, he stole a van,
but when the police came, one of his brothers took
the fall to protect his brother.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Again, we're seeing that loyalty there as well. So his
brother stepped in and was like, no, no, no, it was me.
He's protecting his little brother.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Also, in nineteen seventy one, he's kidnapped and raped two
Hitchhecking women. He picked them up and drove them to
a secluded spot, saying he wanted to make love to
both of them. When they declined, he threatened them with
two knives, saying, you know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to kill both of you. You won't scream
when I cut your throats?

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Will you?

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Either one of you have sex with me or I'll
kill you both. One did agree to have sex with
them if he would let them live, and Ivan made
the other girl be the lookout. Years later, he actually
was acquitted for the rape, just the rape, not the
kidnapping charges. How did that happen? You ask Will? According
to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, quote Ivan

(12:22):
sawyer John Marston accused both women of being lesbians who
were receiving psychiatric treatment and taking prescription drugs, and in
his book in two thousand and four, John wrote juries
in those days were extremely prejudiced against gays and lesbians,
and on top of that, we had to put it
into their minds that possibly the sex may have indeed

(12:45):
been consensual. I'm not proud of my conduct that day,
but as a solicitor operating in a court room environment
at that time, I had no choice but to go
down that path. That said, I don't believe I should
re any praise for the win. He just going out
and saying, look, I made this up so I could

(13:06):
win the case, and I'm not proud of it.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, that's pretty terrible. So basically he really did do it,
but he was acquitted because they accused the victims of
being lesbians. That's the long and short of it. So
after the case, I haven't actually fled to New Zealand
got in some more trouble there and he came back
to Australia. When he comes back in nineteen seventy four,

(13:29):
he and his brother Michael, as well as a few
others were convicted and jailed on a robbery charge. Now
we're going to get into a lot of heavy stuff here,
but we need to do a little bit of scene
setting real quick. So during this time backpacking in Australia
was not super rare, okay, it was considered safe and expensive.

(13:51):
People would just throw things in a backpack and camp
to get where they were going. Not abnormal. Now it
seems kind of strange to us now maybe to go
on really long journeys and we're talking you know, cross
country journeys, long trekking journeys. But they would pack up
the supplies they need and go. Not unheard of, that
is until the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties when

(14:14):
several backpackers started to disappear in the Bilanglo State Forest.
So in late December nineteen eighty nine, a young Victorian
couple from Frankston, Debrah Everest and James Gibson, who were
both nineteen, left Sydney, Australia for a festival and they
were not seen again. On December thirty first, James Gibson's

(14:36):
camera had randomly been found then on March thirteenth, so
this is several months later, his backpack was found on
the side of the road. Now, Deborah and James were
not found until October of nineteen ninety three, and it
turned out that these items that they found previously were
nowhere near where their bodies were found. So basically what

(15:00):
happened is there was a local who was searching for
firewood and found bones out in the woods. He calls police.
They come on the scene and they were able to
determine the identities. Later. Gibson's skeleton showed eight stab wounds
to his back and chest, which would have punctured his
heart and lungs, as well as a large knife cut
through his upper spine which would have paralyzed him. Deborah

(15:24):
had been beaten with a fractured skull, broken jaw, and
knife marks to the forehead. She also had one stab
wound to the back. Now, Gibson's zipper was unzipped, but
the top button was fastened, and nearby they found a
very small fireplace.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
January twentieth, nineteen ninety one, twenty one year old Simone
Schmidtel left Sydney for Melbourne. She was from Germany and
she was not seen again. Simone was found on November one,
nineteen ninety three, so about two years and some change later,
during a police sweep for a fire trail. She had
completely decomposed and only her skeleton remained. She had been

(16:07):
stabbed at least eight times, with two severing her spine
and others in the heart and lungs, so we're starting
to see an m O definitely with the slicing of
the spine. They did find a brick fireplace not far
from her as well, and there was also a twenty
two shellcasinc.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Then a German couple, Gabor Neujbarer and Anya Hobsheide, left
a King's Cross hotel for Mildura on December twenty sixth
of nineteen ninety one. Gabor was twenty one and Anya
was twenty and unfortunately their bodies were found at the
same time as Simone Schmiddel, who Jen just talked about.

(16:51):
So when Simone was found, there was clothing found nearby,
and at first they're like, well, obviously it belongs to
this person, but it was determined that it did not,
but it actually matched the description of Anya, which led
to an extended search in that area. So at first
they find Simone, they find clothing, they say, wait, this

(17:12):
doesn't seem to quite fit her, but it does match
the description of another missing person, and they expand where
they're looking and Gabora and Anya's bodies were found in
nearby shallow graves less than two hundred feet from one another.
Anya had actually been decapitated and her skull was never found.
Gabor had been shot in the head six times. His

(17:35):
jeans had been unzipped with the button fastened. So hearing
that again, and they said that Anya's head had likely
been severed by a clean sharp instrument like a machete
or a sword, with the angle indicating that she was
likely kneeling. Both of them had been gagged. To me,
that sounds like, I mean, somebody's in a very submissive position.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Almost like an execution style, absolutely on your knees.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Now, two British backpackers, Carolyn Clark who's twenty one, and
joe Anne Walters twenty two, went missing. They were lasting
at King's Cross on April eighteenth, nineteen ninety two. They
were actually the first to be found on September nineteenth,
nineteen ninety two. This was actually the big one that

(18:24):
released all over the media. So as we tell you
this picture, this being the first one in the news,
although it's not the first murders. Two runners were out
running and they found a concealed corpse. They called police
to the scene, who found that the second body the
next day, about one hundred feet from the first Clark

(18:46):
had been shot ten times in the head and also
had stab wounds. Walters was stabbed fifteen times. Now, Walter's
injuries were four stab wounds to the chest, went to
the neck in nine in the back. The back wounds
the way that they were done is said to have

(19:06):
paralyzed her, and it is said that Clark had likely
been used as target practice. Walter's jeans are going to
be very similar to the other ones. Her zipper was undone,
but the button was still buttoned, which made them suspect
sexual assault, where the attacker had to quickly put her

(19:29):
clothes back on her. Nearby they found a brick fireplace
that had been made, as well as cigarette butts and
twenty two caliber cartridge casings. Caroline had a red cloth
wrapped around her head and there seemed to be a
gag and neck ligature as well. Now, the ankle of
the bullet shots on Caroline indicated that she was probably kneeling,

(19:51):
and what's interesting is the cloth gag had been tied
into a different knot than Gaber's and Anya's case. Now,
what stood out immediately was the fact that there were
seven victims, but different ways they were killed. They had
been beaten, strangled, shot, stabbed, and decapitated, but they all

(20:12):
had a lot of really similar pieces as well. So
we're seeing a lot of consistency but varying types of
execution of the murders. And we're going to get more
into the investigation and the arrest of Ivan when we
come back to the break. All right, guys, welcome back

(20:36):
from the break.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
So when we left off, we discussed the victims and
how they were found and really the brutal but varying
ways in which they were killed. So obviously this was
becoming a problem and authorities knew they had something really
bad on their hands. Again, backpacking was not a big deal.
So now all this is coming out in the news

(20:58):
and people are like, what the heck is going on?
People are, you know, starting to panic. You're starting to
see less people going out like that. So the police
force sets up a task force that they named Task
Force Air and it was established on October fourteenth, nineteen
ninety three, to investigate the murders. And they've got over
twenty detectives, they've got analysts, all these different professionals, forensics,

(21:23):
all that they offered five hundred thousand dollars in reward money,
and they're encouraging people just stay out of the area.
So they started out by creating a profile, and here
are some of the things that they come up with.
Mid thirties. The killer had to drive a four wheel
drive vehicle again out in the woods, out in these

(21:44):
like rough areas, had a knowledge of guns, a control
freak with anger issues, familiar with the area, possibly a loner,
history of homosexuality or bisexuality. Worked a semi skilled job,
probably outside. The killer spent time with the victims during
and after the murders. And this was determined because of

(22:06):
those fireplaces and seeming like the killer had set up
a camp, which were discovered by each of the locations. Now,
at first they do think that it could be two killers,
since most victims were with someone else and had been
killed in different ways. This was never proven though. Now
for the record, we've talked about that a little bit.

(22:26):
But Ivan was a strong guy. Okay, he was muscular,
he was built. But one article in the Independent, the
sergeant explains one key reason why they thought this about
having two killers. This is a quote. It says Sergeant
Dutton bases his theory on the fact that cartridge cases
found near the bodies of two other murdered German backpackers

(22:50):
were from two different brands of ammunition fired from different guns.
There was no crossover of one type of cartridge being
used in another gun. One brand was used in one
gun and another brand in the other. That to me
is suggestive of two people with two guns and two
different boxes of ammunition. Whatever they were doing, whether they

(23:13):
were targets shooting at that time, suggests there were two
different people. That's not definitive proof, but it's more probable.
So this is interesting too because they believe that if
there were two killers involved, one would be older and dominant,
and the other, although equally sadistic, would tend to be
more submissive. They suggested at one point that they could

(23:37):
be brothers sharing a common interest in guns and hunting,
and had probably been involved in other sexually related crimes,
either together or separately.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
They analyzed similar aspects of the murders. The first one
was they stashed in remote bushland and covered with sticks
and ferns now. Most suffered multiple step to the torso
at least many of them had been sexually assaulted and
the twenty two bullets and casings were found at many
of the scenes, so this is what was consistent across

(24:12):
all of the murders. They also set up a tip line.
They got a call from a woman named Mary. She
said that in nineteen seventy seven, she was eighteen. She
and her friend were hitchhiking and got a ride from
a man in his early thirties with black, straggly hair.
At one point, he turned onto a dirt road, telling
them it was a shortcut. He said he had forgotten

(24:33):
to go to the bathroom before he left. He got out,
opened the trunk and grabbed Mary and said okay, girls,
who's first. Mary went into self defense mode, bunches him,
and she and her friend run into the bushes, hid
and stayed there for hours until the man gave up.
Her friend had also called the hotline, and the women

(24:55):
were brought in and shown a photo lineup. Mary could
not positively identify fight anyone, but her friend Teresa did
point to Ivan, stating that his eyebrows and his face
shape were similar, but then she also pointed to a
second photo and said it was similar as well. Ironically,

(25:16):
the second photo was Ivan's brother Richard. Now, Richard and
Ivan are known to look a lot alike. But the
point being here is that those two brothers triggered her memory. Now,
unfortunately it wasn't enough to be considered a positive ID,
which astounds me.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
You gotta know which one it is. You can't like,
Oh well, he looks like it, but he does too.
That doesn't count because you've got to be able to
say that is definitely him, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
So then in November of nineteen ninety three, police get
a huge tip. A man named Paul Onions called saying
that he had been backpacking in Austra on January twenty fifth,
nineteen ninety and he got a ride from someone named Bill.
Bill was in his early forties, very fit, looking, about
five foot ten, had a MERV Hughes mustache. It's a big,

(26:12):
old bushy mustache with black hair, driving a Toyota land
Cruiser four wheel drive with wooly seat covers. Not long
into the ride, Paul starts to kind of feel uncomfortable
because Bill is asking him all these personal questions, asking
about his plans, and then he starts going on a rant,
making all these racist and xenophobic remarks. So Bill asked

(26:35):
him where he's from when he was due back and
who knew that he was there? And that's when Paul's like, oh,
those are weird questions. Why are you asking who knows
where I am? And then this man Bill starts getting
more aggressive as it goes on. Well, Bill told Paul
that he worked on the roads, he was from a
Yugoslavian family, lived near Liverpool and was divorced. So then

(26:59):
as the conversation he's going on these racist rants, Paul's
starting to fill a little off. This Bill starts changing
his speed off and on. He would speed and then
slow down, speed and then slow down, and he's looking
into the rear view mirror quite often. So about an
hour into this, not far from the forest, Bill stopped
the car, pulled out a gun and rope. He has

(27:20):
a camouflage knife in his hand and he tells Paul,
you're being robbed. Now. Paul was really quick. He managed
to jump out of the car and run while Bill
actually starts shooting at him. So this kid, this guy
Paul is being shot at. But he had been in
the Navy and he was zigzagging as he ran to
make himself a harder target to hit, so he's running.

(27:43):
A car comes by. He flags down the car and
this person in the car actually saw a man running
after Paul, and the passerby who picked Bill up took
him to the police to file a report.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Years later, after hearing about the murder, Paul calls the
tip line with all this information. Interestingly, the woman who
had picked Paul up the passerby had also called the
police about it, so everyone's being super forthcoming about their
issues and what they've been through. Her name was Joanna Barry.
She said that she was driving along Hume Highway when

(28:19):
she saw a four wheel drive car stopped on the
side of the road, one man running toward her and
another man chasing him. She stopped and the first man
said help me, he's got a gun. They went and
pulled up the old report that was originally filed and
found that no one really followed up on it and
nothing was done. But they don't know exactly who this

(28:41):
man is. Just the billy name they have is Bill.
February nineteen ninety four. The task force has now tripled
in size. They have thirty three investigators, eleven analysts, they
have ballistics, they have forensics. So then a woman calls
says that her boyfriend worked with the man named Ivan Malatt,

(29:02):
and she thought that they may want to look into
him because he had this wild obsession with weapons, and
he also drove a four wheel drive vehicle. Being that
this is the only name they have, they went on
his name full force.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
So they go and talk to more coworkers. Because this
was a coworker who called in right, this woman says,
my husband works with Ivan Malatt. So they go to
talk to more of Ivan Mallatt's coworkers. One talked about
how he and Ivan were on the way to a
job and they drove past the Bilanglo for Us and
Ivan said, quote, you wouldn't believe what's in there. And

(29:39):
the coworker says what, and Ivan just smiled and went quiet. Now, meanwhile,
they get another tip when they're questioning members of the
local gun club and one of the members said they
saw something suspicious the year before. This witness says that
he saw two vehicles. One was a Ford sedan and

(29:59):
the other was a four drive of some sort. They
were driving down a trail. One of the vehicles passed
him and he saw one man driving in the back
seat were two other men with a woman in the
middle with a cloth tied around her like a gag.
Then the second vehicle passed. One man was driving, another

(30:21):
man was in the backseat with another woman who also
seemed to be bound and gagged. Now this is very interesting,
and wait for it, we're going to get to why
this is so interesting in a second. So, for one,
the witness provided a lot of detail, and this is
a quote he said. I saw that the male passenger
in the rear seat next to the female appeared to

(30:42):
be aged in his mid twenties, a Caucasian fair complexion
with brownish color hair which was neatly groomed and cut
to the ears and neatly trimmed around the sides to
the rear. He was clean shaven and appeared to be
well dressed. From memory, he was wearing an off white
color collared style, longsleeved shirt. As I became closer and

(31:03):
almost level to this person, he raised his left hand
and placed it beside his face so it blocked my
view of him. At this time, I noticed his hands
were not rough, as if he was an office worker
as opposed to a laborer, and his hands were clean.
At the time I was of the opinion that it
was just some young blokes taking some girls to the
forest to have a good time, and I didn't give

(31:26):
much thought to it being anything more than that. I
didn't wish to get involved, so I didn't contact the
police and inform them what I had seen. From my
knowledge and experiences in that area, I am aware of
countless times when young men and women are observed driving
around the forest looking like they're lost or looking for
somewhere they can have a good time. And I didn't
think this instance was any different. So that's a lot

(31:52):
of detail. I don't know that I have ever had
someone drive past me and I noticed that many things
about them.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
That's a lot and it makes me wonder, like how
was like a four lane road where they were just
riding back and forth beside each other, or he just happened.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Like it was. It sounds like it was like oncoming.
But I don't know. But let's throw this little fact
in there and just see how it makes us feel
about that. This witness didn't think anything of it until
the news came out, Right, They're like, oh, well, maybe
that's what I saw. As it turns out, the person
who called in this tip was Alex Mulat, Ivan's brother.

(32:35):
Ivan's brother provided this tip.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Now, okay, it almost sounds like he knew what was
going on and that's why he had all these details.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
That is one thought process there, That is one thought process. Now,
as far as we can tell, he was just trying
to be a good citizen. He didn't know it was
his brother as far as we can tell, Or did he,
because wouldn't you have recognized your brother in the car
if you see he's got clean hands, he's got a

(33:10):
button down shirt. You would have seen surely that it
was your brother.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Now, or he's trying to parlay it to be not
his brother because he's throwing in this office worker not laborer.
His hands were clean.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
And there is the other theory. Now, this is not
the last time we hear about Alex and his role
in Ivan's downfall.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
All right, We learned that Ivan did have surprise surprize,
a four wheel drive Nissan Patrol, and interesting it had
been sold shortly after the two bodies had been found.
They went to the person who bought the car to
look at it, and she showed them a bullet she
had found under the driver's seat and guess what guys

(33:57):
it matched. It matched. Now they also learned that he
was off work on the assumed days of the attack.
They also learned that one of Mallette's brothers is named Bill.
Upon learning this, they bring Paul Onions back in, who
does indeed identify Ivan as the man who tried to

(34:18):
kill them.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
So now Paul Onions does make a positive identification, he
does not identify two people, and that is the link
they need. So now they're like, we have found this guy.
We know who we're going after, and we've got to
stop him because now we have quite literally a trail
of bodies out in the forest and people are terrified.

(34:43):
And that is where we are going to end episode one.
We do have a whole other episode to talk about
with this, which we will get to very very soon.
Patreon folks to our ten dollars people, Your quarterly gifts
are on the way. Really excited this one, so that's coming.
Get excited about that. If you're not on Patreon, join us.

(35:07):
A dollar and up gets you ad free episodes. You
get to join our monthly Patreon live episodes. Three dollars
and up gets you on discord, where we're just a
big family there, We hang out, talk all the time,
and then ten dollars and up gets you the quarterly
gift that we were just talking about. We've had some
fun ones. We did Christmas ornaments for Christmas. We've had

(35:28):
wine glasses, we've had true crime puzzle books, you name it.
So it's it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
But until then, you know what they said to Flatia,
Bye bye,