1993: The Backpacker Who Got Away: How One Survivor Unmasked Serial Killer Ivan Milat
A British backpacker named Paul Onions was hitchhiking along the Hume Highway near Sydney in January 1990 when a driver calling himself “Bill” produced a revolver and a coil of rope. Onions fled on foot and flagged down a passing motorist, reporting the attack to police before the driver vanished.
On this day in 1993, searchers combing a forest south of Sydney found two more bodies bearing the same spinal injuries as an earlier pair of backpackers unearthed the previous year, confirming Australia had a serial killer stalking the highway. The month long search that followed ended with the discovery of a German backpacker nearby, the fifth victim linked to the same killer.
Reading UK news reports of the discoveries two years later, Onions recognised the description of his own ordeal and contacted the Australian embassy. His account and photo identification of the man who had attacked him led police to Ivan Milat, whose home was searched and who was eventually convicted of the backpacker murders.
