Ivan Milat (Essay Sample)

Ivan Malik’s Case File
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Introduction
Ivan Robert Marko Milat was born on December 27, 1944 in Australia. He was one of other 14 children of an extended immigrant family from Yugoslavia. Growing up, he was described as a handsome, muscular boy who was fascinated by guns and hunting wild game. His family lived in a rural and insular location. Having 14 children to raise, Ivan's parents were always strict and always kept to themselves. This became one of the reasons finding reliable information about Ivan Milat's life and upbringing difficult to get. Ivan Milat's parents found it very difficult to instill discipline to all their children because of their large number. Ivan and some of his brothers begun having a reputation for being unlawful and disorderly in their locality. Early in life, Ivan Milat exhibited psychopathic and temperament issues. His brother Boris confirmed this during an interview though some family members disputed this fact. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
Ivan's family tolerated many police raids to their home as Ivan and his brothers grew older. Finally when Ivan had attained a legal age, he was always in trouble with the police and judicial systems on variety charges ranging from auto theft, housebreaking and robbery.
In the year 1971, Ivan Milat was arraigned to court for the alleged sexual assault of two female hitchhikers, who claimed that he was armed with a knife when he attacked them. The charges raised against him were later dropped because the prosecution had failed to come up with a comprehensive and convincing case against Ivan Milat. Ivan was involved in various crimes in his life, but the ones that brought him into the limelight were murder and sexual assault. He killed his victims by paralyzing them with a knife wound to the spine, stabbing them severally or shooting them multiple times in the head. One of his victims, Anja Habschied, had her head decapitated and dumped far away from her body. All his victims had their trousers unzipped but their top buttons on. Although most of his victims' bodies were already badly decomposed before they were found, this was evidence of a sexual assault committed hurriedly and an attempt to cover it up. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
The police through the help of a British backpacker Paul Onions were able to identify and vindicate Ivan Milat with seven counts of murder and an attempted murder of Paul Onions. Paul Onions was a victim of Ivan but was able to escape from him after he pointed a revolver at him. Paul reported the attempted murder to the police and 4 years later he flew to Australia to identify and testify against Ivan Milat in a court of law. Ivan was found guilty of seven count of murder and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences.
Victimology
Ivan Milat was convicted of seven murders in Australia. The victims were both male and female. Among the seven victims six were women and only one of them was male. This implies that the serial killer did not target women only, even though women are considered as the weak gender in terms of defending themselves. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
The seven victims were backpackers. Backpacking is form of low cost international travel. Backpackers usually carry their bag with basic needs such as sleeping bags for long distance during the travel period. They are characterized by the use of public means of transport and also staying in inexpensive place, such as youth hostel. The Milat’s victim were travelling in a group of two with only one of them was travelling alone. This means that the victims were helpless as Ivan Milat was armed with a gun and a sword. Being alone or a group of two made it impossible for the victims to defend themselves against the serial killer. It was only during one encounter where the victim managed to escape and proved to be a key witness during the trial of Ivan Milat. CITATION Pee07 \l 1033 (Peel, 2007)
The bodies of the seven victims were found in Belanglo State Forest. Based on the fact that the victims were backpacker, Milat is likely to have lured the victims in assisting them in some way, for example he gave Paul Onions a ride. He managed to escape from the serial killer and got a lift from a woman and reported the matter to the police. Pretending to befriend the victims who were clueless about his intention, gave Milat ample time to prepare to sexually assault the victim and kill them. CITATION Bla14 \l 1033 (Blatchford, 2014)
The victims’ bodies were always next to a fireplace. Milat didn’t bother to dump the bodies. We can imply that Milat did not have someone to help him in dumping the bodies and also he did care about the bodies being found. By killing all his victims, there was no one to him to report the incidences of rape and murder to the police. In case the bodies were found, Milat was sure that there was no evidence enough to convict him for the inhumane acts of rape and murder. This explain why Milat maintained that he was innocent during and after the trials. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
For the bodies on which post-mortem examinations were carried out, the examination revealed paralyzing spinal knife wounds were inflicted to the victims. Also, in cases where the clothes of the victims were not damaged by the weather, zips were unzipped even though top button was fastened. The two statement indicate that, Milat sexually assaulted both the male and female victims before taking pleasure in inflicting pain to them and finally killing them. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
Offender Profile
Ivan Milat was a murderer, a serial killer, a rapist, a sadist and a sorry excuse of a human being. He murdered seven different people in cold blood, assaulted them sexually and even decapitated a young girl’s head. He is a perfect epitome of who a serial killer is. Ivan Milat was a one of a kind serial killer. A killer who did not bother to hide evidence of his killings, he used the same style of killing people and trying to cover up the sexual assaults. He also built a fireplace and left several used bullet cartilages on the crime scene. This was most probably so that he could later identify the killing locations to know whether the bodies had been found.
The fact that he did not bury or burn the bodies, showed that he was not afraid of being caught. It also showed that he did his killings alone and with no help whatsoever, so he would not be able to get rid of the bodies by burying them. Ivan’s physical appearance was not that of a murderer. He had managed to evade imprisonment for sexual assault after the court was unable to prove that he was involved in the crime. Had the investigators followed the lead of a murderer on the loose or a rapist, they would not have linked Ivan with the murders. This is because the people around him did not see him as a murderer and some of them covered for him including his brother who later confessed that Ivan had killed a taxi driver. The investigators would have never raided and searched his home because there was no evidence linking him to the murders.
Ivan’s motive for killing all the people he did s not clear to date. No one really knows the exact reason why he did that. It would have been out of sheer malice, revenge, psychological issues or even to satisfy a craving he had.
Ivan’s family was large considering that he had 14 other siblings and only two parents to look after them. With such a large number of children, the parents were not able to bring Ivan and his siblings properly. This contributed to Ivan’s terrible attitude towards fellow human beings and particularly foreigners. There is no known fact that he had any mental illness apart from claims from some family members that he had psychological issues when young. As mentioned before, Ivan did not bother to hide his victim’s bodies, in fact he built a fireplace near them most likely to trace back the crime scene later. His manner of killing was exactly the same in all his victims. He inflicted a wound to the spine, this immobilized the victims by paralyzing them. He then stabbed them severally most likely to bleed them out so that they’d die a slow painful death. Some of his victims had several shots to their heads which proves he was a merciless, ruthless killer. His crimes were well organized and at some point choreographed. All his victims had an unzipped zipper and a buttoned up button. It was his idea of covering up sexual assault. CITATION The \l 1033 (Biography.com)
Ivan Milat did not have anyone to help him escape from his crimes. He had even fired his lawyer for asking him to plead guilty. This case study shows that a serial killer, rapist or a pedophile may necessarily not have a history of any wrong doing but that is not reason enough not to investigate on them.
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