CLIVE SMALL, PRESENTER: Hello, I'm Clive Small. 14 years ago, Ivan Milat was convicted of one of Australia's most infamous serial killings. His victims were seven backpackers whose remains were found in the Belanglo State Forest outside Sydney. So when human bones were found in the forest a week ago, it's not surprising there was speculation that they may be the remains of another victim. It is too early to tell whether the discovery is connected with Ivan Milat. I don't think it is. But as the person who led the original police investigation, I've always been of the view he may have been involved with other killings. Tonight we will revisit the Logie Award winning story of Ivan Milat and his family.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: Once every few weeks we go down to Goulburn to visit Ivan. Over the years, Ivan has received a fair amount of visitors, but as the years have progressed people have gradually stopped coming to visit him.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: When you say your name is Milat, most people, you know, they're curious and I don't blame them for being curious. You know like, this is one of the most horrific cases in Australia and you can't blame people's curiosity. They all want to know one question: "Did you think he did it?" Well my answer to that was "I don't know. I weren't there. I can't tell you what went on."

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: Oh, they were very brutal crimes, that's for sure, done by some sort of madman, for sure. Or a group of madmen, I don't know.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I've been with the Water Board nearly 40 years. I'm Ivan's younger brother and one of 14. There was a lot of us and that's the way it was. We never knew any different.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: As we got older, it was very hard for my father or mother to keep control and because we didn't mix with the mainstream public and we were close-knit in and around the property and we worked together and played together, we become isolated from other things that were normal, and so we come to the point where we did what we wanted to do. From there, things started going wrong. The police were always coming up there and some of the boys were running wild.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: Ivan was always immaculately dressed. He would never go out with clothes that weren't ironed or washed. His cars were always the same. You would never see Ivan's car a mess. There was never any question that he controlled his life the way he wanted it to be controlled. Women were always attracted to Ivan. That was one of the good things when we went out together, he could always attract the women, yeah, because he was always a good talker and he just seemed to say the right things.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: Everyone around our town was talking about the bodies that had been found in Belanglo Forest. Everybody you would speak to had something to say about it.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: I don't think anyone had any suspicion at all that Ivan was up to any bad things down there.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I don't believe Ivan had any sort of psychological problem. He was always a bit of a loner. You know, he never confided in people. Like, at work, he would never get around with a group of guys and discuss his personal life. He would never do that.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: I was the officer-in-charge of the backpacker investigation. When the second lot of bodies were found in the forest in October of '93, we had an emerging picture of an offender who apparently spent more and more time at the scenes, and that's not inconsistent with serial killers. The pattern they often exhibit is one of increasing control, of going back, and after each murder, reflecting on the incident, getting a level of satisfaction out of it but saying, in effect, "I can do it better next time."

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: There was nothing, nothing at all odd about Ivan's behaviour. In my mind, Ivan never had a secret side to him. He was a very genuine person. What you see is what you get.

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: Well, everybody could have a secret side that you could hide from somebody.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: If there was anything missing with Ivan, I feel like he might not have had a conscience. To me it seemed like he didn't have a soul or a conscience. It felt like as if he was just selfish and did what he wanted to do.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: He used to like the excitement sort of life. Always wanted to be on the edge. He had no fear. There was nobody, it didn't matter who, he was just absolutely fearless.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: I think a number of us on the investigation got the feeling that the attitude of the Milat family generally was that you didn't interfere in other people's business, that they had strong suspicions that Ivan was committing serious crimes and probably violent crimes, and certainly one or two members of the family suspected that, but they chose not to inquire into it and they chose not to do anything about it.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: You've got to remember that it doesn't matter what happened, nobody in that family would point a finger at anyone. It was their loyalty towards one another. As the Belanglo thing unfolded, I became very nervous about it all and I changed me name, figured that I weren't going to have no part of this. My gut feeling was that something wasn't right in the hen house, I can tell you.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: At dawn, in late May '94, we started the raids of the Milat family homes. The offender in these matters was likely to be a control freak and would likely have property of the victims in and around his home. What we did find was a veritable goldmine. At several of the properties, we found clothing and other things, backpacks and that belonging to various victims.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: I could not believe it. I kept saying, "Not Ivan. Not Ivan. It's just not Ivan. It can't be. Anyone else in this world, but not Ivan." I just went to pieces, I just crumbled.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I tell you, it knocked me for a six, you know, because I didn't know, I had no idea what was going on.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: We visited Ivan when he was in the jail in Sydney and during that visit I wanted and I needed to ask him, "Did you do this?" I needed it for closure for myself. I needed to find out whether this was going to be the last time I saw him or not, because I'd already made up my mind if he had done it, that was it, I was not going to visit him anymore. And he just turned and he said to me, "Carol, I didn't do it," and I just needed to hear him say those words and he has said those words for the last 10 years.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: When they said it was Ivan Milat, that was it. I knew then that Ivan would never see the light of day, like out on the streets again.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: I can't just put this behind me because it is something major that has happened in my life and I don't know how to go forward. Ivan gives me a phone call when he makes a request to use the phone and he has surprised me some mornings and he's rang me a couple of times during the week. We just have general chats and, with Ivan's permission, I have also recorded some of those conversations that we have had.

(Excerpt of telephone recording)

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: What do you do day-to-day in there?

IVAN MILAT: Nothing, you can sort of go around and run around if you want to, like I've just been this morning, because they changed my cell, just giving it a bit of a mop out, a bit of a clean out. I go to town on that because you sort of get all this detergent, and throw it in one end and just scrub it you know till you get out to the other end, that's how you do it.

(End of excerpt)

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: I suppose life would be easier if we could accept that he has been found guilty and has done this crime, but that is not the case. He's, in our eyes, he is not guilty of it, and until the day that we find different, we will support him.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I've never believed that Ivan had anything to do with this, right from the word go. When somebody has done some things like this, surely there must be some signs, but Ivan has never been any different over the last 25, 30 years. I can never be 100 per cent sure that Ivan never did this there. The evidence is all circumstantial.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: I think it's time for them all to stand up and say, "Guilty as convicted," and I'm one person that does it. These people that are in denial of him really got to get their act together, they really do. I mean to say, this is not just a murder, this is well above it. But I can tell you now, if this had happened to one of their kids, one-tenth of the evidence, they would accuse him, straightaway. They've got to really put the bigger picture on and the bigger picture is seven people lost their lives in an horrific, cold-blooded, terrifying, it's not as though you've come and shot some guy walking down the street. This was terror. Then you've got to move onto their parents and their loved ones. Their lives have been destroyed and he has destroyed the Milats' life as well and that's where I feel very strongly about it. I don't care if any member of my family ever talks to me again, I've got to express my horror for what he's done, I really do.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: We believe that Ivan was framed. We believe that the stories that Ivan has told us, he saw one of the detectives taking two bags from the boot of his car. Those bags were taken inside his house and then all of a sudden parts were being found in the house.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: It's absolute nonsense and those members of the Milat family who say that should be asked to explain how it was then that Alex Milat was able to give us the backpack of one of the victims, and that that had been given to him by Ivan. And also how Ivan's girlfriend at the time was in possession of some clothing belonging to one of the victims and that had been given to her by Ivan. There is overwhelming evidence that Milat was the murderer, and they are the simple facts of the case. I can understand how a family would have difficulty believing that a member of their family could commit such atrocious crimes without feelings of remorse. At the same time, I think being a family member, you can tend to live in a state of denial about it.

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I don't think he had anything to do with it. To me, he just weren't that type of person. But you never know what somebody is like.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: Some of my brothers have been accused of being involved. The spotlight has been on one of me brothers in the form of Richard. I don't believe that for one minute.

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: I knew it weren't me, so I weren't worried. Well, I never did anything wrong, and that's all to it. I'm sure by now, if I did anything, they would've found out, if they thought I was there or anything to do with it.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: I basically feel since the murders I am a lesser person than I should be and it has destroyed my life. To know that a member of your family has done such an evil deed, it's a bit like being married to Hitler's daughter. I'm a total victim of character assassination by association. I'm running around like in circles saying, "I'm innocent. I'm innocent." But I've got people saying, "I knew about it. You're a Milat. You're all the same. You've got no feelings, no heart." The fact is I am totally destroyed. For me to start thinking about how a young girl died or a young man died, or a young teenager, it's just really too hard for me to handle. What do they want me to do? Go and throw stones at me mother's grave or me father's grave or something? What do they want me to do? Just throw the stones at the guy that needs them. Throw stones at a jail wall or something. It's not any member of the family except one. One member of the family was a rotten egg, psychopath, brought about only by his actions and the way he interpreted the world, and that was it.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: Ivan was very much a control freak. If you look at the history of the backpacker matters and a couple of other matters we know about, it seems that what the trigger was that he was not in a stable relationship or a relationship where he appeared to be in control. They all occurred when his relationship with a woman appeared unstable, and the backpacker inquiries occurred after he was told that he was to be divorced.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: When his marriage to Karen broke down, Ivan was shattered, absolutely shattered, and all he could say is, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." He said, "I thought I treated her well, but I just can't believe it." He was just a very shattered, broken man.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: He had lost control of his family life once his wife told him she was going to divorce. His way of asserting control again was to kidnap or abduct, treat the victims how he wanted to treat them, whatever that was. They were then under his control completely. I'm personally satisfied that Ivan was bisexual. That his interest in sex was not about love or sexual gratification, rather it was about control and the release of the pressure that built up inside him because of that desire for control.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: If I found that Ivan had done it, I would reflect on him looking after my children, being in my life, being in my home, sitting at my dinner table, long conversations on the phone, I would feel so sick knowing that the man that I was sharing my time with had done this crime. I could not cope with that.

BILL MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: If Ivan had done this, he is definitely in the right place. Mind you, I'm a believer of capital punishment you know, like an eye for a eye, I would have no dramas. It would be terrible, but the punishment's got to fit the crime. If they choose that the punishment is that he's to be locked up there forever, then so be it. I would still go down and visit him there and tell him how cranky and angry I'd be, but I'd still go down and see him.

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: If he did it, he must have a mental problem. I can't see it in his upbringing. To do something like that, you must just have a mental problem, I figure only a homicidal maniac. A normal person wouldn't do it.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: Sometimes Ivan, when he's seen a serious situation, he would think it funny. He'd just laugh at it and think it was funny.

(News footage of the Russian school seige, September 2004)

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: I decided to rebuild my life and get on with it and put this whole damn thing behind me. I have met people in the past and then they start asking questions who I really am, you know, what am I hiding, and I can't tell them. That hurt me because I had to walk away because of who I am, and this is one of the reasons I decided to come in and state who the hell I am. I'm Boris Milat, the brother of Ivan Milat. I am not responsible for his actions. I'm only a relative by accident, and that's it, and I am not condoning anything he done. If I was talking to Ivan now, I would tell him, "Stop the denial. There's a time to square up and the time is now to square up." And by squaring up, even if you didn't want to talk about what you've been charged with and what you've done, if there is anyone else out there that you've done this to, and I believe there is, his best shot is to sit down, realise what he done, write down a statement, and hand it in to whoever needs to hear it.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: It's fair to say that I think of the unsolved murders, there are probably three or four where we would say Ivan is highly likely to have been the offender.

CAROLINE MILAT, SISTER-IN-LAW: Ivan will die in jail and that is very sad. I always hoped that before Mum passed away that he would have been out to be with all the family and that was Mum's one wish, but sadly that wish wasn't granted.

CLIVE SMALL, FORMER POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: I believe Ivan is a person who has no emotion or remorse for anything he does. The safest place for him is in jail, never to be released. And if he were released, I have no doubt that sooner or later he would kill again.

RICHARD MILAT, YOUNGER BROTHER: Well, I hope that he gets out. The reality of that is nil, but, oh, well.

BORIS MILAT, OLDER BROTHER: I would say to Ivan, "Put closure on everything, a letter, anything, some way find a way to clear up some of these things. This is not the kids' stuff we grew up with. This is serious things. Help the mums and dads out there close down, mend their hearts a little bit, some sort of secret way you can do. I'm sure you can come up with it." After the Australian Story went to air, I felt a real sense of relief. My opinion about myself has gone from probably around 10 per cent up to about 150 per cent. I feel really excited about myself. I'm quite easy now to come out and say, "I'm Boris Milat." I have no problem with that now. That's helped me immensely. As far as I know, Bill and Carol are still supporting Ivan. And because they can't accept his guilt, and that's their right to do that, I feel like they need to study the case more, and then they may come to a different opinion. But it doesn't mean to say that they've got to stop helping Ivan. I've heard that Ivan has found God while he's in prison, and my answer to that is that to find God you'd have to repent for your past sins, and I would say Ivan has got a lot of repenting to do. With the future things I see for me, my house is all finished now, I'm looking at me next project. I've been completely on me own for the last three years or more, and now I'm ready to meet somebody again and move on with life and be happy again.

END CAPTIONS:

Former police superintendent Clive Small says the recently discovered human remains were found in circumstances that 'differ significantly' from previous discoveries and are unlikely to be related to Ivan Milat.

However, current investigators have not ruled out a possible Milat connection.