Belanglo State Forest | |
---|---|
Geography | |
Location | New South Wales, Southern Highlands,Australia |
Coordinates | 34°31′52″S150°15′36″E / 34.531146°S 150.260049°E |
Administration | |
Established | 1919 |
Governing body | Forestry Corporation of NSW [1] |
Ecology | |
Dominant tree species | Pine |
Belanglo State Forest is a planted forest, of mainly pine but some native forestry around the edges, open to the public, in the Australian state of New South Wales; its total area is about 3,800 hectares. [2] The Belanglo State Forest is located south of Berrima in the Southern Highlands, three kilometres west of the Hume Highway between Sydney and Canberra. The forest is owned by the New South Wales Government and contains some of the earliest pine plantings in the state. The first radiata pines were planted in this area in 1919. [3]
Despite being an area of outstanding natural beauty, Belanglo Forest has a sinister reputation, and place in Australian folklore, due to the forest's connection to multiple murders.
In 1992 and 1993, seven skeletons were found in the forest, in what was described by media as the backpacker murders and was considered to be the work of a serial killer. [4] [5] Eventually, Ivan Milat was convicted of the murders in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment. [6]
On 22 November 2010, three teenagers (including one related to Milat) [7] were arrested on suspicion of connection with the discovery of a murdered male in the forest, following a tip-off. [8] David Auchterlonie was celebrating his 17th birthday on 20 November; Mathew Milat, 17, and Cohen Klein, 18 had planned for over a week to lure Auchterlonie to his death. A third person, Chase Day, 18, whose charges were later withdrawn by the DPP, [9] went to police on 21 November to report the murder. [10]
On 29 August 2010, trail bike riders discovered a human skeleton in the forest. Media reports at first linked the killing to Milat, but later forensic work disproved this theory as the remains were left there after he was sent to prison. [11] On 21 October 2015, the bones were identified as the body of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson, aged 22, from Alice Springs, Northern Territory. The body of Pearce-Stevenson's daughter, Khandalyce Pearce, aged 2, was found in a suitcase near Wynarka, South Australia, on 14 July 2015. [12]
Visitors to the park are warned by a sign to 'please be careful', as they enter the territory. Detectives who worked on the Milat murders have said there is 'pure evil' in Belanglo State Forest. [13]
Despite its sinister reputation, Belanglo State Forest is a popular tourist recreation destination. [14]
Eagle Vale is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Eagle Vale is located 56 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region.
The Maitland Gaol, also known as Maitland Correctional Centre, is a heritage-listed former Australian prison located in East Maitland, New South Wales. Its construction was started in 1844 and prisoners first entered the gaol in 1848. By the time of its closure, on 31 January 1998, it had become the longest continuously-run gaol in Australia. It has since been turned into a museum and is a popular tourist attraction. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996–1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case was described as the state's biggest, longest running, and most expensive investigation.
Peter Falconio was a British tourist who disappeared in a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia on the evening of 14 July 2001, while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, having never confessed to the murders for which he was convicted.
This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.
John Robert Marsden was an Australian solicitor and former President of the Law Society of New South Wales. He was known for his high-profile clients, his gay rights activism, and his victory in a defamation action against the Seven Network.
Wynarka is a very small town in South Australia 120 kilometres (75 mi) southeast of Adelaide on the Karoonda Highway (B55) and Loxton railway line in the Murray Mallee. Wynarka lies within the District Council of Karoonda East Murray.
Belanglo is a locality around the Belanglo State Forest in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, in Wingecarribee Shire.
Mark Cornelius Whittaker is an Australian journalist, non-fiction writer and writing coach. He lives in Berry, New South Wales.
Crime Investigation Australia is an Australian true-crime series that first premiered on pay TV Foxtel's Crime & Investigation Network in August 2005. The series was also rebroadcast on the free to air Nine Network, and made its debut there on 14 August 2007. The original host of the series was Steve Liebmann and is currently on Channel 7 with host Matt Doran.
Fiona Lowry is an Australian painter who airbrushes pale colours to portray landscapes with people in them. The landscapes are beautiful and ambiguous, provoking the dangerous side of wilderness. Lowry also paints portraits and won the 2014 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a portrait of Penelope Seidler. She is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, as well as the state galleries of Australia and in private collections.
Ivan Robert Marko Milat, commonly known as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His modus operandi was to approach backpackers along the Hume Highway under the guise of providing them transport to areas of southern New South Wales, then take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat was also suspected of having committed many other similar offences and murders around Australia.
Mark Tedeschi, is an Australian barrister, law professor, photographer and author. He is in private practice at Wardell Chambers in Sydney. He was formerly the Senior Crown prosecutor for New South Wales and the Head of Chambers of the 100 or so Crown prosecutors. He was the founder and president of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors and is a visiting professor at the University of Wollongong. As a prosecutor, Tedeschi was best known for the prosecution of numerous high-profile cases in Australia, including the backpacker murders committed by Ivan Milat in the 1990s. He has won numerous awards for his photography and has been featured in galleries throughout the world, including in the State Library of New South Wales, the New South Wales Art Gallery, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, and the National Library in Canberra.
Catching Milat is a two-part Australian television miniseries that screened on the Seven Network, in collaboration with Screen Australia on 17 and 24 May 2015. It is based on the 1998 book Sins of the Brother by Mark Whittaker and Les Kennedy and is loosely based upon the true story of how New South Wales Police and detectives under "Task Force Air" tracked down and caught serial killer Ivan Milat, who was responsible for the infamous backpacker murders.
The murders of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce Pearce were initially treated as unrelated. The skeletal remains of Pearce-Stevenson were found in Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales, Australia in 2010. Her daughter Khandalyce Pearce's remains were found near Wynarka, South Australia in July 2015. The two cases were not linked until positive identification was confirmed by DNA testing in October 2015. The mother and daughter were last seen by family in 2008 in Alice Springs, Northern Territory and reported missing in 2009; however, the report was withdrawn. It was discovered Pearce-Stevenson's mobile phone was used for years following her death to send false "proof of life" messages to family and friends. The mother and child's identities were exploited by third parties to commit social security and other types of identity fraud.
Criminal activity in New South Wales, Australia is combated by the New South Wales Police Force and the New South Wales court system, while statistics about crime are managed by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Modern Australian states and cities, including New South Wales, have some of the lowest crime rates recorded globally with Australia ranked the 13th safest nation and Sydney ranked the 5th safest city globally. As of September 2018 the City of Penrith (475.7) and City of Blacktown (495.1). Rural areas have comparatively high crime rates per 100,000 with rural shires such as Walgett Shire (1350.3) and Moree Plains Shire (1236.2) having some of the highest violent crime rates in the state. The overall NSW crime rate has been in steady decline for many years.
Crime in South Australia is prevented by the South Australia Police (SAPOL), various state and federal courts in the criminal justice system and the state Department for Correctional Services, which administers the prisons and remand centre.
Simone Monika Strobel was a 25-year-old German kindergarten teacher and backpacker whose body was found at a sportsground in Lismore, New South Wales, six days after being reported missing from the caravan park where she had been staying. An initial inquest in 2007 found insufficient evidence to lay charges over her death.