Ivan Milat: Could have 20-year-old Canberra woman Keren Rowland been serial killer’s first victim?
Steve Rowland told an inquiry his sister was likely strangled by the serial killer in 1971, almost two decades before the first murder Milat was convicted of.
Retiree Steve Rowland believes his older sister, Keren Rowland, was the first victim of Ivan Milat, a claim that raises the question whether one of Australia’s most notorious serial killers could have been caught earlier.
Mr Rowland gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday about his 20-year-old sister, who went missing while going to a party in Canberra in 1971. Her body was found three months later, too decomposed to determine how she died.
Employment records from the NSW Department of Main Roads showed that Milat, who died in prison in 2019, was working on a team constructing roads outside Canberra two weeks before Keren disappeared, Mr Rowland told the committee. Milat would have been 26 at the time.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“I think he picked Keren up with sexual interest,” he said. “I don’t think he intended to kill her. I think Keren put up a fight … and I think he strangled her there. He was surprised he had a dead body. I think he has got a thrill from that and then he has gone on.”
If true, it would mean that Milat begun his killing spree almost two decades before murdering backpackers Deborah Everist and James Gibson in Belanglo State Forest in December, 1989.
Kevin Docherty, whose 16-year-old sister Kay disappeared hitchhiking near Wollongong in 1979, said Milat was working on a road gang in nearby town of Kiama at the time.
Mr Docherty and a retired police sergeant, Jeff Dakers, found a witness who claimed to have seen a man who looked like Milat in sand dunes south of Wollongong who threatened two girls.
They complained the NSW Police Force would not give them permission to burn about 10 acres of scrub and excavate the ground to search for Ms Docherty’s body.
“They wont investigate,” Mr Dakers told the committee. “I think it’s appalling.”
Not a runaway
Milat was found guilty in 1996 of killing seven women and men between 1989 and 1992, crimes he received seven life sentences for. One of the biggest investigations in NSW history failed to find evidence he was responsible for other murders, and he never admitted his guilt or helped investigators.
The parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and missing persons, which visited Belanglo Forest on Wednesday, was established to consider whether cases of missing young women were properly investigated in an era when police work may have been less professional than today.
Mr Docherty said the police assumed his sister had run away from home. She has never been found. A 2013 inquest found she might have been murdered by Milat or a notorious fugitive and murderer, Graham Potter.
“My sister and I, we had a good upbringing,” Mr Docherty told the committee. “We had a close-knit family. It was only mum, dad, my twin sister, and myself. So, for the police back in the ‘70s to say she was a runaway was not taken real kindly by my parents. This would be totally out of character for my sister.”
Keren Rowland’s body was found in a pine plantation between Canberra and Queanbeyan that her brother said was “very similar to Belanglo Forest”, the only place were confirmed victims of Milat were discovered.
Her body was hidden with shrubbery and a beer bottle found nearby, he said, which was similar to the Belanglo Forrest crime scenes.
Among the evidence that helped convict Milat of the Belanglo killings were numerous possessions of the dead backpackers found in his house and with relatives. No direct evidence was found to connect Keren Rowland and Kay Docherty to Milat.
Hitchhikers
Another witness, Steven Clark, told the inquiry he believed he was picked up by Milat hitchhiking in the Wollongong area with a friend in 1974 or 1975. The driver asked suspicious questions, Mr Clark said, including who knew where they were going, and drove excessively fast.
He was booked for speeding by a police officer, who asked who the boys were in the car, Mr Clark said. The driver said they were hitchhikers, a statement that Mr Clark believes may have saved his life.
“About seven years or so ago when I was watching a story on Ivan Milat on TV in the news being transported back into prison and when I was looking at his face I suddenly recognised him as being that driver who had scared us all those years ago!” he wrote in a letter to the inquiry.
“I could easily prove it was Ivan Milat if someone has access to his driving records from 1974 (or 1975) and could see that he had been booked for speeding going 30kms over the speed limit while driving through Windang heading north. Back when this happened we had nothing to report to the police about.
“Ivan was unknown at the time. He did not threaten us. I did not see a gun in the back seat or on the floor. Only his very odd behaviour scared the crap out of us the moment we got into the car.”
The inquiry plans to hold more hearings in coming months and report to parliament next year. The NSW Police Force has long said that Milat could have been responsible for more murders than the seven he was convicted of.
