'I Escaped Ivan Milat'

Greta (circa 1970) tells WHO how she escaped Ivan Milat.

Two decades after the arrest of Ivan Milat, one of his surviving victims has given insight into the mind and methods of the serial killer.

In 1971, 23-year-old Sydneysider Greta was hitchhiking with her friend Jane (a pseudonym), when they were picked up by Milat, who between 1989 and 1992 tortured and killed five women and two men in NSW’s Belanglo State Forest.

“He looked very respectful and there was nothing unusual to make us feel uneasy about getting in the car,” recalls Greta in an exclusive interview to WHO. "He was quite friendly and he asked us questions, just small talk.”

But after Greta, who was heading to Melbourne to visit her sister for the Easter long weekend, fell asleep, things took a sinister turn. “It was the bumpy road that woke me,” says Greta, now 68. “We had driven off a side road and I said, ‘Oh, we’re going the wrong way.’ He feigned surprise and then he pulled up.”

Milat had parked in a deserted area off the highway between two paddocks. “That’s when he started threatening us,” says Greta. “We just assumed we were going to be the victims of a robbery. I opened the door and he started strangling me with my leather choker that I was wearing.”

Ivan Milat's prison mugshot (2012)

From the floor of his gold V8 Ford, Milat then pulled out two knives: a hunting knife and another with a curved blade that retracted into the handle. He then got the women out of the car and tied them up with cord.

Says Greta: “They were pink sash cords cut to length. My hands and feet were tied by the one piece of cord; it was like being trussed up like a chicken. After we were tied up, he said he would kill us unless we had sex with him. He said if we didn’t do what he ordered he would cut my throat.”

Milat forced the women back in the car and raped Jane while Greta was in the back seat.

“He was watching my face intently,” says Greta. “Afterwards, I asked him if he had raped before and he said, ‘I always come prepared.’ I knew we were dead then.”

For more on Greta’s story and how the pair escaped the killer, pick up a copy of WHO, in stores now.