Clive Small, the detective credited with catching serial killer Ivan Milat, has died in a Sydney aged care facility after a long illness. He was 79.
Small took command of Task Force Air after the bodies of seven backpackers were found in Belanglo State Forest, south-west of Sydney, between September 1992 and November 1993.
Victorian couple Deborah Everist and James Gibson, disappeared in December 1989, followed by German woman Simone Schmidl, 21, who was last seen in January 1991.
German couple Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20, went missing in December 1991, followed by British friends Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters in April 1992.
Task Force Air was formed in October 1993 with more than 20 detectives and analysts to catch the serial killer responsible.
Within the first 24 hours of setting a toll-free hotline seeking tips from the public, investigators had received 5,119 calls.
Among the names suggested by members of the public on that first day was roadworker Ivan Milat, a known violent criminal.
Clive Small, the detective credited with catching serial killer Ivan Milat, died in a Sydney aged care facility on Wednesday night. He was 79
Milat was found guilty of seven counts of murder in July 1996 and sentenced to life without parole. He died in jail in October 2019 aged 74
Another caller described witnessing the attempted kidnapping of a man near Belanglo State Forest in January 1990. That man was British backpacker Paul Onions.
Onions had reported accepting a ride with a man who called himself ‘Bill’ who pulled out a revolver and ropes, stating he was staging a robbery.
When Onions managed to escape from the vehicle ‘Bill’ shot at him.
But his report was not followed up until April 1994 when police found the original note describing Onions’s call.
Onions was interviewed and it became apparent ‘Bill’ was Milat, who was already under surveillance. He was arrested by Task Force Air detectives in May 1994.
Milat was found guilty of seven counts of murder in July 1996 and sentenced to life without parole. He died in jail in October 2019 aged 74.
Small believed Milat was almost certainly also responsible for the murder of 18-year-old hitchhiker Paul Letcher, whose body was found in the Jenolan Caves State Forest in January 1988.
Ballistics analysis indicated bullets located near Letcher’s body were fired from the same rifle Milat used to murder Caroline Clarke and Gabor Neugebauer.
Milat’s known victims were: (top, left to right) Deborah Everist, Anja Habschied, Simone Schidl, (bottorm, left to right) Joanne Walters, Gabor Neugebauer, Caroline Clarke and James Gibson
Small thought it possible Milat was involved in several other murders including that of 20-year-old Canberra woman Keren Rowland in 1971.
He was satisfied that in the Belanglo killings Milat had acted alone.
Small is survived by his widow Alison, daughter Alison and son Joshua, who described their family’s loss in a moving Facebook post on Thursday afternoon.
‘Many of you are aware, Clive Small has been suffering with health problems for some time now,’ he wrote.
‘Last night he went to sleep for the last time and passed away comfortably.
‘I owe a lot to who he is and how he lived, he will be forever missed in a way I can only hope to live up to.’
Small rose to the rank of assistant commissioner and retired in March 2004 during a secondment to the Premier’s Department, having twice been rejected as commissioner.
The father-of-two later became operations director of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, a role he resigned from in February 2007.
He had joined the police cadets in 1963 and first came to public prominence by exposing flawed rape allegations against chief inspector Harry Blackburn in 1989.
In retirement, Small became a prolific author of true crime books, often co-written with Tom Gilling.
Among their titles were Milat: Inside Australia’s Biggest Manhunt – A Detective’s Story and Smack Express: How Organised Crime Got Hooked on Drugs.
