Sad death of former top cop who made the breakthrough in the arrest of serial backpacker killer Ivan Milat

A former NSW Police detective who played a crucial role in the arrest of notorious serial killer Ivan Milat has died aged 69.

Paul Gordon unearthed key evidence and was one of the arresting officers in the 1994 capture of Milat, who was infamously dubbed the Backpacker Killer.

Despite being at the heart of the investigation that brought Milat to justice, tensions with another senior police officer ultimately led to Mr Gordon being booted from the force and ending his days in relative anonymity as a Brisbane taxi driver.

Peter Gordon said his brother brought a fresh perspective to Task Force Air, which was set up to find the killer after seven bodies were found hidden in Belanglo State Forest in the NSW Southern Highlands in 1992.

“Paul was a different type of thinker and joined Task Force Air to investigate the murders after it had been going on for a while and thought they were looking in the wrong places,” Peter said. The Daily Telegraph.

He recalled his brother going through ‘mountains of paper’, which led to a report made at Bowral police station, where English backpacker Paul Onions said he was hitchhiking when a man called ‘Bill’ picked him up.

When he saw a rope and a gun in the car, Mr. Onions realized he was in grave danger and jumped out of the vehicle.

Milat chased him on foot along the Hume Highway and fired shots, but Mr Onions was able to flag down another motorist and escape.

Despite Mr Onions reporting the incident to Bowral police station, police took no action and shelved it undisturbed until Mr Gordon dug up the report.

In 1993, the unsolved ‘Backpacker Killer’ case received worldwide publicity, prompting Mr Onions to call Crime Stoppers Australia from England.

When Mr. Gordon discovered this, he was able to link it to the earlier report.

Although Milat was strongly suspected of the murders, police had been unable to gather enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for his home.

However, when Mr Onions was able to identify Milat, the police raided his home and found sufficient evidence, including: victims’ belongings, to make an arrest.

Mr Gordon was captured on TV cameras on May 22, 1994 as one of Milat’s arresting officers.

“For a week, Paul was one of the most famous people in Australia with those images,” his brother remembers.

However, the head of Task Force Air, former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Clive Small, has disputed that Mr Gordon played a central role in the arrest after the two police officers had a spectacular altercation.

Peter claimed that shortly after Milat’s arrest, his brother was “basically fired from the task force” and subsequently “disappeared from the police force.”

“Rather than being treated like a hero, Paul was treated very poorly by the NSW Police at the time and struggled for a long time afterwards,” Peter said.

“He had no pension or benefits and ended up driving taxis in Brisbane.”

Mr Gordon was an adviser on a 2014 TV series called ‘Catching Milat’, which depicted tensions between him and Deputy Commissioner Small.

Peter said the show wasn’t entirely accurate, but admitted it gave his brother some of the credit he deserved.

Between 1989 and 1992, Milat kidnapped and murdered at least seven victims between the ages of 19 and 22: three Germans, two British and two Australians.

Milat died on October 27, 2019 at the age of 74 at Long Bay Correctional Center in Sydney, where he was serving seven life sentences without parole.