Hitchhiker tells NSW missing persons inquiry of Ivan Milat encounter
Steven Clark stands near Shellharbour Road in Warilla, where he was picked up by a driver he believes was serial killer Ivan Milat. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)
In short:
A NSW man has told an inquiry that he and a friend were picked up by Ivan Milat while they were hitchhiking in the 1970s.
The account is one of many submitted to the inquiry into unsolved disappearances in NSW.
What's next?
The inquiry will hold its first hearing in Bowral after visiting the Belanglo State Forest.
A New South Wales man who believes Ivan Milat picked him up while hitchhiking as a teenager in the mid-1970s has told an inquiry that a speeding ticket saved his life.
Steven Clark, who has made a submission to a state parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and missing persons cases, said that in 1974 or 1975, he and a friend decided to hitchhike to Wollongong to catch a movie after they missed a bus in Warilla.
"My friend decided maybe we should hitchhike, and I sort of went along with it," Mr Clark told the ABC.
Mr Clark, who was 14 or 15 at the time, said they had walked a short distance when a car stopped for them.
The protruding teeth and moustache of the driver Steven Clark says picked him up as a teenager have stayed with him for decades. (Supplied)
"This two-door sedan is speeding, and it slams on its brakes and pulls over," he said.
"Then the guy yells out, 'Come in, do you want a lift?'"
Mr Clark said the driver offered to take them a good deal further than where they were headed.
"He goes, 'Oh, I can take you to Sydney,' and I said, 'No, just Wollongong,'" he said.
"As my mate was just starting to close the door, he took off, he hit the accelerator. He hadn't even got the door closed."
Mr Clark said the driver started asking questions that felt unsettling.
"Like, 'Who knows that you're hitchhiking? Who knows you're going to Wollongong?'" he said.
Shellharbour Road as it is now. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)
Mr Clark said the driver continued to speed while playing around with an eight-track stereo system, "like he wasn't happy with what he was playing".
"He was that scary the way he was behaving," Mr Clark said.
"He was quite happy to ask us questions and begin to find out stuff about us, but he wouldn't volunteer even his name to us."
Police encounter
Mr Clark said the car was pulled over near Windang for speeding.
"He got out and walked up to where the police were," he said.
"We could hear the police officer asking, 'Who are those two passengers in the vehicle?'
"And he just said, 'They're just hitchhikers I picked up back there' — and we thought about doing a runner, but we thought our parents will find out and police will chase after us, so we stayed where we were."
Mr Clark said the driver threw the ticket onto the console when he got back into the car.
"I could see he was caught doing between 20 and 30 kilometres over the speed limit," he said.
"I started to read his name, and then he snatched it away and put it in the glove box."
Mr Clark said he only saw the first letters of the name.
"It began with I, V … I didn't get a chance to read the rest of it," he said.
Mr Clark said the driver's behaviour changed after the police stop.
"He drove normally," he said.
"He drove all the way into Wollongong, dropped us off where he said he would, and took off."
He said he and his friend did not tell their parents what had happened for fear of getting into trouble.
Steven Clark near the Warilla bus stop where he and his friend were picked up. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)
Years later, after seeing news coverage of Milat's arrest, the memory returned.
"I recognised him straight away," Mr Clark said.
"That was him, 100 per cent. I'll always remember his front protruding teeth and he had a moustache that sort of covered it. I've had that image etched in my brain since.
"The only reason I am alive today is because police pulled Ivan over and had noted that he had two teenagers in his car and volunteered that we were hitchhikers."
Missing twin
The account is one of dozens of public submissions before the inquiry, which is examining long-unresolved missing persons cases and alleged historical links to Ivan Milat.
Between 1989 and 1992, he abducted, assaulted, and murdered five foreign backpackers and two Australian tourists, dumping their bodies in Belanglo State Forest.
He was sentenced to seven consecutive life terms in 1996 and died in prison in October 2019.
Kevin Docherty, whose twin Kay Docherty disappeared from Warilla in 1979, has made a submission to the inquiry.
Kay Docherty (pictured) was last seem with friend Toni Cavanagh at a bus stop in Warilla in 1979. (Supplied: Kevin Docherty)
The 15-year-old was last seen near a bus stop on Shellharbour Road and may have been hitchhiking with her friend Toni Cavanagh.
In 2013, an inquest found Kay Docherty and Toni Cavanagh likely died shortly after disappearing in 1979, and that there was evidence to suggest fugitive Graham Potter or Milat may have murdered them.
For four decades Kevin Docherty has tried to find answers about his twin sister's disappearance. (ABC Illawarra: Mikayla McGuirk-Scolaro)
"I promised my mum, who died in my arms, that I would continue the search for her daughter, my twin sister," Kevin Docherty wrote in his submission.
Mr Docherty said his family had spent decades searching for answers but had been "let down not only by the police but also by the judiciary system".
"Unfortunately, hope is all we have," he wrote, saying his greatest wish was to find his twin sister's remains and lay her to rest alongside their parents.
Mr Clark said it was an unusual coincidence that Kay Docherty went missing while hitchhiking on the same road where he was picked up more than 50 years ago.
"She disappeared three or four years later from that same stretch of road," Mr Clark said.
"The chances of two serial killers picking up hitchhikers from the same location — it just doesn't seem possible."
Scores of stories
MP Jeremy Buckingham is chairing the inquiry and says the volume of material received highlights long-standing gaps in the way reports have been recorded and linked.
"What's clear is that it was as plain as the nose on your face that a serial killer was operating in New South Wales in the 1970s," he said.
More than 800 people are missing from NSW. (ABC Illawarra: Mikayla McGuirk-Scolaro)
Mr Buckingham said the inquiry had received "scores of stories of people who had been picked up" or had reported assaults or near-misses that were only later associated with Milat.
"These are regular members of the community from all walks of life," he said.
The inquiry is also examining other cold cases, including the disappearance of Cheryl Grimmer from Wollongong in 1970, and hearing broader concerns about missing women around Newcastle and Sydney during that period.
Mr Buckingham said families appearing before the inquiry would give evidence under parliamentary privilege, allowing them to speak freely about their experiences.
For many, he said, the process was about being heard rather than reaching an immediate resolution.
The inquiry is expected to visit Belanglo State Forest on Wednesday ahead of the first hearing on Thursday.