The Case of Gabor Neugebauer & Anja Habschied

German backpackers Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20, disappeared after leaving Sydney on Boxing Day 1991 to hitchhike towards Adelaide. Nearly two years later, their remains were discovered together in Belanglo State Forest. Both had been violently murdered by Ivan Milat, becoming the fourth and fifth chronological victims among his seven confirmed killings.

Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied were young German backpackers travelling around Australia together. During December 1991, they were staying at a backpackers hostel in Kings Cross, Sydney, while planning the next stage of their journey. On 26 December 1991, the couple left Sydney intending to travel to Adelaide. With limited funds and hitchhiking a common means of transport among backpackers at the time, they planned to obtain lifts along the highway. They never arrived. After the pair failed to make expected contact, they were eventually reported missing. Their disappearance initially provided investigators with few clues. Like other travellers who would later be identified as Milat's victims, there was no confirmed record of who collected them or precisely where they encountered their killer. Their disappearance remained unresolved until the discovery of multiple bodies in Belanglo State Forest transformed several separate missing-person investigations into one of Australia's largest serial murder inquiries.

On 4 November 1993, police searching an isolated section of Belanglo State Forest discovered the remains of Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied. Their bodies were located close together in bushland away from the main forest roads. Forensic examination revealed both had suffered severe homicidal injuries. Anja had been decapitated, while Gabor had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head. The manner in which their bodies had been concealed and the remote forest location bore clear similarities to the other victims already recovered from Belanglo. Their discovery brought the number of victims located in the forest to seven.

By November 1993, Belanglo State Forest was the focus of an enormous police investigation. The discoveries of Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters in September 1992 had initially established the possibility of a multiple murderer. Further searches during 1993 uncovered Deborah Everist, James Gibson and Simone Schmidl. The discovery of Gabor and Anja confirmed investigators' fears that a serial offender had been systematically targeting young travellers. Police began reconstructing the victims' final journeys and found a recurring pattern: several had disappeared while hitchhiking or travelling along routes connected with the Hume Highway south of Sydney. Investigators also compared the different methods used to kill the victims. Some had been stabbed, others shot, while several suffered combinations of injuries. Detectives believed the variation indicated the killer may have deliberately experimented with different methods of murder. The breakthrough came through surviving British backpacker Paul Onions, who had escaped an attempted abduction near Mittagong in January 1990. His description of the attacker and subsequent identification of Ivan Milat provided investigators with a viable suspect. Police placed Milat under surveillance before raiding his Eagle Vale home on 22 May 1994. During searches of properties connected to Milat and members of his family, investigators recovered firearms and numerous possessions belonging to the murdered backpackers. Property belonging to Gabor and Anja formed part of the extensive circumstantial and physical evidence connecting Milat to the Belanglo murders.

Ivan Milat was charged with murdering Gabor Neugebauer, Anja Habschied and the five other victims discovered in Belanglo State Forest. His trial commenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1996. On 27 July 1996, the jury found Milat guilty of all seven murders and offences relating to the attempted abduction of Paul Onions. Milat received seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, together with additional sentences for the offences against Onions. He never confessed to murdering Gabor or Anja and continued to deny responsibility for the Belanglo killings until his death in prison in 2019.