July 15, 2015
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian ghost tour company has ceased visits to the forest where a notorious serial killer buried the remains of young backpackers, following a backlash over the idea which has been labelled "horrendous".
Goulburn Ghost Tours recently added the night-time visits to the Belanglo State Forest, where killer Ivan Milat dumped the bodies of young travellers more than 20 years ago, to its other tours.
But it said late Tuesday that the "extreme terror tour" to Belanglo, southwest of Sydney, where the bodies of two Britons, three Germans and two Australians were found in the 1990s, were cancelled for good.
"From here on in, we will not be running Belanglo tours," Louise Edwards told Channel Ten's The Project.
Edwards said ghost tours were controversial, because "people believe in ghosts or they don't so we are used to a little bit of controversy".
But in hindsight she said the marketing of the "extreme terror" tours, which had included lines such as "Once you enter Belanglo State Forest you may never come out", was not up to scratch.
Milat is serving consecutive life sentences for the murders of the seven backpackers which horrified Australia, and New South Wales state Premier Mike Baird described the tours as "completely and utterly outrageous".
"It's not only in bad taste, it's just terrible," he said on Tuesday. "Horrendous."
Milat was convicted following sensational evidence from Paul Onions, a British hitchhiker who escaped death in 1990 by jumping out of Milat's vehicle when he pulled a gun on him.
