Nephew of Australian mass murderer jailed for ax murder of “friend”

A nephew of Australia's most-notorious mass-murderer, Ivan Milat — a.k.a. the Backpacker Murderer — was himself jailed Friday for at least 30 years for the ax murder of a 17-year-old childhood friend. 

Matthew Milat used the same forest south of Sydney favored by his uncle — to kill and bury his seven victims, five of them foreign backpackers — to stage what the judge in the case described as a "thrill kill," Australia's ABC News reported.

According to Acting Justice Jane Mathews, Matthew Milat, 19, even gloated about the 2010 murder of David Auchterlonie in the Belanglo State Forest south of Sydney, telling friends: "That's what the Milats do."

She described Auchterlonie's final moments alive as being filled with "horror" and "unimaginable torment," according to the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

"It is impossible to describe the horror [of the killing]… when he was subject to unimaginable torment by Milat," Matthew reportedly said. "It clearly falls in the worst category for the case of murder." 

The court heard that Milat and another friend, Cohen Klein, also 19, lured Auchterlonie to the forest on his 17th birthday with promises of smoking marijuana.

Mathews said that once there, Milat accused Auchterlonie of making up stories about him and chased him around a car.

Milat then hit the Auchterlonie with the ax while Klein made a mobile phone recording. Mathews said the sound of the ax hitting Auchterlonie on the head was captured on the mobile phone recording.

Klein and Milat both pleased guilty to the murder. Klein was jailed for a minimum of 22 years.

Mathews said Milat didn't appear to have "expressions of genuine remorse..or regret' for the crime.

"This was a thrill kill on the part of Milat," she said, adding that he posed a "serious threat to the community."

"That any person, who is not suffering from a psychiatric disorder, could behave in such a manner is almost inconceivable, she said, SBS reported.

"However, the evidence in this case points in that direction."

In fact, a letter of apology to the victim's family was insincere, she said, and Milat instead seemed to be "reveling in the memory of this terrible event."

Auchterlonie's family, meantime, welcomed the sentence of a maximum 43 years, but said they would have preferred a life term. 

Auchterlonie's mother Donna Locke rejected the handwritten apology from Milat and said he should only leave prison "in a body bag."