ALMOST a quarter of a century after Ivan Milat's murderous reign in the Belangalo State Forest, the public's interest in the murderer, the cases and his seven victims remains insatiable.
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Just two months ago the State Government put the kybosh on a planned "extreme terror tour" of the forest and more than 2.2 million tuned in around the country for the May mini-series Catching Milat.
The man who headed the backpacker taskforce, former assistant police commissioner Clive Small, has decried the dramatisation as a work of fiction but agreed interest shows no sign of abating.
"That has taken me by surprise in a sense," Small said ahead of a speaking engagement for the Friends of Kiama Library on Saturday.
"The murders were in 89, 90 and Ivan is still a topic of significant focus by the community.
"People still have a lot of questions about him, the type of person he was and why he did what he did. "One of the main reasons . . . is that we don't have many serial killers in Australia and certainly few of the type of Ivan Milat.
"The Milat story . . is one of unfathomable cruelty, it is a portrait in terror, but it is also about the small kindnesses of strangers and about the value of friendship."
Asked regularly in the intervening years to write his version of events, last year Small, together with Tom Gilling, published Milat : Inside Australia's biggest manhunt, a Detective's Story.
With it Small hoped to challenge what he says are fallacies surrounding the investigation and answer the most frequently asked questions about Milat . . . and the investigation.
On Saturday Small will answer questions such as: did Milat commit crimes other than those he was charged with and did he act alone. He will also explore questions about Milat's family, Milat's time in prison and copy-cat killers.
On the weekend the decorated and 38-year police veteran will also discuss the content of his three other books: Smack Express: How organised crime got hooked on drugs; Blood Money: Bikie, Terrorists and Middle Eastern Gangs; and Betrayed: The Shocking Story of two undercover cops.
"From the time I left the police I decided I wanted to write or two on true crime - to put on record and ensure the accuracy of events relating particularly to organised crime in NSW," Small said.
"Some stories that had been written were accurate and some were less-than accurate. The . . . writing and researching was quite an experience."
Much of Small's time with the police was spent in criminal investigation.
From 1977-80 he worked as an investigator with the Woodward Royal Commission into drug trafficking which examined the NSW drug trade and murder of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay and publicly exposed the existence of the 'ndrangheta (the Calabrian mafia) in Australia.
During 1987-88 he was involved in the reinvestigation of the 1984 shooting of Detective Michael Drury in his home in front of his children.
In the mid-1990s Small led an investigation into widespread police corruption in the Fairfield-Cabramatta area and in 2001, as head of the Greater Hume Police Region, he helped dismantle the Vietnamese street gangs in Cabramatta.
After retiring from the police he joined the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption as the executive director of operations.
Small has been writing full time since March 2007.
He will be Friends of Kiama Library's guest on September 5, 2.30pm, in the auditorium in Railway Parade, Kiama.Entry donation at the door is $5 for members and $8 for visitors, including afternoon tea. Contact Steve Spooner on 4237 8331.
