Sad demise of former top cop who made the breakthrough in arrest of serial backpacker killer Ivan Milat

A former NSW Police detective who played a pivotal role in the arrest of notorious serial killer Ivan Milat has died aged 69.

Paul Gordon unearthed key evidence and was one of the arresting officers in the 1994 capture of Milat, who was infamously dubbed the Backpacker Killer.

Despite being at the heart of the investigation that brought Milat to justice, tensions with another senior police officer eventually resulted in Mr Gordon being drummed out of the force and finishing his days in relative anonymity as a Brisbane cabbie.

Peter Gordon said that his brother brought a fresh perspective to Task Force Air, which had been set up to find the killer after seven bodies were found hidden in Belanglo State Forest in the NSW Southern Highlands in 1992.

'Paul was a different type of thinker and joined Task Force Air investigating the murders after it had been running for a while and believed they were looking in the wrong places,' Peter told The Daily Telegraph .

He recalled his brother going through 'mountains of paper' which led to him to a report made at Bowral Police Station, where English backpacker Paul Onions said he had been hitchhiking when a man called 'Bill' picked him up.

Seeing a rope and a gun in the car, Mr Onions realised he was in grave danger and jumped from the vehicle.

Milat pursued him on foot along the Hume Highway firing shots but Mr Onions was able to flag down another motorist and make his escape.

Despite Mr Onions reporting the incident at Bowral Police Station, police took no action and filed it away undisturbed until Mr Gordon unearthed the report.

In 1993, the unsolved 'Backpacker Killer' case was attracting worldwide publicity, which prompted Mr Onions to ring Crime Stoppers Australia from England.

When Mr Gordon discovered this, he was able to link it to the earlier report.

Although Milat was strongly suspected of the murders, police had been unable to gather enough evidence to get a search warrant for his home.

However, with Mr Onions able to identify Milat, police raided his home and found enough evidence, including victims' possessions, to make an arrest.

Mr Gordon was famously captured by TV cameras on May 22, 1994 as one of Milat's arresting officers.

'For a week Paul was one of the most famous people in Australia with those images,' his brother recalled.

However, Task Force Air head, former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Clive Small has disputed that Mr Gordon played a central role in the arrest after the pair of police had a spectacular falling out.

Peter claimed that his brother 'was basically sacked from the taskforce' soon after Milat's arrest and then 'run out of the police force'.

'Instead of being treated as a hero, Paul was treated very poorly by the NSW Police Force back then and struggled for a long time after,' Peter said.

'He had no pension or benefits and ended up driving taxis in Brisbane.'

Mr Gordon consulted for a 2014 TV series called 'Catching Milat', which portrayed the tensions between him and Assistant Commissioner Small.

Peter said the show was not entirely accurate but conceded it gave his brother some of the credit he deserved.

Between 1989 and 1992, Milat kidnapped and murdered at least seven victims aged 19 to 22 - three Germans, two Britons and two Australians.

Milat died in Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre, where he was serving out seven life sentences without parole, on 27 October 2019 at the age of 74.