Australian serial killer Ivan Milat dies in prison at 74

His grisly murders shocked Australia in the early 1990s

Ivan Milat smiles in a police car after attending a court in Australia in 1997. AP

An Australian serial killer who murdered seven backpackers in the early 1990s has died aged 74.

Ivan Milat was jailed in 1994 and had esophageal and stomach cancer. New South Wales state Corrective Services said in a statement that Milat died in the medical wing of Sydney's Long Bay Prison on Sunday.

Milat murdered three German, two British, and two Australian backpackers after giving them rides while they were hitchhiking across Australia. The killings came to light when the mutilated corpses were found in a forest near Sydney over 14 months in 1992 and 1993.

He was arrested in 1994 based in part on a British hitchhiker's account of escaping a driver who shot at him.