We live in a world of strong opinions, some good, some bad, and some extreme. Sometimes those opinions become so extreme that individuals decide to take things into their own hands to try and change the world around us to reflect it for their own views. That is exactly what happened in Snowtown when someone decided certain individuals were no longer worthy of living. Warning. The following podcast contains graphic content and material intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion
is advised. Hey, how's it going.
My name's Ben and I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and.
Grim, a true crime podcast, and we're coming up on Halloween real quick. Who's excited for two weeks away? Ish? Yeah? Pretty much?
Pretty much?
As we're recording, it's the tenth, so that leaves us with twenty one days until well that's so that's three weeks technically.
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I guess?
So?
Right?
No, we're starting on the twenty fourth, aren't we.
Well, but Halloween, I said, Halloween Week, were of course we're starting?
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M hm.
So with all that being said, are we good? Can we go right into this show? Can we go right into the episode?
Yeah? I think so. I just wanted to say a really quick happy Thanksgiving because this weekend in Canada was Thanksgiving long weekends, right, So today is Monday, we're recording, and we had the Well I was going to say we had the day off, but like I'm oh my own business, I didn't have the day off.
I had a stat holiday today.
But yeah we did. You made it a delicious meal last.
Night, and yeah, yeah we got a little bit of pumpkin pie left over which we might indulge in after this episode.
Yeah. Is it calling our name and staring at us?
Say, it's literally right, beside my laptop right now, because tiny home, there's not much space. So yeah.
Yeah, So anyway, to all of our Canadian listeners, Happy Thanksgiving.
Yeah, and with that, let's get into that.
Let's do it.
So this is the Snowtown murders aka bodies in a barrel. Yeah, this is a big one. Lots of information, So buckle those seatbelts because here we go. Okay, all right, So, starting on May twentieth of nineteen ninety nine, local police came across multiple decomposing bodies stuffed into old plastic barrels. Now. While some of these bodies appeared as if they had been here for longer than others, they had no idea just how to really identify how long they had actually
been there and how many there really were. So yeah, kind of gruesome.
That's brutal.
Yeah, several barrels were discovered, each with multiple body parts being inside.
Oh my gosh.
They were actually found in an old bank vault, an old like decommissioned kind of bank.
Okay, that's even creepier.
Yeah, and this bank vault was in Snowtown in South Australia.
So ooh, can I just say something really quick? This is our first Australia case, isn't it.
I believe it is. We actually had someone, well multiple people recommend us to this case specifically, and someone recently was like, hey, you haven't done an Australian case, and we're like, we haven't. Yeah, so and it's not because we're avoiding it, it's just just how it worked out. Yeah, so exactly, we thought, you know what, it's time that we do this casey okay.
I just had to point that out there.
Yeah. So what started out as a tragic discovery emerged into it like a seriously long lasting investigation that would open up so many horrific doors because this is something that went down in this town, well in Australian history and basically labeled this town something different forever. So Snowtown and the surrounding cities have been facing several missing persons cases for years before anything in this case would develop.
So by the time they were about eight or nine documented missing person cases, the locals actually started getting frustrated, you know, with the authorities not finding anything, not really making any headway.
Well that's a lot of like at that point, oh yeah, you got to get your shit together here. That's a lot of people.
It's extremely significant. Yeah, So for years, individuals from the surrounding cities would go missing. Little was able to be dug up on any of them. None of the missing people were being found, and no cases came close to perpetrators being identified. So, like you say, rightfully, so brutal.
So this I'm just thinking that there's a serial killer on the loose and they have just found his dumping grounds.
Yeah, potentially. So with no leads to go off and the number of missing people accumulating every year, locals around Snowtown area began to make take matters kind of into their own hands. Police in Southern Australia had been on the hunt for the perpetrator of these missing persons cases since nineteen ninety two, but over the years they had no evidence pointing them to any suspects and the case
had gone dry. Now, originally, none of these missing people were linked to one another because they had all come from different cities around the area. However, local residents began getting suspicious of three newcomers to their town and they brought this up to the authorities. Now, the three men were individuals by the name of John Justin Bunting, Mark Ray Hayden or Hayden I'm not sure exactly how you say it, and Robert Joe Wagner, and they were presented
to the police as being kind of suspicious. So, according to locals, they had noticed vehicles that were kind of like sticking out oddly on the side of the road in areas, and they had engaged in suspicious behavior that just didn't seem right for their small town. Now, it's not exactly clear what set them off to the locals, like what the suspicious behavior really was, but their kind of eerie presence was more or less what indicated that they might be up to something that was no good.
Well, sometimes you just have those gut failings too, It's.
True, and if multiple people are reporting it, there might be something to go on.
Yeah, you got to listen to those failings too.
Yeah. So, Now, like Snowtown and the other surrounding cities were all small areas with very little population, anybody who caused any sort of specific suspicion was easily noted by any groups of locals, which might have been what set these three men off in the first place. Right.
So, and I've honestly lived in some small towns and that makes complete sense to me. Well, even Prince George is a little bit small.
Yeah, it's not a big city by any means.
Yeah.
So, on the day that these barrels were found, local investigators began looking into these three men as possible culprits. It was identified that the unused bank was read out under the name of Mark Hayden, which of course.
Is one of those three dudes.
Yeah, quickly linked them to the locations of the bodies being found and quickly turned the investigation on its heels. So over the next days, all three men were taken into custody and charged with murders of eight individuals, and the investigation would soon follow and uncover much more than anyone would initially think. Oh boy, Yeah, so let's backtrack a little bit. Now, let's go back to where this case began.
Okay.
In November of nineteen ninety one, John Bunting was living in Murray, Rich South Australia, and he was living on Loman Street, a quiet part of the suburb that didn't have much history of being in the news. In his basement, John had an old fashioned spider wall. Do you know what a spider wall is?
I have absolute no idea.
So remember like all those TV shows CSI and stuff where it's like they're trying to figure out the killer and they have the picture here and a picture there, the thread linking this guy to that guy. That's kind of a spider wall. So in the spare room of his house, he had a chart created using paper notes, the string and the wall, the whole webs. He connecting people to people and names of individuals. He was connecting people who he believed would be connecting to crimes, whether
it was pedophilia or someone being homosexual. He believed these things to be crimes and he was laying it all out what he thought who would be involved with what, And this is how he was targeting them.
Being a pedophile, yes, but not being gay. I don't agree with that. So he's deciding here.
He is literally quite just deciding on his own. He's saying what pedophilia, homsice secxuality, those in his eyes are crimes. So he had this all laid out on his wall in the spare room, and at random he would pick somebody from his board and insinuate that there was something wrong with them that he needed to take care of them. Okay, yeah, because he had this board, he put it together. He said, you want this guy, He for whatever reason, he brings it up and says he's got to go because I
say so, because look he's connected. Because my spider wall says.
So, jeez. Yeah, that's like he's like almost playing god or something quite literally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Robert Wagner in nineteen ninety one would meet John and John would open up to Robert about his hatred for certain parts of the population, something that he carried out through his life he was just never able to quite get rid of. So John had grown up with this agonizing hatred for pedophiles and homosexuals. He had grown up exhibiting classic characteristics that many unsettling children and havel let's say that, being disruptive in school, bullying other kids,
and extreme cases, even killing animals. He kind of exhibited some of these symptoms growing up, and he grew up with this hatred. But John lived a life more extreme than what other children had to go through. He claimed he had been beaten and sexually assaulted by his older brother, and in his teenage years, he blamed all of his rage on pedophiles and had decided you know what, he's going to take care of it from there on. So it kind of shows where he comes from with this
idea on pedophiles and homosexuality. Not to say it's right and that you should be taking these matters into your own hands, but that's kind of where he's coming from.
And we have heard stuff like that before too in other cases.
So and of course the other man involved in the suspect list is John's longtime friend Robert, So outside of the three, there was one other men that they used to hang around with quite frequently though, and he goes by the name of James Velasquiese. I think I said that name right, hopefully I did. James was even almost a step son of John. John was the son of Elizabeth Harvey and the woman who was seeing who John
was seen. So John would often talk with James about his hatred for pedophiles and homosexuals and the people who he truly believed were the scum of the earth. After hearing this and kind of building up through rappot with John, James admitted to having been sexually assaulted by his stepbrother at the age of thirteen, so something John could actually relate to quite a bit.
Yeah.
It was from this point on that John became the ringleader of a team who would continually commit murders based on the idea that their victims were pedophiles. John would anonymously call people that he knew or felt he knew to be pedophiles and would threaten them, telling them that something bad would coming, something was going to happen, so they better watch out, sort of thing. He believed that he was on some sort of moral crusade doing good for the world by taking out these people who acted
in wrongful, wrongful ways. Before attacking his victims, he and the other perpetrators would commit security fraud as well by stealing money and welfare paychecks.
So yeah, I was just gonna say, I say this so often, but this is serious. Is some Dexter shit going on right here? A little bit is a find of pedophile like going and finding pedophiles, not necessarily anyone else, but like they're finding people that they think are doing wrong, which is wrong the pedophile thing, right, and going after them. So that's sort of fair enough.
I could definitely see where you're going with that.
I just compare everything to Dexter.
Well, I mean Dexter's pretty awesome, So any excuse to talk about the show or Dexter himself, let's go for it. Right. So in total, though, eventually the group ended up with about ninety five thousand dollars and so holy shit. So to me, part of this is like, I think they're making up a lot of excuses to hey, let's go kill this guy to get more cash.
That's it's real greedy.
Yeah, that's a big thing for me. And there's a little bit more of that throughout to come as well that we talk about. So okay. So the group's first victim was killed on August thirty first, in nineteen ninety two. Tracey's was only twenty two when he was attacked and killed by John with a hammer.
Holy shit.
John invited him into his home for a social visit before viciously attacking him without warning brutal. He accused him of being a pedophile, and his body was discovered in a town nearby, the town name Adelaide.
Huh, that's okay, that's vicious, yeap. Hammer is There are a lot of ways to murder someone, I suppose, but that just seems horrific, not that any of them. Mart but that's that's a brutal picture in my mind.
Yeah. So, as the first documented murder, John needed some assistance with hiding the body and cleaning up the act, so he reached out to a friend of his, Bury Lane, who helped him conceal the body. This unsolved case was broadcast across the country in hopes that someone would know something or be able to come forward, but unfortunately nobody
at the time had any leads to pursue. Years after committing the murder, John then buried the body after just only concealing it for now in a shallow grave on the sixteenth of August nineteen ninety four in lower Lights, South Australia. Now in nineteen ninety seven, Trey's case was actually the subject of two episodes on America's Most Wanted. Cases were often aired like repeat, you know, like in
hopes to dig up some new information and leads. Yeah, so that's kind of cool that it was aired like that, but unfortunately, again nothing ever came of it.
I mean that must have I just have to say that must have been a good friend, because I don't think many friends would call me and be like, I need help, bear in a body and I would help them, right, they just wouldn't. I'm sorry.
That's that all right. Wow, that's that's pretty impressive. Yeah, you got a point.
Wow.
It was not long after this that their second victim, Ray Davies, who lived in a caravan, was strangled to death at the age of only twenty six on December of nineteen ninety five. Ray had been accused of sexually abusing the grandchildren of the woman whose property he was actually living on. Now, to John, this was more than enough to take a life in response to what he had done, but it's uncon it's not confirmed.
Hm, so and like he could just literally be thinking this and like the person is totally innocent, correct or maybe if you have a hunch thatul you just call the police and let them know.
Yeah, But he's just like, no, I'm just going to start killing people and stealing their money because why not. Which again, I'm pretty sure he's just making a lot of this up. Not saying that there's not facts of some of the stuff he's doing, but he's building up a lot of this stuff in his own head just for the reasons of a enjoying the killing and b taking the money.
M h and he's justifying it in his mind.
Yep, yep. So after Ray, the group decided that a man named Michael Gardiner in nineteen eighty seven was next. Now, Michael was only nineteen at the time, and he was when he was murdered. He was an openly gay cross dresser, and John believed that Michael was doing something inherently wrong, so he convinced his friend Robert Wagner to strangle him to death.
Wow.
Yep. So after he was murdered, John had one of his friends, Frederick Brooks, call his friends and impersonate him. He was acting as Michael and demanded the belongings from Michael's wallet, saying that he needed it for identification and payment purposes. But of course, what we know they wanted these items teaing access to his money mm hmm and poach money off him from his welfare payments.
Yeah, that's next level, right, literally just murdering this person and also like taking their identity basically and stealing all their money, like ugh.
Just because of the way he dressed.
Yeah, there's no reason whatsoever for that.
Yeah. Now, Michael's body was one of the bodies found inside the six barrels at the bank vault. He was found inside the same barrel as many other victims, and one of Michael's feet had actually been removed from his body so that the lid of the drum could be closed.
Wow. Yeah wow, Okay, that is another visual and a half.
Yeah, so sleep with that one tonight.
Yeah. Thanks.
Now, the murders like this went on and on. The next victim was Barry Lane, who was forty two when he was also killed for being homosexual. Now, interestingly enough, though, Barry was actually in a recent relationship with one of the three men, Robert, from nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety six.
Okay, so, like, did these men know that one of them was was homosexual? Yep, But then they're still killing other people who are homosexual, thinking that's wrong?
Yep?
What the fuck? Okay, that hurts my brain. I'm confused. Yep, very confused.
So the couple lived together in a small house on Bingham Road in Salisbury North, near where John was living at the time. Now, the relationship had begun when they were only thirteen, and it was a long lasting part of Robert's life. Now, although Robert himself had been in the relationship with men he agreed with John that homosexuals deserve to be punished.
What yeah, Wow, Like, I don't even know what to say to that. That doesn't make any sense.
How fucking ass backwards is that?
Yeah? That's literally, like we've already said, he is just making hit up in his brain to like serve him.
Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing.
Fucked.
John often referred to Barry as being a dirty man and even as a pedophile.
Wow.
Barry was tortured and strangled, and his body was eventually wrapped in a carpet and disposed of in one of the barrels that would later be placed in the bank vaults.
Okay, I'll just pick my drop from the ground here.
During the killings, though, John forced Barry to call his mother and explain to her that he would be moving to Queensland and then he never wanted anything to do with her for the rest of his life.
Holy shit, I hate that, right, that actually breaks my heart?
Like, how fucking you like words?
Oh?
No, fucking stew of words that I want to spew out describing these motherfuckers.
Like that is so sad, right, yikes?
Forcing him, forcing him as he's being tortured to call his mom and saying, don't want anything to do with you for the rest of my life.
Like, that's almost worse than the torture.
Damn near Yeah.
Yeah, to have to call your loved one and then make there You're like just extending your pain to them.
Oh and imagine the mother's reaction when finding out the truth years later and what happened.
My gosh, I could actually bawl my face off. This is making me too emotional. We got to move on, You.
Want to move on?
Yeah, that's so sad.
Okay. So Barry actually had an interesting role in John's murder spree, though according to some sources, John's only only associated himself with Barry to gain information about other pedophiles living in the area. Since he had previously been involved in another murder, Barry knew a little too much information for John to be comfortable with. Okay, So John got win that he had apparently been talking and telling people about a murder. So John killed him.
Hm.
So was it really about his sexuality or anything? Or was it just that he knew too much?
Probably that he knew too much?
Yeah, So after his murder, John took control of Barry's vehicle and was able to claim his welfare payment again the money, but he needed help with concealing Barry's murder as well, so he reached out to his friend Thomas Trevallian to help cover up the case and the evidence. Now Thomas would also eventually become a victim unfortunately, and the case of Thomas is quite interesting because his death was originally ruled suicide, so he had assisted John in
his most recent escapade if you will. Now he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and he had suffered from extreme paranoid hallucinations. Thomas's body was found hanging from a tree in Adelaine in October of nineteen ninety seven. He was forced to stand on a box with a noose fastened around his necks. Then John kicked the box out from underneath him, killing him nearly instantly, Which is good that it was instant, because.
It wasn't suffering there.
Yeah, if a hanging is done correctly, it breaks the neck rather than strangles you slowly, So that is good at the very least that he didn't suffer. You know what I mean?
I know, I Meania.
But Thomas was not like the rest of the group. He lived quite unusual, like an unusual lifestyle, and he was filled with fear and paranoia. Thomas was known to run outside of his house with a knife if he heard unfamiliar noises. Also regularly travel extremely long distances on foot, so when investigators originally found him, they assumed that his mental illness had gotten the best of him and eventually
resulted in his death. It wasn't until years later that Thomas's murder was linked to this case.
You know, I almost wonder if these people are actually thinking ahead, because like the deaths aren't all the same, right, and so if they're almost planning how they can get away with this, Like they knew this person's history, and so they're going to plan it as a hanging and then people won't be as suspicious.
I definitely think they were planning ahead with a lot of these Yes, yes, especially if he's got a spider wall in his spare room.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that already. So yeah, there you go. So they're being like, I mean, I completely feel absolutely disgusting about saying this, but they're like being smarter, I guess, and like thinking it through, which I hate.
They're I mean, I don't know if i'd use the word smart, but they're they're using their heads, they're.
Using their noggin to like get away with this ridiculous, awful shit that they're doing.
Yeah. So the next victim was a man named Gavin Porter. Gavin briefly briefly lived with the aforementioned James, which is the fourth guy in the whole the whole group now, while they were on a methodone program so recovering from methmphetamines. Now. Gavin got into the group's bad side when John was accidentally pricked with a used syringe discarded by Gavin on
a sofa one night. So as a result, while he was working on his car one night in April of nineteen ninety eight, and under the influence of some extremely heavy drugs, he fell asleep in the back seat and there, at the age of thirty one, he was strangled to death by both John and Robert. So after Gavin, the next or sorry, the next victim would be.
Troy Gosh, this is just not ending.
Yeah. So Troy Ude was a specific victim to John because he was the older half brother of James. As you mentioned before, James had confided in John and told him about his older brother who sexually assaulted him as a child. Oh yes, so Troy is that older brother. Holy John believed that he was one of these men
who just had it coming to him. He believed that Troy was intellectually disabled, and while he was sleeping one night, he was hit with it, says Planks, I'm assuming like a two by four or something over the head multiple times by the group and tortured before they finally killed him brutal.
So these people are enjoying this. They are definitely enjoying this.
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, especially because there's torture involved.
Right, It's very disturbing.
And before Troy took his final breath on August of nineteen ninety eight, John forced him to apologize to his brother. This was the first murder that James actually had a direct role in. Up until now, he had never really been present for the murders, although he likely knew what was going on, but he was never really there.
Okay, so this is.
His first one. The next victim is a man by the name of Frederick Brooks. Now, if you recognize this name, it's because John had him involved in a previous murder. So in September of nineteen ninety eight, Frederick was handcuffed, gagged, and tortured violently before he was murdered by John and Robert. Now, by this time, John seemed to have a better idea of how to cover up his murders. They recorded Frederick speaking various sentences and phrases and all this sort of
stuff to help cover up his disappearance. Some way, they were able to make it seem as if he had disappeared and there was almost no reason to look for him. Basically, so they used the recording audio to say this, and I'm not sure exactly what they did with it, but they use it to their advantage.
Again, there's just thinking outside the box.
Really, yeap, how to continue, how to get away with it, and how to just not be concerned basically. The next victim was Gary O'Dwyer, a twenty nine year old man who was a welfare recipient after suffering brain damage in a severe car crash. John had no reason to believe Gary was either a pedophile or was homosexual. Instead, he targeted Gary because he believed his brain damage following the car accident was actually a weakness.
Oh my gosh, okay, I was wondering it was just going to be for the welfare check. But that's brutal. That's brutal because this person has been through it off.
That is worse than chasing for the welfare check.
Yeah.
Yeah, So after being out for drinks night in October of nineteen ninety eight, the three men visited his home before torturing and killing him.
Oh my gosh wow.
Later on, on November of twentieth of nineteen ninety eight, John would then seek out Frederick's sister, Elizabeth Hayden.
Why jeez right.
She was the wife of Mark Hayden and Elizabeth's sister, Jody Elliot had a brief relationship with John in nineteen ninety eight. Elizabeth was reported missing by her brother Garion to the local police at three pm the following day. When Elizabeth disappeared, it sparked police interest and quickly raised local suspicion. This brought eyes to John, since it was assumed that she had been targeted for refusing John's sexual
advances while in a relationship with his friend. Okay, I know, right, but Elizabeth's disappearance was one of the main pieces of evidence that was used to tie John and the rest of the group to the fair. He is missing people and are missing person's report and the whole investigation is what originally led people to the bank vault to begin with. So finally, the last victim of John and the other two perpetrators was David Johnson. So David was the stepbrother
of James. Sorry, big spider web of names and individuals connected here. I know it's hard to follow a little bit, but David was the step brother of James and was believed to be a homosexual by John, although he wasn't. James had recently told David about a computer that was for sale in another area is South Australia. He wanted to take him on a drive to take a look, so on the night of May ninth, nineteen ninety nine, they hopped in the car and started driving to Snowtown.
By James's driving skills, he's the one taking the wheel. Sorry that was a weird sentence. I said that his driving skills. James drove him, is what I was trying to say. And he drove them while the other three waited for his arrival. So shortly thereafter he was grabbed when he arrived by the throat from Robert and then Mark handcuffed him. So we have John, Mark and Robert who were waiting there. Those are the three, and then
James is the one that drove. He's the fourth. So they forced him to read a script that John had already prepared, as well as provide them with a pin to his bank account. Of course yep. So his voice was recorded on computer equipment with a microphone and they kept it for whatever records they needed to help cover up or however, right, so, Robert and James then after the recording was done, drove to the bank to try and access to his moneies. However, they left behind John
and Mark with David. So while they were at the bank, they were unsuccessful with drawing any funds. So they returned to find David already dead. They had strangled and beat him to death, chopping up his body in several pieces and disposing him into the barrels.
And was that not the plan that he would have been dead when they came back.
Yeah, not necessarily, no, because they wanted to join in on that. Well, they hadn't even got to access his bank yet, he could have falsified the.
Information, right, Oh okay, I see, yeah, yeah, so yeah, then they placed him in the barrels after chopping him up.
And yeah, there is one thing, however, that sets David's tragic and apart from the others a little bit. Parts of his flesh were actually eaten by both John and Roberts.
Oh I was not expecting that.
Yeah, they both claimed that they hadn't had enough fun killing.
Him, so then they needed to consume him.
Yeah, after dismembering his body, they fried in eight parts of his flesh because you know, why the fuck not?
Geez, this is escalating.
Yeah, which, well, David was the last victim of the group, and it just goes to show that if they didn't have enough fun killing him and they just started trying cannibalism, it would have begun to escalate much further if he wasn't the last.
Like I was going to even say, if this was not the last victim they it would have just got much worse. How much oh, I don't even want to say it, but how much they would be consuming of the bodies? And oh right they should this not be a case I'm.
Reading, damn near should be. I mean, you're you're the cannibalistic podcaster.
I was like, I have to take a break from these ones. It's too much.
So all these victims that we mentioned, and all the killings as well, went from nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety nine, and all four of the men had gone unnoticed for the entire duration of the killing spree. And it wasn't until the investigation into Elizabeth's disappearance at the locals or sorry and the local suspicion, that the investigation actually began to up with anything and where it eventually, you know, took them to these barrels in the bank vault.
Well, that is a long time spend to get away with this horrific shit.
It is so in the bank vault. When they did find these barrels, all the victims were in well enough shape to be identified by body parts that were still available, and anyone who was dug up as well was able to be identified. But it wasn't until March of two thousand and one that the fourth man, James, was connected to the crimes. Since he had no direct involvement in most of them, he had gone unnoticed for quite some time.
On May twenty third, two thousand and one, two more bodies were found in the backyard of a house in northern Adelaide. It wasn't just any house that they were found in, however, it was John's own backyard busted. Yeah, you know, it's never a smart move to just bury bodies in your backyard.
No, I feel like they have I have said this news times. They have thought something through. That is very much not thinking things through at all, one hundred percent.
And by June eleventh, the police were able to confirm eight of the identities of the murdered victims. By June twenty ninth came another, and then within a few weeks another, So all these confirmed identities led up to the ten total victims, the two buried the backyard and the eight in the barrels.
I'm honestly surprisers at more for the time span and how messed up these people are, and how there's like four of them that are like perpetrators. I'm honestly surprised only ten. Like about you, there's more.
Yeah, And I do want to point out though there is no clear plotline on exactly what order these victims were identified in or anything, but we do know what time each victim became a victim of John's, which is good at least so then after this, the real trial began on July fourth of two thousand and one, when John I should say their full names actually John Bunting, Mark Hayden, and Robert Wagner just as the final get the full names in there were committed to stand trial
on all ten accounts of murder. All three of the men pled not guilty. For the next year, evidence was gathered from both sides. Over this time, some of the jury members were actually discharged after saying that they couldn't continue because the murders were so horrific and rightfully.
So, that would be quite a trial to be on for a jury.
Could you, like, could you imagine being on this trial for over a year having to deal with this dismembered bodies, cannibalism, like just the whore, the torture.
Yeah, I mean, if I was ever a jury, I would want a case like that. I'm not going to lie because I would be very interesting, which I probably shouldn't say. But there are a lot of cases though, like it was just like a parking ticket or something that would just like be boord shitless sitting there right, fair enough.
If you're gonna serve on a jury. You'd rather be a part of something than like some asshole who just doesn't want to pay five dollars for yeah, fucking.
Parking space which probably don't even need juries.
But yeah, so no, I can't blame these jurors at all. If they can't continue on the case.
It would be that it would be very rough, I could imagine, would play a big toll on your mental health.
Percent Yeah, and jurors that were actually coming back onto the trial or anything, they were being warned that this is this case is quote most unpleasant.
That's a way to put it.
That's that's definitely a way to describe it. By September eighth, two thousand and three, Robert and John were both found guilty in all ten charges. Of course, they also appealed their chargers charges later in the month, but they were refused a trial. Luckily, they were refused a non or they refused a non parole sentence, meaning that they were very unlikely to ever spend time outside of jail, and it's likely that they'll spend the rest of their life.
Behind bars, which thankfully so.
Yeah, it's also important to note that it's that an alleged victim an eleventh person was involved with this trial. Prosecutors also believed that Susanne Allen, the forty seven year old John's ex girlfriend, was also murdered by the group.
Okay, well, I still think that there's probably more. I was probably worried that you were going to say, like someone one of the investigators or like a jury person like or like committed suicide or something.
Thankfully, Yeah, but involving this eleventh death, the jury could never could not reach a verdict unfortunately, so it's unknown if John actually played a part in her disappearance or not.
So there just wasn't enough evidence then.
Apparently, however, some of the I'll talk about some of the evidence surrounding her a little bit here. Her remains were found buried in John's backyard. Her body was dismembered and wrapped in eleven different plastic bags. Okay, And while she was deceased, John continued to collect her pension until he gained approximately seventeen thousand dollars off of her.
Well, I feel like, right there, he looks incredibly guilty, right Like, I just feel like guilty, Like I don't even know if I'd have to hear anymore.
I know his defense, he claimed that she had died of a heart attack, though, and then.
He just decided to like chop up her body and like bury in the backyard instead of just like calling someone and saying this person had a heart attack. Yep, I know, I'm I guess potentially, potentially that could be potentially if he was just wanting to like collect the welfare check, because if he did call the heart attack in, then he would not be able to go about getting the wealthy.
Yeah, so, at the very least, he desecrated human remains and committed fraud at the very least on that one.
And he probably did murder her as well. But I guess I can kind of see a slim possibility where he didn't.
I don't believe that he didn't at all.
Playing I'm really playing the devil's out to get here.
They really are so regardless, though, in her case, the charges and prosecution were dropped, apparently to lack of evidence pointing to any perpetrator for that one. Now, the third man involved, Mark had his trial again on August second of two thousand and four. His case in this role is a little bit different. Sorry, his role in this case is a little bit different. My dyslexia is showing, even though I'm not dyslexic.
Just lit.
Yeah. Since his wife was one of the victims, the jury had a very strong hatred towards him. He had claimed that he and his wife were trying to have a baby when she disappeared, and then after that his entire world fell apart. That's when he began began to be involved with the murders and he felt like he just had nothing to live for anymore. So on December nineteenth, after deliberating for nine days, the jury failed to reach
a conclusion. Really yeah, But eventually he was convicted on five accounts of assisting with murder and sentenced to twenty five years.
It's not enough.
Yeah. So in the case of James Vlaskis, he pleaded guilty to four of the murders and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences. Okay, yeah. To this day, however, this is the longest trial in South Australian history due to the number of victims and the accumulating information over the amount of time and years it took took juries and courts to sift through it all.
Well, I just can only imagine the amount of evidence that they had, like even all the bodies and everything.
Oh, identifying the bodies a lot, can you imagine?
Yeah, and just like witnesses and people to talk to, like it's never ending, I'm sure.
Oh and then of course you're exhooming the bodies from not only the bank vault, from someone's backyard, and they're not in a single grave, they're in pieces, clearly. Yeah, and with all Like, I'm sure it was confusing listening to this case because of all the spider web of names.
There's this person, there's that person, back and forth. So trying to track down all these people get statements and I'm sure, like we're talking years after they've been involved, like a decade, So trying to even track them down to start with would have been fun to say the least.
Yeah, No, I think this would be like hell to investigate one hundred percent.
So the details of this case of course horrified the public, and it's caused a continuing effect on Snowtown. The murders garnered much unwanted attention for the entire community, and at this point the town is best known for this murder case. Being such a small town with very little history on its own locals actually originally tried to change the name to something else. They kind of brought the suggestion yeap to welcome visitors, draw attention.
You know, Oh, that's kind of that. That's sad.
Yeah, some some people suggested Rose Town. It didn't quite stick though, I like that. Yeah, but so today it's still Snowtown.
Okay, that's like really sad. There's two things in this case. I'm too emotionally that's brutally sad.
It is this little town like trying to like clean this smudge from this these fucking assholes.
Yeah, like these disgusting humans that just did not deserve to be there. And oh that I don't know, that's sad. That hurts my heart.
Yeah. Well there is one little bit of of niceness that came out of this. John's house had actually been taken ownership by the Australian Housing Trust and it had been demolished, okay, and units were actually created in place for elderly people in the area. Oh wow, And I really really really hope that there are some homosexual elderly people in that housing unit right now.
Yeah, that'd be right, that would be perfect.
That would just be the ultimate fuck you to that fucking piece of human trash.
Yeah, they should have almost made it that like low income for like LGBTQ or something like that for homosexual people or something, and just like that. I feel like that would be even better.
Yeah.
So but the fact that it's still something of good is nice.
Yeah. I like that. So that's the case. That's the Snowtown murders or bodies in a barrel.
And like you said, yeah, I mean the fact that they used a spider web. That case is a spider web and a half.
It is. It's back and forth. There's there's too many people involved to make it simple. Basically, when you look at it as a linear like timeline, it's pretty basic. But as soon as you start involving all the names, it gets real confusing.
When a lot of them are connected and stuff too, which is like adds another level.
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