UPDATE: One Of The Snowtown Murderers Is A Free Man

In May 1999, two detectives followed a trail of suspicious missing persons cases to an old, red-brick bank in Snowtown, South Australia. As they head inside, they head straight for the bank’s vault where they find six large plastic barrels containing human remains. They also find handcuffs, knives, a saw, boxes of disposable gloves and bottles of hydrochloric acid. They’d come to realise they'd found the dumping grounds of Australia’s worst serial killings, crimes that would see four men sent to prison with lengthy sentences. But now in 2026, James Vlassaki is set to walk free. THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe/?utm_source=shownotes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=tcc We want to hear from you! Take our quick 3-minute survey for your change to win a $100 gift card. https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8954679/HF-BUS-2026 CREDITShttps://go.skimresources.com?id=53410X1291869&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booktopia.com.au%2Fthe-good-girls-sonia-faleiro%2Fbook%2F9781408876732.html Guest: Jeremy Pudney You can find more info about his book Snowtown: The Bodies in Barrels Murders here https://podcasts.apple.com/sa/podcast/the-story-behind-snowtown/id1469153910?i=1000513440182. Host: Gemma Bath Executive Producer: Gia Moylan Audio Producer: Scott Stronach The story is not the first time we've covered the Snowtown Murders. Hear our past episode with Debi Marshall here https://podcasts.apple.com/sa/podcast/the-story-behind-snowtown/id1469153910?i=1000513440182. GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening! Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960, and one of our Podcast Producers will come back to you ASAP. Tell us what you really think so we can give you more of what you really want. Fill out this survey https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7711442/Mamamia-Audience-Survey-March-April-2024 and you’ll go in the running to win one of five $100 gift vouchers. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline https://www.lifeline.org.au/ on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue https://www.beyondblue.org.au/ on 1300 22 4636 Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Gemma Bath?

  Hi there. We're dropping this episode back into your feeds because last week there was an update in the case. James Flasakis was one of four jailed over the Snowtown killings, pleading guilty to four murders between 1992 and 1999. He was sentenced to 26 years, and that term expired last August. The SA parole board was preparing to release him, but the state government intervened to keep him behind bars. Last week, we found out that their attempt to block parole had been rejected, which means Flasakis, who is now in his mid-40s, is a free man. The parole boss last week said he'd be moved from prison to the Adelaide

• 0:43Gemma Bath?

  Pre-Release Centre, where he will remain for 12 months, which is standard for every life-sentence prisoner. We recorded this interview about the Snowtown killings back in April 2024.

• 1:03Gemma Bath?

  It's an unseasonably warm day in May 1999, and detectives Greg Stone and Steve McCoy have just pulled up in front of an old bank in Snowtown, a tiny wheatbelt town in South Australia. It's a plain red brick building with big steel front doors, and it's been close to the public for more than four years. The detectives have followed a trail of clues here, and suspect they're closing in on a group of serial killers. As they head inside, they head straight for the bank's vault, where they're hit by an unmistakable and pungent smell: rotting remains. Inside, they find six large plastic barrels. They're black with a screw-top

• 1:48Gemma Bath?

  lid. They also find handcuffs, knives, a saw, boxes of disposable gloves, and bottles of hydrochloric acid. McCoy calls back to the Major Crime Office in Adelaide. "We've found bodies", he tells them. But exactly how many and who they are is unclear. Little do Stone and McCoy know, they've just stumbled on the dumping grounds of Australia's worst serial killings.

• 2:36Gemma Bath?

  I'm Gemma Bath, and this is True Crime Conversations, a Mamma Mia podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them.

• 2:48Gemma Bath?

  All up, police found 12 victims, eight of which were found dismembered and with signs of torture in the barrels in the bank. The ringleader of the group responsible was a man called John Bunting. He loved killing and relished in the torture and elimination of people he deemed unworthy of life. He recruited the rest of the group. His right-hand man, Robert Wagner, was known as the muscle. Mark Hayden, who became his cover-up guy, and James Flasakis. His mother was dating Bunting, and over time, he was gradually drawn in to helping with the murders. The group's murderous rampage was brought to

• 3:30Gemma Bath?

  an end in 1999, and all of the men were given lengthy prison sentences. But in 2024, the Snowtown murders are once again making news. The night before I recorded this interview with today's guest, it had been revealed that Mark Hayden had been released from prison.

• 3:51Gemma Bath?

  His maximum term is expiring in late May 2024, which means he's due to be released without any supervision or conditions. Given the nature of his crimes, the parole board decided to grant him a strict version of parole early so that they could monitor him. Hayden is the only one of the four men who is technically not a convicted killer, but his crimes are extensive. For the people of South Australia in particular, his release feels all too soon. To discuss Hayden and the fate of the other three men who remain behind bars, we're joined by Jeremy Pudney. He was one of the first journalists on the scene in Snowtown when news of the bodies in the barrels broke. He followed the case

• 4:36Gemma Bath?

  closely and has written a book called Snowtown: The Bodies in Barrels Murders. And now, as the Adelaide News Director at Nine News, his team is responsible for the latest update in this case, the exclusive on Hayden's early release. Jeremy joins us now to take us back to the start of the story.

• 5:05Gemma Bath?

  As far as towns go, Snowtown, it's not just small, it's tiny, and they now have this insane reputation even 25 years later. Tell us about the people of Snowtown.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Well, they're the sort of people you'd expect to find in a small town like that, a town that is essentially surviving on the farming activities that goes on around it, and had probably lived through more prosperous times before that, and had become a little bit set aside, I guess, being in off the main highway that heads north through South Australia. And so it's a quiet place, it's a tranquil place. Before this discovery was made, it would probably be fair to say that most South Australians didn't know where Snowtown was. And there's good people there. There were good people there then, there's good people there now. And I think a really important part of this story is that this has become known as the Snowtown murders, but in actual fact, only one murder happened at Snowtown.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  It's just where this discovery was made that turned it into what we know it to be today. And the people of Snowtown, some of whom watched as police went into the bank that day and removed the barrels that night, were just as shocked and surprised and disgusted as everybody else. And so, to answer your question, they're good people there. They always have been, they always will be. And I think they've done a really admirable job of living beyond the stigma that this has given them.

• 6:31Gemma Bath?

  As you say, it's a shame, "Snowtown murders", it's the phrase that we use to remember this crime. But the story actually mainly resides in Adelaide, and it starts in the early 90s with a man called John Justin Bunting. Tell me a little bit about him and his background and life in Salisbury North.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, John Bunting was actually born in Brisbane, in Queensland, and he appeared troubled as a child. I think he had some of the traits that people might expect him to have displayed as a child, given what we now know he was capable of. He was a school dropout. He did have loving parents, but he exhibited some disturbing traits even as a child. He liked to catch insects and drop them into acid and watch them die. And some of his behaviour was bizarre or violent as a child. And as a young man, he moved to Adelaide, to South Australia, and he began living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and working on and off, and befriending people in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. And

• 7:36Speaker 01

  he worked at one point at an abattoir and used to brag to some of his friends about how he enjoyed killing the animals. And so there were some real alarm bells ringing, some warning signs, if you like, around John Bunting and his personality and his behaviour from a very early age. And really, what happened was, he came to Adelaide, he set himself up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, and he began doing what he did for his entire adult life until he went to jail, and that was finding vulnerable people, manipulating them, and in some cases, preying on them. So he moved from one partner to another, vulnerable people, and then befriended his accomplices, who were in some ways vulnerable

• 8:21Speaker 01

  people, and embarked on, you know, the evil that we all now know about.

• 8:26Gemma Bath?

  I'm curious to get your thoughts on where this charm comes from to befriend people?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  I'm not sure he's someone that you or I would find charming, but he certainly had some kind of charisma. That, having never met him in person, I can't describe accurately, except to say that he did appear to have this ability to captivate people, or manipulate people, or get them to take part in things that they otherwise wouldn't have, and that you and I would be horrified by. But what we know about everybody that he did that to, the people that he manipulated into taking part in murder with him, the people that he manipulated into covering it up, or the people that he preyed on, we know

• 9:14Speaker 01

  that they were all vulnerable in some way. They'd either had terrible lives and needed someone, or they had intellectual disabilities, or they had some other form of difficulty that made them easier for him to manipulate and easier for him to prey on.

• 9:33Gemma Bath?

  Let's talk about that more specifically because two of the men he befriended, Mark Hayden and Robert Wagner, he went on to offend with. Let's start with Wagner. What was his story?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  So Robert Wagner did genuinely have a terrible childhood. He was sexually abused at a very early age. And it absolutely had a profound effect on him. There's no doubt about that. It does not excuse what he did, but it explains where he came from. He then ends up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide with his mother, who's struggling really to raise him and control him. And he is lured, groomed, if you like, we would call it now, by a paedophile by the name of Barry Lane, who ultimately becomes one of the victims. Now Barry Lane lures Robert Wagner.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  And by the time Robert Wagner is 14 years old, he's living with Barry Lane. And essentially being sexually abused by a paedophile and being controlled by him. And he disappears with Barry Lane and his mum hears nothing of him. Only for them to resurface in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, in Salisbury North, which is where John Bunting comes to meet Robert Wagner and Barry Lane. And that association begins. And John Bunting had this burning hatred of homosexual people. And had this warped inability to differentiate between someone who was homosexual and someone who was a paedophile. He, in many regards, believed that that was one and the same.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  And he absolutely would have seen Barry Lane for what he was and hated him right from the beginning. And had some empathy for Robert Wagner as someone who was young and being controlled by Barry Lane. And so from a very early stage after meeting them, he was manipulating Barry Lane to help him with things. At the same time befriending and persuading Robert Wagner to his way of thinking.

• 11:39Gemma Bath?

  How about Mark? How does he come into contact with him?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  So that happens a little later. And it's as simple as John Bunting and Mark Hayden meeting at a welding course. Because these are people who are in and out of work and sometimes undertaking training in the hope of finding new work. And they met at a welding course. And once again, I think it's fair to say that John Bunting identified Mark Hayden as someone who could be of use to him. And as someone who was easily manipulated. And I think everything that you ever read or see about Mark Hayden is that he is not a particularly intelligent man. And he was easy for John Bunting to control.

• 12:21Gemma Bath?

  There's a fourth member of this group that later go on to be convicted for these crimes. 23-year-old James or Jamie Blasarkis.

• 12:32Gemma Bath?

  What was his connection to Bunting?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  This is the real tragedy, one of the real tragedies in this story because James Blasarkis is another person in this story. And it's so common in this story, he was abused as a child. By the time he crosses paths with John Bunting, he's living with his mother, who's by herself in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. And there's another brother living there too. In fact, there's three or four at any given time. So James Blasarkis's mother, Elizabeth Harvey, is living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and meets John Bunting and they begin a relationship. And so John Bunting becomes James Blasarkis's stepfather. Now, James Blasarkis had been abused by his own father,

• 13:17Speaker 01

  who he then saw die of a heart attack right in front of him. And he was a really troubled kid as a result of everything that had happened to him and that he had seen. And then, as fate would have it, this troubled kid, who could have been set on the right path, ends up with John Bunting as his stepfather. And that's where it all goes wrong for him.

• 13:38Gemma Bath?

  You mentioned before Bunting's kind of hatred that underpins everything. He hates homosexuals, he hates paedophiles. Tell us about his wall of spiders.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, and I think it's really important to put John Bunting's behaviour into context because there's no justification for what he did. And he did hate paedophiles. As a teenager, he was interested in Nazism, white supremacy, Adolf Hitler. And he also had this hatred of paedophiles. And he hated homosexual people and he saw them, as I said, as the same thing in a really warped way. And so he had almost adopted, by the time he's living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, this vigilante mindset towards anyone he thought was a paedophile who was preying on children. And so in his home in Salisbury North, he had created, using string and post-it notes,

• 14:32Speaker 01

  what he described as a wall of spiders, a term he would use to refer to paedophiles, where he would keep small snippets of information on people that he perceived were paedophiles or a risk to children. And of course, some of these people were not. They had done nothing wrong. In his warped view, he had honed in on them. And he was using in particular Barry Lane to collect information on these people. Or in some cases, they were just people in the immediate area. And so it was a kind of manifestation on the wall in his house of his warped view of the world and the reason he hated people.

• 15:10Gemma Bath?

  It sounds like something from Criminal Minds, you know, when they close in and they've got all the pictures.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  And I'm sure later on, he was at the centre of something very similar in a police headquarters somewhere. But yeah, it was just a real display of his warped view of people who had done nothing wrong. Some had, some had not, and of the world. And it was just, I guess, a reflection of the hatred that he had. And this is a man who began by justifying his killings in this way. But by the end of this killing spree, he was killing people for pleasure. He was killing people for money. That's one of the most difficult things about this story. There's no clear motive. There's absolutely no justification. What we've got here is one human who just liked to kill people, who happened to find a couple of others who were prepared to help him do it.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  And in at least one case, that of Robert Wagner, appeared to enjoy it just as much.

• 16:05Gemma Bath?

  This killing spree started, as far as we know, in 1992. Tell us about that first victim. Because that body actually went unidentified for quite some time.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  That's right. So that's Clinton Trisais. He was a young man, 22. And he was an openly gay man. And he was a little bit disenfranchised from his family. He was living in the same, same area that we talk about, which is the epicentre for this in the beginning, Adelaide's northern suburbs, and that Salisbury North area. And he was friends with or known to Barry Lane. He was known in the area by a nickname, Happy Pants, because he would wear these colourful pants. It was kind of his thing. And this was really where John Bunting's, you know, hatred of people who were homosexual came to the fore. And he had decided in his own mind, probably fuelled by the sort of

• 17:00Speaker 01

  vile nonsense that Barry Lane would speak and that Robert Wagner would echo, that Clinton Trisais was a paedophile. And so on a visit to John Bunting's home, he was attacked from behind with a hammer and murdered right there in the house. And then his remains were taken by Bunting with the assistance of Wagner and Lane and dumped in a paddock at a place called Lower Light, which is north of Adelaide. And not found for some time, I think it was 1994, by a couple of old farmers who were just tending to their paddock.

• 17:40Gemma Bath?

  So he was originally a missing person. And then it wasn't until the disappearance of Barry Lane that police started to kind of, at least link the two. Tell us about that. Tell us about Lane.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  That's where the story's quite complicated because there was a couple of things happening in parallel in terms of the police investigation. The first thing is that Elizabeth Hayden, who was Mark Hayden's wife, had gone missing. And her brother had refused to accept the explanation that she had just up and left, that he was being given and he reported her missing. But at the same time, there was already a cold case missing persons review underway. And that had begun really with Clinton Trisais and also Barry Lane, who had vanished. And then also Suzanne Allen, another person from the northern suburbs who had vanished.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  And Ray Davies, who had lived in a caravan in her backyard, who had also vanished. And what had come up when a particular missing persons officer started to look through one file and then the next and then the next, was this overlap of addresses or associates. And the same names kept coming up and that was John Bunting and Robert Wagner. John Bunting and Robert Wagner in relation to having had contact with these people or having been friends of these people or having been last seen with these people. So that's happening in background in the major crime, missing persons officers. At the same time as some detectives in the northern suburbs of Adelaide are investigating the disappearance of Elizabeth Hayden.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  And because that becomes a missing persons case, that information makes its way into headquarters. And then there's this connection between Wagner, Bunting, the husband of the missing woman, Mark Hayden, and these other files. And that's when the police investigation really gathers significant momentum. This is a time where perhaps the technology wasn't what it is now and some of these connections might be made using elaborate computer programs. These were connections that had to be made by humans looking through different files. It's something that perhaps would have been more quickly detected in this day and age than back when this was.

• 20:01Gemma Bath?

  Let's fill in some of the gaps here. Because I think it's worth pointing out at this point that all of these victims have some kind of connection to Bunting or some of his associates. They're all kind of interwoven. What about Suzanne and Ray?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  So Suzanne Allen lived in the same general area as John Bunting, where he's already living with a partner. And it appears they had some sort of romantic connection or in some sort of relationship. And it appears Suzanne Allen became infatuated with John Bunting. And perhaps also had some knowledge of things that John Bunting had done in relation to Clinton Trisys. And so she became a problem for John Bunting in that she had become a pest to him in relation to her unrequited love for him. And he was also concerned that she knew too much. Now, John Bunting has never been convicted of her murder.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  This is the 12th victim, if you like, whose remains were found, but the jury was never able to be sure that he killed her. But he killed her and her body was dismembered. And she was one of the two victims whose remains were found buried in the backyard of the house that he had lived at at the time.

• 21:23Gemma Bath?

  The other gap I want to focus in on is the disappearance you mentioned of Elizabeth Hayden. Because as we've mentioned, she's the wife of Mark. What were the circumstances around her disappearance and, well, we find out, murder?

• 21:38Speaker 01

  So she's living with Mark and her children in their house in Smithfield, which is also in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. John Bunting and Robert Wagner are thick as thieves with Mark Hayden. They're coming and going from there all the time. John Bunting is unable to not brag about some of the things he's done. And there's a strong belief that Elizabeth Hayden had some knowledge of things that had been going on. And also was just perceived as an annoyance, as a pest, someone who was disposable by these people. And by this time, John Bunting and Robert Wagner had developed quite the enjoyment of killing. And Elizabeth Hayden became their next target. And so she was murdered.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And her husband has never been convicted of taking part in that murder, of being an accomplice to it, of covering it up, along with six others. And her body was one of those that were found in the barrels in the Snowtown bank.

• 22:44Gemma Bath?

  You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath. I'm speaking with journalist Jeremy Pudney about Australia's notorious Snowtown murders.

• 22:57Gemma Bath?

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• 23:36Gemma Bath?

  There's so many victims in this story. It's hard to even comprehend. And there's so many different lives here. And as you mentioned, it feels like as time has gone on, they've killed just for the sake of killing. One of the victims, Troy Ude.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Well, Troy Ude was the half-brother of James Lasarkis. And there is some suggestion that Troy Ude and James Lasarkis, as half-brothers, didn't get along. There was a suggestion that he may have in some way been abusive towards James Lasarkis. But also Troy Ude was an annoyance to John Bunting. Of course, Troy Ude is the son of Elizabeth Harvey, who Bunting is in a de facto relationship with. He was also a drug user, and that's something else that Bunting despised. And he became an irritation and, at this point, just an obvious target to John Bunting.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  And so, like so many of the victims here, it was someone that John Bunting decided should be murdered and was murdered with the help of others. In this case, not only Robert Wagner, but with the help and understanding of his half-brother, James Lasarkis.

• 24:54Gemma Bath?

  When did Lasarkis start being included in this murderous rampage?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  It began with the murder of Gavin Porter. Now, I think from memory Gavin Porter was murdered in 1998. And he was a friend of James Lasarkis. He was also a drug user. James Lasarkis had his challenges with drugs. But Gavin Porter was otherwise an apparently decent person who was just struggling with an addiction and was, you know, enduring a difficult life. And Bunting had viewed him as a waste of space, an annoyance, like he did with so many of these people. There's no suggestion Gavin Porter had really done anything bad to anyone. And Bunting had decided that he should be murdered. And Porter was murdered by Bunting and Wagner.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  And the body dragged into the house and Lasarkis brought into the room to be shown his dead friend. And that was really the beginning of this indoctrination into the killing by Bunting of James Lasarkis. So he sees his dead friend laying there. He knows that he's been murdered by Bunting and Wagner. And he has always said that from that point on, he not only was under Bunting's spell, but was living in fear that he would be the next victim. And the only way to not be the next victim was to do what he was told to do. And this is a young man who's already broken and is not strong in any way. And so it's difficult for right-minded, right-thinking people to see how he couldn't

• 26:28Speaker 01

  just raise the alarm. But it's a different set of circumstances. And so that's how it began. And so from that point on, he was roped into the murders and often involved in luring victims. Or was the connection between Bunting and Wagner and the victims? It was through Lasarkis's associations that some of these people became obvious to the killers.

• 26:53Gemma Bath?

  What were the other men's roles? We've got Bunting, who is obviously the ringleader. Wagner was often referred to as kind of the right-hand man. He was also doing a lot of the brutality, wasn't he?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Bunting's not a big man. He's not a particularly strong man. He's not weak, but he's not big. He's not intimidating in any way. Robert Wagner's a big man, tall, imposing. And so he was the muscle, if you like. And so in that initial moment where they begin to murder someone, it typically started with Robert Wagner overpowering them and then John Bunting taking part. And one of the really terrible things, if things like this can be more terrible, is the torture that some of these victims endured. And so in the beginning, these were murders and they very quickly developed into torture

• 27:47Speaker 01

  and then murder and some extended periods of torture. That was conducted by John Bunting and Robert Wagner and that was witnessed by James Lasarkis. And these people were killed slowly, in some cases, very slowly.

• 28:04Gemma Bath?

  And there was a cruelty, obviously torture is cruel, but they were making their victims call them names? So some of the ones in your book that you mentioned, Lord, Sir, and God, and kind of humiliating their victims in the process?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, humiliation, but also power for John Bunting. You know, like I said, he had this warped view of the world, this evil perspective. And he honestly believed that he was there to impose justice on people and to protect other people. And he viewed himself as godlike. And so he would make his victims refer to him in this way. It was also a form of humiliation, a form of torture. You know, they would laugh at their victims. They would relish in the pain that they were experiencing. And, you know, this is something that is probably one of the most resounding aspects for me of the case. This was not a moment of rage. This was sustained serial killing with torture and killing for pleasure.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  They would also do things like force their victims to make voice recordings that they would try and use to fool relatives over the phone, for example, into believing that the victims were still alive. And they would also torture them for financial information, like banking PIN numbers and other information, because really, as an aside to what they were doing, they would pilfer some of their victims' bank accounts afterwards. And sometimes in an ongoing way. Some of these victims were on welfare benefits, regular payments into their bank accounts. And the killers would often be withdrawing that money as it was deposited and sharing it amongst themselves.

• 29:45Gemma Bath?

  Where were these murders taking place?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Obviously, the early murders, those of Clinton Trisys and Ray Davies and Suzanne Allen, even though there was never a formal conviction for murder. Michael Gardner, Barry Lane as well, and Thomas Trevillion. They all happened in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. So in and around where John Bunting was living, because that's really how these people came to his attention and how these people were in the circle, in the realm, if you like. But then at some point, John Bunting and Elizabeth Harvey, with James Lasarkis and Troy Ude on and off, moved to a town called Murray Bridge to the east of Adelaide. And then that's where some of the murders occurred and some of the victims were living. And again, this is occurring just in Bunting's realm.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  If you were someone who was down on your luck, if you somehow made friends with his stepson, James Lasarkis, if you somehow did something to offend him, you were on his radar in that area and that put you at risk.

• 30:46Gemma Bath?

  What was Mark's role? We've touched on Wagner. What was Mark's role in these killings?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I think that'll always be a point of conjecture. I think it's important to stress that he's never been convicted of murder. He was originally charged with murders. He's never been convicted of murder. What he has been convicted of is assisting or covering up in seven cases of murder, two of which he confessed to and five of which he was found guilty of. And so Mark Hayden, although he's never been convicted of murder, has blood on his hands, as is the case with any crime that's repeated. If someone speaks up and it's stopped, it won't happen again and again. And so it's, I think, very clear to say that if Mark Hayden had done the right thing,

• 31:33Speaker 01

  people would still be alive today who were murdered. And I think that it's very difficult for the relatives of some victims to accept that Mark Hayden was only ever convicted of covering up in seven cases of murder.

• 31:49Gemma Bath?

  Let's get back to the police investigation. So by February 1999, the deaths of Clinton Tressis, Barry Lane, Suzanne Allen and Elizabeth Hayden were all officially declared major crimes. They're all working away in the background. How did they go from that to a few months later, ending up in Snow Town?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  So essentially, as I described to you earlier, there's this missing persons investigation, this review of cold case missing persons files that starts to join the dots between these missing individuals and these names that keep coming up in relation to them. John Bunting and Robert Wagner keep coming up. And at the same time as this is happening, Elizabeth Hayden disappears. Her brother is rightly suspicious of the way in which she's vanished, is adamant she would never leave her children behind and just leave, like Mark Hayden was saying that she had. And so as the police attention fixates on Mark Hayden in relation to the disappearance

• 32:49Speaker 01

  of his wife, it becomes clear to those investigators that John Bunting and Robert Wagner are friends with Mark Hayden. And then the match occurs with these other missing people. And so the heat is then very much on this group of John Bunting, Robert Wagner and Mark Hayden. While the police are investigating Elizabeth Hayden's disappearance, they are given witness accounts of a four-wheel drive at the property where people are seen placing garbage bags into the four-wheel drive. And they're already thinking they're investigating a murder and they're obviously thinking along the lines of human remains in those bags as a distinct possibility. And so that four-wheel drive is put on a trailer and towed away at some

• 33:34Speaker 01

  point. Now, through various means of surveillance, the police determine that their three suspects are travelling to and from Snow Town, which is in the mid-north of South Australia, and they focus on a particular house where they've been visiting with a friend. And so some detectives are given the job of going to Snow Town and visiting this house and making some inquiries with the friend, particularly in relation to this four-wheel drive. And it's when they speak to that friend, when they interview that friend at the house, that he indicates to them that the contents of the four-wheel drive was now being stored in a bank across

• 34:14Speaker 01

  the rail line in town, an old bank building, which was being rented by Bunting and Wagner. And so they essentially go to the bank and they open it up and they find inside the bank vault, these barrels and being experienced police, having smelled the odour of death before, they knew exactly what they were dealing with.

• 34:37Gemma Bath?

  I want to bring you into the story now because you were a reporter. You were one of the first on the scene when all of this started breaking. What was that like for you? What do you remember of that time?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Well, I remember I was a police reporter at the Adelaide Advertiser and I was covering some inane minor story early in the day. And I received a phone call from the newsroom to say that there had been bodies found in barrels in a bank in Snow Town. And of course, I didn't believe that would be right. I didn't think that's how the story would pan out. But I decided it would be best if I got back to the office in a hurry and then made plans to head to Snow Town. I actually got pulled over for speeding on the way back from the inane story to the office. And then myself and a photographer and other journalists and photographers made our way to Snow Town. This story breaks the morning after the barrels have been removed from the bank. So the police have done a really very good job of keeping

• 35:32Speaker 01

  that initial operation secret. And I remember speaking to some of the Snow Town locals, including some people who had sat on the balcony of the pub, which is across the road from the bank, and were sitting there watching as these barrels were being brought out and taken away by the police. And they thought it was a mega drug bust. They had no idea what was going on. And so by the time we got there, it was quiet and there weren't many police. And the bank was a crime scene, but a subdued one. And so it was a little bit anticlimactic, if you like. But that was the same morning that the arrests were occurring. And it became very apparent very quickly through that day and in the days that followed, the scale of what had happened and what had been discovered there and what was being alleged.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  But the fascinating thing about this is that at this point, this is a missing persons investigation, maybe five, maybe six. At the point in which the police walk into that bank and discover those barrels, they ultimately find that there's eight bodies in there. This is more than they're expecting. This is the beginning of an investigation, not the end. And there's so much work that happens in the months that follow where they're trying to determine who these people are, who these victims are, some of whom were never reported missing because they were so disenfranchised from their families.

• 36:51Gemma Bath?

  So you mentioned the arrests were going down at a similar time. That was the arrests of Bunting, Wagner and Hayden. How did they react? Because obviously they've been getting away with this for years.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yes. Look, I think because these are not very smart people. John Bunting is cunning, rat cunning. Robert Wagner and Mark Hayden are not very smart people. They are followers. And they really genuinely have no idea how much heat is on them at this point. And if John Bunting did have an inkling, he didn't care because his lust for killing was overriding all of that. And so there was certainly an element of surprise when their homes were raided by police at dawn and they were told that they were being placed under arrest for murder. Wagner and Hayden had very little to say. Bunting was being a smart ass right

• 37:45Speaker 01

  from the beginning and appeared nonchalant about the whole thing. So I think they were genuinely surprised to be caught at that time, but really because two of them were too stupid to know that that was about to happen and because one was so deluded that he believed he would never be caught.

• 38:03Gemma Bath?

  Is it Vlasicus that ends up being their undoing? Because he ends up confessing to a lot.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, he does. So Vlasicus is a suspect very early on. And there's some intense interviews occurring involving major crime detectives and Vlasicus. And he's in and out of their custody. He is arrested for murder at some point subsequent to that and is being investigated. And eventually gets to the point where he's ready to confess to everything that he knows. And this is a gruelling, gruelling interview with police where he details everything that he knows about the murders that predated his involvement or even his contact with Bunting by way of the bragging or the things that he'd come to learn. And he details everything

• 38:53Speaker 01

  that he knows about the murders he was involved in, including the things that he witnessed himself and the things that he did himself. And so what that does is it provides the police with a roadmap to this complex web, to these crimes, at a point where they're still really trying to piece together a lot of this information themselves. They would have eventually identified these victims and they very probably would have eventually had enough evidence to convict Bunting and Wagner of these murders and Vlasicus. But what he did by way of his confession

• 39:33Speaker 01

  and his evidence as a witness was expedite that process significantly and probably lead to some convictions where they otherwise may not have been able to occur.

• 39:44Gemma Bath?

  And he's the one as well that kind of points them, because we've mentioned eight bodies were found in the barrels, but there's 11, 12 murders. And he points them to those other bodies as well.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  That's right. And so the excavation begins in the backyard at Salisbury North. And two bodies are found there, again, dismembered and in plastic bags. And it enables the police to piece together information about the other murders as well. The murder of Clinton Tressis, which had been my missing persons case and fraught with error from the beginning, including an inability by a forensic expert to match the skeletal remains with an image of Clinton Tressis. In fact, it was ruled out rather than ruled in, which really slowed down that process. And even the murder of Thomas Trevellian, which had been staged to look like a suicide

• 40:35Speaker 01

  and had been accepted by authorities as a suicide for such a long period of time. And so it was this confession that really did point police in the direction of those other murders, as you say, and not just the murders of those people whose bodies were found in the barrels in Snow Town.

• 41:03Gemma Bath?

  I want to ask you this question because it's an important question to ask

• 41:08Gemma Bath?

  to understand Hayden's conviction.

• 41:12Gemma Bath?

  Why or when were the bodies moved to Snowtown? Because they weren't always there.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  No, they weren't always there. The belief is that they were moved to Snowtown from Hayden's house at Smithfield when they were coming under some heat subsequent to the murder of Elizabeth Hayden. So they're explaining away Elizabeth Hayden's disappearance. Mark Hayden is telling her brother that she's left and her brother is not accepting that explanation. And they want to keep killing Bunting and Wagner and they decide they need to move these bodies. Now, one thing that there's never been a lot of discussion about is why do they still even have these bodies in barrels?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  And it's because it would appear John Bunting wanted to keep them. They were trophies of sorts. And, you know, one thing that I think lots of studies the world over have established about serial killers is that they like trophies, reminders of what they've done. Either that or they were just incredibly stupid in their attempts to cover up their crimes. And so they had this problem, these barrels that they were storing there could no longer be kept there because of the intensity on an address where Elizabeth Hayden had vanished from. And so moving them to their mate's place at Snowtown, and there was another property nearby where they were kept for a short period of time. And then finding another solution, which became that bank in Snowtown, was their plan.

• 42:42Gemma Bath?

  You would think that you'd lie low after that, that you would kind of pause, knowing that people are looking at you. But their last victim is actually killed in Snowtown. Tell us about that.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. And I mean, the rate at which John Bunting was killing, if you look at 1998, where there's, I think, five victims, but then you move into 1999 where there's one before they're caught. Certainly the pressure that they're under, the overt investigations that are now occurring, slow the rate of killing, which John Bunting found frustrating because he had developed quite the appetite for it. And so they had decided, because like I said earlier, Robert Wagner's not a smart man and John Bunting had a deluded belief that he was the smartest person in the room.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  They arrived at this position where they felt they were safe to do this, where they felt that they could get away with murder again. And why wouldn't they? Because they had gotten away with so many murders before. And so, yes, the final victim, David Johnson, who was James Lasarkis's stepbrother, is selected as the target and a plan is hatched to lure him to Snowtown, to the bank, under the guise of buying a computer and Robert Wagner and John Bunting, they're waiting there.

• 44:10Gemma Bath?

  There's obviously so much evidence in this case to lead to a conviction with these men. I want to jump to the court proceedings because the trial of Bunting and Wagner, it was a joint trial, 2002. I'm revealing my age here. I was a bit too young to pay attention, but that I can imagine would have been a huge story. A double trial involving two serial killers, multiple victims.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Oh, look, it's one of, if not the biggest criminal trial in South Australian history. The level of public interest was, as you would expect, enormous. The special facilities that had to be created in the court complex and the scale of it and the complexity of it was enormous. And what you really had were two serial killers side by side on trial for murders they had committed together that they really weren't remorseful for in any way, that they were proud of. And it was almost as though they were enjoying their moment, relishing it all over again. And so there was this fight, there was this contest, this legal contest, but ultimately the evidence was overwhelming.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  And Bunting was convicted of 11 murders and Wagner of 10.

• 45:25Gemma Bath?

  Hayden's trial went ahead a few years later and it took the jury quite a while to make that decision. Can you take us more into that, the final verdict, the sentence, how that all played out?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  I think the complexity of this case and the need to prove, well, really 12 murders and how actively each person participated or didn't participate in each act of murder. That was a, that was an incredibly difficult exercise for the police. This is in an era where forensic science was advanced, but not as advanced as it is now. And involved a lot of people who were in some way removed from their families. And, and so the alarm wasn't raised as early as it could be. And so all through this process, as the police interviewed those who knew the suspects and those who knew the victims,

• 46:21Speaker 01

  there was this common theme that would come out about Mark Hayden, that he was a quiet man, that he wasn't an assertive man, that he always was just kind of hanging around. And so in relation to what role he played, there was never any strong evidence that he had taken part in any of these murders. He knew that Elizabeth Hayden had been murdered. He lied to her family and he lied to the police about it. And he covered up for these killers in six other cases. He admitted, because the evidence was overwhelming, his role in two of those. And ultimately the police were able to approve by virtue of witness accounts and forensic evidence

• 47:04Speaker 01

  and circumstantial evidence that he had knowledge of or some involvement of the five others. And so really, for someone who at the beginning was a suspect in multiple murders, but where the evidence was not strong, to have him convicted of assisting in so many cases was still a significant result in terms of the investigation. And so he is sentenced to spend up until the year 2024 in prison, which brings us to where we are today in relation to Mark Hayden.

• 47:37Gemma Bath?

  Yeah, because with Wagner and Bunting, we were able to file them away. They're not getting parole. They're in jail.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  No, they're not getting parole. They're in jail. And so to be clear, in South Australia and in relation to their sentence, they were sentenced to life in prison, which is the mandatory sentence for murder. And the judge declined to set a parole period. So there is technically no such thing here as never to be released. It's just that the judge has decided not to set a parole period. That decision is still reviewed or can be reviewed by the parole board of South Australia. And only recently, while speaking about the Hayden case, were there remarks that came to the fore about John Bunting in particular. And those remarks were about the fact that he is not remorseful and that he is proud of what he's done.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  And I think it's fair to say that John Bunting and Robert Wagner will never be released.

• 48:31Gemma Bath?

  But 2024 is here and Hayden's parole date is upon us. Tell us about what's happening now because he's back in the news.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  He is. And that's because in a few weeks' time, in May of 2024, his maximum term expires. So forget about his non-parole period, his maximum term expires. And as I think most people understand, when you've finished your maximum term, you are released and there can be no restriction placed on you and no monitoring placed on you. What could have happened is he could have been given parole some time ago and that didn't occur. And so only recently has the parole board decided that it's a good idea to give Mark Hayden parole, but really in the context of having some facility with which to monitor him by way of parole conditions before that sentence expires.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  The community expectation is different. The community, this feels like yesterday, South Australians. And they're, I think it's fair to say, very uncomfortable with the prospect of him being released at all in any way, but in particular with absolute freedom. And so the state government has launched a legal bid to have him declared a serious offender and therefore be able, under the law, to be monitored beyond his maximum prison term. So he's getting out. He's already started to be given day release now as we speak and he's getting out. It's just a question now of how he'll be monitored and where he can and can't go and what he can and can't do post-May 2024.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  And only yesterday it came to light that the parole process had reached to the point where he is already able to go out during the day. That's happening now under supervision and only has to go back to a corrections pre-release centre at night. And don't forget, James Lasarkis, who was convicted of several murders, was given a non-parole period of 26 years. And so the community will have that to grapple with in the not too distant future.

• 50:31Gemma Bath?

  You mentioned that through that parole process, we've found out that there's no remorse when it comes to Bunting or Wagner. What about the other two? Because obviously we've got Hayden getting out this year. We're potentially going to be having this same conversation in 2025 with Lasarkis. What can we expect from them? Is there any signs of rehabilitation?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I think what we have to do as a community is accept what we're being told by the authorities who are assessing these people. And the parole board is clear in its view that Mark Hayden has shown considerable remorse and understanding of what he did and has done nothing wrong in all his time in prison and has done everything right in terms of rehabilitation and his time in prison. Their only concern about him is whether he can make a meaningful transition back into society because he literally doesn't know how to function in it. And frankly, he didn't function in it particularly well before he got caught up in all of this. This is 25 years later and a lot's changed.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  And so the answer in relation to Mark Hayden is yes, he's remorseful. And yes, he has served his time. And yes, he's rehabilitated. It's just a question now of whether the community and the victims can accept the fact that that time has come.

• 51:52Gemma Bath?

  I think uncomfortable is a good word because this is the way justice goes. We have to let these people, once they've served their time, have the chance to show that they've changed, have a new life. But I can see why South Australia would be on edge.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Yes, and more so, I think that will be the case in relation to James Lasarkis because, as we've spoken about, it's a terrible story. What he endured was terrible. He really was made a killer by his environment, I think it's fair to say. That's my assessment of it. And he was full of remorse from the moment he confessed, all through his own trial and during the gut-wrenching sentencing submissions that were made by his defence lawyer in relation to what he had done, what he had seen and what he regretted. And so he, by the time he is released, if he's ever released, will have endured 26 years of remorse.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  The question is, can someone who has been found guilty of four murders, four serial killings, should they ever be released? Should they ever be given parole? And I'm not sure how soon we'll see James Lasarkis free. I know that 26 years is his non-parole period, but I think it's going to be a lot longer than that before the community has to grapple with that issue.

• 53:18Gemma Bath?

  Thanks to Jeremy for assisting us to tell this story. You can find his book, Snow Town: The Bodies in Barrels Murders, linked in our show notes. True Crime Conversations is a Mamma Mia podcast, hosted and produced by me, Gemma Bath, with audio design by Scott Stronach. Our executive producer is Gia Moylan. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any feedback or thoughts you'd like to share, you can email us at [email protected] or you can head to the survey linked in our show notes to go in the running to win one of five $100 gift vouchers. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on.