Why releasing the youngest Snowtown murderer was the right decision

3 months ago 21

James Vlassakis is a self-confessed serial killer. He took part in the depraved torture and murder of four people. One of them was his friend, another was his half-brother, the final was his stepbrother – who he lured to his death in an old bank in the mid-north South Australian hamlet of Snowtown.

Police officers remove items from the crime scene, a former bank building in Snowtown.

It would be easy, also understandable, to arrive at the conclusion that for such heinous crimes, for taking four lives, he should never be released. However, after serving 26 years in prison, the South Australian Parole Board has decided to grant Vlassakis parole. Unless, within 60 days, there’s a request for a review of that decision by the state’s police commissioner, Attorney-General or Victims’ Rights Commissioner, his integration back into society will begin. It will be gradual.

Some will be surprised or outraged by the decision. However, it helps to understand how Vlassakis became a killer. It may inform the view that, perhaps, he is entitled to this conditional release.

It was John Bunting who orchestrated what has become known as the Snowtown murders. Eleven killings between 1992 and 1999. The victims were people Bunting knew or had encountered, who he decided were worthless and targeted because they were homosexual – because he felt them worthless or, in his warped mind, he believed they were paedophiles. Mostly, Bunting was driven by his desire to kill.

In some cases, victims were tortured. Their pensions were stolen from bank accounts long after they vanished.

At Bunting’s side was Robert Wagner, convicted of 10 of the murders. As the crimes were committed, others were drawn into the evil by Bunting – some were then killed themselves.

When John Bunting began a relationship with James Vlassakis’s mother, the troubled teen fell under his control. Weak from neglect, abuse and drug use, Vlassakis, who had watched his dad die years before, saw Bunting as a father figure. Slowly, Vlassakis’ vulnerable mind was poisoned – he was coerced into killing. He feared that if he didn’t take part, he would be next. He probably would have been.

In May 1999, when police discovered bodies in barrels in the old Snowtown bank vault, Bunting and Wagner were quickly arrested. So, too, Mark Haydon, who would eventually be jailed for assisting them. Vlassakis was not. In the days that followed, he spiralled to the brink of suicide and, before long, confessed to his crimes. He provided the detectives on Taskforce Chart with information which helped them unravel Australia’s worst case of serial murder.

At this point, Vlassakis was only 19 years old. His confession, and role as star witness against the others, earned him anonymity – his image remains suppressed, to protect him during his decades in the same prison system as the killers he testified against. It also earned him a shot at freedom. Unlike Bunting and Wagner, who will never be released, Vlassakis was sentenced to life but with a non-parole period set. That window has just now opened.

Perhaps given the way he was manipulated into the unthinkable, it was fair that eventually he be granted parole. It’s a surprise to some that the decision has been made so soon after he became eligible to apply. As the Commissioner for Victims’ Rights, Sarah Quick, observed, it “will bring a fresh level of pain and distress to victims”.

Detective Superintendent Denis Edmonds inside the vault of a former Snowtown bank where the bodies inside barrels were discovered.

The Parole Board’s chair, Frances Nelson KC, points to the way Vlassakis has behaved behind bars. “I think he’s been determined from the early days of his incarceration to try to behave and to remedy what he’s done,” she told media soon after Tuesday’s decision. “He’s given a very sensible and acceptable explanation as [to] why he was drawn into Mr Bunting’s behaviour. I don’t say I condone it ... but I can understand why he was drawn into this man’s thrall.”

Freedom from here, if it goes ahead, will be gradual. Vlassakis will spend months in a pre-release centre, gradually given more and more time outside. A misstep would see him back behind bars.

As a journalist who covered this case from its beginning, I know something of the horror of the killings and the enduring trauma for victims’ families. It is difficult to reconcile this with the fact one of the killers will soon be free.

The answer lies in the fact that – just as Vlassakis has conformed in prison for 26 years – he once conformed with a manipulative, evil killer who could, at any moment, have turned on him too.

Jeremy Pudney is the author of Snowtown: The Bodies in Barrels Murders and a senior news executive with 9News Adelaide.