Snowtown Parole: The trial

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How evidence from one Snowtown murderer convicted the others.

I'm Stephen Stockwell and a heads up, this is a particularly violent case, so while we're avoiding details, we do still reference violent acts in this episode.

Welcome to the case of Snowtown Parole.

The bodies in the barrels are now the bodies in the backyard.

11 people killed by the so-called Snowtown murderers.

James Flasakis was involved in four murders between August 1998 and May 1999, serving life with a minimum of 26 years.

The youngest of the four men jailed over the murders has applied for parole.

Victims' families say he should never be released.

I'm astonished that we've even considered parole.

On the other side of this weekend, one of the Snowtown murderers will be on parole.

James Lasakis pled guilty to the murder of four people.

He was jailed in 2001 for life with a non-parole period of 26 years.

That term has now expired and he will be paroled.

In our last episode, with the help of James Wakelin, a senior reporter for the ABC in Adelaide, we explained who Lasakis is.

And James, he was a bit different to the other key players, John Bunting and Robert Wagner, right?

Yeah, he was significantly different.

He was by far the youngest of the killers.

He had a mother who lived a fairly itinerant life.

And there was also suggestions of abuse.

So this was a...

a very, very difficult upbringing.

He was 14 when he met John Bunting.

He came under his power.

He left school at around that same age and then he started becoming involved.

He learned about the killings initially when he was about 16 years old and became involved himself when he was 18, 19.

So certainly significantly younger than Wagner and Bunting who were in their 30s when they were arrested in 1999.

And I mean, what was his life like around that period?

Did he have a job?

Was he going to school?

What did did it look like?

Well, he left school when he was 14 years old.

He had a very dysfunctional upbringing.

His father died when he was young and then to move in with someone like Bunting who was like a father figure to him seemed like a fresh start for his life and it obviously turned into a nightmare.

Yeah, and I mean we finished our last episode James with Vlasakis kind of cooperating with police.

You You know he came forward after the bodies were uncovered,

he talked to police, he basically wanted a deal.

You know he was looking for immunity and when he left that interview that's not what he got.

What happened after he started talking to the police after he started cooperating?

Well he was charged straight away after that first interview with one count of murder.

And then it was some time later, months, I believe, before he finally learned that there would be no immunity deal for him.

And he was charged with four counts and eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of murder.

All happened late in the killing spree

in sort of 98 and 99 when he was sort of around that 18, 19 years old.

But yeah, he was certainly an instrumental figure.

in these killings towards the end and he was also instrumental in collecting the unemployment benefits for those people people that have been killed too, so that then effectively the killers lived off of the money that they got from the people they'd killed.

Yeah, it's really kind of gruesome, the whole thing.

You know, not just the details of what's happened, but you know, the kind of, I guess, the planned and

the financial nature of it as well, taking the money from these people so people thought they were still alive.

How significant was James Lasakis' role in us understanding details like that, details about the collection of these benefits, details of how victims were chosen, all of those things.

Well, he was the key prosecution witness.

He was the person that gave the detail to police

and led to so much of this evidence coming in that led to

Robert Wagner and John Bunting being found guilty of 11 and 10 murders respectively.

Without him, the case would have been a lot harder to prove for some of these murders.

I mean, one of them, police initially thought was a suicide until Lasakis came forward and said, no, I know about this.

He was targeted and killed and they effectively made it look like a suicide where he was, yeah, we won't go into the details.

Yeah, no.

If you are interested in learning a bit more about,

you know, the details of these murders, of the victims, I'll pop a link to an article that James and Rebecca Bryce have written, which takes you through the detail of these murders and also an idea of who the victims were and what happened in all of that.

So pop that in the show notes so you can read about that.

It saves us going into the detail, the gruesome detail of these murders.

But it's also worth mentioning, Stocky, that some of it is just too horrific.

We couldn't put a lot of stuff into those articles because

it's just incredible and

so disturbing what these men did.

You really can't write all the detail of it.

I mean, there's a film that's been made about them that I haven't been able to bring myself to watch at this point because, you know, it just, you know, the gruesome detail that I have read and, you know, even you saying that that's not all the detail, you know, having that portrayed is a lot.

You know, and, you know, we really, what we're interested in exploring here is not that detail, it's the process.

It's the court case, it's the trials.

And, I mean, the trials of John Bunting and Robert Wagner, you know, this was a huge undertaking in South Australia at the time in the early 2000s.

You know, this is a trial that went for 11 months, had hundreds of witnesses, had, you know, thousands of exhibits.

You know, there was so much information presented over the course of this time.

I mean, how significant was that trial in Adelaide when it was going on?

Well, the whole case was so significant for so many years.

was, I mean, we'd had obviously the terrible Truro murders that had happened, you know, 10 or so years before.

We'd had

the family murders that had taken the attention, I guess, of the public in South Australia, too.

So, to have another one of these high-profile, horrible murder cases,

the state, I guess, was pretty stunned that it was happening.

And then, of course,

to prove all these murders, so many of them, there was so much evidence that needed to be led over such a long period that it took years and it stayed very much front and centre in people's minds

for the best part of

six years.

You were present at some of those trials, again, 11 months.

So I don't know if there was anybody who spent the entire period of that trial in that room watching it unfold.

But what was it like being in that room and what sort of things were you hearing?

It was particularly...

gruesome, some of the details,

but at the same time

you were witnessing something that was important, something that needed to be done.

There were,

I remember

just the amount of lawyers in the room,

the representatives that both men had, the prosecution, the detectives that were in there,

and then, of course, the people that were there in the public gallery to see what was going on as well.

It was full, and I guess it was almost always full because of the notoriety of the case.

One of the things we've spoken a bit about already is James Lysakis's cooperation with police.

And

he ended up giving witness at this trial.

What was that like?

Well James Lusakis, like I say, was an absolute key part of what the prosecution were able to bring to the case.

He

is referenced a lot in the sentencing remarks

where he told specific details about when.

So even if he wasn't there,

Bunting would effectively come back and brag to him about what had happened.

He showed him bodies, he gave him details

and then he was able to then

put that together and tell the police about it and also tell them about the recordings that were done as well.

And the recordings were a crucial part of the evidence the prosecution used as well.

I mean you talk about the recordings recordings that were done.

You know these are recordings that were made with victims to try and convince their family members that they were still alive.

I mean I guess that wouldn't have been information the police would get without the cooperation of someone like Versakis, right?

No, certainly it helps.

It certainly helps.

And some of it they found and they were able to then go and listen and see what it was all about, what they were trying to do and piece it all together.

But certainly Versakis was a key part of understanding that, knowing that they existed.

And the thing about these recordings, they didn't necessarily just get people to say specific, sometimes they just said specific phrases like, I never want to see you again, don't call me, I'm moving away, I'm leaving, don't try and get in touch with me.

And they would ring family members and play those to family members.

But they also were getting to a

point where they were starting to just get them to say words and they would clip up phrases from victims and edit them and play those over the phone so they could use different

phrases and different

yeah different terms to victims depending on the words that they used.

So yeah, they got more sophisticated as it went along.

But yeah, it was

fairly disturbing how

they developed it.

James, in our last episode, we were talking about how, you know, John Bunting was motivated by this, you know, this hatred of pedophiles.

You know, that was how he was, you know, that's who he thought he was targeting when he was targeting these people or choosing people,

choosing his victims.

And, you know, about how he kind of conflated that.

That was actually something he conflated with homosexuality.

That wasn't, you know, actually a very accurate target that he was working out.

I mean, during the trial, did we hear much around the motivation from Bunting about targeting these groups?

Certainly.

That was what they,

I guess, while they didn't admit to any of the crimes, or certainly Bunting didn't, Wagner did plead guilty to a couple of the murders,

the evidence that we heard was that they were pedophiles, they were dirty,

they were basically a waste of oxygen, I think was another term that Bunting was heard to use.

And a lot of that came from Vlasakis's evidence that he heard from Bunting himself.

But you're absolutely right.

Anyone who was

of a homosexual orientation, he would basically see them as pedophiles and that was enough for him.

But the court found also that a lot of the victims were just

in the wrong place.

and they were potentially someone who was going to

lead to the conviction of Bunting and Wagner.

So they were people that they needed to get rid of

and the people around them were starting to get more and more fearful that they would become the next victims.

I mean, you know, we've spoken about how James Versakis saw John Bunting as a kind of father figure, right?

You know, this is the male role model that he had growing up in these really poor parts of Adelaide.

And, you know, the

you know, giving evidence in the murder trial of this guy would have been just an incredibly strange situation to be in.

But James, for him doing that, there were kind of concessions made.

I mean, we still don't know what he looks like, do we?

No, that's right.

There were heavy suppressions on...

James Lasakis through the trial.

Some of those have since been lifted.

But one that hasn't been lifted and may never be lifted is that we can't show him.

We can't show what he looked like with the pictures that we've got from him as a 19-year-old.

So, and he obviously would look very different now as a person in his mid-40s.

But we can't show those pictures and may never be able to show what James Versakis looks like.

What was the thinking behind that?

Why was that done?

Well, largely because Versakis had turned Crown Witness, it was to protect him,

protect him from other prisoners.

Those that turn

crown witness are known as dogs within prison and are often targeted.

So protecting his image meant that there's some hope that he won't be targeted and people won't know who he is in prison.

I'm not sure that.

I think the prison population finds ways around that often

and hearing from the parole board

around the time that he was granted parole

He had a difficult time while in prison because of that.

In our next episode, we'll talk talk all about that parole process.

And there's other interesting details that I think people will be really surprised about when we get to that.

When the trial of Wagner and Bunting wrapped up, after they were convicted of these murders, what did we hear from the judge during their sentencing?

Obviously, there's a lot of detail that went in, but there was also a lot that wasn't in there.

Because Wagner and Bunting, effectively, with most of these murders,

tried to say that they weren't involved.

They needed to rely a lot on the evidence that was gathered

from

Vlasakis largely, but also from the bodies themselves to see what these men had done to them.

But there was quite a bit of detail that came out as well.

What sort of detail are you talking about?

Well, they spoke about not just the use of these recording materials, but they talked about, unfortunately, the torture that a lot of these victims suffered at the hands of these men.

And terribly,

the judge spoke about how much they enjoyed it.

Talked about that they weren't doing this because they were targeting pedophiles or homosexuals.

They were doing this because they enjoyed it.

the money that they gathered at the end of it was just a byproduct.

It wasn't the main reason for what they did.

They did it because it had become something they enjoyed more and more.

And you can see it.

I mean, they started back in 1992,

but there wasn't another murder for another couple of years.

And then, but in the last couple of years before they were eventually caught, there were, you know, that's when most of the murders occurred.

Yeah, it is such a brutal and confronting.

you know, murder or series of murders, right?

You know, we've got 11 murders that, you know, this group was convicted of.

What sentences were Bunting and Wagner handed at the end of that?

They were given the life sentence that you would expect for serial killers,

but also they were given non-parole periods.

So

the judge effectively said, no, these men should never

see the light of day again.

There's no sign of contrition.

And he said

in his sentencing remarks that he could not see a time of them ever getting parole.

And James, I mean, 11 months is such a long time for a trial.

I mean, you know, sometimes you'll have kind of federal court cases, really technical cases that will go for a very long time.

But, I mean, you know, criminal trials don't tend to go for almost a year.

Was a lot of the reason for that just that there was so much evidence.

So there were so many people who had to sit in the witness box and just be asked questions about what happened and what they remembered and what unfolded.

That's exactly right.

I mean, you recall that they were actually accused of 12 murders and they had to go through all the details surrounding those murders, all the witness statements.

They had to go through all the evidence, the forensic evidence involved.

Can you imagine being on that jury and saying to your work, sorry,

I'm out.

I'll see you in 12 months.

But no, there was so much for them to do.

And in the end,

there was one victim, unfortunately, they couldn't reach a verdict on, and that was Suzanne Allen.

So effectively, they could have had a retrial and gone back and had a look at that.

But in the end, they decided not to.

And they sat with those convictions for 10 murders for Wagner and 11 for Bunting.

Yeah, I imagine the amount of evidence, the number of witnesses, I mean, I think back to the Aaron Patterson trial and, you know, like a few days of, you know, cell phone tower evidence, right?

Something like that.

You know, this, you would have just weeks of forensic evidence, you know, people talking about, you know, the situations in the bank vault, you know, the different, the ways things were found in houses, all of that detail just being unpacked in such detail.

And I mean, yeah, I can't imagine being on a jury having to sit through that for all of that detail for that amount of time.

And then you're having to make a decision, decision on all of that.

There is a fourth person who was involved in these murders who we actually haven't spent much time on in this series.

That was Mark Hayden.

Now he was charged with two murders, that of his wife and of Troy Yud,

but the jury couldn't reach a verdict on them.

Can you take me through his trial?

What happened at that?

Yeah, Mark Hayden managed to get his own trial.

So he was separated out from Wagner and Bunting by his lawyers.

So he did.

He faced the two murder charges and seven charges of assist offender.

And he was found guilty of the seven charges of assist offender.

He got

25 years' jail and a non-parole period.

I think it was around the 18-year mark.

And James, I mean, he's convicted of basically assisting these guys, assisting offenders.

What did we hear during that trial about what he was doing, though?

What was his role?

He was very much the lackey.

He was the guy who would be transporting the bodies.

He had barrels in the back of one of his cars for a period of time.

He would be around

while these murders were taking place.

He would be storing and shifting and doing effectively what Bunting and Wagner wanted him to do, or Bunting really as the ringleader.

His trial heard that he was getting more and more fearful that he was going to be murdered himself.

His wife had been murdered.

So he, their argument from his lawyers was that he was just sort of couldn't help but be dragged along because he could easily be the next person to be targeted.

I mean in our last episode you you talk about the press conference going to the press conference about the disappearance of his wife and realising that that he's not there, that instead it's Elizabeth's brother who's at that.

And, you know, when you ask that question, the kind of glance between the police officers and how telling that is.

And I've been thinking about that, you know, a lot as they were getting closer to uncovering all of this.

And if you haven't listened to our first episode with James on this, I recommend jumping back into the case of feed and having a listen to that because, yeah, there's some really interesting insights from that episode.

James, when we get to Lesakis's trial, I mean, this is actually the first one.

first lot of the proceedings.

And I mean, I say trial, there wasn't actually a trial.

You know, he pled guilty to four murders.

What did that mean for how that process unfolded of him being, I guess, convicted of them?

Well, he was the first to be dealt with.

So he was, like I say, there were a lot of suppressions around him.

So a lot of the detail really started coming out more during the Wagner and Bunting trials.

But he got his

life sentence,

but he also got...

26 years parole.

They gave him the chance of actually getting out and getting a chance

to live a life.

Yeah, and I mean James, he has, you know, he's convicted of the murder of four people.

Who were those four people?

Well, his first victim was his half-brother, Troy Eude.

Then

a short time later, Fred Brooks was killed.

He was involved in that.

And these are all happening in just a matter of months apart.

And then there was Gary O'Dwyer.

And then the last victim, David Johnson, who was murdered just days before the bodies were discovered.

I think we spoke about David Johnston in our last episode as well.

Yeah, kind of lured to the bank vault in Snowtown.

Most of these murders happening in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.

But yeah, David Johnston lured to the bank vault in Snowtown and killed there.

Yeah, as you say, not long before

this was all discovered and their arrests started being made.

I mean,

what was Versakis' relationship to these other people?

Well, the first victim that that Vorsakis was involved with was Troy Eude, who was his half-brother.

Now, he confided to Bunting that when he was 12, Troy Yude sexually abused him.

And it was

after that.

that Bunting then woke him up at some time in the middle of the night and that's when they went and effectively killed Troy Yude in a house in Murray Bridge, which is

another location where some of these murders took place.

Now I did read

in the sentencing remarks for Bunting and Wagner that he would have actually got 42 years non-parole.

So he'd be another 16 years away from getting parole if he hadn't assisted the police.

So that was an interesting thing that I found in the sentencing remarks.

Do you remember much discussion as that, you know, as that kind of sentence was handed down in the early 2000s around him getting that non-parole period about there being a point where you know he may be back may be allowed back out into the community

i think there was but at the same time when you've got a 26 years sounds like a long time and when you've got a um you know a very important figure who's turned on on the people that he'd murdered with um I don't think it was seen as something that was a terrible sentence at the time.

It's only now when he starts facing the prospect of more or less getting out that people are starting to say there's no way he should get out.

And certainly many of his victims' families believe that he should stay in jail forever.

Yeah, I mean, you know, if everything goes to plan, by the other side of the weekend, he will be on parole, he'll be in the pre-release centre, spending some time there before, you know, heading back into the community, obviously with the restrictions that parole comes with.

And yeah, we'll be looking into more of that in our next episode.

James, thank you so much for taking us through this and giving us insight into these trials from the early 2000s.

And yeah, look forward to having you back with Rebecca Bryce, one of your colleagues, for our next episode when we dive into basically what is happening at the moment.

Thanks, Docie.

Thanks for the chat.

In our next episode, we will be finding out what happens from here, how the Parole Board made this decision to give James Lusakis this opportunity and get an idea of how the community in Adelaide has responded to it.

If you have any questions for James, please get in touch.

You can email the caseov at abc.net.au.

We really enjoy hearing from you and are planning a Q ⁇ A episode in the second half of next week to get to all your questions.

So please get in touch.

Be back in your feed early next week.

So don't forget to jump on the ABC Listener because it's the best place to enjoy the case of.

The case of Snowtown Parole is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

This series is reported by senior reporter James Wakeland and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and thank you to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, our legal queen, for her continual advice to the Adelaide Newsroom and to Audio Studios manager Eric George.

This episode was produced on the land of the Kaurna and Wurundjeri people.

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