Snowtown killer James Vlassakis’s image can be revealed after a suppression order made 25 years ago was lifted by South Australia’s highest court.
The state’s Court of Appeal today revoked the order on Vlassakis’s image and description, which was imposed to protect his identity after he gave evidence against the two other killers — John Bunting and Robert Wagner.
Bunting and Wagner are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, while Vlassakis was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 26 years.
Vlassakis was granted parole last year but that was later blocked following a review by Parole Administrative Review Commissioner Michael David KC.
The matter is again before the Court of Appeal after the Parole Board asked for a judicial review of the latter decision.
South Australia’s “bodies-in-the-barrels” serial killings were committed by the three men between 1992 and 1999.
The youngest of the four perpetrators, Vlassakis, was 18 when he took part in the murder of his half-brother Troy Youde in 1998.
Eight bodies-in-the-barrels victims were found in a disused bank at Snowtown in 1999. (ABC News: Patrick Martin)
He pleaded guilty to four of the murders and gave evidence against Bunting and Wagner who were jailed for 11 and 10 murders respectively.
A fourth man, Mark Ray Haydon, was not found guilty of any of the murders but was convicted of helping to cover up seven of them.
He was released into the community in 2024 after serving a 25-year sentence.
Loading