The youngest of the Snowtown serial killers would “likely” go back to prison if he failed a drug test while on parole, the chair of the SA Parole Board has said.
A decision to release so-called “bodies in the barrels” killer James Spyridon Vlassakis was upheld earlier this week when an SA government attempt to block parole was rejected.
The Parole Administrative Review Commissioner, David Lovell KC, found the attorney-general failed to establish that reasons existed to overturn the board’s decision to grant parole.
Parole Board chair Frances Nelson KC told 891 ABC Adelaide this morning that Vlassakis currently remained in prison, but would “at some point” be moved to the Adelaide Pre-release Centre.
“We automatically do that with every life-sentence prisoner because it allows for a period of adjustment,” she said.
Vlassakis was 18 when, in 1998, he took part in the murder of his half-brother Troy Youde, and later pleaded guilty to four of the Snowtown killings.
He was jailed for life but, because he helped authorities, was given a 26-year non-parole period.
A court sketch of Vlassakis from 2026. (Supplied)
In upholding the position of the Parole Board, Mr Lovell noted that it was a condition of Vlassakis’s parole that he would be “subject to random drug testing”.
Ms Nelson acknowledged that Vlassakis had tested positive to drugs several times in jail and said it was “quite likely” that he would be sent back to prison if he failed a drug or alcohol test while on parole.
“We take that sort of thing fairly seriously,” she said.
“He doesn’t have a drug problem currently that we can see.”
Parole conditions outlined
Ms Nelson said Vlassakis would be the subject of what she called “standard conditions” of parole, including a curfew.
“He’ll have to report weekly to [a] community corrections officer and he has a very experienced officer in charge of his case,” she said.
Frances Nelson KC says Vlassakis will be liable to random drug and alcohol testing. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)
“He can’t leave the state without Parole Board permission, he can’t contact any of the victims’ families, there are some geographical exclusion areas where he cannot go because of proximity of victims’ families.
“He is liable to random drug and alcohol testing, he must obey the conditions at the pre-release centre [and] he’ll be sent off for psychological intervention.”
The Parole Board chair acknowledged that there would be “potential threats to him”, which she said had been carefully considered.
“He is well known. He’ll get media attention which most people don’t get,” Ms Nelson said.
The decision to approve Vlassakis’s release has been “very distressing” for families of those he murdered by the Snowtown killers, Commissioner for Victims’ Rights’s Sarah Quick said.
“Despite the fact that they had prepared themselves for this outcome, the news still really came as a shock,” she told ABC News Breakfast.
“It did result in anxiety and grief.”
Sarah Quick is South Australia’s Commissioner for Victims’ Rights. (ABC News: Che Chorley)
Ms Quick said that, as a life-sentence prisoner, Vlassakis would be permanently under parole conditions.
“If Mr Vlassakis breached his parole conditions my office would become involved again and contact the victims,” she said.
Police Minister Michael Brown said restrictions on Vlassakis were purely a matter for the Parole Board, but that he was confident “the maximum level of conditions that are appropriate will be implemented”.
“We’re talking about someone who’s now going to be on parole for the rest of their life,” he said.
“For the next 12 months he’ll be living in the pre-release centre at Yatala and the Parole Board will be monitoring progress and making decisions about what conditions — where he can live, under what circumstances he can live, who he can talk to, when he can go out, what he can do.”
Vlassakis pleaded guilty to four of the murders. (Supplied)
The Adelaide Pre-release Centre is located alongside Yatala Labour Prison in the northern suburbs, and allows prisoners to “transition from custody to the community”.
“Prisoners at the centre are generally in the last 12 to 18 months of their sentence and participate in accompanied and unaccompanied family leave, education, work release and community work programs,” its website states.
But Mr Brown said that, when Vlassakis was allowed to resettle outside the centre, the community would not necessarily be informed of his whereabouts.
“Depending on what circumstances apply, it may or may not be appropriate for people to be told about where he’s living,” he said.
“It’s not my decision to say whether people will be informed or not.”