{"id":680355,"date":"2026-05-19T07:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680355\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T07:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:50:12","slug":"snowtown-killer-james-vlassakiss-suppression-order-lifts-after-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680355\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowtown killer James Vlassakis’s suppression order lifts after 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 John Bunting and Robert Wagner.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Now aged in his mid-40s, Vlassakis was granted parole last year but Attorney-General Kyam Maher later requested a review of the decision on the grounds the Parole Board had “erred in granting the prisoner’s release on parole”.<\/p>\n

Following a review into the decision, Parole Administrative Review Commissioner Michael David KC blocked the decision to grant Vlassakis release on parole.<\/p>\n

The Parole Board later lodged proceedings in South Australia\u2019s Supreme Court to review the latter decision.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

James Vlassakis in custody outside an Adelaide court. (Channel Nine)<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal today heard submissions from counsel for Vlassakis, Lindy Powell KC, as well as counsel for the Parole Board Dick Whitington KC and Solicitor General Mike Waite SC on behalf of the government.<\/p>\n

South Australia’s “bodies-in-the-barrels” serial killings<\/a>\u00a0were committed by the three men between 1992 and 1999.<\/p>\n

The youngest of the four perpetrators, Vlassakis, was 18 when he took part in the murder of his half-brother Troy Youde in 1998 \u2014 a crime he committed at the behest of his stepfather Bunting.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Eight bodies-in-the-barrels victims were found in a disused bank at Snowtown in 1999.\u00a0 (ABC News: Patrick Martin)<\/p>\n

He pleaded guilty to four of the murders and gave evidence against Bunting and Wagner who were jailed for 11 and 10 murders respectively.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He was released into the community in 2024 after serving a 25-year sentence.<\/p>\n

As well as the murder of his half-brother, Vlassakis later took part in the murders of Fred Brooks, Gary O’Dwyer and David Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Snowtown killer James Vlassakis’s image can be revealed after a suppression order made 25 years ago was lifted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[293610,64,63,39107,39115,39105,39104,39111,109894,39113,328134,242301,44,328133,39106,228,39112,39117,40692,1049],"class_list":["post-680355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-accomplice","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bodies-in-the-barrels","tag-frances-nelson","tag-james-spyridon-vlassakis","tag-james-vlassakis","tag-john-bunting","tag-kyam-maher","tag-mark-ray-haydon","tag-michael-david","tag-murderer","tag-news","tag-parole-administrative-review-commissioner","tag-parole-board","tag-review","tag-robert-wagner","tag-serial-killings","tag-snowtown-murders","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}