{"id":680436,"date":"2026-05-19T08:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680436\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T08:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:44:11","slug":"snowtown-murders-notorious-australian-serial-killer-james-vlassakis-unmasked-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680436\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowtown murders: Notorious Australian serial killer James Vlassakis unmasked for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>T\ufeffhe face of the killer responsible for one of the most notorious <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/crime\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"criminal\">criminal<\/a> cases in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/national\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Australian\">Australian<\/a> history has been revealed to the public for the first time since the murders decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>Snowtown killer James Vlassakis has been behind bars for more than 26 years after pleading guilty to four of the 11 &#8220;bodies in the barrels&#8221; murders in Snowtown, South Australia, in 1999.<\/p>\n<p>His image had been suppressed during his sentence until today, after 9News \ufeffsuccessfully appealed for a secrecy order to be lifted.<\/p>\n<p>Vlassakis dialled into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/south-australia\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"South Australian\">South Australian<\/a> court via video link today, fighting for his release today after serving his 26-year non-parole period behind bars for his role in four of the notorious murders.<\/p>\n<p>He had been handed the non-parole term for pleading guilty and helping convict fellow killers John \ufeffBunting and Robert Wagner.<\/p>\n<p>The 46-year-old was jailed at 19 years old and granted parole in August last year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/bb5f0c66-2fd7-4044-92fc-206547215941.png\"   alt=\"Snowtown killer James Vlassakis.\"\/>Snowtown killer James Vlassakis. (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>However, the decision was overturned \ufefffollowing a successful challenge by the South Australian attorney-general in December.<\/p>\n<p>That is now being challenged by the parole board.<\/p>\n<p>Vlassakis was the youngest of the three men jailed over the shocking Snowtown murders, which were carried out in the 1990s.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Police discovered eight dismembered bodies in barrels in an abandoned bank vault in 1999\ufeff, with another two bodies uncovered in the backyard of fellow convicted killer Bunting&#8217;s former home in Salisbury North, in Adelaide&#8217;s northern outskirts.<\/p>\n<p>Remains discovered in Lower Light were also linked to the case. \ufeff<\/p>\n<p>It was ruled that Vlassakis was coerced by Bunting to kill four victims, including his half-brother and step-brother.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\ufeffhe face of the killer responsible for one of the most notorious criminal cases in Australian history has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-680436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680436","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=680436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}