Episode 34 - Snowtown/Bodies in the Barrels: Part 1

0:15 Welcome to Two Crime Besties everyone, for another another

0:18 episode. Thank you for joining us.

0:20 Welcome. Welcome, everyone.

0:23 I can't believe we've even managed to get here today, to be

0:25 perfectly honest. I think we're we've discussed

0:27 this morning how just insane everything is at the moment.

0:30 So I think the fact that we are both sitting here ready to go as

0:33 much as we can be, I think for this episode.

0:36 Oh yeah, is a real well done to both of us.

0:39 I agree. It's been a really tough slog.

0:42 I feel like this last, I don't know, this last couple of weeks

0:46 has just been like trudging through mud and so much has been

0:50 going on. We've had busy school things

0:53 happening. We've had busy out of school

0:55 things happening. Yeah.

0:56 And I was just saying to you before we started recording, I

0:59 feel like most years we start to get into the routine and I

1:03 really thrive in that. Yeah, I hang for it.

1:05 Like, yeah, we're talking about how, you know, you're really

1:07 looking forward to getting back in a routine.

1:08 Yeah, but I feel like at the minute I'm just not there.

1:11 No, it's actually stressing me out.

1:13 I don't know. There's just so much going on

1:14 and it's not all fitting in. And yeah, it's just a lot.

1:18 As I said to you, we're not alone because I was talking to

1:21 multiple people. We're at a function at school

1:23 last night and every person I spoke to you, I have to say,

1:27 every female I spoke to said to me the exact same thing.

1:32 Oh, I'm just feeling so overwhelmed.

1:33 Like there's so much stuff on at the moment and everyone and they

1:35 were telling me about like, you know, someone's moving house,

1:38 you know? Like that's the worst.

1:39 Absolutely, but like everyone had like different things that

1:43 were overwhelming them. But so we're not all saying that

1:46 oh, you know, XYZ the exact same things that were too much for

1:49 the beginning of the year. Everyone had their own different

1:51 things on their plate that were. Yeah, overwhelming and too much.

1:56 Yeah. Yeah.

1:57 To top it off, my eldest broke his finger yesterday.

2:01 So, you know, we spent the day in Ed.

2:03 Well, not the day, actually. It was amazing.

2:05 They were great. And we were in and out pretty

2:07 quickly. But I, you know, it's just, I

2:10 feel like that's just been the straw this week that that broke

2:13 my back so. Absolutely.

2:14 I'm gonna see a little love hurt, like at all.

2:16 That's it. And the fact that he's, you

2:18 know, this is not the first time around his recent memory.

2:21 Yeah, he's had a really rough trot the last 12 months.

2:24 He's had a few broken bones and knee things happening and

2:29 anyway, but we'll get through it.

2:31 It's just in the moment, it's a lot to take on it.

2:34 And I've got a feel for him, too, because he's, you know,

2:38 realizing that he's gonna miss out on some sport, which is

2:41 really, really important to him. And so it's sort of managing all

2:44 those emotions and everything. Absolutely from both of us, not

2:47 just him, but me too. Well, 'cause you need him to

2:51 have those outlets. Too.

2:52 Because yeah. He's gotta move to be able to,

2:54 you know, have calmer moments and exactly when that, you know,

2:57 yeah, limits that. I mean, not as, I mean, with a

2:59 finger, it's not as bad as a leg situation like.

3:01 But at the same time, he's still not gonna be playing the

3:04 competitive sports that he would otherwise be doing that.

3:06 So yeah, yeah, it's a lot. A lot it is.

3:08 It is, but as I said, we will get there.

3:11 Yes. It'll all be OK.

3:13 Yeah. So just before we jumped on to

3:16 record this episode, I was like. And we we normally just have a

3:20 bit of a chat about what we're gonna talk about and sort of

3:22 lead into the episode with. And you said in our last

3:26 episode, we said that we were going to do some quizzes about

3:29 our love languages. I clearly forgot to do that.

3:33 So I just quickly did one before we pressed record.

3:36 Well, first of all, it said it was free.

3:38 Yeah. And then it turned out not to be

3:40 free, but I was saying to you, what was one of the questions it

3:44 asked me it. Was like would you prefer?

3:46 Yeah, would you buy? Would you prefer someone bought

3:48 you a drink or touched your face lovingly?

3:50 I was like Oh my God, buy me a drink.

3:52 Do not touch my face. Oh my God, who wants to do?

3:58 Who wants someone like their their their person to like touch

4:03 their face? Gross.

4:06 Say no thanks. Buy me a drink any day.

4:08 Yeah, yeah. Who's choosing that over buying

4:10 you a drink? You know what?

4:12 I'd like to see that kind of person.

4:14 I don't think that person exists.

4:15 No. Well, if they do, they're

4:17 strange. That's weird.

4:19 That's super weird. I love the one you quickly just

4:21 jumped on though. It was like, you know, Oh my

4:22 God, yes, take the bins out without being have being enough

4:24 to. Ask you Yeah, that is my love

4:27 language. Like, yeah, do things without me

4:29 having to ask. Look for things and identify

4:32 things that need doing and do them.

4:34 So I think removing that mental load, that's it.

4:38 I think my love language is Acts of Service, which I think I

4:40 alluded to in that episode anyway.

4:41 Yeah, mine came. I did 2.

4:42 I did actually more than two cause yeah, I found out that

4:44 some of them cost money. You could you get through it.

4:47 There's freaking shit loads of questions like yeah, you do the

4:49 full thing and then you get to the end it goes, yeah.

4:51 Do you get your answers? We'll e-mail it to you when you

4:53 pay $30. Yeah, fuck off.

4:56 Yeah, so I didn't do quite a few of them.

4:58 OK, Yeah, so but two of them that I did do that we're free,

5:02 came out with acts of service. So there you go.

5:04 Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah.

5:06 Do shit for me without me having to tell you.

5:08 Exactly identify need and fulfill.

5:10 That, yes, yes. Because I mean, I think as we're

5:13 just saying, before the overwhelm at the moment, is it

5:15 crazy? It's that we need mental load

5:16 taken off of us, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that'd be lovely.

5:19 That will get me to return the favour in ways.

5:21 That's it exactly. Absolutely.

5:24 It goes both ways. Come on.

5:26 That's it. I know.

5:27 The other one was some I sit on my knee.

5:31 Fuck off. Oh, like, yeah, that was one of

5:33 the would you rather your partner sat on your knee or

5:37 talked to you about their feelings?

5:38 And I was like, well, not sit on my knee.

5:40 Like I'm an adult. Like, yeah, and there's, I don't

5:44 know, maybe. Oh, oh, no, no.

5:47 If Peter had sat on my knee I'd be like oh fuck off.

5:50 Yeah. What are you doing?

5:52 But that's. Not romantic coming and sitting.

5:54 No, that's not romantic. That's just weird and yeah,

5:57 needy or something, I don't know.

5:58 No, not into it. Oh God, I thought.

6:02 Oh. Anyway, we are doing a massive

6:08 case today. Oh, it's.

6:09 Huge, huge, huge. And yeah, so we've decided to

6:12 split it into two for that exact reason, for I think our own

6:16 compartmentalising of the case, but also so like we can get it

6:21 all in because it's just too much.

6:22 There's so much so we're doing. We're talking about the snow

6:26 town bodies in the barrels murders today and next week.

6:32 When I was researching this, I was like, Oh my God, there is

6:36 so, so, so, so, so much. And there's a huge.

6:40 We've had a huge interest in this case as well.

6:42 So we've had quite a number of people ask for it.

6:45 Yeah. And want us to cover it.

6:47 So that's why we kind of kind of doing it now.

6:50 But did you find this one really tough to?

6:52 Or to research real tough. I think I I said to you there

6:56 was a particularly the movie. There's a movie of it that I

6:58 watched that I was like, oh, like I had to actually pause,

7:01 walk away at times. But not only that, during it I

7:05 was like, Oh no, I actually can't watch that so.

7:09 I watched the movie. So the Snowtown movie was made

7:11 in 2011. It is like critically acclaimed.

7:15 It's it is a brilliant movie. I watched it in four sitting and

7:21 I found myself getting so uncomfortable.

7:23 I'm one of those people, like when I watch TV, people watch a

7:26 movie or do anything, I really try not to have my phone in my

7:29 hand or, you know, if I'm watching TV, I'm watching TV.

7:32 Yeah. And especially when I'm doing

7:34 research as well because obviously you want to

7:36 concentrate. But I actually found myself like

7:38 getting my phone and like not wanting to see what was on the

7:41 screen. So I'd be like trying to, I was,

7:43 I don't know, to distract myself.

7:45 Yeah, I was exactly. The same is so confronting and

7:48 they say that the movie is really quite accurate to true

7:52 life events. And I have to agree these in

7:54 terms of the fact the research, I've dance same that it, it, it

7:57 what, what I was cringing at in the movie was then I went and

8:00 read it somewhere as well, like, you know, in, in transcripts, et

8:03 cetera, that I was like, oh, whoa, like, and the movie was

8:07 actually the catalyst for there was a whole lot of this case

8:10 that was repressed and put under orders of not being able to be

8:13 released. And it was the when the the move

8:16 they were wanting to make the movie, they put an application

8:19 to the courts to release that information so that they could

8:22 make the movie and make some of this information public.

8:24 Yes, and names and yeah, places, but also the, you know, the

8:30 intricate details of the murders and those sorts of things.

8:34 So they have used factual information obviously within the

8:39 movie. So it's pretty hardcore.

8:42 It's. Really hardcore.

8:43 Yeah. So the movie was released in

8:45 2011 and these crimes were committed between August 1992

8:49 and May of 1999. So I guess, you know, 12 odd

8:53 years or whatever had no 2020 plus years had gone by.

8:58 Yeah. And No, 10 plus years time maths

9:04 was not great had gone by and but still it was such a

9:11 sensitive time for the people of SA because I read somewhere it

9:16 was an editorial. I think it was might have been

9:19 in the South Australian newspaper where they basically

9:23 said this is burnt into the minds and the experiences of the

9:28 South Australian people of the time.

9:30 And while a lot of it was suppressed in the media, it was

9:35 still, a lot of it was known or even a lot of the details were

9:41 sort of, although they weren't reported through newspapers,

9:44 people sort of knew about the story and knew what was going on

9:46 or knew someone who knew someone who.

9:48 Well, this is the thing. There was over 400 people who'd

9:50 been called as witnesses in the trials.

9:52 So I mean, I mean Adelaide's not the biggest, you know, state of

9:57 our country that, you know, yes, word would definitely travel of,

10:00 you know, someone who knows someone would spread that word

10:04 of what went on, of what each person saw and.

10:07 I think looking back at what was released in the media in 1999

10:11 when this all came to to the fore, there was enough reported

10:15 back then as well. Like I.

10:17 Was know it was bad. It was really bad, yeah.

10:19 And I was watching a I think it was like the seven or Nine News

10:23 coverage of the day. They found the bodies in the

10:26 barrels. Yeah.

10:27 And even the stuff that they were reporting that day about

10:30 what the police officers saw, that was confronting enough.

10:35 Yes. And you can draw your own

10:37 conclusions from even. Just that side of the story.

10:40 There is police officers, a forensic pathologist, all these

10:43 people who went into this scene and who to this day have PTSD

10:47 from that particular day, you know, so it's, it's traumatized

10:52 so many people. I think it's probably worth

10:54 getting into it now because I think So what we're going to do,

10:59 the way we're going to split this up, we're going to actually

11:01 start with the perpetrators and their backgrounds and sort of

11:06 build up to the point where they start the killing spree.

11:11 And then next week, tune back in and we'll actually be going into

11:14 quite a lot of detail about the murders, I think.

11:17 We should say, I mean the the murders are horrific, but the

11:23 the perpetrators lives prior to, you know, perpetrating these

11:28 crimes were horrific. Yeah.

11:31 I've seen that many crimes committed against people in this

11:34 that it is an absolute shit show.

11:38 Yeah, look, I fully agree. And that's why we thought we'd

11:40 go about it by doing this way. Before we get started though, I

11:44 think I need to, we need to sort of say a few things.

11:47 So first of all, we're going to be discussing some really

11:51 horrific things in these next two episodes.

11:53 Yes, we are also going to be discussing crimes against the

11:58 LGBTQIA plus community. We will be using language that

12:03 was used by the perpetrators of yes, these crimes.

12:07 And this in no way reflects our feelings or thoughts towards

12:11 people in the in the LGBTQIA plus community.

12:15 We absolutely do not feel that way.

12:19 We are literally telling factual information, yeah, about this

12:24 story. So.

12:25 And we're here to learn too, in terms of we hope we're using the

12:28 correct language when it is US discussing it from our opinions,

12:31 etcetera. And if we're not, please inform

12:33 us. Absolutely.

12:34 I'm here to learn. Yeah.

12:36 Yeah. And we also, obviously, we want

12:38 to be really sensitive to that. Yeah, in not just in these

12:42 episodes, but in any potential episodes going forward.

12:44 So yeah, we'll always open to that.

12:47 Yeah, so we'll also be discussing suicide, suicide

12:50 ideation as well. So if anyone's feeling a little

12:53 bit sensitive, please, you know, seek help as well.

12:56 Call Lifeline 131114. And yeah, lots of help out

13:00 there. Yeah.

13:02 But yeah, if this episode is not for you, flick on to this one

13:06 and the next one, skip over because there's some whole lot

13:08 of, yeah, sexual assault as well against young children.

13:13 Everything is in this episode. Yeah, Yeah.

13:16 OK, let's get started. I feel like we're putting it

13:20 off, I know, but I'm also really happy to start to read this of

13:24 my brain. Same.

13:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I have to say, it really

13:28 has been a hard slog to research for that reason, like as we said

13:33 about the movie and. But reading what I've read,

13:37 yeah, Yeah, it's a lot, yeah. All right, so the snow town

13:43 bodies and the barrels murders as they have come to be known.

13:46 Yeah, I've just said the town of Snow Town prefer this to be

13:51 called as the bodies and the barrels because we should say

13:55 Snow Town is where the bodies were found.

13:57 Only one murder took place there.

13:59 Everything else took place in other other parts of Adelaide.

14:01 So that's it. Snow Town's well known for this

14:03 when it's really not that major part of the scene.

14:07 Only the end, really. And it was really only at the

14:09 very end. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:11 So Snowtown is actually located halfway between Port Augusta and

14:16 Adelaide. So it's about A.

14:17 Is it about 100 kilometers A? 140 kilometers north of

14:21 Adelaide, yeah. So most of the crimes that we'll

14:25 be talking about take place in Adelaide and and sort of in the

14:28 surrounding suburbs of Adelaide. So, yeah, yeah, just sort of

14:32 maybe keep that in mind. The killing spree took place, as

14:36 I mentioned, between August of 1992 and May of 1999.

14:42 And over that time there were 12 victims.

14:45 As we said, we'll get to all of that in next week's episode, but

14:48 it's just something to keep in mind that, you know, in that

14:51 seven years, there were 12 murders perpetrated against some

14:56 innocent people in the end, some not.

14:59 So we'll get to, again. We'll get to that.

15:02 Yeah. So who were The Who were the

15:04 perpetrators of this crime? Yes, we had John Justin Bunting,

15:08 who was the ringleader, really. He, and this was acknowledged by

15:13 the courts at the end once this all came about as well, that he

15:16 was the ringleader and he was the main perpetrator of all of

15:19 these crimes, his offsider Robert Joe Wagner.

15:23 We had James. Now how do you say his middle

15:25 name? Oh.

15:26 The middle name I'm really I keep.

15:27 I look at it and go spirited spirit.

15:30 Spartan. I think the middle name though.

15:32 Is that his actual father's surname?

15:35 I oh. No, wait, I'm actually it's

15:38 already No Vasakis was hit. No, it's all right.

15:40 Yeah, because I thought, I think Vasakis was his.

15:42 I think. Dad's surname.

15:44 Dad's first name could have been something along the lines.

15:46 Maybe. But anyway, it's spelled

15:47 SPYRIDON, however you pronounce that.

15:52 Apologies. James Vlasakis.

15:54 Yeah, James Vlasakis. In fact, that was the only time

15:56 I wrote down his middle name was here.

15:58 He's off. You know, this is like that

16:00 whole thing with bad people. That Roy.

16:03 He was. He was.

16:04 Bolton with their middle names. Like, what the hell?

16:07 Then we've got Mark Hayden. Yeah, who?

16:11 Look, he was in the end charged as an accessory and and not

16:16 actually of committing any of the murders.

16:18 But again, we will get to all the twins as it goes through.

16:22 Start with John Bunting. Or should we add Elizabeth

16:24 Harvey to that list? Yes, yes.

16:26 And Elizabeth? Harvey Yep.

16:27 So she was Bunting's partner in the end, like.

16:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should say too like these

16:34 though, that who we've named they are are the main culprits

16:37 of all this. There are many other within the

16:40 circle, many people that we could name here, but we won't

16:45 because it will get confusing because there are so many.

16:49 But we'll we're going to focus on them as being the main

16:52 culprits, which is agreed amongst circles of this, but

16:55 there is definitely more people involved in this than just those

16:57 people. There's also a lot of people

16:59 involved involved in that. They knew things and didn't do

17:04 anything about it so you could cast the net that's.

17:07 Exactly right. That's what I mean, there's many

17:09 people that you could attach to all of this as well.

17:11 But these are the the main runners.

17:13 The the, the stay is within most of all the the incidents.

17:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah, all. Right.

17:19 I'm going to start with John Bunting.

17:21 Yeah, I mean. Even before we start with John

17:24 Bunting, let's set the scene of where we are.

17:26 So in terms of where they were living in this town of Salisbury

17:29 North, the way it was described, well, in 1997 there was a report

17:34 done by the State Housing Trust that actually in this document

17:38 labeled Salisbury North an urban crime ghetto.

17:42 So yeah, they were living in this space where it was

17:45 basically Commission housing, you know, as far as the eye

17:49 could say. So this town and space that they

17:52 were living in was that the employee unemployment rate was

17:55 36%. Basically it was not a nice

18:01 place to be. You were everyone that was

18:03 living there was there because of there were ex criminals or

18:07 current criminals. You know they permanently had

18:10 alcohol attached to their hand if not hard drugs.

18:14 That's the community that they lived.

18:16 In it was a very, very low socio economic area.

18:19 Yeah. And as you said, it was all

18:23 government housing. So government supported housing.

18:26 And the government have acknowledged since this that

18:29 setting up Commission housing like that in terms of putting it

18:32 all in one space is not the ideal way of doing that because

18:35 yes, people need support and housing for various reasons, but

18:40 to put them all in together is not ideal.

18:42 It's, it creates an environment that it's not safe.

18:45 Yeah, to put these Commission housings within other spaces and

18:49 in other communities where those supports can be put in place

18:52 far, far better. And with other things around

18:55 them is a far better idea than having these ghettos is what it

19:00 created. Yeah, it's it's it definitely

19:03 created a very interesting melting pot of people.

19:06 So let's start with John Bunting.

19:08 So John Justin Bunting was born on the 4th of September in 1966

19:12 in Queensland in Inala. The, the suburb that he grew up

19:17 in sounds very much like Salisbury North where he ended

19:20 up. So Inala was a very impoverished

19:24 town. Again, a lot of government

19:26 housing. And so John was raised in in

19:31 that environment. And look, he was born to a

19:36 mother who was very conservative.

19:39 She was a homemaker. And so, I mean, she was, she was

19:43 around, but I've heard she was quite emotionally void.

19:48 Yeah. And so she's he's grown up in a

19:51 house where, OK, yes, he's mum's home all the time, but she

19:55 wasn't necessarily nurturing and, and supporting her

19:59 children. I.

20:00 Heard his dad was quite actively involved.

20:03 Yeah, well, no, I don't think so.

20:04 Well, didn't he build him like a space for him to do his

20:08 photography and stuff at home? He did.

20:10 So his dad, his dad's name was Tom Bunting.

20:14 He was, he was a bit of a no hoper actually.

20:18 I think he he saw himself as a bit of an aspiring musician and

20:23 he worked at a sawmill and sawed his finger off and then couldn't

20:28 play. He was like a finger picker

20:29 guitarist. And so then he couldn't do that.

20:31 And then that sort of spiraled him into like a bit of a

20:34 depression. I think the house was described

20:38 as not very loving. There was a lot of physical

20:40 abuse between not only John Bunting and his, like, his

20:45 father perpetrating that on John, but also on the mother.

20:48 So he's grown up in a really volatile household.

20:53 John Bunting reports being assaulted by and raped by a

21:00 friend's older brother. The friend, his friend, was also

21:03 a victim in this situation. And the way he describes this

21:06 event is that he was over at his friend's house.

21:09 His older brother was there and they tied him to a bed.

21:14 So then the older brother had some friends there.

21:16 They tied him to a bed and sodomized him repeatedly.

21:22 It's just horrific. The friends joined in.

21:27 So this was like a group attack. And the incident was actually

21:34 interrupted by the boy's father. And the boy's father basically

21:38 said, oh, get off him, but didn't call the police, didn't

21:41 do anything about it, just said to said to John Bunting, oh, you

21:44 might want to go to the doctor on your way home and get get

21:46 yourself checked out. So with that, the the son who

21:52 was the perpetrator of this crime, when he got caught out,

21:56 he jumped on his bike and fled. John Bunting was walking home.

22:02 The boy on the bike got hit by a truck and killed like literally

22:07 half an hour after sodomizing Bunting, and John Bunting

22:12 decided to just walk home. Now, apparently he was bleeding

22:16 like from the rape. He got home and he had all these

22:21 cuts and stuff on his face because he'd been trying to, I

22:24 don't know, defend himself, I guess.

22:27 Gets home and his mum was just really angry at him for being

22:29 late for dinner. Can.

22:32 You imagine being 8 and that being.

22:35 Eight years old. And it being so like, yeah, oh,

22:38 so that happened. Yep.

22:39 Like just, oh God. I mean, in later years, and this

22:43 is the thing where we go by Bunting's story of this

22:46 occurring, like we, there's no evidence as such, like in terms

22:50 of it occurring. I tried to.

22:51 Find like the the the friend who because because his friend was

22:56 also raped by his brother and the friends of the brother but I

23:00 couldn't actually find anything about him.

23:02 No, so it is, it is Bunting's word.

23:05 And I'm not saying that it's not factual because it's quite a

23:07 story really in terms of the fact of that's that day he gets

23:09 hit by a truck and he's killed. But in late, in later years,

23:12 Bunting talks about the fact of like, you know that Well, you

23:15 know, I didn't need to hunt him down and kill him because he was

23:17 already dead. Like he, you know, so he was

23:19 like, yeah. That's what was coming, Yep.

23:22 Yeah, which is, I mean, really fucked up.

23:25 Yep. But I mean, he's his upbringing

23:29 is really, you know, has brought that to him.

23:31 Like it's just, yeah, can't even imagine.

23:35 Can't even imagine. No Bunting did a few really

23:38 weird things as a kid, and I think that's.

23:40 Yeah. Again, we're building to

23:42 something here, aren't we? Regulations it is.

23:45 Yeah. He'd.

23:46 He was obsessed with chemicals. Yeah.

23:49 And he was obsessed with digging holes.

23:51 Yes. And so this is tunnels under his

23:54 house. Yeah.

23:54 So apparently he, like, screwed up the foundations to the house

23:58 because he dug so far under that he'd actually taken away the

24:02 earth that the foundations were sitting on.

24:04 Yeah. Like the bedrock?

24:05 Essentially like he was, he was putting all like, you know,

24:09 boarding it all in and stuff and, you know, supporting the

24:11 tunnel. Yeah.

24:12 But to think about the house above, yeah.

24:15 Yeah, yeah, this is just, I'm just going to mention this here.

24:18 This is the first time that it made me, this case made me think

24:21 of the Castle, the movie, You know, I dug a hole.

24:25 We'll get to that. We'll get to that a little bit

24:27 later. Yeah.

24:28 So just keep that in mind. This comes up more than once.

24:31 But yeah, he loved digging holes.

24:33 And in terms of like he had an obsession with chemicals as

24:36 well. And he would, he would find

24:39 different chemicals around the house.

24:40 And I think because I think you've said before, his dad was

24:42 kind of a little bit handy and did a few bits and pieces

24:45 building and other things like that.

24:47 And he had, you know, various chemicals lying around the house

24:50 and he would get insects and try to kill the insects in different

24:56 concoctions of chemicals and see what happened.

24:58 And. He he would put them in acid.

25:02 Yes, and see what would happen. And see what would happen.

25:04 Yeah, yeah. But he was really heavily,

25:07 heavily into photography, which which is what then led to the

25:10 chemicals. Like, you know, he basically

25:12 through the act of doing the photography and developing those

25:15 pictures because, you know, back before we had digital photos,

25:18 yeah, you know, to like develop those images.

25:20 It's a very chemical based process.

25:23 And so through that became very interested in the chemicals, but

25:26 he's also very interested in anatomy and he was.

25:29 And so he wasn't, it was not a deal by any means.

25:32 Quite an intelligent person in that respect, far above probably

25:37 most people in living around him.

25:39 Yeah. But obviously school and things

25:42 weren't priority. Yeah, it's probably fair to say.

25:45 I think that's very, very fair to say.

25:47 Yeah. But he, he also then like it

25:48 escalated in terms of then his interest in animals, in terms of

25:52 how like as you're saying they're with insects.

25:54 And then it gravitated towards at the age of 22 when he got a

25:58 job at an abattoir, Yes, and this became a real strong

26:02 influence on him if like he would brag about slaughtering

26:05 the animals and he wasn't actually even when he first

26:08 started there, that wasn't his role at an eventually worked in

26:11 abattoir. He wasn't the one killing

26:13 killing the animals. He did move to that section out

26:16 of showing their strong interest in having a go.

26:18 Which I mean, that's bloody weird in and of it.

26:21 So just quickly going back when he was 13, he met No, no, that's

26:24 fine. I mean, this kind of all ties

26:26 into it. But when he was 13, he met this

26:28 older guy Benny. So thinking of the situation

26:31 that he was living in low socioeconomic area, lots of

26:34 people like around all day, every day.

26:37 And he meets this older bloke named Benny.

26:39 Now, Benny had a very troubled upbringing in and of himself.

26:42 He had his own issues going on and but they really struck up a

26:46 friendship. I think there was something like

26:48 20 years difference in them or something like that.

26:51 It was, it was a significant difference.

26:52 Benny was an adult. Yeah.

26:54 So he claims, so Bunting claims that Benny taught him how to

27:00 kill and that was what they decided to do and it was killing

27:05 animals at this point. But I mean, Bunting's 13 years

27:08 of age and he's got this adult bloke teaching him how to kill

27:12 animals that then to be. Given an adult being a friend of

27:16 a 13 year old. Exactly weird.

27:18 And then the fact of what they're actually doing together.

27:20 Yeah, yeah. That then sparked his interest

27:23 in applying for this job at the abattoir, as you said.

27:26 And because he'd had this, or what Bunting describes as this

27:29 experience already having killed animals, that's how he then got

27:32 to move to the kill floor. And he was, like, cutting the

27:36 animals up once they'd been slaughtered and really, like,

27:42 enjoy relishing in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:45 Like, people very often spoke about the fact that, you know,

27:47 just in, you know, having a beer at the pub kind of situation.

27:50 He'd be like, his conversation wasn't like, you know, I had a

27:52 hard day at work. Wanted to tell you all about,

27:55 like, it was excited over it. It was quite bizarre.

27:59 Yeah. Weird.

28:00 Yeah, Really, really weird. Yeah.

28:02 In his early 20s, he met a woman by the name of Veronica.

28:08 Now, Veronica was uneducated. They met in a metal working

28:15 class, or they were learning to Weld, I think because they had

28:19 to, in order to receive benefits, they had to either be

28:22 working towards a trade or trying to find a vocation.

28:27 And so I believe that's how they met.

28:30 She was illiterate. She was blind in one eye and

28:33 partially blind in the other, and she was partially deaf and.

28:38 She was going to do welding. Well, I guess if sorry, what?

28:42 Maybe she'd exhausted all other options in terms of trying to so

28:45 she could get a welfare. I don't know.

28:48 God, I don't know what her motivation was.

28:52 No, but they met and married pretty bloody quickly, she had

28:58 described Bunting as. Charismatic, she.

29:07 She's literally quoted as as saying he was really

29:09 charismatic. He engaged her immediately.

29:12 Now, what was his motivation behind engaging in a

29:17 relationship with a woman who had an intellectual disability

29:21 who was blind? Mostly blind, mostly deaf.

29:25 It the motivation there, you know, given what we know, he had

29:29 above average intelligence. On that line of that charismatic

29:33 I mean he was there is AI didn't read a reference that an

29:39 employer wrote for him to look for another job and it really it

29:42 said like he's hard working shows initiative, you know like

29:46 he gets the job done really and they really pushed how how much

29:50 of A great bloke he was Mm hmm. So it gives you that whole idea

29:54 like, yeah, yeah, he he wasn't atypical in terms of no, the

29:58 area in that respect, he and. He also wasn't a drug taker at

30:01 that. No.

30:01 So he was not into drugs at all, whereas I could imagine every,

30:05 like a lot of other people in that situation, yeah, drugs were

30:09 just part of their everyday life and that would they were in that

30:12 environment. It would have been very easy for

30:14 him to also engage in those behaviors, but he was adamantly.

30:18 He was 100% not a drug taker. He's also been described as

30:22 manipulative, persuasive, and I I was listening to a podcast

30:27 about him and a woman had described him.

30:33 Apparently he dichmatized people.

30:37 So what? That's not a word I've ever

30:40 heard before. No, no, it's like a it's a

30:42 hybrid word. Yeah.

30:43 It's like he hypnotized them with his Dick.

30:49 Oh, I think he thought he was a bit of a Casanova and a bit of

30:53 AI mean. You look at him and he's.

30:56 Gross. I mean.

30:57 He's little. Yeah, he's very, he's very quite

31:00 short. And I thought somewhat where I

31:02 read that it was described as he got Tubby up each year.

31:06 Like, I mean, by the time you see the photos of him when he's

31:09 arrested, yeah, he's tubby and that he's not attractive.

31:14 No, but women did fall for him like very quickly.

31:17 And I mean look, very low socio economic area.

31:21 The women that he was attracting and who became enamoured with

31:23 him were of low intelligence. And I don't mean that

31:26 derogatory, I just mean that that's he did sort of target.

31:30 People he could manipulate, I think, easier.

31:32 And I think that was the motivation by him.

31:34 Yeah. Veronica.

31:35 Because, yes, he was able to control her.

31:37 She did. And then the welfare payments

31:39 that she would bring in, that's the other thing.

31:41 Yeah. And because she had a permanent

31:43 disability, she actually didn't have to work for a welfare

31:47 payment. No.

31:48 And so that that definitely helped, yeah.

31:50 Because he certainly wasn't really interested in monogamy.

31:53 Oh. No, I don't think he there was

31:55 ever monogamy. No, no.

31:57 And but he wasn't like also someone who I think openly was

32:00 like, I need more women, bring more women.

32:02 Like they just sort of came to him a little bit.

32:04 Yeah, apparently someone described him.

32:06 I can't remember whether who it was who described him in this

32:09 way, but they said he was almost irresistible to a certain type

32:13 of woman. And the more or the more I read

32:15 about him and, and we'll get further into why this word,

32:18 these words were used to describe him that I I feel these

32:20 words describe him as that he was cult like leader.

32:23 Oh yeah, I mean he, he. Absolutely charismatic cult

32:27 leader was is who he was. He could attract people who

32:31 wanted to be around him. And people wanted to do what he

32:34 said to. So if he told you that you're

32:36 going to be his girlfriend, then you're going to be his

32:38 girlfriend. Yeah, probably.

32:39 Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, around the same

32:42 time around Veronica sort of thing, he started getting into

32:44 quite a bit of like this if Nazi sort of rhetoric, ideation,

32:49 ideation. Yeah.

32:51 So but to the point where he tried to join quite a few groups

32:54 of some Nazi groups who told him no, no, no, they kicked him out

32:59 because his ideas were too extreme.

33:03 And these are these are people who are Nazi sympathizers.

33:06 Well, he was and they thought he was too extreme.

33:09 Yeah. I mean, this gives you a really

33:11 good idea of just the the type of person he is.

33:17 I think it's, it's one thing to sort of read about the things

33:21 that he's done and they are like, you can't even imagine it.

33:24 But the fact that people who you would think are possibly like

33:27 similarly minded if they find him too extreme, that's that's

33:30 saying something. Yeah, well, because like, yeah,

33:33 I, I get, OK, so this guy's had this horrific childhood being

33:37 sexually assaulted, you know, awful, awful.

33:41 And I can imagine being so angry about that, that happening to

33:44 you of like, I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen to

33:45 anyone else. And there's a level of that that

33:47 I can completely sympathize with.

33:50 But then he takes it to so extreme levels of like, he, he,

33:56 there's so many people around him that have also experienced

33:59 these situations and being assaulted themselves or their

34:01 children being assaulted. And it's like, so they're all

34:04 like, you know, yes, yes, like we need to do something about

34:07 this. And that I can understand, I can

34:10 fully get on board with a group of people all feeling the same

34:14 anger around these things are going on.

34:16 It's just then how he then goes about doing that, obviously, and

34:21 where and then that the fact that that became misplaced, a

34:25 misplaced, but also then it it shifted from that being his

34:28 motivation. Will will he use it as an excuse

34:32 for his motivation? Although at the end of the day,

34:34 that wasn't true. Yeah, we'll get into that.

34:37 But there's so much in that. Yeah.

34:40 So he's obviously then moved to from Queensland before, you

34:45 know, all this and he's moved to Salisbury North in South

34:49 Australia. Do you know why he moved?

34:51 No, no, I I couldn't find why he moved either.

34:54 No. So I'm not sure what the

34:56 motivation was to move from Queensland down to SA, but he

35:01 ended up where he ended up. Yeah, all right.

35:04 For these poor people around him.

35:05 Poor, poor people. I don't think it would have

35:08 mattered where he was, but. He just happened to be the

35:11 absolutely SA. I completely agree.

35:12 I think this would have occurred with him being the central

35:15 point. No matter where he was, he would

35:17 find that kind of area. Yeah, that would he'd find these

35:20 people, these like minded people.

35:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So his main offsider was Robert

35:26 Wagner? Yeah, he was born on the 28th of

35:29 November in 1971 in Parramatta. So he was born in New South

35:33 Wales. He so he's what, five years

35:37 younger than Bunting and really looked up to Bunting.

35:41 Although Bunting had to look up to him because.

35:43 He was so much. Totally good point.

35:49 They met in 1991 in Salisbury North.

35:53 Similarly, Robert Wagner, I'm not sure the motivation of why

35:56 he moved, but he moved from NSW to SA.

36:00 Yeah. Do you know why?

36:03 No, because hang on. So he must have done that quite

36:06 young or when did he move there Was he did he move to Salisbury

36:11 North with Barry Lane? Yes.

36:17 Yeah, yes. So it would have been with him

36:20 so because when he was a child. So he was 18 when he moved

36:24 there. Yeah.

36:24 So when he was 14, yeah, Wagner was pulled under the wing of a

36:31 man by a woman by the name of. So I'm going to stuff that up.

36:34 He identified she identified as female by that stage.

36:38 No. Well, I believe at the point.

36:41 So when you read any reference to this at that time point, she

36:46 is referred to as Barry Lane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

36:49 All right. Well, so so Barry Lane sort of

36:51 took Wagner under his wing. Barry Lane was a known.

36:56 He was known to be trans and he would dress female.

37:00 And he also, well, yeah, presented as gay.

37:06 But he spent a lot of time with Wagner as a child.

37:08 Who he Wagner had already been sexually assaulted when he was

37:13 seven. Yeah.

37:14 He couldn't read or write. He he'd already tried to take

37:18 his own life using his mum's sleeping pills.

37:21 Yeah, so he was only 7 years of age, so he'd he'd endured a

37:24 sexual assault. He then tried to kill himself.

37:28 Yeah, his parents didn't give enough of a shit about him to

37:31 even care whether he went to school or not.

37:33 No, he just roamed. The he just literally at the age

37:35 of seven, Oh my God. Like we've got 7 and 8 year

37:38 olds. Like Can you imagine?

37:40 No way in hell. But I mean, obviously I just

37:43 can't imagine that I. Can't imagine, no.

37:46 So his mum had already had was attempting suicide as well.

37:49 Yeah, to say I mean, so I think he basically what he did was

37:52 what his mum had done and tried to do things that way yeah, he

37:55 just. He'd been witnessing those

37:56 things. Do you know if?

37:56 His parents knew about the sexual assault or did they just

38:00 not care? I don't think they really cared.

38:02 I don't know. I couldn't be.

38:03 That's from my take of that was that there was no interest in

38:07 him as in that point they did show interest slightly when he

38:11 disappeared, you know, because he was roaming the streets and

38:14 met up with this Barry Lane and. When he met Barry Lane, yeah, he

38:18 was 14 years of age. Yeah.

38:19 Barry was 30. Yeah.

38:22 Yeah. Just fucking watch.

38:24 And it was a pretty much, well, I think it was just known that

38:28 they were in a sexual relationship at that point.

38:30 Yeah, which just. So at this point, Barry Lane is

38:34 cross dressing. So he's trans.

38:37 Well, transge he's and he's starting to take female

38:41 hormones. So he's starting the transition.

38:44 He's a known pedophile. And I just even though, so

38:49 apparently Robert was quite big for his age, so he was actually

38:52 quite tall. I mean, we, we, we know he's a

38:54 tall, ended up being a tall man, but people thought he was much

38:59 older than what he was. Barry Lane knew for sure how old

39:03 he was and was clearly exploiting that.

39:06 Yeah, apparently when he disappeared.

39:09 So Robert has gone missing at the age of 14 under the wing of

39:14 Barry Lane. Yeah, and his mum did care.

39:17 Yeah, she did look like and report him missing.

39:20 Yeah, they did. She did do the right things.

39:24 But they didn't they nobody found them.

39:26 But the two of them are gone. They were gone for four years.

39:29 Yeah, and that apparently I read somewhere that the authority

39:32 said to Robert's mum, to Wagner's mum.

39:35 Well, he's almost of age so. Yeah, just.

39:38 Like he'll be fine. It'll be right.

39:41 And then when they returned, they were just an openly gay

39:44 couple. Yeah.

39:45 Like, so he's now 18, I guess. So he's legal aged now at this

39:48 point. And so, yeah, they were just an

39:49 openly gay couple. But it was very clear it was a

39:52 very volatile relationship between the two of them.

39:54 There was definitely violence. There was definitely also

39:56 bestiality occurring. Oh, my God.

39:58 They had multiple dogs that in the home that they were living

40:02 in. This was.

40:04 And so this was just common fact.

40:06 Yeah, they moved. They moved into a house down the

40:08 street from Bunting at this point, and they they owned a

40:12 Doberman and an Alsatian. The house was apparently

40:17 absolutely disgusting. There was like animal excrement

40:22 in the house. There was like rotting food.

40:26 There were rats. It was just uninhabitable

40:29 really. But they lived in that

40:33 environment, in that absolute filth.

40:37 Apparently Barry Lane would, but he preferred the Doberman and

40:41 would penetrate the Doberman. Oh.

40:46 It's I just oh, revolting, revolting.

40:52 Oh my God. Anyway they.

40:54 Befriended bunting because like attracts like.

40:57 Well also though, Magna wasn't gay.

41:00 No. Well, Wagner didn't know.

41:02 I think as in he has gotten caught up in this relationship

41:06 with Barry Lane because he was vulnerable.

41:08 He was fucking 14 years of age when this all came about.

41:11 He was basically like brainwashed into this

41:16 relationship. And you know what?

41:18 He was probably looking for some kind of connection that he'd

41:20 never had with his mum and dad. He'd never felt like he belonged

41:23 anywhere. And Barry Lane obviously made

41:25 him feel something that he'd never felt before.

41:27 I. Think he was?

41:28 Well, he was kidnapped. Well, he was absolutely

41:32 kidnapped. Absolutely.

41:33 Like, yeah, he was probably what do you call it when you look for

41:37 your the kidnapper as a as a friend almost.

41:41 Like what's that called? Stockholm Syndrome syndrome?

41:43 Yeah, A. 100% Stockholm syndrome.

41:45 Like, yeah, yeah, no, he thought that Barry Lane was someone.

41:50 He was, you know, in that model, that mode of like a parent

41:53 figure that he was having a sexual relationship with.

41:56 And I mean, how much to, I mean, oh, well, that would fuck

42:00 someone up. Oh, no end, no end.

42:04 And clearly did. Like, absolutely.

42:07 I find it really bizarre that Bunting sort of befriended them

42:11 though, because Bunting hated gay people, hated homosexuals,

42:14 yes, hated pedophiles. And Barry Lane was a fucking

42:17 pedophile. He was fucking a 14 year.

42:18 Old where Wagner and Bunting sort of got on this page of like

42:23 this. Barry Lane has done this to you.

42:24 You you're, you know, like that. You've been, you've been

42:26 sexually assaulted. You're not gay.

42:28 So because but what I but I mean, it's it's widely known,

42:32 though, that at at this point, yeah, Bunting has accepted Barry

42:38 Lane just for who he. Is Oh yeah.

42:39 At that point I think, well, he was, he's, he says that he

42:43 brought, he was brought him in because Barry Lane knew who, who

42:46 all the other paedophiles were. Yeah.

42:47 And could give him that information.

42:49 Yeah, yeah. And he was kind of informing on

42:51 all the other paedophiles and homosexuals in the area.

42:54 Yeah, who Bunting wanted to get. Yeah, And so and the way like

42:57 sort of bunting really infiltrated Len Wagner was that,

43:01 and I find this so fucked up. So Bunting was would have Wagner

43:05 come over to help him learn how to read and write.

43:08 Yeah. And he would do lessons with

43:10 him. And I mean, Can you imagine like

43:12 this person, like who's LED this kind of life with Bunt with

43:15 Barry Lane, then all of a sudden having this friend who wants to

43:18 teach you and be, you know, and. And Bunting was that.

43:23 Yeah, he was charismatic, he was engaging.

43:26 He he really manipulated people in the way that spoke to them

43:30 the most. And Wagner was craving that it.

43:33 Was all the while he's teaching him to read and write, which is

43:36 something, you know, like he life skill that he'd never been

43:39 taught before and needed in life to make any, you know, move in

43:44 life in general to, you know, move away from Barry Lane.

43:46 Yeah. While while he's doing this,

43:49 Bunting is indoctrinating him in this all this, you know,

43:53 spouting all these things around, you know, pedophiles and

43:56 gays that that Barry Lane couldn't separate the two.

43:58 If you were gay, you were a pedophile in his mind and and.

44:01 We by no means no means no no means link the two.

44:07 He believed he called females that pedophiles.

44:10 He called them tooth fairies. Yeah, he'd had these very warped

44:15 ideas around what being gay was and immediately, just yet that

44:21 you were a pedophile. So he hated pedophiles, gays and

44:23 drugs. There were these three things

44:26 that were absolute, you know, God awful things.

44:29 And you couldn't be either one of those a drug addict, a

44:31 pedophile or gay. Couldn't be worse.

44:33 Couldn't be worse. Humans, yeah.

44:36 So at this point Bunting is using lanes knowledge of local

44:43 people to identify the pedophiles in the area and they

44:47 created what they called the wall of the spider wall spiders.

44:51 Yeah, the. Spider wall.

44:52 And this was it literally looked like an F, you know, one of

44:57 those like FBI walls. And it's got like pictures of

44:59 people and their names and addresses and they've got

45:01 strings attached to like see who's perpetrated on to and

45:06 who's connected to who. And I mean, again, that shows a

45:10 level of organization and intelligence on his behalf to be

45:13 able to do that. But then he was for the people

45:15 he had phone numbers for, Bunting would then call them,

45:19 abuse them over the phone, threaten them.

45:22 For the people that he had addresses for, he'd drive by and

45:26 he'd like throw rotting meat at their houses.

45:29 He'd actually spray paint and, like, tag their homes with like,

45:32 pedophile or other, you know, you know, just other things, you

45:38 know, other awful things. He'd like spray paint their

45:40 homes with that. Yeah.

45:42 And so he really, I guess, used Lane's knowledge in that, in

45:48 that respect. Mm Hmm.

45:50 Craziness. Oh, God.

45:52 Just terrible. Horrific.

45:54 Yeah. The next Are we up to Mark

45:56 Hayden now, do you reckon? Yeah, we'll jump to him.

45:58 Yeah. Yeah, so Mark Hayden was born on

46:00 the 4th of December in 1958. He also met Bunting at a

46:04 metalworking slash welding course.

46:06 So I don't know if it was, I don't think it was the same one

46:09 that he'd done when he met his wife.

46:11 No, I think it was in A at a different time.

46:14 Yeah. So I mean, how many metalworking

46:16 and welding courses can one man do?

46:18 But anyway, here we go. Really great way to, you know,

46:21 find your little cult lead that followers.

46:23 Yeah, and that's exactly, exactly what he found in Hayden,

46:26 wasn't it? Yeah, he, Hayden developed an

46:29 absolute admiration for Bunting, thought the light shone out of

46:35 him and couldn't believe he'd met somebody so amazing.

46:38 And so just like with his head screwed on and like he was just

46:42 like everything he said, he was so right.

46:44 He was on the money about everything.

46:46 And. And he really drank the

46:48 Kool-aid. Big time.

46:49 Yeah, Yeah. So the four of them became

46:52 really close. I'm talking now about Bunting,

46:56 Wagner, Lane and Hayden. So we've got the four of them.

47:00 None of them have gainful employment, so they would spend

47:04 all day sitting around Bunting's house slagging off in what they

47:09 called, in their terms, gays and pedos.

47:12 And they just would would like really riling each other up.

47:16 Can you imagine what that environment must have been?

47:18 These four grown men just getting together every day.

47:23 Well, they did. They would just sit around the

47:25 kitchen table and have these, you know, sessions, Yeah, where

47:29 they would speak this shit. Oh.

47:35 Gross, Mark Hayden. Just real quick because we we

47:38 will get to this in next week's episode, but Mark Hayden wasn't

47:41 the sharpest tool in the shed. No, he was really low

47:44 intelligence. Yeah, and he actually did some

47:47 really silly things. Most notably, though, he was the

47:52 one who rented the bank in the the old disused bank in

47:57 Snowtown. He used his real name.

47:59 Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah.

48:03 Yeah. He was not a sharp tool.

48:06 So his wife was Elizabeth Hayden Hayden.

48:10 Yeah. There's a couple of Elizabeths

48:11 in this story, so yeah. It's and and not not dissimilar

48:15 surnames too. It's.

48:17 Hard to keep track when you. I actually had to go back and

48:20 forth, Go hang on. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

48:21 Yeah. Which one's which again?

48:23 Which one's which? Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

48:26 Look, I don't have as much on Mark Hayden, but I'm fairly

48:29 certain that I don't know what his childhood was is exactly.

48:33 I don't know if you've got any more on that, but no, I don't.

48:35 I mean, I can't imagine it being much better than the others in

48:38 this story. He, as I said, the most I knew

48:41 of of him in terms of prior to this was his low intelligence.

48:44 Yeah, because there's a lot of stuff on him that's been

48:47 suppressed in the court documents.

48:50 Yeah. So it was a bit, it's a bit

48:51 harder to find out information about him.

48:53 Yeah, that is. And that is well, yeah, we can

48:55 get to where that is next week because, yeah, there's there's

48:58 reasons for that. Yeah.

49:00 Next on my list, I've got Jamie Vlasakis.

49:02 Yeah, I'd want to hear your opinion on all on him.

49:04 I am. So if you watch the Snowtown

49:07 movie that we that we were discussing earlier, he is sort

49:12 of things the the movie really sort of focuses on things from

49:16 his perspective. Yeah.

49:17 And so, well, I'm, I'm really curious to see what you think

49:22 too, because I'd actually already started my research into

49:26 this before I watched the movie. And the movie did change my

49:33 perspective a little bit, OK, because I actually developed and

49:37 I think the movie wanted this, but I did develop a little more.

49:42 I don't know if sympathy is the right word, but maybe more.

49:47 I don't, I don't even know what the right word is, but it gave

49:49 me more context for him and why he did the things he did.

49:53 And I know we've discussed the past of these other perpetrators

49:58 as well, but he but Jamie Vlasakis was so young and he was

50:03 so influenced and he had no hope in life.

50:06 Like, it's like he was born predestined for this to be his

50:12 life. And so I can't imagine how he

50:15 could have gotten himself out of it and the way he just further

50:20 became. And again, this is like that

50:21 cult shit we're talking about. Yeah.

50:23 With Bunting, Vlasakis kind of had no choice but to go with it

50:27 because otherwise he would have ended up in the barrel.

50:29 Well, this is the thing. I mean, let's just put into

50:31 context who Jamie is. Yeah.

50:33 So his mother is named Elizabeth Harvey.

50:37 Let's like clearly say there's there's Hayden that is married

50:41 to Mark Hayden, but then there is Elizabeth Harvey, who is not

50:47 married to Mark Hayden. No.

50:50 So yeah, Elizabeth Harvey had a number of different partners and

50:56 she had a number of children, two different fathers.

50:58 Yep, he had three sons. Jamie Vlasakis was her second

51:03 child. Yep.

51:04 Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry.

51:07 So there's. Oh, you might.

51:09 No, there's because there's three boys.

51:10 He she had two Vlasakis, but prior to that she had Troy, OH.

51:15 Yeah. Yeah.

51:16 To another father, yeah. Then there's a stepbrother as

51:19 well in the family who we'll get to as well.

51:22 Yep. So there's a number of children

51:25 that are linked to her within this story.

51:27 And when Elizabeth Harvey met Bunting, so she lived in the

51:31 same sort of St. basically. And what was happening was that

51:37 her children, she had a partner at the time who was sexually

51:40 assaulting her children. Barry Lane living down the road,

51:44 was watching this go on. And he weirdly enough, decided

51:49 to go to Elizabeth Harvey to well, basically, I think what

51:52 basically what happened was he was like, oh, one piece of this

51:54 action on these children. So he went in to tell Elizabeth

51:57 Harvey, Hey, do you know that your partner, he's he's sexually

52:01 assaulting your children thought, you know, as if like

52:04 he's some sort of king of coming in and saving the day.

52:06 But that basically made her go, oh, this is someone I can trust

52:10 because he's telling me about what's going on with this other

52:12 bloke that allowed Barry Lane access to her children.

52:17 So then Bunting and Wagner rock up on her doorstep to go, hey,

52:24 Barry Lane is also doing this to your children.

52:26 So they are then. Then she's basically because by

52:29 this stage she's in a mental state of absolute wreck.

52:32 Like she was legit actually having full blown split

52:36 personality situation stuff. Apparently she would get in a

52:39 bath and just yelled at her name was Laura and stuff like that.

52:42 Like she was not in a good way at all.

52:46 And look to be in a situation where you're living in that kind

52:50 of an environment and not knowing how to get your children

52:53 to not be sexually assaulted by your neighbors, etcetera.

52:57 I can't even. And she so she couldn't cope

53:00 with all this. She was a drug user, all these

53:01 sorts of things, Bunting and Hayden, sorry, Bunting and

53:06 Wagner have rocked up to her house and sort of became these

53:10 gurus to her of like saving the day going.

53:13 This is shit. These pedophiles all live in our

53:15 neighborhood. We need to.

53:18 And so she really became glued to this situation.

53:22 James, James being her son, living in the same, under the

53:26 same roof as all this talk happening.

53:29 And he's, I'm he's very young. It was like, I think he was 13

53:33 at that point. I think he was 12 when they met,

53:36 but I think 13 by the time all of the discoveries in terms of

53:41 the sexual assaults came to the fore.

53:43 Yeah, yeah. So he's young that he's then.

53:47 I mean, he's already had a shit show of a childhood.

53:51 His his father, James's father was very abusive sexually

53:56 assaulting him, him and his half brother Troy and his other

54:00 brother as well. Well, I think at least one of

54:02 his other brothers. I thought it was.

54:03 Both of them could be, it might not be.

54:05 Well, no, they were all living in the house, so I think it was

54:08 all of the boys. His the his so James's father

54:11 who was the father of the three boys he could have been sexually

54:13 assaulting. Definitely like all three of

54:15 them, but also then the 4th being the older half brother

54:18 Troy. So his his name was Troy.

54:20 You'd so. Different father.

54:22 Different father. Yeah.

54:23 So I mean, and then Troy then started to also sexually assault

54:29 James. So it became this.

54:31 That's what life was. It's absolutely awful.

54:35 He had. So up to the age of 1213 and

54:39 meeting Bunting, he had already, James had already lived a

54:42 horrific childhood. I believe it already at 13,

54:46 definitely 14. He was using heroin.

54:48 He was 13. He was starting to spiral into

54:52 that sort of that cycle of addiction, yeah.

54:55 Which bunting was so anti any drug use?

54:59 Yeah, yeah. So Lasarcus's biological father

55:03 died when Lasarcus was 10 years of age.

55:07 Do you know how he died? Yes.

55:08 How did he die? So for Sarcus's father, he died

55:11 of a heart attack on the kitchen floor, right in front of James.

55:17 He watched him die. Yep.

55:20 Yep, absolutely. I mean, for any kid to, no

55:24 matter what they thought your father's done to you, there's an

55:26 innate, you know, natural thing where it's your father.

55:30 See that? And to watch a person die in

55:33 front of you would be, yeah, that is also traumatizing.

55:37 And I think, I think the heart attack was born of just a whole

55:41 cocktail of drugs that I think he was 42.

55:43 Yeah, he was 42 when he died. Yep, Yep, Yep.

55:46 So, Oh my God, it's just unfathomable what these poor

55:49 boys have. The environment in which they've

55:52 grown up. Yes.

55:53 When, When Lasarcus. So when Jamie Lasarcus met

55:58 Bunting, Bunting was this. He didn't take drugs.

56:02 He was, you know, this upstanding man who'd come in to

56:05 save the day. And he was, you know, he was

56:09 basically making the people who'd assaulted Lasarcus and his

56:13 mum made it, made them pay for it like he was, he was a real

56:18 father like figure. And I think Lasagas really,

56:21 really bonded with him very, very quickly because it was the

56:25 first time in his life that someone had stood up for him and

56:28 someone had well to, to Jamie's at Jamie's perspective had

56:33 actually, you know, wanted to do right by him.

56:37 You know, he was fighting the good fight on his behalf.

56:40 Yeah, yeah. He really?

56:42 I think Lasakas really worshipped Bunting.

56:46 I think he, it would have been and so beyond confusing for him

56:51 in that knowing because I mean, yeah, at 1314 he knows what's

56:55 right and wrong, yeah, but what's happened to him is so

56:58 fucking wrong. And then, yeah.

57:03 So Elizabeth Harvey and Bunting eventually started a

57:07 relationship. Yeah.

57:08 And Bunting actually just kicked his wife out one day.

57:12 Apparently, he just came home and he's like, yeah, I don't

57:14 want you anymore. Like, you can just fuck off.

57:16 Yeah. And look, where did she go?

57:19 What happened to her? Like, seriously?

57:22 But Elizabeth just moved straight in.

57:24 Yeah. And moved in together.

57:25 Should also say Bunting has a number of children from

57:28 different to different women that he has had no no contact

57:32 with. Nothing at all thankfully.

57:34 But I mean that's a bit he weirdly enough though.

57:37 Like you look at Jamie, who he, he literally treated him like a

57:41 son. Yes, and and he was his father

57:43 figure, but yeah, what, what, what, what was his motivation

57:47 for being a father figure to him, but not to his own actual

57:50 children? It has to be, to me, the

57:54 manipulation he had and what he thought he could use Jamie for.

57:57 Absolutely. Because I think, you know,

57:59 somewhere deep down, Bunting obviously knew that the things

58:04 that he was doing was wasn't right.

58:06 He didn't want to get his own biological children involved in

58:08 any of that mess. He's kind of like left them to

58:10 the side. I don't think he had any care

58:11 for them whatsoever. I think I have second thought.

58:14 Like, but but he's then indoctrinated this this boy who

58:18 is looking up to him like a dad. Yeah, and actually made him.

58:23 I think he just saw saw him as being going right.

58:26 He's a little protege. Yeah.

58:27 I'll create another one of me. Yeah, and that's like, that's

58:31 exactly what he did, Yeah. Yeah.

58:34 What's your take on Vlasakis? I feel really for him.

58:40 And The thing is, in the same way I in OK, there's a level of

58:43 me that feels for all these characters in this story.

58:46 Yeah. And I'd say that because they

58:48 have all LED horrific childhoods.

58:51 Yeah. And if, and you can only like

58:54 this is all an escalation, as we said, this was always going to

58:57 happen no matter where they lived, like as in whether it was

58:59 Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Adelaide, that to me is just

59:03 you're going to find Bunting was going to find his people to do

59:06 this with no matter what. But these environments breed

59:12 this these behaviors. I agree with that to a certain

59:17 extent. There are also people who grew

59:19 up in these environments who've never perpetrated it.

59:21 Like, you know, once you become an adult, you make choices and

59:23 you make decisions. I understand that's informed by

59:27 a lot of the time informed by your past, but you've got it's a

59:29 bit of a fork in the road type of.

59:31 A situation Who was stepping in with any of this to support?

59:33 Anything. No one was.

59:34 And as you've said as well, there were no social supports

59:37 out there. And it's not like there were,

59:39 you know, government agencies engaging with people in these

59:42 communities. There was no help where.

59:44 Were the police at points, you know, like as in?

59:47 I. Agreed.

59:48 Like I just kind of go like they weren't even known in known

59:51 enough to police for them to kind of go, oh, this could be a

59:54 could be a bunting thing. Yeah, because I mean, let's just

59:57 start with here. I mean, we'll get way more into

59:59 this next week, but the fact is they weren't on anyone's radar.

1:00:04 There were two bodies that were found well before anyone was on

1:00:09 to. To Bunting and what was going

1:00:11 years and years and years. So there was no connection of

1:00:14 this. But you know, we talked about

1:00:16 the fact that there was phone calls being made by Bunting like

1:00:18 he escalated his behaviors to to murder even Yeah, there was no

1:00:23 cop rocking around going. We know what's you making these

1:00:25 phone calls, mate? Like yeah, you know Yep.

1:00:28 They were left to their own devices out in this community,

1:00:31 to be honest, of like, almost like, you know, to me, it was

1:00:34 almost like this. Yeah, go ahead, kill each other,

1:00:36 whatever. Like, we don't really care.

1:00:38 See how you go, I think because yeah.

1:00:40 And then I just think when you get down to it and to the level

1:00:43 of Jamie with how young he was and the stuff that he was

1:00:48 exposed to, like I mean, there was what the older people in

1:00:52 this were exposed to. He was then there's another

1:00:55 escalation of what he was exposed to Jamie that I think

1:00:58 that that's where my I step into the point of like I feel way

1:01:01 more for him than I do the others.

1:01:04 And but also the fact of that at 19 he was caught up like as in

1:01:09 that's when he was convicted. Mm hmm.

1:01:13 To me there's a chance of rehabilitation, whereas those

1:01:15 that are 40 plus going being convicted, I don't see any

1:01:19 chance for them being rehabilitated.

1:01:21 Fully agree with that. Yeah, I fully agree with that

1:01:24 because So that I think the time in their lives when this

1:01:27 happened is critical. Yeah.

1:01:30 So as you said, Vlasakis was still a teenager when this was

1:01:34 all happening, and he he basically had no choice but to

1:01:40 jump on this bandwagon. Yeah, bunting created the

1:01:43 bandwagon. Yeah, Bunting didn't have to

1:01:46 start out this. You're never going to save him.

1:01:48 No, no. But but he also, he didn't have

1:01:52 to start this off. It's not like he'd been part of

1:01:56 something like this, which then led him to create his own

1:01:58 version of it. Yeah, you know, but Velosakis

1:02:01 actually had no choice but to engage with this because

1:02:05 otherwise he, I can guarantee he would have been another victim.

1:02:08 Yeah, had he stood up to this, he knew enough and they would

1:02:12 have gotten rid of him too. Yeah, 100% he was.

1:02:16 So he was on the. He was.

1:02:17 He would definitely have been at some point.

1:02:19 He would have been on their list like, yeah, yeah.

1:02:23 But we can really get into that next week.

1:02:25 Yeah. I think this is probably a good

1:02:27 place to leave it. Do you have anything else to add

1:02:29 on this side of? Things.

1:02:30 No, I think I do a million things I'm trying to like put

1:02:34 put pause on my brain to go. We'll, we'll shift that to next

1:02:38 week. Yeah, all.

1:02:39 Right, we, right, we'll, we will leave it there.

1:02:43 Yeah. So next week, TuneIn, where next

1:02:45 week, it's definitely just getting into the crimes and the

1:02:49 victims in particular and and how it all fit together.

1:02:52 If you think we've said enough now, wait till next week.

1:02:56 Crazy, crazy, crazy. Yeah.

1:02:58 All right. Thank you very much, Crime

1:03:00 Besties. We will see you for Part 2 of

1:03:02 Snowtown next week. Stay here is crime besties.

1:03:04 Bye bye.