The Snowtown Murders

In May 1999, the decomposing remains of eight people were found in six barrels inside the disused State Bank building in the Adelaide Hills township of Snowtown. Police discovered that 33-year-old John Bunting and his accomplices, Robert Wagner and John Vlassakis, had preyed on the victims, who were known to them, via a network of family and casual relationships, in order to claim their unemployment benefits. The bodies of another four victims were found buried in Bunting’s former backyard, bringing the number of victims to 12 — the worst case of serial murder in Australian history. Several of the victims were homosexuals, and there were elements of ritualistic sexual sadism in the manner in which some bodies were dismembered.