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You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox Internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox Mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to H2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement of the restrictions apply. Oh, Rizzy, welcome back to the Psychopedia Pod. Kizzy, I am your co-host, Tank the Skivity Rizzler, here with my co-host. Investigators Lizzy.
Yeah, loke. G'day, bloke. Oh, because of Australian. The Sheila is ready to begin. What's a Sheila? Like a girl. I know what a Joey is. Yeah, what is it? Kangaroo. Yeah, it's a roo. It's a kangaroo. I cannot do an Australian accent. You asked me to try and practice it or whatever. I just can't. I could do a sick...
Kendrick Lamar impression. Let's hear that. Give us something. No, no, no, no. Because that kangaroo was a little weak. It was. If a kangaroo grabbed my dog, I would punch the shit out of it, though. He would kick the shit out of you in return. I guess you've never seen the video. I guess I'd like to see you engage in this. You've never seen the video of the guy punching the kangaroo? Um, no, but I have seen kangaroos kicking. No, you need... Well, first of all, you'd be one of those people, no offense, who'd be like... Offense already taken. Ha ha ha!
You'd be like, that's what I would do. Nobody knows what they do in a situation. Basically, a kangaroo grabbed this guy's dog and he ran over and he like squared up with the kangaroo. Oh, yeah. And I would do it. Yeah. And the kangaroo, like he punched the kangaroo. They're sparring. Insane. Yeah. No, he punched the kangaroo. The kangaroo was like, don't touch my dog. Yeah. Don't touch my dog. Sorry, buddy.
Well, we are about to button up part two of this Australian case, which I'll be honest with you.
You could tell me this case was about anything and I'd believe you. I remember absolutely nothing. This is what I was afraid of. Well, we're going to do a recap, aren't we? Absolutely. Which is in no way a substitute for listening to part one. Yes, exactly. This is part two of the Snowtown Murders. Snowtown Murders, that's right. Please listen to part one if you have not already done so. But before we get into the case, why don't we tell our family...
of listeners slash viewers that they can see us on YouTube. They can catch us on Patreon. Oh, yeah. And all that stuff. That's your wheelhouse. Hit it. Please subscribe to our podcast. That came out a little more pathetic than I thought it would. That's exactly how I intended it. I'm going for that subscription. Apple, Spotify, YouTube. If you love us and you're not getting enough of what you want, head on over to patreon.com slash psychopediapod, not psychopediapizzy.
Patreon.com slash psychopedia pod for episodes of Unhinged. Wait for it. Hold on. Listen. Episodes of Unhinged at the Seaman Demon level, at the Little Freaks level, Tankopedia once a month, and also once a month where now it's going to be out by the time this is out. Yeah. Do you want to tell them real quick what's happening? We are doing monthly, full-blown, all the bells and whistles, true crime case on Patreon called, drumroll please,
Slaterpedia. Slaterpedia, yeah. It doesn't roll off the tongue like Tankopedia. Slaterpedia does. I thought maybe Brookopedia. Whatever. Whatever you want. It's a case, it is just an extra case of what you already get and hopefully enjoy weekly for free, but it's an extra one on Patreon along with everything else that Tank just explained. Exactly. So we've been giving you guys stuff that you haven't necessarily asked for for the past year. It's been fun nevertheless. We're catching up. We're catching up to you.
before we duck, dodge, dip, dive, and dodge into this case, I just forced Investigator Slater to watch the Imagine Dragons Kendrick Lamar performance from the Grammys. She didn't know it existed. I was so happy to be able to show that to you because now you'll never forget me. Well, just a little bit. I mean,
Makes me forgive you for when you forced me to listen to Trapped in the Closet. Oh, yeah. Like, this is maybe moving in and replacing that horrific traumatizing experience because that...
Well, they...
They are entitled to feel that way. No, they're not. Nope. What they're trying to do with Imagine Dragons is trying to make them the new Nickelback and I refuse it. I reject that. What the fuck? I never heard that. I reject it completely. Oh, you like Imagine Dragons? You must be fucking dumb and stupid. What if you like Nickelback also? Ask him for a friend. Nickelback is very good. Okay, good. They tour the country constantly. So good that
Your voice is beautiful. I know, I know. And they say that a hero... Did you hear years and years ago, Howard Stern, like, had, I forget the guest, so maybe the story sucks, but he was playing... Feels like it so far. He was playing... Fuck you, fuck you.
Fuck you. He was playing samples of various voices for the guests and he was like, does this person have talent? Does this person have talent? And because this person, this guest was basically saying nobody has talent anymore. Yeah. And he played Nickelback who's very talented. Yeah. And the guest who I don't know was like, no, this guy sucks. And it was Nickelback. Yeah. Well, who the fuck is this guy? And this, I don't know. That's the problem. That's why the story. No, no, that's not the problem. That's exactly the point. Who is this guy? Oh,
I see. Yeah. Who cares? I also want to say one other thing. If you are watching us on YouTube, I'm
I'm tricked out a little bit more than usual. My little gloves and these bomb-ass sunglasses. Got her baking gloves on. These are not baking gloves. These are fingerless lace punk... I don't know. I just feel so good in them. And I feel so good in these sunglasses. I feel like me. I'm going to start to break out of my shell a little bit more on these videos. Yeah, very good. You've been warned. I'm here for it and I support it fully. Thank you. Without further ado,
I'm breaking up. I feel it in my bones. Why don't we get to the case? Let's go. In part one, we kicked off our deep dive into the Snowtown murders, which was a chilling chapter in Australian history marked by extraordinary brutality and a profound psychological impact on the public.
Orchestrated by a gang of serial killers led by John Bunting, alongside his right-hand man, Robert Wagner, and several accomplices you're remembering, these murders spanned from 1992 to 1999. John Bunting, driven by intense animosity towards gay individuals and an unfounded conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia, targeted those he perceived to fit this profile.
Although really, really, I think that he was driven by a madman bloodlust and used that sort of vigilante faux approach as an excuse to kill. Can I tell you something? Yeah. That's what I believe people who, and this is like so out of left field, by the way. Excellent.
That's how I see people blame religion for violence or killing or whatever, like Islamic violence or Christian violence or the Crusades, which, by the way, the Crusades were like fucking 900 years ago. Stop bringing it up. Okay?
But I think people are bloodthirsty killers, like you said, and they just use it to justify. Nothing makes you kill. Being beaten as a child doesn't make you kill. Watching horror films doesn't make you kill. Being kicked in the head as a child in utero doesn't make you kill. It's horrible, but nothing makes you kill. Well, one thing in isolation, I think, is what you're saying. It's got to be a perfect situation.
storm. Don't let them convince you that it's religion that's driving them. They're psychotic assholes, these people who kill in the name of religion. And that's it. Understood. Yeah.
So we've already delved into the gruesome details of the first three victims last week, all of whom suffered at the hands of Bunting, Wagner, and their accomplices. So I'm just going to give you a quick recap, okay? By the way, it is all coming back to me. I'm very excited to hear the rest of this. It's all coming back to me now. That's on you, sister. It's on everyone, unfortunately.
Victim number one was 18-year-old Clinton Trezise, and he met a brutal end as John Bunting killed him with a shovel strike to the head. You remember that? Because it haunted you throughout part one. Victim number two, 26-year-old Ray Davies, endured horrific torture as Robert Wagner crushed his testicles with an iron bar before he and Bunting strangled him. Victim number three, 47-year-old Suzanne Allen, whose exact cause of death remains a mystery still,
was grotesquely mutilated and dismembered. And then in a sickening display, if you recall, John and Robert even pretended to make out with her severed, scalped head before then using it to play a twisted game of football. I remember that. By football, you mean soccer. Oh, yeah. Oh.
Okay, I'm just making sure. Oh, yeah, no, that's good to point out. Okay. As we continue today with part two, we'll explore the rest of the nine murders, because remember how many there were in total, obviously, if you're doing your math, 12, that took place while uncovering more about the motivations and the grim realities of these serial killings. So now we officially embark upon part two. Let's do it.
I'll start by outlining John Bunting's calculated approach, okay? He first gathered a group of vulnerable, easily manipulated individuals whom we dubbed last week as the macabre misfits. All in the same neighborhood. Exactly right. Into his sinister circle. Then he roped them into helping... What do you call a sinister circle? I don't know, because that rolled off the tongue nicely. That's way better than macabre misfits. I have to be honest with you, though. I have macabre misfits throughout the script, so it might be hard for me to switch gears. If I could do that intro...
You can do this. All right. We'll see. Whatever you feel. So then he roped in the members of his sinister circle. See? It's not going to work. It's all good.
into helping him to commit these murders and or of disposing the bodies once the murders were already committed. As we get further into the poisonous weeds of this case, we're going to see that targeting alleged pedophiles became secondary to John's escalating bloodlust. The thrill of the kill is what increasingly drove both John Bunting and Robert Wagner, leading them to repeatedly expand their body count over the course of seven years.
Additionally, all their victims had been receiving government pensions, which Bunting and Wagner exploited for financial gain by forging documents and collecting their cash, adding a perverse financial benefit to their gruesome activities. So they were collecting them after they were dead? Yes. In the end, they wound up stealing $95,000 off their victims. Losers. It's like $10,000 a year. Yeah.
And the crazy thing is they didn't even spend that money. They weren't living lavishly. It's like Robert Pickton, right? Who had all this money and chose to live in filth in a...
whacked out trailer. He's a pig man. He was a pig man, but this is similar. This reminds me of that. You have all the money in the world, essentially, or all the money you could want, and you still live in filth. Yeah, I mean, 95 grand. I wonder why they weren't flying on private jets and buying mansions. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just having a little fun with you. Okay, well. But I'm done. Hilarious. I'm done with fun. Okay.
So at this point in the case, Robert Wagner had officially renounced his homosexuality. Oh, he gave it up. Apparently you can do that. For Lent. For Lent. Giving up dick for Lent. See if I can make it the whole 40 days.
And he got engaged to a woman named Maxine. And the reason, obviously, as if I need to explain this, the reason why he renounced his homosexuality was because he was getting tighter and tighter with John Bunting. Like he killed. And he knew it was exactly, it's a survival thing around this guy. Yeah, for sure. Together, Robert and Maxine welcomed a baby boy. And Robert also became a stepfather to Maxine's three other children.
Embracing community involvement at this point in his life, Robert joined the local school council and trained as a volunteer firefighter. But just as a zebra cannot change its stripes, Robert was still Robert and very much under the influence of John Bunting, who was still John Bunting.
Robert found himself unable to stifle what had become a deep-seated hatred of one of Maxine's openly gay friends, Michael Gardner, who identified as Michelle. Because at this point, Robert obviously is adopting the ideals of John. Yeah. Because that's what a manipulative leader is able to do.
One day while playing with one of Maxine's young sons, 19-year-old Michelle jokingly placed her hands over the child's mouth. And this incident triggered Robert as he recalled his own traumatic past where his sexual abuser, whom I believe happened to have been named Michael, had covered Robert's mouth while assaulting him. So Michelle had to go.
Robert and John abducted her from her house and brought her back to the garage in the house that John was renting in Murray Bridge. Once inside, they tied a rope around Michelle's neck with a slipknot at the back.
The other end was tied to a beam on the ceiling so that each time Michelle weakened or faltered on her feet, the rope would choke her. John and Robert cracked up each time this would happen as they continued to berate Michelle and violently torture her by burning cigarettes onto her arms and electrically shocking her testicles.
And I have a question. Yeah. She's up on the beam with the noose wrapped around her neck and she keeps falling off of it and they keep putting her back up to fall? No. So she's not being hung, right? So she's standing on her feet and they wrapped a rope around her neck and they tied that rope to a beam on the ceiling so that each time she would falter on her feet or she would weaken, it would tighten and choke her. Gotcha. Gotcha.
And then they thought this was the funniest thing each and every time this happened. I mean, these are the hallmarks of sadism. Sounds hilarious. You know what? I listened to an old episode of ours, and it was the one where the guys were going to give the kids on a beach water guns filled with acid so that they could shoot each other. Toolbox killers? Toolbox killers, yes. Motherfuckers. How do people... I mean, I realize in doing what we do, there are many depraved people out there. Yeah. But certain things are on like a
another level of depravity. There is a, like when they say you can't make this shit up, you literally can't. Like it's not, like there's a movie out right now called The Coffee Table. I don't know if you've heard of it before. It's like the most disturbing film ever put out. Oh God, no. This is in the description, by the way. Their baby, the guy drops a baby on the coffee table and the baby's head gets cut off. Stop. And that is, wait, hold on. And that is whole, the whole movie is him trying to keep everyone from knowing what's happening. Yeah.
But that's like, you could never make any of these cases into fictional movies. People would be like, it's too far. It's too fucked up. And it's like, well, this actually happened. Can you imagine sitting around a boardroom and pitching this? No. I mean, and then having people be like, this is amazing. This is going to sell. Right. Yeah.
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.
Okay, so remember, John enjoyed prolonging the pain and humiliation of his victims as much as possible. And this is something that he learned after, if you recall from part one, unfortunately, shooting a dog in his shed. Yeah. And it being so quick, and he realized in that moment that he didn't want quick death. Yeah. He wanted slow, painful, humiliating. Mm-hmm.
Now, with this victim, who was victim number four, for those who are keeping track, John and Robert started to develop a plan for her disappearance while she was still alive. Okay.
Oh. The entire call lasted less than four minutes, after which Robert and John strangled Michelle to death. Forgive me, why did they turn on Michelle?
Because Michelle, apparently when she was playing with one of Maxine's young children, Maxine, remember, is Robert's new wife. Yeah. She put her hand allegedly around the child's mouth and this triggered Robert, who did survive sexual assault as a child. Yeah. And he apparently had some kind of a flashback when he saw the hand over the child's mouth. Yeah, that was it.
John doesn't need really any legit reason to kill. Yeah. So it was, it was unfortunately in the cards for Michelle. Now I've recently, and then we're getting to a pop quiz, but I've recently watched an interview that like came out
very recently, Michelle's sister. And she said that she wants the victims of Snowtown, obviously she's using her, well, brother, but she would probably wish to be referred to as the sister, as like the face of this plight. Basically, she's saying that people associate the Snowtown murders with pedophiles, right? With John Bunting going after pedophiles and
She's saying it's so unfair because the majority of his victims were innocent people that were wrongfully targeted by a madman. And Michelle is one of those victims. I just wanted to put that out there because I feel for her. I felt for her watching that interview. Pop quiz. What nickname did Robert Wagner earn himself and why? Okay. A, Papa Smurf because he enjoyed turning his victims blue.
B, the Jolly Green Giant because he was huge and also would steal the cash off his victims once they were dead. C, Michael Jackson because he would hum beat it while kicking the shit out of his victims. Fuck. Papa Smurf, Green Giant, and Michael Jackson. B.
No, I made that up. Green giant. Yum. That's why I wanted it to be B. I know. C. No, I made that up too. I just wanted to say, beat it. A is my answer. Correct. Perfect. So he enjoyed, obviously, as the sadist would, choking his victims and watching them turn blue. And then he would always have this tagline, which is horrific, that he would say, first they go blue, then they go poo. Wow. Real deep. Wow. But,
but so humiliating to like joke about that. You know what I mean? Yeah, this guy's fucked up. Yeah, he is. I always feel so bad. He is fucked up. And then I like flashback to his childhood and I'm like this poor child Robert, but like disgusting fucking horrendous human being adult. It's two different people. I know. I know it is. This is what we often talk about on Psychopedia. Yeah.
Transitioning now into October of 1997, the saga of violence continued as Vanessa Lane, if you recall, who was Robert's ex-lover slash kidnapper slash abuser. You remember Vanessa? Yeah. Oh, yes, yes. Who by this point is 42 years old and she persisted in her predatory behavior. Now she set her sights on a vulnerable, mentally ill 18-year-old young man named Thomas Trevelyan.
Thomas, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and hallucinations, believed that he was a soldier and often wore army fatigues and patrolled the neighborhood as if on a mission. And even though Thomas had been living with Vanessa from April to October 1997, John and Robert managed to convince him that Vanessa needed to be killed.
John had been out for Vanessa's blood for a long time, but remember, he was using her to identify other alleged pedophiles for his wall of spiders. You remember his wall of spiders? Yes. Can you tell our listeners? The wall of spiders was a wall. Good. We're off to a strong start. Fuck, it wasn't spiders. It was not. Um...
Can you give me a hint? Yeah, so it was like an evidence board. He basically made it look like an evidence board. He put sticky notes of...
presumed pedophiles in the area. And then he connected them with yarn, even though there was no point. There were no connections. He just wanted it to look fancy, like a Law & Order episode or something. Yeah, yeah. And he was using Vanessa because Vanessa was a convicted pedophile. He was using Vanessa to help locate and identify other pedophiles in the area to fill his wall of spiders who then became his targets. They didn't have, like, the neighborhood registry at that time? That's a really good question. I guess.
I guess maybe they probably didn't have much of the internet. The internet was around, but... It was around, but I mean, we're also asking a lot of... 1997. Of John Bunting, that he's going to go on a computer and know what the fuck he's doing. Yeah. So anyway, I'm just saying now he's taken his source of information, but who he's always harbored a hatred for, and he's turning on her.
But he kept her alive long enough that he otherwise might have because she served a strategic purpose in his quote-unquote vigilante plans. But now, Vanessa's purpose had expired and her predatory behavior, according to John, needed to be stopped once and for all.
So on October 17th, John, Robert, and Thomas, who, again, was living with Vanessa, ambushed Vanessa in her home. They handcuffed her, demanded her bank card and PIN number, and then forced her to call her mother, Sylvia Lane, to explain that she was leaving town and planning to hitchhike to Queensland.
After that call ended, the three men handcuffed Vanessa, stuffed a rolled-up bandage into her mouth as a gag, and duct-taped her mouth and entire head. Then they commenced the torture process. They began crushing Vanessa's toes with pliers. Then they beat her while calling her derogatory names and slurs while laughing at her pain and humiliation. Finally, in an act of brutality, they strangled her until she died.
And after she was dead, the men wrapped Vanessa's body in a carpet, which they proceeded to leave in John's home for several days, decomposing. Were they in a fucking cartoon? Remember those, the carpet? Yeah. Since John lacked a sense of smell and had implicated everyone in his household in one or more previous murders, no one said shit about the putrefying corpse in the living room.
Eventually, Robert and John stuffed Vanessa's body into a 44-gallon barrel, making her the first of many to meet that particular gruesome fate. Vanessa, for those keeping track, was victim number five.
Now, here's an important detail about the period following Vanessa's murder. Authorities noticed that money continued to be withdrawn from her account nine months later in 1998 in Adelaide, South Australia, despite her supposedly having moved to Queensland, which is in northern Australia, in 1997. Video surveillance eventually identified Robert Wagner as the individual making the withdrawals.
Consequently, law enforcement followed him on six different occasions over the course of six months. However, due to a lack of direct evidence linking these activities to a major crime, no further resources were allocated to deepen the investigation. Also, the general indifference towards Vanessa Lane, a convicted pedophile, meant that the
may have influenced the limited scope of the investigation as well. Despite this, Roberts still remained marginally on the police's radar. Okay, so just keep this in mind that in 1997 now, the police are starting to pay attention to the macabre misfits slash sinister circle. Five years in. Exactly.
An overwhelming theme of this case, regrettably to that point, lies in the missed opportunities by law enforcement. Despite closely monitoring a suspect for six months, a deeper investigation and more meticulous scrutiny could have led them to John Bunting, who was Robert's close associate. Had they pursued this connection with greater diligence, it might have revealed the extent of their criminal activities and halted the continuation of their heinous killings
obviously preventing further loss of life and bringing about earlier justice for the victims. Or at least put them on notice that like, hey, you know, we're on to you. Exactly. Now, we don't know what yet, but like, we're watching. Yes. Now, however, in their defense, because there are always two sides, right? Yeah.
The voice recordings that John forced his victims to make were effective. Friends and family believed these messages that they supposedly, presumably received from their loved one, which delayed further investigation. And also the local police force lacked resources and manpower, simply put. Yeah. So, you know...
All that said, do I think they should have done more at that stage? Absolutely. Question, do we call these people less disappeared also? Yeah, absolutely. They were vulnerable individuals that society failed. And that when it was even peripherally on the radar, it was dismissed.
The next victim, victim number six, was Thomas Trevelyan, the young man they had just enlisted to assist in the murder of Vanessa Lane. Do you see how they operate? Yeah. They force you to participate in a murder. And then knowing that you're now part of it, they either force you to continue helping or they take you out. Yeah.
After his involvement in eliminating Vanessa, Thomas stopped taking his medication and began to actually wear an aluminum foil hat. Like a baked potato. Believing it would protect his brain from satellites. Now, obviously, he really did suffer from schizophrenia, and he stopped taking his medication. In November 1997, which was just one month after Vanessa's murder, he began brandishing a
kitchen knife while threatening to kill a puppy in front of the young daughter of Robert's girlfriend, Maxine. So Thomas had to go.
While eliminating Thomas did not exactly align with John's original vigilante mission of targeting pedophiles, Thomas's increasingly erratic behavior made him a perceived liability. And this situation was reminiscent of Suzanne Allen, who became overly attached to John, if you recall, and was perceived as a nuisance until the day they chopped off her head and used it as a football. Consequently, like Suzanne, Thomas's fate was sadly sealed on November 5th,
when Robert and John drove him out to a rural area and convinced him to wrap a rope around his neck, stand on a wooden crate, and then jump. Well, forced. Yeah. I said convinced. You're absolutely right. They forced him. But when I say convinced, it's because he was not well.
And they directed him to stand on this wooden crate. They directed him to put the noose around his own neck and they directed him to jump. Wow. And since Thomas had survived previous suicide attempts, law enforcement did not conduct any investigation into his death after his body was discovered. And they probably knew that and did that that way because of that, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
At this point, John Bunting was feeling himself and growing increasingly bold and proud of his actions. He was wearing Sergio Ticchini tracksuits. Yeah.
Just as he freely shared his prejudiced views on gay men with anyone willing to listen and even those not willing to listen, he now began to brag about the murders he committed with people in his circle. For instance, in July of 1998, while watching an episode of Australia's Most Wanted that featured a segment on unidentified skeletal remains found in the Adelaide area,
John recognized them as belonging to Clinton Trezise, his first victim, whose skull he crushed with a shovel in his living room. In a chilling moment, John turned to Jamie Velasquez, remember Jamie Velasquez, by the way, from part one, and Jamie's mother, Elizabeth, and proudly declared, that's my handiwork. Wow. Pop quiz. Okay. What else did John start doing at this point?
D. Yeah. D.
Thanks. I mean, I like spoon feed that to you when there's a D. Yeah. But these things are... It's almost like embarrassing, like, or D. Oh, for me? Embarrassing for you? Well, I remember doing a pop quiz and I had to put D and I was like, I'm not fucking putting D. Mm-hmm.
I'm going to make her, I'm going to trick her. I mean, sometimes I have caught you up on those, but all of these things had to make their way into the case because they are all absolutely fucking batshit. Yeah. It's ironic that he focused extensively on John Wayne Gacy, given the fact that Gacy is one of the serial killers most notorious for molesting numerous young boys. Yeah. So principles. Yep.
Victim number seven was 29-year-old Gavin Porter, a heroin addict who led a transient drifter lifestyle and worked various jobs across Australia. Gavin and Jamie Velasquez were friends who dealt drugs to support their $300 per day habit, while also trafficking sex workers, participating in the methadone program, and sharing various homes together as roommates in Adelaide over the previous two years.
Gavin was neither a pedophile nor gay, but it's theorized that he was targeted by Bunting and Wagner because his activities risked dragging Jamie deeper into Australia's criminal underbelly. Oh, nice. See what I did there? Yeah. John and Robert needed Jamie to be a compliant accomplice, not incapacitated or incarcerated. It's also suggested that a specific incident finally triggered Bunting to act decisively against Gavin.
Pop quiz. Pop quiz. Back to back. What happened? Back to busy. A, Jamie got into a car accident with Gavin behind the wheel, proving their point that he was sucking Jamie down. Okay. B, Gavin discovered a receipt for several plastic barrels and now knew too much for John's liking. Uh-huh. C, John accidentally got pricked in the hand with one of Gavin's used syringes. Car accident? No. Hmm. Very good.
Thank you, sir. Another one. Pick. Pricked with the needle. Picked, pricked. That is correct. Okay. So John pricked himself with a used syringe, causing him to spit the dummy, which is an Australian phrase that I looked up for throwing a tantrum. Oh, spit the dummy. I'm going to bring that into my conversations. Cool. So Gavin had to go.
In early April 1998, Jamie came home to their shared home, remember how the McCobb Misfits all lived together, in Murray Bridge to discover Gavin's body hanging from a rope while John and Robert ate Chinese food nearby and proudly discussed how they'd murdered Jamie's friend and roommate. The energy in that house must have been wild. Like insane. Like...
heavy, heavy air. And Elizabeth, who lived in that home, who was Jamie's mother and John's girlfriend, was abusing drugs regularly as well, as was Jamie. Toxic, to say the least. Yeah.
Gavin had apparently fought back during his attack and managed to stab John in the hand with a screwdriver, but ultimately lost the battle for his life after John intentionally leaned on Gavin's chest to force out his last breath. Really? Yes. Oh, the devils are in the details, man. A detail like that?
Fucking devastating. Oh, my God. Several days later, John placed Gavin's body into a black plastic barrel, which he positioned next to a second barrel, or I guess you would say the first barrel that had been sitting there. And after placing Gavin's body inside of the barrel, John lifted the lid off of the other barrel, turned to a visibly petrified Jamie Velasquez, and remarked, quote,
they're rotting very nicely. Because inside that other barrel were the putrefying bodies of Michelle Gardner, victim number four, and Vanessa Lane, victim number five. Yes. To help dissolve the bodies within the barrels, John had poured acid over them to accelerate the decomposition process. But...
In true dipshit form, Bunting used the wrong kind of acid. He used hydrochloric acid rather than sulfuric acid, which does not dissolve human remains quite as quickly or effectively. What does it do? It does help to dissolve the body, but not in the way that hydrochloric acid would have. That shit is so weird that it's like you take something, it just looks like water, and then you pour it on something, it starts going...
I know. Remember how John also loved chemistry? Yeah. And loved chemicals. And remember, he used to take bugs and put them into chemicals to watch them suffer and die. And why didn't he know what you asked it to use? Yeah, you'd think. Maybe he just, remember, though, he couldn't do chemistry. He couldn't learn it for real because he sucked at math. Yeah. So having now witnessed the contents of those barrels, Jamie was shocked.
roped into officially becoming an accomplice in the murder of victim number eight. And you see how they do this? I know that I keep going back on it, but this was very much how he committed murders and how he got people to help him. He would force them into becoming unwitting, either witnesses or accomplices after the fact or whatever, and then he would force them to participate actively the next time. It's like getting caught eating a cookie by your sibling and giving them a cookie. Yeah.
Yes. So that they're in on it with you. Like, you have Oreos on your face now, too. You can't say shit. Oh, it's so diabolical. Yeah, well, mine was a little bit more innocent, but... I mean, gotta start somewhere. Yeah. So victim number eight was none other than Jamie's older half-brother, Troy Youd.
So you see, at some point in Jamie's relationship with John Bunting, Jamie confided in John that Troy had sexually abused him as a child. Now, both Jamie and Troy had been sexually abused by their father, as well as by a neighbor, if you recall from part one. So it's sadly not terribly surprising to learn that Troy preyed upon his younger brother as well. At some time in 1998, between August 25th and September 8th,
Robert and John handed Jamie handcuffs, a wooden leg off a chair, and brought him to the bedroom in which Troy had been sleeping. Then, after John announced, now, all three men began beating the shit out of Troy. They dragged Troy... Yep. That's crazy. They dragged Troy into the bathroom, handcuffed him, and forced him to call John Lord Sir and to call Robert God.
John also required that Troy come up with a name to call his brother Jamie as well. And on the spot, Troy came up with Moses.
But Robert and John indicated that Moses was, quote unquote, a Jew's name and instead forced him to call Jamie master. The men then blasted music at a deafening level, specifically the album Throwing Copper by Live, which is a phenomenal album, unfortunately. I went to their concert at Jones Beach. So good. Did you cry? I mean, I do cry at music that makes me feel things. So yeah, I cried. That's why I asked that. Yes, I did.
And they repeatedly punched Troy in the genitals over and over and over again. Robert also crushed Troy's toes with the pliers. What the fuck is with this guy and toes and pliers? First at the joints and then again at the toenails. Then John produced a small handheld tape recorder and forced Troy to leave his mother a goodbye message that went like this.
Which I get. What do you mean?
I think that, obviously, he knew he was going to die at that point. Yes. I think he just wanted his mother to go on thinking he might be out there still rather than, like, obviously knowing he was dead. Maybe. So you think that that type of a message came from him. I interpret it as John said, you're going to leave a message, you're going to tell your mom you're going away so nobody looks for you after we're done with you. But he took it to the next level. Like, absolutely do not look for me. Let me, like...
say things that I've probably never said to you before. That way you're like, what? Yeah. And when you don't see me for three years, you're like, wow, he must have really changed, but at least he's not dead. Yeah. Almost like a gift. Yeah. To his mother. You know what I mean? That's really devastating.
By the way, John habitually replayed the recordings of his victims to relive the thrill of the kill. And this behavior is typical of serial killers who often collect and revisit trophies from their kills as a way to preserve the sense of power and control that they experienced during the act itself. I do that with Damian's voicemails. You fucking freak!
That's so funny. Do you know that I have a voicemail from my grandmother who passed away? Oh, I wish I had a voicemail from my grandma. It's on there. I haven't even listened to it yet. Really? Yeah. So she left it. Must have been very... I always called her back. And I think that... I remember not really ever listening to her voicemails because if I saw that I missed a call, I just immediately called her back. Like it didn't matter what she said. I was calling her back. Yeah. I cannot bring myself to listen to it. I just can't do it. Maybe you should. I don't know.
I don't know. A rope was then tied around Troy's neck after he left that message to his mother while John knelt down to stare him directly in the eyes as he breathed his last breath.
whispering into the dying face of his victim, this is fun. I could do this all day. Cool, dude. Go fuck yourself. Troy's body was then wrapped in black garbage bags and placed into a black plastic barrel after his feet were first hacked off to make sure that he fit.
All of the bodies in the barrels at this point were being kept in the garage of Mark Hayden, the, quote, taciturn dullard. That's right. Remember? Yes. Now, I want to take a moment to have a yarn, which is an Australian phrase for have a talk. Oh, I thought I was going to get a yawn break. Oh, a yawn break. Fuck off.
Yes, I want to have a yarn about Jamie's involvement with Troy's murder and really with all of the murders he was sort of peripherally or more directly involved in because it presents a complex case of psychological manipulation and fear-induced compliance, which we're going to circle back to when we get into the trial. It's really powerful. Okay. Okay.
Really?
Jamie had adopted a kill or be killed type of mentality. In various interviews, Jamie has consistently expressed that he was terrified of John Bunting. His fear was so profound that he felt he had no choice but to serve as his accomplice. And this dynamic can be understood through several psychological lenses. One, coercive control, which is a tactic often seen in abusive relationships.
Two, learned helplessness. Jamie being under constant threat or control or both felt powerless to change his situation and experienced a diminished ability to resist or escape despite opportunities to do so. Because think about it, right? He was a grown man.
He had a car. He had money somehow. Yeah. But he always came back to that house with John knowing what he was going to be pulled into doing. When someone's got a grip on you like that, nothing else matters. Absolutely. And the third thing is trauma bonding, whereby they both became emotionally hooked emotionally.
into the relationship, making it extremely difficult for Jamie to unlock himself and escape from under thumb. Yeah. We're now moving on to victim number nine, who is 17-year-old Frederick Brooks, the son of John's new girlfriend, Gail Sinclair, who was the sister of Mark Hayden's wife. Okay. All right? You don't necessarily have to follow the bouncing ball on this. It's just important to keep in mind that he was involved and roping in
It's all very close to the vest. Very incestuous. The circle, yeah. Exactly.
So Fred, only 17 years old, was taken by John and Robert after attending career day at his school where the men accused him of molesting a young girl. What? It didn't happen. Yeah, no, that's what I'm, that's why I said what? Exactly. According to interviews provided by Jamie years later, there was never any girl. It was merely a fabricated justification for John to kill a
obviously reflecting his primary focus at that stage of his serial killing spree, which was killing for the sake of killing, devoid of any vigilante pretense. Well, he may have believed that. Although there was a pretense because he was saying that he molested a girl. Which he may, John may have believed.
Whether he had evidence or not, I really find that that doesn't matter when you're that level of gone. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. You know. John Bunting was out for blood, though, simply for blood's sake. And what he did to Fred Brooks is so horrific that it bears a special trigger warning in this already brutal case. So just remember now, this is the son of his new girlfriend.
Wow.
Wow. John connected two metal alligator clips from a Vareik, I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly, electrical transformer. So he took two alligator clips and he connected it to Fred's penis and testicles, gradually increasing the voltage from an initial 20 volts up to 260 volts over the course of several hours. The clamp alone is enough. Yes, yes.
During this time, John also forced Fred to record a message on a tape recorder, falsely stating that he'd met a girl and that he was leaving town to join her in Perth. After leaving the message, John then shoved a metal party sparkler into the tip of Fred's penis and set it alight twice.
Oh my God. Finally, in a last act of barbaric brutality, John and Robert injected bleach and water into Fred's testicles and legs.
It's unclear how long the abuse lasted before Fred's poor, brutalized body finally gave out, but his cause of death was later determined to have been asphyxiation on his gag, which was a sock. Following his murder, another barrel was purchased and another body gone missing.
Unlike most other victims in this case, law enforcement was promptly contacted when Fred disappeared. His aunt, Elizabeth, reported to the police that her nephew seemed to have vanished without a trace. However, the investigation was short-lived. Just nine days later, the missing person's file was abruptly closed. Because these people, like this group in society, to your earlier point, were just less disappeared.
They just did not garner the attention that they deserved. Yeah. Remember how I said in my intro in part one that a woman engaged to John Bunting wound up spending her days in a psychiatric facility rocking back and forth, clutching a porcelain doll? Mm-hmm. Well, it was Gail Sinclair. Oh. Whose son, Fred...
And sister Elizabeth, Fred's aunt, who called the police to report that Fred was missing, which we're going to go on to here, became another victim. Elizabeth? Yep.
I thought there was only nine victims. Oh, there's 12 victims. There's 12. And we're about to talk about victim number 10. Okay. Okay. Who was 29-year-old Gary O'Dwyer. Gary was Bunting's next-door neighbor and previously suffered brain damage, memory loss, and an inability to perform basic functions after being struck by a hit-and-run driver on the side of the road in Adelaide on Christmas Day in 1994. Wow. Wow.
Gary was living in Murray Bridge by 1997 when he was approached by Jamie Velasquez asking if he fancied going out for drinks.
Then Gary was taken back to the house where he was tortured, killed, and stuffed into a barrel that was then stored in Mark Hayden's garage. So they're just killing anybody now. Well, why was Gary O'Dwyer killed? Because John felt that he looked gay and he was a quote-unquote pathetic epileptic piece of waste. Man, this guy would have killed me when I was 19 working at J.Crew. Shit.
Wearing turtlenecks. Yeah. You weren't the J. Crew? Yeah. How did I not know that? Everybody thought I was gay. To the point where I was like, am I fucking gay? Right. Like literally everyone asked me if I'm gay and I'm not attracted to men. This is kind of shit. Like what the fuck? Those intrusive thoughts you struggled with. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Victim number 11, moving on. Was none other than Elizabeth Hayden, Mark Hayden's own wife. It's unclear why John Bunting decided to set his sights on Elizabeth, although it's believed that it was likely because he felt that she knew too much, considering the fact that there were barrels of decomposing human beings being stored in her garage.
To that end, pop quiz. Okay. What did Mark initially tell Elizabeth was the source of the foul odor emanating from their garage? Okay. A, culled kangaroos that were hunted and stored. Culled, you said? Yeah. That's like when animals are rounded up because there's an overpopulation problem. Oh, okay. And then killed. B, a broken sewage pipe in the garage. Okay. C, stinkhorn mushrooms growing behind the garage. Okay.
B. No. Damn, I thought that was it. I thought I was going to get it. Called kangaroos? Yes. Yes. They informed Elizabeth that their intention was to round up kangaroos, kill them, and then process them into pet food to sell. Why pet food? Why don't they just eat them? Is kangaroo good? I have no idea. You're definitely asking the wrong person. I had ostrich once. Yeah. It was amazing. Well, they have that at all, like the health...
like in New York City? This wasn't a health food restaurant, but it was like a piece of filet mignon. It was incredible. Was it like a legitimate restaurant? Yeah, this was like going back 23, 24 years. It was my restaurant's holiday party in the city.
Ah, and you had ostrich. Okay. Yeah. I don't think I'd be able to do it. Yeah. Honestly. Okay. Now, Mark had previously admitted to Elizabeth, his wife, that he had helped to dispose of Clinton Trezis' body after John killed him with a shovel. Mark told his wife that? Correct. Okay. So, on November 21st, 1998, John and Robert instructed Mark to go take a drive. And during his absence, Elizabeth...
Mark's wife, and a mother of seven, I will remind you, was abducted by the macabre misfits. She was tortured, killed, and her body placed into a barrel. When Mark returned from his little drive around the neighborhood, John and Robert gleefully showed him his wife's corpse.
Pop quiz. What did Mark Hayden do after seeing his wife's dead and mutilated body? A, he laughed and then joined the cover-up effort. B, he reported it, causing Robert, John, and Jamie to flee the area. C, he burned down his house, including all the barrels in the garage. C. No. A. Yes. He laughed and he helped to cover it up. So scared. Now, exactly what I was just going to say.
All of these people are vulnerable in one sense or another. And in Mark's case, he was intellectually limited. But he's got a lot of history with this guy, John, too. So it's not like he's a newbie and he's like, damn, this guy killed my wife. What the fuck, dude? He's like, he'll kill me. Exactly. How close that is to me that he took my wife and killed her. Yeah.
I'm going along with this. And I think fear, the word fear, the idea of fear, especially in cases like this, I don't know, I want to harp on it a little bit. Have you ever felt like sheer terror? In what context? Any, any context. Like when I was on the Jaws ride at Universal Studios when I was younger and I actually thought I was going to be eaten by a shark, like for real. Sure. Yes. Okay. So imagine being a grownup.
and being scared of something that was not just, you were probably overwhelmed at that point and you didn't know what the fuck was going on, but you thought you were going to be killed nonetheless. Yeah. Now you're dealing with a guy who you know will kill. I can't, like, I don't even have anybody in my life that I don't think is really cool. I don't know.
I can't imagine hanging out with someone who kills people. Yeah. And having to deal with that. The fear. I only felt sheer, sheer terror once and it was in a dream. I was just about to say I had a dream once where I was kidnapped and in my dream I was like a
minute away from being killed and I'm hysterically crying in my dream slash in reality at this point. Yeah. And I'm trying everything under the sun in my dream and I'm telling this guy that I love him, hoping that by saying that he'll spare me. Yeah. That's like what's happening here. Yeah. Like laughing at my dead wife. Like, see? Yeah. This is great. This is fine. I'm fine. We're fine. Well, thank God I don't have to listen to her nagging anymore. Exactly. It's really, it's really heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah.
So he laughed, Mark, and he helped to cover it up. But Elizabeth's brother, Garion Sinclair, was not laughing when his sister seemed to have completely vanished. And he remained highly skeptical of the story that Mark was propagating, which claimed that Elizabeth had left him for another man. Garion's suspicions intensified when, a week later, Mark abruptly changed his story out of nowhere.
Now, he was claiming that following an argument, he returned home to find Elizabeth missing, making no mention of a boyfriend in this revised account. Mother of seven, right? Yeah. Okay. So like this brother knows his sister at least ostensibly enough to know that she... Wouldn't leave her seven children. Yeah. Yeah.
So, Gary and Sinclair, deeply troubled by his sister's disappearance, filed a missing persons report. Are you saying Gary-an? Yeah. G-A-R-I-O-N. Okay.
Detective Greg Stone of the South Australia Police quickly took up the case. He immediately found it suspicious that Elizabeth's own husband, Mark, had not been the one to report her missing. Yeah. When Mark, John, and Robert were all asked to provide statements, they miraculously echoed the same exact version of events.
But Detective Stone wasn't buying this rehearsed narrative. So he ordered multiple searches of Mark Hayden's home. And during these searches, critical evidence began to surface. Elizabeth's purse, ID, and bank cards were found in one sweep. And her constantly worn wedding band and diamond engagement ring turned up in a drawer on another occasion. Then, soiled clothing of hers was also discovered in a garbage bag.
Forensic analysis intensified when Luminol revealed traces of blood in the laundry room, blood that Mark claimed belonged to a dog that had recently given birth. What? Yep. They found blood in the laundry room and this was his explanation. I can't even imagine giving me 10 guesses.
I would come up with that. I should have made that a pop quiz. Detective Stone's meticulous investigation was piecing together a very grim puzzle, casting doubt on the rehearsed stories provided by Mark and his associates. Then Detective Stone entered the garage. Immediately, he was hit with a horrifically foul odor and noticed what appeared to be maggot casings. Oh.
And amongst the maggot casings, Detective Stone found nothing.
Because the bodies in the barrels were no longer there. Wow. And they were no longer there because just hours before the police search took place, John Bunting borrowed Mark Hayden's Toyota Land Cruiser to move them to Snowtown, which is located about 90 miles north of Adelaide. And why were the bodies in the barrels transported to Snowtown, you ask?
I did ask that. In Snowtown, there existed an abandoned state bank building, a nondescript red brick structure that shuttered its doors in August of 1995. John Bunting began leasing this building in 1999 for $60 a week with very sinister intentions.
The building contained a small kitchen, bathroom, manager's office, customer counter, and, crucially, a central old-fashioned vault secured by a thick steel door with a lock and key. It was into this vault that John, Robert, Mark, and Jamie placed the bodies in the barrels. Until a few weeks later, when a significant issue arose—
Oh. Oh.
Despite his penchant for opening the barrels to view his decomposing trophies on a regular basis, John's plan was to fill the barrels with cement so he could sink them into a body of water. However, this plan encountered a snag.
Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah.
Now, neither Mark Hayden nor Jamie Velasquez had the stomach for this, but John and Robert loved every fucking minute of this gruesome task. Really? Robert chopped off the deceased victim's limbs while John defleshed them, because remember, he used to work at an abattoir, removing muscle from bone and discarding the smaller pieces into an extra barrel that he purchased. Probably didn't take much, though, right? They're in acid for... I doubt it took much. Yeah.
When Jamie peeked inside the vault, he noticed John tearing apart what was left of Troy's body, who, if you recall, was Jamie's half-brother, while viciously and repeatedly stabbing Troy's quote-unquote filthy testicles.
Very cool, dude. Very cool. Now, unbeknownst to John...
the police were intensifying their investigation into the disappearance of Elizabeth Hayden, who was reported missing by her brother. We know this. The investigation, which was initially spurred by irregularities in 1997 when Vanessa supposedly relocated to Queensland but had financial activity popping up in Adelaide, was gaining traction.
Early inquiries into Clinton's murder in July 1997 had escalated following Elizabeth's disappearance, triggering a major police operation by this point.
John Bunting, Robert Wagner, and Mark Hayden were now prime suspects in the disappearances of Clinton Trezise, Suzanne Allen, Vanessa Lane, and Elizabeth Hayden because now they're piecing shit together. All of these people in the recent past from the same area have unexplained disappearances. Yeah.
Unlike.
Unless there was something happening or not. In Australia, phone tapping and surveillance laws are designed to balance law enforcement needs with individual privacy rights per the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act of 1979. Under this act, a warrant is required for lawful interception of communications and such warrants are issued only if there is a clear justification that will aid in the prevention of serious offenses, including murder.
However, these warrants typically allow for the recording of communications to be used for later analysis rather than live monitoring. This is intended to minimize the intrusion into personal privacy. Between the dates of February 25th, 1999 and May 20th, 1999, John, Robert, and Mark were all under physical surveillance approximately 25 times and
though these were brief and intermittent at best. During this time, the group relocated from Murray Bridge to a rental house in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, so they moved.
And notably, on Mother's Day, May 9th, 1999, a day when no surveillance was being conducted, they committed another heinous, albeit their final act, when they claimed the innocent life of David Johnson, making him their 12th, and as I said, final victim. David Johnson, who was Jamie Velasquez's stepbrother, was someone that John Bunting simply did not like. So,
David had to go. As a result, John instructed Jamie to lure David with the prospect of buying a computer from a mate for the appealing price of just $200, with the catch that they needed to travel to the remote town of Snowtown to pick it up. On the evening of their journey at 6.40 p.m. and then again at 6.56 p.m., Robert and John made two calls to Jamie, both of which were intercepted and recorded by the police.
And during those calls, they discussed a meeting at the bank with, they called David Johnson this. It's either puss head or puss head. Puss head. Really? P-U-S? No, two S's. Oh, puss head. Okay. I didn't know which one it was. I didn't want to presume. Or maybe it's puss head. Puss head.
But remember, we know that these calls were made, but authorities were not allowed to listen to these phone calls as they happened. Instead, they accessed this crucial, what could have been potentially life-saving information after it was already too late, though they weren't able to use it in evidence. Once Jamie and David arrived at the abandoned state bank in Snowtown, John and Robert ambushed David by slapping handcuffs on him while grabbing his throat.
Yeah, sheer terror. Terrible. Yeah.
initiated a new, somewhat high-tech approach at capturing a recording of David that he could then edit and use later to string together to fabricate various conversations that he thought he might need to use in the future. Quick time? Yeah, exactly. That's how we did our first episodes. Yes, it is. Yikes.
So David had to read off a series of random numbers and names, including all the names of their previous victims, as well as a variety of different words and phrases that could be later used to string together actual sentences. Words like no, soon, can't, can't, never, fuck off, don't call me again, piss off, shithead. These were all phrases that he was forced to say. Shit off, puss head. Yeah, exactly. Right.
After David made these recordings, John turned on the album Throwing Copper by the band Live and spread plastic sheets all around the floor while David watched. Oh, man. John and Robert took off all of David's clothing and then kicked the shit out of him. Jamie was told to hold David's legs down while John stomped on his testicles. Oh, man. These guys fucking really suck. Suck.
David fought for his life and almost managed to escape, having managed to crack some of John's ribs by kicking him in the torso. Nice. It was a little upkick probably. Yeah. But with his hands still cuffed, there really wasn't much of a chance for David to prevail, and John wound up overpowering him before strangling him with his own belt. John then slipped into a pair of white overalls, which he ominously referred to as his playsuit,
and with assistance from Robert and Jamie, proceeded to dump David's body headfirst into one of the acid-filled barrels.
and to make the body fit, they cut off David's legs at the knees. Once this horrific task was completed, Robert emerged from the vault with a surgical glove in hand, signaling to John that he had a surprise for him. Inside the glove was a piece of flesh from one of David's legs. The men took this ghastly little trophy back to their home, where they cut it into squares and
tossed the pieces into a frying pan, and then ate them, descending further somehow into the depths of their depravity. Oh, there's always more depths of depravity. Evidently so. Following David's murder, John tried to manipulate the recordings he made of David on the computer to respond to calls from David's girlfriend, Linda, who was continuing to reach out to David. However, it turned out that John had no fucking clue how to edit.
So he devised a new plan. John provided David's girlfriend, Linda, who kept calling David to find out where he is. Oh, yeah, that's right. John gave her a prepaid mobile phone claiming that it would allow her to contact David, who had run away with a 13-year-old girl that he impregnated. Wow. This was John's story.
When Linda used this prepaid phone, John's new girlfriend, Gail Sinclair, who, by the way, in some sources is referred to as Jodi Elliott, for anybody who follows this case. Let's make it more confusing. Listen, it has to be said. Okay. She impersonated David's supposed young and impregnated 13-year-old girlfriend.
So Gail, posing as a 13-year-old girl, told Linda each time that she called that David wasn't available. One time he was in the bathroom, one time he was here, one time he was there. And this ridiculous charade continued until eight days later when Linda's next call coincided with widespread news revealing the grim discovery of bodies and barrels at an abandoned bank in
in Snowtown. Because eventually, the law caught up with John Bunting and his macabre misfits. First, they discovered Mark's abandoned Land Cruiser that John used to transport the leaking barrels of bodies from Mark's garage to the bank vault. And according to the man whose property the Land Cruiser had been parked on, who was a friend of John's, he indicated that he and Mark would drive the vehicle back and forth between his house and
drumroll please, some abandoned state bank in Snowtown. So now the police had a location. And now they were also able to listen to past phone recordings. So they were able to piece things together. On May 20th, 1999, at approximately 1230 p.m., seven years after John Bunting's first murder, the
Law enforcement agents entered the abandoned bank, instantly assaulted by the unmistakable stench of death and decomposition. As they ventured deeper, they found six large barrels lined up along the back wall. Inside these barrels lie the remains of eight dead, mutilated, and dismembered bodies soaking in a liquid human soup."
Displayed on top of the barrels were chilling tools of the serial killer trade, handcuffs, knives, and gloves, all silent witnesses to the horrors that had transpired there. Within that same hour, the largest serial killing investigation in Australian criminal history commenced. The following day, May 21st, John Bunting and Robert Wagner were arrested and detained at Yatala Labor Prison in Northfield, which is a suburb of Adelaide.
Four days after that, on May 25th, Mark Hayden was apprehended, followed by the arrest of Jamie Velasquez one month later.
The South Australia Police Department collaborated with the Major Crime Unit to form a task force of 33 officers led by Paul Schramm, a veteran officer and lecturer in serious crime management. And this formidable team rapidly made significant discoveries. Within weeks, they not only uncovered eight bodies in the barrels, but also found two additional bodies buried in the backyard of Suzanne Allen in Salisbury North, South Australia.
Furthermore, they connected skeletal remains discovered nearly five years earlier in Adelaide, which belonged to Clinton Trazise.
The initial hearing for the macabre misfits took place on December 11, 2000, a full 19 months after their arrests. By the time of the hearing, the evidence was so compelling that they were able to formally charge Bunting, Wagner, and Hayden with the involvement in at least 10 of the 12 murders.
One of them was Suzanne Allen, and they could never actually pin her murder on them. And the other was the victim, Thomas, who they found hanging, who they said was a suicide. So at least 10, they were able to pin on them. Now, during the trial, the court heard from 68 witnesses and reviewed 1,458 witness statements, known as declarations, over an initial hearing that spanned eight months. Wow.
Subsequently, John Bunting and Robert Wagner were tried together beginning in October of 2003. Their trial, one of the longest in South Australian history, lasted nearly 12 months. John Bunting was ultimately
ultimately convicted of 11 murders while Robert Wagner was found guilty of 10. So the victim that they had originally assumed died by suicide, they were able to pin on them. Mark Hayden was tried separately, charged with assisting in the murders and the disposal of the bodies. Jamie Velasquez, on the other hand, struck a plea deal with the prosecution. He admitted to four murders and became the Crown's key witness against the
Wagner and Bunting, and his testimony became crucial in bolstering the prosecution's case against them. Thanks to his cooperation, Velazquez was sentenced separately and not alongside Bunting and Wagner. And here's an interesting fact. The media was prohibited from displaying Jamie's image to protect his safety due to concerns that he might be targeted in prison for his role as an informant. Oh, yeah. A stark reminder that
Snitches? Yeah. Stitches. Yeah, I mean, they're going to find that out anyway. Probably. Jamie's defense attorney, Rosemary Davey, provided the following statement at his sentencing hearing. And I just want to read this because I think that this articulates what I was trying to articulate earlier when I was talking about how, you know, in many ways, Jamie obviously was a victim.
And this is what she said. And this is a direct quote. The story of James Spiridon Velasquez is not the story of an evil young man. I can hear skeptics say that
Oh, another take of a hard done by life to excuse criminal behavior. But this man had an appalling and completely dysfunctional upbringing, a complete absence of what some people would call a normal life. Sexual abuse, a lack of appropriate intervention and care for him. The submissions on behalf of my client tell the story of a relationship between a teenage boy and the man who filled the role of a father. That's a story that I'm going to tell you.
That man was John Bunting. John Bunting is a depraved, disturbed, if not deranged, vicious killer and dangerous killer. The relationship was one of power and corruption of my client. This young man had the courage to speak to police initially and over time, broke the bonds of John Bunting and pleaded guilty. And
And then in her plea for leniency, Rosemary Davey highlighted what she described as a, quote, psychiatrically important notion, which was the progression of violence in John's behavior in the presence of Jamie. John frequently espoused hate rhetoric, discussing sexual abuse, pedophilia, and retribution against gay pedophiles. And
And this rhetoric became a central element in his relationship with Jamie, transitioning from grooming to coercively controlling and manipulating him into participating in horrific crimes. Jamie, both dominated and terrified by John, depended on him, having no other competent adult to turn to, which positioned Jamie as a victim as well.
Expert testimony concluded that Jamie had the potential to mature and evolve into a non-dangerous individual, a view that even prosecutor Wendy Abraham did not contest. Consequently, Jamie Velasquez was sentenced to a non-parole period of 26 years starting from June 2nd to 1999. Non-parole period? What does that mean? He could not be eligible for parole. Oh. But after that, released.
At the trial of John and Robert, the mental states and personalities of the accused were scrutinized by two notable psychiatrists. This is interesting. Dr. David Barnes characterized John Bunting as exhibiting traits typical of a psychopath, including a significant lack of empathy, manipulativeness, and a desire to control others.
He noted Bunting's capacity to charm and manipulate, which underpinned his ability to maintain control over his accomplices and assert his leadership within the group.
For Robert Wagner, Dr. Kevin Smith highlighted Wagner's psychological vulnerabilities, even though he didn't analyze him directly, such as his dependency and susceptibility to manipulation, which may have rendered him particularly vulnerable to Bunting's influence, though the specifics of this testimony are less documented.
Also, both men were clearly sadists. Obviously, their actions displayed a clear pattern of deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, humiliation, and suffering on their victims, which is the hallmark of sadistic behavior. After nearly 12 months of proceedings that started on October 16, 2002, and following seven days of jury deliberation, one of the longest criminal trials in South Australian history concluded when the jurors delivered their verdict—
guilty of multiple counts of murder. Specifically, John Bunting was convicted of 11, making him one of Australia's most prolific serial killers, while Robert Wagner was found guilty of 10 murders. And as I said earlier, there was a hung jury on the murder of Suzanne Allen. Justice Martin sentenced both men to the mandatory sentence for murder in South Australia, which is life in prison. Neither was granted the possibility of parole.
Mark Hayden was convicted of five counts of assisting offenders and was sentenced to 25 years in prison with a non-parole period of 18 years. Okay, and this is what I'm leaving off on. Serial killings are rare.
Serial killings involving more than one perpetrator are extremely rare. For this to occur, a group of people need to agree to involve themselves in such deplorable behavior while also requiring an astronomically high level of trust in one another. And coordination. And coordination.
Or, in this case, a group of very vulnerable people who were easy to manipulate and or terrified to step out of line. Yeah, more like that. The Snowtown murders reveal not just brutal acts of violence, but also the profound societal failures that enabled such horrors, especially within the marginalized northern suburbs of Asperger's.
Adelaide to occur. Stark systemic neglect and a lack of protective structures allowed many of these victims to go unreported, while others barely sparked any investigative effort at all when they were reported. So this begs a critical question. How did so many people, both perpetrators and victims, fall under the sway of one manipulative individual? John Bunting's devastating influence is
amplified by societal shortcomings that failed the most vulnerable, cultivated a breeding ground for his psychopathy, perpetuating his reign of terror for years and making him one of the most prolific serial killers in Australian history.
And the subject of our two-parter, which has officially ended. Wow. That was a lot. I need to chuck a sickie after this. What does chuck a sickie mean? Take a sick day in Australia. Oh, nice. I mean, you got the sayings down. I mean, you know, I got that. The accent, not great. I haven't really taken a stab at the accent. Me either. Get on your mate. Good day, mate. That's not a knife. This is a knife. Nice. Nice. Nice.
Crocodile Dundee. It's the only phrase I can say that even sounds remotely Australian. Let's maybe quit while we are somewhat ahead. You think we're ahead? I mean, we're not totally behind after that. Yeah. I want to do my tanks tidbit. I was just going to ask you if you had that for us today. I do. It's so simple. It's just a piece of advice, more of a recommendation or a suggestion. And it might make sense to people. It might not. But it helped me. So you and you.
But you, more you. Then you do, I guess. That thing that you think about all the time before you go to bed in your worst moments that you regret and you fucking cringe every time you think about it, it's time to let it go. Like, it's time. It's been way past time.
But just as a reminder, like you don't have to think about that ever again. And your life will not change in any significant way. Like when I hugged the rabbi by mistake and he elbowed me. How long ago was that? Oh, 13 years. Yeah. I mean, there's a parable that I love.
Two very religious men, whatever, I don't know, walking down a road and they come to a puddle and a woman is standing at the puddle. One of the guys picks the woman up and carries her over. They're not supposed to touch women at all. They're walking, they're walking, they're walking. Like 20 minutes later, the one guy goes, I can't believe you picked that woman up. Like, that was crazy. How could you do that? And the guy goes, yeah, I picked her up, but at least I put her down back there. I don't get it. The other guy was still carrying her.
Yeah. I'm still thinking about it. Couldn't get over it. Yeah. Like at least I put her down. Wow. Yeah. So whatever. I mean, everyone has a thing or two or 10 or a hundred thousand. The other thing, total opposite advice, but it all works together.
If you find yourself overthinking at night, especially when you're going to bed, the way that I fix that, total accident. Much the way I learned most of my breakdancing moves was by falling into them. They are sick-ass moves. I was, I mean, trying to control it. It was like trying to stop a freight train. Like, I'm not Spider-Man. You know what I mean? It's not going to happen. So I go, I got so frustrated with my own brain that I was like, you know what, brain?
fucking think about whatever you want. I don't care anymore. And my brain went dead quiet for like a minute. You like disassociated. Yeah, it was like... You were able to come out of your skin to communicate with your skin. I was like, dude, just go nuts. I don't care anymore. I can't control it. It's like the Eckhart Tolle untethered soul thing. Like you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are programming and really discomforting your own skin because at least if you're thinking, you don't have to feel what you're feeling right now. Mm.
Thinking is an addiction for a lot of people and they don't even realize it. If you don't think that's true, try and stop. Then you don't have the thinking addiction. I don't know one person who doesn't think incessantly. Right. You know, so. That's good. I like that. I'm not going to say stop thinking, but try and give it a shot. Give yourself literally five seconds of non-thinking and start there and build on that. I like it. Yeah. All right. So.
That was quite, that was a real, that was an actual doozy. I wish I said doozy before. That's okay. But I'm saying it now. So listen, if you're still here right now, you're real as fuck. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sticking this one out. She doesn't even want to be here. That's a lie. I could live here.
I love this shit. But you're real within her. Okay. Yeah. Well, just because like, you know, like you said, you love it. You like, you're obsessed with it. So if you made it this far, really? We appreciate you. We really do. Really appreciate it. But we have to go because I'm, I can't do this anymore. So we'll see you guys at the next episode. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.
