Australia’s first serial killer to be granted parole refused to answer questions as he returned to the community after spending 26 years behind bars.
James Vlassakis, the youngest of three notorious killers involved in South Australia’s grisly Snowtown Bodies in the Barrels murders during the 1990s, left the Adelaide Pre-Release Centre shortly after noon on Tuesday.
A case officer drove him in a Toyota RAV4 SUV to the North East Community Corrections Centre at Holden Hill, in Adelaide’s northern suburbs. Vlassakis attended a 90-minute appointment at the facility.
The 46-year-old had a fresh haircut and had shaved off the goatee he had worn since first appearing in court in 2001. He was dressed in a black T-shirt bearing the word ‘freestyler’—possibly a reference to his newfound, limited freedom.
Vlassakis killed his half-brother Troy Youde in a bathtub at a rented house in Murray Bridge in 1998. He had been imprisoned since 2002 for his involvement in four of the 11 Bodies in the Barrels killings.
He was 18 when he killed his 24-year-old stepbrother, David Johnson, inside the abandoned State Bank building in Snowtown in 1999. The town is about 150km north of Adelaide and had a population of fewer than 500 people.
Johnson was the only victim killed inside Snowtown itself. The murderers concealed the dismembered remains of eight of their 11 victims there.
The remains were discovered floating in hydrochloric acid inside six blue 44-gallon plastic barrels. The killers had attempted to dissolve the bodies, making it initially difficult for police to identify the victims.
Snowtown murderer James Vlassakis was seen in the community on Tuesday
The 46-year-old is the first Australian serial killer to be granted parole
He attended a community corrections centre with a case officer on Tuesday afternoon
Vlassakis was just 18 when the killings took place and later pleaded guilty to four murders
Vlassakis lured his stepbrother to the bank vault by claiming a cheap computer was available for sale there.
Court evidence stated that Bunting and Wagner were waiting inside the vault. They overpowered Johnson, killed him and reportedly fried and ate part of his flesh.
The Daily Mail approached Vlassakis as he left the community corrections centre after his 90-minute afternoon appointment.
A reporter asked whether he had anything to say to the families of his victims and how he felt about two of those victims being members of his own family.
He was also asked whether he was pleased to be back in Adelaide—the area where Wagner and Bunting had hunted for victims. Bunting had been described as a father figure to Vlassakis during the period of the brutal murders.
Vlassakis is barred from speaking to the media under the conditions of his parole.
He repeatedly declined to answer, keeping his piercing blue eyes lowered as he followed his case officer to a waiting vehicle.
In an apparent attempt to avoid the Daily Mail reporter, he mistakenly reached for the front door on the driver’s side of the reverse-parked Toyota.
Vlassakis steadfastly refused to address the Daily Mail’s questions
Eight bodies were found inside a disused bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia
Vlassakis (pictured behind bars) has undergone a makeover since leaving prison
In 2025, Vlassakis’ approved bid for parole was overturned by the SA Government, which again tried to block his release this year.
But in September, a legal challenge failed and he was transferred to the Adelaide Pre-Release Centre, where he will enjoy low-security imprisonment until he can return to the community under strict, lifelong parole conditions next year.
Vlassakis’ co-murderers, John Bunting and Robert Wagner, are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole at nearby Yatala Labour Prison.
Accomplice Mark Haydon walked free in 2024 after serving a 25-year sentence.
Vlassakis was also involved in the sadistic torture and killing of 18-year-old Frederick Brooks, after his role model Bunting claimed he was ‘touching up little girls’.
He also pleaded guilty to taking part in the murder of disabled 29-year-old Gary O’Dwyer.
Vlassakis was just 18 when he was arrested for murder after police stormed the bank vault in Snowtown in May 1999, making the grisly barrel discovery that would haunt the village in the state’s Mid North forever and inspire a 2011 movie by the same name.
Bunting was the ringleader of the murders.
John Bunting, Robert Wagner and Mark Haydon were convicted of their charges
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Dismembered body parts were found in blue plastic 44-gallon barrels
He killed people he suspected of being paedophiles or homosexuals – with little evidence – and plotted out the murders on a ‘rock-spider wall’ containing names of his targets interconnected with string.
The murderers often impersonated their victims, collecting their government benefits after the person had died.
After pleading guilty, Vlassakis became a witness for the crown, helping secure the convictions of Bunting, Wagner and Haydon.
He will now spend the next year learning to reassimilate to society, with prisoners at the Pre-Release Centre encouraged to spend time in the community.
Around 84 mixed-gender inmates are housed in low-security, self-contained cabins overlooking busy Grand Junction Road, where they do their own laundry and are free to exercise on a grassed half-football oval.
Some are in charge of maintaining the facility’s gardens, while others are seen joining work gangs that depart the centre each morning.
It’s also understood prisoners spend time with rescue animals, with dogs from Greyhounds as Pets SA adoption service seen entering the facility on Tuesday afternoon.
Many inmates appear to have struck up friendships behind the razor wire, and are seen strolling the grounds in pairs and groups after work detail is complete.
Vlassakis’ stepbrother David Johnson was murdered in Snowtown
Vlassakis murdered his half-brother Troy Youde in a bathtub in Murray Bridge
Mark Haydon, who helped store and move the bodies, was released in 2024
When Vlassakis is released, he will be subject to strict parole conditions for the remainder of his life.
He is forbidden from entering Snowtown, as well as nine other geographical locations due to their proximity to victims’ families.
He is strictly prohibited from contacting the victims’ families, as well as speaking to the media or profiting from his crimes.
A curfew, along with drug and alcohol testing, will be enforced, along with ongoing psychological treatment.
He must seek permission from the parole board to leave the state.
Any breach of these conditions will see him back in custody.
Until his move to the Adelaide Pre-Release Centre, Vlassakis was in protective custody at Mt Gambier Prison, in South Australia’s south-east, due to his role in helping secure convictions for Bunting, Wagner and Haydon.
Haydon, who was convicted as an accomplice for helping store and move the bodies, was released into the community in 2024 and is believed to live in Adelaide’s north-western suburbs.
Vlassakis pleaded guilty to the murder of Frederick Brooks (pictured)
He was also involved in the killing of Gary O’Dwyer (pictured who was tortured and strangled
Until May, Vlassakis’ image had been suppressed for his own protection for 25 years.
Bunting and Wagner were locked up for life receiving 11 and 10 consecutive terms of life imprisonment respectively, with the remaining victims including Clinton Tresize, Ray Davies, Michelle Gardiner, Vanessa Lane, Thomas Trevilyan, Gavin Porter and Elizabeth Haydon.
Prosecutors were unable to secure a conviction for a 12th victim, Suzanne Allen, who the defence argued had died of a heart attack before she was dismembered.
In his decision to approve Vlassakis’ first steps toward total freedom, Parole Administrative Review Commissioner David Lovell KC referred to the influence of Bunting, but said there was no danger of that relationship continuing.
‘It is clear that this same power dynamic cannot be replicated, given Mr Bunting was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and that Mr Vlassakis is now of a more mature age,’ he wrote.
He said that while Vlassakis had ‘significant’ drug problems before being taken into custody on June 2, 1999, he noted the inmate had only returned three positive results from 29 tests during his time in prison.
A friend of Vlassakis’ previously told the Mail that he suffered from a heroin addiction at the time he committed his heinous crimes.
Mr Lovell also acknowledged that Vlassakis ‘demonstrated excellent behaviour while in custody and there is no suggestion that he displayed any violent behaviour during this time’.
READ MORE: Read Snowtown serial killer James Vlassakis’ letter to his old cellmate