Snowtown: The Bodies in Barrels Murders
About the book
Jeremy Pudney's "Snowtown: The Bodies in Barrels Murders" examines one of Australia's most harrowing criminal cases. Between 1992 and 1999, John Bunting, Robert Wagner and James Vlassakis carried out a series of brutal murders that claimed 12 lives in and around Adelaide, South Australia.
The case took its name from the discovery of eight tortured bodies in plastic barrels inside a disused bank vault in the small town of Snowtown in May 1999. The find exposed a string of inhumane crimes in which the victims had been subjected to extensive torture before their deaths.
Pudney, who worked as a journalist throughout the case, offers a detailed account of the crimes, the perpetrators' backgrounds and the police investigation. The book describes how Bunting manipulated his co-conspirators and justified the killings as being driven by hatred of paedophiles and homosexuals, even though several victims did not fit that profile at all.
Drawing on court documents, police reports and interviews, Pudney gives readers a thorough account of one of the most complex and disturbing murder cases in Australian criminal history. The book stands as the definitive account of the Snowtown murders.
