Snowtown Murders - Trials

Trials

After a series of pre-trial hearings, the first of the accused to be sentenced was Vlassakis, who was given four life sentences on 21 June 2001 after pleading guilty to four murders. Later that year, Bunting, Haydon and Wagner each pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of murder. Many of the charges against Haydon were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.

The Supreme Court trial for Wagner and Bunting began on 14 October 2002 and within a short space of time the court experienced difficulties with the jury. At least one juror refused to continue due to the horror of the evidence and some sources report that a total of three jurors withdrew from the panel for this reason. Both Bunting and Wagner were found guilty on 8 September 2003. Bunting was convicted of 11 murders and Wagner, who had pleaded guilty to three murders, was convicted of seven; both appealed their convictions. They were each sentenced to imprisonment for life on each count to be served cumulatively; the presiding judge, Justice Brian Martin, stated that the men were "in the business of killing for pleasure" and were also "incapable of true rehabilitation".

The proceedings against Haydon continued into 2004, and on 2 August a trial opened in which he was charged with two counts of murder and six counts of "assisting offenders". Haydon testified that he was not party to the crimes. However, on 19 December, the jury returned from four days of deliberations, convicting Haydon of five counts of assisting in the crimes and reaching no verdict on the two counts of murder and the remaining charge of assistance. Haydon was held in detention as of December 2004 awaiting a possible retrial.

In May 2005 the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Bunting and Wagner, who had now exhausted their avenues of appeal in South Australia. In September 2005 the murder charges against Haydon were dropped in return for guilty pleas to two new charges of assisting in the killings of his wife, Elizabeth Haydon, and Troy Youde. Prosecutors also agreed to drop an additional charge of assisting offenders in relation to the murder of David Johnson.

The final outstanding murder charges against John Bunting and Robert Wagner, concerning Suzanne Allen, were dropped on 7 May 2007, when a jury was unable to reach a verdict. Several of the jury members have since undergone counselling to help cope with their experience.

At his sentencing, Wagner rose in the dock and stated:

"Paedophiles were doing terrible things to children. The authorities didn't do anything about it. I decided to take action. I took that action. Thank you."

Unlike most serial killings, where usually no more than two people are involved, six people were directly involved in this case and a number of people had suspicions or had been told of the murders - yet none of these associates had gone to police with any concerns. The most important aspect that allowed the murders to continue for almost seven years was the public's attitude towards paedophilia. Bunting was known to hate paedophiles and homosexuals. Following a rant by Bunting in court regarding what he thought should be done to paedophiles, the father of one of Bunting's victims was asked if this attitude had hinted that Bunting could be a murderer, he replied that many people had the same feelings and that during conversations with Bunting, he himself would talk about how he would kill the man who had abused his ex-wife’s children.