“The town is not a scary place,” says Snowtown resident Rob Vanderveen. He and his partner, Kryss Black, bought its infamous former bank building in 2012 – decades after bodies were discovered hidden in barrels in its vault.
“It’s nice and quiet,” he says of the South Australian wheat-belt town that became known around the world after the murders were uncovered.
Snowtown is a small place, its population hovering a bit over 400, but there’s an IGA, a soldiers’ memorial, a newsagent and a pub.
“We don’t have peak hour and we’ve got everything here,” Vanderveen says.
“Every day we get tourists. Every day. It doesn’t worry us. We know it gets people into town. We’ve got the pub next door. There are a few shops in town.
“We actually open the bank on weekends and public holidays. To sell bric-a-brac … There’s information, people are interested.”
In May 1999, police found dismembered bodies in barrels filled with hydrochloric acid in the bank’s vault.
John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner, James Spyridon Vlassakis were convicted over the murders, and Mark Ray Haydon was convicted for helping to cover up the crimes.
Eight of the 11 killed were found in those barrels, and a twelfth death was linked to the killers.
Most were murdered in the outer suburbs of Adelaide, more than 100km away – just one was killed in Snowtown.
Investigators initially thought the men’s motive was simply to take the welfare payments of their victims, but a more complicated picture gradually emerged.
The court heard Bunting was the ringleader, and that he hated various groups including homosexuals, drug addicts and paedophiles. The murders were “often ritualistic and humiliating” and targeted people connected to the men. Bunting was found guilty of 11 murders, Wagner 10, and Vlassakis pleaded guilty to four murders.
A 2014 study on “dark tourism”, published in the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, found Snowtown residents were more opposed to tourists the longer they’d lived there. Those who had arrived after the crime was exposed were more welcoming.
Venderveen says the people of Snowtown are mostly relaxed, but hate when the media “goes apeshit [and] make[s] it look like an evil place”.
The media has gone, if not apeshit, a little bananas recently, with the news that one of the men convicted is due for release within months.
The state government is “seeking legal advice” about Haydon’s release – his 25-year sentence ends in May. Attorney general Kyam Maher says they will also seek advice about Vlassakis’ scheduled release next year.
Bunting and Wagner are serving multiple life sentences with no prospect of parole.
Haydon was not convicted of murder, but of helping to cover up seven of the killings.
One of the victims was his own wife, Elizabeth Haydon.
South Australia’s victims of crime commissioner, Sarah Quick, told the ABC in January that she was in regular contact with the victims’ relatives, who continued to suffer “unimaginable trauma”.
“Contemplating the fact that Haydon will be released is very difficult for them,” she said.
“It’s really difficult to reconcile the fact that Haydon might have the opportunity to start a fresh life and that’s certainly something they don’t have the luxury of.”
Maher says the government is looking at whether a high-risk offenders scheme could apply to Haydon and Vlassakis.
“It creates a regime where serious violent or sex offenders can be subject to extra conditions once they’ve finished their entire time in prison,” he says.
“It can be things like electronic monitoring, curfews, the people you can or can’t see.
“We’ve asked for advice – and we expect that in the coming weeks – whether Mark Haydon … meets that statutory definition of serious, violent offenders.”
The government could then apply to the supreme court, which would determine whether there was an appreciable risk. It is also looking at “other levers”.
Asked if the parliament could pass laws to prevent their release, the SA premier, Peter Malinauskas, says the government is exploring all options.
“I, along with a significant number of Australians, would be genuinely concerned about the prospect of release occurring to anyone associated with the Snowtown murders,” he says.
“These were horrific crimes, they were some of the worst we’ve ever seen in the history of the nation. We need to think through our options very carefully, and we are exploring each and every one of them, and as that evolves we will respond accordingly.”
While the government can’t do the job of the courts, he says, it is “actively exploring all options open to us”.
Maher says a standalone offence created in 2022 for concealing or interfering with human remains would have kept Haydon in prison for longer if it had been in place at the time.
Meanwhile, even though only one of the murders actually took place in Snowtown, the name remains synonymous with the crimes.
Maher says the murders were “almost burned into the psyche of SA”.
“No doubt it has had a deep and lasting impact on the victims’ families, but also the communities where these things occurred, particularly the Snowtown community,” he says.
When the bank was advertised for sale, Realestate.com.au spruiked it as a “piece of Australian history” which was a setting for the 2011 Snowtown movie.
“Buyers should note that illegal activities were conducted in the old bank building and you should enquire to the nature of these activities prior to bidding,” the ad read.
It’s a red brick building, with a snub-nosed veranda. The office is at the front, the vault (“with lockable vault door”) at the back, and a four-bedroom house is attached.
Vandeveen says the vault is shut to the visitors that come to see the bank, and shares a picture of the plaque above it, which reads: “In memory of those taken by evil, greed & ignorance”.
