Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 572: The Snowtown Murders Part III - The Three Amigos

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

The story of John Bunting and the Snowtown Murders comes to a close as the boys break down the series of events that lead to Australian Police finding 6 barrels filled with human remains hidden in a Bank Vault in Snowtown on May 20th 1999.

Hello! Ed Larson and Amber Nelson from the Brighter Side here to check in with you see how you're doing. Is your day more disappointing than a gas station sandwich? Are you trying to put one foot in front of the other in a glue factory? Did you try to throw your air fryer in the bathtub but nothing happened because you were too lazy to plug it in first? Then the Brighter Side podcast is for you! Oh yeah! Each week we take nasty, dooky, stupid, dumb... Stinky, no good, doo-doo factory... Boo!

...caca-like topics and try to find the Brighter Side. Hey, Amber, what's the Brighter Side of waking up chained to a bed in Russia? Um, at least they have free healthcare. That's right! So start your weekend off right every Friday with the brighter side on The Last Podcast Network. You beautiful babies. ["The Last Podcast Network"] There's no place to escape to.

This is the last time. On the left. Heh heh. Why is the bundle of glass? That's when the cannibal Hehehe. Why you've left your glade? That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Oh, shit! Yes, I finally found a reason, I don't need no excuse.

I got this time on my hands You are the ones who are few You are the ones who are few Yes I found them found them That's the song. That's what he should have used. And you know what? I'm fine with that song. Well don't touch me and touch me Touch peel stand It's like it makes sense

Oh Because he did peel quite a lot of these guys Yeah, he put them in and he let them stand too long in the fucking barrel. Is this legitimately the most peeling that we will have heard of in an episode? Because they go straight to the paring knives. There's a lot of peeling in this episode. Man, I'm trying to go back into the banks to see if there's like more peeling and something. Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop.

I was watching a thing about the secrets of the Neanderthals. Oh, you've been getting into that one, huh? You watch that I'm not seeing yet, but I had secrets They were incredible gossips You know that Susie had sex with a rock? I knew that Susie was bad when she slept with that pine cone when she was with Agda. But they would use, they would break off pieces of rock to make a little thing and they talked about how they would cut the meat off of a bone. Yeah, like arrowheads. Neanderthals do something very similar to what John Bunting will end up doing with the slow peeling of bones. They do that and they don't know why.

They don't know why Neanderthals literally took a, there was, they find whole patches of Neanderthal bones that they would just like scrape the meat off the bones. They think that they did some extravagant cannibalistic ritual, but they don't know why. Oh, so it's just secrets. No answers Man that's why we need Netflix man take up the time Passing the time welcome to last podcast on the left ladies and gentlemen My name is Marcus Parks here with Henry's a browse ski. I'm real old old grunge Henry Zabrowski. My wife won't come back.

I will say I I want to say thank you so much to the positive Receptions we've gotten from the last week episode, but I will say I have met now thanks to our commentary last week several live super fans commentary last week several live super fans and Live super fans are specific. Yeah, they are a specific group I definitely got one being like how dare you make fun of live my poly cube drowned in a river like Like it sounded like they watched their poly cube drown from the banks Live is very specific Once we get headed into throwing copper slander never mind Alice and change slander Thanks. But the live is very specific.

Once we get headed into throwing copper slander, never mind Alice in Chains slander. Which you did. I didn't slander. It's okay for me to think that a band is fine. What's the big fucking deal? It's Alice in Chains. I told him he hasn't gotten into a big enough fight with his wife yet to understand Alice in Chains.

It's a great name for a band. It's a great name for a band. It's totally cool for me to think that a band is fine and live. It's like, I mean, I see what you mean. It's a very melodramatic band. Very melodramatic. And I can say that objectively that it is a melodramatic band. I agree. And we have the objective, Ed Larson with us. How ed Larson Happy Mother's Day everybody Don't talk about last week. I feel like it got a little it was two weeks ago two weeks ago But you know last episode we're timeless here. Mm-hmm. We stand out. We're here. We're forever on the internet doesn't matter but last week, I think we got into sort of the intensity

and lack of schedule of John Bunting and Robert Wagner and their series of murders. Last week, what we're saying, what we realized was like, it was like the contents inside of these barrels. The episode was really about the melange of a slurry. What's that word? A melange. Is What's that word? Melons.

Is that a real word? It is. Yeah, I vouch. Okay, good. It's sauce. It's a food based term for humans semi-melted in a giant barrel. So when you look inside this barrel, which John Bunting loved to do, you would see feet, fingers all flopping around in a a big kind of I would probably say unpleasant juice

And that's what last episode is and so this episode is really about Spilling that barrel out getting a ladle in there Who belongs to what and That's where Marcus takes it Yeah And I definitely did my best in the last episode to try to make the timeline as cohesive as possible. But it's extremely difficult. It's extremely difficult just because of the inconsistencies

of the witnesses that were left alive. Unreliable narrators. Unreliable narrators. They're usually on heroin. Yes, exactly. Yeah, and not necessarily, I mean, unreliable narrators not on purpose, just because they're fucked up individuals

with drug problems. And we'll also later get into the forensics of everything, which also made dates, times, causes of death, very, very, very difficult. But this one- Sloppy. But this one is definitely a little more linear. So when we last left John Bunting and the rest of the Snowtown Murders crew, he had just murdered Elizabeth Hayden, the wife of a lesser accomplice named Mark Hayden.

The exact motivations are unknown, but it's most likely that the reasons were twofold. First, John Bunting just didn't fucking like Elizabeth, and his near decade long murder spree had devolved from a mission to kill pedophiles to an easy solution to rid himself of a person because they were a problem to him personally. Believe me, if you hear it one time, you hear it ten times. Every single time I go out to kill a bunch of pedophiles en masse, and I mean this, I end up just like, I'm at the thrift store I'm buying a pastry and stuff I'm like why don't I buy pastries at the thrift store

yeah I'm like next to the thrift store I go I look at the hats and I'm like what was I trying to do today oh yeah I wanted to kill all those pedophiles yeah and so yeah it's easy to get distracted it's easy to get off course yeah you're just sitting there putting spikes in a bat and you're like having a tenth spike in you're like, why am I even doing this? Why am I even doing this? I'm ruining a perfectly good bat. I could kill a pedophile just with a bat. Yeah, you don't need the spikes. But no, it's one of those things, you know, where the normal person might say like, Ugh, I could kill him. You know, that fucking asshole. But now he's killed a bunch of people now

He'd understand. Oh, I actually can kill them. Yeah, I can do it. I like doing it, and I will do it Well the second reason that Elizabeth Hayden died possibly is that six of the Snowtown crews murder victims were being stored in barrels in Elizabeth Hayden's garage decomposing in a slurry of hydrochloric acid that wasn't quite doing the job of dissolving flesh and bones they'd expected because they had used the wrong kind of acid. It's the brown kind dude. Now wouldn't that like put her in their cool book? Well that's the thing from what I can tell Elizabeth was under the impression that the barrels were full of kangaroo corpses that Bunting and

Crew said they were planning to grind up and turn into pet food as a little side hustle. You know how much more sharp I eat. Can you imagine feeding your dog a slurry of mangled, rotted kangaroo? Well the problem is it wasn't supposed to be slurry. It just got to slurry because they hadn't figured out that. I think they hadn't figured out like the kangaroo processing, you know, process yet, because remember John Bunting worked at a slaughterhouse for years. So he's got this sort of like, I think, like, what do they call it?

Oh, they would say the Dunning Kruger curve or like, like what is the Dunning Kruger effect? Is that like there's if you get like a certain amount of information just a little bit of information Yeah, believe that you're an expert on the subject But then the more you learn about a subject the more you realize you don't know Is that I think John bunting by working in a slaughterhouse thought, you know, but of course actually I'm looking up right now Kangaroo is actually an absolute. It is a meat used many times in dog food I'm looking at chewy calm. Yeah

Specifically very chewy. Yeah, it is like grain free is very popular these days. I don't believe in it Yeah, it's bad for older dogs. They're joints. Yeah, and and hello to all of our listeners out at chewy calm We actually have quite a few. Oh good. Thank you. Oh, Reno That's the packing house John bunting yes, so I feel like all right, that's an educated He knew that he could pose as this educated guess that I have I don't know that for sure That's just an educated guess the key to today's episode is the bodies in the barrels So now he has these collection of barrels

We were kind of talking at before the episode of how we've realized that John Bunting is one of the most Product based killers of all the product base killers. We have covered Both yeah, can you explain that to me? Well, we's like the process and product. He's both. Yeah. Can you explain that to me? Well, we're going to get to that here in a second. Jumping ahead a little bit. But as far as the story goes with the kangaroo corpses in the barrels, or at least that's what they're telling Elizabeth Hayden,

Bunting was telling her that the barrels couldn't be dumped because, as the story was told, they were killed with unregistered guns that could be traced back to John Bunting. That's what he's telling her. And this was after the Martin Bryant killings, the Martin Bryant massacre, where you know he murdered 35 people and that's when Australia like got their shit together, got rid of all their guns. So he was the one having sex with his mother. Yeah, yeah I think he was. He was either having sex with his mother? Yeah, I think I think he was. He was either having sex with his mother or he was having sex with an old lady that was posing as his mother. There's a lot going into Martin Bryan.

That's it. There's a there's a lot to unpack there and we're going to be doing that sometime in the future. Happy Mother's Day. Sometimes a mother gives the gift that keeps on giving come. But the point is that an un having an unregistered firearm in Australia, it's a serious fucking offense. Yeah, they hate it. And this is when the law is kind of new and when they're going real fucking hard on it. Plus, it brought down boomerang sales.

And honestly, do you know what Australia's like when they're in a boomerang depression? Just guess what doesn't bounce back? The economy. Well that's all to say that all Elizabeth had to do was look into one of these barrels and she would see a head floating in a putrefying slurry and everyone involved would immediately go to jail. I can't help but notice this row looks like Toby. Can you imagine? This sluice around, these barrels are now going to start to move from place to place

and they are juicy. That's one of those that I can't, this just shows, I got an email about the boredom of small towns and fucking and shenanigans in small towns and how people just learn to accept so much in a small town because it just you're everybody's right on top of each other I've been telling you this for years this is exactly how I that's why I was talking in like episode one it's like I know these people I know these situations I know I like I grew up in a town of less than 400 people.

All this shit is normal. I wouldn't trust anybody. Like, in my mind, the idea, I have to vet somebody to watch my dogs. I can't imagine leaving an unmarked series of absolutely leaking barrels in a car in my driveway for a very long time. I just feel like it's very obvious. And they weigh everyone kind of and we're like, it's fine, it's fine. It's very strange. They just remembered 98 was the year it kind of stunk a little bit. 98, real stinky year.

Real stinky year. Wow. Yeah, I remember that year. Now on the night of Elizabeth Hayden's murder, John Bunting instructed Mark Hayden to take Elizabeth's sister, Gail out for a drive. Cause remember all these people are all living in the same house. Yeah. And while they were out, Elizabeth was captured, tortured, murdered and placed in a barrel like all the others marking body. Number seven.

Now I'm not entirely sure of the order of things here. What do you ever see the movie fatal instinct? Yeah. Now, I'm not entirely sure of the order of things here. What? Do you ever see the movie Fatal Instinct? Yeah, once you cook the rabbit. All I can think about is when they go out while they're disposing of the body, they're chopping up the body, they're going to put it in the barrel and they're all like, you know, listening to live over and over again. And then when they go out and it's just like, and he's like, buying her shoes and stuff,

and they're like getting ice cream and they're going out to watch a bunch of kangaroos get decapitated, like having a fun little day out together, you know, and then coming back and just being like, one last slide in it. Now, I'm not entirely sure of the order of things here as it goes with much of the story, but it seems like this murder was committed with the full knowledge of Elizabeth's husband Mark, because when he was shown the body of his dead wife stuffed in a barrel, he laughed, but it is unknown if this laugh was out of mirth or nervousness.

Well, it depends on the laugh. Wow, that is my wife in there. You see, that's nervous. If he went like, HAHAHAHAHAHA Also suspicious, but if also you looked at it and went, hehehehe Yeah, a light chuckle maybe. That's also weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's demonic.

You know, real loud laughing, that's compensating. Sure, sure, sure. You know, like, hehehehe I always wanted her to be in smoothie form. She was always ahead of her time. No! But either way, Mark definitely knew she was dead, and he did not report her missing, and

it was only after her brother reported her disappearance did the police get involved. But by the time investigators finally got a warrant to search Elizabeth Hayden's home, which was where the bodies had been stored up till that point, John Bunting had already arranged for the barrels to be moved, although they were not moved to Snowtown just yet. See, Bunting had been absolutely enraged that Mark Hayden hadn't kept the situation with his missing wife under control. Bunting had done the same song and dance as before by recording Elizabeth's voice during torture and playing those recordings when people called her house and that had worked every time. They all bought it. That's why the investigations took so long. Mark was also supposed to push the angle

that Elizabeth had taken off with a new boyfriend as she was known to do from time to time, but he was never able to convince Elizabeth's brother that this was the truth. Therefore, the report was filed and the investigation progressed. I'd love to get an email from somebody who actually knew somebody that was like this. I always, they were like, oh, she went away with a new boyfriend or like, how popular are these people? What do you want to know? I know people like that. Elizabeth Hayden. God love her. Yeah.

You know? She's a... Special lady. The fact that there were so many guys balling this woman out... Fantastic. And I don't know how it happened, they just were... You guys are so busy. See, that's the thing.

Why are these guys so busy? Also the idea of someone just fucking off for a couple days? That's so... Like, I I call the police after like 12 hours No Because you you are married to a reasonable woman and you live a reasonable life like that is you live a responsible life in which? People don't disappear for days at a time these people don't live that life Yeah, and everyone I think a lot of people operate under the assumption that only attractive people fuck Yeah, that's not true at all.

I fuck. Yeah, well, but that's the thing. You're cute and you've got a personality. Eee. Yeah, you know, you've got a little shi- You know, say come on. Yeah, I like it too. I like a kiss.

I like a hug. But that's the thing is that people that are extraordinarily unattractive No, it's not about the attraction. It's more just they're so busy. Yeah, well, that's the thing. They're not busy. That's the point. That's why they could do anything. Yeah, if you're busy you have a structure. If you're not busy you can go missing for four days and no one asks any questions. Wow, that sounds cool.

It is kind of cool, but it shouldn't. There's no way to live. It's definitely a way to fucking be in the grave by 47, 46. Wow. But hey man, leave a crumb-custed fucking sweet ass corpse. Horrible, desiccated corpse. Smile on his face, captain's hat on, Martini glass broken shoved up his ass. Love and life. captain's hat on, martini glass broken shoved up his ass. Love and life. Now Bunting did have an eventual method planned for disposing of these bodies permanently,

but he actually had quite a hard time letting go of the corpses. See while other serial killers may take a piece of clothing or a driver's license as a trophy, like Dennis Rader did, he had a whole collection of driver's license, he had a little box of mementos that he kept in his daughter's treehouse. The bodies themselves were John Bunting's trophies. Now there are certainly serial killers who kept bodies in their homes. Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsson, they're the most famous examples. They tried to get rid of them, but it took a long time. Dennis Nilsson slowly but surely tried to get rid of his body, but he loved them very very

Domber tried to get rid of his to slowly, but surely also barrels. Yeah brunch But you know that's unfair All right, we don't know what happened to a lot of those bodies honestly, and I feel like jeffrey dommer's gotten a bad rap I saw the show he was sexy But the difference is the motivations. Dennis Nelson and Jeffrey Dahmer's motivations for keeping the bodies around, that's a deeper, more pathological motivation. For them, it was done out of a desire for companionship. And once those bodies reached a point where they were no longer recognizably human, then they got rid of them. It's hard to fuck them.

Yeah, or it's hard to sit on the couch and pretend that that person is alive. Well, even serial killers at some point hit a taste wall. Yeah. At some point, you're like every one of them go like, no matter what, they get an ick about something. Yeah, yeah. At some point, they're just like, ugh. Like, there's probably like, they different There's no there's probably several corpses that Jeffrey Dahmer like there was a that he favored You know I mean that there was a couple there was something he sucked sucked sucked sucked

And sucked until there was like there was just barely like his gross But you know there was a couple that even he had this sort of like beer goggles on And they were dead and they were all prostrated out and then they're ready to be like, you know be serviced and he's like Yeah, do you think you last night ever like gotten to a situation like sometimes when I go to the farmers market my eyes are a little too big Too much stuff and a week later. Oh my god fucking and get to it Bottom of the fucking vegetable drawer.

Oh, that's exactly what happens. But John Bunting was looking for that effect. And there are people who didn't really have a taste wall. I don't believe Ted Bundy had a taste wall. Because he would actually go out to the sites of his murder victims, like where he dumped the bodies, and he would have sex with the dead, and he would paint makeup on the heads until the corpses liquefied. And that's the thing, they're liquid now, so he cannot have sex, he physically can't have sex with them anymore. I mean, you

could stick your dick in the puddle, but it's not the same, and you got no give. Yeah, but that's the thing, even then the puddle will eventually sink into the ground. Yeah. And then you're just fucking a hole in the dirt, and that's not, that's not what he wants. No, then you're just fucking a hole in the dirt and that's not what he wants. Circle of life. Then you're Barry Keegan. Who's Barry Keegan? From that movie. From the Saltburn movie.

Where they eat the cum, all the cum stuff. Yeah, he eats the cum and he fucks the grave and shit. I didn't watch the cum movie. It's good. It's not good. I don't know. I felt like it kept trying to offend me, but it never did. Well, it kept being like, it's weird. As it kept going, I was like, show more dick. Suck his dick. That's kind of how I felt like it kept trying to offend me, but it never did

Going I was like show more dick suck his dick Why we act like it's so like getting like naughty whatever just suck his fucking dick. Yeah guys suck dick all day Love it. It's love getting sucked. I really do Some guys love sucking dick. Why not put it on film? Yeah, do it, it's for everybody. Yeah. But for Bunting, the bodies were... But for John Bunting, the bodies were something that triggered a fond memory of what he considered an accomplishment. I mean, a very literal trophy. Because he thought, he was given the excuse that this is about the illegal guns, is that

I don't want people to know, like that was like I think in his head, what he even talked about maybe with Robert Wagner what he talked about those other guys Because he was the one that was truly obsessed with the corpses in the barrels I don't know Wagner would also open him up and and giggle at them because that's the funny thing about how sick Wagner was Because he didn't have a fucking sense. He had a sense of smell. Yeah, he did Yeah, cuz I mean that is the thing about this series too. Is that like Robert Wagner? Yeah, because I mean that is the thing about this series too is that like Robert Wagner

Sort of fades into the background until the murders happen because like John bunting is the guy that you know We're definitely following the most the philosophical center of their little gang Yeah, and John bunting is just sort of the guy like I mean it's think back to like a the analogy I may or the comparison that I made he's Debbie Harry and the and Robert Wagner's the guitarist from Debbie Harry who's just as important to blondie but Debbie Harry is more recognized for blondie. Chris Stein. Are you saying that Robert Wagner is the Chris Stein? Who? It's Beavis and Butt-Head. Yeah, it really is. It's Beavis and Butt-Head where, you know,

John Bunting is Butt-Head. He's the one who has the ideas. He's the one that, you know, gets Beavis and butthead where you know, John bunting is butthead. He's the one who has the ideas He's the one that you know gets Beavis to go along Beavis is just there and you know And Robert Wagner is the guy that's just kind of following loves doing all the same shit. Yeah, it's down for it every time Holy, oh, yeah Yeah, he does go ham, he does cornhole-io, and then he's ready... It should be for the butthole! That's exactly what he's doing! That's what this all is!

Life from your grave. Now, I'd imagine that a lot of serial killers would have loved to have this sort of relationship with the corpses of the people they killed. Tell me. Well, the closest known serial killer to do this was probably Jerry Brudos, who made ceramic casts of the breasts of women he killed. He actually kept them on his mantle. He was killing women in his garage. He had a wife. Wow.

And she wasn't allowed to go into the garage and he would make ceramic casts of the breasts and put them on his mantle and be like, that's funny, right? I got it at a novelty store. And she'd be like, yes, dear. That's fine. Yes. Wonderful. Love the severed tits. Most serial killers, however, are prevented from keeping bodies around because human corpses start to smell real bad, real fast. This attracts attention.

And most people, even serial killers, have an evolutionary revulsion to the smell of rotting corpses of any kind, no matter it's human or animal because our bodies are saying don't eat that. How long till we start to stink? Like two days, three days? You start to stink pretty fast. I imagine in the sun in Australia. You stink a little faster much faster Yeah, what another place much much better? I love I love the this is gonna be great This is great, but my fucking algorithm, but it's a dead body to smell

But it also has to do with the it's more huma. It's actually more humidity than it is heat Oh, yeah, 10 days 4 to 10 days. Yes. I'll see get some time. Yeah, you got plenty of time Yeah, you get a long weekend Yes. I'll see you get some time. Yeah, you got plenty of time. Yeah, you got a little bit of time. You don't watch a long weekend. That's why mummies are so well preserved because it's heat, but it's a dry heat. But you're not...

Happy mummies day. Yeah. But if you'll remember, as we said, John Bunting was born with no sense of smell, so he would repeatedly open the barrels and marvel at the dead bodies of the people he and Robert Wagner had killed It's like you or I would look at a fun chachki. We picked up on vacation. No, I slug. Oh, yeah. No, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, who's still there? Oh, yeah I feel guys that kill you immediately to eat like to

Yeah to ladle Putrefied corpse liquid slurry into your mouth. Yeah, you're gonna get real sick and you might die But what about the thing where you stomp on the corpses belly and the fucking gunk comes up to the top and you fuck it Do what you have to do with any of this? Like I think mung is kind of a wives tale Are these that this is not like because it sounds like this is a mung distillery They weren't selling any fucking soup or anything they were just keeping it and looking at it Yeah, hey people brew home brew beer and they don't drink it at all because it'll probably poison them

Yeah, I mean, but this is more putrefied flesh. It's a different thing. Well, yeah, it's not even, yeah. Putrefied flesh in Oregon. They didn't organize brew these. Yeah. If you throw some hops in there. I'm just saying it's different from mung. That would be interesting if he did, if he had some burned oak barrels and he put them in there and you get some grains in there, some hops. Cask aged. Yes. Do you remember when we had that guy, the guy that came backstage in Oregon, when we did the show in Portland and he brought us the whiskey that was all made, that was put

in the casks made from the caskets of murderers? I still have it in my office right now. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds gross. I took a shot of it. It was fine. Maybe if the barrels were clear, he wouldn't open them up so much.

That's why, you know, like when you go to the nature company, you a shark in a jar that's great you don't open it you know you just sit there you look at it you enjoy it. He didn't think it was going to be on display. Yeah that's the thing anyone who goes into the garage is going to see the body in the barrel. He needed a decorator. Yeah but once it became obvious that the cops were going to knock on Mark Hayden's door at any moment because of the disappearance of his wife Bunting had to devise a way to move all the bodies to temporary locations before he could find a sort of safe house where he could have both a private kill room and a place to enact his final plan for disposal. As it turned out, Mark Hayden had a broken down land cruiser in his front yard, so four

of these leaky barrels were loaded inside the cruiser, which was then towed to a town two hours north of Adelaide to property owned by friends of Bunting's, a couple named Ann and Dennis Cordwell. The moment Bunting arrived with the Land Cruiser though, the Cordwells immediately asked, what the fuck is that smell? Can you imagine immediately? that smell. I can't even imagine that. Like I, now that I got two dogs, like I pick it up four piles of dog shit this morning. Like I gagged just at that. And I got my little bite. I got a dog shit trash can now. And if you don't change that out fast enough, there's this little mold on them. And I you don't change that out fast enough, it gets wild in there. There's this little mold on them.

And I'm not good. You're just like, wow, your poop's making poop. Well, Bunting gave them the same kangaroo pet food story. And since the cord wells were probably well acquainted with these sorts of idiotic get rich quick schemes, they shrugged their shoulders and said, fine. All right. All right. Now now can I ask a

question about the barrels yeah you said they're leaking now are they leaking through the bottom or is it there's some of the tops on right the top the tops are just not that they're not they didn't buy like top of the line barrels yeah it seems to me would make sense is that like the wonderful coffee shop we do down the street they have iced coffee cubes yeah and go inside of the coffee and causes the coffee to kind of like re-establish itself right so I think what happens is you got a barrel full of these bodies right then you fill it as much as you can with acid and I think that as it slowly dissolves the liquid inside of it grows and pushes up out of the top of

it in a sort of a kind of a frothy. Yeah, gets foamy and frothy. And then it comes up out of the top. And also like if you leave a slow cooker too long or you fill it up too much. Very much so. And I also think that because they're moving in a hurry, they're not it's this is a white glove service. This is a room and board. And they are lifting these up. They're slapping back and forth. And they're not it's this isn't white-cloth service

board and they are lifting these up they're slapping back and they're open them a bunch if you keep them shut you know that's another thing yeah they're wearing out the lids yeah well soon enough though logistics well soon enough though the cordwells moved from their more spacious property up north to a home near Snowtown in January of 1999. The only place to put the Land Cruiser now was in the Cordwells' front driveway, so they had to live with the stench of death any time the wind blew in the wrong direction. The fifth barrel, meanwhile, was put into an old car in the backyard of Bunting's home in Murray Bridge baking in the Australian sun while awaiting its next location spread across these five barrels were seven bodies some whole some lightly

butchered you know what would have stopped this in a fucking second next door next door app what's that smell? It is literally like, I follow it, my favorite is just being like, there has been a man casing our home for a robbery slash group rape. I know he has. Meanwhile, like you see a shot of a man across the street in a UPS uniform. And you're like, this man comes several times a day to see whether or not I lay prostrate in the living room waiting for his sexual based attack. And you're like, that's a fucking delivery man.

These people are watching you dog. You gotta be careful out there, man. Yeah. Man, I didn't even realize it, but I bet I'd probably show up on those because the coffee shop that I go to a few times a week, I go in, I get my coffee, I come back and I sit in my car and I read a novel while I enjoy my cinnamon Roll and my flat white Because it's nice. You don't sit in the coffee shop. I know it's too loud in there. Some people like you know eating in the car

That's when you go to in and out like in the car or you're gonna take it to go Well, I do it as a shame eat thing where I eat an entire rotisserie chicken alone by myself in the car in the parking Lot of Gelson's because I'm so hungry that I can't continue forward. That's why your hands are always slipping off the wheel. For me, my car is like a sacred space. Like I love my car. Like the inside, it comes, I think it's a Texas thing. You're in your car so much, but yeah, my car is my safe space.

It's my sacred space. You were in New York for 12 years. Yeah, but man, I mean that shit gets in your DNA and and doesn't come out. I lived in Texas for 22 years. I think that you've become super sexual. I don't know. I'm not sitting in my car hard. I'm reading a fantasy novel and eating a cinnamon roll. Sounds hard. Yeah. What kind of fantasy? I wish there was a quiet coffee shop. That's what all it is. It's about a quiet coffee shop. That's what all it is. It's about a quiet coffee shop where he could eat his beans.

Anywhere from medieval to Victorian to urban. It's fine. OK, OK. Well, meanwhile, Bunting searched for a new location where he could store all of the barrels together in a private place. So hang out. It's a party. Yeah. Yeah. And he soon discovered that the state bank in Snowtown was up for rent.

This building was owned by a farming couple who tried turning it into a plant shop, but it failed, so the bank was sitting empty. The farming couple, however, had not removed the large metal front doors, nor had they removed the bank vault, which gave John Bunting and the rest of the Snowtown crew the perfect place to not only store bodies, but to kill victims. It feels like when the Ghostbusters found the firehouse. This place is great! We should stay here! Tonight!

You know, to try it out! So John Bunting contacted the owners of the Snowtown State Bank building and told them that he wanted to use it to store cars, motorbikes, and various automotive parts for repair work. After agreeing on $60 a week in rent, John Bunting and Mark Hayden signed the lease and soon after, Bunting had a locksmith change the locks on the vault. Once the barrels were in the bank vault, the entire place smelled terrible. Even after they filled the place with air fresheners. It's gonna be worse, it has to be worse.

It's so much worse. Cause you know, I mean, we all lived in New York. We know what happens when a mouse dies in the walls. Yes. Dude, I just had one happen. Yeah, and no matter how many air fresheners you put out, it still just smells like air freshener mixed with decomposing flesh.

Oh yeah. One of the liquid shits I took after New Orleans, have you ever sprayed that spray, like oh it's a Poo-Pourri on top of that man? That's ancient orange. That is like, it's sickness. That smell, that poo poo smell mixed with the air spray smell.

The poo poo smell is good. When it's your own though, it's nice. I don't know. I sit in it, I love it. Sometimes, sometimes I at least, Poop who smell mix with the air spray smell is good. What did your own though? It's nice I sit in and I love it My poop was smell I'm like, yeah if this was being read by a psychic they think 9-eleven was gonna happen again Someone decided to feel like they need to describe Orleans shits. Yeah, they'd be like I think the economy's gonna take I'm in there. I'm shitting and you know, I'm just postmating

But eventually after bunting and Wagner spent a fair amount of time opening barrels and giggling at the bodies, Bunting conceded that the barrels couldn't stay in the bank vault indefinitely because the stench was so bad that you could smell it from outside the building, like through bank vault walls, through the outside walls of the building and like you're standing on the sidewalk, something smells like shit. Don't you ever think maybe, it's kind of like we've opened up a stank store. People could come buy stank. I'm a businessman. I ain't even a man really. I'm not even a man really. I'm a bastard.

The plan they devised was to remove the bodies from the barrels and individually butcher them so the bodies wouldn't be so much of a tight fit, lest the lids pop off. Then they would cover the bottoms of the barrels in cement and drop them in the ocean. Get more barrels. At any point did they not get more barrels? They might have had... How many of them? We don't even know how they got the barrels. They got them at the store. They purchased them, right? They just bought them. Yeah, they didn't hand-made... They're not barrel makers like it's fucking 1896. Like they're buying

plastic black barrels. Getting to work almost straight away Wagner opened the barrel containing the corpse of Troy Ude and began the grisly work of cutting all the flesh away from the bones and dismembering the body. Bunting meanwhile made sure he was the one to cut off Ude's testicles which he then stabbed repeatedly. This was all done in the presence of Jamie Vlasakis, who if you'll remember was another lesser accomplice who was never completely comfortable with the whole murder torture thing. Remember Jamie, baby spice. We've got John Bunting, scary spice. Robert Wagner, baby spice. We've got John bunting scary spice Robert Wagner sporty spice interesting

Well, basically Jamie was under John buntings complete control and didn't know how to escape Yeah because he found that every single time he didn't like somebody or they did something that they felt that they went across purposes or they Felt that you were gonna snitch or they felt that you were had anyone real knowledge about the crimes But were not necessarily involved in the crimes You end up murdered so she he knew that he was so close to being next yeah But even though if you'll remember Troy you'd had molested Jamie as a boy Jamie wasn't all that jazzed about watching Robert Wagner hack away at the body of his half-brother

So Jamie went to the cord well house to take a shower Yeah, and Jamie of course smelled like a low quality slaughterhouse, but the Cordwells just assumed that Jamie had been cursed with this funk because he'd also got caught up in Bunting's kangaroo pet food scheme. At some point you become just lazy. There is something else going on. Alright, fine. Does he got to stink a little bit? Yeah, well, so do you. Oh, shut up. Shut up!

Laughter Jamie, however, he did still participate in the welfare scam in which the Snowtown crew cashed their murder victims welfare checks. He was benefiting from all this. And Jamie was in fact the one who seemed to be in charge of keeping the payments flowing. Oh, he was the treasury secretary. Ha ha ha.

Jamie was the one who forged signatures for victims Gavin Porter, Troy Ud, and Gary O'Dwyer, although he did once accidentally sign his own name to a check. Oh, man, you know, fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Oh, no! Oh, fuck! All right, I'm just gonna do it.

I'm just gonna send it in anyway. I'm just gonna send it in anyway. Here we go. Here we go. But to keep the payments going for Fred Brooks, Jamie had to physically check in because he'd missed a filing deadline. Now hear this. This is such a funny, stupid side quest.

Yeah, this was definitely not in the movie. No, this is not in the movie. Once he was in the welfare office, Jamie, as Fred Brooks, told them that he had schizophrenia, which was why he was late with his papers. And you can tell because of the giraffe I rode to get here. And you can't get home just a collection of shards of spirits, I'm an ice lord and I know the government is going to make me a gay puppet for the prime minister. All right, so, there have it. Can I have my money, please?

Oh man, imagine how awful a sketch comedy show called Schizophrenia would be. Oh god, Schizophrenia. Yeah, I love Schizophrenia. And just people wallowing around their own pests and shit. It's comedy. It's comedy. It's written by Jean Genet. The problem was that the government then demanded proof of his mental illness, so Jamie had to go to a doctor and fake schizophrenia. Apparently though, Jamie was a good enough actor to pull this off.

There's no way. There's literally no way that he's not doing anything. He got the doctors' note, dude. I think the dude was just like, alright. Another day. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

The payments flowed once more and since Jamie was now listed as a schizophrenic he only had to check in every three months instead of every two weeks. Why do you? I just don't understand why. That doesn't make sense. If you have something as debilitating as schizophrenia I feel like that's calling for a more checkups than less check I agreed with that right because you're like, why would you what means it? Why is it laxer because you have a mental disease? Well, I guess they did assume that like you can't get your shit together every two weeks

But you can get your shit together every three months I think if you got a diagnosis Schizophrenic they might want you can get your shit together every three months. I think if you got a diagnosis, a schizophrenic, they might want you to get your shit together every week. They might want you to maybe have some organization. You need a planner. Yeah. And then a checkbook. It's not like he has a wall calendar.

Yeah. Or he's getting fucking alerts on his phone. Like, yeah, every three months he's going to forget again. Of course he is. He's got schizophrenia. Well, he actually doesn't. Yeah, but I'm telling you in real life. to forget again. Of course he is, he's got schizophrenia. Well he actually doesn't. Meanwhile police had not given up on the investigation into Elizabeth Hayden's disappearance. They'd found her purse, a bank card, wedding rings, plural, and dirty clothes

in a garbage bag. This was enough to kick the disappearance up the ladder to a possible murder and more officers were assigned to the case as a result. I'd like to note that they say in South Australia, it's slow going. It's easy as we're seeing. I think a lot of these things are, it's interesting how they manifest in a fairly, I would say chill part of the world. And so these guys are like kind of an anomaly. A lot of people kind of just going along to get along. These guys are a bunch of fucking monsters that sprung up in this very kind of an anomaly. A lot of people are kind of just going along to get along.

These guys are a bunch of fucking monsters that sprung up in this very kind of slow moving town. The Adelaide police and all these people around the area, they move real slow. And it takes a long time for them to build a case. So it is interesting that they committed the majority of their crimes as they were already being investigated for their crimes And it took some time for them to slowly put this together because they wanted ever I guess I have a rock-solid case Well, not necessarily. I mean they watched them. They know that they're making money from dead people from ATMs

They've been watching them for months. Well, they did that once like after Vanessa Lane like after Vanessa Lane Years before and they had spotty surveillance for like a month. And then they, maybe two months, and then they stopped watching them. And then it wasn't until a little bit later that they did start, it wasn't until actually right now, right before the last murder that they started watching them. And additionally, with Bunting and Wagner back on the scene, speaking of Vanessa Lane, her disappearance was given another look

because they had completely forgotten about that one. It was found that Bunting and Wagner, who were close associates of Mark Hayden, whose wife had gone missing, they had been withdrawing welfare checks from the bank accounts of people who had all supposedly left town suddenly and mysteriously. And it works for one, two, three, but once it

gets to four five six seven then it gets suspicious yeah and not the strength of that investigators got permission to monitor bunting Wagner and Mark Hayden's phone calls police dubbed them the three amigos after the extremely light-hearted comedy Do you have anything besides Mexican food Favorite is would you like to take me out and kiss me on the veranda lips will be fine But then naming them the three amigos this was long before they discovered how gruesome this case was going to be. I don't think they were Amigos at all. My thanks.

They were bad. But what they did know was that these people were connected with the disappearances of no less than four people, and unbeknownst to Bunting, Wagner and Hayden, police began recording an incredible amount of phone conversations over a period of eight weeks. But it was during this last period of highly increased surveillance that the Snowtown crew committed their last murder, which was the only murder actually committed in the village of Snowtown. Yay! We got there!

Yay! We got there. Yay. Now by May of 1999, John Bunting and Robert Wagner believed that police had given up on their investigations. But on the day that Bunting and Wagner decided to return to murder, it didn't really matter, because it just so happened that that was one of the days in which they weren't being watched.

That's the slow going thing that you're talking about. Yes, the idiot in their way into being good at this. Yeah, somebody was speeding and the cop was busy. Well, looks like I've lost the next eight hours. Now, perhaps appropriately, considering how off the rails the mission had gone, Bunting and Wagner's last victim was not a part of Bunting's wall of spiders, nor, to the best of our knowledge,

had this victim abused or molested anyone. Instead, murder victim David Johnson was merely a person in Bunting's circle of dirtbags Bunting just didn't like. He was also Jamie Vlasakis' stepbrother somehow, but the ins and outs of that rat's nest of relationships is far too complicated to explore. You know that song I'm my own grandpa I'm my own grandpa Everything about these people's connections is like that song Yeah, yeah, but this is where John bunting he wanted to be a serial killer now now all of the auspices of a missionary style

Motivation are gone. He just wants to kill. He's very, very excited about it. And now he's like, we've got a fucking murder studio. I wanna break it in. Yeah. Now the setup for David Johnson's murder was that Jamie Vasquez would tell David that he had a friend who was selling a computer for just $200.

Great deal. But they had to drive out to Snowtown to get it. Never go to a second location. Now there were a lot of phone calls arranging the capture of David Johnson that were recorded on police wiretaps. But for some reason, could be Australian law, could be a manpower problem.

Authorities couldn't listen to the phone calls in real time. Instead, they heard all of this after the fact. What's the point? Is it the point of monitoring the phone calls to catch them. No, it's gathering evidence. Yeah, yeah, but also it's maybe catch them Yeah, it's also to try to catch them. I mean, that's what we try to do here in America We also have a day a military-sized police department in almost each city. So we have a lot of manpower We don't want a surveillance state as well And we go and we have a Rico the whole Rico thing allows them to kind of mobilize

Hundreds of cops at once and they just do live 24-7 wiretaps on people Also, you don't want to arrest somebody and let them get away from lack of evidence You got to make sure you got their fucking ass. Oh, yeah, of course This is they will eventually amass quite a bit of evidence Yeah But even so none of the so-called three amigos ever outright said what they were doing. Of course, because they were doing the stupid gangster talk on the phone. Yeah. All police heard later was Bunting asking Jamie if the machine was all set up and Wagner asked if

Pusshead was on the way. What an awful, that's so fucking stupid. And they're all going like, all right, no worries, no worries, back and and forth because that's how they say things are cool. Now once David entered the Snowtown Bank, Bunting and Wagner were waiting with handcuffs. After he was restrained, they took his wallet and got his pen number and bank information. Then they recorded David's voice like all the others, but this time Bunting was trying a new method. Instead of a tape recorder, Bunting was attempting to use recording software on a 1999 desktop computer. He wanted to go digital. Yes.

He's becoming the Moby of Serial Killers. He thought that he could get a lot of sound bites together and string them together on a computer. Guess what? He's not good at it. No. He was bad at it. He did not know how to put together a bunch of soundbites correctly onto a computer.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, man. I feel like he was so... This is his escalations. This is his version of like, we're gonna make this into a sustainable murder factory. Yeah, the future is now. The future is now. But from what it sounds like, Bunting used the computer to record countless names, numbers,

phrases, and words that he would later try to edit to create sentences like, fuck off, piss off, shit head, why are you phoning me, your mother's a whore, and so on and so forth. At least it was something to keep him busy. But once the recordings were complete, Bunting and Wagner popped their well-worn copy of lives throwing copper on the CD player and began the torture, using most of the same techniques they'd used before. But this time, while Jamie and Wagner were out at the bank testing David's PIN number, David almost escaped.

After getting himself free, David and Bunting got into a scuffle, which cracked a couple of Bunting's ribs. But when David went for a knife, Bunting overpowered him and strangled him to death with David's own belt. But now that they had their own kill slash disposal room, Robert Wagner got straight to work butchering David Johnson's body inside the Snowtown Bank vault. But just as Jamie was holding the corpse's leg while Wagner cut at the knee who should walk in the front door but their friend Dennis Cordwell the same guy who stored the Land Cruiser he's just dropping by just to say hello. Yeah he just wanted to come say hi see their new venture. He's very nice. He's extremely nice and then you probably heard the throwing copper from outside. He was like, oh, it's my favorite album

I don't go with it. Hey, you guys lock 7 every three. I can't believe they never bought another CD And by 1999 like I think secret Samadhi's out by that point I think secret I think secret Samadhi came out when I was like 13 because I remember that was The day that I bought that CD was the same day that I set that dumpster on fire 1997 It was definitely out. Yeah, Connie's juice was right fucking there Marcy playground something like sex and candy Well now that I think about it 1999 they're listening to fastball BUNTY AND DINOS CORDWELL SINGING Ouch!

LAUGHS That was the remix. Now luckily for the three amigos, Bunting just so happened to be outside of the vault at the time. So he distracted Dennis Cordwell by showing him his new computer. Later, Cordwell recalled... He got a thing right here. See how the snake goes around Codwell's room? And he's going around chasing after the apples.

He wants to make sure they're running out into the obstacles there, because they can't do that to your snake. Isn't that nice? You know this computer there? There's a thing called pornography. I'm mad at it. There's teddies there. It's everywhere.

Look at this here. You ever thought you could play pinball on a machine? You didn't know? Oh look, you can play pinball on this computer. It's amazing. It's easy. Ball never gets stuck. I'm spending the next three or four hours downloading Secret Smartie right now. You can play pinball on this computer. It's amazing. Well never get stuck

Three four hours downloading But once cord well was shuffled away Wagner and bunting decided to take their debauchery to the highest level when Wagner came out of the vault with a chunk of Johnson's flesh that had been sliced off the corpse's leg. As Jamie later remembered it, they all went to Cordwell's house with the meat and told Cordwell that they had some fresh kangaroo to share. It's kangaroo everyone! Again? And this is, you know, they're wanting to bolster their story. had some fresh kangaroo to share. It's kangaroo everyone. And again.

And this is, you know, they're wanting to bolster their story. They're they're wanting to say like, yeah, we're absolutely doing this kangaroo pet food thing. And now look, we've got some kangaroo flesh to fuck. We got some meat.

Great. I definitely am so happy you're taking this weirdly just found semi warm room temp kangaroo meat from that extremely smelly bank vault. Thank you. Oh, amazing. I didn't know what we were going to do. The hello fresh guy didn't arrive because the postmaster got shot in the head. He's just scared of him and he's like, yeah, sounds great. Yeah. He said, cook it up.

So Wagner went to the kitchen and fried up the cumin flesh in a pan. They look distinctly different by the way. Human meat is very, very close to pork and kangaroo meat is very dark. Yeah. Well, I mean, he maybe he had it wrapped up, but it was then cut into squares. And Dennis Cordwell, unaware of the providence of the meat, joined bunting Wagner and Vlasakis in a bout of cannibalism. And I think that the reason why he didn't know the difference in the meat was because

Wagner overcooked the fuck out of it. He tried to hide that this is not kangaroo meat. We need a meat thermometer That's how I would overcooking chicken for the last several years. Yeah me too Oh, I use a meat thermometer every time you have pork chicken steak lamb Get that chef Paul's magic seasoning and make anything taste like fish Nothing, I like Fucking brown lump of meat and I pull out my fucking long ass meat thermometer And I just bury that fucking thing deep in the center of the brownest biggest wettest fucking low fucking beef I can get my hands on a model. That's the only thing I fucking give a shit about you are becoming a better cook

To explain away David Johnson's disappearance Bunting told Jamie to spread the rumor that David Johnson had gotten a 13 year old girl pregnant and was now on the run from the police Bunting also tried editing the recordings he'd made on his computer of David's voice, but soon found that editing is actually quite a difficult skill to teach yourself that takes years to get right, as

both Rob and I know. You know, you can't just torture strangle a bunch of sound bites out of just a person. You need to leave room. And it's also important for that. Do you have a condenser on there? No, it's extraordinarily hard to edit voice and especially on the

1999 computer 1999 software like it's like if you ever seen that fuck it the clip of that guy going do do oh whoa And he's showing the guy and it's really hard. No, I've never seen it either, but I don't watch editing videos for fun It's way back in the day and it's gonna be difficult in other words It's very complicated software than an idiot like John Bunting is not gonna be able to figure out That's why you always get a backup on tape. Yeah, but it's also it's a funny It's a funny escalation because the tape recorders were

technically working fine. Yeah, they were working just fine. Yeah. So because that didn't work, Bunting had his mistress, Gail Sinclair, pose as David's new girlfriend to distract David's family. Now, David Johnson's real girlfriend was both devastated and somewhat incredulous that he had supposedly knocked up a 13 year old girl and she told Jamie Vlasakis that if David didn't show

up or call her or do something within a few days she was going to call the police. This girl very well could have become a murder victim but instead Bunting had Jamie buy a prepaid mobile phone under David's former legal name, David Cheeseman. The phone number was then given to his ex girlfriend and when she called Gail Sinclair, John Bunting's mistress answered the phone. Yeah, John Bunting also could fuck like crazy, man. Yeah. She very matter of factly said that David was taken a shit and couldn't come to the phone and then hung up. And then it was like, that's it.

He wasn't. So I'll tell him you called. No, he was dead. Yeah. Yeah. But he's like, nope, taking a shit. He'll call you back. And then just hung up. But at the same time, police were slowly but surely,

and I do mean slowly, catching up to the sloppiness of the three amigos. We are the three amigos. Amigos. And amigos together we'll be! Goodnight Dad! Yeah I could just imagine these three guys My little buttercup

Has the sweetest smile Are you the singing bush? While driving around You shot the invisible swordsman! Sorry it's one of my favorite movies It's like my top three While driving around, two detectives spotted Mark Hayden's Land Cruiser, which they'd been searching for ever since a neighbor had seen a group of men loaded up with something mysterious and putrid before towing it away. That Land Cruiser was still on Dennis Cordwell's property, and after being questioned about

the disappearance of Elizabeth Hayden, Cordwell told detectives that the Land Cruiser had been brought to his property by John Bunting and Robert Wagner. Naturally, the Land Cruiser was covered in stains by the leaky barrels and smelled like decomposition. They're definitely so they're like, okay, we're on the right track here. Just fucking keep following this Land Cruiser. Just keep following Bunting and Wagner and it's going to lead us to something awful. It's a fucking evidence machine is what This vehicle, Cordwell said, had been filled with several rancid smelling barrels which had since been moved to the old bank in Snowtown. Once the cops pulled up, they were immediately overwhelmed, even from the outside, by the

overpowering and unmistakable stench of death. With more than probable cause, they walked in and discovered six black barrels lined up against a wall on which knives, gloves, and handcuffs were hung above. And so on May 20, 1999, officers called their superior and said that they had bodies. It was seven years after Bunting's first murder and 11 days after the death of their last victim. There's actually very interesting video online of them popping open the vault where you could see because they did this thing where they had just taped garbage bags up to do it and you see the cops like just slicing it open to go look inside because it just looked like a

It looked like a guy's hangout area. There was like a man cave You look a man cave where they'd like your the ladies on the wall literally there was stuff like that There was like they're all their hangout I think drinks like like literally like glasses filled half with it like they were just hanging out on top of the barrels and shit Yeah, fuck it and shit. Yeah. Fuck it. Dark board. Yeah. Now the cops on the instructions of their superiors retreated from the building to plan the next step of their investigation because it was obvious that there was a small ring of criminals involved in these murders and they did not want to fuck this up. They began searching did his cord wells property to see

if he had anything to do with it. and while the only forensic evidence was in the Land Cruiser they also found the dumbest most edgelord note I've ever read most likely written by John Bunting. It said, Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off. You almost like meant nothing and then at the very end it's like I'm guilty. It's a Spencer shirt. Yeah it really is. It is a that is. That set me seeing Hot Topic in 1999.

I remember I had a shirt that said nine of the ten voices of my head say, don't shoot. I had one of those. I had one with like puffer, like white spots all over it. And it just said the same shit different day. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. Well, after that, all available officers were rallied to Snowtown State Bank, where they told residents of this quiet village, they're just there to make routine inquiries into a drug bust. There's definitely not a

bunch of bodies over there in that building. But really, they were there to survey exactly what was hidden in the vault at Snowtown. After unscrewing the lids of the barrels investigators found, as one writer put it, a toxic soup of bones, arms, legs, and heads floating in a stew of liquid decomposition. Not surprisingly a lot of the officers who were there that day were deeply deeply traumatized by both the sights and smells they experienced. While they had to spend all day and all night cataloging every bit of evidence in the bank and there was quite a bit, the barrels could not be moved out by hand. They couldn't just sort of like circle their way out.

You know how you move a barrel. Yeah, you gotta get a hand cart. Yep. And that's lest the human soup slosh out onto the floor like a cup filled with too much coffee. Oh yeah, because you gotta tilt it. Yeah, you gotta tilt it back. That's why you gotta get the ladle.

Yeah. Yeah, honestly, they could have used a chef. Where's the bear in this? That's what they need, man. The ladle patrol. Like a cupcake. I hear you need a human soup. I'm over to a pot. They're like a big fucking chips hat on

because some guy shows up late like no soup for you. Finally though, someone brought a handcart. After forensics had enough time with the barrels in the spot where they were found and the bodies were loaded into a truck and driven to Adelaide Police Headquarters. Meanwhile in the small hours of May 21st detectives and officers arrived at the homes of John Bunting, Robert Wagner and Mark Hayden with arrest warrants. All

three were arrested without incident although Bunting, Robert Wagner, and Mark Hayden with arrest warrants. All three were arrested without incident, although Bunting was characteristically combative and chatty. Jamie Vlasakis, however, wasn't even on police radar when it came to the murders, even though he'd been cashing checks from the same people just like the rest of them were. It was only after Jamie unloaded everything he knew about the murders to a friend did police arrest him after the friend reported everything they heard. Because the friend was freaked the fuck out. Man, he was so close!

Yeah. He really would have got away with it. They would have got him eventually, I think. Yeah, they were very bad at it. Yeah, they definitely would have got him eventually. They began to, serial killers sometimes move into a state. Sometimes it is a almost magical thinking. Like Richard Ramirez was certain that the cops would never find him because

he was working in league with Satan. But it happens a lot with these guys. They begin to believe they are invincible. They begin to believe that because it's either one or the other sometimes. Where if you know obviously it's more complicated than that but more Oftentimes you see a serial killer who wants to be caught like we say oftentimes they go into berserker mode Where they do a bunch of careless shit and then get caught like towards the end of a crime spree Where somebody like John bunting was just extremely bad at it and he began to feel that I Because he was being surrounded by protection, I'm great at this. Yeah.

I'm a very good killer and as a matter of fact, maybe there is some form of mystical edge to me being a hero and doing the things for the quote unquote right reasons and that's why no one will catch me. Yeah, the universe wants me to do this. Wants me to be doing this. Well, within 24 hours, Jamie had spoken to a lawyer and the lawyer Negotiated immunity if Jamie told them everything he knew or so they thought Jamie talked for six days telling everything he knew but would learn for another ten months that his immunity request had been denied

Got got did how does that happen? They cough calls cops lied to you Yeah, cops are fully allowed to lie to you. They'd say anything. Oh, yeah, you got your immunity. Yeah, it's great Tell us everything you know a cop can't promise anything to you anytime a cop promise you something inside of interrogation room It's a lie. Yes, they can't yeah I do not do anything until you have a paper in front of you that you have signed Yes, that do not say anything at all ever until you have a paper in front of you that you have signed. Yes. That, do not say anything at all, ever.

Now the media immediately lost their shit when they heard about the bodies and the barrels murders. Initially comparing the depravity to something akin to what was found in the home of British serial killers, Fred and Rose West. Be thankful you missed that one, Eddie. All right.

The story was also, because I'm not talking about it ever again. I'll send it to you. Yeah, send it to me, I'll fucking not read it. The story was also immediately dubbed the Snowtown Murders, and when the story reached America, Adelaide was labeled as Australia's gruesome true crime capital, which in fact it very much is. And we can't wait to see in August when we come to Australia for the JK Ultra Tour. Oh my god we should roll Henry out in a barrel. Oh man and spill now with a bunch of soup. Yeah, get some barrels. I personally love Adelaide I think it's a great job. Yeah we'll see you when we're there wait but just like we had after the

captures of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, Snowtown street jokes started immediately, which I will now ask Ed to deliver in his inimitable style. All right. So why is it so difficult to get a bank loan in Snowtown? Why? Because it costs an arm and a leg. Why is service so slow at the snow town bank? Because they only got a skeleton staff. There was a mentally handicapped man that was turned into chicken noodle. All right. Here's what, what was John bunting savings accounts filled with slush funds. The Snowtown also became a true crime destination, complete with merch. Pictures were sold depicting skeletons hanging out of barrels. Caption, I've been to Snowtown and survived. And novelty ceramic skeleton

filled barrels were produced with the label Snowtown SA. You'll have a barrel of fun. Thanks. Not clever though. They went hard on that. I mean I feel like it's not clever we can mix it up. It got me. It's actually like... How about it say more fun than a barrel full of monkeys how about more fun than a barrel full of honkeys. Does that work? Can I get that shirt? Yes. Yeah. We'll pick it up when we're in town. Well even the police got in on the fun just a bit almost naming the Snowtown investigation Task Force Barrel, but after that was deemed to be too salacious, they renamed it to something totally nondescript, Task Force Chart.

Interestingly, there was also wild speculation that the bodies found at the Snowtown Bank were a part of a wider conspiracy of nationwide bank vault murders. What to create a national chain of pedophile fucking chowder? And police departments all over Australia raided bank vaults for bodies. Snowtown State Bank of course was the only one used for this particular purpose. Yeah, it got the lucky. They're lucky. Yeah, the bank has to be out of business to be filled with bodies and barrels. It does, unfortunately. Now once Jamie Vlasakis was examined by a mental health professional, it became obvious that he was a damaged, highly unstable, emotionally stunted individual who'd found a sort of father figure who would just tell him what to do in John Bunting.

But even so, Jamie was charged with five murders in April of year 2000. Meanwhile, police started working backwards through John Bunting's past to see if they could find the body of Clinton Trezise, Bunting's first victim. Because it was kind of an open secret at this point amongst certain people that, because John Bunting talked about the murder

of Clinton Trezise all the time. It was his first- Yeah, that was his big brag. It was his first murder. You know, he was like, yeah, that's why, you know, this is why I do this, you know, blow up, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth. But when they spoke to Bunting's old next door neighbor at 203 Waterloo corner road, Skews mentioned that Suzanne Allen and Ray Davies had also mysteriously disappeared from the neighborhood. These were victims two and three. And the police at this point hadn't even heard these names. Skews then told

investigators about the tunnel that Bunting Wagner and Hayden had dug just for fun years earlier. This was the same tunnel Skews had helped fill. It's just like I gotta say man you're saying some suspicious fucking shit like this. Yeah it's crazy cause they're like bunch guys, you know, obviously disappeared around them We got a really insane thing and then there's like big old fucking hell They put bunch of shit in it and I can help him cover it up. No, no problems. No worries there But I'm you know, otherwise, I don't know what else I saw You're a good cops look what What What are you talking about? You're like a cop. What? The bodies of Davis and Allen

were found after minimal digging and from what Skews said, he had no idea he was helping to bury bodies at the time and was haunted by this knowledge for the rest of his life. This is why curiosity is a good thing. Always pursue your thoughts. Sometimes

you're getting paid for a job, you know? It's like, you know, $30, dig this hole, sure. Most of the times I would say truly for your own protection, never ask questions, but ask a couple. Just a couple. Now once it came time for trial, the prosecutors partly had to rely on the testimony of Jamie Vasakis for the specific causes of death. See, in some cases forensic pathologists were able to determine that victims had died of strangulation due to broken hyoid bones in the neck. Usually when someone's strangled it breaks a bone in the neck. That's how they determined the cause. That's what they said was suspicious about Epstein. Yeah. But for the rest, the bodies had mostly been found in a state of suspended putrefaction,

meaning that the lack of oxygen in the barrels had stopped the process of decomposition at the putrefaction point to create a sort of human slough. Remember around the 60s and 50s they just put a lot of like whatever would float and putting an angelo? No, yeah, yeah, that's what this is. Oh, okay, that's fun. The um, no, no, when you have these barrels, they're just like years they're sitting in there No months. Oh a couple of more sitting in there for years like Michelle Like Michelle Gardner, I think was her name the fourth victim They found him all in 1999 and everything kind of started in a couple of years before I believe Michelle Gardner was killed in 97 so a couple of them had been in there for a couple of years.

But that's the thing without oxygen, you know, like they'd open them up every once in a while, not for enough time, not for enough time. So, yeah, I mean, if you remove all oxygen from the atmosphere, then, yeah, they're not going to decompose past a certain point, because what happens with decomposition is that the bacteria and certain things within your body start to eat away at your flesh in order to survive and that's what causes the body to putre fi turn into liquid Yeah, but at a certain point that can only decompose a body so much so without oxygen it stays at that liquefied point I'm having a lovely time tonight, but can we maybe choose an appetizer?

having a lovely time tonight, but can we maybe choose an appetizer? Where's the waiter at? No, those are the sorts of conversations I have on like, Caroline is on the couch, like watching TV and I'm just like standing there. Natalie has experienced the same one man show. Yeah. Yes. The standing and talking while, you know, they're on the info dump while they're just trying to like do a crossword.

Yeah. It's all upsetting shit Well Julie, like so what do you learn in the baton? I'll start like half a sentence in a like, you know What you don't want me to finish this There's no reason why would you know this? Well this liquefying of the bodies made forensically determining cause of death all but impossible on a lot of the victims For those specifics the state had to depend mostly on a lot of the victims. For those specifics, the state had to depend mostly on the testimony of Jamie Vasakis. But even after pleading guilty and giving all the information he could about the 12 murders Bunting and Wagner committed, where I think they committed

10 or 11 together but Bunting definitely was involved in all 12, Jamie Vasakis was still sentenced to life in prison, although he is eligible for parole starting next year, 25 years after his sentence began. As far as the other trials went, Bunting and Wagner stood trial together and pled not guilty to every charge. As a result, their trial lasted for nearly a year and featured 220 witnesses. The witnesses alone took 140 days. That's too much. Well now in the United States they have a thing that's called juror fatigue. They talk about stuff like this now where they say like you have to figure out how to do these because like Melts people's minds watching stuff for that long

Yeah But out of the entire year in which every piece of evidence was examined one by one Bunting and Wagner's defense only took up 80 minutes of court time less than an hour and a half Oh my god, the lameely claim that there wasn't enough evidence to convict Buntingham Wagner. I have a statement from my client it says here series of criminally laid banana peels were left near the barrels, am I

getting this right? and they slipped and fell in there the defense race. Really good work everybody. Really good work if you rip the barrel down fit. You might have quit. There was of course very much enough evidence. Very much so. Yeah. Almost there was like

barrels full of evidence. Yeah, you don't get to say that very often. There were literally barrels full of evidence. Barrels of evidence. And Bunting and Wagner were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But while Bunting said nothing after a sentence, Wagner stood up and made a pitiful speech about how they were just doing what the police had refused to do, completely ignoring that

the majority of the people they'd killed had nothing to do with molestation or pedophilia in any way whatsoever They were either homophobic murders transphobic murders or Just people they didn't fucking like man I got a lot of emails about how like they do create areas where pedophiles like live together in communities like where you could sort of like Release them and sort of like a safe release like you do with Buffalo Oh, no

There was there was that one building on like 26 and 1st in Manhattan where like everyone is like Oh, that's the building where like they put all the pedophiles Yeah, and I gotta tell you just as long as it's not anywhere near an M&M store. It's Maybe it was further north and sty town But it was like right on the border of a school. But basically a lot of the conversation was that recidivism is pretty close to like 80%. They come back to suck. Especially when you put them all together and they can compare notes. Yeah, they hang out and they just fantasize all day.

Mark Hayden meanwhile was able to get a separate trial because he technically only assisted with moving and storing bodies and he was present when some of the crimes were taking place. But even so he was found guilty as well, although he was sentenced to only 25 years in prison. That means that Mark Hayden is set to be released, let's see Tuesday after next, is that interesting? May 21st.

I'm looking at this article right now, so he apparently he is 65 He's gonna be allowed to be out on a conditional release There are exclusion zones that he can't go to I don't know how you're gonna fucking keep him from doing that I don't know how that works. He has a he's constantly monitored He is banned from attempting contact. They're any victims families. He has to obey a 9 to 6 a.m. curfew you'd be electrically monitored and Yeah, I guess he's not allowed to talk to the media. But yeah, he's only supposed to go certain areas. Yeah. But I don't know how you stop him. I guess he watch him. But as we see sometimes the South Australian

government, this is necessarily keep a thorough view. So we'll see. So if he can't talk to his family, but he killed his wife, can he not talk to anyone, like his victim's families? Can he not talk to anyone in his family then? No, I don't think so. Well, he can't talk to his wife's family. Yeah, but once you marry somebody, they're your family. They're your family.

And so I think the marriage is annulled when you kill them and you dismember them and you put them in a barrel and they turn into soup. Technically he did not kill them and dismember them. He drove Gail away. He drove John Bunting away. Yeah, he was the postmates guy. But he was involved in that murder, right? He was.

So it's like he knew that it had happened, but he only got charged as an accomplice. Well, you got 25 years. Crazy. Yeah, you got 25 years because he was like, he did help them move the bodies and the barrels from the garage to the car, to the bank. And he was present during a couple of murders but didn't

participate and that was you know, Jamie Vassakis came in and testified and said like no Mark Hayden didn't participate Well as far as buntings life in prison goes He's still a fucking dick and has been known to dip pencils in his own feces before stabbing people with the tips to make sure they get infections. So he's killing people? No, they just get infections. He's just fighting guys. Oh, okay.

He's not going anywhere. See, a pencil that's not, we all know the pen is mightier than the sword. No, he's just pricking people. He's just a thing. He's an asshole. Yeah, he just an asshole. Presently, he's turned his attention from pedophiles to prison officers and police as far as who he wants to murder. He's an absolute menace to everyone in prison and speaks nonstop about escape, revenge,

and the details of his crimes, cornering anyone unlucky enough to get stuck in his company. Wow, an unpleasant man gets his unpleasant end. That's good! Yep, that's good. I mean, he'll die in jail, hopefully. As well, no, he'll die in jail as will Robert Wagner. They're both life without parole, so those guys aren't getting out anytime soon. I doubt that Jamie Vesakis is ever, I think Jamie Vesakis is gonna be like Leslie Van Houten, you know Where you know, it's just gonna take forever and then maybe one day he'll get Released maybe one day, but I think he's gonna be more like a Tex Watson. Yeah, where it's just like he's fucking in there forever

He's just yeah. This is a great series. This is fun. I'm very excited. We're getting into some really cool territory next week We have this is a topic. We've been wanting to do for a long time. I'm excited if we finally got into it. Pittsburgh zone! I can't wait, it's gonna be really, really fun. Go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left, and you can watch our bodies flop around on video. You also get ad-free bullshit, see us live.

Our live last stream on the left every Tuesday, it's fun as fuck. I think it's good. I don't care what you think. It's real good. I'm doing plugs from now on. I don't know what it does. We did get some passive income last week. Yeah, we did get some passive income. You can also follow us at Instagram at LP on the left and check out all of our live streams at twitch.tv slash LP and TV. And if you can't watch any of that stuff live, you can watch it after the fact on our YouTube channel and you can come see us on tour. We are coming to Australia in August. We're coming

to Adelaide. Can't wait. Yeah. And we're coming. We We're Melbourne Sydney, June 8th, Seattle. I'm sorry I know you're talking about Australia, but you know, it's when I'm plug that one real quick Yeah, I know I can't wait to be back in Australia. We're gonna have a lot of fun We're not gonna kill any pedophiles as far as I know No, and don't forget about our other shows that are a little later in the year. We're coming to Washington DC We're coming to Brooklyn. Yeah, we're gonna be doing a show at the Wiltern here in Los Angeles near the end of the year and we're also gonna be doing two dates in London in October I believe can't wait and we're gonna be doing finally gonna

be doing the long-awaited show in Reykjavik Iceland which I am very very fucking excited for so I know all you fucking Icelanders like to wait till the last minute Yeah, but buy them tickets now And come on out to our show and bring us a warm lap I can't wait to have some name hot dogs some lamb hot dog. Let me some puffin. They got some time man They don't fish don't pickle itself If you want to hear our new show on the SiriusXM app exclusively, go check out last update on the left. If you already have the SiriusXM app, you also can get a three-month-for-free membership if you apply and that's on y'all.

That's right. And that's on y'all. And you know, happy Mother's Day to everybody and available today on Amazon is my movie, How America Killed My Mother. So it's moved on with it. So make sure it's a great movie to watch on Mother's Day weekend. If your mom's already dead. Yes, it's a great one. But also just go to how America killed my mother dot com to find out other details on how to watch it on Vimeo.

But yeah, it's available on Amazon now. Congratulations. It's great. And I just want to say thank you to all the MILFS that have supported me emotionally. They don't know that's great. And I just want to say thank you to all the MILFs that have supported me emotionally. They don't know that they have. But in every hotel room I go and in every time like Natalie's out of town, the MILFs that come around in this little box here are some of the most important members of this little community that we call Henry Zabrowski's sexual touch.

Yeah, the MILF man. So I just want to say thank you to all the MILFs that That your wares and what you do for people. It's just When you shoplift and then you gnawedly get searched for the items, you don't know who you help So thank you for that. Alright, so if you're a MILF out there and you're getting railed by a police officer Thanks. Security guard, please. Thank you for that. Right. So if you're a MILF out there and you're getting railed by a police officer. Thanks. Security guard, please. Thank you.

Hail Satan. Again. Hail the MILFs. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to LastPodcastNetwork.com. the world.