Murder, Mystery & Makeup - when cannibals do “good” but then hide victims in Barrels of Acid - Snowtown Pt. 1

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Hi friends, happy Tuesday!   Today we're headed down under to talk about the Snowtown Murders. This story starts with the discovery of eight decomposing bodies in acid barrels, and it just gets scarier and more gruesome from there. Let me know what you guys think about this one in the comments.   Also, let me know who you want me to talk about next time. Forever grateful for you being here. Hope you have a great rest of your week, make good choices and I'll be seeing you very soon xo Bailey Sarian ________ :  :    F O L L O W    M E     :  : Discord: http://discord.gg/baileysarian Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d RECOMMEND A STORY HERE : [e-mail]  Business Related Emails : [e-mail] Wanna Send Me Something? Bailey Sarian 4400 W Riverside Dr Ste 110-300, Burbank, CA 91505 _______ Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://www.RocketMoney.com/MAKEUP.  Right now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code MAKEUP when you register. Just go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app to start earning cash back.  Go to https://www.Zocdoc.com/MAKEUP to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to Monday, huh? I wasn't paying attention and just like damn I chose like a brutal ass story to get in like to dive into. I haven't recommended the story for so long and I don't know why it took me so long to like really dive into it but I got there and you guys are sick. This story is sick. I don't know what is going on with Australia, but sometimes you guys, you got some questionable people living down under.

That's all I'm gonna say because today's story is like one of the most difficult cases to solve in Australian history, but like one of the most brutal. I was just trying to understand it and that's what gets me like so into these stories. It's like, how could people, this, oh. You guys, geez. Okay, this story is known as like the Snowtown murders

or the bodies in the barrels murder. Because there's so many, multiple bodies in multiple barrels and happy holidays and stuff. But like content warning, this one's really graphic. Torture, dismemberment, pedophilia, childhood sexual assault, white supremacy, violence against LGBTQIA plus community. There's some cannibalism and there's some check fraud. The list is long.

Holy crap. Let me just say, I'm gonna be throwing a lot of names at you, so just be ready, okay? Just be ready. It all makes sense because this one is just like wild. So our story starts in November of 1998 with a 37-year-old's mother. Her name is Elizabeth Hayden.

She's a mother of eight, mother of eight. And it's safe to say that Elizabeth has had a really hard life. Like she was the youngest of six and she grew up in a, she said that just a very abusive household. She had been treated poorly by men like most of her life. So she's taking care of eight kids. Hello, I think we can all agree that that is a lot.

And then she had several different fathers of her children who had abandoned her and also paid no child support. So I think, you know, it's not going too great. I think we can agree on that. Like, it's not good, okay? But Elizabeth gets to a point where she is finally happy and she's remarried to a 29 year old man named Mark Hayden. And like he was really stepping up and showing

what a good man he was to her. At this point, Elizabeth feels like, you know, things are really coming around for her. So with that being said, it was really strange when Elizabeth's brother, he received an unexpected guest, I guess. Elizabeth's kids, they end up showing up on his doorstep on November 22nd, 1998.

And he tells them that their mom was missing. Elizabeth's husband, his name is Mark, he comes to pick them up and tells his brother-in-law that Elizabeth, she wasn't missing, that she had left him. Not only him, but she also like left behind the kids. And then she had taken out like all of the money from their shared bank account. And then he goes on to say that she had run off with quote, one of her boyfriends. Now to Elizabeth's brother, he was like, I don't know.

This doesn't seem right, you know? So he wastes a little bit of time with the brother and then when three days go by that's when he decides to go to police and file a missing persons report, which was like a good idea because one of Elizabeth's relatives, a nephew named Fred, now Elizabeth's nephew Fred had also mysteriously disappeared like a few months before. Now they didn't know what was going on. They knew it was like very strange circumstances but like other than that no one had heard from Fred. No one had seen him but Fred was like still withdrawing money from his welfare account. So it was weird. Like they're putting it together. You got it?

Great. Police take this and they continue kind of snooping around. They end up going to Elizabeth's house. And at the house, that's where they find like her purse, her credit card. Stuff that it seems like you would take with you if you ran away. Especially with like a new man and stuff, maybe. You would take your card and purse and stuff, you know? So they're like, hmm, that's weird.

Hmm, weird. So six more months go by and there still has not been a trace of her. So police follow up on a lead that they have. And this lead is Elizabeth's neighbor had reported seeing a man stuffing like big garbage bags into a Toyota Land Cruiser. And he's like, I'd never seen that Toyota Land Cruiser before ever, you know? So he noted that. And then he said that the truck of this Land Cruiser was like completely stuffed full

and the man was struggling to like jam and force the rest of these garbage bags into the back of the vehicle. So police are like, mm-hmm, yep, got it. Great. They trace the truck to the house of a man named Simon. Simon tells the police like it actually wasn't his car. It was one of his friends. And first, you just want to roll your eyes like, la, la, la, la, la. Sure, buddy.

But really, this was true. The truck or the car, it didn't belong to him. He was actually helping two of his friends move a bunch of blue barrels, which he noted were full of some very strong smelling chemicals out to an old bank vault in like a small farming community called Snowtown. And that was it.

Like that was the key to this investigation. On March 20th, 1999, Simon takes investigators down to Snowtown and Snowtown was described as being like this really small like area where several farming communities had lived. But like other than that, I guess there wasn't too much going on, you know? It was said to be very like, rural. I hate that word, but you know, rural. Anyways, it was that. And also like at the time, they didn't really have a large population.

That was really all that was said about it. It was like a sleepy town. When I looked it up though, it just kind of looks sketchy, you know? Well, based off this story, I think maybe that's safe to say. I don't know. I don't know if there's snow either.

I forgot to look that up. Anywho, detectives follow Simon into the old bank vault. And once they open that up, they're immediately hit with that like, you know, that smell of decomposing bodies, you know. But that's what they smell. Here it's a very distinct smell. So detectives, they end up like surveying the scene

and the vault ended up being littered with like these six giant blue barrels and they were all filled with massive amounts of acid. And inside that acid in the barrel were bodies and there were eight bodies in total. And all of them were like in this liquid decomposing in this chemical. Which side note, whoever had put the bodies in the chemicals, they had used the wrong chemical so it didn't dissolve the bodies. I think it's sulfuric acid dissolves bodies. They didn't use that.

They like mixed it up. So the bodies were actually kind of preserving themselves, which was good for investigators, but just tragic in general. Right? Yeah, talking to myself here. Right, Bailey? Yeah. So around the barrels, there were like a bunch of weapons that they found. So they found like makeshift tools like knives. There was a bloodstained saw. Oh my God. Like a shotgun, rope, electric rods, I guess, that were being used to like shock. And to investigators, they're like, holy, Snowtown vault. So that's what they know. And they're like, okay, great.

So Simon, like who are these friends? Right? Cause they're obviously gonna know something. And bitch, this is when the web of what the hell is going on really starts to just go out of control. Like what? Because I was just like, what is going on? What is going on really starts to just go out of control. Like what? Because I was just like, what is going on? What is going on? So the friends were 33 year old John Bunting and then 27 year

old Robert Wagner. So let's start with John Bunting. John was born in September of like 1966 in Inala. I tried to link this up. Okay, I really did. Inala, which is like a suburb of Brisbane. And Inala is said to be another one of those Australian towns that was like, kind of built out of desperation. At the time there was like this huge need for housing after World War II. So in like, in Australia,

they just were like cranking out these suburbs, okay? So what I'm getting at is by the time that John was born, it's like this town he was growing up in was still very new, it was like 14 years old. Also, it was said to be very small, like it wasn't filled with the wealthiest people, but it wasn't like the worst place to grow up. It's developed a lot since then,

but back in the 60s and the 70s, it again, kind of like sounds like there wasn't really anything to do. John was an only child and it was said that he was much closer to his father than he was his mother, but like not a lot is said about his father really. So I don't even know, who the freak knows.

But what we do know is that John's mom was a lot. It was said she was very like domineering, but most of all, she was extremely neat. Being neat is fine, you know, but she was neat in a very like toxic controlling type of way. John said that like she kept the house in pristine condition to the point where he really felt like he couldn't like sit anywhere, you anywhere. He couldn't really live in it. Imagining the plastic on the sofas situation and the room you never go in, but that's the whole house, which sucks. It was said that John was not very,

he didn't do too well in school and this upset his mother very much. But John, he did have a really deep fascination with chemistry. Like he really loved experimenting with chemicals as a kid. Like being a kid in the 1970s in Australia just kind of seemed wild because he just like was playing with chemicals. I don't know. Like John's chemical fascination, it started off innocent, it was said. Like he used it mainly to develop photographs, but then he moved on from that pretty quickly. And he would use different chemicals to like drown insects and use them on different insects to like see what happened to them. Like run his own little

experiments. So he was trying all sorts of different chemicals and like keeping little notes about it. Like what happens if I use chlorine? What happens if I use this acid? He wanted to know. I don't know. So John, it's safe to say he already had some questionable hobbies. Okay. But things definitely like they started to take a nosedive for John. Sadly, when he's only eight years old. Everyone in the story has a really bad life. It's really awful. It's not funny, but you know, you get it. I've been saying that a lot, but you do get it. So one day he was hanging out at his friend's house, like in the afternoon. It was like he had a few hours before his parents would start to wonder where he was. So it wasn't unusual for him to be like at his friend's house for most of the afternoon. Sadly, this friend of his who was also eight years old had this really horrible secret

that John was about to come face to face with. The friend's teenage brother had been sexually assaulting the boy for years. So when they're hanging out, the brother bursts into the room where they're playing and drags both of the eight year old boys out, like down into the hall, into like the bedroom and holds them down, locks the door and then rapes them. After he's done, the teenager ends up calling his friends. Hey, I've got some eight-year-olds here and I warmed them up.

I'm not kidding. You want to talk? What? Huh? So these sicko friends, these sick bucks, they come over and they torture John and his friend even more. So they just beat them. They continue to rape them. They end up burning John's skin with cigarettes. And this goes on for like hours and hours and hours. Like this brother is sick. And the friends too, obviously. But like it's extreme. So this is happening.

And then I guess the father of the house comes home. He sees what's going on and ends up like screaming at these kids. Tells them to get out and like stop doing what they're doing. He ends up untying John and then tells John to go to the doctors. That was it. The dad, he didn't, he didn't do anything else. Like he didn't report it. No punishment. He just kind of seemed to like, you know, like we're just going to ignore it and never talk about it again. Which is sad, but it happens, like, in a lot of cases. Oy vey. But, you know, like, fuck.

I mean, John is only eight years old, so he doesn't go to the doctor. I mean, he's eight, okay? I think, yeah, he's traumatized. So all he does is he goes home. And then when he gets to his house, John said that the first thing that happened to him when he walked into the house, his mom is angry and slaps him across the face. I was like, what?

Huh? John's mom was mad because he had missed tea time. I know. I was like, oh God. I mean, geez, right? Geez. So, I mean, needless to say, you know, like John doesn't feel like he can trust anybody really.

His parents. He doesn't have anyone to can trust anybody, really, his parents. He doesn't have anyone to talk to about what just happened. I think it's safe to say like, he fully didn't understand what happened to him either. But either way, it's like awful. And he ends up just keeping it a secret. So I guess these kids who had done all of this to John,

these sickos continued to like bully him outside, just outside in life. Like whenever they saw John, they would, I don't know, just harass him, verbally assault him, call him names. And John just said nothing. So as time goes on, I mean, John is obviously angry and then he kind of like internalizes that. And then it comes up in like different ways, you know?

So we know that John was fascinated with chemicals but now he was kind of growing a fascination with weapons and like killing animals and stuff. I know, I'm sorry. He would torture and kill neighborhood animals. And like, he just liked it. I don't know what else to say. Like, that's what he said.

He just liked it. Like, that's gross, I know. And then John, he also wanted his own little secret layer or something, you know? So he and his friend, they ended up building this huge tunnel underneath of their house. Dude, this kid went off. He put in work.

It was like five feet tall and over 16 feet long, okay? And then it was reinforced with bricks and wood. Carpenter over here, I don't know, building shit. I was like, feet tall and over 16 feet long. Okay, and then it was reinforced with bricks and wood. Carpenter over here, I don't know, building shit. I was like, wow, okay. He should have done that for a living. But he built that because he wanted his own little place to have like secrets and stuff and be all weird, you know? I feel like I've been blending forever, I should move on.

Because I don't know if I want to add glitter, like I like this eye. It's kind of cool. It's like, yeah. So John is small for his age. And at 13, he ends up befriending a guy named Benny. So John is 13 and this guy Benny is in his forties. I don't know, side eye.

There's like no information on how they met. So it's unclear. Could be something as simple as like them seeing each other or something, but yeah, they're friends in 1979. So the two of them like form a quick bond. Benny had a really tough childhood as well. He was severely abused growing up, especially by his father. And he would tell John that he would get like beaten up

all the time, you know, they bonded. I guess like Benny's dad as punishment removed some of his toes with bolt cutters. But look, Benny and John become best friends, but it's more like Benny becomes like a father figure and like a protector for John. Once Benny was in the picture, all those other like shitheads that were bugging John,

they finally left him alone because he had like this bodyguard, Benny. Benny at some point had introduced John to his favorite hobby. His favorite hobby was finding and attacking suspected pedophiles. I know, it was like a super big jump. I was like, whoa, I was not expecting that.

Yeah, Benny, this is Benny's favorite hobby. But keep in mind, I said suspected pedophiles. So it wasn't like the local police departments, like most wanted list, you know? It was literally people that Benny himself decided were pedophiles, just based off his instincts. He was like, um, that guy. Yeah, it was not good. Okay.

So Benny and John, they would actually work together. Yeah. To like catch these bad guys. So John would like wait on a street corner for a man to walk by and like, quote unquote, check him out. So once John got the attention from one of these guys, he would then like try and lure them into around this cornered area that would be, it would lead to like a dark alley.

And that's where Benny would be. And he'd be waiting to just like attack. So they would do this together, which at first you're like, oh cool. Like they're catching bad guys. But remember, they're really not. They're just like, that guy I heard one time, you know? Like it would just be random strangers

and then just beat them to pulp. It was real bad. It was rough. Like these people are brutal. Okay. And they felt like it was justified because they thought these were bad people. So they had zero remorse and just sick. They felt like they were doing the Lord's work or something. So Benny and John, they end up staying friends like for most of John's teenage years. I mean, that's really his best friend during that time. I don't know if they had like something else going on. There was nothing said, do you know what I'm saying?

Cause Benny was much older and you know? So nothing was said, so I don't know. But during this time, it's like Benny really instilled a lot of hate, more hate into John, because Benny would like lecture him about how to find pedophiles and stuff and what to look out for. gay with being a pedophile, which unfortunately, very tragic thing and is common, especially in the 80s when homophobia was, you know, basically acceptable in a lot of mainstream culture. Sadly, it got like a lot of LGBTQ plus people killed and it really still does, I mean, shit.

I feel like we're grown enough to understand that that is not the case. So meanwhile, Benny and John, the two of them just become like more and more intense. Like they're getting really, really violent. It's becoming a lot. Like they've graduated from luring men into a dark alley to now just like they would break into people's houses, like alleged pedophiles houses, go through all their drawers and stuff and just like, just make it a mess. The weirdest thing of all, Benny and John, they would poop on the beds of these victims

and then they would smear homophobic slurs on the walls with said poop. I was like, okay, that's, that's, that's different. That's real, that's different. I won't go into what he did with the pets because that wasn't nice and unnecessary, but it was just all around shitty. Oh, I wasn't really, that wasn't, it wasn't supposed to be kind of funny. Their reign of terror continues until like John turns 18. And this is when Benny just dies suddenly of throat cancer.

Like it came out of nowhere and this left John completely devastated. And it had a really, but it had a major effect on him because this was his father figure and like his protector. I mean, they pooped together on Stranger Spence. That seems to really bond people. So losing him was devastating. This was really hard on John. He doesn't know how to really cope.

So at the age of 19, he decides like new chapter, new him. You know, he's gonna, he decides to just completely pick up everything, uproots his life and then moves 1200 miles away to Adelaide, Australia. So he goes here and he's like, this is a brand new start. This is fresh. New me. So John is now making like a new life for himself in Adelaide. He's 19 years old. He quickly gets a girlfriend. This girlfriend is 14 years old. I know, it's kind of ironic

because he doesn't like pedophiles. I guess in Australia, the age of consent is 14 or was 14. I hope the answer is was 14, but I forgot to double check on that one, you know? That's a little young, you guys, but okay. John also gets a job bagging meat for the South Australian Meat Corporation. So he gets like, you know, a big boy job,

and he would brag to like coworkers about how much he loved slaughtering animals. And honestly, it was like kind of a good job for him. It kept his hands busy. At least he wasn't killing animals out on the street and stuff, you know? Like he should have stuck with it, but he starts to get weird.

He starts to get really paranoid. He's living in a new city, new life. He doesn't have Benny and he doesn't have like, what would you call it? Like a mature figure in his life, like that protection or safety. It said he was feeling like vulnerable and paranoid. So he builds up like this arsenal of guns, poisons, knives,

and he even gets a blow torch, which I was like, okay, wow, Australia's wild. Whoa. I guess the blow torch was for a purpose because he was gonna sign up for welding class or like he wanted to get into welding. So let's talk about it. Australia had a lot of demand for welders at this time. And if you got into it, they were promised like good money. It was like a career people were getting into. So John decides to take classes at like a local trade school so he can get

into it and this ends up like changing his life because this is where he would meet two of his new best friends Robert Wagner and Mark Hayden. Okay so let's start with Robert Wagner. So same same shit man. Troubled childhood childhood, horrible home life. He also had learning disabilities and sadly never like learned to read or write. So by the time he meets John in the welting class, he is a 15 year old who had like ran away from home. And at the time he was living with his much older girlfriend, Vanessa, who he had met when he was 13. Yeah, this shit's fucking wild.

Vanessa, get this, Vanessa is a convicted child molester. Yeah, Vanessa went to prison in 1980 for sexually assaulting two 12-year-old boys. Now to make things more complicated, Vanessa was a trans woman. Now, I know, again, we are old enough to separate the two. Vanessa does not represent all trans women and bleep, blop, bloop, right? Great. We're grown. Cool. You could feel bad for Robert because he was definitely a victim to this woman. But Robert was also like a raging white supremacist.

And it's like this woman, Vanessa was having such inappropriate relationships with this young boy. Like I was like, what is going, where are the parents? Where are the parents? I don't know. They are nowhere to be found. But he was part of a white supremacist group

called National Action. But I guess he ended up getting kicked out because he was like too radical. So shit, you know? On top of that, this kid, he absolutely worshipped Hitler. Jeez. Like at one point he wanted a swastika tattooed on his forehead, but no artist would do it for him. Dumbass, you know? But that was something like him and John had bonded over because John was also like a super fan of Hitler. I know both of them are like, dude, you like Hitler? I like Hitler.

Like high five and shit, you know? So they had a lot in common, I guess. So John now comes full circle because it's kind of like he's the Benny in this relationship with 15 year old Robert. So like he's looking out for him, you know, but things go way farther than pooping on a wall. Let me tell you. So another guy that was in the welding class with Robert and John was this guy, Mark Hayden. So Mark is older, he was 28 years old. And it's not funny,

it's just like he had a very tough upbringing. They've all been through some serious shit. His mom had like suffered from schizophrenia and had a lasting impact on him. But instead of acting out, it seems like Mark was more like he internalized it because like he was apparently pretty passive, mild-mannered, and he preferred to like be quiet in the zone and like tinker with cars. So he had a truck, a land cruiser that he always loved to tinker on. And like this is

something that he and John would bond over. Like both of them like to kind of tinker around on the vehicles. So they would take the land cruiser out to a place called Lower Light. And I guess this area was like, there were salt flats. And I learned something new. Like salt flats are great for racing cars because you can accelerate way easier on the surface.

Yeah, I was like, okay, facts. But it's also like a good place to abandon a car. I guess in this area, there wasn't like a lot of police activity out there. So like a lot of people just leave their cars, just dump their cars in lower lights. Now, John and Mark, they love this. This was an opportunity for them

because they would go there and like strip the abandoned cars for sellable parts and they would make money off of it. So John now has his two buddies, but the one thing he really can't stand is Robert's girlfriend, Vanessa. He can't stand her. And remember with John's background,

like he didn't like pedophiles and she was a convicted pedophiles. And plus she was dating like his teenage friend. So, and then he found out that she was trans. So look, John did not like Vanessa. Okay. And he let it be known. It was said that Vanessa and Robert

had like a really rocky relationship that they would beat each other up, like get into pretty gnarly fights, screaming, kicking, punching. But I think I know today, I'm like, dude, he's still a kid, that Robert guy. Like he was still a kid. So, cause it said both of them were abusive.

Well, he could be abusive too. Like he, but still you get it. It's just like, holy fuck. Anyways, but Robert was stuck. I mean, he wasn't gonna leave Vanessa. So John just but still you get it. It's just like, holy fuck. Anyways, but Robert was stuck. I mean, he wasn't going to leave Vanessa. So John just had to deal with it, but you know, he's stewing. So things get messy-er. Let's say that. Vanessa and Robert, I guess they had like an open relationship or something because in 1992, Vanessa starts sleeping with this man named Clinton Trezise. Clinton, he was 20 years old and he identified as a gay man.

And he was over at Vanessa and Robert's place like pretty often. Also, John definitely knew him. And of course, like hated his guts. In his sick mind, John believed that because Clinton was gay and in Vanessa's circle, that most likely he was a pedophile. This is what he believes. So John's old like quote unquote instincts like kicked in and just John like decided that this guy is like got to go. So John like you know goes back to his old habit and like lures Clinton over to his place for like a casual hangout. Clinton comes over and he's the only one there so he's

like oh I'm the first to arrive whatever like okay I'll just sit on the couch and wait. So he sits down on the couch in the living room and he's like making himself comfortable, you know? And while doing so, John just full on sneaks up behind him with like this huge gardening shovel and just smashed it, smushed, smushed that, just smushed it on his head, like, and just went off. Cause you know, he kept going and going. It's like, okay, bro, we get it, like stop. He's dead, like stop, chill.

It was brutal. And this was John's, technically, like his first kill. He hadn't killed anyone before, so this was new. Uh-oh, you know what, it unlocked something in him. Oh, so he does it, he kills him. And then he loads up Clinton's body into his car and he takes it to a place like where he knows it most likely won't be found.

And that's at lower light. He ends up burying Clinton's body over there and like in a shallow grave in the salt flats then walks away and he doesn't tell anyone about this for like way too long. It's his secret. So at this point, John is 25 years old and he just had his first kill.

Okay. He's on a high. He's thinking he just did the world a favor, you know? And this grownup John isn't just good with men. He's also great with women for some bizarre reason. He has like a lot of success in the dating world. He goes through many, many girlfriends. I'm telling you, this story could go on forever, okay? Because at some point he was juggling girlfriends, wives, lovers, all throughout his twenties. I don't know. He had the time, apparently. So I guess I'll talk about the one that like only

is the most important. So it's a woman he was with named Elizabeth Harvey. Okay, so like everybody else in this awful story, Elizabeth had a really hard life, very abusive parents, very alcoholics, her stepfather had molested her at a really young age and her adult life, it was not easy either. She had four sons by two different daddies.

Her first husband had abandoned her and her older son, Troy. Her second husband was said to be extremely abusive to both her and her kids. So, this shit sucks, it seems like, you know? On her honeymoon, Elizabeth said that her husband had raped her and that's how her second son, Jamie, was conceived. So, yeah. So this guy, this awful man,

I guess he not only abused Elizabeth, but again, he abused the children and he really abused them physically, sexually, everything. It's just all around awful. Wish I could say something better. Well, the next line is kind of better because like, luckily he died of a heart attack. Yeah, 1986, like this, this awful human being, he had died of a heart attack and he was only 49 years old. So at least he was removed

from the situation. I mean, it didn't solve all of like her problems, you know, but it was a step. You know, after all of that happened, of course, like Elizabeth spirals, she's got all these kids to take care of. She ends up though, like remarrying pretty quick. And she remarries someone who has two young step sons in addition to her sons. So it's a lot and she can't handle it. She's taking like pills, you know, she's not doing well. And she's just in a really, really deep depression. So, and this is like the year 1993. So one of her neighbors had noticed that like she wasn't doing well. And his name was Jeffrey, Jeffrey Payne. And he's noticing that like, you know, she really seems to be struggling and she's just, she's not doing well.

So he goes up to her and he offers to help her out with the kids. And you're like, oh my God, finally, like someone nice is helping her out. But I'm telling you, you can't win in this story. You cannot win in this story because Jeffrey is a real predator. Yes.

I don't believe she knows that he is though. You know what I'm saying? Like not yet at least. Anyways, but like one of his favorites to pay attention to, like the favorite sons of Elizabeth was her son, Jamie. So sadly, Jeffrey would have, you know,

14 year old Jamie come over to his house and just do very inappropriate things with him. Lots of like, you know, grooming, watching porn together. And then it evolved and it got really aggressive. And then it turned into Jeffrey starting to like threaten Jamie saying like, if you don't let me do what I want to do with your body, then I'm going to go after your brothers. And like, Jamie was old enough let me do what I want to do with your body, then I'm going to go after your brothers. And like, Jamie was old enough to know, like, he didn't want his brothers to go through this. So he goes along with it and hopes to protect his brothers. Just like so sad, right?

So Jamie terrified, terrified of this guy. And he just goes along with Jeffrey and it evolves. It escalates just into some really intense stuff. Okay, that's really all we need to know. So after some time passes and like Jeffrey really gets his way with him, he tells Jamie like, if you ever talk about this, I'll kill your mother. So this really terrifies poor Jamie and he never really talks about it.

Now at this point, Jamie's life really started to go like off the rails. He started to get really angry. This really terrifies poor Jamie and he never really talks about it. Now at this point, Jamie's life really started to go like off the rails. He's skipping school. He's falling into depression. He starts drinking. He's getting into drugs. He ended up getting into heroin,

which would end up like becoming a serious addiction all the way up into his adulthood. And everyone around him said that he developed some weird tics, like he would shower obsessively and scrub his skin to get off just that feeling of being dirty. So this guy is just, he's not okay, right? So this is when Vanessa steps in.

Yeah, Vanessa. She comes out of nowhere and she knows about this Jeffrey guy and she knows that like he is abusive. So she finds out that this Jeffrey guy was abusing Jamie, the kid. So she ends up coming forward and telling Jamie's mom, Elizabeth,

that this was happening. Now, Elizabeth was absolutely devastated. Like she lost it. Now when Vanessa like is finding all of this out about Jeffrey, coincidentally, John is there and finds out about what's going on. John, remember, absolutely hates pedophiles, hates all this stuff. So he's fucking raging as he should though jeffrey was a piece of shit you know like okay this is the part that doesn't make sense because i was like okay so john is gonna rage on this guy right just absolutely rage but john instead goes over to elizabeth's house to talk to her and tells elizabeth to stay away from vanessa

because she was just as bad as that Jeffrey guy. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what, that's what I was like, oh, he didn't go and like chop that guy's head off, Jeffrey. Oh, oh, my bad. I thought that was gonna be the next step here. Not that that should have happened. I'm just, I was surprised.

I feel like that it was, that was, would be the guy, John. That would be the guy. So in fact, Vanessa's like a hub in an infamous pedophile ring in Adelaide that was at its peak during the 70s and the 80s. This story, I'm telling you, it's like, what? It just uncovered so much. So she's part of like this pedophile ring, okay?

And the 70s and 80ies, like it was, it was doing just fine. And it was called The Family. It was like this, this ring of these people, sickos who organized themselves well enough to like kidnap, traffic and rape teenage boys. In Australia at this time, foster care only went as far as the age of 14, which would leave like a lot of teenagers

extremely vulnerable at such a young age. And then this, these people would seek them out, get them. It was not great. And Vanessa was a part of this. This ring was involved with some nasty things, just like they would auction off children. Yeah, it was bad. I don't think we need to like, you know, but it was bad.

Some people estimated that like the family was responsible for up to 150 different kidnaps and like sexual assaults. And that's just in the seventies and the eighties. So the ring leader of this group was a guy named Bevan. He was arrested in the early 80s and he ended up being like convicted of murdering one of the kids that he had kidnapped and auctioned and all that, you know?

He ended up like murdering one of them. So Bevan and his group, they also are suspected of like four other murders. And these are like referred to as the family murders, which is a whole nother story in itself, right? There's so many stories and it's just a lot. But Bevan, he does get caught. This whole thing was exposed, but you know,

just because they're caught doesn't mean everything just all goes away. He got arrested, but Vanessa was the one who was like now heavily involved and she would keep this whole thing running. So that's why John didn't like Vanessa because he thought that Vanessa was mad that Jeffrey had gotten to those kids before she did.

I know. It's like, what the hell? John starts coming by Elizabeth's and Jamie's house pretty often, like riding up on a motorcycle, just always like flashing a gun to see if Jeffrey's outside. So Elizabeth, she starts to notice this and she's starting to see John as like her savior, her white knight, a protector who was looking out for her, you know? And after this, she started like falling in love. Elizabeth, girl, you don't need, you don't need to be in love, girl. Like, you know, like,

it's like, you don't have to do this again, you know? But in 1994, Elizabeth and John are like officially a couple. Elizabeth was still technically married, but I guess it was said that he was so intimidated by John that he just like completely backed off and like let them do their thing. It's probably a good call because this John guy

is absolutely psychotic. So smart, okay? So at this point, John is now 28 years old and he becomes a father figure to Elizabeth's son or her sons, 14 year old Jamie and 18 year old Troy. They all really, really like him. But Jamie especially really likes him. He is obsessed with John.

They become really close and they bond a lot, you know? To the point where like John becomes his adopted father. And the two were said to be like inseparable. The two of them would bond over like some normal father-son stuff. They also bonded over other interests of theirs. Like John would, I don't know. Okay, just say it.

John would kill neighborhood pets and then Jamie would like watch and would skin them. And then they would bond. Yeah, they had a love for doing that. I don't know. I don't know. They were just like, hey, you like this too? Cool.

So naturally John starts pushing his sick just like, hey, you like this too? Cool. So naturally, John starts pushing his sick values onto these kids, you know? So John's telling these kids like, I hate pedophiles and everybody that he hates, going down the list, that he hates pedophiles. He doesn't like overweight people, disabled, gay, anything. He doesn't like anything or anybody unless they are white males. And like, again, like this kid was really looking up to him. So it's like gospel. He's like, okay. Yeah. Everything John says is, is true, you know? So then in 1995, John starts hosting meetings with his friends in Elizabeth's kitchen to discuss like the problem of all the pedophiles in their community. Like

they had a community meeting to talk it out. And they felt like none of the authorities were really dealing with them and it was becoming a big problem. I mean, the perfect example was Jeffrey, the neighbor. It seemed like everyone in the neighborhood knew that he was not a good person and the police had never done anything about it.

I guess he was, Jeffrey was arrested after the abuse of Jamie was revealed, but then he was pretty much released like right after. And then once he was released, Jeffrey would just harass Jamie from his yard or his lawn. So that's when like this team meeting, they're all like, we need to handle it ourselves. Yeah.

So John and his main sidekicks, Robert, Mark, Jamie, and Vanessa, they all get together, which I thought was kind of weird because I thought he hated Vanessa. But I guess the reason he kept Vanessa around was because she was his in to like the pedophile ring, the family thing that she ran. So that's where he would get like a lot of his information.

This is their group, it's them, okay? That's the gang. Okay, so now that he's got his own little team like all together and he's so dedicated to this whole thing that he ends up, John like ends up dedicating a whole room in his house to catching these bad guys, okay? Like he has full on like photos everywhere with like strings attaching them and whatnot.

It was very legit, but like it wasn't at the same time because it was just random people. John though, he would call pedophiles the dirties on his board. He was like, okay man. So one of the first people on John's list of dirties was a 26 year old man named Ray Davies. Ray was something.

From a very young age, like from 12 years old, he had a taste for animals. Oh my God, I know. Ray, he liked to have sex with animals, like mainly dogs, I'm sorry. And not just like once, but like, I guess he did it a lot. And it was like really violent too. And then as he got older,

he began to show an interest in, you know, kids. So, dude, shit, yeah, fucked up. What do you say? Like, I don't know. Okay, so this Ray guy, he moved to Adelaide as an adult and found his way into the local pedophile scene through none other than Vanessa. So Ray had some intellectual disabilities and really couldn't like hold a job down and Vanessa she helped him by like moving into the property of a friend of hers

a 47 year old woman named Suzanne Allen. So Suzanne Allen lived in the house and Ray lived like in the camper on her property. I know, there's just so much going on. The arrangement, I guess it was like pretty well at first. Suzanne and Ray, they actually really liked each other. And at some point, or at one point they started dating and then they, I guess like got engaged. Yeah, they're just really into it.

Suzanne, it was said that she was like a really nice woman, very sweet, but could be very naive and vulnerable. She had been in a string of abusive relationships for most of her adult life. So Ray, he was like this younger guy, he was charming. And Suzanne was like, oh my God, this is new. This is different, I'm into it. Unfortunately though, like this guy was no different

than all the other dudes. Ray was really abusive towards her. So mad for all these people involved. Through all of this, this is how Suzanne meets John, is because of Ray, okay? So when Suzanne meets John, I guess like she is smitten. She's really into him. She's flirting with him, whatever.

And like John, I guess had never really been into monogamy. So he sees seducing women as part of his like powers. He's like really cocky about it. And it wouldn't take long before the two of them were like sleeping together. What? Huh? Huh? Where are we? I don't know. Elizabeth, John's actual wife at this point.

She knows what's going on. She doesn't love it. She doesn't love it at all. But at this point she's very dependent on John. So she felt like, you know, it wasn't that easy to leave. Elizabeth really was just hoping that the whole affair, you know, would pass over and we know it just, we could move on, we could just leave it.

So one day in late December, 1995, Suzanne and John, you know, they're doing their thing. And she confesses to John that Ray, Ray had been like doing things with her grandsons, okay? On Christmas. So when Suzanne found out that Ray had molested her grandsons, she broke it off with him, which was great. But she still, like, you know, let Ray continue to live on her property. And John, he's just not having that.

And now this Ray guy is his next dirty. So John calls Robert and, you know, he says like, it's time. So they go to Suzanne's property and they grab Ray from his trailer. John ends up like driving while Robert holds Ray down in the backseat, just beating him so bad that it was said the bones in Ray's face completely break. They are just very angry people, right? I think we've gotten that, yeah. So they end up taking him to like an old house

that John had bought out in the country. So John and Robert, they rip Ray out of the car and they force him into the bathroom. They shove him down into the bathtub and turn the water on. So the water is like pouring into his nose and mouth. He's like gagging and gasping for air. Is that waterboarding?

Either way, they're doing that shit. They hold him down and they're just like beating the crap out of him. They have a metal pole and it's all bad. It's just all bad. John didn't want Ray to like die in that house. So they decide to finish their torture, which was all bad. John didn't want Ray to like die in that house. So they decide to finish their torture, which was so bad. It was so brutal.

They went so hard on Ray's balls that they had swollen like three times to their size. Yeah, so they're done. And then they ended up throwing him into the trunk of the car and they drive for like two hours out of the way back to Adelaide. They bring him home to the house

that he shares with Elizabeth and the boys. And John tells Elizabeth that he has a present for her. And that it's like, you know, it's Christmas time. He's like, I have a present for you. John and Robert, they grab Ray out of the trunk and they drag him into the bedroom and they strip him naked. It was said that Ray just really wasn't fighting back at this point.

Yeah. Then it like plot twists. They have Elizabeth join in. I know. I was like, Elizabeth, no, I thought you were going to be like maybe the, I don't know. No. So John asked her like, don't you like your present?

And then he hands her a knife. So John has Elizabeth stab Ray as John and Robert like strangle him with jumper cables. So sadly he dies. These people, these people! John and Robert, they dragged the body out to the back where they already like had a grave waiting for him. Remember like John like loved digging tunnels so it was just another one of his weird little talents. It's not funny. The two of them it was said that like you know he really enjoyed killing Ray. Just it wasn't great. Sadly a few weeks go by and nobody like misses Ray. Like nobody notices that he's really missing. John and Robert, they help Suzanne clean out the trailer.

And then John ends up selling it. He also continues to collect Ray's welfare benefit because he was receiving welfare checks. So Ray continues to cash those checks, which he ends up stealing like $32,000 from his account. But John's not completely done with this dirty. Like, yeah, Ray may have been like the rapist, but he had an enabler, Suzanne.

So John called like the helpers tooth fairies. Like usually women who knew about child molesters, like didn't do anything about it, or he felt like didn't do enough. I mean, to him, Suzanne did let Ray like keep living on her land and that was enough for him. So in late 1996, which is almost like a full year later, John goes to Suzanne's house for a date, wink wink,

which she's like super excited about. Well, it's not only a date, like John is just fucking angry, man. And when when she opens that door he strangles her to death like leaving her in the bathroom so it might have been like once he was inside the house either way he strangles her to death which is like a much more gentle death than uh what's his name raise right but it doesn't stop there because when he strangles her to death, he has Robert come over. And according to John, Robert had like sliced and diced her. That's what he said, sliced and diced her. Great. This is such a great story. You know, like, wow, these guys are demon, demons, demons.

To be honest though, like slice and dice her is not even a good explanation because like, Wow, these guys are demon, demons, demons. To be honest though, like slice and dice her is not even a good explanation because like they completely dismember her. Like completely, they get rid of both of her legs, they cut off the arms, shoulders, like sawed off her feet at the ankles. They scalp her, they scalp her.

They skin her after that. It it's just it's so intense and it's like were they on drugs you know they i don't know but they skin her they cut like out her heart and her right lung and they cut off her like both of her breasts they just fuck her up it's so sick i just can't believe this whole situation, you guys. Like, I really can't. Like, this to me sounds so, it's just so much. Like, I can't believe how much these guys did. And the fact that, I hate to say that,

they got away with it for as long as they did, you know? It's just like, ugh. So gross. It was said that, like, John and Robert, they both, like, kind of play play with her like, you know, remains a little bit after they do the chopping of the body. I guess they both end up giving her severed head a kiss. And that was it.

Like Robert holds up some of her pieces of skin and like flings her limbs around like she's dancing. Again, like, I don't know. Anyways, Suzanne's body required 11 separate trash bags and they threw her on top of Ray's body in John's backyard tunnel. John feels justified during all this. He thinks again, he's like doing the Lord's work out here.

And some of you might say like, okay, well like Ray and like some of these perverts, like, okay, yeah, he actually did or whatever. But like with Susie, like this is now turning into him just like serial killing. You know? I don't know. It's complicated. Cause like I get it because he did kill some bad people,

but he also killed innocent people too. Okay. Okay. We just have to make that clear. Cause I don't want people to be like, fuck yeah. Love this guy. I turn into a rally and we don't need that. So after her death, John would either tell people like she had died of a heart attack

or she ran off with some dude named Andy. Yeah, she ran off with some dude named Andy. And like people believed it because why wouldn't they, you know? John, he took all of her stuff. He moved out all of her furniture from her house. He stole her car and he even had her pension money He moved out all of her furniture from her house. He stole her car. And he even had her pension money cashed out into his name.

Her family started to become suspicious of the whole situation. And they told the pension office that John told them the story about Andy and said he was forwarding the money to her. But like, why would that make sense to anybody, you know? Well, apparently Suzanne's daughter had recently gotten pregnant

by one of Suzanne's ex-boyfriends. Yep. This obviously had really hurt Suzanne's feelings. Okay, she was like really hurt by this. And mind you, this is true. I am not fibbing. So like the family just like accepted that she was mad. She left and she must not have wanted to be found.

She must've really went off with this guy named Andy. So they just really kind of believed it to be true. So now we're into the year 1997, Robert, Mark, John and Jamie, they are close as ever. At this point, I can't remember what happened to Vanessa. I can't remember who gives a shit. Mark has a new wife, also named Elizabeth. And it said that John wasn't too crazy about her.

He didn't really like her that much. And his opinions seem to matter the most to everybody. But he didn't like this girl. So he sees this Elizabeth. She's single. She has eight kids. She's on welfare. She's uneducated.

And on top of that, he said he really hated her because she was obese. Allegedly he would like call her a whore and a lowlife, all to Mark's face and just hated her. But Mark seemed happy, right? So he's just an asshole, he's a psycho, he's. And then Robert at this point, he's still in his little codependent relationship

with Vanessa, who he's been with since he was 14. But now he was 26 and they were still together. And at this point, he was ready for a more traditional situation. I think he just didn't wanna be with Vanessa. Well, he's getting older and he's like, what the fuck is going on? You know, he's realizing like maybe he can make a choice

for himself. So there's a woman that moves down the street from Elizabeth and John's house. And she's a 29 year old single mother of three. And her name is Maxine. Now Robert is absolutely smitten. He's like, this bitch is my number one. And the two of them start seeing each other.

And it was not long until she's like pregnant. And then they move in together. Just a couple of doors down from Maxine's cousin's house. He moves there and Maxine's cousin had a friend over. She was like 19 years old. She's a trans woman named Michelle. And Michelle was like really years old. She's a trans woman named Michelle. And Michelle was like really open with her sexuality. But of course, like when John got word about this friend,

he didn't like it, right? And he kind of gets his murderous gang of bozos to be like, we don't like this, right? We don't like this. Like getting them all hyped up. So Michelle, she too was, I'm getting sick of saying this. I'm so sad So Michelle, she too was, I'm getting sick of saying this, I'm so sad. Michelle, she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse herself but she had broken the cycle. She had never harmed anyone and was said to be like just very gentle and great with anyone she encountered.

But John was just itching for an excuse to nab a dirty or whatever. And I feel like there's plenty in this neighborhood, but he's going after the wrong ones, obviously. He's looking for an excuse. So one day like Robert saw Michelle playing with Maxine's children in the yard. And during this game, he's like,

I saw Michelle apparently like put her hand over one of the kids' mouths. And according to like Maxine or based off the situation, it's because like they were laughing and they were playing, like it was all completely innocent, but this completely enraged him. He went and told Maxine that something similar had happened to him when he was eight years old, but it wasn't just a game.

You know, after that incident, John no longer allowed Michelle to be around the kids under the assumption that she was a pedophile. And of course, Robert told John all about it. So once John got word of this, you know, that was all he needed, okay? So he definitely, like, he needed no convincing and John was like, Michelle has got to go.

John and Robert were able to get inside the house where Michelle was staying and they pretty much kidnapped Michelle. They take her back to John's house where they tie her up and then torture her. Again, just like beating her, just really, really, really not great. Just really bad.

Burning her testicles with cigarettes. They put like a noose around her neck, strangling. It's bad until she finally collapses. And the whole time it was said that like the two of them were just kind of laughing and mocking her the whole time. Eventually, you know, Michelle sadly died. So when Michelle died, they ended up stuffing her body into like a big plastic barrel,

like the one that you might use for chemicals, you know? So with that noose still around her neck, they tried to put her into one of these barrels, but I guess like her body didn't quite fit. So John like cuts off her left foot. Anyways, while they're doing all this, you know who helps them? Jamie, who is now 18 years old,

but it's John's stepson, Jamie. He still worships John and he's like brought into this murderous cult and helps him dismember Michelle. Bro, that's just a lot, right? Like, what are we doing? We are not okay. So things are just not great for Jamie during this time, or just in general. Because at this time, he was like really addicted to heroin. And he also helped stage Michelle's kidnapping and helping dismember the whole situation, you know? So first thing first with Michelle's murder,

I mean, besides the fact that Michelle was completely, she was a completely innocent person who was simply like the victim of a hate crime. When it came to Vanessa, she had nothing to do with it. Oh yeah, because remember I said, where's Vanessa? So Vanessa wasn't part of Michelle's murder. And then this for some reason gets Sean thinking like, hey, I don't really need Vanessa anymore.

Like she's not really finding me many different dirties, you know, and he's like, I can do it myself. Once John realized that Vanessa was like useless to him, that's when John realized who the next person on his hit list was, you know? He didn't need Vanessa and she wasn't that great, right? So that is the end of the first part of Snowtown Murders. It's a lot, but the story gets even crazier.

I upload every other week, so tune in next time for the part two, because it gets, if you thought that was crazy, it gets even wilder. There's so many layers to it. And like, I just, I truly cannot believe that this even happened, right? It's insanity.

It's insanity, right? Okay, I know I'm not alone on that. I would love to hear your guys' thoughts down below. I hope to see you guys next time for part two, because we gotta talk about it, okay? We gotta talk about it. Anyways, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today.

I appreciate you guys so much, truly. Like, I am so thankful. I don't even know how to express my gratitude for you guys. And I'm so privileged, lucky, and blessed to have you guys in my life and throughout these years. I really appreciate you guys. And I just appreciate you guys. Cool. Okay. Cool. So uncomfortable to express my feelings. I apologize. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be seeing you guys later. Goodbye.