James Vlassakis has been approved for release from prison in South Australia after almost 30 years behind bars, in a landmark decision involving one of the men convicted over the Snowtown murders.
The 45-year-old’s 26-year non-parole period expired in August 2025. On Tuesday, the Parole Administrative Review Commissioner approved his release after more than a year of legal challenges and hearings.
The commissioner found that the Attorney-General had not established grounds to overturn the Parole Board’s decision. Vlassakis’s parole conditions are expected to be extensive, but have not yet been made public.
It is the first time a serial killer in South Australia has been approved for release. The decision has followed intense scrutiny from the victims’ families, who have expressed long-standing fears about his return to the community.
Vlassakis was the youngest of the men involved in the notorious Bodies in the Barrels killings. He pleaded guilty to murdering Troy Youde, his half-brother, as well as Frederick Brooks, Gary O’Dwyer and David Johnson.
He became the key prosecution witness against alleged ringleader John Bunting and accomplice Robert Wagner. Vlassakis was the only member of the group to plead guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 26 years.
Born in 1979, Vlassakis met Bunting when he was 14. Bunting presented the killings as vigilante action against alleged paedophiles, while secretly taking victims’ welfare payments, according to the account presented in the case.
By the time he was 18, Vlassakis had been drawn into the group’s violence. Between 1992 and 1999, Bunting, Wagner, Vlassakis and associate Mark Haydon murdered multiple victims, with several bodies concealed in barrels in a disused bank vault in Snowtown.
Bunting was convicted of 11 murders and sentenced to life without parole, while Wagner was convicted of 10 murders and received the same sentence. Haydon was convicted of assisting an offender, served a minimum 25-year term and was later released on parole under strict extended supervision orders.
The release decision comes after long-standing suppression orders were lifted, allowing Vlassakis’s identity to be publicly revealed. His release marks a significant development in the legal aftermath of the Snowtown killings.
