A former forensic investigator has revealed how one of his team is "still broken" 26 years after examining one of Australia's most appalling crime scenes. The notorious "Bodies in Barrels Murders," which occurred in and around Adelaide, South Australia, took the lives of 12 men and women who were individually subjected to torture by a depraved gang that had targeted them as somehow "weak."
Discovery in an Abandoned Bank Vault
The grotesquely mutilated remains of eight victims were discovered by South Australian Police in six plastic barrels within an abandoned bank vault, giving the twisted killing spree its moniker. The infamy of the murders reached such heights that there were temporary proposals to rename the Adelaide suburb of Snowtown, where one of the victims was located.
In a fresh podcast, retired forensic investigator Gordon Drage has described how his team were overwhelmed by the terror of what they witnessed while attempting to piece together the ghastly narrative behind the crimes.
Torture Implements and Lasting Trauma
Gordon Drage recounts discovering some of the torture implements that the three murderers employed on their victims. "There was this Variaq electrical torture machine that they had. It's an adjustable voltage device that they were using for torture," he explained. "A number of the victims had small electrical burns and stuff on them, apparently, and their genitals and their nipples and those sorts of areas."
The murderers were headed by John Bunting, a slaughterhouse employee with a pathological loathing of homosexuals and others he deemed "weak". Similar to his partner Robert Wagner, Bunting had been involved in various neo-Nazi organisations. The third gang member, James Vlassakis, assisted in torturing and murdering his own half-brother, Troy Youde, and his stepbrother, David Johnson, yet became a crucial prosecution witness following his arrest.
The murderers created recordings of their victims, revelling in their desperate pleas for mercy while they tortured them to death. Gordon Drage revealed how certain members of his team were severely traumatised by what they heard on those tapes.
Lack of Support for Investigators
He alleged that South Australian police force leaders appeared to show little regard for the psychological impact the evidence had on his team. "No debriefing, I was disappointed," he said. Gordon said: "I don't like to make criticism of too many people, but I have to make one criticism of [South Australia Police]. I rang Adelaide the following day and said 'You need to keep an eye on my junior colleague that was there. She was really quite overawed by the whole deal. I'm a bit worried about her.'"
Gordon was assured the situation was under control, and that the junior officer would receive proper care: "And then they sent her to all the other scenes for the subsequent two or three more weeks. And then during that time, she's also managed to somehow hear some of the actual recordings that they would make of these people, the torture." "She's never come back to work," he added. "She's still broken".
He explained that the magnitude of what he witnessed that day has remained with him as well: "One of the things has really affected the lady I was working with that day, with her being so new in the forensic world, we sat there on the floor and realised the carpet was damp... we later found out that that was the reason it was damp was because they had hosed down that floor after killing David Johnson the night before." He continued: "That leaves a weird feeling in you. You think 'I'm sitting on the floor exactly where this person was probably lying before they put him into a barrel. It's macabre.'" "You talk about eeriness," he added, "There's still an eeriness to the bank. I went back in last year first time I've been back into that bank in 26 years and I could still like it was yesterday, I can still visualise everything."
Opening the Barrels
Speaking to True Crime Australia, Gordon described how he was the first person to open one of the barrels. He recalled: "You peel a little rubber seal back. And then you can see bodies in there, a foot, and a leg in denim jeans and stuff like that. Some of [the barrels] had no liquid at all. Others were almost full with liquid. I think there was only one that had all the hydrochloric in it."
Gordon initially didn't realise that the bodies had been dismembered, and he thought that the victims had simply been crammed into the barrels upside-down. "I remember the first one I opened there was I could see the semi-mummified foot with some soil on it and the jeans and whatever they were wearing," he said. "I didn't know they were dismembered at that stage. I looked in the top and I thought 'There someone's just been shoved in here head first and their feet are sort of sticking up'." It subsequently came to light that the murderers had chopped their victims' bodies apart in order to fit them into the barrels.
Gordon recounted how the stench of death lingered on him after a full day at the crime scene: "I went home and I remember stripping off to my undies outside the back door. I wasn't going in the house because by the time I'd been in the bank so long, I knew I was reeking of the smell of you know just rotting death. I remember a detective saying, 'Do you mind if I stand this side of you because you know the breeze is blowing...you stink'. So I dropped all my clothes off out on the back porch, then went in, had a shower and went to bed. I was up again at I think seven the following morning and I was back there at eight."
The Murder of Frederick Brooks
One of the most horrific murders was that of Frederick Brooks, an 18-year-old who Bunting accused of "touching up" young girls. After luring him to a party, Vlassakis, Wagner and Bunting handcuffed their victim and threw him into a bathtub, before subjecting him to a series of bizarre tortures. They forced lit cigarettes into his ears and nostrils, while a burning sparkler was pushed into his penis. Bleach was then injected into his testicles using a syringe, which were connected to their electrical torture apparatus.
The murderers also compelled him to record his banking information on tape so they could access his accounts. His toes were mangled with pliers before he suffocated on his gag. Frederick's disfigured remains were amongst those discovered in an acid-filled drum at the Snowtown bank in May 1999. The trio were detained just one day afterwards.
Bunting and Wagner's trial stretched nearly twelve months, marking South Australia's longest legal proceeding. In October 2002, a juror stepped down due to the disturbing nature of the evidence presented. Justice Brian Ross Martin ruled that Bunting was the mastermind, imposing 11 consecutive life sentences without any chance of parole. Wagner received 10 consecutive terms. Due to his cooperation with authorities, Vlassakis was handed a lighter sentence of four consecutive life terms. He is anticipated to gain parole eligibility later this month.
