http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003976162830991&rtmo=LxLdbLhd&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/00/12/12/waus12.html ISSUE 2027 Tuesday 12 December 2000 Outback killers tortured 10 victims By Barbie Dutter in Adelaide Magistrate gags bodies- in barrels case - [12 Dec '00] - News.com.au Snowtown murders [9 Jun '00] - The Age Snowtown: a bank vaults deadly math - The Crime Library THE grisly details of Australia's worst serial killing began to unfold yesterday as a court was told how eight mutilated bodies were discovered dumped in barrels inside the vault of a disused bank in a tiny Outback township. <snip> John Bunting, Mark Haydon and Robert Wagner are accused of murdering 10 people between December 1995 and May 1999. James Vlassakis is accused of five murders. All four refused to enter a plea. The killings were allegedly carried out as part of a macabre social security fraud. Most of the eight men and two women killed had close associations - including, in some cases, family ties - with those accused of their murder. Elizabeth Haydon, was a mother of eight married to one of the accused. Wendy Abraham QC, opening the prosecution case, said the four had collected the welfare benefits and disability allowances of their dead victims. They even impersonated some of those they had killed to conduct banking transactions or to deal with the social security office. Before being murdered, some of the victims were made to repeat scripted phrases, which were taped and left on the answering machines of their relatives and friends to divert suspicion from their disappearance, she said. <snippage> ) Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2000. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy. Information about www.telegraph.co.uk. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'