Snowtown

And in these populations, which are high dormancy, these genes are not triggered until very late, which means then those populations, until those genes are fully triggered, they're going to sit there in the soil and not germinate, which means the farmer then can't go and spray a chemical to kill them and that's been its escape mechanism.

And can you tell me about the work you've been doing for the Snowtown trial?

So Snowtown trial was aimed at is still going and it's looking at options how you can put together your control program and how long that effective control has to be like one year effective control versus two versus three so you can get a really good handle and drive the populations down and keep them down.

And what we found was that single-year control, such as in a break crop such as lentils or canola, does a really good job of initially pushing the population down.

But unless you do the right thing in the second year by having another good option, the populations bounce right back.

We're dropping this episode back into your feeds because last week there was an update in the case.

James Vlassakis was one of four jailed over the Snowtown killings, pleading guilty to four murders between 1992 and 1999.

He was sentenced to 26 years, and that term expired last August.

The SA Parole Board was preparing to release him, but the state government intervened to keep him behind bars.

Last week, we found out that their attempt to block parole had been rejected, which means Vlassakis, who is now in his mid-40s, is a free man.

The parole boss last week said he'd be moved from prison to the Adelaide Pre-Release Centre, where he will remain for 12 months, which is standard for every life sentence prisoner.

We recorded this interview about the Snowtown killings back in April 2024.

[suspenseful music] It's an unseasonably warm day in May 1999, and Detectives Greg Stone and Steve McCoy have just pulled up in front of an old bank in Snowtown, a tiny Wheatbelt town in South Australia.

Well, South Australia may well be the only jurisdiction globally to grant parole to a serial killer.

Former Supreme Court Judge David Lovell has approved the parole of convicted Snowtown murderer James Veslakis, despite a year of controversy, court hearings and victim distress.

Joining us now is Attorney General Kai Amar.

Attorney General, good morning to you.

The international law around this is also a bit fuzzy, uh, so that topic is likely to be on the agenda at the next United Nations disarmament meeting, and that is happening in November.

[upbeat music] The youngest of the four men jailed over the Snowtown murders in South Australia, James Vlassakis, was approved for parole yesterday after 27 years in prison.

These are the murders that you might know as the Bodies in the Barrels murders.

That's right, and they were committed between 1992 and 1999 and have become so synonymous with Snowtown that residents actually floated a name change.

Vlassakis pleaded guilty to 7 of the 11 murders before becoming the crown witness against John Bunting, that's his stepfather, and Robert Wagner, who are serving life without parole.

He was approved for parole last year, but the South Australian government stepped in to block it, and yesterday the original decision was upheld on review.