Killing For Pleasure: The Definitive Story of the Snowtown Serial Murders
May 2011 · Random House Australia
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About this ebook
The bestselling account of one of South Australia's worst series of crimes - the bodies in the barrels.
A disused bank vault holding eight dismembered bodies immersed in barrels of acid. Two bodies buried in a suburban backyard. A further two found in the bush. Such was the findings of one of South Australia's most horrific murder trials.
Informed by material never seen before - an interview with Bunting's last lover Elizabeth Harvey, and with the Crown's key eye-witness James Vlassakis and with details of the torture and crimes not previously released - this is a tensely woven and microscopic examination of tawdry lives and tragic deaths.
Four men who tortured and killed for fun, for power. Four men who kept each other's dark secrets for years. By the time the police investigation concluded, the story had invited comparison with the nightmare of Rosemary and Fred West, the British House of Horrors. Details of what the killers did to their victims before and after their deaths were deemed so depraved that suppression orders were in place throughout the trial. But the killers were not insane. They made deliberate choices to kill and lived in a culture of complete anarchy, sadistic violence, deviance and chaos.
Journalist and author Debi Marshall explores the killers' psychopathic makeup in minute and harrowing detail. She charts the victims' exposure to generational paedophilia, incest, unemployment and hopelessness. Marshall covers the exhaustive trials and interviews the lawyers who ran them. Through interviews, she captures the voices of the victim's families and examines the police and forensic investigation and then wades into the social structure that spawned the people in this story.
This book was used as a primary source for the acclaimed Australian feature film, Snowtown.
A disused bank vault holding eight dismembered bodies immersed in barrels of acid. Two bodies buried in a suburban backyard. A further two found in the bush. Such was the findings of one of South Australia's most horrific murder trials.
Informed by material never seen before - an interview with Bunting's last lover Elizabeth Harvey, and with the Crown's key eye-witness James Vlassakis and with details of the torture and crimes not previously released - this is a tensely woven and microscopic examination of tawdry lives and tragic deaths.
Four men who tortured and killed for fun, for power. Four men who kept each other's dark secrets for years. By the time the police investigation concluded, the story had invited comparison with the nightmare of Rosemary and Fred West, the British House of Horrors. Details of what the killers did to their victims before and after their deaths were deemed so depraved that suppression orders were in place throughout the trial. But the killers were not insane. They made deliberate choices to kill and lived in a culture of complete anarchy, sadistic violence, deviance and chaos.
Journalist and author Debi Marshall explores the killers' psychopathic makeup in minute and harrowing detail. She charts the victims' exposure to generational paedophilia, incest, unemployment and hopelessness. Marshall covers the exhaustive trials and interviews the lawyers who ran them. Through interviews, she captures the voices of the victim's families and examines the police and forensic investigation and then wades into the social structure that spawned the people in this story.
This book was used as a primary source for the acclaimed Australian feature film, Snowtown.
Ratings and reviews
4.5
13 reviews
Sam Bigknife
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May 26, 2024
Chilling, disturbing, and fascinating. It is a deep mystery that such evil deeds are all too common within humanity. This book offers no answers but provides great insight.
Cass Mayger
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January 3, 2017
Saying I loved it doesn't feel right because I found it so disturbing to read especially as I live in South Australia. It was chilling and horrendously disturbing but this book answered every question I had about these murders. Not for the faint hearted and don't read at night!
2 people found this review helpful
Len Gough
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April 21, 2021
As one of the Forensic pathology assistants, who removed the bodies from the barrels I will never forget the horrors of what we saw that afternoon even A Seasoned pathology team were shocked by what we saw. I will be Purchasing this book.
About the author
Debi Marshall is a journalist and author who lives in Hobart. She has written a number of biographies and true crime titles, including Justice in Jeopardy: The unsolved murder of baby Deidre Kennedy and Killing for Pleasure: the definitive story of the Snowtown serial killings. More recently, she published Lambs to the Slaughter.
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