Australian bodies-in-barrels serial killers get life

Two men were jailed for life today for their roles in one of Australia’s most grisly serial killing sprees.

A South Australian Supreme Court jury found John Justin Bunting, 37, guilty of 11 murders in the ”bodies-in-barrels” case that shocked the nation.

The Adelaide jury, which deliberated for almost a week following a trial that lasted nearly a year, also convicted Robert Joe Wagner, 31, in seven of the murders.

The men were arrested after police found eight hacked-up bodies stuffed in barrels and hidden in an defunct bank vault in Snowtown, a small village near Adelaide.

Two more bodies were found buried in a Adelaide back garden and two were found in other places that have not been disclosed.

Most of the victims, killed over 20 months from October 1997, were tortured before being killed.

Prosecutors say the victims were murdered so that their killers could cash their welfare cheques, but also for enjoyment.

Bunting and Wagner also allegedly targeted people they believed were paedophiles.

During the trial, which began Oct. 16 last year and heard testimony from more than 200 witnesses, the jury heard that some victims had limbs severed and slabs of flesh cut from their bodies. They were also shown photographs of the remains of some of the victims.

Bunting and Wagner pushed a lit cigarette into the ear of one victim and used pliers to break the toes of another, prosecutors said.

The pair, who had a deep hatred of paedophiles and homosexuals, boasted that the “good ones” didn’t scream as they were tortured, according to testimony at the trial.