Snowtown serial killer James Vlassakis will be released on parole after a review upheld an earlier decision by South Australia’s Parole Board, ABC News Australia reports.
The board granted Vlassakis parole last year. The South Australian government subsequently requested a review of that decision, placing the release decision before the Parole Administrative Review Commissioner.
The commissioner has now found that the Attorney-General failed to establish that there were reasons to overturn the Parole Board’s decision. The supplied report does not provide further details about the commissioner’s reasoning or the conditions attached to Vlassakis’s parole.
Vlassakis was the youngest of four perpetrators involved in the killings associated with Snowtown, South Australia. The crimes, known as the “bodies in the barrels” killings, involved 12 deaths between 1992 and 1999, according to ABC News Australia.
The review outcome means the earlier parole decision will stand and Vlassakis will be released. The source material does not specify when the release will occur or provide details about any response from victims’ families, the government or the Parole Board.