Vanessa Lane

**Vanessa Lane (formerly Barry Wayne Lane)** (1955 - October 17, 1997) was an Australian transgender woman who was killed by John Bunting and Robert Wagner. She was a convicted paedophile and a victim of the Snowtown murders.

## Backstory

John Bunting, driven to murder by his hatred for paedophiles and homosexuals, has been described as a skilled manipulator of people and "Australia's worst serial killer". Bunting had fashioned a "rock spider wall" on a wall of a spare room in his house. The chart, created using paper notes and wool, was an interconnected web of names of people Bunting suspected to be paedophiles or homosexuals.

Bunting met Robert Wagner when he moved to Waterloo Corner Road. Wagner was living with Vanessa Lane (formerly Barry Lane) at the time. Wagner assisted Bunting in disposing of the body of his first victim, Clinton Trezise. Wagner later assisted Bunting in the remaining ten Snowtown murders.

Vanessa Lane was a transgender woman. She was in a relationship with Wagner at the time Bunting first moved into their neighborhood and met them in 1991. Bunting had accepted Lane into his circle of friends because Lane kept him informed of the activities of local paedophiles. After Lane was accused of molesting a local boy, someone firebombed Lane and Wagner's Bingham Road house and Bunting told her never to come around again and made other threats. Wagner left Lane and acquired a girlfriend while Lane became engaged to a woman who had several children and moved into her Hectorville home. She also formed a relationship with Thomas Trevilyan who moved in with Lane in April 1997.

## Events

Lane was traumatized by the killing of Clinton Tresize and had told her mother and Bunting's former girlfriend about it. The former girlfriend questioned Bunting about Lane's claims and he admitted they were true. Around the same time Thomas Trevilyan told Bunting that Lane had been sexually abusing him. When Bunting found out that Lane had been talking to people about Bunting's previous crimes, Bunting was concerned that she would admit the crimes to the police.

On 17 October 1997, Bunting, Wagner and Trevilyan picked up Lane. Early the following morning Lane's mother received a phone call from her. On orders from Bunting, Lane verbally abused her mother, who could hear Trevilyan in the background prompting her with what to say. After telling her mother she was moving to Queensland and wanted nothing further to do with her, she hung up. They then took Lane to her fiancée's home where they tortured her for details of her bank accounts. After crushing her toes with pliers, she was strangled to death.

After Lane's murder, Bunting assumed control of Lane's vehicle and claimed her welfare payments.

Lane’s body was kept in the a barrel in the shed until it was moved to the Snowtown bank vault.

Police investigating the disappearance of Lane discovered that a withdrawal was being made from Lane's account at an automatic teller machine (ATM) at the same service station every pension day. They installed surveillance cameras and got footage of Wagner making the withdrawals. Due to his links with Bunting, both were now put under surveillance

## Aftermath

On 20 May 1999, Lane's dismembered body was found by police in a drum in the bank vault in Snowtown, along with the body of Michelle Gardiner.

The Supreme Court trial for John Bunting began on 14 October 2002. He was convicted of eleven murders and found guilty on 8 September 2003. He was sentenced to 11 life sentences without the possibility of parole and is incarcerated at Yatala Labour Prison in Adelaide.

Robert Wagner was found guilty of ten counts of murder. He was sentenced to 10 life sentences without the possibility of parole and has been incarcerated since 2003.

## Other Victims of the Snowtown Murders

* Clinton Trezise, aged 22
* Ray Davies, aged 26
* Michelle Gardiner, aged 19
* Thomas Trevilyan, aged 18
* Gavin Porter, aged 31
* Troy Youde, aged 21
* Frederick Brooks, aged 18
* Gary O'Dwyer, aged 29
* Elizabeth Haydon, aged 37
* David Johnson, aged 24