Twenty-five years on, Snowtown still suffers from the stigma of the bodies in the barrels murders.
Recent discussions involving key community members have considered changing the South Australian town’s name.
“Any crime that you name after a location, it’s such a burden on that location,” Derryn Stringer from the Snowtown Progress Association said.
“It was a concept put forward to try and put an end to this, so that my kids and their kids aren’t standing in front of cameras talking about something that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago.”
Eight out of the 11 bodies from the serial killings were found in barrels in a disused bank vault in the town in 1999. All but one was murdered elsewhere.
“For the most part, people are frustrated that it gets brought up regularly,” local member Fraser Ellis said.Â
“They seem to get lumped in with this adverse reputation that they haven’t necessarily earned.”
Local resident Tammy Jinariu is open to the idea.
“I’m not against it, it would have to be a name that would suit the town and that the community would be happy about,” Jinariu said.
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The Snowtown Progress Association is looking at new ways to improve and increase the profile of the town and move away from the dark tourism that attracts visitors.
“We’ve got a group of people in town working really hard on the future for Snowtown,” Stringer said.
“We’re talking residential developments, commercial developments, so we’re working very hard to obviously keep our town relevant.
“All these things are just hurdles.”
