John Bunting Trial Music Ban

During the 2003 trial of Australian serial killer John Bunting, the leader of the Snowtown “Bodies in the Barrels” murders, a judge took the unusual step of restricting the jury from listening to a specific music album. Court testimony revealed that Bunting sometimes played the album Throwing Copper by the band Live while torturing victims in a bathtub during the killings. Concerned that hearing the music outside court could influence the jury’s emotions or understanding of the evidence, the judge ordered jurors not to listen to the CD during the trial. Bunting was later convicted of 11 murders committed between 1992 and 1999 in South Australia and received multiple life sentences without parole.

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