Casefile True Crime - Case 100: The Beaumont Children

Episode Date: November 17, 2018

On January 26 1966, siblings Jane, Arna and Grant Beaumont joined the hundreds of Adelaide residents who flocked to Glenelg beach to find respite from the scorching summer heat. It was a trip they’d made on their own many times before, and as usual, their mother Nancy sent them off with just enough money to buy bus fare and lunch from the bakery.  --- Episode narrated by the Anonymous Host Episode researched and written by Elsha McGill Additional editing by Milly Raso For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-100-the-beaumont-children

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Music Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode contains violence against children that won't be suitable for all listeners. In October 1955, Grant Beaumont, better known to friends as Jim, entered a city hotel in Adelaide on a high after a win at the horse races. The Australian Army veteran had recently returned to South Australia after years spent serving overseas

and was now working as a taxi driver for local cab company Suburban Taxis. He owned several vehicles, working hard long hours to earn extra income. Keen to celebrate his win at the races with a drink, Jim walked into the Victoria Hotel on Heintaly Street in the heart of Adelaide City. His attention was immediately drawn to a woman who was sitting eating a meal with another couple. Struck by her natural beauty and warm brown eyes, Jim worked up the courage to approach the woman who introduced herself as Nancy Ellis. The two hit it off immediately. Just six weeks after their first date, Jim proposed to Nancy and by December that year, the pair were married. Nine months later, in September 1956, they gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Jane Natter. November 1958 marked the arrival of Anna Kathleen, the Beaumont's second daughter.

By July 1961, their idyllic family was complete upon the arrival of a third and final child, a boy named after his father, Grant Ellis. The Beaumonts were the quintessential Lossy family. By 1966, 41-year-old Jim Beaumont had traded driving taxis for a new career in sales. He worked as a traveling salesman for a linen company, while his wife, 39-year-old Nancy, stayed home to take care of their three young children. Nine-year-old Jane Beaumont was wise beyond her years. Incredibly well-spoken and intelligent, Jane was a shy girl who enjoyed reading, writing, poetry, and playing outdoors. She had a love for academia that encouraged a dream of becoming an author or teacher when she grew up. Her polished composure would crack when excited, causing her speech to delightfully stutter. As the oldest of the three Beaumont children, Jane exuded a level of maturity and protectiveness that her parents likened to a 15-year-old.

Jane embraced her natural maternal qualities by watching protectively over her two younger siblings. Seven-year-old Anna Beaumont was the more extroverted of her siblings, with a wild imagination that could keep her entertained for hours. Outgoing and affectionate, Anna loved seeing, dancing, playing dress-ups, and putting together concerts that she would perform in front of her family, sometimes roping her brother and sister in on the act. The baby of the family, four-year-old Grant Beaumont Jr. was a little gentleman who vitalised his father. He'd shadow-gim around the house, watching as his father completed domestic tasks and pretending to be his little assistant. In another attempt to be just like his dad, Grant would zip around in a red go-kart, acting as though it was a taxi. Grant was a sweet and friendly little boy, and the family doted on him lovingly. Jim Beaumont's job as a travelling salesman meant he often had to spend days at a time on the road, and while he disliked being away from his family, it afforded them a modest, comfortable lifestyle.

To keep him up to date with the happenings at home, Jane would send her father handwritten letters detailing the little events of her day, which Jim would keep tucked safely in his briefcase to read each night for a reminder of home. One such letter read, But Aunty, Mummy and I swam in the three-foot six-inch pool. While we were there, I learnt how to open my eyes under the water forever so long, and I learnt how to kick my legs and make my arms float. And dive, gracefully dive, races dive and plane dive. I learnt all this from Aunty Tali. There is only one thing I can't do, breathing out as I'm swimming along. Tonight, I had a hot pie, fritz and sauce sandwich, and rainbow ice cream. Aunty Tali bought a great big roast chicken from her father for nothing. Most of all, I want to wish you much luck with your hot, tiring work.

Well, goodbye, I have to go now. I love you. Loving, Jane. Whenever Jim managed to take time off work, he would take his family caravanning to visit his old army mates in Victoria, or explore different parts of South Australia. During one trip along the Great Ocean Road on Victoria's west coast, the family stopped at the iconic Twelve Apostles landmark. Jane and Anna sat on either side of Grant as the Beaumont children happily posed on the cliffs in front of the limestone stacks. The memory captured in a photograph. Jim and Nancy Beaumont cherished these holidays, savouring every moment the family were together. Music By 1966, the Beaumont family was living the Australian dream.

Their suburban home on Harding Street in Summerton Park allowed them to take advantage of the iconic Aussie beach lifestyle. The seaside suburb of Glenelk was only a 20 minute walk away, and the Beaumonts, like many others, were regular visitors during the warmer months. The cool pristine waters of Glenelk Beach provided respite from the harsh Australian sun, and the stretch of golden sand was the ideal space for the kids to run around and play. South Australia's metropolitan coastline stretches for 30 kilometres from south to west. Glenelk blies towards its centre on the shores of Holdfast Bay, located 11 kilometres south west from Adelaide Central Business District. As the oldest European settlement on mainland South Australia, Glenelk is home to many historical hotels, restaurants and attractions which overlook the scenic sea front. During the summer months, the beach's flat, serene sea provides perfect swimming conditions for thousands of daily visitors. The central hub of Mosley Square frames the shores of the beach, intersected by the Glenelk to City Tram Line.

Neighboring the square is Coley Reserve, an expanse of lush green lawns shadowed by tall pine trees, providing a popular space for picnics and sunbathing. Aside from cosmetic and modern refurbishments, the Glenelk beachfront and town surrounds are very much the same today as they were in the 1960s. Back then, the Glenelk jetty was in a state of disrepair after suffering extensive damage from a major storm in 1948 and had yet to be restored. In 1969, a much shorter jetty was constructed in its place, which remains standing today. In January 1966, Adelaide was experiencing a prolonged heatwave, with temperatures soaring towards 40 degrees Celsius. To cool off, the Beaumont family had spent a significant portion of the summer school holidays at Glenelk Beach. Jim Beaumont had been lucky enough to enjoy four weeks of holidays over the Christmas period, spending many days of his break at the beach with his children. Jim was officially back to work on Tuesday, January 25, and was to embark on the hot 150km journey to Snowtown for his first round of sales calls for the year.

Before leaving that morning, Jim agreed to give his three kids a lift down to Glenelk Beach to save them from having to ride their bikes in the heat. Upon reaching the Glenelk foreshore, Jane, Anna, and Grant got out of their father's holding station wagon and rushed down to the beach. Like a majority of Aussie kids in the early 1960s, the Beaumont siblings enjoyed a great amount of independence. The quiet, close-knit suburbs of Adelaide were carefree and safe, where everybody knew their neighbours and looked out for one another. Spending time inside was discouraged, and parents typically sent their children outdoors alone to play for hours on end, urging them to return home before the streetlights flickered on at night. In the hot Australian summer, suburban streets, backyards, parks and beaches filled with local children who would gather to play games, sports, ride their bikes, and make new friends. Scrounging up enough loose change to buy ice creams, hot chips, mixed lollies, and soft drinks. These were the days before television sets were commonplace, before the whole in the ozone layer presented sun exposure threats, and before parents felt the prickling omnipresence of stranger danger.

Jim Beaumont trusted his three children completely. The maturity of his eldest daughter Jane served her younger siblings well. Jane confidently led Anna and Grant on summer outings, herding them on and off the bus, carrying Grant on her hip, and ensuring her little brother and sister never went deeper than their belly buttons when swimming in the ocean. They were good, sensible kids who took great care of each other and obeyed their parents' rules. Before Jim Beaumont drove onwards for his work trip, he sat in his car, observing contentedly as his three children played on the beach. Four-year-old son Grant caught sight of his father watching and ran towards him, waving happily and calling, Go on daddy, don't worry. The following day of Wednesday, January 26, 1966, Nancy Beaumont woke at 7am after another hot and sticky night's sleep. She lay in bed, enjoying the peace and quiet before her children arose.

It wasn't long before Anna and Grant burst excitedly into their mother's room, jumping on Nancy's bed and asking if they could spend the day at the beach. School was due to recommence the following week, and the kids wanted to make the most of their remaining time off together while they still could. It was Australia Day, a national holiday that marks the anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet of British ships to Australian shores. Although the accompanying public holiday was anticipated for the upcoming weekend, Glenelk Beach was still guaranteed to attract thousands of visitors that Wednesday, eager to join in on the day's festivities. Unlike the rest of her family, Nancy Beaumont didn't care much for the beach, but with her husband away for work, she was the only one available to accompany the children to Glenelk. She agreed to consider taking them once her daily housework was complete. After breakfast, the Beaumont children were becoming impatient. As Nancy had several chores she had to finish, she caved in and agreed to let her children go to Glenelk on their own.

It was a trip the three had made without parental supervision many times before, and with the wise and mature Jane leading them, Nancy had nothing to worry about. While it was only a short walk and even shorter bike ride to Glenelk, it was far too hot for the children to make the journey on foot. The diagonal road bus stop was only 100 metres away from the Beaumont's house, and the bus route led straight into Glenelk, stopping on Mosley Street, a short walk from the beach. Nancy decided catching the bus would be the quickest and therefore best option for Jane, Anna and Grant. The eager Beaumont children quickly dressed in their bathing suits. The eldest, Jane wore pink one-piece bathers with pale green shorts and tartan canvas sand shoes. Middle child, Anna wore red and white striped one-piece bathers with tan shorts and tan sandals. The youngest, Grant wore green and white bathers with green cotton shorts, red leather sandals, and remained shirtless.

Jane packed three beach towels into a green airline-style shoulder bag, along with a paperback copy of the novel Little Women. Nancy handed her eldest daughter eight shillings and sixpence to use for bus fares and lunch, which Jane carefully placed inside a white clip-top purse. They were instructed to use the change from their lunch to buy tickets on the midday bus home. After the children out of the house, it didn't take Nancy long to finish her housework. At around 10.30am, she jumped on her bike and rode over to visit a friend who lived nearby. Five minutes before the midday bus from Glenelk was due to arrive, Nancy rode to the diagonal road stop to meet up with her children. However, when the bus arrived, the only person to disembark was an elderly woman. Nancy suspected her kids must have missed the midday bus and would instead jump on the following bus, which would arrive to the diagonal road stop around 2pm.

Unconcerned, Nancy rode home. Soon after she arrived, a couple of friends stopped by for a surprise visit. During their stay, Nancy kept a watchful eye on the clock, but 2pm ticked by and still there was no sign of Jane, Anna or Grant. She reminded herself that the kids knew the local area like the back of their hands and there were several different routes they may have taken to walk home if they missed the bus. Nancy decided to wait a short while longer as the 3pm bus would be arriving at the diagonal road stop from Glenelk soon and there was a likely chance her children would be on board. Shortly before 3pm, Jim Beaumont's Holden station wagon unexpectedly pulled into the driveway. He wasn't scheduled to return home from Snowtown until the following day, but as sales were slow in the weeks following Christmas holidays, Jim thought his time would be better spent at home with his family. Nancy informed her husband that their kids hadn't returned home from the beach and she was starting to worry.

Jim assured Nancy there was nothing to be worried about, believing they would have heard something by now if an accident had occurred. It was the same thing Nancy had been telling herself all afternoon, reassured by the fact that an accident injuring all three children was highly unlikely. She was thankful for the fact that if one child was hurt, the other two were there to seek help. She had always believed in safety in numbers. There was still no sign of the children by 3.30pm. Nancy waited expectantly at home in case they arrived at any moment, while Jim drove to Glenelk to see if they were still there. The seaside town was packed with thousands of people, making it impossible for Jim to spot his children through the crowds. He returned home to pick up Nancy and the pair combed to the beach. Their initial concern quickly growing into full-blown panic as they failed to uncover any sign of their children. At 5.30pm, Jim and Nancy Beaumont walked into the Glenelk police station in Mosley Square and declared their three children, Jane, Anna and Grant, to be missing. The constable at the Glenelk police station took a description of the Beaumont children, but assured their concerned parents everything would be okay.

An abduction involving three children was unheard of, so the constable was certain the kids had either lost track of time, lost their way home, or had been involved in an accident. Nonetheless, he called police headquarters in Adelaide to file the report. Jim and Nancy returned home to Harding Street, disheartened to find the kids hadn't returned during their absence. Soon after, two police officers arrived to conduct a search of the Beaumont house, believing there was a chance the children were simply hiding from their parents to avoid getting in trouble for failing to meet their curfew. When this search proved fruitless, the officers began a more detailed line of questioning with Nancy Beaumont, asking for exact information about what the children were wearing and what time they had left home. She described her children. 9-year-old Jane was 4'6 inches tall, thin, with freckles and sun-bleached hair cropped to her ears with a pushed-back fringe at the front. 7-year-old Anna was 4 foot tall, of plump build, with suntanned skin and short, dark brown hair with a fringe. 4-year-old Grant was just 3 foot tall, thin, with short brown hair and a nollie complexion, with very suntanned skin.

The police left to search Glenelg and the surrounding Summerton Park streets with a frantic Jim Beaumont in tow. They searched the coastlines of Glenelg, Summerton, West Beach, Sea Cliff and Brighton, looking for any sign of the children, including the bag, towels and clothing they had left the house with that morning. The hot temperature made the search extra challenging as the beaches were still packed with crowds of people late into the night. Jim Beaumont quickly ruled out the possibility his children drowned in the sea, later stating, quote, The beaches were packed and the sea was calm. One kitty, perhaps, could be drowned, but the three together, I just can't imagine that. There would have been some evidence. They had their green beach bag with them. They had their clothes. I found nothing like that at all. Struggling to see properly in the dark, the police called off the search until the morning light. Jim Beaumont vowed that he wouldn't return home without his children and continued to search the streets and beaches alone until 7am. Supported by friends and neighbours, Nancy Beaumont kept vigil at home as word of the children's disappearance trickled onto late night radio news and television reports.

Nancy wondered whether her children had fallen into a hole or down a cliff. The children's love for one another was strong and if one was hurt, the other two would never abandon them. All three were afraid of the dark and they may have taken shelter somewhere for the night. The possibility of abduction crossed Nancy's mind, but the idea of someone kidnapping three children at once seemed so far-fetched that she quickly dismissed the prospect. Racked with guilt, Nancy blamed herself for allowing her children to go to the beach alone that morning. The increasing fear that her children were deceased fuelled such intense anxiety in Nancy. Her local doctor was called to the house to administer her a strong sedative. When an exhausted Jim Beaumont returned home from his futile search, he found his wife slumped in a chair in a medicated sleep. Her face stained with tears. The extensive police search for the Beaumont children resumed at daylight the following morning on Thursday, January 27. Five boats from the Sea Rescue Squadron scanned the Glenelk shoreline while officers trudged on foot through stormwater drains, sand dunes and dense scrub.

Police from city and suburban patrols joined the ongoing search, conducting door knocks and checking backyards, sheds and vacant properties. Police issued detailed descriptions of the children's physical features and clothing to the media while police cars fitted with loudspeakers drove the streets of Glenelk appealing for help. By mid-morning, Jim Beaumont addressed gathering members of the press on the back porch of his Harding Street home. Sick with worry and struggling from sleep deprivation, he pleaded desperately for his children to come home, telling the media, quote, It's a complete mystery. I can't understand it. My kids will be crying their eyes out. It's like a nightmare. Overwhelmed with emotion, Jim bowed his head and broke down in tears. Nancy Beaumont was too distraught to face anyone and remained indoors in a medicated fog. As news of the disappearance spread, the Glenelk police station was quickly inundated with information from the public.

People wishing to speak to police had formed a line that stretched 20 metres long outside the door. With just one sergeant and four detectives, the Glenelk police station was ill-equipped to handle the unexpected and the large-scale case. For the small team, interviewing every single person and following every possible lead was impossible. They painstakingly typed each given statement using the station's only typewriter. The search for the missing Beaumont children quickly escalated into a statewide frenzy. Police roadblocks were established on all major South Australian highways, and Adelaide's airport and derailway station were put under heavy surveillance. Members of the public volunteered their time to wade in the search, including taxi drivers who had previously worked with Jim Beaumont. They cruised the streets in their cabs, while members of Jane Beaumont's brownie pack rode their bikes around the surrounding neighbourhoods, searching for their missing friend.

Three kids matching the ages of the Beaumont children were sighted at 7pm on the night the siblings vanished. The children were seen standing by the water's edge at the Patawalonga Boathaven, a marina just one kilometre north from Colley Reserve. A woman spoke to the children briefly, and they had informed her that they didn't live in the area. Given the high profile and urgency of the Beaumont children case, police were taking no chances. The marina, which had a surface covering 70 acres and a depth of 6 feet, was drained for the first time since its establishment in 1959. In what would become one of the largest single searches for the Beaumont children so far, 80 young police cadets dragged themselves through the thick, black, foul-smelling mud at the bottom of the empty marina. Using broomsticks, they prodded the mud for any sign of the missing children, but to no avail.

Despite these efforts, not a single piece of evidence was located to indicate where the children had gone. It was determined that the siblings left home carrying around 17 or so items with them, including bags, clothes, towels, as well as Jane's book and purse. None of these items were recovered at any of the key locations the children were expected to have travelled, nor were they spotted on the shoreline of Glenelg Beach. This made the possibility the trio had drowned all the more unlikely, given their belongings would have been left behind on the sand and later discovered. The search for Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont soon became the most extensive missing person search in South Australian history. Within the first 48 hours of the Beaumont children's disappearance, police had received hundreds of calls from people claiming to have seen the three young siblings.

One woman claimed to have seen a man and three children enter a vacant house opposite her home in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, but the group was mysteriously gone the next day. Another believed she saw the three children accompanied by two men sitting at a bus stop multiple suburbs away in Semaphore Park. Most reported sightings led nowhere, all were ruled out completely, but with the help of several reliable corroborating witness statements, detectives were able to piece together what was likely to have been Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont's movements prior to their disappearance. While reports from witnesses who believed they saw the children on the morning of January 26th varied in specifics, there was enough information provided for police to establish a fairly reliable timeline and identify several potential leads.

At approximately 10.15am, Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont boarded a public transit bus to Glenelg from the diagonal road stop as confirmed by the driver. An older couple travelling on the bus recalled Jane Beaumont sitting on the backseat reading Little Women while Anna and Grant messed around, cheekily putting their arms out of the windows just to get a rise out of their older sister. The bus arrived to Glenelg just a few minutes later and the siblings disembarked on Mosley Street several streets back from the seafront. Local postman Tom Patterson, who knew the Beaumont family from his daily mail route, saw Jane, Anna and Grant walking along Mosley Street holding hands and laughing. Tom heard one of the children yell out to the others, look there's our postie and a little Grant waved hello.

Tom struggled to recall the exact time he saw the Beaumont children, uncertain if it was in the morning or afternoon, but police believed the sighting occurred as the children first headed to the beach. Several witnesses observed the Beaumont children playing in the shallow waters just north of the Glenelg Jetty, which formed the busiest section of the beach. It was the same area they had swam in the day before when their father dropped them off before his work trip to Snowtown. Anna and Grant were only comfortable splashing in the shallows and had never ventured beyond a waist deep. Shortly after 11am the children finished swimming and made the short walk from the Jetty to Collie Reserve where they laid their towels out on the lawn.

Earlier they were witnessed playing under a water sprinkler as they washed sand off their feet. This sighting was further corroborated by a school friend of Jane Beaumonts who saw the siblings at the reserve at around 11.25am. An elderly woman sitting on a bench in front of the nearby Holdfast sailing club observed a man approach the Beaumont children as they played out on the lawn. He was described to be in his 30s, 6 foot tall with an athletic build, tanned skin, long face, high forehead and wavy blonde hair. He wore navy blue bae the briefs with a distinctive white stripe. After speaking to Jane and her younger siblings, the man placed his own towel on the grass a few feet away, then lay on his stomach and watched the children play.

Within 15 minutes of the man's arrival, the children were seen jumping over him, the oldest girl playfully clicking him and her siblings with her towel. A half hour later, the elderly woman observing the group left Collie Reserve, noting the man and her children were still frolicking together on the lawn when she departed. Sometime between 11.30am and midday, the Beaumont children entered Wenzel's cake shop on Moseley Street where they often purchased their lunch when in town. The bakery was located right next to the bus stop the siblings would use to get back home to Summerton Park. These actions seemed to be in line with their original plan to buy lunch and return home by midday as advised by their mother.

Nancy Beaumont had given Jane eight shillings and six pints in silver coins to purchase lunch for her and her younger siblings, enough for each of the children to buy a pasty and have enough left over for the bus fare home. At Wenzel's bakery, the three children purchased five pasties, six finger buns and two large bottles of soft drink. One of the children also stated something along the lines of, and a pie for the man. It was an unusual request given the children had arrived to the store alone and the shopkeeper who had served the Beaumont children in the past did not recall them ever purchasing a meat pie before. This large order far exceeded the amount of food the children required for lunch whilst racking up a bill beyond what they could afford with the modest amount of money given to them by their mother.

But when it came time to pay, the children handed over a one pound note, a significant amount in 1966 and more money than the Beaumont children ever had access to. After leaving the bakery around midday, the children did not go straight to the bus stop and return home as expected. Instead, minutes later, they were spotted back in Collie Reserve, this time near the Glenelg Surf Club building. An elderly couple sitting on a bench saw the three children arrive and start speaking to the same tall blonde-haired man seen playing with the children earlier. This unknown man then approached the elderly couple seated nearby and within earshot of the children asked if they had seen anyone going through their belongings.

He exclaimed, someone's nicked our money. This conversation was overheard by another woman close by who watched as the man returned to the children and began helping the young Beaumont girls put their shorts on over their bathers. The woman noted the action as odd as the oldest girl looked much too old to require assistance getting dressed. The man then went into the chain sheds behind the Surf Club building to get dressed, taking nothing but a pair of trousers and a towel. The three children patiently waited for him on a bench outside and were still there when the elderly couple left Collie Reserve at around 12.15pm.

After this, there were no further reported sightings of the man, or of Jane, Anna, or Grant Beaumont. Based on witness descriptions, a sketch of the unknown man last seen with the Beaumont children was drawn up. Witnesses could remember certain physical features but not other distinguishing characteristics such as the colour of his eyes or the shape of his nose or mouth. This led to a vague sketch with the artist left to fill in the gaps using his own creative interpretation. This rough sketch was widely circulated and although it didn't lead to a positive ID, it did prompt another witness into coming forward. The witness provided additional details about the man's appearance,

describing him as being in his late 30s or early 40s with a slim build and fair to light brown hair parted on the left hand side. The sketch was subsequently updated but the man it portrayed never came forward to clear himself, making him the lead suspect in the Beaumont children's disappearance. According to witnesses, the Beaumont children appeared completely at ease in the company of the unknown man and did not seem at all distressed. Based on this information, police suspected Australia Day was not the first time they had all met and the man may have frequented the Glenelg area or have already been known to the children in some other capacity. Arna Beaumont had recently told her mother that Jane had a boyfriend down at the beach, a comment that Nancy had brushed off innocently at the time,

but now had her questioning whether the unknown man could have been Jane's hypothetical crush. The witness who saw the man help a Jane get dressed further added to this theory. Nancy Beaumont described Jane as a shy, modest girl who was very particular about her body. It would be uncharacteristic of her to permit a total stranger to touch her in such an intimate way. Investigators developed the theory that the unknown man was a pedophile who may have been grooming the Beaumont children during their unsupervised visits to Glenelg, building a rapport with the siblings over time. Spotting them unsupervised on Australia Day may have presented him with a clear opportunity to target them,

a wolf in sheep's clothing. It seemed like no coincidence that when Jane and her siblings were due to take the bus home, her money had mysteriously disappeared. The police considering the likely scenario that the man himself had pocketed the child's money or purse, feigning concern and maintaining the deception by questioning park visitors about the supposed theft. The £1 note the children used in the bakery was perhaps one last act by the perpetrator to secure his prey. A generous offer to the down and out kids to spend lavishly on their lunch. Having earned their trust, the man may have then offered to take Jane, Anna and Grant home.

This theory would have the children willingly leaving Coley Reserve with their abductor, without drawing any attention to themselves or sensing any danger. For Jim Beaumont, the possibility that his children had been abducted seemed plausible. He told the media, quote, Jim speculated that an abductor may have been observing the children for some time, watching as they played in their parents' presence at the beach over the summer. Upon noticing they had no adult supervision on Australia Day, the abductor may have seen it as the perfect opportunity to strike.

They might have approached Jane, Anna and Grant and lied to lure the children into their vehicle, perhaps by offering to go for a surprise visit to see their father, or fabricating a story about their parents being involved in an accident. The fear that her children were being held captive led Nancy Beaumont to tell a journalist for the Herald newspaper, quote, I think as a mother, I'd rather kill the children myself and get it over quickly than have them at the mercy of some bad person for so long. Running with the theory that Beaumont children had been abducted by a pedophile, the Sunday Mail newspaper printed a story that played on every parent's worst nightmares.

With a headline declaring sex crime now feared, the article went one step further, stating that police suspected the three Beaumont children had been slain and voiced concerns that the Beaumont attacker could strike again. Parallels were drawn with the unsolved murders of 15-year-olds Mary Ann Schmidt and Christine Sharrock at Sydney's Wanda Beach the previous year, suggesting the same perpetrator could be responsible for both cases. The Wanda Beach and Beaumont cases shared noticeable similarities, as both involved children going missing from a crowded beach during the January school holidays.

But unlike the Wanda Beach case, where Mary Ann and Christine's bodies were found within a day of their disappearance near where they were last seen alive, no trace of the Beaumont children had surfaced in close to a week. By day five in the ongoing search for the Beaumont children, South Australian police had received over 1,000 phone calls in relation to the identity of their prime suspect. Further reports placed the Beaumont children on airplanes, in cars and at various locations throughout Adelaide. Interstate newspapers had also picked up on the story, leading to alleged sightings in other states as well. With the investigation now focusing on identifying the man last seen with the Beaumont children, police turned their attention to known sex offenders around the Haldfast Bay area.

As the suspect was seen by witnesses carrying only a towel and trousers, it was speculated he lived locally, as those visiting from further away would be inclined to come better prepared for the trip, possibly carrying a bag to hold their possessions. However, most known sexual predators who lived locally were able to provide solid alibis for the day the Beaumont children vanished. Detective Sergeant Alex Palmer urged the Glenelg residents to check their properties for any sign of the children. Quote, There are many vacant homes, both old ramshackle buildings in the old area of Glenelg and new houses in the nearby suburbs, and the children could have been lured into them, and anything could have happened.

Days turned into weeks and still there was no sign of Jane, Anna or Grant Beaumont. The South Australian state government put forward a modest reward sum of 500 pounds for any information about the whereabouts of the missing children. The reward was deemed highly inadequate, prompting local businessmen and private citizens to contribute to the amount in the hopes of encouraging others to follow suit. Jim Beaumont agreed to sell his house to boost the reward fund if anyone came forward with information leading to the safe return of his children. With donations from the local community, the reward grew to just over 10,000 pounds. This increased amount, coupled with the extensive media coverage of the case, led to an onslaught of false reports, hoaxes and wild theories about what happened to the children. People showed up unannounced on the Beaumont's doorstep to share their visions, psychic readings and extend their religious beliefs. Jim and Nancy listened patiently to everyone who reached out to them, but the constant media attention and wild speculations were taking their toll.

Opportunistic strangers tried to take advantage of the grieving couple, while others added insult to injury by trying to point at the anguished parents as suspects. A man with a foreign accent called afternoon tabloid newspaper The News, claiming he was holding the Beaumont children for ransom. When the receptionist tried to connect the man with the editorial department, he hung up and was never heard from again. The call was quickly ruled a hoax, thought to be inspired by the kidnapping for ransom of Sydney schoolboy Graham Thorn six years earlier in 1960, which received huge nationwide media attention at the time. The kidnapping of Graham Thorn was covered in episode 75 of Case File. The federal police received a phone call from Adelaide resident Irwin Grosser, reporting that he had cited three children matching the descriptions of the missing Beaumont children. According to Grosser, the three children were being driven in a car by a lone man. Grosser alleged the man held him up with a pistol and demanded he fill his car radiator with water before fleeing with the children to the Barossa Valley, a renowned wine producing region 75 kilometers from Adelaide.

Later, Grosser admitted he had made this report while highly intoxicated and that it was based on nothing more than his own theory. He and a friend were prosecuted for making the false allegation. Following a report that the Beaumont children were being held captive by a man and woman at a home on Glenelgs Asplanade, the homicide squad raided several houses in the area, but found no trace of the children. The man who made the report admitted it was a lie, driven out of spite. The couple he had falsely reported as the Beaumont's captors were actually his estranged wife and her new boyfriend. After Melbourne based the newspaper The Truth published an ostentatious story declaring the Beaumont children to still be alive. Multiple witnesses claimed to have seen a man fitting the description of the prime suspect, driving a green Ford utility truck along the highway between Adelaide and Melbourne. The witnesses stated the man had two girls and a boy in the back. However, given the amount of time that had passed between the alleged sightings and the witness statements, police mostly discounted these sightings as unrelated to the case. The media speculated the perpetrator could have taken the Beaumont children as far as New Zealand, as no passports were required to travel between the two countries at the time.

Pitches and descriptions of Jane, Arnor and Grant were sent to New Zealand authorities, with advice to remain on high alert. A Summerton Park resident reported seeing three children walking along Boundary Road, a residential suburban street with links to Moseley Street, shortly before 3pm on January 26. The children were in the company of a man, described as aged between 30 and 35, 6 feet tall, with light brown hair, high cheekbones and a sun-reddened complexion. He was carrying a dark airline-style bag and walked with a slight distinct swagger. As this description was inconsistent with the characteristics of the unknown man last seen with the Beaumont children, investigators mostly ruled this sighting out. After two weeks of searching had failed to uncover any signs of Jane, Arnor and Grant, Jim Beaumont hesitantly returned to work in an attempt to restore some semblance of normalcy to his life. Nancy joined her husband on the road, desperate for a distraction and a change of scenery, as every corner of their empty family home reminded her of their missing children. With leads reaching dead ends and a no-new information surfacing, stories of the Beaumont children's disappearance started to fade from the headlines.

In an attempt to keep the story in the news, Jim and Nancy sporadically agreed to interviews with the press, but their discomfort in the spotlight was clear and the constant trauma of having to relive their ordeal caused the couple great distress. Without any new compelling information to report, the media attention and public assistance in their case began to dissipate. Australia's then leading forensic psychiatrist Dr. John McGeorge was interviewed by journalists looking for a fresh angle on the story. Dr. McGeorge had assessed many of Australia's worst criminals and his experience had earned him a shining reputation for correctly forecasting the outcome of criminal cases. Based on his experience and knowledge, he predicted all three Beaumont children were dead and their killer was a psychopath or someone with a borderline mental illness and perverted tendencies. Dr. McGeorge depicted the children's killer as a reserved person with limited intelligence and few friends, who likely lived in a boarding house or with elderly parents. By Easter 1966, Jim and Nancy Beaumont refused to give up hope that their children were alive. They kept their home perfectly intact, wanting to keep everything exactly as it had been the day the children left.

Everything from the backyard swing set to the kids' books, toys and bikes awaited their return. Even the girls' straw school hats hung expectantly on their usual hooks in the hallway. Through their despair, Jim and Nancy remained optimistic that their children had been abducted by someone who was keeping them alive and well. There had been reports throughout Australia of desperate childless couples attempting to kidnap children to raise as their own, so the prospect of the Beaumont children being alive wasn't completely without merit. Nancy Beaumont told a reporter, quote, They can't have just vanished off the face of the earth. Nobody can do that. We go over and over it between ourselves, and to the logical thing seems to be that someone has them. It could be a friend or someone we have never met.

If they had got into a stranger's car, it would only have been because the younger two children had talked Jane into it. September 1966 marked seven months since the Beaumont children vanished without a trace. On September 27, senior Constable Ron Gross was attempting to make a call to police headquarters in Melbourne from his police station in Connaiva, a small Victorian town 25 kilometres east of the South Australian border. As he waited for the call to connect, his line became crossed with a conversation occurring between two females. Senior Constable Gross heard one of the women say, We're bringing the Beaumont kids back from Hobart, and we are tired and think it's time to give up. Convinced the call was authentic, Gross reported the conversation to the Victorian Homicide Squad, who quickly notified South Australian authorities. Upon hearing news of the phone call, Jim and Nancy Beaumont thought it was the strongest lead there had been since their children's disappearance months prior, and quickly clung to hopes that the call was genuine.

Jim Beaumont drove 320 kilometres to Connaiva to speak to senior Constable Ron Gross in person, and was told the exclusive brethren, a subset of the Christian evangelical movement, were active in the remote areas around Connaiva. This information sparked Jim's attention, as rumours had been circulating that a religious sect could be holding his children captive. Nancy Beaumont made a heartfelt plea on television news, quote, Please, whoever you are, please listen with your heart. I feel that in different ways you have been kind to our children, but I beg you, show a greater kindness by letting them come home. The suspicious call overheard by senior Constable Ron Gross was successfully traced a few days later. The two women on the other line were identified, and clarified to police they had been talking about the Beaumont case, before switching the conversation to an unrelated topic regarding some other children that they knew. Police were satisfied the women were being truthful and had nothing to do with the Beaumont case, quickly eliminating them from the investigation. 1966 was a big year for Australian news. Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies retired after 17 years in the top office to be replaced by Harold Hull.

Australia made the move to the decimal currency system, with the Australian dollar replacing the pre-existing Australian pound. Japan replaced Great Britain as Australia's largest trading partner. An assassination attempt was taken out on Labor Party leader Arthur Caldwell. Entertainment and sporting venues were allowed to trade on Sundays for the first time. As these stories dominated national headlines and prime times, the unsolved case of the missing Beaumont children was vastly overshadowed. Something big needed to happen to prevent the case from fading into obscurity. Jim and Nancy Beaumont had already been approached by many self-proclaimed spiritualists who claimed to know the whereabouts of their children. One such spiritualist claimed to have received a vision of the children buried in a grave at the bottom of a cliff in the beachside suburb of Merino, nine kilometres south from Glenelk. His premonition promptly sparked a police search of the suspected site, but nothing was found. In a bid to help solve the mystery, an employee of South Australian newspaper, the advertiser, wrote a letter to famed Dutch clairvoyant Gerard Croyset, asking for his assistance to help locate the missing Beaumont children.

Croyset, who claimed to have started receiving psychic visions during his adolescence, had earned a reputation in the Netherlands for assisting police in solving murders and missing person cases. His fame had spread throughout Europe and to the United States, and his help was sought in many high-profile criminal cases. From his home in Holland, Croyset responded to the newspaper employee's letter, stating he believed the Beaumont children had been involved in a tragic accident unrelated to foul play. He said they could have been playing innocently when something around them collapsed, causing them to lose a battle against sand or water. Croyset's visions revealed the children's bodies were lying on a stretch of open land not too far from the sea, about half a mile from where they were last seen. He requested to be sent photographs of Glenelk and its surrounds in order to determine exactly where the Beaumont children were located. Croyset's interest in the Beaumont children was the fresh scoop needed to bring the case back into the media spotlight. Word of Croyset's vision was quickly published by the advertiser, with several other publications reaching out to the Dutch psychic and printing their own take on the story.

The new media attention renewed public interest, with many members of the public flocking to caves and hollows throughout Glenelk and neighbouring coastal areas to search for Jane, Arnor and Grant, based purely on Croyset's word. Upon receipt of photographs and further information, Croyset's visions became more vivid. He described seeing the three children's bodies lying in a cave near rocks on the beach, with scrub land and a square house to the right-hand side, and a shoals or a coral reef in the distance. South Australian citizens believed Gerard Croyset had identified the Minder Home in Brighton, a residential support and education facility for the intellectually disabled. Minder Home was located on the coast, three kilometres south from the Beaumont's property. The media quickly entertained theories that the perpetrator could have been a patient at Minder Home, who, after kidnapping and killing the Beaumont children, buried them on the foreshore in front of the Minder grounds. From his home in Holland, Croyset advised Adelaide citizens they were on the right track and encouraged them to keep digging. Front-end loaders were brought into Minder's coastal boundary to remove tonnes of sand and soil, but the excavation revealed nothing, and the dig became a public embarrassment.

In November 1966, two prominent Adelaide businessmen funded a trip to bring psychic Gerard Croyset to Australia. Ten months had passed since the disappearance of the Beaumont children, and it was believed that Croyset's physical presence in the key locations from where they had vanished would strengthen his psychic abilities and help lead authorities to Jane, Anna and Grant. One donor was Barry Blackwell of Brighton car company Midway Motors, who had already made several generous contributions to the Beaumont investigation, including a significant boost to the reward money. The other donor was Con Polides, a self-made Adelaide property tycoon who relished being in the limelight. Given the amount of contact Jim and Nancy Beaumont had received from self-proclaimed psychics, the couple were skeptical about Croyset's claims and were not actively involved in the efforts to bring the clairvoyant to Australia. Gerard Croyset agreed to stay in Adelaide for two days and refused any payment for his involvement in the case. He was conducting his search for the Beaumont children in good faith, claiming he was 90% sure he would be able to pinpoint the location of their bodies. His arrival in Adelaide prompted a media frenzy that outshone the arrival of British rock and roll band The Beatles two years earlier.

A crowd of 2,000 people greeted Croyset at Adelaide Airport, including 30 reporters and cameramen, with the anticipation running high that he would finally solve the mystery that had been haunting residents for close to a year. Croyset was overwhelmed by the reception, saying all he wanted to do was help solve the tragedy and release the city from fear. The next morning, Croyset visited Coley Reserve, where it was believed Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont were last seen. He then walked three kilometres along the Glenelgue foreshore with a media crew following close behind. Later, Croyset was driven through the streets of Glenelgue and passed the Minda Home, which Adelaide residents had pinpointed as the location he had envisioned in previous psychic visions. Despite previous large-scale digs of the area proving fruitless, upon his arrival to the area, Croyset claimed he was now very close to finding the children. The next day, he searched vacant blocks of land without uncovering any evidence, before complaining that too many people were following him and all the attention was weakening his psychic abilities. On his final morning in Adelaide, Gerard Croyset held an impromptu press conference to reveal that new information had since come to light overnight.

A woman claimed she had heard children's voices in a disused warehouse near her home in the early morning hours of January 27, 1966. The night the Beaumont children went missing. At the time, the warehouse was vacant, having previously been used for brickworks. It had since been converted into a joinery company, and although extensive renovations of the building had been conducted in August, it was possible that several underground chutes leading to the old brick kiln still existed. Croyset led police and members of the press to a warehouse on Wilton Avenue in Paringa Park, less than 500 meters from the Beaumont's home, believing the children were buried 2 to 3 meters deep in an underground bunker. He walked to the northern wall of the warehouse and said, this is where they are buried. According to his visions, Gerard Croyset claimed the Beaumont children were afraid to go home in the dark, so they huddled for shelter near the empty warehouse. The trio were standing on planks of wood, which then caved in, causing them to fall underground. The floor of the warehouse had since been concreted, meaning the children's bodies were entombed underneath.

After bestowing this information, Gerard Croyset supported the idea of excavating the concrete floor, and then promptly left the country. Residents of Adelaide took Croyset's word as gospel, believing he had uncovered the final resting place of Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont. Under pressure from the public, the South Australian government deliberated whether to dig up the warehouse's concrete floor using taxpayer money, based on nothing more than a psychic premonition. Although Jim and Nancy Beaumont had met with Croyset briefly during his visit, and appreciated his interest in the case, they were not convinced of his psychic abilities, and did not support the dig. Police investigated Croyset's claims by researching what the conditions of the old warehouse were like in January of 1966, and determined there was nothing plausible about Croyset's so-called vision. The building owners assured police all in-ground pits were thoroughly inspected before concreting work began, and there were no signs indicating the children had fallen into any. In late November 1966, South Australian Premier Frank Walsh stated, quote, Investigations have shown conclusively, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is no possible chance the factory is the burial ground of the missing children.

It was decided that an excavation of the concrete flooring would not go ahead. However, the public wasn't convinced of the findings, and were certain Croyset's visions were correct. A Citizen Action Committee banded together to conduct a public survey in support of the excavation, and raised $7,000 to fund the project. The excavation took place the following year, in March 1967. Workers demolished 60 feet of the concrete flooring, revealing an old staircase, a brick kiln, a piece of cloth, lolly wrappers, lemon peel, and newspapers, none of which were found to have had any relevance to the Beaumont case. The remains of Jane, Anna and Grant were not discovered. On behalf of the South Australian Government, Premier Frank Walsh apologised to Jim and Nancy Beaumont for the continued anxiety and sorrow. By the one year anniversary of the Beaumont Children's disappearance, their parents were still clinging to the belief that Jane, Anna and Grant were alive, as it was the only thing giving them the energy to carry on.

Jim Beaumont continued to grasp under his theory that the children were lured and abducted. A man or woman, or probably a man and a woman together, persuaded them to get into a car and drove them away somewhere. They might have told them Nancy and I were killed in an accident, and that they've got them somewhere. It would have to be a station, or some isolated place like that. My God, if they could only see what it's doing to Nancy and me, it's no good without the children, not when you have had them. I just can't understand life without my kids. There's no point to it. Despite Jim and Nancy Beaumont's continued hope their children would be returned to them alive, by the two year anniversary of the disappearance, investigators were no closer to uncovering the mystery. Emotionally exhausted, Jim and Nancy decided to take a step back from the media spotlight after providing one last in-depth interview.

They spoke to the press in detail about Jane, Anna and Grant, and what they missed most about the well-behaved, sweet-natured children they had always dreamed of having, whilst thanking the South Australian police for their tireless work, and praising the community for all the ongoing support. The heartfelt interview ended with Nancy Beaumont's response to the question of whether she and Jim would relocate to a new home for a fresh start. Nancy said, quote, I can't go in case the kiddies come home. You see, I'm waiting for them to come back here. Perhaps someone could drop them at the front gate. Wouldn't it be dreadful if I were not here? In the days following this interview, Jim and Nancy Beaumont were shaken when a letter arrived to their home signed by their missing daughter Jane. Written in child-like handwriting, the letter read, When a man in a car stopped us and asked if we wanted a ride, I said that we did, and that is how it all started. The man would not let us ride before. He is letting us ride now because he saw the article in the Herald tonight, and felt sorry for you both. He watched us a lot for about six weeks, and then he did not watch us so much. Anna and I often talk about you, but Grant does not remember you at all after more than two years. We have been fed well all the time.

I, as well as Anna and Grant, hope that you are both well. The man said to me just now that he will willingly let us go if you will come over to Victoria to get us, as long as you do not call the police. In the letter, Jane went on to request that her father come to Dandenong to meet their captor, a southeastern suburb in the neighbouring state of Victoria, 760km away from Beaumont's home. The rendezvous was scheduled to take place at the front of Dandenong's local post office at 8.50am the following Monday, February 26. Jane instructed her father to wear a dark coat and white pants, ensuring he would be easily identifiable to their captor. She stressed that it was very important that the police must not be informed. Jim and Nancy Beaumont believed the handwriting in the letter bore similarities to that of Jane's and felt it possible the letter was indeed written by their oldest daughter. Their major concern was that Anna's name had been misspelled in the letter, using only one N instead of two, despite the fact that Jane knew the correct spelling of her sister's name. Not wanting to disregard the letter on what could have been a simple spelling mistake, Jim and Nancy contacted the head of the South Australian Homicide Squad, Detective Sergeant Stan Swain, and talked him into helping them organise a secret trip to Dandenong. Swain agreed and put the plans in place, keeping his involvement strictly confidential as to not alert the alleged captor to the involvement of law enforcement.

Prior to his arrival to Dandenong, Swain called ahead and booked a room at a local hotel where he would stay for the duration of the scheduled meet-up. When making the booking, the Detective Sergeant gave the hotel manager his full name. As there had been some thefts in the Dandenong area recently, the owner of the hotel was wary about letting a complete stranger stay in his establishment. To make sure this guest didn't present a threat, he contacted a local police officer to run a background check on the name Stan Swain. The local officer discovered it belonged to a South Australian Homicide Squad detective who was heavily involved in the Beaumont case. Instead of treating this information sensitively, the officer then called a reporter at the Melbourne-based Herald newspaper to advise him of Detective Swain's surprise appearance in town. The Herald newspaper sent a group of reporters and photographers to the Dandenong region to discreetly scope out Detective Swain's whereabouts, convinced his presence had something to do with the Beaumont case. At the same time, the news newspaper in Adelaide had received a tip-off from someone close to the Beaumont family and sent their own group of reporters and photographers interstate to investigate.

On the morning of Monday, February 26, Jim Beaumont stood alone out the front of the Dandenong Post Office as he'd been instructed to do in the letter from Jane. Detective Sergeant Stan Swain was watching discreetly from nearby, posing as a window cleaner. The telephone rang inside the Dandenong Post Office, and the mail caller asked the staff member to inform Jim Beaumont that he was running late, but would be at their designated meeting spot as soon as possible. Throughout the day, other nearby businesses received calls from the unknown mail, who instructed employees to relay further messages to Jim. The mysterious man maintained he was still on his way. Desperate to believe he would be reunited with his children at long last, Jim Beaumont stood in front of the Dandenong Post Office for three days. However, there were no signs of Jane, Anna, Grant, or the mysterious man. Dejected, Jim and Nancy returned to Adelaide, where two more letters were awaiting them upon their arrival.

One letter was allegedly from Jane, who said their captor was very disappointed that they brought the police with them to Dandenong. The second letter claimed to be from the captor himself. He wrote, Dear Mr and Mrs Beaumont, I am terribly sorry that I could not hand your children back to you when you were in Dandenong, but I knew you had detectives with you and the main street was so busy. I am taking extra good care of the kiddies for you. The writer went on to blame the Beaumonts for going against his wishes and informing the police. He said it was too late now, and that one day, in the near future, he would put their children on a train to Adelaide, so they better have their bedrooms ready for their arrival. The following week, a third letter arrived from Jane, this one saying,

I want you to know and never forget, no matter what happens, that we will still love you both very much. The 60s came to an end without any major breakthroughs or new leads in the case of the missing Beaumont children, and if there were no further letters sent from the person claiming to be Jane Beaumont, or the man alleging to be holding the children captive. The constant trauma and heartbreak endured by Nancy and Jim Beaumont led to their eventual divorce, although they maintained a valued friendship thereafter. They both moved away from the family home on Harding Street in Summerton Park, leaving behind the crushing hopes that their smiling children would one day swing open the gate and walk inside. With the media now firmly focused on the Vietnam War, the disappearance of 9-year-old Jane, 7-year-old Anna, and 4-year-old Grant became a distant memory. What was once the biggest criminal investigation in South Australia was now overseen by a single detective. Over the years, the occasional piece of information related to the case filtered through, and police continued to follow up on all lines of inquiry, no matter how speculative, but nothing substantial ever surfaced. 7 years after they vanished, memories of the Beaumont children's disappearance flooded back into the Adelaide consciousness as news of a similar abduction made headlines.

On August 25, 1973, 11-year-old Joanne Ratcliffe escorted 4-year-old Kirsty Gordon to the bathroom stores during a football match held at Adelaide Oval. A large football and cricket stadium on the banks of the Torrens River, less than 2km north of the CBD. The trip should have taken just a few minutes, but 20 minutes later, the girls still hadn't returned to their families. The alarm was quickly raised and police were contacted, promptly initiating a full investigation. Joanne and Kirsty were last seen by several witnesses struggling with a man who then dragged the girls out of the Oval's southern gates. The man was described as being of average height, with a stooped posture, wearing a wide-brimmed Akubra-style hat, horn-rimmed glasses, grey-checkered sports jacket, and brown trousers. Investigators had learned a lot since the Beaumont case, and to now knew missing children cases should no longer be handled conservatively. This time, abduction and probable murder were suspected almost immediately, and reported in the media as such.

Yet, despite efforts, Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon were not located, nor was the man last seen with them identified. The investigation into finding Joanne and Kirsty played out similarly to the Beaumont case, in that no evidence was uncovered, and the subsequent search was bogged down by bogus sightings, wild speculations, hoaxes, and unsubstantiated visions from spiritualists, including input from Gerard Crozet, the Dutch clairvoyant whose psychic visions failed to uncover any sign of the Beaumont children. Based on witness accounts, a watercolour sketch of the man seen abducting Joanne and Kirsty was drawn up and widely circulated. Similarities were immediately drawn to the sketch of the unknown man seen in Coley Reserve with the Beaumont children just before they vanished in 1966. Both sketches depicted a middle-aged man with a long, lean face, and well-defined bone structure. Peter Alexander from the Police Association of South Australia later said, quote,

There is a big chance these two crimes are linked. This type of offender, this type of killer, you just can't get a handle on. Even on a worldwide basis, these are extraordinary crimes. The psychology and supreme confidence of the guy is astounding. One group of children taken from a crowded beach, the other from a crowded sporting field, both in broad daylight. By the late 1970s and early 80s, South Australia was once again struck by a spade of horrific abductions and murders. Five young men went missing over those years, their bodies later found in various locations throughout Adelaide. Police believed a network of sadistic pedophiles were responsible for the crimes, men who held prominent positions within Adelaide society. As the perpetrators were suspected to go to great lengths to prevent one another from being detected, the brutal slayings were dubbed the family murders. In November 1984, Adelaide accountant Bevan Spencer Von Einem was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin, the fifth family murders victim.

In 1990, the details of the committal hearing held prior to Bevan Spencer Von Einem's murder trial were released to the media after a series of suppression orders were lifted. A crown witness identified only as Mr. Be who had previously partnered with Von Einem in drugging and assaulting male hitchhikers had testified at the hearing. Mr. Be told the court that Von Einem had confessed to committing at least 10 murders, including the deaths of the Beaumont children. Von Einem had admitted to abducting the Beaumont children before connecting them up and performing some, quote, brilliant surgery on them. After one of the children died, he killed the other two and dumped the bodies at either Maiponga or Moana, two areas located on the southern coast of Adelaide. Von Einem also mentioned that he had picked up two children at the football, as in the case of Joey and Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon. Despite these alleged confessions, many aspects spotlighting Bevan Spencer Von Einem as a suspect in the Beaumont case didn't add up. Although his build matched that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children, Von Einem had only been 20 years old at the time of their disappearance.

This was much younger than witness descriptions, who consistently reported the man last seen with the children as being middle-aged in his 30s or early 40s. The Beaumont children also didn't fit the profile of Von Einem's preferred victims, who were typically males in their teens and early 20s. Bevan Spencer Von Einem denied any involvement in the abductions of the Beaumont children or Joey and Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon. However, speculation of his involvement in the Beaumont children's disappearance was reignited, when reports later circulated that a male spectator resembling a young Von Einem was caught in the background of archived news footage, watching as police divers searched the Padawalonga Boathaven. As killers have been known to return to the scene of their crime to either relive their fantasies or check on police progress, it was speculated that Von Einem was exhibiting textbook criminal behaviour. An expert in forensic facial mapping compared the images of the spectator to that of a young Von Einem and concluded there were considerable differences between the pair's facial structures. The Von Einem lookalike was determined to be just that. A lookalike. Nevertheless, Bevan Spencer Von Einem was not ruled out as a suspect in the Beaumont case.

Following Mr Bea's allegations, South Australian police turned to their investigations to the Maipongel Reservoir. The location Von Einem told Mr Bea he had dumped the bodies of the three children. On February 2, 1990, police divers from the underwater recovery unit arrived to the Flurio Peninsula, 60km south from Adelaide, to conduct a search of the Maipongel Reservoir. The major undertaking presented multiple challenges, as the reservoir held 28,800mg of water, with a depth of 100m in some places, making it difficult for divers to reach the bottom before decompression stops were needed. The water also contained fine silt that significantly reduced visibility, and tons of accumulated silt would have gathered over the years since the children went missing, effectively burying any remains. Police revealed they were searching for bodies, but refused to comment on whether it was those of the missing Beaumont children. Days of searching failed to uncover any remains, and the search was eventually called off. A month later, police confirmed suspicions that they had indeed been searching for the remains of the Beaumont children, as well as those of Kirsty Gordon and Joanne Ratcliffe.

But nothing had been found. Another massive and devastating setback to the Beaumont case occurred in 1992. Advances in fingerprint technology presented the opportunity to test the fingerprints found on the handwritten letters supposedly penned by Jane Beaumont and her captor back in 1968. The letters that prompted Jim and Nancy Beaumont to travel to Dandenong in Victoria, with the false hopes of being reunited with their children. Testing of the fingerprints revealed the author of the letters to be a 41-year-old man from Victoria. When confronted by police, the Victorian man admitted he had originally written the letters as a teenage prank, which had quickly spiralled out of hand. He had since expressed great remorse for his immature behaviour, regretting the hoax in his adult years. Police determined the man had absolutely no involvement in the Beaumont children's disappearance, and he was promptly eliminated as a suspect.

Given the amount of time that had lapsed and his age at the time of the con, no charges were ever filed against him. As the 1990s came to an end, another person of interest was named in the Beaumont case, Arthur Stanley Brown. In 1998, Brown was charged with the 1970 murders of sisters Judith and Susan McKay, aged 5 and 7, in his hometown of Townsville, Queensland. Brown managed to avoid detection for the murders for almost 30 years. After his eventual arrest, Arthur Brown's photograph was widely circulated in newspapers and television reports nationwide, jogging the memory of a witness to the 1973 abduction of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon, who identified Brown as the girl's abductor. Even in his older years, Brown bore haunting similarities to the identikit sketches and witness descriptions of the suspect, right down to the white-brimmed Acuba-style hat and horn-rimmed glasses he often wore. Although Brown was settled in Queensland, he had frequently travelled into state for work, and it was possible he had passed through South Australia over the years. As the sketch of Joanne and Kirsty's abductor has been widely compared to that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children, Brown was considered a suspect for both crimes.

By the time he was arrested for the McKay sisters murders, 86-year-old Arthur Brown was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and dementia and determined unfit for trial. He was therefore released to live out the remainder of his life in a nursing home without ever facing trial for the 45 charges which had arisen since his arrest, including rape, murder, sodomy and deprivation of liberty. He died in 2004, legally as an innocent man. In May 2004, convicted child killer Derek Ernest Percy was named as yet another potential suspect in the Beaumont case. Percy was convicted in 1969 for the abduction and murder of 12-year-old Yvonne Thuy from a beach in Victoria. He was found not guilty due to reasons of insanity, but was held in custody indefinitely. Police suspected Percy could have been involved in up to 9 unsolved crimes related to missing or murdered children throughout Australia during the 60s. This included the unsolved Wanda Beach murders, covered further in episode 1 of Case File.

A collection of personal diaries and drawings written and illustrated by Derek Percy detailed disturbing torture fantasies that bore striking similarities to real crimes committed against children that had occurred prior to his arrest. Strengthening the suspicion, he was far more prolific. When questioned about his involvement in other unsolved crimes, Percy told police he believed he was in Adelaide at the time the Beaumont children went missing, but insisted he had no memory of anything else. Even if Percy's memory was correct, he was just 17 years old in 1966, much too young to be the man witnessed in the company of the Beaumont children. Police have also been unable to determine whether Percy had access to a car at the time of the children's disappearance, which investigators presumed would have been necessary to facilitate a quick getaway. The reliability of Percy's claims was one of contention, given the fact he had been deemed legally insane. In July 2013, Derek Percy died without providing any deathbed confessions that many were hoping for, leaving members of law enforcement and many grieving families, including the Beaumonts, without answers. At the turn of the new millennium, the truth of what happened to the Beaumont children remained unknown, but the list of suspects potentially involved in their disappearance continued to grow.

In the 2000s, convicted child killer James Ryan O'Neill became the subject of the ABC documentary titled The Fisherman Journey into the Mind of a Killer. O'Neill was charged in 1971 for the abduction and sexual assault of four young boys in Victoria, but skipped bail, fled the state, and changed his name. Four years later, in 1975, he was located in Tasmania, where he was arrested and later convicted for the abduction and murder of nine-year-old Tasmanian boy, Ricky Smith. During production of the documentary, O'Neill developed a friendly rapport with his interviewer, former Victorian police detective Gordon Davy. After spending three years getting to know the convicted killer for his documentary, Davy suspected O'Neill could have been involved in several other missing children cases, including the Beaumont children. O'Neill denied having ever visited Adelaide, but his work in the opal industry put him in the South Australian mining town of Coopapede up to 15 times throughout the late 60s and early 70s. A trip that facilitated a stopover in Adelaide to return to his hometown in Melbourne. As Davy interviewed O'Neill's former acquaintances, the retired detective learned from multiple sources that O'Neill had boasted about being responsible for the death of the three Beaumont children.

Davy suspected O'Neill could have taken the children all the way to Coopapede, 846 kilometres north of Adelaide, where he then dumped their bodies down an abandoned mine shaft. Davy took his information to South Australian police, who subsequently interviewed O'Neill, but ultimately ruled him out as a suspect. Yet another two suspects in the Beaumont case were uncovered when allegations made by the adult children of Adelaide businessman Alan Maxwell McIntyre were heavily publicised in 2007. McIntyre's children, who had publicly accused their father of being an incestuous pedophile, claimed that he, along with business colleague and former scoutmaster Anthony Munro, went to Glenelbeach on Australia Day in 1966. When the two men returned home, they were both visibly agitated. McIntyre's children claimed sand and blood were visible in Munro's car and professed to seeing the bodies of three children in the boot of the vehicle. Police investigated these shocking claims, but ultimately cleared Alan Maxwell McIntyre and Anthony Munro of any involvement in the Beaumont children's disappearance. Yet McIntyre himself later admitted that there was partial truth to the allegations. During an exclusive interview with Adelaide newspaper The Advertiser, McIntyre vindicated himself and pinned the entire crime on his friend Anthony Munro, alleging that on Australia Day 1966, Munro arrived at his property with three bodies in the back of his car.

McIntyre described Munro as, quote, one of the most evil pieces of work that ever drew breath. McIntyre continued to deny any personal involvement with the crime up until his death in 2017. That same year, 2017, 72-year-old Anthony Munro pled a guilty to 10 unrelated child sex crimes dating back to the 60s, some of which occurred in Glenelbeach during the time period the Beaumont children went missing. Munro was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a non-parole period of five years and five months, and will be eligible for parole in 2022. At the time of the Beaumont children's disappearance, Alan Maxwell McIntyre owned a block of land in the York Peninsula town of Stansbury, 200km west of Adelaide. His children alleged that a sinkhole on this property was filled in just weeks after the Beaumont children disappeared, but police refused to excavate the land due to lack of evidence. In 2006, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Beaumont children's disappearance, true crime author Alan Whitaker released an in-depth book exploring the case, titled, Searching for the Beaumont Children. Several months after its release, Whitaker received a phone call from a woman named Angela, alleging her former father-in-law was responsible for the abduction and murder of Jane, Anna, and Grant Beaumont.

Alan Whitaker remained skeptical. Over the decades, the high-profile mystery had attracted elaborate hoaxes, speculation, and theories, with investigators and journalists weeding out countless claims from people who believed they either knew the whereabouts of the Beaumont children, or the identity of the trio's killer. Some of the more outrageous claims included people coming forward claiming to be the grown-up Beaumont children. The nation's desperate need for closure ensured every lead was investigated, but none were substantiated. However, the information provided by Angela to Alan Whitaker was compelling, as it wove authentically with known facts of the case. She alleged her ex-husband Hayden had once confessed that his father had something to do with the Beaumont children's disappearance, adding that the children were, quote, in the pit. Although she was shocked by the comment at the time, Angela was unsure what to make of it. Hayden had only recently confided that his father had subjected him to horrific sexual abuse throughout his childhood, and was in an emotionally fragile state. It wasn't until Angela read Alan Whitaker's book about the Beaumont case that her gut instincts told her Hayden's allegation might be true. In his book, Whitaker explained that on Australia Day 1966, the Beaumont children had paid for their lunch at Wenzel's cake shop using a mysteriously lavish one-pound note.

This was one of the case's most significant clues, as it was suspected the money was given to the siblings by someone involved in their disappearance. According to Angela, her wealthy former father-in-law was notorious for handing out one-pound notes to his son and his friends to entice them to go out and play, so he could be left alone. Immediately intrigued, Alan Whitaker informed his research partner Stuart Mullins about Angela's phone call, and Mullins dove head-first into investigating the allegations. The suspect in question was Harry Phipps, a millionaire businessman who was regarded as charming and charismatic. In 1966, Phipps lived in Glenelg with his wife and teenage son, and owned and operated the Custoloy factory in North Plimpton, located four kilometres north of his home. The Phipps house was located on the corner of Augusta and Sussex streets, a mere 300 metres away from both Wenzel's cake shop and the chain shed in Collie Reserve, where the Beaumont children were last sited. This provided a perfect triangle between the investigation's two key locations and the suspect's property. In fact, the lawns of Collie Reserve could be seen from the suspect's home, and was less than a minute walk away down Augusta Street, a residential road lined with character homes and pine trees.

Additionally, Harry Phipps was aged in his early 40s in 1966, and his appearance bore striking resemblance to the sketch of the man last seen playing with Jane, Anna and Grant. He was approximately six feet tall, with an athletic build, long face, high forehead, and wavy, light brown to blonde hair parted to the side. As Angela's claims continued to gain merit, the investigation was handed over to Private Detective Bill Hayes, a former detective for the South Australian Police. By the time Angela had implicated her former father-in-law in the Beaumont children's disappearance, Harry Phipps had been deceased for two years, having succumbed to Alzheimer's in 2004. Nevertheless, researcher Stuart Mullins proceeded to look into the life of the prominent, respected businessman, to determine whether the accusations against him could be true. Mullins arrived to Glenelg, visiting the house behind Collie Reserve where Harry Phipps lived until his death. The house now belonged to Phipps' second wife. During a tour of the house, Mullins was taken into an underground cellar which Phipps had used as his workshop. There, Mullins caught sight of something sitting on a shelf. It was a white, clip-top vintage purse in pristine condition.

The very same kind Jane Beaumont had left home with on January 26, 1966. Unable to take his mind off this bizarre sighting, the next day Mullins returned to the house to question Phipps' widow about the purse. When he mentioned Jane Beaumont had owned that exact type of purse, Phipps' widow became defensive, claiming she had bought it from an op shop the previous week. This claim struck Mullins' odd, given the woman had inherited millions of dollars from her deceased husband's estate and had no need to buy a cheap, second-hand child's purse. Mullins informed police of the discovery, but when a detective visited the house days later to retrieve the purse, Phipps' widow advised she had thrown it away before threatening Mullins with legal action if he returned. In 2008, Harry Phipps' son Hayden agreed to an interview with private investigator Bill Hayes to provide further insight into his allegations that his father had murdered the three Beaumont children. According to Hayden, his father was far from the image of charming, respectable businessman he projected, but instead a predatory pedophile and abusive alcoholic with a love for guns. Hayden recalled a chilling memory from over 40 years prior occurring on January 26, 1966.

On that summer's day, teenage Hayden was smoking cigarettes in a cubby house in the backyard of his family's Glenelg home when he caught sight of his father walking into the house with three young children in tow. They each had short, cropped hair, the oldest one was carrying a shoulder bag, and all appeared to be lost. The three children went inside the Phipps' home, but never emerged. Hayden later saw his father load four large bags into the boot of his car and drive away. When Hayden entered the house, the children were nowhere to be seen. Alan Whitaker and Stuart Mullins presented their research into Harry Phipps in a 2013 novel titled The Satin Man, uncovering the mystery of the missing Beaumont children. The title was inspired by Phipps' insatiable sexual fetish for the silky fabric. Rather than naming Harry Phipps outright, pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the accused and his family.

In the book, Harry Phipps was referred to as Hank Harrison. Following the release of The Satin Man, media interest in the new Beaumont case suspect Hank Harrison was high. When Channel 7 current affairs show Today Tonight aired the story, they canned the pseudonyms in exchange for use of the real names. Harry Phipps was exposed. But Today Tonight revealing Phipps' former business as the Castelloy factory in North Plimpton, it sparked the memory of two brothers who came forward asserting they had been hired by Harry Phipps to dig a hole at the factory site in 1966. Just three days after the Beaumont children went missing. The brothers, now aged in their 60s, were teenagers who lived locally at the time and often picked up odd jobs to earn extra cash.

Phipps instructed them to dig a hole with the dimensions of one metre wide, two metres long and two metres deep. It was a searing hot weekend and the factory was closed as Phipps watched the brothers closely, urging them to dig deeper. Two days later, they were paid handsomely for their work, with Phipps handing them both one pound notes. When the brothers heard the Castelloy factory mentioned on Today Tonight, they were hit with the haunting realisation they could have unknowingly dug a grave for the three Beaumont children. Their story also corroborated allegations Harry Phipps' son Hayden had made to private investigator Bill Hayes, who said his father had buried the children at the industrial site. Hayden told Hayes, quote, they are in the sand pit, Bill. Although police maintained there was no evidence to substantiate allegations made against Harry Phipps in relation to the Beaumont children's disappearance, they agreed to conduct a search of the Castelloy factory site. The factory had changed significantly since 1966 and the brothers were unable to pinpoint the exact location where they had originally dug the hole, but one brother believed he had a general idea.

In October 2014, South Australian police used ground penetrating radar to locate a small anomaly in the sighted area, but upon excavation of the one metre square segment of Earth, nothing was found. This excavation effort was widely criticised as neither brother was on site during the dig and critics believed the police didn't dig deep enough or in the correct spot. Investigator Bill Hayes said, quote, it wasn't anyone's fault, it was the geography that had changed. When we saw the aerial photos, we knew we'd dug in the wrong place. In January 2018, South Australian police launched a highly publicised joint investigation with Channel 7 and Flinders University to conduct a more thorough excavation of the Castelloy factory. With further assistance from the brothers, forensic scientists uncovered an area of disturbed Earth, approximately the size of a grave. It had been 52 years since 9-year-old Jane, 7-year-old Anna and 4-year-old Grant had mysteriously vanished and expectations across Australia were high, hoping this second, more thoroughly planned and orchestrated dig would lead to a major breakthrough. Yet, the excavation revealed nothing more than rubbish and a few animal bones. Major crime detective, Superintendent Desbray said, quote,

We are confident there has been a hole or holes dug here historically and those holes have been used for at least a period of time as some sort of tip. There's nothing at all that's been located today that's in any way connected to the Beaumont children. Sadly, this means for the Beaumont family, we still have no answers. We will always do everything humanly possible to locate the Beaumont children and return them to their family. As of late 2018, the whereabouts of Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont remains unknown. The investigation into their disappearance is regarded as one of the largest criminal investigations in Australian history and holds the tragic legacy as being one of the country's most infamous unsolved mysteries. To this day, a $1 million reward remains on offer for information that leads to the truth about what happened to the Beaumont children that summer day in 1966. Jim and Nancy Beaumont are both aged in their 90s and still reside in Adelaide.

They have not officially spoken to the media in over 40 years and have come to terms with the likelihood that they may never learn what happened to their three children. Although presumed murdered, if the Beaumont children were still alive today, Jane would be 62 years old, Anna would be 59 and Grant would be 57. The sketch of the unknown man seen playing with the Beaumont children at Coley Reserve remains the only circulating image of the suspected perpetrator. No other criminal case in Australian history has attracted as many suspects, with hundreds of people investigated over the years, including the most notorious and vile criminals from across the country. In February 2018, South Australian Major Crime Detective Superintendent Des Bray set up to a dozen potential persons of interest could not be excluded by police. This list includes Bevan Spencer Von Einem, Arthur Stanley Brown, Derek Ernest Percy, James Ryan O'Neill, Anthony Munro, Alan Maxwell McIntyre and Harry Phipps. In Australia, there are more than 2,000 long-term missing people and over 500 archived sets of unidentified human remains. In June of 2018, Susie Ratcliffe, the younger sister of Joanne Ratcliffe, the 11-year-old girl abducted from Adelaide Oval in 1973, called for all evidence in long-term missing children cases to be urgently retested for DNA.

Like the Beaumont children, Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon have never been found and their abductor never identified. Susie Ratcliffe believes the remains of her sister could be amongst the unidentified remains, along with those of Kirsty Gordon and the Beaumont children. Susie is supported by renowned forensic scientist Dr Jody Ward, who wants Australia to commit to a laboratory dedicated solely to missing persons casework. According to Dr Ward, the current capabilities in DNA forensics could allow experts to match remains with some of Australia's long-term missing persons cases and potentially provide relief to suffering families. The unexplained disappearance of the Beaumont children on Australia Day in 1966 irreparably shattered Jim and Nancy Beaumont, who for years lived in the hopes that Jane, Anna and Grant would one day walk through the gates of the family home. Their loss was felt by the whole nation, creating a legacy of paranoia and fear that remains to this day. The Beaumont story has been a cautionary tale for generations, providing a stark awakening to the evils that lie in the underbelly of our society. January 26, 1966 has been coined as the day Australia lost its innocence, with the disappearance of the Beaumont children paving the way for a greater awareness of stranger danger.

The names Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont have become etched into Australian history, and their legacy will never be forgotten. The investigation remains open. A large collection of candid photographs exhibits the short, though carefree lives of Jane, Anna and Grant Beaumont. Taken by their parents during holidays and special moments, the black and white images perfectly capture the essence of the Beaumont family's idyllic life. The photos show the children all smiles as they go about their daily lives. Grant grinning on his tricycle, Jane and Anna side by side riding the elephant cart at the Adelaide Zoo, and a Jane carrying her baby brother in a wooden laundry basket. In one photograph, the three inseparable siblings stand together excitedly, showing off their loot from the 1965 Royal Adelaide Show. For Jim Beaumont, these photographs, along with letters written by his eldest daughter Jane, embody the memory of the family he lost.

The last letter Jane ever wrote to her parents would serve as a constant reminder of the kind, caring and protective nature of the young girl, who would always go to great lengths to shield her younger siblings from harm. Just days before Australia Day 1966, Jane was proudly babysitting her younger siblings while her parents enjoyed a night out with friends. Before she retired the bed for the night, Jane wrote her parents a note to fill them in on the events of the evening. Dear mum and dad, I am just about to go to bed and the time is 9. I have put Grant's nape on so there is no need to worry about him wetting on the sheet. Grant wanted to sleep in his own bed, so one of you will have to sleep with Anna. Although you will not find the rooms in very good condition, I hope you will find them as comfortable as we do. Good night to you both. Jane.

P.S. I hope you had a very nice time. Wherever you went. You