Beaumont children disappearance

Jane Nartare Beaumont (aged 9), Arnna Kathleen Beaumont (aged 7), and Grant Ellis Beaumont (aged 4) were three siblings who disappeared without a trace from a beach near Adelaide, South Australia in 1966. Known collectively as The Beaumont Children, their case resulted in the largest police investigation in Australian criminal history, and remains unsolved.

The huge attention given to this case, its significance in Australian criminal history, and the fact that the mystery of their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being revisited by the press on a regular basis, with the result that it has started to pass into Australian folklore. It is also viewed by many social commentators as a significant event in the evolution of Australian society, with a large number of people changing the way they supervised their children on a daily basis.

Background to the children's disappearance

The children lived with their parents Jim and Nancy Beaumont in Harding Street, Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide. Not far from their home was Glenelg, a popular beach-side resort, which the children often visited. On Australia Day, January 26, 1966, a hot summer day, the children took a five-minute bus journey from their home to the beach. Jane, the eldest child, was considered responsible enough to care for the two younger children, and their parents were not concerned. They left home at 10am and were expected to return home by noon. Their mother became worried when they had still not returned by 3pm.

Police investigation

Children with a tall, blonde man

Police investigating the case found several witnesses who had seen the children near the beach, in the company of a tall, blond man in his mid-30s. The children were playing with him, and appeared relaxed and to be enjoying themselves. The man and the children were seen walking away from the beach at 11am. A shopkeeper reported Jane Beaumont had bought pastries and a meat pie with a £1 note shortly after this.

Police viewed this as further evidence that they had been with another person, for two reasons:
* The shopkeeper knew the children well from previous visits and reported that they had never purchased a meat pie before.
* Mrs. Beaumont had given the children only enough coins for their bus fare and food, but had not given them a £1 note. Police believed it had been given to them by somebody else.

Last confirmed sighting and societal effects

About 3 pm the children were seen walking alone, away from the beach, along Jetty Road, in the general direction of their home. The witness, a postman, knew the children well, and his statement was regarded as factual. He said the children had stopped to say hello to him, and seemed cheerful. Police could not determine why the reliable children, already three hours late, were strolling alone and seemingly unconcerned. This was the last confirmed sighting of the children.

Mr and Mrs Beaumont described their children, particularly Jane, as shy. For them to be playing so confidently with a stranger seemed out of character. Investigators theorised that the children had perhaps met the man during a previous visit or visits and had grown to trust him.

Several months later a woman reported that on the night of the disappearance a man, accompanied by two girls and a boy, entered a neighbouring house that she had believed empty. Later she had seen the boy walking alone along a lane where he was pursued and roughly caught by the man. The next morning the house appeared to be deserted again, and she saw neither the man nor the children again. Police could not establish why she had failed to provide this information earlier.

Sightings of the children were reported for about a year.

The case attracted widespread attention in Australia and caused a change in many people's lifestyles. Parents began to realise that their children could no longer be presumed to be safe; earlier generations had routinely allowed their children the same freedoms the Beaumont children had enjoyed.

Psychic investigation yields no clues

The case also attracted international attention and Gerard Croiset, a parapsychologist (and reputed psychic) from the Netherlands, was brought to Australia, causing a media frenzy; however, his story changed from day to day and offered no clues. He identified a site near the children's home (and also near the Paringa Park primary school attended by Jane and Arnna) in which he believed the children's bodies had been buried. At the time of their disappearance it had been a building site, and he said that he believed their bodies were buried under new concrete, inside the remains of an old brick kiln. The property owners were reluctant to excavate on the basis of a psychic's claim but soon bowed to public pressure after publicity. No remains, or any evidence linking to any of the Beaumont family, were found. Police established that between the three children they were carrying 17 individual items, including clothing, towels, and bags, but none of these items was ever found.

Later, in 1996, the building identified by Croiset was undergoing partial demolition and the owners allowed for a full search of the site. Once again no trace was found of the children.

False letters

About two years after the disappearance, the Beaumont parents received two letters supposedly written by Jane, and another by a man who said he was keeping the children. The envelopes showed a postmark of Dandenong, Victoria. The brief notes describe a relatively pleasant existence and refer to "The Man" who was keeping them. Police believed at the time that the letters could quite likely have been authentic after comparing them with others written by Jane. The letter from "The Man" said that he had appointed himself "guardian" of the children and was willing to hand them back to their parents. In the letter a meeting place was nominated.

Mr and Mrs Beaumont, followed by a detective, drove to the designated place but nobody appeared. It was some time later that the second letter reported to be from Jane, arrived. It said that the man had been willing to return them, but when he realised a disguised detective was also there, he decided that the Beaumonts had betrayed his trust and that he would keep the children. There were no further letters. Some 25 years later, new forensic examinations of the letters showed they were a hoax. Fingerprint technology had improved and the author was identified as a 41-year-old man who had been a teenager at the time and had written the letters as a jokeFact|date=May 2007. Due to the time that had elapsed, he was not charged.

The parents

The Beaumonts received a huge amount of sympathy from the Australian public. It was never suggested that the children should not have been allowed to travel unsupervised, or that Mr. Beaumont and Mrs. Beaumont were in any way negligent as parents, simply because at that time in Australian society it was taken for granted that this was safe and acceptable.

They remained at their Somerton Park home for many years. Mrs Beaumont in particular held hope that the children would return and stated in interviews that it would be "dreadful" if the children returned home and did not find their parents waiting for them. Over many years, as new leads and new theories emerged, the Beaumonts co-operated fully in exploring every possibility, whether it was claims that the children had been abducted by a religious cult and were living variously in New Zealand, Melbourne, or Tasmania, or some clue that suggested a possible burial site for the children. Every search for their bodies failed to provide any further information. In recent years, the couple have sold the home and moved away, and while the case remains open, the South Australian Police Force remains informed of the couple's address. The Beaumonts divorced and are living separately. They are reported to have accepted that the truth may never be discovered, and have resolved to live their final years away from the public attention that followed them for decades. They were devastated in 1990 when newspapers published computer-generated photographs of how Jane, Arnna and Grant would have looked as adults. The pictures, published against their wishes (Nancy Beaumont refused to look at them), caused a huge backlash of public sympathy from a community which is still sensitive to their pain.

Other Possibly Related Cases

In 1973 two children, Joanne Ratcliffe (aged 11) and Kirsty Gordon (aged 4) disappeared from Adelaide Oval during a football match. Their parents had allowed the two girls to leave their group to go to the toilet. They were seen several times in the 90 minutes after leaving the oval, seemingly distressed and in the company of an unknown man, but then they vanished. They have not been seen since. The police sketch of the man last seen with the two girls very closely matches that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children.

In 1979, the body of a young man was found in Adelaide. Identified as Neil Muir (aged 25), his body was badly mutilated. In 1982, the mutilated body of Mark Langley (aged 18) was found. Before his death, he had been subjected to "surgery" — his abdomen was sliced open, and had been shaved prior to this. Part of his bowel had been removed and Langley had died from loss of blood. Over the next few months more bodies were found. The dismembered skeletal remains of Peter Stogneff (aged 14) were found almost a year after his disappearance and Alan Barnes (aged 18) was found mutilated in a similar manner to Langley. In 1983 a fifth victim Richard Kelvin (aged 15) was found, once again with the same mutilations.

Primary suspects

Bevan Spencer von Einem

Investigations led police to a 37-year-old accountant, Bevan Spencer von Einem. Witnesses began to come forward, many claiming to be in fear for their lives and telling of a secret society of highly placed Adelaide professional men who preyed on boys and young men, by drugging, raping and sometimes killing them. Von Einem was charged with the murder of Richard Kelvin only.

One of the witnesses, regarded as highly credible by police, related a conversation in which von Einem boasted of having taken three children from a beach several years earlier, and said he had taken them home to conduct experiments. He said he had performed surgery on each of them, and had "connected them together." One of the children had died during the procedure and so he had killed the other two and dumped all the bodies in bushland south of Adelaide. Police had not considered von Einem in connection with the Beaumont children, but he very closely matched the descriptions and police sketches from 1966.

Furthermore he was known to have frequented Glenelg Beach and to have been fond of children. The reference to surgical experimentation also corresponded to the coroner's reports on several of the murdered men. Von Einem also told the witness that he had taken two girls from the Adelaide Oval during a football match. He said he had killed them but did not elaborate. Von Einem received a life sentence for the murder of Richard Kelvin, and is assumed to have been involved in the deaths of the other young men. No accomplices were ever charged. He has refused to co-operate with investigators about his possible connection with other murders.

The cases of the Beaumont children and of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gordon remain open, though many investigatorsWho|date=March 2008 believe that von Einem was responsible for their deaths also.Fact|date=March 2008

News update 2007

On August 11, 2007 an article by Jeremy Roberts appeared in "The Weekend Australian" [ [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22224989-2702,00.html Killer 'sighted' at Beaumont search|The Australian ] ] newspaper reporting that police are examining archive footage from Channel 7 news network of the search that shows a young man resembling von Einem among onlookers. The report says police are calling for information to establish the man's identity. He was never ruled out as a suspect.

Arthur Stanley Brown

Another suspect was named in 1998 as Arthur Stanley Brown. Then 86, he was charged with the murders of sisters Judith (aged 7) and Susan (aged 5) Mackay in Townsville, Queensland. They disappeared while on their way to school on 26 August 1970, and their bodies were found several days later in a dry creek bed. Both girls had been strangled.

When Brown was charged it was noted that he bore a similarity to the suspect in the Beaumont children and Adelaide Oval cases. Nothing could be proven, however, and Brown's trial did not reach a verdict. He was never retried as he was considered to have deteriorated too much mentally. Along with von Einem, he is considered to be the best suspect for the Beaumont children abduction, however he died in 2002, presumed innocent.

James Ryan O'Neill

James O'Neill who was jailed for life in 1975 for the murder of a 9 year old boy in Tasmania, lost an injunction in the High Court of Australia to stop the broadcast of a documentary "The Fishermen" which attempts to link O'Neill to the disappearance of the Beaumont children. The documentary aired in Australia on October 26, 2006 on ABC [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20495356-2,00.html?from=public_rss] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1751459.htm] . South Australian police have interviewed O'Neill and discounted him as a suspect in the Beaumont case. [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2006/1752184.htm#]

Former Victorian detective Gordon Davie spent three years speaking to O'Neill to win his confidence before filming him for the documentary. Mr Davie said although there was no evidence to link O'Neill to the disappearance of the Beaumont children he was convinced O'Neill was to blame. "I asked him about the Beaumonts and he said: 'I couldn't have done it. I was in Melbourne at that time.' That is not a denial."

Derek Percy

On April 22, 2007, a report in The Age suggested that the Beaumont children may have been killed by Derek Percy. Percy is currently in prison after being found not-guilty by dint of insanity for his 1969 murder of Yvonne Tuohy. The Age alleged that evidence gathered by cold-case investigators indicates that he is a likely suspect for a number of unsolved child murders, including the Beaumont children. His insanity plea in the Tuohy murder is at least partly based on his suffering a psychological condition that can prevent him remembering details of his actions. He is supposed to have indicated that he believes he might have killed the Beaumont children, as he was in the area at the time, but he has no recollection of actually doing so. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/new-clues-implicate-child-killer/2007/04/21/1176697155252.html] On August 30, 2007 Victorian Police successfully applied for permission to question Derek Percy in relation to the Beaumont children disappearance. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/child-killer-back-in-court/2007/08/30/1188067236279.html]

References

* [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22224989-2702,00.html "Killer 'sighted' at Beaumont search" (article)]

Further reading

Alan Whiticker, "Searching for the Beaumont Children: Australia's Most Famous Unsolved Mystery", 2006

External links

* Kidd, Paul B. [http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/adelaide/children_2.html The Missing Beaumont Children case at CrimeLibrary.com]
* [http://www.beaumontchildren.com The Beaumont Children home page]

ee also

* Crime
* Crime in Australia
* Cold case
* Gerard Croiset (reputed psychic investigator)
* Bevan Spencer von Einem (a prime suspect)
* James Ryan O'Neill (another prime suspect)
* List of people who have disappeared