← Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
134. The Mysterious Disappearance of The Beaumont Children: Australia’s Most Puzzling Unsolved Mystery || DARK SUMMER VOL. 2
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January 26, 1966 it was a Wednesday in Adelaide, Australia, down by the southern coast of the country. It was also the last week of the summer holiday break before school started up again. Parents were at work and most of them were desperate for their kids to begin the school year and have some sort of routine again. That was definitely the case for Nancy Beaumont. Her her husband Jim was out of town on a business trip and so it was up to Nancy to provide all of the entertainment for her three young children, nine year old Jane, seven year old Arna and four year old Grant. So the 26th was already forecasted to be a scorcher, reaching at least 38 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees Fahrenheit. As the children sat gathered by their breakfast table, they could already feel how hot it was going to be that day and they begged their mother, can we please go down to the beach now? For reference, the family lived less than two miles away from Glenel beach in Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide. At first Nancy was pretty hesitant to let her children go, but the kids kept begging her. It was so close and they were so familiar with the area. Plus they could easily ride their bikes back and forth. Eventually Nancy did give in. She told them that they could spend two hours at the beach. That was it. And she wanted them to come home before the heat got too intense. Also, she added it was too dangerous for them to take their bikes on the busy road, so they had to take the bus. The children were so excited they got ready, pulling on their little bathing suits and sandals. Nine year old Jane packed a small shoulder bag with three towels and a copy of Little Women to read on the bus. She was also responsible for holding their bus fare and their lunch money, which she kept in a white clamshell change purse. Nancy had given her a couple of coins, eight shillings and six pence, which was more than enough money. And Nancy also asked her to use some of the change to buy an extra pasty and bring it home for her own lunch. And then their mother waved them off from the front yard, watching as they walked down the block towards the corner to catch the 10am bus. And once she saw the kids off, she came home and she tidied up around the house. She rode her bike to go visit a friend. She left shortly before noon because she wanted to be back in time to meet the children. However, by 12:30, the kids still hadn't arrived home. Nancy kind of shrugged it off. The kids had probably just lost track of time. They were caught up in their fun regardless. She figured that they would be home on the 2 o' clock bus instead. But then two more hours clicked by and there was still no sign of the children. Now she was starting to get worried, but she was conflicted about what to do, if she should go out and look for them or not. If they had also missed the 2 o' clock bus and did decide to walk home, she might be able to meet them halfway. But she didn't know which route they were going to take. So it was just as likely that she would pass them and she didn't want them to come home to an empty house. A little after 3pm the front door opened, but it wasn't the kids. It was Jim Beaumont, her husband. He was home early from his business trip and hardly able to keep her voice steady. Nancy told him that she was starting to fear the worst. Had there been some sort of accident? What could be keeping the kids? Now Jim was trying to be really reassuring and calm her down, and he said that no matter what, the kids would look after one another. They even called Jane their oldest little mother because she was always looking after the other kids. But Jim was clearly nervous too, because he immediately got back in his car to go search for the kids himself. He circled the surrounding streets between the house and the beach and he checked every single route. He also went down to the beach, but there were so many people out that day, a thousand people at least, it was nearly impossible for him to tell if his children were actually among the crowd. So Jim drove back to his house, and by 6pm The Beaumont parents were forced to accept a horrifying reality. They drove to the local police station to report that their three children were missing. But the beach was just 15 minutes away and there were so many people there. So the question became, where did the children go? And did someone know where they were? Welcome back to Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host Kayla Moore, and today we have another dark and chilling installment in our dark summer series. Summer is supposed to be the happiest time of year, but when children are left unattended, as they so often are in the summertime, tragedy can strike in an instant. We're going to be diving into one of Australia's most baffling unsolved mysteries, one that still plagues the country to this day and has spawned so many searches as recent as this year. A ton of research went into this episode. We read books, watched documentaries, read through witness statements and files from retired homicide detectives. And I am still reeling from this one. And I need to know your guys thoughts. I want to get right back to it, but first I actually want to shout out all of our listeners that work on cruises and reached out to me after we did an episode about the cruise disappearance of Rebecca Coram. It was so great to hear from you guys. I feel like I learned so much. Actually, one of the most morbid things I did learn about cruise lines is that the fancier the cruise ship is, the bigger the morgue on the boat is because so many people, typically older individuals, die while out at sea. So just remember that the next time you're on your cruise vacation. All right. With that, let's get right back to it. Nancy Beaumont tried her best to keep her composure as she gave the police a description of each one of her children. 9 year old Jane was pretty mature for her age, though she did tend to be shy around strangers. On the morning of January 26, she left the house wearing a pink one piece bathing suit, pale green shorts and plaid canvas shoes with white soles. Her brown hair was cropped short and she typically wore a ribbon or a tortoise shell headband. But Nancy couldn't remember what she decided on that morning as Jane was old enough to dress herself. 7 year old Arno was quite the opposite of her older sister. She was gregarious and always happy to strike up a conversation. She was last seen wearing A red and white striped bathing suit, tan shorts, tan sandals and a bright orange headband. And four year old Grant had been dressed in green and white bathing suit bottoms underneath, green shorts with red leather sandals. Jim went ahead and rode alongside officers in a squad car so he could search the streets with them. And Nancy returned home with another pair of detectives. And these detectives really tried to reassure her. They told her that she would be surprised how many kids they find tucked hiding away in their own homes, so worried that they'll be in trouble, they are too scared to come out. But Nancy shook her head. They didn't punish their children like that. They trusted them. They wouldn't be hiding in their house. Police found no sign of them, not surprisingly, nor anything that suggested they had run away willingly from home. There wasn't any clothes missing. Their favorite toys were still waiting for their return. And as the night went on, Nancy had the overwhelming thought that she might not ever see her children alive again. Her kids would never stay out this late by choice. Grant and Arna were still afraid of the dark. And Jane would never, never worry them like this. It caused her to become so hysterical, they actually had to sedate her. And outside the Beaumont home, the search continued in earnest. Dozens of patrol cars circled the surrounding streets, announcing over this loudspeaker, they had. Have you seen three small children? News bulletins were also broadcasting descriptions of the kids across TV and radio stations. And five search and rescue boats scanned the water around the beach and the nearby boat harbor, all with spotlights. There was the horrible reality that they could find the children floating in the water, but they never did. And once the sun came up, they expanded their patrol grid to 30 miles. But no matter how many volunteers they had, how many cops came from other districts to help out, no matter how many alleyways they searched and parts of the beach that they searched, and tool sheds and backyards and storm drains, they never found any. Anything. Not a single trace that the children had ever been there. So the police decided they needed to turn to witnesses. They begged the public to reach into their memories from that day at the beach. Had anyone seen these children or any children that even looked like them? And it turns out people had. The tip line was immediately flooded with calls, actually over a thousand in just the first five days. But one of these tips absolutely chilled the police.
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A local woman had called in. She said that she was at the beach that day and had seen three young children playing, two girls with cropped brown hair and their younger brother. She'd watched the children play at Collie's Reserve, which was this grassy reserve right off the side of the beach, for the better part of an hour, she said. Now, it didn't look like the children's parents were with them, but she reported that at a certain point they were approached by a tall man, at least 6ft tall with a thin face. She said he was in his 30s or 40s, suntanned and athletic looking, with blonde hair parted to the left. He was wearing pale blue swim trunks with a white stripe down the side, and he had been sunning himself on the towel in the grass before introducing himself to the kids, which made the woman feel like he did not know them. After a few minutes, however, it seemed like he had earned the kids trust and they all started playing together, jumping through the sprinklers and so on. And when the local woman left the park shortly before noon, she said that they were all still laughing and frolicking. Now, this was the first real lead that the police had as to what could have happened to the children, and it was a huge one. But the more tips they skimmed through, the more they noticed sightings of this man come up. Through witness statements, the police were able to recreate a timeline of the disappearance that looked like this. So Nancy Beaumont had seen the children off shortly before 10am watching them walk towards the bus stop. The bus driver confirmed this. He remembered them getting on and paying their fare. He couldn't remember exactly which stop they got off at, but he assumed they rode to the corner of Mosley street and Jetty Road, because at around 10:15am the local postman saw the children walking down Jetty Road in the direction of the beach. They were laughing, they were holding hands. Grant had called out at one point, it's the postie. And they all waved hello. The next sighting of the children was about 45 minutes later when one of Jane's classmates saw the trio playing in the shallows at Glenel Beach. Eventually, the children moved up to the grassy park that bordered the beach, the one called Collie's Reserve. Jane spread their towels out in the shade between some palm trees. Grant and Arna were chasing each other through the sprinklers and the kids were all laughing and they appeared to be in great spirits. And that's when the woman saw the children playing with the mysterious man. But she wasn't the only one. An elderly couple and a middle aged woman also saw the Beaumont children with this man in the park. But they weren't playing. Their sightings were about a half hour after the first woman left. And it seemed like in that time there had been a pretty concerning development. The man approached the elderly couple and he asked if they had seen anyone, quote, messing with their stuff. The man seemed really deeply concerned and he said that Jane's purse had been stolen and inside was the money that her mother had given her for lunch that day. Now the couple hadn't seen anything. Actually, they had been watching the kids and they didn't see anyone come up and take anything from their belongings. And neither had the middle aged woman. After a few more minutes of searching around, the man helped the children pack up and get dressed. He even pulled their dry clothes up over their bathing suits, an act that was overly familiar. Jane was described as being nervous around strangers, remember? And yet this man was helping her get dressed. How had he gained her confidence so quickly? Next, the children waited as the man went to a nearby changing room to get dressed. And when he came back, all four of them walked off together. The next sighting was by a cashier at Wenzel's Cakes who remembered Jake, Arna and Grant buying lunch sometime around midday. The shop was a few minutes walk from the beach and it was really close to the kids bus stop. The tall man wasn't with them at this time, but there was something about this interaction that the cashier had with the children that really struck him as odd. And that's that the kids bought some pies and pasties for themselves as well as another lunch in a separate bag that they said was for the man. And Jane paid for all of this with a £1 note. Now, given that Nancy Beaumont had only given her daughter 85 shillings in coins, we have to assume that Jane had gotten this money from the man and that maybe this separate bag of food was for him. The £1 note stuck out to the cashier, because in 1966, that was a considerable amount of money. It's roughly $50 US today. He found it strange that a child so young had so much money on them. And after the kids collected their lunches, they pushed through the door and out of the shop into the world. And that was the last confirmed sighting of the Beaumont children. With this new info, police start putting pieces of this puzzle together. It seemed like the man at the beach was looking to gain the children's trust. He was most likely a complete stranger. And the children, remember, were very shy. So he used a trick that maybe he had used before on a child. He possibly took Jane's coin purse so that she would be put in a vulnerable position. She would feel horrible if she couldn't feed her siblings, and even worse, if her mother found out she had lost all of their money. So he offered her some help, which made the young and naive Jane believe that he could be trusted. And then he gave them more than enough money for both lunch and a bus fare, proving just how good of a guy he was. And then maybe he mentioned that the children were already running late. Maybe he brought up just how hot it was that day and how the next bus wasn't going to be there for another hour or two. And then, after setting all of this up, the Tall man probably offered the kids a ride home. And once they were in the car, who knows where he actually took them. But some people later speculated a separate scenario that might be even creepier than the one I just laid out for you. They suggest that this man actually might not have been a stranger, that the children had already spent time with him at the beach. See, shortly before their disappearance, Arna had allegedly made an offhanded comment teasing Jane about, quote, having a boyfriend down at the beach. Their mother hadn't really pressed for an explanation on this at the time. She figured it was just kids being kids, maybe sisters teasing one another. But when she heard about the Tall man sightings, it suddenly all connected. It could also explain why he had been so overly familiar with the kids, physically helping them get dressed. Even Jane, who was not only old enough to get dressed herself, but was known to be reserved with strangers. However, I will add that the boyfriend claim is not included in some of the more official reportings on this case. So part of me does wonder if it's maybe just a rumor that keeps getting repeated, because it fits the rest of the details so well. And if this man was indeed a stranger, he managed to manufacture an opening win over the children's trust and spirit them away in less than an hour. That is not luck. That is practice. And at least to me, it seems like the smooth execution of a seasoned predator. But who was he? And more importantly, what had he done? Or with the Beaumont children? I honestly can't overstate the amount of resources and manpower that went into the Beaumont investigation. Armed with all of this new information and new witness statements, police units and volunteers from all over South Australia descended on Adelaide in droves to help find the children. 60 officers went door to door, canvassing over 400 homes, seeing if anyone resembled the tall man with the slender face, and concerned that the children's bodies could have been dumped in a local marina. Authorities actually drained the water into the ocean. And then a team of 65 police cadets walked the entire 70 acres in a shoulder to shoulder grid search. But once again, no traces of the children were found, and a sketch artist worked with the witnesses from the Cali reserve to create a composite sketch of the man. The likeness was eventually published in newspapers across all of Australia. And this photo, you guys, is so chilling. It depicts a man with sunken cheeks and a really slim face. He has a thin, long nose and really large eyes. The composite was published alongside a recent photo of the children. And this actually did produce a suspect, a local man who looked a lot like the composite. But after three interviews with the police, he was officially cleared. And after this official lead, no other suspects emerged. The Australian government offered a 500 pound reward, which is about $8,000 US today, for any information that led to the recovery of the Beaumonts. And as the days turned into weeks, private citizens started making their own contributions, which pushed the total to 10,000 pounds. On February 3, which was a week after the disappearance, Nancy Beaumont gave her first public statement. She said that she would never give up hope completely, but she had come to accept that her children had likely been killed. And Jim was right there by her side while she did this. She lamented, quote, it's been too long. I can't be stupid and say that they're going to come in with a skipping rope. I've got to feel that the little things are huddled up somewhere and nobody has found them. I'm inclined to think it was all over on the Wednesday afternoon. Whoever it was who took them had nothing to lose. And after Nancy gave this statement, the country started to move on a little bit. It felt like it was becoming more certain that the children would never be recovered and there were really no more leads to follow. But no one in Australia forgot, definitely not completely. Like Nancy, they never gave up hope that the mystery could be solved. And a way I think they needed it to be because someone had to answer for such a horrible tragedy. This stuff just didn't happen in communities like this. And unfortunately, that desperate need for a crime to be solved can sometimes blind us to logic and common sense. And it ended up making the investigation pretty vulnerable to red herrings and conspiracies. For better or worse, every tip had to be investigated, even when it came to the more, let's just say, eccentric ones. In the summer of 1966, the Adelaide Advertiser, which was one of the local newspapers, contacted this Dutch psychic known as one of the foremost clairvoyants in the world. He was named Gerard Quasi, and he claimed, just from photos that he had seen of the children and the area, that a vision had come to him. In a letter to the Advertiser, Kwase claimed that, quote, there was no foul play, nor were they kidnapped. The children are dead. I am almost certain they suffocated, smothered alive. There was some sort of collapse. This vision apparently even showed him the children's bodies and he said that they were buried, quote, about a half mile from where they were last seen. Newspapers went ahead and published this vision on August 3rd, and surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, I don't really know. Hundreds of people showed up to swarm Glenel beach hunting for the children. They didn't find anything, but Kwase said that he could provide them a much more detailed vision if he just had more information. He said maybe seeing some footage of the area would help because he had only ever seen photos. So Channel 7 chartered a Cessna to fly along the coast and film the beachfront to send to him. And after reviewing this footage, Croisset claimed that the children were buried a little over a mile from where they were last seen. He said, quote, they crawled through a little hole. Suddenly the whole lot tumbles down instantly. I cannot see if it is water or sand. They crawl toward the end of the hole and suddenly I don't see them anymore. This new vision sparked a fresh wave of searches amongst the storm drains along the beach, which, mind you, was a complete waste of resources at this point. These areas had all been thoroughly checked by police the morning after the children disappeared. And Kwase's theory completely Ignored the biggest piece of evidence that police had, which was the tall man seen leaving with the children. But the people just didn't care. They wanted the psychic to get more access to the area and help them find these kids. And a local business owner even put up twelve hundred dollars to fly him to the coast. And for the next two days, kwase wandered around town trying to sense what he called the vibrations of the children's final moments. He started at the collie reserve. He roamed down the beach a few miles, and then he went to the shop where they'd bought their lunch. And he theatrically pressed his body against the stone wall there. Of course, he did not find anything. And at the end of the second day, he actually abruptly announced that he was going back to Holland because there were too many people following him in adelaide, Interrupting his work and exhausting his gifts. He said that he could never be able to find the children like this. But then later that night, a new tip came into the police. A woman who lived close to Jane and Arna's elementary school had seen the girls playing with several other children in the neighborhood a few times before they disappeared. They liked to play on this old vacant block next to an old warehouse. And before it was restored, this warehouse had been used as a brickworks. And the woman now wondered if this was the location that kwase had seen. Perhaps the children had gone to the warehouse to play, and they climbed into one of the old brick chutes. And then maybe they became buried in a cave in. And would you believe, the next morning, Crosse announced to the press that he had, in fact, located the Beaumonts? He had a vision that night that they were actually under this warehouse. And then he led a pair of detectives to the north corner of the 4,000 square foot building. And a gaggle of reporters watched as the psychic pointed to a spot on the floor about 8ft from a wall and announced, this is where they are buried. And then he returned to Holland the next day, explaining, my work is done. Yesterday I found them. The rest is up to you. Unfortunately, it was not that simple. The warehouse had been completely renovated that year by a grocery chain. And during that process, Cruz had inspected all of the old brick chutes before filling them with gravel. The entire floor had been covered in four inches of concrete. So the only way to look for the children would be to tear up the entire floor, Effectively ruining the warehouse. So it's no surprise that the grocery chain wouldn't agree to this after spending so much money on renovations, which kwase probably knew about the missing people he was investigating. He always said they were deceased and that they were buried either in the water or buried underground. The direction he chose usually depended on the context of the disappearance. And if they were in the water, he typically predicted that they would be found within six days, which managed to both sound specific enough to be impressive. But it also gave submerged bodies plenty of time to float to the surface. And if they were buried underground, he knew that the chances of recovery were slim, which would mostly meant that no one could prove any of his claims as false. But on this case, Kwase severely underestimated the public zeal surrounding the Beaumont case. A whole committee formed and they collected all of these donations for a partial excavation in the spot where Kwase had indicated. And eventually they got the owners of the warehouse to agree to a dig as long as the committee was the one paying for it themselves. And they broke ground on March 1. The dig lasted for 10 days. They were able to reach a depth of about 15ft before the money ran out and they had to stop. And ultimately, once again, they found no sign of the Beaumont children. And I actually have a note here from my researcher that I wanted to read to you guys. She wrote, quote, people still believe that Kwase was right, that they just hadn't been allowed to dig deep enough. So they there was another more exhaustive excavation of the warehouse in 1996, but of course they found nothing because he's a big fraud. Thank you for the note, Abigail. And unfortunately, it seems like Croisset wasn't the only fraudster to try and hijack the search efforts. In January of 1968, the Melbourne Herald published an interview with Jim and Nancy to mark the two year anniversary of the disappearance. And shortly after, they received a letter allegedly written by Jane. The letter explained that the children were safe, but they did leave with a man that day. It goes on to explain that the strange man was willing to actually give the kids back if the parents followed very specific instructions and went to go pick them up the following Monday. And it seems like the parents were desperate to follow any lead that came in because over the last few years, not many had. And on the morning of the 26th, Jim went to go collect his children, just like the letter had spelled out. He arrived at 9am wearing white pants and a dark blazer. Two detectives sat skeptically in a van parked on the corner, ready to collect the children and spirit them to safety should the man arrive. But no one ever came. Someone did call the post office multiple times saying that they were on their way with the children, but no one ever showed. Jim waited outside for six hours before he finally admitted to himself that the whole thing was probably a hoax. And more than 20 years later, the letters were actually proven to be a hoax. In May of 1992, detectives were able to lift some fingerprints off of the letters thanks to new technology. And they got a match to a now 41 year old man living in Melbourne. And that made him just 17 years old when the letters were sent and 15 years old when the Beaumonts were taken. The police actually did go ahead and bring him in for questioning. And it was confirmed that the man had nothing to do with the disappearance. He was only guilty of being a jerk, which is a common affliction amongst a lot of 17 year olds. And given how much time had passed and the man's genuine remorse over his actions, no charges were ever filed against him. And for years after the Beaumont parents attempted to bring their children home, scams like this were par for the course. There were so many false leads, clairvoyance and messages from the beyond. But none of that ever helped. And still the tip line remained open, ready for any call that could come in and crack the case. But eventually their phone just stopped ringing entirely. Australia moved on and the Beaumont parents began to worry that they they would never get an answer. And then it seems like the kidnapper struck again. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol. Maybe you're dealing with common hair issues like thinning or shedding. I get it. It's really hard to find good options on what to do. That's exactly why I gave Nutrafol a closer look. It's not just hype. It's physician formulated, clinically tested and even recommended by dermatologists. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. You can feel great about what you're putting into your body. Since Nutrafol hair growth supplements are backed by peer reviewed studies and NSF content certified, the gold standard and third party certification for supplements. I have the women's formula and it comes in these really easy to take capsules. 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See mintmobile.com it was a Saturday afternoon, August 25, 1973. Seven and a half years after the Beaumont children disappeared. A crowd of over 12,000 fans had packed into Adelaide Oval arena to watch a match between Norwood and North Adelaide and amongst them were the Ratcliffe family, Les, his wife Kath and their two children, 13 year old David and 11 year old Joanne. Seated Next to them was Rita Huckle and her four year old granddaughter Kirsty Ann Gordon, who Rita was babysitting for the weekend. Both the Ratcliffs and and Rita were regular Norwood supporters and they often watch matches from the same section and so they were already familiar enough with each other. So when Kirsty needed to go to the bathroom during the first quarter, 11 year old Joanne offered to take her. And knowing how rowdy the crowds get at these matches, the Ratcliffe didn't really allow their children to go to the bathroom alone. And knowing this, Joanne offered to take Kirsty for a final bathroom break in the third quarter around 3:45pm sure, they were just 11 years old and 4 years old, but it did seem better that they go together. So they got out of their seats and they went. And then 10 minutes passed and then 15 and the girls still weren't back. Les and Cath looked at each other with concern. Was everything okay? Eventually they went to go look for the girls. And Cath soon realized that they weren't in the bathroom. And that's when the Ratcliffe's really started to panic. And they even asked one of the stadium officials to make a stadium wide announcement that two young girls were missing. But the official just gave them this look, like you're kidding, right? That would disrupt the game and people wouldn't be able to hear the loudspeaker over the noise of the crowd anyways. He told the Ratcliffs to just return to their seats and wait to see if the girls turned up. But as we know, when it comes to missing children, every moment can be critical. And for the next hour, the Ratcliffe's waited in their seats, panic in their hearts as the two girls remained missing. Finally, once the match was over, thousands of guests started flooding out of the stadium. And that's when an announcement was broadcast over the loudspeaker. It took another 15 minutes to formally notify the police. And by then the girls were gone. No matter how much officers searched through the stadium, the parking lot, any auxiliary building, nothing turned up. They expanded the search to the surrounding parkland and nearby golf course. A team of divers was eventually called in to search the river that ran alongside the stadium and police set up roadblocks to stop and check cars. But it was simply too late. Not a single trace of the girls emerged. So once again, just like in the Beaumont case, the police turned to the people inside of the stadium at the time. Did anyone see the girls or remember seeing anything strange that day? And that's when they got a tip that changed everything. One of the groundskeepers reported seeing the girls around 4.30pm, about 45 minutes after they left to use the bathroom. But they weren't in the stadium and they weren't alone. They were spotted trying to lure a kitten out from a hiding spot in one of the equipment sheds. The groundskeeper was in the shed staff room and he could hear the girls talking to the kitten, cooing at it, trying to lure it towards them. And that's when he heard a man's voice say, quote, I'll try to get him out for you. The groundskeeper said he didn't really think much of this, but by the time he came out of the staff room, the man had already started walking away and the girls were following behind him. He was wearing this wide brimmed hat, brown pants and a gray plaid sports coat. It was hard to tell how tall he was because his back was stooped over, but the groundskeeper estimated that he was about 172cm, or five' eight. Two more witnesses saw the girls with this same exact man, but by then he was carrying Kirstie under one arm and dead dragging Joanne with the other one as she kicked and fought back. Both witnesses assumed that this was the girl's father, and they were last seen walking in the direction of the south gate towards the parking lot. Immediately, the press and the public started making comparisons to the Beaumont disappearance. Two children snatched from a public place full of witnesses in broad daylight. Both perpetrators had used tactics to groom these kids, Luring them by gaining their trust or trying to show them a kitten. And then when a sketch artist worked with the witnesses to create a composite, the final result bore an uncanny resemblance to the man who had befriended the Beaumont children at Collie's Reserve. Both men had the same long face, the same sunken cheeks, same slender nose. And if I'm being completely honest, the Adelaide sketch just looks like the Beaumont sketch if the man had aged seven years. Unfortunately, the Adelaide Oval investigation went the same way that the Beaumonts went. There was an initial outpouring of manpower and resources. There were dozens of officers that canvassed the surrounding area. They knocked on over a thousand doors, a tip line, even received 4,500 calls. But absolutely no leads emerged. No suspects were identified. And then the case went cold, and it remains unsolved to this day. Officially, these cases were never linked, Mostly because no suspect was ever identified. But many people wonder, if we could find the perpetrator from one of these kidnappings, would it give us answers about the other? Over the past six decades, several persons of interest have been considered in the Beaumont case, A few of them for both the Beaumonts and the Adelaide Oval disappearance. But by and large, the police looked at known pedophiles when they were compiling their suspect list. People who would have known professional grooming tactics. However, none of the men that they looked into really fit the Beaumont profile. There was one man named Bevan Spencer von Einem who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 15 year old boy in 1983. During the course of their investigation, the police came to suspect that von Einem not only had accomplices, but was potentially involved in another child murder or multiple other child murders. An anonymous informant referred to as Mr. B, claimed that von Einem was responsible for at least 10 other deaths, including the Beaumonts. He alleged that von Einem had boasted about taking three children from the beach and bringing them home to conduct experiments. He also was about the same height and build as the man from Kali Reserve, and he did look pretty similar to the composite sketch. However, that all was happening in 1983, and at the time the children disappeared, Von einem was only 19 years old. And the man from Kali Reserve was described as definitely being late 30s to early 40s by multiple witnesses. In addition, von Einem was convicted by overwhelming forensic evidence. Hair and fibers were found on the body. In other words, he was pretty sloppy at committing crimes, and not a single trace of the Beaumonts was left behind. And the police just felt like he was too sloppy to be the abductor in the Beaumont case. And to me, this kind of also discounts another potential suspect named Arthur Stanley Brown. He bore a very strong resemblance to the composite sketch, particularly in the Adelaide Oval case. And he was known to wear the same kind of wide brimmed hat when he traveled for work. Brown had been charged with the 1970 abduction and murder of two sisters, aged five and seven. Their bodies were discovered in a dry creek bed. And there was nothing subtle at all about the way he committed this very violent crime. But he was 53 years old in 1966, and police just felt like he was much older than the man the witnesses described. James Ryan o' Neill was publicly linked to the Beaumont case by a documentary called the fisherman. O' Neill was convicted of killing a nine year old boy in 1975, and he was suspected of kidnapping and sexually assaulting at least four others. He had traveled all over Australia for work, and according to the documentary, children had gone missing in several of the places that he visited. When he was asked directly about the Beaumont case, o' Neill was pretty evasive, and he said, quote, look, on legal advice, I'm not going to say where I was or when I was there. It sounded a little ambiguous and sketchy, but there was nothing conclusive to link him to the case or even to definitively place him in Adelaide in January of 1966. Now, there's a few other names that routinely pop up in discussions about the Beaumonts. Derek Percy was a convicted child murderer from the area, and he probably looks the most like the Beaumont police sketch. However, he was also only 17 at the time, and again, the suspect was late 30s to early 40s, so police never really considered him a real suspect. Allen Monroe and Errol Radin also come up. But there are strong reasons why they've been discounted by the police as well. And for all of the above, they were only investigated because of their other crimes, not because of any real evidence. And maybe that's the problem. The police looked at known predators. What about the unknown? What if there was someone so practiced, so skilled at covering their crimes, that the police never even considered them? Well, in 2007, an interesting tip came in to an Australian author named Alan Whitaker. He had just published the first ever comprehensive overview of the Beaumont children's case in a new book called Searching for the Beaumont children. And a woman had picked up a copy and read it really quickly because she couldn't believe what she was reading. By the end, she felt like she knew exactly who took the children. So she called Allen, the man she claimed was her ex father in law, named Harry Phipps. Now, there were certain things about this man's behavior that really stood out to the woman. For one, Phipps had this strange habit of handing out £1 notes to children. And as I said earlier, that's a lot of money back then. And Phipps seemed to really delight in watching kids eyes go wide at the sight of all that money. And when Whitaker started investigating this woman's claims, he found that multiple other people close to Phipps backed up this story. It seemed like he built a reputation of generosity, but that's not really much to go off of. Well, the woman had a lot more damning evidence than that, because remember how investigators looked into every pedophile in the area? Well, this woman fully believed that Harry Phipps was a pedophile, but that he wasn't on any list because his crimes were never reported. And the reason she knew this was because her ex husband, Phipps son told her about it. And he was unfortunately, one of the victims. Unlike the other persons of interest, Phipps was never on the police's radar. He was a wealthy business owner. He was a socialite. But the more Whitaker interviewed Phipps family members and friends, the more it was revealed that that behind closed doors, it was an open secret that he was a predator. In particular, they described one of his uncontrollable fetishes that he had, which revolved around satin, to the point where no one was allowed to wear satin clothing around fips because he was so aroused by it. But one more shocking revelation actually did come from Fips's son, who claimed that back in 1966, he actually saw his father bring the Beaumont children back to their house. The son watched as the kids got out of his father's car and walked inside, but he never saw them leave. He believed that his father killed the children and then buried them at one of his factories that he owned in Adelaide. Now, like I said, Whitaker spent years investigating this angle and he even wrote an entire article book about what he found. It's a fascinating read. I definitely think you should check it out if you can. I'm not going to recap the whole thing here, but what I will say is the book lays out a very compelling argument against fips. So it's worth sharing some of the highlights. First and foremost, FIPS looks a lot like the sketch. Not necessarily in the thinness of his face and other features at the time, but in some other things. Like he was described as being very tall, over 6ft tall, definitely over 172 centimeters. He also had blonde hair that he parted to one side, just like the tall man was described as having. He would have been the right age, around 40 at the time of the disappearance. But there was also the fact that the FIPS's house was within walking distance of Collie Reserve. It was just over 275 meters away. And the shop where the kids bought their lunch was about halfway in between the two. And there was an alley that ran from the Phipps back gate all the way down to the beach. Which means he could have gone to the beach and taken the children without ever having to go on the main road. Remember, the children weren't ever spotted again after they bought lunch with that note. Was it because he was able to whisk them away down this alley back to his house? While researching for the book, Whitaker's co author visited the Phipps house and spoke with his widow. She was pretty reserved, but at a certain point she did agree to give him a tour of the house. And most of the house seemed totally normal. It was pretty unremarkable. But then she led him down into the cellar. Now the cellar was packed with boxes and old furniture. It was pretty much just being used for storage at the time. But there was something amongst the items that really jumped out to Whitaker's partner. There was a white change purse like the one Jane had lost that day at the beach. And when she was asked about it, Phipps's widow became really nervous and defensive. She claimed that the purse was hers, but she didn't really seem to want to talk much about it. And Whitaker's partner went ahead and reported this to the police. But when they came back to check out the purse a few days later, Phipps widow told the detective that she had thrown it away. And the following week her lawyers sent the authors a cease and desist letter warning them to never contact her again. On top of all this, more interesting information came out about FIP's upbringing, especially the fact that that according to people who knew Harry Phipps mother, she actually raised him as a girl for the first few years of his life. Apparently his father spent a lot of time away and while he was gone, Phipps mother would put him in dresses and pretend that he was actually her daughter. After the book detailing all of Whitaker's findings about fips came out called the Satin man, two more people actually contacted the author with more information about Harry Phipps. It was two brothers who said that Phipps had paid them to dig a large hole at one of his factories the weekend after the Beaumont children disappeared. It took most of the weekend for the boys, who were just teenagers at the time to dig the six foot hole because the ground was really sandy and the sides kept falling in. Other officers also had heard stories from people who worked at the plant that said Phipps would always look at the same spot on the grounds. One time he was described as even removing his cap and holding it to his chest almost like it was. In reverence and to the credit of Adelaide police, they treated these leads pretty seriously. And they organized two digs at Phipps factory. One was in 2013 and the other was in 2018. And unfortunately neither of those digs really turned up anything significant. But they weren't willing to give up just yet. And in February of this year, 2025, another dig happened at the factory and it was sponsored by private funding. It lasted the entire week and it dug to a deeper level than either of the previous searches had. But that dig still didn't uncover anything. And as of now, there are no other plans to dig at the factory. Now so much time has passed. Where do we really go from here? Well, Harry Phipps died in 2004 and his son, who had finally come forward with all of his testimony, died unexpectedly in 2015. And his ex wife, who also was the one who originally reached out to Whitaker, died the year after that. The father will never face justice if he was the one responsible. And the son will never be vindicated. Nancy and Jim Beaumont stayed at their Somerton park home for almost two decades after their children disappeared. They said in interviews that they couldn't bear to move away just on the off chance that the kids did show up at the front door one day. But eventually, after so many years of waiting, being frozen in time, Nancy and Jim filed for divorce. And they decided to move on separately this time outside of the public eye. Nancy died in 2019 and Jim followed her in 2023. So if there's not going to be any closure for the family. There's not going to be any closure for those directly impacted. Why is this a case that we can't let go of? It has to be something more than just morbid curiosity. This is a fascination that's really persisted for 60 years now. And I think it's because this case still really taps into something that a lot of us fear to this day, that there could be a monster hiding in plain sight who could whisk away a child in a matter of minutes without anyone seeing. Sure, we have better technology now, CCTV footage, gps, all that good stuff. But every year there are cases where children just vanish and no one knows what happened. And so maybe if we find these kids, if there's any way to bring Jane, Arna and Grant home, if we can definitively say that it was one of the suspects, then it will bring some sort of closure to maybe Australia as a whole. Maybe this is a wound that deeply affected an entire country and it's you guys that need the closure. After all, many people still credit this as the reason that people in Australia started locking their doors. It was a wound that cut really deep and terrified a lot of people in the area. But what do you guys think? Do we have enough info to know who's responsible for this or are there simply too many questions? I would love to hear your thoughts wherever you listen. And if you're listening from Australia, I would love to know if anyone in your families or you maybe remember this happening or have any ties to it. What was it like growing up with this story being told like folklore? I know that this is a really important part of your history, so I'm just curious to hear from you guys. As for me, I will be here next week with our final installment of Dark Summer where we're going to talk about a terrifying true summary urban legend. Please join me here once again, won't you? And until then, stay curious. Heartstarts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. HeartStyles pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Additional research and writing by Abigail Cannon. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME and Ben Jaffe have a heart pounding story or a case request. Check out heartsartsbounding.com and Doug Limu and I always tell you to customize your car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual, but now we want you to feel it. Cue the emu music. Limu. Save yourself money today. Increase your wealth customize and save. We save. That may have been too much feeling.
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