UPDATE: Beaumont Children

Transcript

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Speaker 1 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 2 And I'm Brits.

Speaker 1 And I've got news. I want to try to bring you guys more case updates when they happen.
So we're going to try something new here.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 3 Tell us if you like it, if you want more. Yes.

Speaker 1 So five years ago, when we were just baby podcasters, we covered the 1966 disappearance of the Beaumont children. And almost 60 years later, something is happening.

Speaker 1 But the thing is, you need to know the story to understand the importance of this update. So if you need a refresher, keep listening to our OG episode on the Beaumont children.

Speaker 3 But let's take a moment to appreciate how far we've come as podcasters.

Speaker 1 Please be nice, like truly be kind. But listen, we got to where we are for a reason.
The story is still a good one. So please enjoy this blast from the past.

Speaker 1 And at the end, we're going to jump back in and tell you the big news that is happening this week.

Speaker 28 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt. And since yesterday was Australia Day for our wonderful listeners, Downunda.

Speaker 28 Let's not do that.

Speaker 28 I think we did that in the fan club once where we tried to do Australian accents. It's really bad, you guys.

Speaker 28 But anyways, we wanted to celebrate by telling you about one of the most infamous and enduring mysteries in Australian history.

Speaker 28 But before we tell you our story, though, we want to send our thoughts to everyone in Australia during this horrific brushfire season.

Speaker 28 The Australian Red Cross is on the front lines of disaster relief, and we encourage everyone to donate and support their efforts like we are doing.

Speaker 28 You can find a link on our website, or you can go to redcross.org.au. Now, today's story is one of those cases that never really lets go of a country's national imagination.

Speaker 28 Kind of like John Benet Ramsey for us here in the U.S. or Madeleine McCann for those in the UK.

Speaker 28 In 1966, three young children left their home to go swimming at the beach on Australia Day and were never seen again.

Speaker 28 Their disappearance changed Australian life forever and thrust caution into the forefront of parents' minds all over the country. This is the story of the Beaumont children.

Speaker 28 January 26, 1966 is a scorching hot day in Adelaide.

Speaker 28 Despite the weather, the city is brimming with excitement because not only is it Australia Day with this long weekend coming up, but there's also an upcoming Ashes cricket test match.

Speaker 28 So the city is teeming with sports fan from all across the country. The South Australian state capital, Adelaide, is this coastal city on the St.
Vincent Gulf.

Speaker 28 And since the temperature is due to get up to 40 degrees Celsius, which is like 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the local beaches are packed on this day.

Speaker 28 Everybody has the same idea to beat the heat by heading to the ocean, maybe stopping at one of the local restaurants to pick up some lunch, doing just like the usual stuff to enjoy the day without just hiding inside until the sun goes down.

Speaker 28 All in all, it is a good, peaceful Wednesday in the city. But then, sometime between 5 and 6 p.m.
that evening, everything

Speaker 28 changes. A middle-aged married couple comes into the station.

Speaker 28 Grant, usually known as Jim, and Nancy Beaumont, are worried sick because their three young children left home to go to Glenel Beach that morning a little bit before 10 o'clock and they never came back.

Speaker 28 Now, they were expected to be home first around like noon, but they never showed.

Speaker 28 And at first, their mom, Nancy, just kind of assumed that maybe they lost track of time, maybe they missed the first bus and then they're going to be on the second.

Speaker 28 So she waits for the next bus to come, but they're not on the two o'clock bus either.

Speaker 28 So the parents try searching on their own at first, but after hours with no sign of the kids, Jim and Nancy knew that they had to go straight to police.

Speaker 28 According to Alan Whitaker and Stuart Mullen's book called Searching for the Beaumont Children and their follow-up the Satin Man, the police spring into action right away.

Speaker 28 When they get a description from their parents, they learn that Jane is the oldest at nine years old and she's super responsible, an excellent caretaker for her younger siblings.

Speaker 28 There's seven-year-old Arna and four-year-old Grant. And they learned that she left the house in a pink bathing suit with a little white purse to keep her money in.

Speaker 28 Now, Jane is also the swimmer of the three. So Jim and Nancy were confident that she would keep an eye on Arna and Grant and make sure that they didn't go too far out into the surf.

Speaker 28 At the very start of this investigation, police don't want to believe the worst. The initial thought is that maybe the kids lost track of time, kind of like what their mom thought.

Speaker 28 And when they realized like actually how late that they were, maybe that made them freak out more and things kind of like escalated. Right.

Speaker 3 Like maybe they're hiding out somewhere because maybe their parents are angry with them because they didn't come home on time.

Speaker 28 Right, that's what they're thinking.

Speaker 28 So, with that in mind, police actually start their search at the Beaumont's home in hope that the little ones like kind of snuck back in to hide somewhere and wait for mom and dad and wait for them to not be so upset.

Speaker 28 Now, to be clear, at first, investigators aren't suspicious of Jim or Nancy. They just want to cover all their bases to see if this can be resolved quickly.

Speaker 28 But unfortunately, it can't since a long and thorough search of the house doesn't turn up any sign of the children.

Speaker 28 And by now, it's getting dark outside and Jim and Nancy keep reiterating to police that their kids would not willingly be outside after dark.

Speaker 28 So investigators start mobilizing more local resources to widen the search. In order to do that, the Adelaide police send five boats from the Sea and Rescue Squadron out to the St.

Speaker 28 Vincent Gulf to shine their bright lights across the dark waters in hopes of spotting something. But over and over again, their light just flashes on still dark water.
They come up with nothing.

Speaker 28 With more people getting involved in all this activity, the local media now starts noticing what's going on. They're thinking like, hey, something is happening.

Speaker 28 And a bulletin goes out at about 10 o'clock that evening. Now, mind you, this is like a full 12 hours since the kids got on that bus that morning.

Speaker 28 And they push this bulletin out to the evening, you know, TV, radio, asking anyone if they've seen the missing kids.

Speaker 28 While the news of the missing children is being broadcast, police are still hard at work at Glenelg.

Speaker 28 The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 1966 that police even had aqualung divers go into the Glenelg boat marina to search underwater, but the water was like super murky and there was like almost little to no visibility.

Speaker 28 But despite the setbacks, they continue all through the night on land, in sea, even checking storm drains that flush out into the ocean.

Speaker 28 And they also even have people traversing up and down the rocky coastline looking for cave-ins and landslides anywhere that the kids could possibly be.

Speaker 28 At this point, their thinking is starting to change. They no longer think the kids are hiding, but now they start to wonder if maybe the kids got into some kind of accident.

Speaker 28 You like, you know, with kid logic, when you know you're doing something, you're going, you know, on a strange adventure. So you go into a cave or someone will bury you in sand.

Speaker 3 And it seems like everything seems like a good idea.

Speaker 28 Yeah. So they're thinking like if Jane, Arna, and Grant are maybe stuck somewhere and they can't get out, like time is of the essence.
Plus, Arna and Grant aren't great swimmers.

Speaker 28 And so they're thinking, gosh, they could have gotten carried out. Maybe Jane went, she was a strong swimmer to try and like rescue them, but she failed.

Speaker 28 And they like have all the more reason to find them quickly.

Speaker 3 I mean, not to go like too dark too fast, but was kidnapping an option at this point? Like, or are police really just trying to find them in some sort of freak accident on the beach?

Speaker 28 Yeah, so according to the book, The Satin Man, police start off the investigation with three main scenarios in mind about what could have happened.

Speaker 28 Either A, the kids drown, B, they ran away, or C, that they've been kidnapped.

Speaker 28 Now, drowning gets ruled out pretty fast because the sea had been calm the day before when the kids disappeared, and the beach had plenty of lifeguards who everyone assumed would have noticed if three children like went in the water and were getting swept away.

Speaker 28 Plus, none of the Beaumont's belongings were found left on shore, which is what you would expect to see if they had like gone into the ocean and then never come out.

Speaker 28 So, drowning gets ruled out pretty quickly. And so does the idea of the three kids just running away.
Like, they're happy kids.

Speaker 28 There's nothing in their past behavior to suggest that they would leave home like that. So, police have to quickly set that idea aside as well.

Speaker 28 And since the kids aren't thought to have run away and they aren't thought to have drowned, that leaves investigators with the most frightening prospect of all, that someone was able to take not one, but all three young children from a crowded area in broad daylight.

Speaker 3 Okay, but if someone snatched them, like someone had to have seen it. You said it was one of the busiest days on the beach, right?

Speaker 28 Yeah, I mean, it was, yeah, super packed.

Speaker 3 Even if they didn't realize right away that it was a kidnapping, something would have been off. These three kids just randomly go off with a stranger.

Speaker 3 Someone would have had to have witnessed something. There had to be witnesses.

Speaker 28 So, yes, and this is where all of the media attention really comes in handy because not only does that media attention lead to the biggest volunteer mobilization in Australian history, like Sarah Garcia reported for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2018.

Speaker 28 But it also means that information starts flooding into police stations. Now, while some of these so-called tips are hoaxes, some of them are from credible witnesses.

Speaker 28 And coupled with what police know from Jim and Nancy, a picture of the kid's last movements really starts to appear, including some information about a person who may hold the key to the entire investigation.

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Speaker 28 Numerous witnesses who were on or near Glenel Beach on the day that the kids disappear tell investigators about seeing the Beaumont children playing with an unidentified man.

Speaker 28 Now, these statements and the South Australian's police incident report place the children and their mysterious companion at a place called Collie Reserve Park, right near the beach before they disappeared.

Speaker 28 There are also people who just saw the children alone.

Speaker 28 So, in that book, Searching for the Beaumont Children, it said that the bus driver who picked them up remembered them getting on the bus at about 10 o'clock.

Speaker 28 Now, there's this guy named Tom, who's the local postman, and he remembered saying hello to little Grant, who greeted him back and seemed totally happy and fine.

Speaker 28 And initially, Tom couldn't remember if he saw them in the morning or the afternoon, but police end up checking his shift schedule and like his records and determined that he had to have seen them in the morning based on when Tom was working.

Speaker 28 And they put that sighting in around 10:15, right right when he starts his shift. Then one of Jane's classmates reports seeing the siblings that morning at about 1115.

Speaker 28 Now, all of those sightings so far are just of the kids. After this, though, other witnesses come forward who say they saw the children with this unidentified man.

Speaker 28 Now, there are three separate witnesses who saw them together. There is a man who was in town to watch the cricket match.
There was a middle-aged woman. And then there was this 74-year-old woman.

Speaker 28 And together, they help police like piece together the activities of the kids later in the day.

Speaker 28 Now, as far as police can put together, it seems that the 74-year-old woman likely was the first to see the kids together with this man.

Speaker 28 She says that she saw them sometime between 11 and 1130 in the morning. And then all three of the witnesses give police a description of what this stranger looks like.

Speaker 28 According to this article I found called The Disappearance of the Beaumont Children, Murder and Misadventure, and it's on the Crime Traveler's website.

Speaker 28 All three witnesses describe the man as being in his mid to late 30s, tall and tanned with a long, thin face and light brown hair that was neat and parted to one side.

Speaker 28 But interestingly, the middle-aged woman tells police that she did more than just see the man. She actually spoke to him.

Speaker 28 Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported in early February of 66 that this man approached her at Glenel Beach a little bit before noon, and he was with the three kids and he approached her telling her that their money had been stolen and asking her if she'd seen anyone like rummaging through their things because she was like sitting right near their stuff.

Speaker 28 So if anything had happened, she would have likely seen it. Now she didn't see anything.
She doesn't remember anything.

Speaker 28 They didn't talk anymore beyond this, but she was able to tell police that based on his accent, he was definitely Australian.

Speaker 28 They have the 74-year-old woman actually sit down with a sketch artist from a local newspaper and describe the man resulting in this portrait of a strange man that police are now desperate to locate and here brett i am actually going to send you a picture of the sketch that they came up with

Speaker 3 okay so it means a pretty normal looking guy he's got kind of a longish face a big forehead i guess my next question is if they saw him well enough to describe him for this sketch like what else did the witness like pick up on?

Speaker 3 Like, how was he acting with the kids? What was his demeanor? How were the kids with him? Stuff like that?

Speaker 28 So it's it's interesting.

Speaker 28 So according to the Age newspaper, people described seeing this man, quote, frolicking with the kids before noon, which sounds to me like he was kind of like playing with them and everyone was having a good time.

Speaker 28 Not like, you know, I think that's completely different from what we might imagine of him just like shoving them in a car or forcibly taking them.

Speaker 28 And what we have from this lady, too, about him like coming up and asking about the money, it sounds like the kids were interacting with him and probably felt safe, like they could trust him. Right.

Speaker 28 Now, what's super interesting is that since they appear to be enjoying themselves with this stranger, I find it strange that the last credible sighting of the children actually doesn't include him.

Speaker 28 So, there was a staff member at a bakery in Glen El, and this bakery was in very easy walking distance from both the beach and the Collie Reserve.

Speaker 28 And this person tells police that the three kids came in to buy themselves some lunch around midday.

Speaker 28 And this in itself isn't unusual since Jane, Arna, and Grant had been to this very shop before and they were recognized by the staff.

Speaker 28 What is weird is how they bought their food because the shopkeeper tells police that the three kids paid with a one-pound note.

Speaker 3 Okay, what's so special about that?

Speaker 28 Well, a one-pound note was a lot of money back in 66, especially for young kids to have.

Speaker 28 But not only that, police knew from Nancy that she only gave Jane eight shillings and a sixpence to cover their lunches and bus fare. All of that was in coins.

Speaker 3 So the police are thinking maybe the strange man gave them this one pound note?

Speaker 28 Exactly. Plus, remember how this man said that their money had just been stolen? Like police have to consider, what if that was a lie? What if he stole Jane's money and then gave her this money?

Speaker 3 Okay, but why would he steal less money and give them more back?

Speaker 28 So possibly to earn their confidence?

Speaker 28 Like this is a widely used tactic for manipulators, like getting a victim to rely on you for something or making them feel like you helped them and that maybe they owe you or it puts them at ease.

Speaker 28 So learning about the sighting of this man and even the last sighting without him, but this one pound note is making police more sure than ever that the children have been kidnapped.

Speaker 28 And likely the three kids went away with this man willingly, unknowing of his true intentions.

Speaker 28 So once they have this sketch from that woman, this goes out to all of the newspapers all over Australia while police in Adelaide search for their records of sex offenders in the area to see if maybe any of them match witness descriptions.

Speaker 28 But here's the thing, of all of the sex offenders in the area, and listen, there's always more than you expect. I would encourage people to just take a look at their own neighborhood.

Speaker 28 Like I think you would be surprised. But of all of the sex offenders listed in the area, they don't come up with anyone that's a good match or makes for a good lead.

Speaker 28 Now, in the meantime, while all this is going on, the searches are still going on as well.

Speaker 28 They haven't given up on finding the kids, but it's getting harder to hold out hope because every search is turning up nothing.

Speaker 28 Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and in September, eight months after the Beaumont children went missing, a police officer in town, and this is about like 200 miles east of Adelaide, overhears an interesting conversation on his phone line.

Speaker 28 Now, this town is a really small one located like right between Adelaide and Melbourne.

Speaker 28 So, what's happening is this local officer is basically trying to call the head office of Melbourne when, according to the book, Searching for the Beaumont Children, he hears a woman mention bringing the Beaumont kids back from Hobart on the island of Tasmania.

Speaker 3 Wait, if he's trying to make a call out, I guess I don't understand how he's overhearing this conversation.

Speaker 28 So, from what I understand, he's able to hear because

Speaker 28 some wires got crossed. And I actually had to look up what this means for myself.
And it kind of goes back to really old phone technology. So, I looked up on Astro Telecoms about crossed wires.

Speaker 28 And apparently, it's like a pretty common problem in the old Australian phone systems infrastructure.

Speaker 28 So, basically, if you got on a line and you had a crossed wire, you could hear part of someone else's conversation.

Speaker 28 So, the fact that he heard this is totally legit, but here's the problem: the officer who hears this thinks that it's a hoax, and everyone he talks to, the police in Adelaide, the police in Melbourne, like they all think it's a hoax too.

Speaker 28 Except for one man, Detective Sergeant Stan Swain. And he's with the South Australian Police in Adelaide.

Speaker 28 He is so convinced that the call is real that he actually calls Jim and Nancy to tell them that he believes that their children are still alive.

Speaker 28 Now, while he's informing the family of what he believed to be true, other members of the South Australian Police were tracking down the woman who actually made the call, you know, ahead of telling the family member.

Speaker 28 And they learned the real truth, that the officer who heard the call only heard parts of the conversation.

Speaker 28 And I guess once they heard the whole thing in context, they come to believe that there is no real connection to the kids.

Speaker 28 They don't even think it was a hoax, just some crossed wires and honestly, like a painful coincidence that gave the Beaumonts false hope.

Speaker 28 So that incident obviously was a little bit embarrassing, having raised the family's hope.

Speaker 28 But as if that's not embarrassing enough, just two months later in November, police find themselves up against a Dutch psychic who is just adamant that he knows where the kids are buried.

Speaker 28 Now, this man flies all the way to Adelaide from the Netherlands 10 months after the Beaumont kids disappeared, and it gets a whirlwind of media attention.

Speaker 28 Like this guy's basically made a name for himself by claiming to be able to use his powers to solve missing person cases back in Europe.

Speaker 28 And like while he had some luck and some maybe pretty basic guesswork, according to the satin man, I guess in some cases, he also got access to some confidential police files that I'm sure helped his quote powers along.

Speaker 28 So basically, he's already famous when he rolls in. And so the local papers make a huge deal of his coming down.

Speaker 28 Word gets out to the point that there's a crowd of Adelaide citizens at the airport waiting when he arrives, hoping that after almost a year, he's going to be the one to like swoop in, solve the case, and finally give the family answers.

Speaker 28 Now, to be super clear, police didn't pay him to come in. His trip was funded by a wealthy Adelaide citizen who actually paid all of his travel expenses.

Speaker 28 So, he gets to Australia and claims that the Beaumonts are buried in a warehouse in Purring Park.

Speaker 28 So, this is a spot that he's seen in his visions or whatever, and it's where he says they need to look in order to find the kids. Now, keep in mind, he has no actual evidence to back this up.

Speaker 28 So, ultimately, police won't go and excavate anything based on his like visions or gut instincts or whatever alone.

Speaker 28 According to Time Traveler's article, which we talked about before, the psychic claimed that the kids weren't murdered, actually.

Speaker 28 He says that they died as a result of some kind of accident, and that this mystery man described by witnesses had nothing to do with their disappearance.

Speaker 28 And the police, as I'm sure you can imagine, are initially pretty skeptical. Right.
And so he can't get them to dig right away. And this is my favorite part.

Speaker 28 He basically only stays in Australia for three days before telling the public, like, yeah, I'm done. Like, I'm going back to Europe.
Like, kind of washed his hands of it.

Speaker 28 Like, they won't do what I say. So peace out.
Now.

Speaker 28 Despite him leaving, like, you would kind of think police are like, no, we're not going to do this. He leaves, everyone drops it.

Speaker 28 But because it got so much media attention and because the authorities were refusing to excavate where this psychic said, the locals in Adelaide actually raise money to finance the dig themselves.

Speaker 28 Like they were crowdfunding back in like 67. Oh my god.
And do you know what this kind of reminds me a little bit of? It kind of reminds me of the most recent development in the Maura Murray case.

Speaker 28 Yeah. Like, remember, there was like that house that everyone, everyone was like, you have to look, you have to look.
And police are like, no, like, we're pretty sure nothing's there. Like, we've been

Speaker 3 finally did.

Speaker 28 Because there was so much like public attention that I think they were finally like, okay, we're going to do this. But then after we do this, can we just do our jobs?

Speaker 28 And can everyone calm down right plus it didn't help that the place that he wanted them to like dig up was this warehouse and someone like owned it it's not like they were digging in the middle of the field so there was a lot of stuff that police like had to like try and work around

Speaker 3 okay but like how did the public work around it like I can't imagine that they could just show up and be like, we're going to dig here.

Speaker 28 Oh, you're absolutely right. The owners are not happy about it, but after four months of media attention and basically demands from the public, they kind of finally just bow to the pressure and agree.

Speaker 28 Like, okay, you can dig up this one specific area where the psychic said the kids are buried. But what the warehouse owners say is police have to be there to make sure that everything is in order.

Speaker 28 And so what happens is a few months later, after the psychic goes back to Europe, with police present, they actually start a dig on March 1st of 1967, 14 months after Jane, Arna, and Grant had gone missing.

Speaker 28 Now, the dig takes nine days, but when it concludes, no evidence whatsoever is found. And the case goes back to being cold again.

Speaker 28 Now, by this time, over a year has passed since the children disappeared. So police attention has to shift to other cases.

Speaker 28 There are new cases popping up every single day, and this gets farther and farther from their minds.

Speaker 28 And though the public never forgets the case, it gets further and further from the forefront of the public's mind as well. That is, until Jim and Nancy receive a mysterious letter.

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Speaker 28 In mid-February of 1968, this is now two years since the kids went missing, a letter written in very childlike style arrives at the Beaumont's home.

Speaker 28 It's postmarked from the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, over 400 miles east of Adelaide, and it claims to be from Jane. And this is what it says as published in the Satin Man book.

Speaker 28 Britt, I'm actually going to have you read this.

Speaker 3 Dear mom and dad, we are safe. There's no need to worry about us.
Oh, we really missed you in the past two years.

Speaker 3 At the beach on that day, we were walking to the bus stop when a man in a car stopped us and asked us if we wanted to ride. I said that we did, and that is how it all started.

Speaker 3 The man would not let us write before. He is letting us write tonight because he saw the story in the Herald tonight and felt sorry for you both.

Speaker 3 He watched us a lot for about six weeks and then he did not watch us so much. Arna and I talk about you often, but Grant does not remember you at all after more than two years.

Speaker 3 We have been well fed all the time. I, as well as Arna and Grant, hope that you are both well.

Speaker 3 The man said to me just now that he will willingly let us go if you come over to Victoria to get us as long as you do not call the police. He said that if you do, the deal is off.

Speaker 3 You have to pick us up in front of the Dandenong post office at 10 minutes to 9 o'clock next Monday, the 26th of February. You, Dad, have to wear a dark coat and white pants so the man will know you.

Speaker 3 The man told me to tell you that the police must not know at all. He said that if you do tell them, you may as well not come, so please do not tell them.

Speaker 3 The Dandenong Post Office is in Victoria in case you did not know. Please do not tell the police.
The man did not mean to harm us. We still love you both.
Love, Jane, Arna, and Grant.

Speaker 3 This is Jane who is writing.

Speaker 28 Now, Jim does what any sensible parent would do, and he hands the letter immediately over to investigators. And he does this because right away there are some inconsistencies that stand out to police.

Speaker 28 Like, Britt, I don't know if you noticed, but the letter writer actually misspells Arna's name. Her name is actually spelt A-R-N-N-A,

Speaker 28 and the letter writer only spelt it with one N.

Speaker 28 And apparently, the handwriting doesn't match any of Jane's school papers.

Speaker 28 Because Because of these pretty important inconsistencies, police are confident that this is another mean-spirited hoax designed to toy with grieving parents. But

Speaker 28 Detective Sergeant Stan Swain, the same guy who was so sure that the crossed wires call was a clue, is totally convinced that the letter is real.

Speaker 28 And he's so sure of it that he manages to persuade Jim and Nancy to make a secret trip to Dandenong.

Speaker 3 Okay, but this guy has been kind of embarrassed before in front of his colleagues by believing something that ended up being nothing. What makes him think this one is like a for sure real deal?

Speaker 28 So here's the thing.

Speaker 28 Stan tells the Beaumonts that he himself compared the handwriting in the letter to the samples in Jane's school books and he decided that it was a match, which feels like maybe he's going a bit rogue because the department already said that they weren't a match and that these were a fake.

Speaker 28 And according to searching for the Beaumont children, Stan's boss told him like dude you have got to let this go but he just couldn't so going over his superiors heads and getting Jim and Nancy's hopes up once again is bad enough but it just boggles my mind that this guy is willing to do it a second time when it seems just as unlikely to pan out into something real like to me that's just borderline cruel.

Speaker 28 But cruel or not, a desperate Jim, guided by Stan follows the letter's instructions exactly.

Speaker 28 He gets the right clothes, stands outside the Dandenong post office while Stan keeps watch, and a phone call actually comes into the post office saying that, quote, the man has been delayed, but he'll be there soon.

Speaker 3 Wait, is this actually legit?

Speaker 28 Well, it kind of seems that way, right? So they wait and wait and wait. And day fades into evening and neither the children nor this mystery man ever show up.

Speaker 28 Now, the next day, the same thing happens. Jim stays in front of the post office while Stan does surveillance, eager for any sign of the children or their abductor.
And this goes on for three days.

Speaker 28 Then the media gets their hands on the story because, get this, Stan actually booked a hotel room under his real name, and reporters find out that he's there with Jim and Nancy.

Speaker 28 So the whole thing blows up in the press. The operation is essentially busted.

Speaker 28 And because of all this attention to this lead in the press, it actually results in more letters from the same town arriving at the Beaumont's home back in Adelaide.

Speaker 28 Someone claiming to be, quote, the man actually writes to Jim and Nancy himself this time, taunting them for involving police and even blaming them for not being able to get their children back.

Speaker 3 But is this one real?

Speaker 28 I mean, the general belief is that this is yet another hoax.

Speaker 3 Even the call?

Speaker 28 Even the call.

Speaker 3 So does the Stan guy let go of it now?

Speaker 28 Well, so in that book, Searching for the Beaumont Children, it actually kind of talks about this. By the time all of this goes down in Dandenong in 68, Stan is obsessed with the case.

Speaker 28 And he almost views this as just a little setback instead of the disaster that it really is. Like his ability to separate himself from the investigation is just totally gone.

Speaker 28 And unfortunately, it's Jim and Nancy who suffer the most because of it.

Speaker 3 Right. He keeps getting their hopes up.

Speaker 28 Right. And treating this obvious red herring as a credible lead effectively ends Stan's career in law enforcement.
So he's kind of done. The Beaumonts return to their hometown.

Speaker 28 They kind of swear off talking to the media once and for all. And once again, the case goes cold.

Speaker 28 Now, five years go by with no developments, no new leads, until August 25th of 1973, when something terrible and all too familiar happens.

Speaker 28 Two young children go missing in an eerily similar fashion to the Beaumonts. Now, it's it's two young girls, 11-year-old Joanne Radcliffe and four-year-old Kirsty Gordon.

Speaker 28 Now, they go missing from a highly public location, again, in broad daylight. They're at the Adelaide Oval Stadium to watch an Australian rules football match with their families.

Speaker 28 Now, Joanne is there with her parents, Les and Kathleen, and their family friends, Frank, while Kirstie is there with her grandmother, Rita.

Speaker 28 Now, since Rita knows Joanne's parents, she lets Joanne take Kirstie to the bathroom around 3.50 p.m. during the match's third quarter.

Speaker 28 She expects that the two girls are going to come right back, except after about 15 minutes, there's still no sign of them.

Speaker 28 So Les and Kathleen start searching around the stadium, but they're unable to find any trace of either Kirstie or Joanne.

Speaker 28 So they go to the Oval's head office and ask for basically an announcement to be made about the missing children.

Speaker 28 But since play is in progress, the announcement isn't made until after the quarter ends, which costs investigators and the family a lot of valuable time.

Speaker 3 Oh my gosh, forget about the game. There are two missing kids.

Speaker 28 Well, yet you'd think the office staff basically kind of rationalized it by saying, look, if we made this announcement while the game's going on, no one's really going to hear it.

Speaker 28 No one's going to pay attention. There's really no point, which maybe, but can we at least try? It's like my feeling.
Like as a parent, I wouldn't care. Like, let's do it now.
Let's do it later.

Speaker 28 I want you to keep doing it until you find my kid. But anyway, so police get involved and they start their search efforts.

Speaker 28 And right away, similarities between Joanne Joanne and Kirstie's disappearance and the Beaumont children's disappearance start to appear.

Speaker 28 Like, think about it, both of these abductions happen in very public locations.

Speaker 28 With the Beaumonts, you have a crowded beach and a reserve, and now you have a packed stadium with over 12,000 people when Kirstie and Joanne vanish.

Speaker 28 Also, just like in the case of the missing Beaumont kids, witnesses in this new case put the two girls in the company of an unidentified man.

Speaker 28 One of Oval's employees, this guy named Ken, tells police that he saw a man with the two girls, two girls who matched the girl's description, trying to lure some kittens out from underneath a car that was parked in one of the equipment sheds on the grounds near the stadium.

Speaker 28 And Ken didn't think this was weird at the time because I guess a lot of stray cats kind of hung out in around or near the stadium and kids were always wanting to play with them.

Speaker 28 But he describes this man as being about five foot, eight inches tall, middle-aged, and said he was wearing this kind of distinctive gray checkered sport jacket with brown pants and a brown hat.

Speaker 28 They find another witness as well. This time it was a teenage boy who corroborates Ken's account, and they don't get to talk to this guy till like a week later.

Speaker 28 The Canberra Times reported back on August 31st of 73 that the teenager witnessed a man forcibly maneuvering the two girls toward one of the exits and into the public parking lot.

Speaker 28 And the teenager said that the man was actually carrying Kirstie under one arm and dragging a struggling Joanne away with the other.

Speaker 28 And his description of the man matched Ken's down to the man's gray coat and brown hat.

Speaker 28 So armed with these two matching descriptions, a local Adelaide art teacher actually paints a portrait of the unidentified man. And when the depiction is shown to the public, it shocks everyone.

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Speaker 28 The portrait of the unidentified man from the Adelaide Oval disappearances resembles the sketch of the stranger who was last seen with Jane Arna and Grant Beaumont.

Speaker 28 And here, I want you to check this out for yourself, Brett.

Speaker 3 This is the same guy.

Speaker 28 This is exactly the same guy. I mean, the long-term guy with a hat on.

Speaker 3 That's the only difference.

Speaker 28 Yeah, the long face, the forehead. I mean, Grant, you can't see his hair because of the hat, but everything else is exactly the same.
Yeah.

Speaker 28 Like, to me, the only difference is, you know, the guy at the oval stadium we're called oval guy he's described as around five eight and beaumont guy is described as over six feet tall but that height discrepancy is kind of negligible in my mind like witnesses can be off and depending on their stature i think that's something that can easily be misjudged oh definitely i'm we're five two everybody's tall to me everyone's so tall but more than anything they consider the cases as possibly connected because the MO is so similar.

Speaker 28 Like the victims are similar. Both the crimes are so brazen.
and yet police have to look at the odds of having a dangerously skilled serial abductor in their midst now

Speaker 28 whoever snatched joanne and kirsty seems to be just as good at hiding them as whoever took jane arna and grant again days turn into weeks and months with no break in the case and no clue about what might have happened to them And just like in the Beaumont case, Joanne and Kirstie's case goes cold.

Speaker 28 Years go by with no definitive links outside of basically conspiracy theories.

Speaker 28 But in 1990, 17 years after the Adelaide Oval disappearances, and this is now 24 years after the Beaumonts went missing, the Adelaide media learns that the South Australian police are diving in this place called Maiponga Reservoir, which is 34 miles south of Adelaide.

Speaker 28 Now, ordinarily, this could easily be brushed off as like a training exercise or you know, just something police won't confirm or deny, whatever.

Speaker 28 But their dive just so happened to take place after a witness in another murder case testifies that the Beaumonts are buried in that reservoir.

Speaker 3 Wait, go back. What other murder case?

Speaker 28 So it's actually multiple murder cases.

Speaker 28 So when this is going on, there were actually some really horrific killings in and around Adelaide in the, you know, late 70s and early 80s, and they were known as the family murders.

Speaker 28 And I'm only going to touch on them briefly here, but we're actually going to do like a more in-depth audio extra over in our fan club. So if you're interested, you can go there on our website.

Speaker 28 Or if you're already in the fan club, you can check that out after the episode. But let me tell you, these murders are pretty gruesome.

Speaker 28 From 1979 to 1983, five young men named Alan, Neil, Mark, Peter, and Richard go missing and are later found dead.

Speaker 28 Now, four of the five were drugged and sexually tortured, and autopsies determined that they all died from blood loss stemming from severe anal injuries caused by insertion of a blunt object.

Speaker 28 Neil, Mark, and Peter's bodies are found in pieces, and Mark had been cut from his navel to his pubic bone and then re-sewn up with parts of his small intestine missing.

Speaker 3 Do we know how the fifth person died?

Speaker 28 Well, not really.

Speaker 28 So Peter went missing during the same time period as the others, but his body was accidentally burned by a farmer who obviously had no idea there was a corpse on his property and he was doing some like controlled burns.

Speaker 28 So it's not known for sure how he died. All that was found was his skeleton cut into pieces like Neil and Mark.
And the connection is on how he'd been mutilated after he died.

Speaker 28 Now, despite the connections and that they all seem super similar, only one of these murders is ever officially solved. Several of the victims were drugged with the same two prescription sedatives.

Speaker 28 So police use pharmacy records to kind of like narrow down their suspect lists. And it pays off when they find this Adelaide man named Bevin.

Speaker 28 Police get a warrant for his house where, according to the book Searching for the Beaumont children, they find both drugs as well as hair and fibers linking him to Richard, who was the fifth victim.

Speaker 28 Now, Bevin is charged and convicted for Richard's death in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison. Then, five years later, in 1989, he's charged with killing Alan and Mark.

Speaker 3 This story is bananas, but I'm getting super lost. What's the connection to the Beaumonts again?

Speaker 28 So, in Bevin's second trial, is where this mysterious witness, who we only know as Mr. B due to confidentiality, testifies that Bevin was the one that snatched the Beaumont children.

Speaker 28 And he also says that he's the one that took Kirsty and Joanne from the Adelaide Oval Stadium as well.

Speaker 28 And it's because of his testimony that he's the one that says that the kids are buried at the reservoir.

Speaker 28 And so police are doing this dig, then these records come out and the public is kind of putting this together. And so now all of a sudden, Bevin's name is linked to the Beaumont kids.

Speaker 28 And as you can imagine, the media goes nuts.

Speaker 28 Like, this is not one, not two, but three of the most infamous crimes in South Australia history tied possibly together and potentially committed by the same person who's already like in jail and off the streets.

Speaker 28 Like, it seems like it could be a wonderful success story, like almost too good to be true. And realistically, it might be, especially since in the book Searching for the Beaumont Children, Mr.

Speaker 28 B's credibility as a witness is seriously shaky. And they basically bring that up in court as well.

Speaker 28 Like he admits to participating in one of the rapes, and he only agreed to testify after being granted full immunity.

Speaker 28 And he insists that he deserves the full financial reward for quote-unquote solving the crime, which

Speaker 28 makes no sense to me if you're also participated in raping some of the victims.

Speaker 28 Now, I couldn't find if he actually got the award, but I mean, since none of his testimony about the Beaumonts or Adelaide Oval was ever proven to be remotely true, I would be shocked if he actually got anything.

Speaker 28 Now, the additional murder charges that Bevin went to court for are eventually dropped. And during the trial, he's not convicted, but thankfully, he is still in jail for killing Richard.

Speaker 28 And in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, I don't think he's the one responsible for the Beaumonts. For the family murders, absolutely.

Speaker 28 But the Beaumonts and the Adelaide Oval kidnappings don't match the family pattern to me at all.

Speaker 28 Like four of the five missing children that we're talking about are girls, and the oldest girl that we're talking about is 11.

Speaker 28 Whereas in the family victims, those victims are boys that range from 14 to 25.

Speaker 3 Right. The victim profiles don't match at all.
Yeah.

Speaker 28 And I was doing some reading in the California Department of Justice website, kind of about sexual predators.

Speaker 28 And while some do exhibit more variety in their victims, like different ages or genders, other keep like a specific preference. And that seems to be what Bevin does.

Speaker 28 And since the other killings that he did, the family murders are so consistent, I don't really see him deviating.

Speaker 28 Plus, he would have been in his early 20s at the time that the kids went missing in 66, which is really too young to match the descriptions of the man seen at the beach.

Speaker 28 But again, it's worth mentioning because if you do any research on this case, like his name is going to come up.

Speaker 3 Okay, and if he was responsible, like even the way the boys' bodies were found, but the kids weren't doesn't really add up.

Speaker 28 Exactly. But there's a lot that doesn't add up to me.
And Bevin's never been charged with anything related to the Beaumonts or the Adelaide Oval disappearances.

Speaker 28 So after the trial in 1990, the Beaumont case goes cold yet again.

Speaker 28 And in 1992, the Dandenong letters are proven once and for all to be a fake when fingerprint analysis directs police to a man who had been a teenager back in the late 60s.

Speaker 28 And listen, he's never been named publicly, but according to authorities, he's actually admitted to writing all of the letters as a hoax. Now, time keeps passing.

Speaker 28 And while new theories often connect new suspects to the Beaumont case, like including some other pretty notorious child killers across Australia, none of them are ever proven.

Speaker 28 Like in 1998, eight years after that whole like reservoir dig, there was this 86-year-old man named Arthur who was arrested for the unsolved 1970 rape and murder of a five-year-old and seven-year-old pair of sisters.

Speaker 28 Now, he's charged with the other like whole host of offenses for sexually assaulting a young woman and other girls and in his own family.

Speaker 28 And the reason he even got tied to it initially was that Andrew Ruhl actually reported for Sun Herald in 2001 that a witness saw Arthur on TV after his arrest, and he placed him at Adelaide Oval with the two girls matching Joanne and Kirstie's description.

Speaker 28 And then they're thinking, well, whoever took those girls are thought to have taken the Beaumonts. And that's kind of where that connection is made.

Speaker 28 But eventually, police completely clear him of any suspicion in the Beaumont and the Adelaide Oval cases. And he's like totally ruled out by like 2001.

Speaker 28 Now, five years later in 2007, the Herald Sun reported that convicted child murderer Derek Percy had been questioned by police like back in 2005 in relation to the Beaumonts.

Speaker 28 And although he's thought to be responsible for at least eight other child's deaths, South Australian police told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2014 that he was definitely not a significant person of interest for the Beaumonts.

Speaker 28 Like he was already in prison when Joanne and Kirstie were snatched up. So if the theory of, you know, the two cases being connected was real, like he couldn't have done both.

Speaker 28 And he doesn't really match the description from the beach. Now, despite these possibilities and the case getting renewed over and over,

Speaker 28 No like real credible links ever emerge. And eventually public fascination dims, though it never fully dies.

Speaker 28 And eventually, a book is published a full 40 years after Jane, Arna, and Grant disappeared.

Speaker 28 And this is when writer Alan Whitaker and his research partner Stuart Mullins published the book Searching for the Beaumont Children, which is considered one of the most definitive and comprehensive accounts of this mystery.

Speaker 28 And it's a book that we've referenced a couple of times throughout this episode. I highly recommend it.
But when they published this book, it's 2006 now, mind you.

Speaker 28 And despite the 40-year lapse in time, everyone was about to be shocked to find out that there were still secrets out there waiting to be uncovered.

Speaker 28 And people who held those secrets were finally ready to talk.

Speaker 28 Because that's when Alan and Stewart get a phone call that changes everything that they and the police thought that they knew about this case.

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Speaker 28 The person who called Alan and Stewart is a woman named Angela who believes that her former father-in-law had something to do with the Beaumont children's disappearance.

Speaker 28 She says that her ex-husband, a man named Hayden, confided that he saw his father with the Beaumont on the day that they disappeared. Now, at first, Alan doesn't take Angela too seriously.

Speaker 28 He's gotten calls like this before, and he's had his fair share of run-ins with wannabe sleuths from all walks of life.

Speaker 28 But as the conversation continues, Alan realizes that not only is Angela's story fascinating, it's also really believable.

Speaker 28 So he and Stuart do some investigation basically into Angela and her background. Basically, they're trying to collect references to see, you know, if she can be considered trustworthy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like to make sure that she's legit.

Speaker 28 Yeah. And all of her references come back glowing.
So Stuart reaches out and he arranges a meeting.

Speaker 28 And this one meeting turns into a years-long investigation by authors, experts, private investigators, retired detectives, and others with dozens of interviews all around Australia in their meticulous hunt for the truth.

Speaker 28 And their findings become another book, which they titled The Satin Satin Man, which we've also referenced throughout this episode.

Speaker 28 Yeah, now the title of the book refers to a brand new suspect, The Satin Man. And the Satin Man is Angela's ex-father-in-law.

Speaker 28 Now, the authors in their book use pseudonyms for their subjects, but police and numerous news outlets like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the New Daily, and CNN have all confirmed the satin man's true identity.

Speaker 28 So, who is it? His name name was Harry Phipps and he actually died back in 2004 without ever being on police's radar.

Speaker 28 Now he was never investigated in his lifetime for any connection to the Beaumont children but according to those who knew him best, The Harry seen in private was a far different man from the one presented to the public.

Speaker 28 The first and best known sign of Harry's, we'll call it a double life is right there in the book's title, his obsession with satin.

Speaker 28 Harry was infamous within his family and their inner circle for having a satin fetish.

Speaker 28 Like not a healthy fetish or interest, but one that was so consuming that literally no one was allowed to even wear satin near him because just the sight and sound of the fabric caused an instant, uncontrollable arousal.

Speaker 28 And according to the book, Harry made his own satin pajamas and dresses for sexual gratification, and he kept them in a private room in the house that the rest of the family was forbidden from entering.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, wait.

Speaker 28 What? Satin, man.

Speaker 3 We have heard some dark stories about people who have dark, twisted fantasies and turn-ons,

Speaker 3 but honestly, I did not see this one coming.

Speaker 28 It's weird, right? What?

Speaker 3 Satin? Satin. And like he can't see it.

Speaker 28 He can't hear it rustle. He can't be around it.

Speaker 3 He can't go to weddings, obviously. Like, I'm so floored by this entire thing.

Speaker 3 But as weird as it is, because

Speaker 3 it is. Totally.
It doesn't make you a child abductor.

Speaker 28 Well, no, that's true. Like, the obsession with satin doesn't.
Except, according to Harry's son, Hayden, there's more, like, a lot more. Harry was a violent alcoholic who loved firearms.

Speaker 28 And his son says that he kept guns all over the house. And he also said that he had frequent outbursts against his immediate family and threatened them many times with his weapons.

Speaker 28 But it gets even worse beyond that. Hayden confided in Angela that he had been violently raped by his father multiple times a week for many years growing up.

Speaker 28 And the abuse only stopped when he got big enough to defend himself.

Speaker 28 And basically his dad's fetish of satin kind of ended up haunting him because he said he was haunted by the swish of the satin fabric coming down the hallway.

Speaker 28 So he, where his dad like couldn't be around it because it was, it was too much and he was too aroused.

Speaker 28 Like, I don't even think he could be around it later because it brought back so many awful, traumatic memories.

Speaker 3 Right. It was too traumatic and triggering for him.

Speaker 28 Now, obviously, because Harry was never on anyone's radar, none of this was reported to the South Australian police at the time, and Harry was never charged with a crime.

Speaker 28 But by the time Harry comes into law enforcement's attention through Alan and Stewart, they've collected a whole laundry list of circumstantial evidence that casts a ton of suspicion on him.

Speaker 28 Now, first, there's his status and his wealth. Harry was a very successful businessman and he owned the Castaway factory in Plimpton, which is like a suburb of the area.

Speaker 28 Now, being rich and well-connected and prominent in Adelaide's social circles was a great cover in the 1960s. Like Harry didn't fit anyone's idea of what they thought a pedophile was.

Speaker 28 And so police never even looked in his direction. Plus, remember how the Beaumont kids bought their lunch at that bakery with that one-pound note? Yeah.

Speaker 28 So apparently Harry was big on flaunting his wealth by handing out one pound notes to Hayden and his friends to like get them out of the house on Saturday so he could be alone with his satin.

Speaker 3 It would be like our $10 bill from our parents.

Speaker 28 Yeah. So it's like, here, here's some money.
Now go away.

Speaker 28 And it's a habit that kind of continued continued into the next generation when Hayden's son Nick, who apparently like lived with Harry for a time after his parents' divorce, like he would give him money as well.

Speaker 28 So although he's never publicly said that his grandfather did anything to him, Nick also alleges that sexually inappropriate experiences like occurred with Harry as a child, though we don't know what that is explicitly.

Speaker 28 Now, in the book, Nick tells Stuart about how Harry would rub up against him when they went swimming together. And that's kind of like the most that we got.

Speaker 3 Okay, but didn't Hayden say that he saw the Beaumont kids with Harry?

Speaker 28 Yes. So this is like our biggest piece of circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 28 Australia Seven News did a documentary about Harry in 2018, and they have audio of an interview that Hayden did with one of the Satin Man's investigators, where he recalls seeing the Beaumont children on the day that they disappeared at his family house on Australia Day, 1966.

Speaker 28 Here, I'll play it for you.

Speaker 29 No, it was too far away. How long had you seen them for? How long were you standing talking to Harry?

Speaker 29 Only long enough until he took him inside, took them inside

Speaker 29 and then after that I came out of the cabby house and went inside to see what was

Speaker 29 going on

Speaker 29 and the front door was open

Speaker 29 so I just assumed they left out the front door. Did you hear any noises or any screaming or any shouting or nothing?

Speaker 29 Any gunshots?

Speaker 29 Yeah,

Speaker 29 we had some gunshots go off but Harry's always letting off gunshots. That means nothing.
What do you think there's all with the kids in the house?

Speaker 29 No, not in that plus.

Speaker 29 How many shots did you fall?

Speaker 28 Now, I know that audio is a little rough to hear, so just to summarize, Hayden said that basically he saw three kids at his family's house on the day that the Beaumont kids disappear.

Speaker 28 And one was drastically shorter than the other two. And that would match because Jane and Arna were kind of close in height ish and Grant was much shorter being the youngest.

Speaker 28 Then he says they were gone, the front door is wide open and he hears later that day or at some point that day four gunshots.

Speaker 3 Okay, but that doesn't mean anything because he said he heard gunshots all the time, right?

Speaker 28 Right. No, that's that's totally accurate.

Speaker 28 But later in that same interview, Hayden says that he saw Harry putting some big like PVC bags in the trunk of his car, which again, at the time didn't seem weird to him because it's how Harry would transport his satin dresses to other properties he owned.

Speaker 28 And he said, you know, to be very clear, like I never saw the children leave the house, which by the way, I haven't mentioned this yet.

Speaker 28 His house just happens to be within a very easy walking distance of Collie Reserve and Lenell Beach. Now, Hayden believes that the kids were buried at Harry's factory in what he calls a sandpit.

Speaker 28 Now, Harry's factory, again, very close to everything we're talking about. It was just a short drive from the beach.

Speaker 3 Does Harry have any resemblance to the sketch?

Speaker 28 Britt.

Speaker 28 The resemblance is uncanny. I want to send you this GIF.
So we took a video that Australia Seven News made and we made it into a GIF.

Speaker 28 And it is the sketch image, and then it kind of morphs into Harry's picture. Hang on, hang on just a second.
You're gonna, you're gonna flip.

Speaker 28 Oh

Speaker 3 my

Speaker 3 God, that is right eerie. Like, obviously, he's older than the sketch, but he would be.

Speaker 28 Well, so here's the thing. So, Harry was 48 in 1966, so it's a little bit older, but he kept himself in really good shape.
And so, he actually always looked much younger than he was.

Speaker 3 Honestly, the eeriest thing for me is the hairline is.

Speaker 28 Yeah, he's got that like identical high forehead. The hairline's spot on.
He does have kind of a long face.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and like the ear shapes the nose shape

Speaker 3 this is creepy we've talked about it a lot where sketches look really really really similar to suspects but honestly i think this is the most

Speaker 28 like accurate one I've ever seen especially for to me you know the sketch has like some prominent features like that forehead and the long face but it also it can be kind of vague but my goodness is it close so we're gonna I'll put this um gif on our Instagram.

Speaker 28 If you guys need to see it, you need to see it. A Crime Junkie podcast on Instagram.

Speaker 28 But despite all of the coincidences so far, the South Australia police declined to get too involved when Alan and Stewart first get in touch. And this is back in like 2007.

Speaker 28 I mean, Harry's been dead for years at this point. So it's not like they can really arrest him.
And they kind of are like, you know, we've got a ton of active cases to work on.

Speaker 28 So according to the Satin Man book, police say that they've already reviewed their evidence and talked to Harry's widow, which was his second wife, and found that she's a dead end.

Speaker 28 But Alan and Stewart decide to talk to her anyways. Now, she was Harry's housekeeper before they got married and also took care of him after his health started to really decline.

Speaker 28 So she had a front row seat into his weird fetishes. Now, I wasn't able to verify her real name like I could with the other people.
So I'll just call her Norma like they do in the book.

Speaker 28 So Stuart arranges a meeting with Norma, who still lives at the same house in Glenelg, and he goes to talk to her. Now, right away, Norma does two things that he finds odd.

Speaker 28 First, she denies ever talking to the South Australia police, and she brings up the Adelaide Oval disappearances completely unprovoked in relation to the Beaumonts.

Speaker 28 Now, she's really friendly and welcoming, though, like happy to talk about Harry, happy to show Stuart all over the house. And she takes him in the basement as part of like their tour.

Speaker 28 And he catches sight of something really strange down there. A little white children's purse.
A purse very much like the one Jane Beaumont had the day that she vanished.

Speaker 28 So Stuart asks her about the purse without necessarily like mentioning why he's interested or that it's connected to Jane.

Speaker 28 And Norma gets like kind of upset and says that, oh, you know, I I just bought it at a thrift store, which is kind of weird for a woman her age.

Speaker 28 Like they kind of point out that she's got like a lot of means, she's pretty wealthy. Like, why is she buying a child's purse at a thrift store?

Speaker 28 So they tell police about this, but by the time police are alerted and they get to the house, it's not there. Exactly.
Norma claims to have thrown the purse away and it is never seen again.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's so shady though. Like if you just bought it or bought it in general and it was just hanging out at your house, like why all of a sudden would you just pitch it?

Speaker 28 I mean, that's exactly what I thought too. But without the purse though, police are forced to return to seeing Norma as a dead end.

Speaker 28 Yet again, years

Speaker 28 pass. Alan and Stewart continue their research.
And once the Satin Man is published in 2013, even more people come forward. And once again, this kind of stirs like all of the public interest.

Speaker 28 It's completely renewed. And this time, all the renewed interest, like they actually have a person of interest in their sites, and they can maybe now use new technology to try and locate the children.

Speaker 28 And this new technology reveals something that may finally thaw this cold case.

Speaker 28 The South Australian police use ground-penetrating radar technology to search around Harry's old factory in Adelaide, the one that Hayden thought that he had buried the kids at.

Speaker 28 The search, according to Nigel Hunt for the advertiser newspaper, turns up an anomaly in the soil, which can indicate that it's moved or that something or someone is buried there.

Speaker 28 So, armed with that precise location, police now get involved and they excavate a one-square meter space in search of anything to definitively tie Harry to the Beaumont children.

Speaker 28 But, like so many times before, this dig turns up nothing.

Speaker 3 I feel like the families of these kids have just seen so much like hope that's dashed and then hope that's dashed. Like,

Speaker 3 do they have any family members that are still around? Like their parents? Like, this is 50 years out.

Speaker 28 Oh, yeah. So they're actually at the time that this happened, they're still alive and still in Adelaide.

Speaker 28 And in fact, that's actually one of the reasons that police really start looking into Harry as a suspect because they want to give Jim and Nancy some closure after all of these years of waiting for the truth.

Speaker 28 And truth is kind of an odd thing, though, because even when it's hidden in the darkest family secrets, like those of a man like Harry, it begins to come out eventually.

Speaker 28 So the allegations of his horrific sexual deviancy take on a new life in January 2018 when Australian TV premieres a new feature called Seven News Investigates: the Beaumont Children, What Really Happened?

Speaker 28 And a woman who chooses to remain anonymous identifies Harry as the man who brutally raped her in 1979 when she was just 14 years old.

Speaker 28 At the time, she was living with her family right near Harry's factory and she kept quiet for the same reason as Hayden and so many other sexual assault victims. She was shameful about what happened.

Speaker 28 She had a fear of him, maybe a fear that no one would believe her.

Speaker 28 But again, since Harry's dead and all of the physical evidence of sexual assault is long gone, There's nothing for police to investigate.

Speaker 28 Really, her story just kind of corroborates that he wasn't a good guy.

Speaker 28 But this same Seven News documentary does bring forward something that they can look into because a man named David, who was a teenager back in 66 when the Beaumonts disappeared, comes forward and tells the investigators or producers of this show that once he did a unique job for Harry.

Speaker 28 David says Harry hired him and his older brother Robin to dig a hole at the Castaway grounds behind the factory during that long Australia Day weekend, just days after Jane, Arna, and Grant Beaumont had vanished.

Speaker 28 Now, according to David, the hole was about seven yards long, about one yard wide, and about as deep as a young boy is tall.

Speaker 28 And he said it was located away from where where that 2013 dig had taken place.

Speaker 28 Now, they didn't think anything weird of this job at the time because they had no reason to doubt Harry's, like, you know, again, he's this nice, upstanding citizen.

Speaker 28 He was paying them good money for their labor. Right.
But David said it wasn't until decades later when he saw that Harry was on the news that he finally made the connection to the Beaumont children.

Speaker 28 So armed with this fresh information, as well as a fresh location to search, police, archaeologists, and forensic experts returned to the old Castleway factory.

Speaker 28 Melinda McMillan wrote for Newcastle Star in 2018 about the search team who had basically what they found was more soil anomalies right near where David said he and Robin had dug back in 66, which makes sense because, you know, anomalies can show anything, even digging, and we know they dug there.

Speaker 28 And so it's not a lot up front, but it's at least enough to spark yet another excavation. And before the dig, police officially name Harry as a suspect in the disappearance of the Beaumont children.

Speaker 28 So on February 2nd, 2018, the second dig at Castelloy begins, but it's called off after less than 12 hours when investigators turn up nothing but some old animal bones. Okay,

Speaker 3 but that doesn't clear Harry. Like they've only dug a couple of places on his property.

Speaker 28 Yeah, exactly. And especially with this like mountain or at least a hill of circumstantial evidence, I think Harry is still a fantastic suspect.

Speaker 28 And I don't think that they've removed him from their suspect list. I have no doubt that he absolutely was a sadistic pedophile during his lifetime.

Speaker 28 And the scars that he left on his victims are clear. But who knows if we'll ever get a 100% clear answer about his possible involvement with the Beaumonts?

Speaker 28 Like, police still believe that the Adelaide Oval disappearances are connected to the Beaumont kids. So if Harry's responsible for one, it's totally possible that he's connected to the other.

Speaker 28 But so much time has passed, memories fade, and many of the people who encountered him, including Hayden and Angela, are now deceased.

Speaker 28 Nancy Beaumont herself passed away just a little bit ago on September 16th of 2019 in Adelaide at age 92.

Speaker 28 And her husband, the Beaumont's father, Jim, he's actually still alive, presumably still carrying the hope that however unlikely it might be after all this time, he might still learn the truth about what really happened to Jane, Arna, and Grant on that fateful day.

Speaker 1 Okay, so since the release of that episode in January of 2020, Jim Beaumont has passed away. He died in April of 2023 at the age of 97, never knowing what happened to his three kids.

Speaker 1 But just because he's gone doesn't mean that Jane, Arna, or Grant don't have advocates.

Speaker 1 And when those advocates recently heard that the property where the person of interest, Harry Phipps factory used to be, was going to get developed, they were quick to jump on this and tell the government, like, Now is the time to do a renewed search of this area.

Speaker 3 Not only the best time, but possibly the last time they even can.

Speaker 1 Truly, like whatever is going to go in there will probably make it hard, if not impossible, to ever search this area again. But it is a good news, bad news situation.
Like, so bad news, never again.

Speaker 1 Good news is that the demolition they're having to do to prepare to put this land up for sale also makes this like the best chance that they've ever gotten to search this place really thoroughly.

Speaker 1 So this is all happening quick. Like this search was just announced at the top of February 2025, and it is going to be happening February 22nd.

Speaker 1 And the dig is focused on three areas, two of which were the subjects of the previous searches back in 2013 and then again in 2018.

Speaker 1 And the location of the third area isn't exactly clear at this point, but it's stemming from an investigation by this TV show called The Hunters that documents high-profile Australian crimes.

Speaker 1 I guess they have a docuseries about the Beaumonts coming out actually just the day after the dig on February 23rd. So keep an eye out for that.

Speaker 1 And I guess this third dig location is coming out of the investigation that they did. So it sounds like maybe they're unearthing something new.

Speaker 1 Now, this dig, importantly, is also going to go deeper and wider than the previous digs have.

Speaker 1 According to an article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a member of parliament named Frank Pangello is organizing the search.

Speaker 1 And he says that the ground is like one to two meters or like three to six and a half feet higher than it was back in 1966, just to like the amount of fill that's been added over the years.

Speaker 3 So wait, are the police involved involved in this or is this being run through like another government agency? Like you said, he was from parliament.

Speaker 1 Neither. So it's being done by a private firm with a couple of forensic archaeologists and some university students.

Speaker 28 But I will say the police are aware of the search.

Speaker 1 They're going to be supervising it just in case they do find anything. We don't like lose chain of custody.

Speaker 1 And in the event that they find something, the search will then stop and then like the official investigators will pick it up.

Speaker 3 It'll be transferred over to the police. Right.

Speaker 1 Now, it's worth noting that the police don't think that this area that they're digging is supported by the evidence that they have.

Speaker 1 So, I don't know what that means. I don't know what it is they have that they're saying.
Like, no, definitely not.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be really curious to watch this new docuseries, figure out what has made them so confident in this area again, but particularly in this like new place there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, especially since, again, like, this really is like the last opportunity for

Speaker 3 a search, especially of this size, like three different places. That's like an extensive search.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to be all over the news outlets over the next few days, seeing if anything turns up. Now, you guys is the time to like set your Google alerts.
Like I know Brett does.

Speaker 28 So that's the fast and dirty, you guys.

Speaker 1 I hope you enjoyed this update. Please make sure to reach out to us on social to tell us if you want more like this.
And we'll be back Monday with your regularly scheduled programming.

Speaker 1 You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.

Speaker 3 You can also follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 1 Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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