DEADGIRLWALKING

On 26th January 1966, Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont took a 5-minute bus journey from their home in Adelaide, South Australia to Glenelg beach. Jane was 9-years-old and was trusted to look after her younger sister (7-years-old) and brother (4-years-old), especially since this was a trip they took often. The children took the 8:45am bus to the beach and were expected to catch the 12pm bus home. Nancy Beaumont, the children’s mother, started to get worried when the children didn’t turn up. Their father Grant ‘Jim’ Beaumont, was on a 3 day sales trip but returned early and immediately drove to the busy Glenelg beach and searched for his children. When the search came up empty he returned home and searched the streets and friend’s houses, hoping that the the children had gone to a friend’s home. At around 5:30pm, the Mr and Mrs Beaumont went to the Glenelg Police Station to report the three children missing.

In hopes that the children were still nearby the beach and had merely lost track of time, the police organised a search of the beach and adjacent areas. When this search didn’t turn anything up, the police expanded the search to the sandhills, ocean and nearby buildings. They also monitored the airport, rail lines and interstates in case the children had been in an accident or kidnapped. Within 24 hours of their disappearance, the whole nation knew of the case and within 3 days, fear of the children having been kidnapped and murdered by a sex-offender was rising. The initial reward for information that would led to the children’s safe return was £250 (Australian pounds). The police established that between the three children, they were carrying 17 items and none of these were ever found.

On 29th January, the Patawalonga Boat Haven was drained after a woman informed police that she had spoken with three children near the Patawalonga Boat Haven, matching the description of the Beaumont children, at 7pm on the 26th January.

Several witnesses described the children playing in the company of a tall, blond, thin-faced man in his mid-30s with a sun-tanned complexion and a thin to athletic building, wearing swimming trunks. They told police that the children seemed relaxed and to be enjoying themselves. The man approached one of the witnesses to ask if anyone had seen their belongings as their money was “missing”. The man went to change and the children waited for him then they were seen walking away from the beach at around 12:15pm.

Jim and Nancy Beaumont described their children as shy and that it seemed completely out of character for the children to be playing so confidently with a stranger. Nancy also noted a passing remark from Arnna that Jane had gotten a boyfriend down at the beach. Nancy had brushed this off, assuming Arnna just meant that Jane had a new playmate.

Jane reportedly bought pasties and a meat pie from Wenzel’s Bakery with a £1 note. The shopkeeper told police that they knew the children well and they had never bought a meat pie before. Nancy also said that she only ever gave them 6 pounds and 6 shillings which was just enough for their bus fare and lunch. The police believed this to be evidence that the children were with another person.

Several months later, a woman reported that she saw a man with two young girls and a boy enter a neighbouring home that she thought was empty. Later that night, she saw the boy walking alone along a lane and was pursued and caught by the man. The next morning the house looked empty again. It isn’t clear why the woman waited so long to inform the police of this.

On November 8th 1966, Gerard Croiset (Parapsychologist & Psychic), was brought from the Netherlands to Australia to try and help with the case. His story changed almost every day and yielded no real clues. He identified a warehouse near the Beaumont home and said he believed the children were buried underneath the concrete of this building in an old brick kiln. At the time of the children’s disappearance, the warehouse was an active building site. The owner’s eventually bowed to public pressure and allowed excavation to look for the children after $40,000 was raised to have the building demolished in search of the children. Nothing was found. In 1996, the building was undergoing a partial demolition and the owners allowed a full search of the site. Again, nothing was found.

Two years after the children disappeared, the Beaumont’s received three letters, two supposedly from Jane and one from “the man”. The letters describe a pleasant existence and refer to the man keeping them. Police believed it was possible the letters were from Jane when they compared them to others Jane had written. The letter from the man said he was willing to hand the children back and appointed a meeting place. Mr and Mrs Beaumont travelled to the meeting place followed by a detective but nobody appeared. They received another letter purportedly from Jane, stating that the man came but realised there was a detective there and he decided the Beaumonts had betrayed his trust so he would keep the children. No further letters were received. The letters were proven to be a hoax in 1992 when fingerprint technology identified the author as a 41-year-old man who was a teenager at the time. He wrote the letters as a joke but due to the amount of time passed since, he was not charged with an offence.

In November 2013, excavation was started on a factory in North Plympton as two men reported that when they were boys, they were paid to dig a hole in that area around the time and the factory was owned by a suspect. In 2018, further excavation of a nearby area was started. Animal bones were found but nothing relating to the children was found.