Dorothy Jane Scott was a 23-year-old, single parent to a 4-year-old boy named Shawn. She was described by everyone as a caring mother and friend, a reliable and organised worker and a deeply faithful Christian. Dorothy and her son lived with Dorothy’s aunt in Stanton, CA. She worked as a back room secretary in two jointly owned stores in Anaheim, Swinger’s Psych Shop and Custom John’s Head Shop. Dorothy’s father, Jacob, was a co-owner of Swingers.

Months before her murder, Dorothy was receiving strange phone calls at work from a man claiming to be in love with her one day and how he wanted to kill her and “chop her up into bits so no-one would find her” the next. He also recited details of Dorothy’s life that he would only know if he was following her, like her daily routine or what she was wearing. Dorothy recognised the voice but couldn’t place it. Dorothy started to take karate lessons and considered buying a gun because of these phone calls.

On May 28th 1980, Dorothy dropped Shawn off at her parents and went to work as usual. She had told her parents that she would be late to pick Shawn up that evening as there was a staff meeting at 9pm. During this meeting, Dorothy noticed her co-worker, Conrad Bostron, was looking unwell and had a red swelling on his arm. Dorothy and Pam Head, another Swingers co-worker, decided to leave the meeting early to take Conrad to the hospital. Dorothy stopped off at her parent’s house to let them know that she was taking Conrad to the hospital and didn’t know when she would be back. When Dorothy came out of her parent’s house, she had changed her scarf from a black one to a red one. The three drove to UC Irvine Medical Center where the two women sat in the waiting room while Conrad was treated for his spider bite. Conrad went with Pam to get his prescription filled whilst Dorothy went to the bathroom and said after she would pull the car round to the front of the hospital to meet them. This was around 11pm.

Conrad and Pam were waiting for around 20 minutes until they saw Dorothy’s car come towards them but instead of slowing down, the car sped up past them. Neither of Dorothy’s co-workers could see who was driving the car. The two waited several hours at the hospital to see if Dorothy would return for them but when she didn’t, they used a hospital phone to call Dorothy’s parent’s house to ask if she’d been to pick up Shawn. She hadn’t. They called the police and reported their co-worker missing. However, as she was an adult, the police didn’t seem concerned – until Dorothy’s car was discovered at 4:30am on May 29th in Santa Ana, around 10 miles for the hospital. Her car was parked in an alleyway and had been set on fire.

Dorothy’s parents, Jacob and Vera, started receiving phone calls from the man about a week after the disappearance. Vera answered the phone and the man asked if she was related to Dorothy and that he had her. This was the first clue the police had but still the search was fruitless. No press had been contacted as it could have a negative impact on the investigation. Jacob was giving up on the police and called a paper, who ran a story about Dorothy. The editor, Pat Riley, received a phone call after the story ran, the man said, “I killed her. I killed Dorothy Scott. She was my love. I caught her cheating with another man. She denied having someone else. I killed her.” He included details about the night of her disappearance, for example that she was wearing a red scarf and that Conrad was being treated for a spider bite. The police believe that only someone involved in Dorothy’s disappearance could know these things.

The call to the paper’s editor confused friends and family of Dorothy as they didn’t know of a possible boyfriend in Dorothy’s life as she was so busy with two jobs and a child to look after.

The phone calls to Vera continued almost every Wednesday afternoon for 4 years and the man would only call when Vera was home alone, suggesting he knew the Scott’s routine. However, once, the unknown caller made a mistake and called in the evening when Jacob was home. Jacob answered and the calls stopped after this. Police had tried to trace this calls but the man didn’t stay on the phone long enough.

Dennis Terry, the father of Shawn, was looked into and ruled out as a suspect in Dorothy’s disappearance. Internet sleuths have highlighted a man that worked as a mechanic next door to Swingers as a suspect. His sister worked with Dorothy and he was considered a little strange and possible involved in the occult. He has never officially been named as a suspect and there is no evidence against him.

Human bones, along with dog bones, were found on August 6th 1984 in a remote construction site around 10 meters from Santa Ana Canyon Road. Just over a week later, dental records confirmed that these were the remains of Dorothy Scott. Along with the remains, police found a turquoise ring and watch that Vera confirmed belonged to Dorothy.

After this, the Scott’s continued to receive phone calls from the unknown man.

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.