The Beaumont Children

its been 43 years since those children WERE abducted i have the book about them it happened what my mum was about 10 but she still remmebers the intense media coverage those children have never been found but a few years ago a women claimed she was one of the the girls its one of australias biggest mysterys to this day

http://www.beaumontchildren.com/

Thankyou for posting this, Carly I've never heard of this case before, going to have a read now

lincs wrote:It was on crime scene Australia on sky some months back. 43 years and not found what that poor mother must of gone through. Is the mother still living?

yes i think so she would be in her 80s now i think

http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontTheOvalAbduction.html

this is also the story of a 4 year old abducted in the 1970s

I read about the Beaumont children a year ago when an Australian friend on another forum mentioned them. While I agree it looks like they were abducted by the man seen with them by various people, I think there was some talk at the time that they might have drowned. Was this a possibility? I must read the facts of the case again; it was certainly an enormous tragedy, whatever happened to them. The suffering of the parents doesn't bear thinking about - to lose all 3 children must have been devastating.

lincs wrote:

Allison wrote:

carlymichelle wrote:

lincs wrote:It was on crime scene Australia on sky some months back. 43 years and not found what that poor mother must of gone through. Is the mother still living?

yes i think so she would be in her 80s now i think

The parents divorced, it's all very sad. Their whole family all of their hopes and dreams gone in the blink of an eye.

Thanks carly you mentioned a woman came forward and clained to be one of the children did anything come of it?

no it turned out she was a fake she claimed she saw the children in her dads truck at the time or something like that i think the police looke dinto it and saw she was a nutter someone else said the children were buried in melbourne

Dimsie wrote:I read about the Beaumont children a year ago when an Australian friend on another forum mentioned them. While I agree it looks like they were abducted by the man seen with them by various people, I think there was some talk at the time that they might have drowned. Was this a possibility? I must read the facts of the case again; it was certainly an enormous tragedy, whatever happened to them. The suffering of the parents doesn't bear thinking about - to lose all 3 children must have been devastating.

dimise what was odd about this case was the mum let a 4 year old 8 year old and 9 year old catch a bus and go to the beach by themselves not that i blame her the 1960s were diffrent to now i would assume but they also used to leave the 9 year old jane to babysit the other children too... of a night when the parents went out and yes people will ask why i dont blame their mum and why i blame the mcanns for one the Beaumonts leave their children crying ina hotel room she let them go that morning for them to be kids and as i said im sure she wasnt aware that there was a known abductor on the beach and jane was 9 and while that is young theres a big diffrence between leaving a 3 year old or a 9 year old in charge

The children were never found.


In the same area where they went missing MORE children went missing too and the australian authoraties have an idea that the SAME person abducted and murdered ALL these children.

The arrested someone who was a known paedophile and vacated that area and they have an idea he was the person who abducted the beaumont children but their is no evidence to prove it.


The children are thought to be buried in a viaduct but they could off been washed out to sea.


ONE CHILD IS BAD ENOUGH BUT THREE....

I watched a programme about them a while back.....

There's a book about them:

Review of Searching for the Beaumont children

The following is review is by the author of this site. The opinions given here are my own and have not been made in exchange for payment of any kind. I have never received any income from this website or any related activities.
What the blurb says:

"On Australia Day 1966, the three Beaumont children left their home in the Adelaide suburb of Somerton Park for a morning at Glenelg beach. By the end of the day, the worst fears of every Australian parent were realised when Jane, aged nine, Arnna, seven, and four-year-old Grant did not return home.

"Over four decades later, many questions remain: What really happened at Glenelg on the day Jane, Arnna and Grant disappeared? Who was the man last seen with the children that day? What links are there to the abduction of two young girls from Adelaide Oval in 1973 and the infamous Family Murders in the early 1980s?

"Searching for the Beaumont Children paints a picture of a sunny city and a carefree era in which children explored the suburbs and went to the beach alone -- a seemingly innocent world with a dark underbelly. This moving story destroys the urbans myths, explores the more likely scenarios investigated by police, and compassionately recounts the heartache of those who suffered most: the Beaumont parents.

"Accomplished writer Alan J. Whiticker carefully details the events leading up to the Beaumont children's disappearance and their movements on that fateful day. He describes how, in the days and years that followed, clairvoyants captured headlines, wild theories were promoted by the media and ordinary lives were changed forever. After forty years, the unsolved mystery remains one of the defining events in our history."
What I say:

If you really want the best-detailed, most comprehensively researched, publicly available account of the disappearance of the Beaumont children, complete with commentary on the effect that the disappearance had on both Australian society and culture, then buy this book.

If you can't afford to buy the book, borrow it from a library. Most public libraries in Australia should soon have a copy.

If you don't want to buy the book and don't want to borrow it, in fact if you don't want to pick up a book at all, then keep looking at this website. Before the book was published, this website was the best-detailed, most comprehensively researched, publicly available account of the disappearance.

Before I go any further, I must declare three possible sources of bias:

1. The brief account of the Beaumont children's disappearance in Alan Whiticker's previous book, Wanda: The Untold Story of the Wanda Beach Murders, was clearly based on the information on this website, and both the site and my name were mentioned in the endnotes at the back.
2. I have read and thought highly of Alan Whiticker's book about the Wanda Beach murders, and also his work Twelve Crimes That Shocked the Nation. The latter, while not as good for anyone interested in the history of infamous crimes in Australia as Alan Sharpe's classic Crimes That Shocked Australia 61, is certainly much better than John Pinkney's Great Australian Mysteries 62, published two years before.
3. The picture of Alan Whiticker on this page was provided by Mr Whiticker himself, who has also been kind enough to provide some other pictures for use on this website.

Possible bias aside, this really is a very thoroughly researched account of the Beaumont children disappearance. Whiticker has covered all of the obvious angles as well as a few of the non-obvious ones. Moreover, he examines in some detail the context of the disappearance - the social attitudes that permitted the Beaumont children to visit the beach unaccompanied, and the consequent change in parenting habits in Adelaide and Australia following the disappearance.

He also provides a more general analysis of the culture and society in Australia and Adelaide before, during, and after the disappearance. While this analysis is partly driven by necessity – there isn’t enough information on the disappearance itself to fill a book – the wider ramifications of the disappearance arguably had an impact on more lives than the disappearance itself did.

There are obvious flaws in the book. The first chapter or so are almost superfluous, explaining the history of the geography of Adelaide, why Adelaide is known as the city of churches, and what sort of city Adelaide was in the 1960s. Whiticker rather overdoes this and shows hints of parochialism.

The book starts to work just before chapter 3, "The Disappearance". The basic facts of the disappearance are well known, but Whiticker explains them well and with as much detail as anybody else has managed to do. Anybody looking for an account of the case need go no further.

It is in dealing with the aftermath of the disappearance, however, that the book really proves its worth. As has been pointed out before, the disappearance of the Beaumont children was a significant event, not simply for the horrific nature of the disappearance but also for the way in which it had a very real effect on people's lives. Surprisingly, Whiticker doesn’t analyse this as much as might be expected. He hardly covers the effect that the disappearance had on the wider community, and certainly not in comparison with the over-explained early chapters of the book. However, he superbly shows how the disappearance affected the people most intimately involved - the Beaumonts, and the people who came to know them personally.

Several of the later chapters of the book deal with the more famous theories and personalities associated with the case. Having researched it myself, I can confirm that Whiticker's account of the "Family murders" is a clear and well written as any. He rightly denounces Gerard Croiset. Another chapter is devoted to the activities of the late Stan Swaine, the detective who famously became obsessed by the case. Swain's obsession was clear to anybody who spoke to him in his last years, but he attracted more attention than his theories deserved. Whiticker gets it right.

As indeed he does with his description of the Beaumonts. Everybody who ever encountered Mr and Mrs Beaumont in a professional capacity after their children disappeared, agrees that they are utterly decent people. Despite this, nasty things were said at the time and I can confirm that ugly rumours continue to circulate 40 years on 63. Whiticker denounces these flatly: "It needs to be clearly stated for all time," he says on page 220, "the South Australia Police cleared Jim and Nancy Beaumont of having any part in the disappearance of their children. Nothing in their behaviour, or in any information supplied by the public, has changed that stance in the ensuing forty years."

The book is not all good though, and if I have any main grumble, it's about the structure. I’ve already pointed out how the opening chapters are superfluous. The structural problems continue. The introduction to the chapter "The Media" begins by hinting that the chapter will detail the media reaction to the case and the effect that it had on the journalists involved. In fact the chapter barely does any such thing and leaves this angle to the later chapter "The Legacy". I can’t help but think that the reader would be better served by having several of the chapters combined together.

This structural irregularity occurs in other ways, too. Whiticker’s research has uncovered some information that was certainly unknown to the author of this website – that the South Australia Police have concluded that the postman Tom Patterson's sighting of the Beaumont children occurred at 10:15 and not the early afternoon, and that the unidentified suspect’s blue swimming trunks had a white stripe down the outside of each leg (which were apparently the colours of the Henley Beach Surf Lifesaving Club). Why then is this information tucked away in the chapter 11, "The Case Today", rather than chapter 3, "The Disappearance"? It doesn’t seem right.

I have some other small grumbles. While the book has extensive footnotes, it doesn't have a proper bibliography, which anybody doing true-crime research knows can be half the value of a book 64. Distances and measurements are given in imperial measurements, which seem off even given the historical context (and despite what it says on page 53, six foot one does not convert to 180cm. It is closer to 185cm). But perhaps I'm simply envious of Alan Whiticker for having been able to write such a book.

For, despite this not being the perfect book about the case, it is nevertheless an excellent book that I highly recommend. I know more about the case than most people and Whiticker has managed to unearth enough information to make his book interesting and informative even for me. Other critics may comment, as was said of his book about the Wanda Beach Murders 65, that this book hasn’t really added anything to the case. That is true, but neither has anybody else and it doesn’t stop this book from being the best account yet published. For anybody who doesn't know much about the case but is curious, this book is where you should start reading.

Searching for the Beaumont children by Alan J. Whiticker was published by John Wiley & Sons on 1 February 2006.

ISBN: 174031106X

RRP: $29.95

http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontBookReview.html

I feel so sad about this case, three beautiful children murdered


The torment the parents are still going through.


Poor little babies.

In Brief


Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont left their home at 10am on 26 January 1966, to go to a beach. From their home in the Adelaide suburb of Somerton Park they caught a bus to nearby Glenelg beach. They were expected to return home on the noon bus, but didn't.

Between the time the children left home and the time that they should have left the beach to return, they were seen by at least seven people. Five of these people saw the children with a man, but the last, a postman, saw nobody with them.

Neither the children nor the man were seen again. In the following days and weeks a massive search was mounted for the children. Nothing was found.

A psychic named Gerard Croiset became involved, but despite massive publicity he failed to locate the children. He declared that their bodies were under the concreted floor of a warehouse. They weren't.

Two years after the disappearance of their children, the Beaumonts received a letter written in a hand similar to that of Jane, their elder daughter. Mr Beaumont was supposed to meet "The Man" for the return of his children, but "The Man" never appeared and nor did the children. Other leads have also proven false.

On Saturday, 25 August 1973, Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon were abducted from Adelaide Oval in Adelaide and disappeared without trace. The description of their abductor closely matches that of the suspect in the Beaumont children disappearance.

False Leads
Detailed here are some of the more prominent developments that have made news since the Beaumont children disappeared. None of them has produced a result. South Australia Police still receive leads on a weekly basis and still have an officer assigned to the case.

At the Beach
At 10:10am on 26 January 1966, the Beaumont children caught a bus to go to the beach. The bus stop was on the corner of Diagonal Road and Harding Street, less than 100 metres from their home. The bus driver, Mr I. D. Monroe, later confirmed carrying the children on his bus. A woman passenger also noticed them, being able to recall later the colours of the clothes the children were wearing, and that Jane carried a copy of the book Little Women. The bus continued north-west along Diagonal Road, then north along Brighton Road before turning left to travel west along Jetty Road. From Jetty Road the bus turned left and halted at a stop in Moseley Street, only a short stroll from the beach. It was at this point that the children left the bus, at 10:15am.

The movements of the children for the next 45 minutes are not precisely known. Police believe that the local postman, Tom Patterson, saw the children walking along Jetty Road towards the beach at this time. Mr Patterson knew the children and they said "It's the postie!" 79 However Mr Patterson, trying to recall later, believed that this encounter happened in the afternoon, not the morning.

At about 11am, a 74 year old woman (Woman 1) was sitting in front of the Holdfast Sailing Club building on a bench under some trees. Woman 1 saw the three Beaumont children playing under a sprinkler on the lawn of the Colley Reserve. A man wearing blue swimming trunks was lying face down on the grass. He seemed to be watching the children. About 15 minutes later she saw the man frolicking with the children, who were flicking him with their towels.

Between 11am and 11:15 a school friend of Jane's also saw the children. She did not speak with them.

At around 11:45am the Beaumont children entered the nearby Wenzel's cake shop 77 and purchased some pasties and a pie, using a £1 note. Mrs Beaumont was later adamant that she had given Jane only eight shillings and sixpence 78. The children were due to catch the noon bus home in about 15 minutes.

At about 12pm, another woman (Woman 2, who had earlier seen Woman 1), was sitting on a nearby bench. The bench was also occupied by an elderly couple (Woman 3 and her husband) and the elderly couple's 10 year old granddaughter. A man and three children approached. The man matched the description of the man seen earlier by Woman 1. Woman 2 was later almost certain that two of the children were Jane and Grant. She was positive that the third child was Arnna.

With the children trailing, the man asked the four on the bench if they had seen anyone interfering with his clothes; some money was missing. They told him that they hadn't seen anything and the man returned to the children. Woman 3 watched them and saw the man dressing the children. She thought this odd, especially when the man pulled up Jane's shorts over her swimming costume, as Jane seemed easily old enough to do this herself. At a press conference eight days later, Mrs Beaumont expressed surprise at the same thing. She thought it almost impossible that Jane, a shy child, would have let someone else dress her. However, according to the elderly couple, the children seemed very friendly with the man.

Having dressed the children, the man then picked up a pair of trousers and a towel. Woman 2 said that he walked away with the children and passed out of sight behind the Glenelg Hotel. Woman 3 said that he went to the Colley Reserve changing rooms. By this time it may have been 12:15pm.

These were the last corroborated sightings of the Beaumont children, and police now consider the children to have gone missing at about midday on 26 January 1966.

There were a further two possible sightings:

At approximately 1:45 pm, a visiting man from Broken Hill saw a man with children he believed to be the Beaumonts, leaving the beach. The man matched the description of the man seen earlier, except that he had light brown and not blonde hair.

The postman, Mr Patterson, may have seen the children in the afternoon, rather than in the morning as police believe. Patterson maintained that he'd seen them either at the start of his round, at 1:45pm, or at 2:55pm at the end of it. In his encounter with the children he saw nobody with them.

The sighting by the man from Broken Hill, plus the fact that the children would be walking towards the bus stop at the right time to catch the 2pm bus, suggests that if Mr Patterson did see the children in the afternoon it would have been at 1:45pm. Contrary to this, however, Mr Patterson later said that the encounter was at the end of his round, at 2:55pm.

However, the comparitive lateness of these timings has led police to believe that Patterson was probably mistaken and that he'd actually seen the children in the morning, just after they'd left the bus. Police believe that the other sighting at 1:45pm cannot be relied upon either. The most likely scenario seems to be that the children went missing at about midday.

They have not been seen since.

The Search

Wanted poster for the missing Beaumont children. Courtesy Alan Whiticker

The morning of Australia Day (26th January) 1966 was already hot in Adelaide, with the temperature due to peak at almost 40°C. Jim Beaumont, a linen goods salesman, wondered whether to go to work or go swimming with his children. Work on this day meant a two hour drive to Snowtown to see some customers. Staying home and taking his children to the beach sounded more appealing. Being a good salesman, however, Mr Beaumont decided that he'd better see his customers. It was a decision he would regret for the rest of his life.

The children left their home at 109 Harding Street, Somerton Park, on the corner with Peterson Street, at 10am. They were catching the bus to Glenelg. It was only a short distance and they could have ridden their bicycles. Being a hot day, however, it seemed more sensible to catch the bus. It was understood by the children that they would return home on the noon bus. There was no way they could be confused about the time because the clock tower at Glenelg was highly visible. Mrs Beaumont gave Jane eight shillings and sixpence for expenses 78.

The children having left for the beach and her husband gone to see potential customers, Mrs Beaumont visited a friend. She returned before the noon bus arrived, and was waiting at the bus stop. The children were not on the bus. She didn't consider this serious as the children could have decided to walk home, which they had done before. Or they could have missed it, and would be on the 2pm bus instead. Some friends visited and Mrs Beaumont didn't worry for the moment.

The children did not return on the 2pm bus, and Mrs Beaumont began to feel uneasy. She could have gone to look for the children but their route home could equally take them down Moseley Street, Partridge Street or Brighton Road. She could very easily miss them, so it was best to wait.

The children did not return on the 3pm bus, and if Mrs Beaumont was uneasy before, she must have been distinctly worried now. Jim Beaumont returned home early (his customers had not been available) and when his wife explained what had happened, he immediately went out searching for his children. He drove to the beach, searching, and was home again by 3:30pm. He picked up his wife and returned to the beach, and kept searching. The children were finally reported missing to the police at 7:30pm. Jim Beaumont stayed out all night, still searching.

The next morning the Beaumont children were officially declared missing. One apparently comforting fact was that children almost never disappear in groups. There is something of safety in numbers, even for children. The typical missing child is one who has run away for one reason or another. But the Beaumont children had absolutely no reason to run away, and Jane would never have let her younger siblings do so anyway.

This left two possible explanations for the disappearance of the Beaumont children. Either they had met with some kind of accident, probably drowning, or someone had abducted them. From the outset, the latter looked more likely.

A massive search was launched. The coast was scoured for kilometres both north and south of the Colley Reserve, in the hope of finding something. However, the children's belongings were not found at the beach, and the question had to be asked: Even if it were possible that on a hot summer's afternoon at a crowded beach that three children could be swept out to sea and drowned without anyone noticing, was it possible that the children could carry their towels, a book, and other belongings into the water, and for none of them to be found? It was clearly very close to being impossible.

At the Beaumont home, Mrs Beaumont was kept under sedation. Friends and relatives gathered to wait for news, and a telephone was installed so that the family could keep in touch with Glenelg Police Station. Mr Beaumont visited the station twice a day for news.

By the weekend the disappearance of the Beaumont children was a national news item and the search had become one of the biggest ever mounted in Australia. Mr Beaumont had once been an owner-driver with the Suburban Taxi Service, and when the drivers found out that it was his children who'd gone missing, 40 of them joined the search. The search itself had been extended to every seaside suburb, and beyond. Sandhills were searched, and police knocked on the door of every house that the children could have passed on their way home. As well as the taxi drivers, hundreds of ordinary citizens asked if there was any way in which they could help.

On 31 January, five days after the disappearance of his children, Mr Beaumont went on national television to appeal for their return. He expressed the hope that whoever was holding his children would return them, then he broke down. Hundreds of calls were received, mostly from people believing that they'd seen the children. Every lead was followed up.

Following Jim Beaumont's appeal, the South Australian Police Commissioner asked Adelaide householders to search their properties, to investigate sheds and hiding places. Despite the resources that were being poured into the search, the police were just as baffled as the public.

In order to sustain public concern about the disappearance of the children, and at the same time increase the abhorrence of the abductor, police released a letter written by Jane Beaumont two days before she disappeared. It had nothing to do with the case but was designed to play on the emotions of the public. By this stage, police were willing to do anything to try to find a lead. The letter had been written when Mr and Mrs Beaumont went out for an hour or so, returning a little after 9pm, and having left Jane in charge of her brother and sister.

Dear Mum and Dad, I am just about to go to bed and the time is 9. I have put Grant's nappy on so there is no need to worry about his wetting the sheet. Grant wanted to sleep in his own bed so one of you will have to sleep with Arnna. Although you will not find the rooms in very good condition I hope you will find them as comfortable as we do. Good night to you both. Jane XXX
PS I hope you had a nice time whereever you went.
PPS I hope you don't mind me taking your radio into my room Daddy.
Mrs Beaumont had kept the letter, intending to show it to Jane when she'd grown up.

On 3 February the Patawalonga boat haven was searched for the bodies of the children. At low tide the wooden lock gates were closed, and while police divers searched the deeper water near the lock, a line of police cadets armed with long forks oozed their way through the often waist-deep mud, feeling for bodies. They found nothing.

On the same day Mrs Beaumont held a press conference in her garden. She admitted that while she remained hopeful, she believed that her children were probably dead. She also shed light on the possible behaviour of her children, saying: "If the other two were very keen to go with someone, Jane would go with them to look after them and wouldn't leave them alone." 84. Mrs Beaumont added when asked that she was very surprised by the reports that the stranger seen with her children had dressed them. Jane was a very shy child, and it seemed to her impossible that Jane would have let someone else pull up her shorts over her bathers.

The search continued, but nothing was found. The Adelaide Hills were searched, to no result. On 14 February, 19 days after the disappearance of the children, Australia switched to decimal currency. And so February passed by.

In March ex-policeman Ray "Gunner" Kelly flew into Adelaide. A legendary figure in the NSW Police Force, he had only recently retired with the rank of Detective Inspector, and had been probably Australia's most famous policeman. He was employed on a private investigation into the disappearance of the Beaumont children by a Sydney newspaper. The South Australia Police welcomed him politely but Kelly left after only one day. It seemed that the case had beaten even him.

The search for the Beaumont children eventually had to be scaled down. There was only a certain length of time that the South Australia Police could continue searching for the children, without anything to show for it. Despite the best efforts of the police, all that were found were people who'd seen the Beaumont children at the beach. They were located in the first week. Nothing else, not a single clue, was uncovered.

The Children
Jane Nartare Beaumont

Nine years old (born 10th September 1956), 137 centimetres tall, with ear length, sun bleached fair hair, which was pushed back with a fringe in front. She was possibly wearing a tortoise shell hair band with a yellow ribbon. She had a thin face with freckles and hazel eyes, and two prominent front teeth. She was well spoken but stuttered when excited.

On the day in question, she was wearing green shorts over pink bathers. Her shoes were tartan canvas sandshoes, with white soles. She should have been carrying three towels, a green airways-type bag, a white purse, and a paperback copy of Little Women.

A letter written by Jane Beaumont two days before her disappearance shows her to have been a responsible, intelligent girl.

Dear Mum and Dad, I am just about to go to bed and the time is 9. I have put Grant's nappy on so there is no need to worry about his wetting the sheet. Grant wanted to sleep in his own bed so one of you will have to sleep with Arnna. Although you will not find the rooms in very good condition I hope you will find them as comfortable as we do. Good night to you both. Jane XXX
PS I hope you had a nice time whereever you went.
PPS I hope you don't mind me taking your radio into my room Daddy.
She had missed topping grade four at Paringa Park Primary School by only half a point. She was also capable of looking after her younger brother and sister, sometimes acting like a mother to them. A warm and friendly child, she was much shyer than her siblings.

Arnna Kathleen Beaumont

Seven years old (born 11th November 1958), 122 centimetres tall, with a plump build. She had dark brown hair with a fringe, and a sun-tanned complexion. She also had dark brown eyes.

On the day in question, she wore tan shorts over red and white bathers which were either checked or striped. She also had tan sandals. Arnna had completed grade two at Paringa Park Primary School.

Grant Ellis Beaumont

Four years old (born 12th July 1961), 91 centimetres tall, thin build, and brown hair with a fringe. Like his sisters he had brown eyes. He was very sun-tanned and had an olive complexion.

On the day in question, he wore green cotton shorts over green bathers which had vertical white stripes. He was wearing red sandals.

The Suspect

The picture above is one of the most famous images associated with the Beaumont case. It is popularly believed to be an identikit picture of the suspect wanted in connection with the disappearance of the children. In fact, as the ABC Radio Eye program "101 Degrees -- The Beaumont Children" revealed, the 'identikit' is nothing more than a preliminary sketch of a thin-faced man. Click here to read the transcript from the relevant part of the program where the man who sketched the image explains the circumstances under which it was created. The rest of the description that follows on this page is genuine:

The suspect was male, in his mid to late 30s, and around 185cm tall. He had a thin to athletic build, with light brown or blonde hair swept back and parted on the left side. He was clean-shaven, with a suntanned complexion and a thin face. He spoke with an Australian accent. He was wearing blue bathers with a single white stripe down the outside of each leg. He was also in possession of a pair of trousers and a towel. 76

The following is a description of the man wanted for the Adelaide Oval abduction in 1973. It is included here as it is possible -- though not certain -- that the same man is also the suspect in the Beaumont case.


The suspect was male, middle-aged and about 173cm tall. He walked with a lean and looked as if he were a little drunk. He wore a brown hat with an unusually wide brim, a grey checked sports coat, and brown trousers.

Crossed Wires
In September 1966, a policeman in the small Victorian country town of Kaniva was at the centre of a literal case of crossed wires when he thought he overhead two women talking about the Beaumont children.

Crossed Wires in Kaniva
Kaniva is a small town in the Australian state of Victoria, not far from the Victoria/South Australia border. In September 1966 the population numbered 2000 including a policeman, Senior Constable Ron Grose. On 27 September 1966 Grose was waiting for a telephone connection to police headquarters in Russell Street, Melbourne, when his line was crossed with another. He could hear two women talking about the Beaumont children.

As Grose listened, it seemed that the women were talking about bringing the Beaumont children back from Hobart. As soon as he was connected through to police headquarters, Grose he spoke to the Homicide Squad. Their reaction was that it was a low act to use the disappearance of the Beaumont children to play a practical joke.

Grose was certain that the conversation he had heard was not a hoax. Whoever had been speaking could have had no idea that Grose had been listening to their conversation. The South Australia police became involved, with the chief of their Homicide Squad, Detective-Sergeant Stanley "Tonner" Swaine, saying that it seemed to be a genuine call. The television reporter Brian Taylor and Jim Beaumont drove 380km to Kaniva to speak to Grose in person. What Grose told them boosted the Beaumonts' spirits for the first time in months.

The lead was eliminated on 13 October when two women rang the Kaniva police. It was their conversation that Grose had overheard. They had been talking about the Beaumont children, but then started talking about some other children who were being brought home from Hobart. Grose had been mistaken and the women had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of the Beaumont children.

The Psychic and the Warehouse
In November 1966, the Dutch psychic Gerard Croiset arrived in Adelaide to try to locate the missing children by psychic methods. His earlier attempts to assist from overseas had come to nought. After investigating on the ground, he said that the remains of the children were under the concreted floor of a warehouse. Over 30 years later his theory was finally disproved.

http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontFalseLeadsPsychic.html

The Psychic & The Warehouse
In March 1966, a Dutchman living in Adelaide named Jan Van Schie thought that a psychic might locate the Beaumont children where conventional methods had failed. The psychic he had in mind was another Dutchman, Gerard Croiset, then 57. According to reports, Croiset had successfully located missing children in Europe. Van Schie wrote to Croiset to explain about the Beaumonts.

In July 1966 Croiset replied to Van Schie. He said that the children were within about half a mile (800m) of where they had last been seen. He wanted to have a film of the area around Glenelg beach.

A Brighton car dealer named Barry Blackwell, who was a family friend of Mrs Beaumont, offered to pay to hire a helicopter. Croiset's name began to appear in the press and in the beginning of August the television station ADS7 became interested in Croiset. Television personality Brian Taylor spoke to him. Croiset said that he wanted as many photographs as possible, but articles of the children's clothing would not be any help to him. He also said that the children were "under the earth in a cave." 74

The Beach
The film was made for Croiset, and this, along with a documentary showing the possible movements of the Beaumont children, was sent to him. Croiset was excited and pointed out features that he had "seen" when first told about the case. He also "saw" the children's movements. According to Croiset, the children walked away from the beach, turned right, then walked towards it. There was a pole with a warning sign, and near it a hole surrounded by dead grass. The children passed this to find a similar hole about 180 metres away. They were crawling through this when it caved in, and Croiset's visions ceased.

Mr Blackwell went to the area described by Croiset and discovered two stormwater drains, one of which was blocked six metres from the entrance by sand and rocks. The Glenelg fire brigade used a hose to try to unblock the drain. Mr N. C. Dunstall from the council was sceptical. He said that the drain had become blocked a week before, and had been clear and had been searched by police a day after the children had disappeared.

The Oval
Meanwhile a local man, Dr Douglas Buxton Hendrickson, had been conducting his own search for the children. Hendrickson was a staff member at the Minda Home for retarded children, and had formed the belief that the children might have been buried in dunes near the oval belonging to the Home. Assisted by his 14 year old son and another member of staff, he'd been digging in the dunes for a month.

The three found nothing except a dead crow, part of the sleeve of a football guernsey, and a straw hat. However the last item excited them and they contacted Croiset to tell him the news. Croiset replied on 20 September that the children were within half a metre of where the hat had been found.

By 24 September Croiset had changed his mind. The children were buried within 16 metres of where Hendrickson had uncovered the hat. A container with red, yellow and blue stripes, or a green bag, would be found 120 centimetres from the bodies. Beside this would be a "kinderwagen". The next day the remains of a pram were found. The searchers were excited, but then found out that an inmate of the Home had left it there, trying to be helpful. Nothing more was found.

Hendrickson refused to give up. Despite the area being extensively searched he was sure that people had not dug far enough. He continued to try to find the remains of the children. His digging was eventually restricted to hours of darkness, so after he had finished work each day he would head for the dunes armed with his spade. He never found anything, and the dunes have since been leveled and replaced with a football field.

The Warehouse
With the difficulties in Croiset's efforts from afar, it became increasingly clear to Blackwell and others that Croiset would have to be brought to Adelaide. Blackwell offered to pay half the cost, and another businessman, Con G. Polites, agreed to pay the other half. On the evening of Tuesday, 8 November 1966, Gerard Cloiset flew into Adelaide.

The reception was huge, and compared to any that the Beatles had received in Australia. Croiset seemed embarrassed by the reception, and complained that he did not want sensation but had come to try to locate the Beaumont children. He easily handled the press conference, however, and despite apparently not speaking English, answered questions while they were being interpreted.

The Beaumonts themselves did not meet Croiset at the airport, Jim Beaumont explaining that they had no wish to make a carnival out of their tragedy. The Beaumonts did meet Croiset during his visit, however, and presented him with a gift of a writing case covered with kangaroo skin. Mr Beaumont said later: "We have a police force to cover all these things. I am glad, and I will say it again, that I don't believe in clairvoyancy." 1

The day after his arrival, Croiset made a long tour of Glenelg beach, watched by a large crowd. He dictated observations into a tape recorder. The police maintained a polite but sceptical interest. As a matter of course they take interest in such matters in case the "psychic" turns out to be the person responsible.

Croiset received a phone call from a woman who told him that the floor of a food warehouse in Wilton Street, Paringa Park, had recently been concreted. Croiset changed his mind for a third time and decided that the children were buried under the concrete, some 3 metres thick. He suggested that the police should dig up the warehouse up but both they and the warehouse owner were reluctant. Croiset then left for America.

The warehouse was on the site of an old brick factory, referred to locally as the Paringa Brickworks. Children had once played in the abandoned kiln. The factory had been leveled and the concrete floor poured within a week of the children’s disappearance. However, police had already investigated. The builders assured them that any bodies would have been found during construction. According to the then deputy police commissioner, Geoffrey Leane, in his memoirs 2 , he advised Frank Walsh, then the South Australian Premier, of this:

Eventually the government was asked to put up more money, and I advised the premier not to agree.
”Premier Walsh said: ‘I'll take your advice Geoff and let's hope you're not wrong’.
”I replied: ‘They are digging now in virgin soil, and in my opinion it is now not possible to locate the children under that floor’.”
Also, according to the journalist Jack Ayling 3, Croiset did not even believe that the children were under the concrete slab of the warehouse. He was secretly convinced that they were buried under a block of flats on the outskirts of Glenelg. They had fallen into a trench and a worker had unwittingly covered the bodies. The block of flats was then constructed with the children buried beneath it. Rather than have people worrying about whether the Beaumont children were buried beneath them, Croiset instead nominated the warehouse as the place to dig, a location which was much more easily excavatable. The full rationality of this reasoning was not explained.

The South Australian government said that they would not pay for an excavation. People were still not satisfied and the money to dig up the floor, some $7000, was raised by a committee formed for this purpose.

On 1 March 1967 digging began. On 3 March the walls of the warehouse were removed and workmen dug a one square metre shaft down 2.2m. Digging finished on 11 March with the shaft around 3.6m deep, with no remains having been found. That should have been the end of the matter, but only one of the parts of the warehouse that Croiset had indicated had been excavated.

Croiset commented in 1977 that he still thought he was right. A year later, on the anniversary of the children’s disappearance, Con Polites said that he still wanted to excavate the warehouse. Croiset died in 1980, still insisting that he knew where the children were buried. Con Polites believed him.

On 14 December 1995, the man who had been manager of the warehouse in 1967, Mr John Schouten, said that the excavation had been done in the wrong place. He said that the area dug up was virgin ground that was not above the old brick kiln but in front of it.

The owner of the warehouse, Mr Grant Walter, said that he would be willing to cooperate with a new excavation as long as business was not disrupted too much. There was speculation that ground-penetrating radar like that used in the British “House of Horrors” case the previous year could be used to try to locate any bodies. The radar had not yet been used in Australia but it was believed that the Australian army might possess it. Con Polites said that if it needed to be imported he was willing to pay the bill.

Commenting on the case, Sergeant Swan of the South Australian police said that police did not have any reason to conduct a new search of the warehouse.

On 22 March 1996, Mr Polites met and spoke with a 38 year old man who as a child had played at the site of the old brickworks. The man pointed out a series of tunnels fanning out from the main area excavated in 1967.

Mr Polites now said that he'd abandoned any thought of using ground-penetrating radar. Experts at both the CSIRO 4 and Scotland Yard had told him that any human remains would have deteriorated too greatly to be detected by radar.

On 25 April 1996, Mr Polites explained: “I have got to dig 5." He announced that the dig was due to begin on 29 April. The next day it was announced that the dig had been delayed for two days and would not begin until 1 May. In the meantime, Superintendent Riach of the South Australian major crime taskforce said that: “If something turns up, then we will get involved." 6

On 30 April, fifteen holes were dug into the floor of the warehouse. Two appeared to have been filled with gravel and sand and samples of these were taken for examination by Geraldine Hodgson, a forensic geologist. It was expected that it would take a week for the results to be known.

Polites explained: “If we find the children, then we'll solve the mystery. If we don't find them then I'll be very happy because at least we tried and the children could be alive and living somewhere else." 7

Drilling began again the next morning, 1 May. Frank Church, an investigator, had found two people who had played in the brickworks as children. They explained that they used to play in a cellar, which the team was now drilling to try to locate. The drilling found nothing except a second layer of concrete.

On 10 May Polites announced that “...no organic evidence of human remains was found in recent drill samples.” 8 He said that the dig would continue, in approximately two weeks.

There were no human remains, but drilling samples did show that there were two pits. Excavation of the first pit began over the next weeks. On the weekend of 23-24 June, two cadaver dogs owned by Janet Havey-Crease became agitated and started digging furiously at one side of the pit, against the wall. The next weekend they were even more excited at the same place. Nothing was found, however.

By the next week the excavation was half completed and no human remains had been discovered. There was then a halt for several weeks.

Digging resumed in early September. The closest the excavation came to finding anything was on 13 September when a 13cm bone was uncovered. Forensic tests established that it wasn't human.

The excavation of the warehouse ended with no human remains discovered. There is no possibility that the Beaumont children were ever buried there.

So how can Croiset's suggestion be explained? There is one possible answer. The fact is that there has never been the slightest evidence that Croiset knew where the children were buried, if indeed they were. His interpreter said that Croiset secretly thought the children were buried under a new block of flats on the outskirts of Glenelg, but that Croiset did not say anything because he didn't want anybody to lose their home. He nominated the warehouse instead as a place that could be easily excavated. This plainly does not make sense.

One rational explanation is that Croiset didn't have any idea where the children were, but didn't wish to reveal himself as a fraud. He therefore nominated a location which could be excavated without ruining anyone's home, but which would still take time to investigate. This would give him time to leave the country before he was exposed. He could hardly have imagined that 30 years would pass before a complete excavation took place. Nor did he appear to know that police had already checked all the building sites in the Glenelg area. There was no more chance that the children had been buried under a block of flats on the outskirts of Glenelg than there was that they had been buried under the warehouse.

The Dandenong Connection

In February 1968, the Beaumonts received letters that were purportedly sent by their eldest daughter. The letters suggested that they travel to Dandenong, a Melbourne suburb, where their children would be returned to them. It was a cruel hoax.


http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontFalseLeadsDandenong.html

Letters from Dandenong
On 23 or 24 February 1968, Jim Beaumont received a letter, purportedly from his daughter Jane. He phoned the officer in charge of the case, detective-sergeant Stan Swaine, who immediately visited.

The letter had been posted in Dandenong, Victoria on 21 February. The handwriting was not very similar to Jane's, but both Mrs Beaumont and Stan Swaine believed she'd written it. The letter said that the Beaumont children would be returned to their parents. Mr Beaumont was to be in front of the Dandenong post office at 8:50am on Monday 26 February, wearing a dark coat and white trousers. If the police were informed the deal would be off. Arnna's name was continually misspelt as "Arna" in the letter.

At 5am on Sunday the Beaumonts, with Swaine and another man named Bill Cotton, left for Dandenong. The Beaumonts checked into the Commodore Motel under the name of Ellis. The operation was meant to be conducted in the greatest secrecy and the Victoria Police were not informed. Dandenong is not far from Melbourne.

Somebody tipped off the Adelaide newspaper the News about the story. On the Sunday afternoon the story was leaked. Two cars of reporters followed the Beaumonts to Dandenong. Like the police, they were in position by 7am the next day to see what would happen.

It transpired that the story would have been revealed even without the breach of secrecy. The publican of the pub where Swaine had booked a room was aware that several safes had recently been robbed in the area. As Swaine was a stranger, the publican phoned a Dandenong police sergeant and asked him to investigate Swaine. The Dandenong sergeant did so and discovered that Swaine was a detective-sergeant from Adelaide. Thinking this peculiar, the police sergeant rang the Melbourne Herald newspaper. Douglas Steele of the Herald recognised the name of Swaine as the detective who'd been on the Beaumont case. Steele immediately despatched two reporters, who saw the entire set up.

Swaine moved in and around the area of the post office, keeping it under surveillance while appearing to be wandering aimlessly. Before 9am, Jim Beaumont arrived at the post office and waited in front of it, as per instructions. At 9am a phone call was answered by Alice Parker, a post office worker. A voice with a male Australian accent told her to take a message to the man outside. The message which Mrs Parker delivered to Mr Beaumont was that they wouldn't be long. Mr Beaumont thanked her, and on returning inside the post office Mrs Parker commented that the man outside looked like Jim Beaumont.

A short time later a messenger boy from the telegram room emerged, giving Mr Beaumont a similar message. Mr Beaumont crossed the road as a result of this or another message. One message was received saying that Grant was sick and could not come until after lunch. Mr Beaumont finally quit at about 3pm. He appeared again on the 27th, and across the road on the 28th. The children were not returned to him.

On the afternoon of the first day, the journalists from the News encountered Swaine and the Beaumonts in a local pub. It was the first that Swaine or the Beaumonts knew that the details of the operation had been leaked.

Three more letters were sent to the Beaumont's home, in two envelopes. One envelope was posted at Dandenong on 29 February, the other may have been posted on the same day but carried no marking by which this could be determined. Two of these letters were written in the same hand as before, by "Jane". The other was in disguised handwriting and signed "The Man". The letters said that the Beaumont children were not being returned because Mr and Mrs Beaumont had informed the police about receiving the first letter.

In 1981 the letters were re-examined but yielded no new evidence. In May 1992, new fingerprint techniques applied by the technical services section of the South Australian police enabled the author of the letters to be identified. He was a 41 year old man who had written the letters, when aged 17, as "a joke." Following examination of his handwriting and questioning by detective senior sergeant Trevor Couch, the man admitted writing the letters. The officer in charge of the Major Crime Task Force, detective superintendent Jim Litster, announced: 75

"We are able to confirm the letters were in fact written by the male person, they were a hoax, and were in no way connected with the disappearance of the three children. I understand the person involved is extremely remorseful and it would seem that an act he has carried out as an immature young person has come back to haunt him. Owing to the limitation of time statutes, no charges will be preferred."

Clippings in the rubbish

The scrawlings of an eccentric old lady caused a stir of excitement in March 1986, when newspaper clippings found in an Adelaide council rubbish dump appeared to give a give a lead in the search for the children.

http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontFalseLeadsRubbish.html

Clippings in the rubbish
The scrawlings of an eccentric old lady caused a stir of excitement in March 1986, when newspaper clippings found in an Adelaide rubbish dump appeared to give a lead in the search for the children. The lead was discounted within 24 hours but had seemed in the meantime the most significant development in the case so far.

West Torrens council rubbish dump is adjacent to the southern boundary of Adelaide Airport, approximately three kilometres from Glenelg Beach. On 11 March 1986, a worker at the dump noticed newspaper clippings that had spilled out of a suitcase. The newspaper clippings referred to the disappearance of the Beaumont children. The worker’s interest was drawn by the fact that the clippings were annotated with comments suggesting intimate knowledge of the case.

Aware of the potential significance of the find, council workers called police, who found that the suitcase contained many newspaper clippings, most of which had been marked in some way with a red ball-point pen or a red felt pen. In some cases, headlines or columns were circled in red. In others, accompanying text was underlined.

After the police were called, another council worker, 44-year-old Neil Lonsdale from Hilton, found more clippings. In total there were three suitcases filled with them. He contacted Channel 7 and told them: "There’s still more at the dump; I didn’t have time to collect it all." 66

Police remained tight-lipped, with the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Trevor Kipling, refusing to release any photographs of the clippings or descriptions of the suitcases. Six major crime squad detectives, as well as technical services police, began searching through the material. It was expected that they would mount a further search for evidence the next day.

The annotations
Despite the police operation, Channel 7 had filmed the material that Mr Lonsdale had found and its nature was made public.

On a newspaper from 5 August 1966, with the headline "Beaumont children; people hunt in sandhills," a handwritten comment said "not in sand hills, in sewage drain." The same cutting had a picture of the children, with the words "She used to comb my hair," written over the image of Jane Beaumont. A picture of Mrs Beaumont in the same clipping was marked "I understand."

The other annotations were in a similar vein. An article referring to Gerard Croiset’s suggestion that the Beaumont children were dead had "Yes," written next to it. The main story from the same clipping referred to Croiset’s claims as to where the children were buried. It was marked with the word "No."

An article about the crossed line experienced by Kaniva policeman Ron Grose, in which Grose was quoted as believing that the children were still alive, had Grose’s comment underlined and the word "LIAR" printed in capital letters next to it.

A clipping from a 1966 newspaper article in which Mrs Beaumont said that she believed her children were still alive, had the words "No, No, No," written across it. To another article, in which Mrs Beaumont was quoted as saying "Someone has got my children," the words "Did have," had been added.

A clipping with the infamous "identikit" picture of the man seen with the children at Glenelg Beach had the words "Lies – all Bluff" written on it. And again, a 1971 article saying that the children were still alive was written over with the comment "Ha Ha. What a laugh. Big deal."

Police found clippings referring to other notorious crimes committed in the Adelaide area. They also found a book about unsolved Australian criminal cases. These finds were not made public 67; it is standard police procedure not to disclose some details in an investigation, as this enables the claims of anyone else to be involved to be more easily checked.

Lead collapses
The lead collapsed the next day. Detectives were contacted by the relatives of an eccentric old woman who had recently died. The woman had spent twenty years collecting newspaper reports about the Beaumonts, the relatives explained, but had had nothing to do with the case.

Police spoke with the family and were able to confirm their story. After the old woman had died, the family had dumped the suitcases and other belongings at the dump, a day or two before the council workers had found them.

Detective Superintendent Rob Lean, head of the Major Crime Squad, confirmed that police were now certain that the clippings had no bearing on the case. While the Beaumont case remained open, this particular lead had been discounted. To avoid unwanted publicity 68, the identities of the dead woman and her family were not disclosed by the police.

The Myponga Reservoir

In February 1990, following information received during investigations into the activities of convicted murderer Bevan Spencer von Einem, South Australian police searched the Myponga Reservoir for the remains of the Beaumont children. Nothing was found.


http://www.beaumontchildren.com/beaumontFalseLeadsMyponga.html

The search of Myponga Reservoir
In early 1990, acting on the basis of information provided by a witness in another investigation, South Australian police began searching Myponga Reservoir on the Fleurieu Peninsula. They were searching for the bodies of the Beaumont children and also for the bodies of Kirste Gordon and Joanne Ratcliffe. Nothing was found.

The search was based on the evidence of a witness known as "Mr B". A witness for the committal hearing of Bevan Spencer von Einem for the murders of Alan Barnes and Mark Langley, Mr B made a statement to Sydney police in September 1989 that implicated von Einem in the disappearance of the Beaumont children and the abduction at Adelaide Oval.

When the search of the Myponga Reservoir began, Mr B's evidence had not yet been made public. What he'd told police was that von Einem had abducted the Beaumont children, had "connected them up" 19 and "did some brilliant surgery on them" 19 and that one had died. The bodies had been dumped at Moana or Myponga, south of Adelaide. Mr B also said: "He also told me he picked up two children at the football." 19

Police assumed that "the football" was a reference to the disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon. Based on deduction or further evidence, police concluded that Myponga Reservoir was where von Einem had dumped the bodies – if Mr B was telling the truth about what von Einem had said, and if von Einem in turn had been telling the truth to Mr B.

In an operation organised by the major crime squad, police divers began searching the reservoir on 2 February 1990. Mr B’s evidence had not been made public and police told media that they were searching for a safe. An opened safe was found, as was a large quantity of stolen goods, but no remains were found.

Within a few days there was open speculation, possibily based on leaks to the press, that the search was for the remains of the Beaumont chlidren. Police admitted on 8 February that they were searching for a body or bodies but would not comment further.

The search was soon called off, with the police diving squad leaving to train in sink holes near Mt Gambier. A police spokesman explained that "black water" training in specialist diving techniques had been planned for the squad for some time. The particular challenges of searching the Myponga Reservoir meant that this training would be doubly beneficial.

The search of the reservoir presented some unusual diving challenges. Fine silt in the water reduced visibility to almost zero. Tonnes of silt would have accumulated over the 24 years since 1966, which could have buried any remains. Marine life could have scattered remains over a wide area. Finally, the depth of the reservoir at the dam wall reached 100 metres deep in places, which limited a diver's time at the bottom and make it necessary for divers to undergo lengthy decompression procedures.

On the upside, forensic experts said that the cold water at the bottom of the reservoir meant that any skeletal remains would have been preserved.

A second search of the reservoir began in late February, with police still refusing to confirm that the search was for the remains of the missing children. The search of the reservoir was done sporadically due to scheduling constraints, but after a short break it was rumoured that the search would begin again on 2 March in deeper parts of the reservoir. It was also rumoured that police had received evidence that the children’s bodies had been dumped from the wall of the reservoir. Mr Beaumont was asked for his opinion about the search and said: "I don’t know what to think. I only know as much as you, and any other man in the street, knows about this search." 24

On 17 March, the Adelaide newspapers were able to report the evidence that had been given by Mr B at the von Einem committal hearing, confirming the previous speculation about the reason for the search. The search of the reservoir had been suspended again but it was understood that it hadn't been completed and would resume. Naturally, a local "psychic" claimed to be able to show police where the bodies were buried near the reservoir, but her insights were worthless. 25

The search resumed again on 3 April. A week later, hoaxers began circulating rumours that the remains of the children had been found in a suitcase at the bottom of the reservoir. Newspapers often rely on tip-offs and the Adelaide Advertiser later said that they'd received several anonymous phone calls trying to spread the story. By 17 April a spokesman for the major crime squad had confirmed that there was nothing whatsoever in the rumour.

On 11 May, with the search completed, police finally admitted that they’d been searching for the Beaumont children. Eight divers had been involved and the search had taken eight days in total. However, Superintendent Trevor Johnson, officer-in-charge of the major crime squad, confirmed that the search had found nothing. It was yet another false lead.

"Jane Beaumont" in Canberra


In August 1997, retired detective Stan Swaine caused some excitement when he claimed that a woman living in Canberra was Jane Beaumont. The woman, publicly identified only as "Susan", had falsely come to believe that she was Jane Beaumont while been treated for child sexual abuse.

"Jane Beaumont" in Canberra
Another twist in the Beaumont case came in August 1997, when retired detective Stan Swaine wrongly claimed to have found Jane Beaumont living in Canberra under a different name.

The 41-year-old woman, identified in news reports only as “Susan” 13 , had been undergoing treatment with a psychotherapist to deal with repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. During the treatment “Susan” came to believe that she was Jane Beaumont, and that all three children had been abducted by a satanic cult and given new identities.

“Susan” went to a women’s magazine with her claim. In January 1996 the magazine asked Swaine to investigate. Swaine had taken over the Beaumont investigation in 1968 when he became head of the South Australian Police homicide squad. He left the police in 1973 to become a private detective, but still kept an active interest in the case.

He made several visits to Canberra and spoke with “Susan”. Her birth certificate was issued in her real name in the ACT 14, but was issued after the year of her birth, 1966. On the basis that she was of the right age, that her birth certificate might have been fake, that she’d said she was Jane Beaumont and that her eyes were brown like Jane Beaumont’s had been, Swaine decided that he’d cracked the case and that “Susan” really was the missing girl.

“Susan” later retracted her claim, saying that the psychotherapist had suggested and implanted in her the belief that she was Jane Beaumont. The psychotherapist denied this but “Susan” made a complaint to the Canberra Commissioner of Health.

Stan Swaine went public with his belief that “Susan” was Jane Beaumont, and on Tuesday 5 August, the South Australian Assistance Police Commissioner Rob Lean said that the South Australian police were taking the lead seriously and would investigate. The same day, “Susan” sought a restraining order in a closed Magristrates Court hearing, to stop Swaine from approaching her. When a magistrate refused to grant the order she fled Canberra at around 2am the next day.

It was soon discovered that “Susan’s” therapist had been involved in another investigation in 1988 after one of her patients had wrongly come to believe that she'd been involved in murdering a teenage girl.

Meanwhile, Lean or his officers interviewed members of “Susan’s” family in Queensland and Canberra. He also checked the ACT birth registry and confirmed on Wednesday: “She is definitely not Jane Beaumont” 15. He told Swaine to stop investigating and said: "Susan is still missing and we are concerned for her welfare. We want her to know that this is all over." 15

He also telephoned Jim and Nancy Beaumont to tell them of the outcome: 15

"You can't imagine how they must feel. Every day, for 31 years, they have hoped, they have waited, for news that their children are alive. Once again, their hopes have been raised - and shattered."
Author's Note
I spoke with Stan Swaine several years after this incident. By then I was aware that he had come to accept that “Susan” was not Jane Beaumont, but he never gave up his belief that the children had been abducted by a cult. The Sunday Age described him as a “bored old man” 16 and implied that he was a crank. I never heard him discuss the Canberra incident but he certainly resented the way the Sunday Age had depicted him.

Personally, I agree with the newspaper's assessment. That Swaine had been a top detective I do not doubt; even in his seventies he was sharp-witted and had the policeman's talent for extracting information while giving away nothing himself. However I think he had been following the Beaumont case for too long and had lost his sense of judgement. He maintained that he had new evidence that would blow the case wide open, but never divulged this evidence to anyone. Having discussed the matter with another person who knew him, I do not believe he had any new evidence.

Stan Swaine died in 2002.