The Beaumont Children Vanishings

It would become one of Australia’s most notorious and mysterious crimes of the 20th century.

On January 26, 1966, the three Beaumont children: Jane (9 years old), Arnna (7), and Grant (4), caught a bus going from the suburb of Adelaide where they lived to a nearby beach. It was a trip they had made frequently before. There was no reason for their parents to be concerned.

It’s known that the children did arrive at the beach. Eyewitnesses, some of whom knew the children fairly well, saw them playing in sprinklers and along the beach. As the morning progressed, eyewitnesses saw the children in the company of a tall, blonde man in his 30s. This would be unusual, as the children, Jane in particular, were quite shy around strangers.

Still, witnesses claimed the children seemed perfectly at ease with the man.

The three children were seen leaving the beach area at Noon, still in the company of the man.

These were the last verified sightings of the Beaumont children.

The first thing Mrs. Beaumont thought was unusual was that her children were not on the 2pm bus that came back from the beach. She thought they may have chosen to walk home, but when they didn’t return on the 3pm bus either, Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont went in search of the three children. They were nowhere to be seen. The children were officially reported missing that evening.

Soon began one of the most massive police searches the community had ever seen. Police were initially hopeful for a quick resolution to the hunt as the mysterious man had been seen by numerous people and had been so openly blatant about being with the children.

More pieces of the puzzle would later come to light. The local mailman, who knew the Beaumont children well, swore that he saw the children around 2pm and that they were not in the company of an adult. A vendor at the beach claimed that Jane had come into the shop and bought food with a one pound note. Mrs. Beaumont would later insist that while she had given Jane some money for the day, she did not give Jane a pound note.

As often happens with missing children cases, there were numerous alleged sightings of the Beaumont children after January 26th, but none led to the discovery of the children.

Six months after the disappearances, a Dutch psychic was brought into the case by concerned citizens and he believed that the children had been buried beneath the foundation of a newly constructed warehouse. The owner of the warehouse was reluctant to have his new building demolished, but he bowed to public pressure and the concrete floor of the warehouse was dug up but revealed no trace of the missing children.

In 1968, the Beaumonts received a letter from Jane giving instructions on how to get the three children back. The instructions were followed but there was no trace of the children at the specified location. Many years later, in 1992, fingerprint analysis proved the letter had been written by a man (who had been 17 in 1968) who said it was intended as a joke.

Occasionally the crime surfaces again in the media, but the three Beaumont children remain missing.

Sources:
The Beaumont Children website – pulled 5/16/11
The Beaumont Case Revisited website – pulled 5/16/11