Jane Nartare Beaumont (born 10 September 1956), Arnna Kathleen Beaumont (born 11 November 1958) and Grant Ellis Beaumont (born 12 July 1961), collectively referred to as the Beaumont children, were three Australian siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on 26 January 1966 (Australia Day) in an unsolved disappearance case and a suspected abduction and murder.
Police investigations revealed that, on the day of their disappearance, several witnesses had seen the three children on and near Glenelg Beach in the company of a tall man with fairish to light-brown hair and a thin face with a sun-tanned complexion and medium build, in his mid-thirties. Confirmed sightings of the children occurred at the Colley Reserve and at Wenzel's cake shop on Moseley Street, Glenelg. Despite numerous searches, neither the children nor their suspected companion were located.
The case received worldwide attention and is credited with causing a change in Australian lifestyles, since parents began to believe that their children could no longer be presumed to be safe when unsupervised in public. Police and media speculation has linked the disappearances to the "Adelaide Oval abductions" of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon in 1973. Interest in the case has continued for more than half a century. As of 2018, a A$1 million reward has been offered for information related to the cold case by the South Australian government.
Background
Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont lived with their parents, Grant "Jim" Beaumont, a former serviceman and taxi driver, and Nancy Beaumont (née Ellis); the couple had married in December 1955. The family resided at 109 Harding Street in Somerton Park, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide. They lived not far from Glenelg Beach, a popular spot that the children often visited. On 25 January 1966, in the midst of a summer heatwave, Jim dropped the children off at Glenelg Beach before heading off on a three-day sales trip to Snowtown.
On the morning of 26 January (Australia Day), the children asked their mother if they could visit Glenelg Beach again. As it was too hot to walk, they took a five-minute, 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) bus journey from their home to the beach. They caught the bus at 8:45 in the morning, and were expected to return home on the 12:00 noon bus. Nancy became worried, however, when they did not return on either the 12:00 or 14:00 buses, and when Jim returned home early from his trip around 15:00, he immediately drove to the crowded beach. Unable to locate the children, he returned and together both parents searched the streets and visited friends' houses. Around 17:30, they went to Glenelg police station to report the disappearance.
Police investigation
Police quickly organised a search of Glenelg Beach and adjacent areas, based on the assumption that the Beaumont children were nearby and had simply lost track of time. Police and volunteers scoured beaches, dunes, drains and suburbs across Adelaide. The search then expanded to the sandhills, ocean and nearby buildings, with the airport, rail lines and interstate roads being monitored as well, based on a fear of accident or kidnap. Within twenty-four hours, the entire nation was aware of the case.
Police also searched for some of the 17 items in children's possession at the time of their disappearance, including clothing, towels and a bag. Despite ongoing searches, no trace of these items or the children were found.
Within three days, on 29 January, the Adelaide Sunday Mail led with a headline of "Sex crime now feared", highlighting the rapidly evolving fear that the children had been abducted and murdered by a sex offender. Despite this, the initial official reward was only A£250.
The Patawalonga Boat Haven was drained on 29 January after a woman told police that she had spoken with three children, who were similar in description to the Beaumont children, near the haven at 19:00 on the day of the disappearance. Police cadets and members of the emergency operations group searched the area, but nothing was found.
Prime suspect
Police investigating the case found several witnesses who had seen the Beaumont children in Colley Reserve, near Glenelg Beach, in the company of a tall man with fair to light-brown hair and a thin face, in his mid-thirties. The man had a sun-tanned complexion and a thin-to-athletic build, and was wearing swim trunks. The children were playing with him, and appeared to be relaxed and enjoying themselves. The man also approached one of the witnesses, asking if anyone had been near the children's belongings as their money was "missing". The man then went off to change while the children waited for him. The group were then seen walking away together from the beach sometime later, which the police estimated to be around 12:15. About two-and-a-half hours later (14:45) another witness, Miss Daphne Gregory, sighted the children with the man, whom she observed carrying an airline bag similar to one owned by Jane.
The Beaumont parents described their children, particularly the eldest (Jane) as shy. For them to be playing so confidently with a stranger seemed out of character. Investigators theorised that the children had perhaps met the man during a previous visit or visits and had grown to trust him. A chance remark at home, which seemed insignificant at the time, supports this theory: Arnna had told her mother that Jane had "got a boyfriend down the beach". Nancy thought she meant a playmate and took no further notice until after the disappearance.
A shopkeeper at nearby Wenzel's Bakery, on Moseley Street, reported that Jane had bought pasties and a meat pie with a £1 note. Police viewed this as further evidence that the Beaumont children had been with another person, for two reasons: the shopkeeper knew the children well from previous visits and reported that they had never purchased a meat pie before, and the children's mother had given them only six shillings and six pence, enough for their bus fare and lunch, and not £1. Police believed the money had been given to them by somebody else.
Other sightings
According to an initial statement, the Beaumont children were seen walking alone at 14:55, away from the beach along Jetty Road, in the general direction of their home. The witness, a postman, knew the children well, and his statement was regarded as reliable. He said the children were "holding hands and laughing" in the main street. Police could not determine why the reliable children, already one hour late, were strolling alone and seemingly unconcerned. The postman contacted police two days after his initial statement and said that he thought he saw them in the morning, not the afternoon as he had previously said.
Other reported sightings of the children continued for about a year after their disappearance.
Gerard Croiset
The Beaumont case attracted international attention. On 8 November 1966, Gerard Croiset, a Dutch psychic, was brought to Australia to assist in the search, which caused a furore in the press. Croiset's efforts proved unsuccessful, with his story changing day-to-day and offering no clues. He identified a spot at a warehouse near the children's home in which he believed their bodies had been buried, inside the remains of an old brick kiln. The property owners, who were reluctant to excavate based only on a psychic's claim, soon bowed to public pressure after publicity helped raise A$40,000 to have the building demolished. No remains, nor any evidence tied to any members of the Beaumont family, was found. In 1996, the building identified by Croiset was undergoing partial demolition and the owners allowed a full search of the site. Once again, no trace was found of the children.
Hoax letters
About two years after the disappearance, the Beaumont parents received two letters: one was supposedly written by Jane, and another by a man who said he was keeping the children. The envelopes showed a postmark of Dandenong, Victoria. The brief notes described a relatively pleasant existence and referred to "The Man" who was keeping them. Police believed at the time that the letters could quite likely have been authentic after comparing them with others written by Jane. The letter from "The Man" said that he had appointed himself "guardian" of the children and was willing to hand them back to their parents. In the letter a meeting place was nominated.
The Beaumont parents, followed by a detective, drove to the designated place but nobody appeared. Some time later a third letter arrived, also purported to be from Jane, stating that the man had realised a disguised detective was present and that he decided to keep the children because the Beaumonts had betrayed his trust. There were no further letters. In 1992, new forensic examinations of the letters showed they were a hoax. Fingerprint technology had improved and the author was identified as a 41-year-old man who had been a teenager at the time he wrote the letters. Because of the time that had elapsed, he was not charged with any offence.
Possible suspects
Bevan Spencer von Einem
Bevan Spencer von Einem (1946–2025) was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1984 for murdering Richard Kelvin, the teenage son of Adelaide newsreader Rob Kelvin. Police and prosecutors publicly stated their belief that von Einem had accomplices and was possibly involved in additional murders. About this time, police came to suspect his involvement in the Beaumont disappearance as well, owing to his resemblance to descriptions and identikits of the unidentified suspect from 1966. No accomplices were ever charged, and von Einem has refused to co-operate with investigators about his possible connection with other murders.
During the investigation into von Einem, police heard from an informant identified only as "Mr B." He related an alleged conversation in which von Einem boasted of having taken three children from a beach several years earlier, and said he had taken them home to conduct "experiments". According to Mr B's account, von Einem claimed to have performed "brilliant surgery" on each of the children and had "connected them up". One of the children had supposedly died during the procedure, and so he had killed the other two and dumped the bodies in bushland south of Adelaide. Mr B also claimed that von Einem had implicated himself in the Adelaide Oval abductions from 1973; like with the Beaumont case, von Einem matches descriptions of the main suspect in the Oval case.
According to Adelaide police detective Bob O'Brien, Mr B had given important information during the investigation into the Kelvin murder and was regarded as a generally reliable source. However, police reception of the alleged confession was mixed. There were enough plausible details to warrant further research, yet other details relayed by Mr B did not fit known facts about the Beaumont case and were regarded with scepticism. As of 2014, von Einem had not been ruled out as a suspect.
Mr B's reference to alleged surgical experimentation corresponded to the coroner's reports on several of von Einem's alleged murder victims. However, while von Einem was known to have frequented Glenelg Beach to "perv" on the changing rooms, and was described as preoccupied with children, he was younger than the unidentified suspect (who was reported to be in his mid- to late thirties, whereas von Einem was in his early twenties). The Beaumont children were also much younger than Richard Kelvin or the other young men von Einem is believed to have targeted, who were in their teens or twenties. Such disparities in the modus operandi of a serial killer are unusual, but not unheard of.
Investigations into both the Beaumont disappearance and the Adelaide Oval abductions remain officially open and, in 1989, von Einem was identified as a suspect in a confidential police report. In August 2007, it was reported that police were examining archival footage from the original Beaumont search, shot by Channel Seven, that shows a young man resembling von Einem among onlookers. The report said that police were calling for information to establish the man's identity.
Arthur Stanley Brown
Arthur Stanley Brown (1912–2002) was charged in 1998 with the murders of sisters Judith and Susan Mackay in Townsville, Queensland. The sisters had disappeared on their way to school on 26 August 1970 and were found strangled several days later in a dry creek bed. Brown's trial, scheduled for July 2000, was delayed after his lawyer applied for a section 613 verdict (unfit to be tried) from the jury. Brown was never retried as he was found to have dementia and Alzheimer's disease. He died in 2002.
Similar to von Einem, Brown bore a striking similarity to descriptions and identikits of the suspect for both the Beaumont and Oval cases. A search for a connection to the Beaumont children was unsuccessful as no employment records existed that could shed light on Brown's movements at the time of the disappearance. Some of the records were believed lost in the 1974 Brisbane flood. It is also possible that Brown, who had unrestricted access to government buildings, may have destroyed his own files.