January 26th is Australia Day, a day of national
celebration, a day when thousands of Australians make the most of the public
holiday in the height of summer, having barbeques and heading to their nearest
beach.
It was no different for the three Beaumont children. The school holidays were nearing an end, and
they were keen to spend as much time at Glenelg Beach as they could. Nancy
Beaumont had chores to complete that hot summer day, so after some persuasion
and assurances from her eldest daughter Jane (9), Nancy agreed to let them go
to the beach unsupervised. Jane had
always been responsible with her younger sister Arnna (7) and brother Grant
(4). The children caught the 8:45am bus and were expected back on the midday
bus.
Nancy walked out to the bus stop to greet the midday bus,
but her children were not on it. Or on
the 2pm bus. Jim Beaumont returned from
his sales job at 3pm to a frantic Nancy, and quickly went down to Glenelg Beach
to find their three children, but they were nowhere to be seen. Thus began one
of the most famous incidents in Australian history. Were they abducted by a paedophile? Kidnapped
and sold? Did they meet with foul play or an horrific accident? Nearly 54 years later these questions still
have no answers.
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Jim Beaumont drove around the streets for two and a half
hours before collecting Nancy and going to the police. Police initially thought
that the children would still be at the beach, having lost track of time. Their
search of the beach proved fruitless, and they expanded the search out to the
surrounding areas. The police were able
to establish that between the three children they were wearing or carrying 17
items, including towels and bags. None
of these items were located either.
As news of the crime spread through the media, the whole
nation became transfixed. Headlines
screamed “Sex Crime Now Feared” three days after their disappearance.
Police spoken to many witnesses at Glenelg Beach and were able
to piece together the actions of the children that morning.
The children had swum in the ocean, and played under a
sprinkler in Colley reserve. It was in Colley Reserve that witnesses reported
to the police that they saw the children in the company of a tall, fair haired
man, in his 30s. The man had tanned skin
and was wearing only bathing trunks. The children seemed comfortable around
him, playing and jostling in an affectionate way. However, Jim and Nancy could
not think of anyone the children knew who fit this description.
This was odd to Jim and Nancy Beaumont, as they felt that
their children would not play with such familiarity with a stranger. To further add to the mystery, the children
bought lunch form the nearby bakery with a One Pound note. Nancy had only sent them to the beach with
coins. There was also an addition to their regular order – the children
normally ordered pasties, but that day also ordered a meat pie.
As the days went on, no hint of the children or any of their
possessions was found. All three
children, and their belongings, had vanished without a trace.
As the investigation continued with no leads, a famed
psychic, Gerard Croiset was flown in to help, with no discernible result.
Suspects
Harry Phipps
The most recent addition to the suspect list, Harry Phipps
was a 48 year old factory owner when the Beaumont Children disappeared.
Phipps has come to prominence after the publication of a
book called The Satin Man by Alan Whitaker with Stuart Mullens originally
released in 2013. He lived only 300
metres from Glenelg Beach, and resembled the man seen with the children that
morning. Haydn Phipps, Harry’s son, claimed years later that his father brought
three children to their home that Australia Day and that he saw them enter the
family house, but did not see them leave.
In addition, two local men, who had been youths at the time,
claimed that Harry asked them to dig a 2m x 1m x 2m hole at the site of his
factory that weekend, paying them in One Pound notes and telling them to never
come near him again.
An excavation of an area of the factory was excavated in
2018 with no results.
Phipps resembled the man on the beach, but at 48 was
considerably older than witnesses estimated, although it has been claimed that
he looked younger than his years.
Bevan Spencer von Einem
Bevan von Einem is a convicted murderer and paedophile from
Adelaide, known to be active in the 1960s and 1970s.
He was found guilty of the 1983 murder of Richard Kelvin, a
15 year old boy who was the son of an Adelaide television news reader, Rob
Kelvin. Richard had been abducted, held
captive, sexually abused, drugged and tortured for five weeks before being
murdered.
Von Einem was also charged in two further murders but due to
a lack of evidence the charges were eventually dropped. There are other murders
that prosecutors believe von Einem was involved in, but have not been able to
pursue due to a lack of evidence.
A long-held theory was that von Einem was a member of a
high-powered group of homosexual paedophiles, known as “The Family” which
operated around Adelaide without fear of prosecution as many of the members
were high ranking lawyers, judges and other officials. While this was discussed
in many media articles, there was never any documented proof of this group’s
existence.
Von Einem somewhat resembled the drawing of the man seen
with the Beaumont children in 1966, and an informant claimed that von Einem had
told him that he once took three children from a beach and conducted
experiments on them.
The statements that point to von Einem are that he liked to
attend Glenelg Beach around that time to “perv” on changing rooms and was
obsessed with children.
The statements against von Einem being the man on the beach
are that he was significantly younger than the man was described on the day (he
was 20 years old, whereas the man was described as being in his mid 30s) and
von Einem’s victims were usually in their teens or older and exclusively male.
Derek Ernest Percy
Before Derek Percy died he was the longest serving prisoner
in Victoria, despite the fact that he had been found not guilty of killing
Yvonne Touhy in 1969 by reason of insanity.
Percy was held indefinitely, On Her Majesty’s Pleasure, due to his
ongoing danger to the community.
Percy was a suspect in many crimes against teens and
children around the country in the 1960s. His family travelled quite a bit, and then
Percy joined the navy, which placed him in the vicinity at the time of many
murders, such as the Wanda Beach murders, the murder of Linda Stilwell on St
Kilda Beach and the murders of Simon Brook in Sydney and Allen Redstone in
Canberra. In 2014, a year after his death at age 64, it was ruled that he had
killed Linda Stilwell in 1968.
Percy admitted to being at Glenelg Beach on the day of the
abduction of the Beaumont Children, however he was 17 which is considerably
younger than the man seen with the children.
In a personal touch, I worked with a woman who had grown up
in the small town of Mount Beauty in rural Victoria while Derek Percy had lived
there. She remembered him as a strange
boy who was constantly stealing women’s underwear off clothes lines, a crime
known as “snow dropping” which is often a precursor to crimes such as peeping,
public indecency and worse.
Arthur Stanley Brown
In 1998, 86 year old Arthur Brown was charged with the murder
of sisters Judith and Susan Mackay 28 years earlier in 1970.
Judith, five, and her older sister Susan seven, disappeared
on August 26th 1970 from a school bus stop less than 10 minutes
after leaving home. Their bodies were
found two days later in a dry creek bed.
They had both been raped and stabbed, with Susan strangled as well.
Unfortunately, the trial did not go ahead due to Brown’s
age-related health issues, but authorities and the Mackay family believe that
he was responsible for the crime.
As an active paedophile during the 1960s and 1970s, Brown
was considered a possible suspect for the Beaumont Children. He resembled the man at the beach, but there
was never any firm proof that he had been in Adelaide at the time.
Jim and Nancy
Nancy Beaumont passed away in September 2019, never knowing
what happened to her children Jane, Arnna and Grant on Australia Day 1966. Jim is now 94. Having to live more than half
their lives not knowing the fate their children; having the judgemental eyes of
the country on Mrs Beaumont because she let her children go to the beach on
their own; the guilt she no doubt felt about that decision and the “what-ifs”
she would have gone over in her head a million times. My sympathy for Mr and
Mrs Beaumont is immeasurable.
I was born nearly nine years after the Beaumont Children
disappeared, but I grew up knowing the story and wanting to know the answer to
the mystery. I remember watching tabloid
TV shows such as A Current Affair as they interviewed adults who claimed to be
Jane or Arnna or Grant, all grown up. Of course, they never were. Or when a new
theory or new suspect came up and all the tabloid TV and newspapers went crazy
for the story all over again. I can’t
imagine how much additional pain these claims caused Jim and Nancy
Beaumont.
The case has become synonymous with the end of innocence in
suburban Australia. With most viable
suspects having now passed away, the reality is we will probably never know the
fate of the Beaumont Children, unless someone stumbles on some bones by chance.
As much as the rest of the country wants to know what happened, it is Jim and
Nancy who deserve that knowledge more than anyone. And for Nancy at least, it is already too
late.
