Unsolved: The disappearance of the Beaumont Children.

January 26^th 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.

                                                __________________________

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 26^th 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.

The scourge of domestic violence.

The media in Australia is currently highlighting the significant amount of domestic violence within our society.  Domestic violence has always been present, but a number of high profile cases have brought attention to something which has always been a “behind closed doors” issue.

It wasn’t that many years ago that it was treated as a private issue.  Husbands beat their wives and children, it was just part of life.  Technically under the law, they were his property and he could treat them as he saw fit.  Fortunately that attitude has mostly gone, but as with many issues, the courts and government policy makers are lagging behind the community.

Here are a few stories, going back up to a decade, which have brought this issue to the forefront of the community’s consciousness.

Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur Massacre

I remember April 28th 1996 vividly for a number of reasons. I went to a concert that night – Alanis Morrisette at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda, Melbourne. My first time at that venue, and my first time seeing Alanis. It is a lovely old theatre, right on the beach. The old leather seats smell like leather and the sea. I had gone to the concert with my mum and my best friend. It had been a good night. My best friend’s daughter was a little over 1 year old, and we had left her with a family friend for the night, which meant we had two hour drive home, to pick Jaimee up on the way. The radio had been tuned to a pop station, I think Fox FM was my choice in those days. The late night show was usually a relationship/sex show with a DJ with the ominous moniker of “Dr. Feelgood”. A real doctor, she generally gave decent, frank advice. We were talking about the concert when we first got in the car, Dr Feelgood’s soft voice not making a huge impression initially. Then the content of what she was saying began to filter through. Shooting. Massive casualties. Australia’s worst crime. Port Arthur. Tasmania. Deaths and lots of them. We soon began listening to the radio in stunned silence. While we had been singing and dancing, oblivious to the outside world, a tragedy was being revealed.

Port Arthur

Port Arthur is a hugely popular tourist destination in Tasmania, Australia’s island state, south of the mainland. Port Arthur had been a penal settlement in the days of convicts, and the historical buildings attract many tourists, with there being shops, cafes and tours of the site, most notably night time ghost tours. By 1pm on that sunny autumn day there were 500 visitors making their way around the site. Nearly sixty of those visitors were having lunch in the Broad Arrow cafe, along with a man with long blonde, almost white, hair and a big blue sports bag. After sitting on his own on the balcony to eat his meal, he made a few comments to no-one in particular – most notably a comment about the lack of Japanese tourists that day. He then returned inside the cafe, staring at a group of diners, before placing a video camera on a table, turning to an Asian couple nearby, removing a rifle from his bag, and shooting. Moh Yee Ng was killed instantly, his companion Soo Leng Chung shot in the head. Turning to the first group of diners he shot twice, grazing one man and killing his girlfriend. In only moments three people had been killed. It had only just begun. Within fifteen seconds twenty people were dead and fifteen more injured. Fifteen seconds.

Martin Bryant

The shooter then opened fire on a group of tourists in the car park who were not aware of the danger they were now in. Some of the tourists crawled under a tour bus to hide, but the shooter calmly leant down and shot them as they huddled in fear. He got in his vehicle, a Volvo station wagon, and began driving to find more victims.

Next, a young mother was shot, as was the small child she was carrying. Her other daughter ran to escape the shooter, but he followed her behind a tree and shot her point blank. Three members of a family unit obliterated in moments. These three victims were Nanette, Alannah and Madeline Mikac.

On that day sixteen years ago a man named Martin Bryant made Port Arthur more famous than ever before, and for all the wrong reasons.

Bryant had always been an odd person – a loner in school, he was a loner as an adult as well. With a Forrest Gump level IQ, Martin qualified for a disability pension and obtained work as a handy man for a rich lottery heiress, Helen Harvey. Harvey took the strange young man under her wing, cultivating an unusual friendship, taking him on shopping expeditions and lavishing gifts on him. Many wondered if their relationship was more than platonic.

Martin’s behaviour was bizarre and erratic at times, which was extremely noticeable in quiet rural Tasmania. Neighbours complained about him prowling around their properties late at night, amongst other things.

The happiest years of Martin’s life ended abruptly when Helen Harvey was killed in a car accident. While some people claimed Martin caused the accident (he was known to grab and pull the steering wheel as a prank), no evidence was found and no charges were laid. Martin was the sole beneficiary of Helen’s estate, leaving him a mansion and more than $500,000 cash. He moved into the house and used the money for more than thirty overseas trips in a three year period, returning to his previous status as a loner.


In the months leading up to the massacre, Martin visited the Port Arthur tourist site several times. During this time, he also bought a new sports bag. The shopkeeper who sold it to him, remembers him measuring several before deciding on which one to purchase. These two facts tend to suggest that the killings were planned in advance and carried out with cold, calculating precision, rather than an act of impulse as suggested by some.

After shooting at people, he began shooting at vehicles as they approached. Bryant drove off in a BMW, after killing the occupants and transferring his guns from the Volvo. He eventually ended up at a local guest house, where he killed the proprietors and held the police off with gun fire for the rest of the night. His only request during the six hour standoff was for a ride in an army helicopter.

The next morning smoke was seen billowing from the guesthouse. Bryant ran from the building, clothing on fire. He was apprehended, his clothing extinguished and he was taken to hospital under police guard. It was over.

This was the days before the internet and information superhighway made updates on current events almost instant. The news would have started to filter through before we had gone to the concert, but we had been listening to Alanis on audio cassette in eager anticipation of the night in front of us. I’m glad I didn’t know about it until later. I think I really appreciated the fact that I heard the news about this from Dr. Feelgood. People were calling in to discuss how distressed they were by the events, and she was able to counsel them on air, and vicariously counsel us as well. She was kind of like Dr. Phil, but in a good way.

Walter Mikac, the only surviving member of his family, was a local pharmacist and became the face of the victims of this horrific event. Public sympathy poured out for a man who went to work one day, husband and father of two beautiful little girls, only to end the day a widower with three funerals to prepare. Walter established the “Alannah and Madeline Foundation” in honour of his little girls. The foundation supports children who have been the victims of violence or bullying. He went on to re-marry and have another child. I cannot imagine the pain he has been through. The pain that Martin Bryant has put him through. I have enormous respect for him, that he was able to continue with his life after that day.

The massacre at Port Arthur also led to the speedy implementation of strict gun laws throughout Australia. A gun amnesty encouraged all unregistered guns to be handed in, and very swiftly the gun culture of the nation changed. Now the only legal gun owners in Australia are farmers, hunters and sports shooters. There have been mass shootings in Australia before this massacre, but *touch wood* none since. For Australia, gun control was needed and has worked extremely well.

One can only speculate on the motives of Martin Bryant. He seems to have been focused on tourists, but it is unclear if this was a racially provoked issue. Unlike many of the other mass murderers we see, there was no apparent political message. Just a troubled man and some guns.


It is for people like Walter Mikac that I feel when I read online conspiracy theories suggesting that Martin Bryant was not responsible for the shootings, that there was other shooters, that it was an SAS officer who committed the crimes to instigate acceptance of gun control legislation in Australia, that Bryant was just a patsy. While eyewitness testimony is not 100% reliable, the amount of eyewitnesses to this event leaves little doubt as to the identity of the shooter. No other shooter was spotted by any of the people on the scene. Martin Bryant had no friends and it is extremely unlikely he was acting in concert with anyone. It was his act, and his alone. I understand that for his family, especially for his mother Carleen, it is a hard fact to deal with, and I don’t begrudge their grief, but the rights of the victims and their families need to be paramount.


For the more adventurous of you out there, there is police video available online of the crime scene, with the bodies still in place. I won’t link it here – just google it. I have watched it a few times in silent, morbid fascination. I can almost see the events playing out before my eyes.

Martin Bryant remains in prison in Tasmania, and I cannot foresee him ever being released.
 
For more details, check out Wikipedia or Crime Library.

Teen Angst: Pauline and Juliet

Teen angst is not a new issue - ask Romeo and Juliet. I have been fascinated with teen killers since I saw the film Heavenly Creatures. Here is the tale of this classic teen homicide with a twist:

Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme

Regardless of movies about shiny rings and big boats, I personally believe that Heavenly Creatures is both Peter Jackson's best work as a director, and Kate Winslet's first shining moment as an actress. It tells the true story of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme.



Pauline and Juliet were teens in 1950's New Zealand. They developed a very enmeshed, intense friendship where they would write stories together and live in a fantasy world that they created. There are some hints that the friendship had developed into a romantic relationship, but this is mere speculation. An example of Pauline's poetry:

"There are living amongst two dutiful daughters

Of a man possesses two beautiful daughters.

The most glorious beings in creation...

And above us these goddesses reign on high.

"I worship the power of these lovely two

With that adoring love known to so few.

'Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel

That two such heavenly creatures are real....

And these two wonderful people are you and I."

Pauline's parents, especially her mother, became very concerned about the closeness of the friendship and tried to separate the girls. Fatal mistake.

Juliet was due to be moving to South Africa with her parents, and Pauline wanted to go with her, but her mother had explicitly forbidden it, so the girls came up with a plan. They would take Mrs Parker to a local National Park, hit her on the head with a brick, and it would look just like she had a bad fall. Pauline's father would be so upset, he would allow Pauline to travel with Juliet.

Like a lot of these plans, it did not go how they imagined.

They went with Mrs Parker to the park - Juliet had fetched half a brick from a pile and had put it inside a stocking and given it to Pauline- so far, so good. The plan was that Juliet would walk ahead, dropping a pretty pink stone on the path. When Honora Parker bent over to pick up the stone, the brick in her daughter's hand would end her life.

But Pauline's initial blows were tentative - enough to injure her mother, but not kill her. Juliet had to assist Pauline, and it became a horrible, bloody, messy death.

Above: The girls go to court (Juliet on the left).

The girls were charged the next day and both were eventually found guilty. One of the conditions of their sentences was that they were never allowed to contact each other again. That provision has always struck me as highlightling the futility of their act. These girls were in love with each other, whether it was romantic love or not. Yet their "black and white" way of looking at the world cost one woman her life and deprived the girls of what they wanted most in the world - each other.

Above: Pauline in the 1990's

As a Post Script, Pauline went on to live a very non-descript life in New Zealand. Apart from the fact that she is a devout Catholic, little else is known.

Above: Anne Perry in the 1990's

Juliet on the other hand changed her name to Anne Perry and is a very popular British crime author!!! She writes books set in Victorian England - personally I would prefer if she wrote more contemporary stories - like a story set in New Zealand in the 1950's.... Like Pauline she also turned to religion - in Juliet's case it was Mormonism. She has given one interview about the case, when Heavenly Creatures was first released. She stated that it was her loyalty to Pauline which motivated her in the attack, rather than any malice. Check out her website here.

I would recommend watching Heavenly Creatures.  While this story just happens to be my personal favourite example of teen angst, there is a new example of this type of crime all the time. Teens who want to be together, who see parents as an obstacle, so they remove them - literally.

In reality if they had enough patience to wait for a few years, they could be together. But teens don't think like that - and the black and white thinking results in dire consequences for everyone involved.

Links

Crime Library

Wikipedia

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

Brief Summary and Editorial:  Serial Killer Barbie and Evil Bastard Ken

Paul and Karla on their wedding day.

It's fairly common to picture serial killers (and for that matter rapists and paedophiles) as disfigured, evil little men. Maybe that's why Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka really stand out.

Paul Bernardo met Karla Homolka and found in her his perfect woman - beautiful, sexually adventurous, and most importantly submissive. When Paul asked Karla what she would think if he told her that he was the Scarborough Rapist, a criminal who had been tormenting a Canadian suburb for a period of several months, Karla said she thought it was "cool". They fell hard for each other and Karla was willing to do ANYTHING to keep her attractive fiance.

That anything included drugging her 15 year old sister, Tammy, so Paul could rape her. You see, using Paul's fucked up logic, Karla was not a virgin when she started seeing Paul, so he needed to take the virginity of her sister to make up for that. When he put it like that, Karla was happy to help. She stole some anaesthetic from the vet clinic where she worked as a vet nurse. On December 23rd 1990 Paul, Karla and Tammy stayed up later than everyone else.

Tammy Homolka.

Tammy had been drinking and had eaten not long before her older sister held a drug soaked rag over her face while her fiance vaginally and anally raped her. While her oldest sister was orally raping her, Tammy asphyxiated on her own vomit and died. She was significantly burnt on her face from the anaesthetic agent which had been sloppily applied by her sister, but the medical examiner thought it must have been from stomach acid.

Three weeks after this horrible event, Paul took a video of Karla dressed in Tammy's clothes, and while pretending to be Tammy, performed oral sex on him. This act alone suggests that Karla did not care about what she had done to her little sister.

Karla, during her trial.

Paul continued to rape women, often with Karla's consent and presence. At least one woman who was raped by Bernardo after getting off a bus said she saw a blonde woman nearby holding a video camera. Police dismissed this as hysteria.

Eventually at least two more teenage girls lost their lives at Paul and Karla's hands.  In recent years Paul has confessed to several more rapes for which other people had been imprisoned and since pardoned.  There is also at least two young girls who died in the same area at the same time who were quite probably more victims of Paul and Karla, although unless Paul confesses, the truth will probably never be known.

The whole time that Paul and Karla were killing, a forensic pathology lab had a sample of Paul's DNA waiting to be tested as the Scarborough rapist. After more than two years the sample was finally tested and Paul Bernardo was arrested.  This was just one is a series of errors and delays made by police and forensic services which may have cost some young girls their lives. 

Karla, domestic violence victim.

Paul's fascination with his new video camera along with his decision to beat Karla black and blue sealed their fate. Karla's parents came and removed her and she reported the abuse to them, having photos taken of her horrific bruising. She also went to the police and confessed.

Police made a deal with Karla to tell what she knew. She ended up with a ten year sentence that was increased to twelve years when police discovered her role in the death of her own sister. Then the police were given the video tapes that Paul's lawyer had in his possession. If they had had those tapes earlier, Karla would never have received a deal and she would still be in prison.

Karla was released in July 2005, to media hysteria throughout Canada. There were even websites where you could bet when Karla would be killed - with the stipulation that you couldn't bet on it and then kill her, as that was cheating. 

It's an interesting case. I wonder how Karla's family feel about her these days, with the knowledge they must now possess. Was Karla a battered wife, committing the crimes as she had no choice but to follow her abusive manipulative husband? Or was she a willing participant who enjoyed it as much as Paul did? Karla insists she was a victim too. The video tapes suggest otherwise. 
Personally I think the video tapes are more convincing than the wimpering of a convicted killer.

Links

There are plenty of stories online about Canada's most infamous serial killing couple, but these will give you a good summary:



Crime Library

Karla Homolka on Wikipedia

Paul Bernardo on Wikipedia