The missing Beaumont children
On January 26, 1966, the Beaumont family was celebrating Australia Day. Nancy Beaumont had entrusted her eldest child, Jane, with taking her younger siblings, Arnna, and Grant, to the nearby beach at Glenelg. The day before, the children had made the short trip back from the beach to their home in Somerton Park on their own.
Before heading off to work as a traveling linen salesman, the Beaumont children’s father, Grant “Jim” Beaumont, ensured that they were aware of the boundaries for safe swimming and cautioned them against speaking to strangers. He was required to depart on a business trip to Snowtown, located approximately 93 miles from Adelaide, after four weeks of summer vacation.
On the day of their disappearance, the Beaumont children, Jane, Arnna, and Grant, departed from their home at 10 a.m. and were spotted at the nearby Glenelg beach at 10:15 a.m. They were scheduled to return home by 12 p.m., however, when their mother, Nancy, went to the bus stop to pick them up, they were not present. Initially, she wasn’t overly worried as she believed they may have been delayed due to playing or made the decision to walk back home, as the beach was located less than a mile from their residence.
However, when the next bus was due at 2 p.m. and the children still hadn’t returned, Nancy began to worry. A friend who was visiting offered to drive her to the beach to look for them, but Nancy wanted to be home in case the children returned.
When the children did not return by the afternoon, the parents became worried and Jim, who was supposed to be on a sales trip, arrived home just before 3 p.m., a day early from his sales trip, and decided to look for his children himself.
Jim drove to Glenelg Beach to search for Jane, Arnna, and Grant Jr but did not find them among the crowd. After searching the beach, he returned home in the hope that the children might have returned home. When the children did not come back, the Beaumonts walked to the Glenelg Police Station to report them missing at 5 p.m.
The search for the missing Beaumont children began with a thorough examination of their home to rule out the possibility that the children were hiding there. As the night progressed, Jim Beaumont accompanied the police on a patrol car search of Somerton Park and Glenelg, scouring the streets for any sign of his children. Even after the police dropped him off, he continued the search on his own in his car.
As the search for the missing Beaumont children continued, various measures were put in place to aid in the search efforts. Boats from the Sea Rescue Squadron joined in, airports and train stations were alerted, and roadblocks were set up to monitor anyone entering or leaving the state of Adelaide. Police officers used loudspeakers to appeal to the public, asking if anyone had seen the children. Taxi drivers also spread the word, as Jim was a former driver and well-known among them. People of all ages, including members of Jane’s Brownie troop, joined in the search efforts on foot.
The Beaumont missing children’s case received a significant amount of media coverage, and on January 28, Jim Beaumont, the father, spoke to the reporters assembled at his residence. “I believe someone is keeping them against their will, they would have returned home by now,” he said. “It’s an absolute enigma, I cannot comprehend it. My children must be in tears. It’s like a nightmare come true.”
Within a day of the children’s disappearance, the Glenelg Police were receiving numerous tips and leads from the public. One bus driver who drove on the beach route reported that he remembered the children getting on his bus at 10:10 a.m. on Jan. 26, but couldn’t remember them making a return trip.
Upon investigation, it was discovered that the children had visited Wenzel’s Bakery located near the beach around noon. Jane, the eldest child, had bought a pie, which was placed in a separate bag and also five pastries, six finger buns, and two large bottles of soda. She paid for the purchase with a £1 note that her mother did not provide to her.
Their local postman reported seeing the children that afternoon, “holding hands and laughing” on his route, but couldn’t recall if it was at 1:45 p.m. when he began his route or 2:55 p.m. when he finished. The following morning, he stated that he was sure it was closer to 3 p.m.
Amid the numerous leads and tips received by police, several witnesses reported seeing the Beaumont children playing on the beach with a tall, thin-faced man with blonde hair, believed to be in his 30s. The witnesses stated that the children seemed to know him or were willingly spending time with him.
Despite this lead, no further information was uncovered. In the weeks following the children’s disappearance, Nancy Beaumont expressed her belief that they were no longer alive, but still held out hope for their return. However, as time passed, her hope began to fade.
The fate of the Beaumont children has been a mystery for many years with various theories proposed. One theory suggests that they were kidnapped and killed by a known child predator who was operating in the area. Another theory proposes that they were taken out of the country. Some have also suggested, without evidence, that the children’s mother may have had a hand in their disappearance. However, there is currently no solid proof to support any of these theories and they remain unverified.
A Dutch parapsychologist and psychic named Gerard Croiset claimed to have had a vision of the children’s whereabouts and was flown from the Netherlands to Australia by a wealthy real estate developer in November 1966. Croiset believed that the children were trapped under the floor of an old brick factory being used as a warehouse. Despite the psychic’s claims, authorities did not take action due to the lack of evidence. However, concerned citizens raised $40,000 to fund an excavation, which was conducted under the watchful eye of television cameras in 1967. The excavation yielded no results.
Many people have claimed to have seen the Beaumont children over the years, from a woman in Perth who thought she was living next to the Beaumont family in 1966, to a retired detective on the case who believed in 1997 that Jane Beaumont was still alive and living in Canberra. However, these claims were thoroughly investigated and found to be untrue.
In March 1986, authorities discovered three suitcases filled with newspaper clippings about the missing children case in a residential garbage can. The clippings had lines and headlines crossed out, and ominous comments written in red ink, such as “Not in the sand hills, in sewerage drain.”, “Lies—all bluff.”
In the days following the discovery of the suitcases, individuals claiming to be relatives of the deceased owner of the suitcases came forward and claimed these documents were the work of an elderly amateur sleuth who had been following the case passionately and that the suitcases were thrown in the garbage can after her death.
An additional lead claimed that the Beaumont children were residing on the Mud Islands of Victoria, but the investigation of the entire crew of a British freighter stationed there in 1968 yielded no results.
There was also a claim made by a Perth woman, who stated that she lived next to the Beaumont children for nine months in 1966 in a remote town between West and South Australia but this lead, like other leads, proved fruitless.
As tragic as it may sound, the local community even suspected Nancy Beaumont of being involved in her own children’s disappearance.
The Beaumont family received two letters approximately two years after the disappearance of their children, Jane, Arnna, and Grant. The letters were postmarked from Dandenong, Victoria, and were written by a man claiming to be the guardian of the children and willing to return them.
The Beaumonts, along with a detective, went to the designated meeting place but no one showed up. A third letter was later received, claiming that the man had changed his mind because of the presence of a disguised detective. These letters were later revealed to be a hoax, written by a 41-year-old man who had been a teenager at the time and had written the letters as a joke. Because of the time that had passed, he was let off without any charge.
Harry Phipps, a factory owner and former member of Adelaide’s social elite, became a potential suspect following the release of the book “The Satin Man: Uncovering the Mystery of the Missing Beaumont Children” in 2013. The book did not reveal the identity of the “Satin Man,” but Phipps’s estranged son, Haydn, later identified him.
Harry Phipps bore a resemblance to the man seen talking to the Beaumont children at Glenelg Beach. He was wealthy, known for handing out £1 notes, and was later accused of having pedophile tendencies. He lived only 300 meters away from the beach on the corner of Augusta Street and Sussex Street.
Phipps passed away in 2004, but an investigation into his involvement in the case was launched in 2007 after his son Haydn claimed to have seen him with the Beaumont children. Haydn, who was 15 at the time of the disappearance, told investigators that he had seen the children in his father’s yard on the day of their disappearance, and alleged that Phipps had sexually abused him.
Two other individuals, who were youths at the time, claimed that Harry Phipps had paid them to dig a 2 × 1 × 2-meter hole in his factory yard on Australia Day in 1966 for unknown reasons.
In 2013, investigators excavated a portion of the New Castalloy factory in North Plympton, Adelaide. An investigation, spearheaded by Channel 7, was conducted using geophysical testing methods on the grounds and discovered an anomaly in the soil, suggesting that a hole may have been previously dug. Further excavation was carried out on February 1, 2018, however, only animal bones and common debris were discovered.
After a second search at his father’s factory yielded no results, Wayne Phipps, Harry’s younger son, informed Australia’s Sunday Mail that his older brother, Hadyn, who passed away in 2016, had a mental illness and their father was not connected to the disappearance of the Beaumont children.
In 1984, Bevan Spencer von Einem was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 15-year-old Richard Kelvin, the son of an Adelaide newsreader. Despite believing that von Einem had accomplices and was possibly involved in other murders and disappearances, including the Beaumont children, no one else was ever charged.
An informant known as “Mr. B” told police that von Einem had boasted about taking three children from a beach, conducting “experiments” on them, and disposing of their bodies in bushland south of Adelaide. However, there was no concrete evidence to warrant further police investigations into the Beaumont children case. Von Einem was also suspected of taking two girls from the Adelaide Oval during a football match. In 2007, police were examining archival footage that showed a man resembling von Einem among onlookers and called for information to identify him.
In 2015, Allan Maxwell McIntyre claimed that a man he had known in 1966, named Alan Anthony Munro, had come to his home with the children’s bodies in the boot of his car.
Munro was a former Scoutmaster who had pleaded guilty to 10 child sex offenses and had been sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 1992, he was convicted again for indecent assault on an 11-year-old boy and sentenced to seven months in prison.
In 2009, Munro relocated to Cambodia and started participating in charitable organizations that helped Cambodian orphans. In June 2017, detectives in Adelaide received a diary belonging to a child from 1966 which suggested Munro was nearby Glenelg Beach when the children went missing. However, there was no proof that linked Munro to the Beaumont Children’s disappearance and he was not charged.
The South Australian Government has offered a reward of $745,000 ($1 million Australian) for information leading to the resolution of the enduring mystery.
During the initial investigation, the Beaumont parents were met with widespread sympathy from the public in Australia. They stayed at their residence in Somerton Park, with Nancy in particular holding on to the hope that her children would come back. In interviews, she stated that it would be tragic if the children returned home and their parents were not there to welcome them.
As the years passed and new leads and theories emerged, the Beaumonts were fully cooperative in exploring all possibilities. They looked into claims that their children had been kidnapped by a religious cult and were living in different locations such as New Zealand, Melbourne, or Tasmania, as well as any other clues that could lead to a potential burial site for the children.
After some time, the couple decided to part ways and lead separate lives, opting to avoid the spotlight that had been on them for many years. They disposed of their residence even though the investigation is still ongoing. The authorities remain updated on their new whereabouts. Jim and Nancy Beaumont ultimately came to terms with the possibility that the mystery surrounding their children’s vanishings may never be resolved.
On September 16, 2019, Nancy Beaumont passed away at the age of 92 in an Adelaide nursing home. Her ex-husband, Jim Beaumont, also resides in Adelaide and is currently 90 years old. The Beaumonts’ marriage was deeply affected by the tragic disappearance of their children in the 1960s, ultimately leading to their separation in the 1980s and eventual divorce. They did not have any additional children.
Despite all the efforts, neither the Beaumont Children were found nor their remains could never be discovered. The case remains unsolved and the Beaumont children’s fate is still a mystery, and their family and the public are left with more questions than answers. The case continues to be of interest to the public, and it is still an open case with the South Australia Police.
Source – Who took the Beaumont children?: New lead in iconic Australia Day abduction
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