Rather than keep the kidnapping under wraps until the ransom was paid and the boy returned, hopefully unharmed, Detective Inspector Bert Windsor, the acting chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, chose to call an immediate press conference. That afternoon every newspaper in the country carried the story on the front page.

And even though they weren't told that the caller's voice was that of a European, the newspapers couldn't help but compare the Graeme Thorne kidnapping with that of four-year-old Eric Peugeot, grandson of car millionaire Jean-Pierre Peugeot, who had been kidnapped two months earlier in Paris and was returned unharmed after the ransom had been paid. Eric Peugeot's kidnappers were still at large at the time that Graeme went missing.

chapter continues

advertisement

Australians were dumbfounded. This could happen in America or Europe, but not here. Australia was so unprepared for a kidnapping that, like all of the other Australian states, the New South Wales Crimes Act didn't even carry a provision for the crime. The nearest listed offense was "abduction,'' which commonly referred to the abduction of a female for the purpose of marriage or carnal knowledge. It carried a maximum penalty of fourteen-years' imprisonment. The Thorne case was the catalyst for introducing laws to deal with kidnapping in Australia.

Police launched a search operation on a scale the likes of which Australia had never seen previously. Within hours of the kidnapping, every house and flat in the vicinity of the Thorne's home was searched. Every possible hideout was checked: motels, boarding houses, and even boat moorings around Sydney Harbour came under scrutiny. Known criminals across the country were questioned. Officers on leave were called back to duty to help with the search.

Bazil Thorne told detectives to offer the entire 100,000 pounds in return for his son but they declined as they expected that all it would attract would be tricksters and con artists and inhibit the real search.

Although under heavy sedation, Mrs. Thorne recalled that a short time after the lottery win, a man with a heavy European accent and wearing dark glasses had knocked on her door and asked for a Mr. Bognor, a name which Mrs. Thorne didn't recognize. The man then asked her if her phone number was 307113, which was correct though it was not listed in the telephone directory. Mrs. Thorne suggested to the strange man that he ask the lady living in the flat above.

It was later revealed that an employee at the Lotteries had given the Thorne's phone number to the mysterious caller with the European accent. In 1960 in Sydney, there was no secrecy attached to the name, address or phone number of a lottery winner.

When the kidnapper had not rung back by 5 p.m. on July 7, as he said he would, the NSW Police Commissioner, Mr. C.J. Delaney, made a personal appeal for the return of Graeme Thorne on the evening television. The following day, television stations across the nation screened news flashes with photos of the missing boy. Bazil Thorne appeared on television briefly and said; "If the person who has my son is a father of his own, all I can say is, for God's sake, send him back to me in one piece."