The "Family" Murders

The Missing Beaumont Children

The Beaumont children (left to right), Arna, 7, Grant, 4 and Jane, 9

Adelaide, the beautiful garden "City of Churches," situated on the torpid Torrens River first came under the national spotlight on 26 January, 1966 when Jane, 9, Arnna, 7, and 4-year-old Grant Beaumont disappeared from South Australia's Glenelg Beach at about 11:15 a.m. while on an outing alone. Their disappearance made headlines all around Australia.

Torrens River, Adelaide

On that morning the weather was fine and the forecast was for a hot and steamy day, ideal conditions for a day at the beach. The Beaumonts were an average Australian family living at suburban Somerton Park, not far from the beach, and the children's father, a traveling salesman, had opted against joining his children at the beach for the day and instead chose to visit on a client. It was a decision that would prove fateful.

At 10 a.m. the children took the bus to the beach, which was only a few minutes ride away. The eldest girl, Jane, was considered old and responsible enough to mind her two siblings. She assured her mother that that they would be home on the midday bus. They caught the bus at the stop just 100 yards from their front door. The bus driver confirmed later that he dropped them five minutes later at Glenelg beach.

When they didn't arrive home their mother wasn't unduly concerned. Children simply didn't go missing in suburban Adelaide, especially from a crowded beach area. She concluded that they must have decided to walk home and had spent their bus fare money on sweets and she would hear the usual ruckus as they ran in the front door at any minute.

When Mr. Beaumont arrived home in the mid-afternoon and his children still weren't home he went looking for them. When they still hadn't been sighted four hours later he notified police and a massive search was launched. By morning their photographs were being circulated to every newspaper across the country telling of every mother's worst nightmare.

Police were left with the three possibilities: that the children had run away; drowned in the surf or had been abducted and were being held for ransom. The only ray of hope was the sighting of the children in the company of a tall blond or light brown-haired young man in blue swimming trunks. Then another witness came forward and said that he had seen the children with the same young blond man in a park opposite the beach and then walking away with him behind the Glenelg Hotel.

Then the local postman came forward and said that he had seen the trio walking up Jetty Road away from the beach and toward their home at about 3 p.m. They were laughing and holding hands.

The police received hundreds of calls about possible sightings of the Beaumont children but they all proved to be fruitless. They had vanished without a trace and have never been seen since.

But there would be a glimmer of hope, albeit a very horrific glimmer, of finding out what happened to the Beaumont children, many years in the future at the committal hearing of one of the most evil murderers in Australia's history.