Australia’s biggest unsolved mystery: Was it the perfect crime?
Adelaide was always considered to be a safe place. Kids rode their bikes to the beach on their own until one day, when a family lost all three of their children at once.
Many have tried to solve the case, and several books have been written. Still, nothing. As time passed, public confidence in the police dwindled. Unlike many other cold cases, there has never been a coronial investigation. Many suspect this is because of the police’s bungled investigation.
How did Jane, Assan, and Grant vanish, making their case the longest cold case in Australia?
They went to the beach and simply vanished. No trace of evidence. Was it the perfect crime?
How did they disappear?
Sixty years ago
Australia Day (January 26), 1966, is typically a hot time of year, especially for Adelaide. Like many children, the beach is a favorite place on such days.
The kids—Jane, nine, Assan, seven, and Grant, four—asked their mom if they could go to Glenelg Beach. It’s just a five-minute, three-kilometre bus ride from home. In those days, children had much more freedom than today. It was common for young kids to go places alone and unsupervised.
They caught the bus at 8:45 am and were expected to return home by 12:00 noon. Their mother, Nancy, became worried when they did not return on either the 12:00 or 2:00 pm bus.
When her husband, Jim, returned home around 3:00 pm, he immediately drove to the crowded beach. He couldn’t find the children, so he went back. Together, both parents searched the streets and checked their friends’ houses.
Around 5:30 pm, they went to the Glenelg police station to report the disappearance.
The investigation begins
Police followed a lead from the local postman. He knew the Beaumont children well. He reported seeing them holding hands and laughing as they walked along a road toward their home.
The police felt confused. Why were the usually dependable children calm even though they were an hour late? Then, the postman changed his story. He said he had seen them in the morning, not the afternoon.
Witnesses from a local bakery said the children bought lunch there around noon. They paid with a £1 note.
This was more than their mother claimed to have given them. The bakery assistant also claimed they heard the children talking about “the man.”
Others claim they saw the children playing at Colley Reserve with a man described as a thin, blonde man in his 30s.
In the weeks after the disappearance, Harry Phipps, a businessman, became the main suspect. He lived just 300 m from Glenelg Beach and owned a nearby factory.
A few days after the kids vanished, Phipps told two young brothers to dig a grave-like hole on the property. A neighbor said they saw the two boys digging at the factory site, and were told it would be the burial spot for a “big dog.”
Their reason for not coming forward was that they did not want to get involved. Hey claimed to have seen the boys digging under the supervision of a man in his car.
Mr. Phipps was later found to be married to a cousin of the children’s father. This raised more suspicion about him.
A few months later, a woman said that on the night someone went missing, she saw a man with two girls and a boy. They entered a nearby house that she thought was empty.
The woman later said she saw the boy walking alone on a lane. A man chased him, grabbed him roughly, and took him back to the house.
According to the woman, the house was empty the next morning, and she had not seen the man or the children since.
Why this witness did not come forward sooner remains a mystery.
As time passed, public confidence in police dwindled. There has never been a coronial investigation like that of many other cold cases.
Reported sightings of the children continued for over a year after their disappearance. About two years after the kids vanished, the Beaumonts received two letters. One was from their eldest daughter, Jane, and the other from a man who said he had the children.
Police believed the letters to be genuine based on samples of Jane’s handwriting. The man claimed to be the kids’ guardian. He promised to return them. So, the parents drove to the meeting spot, and the police followed. But no one came.
A few weeks later, a third letter, supposedly from Jane, said he was keeping the kids. She claimed the parents had brought the police into the meeting.
Revisiting the Case
Although there are many suspects, no one has been proven responsible. The bodies of the children, now thought to be dead, remain missing.
In 1992, new forensic tests revealed the letters were a hoax. A teenager had written them as a joke. He wasn’t charged with any crime. However, people questioned if Jane’s first letter was authentic.
The prime suspect, Mr. Phipps, died in 2004. Most of the witnesses and suspects have also passed away.
Earlier this year, a final attempt to uncover the bodies of the children occurred at the factory site. It followed two earlier searches and excavations of the site in 2013 and 2018.
The most recent attempt concluded on March 1, with no result. This was the last chance for detectives to dig at the site. The government once owned it, but developers will soon buy it.
The South Australian government still offers a $1 million reward. This is for information that helps to find the missing Beaumont children.
The case gained global attention. It changed how Australians live. Parents started to feel their kids weren’t safe alone in public.
Given the elapsed time and passing of key players, I am sure it will remain one of life’s mysteries. For fifty years, the parents felt the heavy weight of not knowing what happened to their kids. Nancy Beaumont passed away in 2019 at the age of 92, and her husband, Grant, passed away in 2019 at the age of 92.
If only the seagulls of Glenelg Beach could talk, we might have an answer.
Till next time,
Calvin
