Mystery of the Beaumont Children

As a mother of two myself, I can imagine that there is no greater tragedy for a parent then for one of their children to essentially vanish, never to be seen or heard from again. This horrific tragedy happened three fold for Jim and Nancy Beaumont of Adelaide, Australia. On January 26, 1966, their three children, Jane (age 9), Arnna (age 7) and Grant (age 4) left their home together at 10am that morning to go to a nearby beach and never returned home. Their disappearance lead to one of the biggest police investigations in Australian criminal history and remains Australia's most infamous cold case and one of Australia's most baffling mysteries to date.

The Beaumont children lived with their parents at 109 Hardening Street in Somerton Park, which was a suburb of Adelaide. On the morning of January 26, 1966, all three children caught the bus just one hundred meters from their home, at about ten minutes after 10 to take the short ride to Glenelg Beach. The children were due to arrive back home on the noon bus but they never did. When the children still were not home at 3pm, Jim and Nancy Beaumont became alarmed and starting searching for their children. Between the time that the children left home for the beach that morning and 3pm, they were reported to have been seen by at least seven different people.

It was already a hot morning in Adelaide on that fateful day. That same morning Jim Beaumont had pondered over rather to go to work or to go to the beach with his children instead. Ultimately he decided to go to work, a decision which he would soon regret. After her husband left for work and her children left for the beach, Nancy Beaumont went to visit a friend but returned home in time to wait by the bus stop for the noon bus as she expected her children to arrive home on that bus. However, the children were not on that bus. Nancy Beaumont did not immediately see cause for concern as she figured that the kids may have either decided to walk home or that they might have missed the bus and be returning on the next bus which was due to arrive around 2pm.

When the children still had not arrived home by 3pm, Mrs. Beaumont grew very worried. Soon afterwards, Mr. Beaumont returned home and they both began searching for their children. Nancy and Jim's search was in vain and at 7:30pm they reported their children missing to the police. Jim continued to stay out all night searching for his children.

The following day the Beaumont children were officially declared missing and a massive search began. The coast, north and south of the Colley Reserve, was searched intensively, but no trace of the children nor any of their belongings which they had on them at the time of their disappearance were ever found. By the end of the week, the case of the missing Beaumont children had made the national news and the search for them had become one of the largest searches ever in Australia. The search included the efforts of forty cab drivers and hundreds of regular civilian citizens as well as police and other authorities. The police even went so far as to visit each and every home which the Beaumont Children could have possibly passed on their way home, even so, all search efforts proved fruitless.

It is believed, though not proven, that the Beaumont children may have been abducted by a blond or light brown haired man who would have been approximately in his mid 30's at the time. This belief is due to several reported sightings of the children on the day of their disappearance. An elderly woman had reported that she had observed the children playing with a blond haired man wearing blue swimming trunks at the beach at around 11am on the day that they disappeared. A local shopkeeper also reported that the children had entered the shop at 11:45am that same day and had purchased some pasties and a meat pie using a one pound note. This was significant as the children had never bought a meat pie before and because Mrs. Beaumont had given the children six shillings to use for refreshments that morning, but had not given them a one pound note. Another woman, who was sitting on a bench near the shop, reported that she thought she had seen the children at 12pm that day. This woman also said that the children were in the company of a man and her description of this man matched the description of the man given by the elderly woman who had reported seeing the children with a man at the beach earlier the same day. This sighting was confirmed by another woman who was sitting on the same bench at the same time. Also, a gentlemen who had been visiting Glenelg Beach that day from Broken Hill, had reported seeing a man and the Beaumont children leave the beach together at around 1:45pm, the description he gave of this man matched that of the other witnesses.

The last person to see the children was a postman by the name of Mr. T. Patterson who reported that he had seen the children walking east along Jetty Road toward the bus stop. The postman was unsure of the time that he had saw the children, it was either at the beginning of his rounds which would have been just before 2pm, or at the end of his rounds which would have been at about five minutes before 3pm. In any case, Mr. Patterson said that the three children were alone when he saw them and did not appear to be in any distress.

Over the years Australian authorities and investigators received many leads and tips about the case but none of them panned out. In fact, some of the leads turned out to be nothing more then cruel hoaxes played by devious pranksters. In spite of this, four prime suspects were named and identified in the case, however there was never enough evidence to prove or convict any of these suspects with the abduction of the Beaumont children. These suspects were Bevan Spencer von Einem, Derek Ernest Percy, Arthur Stanley Brown and James O'Neill. Each of these suspects somewhat fit the description given of the man who had been reportedly seen with the Beaumont children on the day of their disappearance and each had been connected with other crimes involving the molestation and murder of children.

The most recent lead in the case came in 2007 when members of a South Australian family claimed that their father had been involved in the disappearance of the Beaumont children. The family made statements to police regarding the case but declined to be identified. These people claimed that their father was a member of a 1960's pedophile ring and that they had seen the children in the boot of his car on the day that they had disappeared. These witnesses had been only children themselves at the time and when asked why they waited so long to come forward with this information they had stated that being the victims of trauma and abuse had been the cause of their silence for so long. Retired detective, Mike Hagan, said that the claims were credible, however, as far as I can figure from my research, nothing else has been said about these claims since. From that and the fact that the case remains unsolved, we can only guess that this latest lead was another dead end.

It has been over forty years since the Beaumont children disappeared without a trace and it seems that the mystery is no closer to being solved now as it was then. To date, the details of this mysterious tragedy continues to intrigue and baffle the minds of many as they hold in their hearts much sympathy for Jim and Nancy Beaumont. Perhaps one day this case will be solved and the Beaumont family can finally have some peace and closure.