Australia’s most haunting cold case may finally be a step closer to being solved, with new bombshell revelations about what really happened to the Beaumont children when they disappeared almost 60 years ago.
In Unmasking The Killer Of The Missing Beaumont Children, startling new testimony from a mystery woman exposing horrific details of the kidnapping and murder of Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont after they were taken from Adelaide’s Glenelg Beach on Australia Day, 26 January 1966.
Louise breaks her silence
The woman, only identified as “Louise”, names the man who has long been a suspect in the case – the late businessman Harry Phipps – as being responsible for their killing.
She alleges Phipps, a well-known paedophile who’s now deceased, also sexually assaulted her and passed her around to other abusers within his paedophile ring.
A breakthrough
This breakthrough came after an ill-fated deep excavation of Phipps’ old factory site in Adelaide in February, which failed to find any traces of Jane, nine, Arnna, seven, and Grant, four. Louise contacted the book’s co-author Stuart Mullins to confess all she knew about the shocking case.
Stuart and former South Australian police detective Bill Hayes have been investigating the Beaumont case for years, and co-authored the new book. Bill tells Woman’s Day that Louise’s revelations, which are detailed in one of the book’s most chilling chapters, could prove to be a game-changer in the investigation.
“This is more information than we have ever known about those last days of the Beaumont children,” says Bill.
“We believe we now have an answer. We have been saying for 20 years it was Harry Phipps and now we have information that suggests it was indeed him.”
South Australian police named Phipps, who died in 2004, as a person of interest.
Louise’s revelations claim Phipps took the three Beaumonts from the beach to his factory, where the two girls were sexually abused, before being strangled and dumped in a pit on the site.
Grant was reportedly taken to a local racecourse, where he was murdered and buried on the banks of the Sturt River, in an area that has been concreted.
A man, who Louise said had repeatedly abused her and was part of the same paedophile ring Phipps belonged to, confessed Phipps had killed the children and buried them at the factory. The abuser warned Louise if she ever reported the abuse, she would “end up under the concrete like the Beaumonts”.
Lie detector
Bill says any doubts about Louise’s recollections, particularly the years taken to come forward, were challenged during an extensive polygraph test.
“I did the lie detector test,” he says.
“I’m a qualified detection examiner from my years on the police force – and she was telling the truth about all she was told. “I’m confident she told us truthfully what she had been told and that is startling information. Actually, the full details she told us made me feel unwell.”
Even though February’s search of the former factory site, which dug up 12,000 metric tonnes of dirt, failed to find any human remains, Bill believes Phipps had previously dug up the bodies of Jane and Arnna, moving them to another location.
He hopes the book generates new leads for the South Australian police to investigate. A $1.1 million reward already exists for information leading to a conviction or a discovery. As for news of a possible excavation of a sinkhole at Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula, Bill doesn’t believe the Beaumonts are there.
“But I’m willing to be wrong and if that’s the case, then I would be thrilled because the goal is to find the children,” he says.
“This is a case that’s had an impact on the psyche of this country, so it needs to be solved.”
Bones found
A second site of interest has been identified in the race to locate the Beaumont children, with a sinkhole in Stansbury on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula now considered a possible location where Jane, Arnna and Grant’s bodies were buried.
According to investigative journalist Bryan Littlely, the answers to the mystery may lie deep in a sinkhole.
“There are a number of reasons why we’re looking at Stansbury,” Bryan tells Woman’s Day.
New Focus on Tony Munro
“Probably the strongest is tied to convicted paedophile Tony Munro, as we can put him at that site with certainty. I also have a view on the credibility of witness statements, which put Tony Munro with the Beaumont kids on that day. We know that site was filled in within weeks of the abduction of the Beaumonts.”
Police have previously said there is no evidence linking Munro to the case. Bryan, one of the co-founders of the missing persons foundation Leave a Light On set up by Suzie Ratcliffe, is also involved in the new search for the remains of Suzie’s sister Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon. They were last seen at Adelaide Oval in 1973. He and the dig volunteers hope they’re near a breakthrough on that case, having found bone fragments at a site in Yatina, which are currently being examined forensically.
Unmasking The Killer Of The Missing Beaumont Children ($42, Simon & Schuster).
