The Case of the Missing Beaumont Children

by Richard Saunders
June 10, 2025

Adelaide is the capital city of the state of South Australia and is known for its beauty, being labelled "The City of Churches". But the events of early 1966 have left an indelible mark on this city and indeed all of Australia.

At around 10:00 a.m. on January 26th, the three Beaumont siblings, Jane (9 years old), Arnna (7), and Grant (4), set off from their family home on Harding Street in the suburb of Somerton Park to spend some time at nearby Glenelg Beach, just a five-minute bus ride away. Their mother, Nancy, had given them some coins for lunch and expected them to return on their own a couple of hours later. This was not the first time the children had made the trip, so there was no particular cause for concern. It was 1966, after all, and Australian society reflected a more innocent time.

Witnesses reported seeing the children playing near the beach at noon and oddly they used a £1 note, pounds still being the currency in Australia in early 1966, to buy food. Remember, their mother had only given them coins. This fact alone has led to theories as to who they may have met on that day.

By 2:00pm the children had not returned home and by 7:30pm Nancy had contacted the police to report them missing.

The search for the children, that began that very night, was to captivate the city of Adelaide and made news around Australia. To have children disappear like this was almost unheard of and hundreds of citizens gave up their time to join the police to search around the beach and the nearby suburbs in the days and weeks that followed. The story was front-page news in the local newspaper, The Advertiser, for over a week as well as being prominently reported throughout Australia and internationally. As we'll see, and was appropriate, a great deal of police time and resources was committed to the case.

On February 3rd, with the police suspecting that the children had been murdered and their bodies disposed of, the local boat haven was drained, an extraordinary measure that reflected the seriousness of the situation. Some 35 police searched the muddy, knee-deep water with over a thousand people looking on from the shore. Nothing of interest to the case was found.

Police broadened their search to more suburbs and interviewed witnesses and people of interest. Sketches were made of possible suspects and distributed. Again, countless hours of police time and effort were poured into the case with officers following the tried-and-true crime investigation methodology of the day.

Despite a reward from the government with contributions from concerned citizens reaching $10,100 (about $167,000 in today's money), and many lines of inquiry being pursued, no trace of the children had been found by mid-1966. Although the police continued to follow numerous leads from the public, mostly concerning people seen near the children on the day of their disappearance, the story eventually faded from the newspapers.

It is now August 3rd, 1966, and the first reports that would make this case of particular interest to skeptics begin to emerge. As reported in The Advertiser, a TV newscaster contacted 58-year-old Gerard Croiset in the Netherlands via radio-phone, and their conversation was broadcast on that evening's television news.

Croiset had gained a reputation for locating missing persons through clairvoyance and was also known as a mystic healer of both animals and humans. He had initially been approached by a Dutch resident of Adelaide, Jan van Schie, who had sent Croiset details of the disappearance, along with photographs of the children and Glenelg Beach, hoping he might use his mystical insights. In the months that followed, Croiset would frequently be referred to as a "seer" in media reports.

Croiset claimed to have experienced "visions" and concluded that the children were in fact dead, their bodies lying in an underground cave among the rocks near the beach. According to him, there was no foul play, just a tragic accident.

This revelation resulted in a considerable amount of new correspondence being received by the police from the public, all of which had to be dealt with.

Croiset then sent a vague map of the area indicating where he thought the children were buried. This resulted in hundreds of people, men, women, and children, descending on the beach to search and dig according to interpretations of the map. Although nothing was found, more searches were undertaken based on the psychic visions, including that of stormwater drains, with borrowed equipment from the local fire department, resulting in more time and effort being put in by the police.

By early September, and with more media outlets picking up the paranormal aspects of the story, two Adelaide businessmen, Mr. Barry Blackwell and Mr. Con Polities, agreed to pay the cost of flying Croiset from the Netherlands to Adelaide in the hopes that his visiting the location would give him the extra insights he needed to solve the case.

Croiset finally arrived in Adelaide on the night of Tuesday, November 8th, 1966, and was greeted at the airport by hundreds of people together with media crews from TV, radio, and the newspapers. It was front-page news in The Advertiser the next morning, which reported the event as being "frantic". Other reports compare Croiset's arrival in Adelaide to that of the Beatles only 2 years before. Police were also in attendance.

Although public interest in the case hit a new level owing to the media coverage of the paranormal aspect, the South Australian police remained skeptical that this "seer" could succeed where nine months of police investigation had failed. Detective-Sergeant Ron Blight is quoted as saying, "We will give Mr. Croiset all the help we can... but we are not getting tangled up in his activities in Adelaide. Naturally, we hope that he finds the children and we're prepared to appeal to the public to give him a fair go, but we aren't particularly hopeful. If Croiset finds the Beaumont children, it will be sheer luck." Croiset announced that he would only spend two days on the search.

The next morning, Wednesday, November 9th, Croiset, followed by 12 media cars and scores of private cars, started his quest near the beach, the last known location of the children. From there, he walked around and then was driven around for many kilometers along the foreshore and local streets, spurred on by his visions and taking photographs and making sketches and notes. Occasionally, he would stop to talk, via an interpreter, to people along the way. Finally, at 5.30pm he ended up at Minda Home, an institute for what we would now call "children with special needs", and declared the Beaumont children were buried within the grounds. However, he finally rejected this site the next morning, so yet another dead end. One of the many reporters tagging along described the day as a farce.

Thursday, November 10th, saw more seemingly random rovings of the seer with the media in tow, but it only lasted until 3:30 p.m. as Croiset, tired and dejected, gave up his search and is quoted as saying, "I am not nearly as confident of finding the bodies now as I was when I first arrived." However, in a surprise move, he travelled that evening to the home of a woman who also claimed to have psychic visions of the children. Nothing of consequence came of this meeting, another false lead.

It's now Friday, November 11th, and a dramatic and, as we'll see, a far-reaching event took place at 2 p.m. Croiset, escorted by detectives, went to a newly built warehouse in Somerton Park, about 1km from the Beaumont's home, stood on a slab of concrete, and declared, "This is the place. I get my strongest emotion here." He maintained his belief that the children were not murdered but died from an accident while looking for shelter. Crowds of people flocked to the site following radio broadcasts of the announcement, with police having to control the traffic. Four hours later, Croiset was gone, having boarded a flight to Sydney and then to the USA. Before he left, however, he paid a visit to the Beaumont parents. Nancy Beaumont, at least, refused to believe her children were dead, despite Croiset's visions.

On Saturday, November 12th, the front page of The Advertiser read, "Croiset Picks Spot: Decision Awaited." Yet more people headed to the site out of curiosity or in anticipation of something dramatic being discovered. Over the coming days, talks were held by the South Australian Premier, Frank Walsh, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Geoffrey Leane, to consider what should be done. In the view of the police, who had spent time and effort investigating the feasibility of this claim, there was no reason and no real possibility the children could be buried under the warehouse.

On November 15th, the State Cabinet of South Australia decided not to authorise excavations, with Premier Walsh saying, "Excavations of this area would be a waste of time, money, and effort." This news came as a great disappointment to Con Polites and the thousands who had followed the exploits of Croiset via media reports.

Despite every psychic lead proving to be false, people still had faith in the Dutch seer.

But the story was far from over. By early May 1967, a group calling itself "The Citizens' Action Committee" had raised around $40,000 (about $640,000 in today's money) to fund a private excavation of the warehouse. Days of digging to a depth of up to 4 and a half meters at the spot chosen by Croiset followed, but with no result. Once again, time and effort wasted on a paranormal promise.

We now travel to 1996, the 30th anniversary of the disappearance, and once again, the warehouse was the subject of a search, funded by Con Polites, who, after decades, was still clinging onto the belief that Croiset, who had died in 1980, was the real deal. Nothing was found.

In January 2018, even though over 50 years had passed, there was still the need for many to somehow prove that Croiset was right after all. Police received information of a possible burial site in another warehouse, some 5km away from the one in Somerton Park. In the days leading up to the new dig, this time conducted by police, the New Daily online ran the story with the angle that if the children were to be found in this new location, "Croiset — dismissed by sceptics as a fraud at the time — might be at least partially vindicated." Sadly, once again, no trace of the children was found.

Jim and Nancy Beaumont lived into their 90s, only dying within the last few years, and left this earth without ever seeing their children again or knowing — what happened to them on that fateful day in January 1966.

As with other infamous cases, such as the search for Jack the Ripper, the case of the Beaumont children has become a rabbit hole of suspects, motives, and, as we've seen, possible final locations of those poor children. Over the decades, books, TV documentaries, and now true crime podcasts have taken on the case from every angle, and it is still an ongoing investigation by the South Australian police who, to this day, are spending time and effort dealing with yet more psychic leads.

Would the police have found vital clues if the time and effort wasted on Croiset had been better used? It's possible but may never know. It does, however, remind us that it's not mystical insights that solve cold cases; it's hard work by dedicated officers and scientific police investigations.

By Richard Saunders