August 3, 2025 • 54 mins
Nearly 60 years on, the Beaumont children case continues to haunt Australia. In this episode Adam Shand speaks with investigators Bill Hayes and Stuart Mullins, whose relentless search has unearthed disturbing new claims and chilling details about Adelaide businessman Harry Phipps. From grave-sized holes and suspect pound notes to fresh forensic digs and survivor testimony, this is a story of secrets, silence and one family’s desperate fight for justice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approache production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A warning this podcast contains depictions of extreme violence against children.
Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam
Shand I'm your host, Adam Shand. Of all the missing
persons cases I've covered over the years, one stands out
above all others.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
People have always wanted this case solved because at that
time it really took away the innocence of life in
Australia in the mid sixties.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The disappearance of the Beaumont children, Jane, Anna and Grant
on January twenty sixth, nineteen sixty six was unusual, not
just in Australia but in the world.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Nine year old Jane Beaumont, her seven year old sister Anna,
and their four year old brother Grant vanished from Glenelg
Beach on Australia Day in nineteen sixty six, and their
disappearance remains one of Australia's most enduring ant high profile
cold case.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
The coort of offenders who could snatch three children from
a crowded beach and get away with it is vanishingly small.
The eye witness accounts of the day from glenell Beach
were fragmentary and contradictory. Some saw a young surfer looking
man with the children. Others saw an older man with
a thin face with swept back hair. The last confirmed
(01:26):
sighting was at a local bakery where Jane paid for
some food with a one pound note. Whoever gave Jane
that one pound note was almost certainly the abductor of
the children and probably their killer. South Australia police are
out of answers and have probably stopped asking questions.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
This prime was the worst crime that had been committed.
I think in Australian history. People want some closure here.
They want to know what happened to those three kids.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Fortunately, my guest today, Bill Hayes and Stuart Mullins are
still on the case. Their book, Unmasking the Killer of
the Beaumont Children has been reissus dude with new critical information.
That focus is yet more suspicion on one man, Adelaide
businessman Harry Phipps. Bill and Stewart have been kind enough
to join me today, can I jents Hello morning. Let
(02:18):
me start by understanding who you guys are. Bill tell
me your background.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
My background in my adult years was Armed services in
the United Kingdom Police in Australia and then the private
investigation field in Australia.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
And you're a polygraph expert as well.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I hesitate the user term expert. I'm this polygraph examiner.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, give yourself a bunk up, mate, this is the
one chance you get to do it now. Stuart, you
come from a recruiting background, that's your business. But you've
got a special connection to the Beaumont story.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
What is it.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
I was bought in Glenelg in the late fifties, so
I'm the same age as Anna, and I lived up
the road in Seacum Gardens, which would be four and
a half kilometers away. I frequented in the beaches of Seacliff, Brighton,
which is my favorite as a kid because they had
a jetty you could jump off, and every now and
then we'd head down to Collie Reserve. Was a multitude
(03:14):
of children playing there, so I knew it well. I
knew where Wensley's Bakery was because I frequented there also,
So I grew up there and left when I was
about twelve years old.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And you grew up with that same sense of freedom
that led the Beaumonts to allow their children to go
down to Collie Reserve at Glenelg on that day. You
understand the atmosphere of the times I do.
Speaker 8 (03:39):
I remembered for me.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
I was five years old and I went on the
bus with the girl next door, she was eleven Roslyn.
We took the bus down to Glenelg, just two of us,
to go and watch A Hard Day's Night by the
Beatles at the Glenelg Cinema, which is not there anymore,
but that was by ourselves. And then from there we
walked over to Collie Reserve, played around there for a
(04:02):
while and when we thought it was ready, got back
on the bus and travel, you know, six seven k's
back to Seacum Gardens. You know, that's what you did.
Parents didn't mind. We had complete freedom, and as a kid,
I was quite confident where we all were back in
the sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Because Bill, you grew up in Northern Ireland, if I'm
not mistaken, that's correct, yeah, and so you know what
we take for granted here. The peace and security instability
was not something that was on offer to Northern Irish children.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
That's correct. I grew up in even though we were inverted.
Cole was peaceful during my childhood. The resolve was the
undercurrent of sectarianism and the patridge between different parties in
Northern Ireland. There was all was big fights and troubles
and yeah, quite a violent place.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
So I've got to ask you.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You two come from very different worlds, how did you
come together on this case.
Speaker 7 (04:59):
I was working with Alan Whittaker, which you may know
as an author in his own right, good friend of
mine from college. He was working on the book Searching
for the Beaumont Children back in two thousand and five.
It was released in two thousand and six. Because John
Wiley and Sony's publishers ass can he write the first
definitive account. He asked me to come on board to
help him show him around the streets of Glenelg. The
(05:23):
book sold well. People came forward. Most of them are
a bit looney, but there was one lady in particular
that came forward that said her former father in law
fitted the description handed out pound nights, which he didn't
know until she read that book.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
I followed it.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
I found it very credible, and one thing led to
another until I came to a point where I was
hitting a brick wall. Would have only been about a
year later, and I was hitting the brick wall with
certain detectives from SAPOL. And I suppose, as Bill said
in the book, they don't like being told by members
of the public how to do their job, because I
was hitting a brick wall when he told me that
(06:02):
I was beating my head up against the brick wall.
Speaker 8 (06:05):
I asked a.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Few detectives or former detectives moston matters was one which
was the first detective to meet and distraught mister and
missus Beaumont that fateful day, and Ken Thawson, the former
head of Major Crime, that both recommended Bill Hayes, and
so I got in to see him, and I used
the moston and the former head of Major Crime's names,
(06:28):
and so he saw me. I don't think he would
have seen me if it wasn't for those two names,
because he's heard every goddamn theory about the Beaumont children.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Because Bill, if there's one thing police hate more than
members of the public getting involved, it's ex police. They
hate ex detectives meddling. So what was your experience you
worked in sa POL, You were aware of the case
over the years, what did you know about it?
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Well, I'd actually worked when I was a uniform police
officer in My partner at the time was a guy
called Mark.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I want us you sooner, but he was a cousin
of the Balmont's children.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Back then, I had a fair idea of what happened
and the story because Mark.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Would relate it to me. We would talk about it later.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
As a detective in the Major Crimes Cord, I was
chucked into a room full of boxes and told to
have a read, which was something they did with most
new detectives in the Major Crimes Cord give the mo
old called cases and boxes and then have a read.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I got the bon boxes and stretched the surface.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
To be truthful, I only had about a half a
day in there, but I read enough to interest me.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because what struck me looking at this case was the
absence of eyewitness accounts. A beach full of people, hot
summer's day, everyone's down the beach, there's nothing else to do.
And when we did our show on the Hunters, we
looked at this case. We work with you guys. Then
as well was the fact that a queue of people
were there to give their eyewitness accounts or some piece
(08:02):
of information. A lot of people didn't get to give
their evidence. What impact do you think that had on
the early investigation of the case.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It would be difficult to measure the definity impact.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Suffice to say that one of those hundreds who turned
away may well have held.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
A key, because we saw in the days after that
police were door knocking all the way up and down
the street. They got very, very little, and they were
left with just these fragmentary eyewitness accounts and the really
cryptic account from Wenzel's Bakery where Jane goes in with
the pound note and she buys more food than would
(08:45):
have been expected if she was just buying it for
her siblings. So it seems like the abductor was either
with them or in the shadows or somewhere about.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He wasn't far away.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
I'm not sure that he actually took them there or
met them there after they had left his house.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He would have been there or nearby.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Because they didn't hang around outside Menzel's after buying enough
food for six people, six adults.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
And the key point there was I remember talking it
must have matters. This is before I met Bill, and
he said it was a pivotal piece of information back
then and it still is now. Everything revolves around that
pound note, because who was wealthy enough to part with
a pound note to children? Apparently he didn't know and
that pound note. Being a kid in the sixties, I
(09:37):
saw a pound note in my mum's purse, you know,
and it's a wow factor. And as a child, or
could you think of how many lollies and ice creams
can I buy? Buckets? That's the way a child thinks.
And it would have been the same way as Jane,
Anna and Grant. Yes, they were very sensible. Jane was
very mature for age, but the pull of a pound
note would really attract any child.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
And you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
People did not give out those pound notes, willy nilly.
There was one individual who was noted for giving out
pound notes all the time. That was Harry Phipps. Stuart,
You've been looking at him for a long time. Who
was Harry Phipps.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
Harry Phipps was a very wealthy industrialist. He started castel
at North Plimpton from basically scratch and he built it up.
The height of its fame would have been in the eighties.
They made let's say, rims for Remitsubishi. He made car parts,
he made those little well put it this way. The
(10:36):
fountain in Adelaide that was done through castell lois so
huge business and he ran it up until the eighties
where he stood down. He was an acting chairman and
then he stood down, but he ran it for since
the nineteen fifties. He started with Sega Manufacturing in Gilbert Street,
I think in Adelaide, and as it become bigger and bigger,
(10:58):
he moved out to North Plympton and I must admit
nothing was out there at that time, nothing but he could.
He had a wonderful business knack of what would be successful,
so he bought the plot of land out there and
built this huge factory.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And in your investigation of him, you found he had
some particular sexual placlivities which I think irrelevant to your investigation.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
What were they?
Speaker 8 (11:23):
Well, this has been corroborated.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
Before I met Bill, I knew that I needed to
corroborate this. So one name Angela Phipps, who was the
former wife of Hayden Phipps. I spoke to her. She
was the former daughter in law of Harry Phipps.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
So Hayden was Harry's son.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
Harry was the eldest son. And she told me that
Hayden said that his father had something to do with
the disappearance of the Beaumont children, and that he was
sexually abused, and that Harry used to dress up in
women's satin clothing which he got sexually aroused with, and
he abused not only Hayden but a few others. So
(12:03):
it was a pedophile active for But one thing she said,
and she read in the book was that he was
wealthy and he used to give out and tip in
pound notes, pound notes and five pound notes, mostly one
pound notes, and that was the clincher. It was like
the pound note was the thing that brought it all together. Yes,
(12:24):
there was a description, but it was the pound note.
So from there I followed on until I came to Bill,
and I remember Bill's office.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
He said, is all this corroborated?
Speaker 7 (12:34):
And he said yes, and I told him about the
pound note, which really raised his eyebrows.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Stuart, I'm not being critical here is an enthusiastic game,
but it certainly was. Then no criticism. You've dealt with
this style of investigator all your life. You needed more
corroboration of what Hayden was saying.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
What did you do well?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
The first thing I did before I accepted the task
was to tell Sut that I'd be doing everything possible
to prove that everything that he'd said thus far was untrue,
because that's the test in the arena and certainly with police.
So I set out to do that. I initiated by
(13:11):
reading everything that was that Stuart had, particularly the book
Searching for the ball Monts that Alan would he get written,
which was interesting to me, and then I felt the
next step for me would have to be fine Hayden
and speak to him face to face, which we did.
We met him up in Queensland.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
He was a trouble cell.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
He was, but when I met him, I'd be given
an impression of Hayden that was not positive in the
least and didn't really know what to expect, well open
to look after himself. So I wasn't frightened, but I
was a bit concerned about what I was walking into.
I guess would be the best term to use. But
(13:55):
what I met was a man who was very well spoken,
very intelligent, sober and well presented, nothing like I expected
to meet.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
And what story did he have to tell?
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Well, basically he told Hayden's story at the time, which
was that he was working at the Bonny Alliott, Glenelg
on that day, the twenty sixth of January nineteen.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Sixty six, which was a Wednesday.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
He come home at lunchtime and had gone into the
backyard where he went into what he called a cobby.
Now was it a cubby, as we would normally understand
a covey as a couple of planks of wood against
the fence like a lean to.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
But he used to go in there and have a
sly smoke.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
He remember back then fourteen or fifteen year old children
didn't smoke in front of the parents.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He gets your bump smacked.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Anyhow, he went and had his sly smoke, and he
saw that Harry was in the other side of the
yard at the driveway loading his car up a Pontiac prisionne,
burning it with surfboard bags. He felt that in the
surfboard bags where Harry's satin clothes, so therefore Harry was
(15:12):
loading them up. He'd made them at the house, which
he used to do, putting him in the surfboard bags
which castle Lay used to make at that time, and
he would take them to the cottage at Castelloy, which
was Harry's place, his safe place where he store his
fetish material, that clothing. It's important to say he in
(15:35):
have become more important even later that when Harry handled
satin or saw it worn, or anything to do with satin,
or even some of the colors he liked, he would
become extremely sexually excited, so excited to the point where
he's been seen to spontaneously ejaculate. That's how exciting he
(15:58):
would be. And here he is that day handling his
satin dresses that put him in the or bags and
into the backyard walked three little children, who will say
now were the bomb On children. And the children had
spoken to Harry for a short time and he taken
them inside the house. They remained inside the house. Harry
(16:24):
had come out a few minutes later and continued to
load up his car. He left in his car and
Hayden went inside the house. There was no signs of
disturbance in the house. The children were in the house,
There was no smells that suggest anything bad had happened
(16:45):
in there, and the front door was wide open, which
he made him assume that the children must have left
through the front door because they weren't in the house.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And that for Hayden was the end of it.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
It wasn't the end of it for us, though, because
we were concerned that Hayden he was telling his stuff,
but he wasn't telling is everything.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He was holding Shelty back anyhow. From there we take up.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
The story at Wenzel's because if the children had left
the house when we thought they did, they'd walked down
to Wendels, which would take about eight to ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We've walked it. You've walked to.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Two adam as I know, and the timing is perfect
given the time. We know that they're left to rot
the Collie Reserved, and he would have walked down there
and bought the food with a one pound up.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I should say that Harry's house was about three hundred
meters away from Collie Reserve where the kids were last seen.
Speaker 7 (17:43):
It was one hundred and ninety meters in direct sight
of where the Ron Davil was.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You know your stuff on this case, Stuart. I'll take you,
as the gospel one hundred and ninety meters. And we
know that the kids went down to the beach the
previous day. Jim, their father had dropped them down there.
The following morning, as Nancy is sending the kids off
to go to the beach for the the kids are
teasing Jane. Jane's got a boyfriend. Jane's got a boyfriend.
(18:11):
Something happened that day before. So if it was Harry
that had taken them the next day, perhaps he'd made
contact the day before.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yes, there's no doubt about he groomed him. The day
he took them wasn't the first day he'd met them.
That was quite obvious from the eyewitness accounts of what
happened when the children arrived.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
At the reserve.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
And it seems that this boyfriend thing may well have
been a lure for Jane, where he had a younger
accomplice involved in the work that he did to try
and get confidence of the children to do what he did. So, yes,
we believed that he did meet them the day before.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And he may have had others with him at that time.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Hayden went further. He talked about his own abuse at
the hands of his father. What did he tell you?
Speaker 7 (19:07):
This is all before I met Bill, but I needed
to meet Hayden. I met him in his apartment in
Broadbeach and I spent about two hours with him and
a lot of it was to talk about his abuse.
I said, you don't have to expand on it. I
know what it's like to talk about abuse because it
brings back up the mad memories that he had. But
(19:27):
he did talk about his abuse. It started when he
was at least three to four years old, and he
could hear the Swiss of Saturn rubbing together, which was
his father wearing satin dresses, and he'd hear that coming
down the hallway at the early hours of the morning,
and he knew what he was in stall for was
(19:48):
a sexual abuse. And this went on from the age
to three to four to round the age of thirteen,
when he got strong enough to protect himself. Up until
that point, you've got to think that Hayden was sexually
abused at least at least three to four times a week.
So he went through hell and I'm surprised he lived
(20:08):
as long as he did. But what he told me,
I had no hesitation to disbelieve him. And the statistics
also come to bear that between two and six percent
of individuals that say they were sexually abused a lying.
There's roughly a ninety four percent chance that somebody who
says they're sexually abused are telling the truth. So he
(20:31):
was telling the truth. And he also talked about his
father handing out pound notes. And the more we moved forward,
there was other people that came forward about Harry Phipps
that we know today.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Hayden also painted a traumatic picture of home life, which
was characterized by Harry going off the deep end, firing guns,
beating his wife, beating Hayden, and as you say, it
went on until Hayden was big enough to stand up
to his father, which shows, if it's true, how cowardly
he was.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
With that.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
I spoke to two former seeing members of CASTELLOI because
I needed to get more background before I approached Bill.
Both of them, and they hadn't seen each other for years,
said that Hayden and Wayne hated their father with a
passion and you couldn't put it down to a workplace issue.
Something must have been happening at home. When I spoke
(21:26):
to both of them about the sexual abuse, they said
that would answer the question.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Unfortunately, Hayden is not around anymore to confirm or add
to this story what happened to him?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Well, Hayden.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
We did see Hayden one more time on one more occasion,
which he can discuss if you wish. But Hayden basically
passed away of I suppose he called natural causes. He
wasn't a well made in many aspects. He lived a
hard life and he passed away quite young.
Speaker 8 (21:58):
Hold as he stood, Oh, I don't think he would
have been in his fifties.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He's in his fifties, his.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Mid fifties, so he passed away of natural causes in
his mid fifties. I think he was back living in
Queensland at that time.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
We've got his medical certificates, his medical reports because he'd
passed away, they were passed.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
On to us.
Speaker 7 (22:17):
The myriad of prescription medication he was on on surprise again,
he wasn't debt sooner. It was unbelievable and a lot
of it were to do. And the doctor's report. He
was talking about sexual abuse in that report.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So there's a history of drink and drugs. I believe
that might have suggested a self medicating of trauma.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
No doubt, no doubt. He gave every aspect.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
We've learned a lot about pedophiles and pedophile victims in
the last seventeen to eighteen years of working on this,
and he gave every sign of being abused.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So there we have Hayden with a very vivid eyewitness
account of seeing children at the Phipps residence near Collie
Reserve and Glenelg. The next vital piece of information came
from two young men who were asked to dig a
hole at the Castelloi's site at North Plimpton, Stewart.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
Can you tell us what happened then?
Speaker 7 (23:15):
Well, a gentleman called David First contacted Alan Whittaker with
information and Allan Whittaker contacted me about two brothers that
were asked by Harry Phipps to dig a grave size hole.
Now that's in their words, it's not ours making it up.
A grave size hole at the back of the Castelloy
factory three days after the children went missing. Now they
(23:36):
went missing on a Wednesday. They were asked to dig
a hole, a grave size hole at the back of
Castelloy Factory. It had to be a certain width, certain
depth and it was in the sandy are at the
back of Castle OOI Factory and it was overseen by
none other than Harry Phipps. Once they had finished digging
that hole, and it was one hundred degrees heat by
the way, is they were given a pound note, told
(24:02):
to f off and never come back, which was some
which they hadn't heard or wasn't usual, But that's what
Harry used. So we don't know what he put in
that hole. They also describe his car as a pontiac
parisen as a bill brought up, and that they were
paid handsomely again him pound notes. That's that pound note.
Been saying even in the book, follow the money, follow
(24:24):
the money trail. He tipped in pound notes. Jane got
a pound note, and three days later, low and behold,
the two boys get pound notes. I mean, it doesn't
take a rocket science to work that one out.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And that was very good evidence, and the police did
take it seriously because there was not one but two
digs at the site back in about twenty thirteen. I
believe what happened in those digs.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, in twenty.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Thirteen dig we think was slightly misplaced. Well we thought
at the time they found nothing in that area. The
twenty eighteen dig was much better identified by Graham penetrating radio.
All the devices that was used to find the exact
spot where the hole was dug. We did find that
(25:12):
the hole takes two Professor Ian Moffatley's team from Finnish University,
and a hole was dug there again nothing clean.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So how did that go with you? Guys?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You'd put a lot of your own credibility on that
story about the gravesized hole being dug and it came
up with nothing.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
It must have been a crushing blow.
Speaker 8 (25:36):
No, disappointed.
Speaker 7 (25:39):
But wasn't a crushing blow as they say, because we
know the back of the factory I mean is billed
with a test when we were there.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
It's quite wide.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
It runs from one street to the other, so you know,
it's like you could say it's finding a needle in
a haystack. The other thing is that in the original
dig And I'll go back a bit, when they were digging,
Hayden called his closest cousin at that time and he
yielded him. He said, they're digging in the eff Andong spot,
So Hayden knew where they were. And also Hayden did say,
(26:09):
and has said on numerous occasions, they're in the ship pit.
And there is a thing called the ship pit, according
to former Castaly employees, where they would put in the
canisters that held the chemicals. They'd put in metal filings
and so forth. When we dug those digs that were
(26:29):
done at the back of the castle a factory, I
think Bill's the same. I walked away from there. It
was disappointing to a way, But where's the canisters? Where's
the ship pit? We only found a few bones, but
where is the rubbish, the leftovers, the dross and so
forth from that factory? Where was that dumped? We know
it was there somewhere, but we haven't hit that. So disappointed,
(26:54):
but there's also a flicker of hope.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You guys are absolutely indefatigable. You'll never be put off.
In fact, to the point where early this year twenty
twenty five, you were back there again, the privately funded
dig that was organized in part by Frank Pangalo, the
independent MP in South Australia, and you were there again.
Why was it worth going back and digging once more?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Well, eighteen dig did a few things to my mindset,
and of course Stuart's. But one of the things that
we considered was was this a predetermined act of murder?
Had he set out that day, the twenty sixth of
January to take these three children, had.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
To murder them? I believe not.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I believe he had designs towards the children sexually as
a pedophile, but not to murder them because there'd been
no preparation for disposal of bodies.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That fits in with the.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Guys having to dig a hole three days later when
it was very very hot and very very humid.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
If the children had been murdered when we.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Think they were in the cottages at castlelawy days later,
to not find a point on it, it would have
been a stench that would have been quite easily ascertained
as coming from that cottage had he been there for
that time in that heat.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So he wasn't prepared, and getting the guys to dig
that hole three.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Days later in such haste proved that to me that
it wasn't a predetermined murder up to a point where it.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Did become that way.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
So then that led us to think that we're dealing
with a clever man who had the brains and the
wherewithal to dig the hole a keeper hole, perhaps to
get whether the children out of the cottages where we
believe it would have been left, and to put them
somewhere where the stench isn't going to alert someone. But
(28:57):
also being a cunning and very intelligent man as he was,
he would have thought, well, yourself up a little bit
here by having these strangers to this hole. What if
someone puts two and two together one day and decide
to go back to the hole on gone. So did
he later dig a hole and exhume the children and
(29:20):
put him somewhere else? Or was the whole doug as
a blind to take us the wrong way?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Quite possible in my experience currying these cases. The people
that bury bodies live a life of fear and uncertainty
that some days someone's going to find them. And particularly
when you've got a vast ocean, the Great Australian Bite,
there is beyond Adelaide, beyond Glenelg there would be ample
opportunity to exhume those bodies, take them out to sea,
(29:48):
so they would never be found again. So you have
to dig somewhere. You've got to start somewhere. But again
that dig in early twenty twenty five didn't find anything.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
You continue on.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Now you've also begun to reappraise the possible role of
Hayden Phipps in this bill.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Well, we've always had concerns with Hayden's what secret was
he keeping. He was telling us most things, and you're
calling your mind, Steve van Apron.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
He saw Red analyze.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Hayden's interview with me and kept the saying inclusion of
separate from himself, that he was holding something back, and
we were always concerned about what was he holding back.
He obviously, from the way he spoke to us and
to me on two occasions, was very certain that the
(30:41):
children were murdered there and were buried in the ship pit.
That was the last thing he said to me. The
last time I saw alive was there in the shippit build.
So it was quite certain that he was holding something back.
We want to find out what that was. We never
thought we would, but we think we have.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Right because you mentioned Steve Van Apron. He is my
co host of the Heart does the seven show we
did and he did analyze Hayden's audio interview and he
did say to me he felt that Hayden was holding
something back, as you say, and it's just a shame
that he wasn't around to be reinterviewed or actually put
on the polygraph himself.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
You wonder how he might have gone. Bill.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You've actually been doing polygraph for a number of years
now you understand human behavior, the body language. Was there
anything in Hayden's demeanor that tended to reinforce your suspicion?
Speaker 5 (31:31):
I think it was his demeanor that actually caused me
to think, as well as what the words he was
saying and how he's saying, It caused me to think
that he was holding something back. It would take you
to a certain point and yet it would stop. You know,
it was like turning a tap off, and that's not
natural conversation. You'll get into a conversation and you just
determinated normally unless you don't want to speak about the
(31:55):
next thing that you'd be spoken about.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That was one of the things.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So he was happy to incriminate his father, but possibly
to leave himself out of the narrative. As you've said,
you suspect that Harry didn't operate alone. Do you think
Hayden might have been as accomplice on that day back
in nine sixty six.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
We had discussed it, not with any great degree of
serious intent in relation to it, just one of the
things we would discuss as a possibility as you would.
As you know, I think we don't just close your
mind to anything we had discussed it as a possibility
and we thought, well, we'll never know.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
We'll never know.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Well, the other thing that Hayden said after Bill had
completed his interview with him, when he helped Hayden get
in the car, I remember Bill was saying. He looked
up to Bill and said, are you going to get
these bastards? It wasn't just one.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
That was on the second occasion when we met. I
was leaving him at the hotel where I met him.
His ex wife had gone to pick up the car
to take them away, and the last body said to
you was are you going to put these bastards in jail?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Bill?
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I said, bastards, Hayden. There's only your father, isn't it.
And I said the primary purpose what we are doing
is to find the children, and he said they're in
the ship pit.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Bill.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
At that point his ex wife returned that I couldn't
continue with the conversation. Unfortunately I never got to see
him again because he died soon after.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
And because where was Harry at this time?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Harry is deceased.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
He was already dead, So how could you put a
dead man in jail? So Hayden is clearly holding back
some other information.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
And he used the pure al bastards as opposed to bastard.
Up to that point we'd only had Harry.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Now the listeners have been waiting for the critical new information.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Here it is.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There was a note left on the fence that's really
opened up a whole new leg of this investigation. Tell
us about that note, what did it say and when
was it left there?
Speaker 5 (33:57):
Well, Stuart received a phone call from a lady who
wanted to tell him about sexual abuse, her own sexual
ablution and her experience of being sexually abused by Harry Phipps.
She was a bit reluctant, I think it's fair to say, Stuart,
she was a bit reluctant to speak openly and fully,
(34:20):
but promised that she would at one stage, but the
circumstances of doing it over the phone didn't appeal to her.
She wasn't going to talk in any great depth about
it over the telephone.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
She was extremely afraid, and I remember.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
You telling me she's very very nervous about speaking to us,
but was willing to continue to do that. Stuart, I
think spoke to her on two or maybe three occasions
and was filling me in as we went on what
was being said, and it came to the point where
we thought that perhaps she was time, maybe that I
(34:58):
could have a chat to her as well to see
what I made of what she was saying and Hans
was saying it. So I rang her and spoke to her,
and she had hinted to Stewart that she knew who
had written the note that was placed on the gate
on the fiftieth anniversary of the abduction of the children.
(35:20):
During my conversation with her, she opened up to me
that she was the person who wrote the note. She
explained the note to us and described it as being
done by a letterset, which we agreed we'd already worked
that out ourselves by looking at the note, but she
could also tell us the type of typewriter that she
typed a note on for us to compare the typeset.
(35:44):
I also asked her about the initials CS on the
bottom of the note.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It had CS dot dot dot, and I asked.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
That for obvious reasons, because her name and I can't
tell you what it is, but her name didn't begin
or have CS.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Anywhere in it.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
So she is just told me that she wrote it
as a cryptic clue to C. S. Lewis, who was
the writer of The Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe,
which at that time was Jane's favorite book, And she
did it as a cryptic clue.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
And what did the note say?
Speaker 7 (36:22):
In short, it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Said two little girls were buried there, but the little
boy was somewhere else, and you know how sorry they
were for the children, that sort of note. But the
important bit was the two girls were buried there and
the little boy was buried somewhere else.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But also in that note was again mentioned Harry Phipps
and his was accomplices. Yeah, so that was mentioned again
that there's others involved.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So Bill, let's fast forward. You meet with this lady.
What story did you have to tell? Well, I can
set the scene a bit.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I decided that on this occasion I would take the
opportunity to audio tape the interview with her, also to
videotape the interview, and at the end I would do
a large detection test on her to see if she's
telling us the truth. I met her at a place
(37:22):
of her choosing, which was not in the state.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Of South Australia, and spent.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
An entire day, a full day with her, discussing her
story and her story, it's fair to say chilled me
to the bone. Even though I've been around the block
a few times, I was absolutely taken aback. She told
the story of her being prostituted to pedophiles from the
(37:50):
age of four years old by a senior female member
of her family who would do it for money. Remember,
other members of her family were also pedophiles, and they
too had abused her sexually the years she told the
story of On one occasion, because she was brought up
(38:13):
outside of the state of South Australia and hadn't lived
in South Australia, but a female member of her family
and another man had taken her during the school holidays
to Adelaide to visit a friend. A friend that they
visited was in Castleoy in Clinton, South Australia, and it
(38:39):
was Harry Phipps.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
Of interest is.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
On the way to meet with the family friend Phipps,
she was given a bottle of cold drink and she
had told me earlier in the conversation that one of
the things that they would do before she was left
for abuse by a pedophile was that they would give
her ketamine to drug her out. She believed later that
(39:05):
that bottle of coke had contained ketamide. She drank it
and had gone and met with Phipps in his boardroom.
He had taken them out to the foundry to have
a look at the foundry. She had seen his car,
and up to the point where she'd seen his car
and she actually touched it. He'd be very nice to her.
(39:28):
The minute she touched the car, he turned on her,
as we knew Phipps could do, and snarled at her,
get your fucking hands off, that it's a collector's item.
So that bothered here because he that point he'd been
really nice.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Anyhow.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Let me move on from that, and she recalls being
taken into a cottage building on the site by Harry Phipps.
She described the site to me and the building to me,
and it was the building she described was Harry's cottage,
the smaller of the two cottages on the Castley's site,
(40:07):
which himself and Stuart had been into several times, which
I've photo photographed the interior off. She described it pretty
well and couldn't have given me that description unless she'd
been there.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
She gave detail, some detail.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
So while she was in there, she was shown into
a room at the back, and it was clothing on
a rack, and there was women's dresses all sewn up
in satin, made of satin, and she was asked by
mister Phipps to choose one she likes. Was the one
(40:45):
she liked which she liked to have? She picked one,
and now at this stage I must have telled you
she's only ten or twelve years old.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
She picked one.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Then he took her into another pile of the building,
which is a room with wood paneling in it, which
again i've seen in photographed in the past, and because
it comes up somewhere else in a story we've been
told by someone, and he raped her, vaginally raped her.
(41:16):
She described the rape, and then he left the room,
lift and lying on the floor. A short time later,
came back in wearing the satin dress that she'd chosen,
at which time he turned her over.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
And he anally raped her.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
There are things that happened during that act that ties
up with other things we've been told about Harry's m
O and the things he does whilst he's committing that act.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So during that act, as it.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
Was occurring, she lost all consciousness of what was around her.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
The ket of mine I'm assuming must have kicked in.
She couldn't describe how she left the building. When she
met up with a lady associate and the man, she
just that was the last she could remember. It was
Harry raping her. She then went on and spoke to
me about the Bondmont children.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
I have to be a little bit reticent in some
ways about what we're going to speak about. So the
story of the children, I put a warning in the
last chapter of the book. The last chapter of the
book we've written is called a revelation. Stuart wrote one
called the Drop, and I wrote one called the ship Hit,
(42:37):
and the final one is the revelation, which is what
this person's told me. She told me that the children
were taken from the reserve, as we know, and we're
taken to the cottages at Castleway. There they were subject
(43:00):
to being raped. But prior to all happening, or in
the first day while they were there, the little boy
grand had done something was being a problem, something was happening,
and he was taken away, taken to a non public area,
a racetrack, where he was held in stables. The two
(43:24):
girls remained at the cottage and were raped over the
period two Days by Harry Phipps. By someone that will
keep up our sleeve, but we will tell you it's
(43:45):
someone that's very close to what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
You'll have to read the book to get those final details,
but I agreciate you sharing the main points of it.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
Yet, and another person whose name we had heard once before,
back very early in the piece. Someone Hayden's cousin had
mentioned this person to Stewart to see if we'd heard
of anything about him, which we hadn't, and he was
forgotten about until now his name has come up. We've
(44:16):
done checks on that person and his.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Name.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
It suggested from the people who tell us that we're
not talking about police officers here. Someone had said to
us that he was known to police as being a pedophile.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
This person.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
Now, the story of how all has happened is of
itself unusual. But one of the men who'd been constantly
sexually abusing the lady over the years had taken her
up to the point of when she was twenty years old,
(44:55):
and had taken it to where he lived and handcuffed
to a table and kept her at this place for
about a week. When she wasn't handcuffed to the table,
he had a shotgun on her, and over the period
that week he would rape her, continuously rape her. One
(45:15):
evening was drunk. He got drunk and made what she
called a drunken.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Confession to her. The confession is what.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
I'm telling you, what you're hearing now, that he knew
Harry and like Harry, like himself, Harry is a pedophile,
and that he himself was a member of Harry's pedophile group.
But on an occasion when he wasn't there, the Bobmont
children had been taken to.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
This place and had been, as I told you, raped.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
The little boy had been taken away on the first
hand to the racing track. The girls remained being raped.
A physical assault, a very serious physical assault, had taken
place on one of the children, which I can't repeat
here and I haven't repeated in the book because it's sickening.
(46:10):
But the little child was very heavily assaulted by Harry
Fipps in a fit of rage, and we know that
he had these fits of rage. The rape continued for
about two days when the children were strangled.
Speaker 6 (46:26):
Shocking Harry is shocking Harry and the other.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
Person that I won't name at the stage helped the
dig a hole, as did the person of man who
we hadn't heard of before, helped the dig the hole
to get rid of the children. They gave a description,
or he gave a description to the lady of something
that was in that hole. Now that hole became important
(46:54):
to us at around the time all this happened, because
we were about the digger hole at the sight of
the very area that he had nominated as what it.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Children have been buried the very.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Area that's the site in early twenty twenty five when
the dig took place.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
That's the last one leading up to the Easter weekend,
and then the day after the Easter weekend. So he
said about something that happened there during the burial process,
and where it was the lo case it was, and
love and behold on the last air of the dig.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
When we dug in that area, which of where we
now knew was the.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Ship pit, and we dug in that area which I'll
tell you it was beside a peppercorn tree about three
feet down, we found exactly what he said would be there.
So there was some credibility to what he was saying,
because he would have no way of knowing that was
there unless a he was told about it in detail,
(47:56):
which I doubt.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Or be he was there himself, which I think he was.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
So these allegations are included in the new edition of
your book, and they are very compelling, and you seem
to have been able to corroborate what this lady said.
You've done it on a polygraph. You're able to connect
her experiences with your own eyewitness accounts of those cottages.
There there's enough for this that must be investigated. And
(48:23):
my question for South Australia is why has the Coroner
of South Australia never held an inquest? Imagine that they've
never held an inquest into all the information the investigation
into the disappearance and probable murder of the Beaumont children.
Why do you think that is, Bill, You're a South Australia,
You're living in South Australia. Now, why won't they bring
(48:45):
this to the coroner?
Speaker 5 (48:48):
The only thing I can think of it's still supposedly
inverted commers in actively investigated case. That's the only possibility
I could find. I can't see a reason why there's
been no corrolling inquiry.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
It's a standing.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Because I think there's serious questions to be asked about
the police investigation.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
What's happening now?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I simply do not believe that there is an active
investigation going on right now. I think there's been a
lot of leads followed, nothing's come up, and now, as
is common with cold cases, they're waiting for some new information.
I think it's time the coroner actually was proactive and said,
let's analyze every piece of information and call for that
(49:30):
little scrap of information that could corroborate or even eliminate, because,
let's face it, the Phipps family lives with these allegations.
Now it's in their interest as well as the Beaumonts
and the rest of the people of South Australia, let
alone Australia, that some kind of certainty is riched at.
Speaker 7 (49:49):
But can I add that it's also some glaring mismanagement
from the detectives that Hayden and Angela, his wife, were
never met and never interviewed by detectives. That's the first
two people Bill wanted to meet. They were the first
two people I needed to meet to ascertain their truthfulness.
(50:11):
But did detectives meet an interview?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
No?
Speaker 7 (50:15):
How can it be a thorough case? I suppose in
a coronial inquest that will come out. It was mismanaged.
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I found there was a tremendous reluctance even from retired
judicial figures in South Australia to agree to a coronial inquest.
We spoke to John Sullen, former Supreme Court Judge of
South Australia, and he said, oh, only if there was
fresh and compelling evidence should there be a coronial inquest.
I'm thinking, what what they're actual? I mean, We've seen
(50:42):
around the world these long time cold cases be opened
in the interest of transparency, in the interest of some
possible closure being arrived at. For instance, Derek Ernest Percy,
the notorious child killer, probably murt a little girl called
Linda Stillwell, Victoria. There was an inquest by the coroner
into that case. It gave that family some sense, but
(51:05):
there was someone caring. After all these years, Jim and
Nancy Beaumont have gone to their graves not knowing there
are still Beaumont family members out there who are still
looking for truth. How does it feel you two, your
odd couple, your dad's army of investigators, to be the
ones carrying the torch for justice? When it should be
the coroner and the Police of South Australia.
Speaker 7 (51:27):
Well, I suppose with us, it's something we wanted to do.
I always felt there was something we were given to
do and we've done it and I'm glad I met
Bill to do that. So we understand that, you know,
with the Coroner's inquestal lack thereof, and also with some
members of the police force that as Bill said, you
know they're not going to be told by members of
(51:47):
the public how to do their job. And as you said, Bill,
being a former detective, no way. So as far as
I'm concerned, I think I'll close up shop.
Speaker 6 (51:57):
Are you Fellas done?
Speaker 7 (51:58):
Now? No goodness, no more to go? And Bill just
alluded to that with a book coming out in all bookshops,
is that it's that last chapter. I must admit, it's
that last chapter that really brings everything together from what
they bought at Wenzel's Bakery, what they bought then, and
(52:19):
then you have a look at that last chapter. God,
it makes sense, It absolutely makes sense.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Because this has been a labor of love. I don't
think you've made a cent out of this. You've got
a decent publisher on board now, Simon and s justed
well done for that, and this book is now going
into national so you would hope that another ground swell
of momentum is brought about by the release of the
new edition and that that piece of information comes forward
that just allows you to finish your work, because boy
(52:45):
should have a rest. Really, I think, let me get
the glory if I possibly can the book.
Speaker 7 (52:49):
What this book will also do is that if there's
also there's been people that have come forward to say
they were sexually abused by Phipps, that is only the
tip of the iceberg. And we know in cases like
this Jared Risdale, the Catholic priest, he had fifty four
counts of child sexual abuse against him. They don't stop
at one. They don't stop until they're court. Harry Phipps
(53:12):
was never caught, so there's other victims out there.
Speaker 6 (53:15):
Guys. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
The book is Unmasking the Killer of the Beaumont Children.
It's out on Simon and Schuster. Please have a read
of it. Everyone out there, guys, I've got to say
to you, I'm really proud of the work you've done
on behalf of the Beaumont family and the people of
South Australia. Let's hope that it brings some form of closure,
new information, whatever it is.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 8 (53:35):
Thank you very much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
That was Stuart Mullins and Bill Hayes. The book is
unmasking the killer of the Beaumont Children. It's time for
the Coroner of South Australia to get involved.
Speaker 6 (53:49):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
It's not surprising that South Australia has never had a
High Court justice in its history. There's a different kind
of justice in South Australia and I'm sure people in
the state will know what I'm talking about. If you're
out there with any kind of information, now is the
time to bring it forward. You've got two investigators here
who are very very keen. I'm also keen, so if
(54:11):
you want to get in touch, you can call Crime
Stoppers one eight hundred, Triple three, Triple zero. I'm not
sure how much joy you're going to get because I
think there's a fatigue in the South Australian police about
looking at new lines of investigation. They're waiting for the
answers to be dropped on their doorstep. But there are
other people who are keen to get it. You can
also email me Adam Shan writer at gmail dot com,
(54:33):
and I will pass on the information to these two
indefatigable investigators. This has been real crime with Adam shanned.
I'm your host, Adam Shann. Thank you for listening.
Approache production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A warning this podcast contains depictions of extreme violence against children.
Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam
Shand I'm your host, Adam Shand. Of all the missing
persons cases I've covered over the years, one stands out
above all others.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
People have always wanted this case solved because at that
time it really took away the innocence of life in
Australia in the mid sixties.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The disappearance of the Beaumont children, Jane, Anna and Grant
on January twenty sixth, nineteen sixty six was unusual, not
just in Australia but in the world.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Nine year old Jane Beaumont, her seven year old sister Anna,
and their four year old brother Grant vanished from Glenelg
Beach on Australia Day in nineteen sixty six, and their
disappearance remains one of Australia's most enduring ant high profile
cold case.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
The coort of offenders who could snatch three children from
a crowded beach and get away with it is vanishingly small.
The eye witness accounts of the day from glenell Beach
were fragmentary and contradictory. Some saw a young surfer looking
man with the children. Others saw an older man with
a thin face with swept back hair. The last confirmed
(01:26):
sighting was at a local bakery where Jane paid for
some food with a one pound note. Whoever gave Jane
that one pound note was almost certainly the abductor of
the children and probably their killer. South Australia police are
out of answers and have probably stopped asking questions.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
This prime was the worst crime that had been committed.
I think in Australian history. People want some closure here.
They want to know what happened to those three kids.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Fortunately, my guest today, Bill Hayes and Stuart Mullins are
still on the case. Their book, Unmasking the Killer of
the Beaumont Children has been reissus dude with new critical information.
That focus is yet more suspicion on one man, Adelaide
businessman Harry Phipps. Bill and Stewart have been kind enough
to join me today, can I jents Hello morning. Let
(02:18):
me start by understanding who you guys are. Bill tell
me your background.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
My background in my adult years was Armed services in
the United Kingdom Police in Australia and then the private
investigation field in Australia.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
And you're a polygraph expert as well.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I hesitate the user term expert. I'm this polygraph examiner.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, give yourself a bunk up, mate, this is the
one chance you get to do it now. Stuart, you
come from a recruiting background, that's your business. But you've
got a special connection to the Beaumont story.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
What is it.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
I was bought in Glenelg in the late fifties, so
I'm the same age as Anna, and I lived up
the road in Seacum Gardens, which would be four and
a half kilometers away. I frequented in the beaches of Seacliff, Brighton,
which is my favorite as a kid because they had
a jetty you could jump off, and every now and
then we'd head down to Collie Reserve. Was a multitude
(03:14):
of children playing there, so I knew it well. I
knew where Wensley's Bakery was because I frequented there also,
So I grew up there and left when I was
about twelve years old.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And you grew up with that same sense of freedom
that led the Beaumonts to allow their children to go
down to Collie Reserve at Glenelg on that day. You
understand the atmosphere of the times I do.
Speaker 8 (03:39):
I remembered for me.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
I was five years old and I went on the
bus with the girl next door, she was eleven Roslyn.
We took the bus down to Glenelg, just two of us,
to go and watch A Hard Day's Night by the
Beatles at the Glenelg Cinema, which is not there anymore,
but that was by ourselves. And then from there we
walked over to Collie Reserve, played around there for a
(04:02):
while and when we thought it was ready, got back
on the bus and travel, you know, six seven k's
back to Seacum Gardens. You know, that's what you did.
Parents didn't mind. We had complete freedom, and as a kid,
I was quite confident where we all were back in
the sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Because Bill, you grew up in Northern Ireland, if I'm
not mistaken, that's correct, yeah, and so you know what
we take for granted here. The peace and security instability
was not something that was on offer to Northern Irish children.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
That's correct. I grew up in even though we were inverted.
Cole was peaceful during my childhood. The resolve was the
undercurrent of sectarianism and the patridge between different parties in
Northern Ireland. There was all was big fights and troubles
and yeah, quite a violent place.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
So I've got to ask you.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You two come from very different worlds, how did you
come together on this case.
Speaker 7 (04:59):
I was working with Alan Whittaker, which you may know
as an author in his own right, good friend of
mine from college. He was working on the book Searching
for the Beaumont Children back in two thousand and five.
It was released in two thousand and six. Because John
Wiley and Sony's publishers ass can he write the first
definitive account. He asked me to come on board to
help him show him around the streets of Glenelg. The
(05:23):
book sold well. People came forward. Most of them are
a bit looney, but there was one lady in particular
that came forward that said her former father in law
fitted the description handed out pound nights, which he didn't
know until she read that book.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
I followed it.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
I found it very credible, and one thing led to
another until I came to a point where I was
hitting a brick wall. Would have only been about a
year later, and I was hitting the brick wall with
certain detectives from SAPOL. And I suppose, as Bill said
in the book, they don't like being told by members
of the public how to do their job, because I
was hitting a brick wall when he told me that
(06:02):
I was beating my head up against the brick wall.
Speaker 8 (06:05):
I asked a.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Few detectives or former detectives moston matters was one which
was the first detective to meet and distraught mister and
missus Beaumont that fateful day, and Ken Thawson, the former
head of Major Crime, that both recommended Bill Hayes, and
so I got in to see him, and I used
the moston and the former head of Major Crime's names,
(06:28):
and so he saw me. I don't think he would
have seen me if it wasn't for those two names,
because he's heard every goddamn theory about the Beaumont children.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Because Bill, if there's one thing police hate more than
members of the public getting involved, it's ex police. They
hate ex detectives meddling. So what was your experience you
worked in sa POL, You were aware of the case
over the years, what did you know about it?
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Well, I'd actually worked when I was a uniform police
officer in My partner at the time was a guy
called Mark.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I want us you sooner, but he was a cousin
of the Balmont's children.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Back then, I had a fair idea of what happened
and the story because Mark.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Would relate it to me. We would talk about it later.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
As a detective in the Major Crimes Cord, I was
chucked into a room full of boxes and told to
have a read, which was something they did with most
new detectives in the Major Crimes Cord give the mo
old called cases and boxes and then have a read.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I got the bon boxes and stretched the surface.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
To be truthful, I only had about a half a
day in there, but I read enough to interest me.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because what struck me looking at this case was the
absence of eyewitness accounts. A beach full of people, hot
summer's day, everyone's down the beach, there's nothing else to do.
And when we did our show on the Hunters, we
looked at this case. We work with you guys. Then
as well was the fact that a queue of people
were there to give their eyewitness accounts or some piece
(08:02):
of information. A lot of people didn't get to give
their evidence. What impact do you think that had on
the early investigation of the case.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It would be difficult to measure the definity impact.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Suffice to say that one of those hundreds who turned
away may well have held.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
A key, because we saw in the days after that
police were door knocking all the way up and down
the street. They got very, very little, and they were
left with just these fragmentary eyewitness accounts and the really
cryptic account from Wenzel's Bakery where Jane goes in with
the pound note and she buys more food than would
(08:45):
have been expected if she was just buying it for
her siblings. So it seems like the abductor was either
with them or in the shadows or somewhere about.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He wasn't far away.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
I'm not sure that he actually took them there or
met them there after they had left his house.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He would have been there or nearby.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Because they didn't hang around outside Menzel's after buying enough
food for six people, six adults.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
And the key point there was I remember talking it
must have matters. This is before I met Bill, and
he said it was a pivotal piece of information back
then and it still is now. Everything revolves around that
pound note, because who was wealthy enough to part with
a pound note to children? Apparently he didn't know and
that pound note. Being a kid in the sixties, I
(09:37):
saw a pound note in my mum's purse, you know,
and it's a wow factor. And as a child, or
could you think of how many lollies and ice creams
can I buy? Buckets? That's the way a child thinks.
And it would have been the same way as Jane,
Anna and Grant. Yes, they were very sensible. Jane was
very mature for age, but the pull of a pound
note would really attract any child.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
And you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
People did not give out those pound notes, willy nilly.
There was one individual who was noted for giving out
pound notes all the time. That was Harry Phipps. Stuart,
You've been looking at him for a long time. Who
was Harry Phipps.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
Harry Phipps was a very wealthy industrialist. He started castel
at North Plimpton from basically scratch and he built it up.
The height of its fame would have been in the eighties.
They made let's say, rims for Remitsubishi. He made car parts,
he made those little well put it this way. The
(10:36):
fountain in Adelaide that was done through castell lois so
huge business and he ran it up until the eighties
where he stood down. He was an acting chairman and
then he stood down, but he ran it for since
the nineteen fifties. He started with Sega Manufacturing in Gilbert Street,
I think in Adelaide, and as it become bigger and bigger,
(10:58):
he moved out to North Plympton and I must admit
nothing was out there at that time, nothing but he could.
He had a wonderful business knack of what would be successful,
so he bought the plot of land out there and
built this huge factory.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And in your investigation of him, you found he had
some particular sexual placlivities which I think irrelevant to your investigation.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
What were they?
Speaker 8 (11:23):
Well, this has been corroborated.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
Before I met Bill, I knew that I needed to
corroborate this. So one name Angela Phipps, who was the
former wife of Hayden Phipps. I spoke to her. She
was the former daughter in law of Harry Phipps.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
So Hayden was Harry's son.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
Harry was the eldest son. And she told me that
Hayden said that his father had something to do with
the disappearance of the Beaumont children, and that he was
sexually abused, and that Harry used to dress up in
women's satin clothing which he got sexually aroused with, and
he abused not only Hayden but a few others. So
(12:03):
it was a pedophile active for But one thing she said,
and she read in the book was that he was
wealthy and he used to give out and tip in
pound notes, pound notes and five pound notes, mostly one
pound notes, and that was the clincher. It was like
the pound note was the thing that brought it all together. Yes,
(12:24):
there was a description, but it was the pound note.
So from there I followed on until I came to Bill,
and I remember Bill's office.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
He said, is all this corroborated?
Speaker 7 (12:34):
And he said yes, and I told him about the
pound note, which really raised his eyebrows.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Stuart, I'm not being critical here is an enthusiastic game,
but it certainly was. Then no criticism. You've dealt with
this style of investigator all your life. You needed more
corroboration of what Hayden was saying.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
What did you do well?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
The first thing I did before I accepted the task
was to tell Sut that I'd be doing everything possible
to prove that everything that he'd said thus far was untrue,
because that's the test in the arena and certainly with police.
So I set out to do that. I initiated by
(13:11):
reading everything that was that Stuart had, particularly the book
Searching for the ball Monts that Alan would he get written,
which was interesting to me, and then I felt the
next step for me would have to be fine Hayden
and speak to him face to face, which we did.
We met him up in Queensland.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
He was a trouble cell.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
He was, but when I met him, I'd be given
an impression of Hayden that was not positive in the
least and didn't really know what to expect, well open
to look after himself. So I wasn't frightened, but I
was a bit concerned about what I was walking into.
I guess would be the best term to use. But
(13:55):
what I met was a man who was very well spoken,
very intelligent, sober and well presented, nothing like I expected
to meet.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
And what story did he have to tell?
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Well, basically he told Hayden's story at the time, which
was that he was working at the Bonny Alliott, Glenelg
on that day, the twenty sixth of January nineteen.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Sixty six, which was a Wednesday.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
He come home at lunchtime and had gone into the
backyard where he went into what he called a cobby.
Now was it a cubby, as we would normally understand
a covey as a couple of planks of wood against
the fence like a lean to.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
But he used to go in there and have a
sly smoke.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
He remember back then fourteen or fifteen year old children
didn't smoke in front of the parents.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He gets your bump smacked.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Anyhow, he went and had his sly smoke, and he
saw that Harry was in the other side of the
yard at the driveway loading his car up a Pontiac prisionne,
burning it with surfboard bags. He felt that in the
surfboard bags where Harry's satin clothes, so therefore Harry was
(15:12):
loading them up. He'd made them at the house, which
he used to do, putting him in the surfboard bags
which castle Lay used to make at that time, and
he would take them to the cottage at Castelloy, which
was Harry's place, his safe place where he store his
fetish material, that clothing. It's important to say he in
(15:35):
have become more important even later that when Harry handled
satin or saw it worn, or anything to do with satin,
or even some of the colors he liked, he would
become extremely sexually excited, so excited to the point where
he's been seen to spontaneously ejaculate. That's how exciting he
(15:58):
would be. And here he is that day handling his
satin dresses that put him in the or bags and
into the backyard walked three little children, who will say
now were the bomb On children. And the children had
spoken to Harry for a short time and he taken
them inside the house. They remained inside the house. Harry
(16:24):
had come out a few minutes later and continued to
load up his car. He left in his car and
Hayden went inside the house. There was no signs of
disturbance in the house. The children were in the house,
There was no smells that suggest anything bad had happened
(16:45):
in there, and the front door was wide open, which
he made him assume that the children must have left
through the front door because they weren't in the house.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And that for Hayden was the end of it.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
It wasn't the end of it for us, though, because
we were concerned that Hayden he was telling his stuff,
but he wasn't telling is everything.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He was holding Shelty back anyhow. From there we take up.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
The story at Wenzel's because if the children had left
the house when we thought they did, they'd walked down
to Wendels, which would take about eight to ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We've walked it. You've walked to.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Two adam as I know, and the timing is perfect
given the time. We know that they're left to rot
the Collie Reserved, and he would have walked down there
and bought the food with a one pound up.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I should say that Harry's house was about three hundred
meters away from Collie Reserve where the kids were last seen.
Speaker 7 (17:43):
It was one hundred and ninety meters in direct sight
of where the Ron Davil was.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You know your stuff on this case, Stuart. I'll take you,
as the gospel one hundred and ninety meters. And we
know that the kids went down to the beach the
previous day. Jim, their father had dropped them down there.
The following morning, as Nancy is sending the kids off
to go to the beach for the the kids are
teasing Jane. Jane's got a boyfriend. Jane's got a boyfriend.
(18:11):
Something happened that day before. So if it was Harry
that had taken them the next day, perhaps he'd made
contact the day before.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yes, there's no doubt about he groomed him. The day
he took them wasn't the first day he'd met them.
That was quite obvious from the eyewitness accounts of what
happened when the children arrived.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
At the reserve.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
And it seems that this boyfriend thing may well have
been a lure for Jane, where he had a younger
accomplice involved in the work that he did to try
and get confidence of the children to do what he did. So, yes,
we believed that he did meet them the day before.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And he may have had others with him at that time.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Hayden went further. He talked about his own abuse at
the hands of his father. What did he tell you?
Speaker 7 (19:07):
This is all before I met Bill, but I needed
to meet Hayden. I met him in his apartment in
Broadbeach and I spent about two hours with him and
a lot of it was to talk about his abuse.
I said, you don't have to expand on it. I
know what it's like to talk about abuse because it
brings back up the mad memories that he had. But
(19:27):
he did talk about his abuse. It started when he
was at least three to four years old, and he
could hear the Swiss of Saturn rubbing together, which was
his father wearing satin dresses, and he'd hear that coming
down the hallway at the early hours of the morning,
and he knew what he was in stall for was
(19:48):
a sexual abuse. And this went on from the age
to three to four to round the age of thirteen,
when he got strong enough to protect himself. Up until
that point, you've got to think that Hayden was sexually
abused at least at least three to four times a week.
So he went through hell and I'm surprised he lived
(20:08):
as long as he did. But what he told me,
I had no hesitation to disbelieve him. And the statistics
also come to bear that between two and six percent
of individuals that say they were sexually abused a lying.
There's roughly a ninety four percent chance that somebody who
says they're sexually abused are telling the truth. So he
(20:31):
was telling the truth. And he also talked about his
father handing out pound notes. And the more we moved forward,
there was other people that came forward about Harry Phipps
that we know today.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Hayden also painted a traumatic picture of home life, which
was characterized by Harry going off the deep end, firing guns,
beating his wife, beating Hayden, and as you say, it
went on until Hayden was big enough to stand up
to his father, which shows, if it's true, how cowardly
he was.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
With that.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
I spoke to two former seeing members of CASTELLOI because
I needed to get more background before I approached Bill.
Both of them, and they hadn't seen each other for years,
said that Hayden and Wayne hated their father with a
passion and you couldn't put it down to a workplace issue.
Something must have been happening at home. When I spoke
(21:26):
to both of them about the sexual abuse, they said
that would answer the question.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Unfortunately, Hayden is not around anymore to confirm or add
to this story what happened to him?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Well, Hayden.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
We did see Hayden one more time on one more occasion,
which he can discuss if you wish. But Hayden basically
passed away of I suppose he called natural causes. He
wasn't a well made in many aspects. He lived a
hard life and he passed away quite young.
Speaker 8 (21:58):
Hold as he stood, Oh, I don't think he would
have been in his fifties.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He's in his fifties, his.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Mid fifties, so he passed away of natural causes in
his mid fifties. I think he was back living in
Queensland at that time.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
We've got his medical certificates, his medical reports because he'd
passed away, they were passed.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
On to us.
Speaker 7 (22:17):
The myriad of prescription medication he was on on surprise again,
he wasn't debt sooner. It was unbelievable and a lot
of it were to do. And the doctor's report. He
was talking about sexual abuse in that report.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So there's a history of drink and drugs. I believe
that might have suggested a self medicating of trauma.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
No doubt, no doubt. He gave every aspect.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
We've learned a lot about pedophiles and pedophile victims in
the last seventeen to eighteen years of working on this,
and he gave every sign of being abused.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So there we have Hayden with a very vivid eyewitness
account of seeing children at the Phipps residence near Collie
Reserve and Glenelg. The next vital piece of information came
from two young men who were asked to dig a
hole at the Castelloi's site at North Plimpton, Stewart.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
Can you tell us what happened then?
Speaker 7 (23:15):
Well, a gentleman called David First contacted Alan Whittaker with
information and Allan Whittaker contacted me about two brothers that
were asked by Harry Phipps to dig a grave size hole.
Now that's in their words, it's not ours making it up.
A grave size hole at the back of the Castelloy
factory three days after the children went missing. Now they
(23:36):
went missing on a Wednesday. They were asked to dig
a hole, a grave size hole at the back of
Castelloy Factory. It had to be a certain width, certain
depth and it was in the sandy are at the
back of Castle OOI Factory and it was overseen by
none other than Harry Phipps. Once they had finished digging
that hole, and it was one hundred degrees heat by
the way, is they were given a pound note, told
(24:02):
to f off and never come back, which was some
which they hadn't heard or wasn't usual, But that's what
Harry used. So we don't know what he put in
that hole. They also describe his car as a pontiac
parisen as a bill brought up, and that they were
paid handsomely again him pound notes. That's that pound note.
Been saying even in the book, follow the money, follow
(24:24):
the money trail. He tipped in pound notes. Jane got
a pound note, and three days later, low and behold,
the two boys get pound notes. I mean, it doesn't
take a rocket science to work that one out.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And that was very good evidence, and the police did
take it seriously because there was not one but two
digs at the site back in about twenty thirteen. I
believe what happened in those digs.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, in twenty.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Thirteen dig we think was slightly misplaced. Well we thought
at the time they found nothing in that area. The
twenty eighteen dig was much better identified by Graham penetrating radio.
All the devices that was used to find the exact
spot where the hole was dug. We did find that
(25:12):
the hole takes two Professor Ian Moffatley's team from Finnish University,
and a hole was dug there again nothing clean.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So how did that go with you? Guys?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You'd put a lot of your own credibility on that
story about the gravesized hole being dug and it came
up with nothing.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
It must have been a crushing blow.
Speaker 8 (25:36):
No, disappointed.
Speaker 7 (25:39):
But wasn't a crushing blow as they say, because we
know the back of the factory I mean is billed
with a test when we were there.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
It's quite wide.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
It runs from one street to the other, so you know,
it's like you could say it's finding a needle in
a haystack. The other thing is that in the original
dig And I'll go back a bit, when they were digging,
Hayden called his closest cousin at that time and he
yielded him. He said, they're digging in the eff Andong spot,
So Hayden knew where they were. And also Hayden did say,
(26:09):
and has said on numerous occasions, they're in the ship pit.
And there is a thing called the ship pit, according
to former Castaly employees, where they would put in the
canisters that held the chemicals. They'd put in metal filings
and so forth. When we dug those digs that were
(26:29):
done at the back of the castle a factory, I
think Bill's the same. I walked away from there. It
was disappointing to a way, But where's the canisters? Where's
the ship pit? We only found a few bones, but
where is the rubbish, the leftovers, the dross and so
forth from that factory? Where was that dumped? We know
it was there somewhere, but we haven't hit that. So disappointed,
(26:54):
but there's also a flicker of hope.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You guys are absolutely indefatigable. You'll never be put off.
In fact, to the point where early this year twenty
twenty five, you were back there again, the privately funded
dig that was organized in part by Frank Pangalo, the
independent MP in South Australia, and you were there again.
Why was it worth going back and digging once more?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Well, eighteen dig did a few things to my mindset,
and of course Stuart's. But one of the things that
we considered was was this a predetermined act of murder?
Had he set out that day, the twenty sixth of
January to take these three children, had.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
To murder them? I believe not.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I believe he had designs towards the children sexually as
a pedophile, but not to murder them because there'd been
no preparation for disposal of bodies.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That fits in with the.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Guys having to dig a hole three days later when
it was very very hot and very very humid.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
If the children had been murdered when we.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Think they were in the cottages at castlelawy days later,
to not find a point on it, it would have
been a stench that would have been quite easily ascertained
as coming from that cottage had he been there for
that time in that heat.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So he wasn't prepared, and getting the guys to dig
that hole three.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Days later in such haste proved that to me that
it wasn't a predetermined murder up to a point where it.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Did become that way.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
So then that led us to think that we're dealing
with a clever man who had the brains and the
wherewithal to dig the hole a keeper hole, perhaps to
get whether the children out of the cottages where we
believe it would have been left, and to put them
somewhere where the stench isn't going to alert someone. But
(28:57):
also being a cunning and very intelligent man as he was,
he would have thought, well, yourself up a little bit
here by having these strangers to this hole. What if
someone puts two and two together one day and decide
to go back to the hole on gone. So did
he later dig a hole and exhume the children and
(29:20):
put him somewhere else? Or was the whole doug as
a blind to take us the wrong way?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Quite possible in my experience currying these cases. The people
that bury bodies live a life of fear and uncertainty
that some days someone's going to find them. And particularly
when you've got a vast ocean, the Great Australian Bite,
there is beyond Adelaide, beyond Glenelg there would be ample
opportunity to exhume those bodies, take them out to sea,
(29:48):
so they would never be found again. So you have
to dig somewhere. You've got to start somewhere. But again
that dig in early twenty twenty five didn't find anything.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
You continue on.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Now you've also begun to reappraise the possible role of
Hayden Phipps in this bill.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Well, we've always had concerns with Hayden's what secret was
he keeping. He was telling us most things, and you're
calling your mind, Steve van Apron.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
He saw Red analyze.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Hayden's interview with me and kept the saying inclusion of
separate from himself, that he was holding something back, and
we were always concerned about what was he holding back.
He obviously, from the way he spoke to us and
to me on two occasions, was very certain that the
(30:41):
children were murdered there and were buried in the ship pit.
That was the last thing he said to me. The
last time I saw alive was there in the shippit build.
So it was quite certain that he was holding something back.
We want to find out what that was. We never
thought we would, but we think we have.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Right because you mentioned Steve Van Apron. He is my
co host of the Heart does the seven show we
did and he did analyze Hayden's audio interview and he
did say to me he felt that Hayden was holding
something back, as you say, and it's just a shame
that he wasn't around to be reinterviewed or actually put
on the polygraph himself.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
You wonder how he might have gone. Bill.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You've actually been doing polygraph for a number of years
now you understand human behavior, the body language. Was there
anything in Hayden's demeanor that tended to reinforce your suspicion?
Speaker 5 (31:31):
I think it was his demeanor that actually caused me
to think, as well as what the words he was
saying and how he's saying, It caused me to think
that he was holding something back. It would take you
to a certain point and yet it would stop. You know,
it was like turning a tap off, and that's not
natural conversation. You'll get into a conversation and you just
determinated normally unless you don't want to speak about the
(31:55):
next thing that you'd be spoken about.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That was one of the things.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So he was happy to incriminate his father, but possibly
to leave himself out of the narrative. As you've said,
you suspect that Harry didn't operate alone. Do you think
Hayden might have been as accomplice on that day back
in nine sixty six.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
We had discussed it, not with any great degree of
serious intent in relation to it, just one of the
things we would discuss as a possibility as you would.
As you know, I think we don't just close your
mind to anything we had discussed it as a possibility
and we thought, well, we'll never know.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
We'll never know.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Well, the other thing that Hayden said after Bill had
completed his interview with him, when he helped Hayden get
in the car, I remember Bill was saying. He looked
up to Bill and said, are you going to get
these bastards? It wasn't just one.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
That was on the second occasion when we met. I
was leaving him at the hotel where I met him.
His ex wife had gone to pick up the car
to take them away, and the last body said to
you was are you going to put these bastards in jail?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Bill?
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I said, bastards, Hayden. There's only your father, isn't it.
And I said the primary purpose what we are doing
is to find the children, and he said they're in
the ship pit.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Bill.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
At that point his ex wife returned that I couldn't
continue with the conversation. Unfortunately I never got to see
him again because he died soon after.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
And because where was Harry at this time?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Harry is deceased.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
He was already dead, So how could you put a
dead man in jail? So Hayden is clearly holding back
some other information.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
And he used the pure al bastards as opposed to bastard.
Up to that point we'd only had Harry.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Now the listeners have been waiting for the critical new information.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Here it is.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There was a note left on the fence that's really
opened up a whole new leg of this investigation. Tell
us about that note, what did it say and when
was it left there?
Speaker 5 (33:57):
Well, Stuart received a phone call from a lady who
wanted to tell him about sexual abuse, her own sexual
ablution and her experience of being sexually abused by Harry Phipps.
She was a bit reluctant, I think it's fair to say, Stuart,
she was a bit reluctant to speak openly and fully,
(34:20):
but promised that she would at one stage, but the
circumstances of doing it over the phone didn't appeal to her.
She wasn't going to talk in any great depth about
it over the telephone.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
She was extremely afraid, and I remember.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
You telling me she's very very nervous about speaking to us,
but was willing to continue to do that. Stuart, I
think spoke to her on two or maybe three occasions
and was filling me in as we went on what
was being said, and it came to the point where
we thought that perhaps she was time, maybe that I
(34:58):
could have a chat to her as well to see
what I made of what she was saying and Hans
was saying it. So I rang her and spoke to her,
and she had hinted to Stewart that she knew who
had written the note that was placed on the gate
on the fiftieth anniversary of the abduction of the children.
(35:20):
During my conversation with her, she opened up to me
that she was the person who wrote the note. She
explained the note to us and described it as being
done by a letterset, which we agreed we'd already worked
that out ourselves by looking at the note, but she
could also tell us the type of typewriter that she
typed a note on for us to compare the typeset.
(35:44):
I also asked her about the initials CS on the
bottom of the note.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It had CS dot dot dot, and I asked.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
That for obvious reasons, because her name and I can't
tell you what it is, but her name didn't begin
or have CS.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Anywhere in it.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
So she is just told me that she wrote it
as a cryptic clue to C. S. Lewis, who was
the writer of The Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe,
which at that time was Jane's favorite book, And she
did it as a cryptic clue.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
And what did the note say?
Speaker 7 (36:22):
In short, it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Said two little girls were buried there, but the little
boy was somewhere else, and you know how sorry they
were for the children, that sort of note. But the
important bit was the two girls were buried there and
the little boy was buried somewhere else.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But also in that note was again mentioned Harry Phipps
and his was accomplices. Yeah, so that was mentioned again
that there's others involved.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So Bill, let's fast forward. You meet with this lady.
What story did you have to tell? Well, I can
set the scene a bit.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I decided that on this occasion I would take the
opportunity to audio tape the interview with her, also to
videotape the interview, and at the end I would do
a large detection test on her to see if she's
telling us the truth. I met her at a place
(37:22):
of her choosing, which was not in the state.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Of South Australia, and spent.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
An entire day, a full day with her, discussing her
story and her story, it's fair to say chilled me
to the bone. Even though I've been around the block
a few times, I was absolutely taken aback. She told
the story of her being prostituted to pedophiles from the
(37:50):
age of four years old by a senior female member
of her family who would do it for money. Remember,
other members of her family were also pedophiles, and they
too had abused her sexually the years she told the
story of On one occasion, because she was brought up
(38:13):
outside of the state of South Australia and hadn't lived
in South Australia, but a female member of her family
and another man had taken her during the school holidays
to Adelaide to visit a friend. A friend that they
visited was in Castleoy in Clinton, South Australia, and it
(38:39):
was Harry Phipps.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
Of interest is.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
On the way to meet with the family friend Phipps,
she was given a bottle of cold drink and she
had told me earlier in the conversation that one of
the things that they would do before she was left
for abuse by a pedophile was that they would give
her ketamine to drug her out. She believed later that
(39:05):
that bottle of coke had contained ketamide. She drank it
and had gone and met with Phipps in his boardroom.
He had taken them out to the foundry to have
a look at the foundry. She had seen his car,
and up to the point where she'd seen his car
and she actually touched it. He'd be very nice to her.
(39:28):
The minute she touched the car, he turned on her,
as we knew Phipps could do, and snarled at her,
get your fucking hands off, that it's a collector's item.
So that bothered here because he that point he'd been
really nice.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Anyhow.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Let me move on from that, and she recalls being
taken into a cottage building on the site by Harry Phipps.
She described the site to me and the building to me,
and it was the building she described was Harry's cottage,
the smaller of the two cottages on the Castley's site,
(40:07):
which himself and Stuart had been into several times, which
I've photo photographed the interior off. She described it pretty
well and couldn't have given me that description unless she'd
been there.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
She gave detail, some detail.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
So while she was in there, she was shown into
a room at the back, and it was clothing on
a rack, and there was women's dresses all sewn up
in satin, made of satin, and she was asked by
mister Phipps to choose one she likes. Was the one
(40:45):
she liked which she liked to have? She picked one,
and now at this stage I must have telled you
she's only ten or twelve years old.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
She picked one.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Then he took her into another pile of the building,
which is a room with wood paneling in it, which
again i've seen in photographed in the past, and because
it comes up somewhere else in a story we've been
told by someone, and he raped her, vaginally raped her.
(41:16):
She described the rape, and then he left the room,
lift and lying on the floor. A short time later,
came back in wearing the satin dress that she'd chosen,
at which time he turned her over.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
And he anally raped her.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
There are things that happened during that act that ties
up with other things we've been told about Harry's m
O and the things he does whilst he's committing that act.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So during that act, as it.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
Was occurring, she lost all consciousness of what was around her.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
The ket of mine I'm assuming must have kicked in.
She couldn't describe how she left the building. When she
met up with a lady associate and the man, she
just that was the last she could remember. It was
Harry raping her. She then went on and spoke to
me about the Bondmont children.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
I have to be a little bit reticent in some
ways about what we're going to speak about. So the
story of the children, I put a warning in the
last chapter of the book. The last chapter of the
book we've written is called a revelation. Stuart wrote one
called the Drop, and I wrote one called the ship Hit,
(42:37):
and the final one is the revelation, which is what
this person's told me. She told me that the children
were taken from the reserve, as we know, and we're
taken to the cottages at Castleway. There they were subject
(43:00):
to being raped. But prior to all happening, or in
the first day while they were there, the little boy
grand had done something was being a problem, something was happening,
and he was taken away, taken to a non public area,
a racetrack, where he was held in stables. The two
(43:24):
girls remained at the cottage and were raped over the
period two Days by Harry Phipps. By someone that will
keep up our sleeve, but we will tell you it's
(43:45):
someone that's very close to what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
You'll have to read the book to get those final details,
but I agreciate you sharing the main points of it.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
Yet, and another person whose name we had heard once before,
back very early in the piece. Someone Hayden's cousin had
mentioned this person to Stewart to see if we'd heard
of anything about him, which we hadn't, and he was
forgotten about until now his name has come up. We've
(44:16):
done checks on that person and his.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Name.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
It suggested from the people who tell us that we're
not talking about police officers here. Someone had said to
us that he was known to police as being a pedophile.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
This person.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
Now, the story of how all has happened is of
itself unusual. But one of the men who'd been constantly
sexually abusing the lady over the years had taken her
up to the point of when she was twenty years old,
(44:55):
and had taken it to where he lived and handcuffed
to a table and kept her at this place for
about a week. When she wasn't handcuffed to the table,
he had a shotgun on her, and over the period
that week he would rape her, continuously rape her. One
(45:15):
evening was drunk. He got drunk and made what she
called a drunken.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Confession to her. The confession is what.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
I'm telling you, what you're hearing now, that he knew
Harry and like Harry, like himself, Harry is a pedophile,
and that he himself was a member of Harry's pedophile group.
But on an occasion when he wasn't there, the Bobmont
children had been taken to.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
This place and had been, as I told you, raped.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
The little boy had been taken away on the first
hand to the racing track. The girls remained being raped.
A physical assault, a very serious physical assault, had taken
place on one of the children, which I can't repeat
here and I haven't repeated in the book because it's sickening.
(46:10):
But the little child was very heavily assaulted by Harry
Fipps in a fit of rage, and we know that
he had these fits of rage. The rape continued for
about two days when the children were strangled.
Speaker 6 (46:26):
Shocking Harry is shocking Harry and the other.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
Person that I won't name at the stage helped the
dig a hole, as did the person of man who
we hadn't heard of before, helped the dig the hole
to get rid of the children. They gave a description,
or he gave a description to the lady of something
that was in that hole. Now that hole became important
(46:54):
to us at around the time all this happened, because
we were about the digger hole at the sight of
the very area that he had nominated as what it.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Children have been buried the very.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Area that's the site in early twenty twenty five when
the dig took place.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
That's the last one leading up to the Easter weekend,
and then the day after the Easter weekend. So he
said about something that happened there during the burial process,
and where it was the lo case it was, and
love and behold on the last air of the dig.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
When we dug in that area, which of where we
now knew was the.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Ship pit, and we dug in that area which I'll
tell you it was beside a peppercorn tree about three
feet down, we found exactly what he said would be there.
So there was some credibility to what he was saying,
because he would have no way of knowing that was
there unless a he was told about it in detail,
(47:56):
which I doubt.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Or be he was there himself, which I think he was.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
So these allegations are included in the new edition of
your book, and they are very compelling, and you seem
to have been able to corroborate what this lady said.
You've done it on a polygraph. You're able to connect
her experiences with your own eyewitness accounts of those cottages.
There there's enough for this that must be investigated. And
(48:23):
my question for South Australia is why has the Coroner
of South Australia never held an inquest? Imagine that they've
never held an inquest into all the information the investigation
into the disappearance and probable murder of the Beaumont children.
Why do you think that is, Bill, You're a South Australia,
You're living in South Australia. Now, why won't they bring
(48:45):
this to the coroner?
Speaker 5 (48:48):
The only thing I can think of it's still supposedly
inverted commers in actively investigated case. That's the only possibility
I could find. I can't see a reason why there's
been no corrolling inquiry.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
It's a standing.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Because I think there's serious questions to be asked about
the police investigation.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
What's happening now?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I simply do not believe that there is an active
investigation going on right now. I think there's been a
lot of leads followed, nothing's come up, and now, as
is common with cold cases, they're waiting for some new information.
I think it's time the coroner actually was proactive and said,
let's analyze every piece of information and call for that
(49:30):
little scrap of information that could corroborate or even eliminate, because,
let's face it, the Phipps family lives with these allegations.
Now it's in their interest as well as the Beaumonts
and the rest of the people of South Australia, let
alone Australia, that some kind of certainty is riched at.
Speaker 7 (49:49):
But can I add that it's also some glaring mismanagement
from the detectives that Hayden and Angela, his wife, were
never met and never interviewed by detectives. That's the first
two people Bill wanted to meet. They were the first
two people I needed to meet to ascertain their truthfulness.
(50:11):
But did detectives meet an interview?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
No?
Speaker 7 (50:15):
How can it be a thorough case? I suppose in
a coronial inquest that will come out. It was mismanaged.
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I found there was a tremendous reluctance even from retired
judicial figures in South Australia to agree to a coronial inquest.
We spoke to John Sullen, former Supreme Court Judge of
South Australia, and he said, oh, only if there was
fresh and compelling evidence should there be a coronial inquest.
I'm thinking, what what they're actual? I mean, We've seen
(50:42):
around the world these long time cold cases be opened
in the interest of transparency, in the interest of some
possible closure being arrived at. For instance, Derek Ernest Percy,
the notorious child killer, probably murt a little girl called
Linda Stillwell, Victoria. There was an inquest by the coroner
into that case. It gave that family some sense, but
(51:05):
there was someone caring. After all these years, Jim and
Nancy Beaumont have gone to their graves not knowing there
are still Beaumont family members out there who are still
looking for truth. How does it feel you two, your
odd couple, your dad's army of investigators, to be the
ones carrying the torch for justice? When it should be
the coroner and the Police of South Australia.
Speaker 7 (51:27):
Well, I suppose with us, it's something we wanted to do.
I always felt there was something we were given to
do and we've done it and I'm glad I met
Bill to do that. So we understand that, you know,
with the Coroner's inquestal lack thereof, and also with some
members of the police force that as Bill said, you
know they're not going to be told by members of
(51:47):
the public how to do their job. And as you said, Bill,
being a former detective, no way. So as far as
I'm concerned, I think I'll close up shop.
Speaker 6 (51:57):
Are you Fellas done?
Speaker 7 (51:58):
Now? No goodness, no more to go? And Bill just
alluded to that with a book coming out in all bookshops,
is that it's that last chapter. I must admit, it's
that last chapter that really brings everything together from what
they bought at Wenzel's Bakery, what they bought then, and
(52:19):
then you have a look at that last chapter. God,
it makes sense, It absolutely makes sense.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Because this has been a labor of love. I don't
think you've made a cent out of this. You've got
a decent publisher on board now, Simon and s justed
well done for that, and this book is now going
into national so you would hope that another ground swell
of momentum is brought about by the release of the
new edition and that that piece of information comes forward
that just allows you to finish your work, because boy
(52:45):
should have a rest. Really, I think, let me get
the glory if I possibly can the book.
Speaker 7 (52:49):
What this book will also do is that if there's
also there's been people that have come forward to say
they were sexually abused by Phipps, that is only the
tip of the iceberg. And we know in cases like
this Jared Risdale, the Catholic priest, he had fifty four
counts of child sexual abuse against him. They don't stop
at one. They don't stop until they're court. Harry Phipps
(53:12):
was never caught, so there's other victims out there.
Speaker 6 (53:15):
Guys. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
The book is Unmasking the Killer of the Beaumont Children.
It's out on Simon and Schuster. Please have a read
of it. Everyone out there, guys, I've got to say
to you, I'm really proud of the work you've done
on behalf of the Beaumont family and the people of
South Australia. Let's hope that it brings some form of closure,
new information, whatever it is.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 8 (53:35):
Thank you very much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
That was Stuart Mullins and Bill Hayes. The book is
unmasking the killer of the Beaumont Children. It's time for
the Coroner of South Australia to get involved.
Speaker 6 (53:49):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
It's not surprising that South Australia has never had a
High Court justice in its history. There's a different kind
of justice in South Australia and I'm sure people in
the state will know what I'm talking about. If you're
out there with any kind of information, now is the
time to bring it forward. You've got two investigators here
who are very very keen. I'm also keen, so if
(54:11):
you want to get in touch, you can call Crime
Stoppers one eight hundred, Triple three, Triple zero. I'm not
sure how much joy you're going to get because I
think there's a fatigue in the South Australian police about
looking at new lines of investigation. They're waiting for the
answers to be dropped on their doorstep. But there are
other people who are keen to get it. You can
also email me Adam Shan writer at gmail dot com,
(54:33):
and I will pass on the information to these two
indefatigable investigators. This has been real crime with Adam shanned.
I'm your host, Adam Shann. Thank you for listening.
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