The Beaumont Children: Last Seen With a Stranger Before Their 1966 Disappearance — Inside the Unsolved Glenelg Mystery

The disappearance of Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant Beaumont (4) from Glenelg Beach, Adelaide, on 26 January 1966 remains one of Australia’s most haunting unsolved cases. The three siblings left their Somerton Park home that Australia Day morning and were seen in the company of an unidentified man before vanishing without a trace.

Newspix/Getty'Massive Hunt Fails to Find Trace of Children,' relating to the missing Beaumont children case.

What Happened That Day

On the morning of 26 January 1966, the children walked about two miles from Somerton Park to Glenelg Beach. They left home between 9:45 and 10:00 a.m., boarded a bus (confirmed by the driver), and were later seen in a grassy area near the beach where a classmate recognized Jane.

GettyAerial view of Glenelg, South Australia.

Witnesses and the classmate’s mother reported seeing the three children with an unknown man. Multiple accounts described him as tanned, thin-faced and with short blond hair. The last confirmed sighting placed the children inside a Glenelg bakery between about 11:15 and 11:30 a.m.; the shopkeeper said they bought food using a £1 note. The children’s parents later reported they had given the children only 6 shillings and a sixpence that day, so investigators believed the larger bill may have come from the stranger.

Keystone/Hulton Archive/GettyDutch psychic Gerard Croiset after being brought in to assist with the search for the three missing Beaumont children on November 14, 1966 in Adelaide, Australia.

Search and Early Investigation

The Beaumont parents, Grant ("Jim") and Nancy, reported the children missing when they failed to return by the expected time of 2:00 p.m.; a formal police search began around 7:20 p.m. that evening. Police and hundreds of volunteers searched the coastline, checked boats and combed the water in what authorities described as the largest search in South Australian history, but they found no immediate evidence.

Newspix/Getty'Three vanish: Vast hunt at beach,' in relation to the disappearance of Beaumont children.

A privately funded psychic from the Netherlands, Gerard Croiset, was brought in later in 1966; his tips prompted excavations at a cave and at a newly constructed factory in Somerton Park, but these digs produced no conclusive results.

7News AustraliaAuthorities conducting a search site for the Beaumont children.

Leads, Hoaxes and Suspects

In 1968 two letters purporting to be from Jane asked the parents to meet to reclaim the children; the meeting yielded no one and the correspondence was later judged a hoax. Over the decades investigators examined hundreds of leads and several suspects. Theories have ranged from accidental drowning to cult involvement, but the prevailing theory has been an abduction by the unidentified man who was seen with the children that day.

Keystone/Hulton Archive/GettyNancy Beaumont, mother of the three missing Beaumont children.

Two defendants who drew particular attention were Bevan Spencer von Einem and Arthur Stanley Brown; both were investigated by police in connection with other crimes, but neither produced evidence linking them to the Beaumont disappearance.

The Phipps Allegation and Castalloy Searches

A major development years later came when Haydn Phipps, son of industrialist Harry Phipps, told police he had seen the Beaumont children with his father in the family’s Glenelg backyard when he was a teenager. Haydn alleged that his father shortly after loaded a car and drove away. Two brothers, Robin and David Harkin, later said they had been paid by Phipps to dig a grave-sized hole at the Castalloy factory site, which the Phipps family owned.

These claims prompted renewed searches of the Castalloy site in November 2013, January 2018 and February 2025. The 2013 survey used ground-penetrating radar to identify anomalies, but excavations produced no human remains. The 2018 dig recovered only animal bones. During the 2025 week-long excavation — supported in part by an anonymous $10,000 donation while the site was being prepared for housing development — investigators turned over roughly 10,000 tonnes of soil but found no evidence of the children.

Private lead investigator Frank Pangallo said the 2025 search allowed teams to be confident they would not locate remains at that factory site, while noting that renewed publicity had generated fresh tips that still needed assessment.

Aftermath and Legacy

Despite decades of inquiries, no one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with the Beaumont children's disappearance. The state government and police once offered a $1 million reward for information leading to their discovery. Jim and Nancy Beaumont lived privately after the investigation; Nancy died in 2019 at age 92 and Jim died in 2023 at age 97.

“We’ve just got to wait and hope and pray,” Jim Beaumont told local media nine months after the children vanished. “I don’t believe that the children are dead, and I’ll cling on to the hope until there’s any evidence found otherwise.”

Why the Case Endures

The Beaumont disappearance endures because of the number of credible eyewitness accounts, the lingering lead involving the unidentified man, and later allegations tied to the Phipps family that prompted multiple, high-profile digs. It remains an active cold case: investigators, private researchers and members of the public continue to follow new tips in the hope of finally resolving what happened to Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont.