The Beaumont children, Jane, Arnna, and Grant lived with their parents, Jim and Nancy Beaumont, in Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide.
On a hot Australia Day in 1966, the children took a short trip the beach, one they had taken before. Jane, at age nine, was considered responsible enough to babysit her siblings, and Jim and Nancy were not at all concerned.
The children left home at 10 AM and were expected to return home by 2 PM. Their parents became worried when they had not returned and called the police at 7:30 PM. To this day the children have never been seen again.
Capturing a nation
52-years on, the disappearance of the Beaumont children is one of the largest police investigations in Australian criminal history and, to this day, remains one of Australia's most infamous cold cases.
With its significance in Australian criminal history and the fact that their disappearance has never been solved, the Beaumont case has led to an evolution of Australian society, with parents cracking down on the supervision of their children. Parents began to believe that their children could no longer be presumed to be safe
In early 2016, near the case's 50th anniversary, a telephone tip pointed South Australian police to a recently deceased suspect in the case. In early 2018, excavation was initiated in the back of a North Plympton factory that had previously belonged to a suspect.
The site, formerly owned by Harry Phipps will undergo excavation today in the hope of finally bringing the Beaumont children home.
A new South Adelaide dig site to finally bury the past
In early 2018 South Australian Police announced they would be conducting a new search of the New Castalloy site following geophysical testing of the area which showed an anomaly.
Excavations at the dig site at the New Castalloy site at North Plympton began at about 8:00 AM on 2 February.
Recent geophysical testing uncovered an anomaly at the spot where two brothers said they dug a hole for Mr. Phipps the same year the Beaumonts disappeared. Police say the brothers were only boys at the time they dug the hole, and the new spot was in close proximity to where investigations were previously focused.
A team of police and Major Crime detectives, accompanied by archaeologists have been monitoring the excavators digging a large patch of land on the north side of the Castalloy factory since 8 AM this morning.
As of 4 PM no human remains have been found. It may be another 50 years before Australians know what happened to the Beaumont kids.
