On Australia Day 1966, three children boarded a bus to Glenelg Beach in Adelaide and never came home. Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant (4) Beaumont were seen by multiple witnesses playing with an unidentified man at the beach, laughing, comfortable, clearly trusting him. They were seen buying food with a one pound note their mother hadn't given them.

Then they vanished completely.

This is Part One of a special two-part investigation into Australia's most haunting missing persons case. We examine the events of that scorching January day, the witnesses who saw the children with a man they appeared to know, and the devastating realisation that three children had disappeared from a public place in broad daylight in front of dozens of people.

How is that possible? And what happened in those crucial first hours when the investigation began?

Part Two explores the decades-long search, the suspects, and a disturbing pattern that connects this case to another Adelaide tragedy seven years later.

Content warning: This episode discusses the disappearance and presumed murder of three young children.

Sources - The Beaumont Children (Parts One & Two)

• Whiticker, Alan. Searching for the Beaumont Children (2006)
• Whiticker, Alan and Stuart Mullins. The Satin Man (2013)
• Mullins, Stuart and Bill Hayes. Unmasking the Killer of the Missing Beaumont Children (2024 edition)
• The Beaumont Children: What Really Happened (Channel Seven, 2018)

Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay