‘REUNITED IN HEAVEN’
DEVASTATED FATHER DIES WITHOUT SOLVING HAUNTING MYSTERY
Imagine the souldestroying agony that Grant ‘Jim’ Beaumont and wife Nancy endured, never knowing what really happened to their three sweet children who disappeared, seemingly without a trace, at Glenelg Beach 57 years ago.
Nancy died in 2019 aged 92, having never given up hope that one day she would have some answers, no matter how terrible they were. Now her ex-husband Jim has sadly died aged 97, after decades of heartache over his missing children.
“Reunited in heaven,” were the simple words used in the funeral notice to mark Jim’s death in Adelaide on April 9.
When Jane, 9, Arnna, 7 and 4-year-old Grant Beaumont disappeared during a routine trip to the seashore on a sunny January day, it robbed Jim and Nancy of the lights of their lives – and ripped the innocence out of Australia.
How could three young children simply vanish, despite hundreds of potential witnesses who were also enjoying the sunshine at Glenelg Beach? It was a time when many people didn’t even lock their doors, let alone worry about ‘stranger danger’.
The Beaumont case remains Australia’s greatest mystery. It was a terrible wake-up call to parents
‘Police continue to examine all leads’
everywhere, inspiring a new age of fear for our children. For Jim and Nancy it was a pain too hard to endure. The heartbroken couple retreated from the hungry gaze of a horrified public after appealing for help five days after the disappearance.
Nancy gave just one interview a year later, revealing her children came to her in a dream in which she “cried and felt them all over” after asking them, “Where have you been?”
“I don’t usually dream. In fact, this is the first real dream I’ve had since the children went.” she said. “But last night I dreamt I heard a knock on the back door. It was the children. They said: ‘Hello, Mum’.”
Sadly, this was never to become reality. Despite many investigations and police identifying five people of interest, including three suspected serial killers, and posting a still-standing $1 million reward, no trace of the Beaumont children has been found.
What is known is the children left their family home on the morning of January 26, 1966 to catch a bus to Glenelg Beach, which was just five minutes away. They were seen near the beach at Colley Reserve, with a tall blond man believed to be in his thirties.
At 12pm they went to the nearby Wenzel’s Bakery where Jane bought three pasties and a pie with a one pound note. This was curious because Nancy had only given the kids six shillings or lunch and the bus fare.
These are the only reliable facts known about the kids’ last movements on that day, yet there were dozens of false leads, hoaxes and theories that emerged over the years.
Each one proved false and heartbreaking to both Jim and Nancy. Eventually, the couple separated in the 1970s,
but like any parents must have clung on to a tiny hope that perhaps miraculously they would see their kids again as they held onto the Harding Street home where they had happily lived with Jane, Arnna and Grant.