Australia Australia - Eloise Worledge, 8, Beaumaris, Vic, 12 Jan 1976

[paul1980]

Wasn't Blake killed outside Brentford Square shops in Nunawading? I lived in Mitcham next door to Nunawading at the time.

 

[Ausgirl]

Hi paul, not sure exactly where.. all I know is it was Nunawading. I should look for some old articles with a bit more detail to confirm.

Thank you for that, and welcome to WS!

 

[KateB]

Today is the 39th anniversary of Eloise's abduction.
Her mother's art and personal story was profiled recently in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Eloise Worledge's mother Patsy celebrates life with colour
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...ebrates-life-with-colour-20141122-11rt02.html
November 23, 2014

Ms Worledge's personal story is well known. In January 1976, her daughter Eloise, 8, vanished from the family home in Beaumaris and was never found. It was a tragedy that made Patsy Worledge a household name in one of the most publicised cases in Australian history.

Today, approaching her 72nd birthday, she has built another life – built on a spiritual journey that has taken her through immersion in Chinese meditation to encounters with Aboriginal elders and artists. Indigenous art informs her own work: the colours, the dot work, the elevation of the mysteries of life to the canvasses that clutter her home.

more at link.

 

[PrimeSuspect]

Great article, a must read:


http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179154768.html?

What a well written and informative article, thanks to John Silvester, The Age senior crime reporter. I don't know the ins and outs of the case, but the article went into great detail about Eloise's disappearance and information the police held at the time and up to 2003. I searched for Eloise's photo, I instantly recognized her from later media reports.

Another story where there are just too many coincidences and puzzling aspects that lead to a dead end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloise_Worledge_disappearance

 

[pass-thru]

It is VERY likely the scene was staged but ..... WHY???

So, the mother got up at 0430 to use the toilet, and the passage light was off. Maybe the abductor was still in the house, and heard her moving about. Maybe he cut the scree in preparation for an emergency exit, but once she went back to bed, that wasn't necessary, so he exited the front door.

 

[paul1980]

If the mother is now in her seventies, she must have been fairly young when she had Eloise?

 

[paul1980]

does anyone have any ideas/theories they can proffer? Eloise shouldn't fall down the memory hole.

 

[paul1980]

40th anniversary in less than two months... We still remember you, Eloise...

 

[paul1980]

A belated noting of the 40th anniversary. My apologies, sweet Eloise.

 

[Jim_M]

Bump. Were there ever any results from the inquest? I could not find anything searching the web.

 

[paul1980]

So many puzzles and dead ends.... it's frustrating.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Father of missing Eloise Worledge, 8, dies with 40-year mystery still unsolved

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/father-of-missing-eloise-worledge-8-dies-with-40year-mystery-still-unsolved-20170306-gus78e.html

Former teacher and business adviser Lindsay Worledge died two weeks ago, 41 years after Eloise was taken from her bedroom in Scott Street, sparking one of Victoria's biggest investigations and searches.

Lindsay was treated as a suspect, not because there was any evidence pointing at him, but because there were no obvious alternatives.

After his marriage to Eloise's mother, Patsy, ended in divorce he remarried and tried to live quietly but his name was always linked to his daughter's case, both as a grieving parent and a possible suspect.

In 2002 he took a police lie detector test, "The results were inconclusive. It did not produce a result which would satisfy police curiosity."

He said he had his own thoughts on what happened that night, but they "are an interpretation of nothing. They are just theories".

A police review of the case found, "At the conclusion of investigations into Lindsay Worledge, no evidence in regards to his involvement has been uncovered."

The ultimate head of the initial investigation agreed. Detective Superintendent Warnock believed he was unfairly judged.

"Mr Worledge, I think, has been seen in a bad light," he said nine months after the abduction

"He's not the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. Deep down, he cares about his children and he is very distressed about this whole business.

 

[paul1980]

Eloise would have been 50 this year...

 

[CastlesBurning]

Episode Three: Eloise Worledge - Point Blank: A True Crime Podcast

 

[Jim_M]

This article from the OP is still up.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/who-stole-eloise-20030705-gdvzpt.html

Sad.

 

[CastlesBurning]

Bumping for Eloise...it's now been 45 years.

Eloise WORLEDGE

 

[Megsc]

Girl, 8, abducted from bedroom, police fear - The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) - 14 Jan 1976

Article from 14 january 1976

 

[Megsc]

Man committed for trial over old ransom note - The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) - 21 Jan 1995
21 January 1995

Man committed for trial over old ransom note

A man accused of sending an obscene ransom note to the family of abducted eight-year-old Eloise Worledge was committed for trial yesterday, 19 years after the girl's disappearance.
Kenneth Benfield, 36, from Mildura, north-west Victoria, was charged with black-mail last July after police matched his fingerprints with a print on a ransom note demanding $10,000 from the Worledge family.

But a document tendered in court said police did not believe Benfield had abducted the child, whose whereabouts had never been discovered. The case still baffles police.

The letter was sent in the weeks after Eloise went missing from a bedroom of her family's Beaumaris home in January 1976.

The ransom note, tendered as evidence in Melbourne Magistrates Court court during yesterday's committal hearing, was addressed to Eloise's mother, Patsy Worledge, and signed "Fred". It contained obscene language and suggested the girl had been sexually assaulted.

The court heard yesterday that at the time the note was written Benfield would have been
17.

A fingerprint expert, Sergeant Terry Claven, said that while reviewing outstanding major
crimes in Victoria last July police had matched Benfleld's fingerprint with the print
on the letter.

Cross-examined, he agreed that the match had been made 18 years after the crime. A previous review of the Worledge case and several previous attempts at finding a match had been made since the girl's disappearance. "I can't explain why it wasn't identified," he said. "It's one of those things we will never know."

A police fingerprint-matching computer system had been set up in 1987 and, at that time,
Benfield's prints had been on its database. Sergeant Claven said it was "beyond reasonable
doubt" that the fingerprint on the letter was Benfield's.

Patsy Worledge said in a statement tendered in court that her family had received hundreds of letters after her daughter's disappearance, some of which had been sent to police.

Fix this textMagistrate Jelena Popovic ordered Benfield to stand trial in the County Court. Benfield reserved his plea and was allowed bail.