Since my last post, continued research and some new thoughts.
The timings of the witness sightings are inexact and involve ranges. However, under the assumption that Jane planned to get home on the bus at noon to get home for lunch and please mom (why wouldn't she?) and the kidnapper wanted the simplest abduction (why wouldn't he?), the following makes most sense.
1) Kids take bus from stop at Diagonal Road to stop on Mosesly St. nearest Geleng beach, (a 27 minute walk back according to google). Time unimportant as we know its undisputed that they got on bus and arrived as expected.
2) Kids are seen coming off beach and heading onto Collier Reserve, the grassy area just of the beach and where there are "sprinklers" to wash off sand (I'm american and its unclear if this means they used lawn sprinklers normally for irrigation or if this is a slang for showers installed near beach for the purpose of sand removal on people?)
3) Children seen interacting with the man and playing with towels
4) Man asks if anyone has been seen messing with their stuff as money is missing. Unclear if this is before or after dressing, but its logical that if he has planned to somehow control them financially, this would happen first. The dressing fits with a "leaving" scenario after the four of them have made some type of plan together.
5) Kids are seen being dressed by man. Again, the fact he dresses Jane and Arnna and not just Grant leads me to believe the girls are his "object" as he could have ignored them and focused on Grant since they do not need help at their ages. This is important because I believe that a multiple child perp is very rare, but Australia sees three of these in a one decade span, starting with this one, all involving multiple little girls.
6) He goes to the changing room and they wait outside. It does not sound like there was much changing for him to do, but I'm thinking this was also a restroom. This could also have been a way for him to delay things to cause them to miss the bus. They don't have watches and may have relied on him to check the public clock.
7) The man tells a white lie that he forgot something back on the grass, and instead gets his car from its parking location, which he probably secured by arriving in the very early morning. He tells them he will catch up to them at the bus stop.
8) The children are seen by the postman near the bakery, holding hands and by themselves. Postman was initially saying it was 3 pm but then changes it to noon later on when he thinks more. Noon makes perfect sense. The children have no watches and have been led to believe by the man that they are on time. If they were given the pound note as some type of reward and think they are on time for the noon bus, their "happy" demeanor noted by the postman makes sense.
9) The children go ahead to the bakery, encouraged to buy extra food. He knows it is a long trip where they are going and/or he is hungry himself. Some accounts say that their last known spotting was outside changing rooms, and bakery was earlier, but that does not make sense since they did not have a load of food with them as they waited for him outside changing room. Waiting on this bench, it would have been logical for them to start eating their pastries, and witnesses would have noticed this. I believe bakery witness and changing room witness gave time ranges that made it possible changing rooms was first. This area is MUCH closer than i thought and its only about a block and a half between the reserve and the bakery.
9) The children go to the bus stop, not realizing they are late by about 15 minutes, and are looking for the man to return the change. The location of the bus stop is really important, as I don't think it is as close to the bakery as its depicted to be in some accounts. The current stop is about the same distance from the bakery as is the beach and Colley reserve and I believe we should treat it as a distinct location with the special characteristic that it is more private than the other spots.
My clue to research the bus stop location is that the bakery witness did not say anything about seeing them at the bus stop after their big purchase. I believe the Acai Bowl shop is currently in that location. In Australia they drive on the left, so the bus towards the children's home would have been directly outside the bakery on the same side of the street. This area is too tight for a bus stop as it is a congested corner. The current bus stop is located almost two blocks up on Moseley, away from the beach and toward the Beaumont home. It is a clearly marked "22" stop and has a bench and indented curb. I have no confirmation, but it makes sense that it was in same location back then as this is an older area and things like that seem to stick for a long time. Jim Beaumont is also said to have checked "the bus stop" as if it was a truly separate location from the "bakery".
All the perp had to do was manipulate their time by a few minutes. The best lie is the one closest to the truth. He was able to control their time by controlling their money. One other simple lie was that he had to go back to the Colley Reserve (VERY close to the bakery, actually) when he was actually retrieving his car. Remember, the kids need to see him again after the bakery to give him the change. Anything else would be stealing in Jane's worldview and keeps them in his control.
10) The children sit at the bus stop. If the stop is same location as now, they are out of the view of all the people near the shops and bakery. They start to eat the treats and are looking for the man to appear. There is a bench there now.
11)The man pulls up his car, driving on the same side of the road as the waiting children. He tells them there must be a problem with the bus and convinces them he should get in his car. A four year old can not walk for 30 minutes in 40 degree C heat and Jane believes this is a good decision and gets in the car. She is too surprised to make a truly good decision. And she's only nine. He drives initially in the direction of the Beaumont home.
More thoughts about suspects
- Phipps is totally out for me. I wasted a lot of time on him but he does not fit. Again, the kids are recognized by name by at least 3 witnesses, but NOBODY recognizes the man by name. He is NOT LOCAL. No local would spend time with his victims in public. Just does not fit the crime. And I do not believe Phipps looks at all like the sketch.
Arthur Stanley Brown makes a LOT of sense and I would bet on this one.
We can apply deduction here:
1) Brown is known/highly thought to have killed the McKay girls even though he died before ever convicted. I assume anyone here is familiar with the case so I won't go into the evidence.
2) The McKay girls is a confirmed multi-girl sex crime and homicide.
3) The McKay girls are similar ages to the Beaumont girls.
4) A witness says she heard the older McKay girl say to Brown: "when are you bringing us to Mommy? You said you were bringing us to Mommy!". This is proof that he gained their trust by saying he was going to get them home in his car.
5) Multi-child abductions are very rare. So the pool of possible suspects capable of such organization and depravity out the general population in Australia is like very small (unscientific but I'm guessing like under 5 people, maybe less)
6) Brown was definitively visually ID'd by a witness in the 1973 Adelaide Oval case where multiple girls, similar ages to Beaumonts, were abducted.
7) Brown had a job that kept him traveling and working alone as a public works maintenance carpenter. There are no work records that he was in Adelaide, but there is a second-hand witness who puts him there.
8) Someone who knew Brown put him in Adelaide as he mentioned he had seen a building under construction that was completed in 1973. I would like to know more about this witness and conversation.
9) The Beaumont killer is a man that is unrecognizable in Adelaide, preying on multiple girls, that must have used a car to complete the abduction, very likely under the guise of a ride home.
Brown's age being slightly older (in early 50's) does not jive with witnesses that put him in 30's and 40's. However, unlike some other age "decades", i think it can be very hard to distinguish a tan and fit 53 year old man from a tan and fit 35 year old man. There is a lot of variation, with presence of full hair, grayness and fitness level, style of dress, etc. In the bright and hot south Australia noon sun, the witnesses were probably also wearing sunglasses or brimmed hats and this could make distinguishing age of someone you see casually less accurate. All the old pics of brown are black and white so its hard for me to tell if he looks oldish or youngish in them.
One thing that does bother me is that the Beaumont perp did not really need to steal their money to make them late to the bus and then pick them up at the bus stop. He could have just lied about the time and kept assuring them that they still had time. If his plan from the get-go was to pick them up at the bus stop when he knew they would be stranded there, they also did not have to wait with him by the changing room. So this leads me to believe that he thought he just needed a bit extra leverage with them or was winging it as far as his actual plan. Maybe his initial thought was that they would not have money so he would offer a ride outright, but that Jane was not on board with accepting a ride from him so the plan evolved as they interacted at the reserve and hew was getting more psychologically involved and sure this is what he wanted to do.
Another logical scenario is that he could have taken their money and offered them a ride, which they accepted.
1) After waiting outside the change room, the group of four walk towards his car which is parked in the best spot along Colley str between the reserve and Jetty/Moselsey intersection. He stays by the car fiddling with the trunk contents the way people do after coming off a beach, making sure no sand gets in the car, towels on seats, etc and sends the children to the bakery which is very close. This makes sense if the perp is Brown, who is organized and neat and would probably need to do this despite being in the middle of committing a huge crime.
2) The children are sent to the bakery with the pound note and are seen by their postman on the corner.
3) Children return to the car and the group leaves.
I think this scenario is more direct than the bus-stop scenario but a bit more risky in that Jane would have a lot of time to think about whether she wanted to get in the car and could have decided to walk home or talk to people in the bakery or on the street and tell them the plan. The abduction at the bus stop leaves Jane less time to think, but could have been pulled off without a money deception.
www.eonline.com
