This page is titled as a piece of dramatic license. It is highly probable that no person named on this page had anything to do with the disappearance.
A moment ought to be taken to dismiss completely as suspects three people who are often suggested by armchair sleuths as possible suspects in the disappearance. Firstly, Mr and Mrs Beaumont have been on the receiving end of many slurs that they were responsible. In fact, every everyone who ever met the Beaumonts agrees that they had nothing to do with the disappearance. It is their unique tragedy.
Secondly, visitors to this site have pointed out the postman, Mr Patterson, was not consistent in his account of events. I cannot confirm whether Mr Patterson was a suspect but I presume police questioned him closely. More importantly, his confusion about what time he saw the children is wholly explicable when it is remembered that he had no reason at the time to think the encounter in any way significant.
As far as other suspects are concerned, four men have been publicly named in the news media as being suspects for the presumed abduction and murder of the children. One of the men has since died; the other three remain incarcerated. Details about all four are given below, listed in the order in which they entered the public eye in connection with the case.
It is also worth pointing out that while each of the men might seem to be a good suspect for the disappearance -- three of them have been imprisoned for sex-related murders and the other was strongly suspected of the same; two of them have allegedly told other people that they abducted the Beaumont children; all four are said to have been in Adelaide at the time the Beaumont children disappeared -- there are grounds for ruling each of them out. Von Einem, the only man certain to have been in Adelaide at the time of the disappearance, possibly preferred older victims; there is nothing but anecdotal evidence against Brown; Percy was too young to drive; and O'Neill has been eliminated from enquiries by police on other grounds. It is highly probable that the person who abducted the Beaumont children is known to police. It is also, perhaps, highly probable that none of the men listed below are that person.
Bevan Spencer von Einem is currently serving a 36-year sentence in a prison in South Australia, having been convicted in 1984 of murder in Adelaide. He is strongly suspected of having committed or been involved in three other murders and has been considered by some to be prime suspect both for the Beaumont disappearnce and the Adelaide Oval abduction. For more information, please click here.
Derek Ernest Percy, once described as "Australia's Hannibal Lecter" is a suspected serial killer who has been imprisoned in Victoria for the last 30 years. He is prime suspect for a number of child abductions and has been named as a suspect in the disappearance of the Beaumont children. For more information, please click here.
In late 1998, Arthur Stanley Brown was charged with the murders of Judith and Susan Mackay, aged 7 and 5, on 26 August 1970, in Townsville, Queensland. The Mackay sisters disappeared during a 10 minute period in which they were waiting for a bus. On 28 August a New Zealander named Graham Tough found the bodies.
It was noticed that he bore a facial resemblance to the pictures of the suspect in the Beaumont children and Oval Abduction cases. South Australian Police announced that they were investigating to find out if there was any connection. Brown is now dead, but for more information about Brown, please click here.
James O'Neill is the longest serving prisoner in Tasmania, having been convicted and imprisoned for murder in 1975. In January 2005 suggestions emerged that he may have committed multiple murders, including the abduction of the Beaumont children. For more information about this, please click here.