Disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon

Disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon
The Sunday Mail's front page on the day after Ratcliffe and Gordon disappeared
Date 25 August 1973
Time 3:50pm[1]
Duration Missing for 45 years, 1 month and 18 days
Venue Adelaide Oval
Location Adelaide, South Australia
Type abduction
Missing
  • Joanne Ratcliffe (11)
  • Kirste Gordon (4)

Joanne Ratcliffe (born 1962)[2] and Kirste Gordon (born 1969)[3] were two Australian girls who went missing while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Ratcliffe and Gordon's disappearance, and presumed abduction and murder,[1] became one of South Australia's best known crimes. The presumed murders are sometimes thought to be related to the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966.

Disappearance

Kirste Gordon had been at the football in the care of her maternal grandmother while her parents were visiting friends in the Riverland.[4] Joanne Ratcliffe had gone to the football with her parents Les and Kathleen Ratcliffe, and a family friend, "Frank".[5]

Ratcliffe's parents and Gordon's grandmother had allowed the two girls to go to the toilet together. The Ratcliffe family rule was that children were not to go to the toilet during the breaks in the game or during the last quarter.[5] Ratcliffe's father told the Coroner's Court in 1979 that his daughter had been to the oval dozens of times, that she would not have left the oval voluntarily, and that she knew how to use a telephone and call an emergency number. He said she had not met Gordon before that day, and he did not know her parents. They were seen several times in the 90 minutes after leaving the oval, apparently distressed and in the company of an unknown man, but they vanished after the last reported sighting.[1]

Investigation

Witness reports led police to believe that they were abducted by a middle aged man.[6][7] The police sketch of the man last seen with the two girls resembles that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children.[8]

Suspects

Many of the suspects in the Beaumont children disappearance are also suspects in the Ratcliffe and Gordon case. Another possible suspect is Stanley Arthur Hart (died 1999). Properties previously owned by Hart (one in Prospect, one at Yatina in the Mid North) were investigated in 2009 and again in 2015.[9][10] He reportedly rarely missed a North Adelaide match so was likely at the game, and was revealed a decade after the match to be a child abuser.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Inquest on Adelaide Oval girls". The Age. 10 July 1979. p. 6. Retrieved 12 August 2009.
  2. ↑ "RATCLIFFE Joanne". National Missing Persons Coordination Centre. 16 May 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  3. ↑ "GORDON Kirste". National Missing Persons Coordination Centre. 16 May 2016. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
  4. ↑ Gage, Nicola (30 July 2017). "Missing Persons Week: Kirste Gordon's parents recall day she disappeared from Adelaide Oval". ABC News. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  5. 1 2 Littleley, Bryan (24 August 2013). "On the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon, family reveal new connections to murderer Bevan Spencer von Einem". Sunday Mail (SA). Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  6. ↑ "Boy 'saw man forcing girls'". The Canberra Times. 31 August 1973. p. 3. Retrieved 17 July 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "Police go to oval". The Canberra Times. 3 September 1973. p. 1. Retrieved 18 July 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ Grace, Lynton (14 January 2014). "South Australia's most notorious unsolved crimes and mysteries: The Beaumont children - 1966". The Advertiser. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  9. ↑ Littlely, Bryan (11 March 2015). "Cold case: Fresh leads in 1973 Adelaide Oval abduction links key suspect to abandoned Prospect home with an underground bunker". Adelaide Advertiser. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  10. ↑ McNab, Heather (18 September 2014). "Accused paedophile's grandfather linked to disappearance of two children 41 years ago". Daily Mail. Retrieved 13 July 2015.

Further reading

  • Stephen Orr (2011). The Cruel City: Is Adelaide the Murder Capital of Australia?. Allen & Unwin. pp. 102–122. ISBN 9781742692944.


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