Unsolved Girls that went missing from Adelaide Oval 1973

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i agree with your sentiment, but that is not how the situation was, the final quarter had just started by the time the abductor actually made his move on kirste, they were behind the stand, near the toilets (creswell stand archway) so everyone was back to watching the game, kilmartin himself confirmed that there was hardly anyone around (that spot)

And think back to leaving crowded grounds on foot - you have to negotiate your way through hurrying crowds of cars and people, you block out what is around you, other than aiming to clear the immediate pathway in front of you. And if your team lost, you have that attitude of shutting the game just finished out of your mind so as to "look forward to next week". Sadly, I can understand why no-one intervened.
 
No way anyone gets away with something like this nowadays....

cctv footage has changed everything
At Adelaide Oval maybe but at suburban SANFL grounds, such as Richmond or Prospect or Thebarton or Woodville, I think it would be likely that there would be spots not reached by CCTV.
 
what you guys are forgetting is that at the moment the abduction actually took place, ie when the man came up to the girls, and picked up kirste, he immediately headed for the gate, this wasnt far because the girls were in the archway outside the toilet doors, at the back end of the creswell stand, the fourth quarter had begun and so everyone was watching the game, kilmartin, the lolly seller, who had just collected his pay, witnessed the man take kirste, and joanne follow, trying to stop him, he said there was hardly anyone else around, except for the three kids/people the girls were with the moment kirste was grabbed, so the idea of diligent footy-going adults intervening is, sadly, fanciful ...
I thought that they left the ground at the end of the game when others were leaving too. Even if they left earlier, if it was a one-sided game, you would have got a steady stream of people exiting through the gates throughout the final quarter. What was the final score? What was the attendance? It must have been 10,000 plus - it is easy to read the team names and think of the SANFL crowd sizes of today.
 

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At Adelaide Oval maybe but at suburban SANFL grounds, such as Richmond or Prospect or Thebarton or Woodville, I think it would be likely that there would be spots not reached by CCTV.

yeah but all the cameras outside grounds...house cameras on streets, cameras at lights, dash cam... think sifting through them all the perpetrator with two girls would be spotted.
 
yeah but all the cameras outside grounds...house cameras on streets, cameras at lights, dash cam... think sifting through them all the perpetrator with two girls would be spotted.

Eventually we will reach a stage where every street has video surveillance and obtaining satellite imagery would not be an issue.

The last 10 years there has been such a up rise in surveillance, with cameras getting cheaper and cheaper.

I definitely think within 50 years it will happen. Most likely a lot sooner, say 30 years.
 
I thought that they left the ground at the end of the game when others were leaving too. Even if they left earlier, if it was a one-sided game, you would have got a steady stream of people exiting through the gates throughout the final quarter. What was the final score? What was the attendance? It must have been 10,000 plus - it is easy to read the team names and think of the SANFL crowd sizes of today.

My posts #77 and #79 might be of use. The final score and attendance stats are actually quite hard to find. I'll see what l can do.
 
My posts #77 and #79 might be of use. The final score and attendance stats are actually quite hard to find. I'll see what l can do.
The reason why they played at AO was the same reason they played 1 game a week at Football Pk once it was finished.
a. to give teams familiarity with the oval finals were played
b. to incentivise larger crowds

Australian Football - SANFL Premiership season - Season 1973

North Adelaide5.56.614.1517.17119Sat 25-Aug-1973 2:10 pmAdelaide Oval
Norwood1.55.76.1015.15105North Adelaide won by 14 points

No crowd listed
 
I don't know why, but I hate the disgusting, repulsive, vile, sick piece of s**t nonce responsible for this crime more than I hate any any other criminal involved in similar crimes.

Perhaps it is because the crime was so audacious. One very rarely hears of a person abducting children by force in a public place outside of family cases involving custody/child support matters. Most kidnappers will use grooming techniques to lure their victim away without making a fuss, or bide their time until there are no witnesses.

Maybe its because this offender was actually seen in action so there is a face behind the crime. People saw the kidnapper at the ground and outside of it, but he was assumed by witnesses to be an older father or young grandfather trying to control the kids, taking the terrified girls away never to be seen again like some evil modern day Pied Piper. In other cases what actually happened isn't fully known. The Beaumont Children faded away among Australia Day crowds at Glenelg. The abductor of Eloise Worldedge was never seen entering the house at night. The Wanda Beach murderer was never seen for certain. Rhianna Barreau seemed to simply vanish into thin air.

The perpetrator is probably long dead by now, and if he is I hope he burns in Hell.
 
I don't know why, but I hate the disgusting, repulsive, vile, sick piece of s**t nonce responsible for this crime more than I hate any any other criminal involved in similar crimes.

It's because he took the lives of two innocent young children who were just out as a family.

It is absolutely the worst *ing crime ever...and I totally agree, it makes you sick to the stomach.

The fact that he never received the justice he deserves just makes it even worse.

Completely heartbreaking.
 
It's because he took the lives of two innocent young children who were just out as a family.

It is absolutely the worst *ing crime ever...and I totally agree, it makes you sick to the stomach.

The fact that he never received the justice he deserves just makes it even worse.

Completely heartbreaking.

Agree there 100 percent.

We can hate murderers like Adrian Bayley, Brett Peter Cowan, Bradley Robert Edwards, Paul Denyer and Martin Bryant, but at least they were caught and faced justice for their crimes. The people responsible for the Beaumont Children, Eloise Worledge and Rhianna Barreau cases have never been identified and we don't know for sure what happened when they went missing. Likewise we don't really know who was responsible for the Wanda Beach murders, and while Mr. Cruel terrorized Melbourne with a series of bizarre abductions of young girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we still don't know who this shadowy figure was more than 30 years later.

So while we can hate Mr. Cruel and those responsible for the other unsolved crimes, it's much harder to hate somebody who we can't identify. In the Adelaide Oval case however, the perpetrator was seen in action taking two terrified girls away who were never seen again. He was never caught and brought to justice, not a single trace of Joanne nor Kirsty was ever found leaving their families unable to find closure and given nearly 50 years have gone by and the age of the kidnapper from witness statements, likely he has gotten away with it and taken his secrets to the grave.

The Adelaide Oval adductor is one person who I would like to see receive the type of justice Charles Bronson's character dished out at the end of the crime movie '10 to Midnight.'
 
I don't know why, but I hate the disgusting, repulsive, vile, sick piece of s**t nonce responsible for this crime more than I hate any any other criminal involved in similar crimes.

Perhaps it is because the crime was so audacious. One very rarely hears of a person abducting children by force in a public place outside of family cases involving custody/child support matters. Most kidnappers will use grooming techniques to lure their victim away without making a fuss, or bide their time until there are no witnesses.

Maybe its because this offender was actually seen in action so there is a face behind the crime. People saw the kidnapper at the ground and outside of it, but he was assumed by witnesses to be an older father or young grandfather trying to control the kids, taking the terrified girls away never to be seen again like some evil modern day Pied Piper. In other cases what actually happened isn't fully known. The Beaumont Children faded away among Australia Day crowds at Glenelg. The abductor of Eloise Worldedge was never seen entering the house at night. The Wanda Beach murderer was never seen for certain. Rhianna Barreau seemed to simply vanish into thin air.

The perpetrator is probably long dead by now, and if he is I hope he burns in Hell.
the abduction was a team effort, though done so in a way which was not obvious, but was always made to look like one man did it, and indeed he did the bulk of the work, but he had plenty of help
 

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what date does the ao case episode air? any way to catch it online as a reply, if cant watch live?
i dont normally watch fee to air tv, but will keep an eye out for it.
It will surely be posted on their youtube channel at some stage. Its where I saw their dodgy MrC episode
 
And think back to leaving crowded grounds on foot - you have to negotiate your way through hurrying crowds of cars and people, you block out what is around you, other than aiming to clear the immediate pathway in front of you. And if your team lost, you have that attitude of shutting the game just finished out of your mind so as to "look forward to next week". Sadly, I can understand why no-one intervened.
Which teams were playing on that day?
 
the lolly seller witnessed the whole thing, the glasses, and it is not clear whether they were reading glasses or sunglasses, were retrieved by the abductor, the zoo sighting was not reported to sapol until 1979 so imo it is unreliable, the lolly seller watched the abductor and the girls go out through the open gates, through the car park, and continued watching until he lost sight of them behind a tree in the southwest corner of the car park, this would be near the southern stand of the memorial drive tennis courts, so they were headed in a south west direction, which suggests bonython park, rather than the zoo area, as being the accurate final sighting
Would South West take them towards Keswick?
 
i dont normally watch fee to air tv, but will keep an eye out for it.
It will surely be posted on their youtube channel at some stage. Its where I saw their dodgy MrC episode
This is an image of what the AO abductor wore and looked like from the back..
 

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This is an image of what the AO abductor wore and looked like from the back..
Questions: Is that a houndstooth jacket.?
Has anyone heard of a business named Bronson's from the 60s? I think they were around the Brompton area -
 
Questions: Is that a houndstooth jacket.?
Has anyone heard of a business named Bronson's from the 60s? I think they were around the Brompton area -
I'm not sure whether it's a houndstooth jacket or not, it probably is, coming from that era..
Ivé never heard of Bronson's either, but I was a kid back then, i'm sure someone else will have heard of it in here..
 
I'm not sure whether it's a houndstooth jacket or not, it probably is, coming from that era..
Ivé never heard of Bronson's either, but I was a kid back then, i'm sure someone else will have heard of it in here..
Thankyou. I think Bronson's we're at Brompton. Which could be significant
 
Thanks for that information. I thought it may have been closer to the Adelaide Oval. My POI had connections to them.
The dyeing part is interesting to
Bronson’s were a dry cleaning & dyeing company with outlets across the city. Lots of articles in Trove up to at least the 1950s.

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