Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Jane Gordon were two Australian girls who disappeared while at an Australian rules football game at the Adelaide Oval on August 25, 1973.
Their disappearance, believed to be a kidnapping, became one of South Australia's most well-known crimes.
South Australia Police and the media suspect a connection to the Beaumont children disappearance in 1966.
But there has been no solid evidence connecting both cases.
This case is also known as the Adelaide Oval abductions.
The Day of Disappearance
On the afternoon of August 25, 1973, the Ratcliffe and Gordon families attended a football match at Adelaide Oval.
Joanne Ratcliffe, 11, was with her parents, Les and Kathleen Ratcliffe, her older brother, and a family friend named "Frank."
Kirste Gordon, 4, was in the care of her maternal grandmother while her parents visited friends in Renmark.
The two families were sitting together in the Sir Edwin Smith Stand, enjoying the game without knowing that something bad was about to happen.
Ratcliffe's parents and Gordon's grandmother, who were friends, allowed the two girls to go to the bathroom together twice that day.
The Ratcliffe family rule was that children couldn't go to the bathroom during breaks in the game or in the last quarter.
The girls left around 3:45 pm, and the Ratcliffes started looking for them around 4:00 pm.
When they couldn't locate the girls, Kathleen Ratcliffe used the stadium's loudspeaker to announce their disappearance shortly after the game ended at around 5:00 pm.
The police were notified that the girls were missing at 5:12 pm after they couldn't be found.
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Investigation and Witness Accounts
Ratcliffe and Gordon were spotted several times within 90 minutes after leaving their families.
They were seen trying to attract a stray cat, with other children.
Later, Gordon was seen carried by an unknown man with the other girl following closely.
Witnesses, unaware of the kidnapping, assumed the man was a parent with his children.
The girls disappeared after witnesses saw them last on a bridge near the Adelaide Zoo.
Another witness later reported seeing them between North Adelaide railway station and Port Road, Thebarton.
Despite searches, a $5,000 reward, and extensive media coverage, the kidnapping case quickly became cold.
These sightings were crucial in forming the police’s initial profile of the suspect but unfortunately did not lead to the immediate recovery of the girls.
Years later, in 1979, Les Ratcliffe testified that his daughter would not have left voluntarily and knew how to call for help, further solidifying the belief that the girls were abducted.
On the 40th anniversary of the disappearance, Joanne’s sister, Suzie Wilkinson, asked publicly for authorities to look into the case again.
She wondered why some leads were ignored and why the investigation seemed to stop.
The South Australian government added to this by offering a $1 million reward in 2014 for any information that could solve the case.
Suspects and Theories
Many suspects in the Ratcliffe and Gordon case are also linked to the infamous Beaumont children disappearance of 1966.
The similarities between the two cases, including descriptions of the suspect and the circumstances of the abductions, led police to consider a connection.
Witnesses told police they were taken by a middle-aged man.
The police sketch of the man seen last with the two girls resembles the sketch of the man last seen with the Beaumont children.
Some of the suspects implicated in the girls disappearance included:
Arthur Stanley Brown (1912 - 2002)
Arthur Stanley Brown is suspected in both cases because he closely resembled the identikit picture of the suspect.
A witness reported seeing a man near the oval carrying a young girl, with another older girl in distress following.
The witness initially saw him briefly when she was 14 years old, and then identified him 25 years later in December 1998 after seeing him on television.
Stanley Arthur Hart (1917 – 1999)
Another potential suspect is Stanley Arthur Hart
Properties once owned by Hart, one in Prospect and another in Yatina in the Mid North, were examined in 2009 and again in 2015.
He was known to attend North Adelaide matches regularly, and a decade after the abduction, he was revealed to be a child abuser.
On the 50th anniversary of the abduction in 2023, Ratcliffe's sister, Suzie Wilkinson, stated, "Deep down, I believe it was Hart."
Frank the family friend
In 2013, Suzie Wilkinson asked authorities to investigate the possible involvement of family friend "Frank" in the girls' disappearance.
Frank had been with the families at the oval on the day the girls were abducted but reportedly wasn't formally questioned by the police.
He is said to have known details about the girls' usual activities during football games.
Kathleen Ratcliffe mentioned that Frank left his seat for about 30 minutes before the girls went missing but later stayed seated and didn't join others who were searching for them.
Gordon's grandmother also noticed Frank's behavior during the search, noting that "the other man stayed in his seat."
Wilkinson emphasized the importance of ongoing efforts by authorities to solve her sister's case.
Errol George Radan
In 2023, convicted Queensland paedophile Errol George Radan (who passed away in 2022) was revealed to have been officially investigated as a suspect before his death.
Radan had a history of offenses in South Australia, culminating in imprisonment for indecently assaulting a girl under 14 years old in 1984.
One of Radan's alleged abuse victims claimed he strongly resembled the identikit sketch of the abductor and that he began abusing her around the time of the girls' abduction.
It was alleged that after Radan moved from his home in Broadview, a scrapbook with news clippings about Ratcliffe and Gordon, along with young girls' clothing, was found in an underground drainage system.
However, despite these suspects, no one has been arrested or formally charged in connection with the girls' disappearance.
The disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon continues to be a source of immense grief for their families and a significant unsolved mystery in Australian criminal history.
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