Help from the Other Side?

 Clairvoyant Criminologists?

 During the first few weeks of September, 2003, Australia’s Channel 7 television screened several programmes in which clairvoyants and spiritualists made dramatic claims.

 Several claims involved the supposed possible identification of suspects in unsolved murder cases.

 The presentation was such that some people believed here were the answers that the police had been looking for, for many years.  Yet hard evidence was missing. While police are interested in all information brought forward, not all of it equals usable evidence that can lead to conviction.  There are potential dangers of innocent people getting caught up in unsubstantiated accusations based on supposed insight or intuition.

 Over the years there have been numerous clairvoyants making dramatic claims of how they have helped police solve previously unsolvable mysteries.  Yet when the actual records are examined it has turned out to be wishful thinking, propaganda, and sometimes downright and blatant deception.

 Some have played the game of publishing claims in one country of their amazing successes in another country, and then on their return vice versa, in the fairly substantial belief that such claims are rarely checked – e.g. claiming in Australia, “I helped the police in Holland solve numerous puzzling crimes”  and then on return, claiming in Holland, “I helped the police in Australia solve previously unsolved crimes.”  Generally no-one in either country would check with police authorities in the other country (or even their own) for corroborating evidence or confirmation.  It ends up being publicity to get ordinary people in for readings, consultations, attendances at meetings etc – rarely does it result in police having cases solved with the clairvoyants help.

 The 1966 disappearance of the Beaumont children was a famous case in point. On Australia Day, Wednesday, January 26, 1966 Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont (9, 7, and 4 respectively) disappeared from a popular and busy swimming spot at South Australia’s Glenelg Beach.

 In 1997, 101 Degrees, written and produced by Matthew Leonard, was aired on the ABC Radio National’s ‘Radio Eye’ programme – presenting some of the available information and history surrounding the Beaumont disappearances.

 A promo on the programme states:

‘Jan 26 101 Degrees -The Beaumont Children

 On Australia Day 1966, Harold Holt had just taken over the reins of government from Robert Menzies. In his first address as Prime Minister he stated:

 “We live our lives in a climate of freedom, secured by laws of our own making - here is a country to be loved, to be served with devotion”.

 That same day, sometime after midday, three children disappeared from Adelaide’s Glenelg Beach after spending the morning there swimming and playing with a ‘tall blond man’. Their disappearance sparked an enormous manhunt which involved police, volunteers and eventually, the Dutch psychic Gerard Croiset. The police received over 1700 phone calls in the first ten days. Everyone had a theory about the disappearance... suspicion fell on the parents, on ‘new Australians’, on religious cults, the unemployed and anyone perceived in 60’s Adelaide to be a ‘pervert’.

 Many of the reports given to police came as the result of dreams, seances or other psychic visions. People searched their backyards, sheds, vacant blocks and holiday houses for Jane, Arrna and Grant.

 ‘....Informant of Henley Beach rang re: the names of the Beaumont children written in the sand opposite. Patrol 24 checked and found the names Jane, Arrna and Grant Along with the name Bill...appears to be the work of children.’

 Late in 1996 excavations were carried out at a warehouse identified by Gerard Croiset as the burial place for the three children. The dig cancelled out once and for all one of the most popular theories surrounding the disappearance of the Beaumont children.’

 Gerard Croiset had given many different instructions and places to locate the bodies of the three children. Initially these claims and directions were made from Holland, and then in 1967 he was brought to Australia, where he personally and directly led authorities in an unsuccessful search for the children.  Finally he declared that they had been buried under the concrete of a new warehouse. On the basis of his ‘visions’ and  directions excavations were carried out on the warehouse site, but by then Croiset had long left the country.  The excavations cost thousands of dollars and many weeks of careful work.  Nothing was found.  False hopes were shattered, business and other things disrupted, and thousands of dollars wasted to reveal the failure of clairvoyance as a tool for solving crimes.  If that hadn’t been enough, years later, in 1996 (and 16 years after Croiset’s death), some believers in the discredited clairvoyant’s abilities decided to revisit and re-excavate the warehouse site – again at considerable cost – and again no trace of the remains and the missing children were found.

 (For more information on this South Australian tragedy and Croiset’s failures, check the following website: http://www.felicity.com.au/crimefiles.htm)