The Adelaide Oval Case

On 25 August 1973, two young girls were abducted from the Adelaide Oval during a South Australian football match. Eleven-year-old Joanne Ratcliffe was at the match with her parents and was sitting next to four-year-old Kirste Gordon, who was watching the match with her grandmother. The younger girl’s grandmother asked Joanne to take Kirste with her when she went to the toilet. The pair returned after several minutes. About thirty minutes later, when Kirste again wanted to go to the toilet, the girls left once more – but this time did not come back. The circumstances of the abduction were uncannily similar to that of the Beaumont Case seven years earlier – the children had been taken from a public place and disappeared without a trace, despite an extensive police investigation.