Disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon

Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon were two Australian girls who went missing while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Their disappearance, and presumed abduction and murder, became one of South Australia's best known crimes. The presumed murders are thought by South Australia Police and the media to be related to the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is sometimes referred to in the media as The Adelaide Oval Abductions. Disappearance: Joanne Ratcliffe had gone to the football with her parents Les and Kathleen Ratcliffe, and a family friend, "Frank". Kirste Gordon had been at the football in the care of her maternal grandmother while her parents were visiting friends in the Riverland. 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. Investigation: 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. Many of the suspects in the Beaumont children disappearance are also suspects in the Ratcliffe and Gordon case. Witness reports led police to believe that they were abducted by a middle aged man. Further, the police sketch of the man last seen with the two girls resembles that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children. Another possible suspect is Stanley Arthur Hart. Properties previously owned by Hart (one in Prospect, one at Yatina in the Mid North) were investigated in 2009 and again in 2015. 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.