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Suburban Legends

The Abduction of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon

Season 1, Ep. 16

Joanne Ratcliffe (11) and Kirste Gordon (4) were abducted while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Despite the case making national headlines at the time, the presumed abduction and murder is often linked and overshadowed by the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is also referred to as the Adelaide Oval Abductions.


Join Shaun and Chloe as they discuss the girls and their families, the details of the abductions, sightings of the perpetrator, police investigation and suspects. In the latter part of the episode, as Shaun dug deeper into the research of this case, two seemingly missed leads and a disturbing theory in connection with a remote South Australian town surfaced, suggesting a potentially dark and twisted end to this case and possibly many others...


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This episode was produced by True Blue Media using the open source materials referenced below: 


  1. The Missing Beaumont Children by Michael Madigan
  2. The Cruel City by Stephen Orr
  3. Man claims he saw Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon loaded into van at a boarding house after their disappearance from Adelaide Oval - Craig Cook, Sunday Mail (SA) August 31, 2013
  4. Excavation in South Australia’s mid-north for clues to 1973 abduction of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon from Adelaide Oval - Bryan Littleley and Steven Rice, The Advertiser, September 18, 2014
  5. The city of kidnapped children by Marnie O’Neill, The Morning bulletin, 23rd Jun 2018
  6. https://www.facebook.com/AMMGSAOSS/posts/2086183821625094
  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_DHOwqpfbY&fbclid=IwAR17Dr29Bn78mskq4mKIJRHihg3ekeIJiwzWpbBedk0svtsIBBpmHlvFOlg&app=desktop
  8. murderpedia.org

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