Former New South Wales attorney general in Australia Mark Tedeschi was the same age as Graeme Thorne when the latter disappeared outside his home just under 63 years ago.
“It was the end of Australian innocence, our childhood in Sydney was never the same. We weren’t able to play outside until the evening or go on adventures in the bush like before. We can say that our freedom disappears with theft. “Some parents were afraid that their children would not be allowed out of the yard,” Tedeschi said in an interview with the Sun-Herald.
Graeme Thorne
The end of innocence
“Like many kids in Sydney, I was very upset when he disappeared. We were the same age and I put pictures of Greame on my bedroom wall so I would recognize him for sure if I saw him on the street. Then I would go and tell my parents,” Tedechi said.
Greame was just eight years old and it was the first kidnapping in Australian history where a ransom was demanded and the case shocked the nation. In fact, Greame’s flight changed the way the nation viewed the future. It was also the first time that forensic science was used in a criminal investigation in this country.
The winning destiny
Greame’s sad story, however, began on a happy note five weeks before the flight, when her father, Basil Thorne, won a lottery held to support the construction of the Sydney Opera House on June 1. He won what is 430 million Icelandic kroner in today’s value, and street vendor Bazil saw a bright future for the family. In addition to Graeme, the couple had two other children, the eldest was Cheryl, who was in an institution for disabled children, Graeme was the middle and the youngest was 3-year-old Belinda.
Graeme’s mother, Freda, along with her little sister, celebrated the victory.
The family beamed with joy on the front pages of most newspapers. It was the last time the winner made a public appearance in Australia.
Articles about the family’s sudden wealth did not go unnoticed by Stephen Bradley, a Hungarian immigrant to Australia. He wanted to get his hands on the money and decided to kidnap the Thorne couple’s son and demand a ransom.
Stephen Bradley
Bradley was born in Budapest and was then called Istvan Baranyay. In 1950, aged 24, he immigrated to Australia to escape the communist regime of his country of origin and changed his name to Stephen Bradley. He was then already divorced. Two years later, he remarried and had a child with his wife, but three years later he died in a mysterious car accident. In 1958 he married for the third time, this time to a woman named Magda and she divorced with two children.
With a wife and three children to support, the uneducated Bradley had to take on all kinds of manual labor, often working long hours.
But now Bradley saw a chance to break free from the pressure.
Stephen Bradley
Bradley begins spying on the family to learn their daily routine. At that time he thought he had enough information, the only thing missing was the family’s phone number. After all, he needed to know which number to call to claim the ransom.
He knocked on the door and Freda, Graeme’s mother, came to the door. Bradley said he was a police officer and needed to confirm the phone numbers of the houses on the street for an ongoing investigation.
Freda thought this was a rather strange request, especially since the house had not yet received a phone, but the family had received a number and should be online in the next few days.
Let’s not forget that it was 1960 and it was not certain that every household had a telephone.
Bradley was ready.
Thorne family home
A cheeky boy
On Thursday, July 7, a very ordinary day, Bradley, himself a father of three, parked his car right next to the Thorne family home. He saw Graeme, dressed in his gray school uniform with his school cap, walking down the street. He went to the corner store where Graeme bought his daily packet of crisps and waited for his mother’s friend, Phyllis Smith, who usually drove him to school.
Bradley pulled into the parking lot Phylis usually used when picking up Graeme and told her that Phyllis couldn’t come today and had been asked to drive Graeme to school.
At that time, there was nothing like warning children about strangers, that education didn’t begin until after Graeme disappeared, and so the cheeky boy got in the car.
Bradley led the boy to a secluded place, assaulted him, tied his hands and feet, and stuffed him with a rag. He then wrapped little Graeme in a blanket and put him in the trunk of the car. The blue carpet was later to be Bradley’s downfall.
The Thornes went through terrible days and weeks.
I throw it to the sharks
Bradley drove home, parked the car, then walked to a phone booth. He called Graeme’s parents, who then had a telephone, and demanded a quarter of the lottery winnings, approximately 108 million Icelandic kroner in present value terms, as a ransom for their son. It was exactly 9:40 am and Bradley demanded the ransom be paid by 5 pm that same day.
I’m not kidding, if you don’t pay I’ll throw it to the sharks, Bradley said. This phrase has become famous and still sends shivers down the spines of Australians.
Police at the scene.
Bradley then slammed and went home, opening the trunk. The boy was still and rigid, and Bradley realized he was dead.
He had choked.
But that didn’t stop Bradley. He called the parents’ house again and the police answered, but Freda had immediately informed the police of the previous call. Officers were at Thorne’s home within minutes and were quick to act. This led, among other things, to the fact that Bradley’s subsequent appeal could be traced.
On the second call, he said he wanted to put the money in two cardboard bags, but before he could say where to go with the ransom, Bradley hung up for some reason.
Australia’s longest quest
We have undertaken the most extensive research ever undertaken in Australia. Every available police force was called in and Greame was searched literally everywhere for the next few days. A reward of 25 million Icelandic ISK was offered to anyone who could provide information about the boy’s fate, and soon two newspapers joined forces and offered 75 million more.
The days following the theft were pure horror for Graeme’s parents, which thankfully was literally broadcast live on television, radio and in the newspapers.
On July 11, Graeme’s hat and satchel were found, but the boy himself was nowhere to be found.
Graeme’s father collapsed during a press conference.
Although a few bad guys called and pretended to be Graeme or the thief. Their hopes were raised, only to be dashed. It happened again and again but Graeme was nowhere to be found.
On August 16, nearly six weeks after the theft, three boys playing at an empty building site found Graeme’s body about a mile from where the hat and bag were found. He was still in his gray school uniform and wrapped in a blanket. Had it been hidden under a pile of garbage.
A search that changed everything
Samples taken from the body and blanket contained, among other things, traces of pink limestone and concrete, indicating that the body had been hidden under a house. On the carpet were found a sample of Cypriot tea as well as dog hair from a miniature Chinese dog and a long, bleached blond human hair.
When the results of the investigation were available and combined with witness accounts, the police were sure what to look for. There would be a house with a blue car in the driveway, a foundation made of a mix of pink lime and concrete, a cypress tree or two in the yard, and the owner of the house would have a woman with bleached hair and a Chinese Miniature Poodles.
This information was passed directly to the media, and it was a postman who contacted the police and said he knew exactly which house it was.
The Australian people were devastated.
Police immediately went to Bradley’s home but he was nowhere to be found, he had fled the country with his wife and children.
The body and carpet samples were matched against Bradley’s house, garden and dog hair, and the police were certain. The Magda woman also had bleached blond hair. The killer was Stephen Bradley. When Freda was shown a photo of him, she already recognized the “investigating policeman” who had knocked on the door to find out the phone number.
Arrest, judgment, death
Police soon discovered that Bradley had fled with the family on the SS Himalaya. And when the ship docked in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in October 1960, police officers were waiting for them at the dock.
After a five-week standoff with the authorities of this country, Bradley was finally extradited to Australia, where he was tried for the robbery and murder of little Graeme. The evidence was overwhelming and Bradley was sentenced to life in prison. He had to be isolated from other prisoners who wanted revenge for the child murder.
Magda, his wife, divorced and moved with her children to Europe. Stephen Bradley died of a heart attack in 1968, aged just 42.
He never showed any signs of remorse for killing the little boy.
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