Major Crime police have confirmed they are assessing details of
Stanley Arthur Hart’s link to the Prospect property, provided to them by
The Advertiser last month.
Hart’s family also say the
known paedophile, whose former Mid-North property was extensively
searched by police as recently as December, would “almost certainly”
have been at Adelaide Oval on August 25, 1973, when Joanne Ratcliffe
and Kirste Gordon were abducted.
Hart died in 1999.
Cold case detectives are working on a full summary of the Adelaide Oval
abduction investigation, they have told Joanne’s sister Suzie
Wilkinson.
As SA Police continue a 13-week State’s Most Wanted
Cold Case Unit campaign to try to bust some of the state’s 110 unsolved
murders, strongly backed by media channels, Detective Superintendent
Des Bray has reassured the public that police will throw all they have
at solving these crimes.
Ms Wilkinson has also been given a
personal guarantee that “no stone will be left unturned” as Major Crime
detectives look for answers to the abduction of Joanne, 11, and Kirste,
4.
“Major Crime detectives are assessing information recently
received in relation to a Prospect address,” was all police would say
yesterday.
Ms Wilkinson yesterday called for police to take the information seriously and “investigate it properly”.
“If it means they have to go in there and dig up the backyard to check it out, then that’s what should be done,” she said.
SA Police investigating the 1973
disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon have been
re-examining sites in the state’s mid-north
“If they’re not going to investigate it properly, then I’ll get it done.”
The
Prospect property has been identified as the childhood home of Hart — a
man who was at the top of the police persons-of-interest list in the
case as recently as late last year, when police extensively searched his
former Yatina property, including excavating two wells.
For a
year from March 1973, Hart had unrestricted and unmonitored access to
the abandoned home, which featured a large underground bunker, The Advertiser can reveal.
The bunker, an air-raid shelter with two entrances and large
enough to fit at least four adults, was described as “very good” by
Hart’s sister, Ella. It is understood to have been filled in some time
before 1975, after the disappearance of the girls.
The homeowners have told The Advertiser there
has been no police interest in the property in their 40 years of
ownership, but they would fully co-operate should police believe the
link needed investigating.
Hart’s family has said that although he
did not attend the Adelaide Oval final between arch rivals North and
Norwood on August 25, 1973, with them, the North Adelaide Football Club
fan “rarely missed a Roosters footy match”. [Jack Frost note: Actually the game was a regular season home-and-away match although the two clubs did meet in a final-round contest later that same year.]
Convicted paedophile
family member Mark Marshall, in a 2007 confession to the Mullighan
Inquiry into children in state car, also suggests his “Poppa Stan” had
taken a hat and a coat from “grandad’s house” to wear at the footy that
day.
Identikit images of the suspect closely resemble Hart’s appearance at the time.
Private
investigators have suggested the abductor could have taken the girls
out of the parklands on a Red Hen train from the North Adelaide train
station.
The last reported sighting of the girls, with their abductor,
was by a young unnamed man who said he saw them near Port Road in an
area only a short distance from North Adelaide station about 5pm.
Police confirmed Hart was a key figure in their investigation of the
case last year.
Over a number of days in October and December, they searched his Yatina
property and excavated two deep wells for clues in the cold case.
Despite nothing being found in the search, police have not ruled Hart out of the investigation.
Further investigations by The Advertiser have
found Hart, a former army clerk turned part-time butcher, was
“assisted” in a move from Adelaide to Yatina in a bid to curb his
recidivist paedophile activity, but was still registered as living at a
Parkside address when Joanne, 11, and Kirste, 4, disappeared.
It is understood the Parkside address also has never been searched for clues in the case.
NEW LEADS IN INVESTIGATION
The Advertiser has
also passed on to police investigators a number of other leads from
private investigators and members of the public that suggest:
A KNOWN child abuser revealed, a decade after their disappearance, that he saw Joanne and Kirste with their abductor;
THE
same man was an avid North fan, lived close to Prospect Oval and had
the shell of a car buried in his backyard to which access tunnels were
regularly dug;
AN anonymous caller to The Advertiser, using
voice distortion, says a Prospect address is a place of interest in the
Adelaide Oval case and that US Airforce fuel barrels are reportedly
buried at a location in Adelaide’s north and contain evidence in the
case.
A pair of butcher’s pants removed from the Yatina property.
Major Crime detectives on August 25 last year, the 41st
anniversary of the abduction, asked Advertiser Investigations Editor
Bryan Littlely to share with them information he and a team of private
investigators believed they had uncovered on the case.
The Advertiser, last month, advised police of the link to the Prospect property and the bunker immediately.
A
number of items — including a butcher’s apron and pants — reportedly
belonging to Hart and removed from the Yatina property by a third party
before police searches commenced there in 2009 also have been handed to
police and are understood to be getting tested to check for clues [from The Adelaide Advertiser, 12/3/2015].
