Murder of Graeme Thorne

Also, at 8:20 a.m. on the morning of the kidnapping, some witnesses had seen an iridescent blue 1955 Ford Customline double-parked on the corner of Francis and Wellington streets, near where Graeme was usually picked up for school.

Checking more than 270,000 registration records, police established that there were 5,000 vehicles matching this general description.

Assuming the car had been either borrowed or stolen, officers interviewed owners, including Bradley on 24 August, about car use at that time, but he denied having been in Bondi that day.

On Tuesday 16 August, nearly six weeks after the kidnapping and 1.5 km from where the school case was found, Graeme's body was finally discovered hidden on vacant land in Grandview Grove, Seaforth, and identified at the City Morgue by his father the next day.

Graeme Thorne was an Australian child who was kidnapped and murdered in 1960 for part of the money that his parents, Bazil and Freda, had won in a lottery.

The crime, regarded as one of the most infamous in Australia's history, caused massive shock at the time and attracted huge public attention, and was the country's first well known kidnap for ransom.

The police investigation that led to the capture and conviction of his murderer, a Hungarian immigrant named Stephen Bradley, is often considered as pioneering, sophisticated and the beginning of modern forensic investigation in Australia.

In 1960, with the construction of the Sydney Opera House having proved increasingly expensive, the New South Wales government initiated numerous Opera House lotteries to help raise money.

The A£100,000 first prize (equivalent to A$3.1 million in 2021 values ) for Lottery 10 was won by Bazil Thorne (ticket 3932) in the lottery drawn on Wednesday 1 June 1960.

As there was no real conception of the need for privacy for lottery winners at that time, and also for the sake of transparency, images and private details of lottery winners were published on the front pages of Sydney newspapers.

It was also revealed that the prize would be paid by Thursday 7 July.

The Thorne family consisted of Bazil, his wife Freda, older daughter Cheryl (who had been institutionalised), son Graeme (8) and younger daughter Belinda (3).

They lived at 79 Edward Street, a rented house in the Sydney suburb of Bondi.

Graeme's morning routine was to wait at the corner of Wellington and O'Brien streets, a walk of approximately 300 metres, where a family friend, Phyllis Smith, would pick him up and take him to school with her sons.

On the morning of 7 July, five weeks after the lottery win, Graeme left for school as usual at 8:30 a.m., but when Smith came to collect him at 8:40, he was nowhere to be seen.

Smith drove to the Thornes' home to find out if he was going to school.

Surprised, Graeme's mother confirmed that he was and wondered if he might have arrived at the school by some other means.

Smith drove to the school, The Scots College in Bellevue Hill, but returned upon finding out Graeme was not there.

Graeme's mother then called the police to report him missing.

At 9:40 a.m., seventy minutes after Graeme had left for school, a man with a noticeable foreign accent telephoned the Thorne household.

Sergeant Larry O'Shea of the Bondi police had already arrived around 9:30, and took the telephone from Graeme's mother, pretending to be his father (who was out of town in Kempsey on business).

The kidnapper stated: "I have your boy. I want £25,000 before five o’clock this afternoon. I’m not fooling. If I don’t get the money before five o’clock, I’ll feed the boy to the sharks."

O'Shea expressed doubt as to his ability to get hold of such a large sum of money, being unaware that the Thornes had recently won the lottery.

The caller then said that he would call back at 5:00 p.m. with more details, and hung up.

At 9:47 p.m. the kidnapper phoned again, but the telephone was answered by a different police officer (also pretending to be Graeme's father), who stalled for time to allow for a phone trace to happen.

The kidnapper started to give instructions that the money was to be put in two paper bags, but then hung up abruptly without providing further instructions.

The police had been busy during the first day of the kidnapping, conducting a concentrated search near the Thorne house in Bondi.

News of the kidnapping soon leaked to Bill Jenkings of the Sydney Daily Mirror, and at 8:30 p.m. a public appeal was made on television from Bondi police station by NSW Police Commissioner Colin Delaney, then briefly by an emotional Bazil Thorne.

The next evening, on Friday 8 July, the focus of the investigation moved to Sydney's north-eastern suburbs, when Graeme's school case was found near Seaforth.

On the same day, a tip was received that a boy matching Graeme's description was seen with two men and a woman heading out of Pennant Hills.

The owners of a petrol station there had reported that they saw the group with the boy pulling into the petrol station in a dark-coloured vehicle at about 10 pm on 7 July.

The owners had described the vehicle as a dark-coloured Dodge-type sedan with the number plate on the front missing.

The group purchased fuel and, as their vehicle left, the owners managed to sight the rear number plate.

When the vehicle was spotted by an off-duty police officer following day, it sped off.

Checks revealed that the number was registered to a different vehicle.

On 11 July, Graeme's school cap and the contents of the case were found nearby.

Soon after the discovery, an official reward of £5,000 was declared, and another £15,000 was offered by two newspapers, leading to a number of hoax calls.

Investigators, with the collaboration of Sydney's underworld, followed other pieces of evidence.

On Tuesday 14 June a foreign man, acting as an investigator, had called at the Thornes' residence seeking a "Mr Bognor" while also asking Graeme's mother to confirm their as-yet unlisted telephone number.

A similar looking man had also been seen numerous times by multiple witnesses in the park opposite the house.