On a cold August day in 1973, two little girls were taken. It was brazen; they were in a public place, in broad daylight, among a large crowd at a football match.
They would vanish completely. No trace of them has ever been found.
The Ratcliffe family were dedicated followers of the Norwood Football Club. With their season tickets, Les and Kathleen Ratcliffe always sat in the Sir Edwin Smith stand at the Adelaide Oval. Their two kids knew their way around the grounds. On August 25, 1973, they were sitting next to a woman who was there with her four-year-old granddaughter, Kirste Gordon. Knowing her parents were engrossed in the game, when Kirste needed to go to the toilet at 3.45 pm, late in the third quarter, the Ratcliffes’ 11-year-old daughter, Joanne, offered to take her. When they hadn’t returned by the third quarter siren, Kathleen became concerned. By the time the fourth quarter started, she was really worried.
She went to the office to ask that an announcement be made over the PA, but was denied entry. The Ratcliffes looked everywhere; all over the grounds, the tennis court, the basketball court.
Tony Kilmartin, then 13, was selling sweets and ice-cream when he noticed a commotion under a grandstand at the end of the final quarter. He saw a man pick Kirste up and put her under his arm. Joanne was trying to fight him
