On the morning of November 3, WA Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch took the podium of what was a long-awaited press conference to announce that four-year-old Cleo Smith had been found “alive and well” after being missing for 18 days.

“It’s my privilege to announce that in the early hours of this morning, the Western Australia police force rescued Cleo Smith,” he said.

Hours earlier under the cover of night police officers arrived at a locked house in Carnarvon, Western Australia. By 1.00am officers had forced their way into the house, finding the missing girl alone in one of the rooms. An officer lifted the girl into his arms and asked her name.

“My name is Cleo,” she replied.

The miraculous discovery of little Cleo, after so many of us had secretly given up hope, gripped the globe and had most of us glued to our screens or devices all day as the incredible story unfolded. It also, inevitably, turned our thoughts to the dozens of other Australian children yet to return home. If such top-rate detective work had succeeded in a happy ending against all odds for Cleo, could it be grounds for revisiting other missing child cases where there were still no clues as to their whereabouts or fate?

But why are we all so obsessed with missing child stories?

Griffith University Criminology Institute Director, Professor Janet Ransley, puts it down to several factors.

“We become fascinated with what the media puts in front of us,” Ransley tells Starts at 60. “Secondly, for many people, a missing child is a nightmare they can relate to – the pain of the families is very relatable and understandable and we can easily imagine how we would suffer if it happened to us.”

Other theories as to why the public is so entranced by the news of missing children are as old as some of the cases themselves. University of Queensland Criminology PhD Candidate, Monique Lynn points to three longstanding theories in criminology that provide further insight.

“Within criminology and victimology, there’s this idea that’s been around since the 1970s about the ‘ideal victim’. Part of this involves how the media might emphasise and focus on things like innocence and vulnerability when reporting on issues, particularly when a child is involved. The public then consumes that media and encounters that messaging,” she said.

“Then we also have the ‘moral panic’ perspective. This is where crimes and other social issues can attract a lot of concern, despite being pretty rare, because they violate morals and values in a society. The media is often thought to have a fair bit to do with creating or fanning these moral panics as they report on issues and frame them as big issues of concern that need attention and to be addressed.”

Evolutionary psychology and anthropology also suggest that we have these ‘gut’ reactions to things like crime and harm against children, continues Lynn.

“When we hear about something like missing children, it might trigger this instinctual response that goes back to an evolutionary imperative to protect, nurture, and care for children as the next generation.”

As investigations into the William Tyrrell disappearance ramp up this week, we revisit the missing children cases that have most gripped the hearts and minds of Australians, from the 1960s through to the present day.

The Beaumont Children (1966)

The Beaumont case was not only one of the largest investigations in Australian criminal history but is also considered a significant event that changed the way many parents supervised their children. Three siblings; Jane Nartare Beaumont, Arnna Kathleen Beaumont, and Grant Ellis Beaumont disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide on Australia Day in 1966. Several witnesses had seen the siblings near Glenelg Beach accompanied by a tall man with fair to light brown hair and a thin face, aged in his mid-30s with a medium build.

The case garnered widespread media and police attention not only in Australia but also all over the world. Even after several decades, the case still attracts regular media coverage, as new leads and clues are reported. Despite numerous searches and the offer of a $1 million reward for information related to the case by the South Australian Government, however, neither the children nor their alleged abductor was ever located and the disappearance remains a mystery.

William Tyrrell (2014)

William Tyrrell vanished from his foster grandmother’s house in New South Wales on September 12, 2014. He was playing in the front yard of the Kendall property and was wearing a Spider-Man suit at the time of his disappearance. Despite extensive investigations and an exhaustive search by hundreds of volunteers and emergency service workers, the then three-year-old has not been found. On November 15, 2021, NSW police received new evidence and renewed the search for Tyrrell in three areas surrounding Kendall, under the assumption they would be searching William’s remains.