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Exclusive: Investigation reveals possible grave site for missing Beaumont children

An area of disturbed earth measuring two metres long and two metres deep on a factory site in Adelaide could be a possible grave site used to bury the bodies of the three Beaumont children, who disappeared more than five decades ago.

For 52 years the disappearance of the Beaumont children from Adelaide's Glenelg Beach on Australia Day in 1966 has been the nation's most infamous cold case.

Nine-year-old Jane, seven-year-old Arnna, and their four-year-old brother Grant were last seen apparently heading home from the beach.

It's assumed they were abducted and murdered, possibly by a man who was seen playing with them.

For the past year, Seven News has been investigating a potential burial site at a former factory in Plympton, near Glenelg. It's been examined before but inquiries suggest it was the wrong spot.

State-of-the-art technology is being used to determine where the burial site could be. Source: 7 News
State-of-the-art technology is being used to determine where the burial site could be. Source: 7 News

Two weeks ago, another site was checked using new state-of-the-art technology. A significant anomaly discovered an area of disturbed earth.

It measures about a metre wide, two metres long and two metres deep. It's potentially the size of a grave and is now officially a crime scene.

Former South Australia Police Detective Bill Hayes said the area could hold the key to the mystery.

Harry Phipps allegedly asked a group of young men to dig a trench at a factory in Plympton. Source: 7 News
Harry Phipps allegedly asked a group of young men to dig a trench at a factory in Plympton. Source: 7 News

"With the information we've had, one would be led to the opinion that this could be the place," he told 7 News.

The gravesite theory was first raised by a group of young men who recognised from news reports a man who'd asked them to dig a trench at the factory.

That man was Harry Phipps, a wealthy businessman who died in 2004.

"He was a paedophile. He was a predatory paedophile," Mr Hayes said. "He was a dangerous man, we know that."

Phipps owned the Plympton factory where the potential burial site lies.

Phipps' estranged son, Haydn, claims to have seen the Beaumont children in the backyard of their house the day they vanished.

Harry Phipps owned the factory in Plympton, where the grave site is said to be. Source: 7 News
Harry Phipps owned the factory in Plympton, where the grave site is said to be. Source: 7 News

"Yeah, I seen them come in," Hayd Phipps can be heard saying in a recorded conversation.

"They were lost and on their own and the description matched them identically."

The home was just 250 metres from where the children were last seen.

At a date yet to be confirmed, South Australian Police and the Major Crimes Squad will conduct a dig of the area, which could solve one of Australia's greatest criminal mysteries.