Issue 16: The Kidnapping and Murder of Graeme Thorne
The Sydney Opera House is one of Australia’s best known landmarks. In order to raise funds, the State Government of New South Wales put on a state-wide lottery in which the winner would get $200,000. For the cost of $10 you could go into the draw.
Back in 1960 the names of the winners were splashed all over the papers. There was no understanding of privacy or consideration of the winner or winner’s family safety.
When Bazil Thorne, a soft goods salesman from Gunnedah got told he won the lottery, his life instantly changed. As part of the coverage of his win, local reporters gave his name, the fact that he was married and that he had children and their ages. By today’s standards this would be egregious but they also said that he lived in a flat and the name of the street in which they lived on.
No matter how chaotic their lives were becoming, Freda Thorne, Bazil’s wife, was determined to make sure that the children were not affected, wanting their lives to remain stable and regular as it was before all the attention. As part of this was allowing Graeme to go to school. On 7 July she kissed him on the cheek and he headed off. He would walk a short distance around the corner to wait for a family friend, whose son also went to Scots College, would pick him and take them both to school. Graeme set out from home at 8:30am that morning, by 8:40am when Phyllis Smith, the family friend, got to where Graeme usually waits for her - he was nowhere to be seen. Mrs Smith drove to The Thorne’s residence to find out if Graeme was in fact going to school.
Freda was concerned but thought he may have just continued onto school. Mrs Smith drove to the college to check. Upon arriving at Scots College she discovered that Graeme was not there either. She returned to the Thorne’s and informed Freda that her son still wasn’t accounted for. Freda then called the police.
Ransom Call
The police were dispatched to the residence to conduct a preliminary investigation. While questions were being asked, around 70 mins since Graeme had left the house, a call was made to the residence. A man with a noticeable foreign accent telephoned the Thorne household. Sergeant Larry O’Shea took the phone from Freda and pretended to be Bazil Thorne. Bail was out of town on business. The kidnapper stated: ‘I have your boy. I want £25,000 before 5 o’clock this afternoon. I’m not fooling. If I don’t get the money before 5 o’clock, I’ll feed the boy to the sharks.’ O’Shea told the man that he was not sure whether he could get that amount of money, he was unaware the Thorne’s were the winners of the lottery. The caller then said he would call back at 5pm with more details before hanging up. The kidnapper didn’t call at 5pm but instead 9.47pm, a second police officer pretended to be Bazil. He kept him talking to allow for a trace on the phone to happen. The kidnapper told him that the money was to be put into two paper bags. He hung up abruptly without finishing the instructions.
The Investigation
The first day of the kidnapping police were busy conducting a search which focused around the area near Graeme’s house in Bondi. A public appeal was made on television from the Bondi Police Station by NSW Commissioner Colin Delaney who accompanied Bazil Thorne. He made a quick emotional appeal to the kidnapper.
The first piece of evidence was found once the search moved to Sydney’s north-eastern suburbs the following day. It was here that Graeme’s school case was found near Seaforth. On the same day a tip was received. People reported that a boy matching Graeme’s description was with a group of people that had been seen at a petrol station. The following day a off-duty police officer thought that he saw the vehicle that sped off; however, further checks found out it was a completely different vehicle.
Graeme’s school cap and contents of the school case were found on 11 July. This caused an official reward of £5,000 to be offered. Another £15,000 was offered by two newspapers. This unfortunately led to a number of hoax calls and wasted police resources.
An Alternative Line Of Enquiry
Following other enquires that had come in the investigators, that were now lead by Ray Kelly worked with members of Sydney’s underworld.
It just so happened that on 14 June a foreign man, acting as an investigator, had called at the Thornes' residence seeking a "Mr Bognor", also asking Freda Thorne to confirm their as yet unlisted telephone number. Furthermore a similar looking man had been seen rumerous times by multiple witnesses in a park that was directly opposite the house. It was also reported that at 8.20am on the morning of the kidnapping that an iridescent blue 1955 Ford Customline was double-parked on the corner of Francis and Wellington streets. This is near where Graeme was usually picked up.
Investigators starting with 270,000 registration records wittlled it down to around 5,000 vehicles that matched that description. The investigators assumed that the car had been either borrowed or stolen. Officers interviewed owners, including a man by the name of Stephen Bradley on 24 August, about car use at that time, but he denied having been in Bondi that day.
Finally six weeks after the kidnapping on 16 August, Graeme’s body was finally found. His body was located 1.5km from where the school case was found. He was found on vacant land in Grandview Grove in Seaforth. He was identified by his father the following day. Graeme’s body had been wrapped in a blue tartan picnic blanket. He had been tied with string and gagged with a scarf, still wearing his school uniform. He had been found by 2 boys who only mentioned it to their parents around 7pm that day.
The Blanket
It was the blanket Graeme was wrapped in that became a valuable piece of evidence. Forensic examinations, one of the first of their kind in Australia were conducted. It was found that it was blanket No.0639 (of 3,000) which had been manufactured at Onkaparinga Mills in South Australia. With this knowledge they could determine that it was made between 6 June 1955 and 19 January 1956. The blanket had been sold in Melbourne. This particular blanket had been brought by a friend of Bradley’s wife.
There were also two types of trees that were found on the blanket but were not found in the vacant plot where he was discovered along with Pekingese and blonde human hair. More forensic evidence was found and it established Graeme had been killed within 24 hours of the kidnapping.
The investigators went to Bradley’s residence after a tip-off from a postman on 3 October. It was here they saw the same two trees that were on the blanket growing in the yard. They learned Bradley was a Hungarian immigrant who had lived there, moreso that he owned an iridescent blue 1955 Ford Customline, that the family had a Pekingese, and his wife had dyed blonde hair. The evidence was mounting up, however there was one catch. On 7 July the family had moved into a rented flat in Manly, then on 26 September they had left the country for London.
Snapping into action when the boat Bradley was docked at Colombo Ceylon on 10 October, two Sydney policemen, Sergeants Brian Doyle and Jack Bateman, were waiting for Bradley. It took a further 5 weeks of negotiations before Bradley was extradited to Australia on 18 November 1960. On the flight home he reportedly started confessing as they were coming into Sydney. He signed a confession the next day, although it was later redacted.
The Trial
The trial began in Sydney on Monday 20 March 1961. It was to be held at the Central Criminal Court.
Bradley’s past was brought up. He had in fact been born Istvan Baranyay in Budapest in March 1926. Surviving World War II followed by a communist takeover, he arrived in Melbourne in March 1950. Two years prior to migrating he had divorced, now two years following the migration he had married Eva Maria Lazlo. They had one child and lived together until she died in a car crash. He later anglicised and changed his name by deed poll in August 1956. He married his third wife in 1958.
In court Bradley pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murder; however, he was identified by the witnesses as being who they had seen. He admitted to kidnapping, providing details about how he posed as a driver and that he fabricated a tale to persuade Thorne to get into the car with him. The attack on Graeme happened at Centennial Park before he tied him up, and wrapped him in a blanket before he placed the boy in the boot of the car. Although Bradley tried to claim that Graeme died of suffocation in the car, this was later disproved by investigators. The trial lasted 9 days.
Stephen Bradley was sentenced to penal servitude for life. This was the maximum penalty provided by NSW for murder. An appeal was unanimously dismissed on 22 May 1961. Bradley died of a heart attack in 1968.
Aftermath
Lottery procedures in Australia were changed so that winners were now given the option of remaining anonymous or their name being released. This case was pivotal to the development and understanding of forensic evidence in Australia. It is also a reminder in the era of computers that we should still all value our privacy, at least in some instances.