This week’s dig for the missing Beaumont children has taken a significant turn as two key witnesses arrived at the Adelaide site to guide the investigation. 

Brothers David and Robin Harkin returned to the site of the former Castalloy factory today, where they claim to have been paid as boys to dig a grave-like hole by the former owner, Harry Phipps, who many believe to be the prime suspect in the children’s disappearance almost 60 years ago.

Their information changed the direction of the dig.

“They had a look at site number two and thought it needed to be adjusted somewhat,” Independent M.P. Frank Pangallo said.

The brothers’ focus centres around distinctive red sand that they recall digging through, which David – a plumber who’s dug at the site before – says is only found on part of the large North Plympton block.

“Up on the higher level, I’d seen red sand when I was younger and couldn’t find any,” he said. 

“And then I got down a metre and then all of a sudden, red sand. I thought, ‘I’m not going silly. I did see it as a kid’.”

The search has now been narrowed down to an area police scoured in 2018, where discarded landfill has been discovered this week, and another area a few metres from where a first search was conducted in 2013.