1960: Caught by a Picnic Blanket: Australia’s First Kidnap-for-Ransom Killer Arrested at Colombo
Eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was snatched walking to school in Sydney in 1960, just a day after his family’s lottery win made headlines. Six weeks later his body was found wrapped in a tartan picnic blanket on vacant land at Seaforth, still in his school uniform, gagged and bound with string.
Forensic scientists traced the blanket to one of only 3,000 ever woven at an Onkaparinga mill, then matched rare tree pollen and pink mortar scraped from the body to a single property at Clontarf, once home to a blue Ford, a Pekingese dog and a blonde-haired wife. By the time police reached the house, its occupant, Hungarian migrant Stephen Bradley, had already sailed for London with his family aboard the SS Himalaya. Two Sydney detectives were waiting for him when the ship docked at Colombo, and he was brought back to face extradition and trial.
