Jane Nartare Beaumont, Arnna Kathleen Beaumont and Grant Ellis Beaumont, collectively referred to as the Beaumont children, were three Australian siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on 26 January 1966 in a suspected abduction and murder.
Kristin Denise Smart was a 19-year-old American woman murdered by Paul Flores at the end of her first year on the campus of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.
Maura Murray is an American woman who disappeared on the evening of February 9, 2004, after a car crash on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire, a village in the town of Haverhill. Her whereabouts remain unknown. Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student completing her junior year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the time of her disappearance.
Rahma el-Dennaoui is a Lebanese Australian girl who went missing on 10 November 2005, when 19 months old. She was last seen early that morning in the bedroom of her home in Lurnea, Sydney, Australia, where she and her siblings slept. Despite a police search and investigation, appeals to the general public and a coronial inquest in 2012, no trace has been found of the child as of May 2019.
On 19 February 2008, nine-year-old Shannon Louise Matthews was reported missing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. The search for her became a major missing person police operation which was compared to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Shannon was found alive and well on 14 March 2008 at a Batley Carr house belonging to 39-year-old Michael Donovan. Donovan was the uncle of Craig Meehan, the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews.
The Bowraville murders is the name given to three deaths that occurred over five months from September 1990 to February 1991 in Bowraville, New South Wales, Australia. All three victims were Aboriginal, and all disappeared after parties in Bowraville's Aboriginal community, in an area known as The Mission. A local labourer, who was regarded by police as the prime suspect, was charged with two of the murders but was acquitted following trials in 1994 and 2006. On 13 September 2018, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal decided that the man could not be retried for the murders. On 22 March 2019, the High Court of Australia refused an application by the Attorney General of New South Wales to bring an appeal against that decision.
Claudia Elizabeth Lawrence is an English woman who was last seen and heard from on 18 March 2009. She was employed as a chef at the University of York's Goodricke College at the time of her disappearance. Although the police have treated Lawrence's case as that of murder, with various people arrested but later released, her fate is unclear.
Keli Lane, an Australian former water polo player and teacher, was convicted of the 1996 murder of her newborn baby, Tegan, and of three counts of making a false declaration. On 18 April 2011, Lane's lawyers lodged an appeal against her conviction at the same time as a Sydney taxi driver alleged he saw Lane dispose of the child. Her final application for appeal was rejected by the High Court of Australia in August 2014.
Trudie Jeanette Adams disappeared in the early hours of 25 June 1978 after attending a dance at the Newport Surf Life Saving Club, New South Wales, Australia. She left the event early before hitchhiking home, at which point she entered a vehicle on Barrenjoey Road and has not been seen since. Her disappearance sparked New South Wales' biggest missing person search at the time, attracted extensive and ongoing national media attention, and eventually a $250,000 reward.
Gillian Meagher was a 29-year-old Irish woman living in Australia who was raped and murdered while walking home from a pub in Brunswick, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, in the early hours of 22 September 2012.
William Tyrrell is an Australian boy who disappeared at the age of three from Kendall, New South Wales, on 12 September 2014. He had been playing at his grandmother's house with his sister, and was wearing a Spider-Man suit at the time of his disappearance. For the first seven years of the investigation, Tyrrell was believed to have been abducted. On 12 September 2016, a reward of A$1 million was offered for the recovery of Tyrrell and did not require the arrest, charging or conviction of any person or persons.
Juliana Marie Addison is an Australian politician serving as the elected member for the Electoral district of Wendouree in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party.
Jennifer Dulos was an American woman who went missing on May 24, 2019. Authorities believe that she was killed in an attack at her home in New Canaan, Connecticut, United States. Her ex-husband, Fotis Dulos, and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, were arrested on charges of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in connection with Jennifer's disappearance. Later, the two – along with Fotis's attorney Kent Mawhinney – faced additional charges related to Jennifer's murder.
Marion Barter was an Australian missing person, teacher and mother-of-two, who disappeared on Sunday 22 June 1997 from Southport, Queensland. She was dropped off at a bus station in Surfers Paradise, Queensland to go to the airport for a planned, long-term vacation in England. She has not been seen since.
Cleo Smith, a four-year-old Australian girl, was abducted on 16 October 2021 from a campsite in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia (WA). She was found alive and well on 3 November, after police raided the home of Terence Darrell Kelly in the nearby town of Carnarvon. Her safe recovery after eighteen days was described as extremely rare, and received widespread news coverage and social media reaction both across Australia and internationally. Kelly was convicted of child abduction and sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in jail.
On 27 January 2023, British woman Nicola Bulley disappeared whilst walking her dog in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, UK. Lancashire Constabulary said that there was no evidence of either suspicious activity or third party involvement in the disappearance and quickly stated that their working hypothesis was that she had fallen into the River Wyre. However, an extensive search of the river and surrounding land involving police divers, helicopters, sniffer dogs and drones found no body. On 19 February, Bulley's body was found in the river by a man and a woman walking in the area, about one mile downstream of St Michael's on Wyre. The inquest, which concluded in June 2023, determined that Bulley's death was due to accidental drowning.
The following is a list of events including expected and scheduled events for the year 2024 in Australia.
