Kidnapped

The crime that shocked the nation

Mark Tedeschi

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
• eBook ISBN:
  9781925310238
• Year: 2015

The true story of Australia’s only known kidnapping of a child for ransom, from Barrister and Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi.

When eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was kidnapped on his way to school in July 1960, Australia was gripped with fear and loathing. What monster would dare take financial advantage of the most treasured bond of love – between parent and child? Just weeks earlier, Graeme’s parents had won a fortune in the Opera House Lottery, and this had attracted the attention of the perpetrator, Stephen Bradley.

Bradley was a most unlikely kidnapper, however his greed for the Thorne’s windfall saw him cast aside any sympathy for his victim or his victim’s family, and drove him to take brazen risks with the life of his young captive.

Kidnapped tells the astounding true story of how this crime was planned and committed, and describes the extraordinary police investigation that was launched to track the criminal down. Mark Tedeschi explores the mind of the intriguing and seriously flawed Stephen Bradley, and also the points of view of the victim, his family – and the police, whose work pioneered the use of many techniques that are now considered commonplace, marking the beginning of modern-day forensic science in Australia.

Using his powerful research and storytelling skills, Mark Tedeschi reveals one of Australia’s greatest true crime dramas, and what can only be described as the trial of the 20th century.

‘Remarkably researched so as to explain one of Australia’s most extraordinary criminal cases.’ Chester Porter KC

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Windfall
• Chapter 2: From Istvan to Stephen
• Chapter 3: Testing Mettle
• Chapter 4: Feeding Sharks
• Chapter 5: Removals
• Chapter 6: Controlling the Avalanche
• Chapter 7: Impostors and Informants
• Chapter 8: Skeleton at the Fort
• Chapter 9: Flight and Ruses
• Chapter 10: Leaves, Seeds and General Vegetable Matter
• Chapter 11: International Waters
• Chapter 12: Crossing the Divide
• Chapter 13: Remand, Reversal and Reunion
• Chapter 14: Justice in Action
• Chapter 15: Last Embrace
• Chapter 16: Hypotheses and Syntheses
• Photographs
• ‘Murder at Myall Creek’ Excerpt
• About the Author
• End Notes
• Bibliography
• Copyright