Graeme Thorne
8 year old Graeme was abducted on his way to school on
Graeme's parents had recently won the Opera House Lottery and this was the motivation behind Graeme's kidnap. The kidnapper contacted Graeme's parents the same day demanding a ransom but did not provide details about how to pay it. On 16 August, five weeks after he went missing, Graeme Thorne's body was discovered in Grandview Grove, Seaforth in Sydney. Wrapped in a blue tartan rug, Graeme was still wearing his school uniform. The rug containing the body had been there for some time. After a lengthy Police investigation they tracked the man to Sri Lanka where he had fled by sea and returned him to Australia to face trial for Graeme's murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 29 March 1961 and later died in gaol in 1968 aged 42.
