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It’s been 50 years since 8-year-old Eloise Worledge disappeared from her bedroom in the Victorian beachside suburb of Beaumaris.
It’s a cold case that has frustrated investigators and family members ever since. The announcement yesterday of a $1 million reward for information, means the spotlight is once again on one of Australia’s most mysterious unsolved crimes.
Fifty years later, Eloise has never been found and her disappearance has puzzled police and community members for decades. Now, Victorian Police have announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the location of Eloise’s remains, or identifying who was responsible for her presumed death.
“People know what happened,” Detective Inspector Dave Dunstan told a press conference yesterday. “Allegiances change, partners change and we hope this announcement will allow people to come forward.”
NO SIGNS
Located 20km south of Melbourne on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, Beaumaris was considered a safe neighbourhood although it would become infamous due to the ABC investigation in 2021 which broke the news that the local primary school had employed four teachers who had sexually abused students in the Seventies.
It was 8am on January 13, 1976, when Patsy Worledge realised Eloise, the eldest of her three children, was missing.
Neighbour and friend Jane Mirvis heard Patsy’s scream and went to the house. “We got up and had a look and unfortunately her bike was there,” Jane told the ABC. “Because otherwise I would’ve said, look, she’s out riding the bike for sure.”
Eloise’s new bike, a Christmas present, was leaning against the house but there was no sign of the little girl Patsy’s close friend Megan Walton described as “lovely. She was never loud or aggressive or rude or naughty. She was just really sweet, gentle.”
Eloise had been safely asleep in her bed when her mother checked on her just before midnight after returning home from her jazz ballet class and drinks with friends.
But when she went in in the morning, the flyscreen on the bedroom had been cut and there was no sign of her daughter.
FORENSIC EXAMINATION
The initial police response was fairly casual – children didn’t tend to go missing in Beaumaris – but by that night there was a full-scale operation underway.
At first glance it seemed that Eloise had been taken out through the window, but forensic examination of the flyscreen and window determined that it had been cut from the inside, meaning the window scene had been staged and that the 8-year-old was removed from the house via the front or back door.
Despite the coverage and manpower thrown at the case – 250 police worked on it for 18 days, there were very few solid leads and no sign of the missing girl. Detective John Bodinnar was the first investigator on the scene and he initially suspected Lindsay Worledge, Eloise’s father who died in 2017.
Victorian Police announced in December that no evidence implicating either of her parents, both now deceased, has ever been found and that the investigation is “active and ongoing.”
NEW REWARD
In 2003, a coroner ruled that Eloise had likely died but didn’t offer an answer as to what happened to her.
Police, family and friends hope that this new reward will encourage someone to come forward with information.
“Someone who might have been thinking for a while, you know, ‘I’ve been thinking about this. Oh, I didn’t bother telling you. It’s only so small,’ ” said Eloise’s aunt, Margie Walton. “There may be pieces of the jigsaw puzzle they might be able to fit together.”
Margie held a memorial for her niece on Beaumaris Beach this week, marking 50 years since her disappearance. Margie would like to be able to tell Eloise, who the family called Ella, “I still love her,” she said to the ABC. “And that I’m sorry that we weren’t able to find her.”
Eloise’s mother, Patsy passed away in 2022 never knowing what happened to her daughter.
“My main fear is that people will forget,” Patsy told Australian Women’s Weekly in April 1976. “If they do, Ella will never be found.”
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Eloise Worledge is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online.
