1960

Bazil Thorne was the lucky winner of a £100,000 lottery, set up to fund the Sydney Opera House. But that luck turned into tragedy, when his eight-year-old son Graeme was kidnapped from a street near their Bondi home on July 7, 1960. It was a crime which rocked Bondi and was widely publicised.

Police answered threatening phone calls at the Thorne house soon after he was reported missing, including one in which a man with a foreign accent demanded £25,000 before 5pm otherwise "the boy will be fed to the sharks", the Australian Police Journal reported.

The boy's body was eventually found wrapped in the picnic blanket, which was covered in dog hair and leaves, on the northern beaches on August 16.

Along with other clues, including witnesses seeing a distinctive "iridescent blue" car around the Bondi area on the day of his disappearance, those forensic clues led police to Stephen Leslie Bradley.

Bradley was the owner of a Pekingese dog, whose fur matched that found on the blanket, had recently sold his blue car and grew plants at his Clontarf home that matched those found on Thorne's clothing and the blanket.

The Hungarian immigrant was convicted in March 1961, and according to Waverley Council's history, the famous eccentric Bea Miles yelled out "Feed him to the sharks at Bondi" from the public gallery.

Images courtesy the Sydney Morning Herald.