New search for Adelaide Oval missing girls Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon angers Yatina locals

A new search for two girls who went missing at Adelaide Oval more than 50 years ago has sparked the ire of locals in the tiny Mid North town.

Locals in the tiny Mid North town of Yatina are angry that their town’s name will again be in the headlines when a new search begins for two girls who vanished at Adelaide Oval more than 50 years ago.

A team of private investigators will visit a farm north of Yatina this weekend as part of the search which will also revisit a tunnel at nearby Pekina Reservoir.

But local Ken Cowley, 82, said Yatina, which has an official population of 32, was a beautiful town that had been tarnished by rumours about the bodies of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon being buried nearby.

Yatina local Ken Cowley says the search for Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon is a waste of time. Picture: Brett Hartwig

“They’ve already been here to search for them,” Mr Cowley said. “Everybody is rubbishing this town and I don’t know why, because nothing happened here.

“Nobody’s been murdered here and there’s nothing to dig up. People should just leave us alone and let us live our own lives.”

Mr Cowley said he moved to Yatina from nearby Peterborough about 30 years ago and had known Stanley Arthur Hart, one of the prime suspects in the abductions and presumed murders of the two girls who vanished in 1973.

Hart, who died in 1999, was accused of the crimes by his grandson, convicted pedophile Mark Trevor Marshall, in a confession to the Mullighan Inquiry into abuse of children in state care.

Police spent three days excavating properties at Yatina, including one formerly owned by Hart, and searching for remains of the girls in 2014.

Joanne Ratcliffe.

Kirste Gordon.

Tim O’Dea, 63, owns the former Yatina Hotel, a building that shot to fame after featuring in the 2023 film The Royal Hotel, starring Julia Garner.

Mr O’Dea said he was tired of Yatina and the former hotel being dragged into the spotlight whenever the subject of the missing girls was raised.

“There’s nothing there – they’re wasting their time,” he said.

Investigative journalist and search co-ordinator Bryan Littlely said the Yatina half of this weekend’s search would centre on a farm about 6km north of the town.

“It’s a private site and we’ve been invited by the farm owner to go there and we’ve got a lot of former locals who will be turning up to give us comment,” Mr Littlely said.

“We know we are going to find stuff and for a little bit of pain if a 50-year old mystery is solved, and there’s some resolution and answers for the family, isn’t that worth it.”

Joanne Ratcliffe’s sister Suzie Ratcliffe told The Advertiser this week the new search gave her “renewed hope” that the case could be resolved.

Originally published as New search for Adelaide Oval missing girls Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon angers Yatina locals