SA media personality Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello vows to fund fresh Beaumont children dig at Stansbury

The celebrity says if the current search in Adelaide fails to find new clues, he’ll fund a fresh effort at the site of another popular theory.

• Fresh tips on Beaumonts flood in

A popular South Australian TV presenter has vowed to persevere with the search for the missing Beaumont children’s remains if the current dig at a North Plympton factory site is unsuccessful.

As authorities continued to search for fresh clues on the state’s most famous cold case, Andrew “Cosi” Costello took to social media on Wednesday to announce he and his wife Samantha would personally fund fresh excavation works at Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula after learning about a long-circulated theory about the whereabouts of the children’s remains.

“My wife and I have decided that should the state wish and landowners agree, we will personally fund an excavation at the Stansbury site with the generous help of Greg from EarthWorx,” he said.

“There will be no cost to the taxpayer.”

Andrew 'Cosi' Costello. Picture: Seven

Arrna, Grant and Jane Beaumont.

Nine-year-old Jane, seven-year-old Arnna and four-year-old Grant went missing from Glenelg Beach on January 26, 1966.

Shortly after their disappearance, the man, who remains anonymous, said he witnessed two young people digging a large hole at the former CastAlloy factory site.

However, Andrew McIntyre has long believed his deceased father Allan Max McIntrye and convicted pedophile Anthony Alan Munro were involved in the disappearance of the three children in 1966.

Police have previously said there was no evidence linking Max McIntyre and Munro to the disappearance but Mr McIntyre has claimed that they are “in Stansbury at the bottom of a well”.

He claimed he had personally seen the burial site on his family’s Stansbury property after Munro took him there.

On Wednesday, Costello said “there’s some pretty full on evidence that it is possible that the children could possibly have been buried in a sink hole on private property at Stansbury”.

Costello said the work would take place on the condition that the landowners and their neighbours agreed the dig could go ahead and that in completing the excavation they would not be breaking any laws.

Excavators search for evidence of the remains of the three missing Beaumont children before the government-owned site is sold to developers. Picture: NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

“We will start to investigate the above at the completion of the CastAlloy dig,” he said late on Wednesday.

“As each day has ended I have felt sad to think the current dig at CastAlloy has turned up nothing. As a state I believe we should be very grateful to everyone that’s invested their energy over the decades to try to find an answer.

“South Australia owes these three beautiful children the chance to be laid to rest properly.

Although skeptical a dig on the Yorke Peninsula would lead them to the children’s remains, Costello said they “owe it to the kids to a least give it a go”.

“Let’s pray the team digging at CastAlloy have some success in the coming days. Failing that we will begin to seek the correct approvals and aim to start a dig as soon as possible at Stansbury.

“If the dig at CastAlloy is unsuccessful and we don’t dig Stansbury then the whole state will still be left wondering. But if we dig Stansbury then we can all put a bit of closure on this sad case knowing both locations have been searched.”

Excavators have spent the past four days digging at the CastAlloy site at North Plympton in an effort spear-headed by independent state MP Frank Pangallo.

It is the third dig and the site and has so far found no evidence of the childrens’ remains.

Originally published as SA media personality Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello vows to fund fresh Beaumont children dig at Stansbury