T
he following day, Bradley was put in
a police line-up with 13 other men
of similar age and appearance. Freda
Thorne picked him out at once as the
man who had visited her home. The
young engaged couple also identified
him as the man they had seen on the
corner where the boy was kidnapped.
Bradley was then taken out in a police
car. He showed the officers where he
had parked, waiting for Graeme to arrive
on July 7th. He then directed them over
the route he had taken with the boy
through Bondi Junction and across the
bridge to the Spit area. He showed the
police a telephone booth from which he
had called Mrs. Thorne while the boy sat
quietly in the car. He said the boy did
not resist him at any time.
When he was taken to his garage in
Bondi, Bradley’s composure broke down
at last and he pleaded, “I don’t want to
go in there! That’s where I did it!”
He told the officers that, during the
afternoon, he had gone out to phone
the Thorne home again, but he saw
the newspaper headlines about the
kidnapping and became frightened.
“I phoned the house again and a man
answered,” he said. “But I was too
scared to say much. I hung up right
away.”
Bradley said that, after returning home
and finding the boy dead, he carried the
body from the car boot and hid it under
his porch. Then, at about 9 o’clock that
evening, he wrapped it in the blanket
and drove it to the vacant site. Then
he threw away the boy’s belongings in
French’s Forest. He said he knew of the
vacant site because, during the spring,
he had visited the house next door as he
had considered buying it.
On March 29th, 1961, after an
eight-day trial, an all-male jury found
Bradley guilty as charged. Stephen
Leslie Bradley had admitted the
kidnapping and an abortive attempt to
collect the ransom, but denied killing the
child. The jury set his sentence at life
imprisonment.
Steven Bradley died in 1968 after
just seven years in prison.Doyle cautioned him that he was not
required to make a statement if he did
not wish to.
When they arrived at police
headquarters in Sydney, however,
Bradley wrote out a statement in
longhand in the presence of the two
detectives. This is the statement, exactly
as written:
I have red in the newspaper that Mr. Thorn
won the first praise in the Opera-house
Lottery. I decided that I would kidnap his
son, I knew the address from the Newspape
and I have got their phone numbr from the
telephone exchange. I went to the house to
see them, I have asked for someone but can
not remember what name. Mrs. Thorn said
she did not know that name...
I watched the Thorn boy leaving the
house and seen him for about three
mornings and I have seen where he went
and one morning I have followed him to
the School at Bellevue Hill. One or two
mornings I have seen a woman pick him
up and take him to School. On the day we
moved from Clontarf I went out to Edward
Street.
I parked the car in a Street, I don’t know
the name of the street it is off Wellington
Street, I have got out from the car and I
waited on the cornor untill the boy walked
down to the car. I have told the boy that I
am to take him to the school. He sed why,
where is the Lady. I sed she is sick and can
not come today.
Then the boy got in the car and I drove
him around for a while and over harbour
bridge. I went to a publik phone box near
the spit bridge and I rang the Thorns. I
talked to Mrs. Thorn and to a man who
sed he was the boys father. I have asked for
25,000 pounds from the boys mother and
father. I told them that if I don’t get the
money I feed him to the Sharks and I have
told them I ring later.
I took the boy in the car home to
Clontarf and I put the car in my garage.
I told the boy to get out of the car to come
and see another boy. When he got out of
the car I have put a scarf over his mouth
and put him in the boot of the car and
slammed the boot. I went in my house
and the furniture remoovalist came, a few
minutes later.
When it was nearly dark, I went to the
car and found the boy was dead. That night
I tied the boy up with string and put him in
my rug. I put the boy in the boot of the Ford
Car again, and then I throw his case and
cap near Bantry Bay, and I put the boy on
a vacant lotment near the house I went to
see with a astate agent, to buy it sometime
before.
It was signed: S.L. Bradley.
After Bradley had signed the
statement, the detectives summoned
Detective Inspector Windsor.
Bradley assured him that he had
given the statement voluntarily. He
denied, however, that he had struck
the boy, fracturing his skull, and stated
that he must have hit his head on the
spare-tyre rack. He also denied that he
had attempted to strangle the boy, saying
that he had tied the blue scarf around his
mouth to keep him from crying out.in Colombo, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka].
Walden cabled the police at Colombo,
asking them to arrest Stephen Bradley
aboard ship and hold him there, pending
arrival of a warrant charging him with
kidnapping and murder. Bradley’s wife
and children were not to be detained.
At Colombo, Inspector A.E.
Stephenson and other officers came
aboard the Himalaya and took
Bradley into custody. He was taken
to court, where the prosecutor asked
for a provisional arrest warrant under
Ceylon’s fugitive ordinance, pending
arrival of an Australian warrant and a
request for extradition. The magistrate
granted the warrant and Bradley was led
off to jail.
He was later permitted to return to
the ship briefly and talk to his wife. He
urged her to go on to England with the
children and she agreed to do so.
Bradley was held in Colombo for
more than a month, sleeping on a straw
mat and eating food consisting mostly
Detective-Sergeant Brian Doyle
said he got a confession from the
suspect during the light homeBradley arrested in Ceylon by
local authoritiesof rice. Meanwhile, an extradition
hearing was held in Sydney, at which the
police prosecutor called more than 50
witnesses.
O
n October 20th, the magistrate
decided that there was a strong
presumption that Stephen Leslie Bradley
had kidnapped and murdered Graeme
Thorne. He ordered that the testimony
of the witnesses and a murder warrant
be forwarded to the court in Ceylon to
secure Bradley’s extradition. He was
flown back to Sydney four weeks later.
During the journey, according to
Doyle, Bradley turned to him abruptly
and said: “I have wanted to talk to the
police for a long time, but the lawyer
assigned to me in Ceylon would not
allow it. I have done this thing to the
Thorne boy, you know. I want to tell
about it.”