FRESH leads in the 41-year-old Adelaide Oval abduction cold case put a key suspect at the ground on the day of the crime and link him to an abandoned Prospect home with an underground bunker.

Major Crime police have confirmed they are assessing details of Stanley Arthur Hart’s link to the Prospect property, provided to them by The Advertiser last month.

Hart’s family also say the known paedophile, whose former Mid-North property was extensively searched by police as recently as December, would “almost certainly” have been at Adelaide Oval on ­August 25, 1973, when Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon were abducted.

Hart died in 1999.

Cold case detectives are working on a full summary of the Adelaide Oval abduction investigation, they have told Joanne’s sister Suzie Wilkinson.

As SA Police continue a 13-week State’s Most Wanted Cold Case Unit campaign to try to bust some of the state’s 110 unsolved murders, strongly backed by media channels, ­Detective Superintendent Des Bray has reassured the public that police will throw all they have at solving these crimes.

Ms Wilkinson has also been given a personal guarantee that “no stone will be left unturned” as Major Crime detectives look for answers to the abduction of Joanne, 11, and Kirste, 4.

“Major Crime detectives are assessing information recently received in relation to a Prospect address,” was all police would say yesterday.

Ms Wilkinson yesterday called for police to take the infor­mation seriously and “investigate it properly”.

“If it means they have to go in there and dig up the backyard to check it out, then that’s what should be done,” she said.

“If they’re not going to investigate it properly, then I’ll get it done.”

The Prospect property has been identified as the childhood home of Hart — a man who was at the top of the police persons-of-interest list in the case as recently as late last year, when police extensively searched his former Yatina property, including excavating two wells.

For a year from March 1973, Hart had unrestricted and unmonitored access to the abandoned home, which featured a large underground bunker, The Advertiser can reveal.

The bunker, an air-raid shelter with two entrances and large enough to fit at least four adults, was described as “very good” by Hart’s sister, Ella. It is understood to have been filled in some time before 1975, after the disappearance of the girls.

The homeowners have told The Advertiser there has been no police interest in the property in their 40 years of ownership, but they would fully co-operate should police believe the link needed investigating.

Hart’s family has said that although he did not attend the Adelaide Oval final between arch rivals North and Norwood on August 25, 1973, with them, the North Adelaide Football Club fan “rarely missed a Roosters footy match”.

Convicted paedophile family member Mark Marshall, in a 2007 confession to the Mullighan Inquiry into children in state car, also suggests his “Poppa Stan” had taken a hat and a coat from “grandad’s house” to wear at the footy that day.

Identikit images of the suspect closely resemble Hart’s appearance at the time.

Private investigators have suggested the abductor could have taken the girls out of the parklands on a Red Hen train from the North Adelaide train station. The last reported sighting of the girls, with their abductor, was by a young unnamed man who said he saw them near Port Road in an area only a short distance from North Adelaide station about 5pm.

The baffling Adelaide Oval mystery media_camera Police examine wells in Yatina, searching for evidence in the disappearance. 1 of 11 media_camera Police examine wells in Yatina, searching for evidence in the disappearance. 2 of 11 media_camera The two girls - Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon. 3 of 11 media_camera An Identikit released by police of the suspect in the abduction of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon from Adelaide Oval in 1973. 4 of 11 nav_small_close Want to see more?( 7 more photos in collection )Continue to full gallery nav_small_left nav_small_right

Police confirmed Hart was a key figure in their investigation of the case last year. Over a number of days in October and December, they searched his Yatina property and excavated two deep wells for clues in the cold case.

Despite nothing being found in the search, police have not ruled Hart out of the investigation.

Further investigations by The Advertiser have found Hart, a former army clerk turned part-time butcher, was “assisted” in a move from Adelaide to Yatina in a bid to curb his recidivist paedophile activity, but was still registered as living at a Parkside address when Joanne, 11, and Kirste, 4, disappeared.

It is understood the Parkside address also has never been searched for clues in the case.

NEW LEADS IN INVESTIGATION

The Advertiser has also passed on to police investigators a number of other leads from private investigators and members of the public that suggest:

A KNOWN child abuser revealed, a decade after their disappearance, that he saw Joanne and Kirste with their abductor;

THE same man was an avid North fan, lived close to Prospect Oval and had the shell of a car buried in his backyard to which access tunnels were regularly dug;

AN anonymous caller to The Advertiser, using voice distortion, says a Prospect address is a place of interest in the Adelaide Oval case and that US Airforce fuel barrels are reportedly buried at a location in Adelaide’s north and contain evidence in the case.

media_camera A butcher’s apron from the Yatina property. media_camera A pair of butcher’s pants removed from the Yatina property.

Major Crime detectives on August 25 last year, the 41st anniversary of the abduction, asked Advertiser Investigations Editor Bryan Littlely to share with them information he and a team of private investigators believed they had uncovered on the case.

The Advertiser, last month, advised police of the link to the Prospect property and the bunker immediately.

A number of items — including a butcher’s apron and pants — reportedly belonging to Hart and removed from the Yatina property by a third party before police searches commenced there in 2009 also have been handed to police and are understood to be getting tested to check for clues.