Stephen Leslie Bradley was born Istvan Baranyay in Budapest, Hungary, on March 15, 1926. He survived World War II and the subsequent communist regime before emigrating to Australia in 1950 aboard the Skaugum. In Melbourne, Bradley married multiple times—first divorcing in 1948, then marrying Eva Maria Lazlo with whom he had a child before she tragically died in a 1955 car accident. In August 1956, he officially anglicized his name to Stephen Leslie Bradley. By 1958, Bradley had married a third time to Magda Wittman, a divorcée with two children, and relocated to Sydney.

Bradley struggled financially, working various jobs to support his growing family. Facing mounting pressure to provide, and allegedly inspired by a high-profile ransom case in Paris, Bradley conceived a plan to kidnap a wealthy child for ransom. 

On June 1, 1960, Bazil Thorne won £100,000 in the Sydney Opera House Lottery. Because it was common practice to publish winners’ names and addresses, Bradley learned of the Thornes’ windfall and began planning an abduction. He surveilled their 8-year-old son, Graeme Thorne, for several mornings, observing his school routine.

On July 7, 1960, Bradley lured Graeme into his iridescent blue 1955 Ford Customline by posing as a driver. Bradley assaulted and bound the boy, placing him in the car’s boot. That morning, he made the first ransom call demanding £25,000, threatening to feed Graeme to sharks if payment wasn’t made. Despite police involvement, Bradley provided no further instructions and never attempted to collect the ransom.

Graeme Thorne died within hours of the kidnapping from asphyxiation and head injuries sustained while restrained in the car boot. Bradley stored the body under his house before dumping it on vacant land in Seaforth, Sydney.

Forensic science, still emerging in Australia at the time, played a crucial role in solving the case. Experts linked pink mortar fragments, rare tree types, and a distinctive tartan blanket to Bradley’s Clontarf home. Despite fleeing to London in September 1960, Bradley was extradited and returned to Australia in November 1960, where he confessed to the kidnapping but denied intentional murder.

Bradley’s trial began in March 1961. Witnesses placed him at the abduction site and linked him to key forensic evidence. Forensic tests disproved his claim that Graeme had suffocated unintentionally. The trial lasted nine days, and Bradley was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, the maximum penalty under New South Wales law.

Bradley served his sentence in Goulburn Gaol, working as a hospital orderly and remaining isolated from other prisoners. He never expressed remorse. In 1965, his wife Magda divorced him and returned to Europe with their children. On October 6, 1968, at the age of 42, Stephen Leslie Bradley died of a heart attack while playing tennis in prison. He was buried in the Catholic section of Goulburn cemetery.

The murder of Graeme Thorne shocked Australia, marking the nation’s first well-known child kidnapping for ransom. It forever changed public attitudes toward child safety, privacy of lottery winners, and police forensic investigation methods.