THE CASE NO-ONE WANTS TO SOLVE
50 YEARS SINCE THE ABDUCTION OF TODDLER CHERYL GRIMMER THE ACCUSED KILLER REMAINS FREE
Numbers play a significant role in the heartbreaking tale of Cheryl Grimmer, the little girl abducted from a NSW beach in 1970 and never seen again.
Three was her age when she was snatched from Wollongong’s Fairy Meadow Beach on January 12, 1970, leaving behind her shattered family who never knew what happened to her.
Ninety is the number of seconds Cheryl was left alone in the surf club ladies changing room as her three young brothers waited for her after a morning on the beach.
Fifty is the number of years it has been since that fateful day, with next week marking the half-century anniversary since Cheryl was killed.
Most tragically, however, is the number 45. That’s how many years a detailed confession to her abduction and murder sat buried in a police file, with the suspect never facing trial.
The confession of a then-17year-old was taken in 1971 yet kept secret from the Grimmer family. In all the years brothers Ricki, Stephen and Paul, along with their now-deceased parents Carole and Vince, waited desperately for any news about the missing girl, the confession outlining the gruesome details of the abduction and murder languished in a police file.
At the time the police did not believe the suspect and dismissed his account of taking Cheryl, choking her to death and dumping her body in bushland. Her body has never been found, and the accused man walked free.
“I have blamed myself my whole life for Cheryl being taken,” Ricki, 57, admits. As a 7-year-old, he was waiting outside the ladies’ changing room as Cheryl refused to come out. When Ricki went to get his mother, Carole, to go into the shed to collect Cheryl, the little girl was allegedly nabbed.
Vince died in 2004, and in 2013 in the weeks before Carole died, she insisted her sons must keep searching for their missing sister. “Our family has endured a life sentence wondering what happened to Cheryl,” Ricki says. “Even in her final days, Mum was holding on, hoping for some news.”
A breakthrough finally came in 2016, when Detectives Frank Sanvitale and Damian Loone reopened the case. The old files included the original confession detailing where the girl was snatched from, how she was taken, what she was wearing through to descriptions of ow she was murdered and
“I HAVE BLAMED MYSELF MY WHOLE LIFE FOR CHERYL BEING TAKEN”
where her body was dumped.
Frank and Damian were certain the files contained the evidence they needed for a conviction. The suspect, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was eventually charged with Cheryl’s murder in 2017 and held on remand.
In February 2019, however, the charges were dropped against the man, now aged 65.
Supreme Court Justice Robert Allan Hulme ruled the original confession was inadmissible because when it was taken, the accused did not have a parent or guardian present. This was despite there being no legal statute in 1971 requiring an adult to be present, and the recent law was applied retrospectively.
NSW Attorney-general Mark Speakman later concluded the case had run out of avenues to pursue. “Any appeal will fail,” he said.
Frank Sanvitale told 60 Minutes last year, “There was nothing wrong with that confession. We have a murderer walking the streets – we got the right man.”
A 2011 inquest into the case ruled Cheryl had died ‘due to an undetermined cause’. Sanvitale has written to the NSW coroner, pleading for a second inquest, utilising all the rediscovered evidence. Ricki says the family just want their sister’s life to finally be granted justice with a day in court.
“It’s important to our family to never give up the fight,” he says. “The police gave us hope after 45 years and now they are going to put this back on the shelf. It’s the case no-one wants to solve. Meanwhile, this man is hiding behind silence and retrospective laws.”