Cheryl’s killer goes free
The three brothers of missing toddler Cheryl Grimmer know who murdered her, yet the killer still walks free
It was one of those endless hot summer days and newly arrived British schoolboy Ricki Grimmer begged his mum Carole to take his brothers Paul and Stephen and little sister Cheryl to Wollongong’s Fairy Meadow Beach.
That day, 49 years ago on January 12, 1970, continues to haunt Ricki and his brothers, because it was the day their sister was snatched from the shower block at the beach, vanishing without a trace, despite a massive manhunt.
The split second in which the “laughing and smiling” threeyear-old was abducted led to a lifetime of blame, torture and heartache for the boys
and anguish for their parents. Their dad Vince blamed his wife and sons for “losing my baby daughter” until the day he died.
“For me it’s like living the day every day of my life,” admits Stephen, who was five when Cheryl was abducted after she cheekily ran into the women’s change shed and wouldn’t come out despite her embarrassed brothers’ pleas.
He and his two brothers told of the guilt and grief that consumed their family in a recent interview with 60 Minutes. And then there’s the agony of knowing that their sister’s killer still walks free – despite police arresting him three years ago – because of a legal loophole.
The horror of losing their little sister just as the family – who had just arrived as new immigrants from Bristol, UK – were about to embark on an exciting new life Down Under, has never diminished for the three brothers.
Ricki, who was seven at the time, recalls that fateful summer day. “It was a beautiful day, it was a really nice day and you know kids being kids building sand castles and Cheryl up and down the water line as we did.
EVIL PREDATOR
“My mum asked me to take Steve [then five], Paul [four] and Cheryl up to the shower blocks to wash the sand off, to walk back to the hostel. I was a boy. I didn’t want to go into the girl’s shower block, there were other girls in there. I didn’t want to go in, you’re told not to go in.”
With Cheryl refusing to come out of the shower clock, Ricki and his brothers ran back down to the beach to fetch their mum – but what no-one knew was that a 17-year-old predator was lurking, waiting for his opportunity to snatch the chubby cheeked little girl who was playfully hiding.
“Nothing seemed to be wrong until Mum was just shaking me and saying, ‘Where did you leave her?’” says Ricki.
Cheryl’s killer, who for legal reasons cannot be identified, was arrested three years ago after detective Frank Sanvitale found a new lead in the cold case when he went through the files from the original investigation.
The arrest came after Detective Sanvitale found a confession from a 17-year-old runaway who had come forward to police in 1971. The lead investigator had dismissed the confession because he thought the teenager was making up the tale for attention.
“I come from around the front of the pavilion behind her and grabbed her,” the killer told police at the time. He also accurately described what Cheryl was wearing. “There was some bloke sitting on the wall
‘I know this decision is a kick in the guts for the Grimmer family’
in front of the pavilion so I had to put my hand over her mouth to stop her screaming because if she had of screamed he would have heard it.
“I went over to the big drain and stayed in the scrub area and got near a creek near the main road. I tied a handkerchief and a shoelace around her mouth to stop her screaming and with the other shoelace I tied up her hands.
“I was going to have sexual intercourse with her... she started to scream as soon as I took the gag off her.
“I put my hands around her throat and told her to shut up. I guess I must have strangled her. She stopped breathing and stopped crying and I thought she was dead, so I panicked and covered her up with bushes and run for it.”
But when the killer, now 65 and living in Melbourne, finally faced court for his horrific crime, the judge decided the confession wasn’t admissible because the accused was a youth at the time and didn’t have a parent or guardian present.
“I know this decision is a kick in the guts for the Grimmer family,” NSW Attorney-general Mark Speakman said earlier this year, acknowledging that the legal loophole had forever denied Cheryl and her shattered family justice.