Man accused of killing girl 47 years ago
AUSTRALIA: Police have charged a man with the murder of a British-born 3-year-old girl who vanished from a beach 47 years ago in a dramatic breakthrough in Australia’s oldest unsolved homicide case.
The arrest of the 63-year-old man – now a father who reportedly works as a security guard in Melbourne – marked an unexpected twist in the case of Cheryl Grimmer, who was last seen naked and smiling near the changing rooms at a beach south of Sydney in 1970.
Her disappearance left enduring scars for her family, who had long harboured hopes she may be alive. But it now seems she died ‘‘within an hour’’ of being taken.
Police believe the 63-year-old, who was 16 at the time of the disappearance, snatched the girl from outside a surf club and whisked her away before killing her.
The man was a person of interest in the original investigation and reportedly made comments about the girl 18 months after her disappearance, while he was living at a home for troubled boys.
‘‘I’m not going to get into the specifics of the actual details of the offences but I can say that they are quite horrific and they will be [revealed] at court,’’ said Detective Inspector Brad Ainsworth, of Wollongong police.
‘‘We centred our investigations around him and as a result we’ve gathered information, we have corroborated certain information and statements back in the original investigation and it has led us to the arrest.’’
Police said they did not believe the body would be found.
The breakthrough comes after police revealed late last year that they believed they had a fresh lead, suggesting Cheryl’s murderer was 16 or 17 at the time of the crime and was still alive.
Cheryl, whose family emigrated from Bristol in 1968, disappeared at Fairy Meadow beach, south of Sydney, on January 12, 1970. She was with her mother and three brothers, who had taken her to shower in the changing rooms.
Her parents, Vince and Carole Grimmer, died without finding out what happened to their daughter.
Rikki Nash, Cheryl’s oldest brother, recently spoke of the toll the case took on his family.
He was the last person to see her. He said he watched as his smiling sister stood in the doorway of the changing room, telling him: ‘‘I’m not coming out.’’
‘‘It was the worst 30 seconds of my life,’’ he said.
‘‘I can still see her shaking her head, saying ‘I’m not coming out’. Then I made that terrible mistake of going to get my mother. We were back in 30 seconds, but unbeknown to us, she was already gone. It changed our lives forever.’’ – Telegraph Group