Finally - A Murder Charge !

January 12, 1970 was a perfect Australian summer day and yet nobody noticed when a three year old girl was abducted from Fair Meadow beach in the city of Wollongong.  The Grimmer family were living in the nearby migrant facility and Carol Grimmer had taken her three sons and three year old daughter - Cheryl - to the beach for the afternoon.   The children's father served in the Australian army.

Late in the afternoon the four children approached a bubbler and one of the boys held Cheryl up to get a drink.  The boys walked back to their mother and Cheryl dawdled  behind.  When they returned to look for her, she had simply vanished.

That started one of the biggest land searches in Australian history.  The police and emergency services, supplemented by the public spent days searching the beaches and sand dunes, and nearby the heavily wooded Puckey's estate.   Several beachgoers remembered seeing a man carrying a crying child away from the beach, but thought it was a father removing his child who wished  for further beach time.

Forty-eight years later the police have a man in custody, extradited from Victoria and he will face court later this week charged with Cheryl Grimmer's murder.  Incredibly, this man confessed to the murder when he was interviewed on April 29, 1970, but the police did not pursue the matter because of inconsistencies in the evidence.

The confession stated that he hid Cheryl in a drain for about thirty minutes and then took her to Bulli Pass.   She screamed when he removed the cloth over her mouth and he accidentally strangled her when he attempted to keep her silent.  He hid the body and returned for it later.

This confession stated that he finally buried Cheryl's body in a paddock off Balgownie road in Fairy Meadow.  At that time this was farm land and is now a heavily populated suburb. He could not be sure of the location but remembered it had a post and wire fence, a steel gate and a cattle ramp.  He also remembered a track crossing a small creek.

The police could not locate these landmarks and the property owner denied that they existed at that time, but years later his son confirmed their existence. Nearly fifty years since the crime, it seems that the man who allegedly abducted Cheryl will finally face court.

This will be a difficult trial. There is now no vacant land in Balgownie road and the burial site is probably under someone's home.  Its location is now unlikely.  The police who took that confession will appear as witnesses but it seems unlikely that any tangible evidence now exists.

Hopefully, resolving this crime after such a long period of time may restore hope to others who have suffered the loss of children in strange circumstances.  The mystery of the whereabouts of William Tyrrell,  - the boy in the Spider-Man suit - awaits resolution !