The grieving family of a toddler who vanished from a popular beach more than half a century ago believe detectives botched the case by going to the public about a $10,000 ransom note too early in the investigation.
Three-year-old Cheryl Gene Grimmer was enjoying a day at the beach with her mother and three brothers when she was abducted outside a toilet block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, on the NSW south coast on January 12, 1970.
Numerous searches since have found little to indicate what happened to the British-born toddler, whose remains have never been found.
A fortnight after NSW Police launched a fresh search for Cheryl’s remains, her family on Friday will release their scathing findings into the initial investigation.
Days after Cheryl vanished, a ransom note addressed to her father Vince and police was sent to Bulli Police Station, just kilometres from where Cheryl was last sighted.
The handwritten letter promised to return Cheryl in exchange for $10,000 at the local library the following Saturday.
Police swiftly went to the media with the ransom note – a move Cheryl’s surviving siblings now claim ‘completely ruined’ any hopes of finding her alive.
‘While we don’t rule out the possibility of it being a hoax, I am causing police to treat it as being a genuine ransom note,’ the Wollongong Superintendent told media on January 16, 1970 – just four days after Cheryl disappeared.
‘Should anyone recognise the handwriting we are most anxious for them to contact Wollongong detectives.’
The author of the note failed to show at the planned ‘exchange’ the following week.
Cheryl’s family have since slammed the move as ‘grossly incompetent’, and one of multiple mistakes they believe police made in the years-long investigation.
A 15-year-old boy confessed to Cheryl’s murder a year later in a police interview and led officers on a walk-through of the abduction and killing.
But without a body or any physical evidence, police decided not to lay charges.
In March 2017, detectives who re-examined the confession extradited the man only ever known as Mercury from Victoria and charged him with Cheryl’s murder.
Mercury would not confess a second time and pleaded not guilty. The confession he made as a minor in a 1971 police interview was ruled inadmissible by the Supreme Court and he walked free in 2019.
This was because no parent, adult or legal practitioner was present at any stage of the interview, raising concerns about how the boy was cautioned.
Cheryl’s family plans to release a scathing document detailing the errors of the police investigation which resulted in Mercury never facing a murder trial.
Her older brother Ricki Nash, who was seven when she was taken, will address the media in Wollongong after news.com.au reported some of the findings.
‘After years of research, evidence review, and documentation of the failures that began the day Cheryl was taken, our family is now prepared to release our findings,’ he said in a statement.
‘Cheryl was an innocent child, and for 55 years our family has carried this pain without answers. The public deserves to understand how this case was mishandled and why justice has not been achieved.’
‘It is time the truth was heard – clearly, respectfully, and without obstruction.
The family believe there were serious institutional and procedural errors that have prevented full transparency and accountability in the investigation.
They will also call for a public inquiry into how NSW authorities handled the case.
NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham hopes to get permission from Cheryl’s family to publicly name Mercury in state parliament.
‘I’ve availed myself of the facts and the evidence that the family and the police have and it’s clear that there is a perpetrator free in the community and that’s utterly unacceptable,’ he told news.com.au.
‘So on the advice of the family, I stand ready to name this person who has been subject of these inquiries and subsequently the suppression order in Parliament because that’s what parliamentary privilege is for.’
In 2011, a coronial inquest found Cheryl was very likely dead, although the cause and manner of her death are undetermined.
Nine years later in 2020, NSW Police announced a $1million reward for information about the abduction and likely murder of Cheryl.
