A man has been charged with murder over the abduction and suspected killing of a three-year-old girl in Australia almost half a century ago.
Cheryl Grimmer went missing from a shower block at Fairy Meadow beach, 42 miles south of Sydney, in January 1970 as her mother and three young brothers waited nearby. The family had emigrated from Britain three months earlier.
The long-running mystery of what happened to the little girl may now be solved after a man aged 63 was arrested in Melbourne on Wednesday and charged with killing her.
The man, who has not been named, is also described as having come originally from Britain. He was aged 16 at the time of the toddler’s disappearance and was interviewed by police in 1970 but never charged. He is due to appear in court today in Wollongong, close to the beach where Cheryl vanished.
Detective Inspector Brad Ainsworth, the police officer in charge of the latest investigation into the tragedy, said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics of the actual detail of the offences but I can say that they’re quite horrific and they’ll be unfolding in court.”
Cheryl’s body has never been found. Her parents, Carole and John, have died but her three brothers still live in Australia.
Cheryl was snatched while alone in a ladies’ changing room. Her mother, then 26, had asked her three brothers – Ricki, then aged 7, Stephen,5, and 4-year-old Paul – to take her there to shower. Their father, Corporal John Grimmer, then 24, was serving in the Australian army and was away.
At the time of Cheryl’s disappearance, it was reported that a man was seen carrying a small girl wrapped in a towel as he ran towards the beach car park.
Last December police staged a re-enactment of events at the beach when Cheryl disappeared. Witnesses described a teenager who they said had been hanging around the changing rooms before the child went missing.
