Cheryl Grimmer, 3, originally from Bristol, went missing following a family day out at the beach. One minute she was in the shower block with her brothers, the next moment she was gone
British three-year-old, Cheryl Grimmer, mysteriously vanished 55 years ago during a family day out at the beach – but has never been found.
Cheryl and her family, including parents Carole and Vince and brothers Ricki, Stephen, and Paul, made a huge move from their home in Bristol for a new life on the other side of the world in Australia. It was meant to be the start of something exciting for the family in 1968, but less than two years later, Cheryl, who was just three at the time, went missing.
The moments leading up to her disappearance on January 12, 1970, didn’t seem out of the ordinary. Cheryl had been enjoying a morning at the beach with her mum and three brothers, while their dad, Vince, was away serving in the Australian army at the time.
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By 1:30pm on that day, with the sun blazing overhead, mum, Carole decided it was time for them to head home. The four children all headed to the shower block while their mum gathered up their belongings from their morning at the seaside.
Cheryl’s older brother, Ricki, then seven, went to tell their mum that his sister wouldn’t emerge from the shower cubicle. Just moments later, by the time Carole reached the scene to collect her daughter and head home, the little girl had vanished.
There was a moment of absolute terror for the family, and then their desperate hunt for Cheryl began. There was no telephone at the Fairy Meadow beach, and so Carole had to make the agonising journey to the nearest house to ask them to call the police.
Officers launched a massive manhunt, initially working on four theories. The first was that Cheryl had been hiding and had nodded off, the second that she had wandered into the ocean and been swept away by the tide, and the third she had tumbled into a waterway.
The fourth theory was that she had been abducted. Witnesses at the time reported seeing a man holding Cheryl, who was wrapped in a towel, helping her drink water from a fountain before running off with her. There were also allegations that she had been whisked away in a white car.
Despite having three main suspects, the police were unable to positively identify any of them based on witness accounts. However, a local teenager confessed to the murder just over a year after Cheryl’s disappearance.
Only known as Mercury due to his age, he reportedly admitted to the killing during police interviews in the early 1970s, stating that he had “intended to have sexual intercourse” with her before committing the murder. Despite this confession, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge the young man, and the case was subsequently closed.
The family’s hopes were reignited when the case was reopened in 2016 and Mercury was arrested and charged the following year. He pleaded not guilty to Cheryl’s murder in September last year.
Although he was scheduled to stand trial, which would have ended nearly 50 years of anguish for Cheryl’s family, the case was dismissed, and his 1970s interviews were deemed inadmissible.
However, in a new update, the Australian parliament, Jeremy Buckingham, read out Mercury’s real name this week – still legally protected because he was a minor at the time – and his teenage confession, calling for a new investigation into Cheryl’s murder.
“The family of Cheryl Grimmer have been through so much anguish over such a long period of time,” he said. “[Mercury] is a free man living with his identity suppressed from his neighbours and no one has been punished for Cheryl Grimmer’s abduction and murder.”
Cheryl’s father died in 2004, and her mother died in 2014, both never knowing what happened to their little girl. Last week, her family gave Mercury an ultimatum, urging him to explain to the family how he knew information contained in his confession or be publicly identified.
Her brother’s decision to go and fetch their mum on that day, 55 years ago, is something Ricki has lived to regret. He remembers convincing his mum to take them for a day at the seaside, and recalls his actions that day “crystal clear”.
Ricki previously told The Australian: “I just didn’t want to go into the ladies’ toilets.
“That’s when I made the fatal mistake of leaving and going to get my mother.”
He also disclosed how his parents never recovered from Cheryl’s disappearance. Ricki said: “I can remember the beatings I copped – the hatred my father had for me because he blamed me for leaving her.
“And he’s right – I shouldn’t have left.” Ricki has pledged to continue his parents’ battle to find out what really happened to Cheryl.