An international appeal to find key witnesses in the cold case of murdered Wollongong toddler Cheryl Grimmer has succeeded.
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On Thursday, NSW Police issued an appeal for information about a family, the Goodyears, whose members provided officers with important statements at the time of Cheryl’s abduction from Fairy Meadow Beach, 47 years ago.
Police say they have now obtained details of the family, crediting cooperation from Interpol and assistance from media outlets in Nottinghamshire, England.
Peter William Aubrey Goodyear, then aged 37, his wife, Mavis, and daughters, Karen, aged six, and Jannette, aged five, were living at the Fairy Meadow Commonwealth Hostel at the time of Cheryl’s disappearance.
According to reports from the day, Mr Goodyear told police he saw a man running from the area with a motionless, fair-haired girl under his arm, the day Cheryl vanished.
“I saw a little, dark man carrying a limp, blond-haired girl to the car. My daughter said to me, ‘Daddy, why is that man carrying that little girl?’,” Mr Goodyear told reporters.
Mr Goodyear worked as a labourer at the John Lysaght Springhill metal works in the Illawarra. The Goodyears left Australia late in 1970 and eventually returned to Britain.
Three-year-old Cheryl was kidnapped and murdered during a family outing at Fairy Meadow Beach at Wollongong in January 1970.
Late last month, Strike Force Wessel – comprising detectives from Wollongong Local Area Command and the State Crime Command’s Unsolved Homicide Team – travelled to Melbourne and charged a 63-year-old man with her abduction and murder.
