Cheryl Grimmer dead, inquest finds

By Emma Spillett
Updated November 6 2012 - 2:05am, first published May 9 2011 - 11:20am
CHERYL GRIMMER
CHERYL GRIMMER
Stephen Grimmer (left), Carole Grimmer and Melanie Grimmer leave Wollongong court after yesterday’s inquest into Cheryl’s disappearance. Picture: ADAM McLEAN
Stephen Grimmer (left), Carole Grimmer and Melanie Grimmer leave Wollongong court after yesterday’s inquest into Cheryl’s disappearance. Picture: ADAM McLEAN

A coroner has ruled that a three-year-old girl who disappeared at Fairy Meadow Beach more than 40 years ago is dead, but her cause of death is unknown.Cheryl Grimmer is believed to have been abducted from outside a change shed on January 12, 1970, after witnesses reported seeing a man pick up a child, wrap her in a towel and flee.During an inquest into the child's disappearance and suspected death yesterday, Coroner Sharon Freund ruled Cheryl had died some time after her disappearance.However, she said the finding did not close the case and recommended the matter be referred to Sydney's unsolved homicides squad for further investigation.In delivering her finding, Coroner Freund said Cheryl's mother Carole had lived every person's worst nightmare since she disappeared."What became quickly [apparent is that] this was not a case of a missing girl but a girl abducted by an unknown male outside the change room sheds," she said."That afternoon, [she] sent Cheryl with her three brothers up to the showers to change ... she never saw her daughter again."Carole, her son Stephen and granddaughter Melanie were in the court yesterday.Afterwards, Carole told the Mercury she had expected the finding that was handed down.‘‘[But] there is no closure, I think there never is closure for the family,’’ she said.On the afternoon of Cheryl’s disappearance, Carole sent her daughter with her sons to the men’s dressing shed to shower.It was while Cheryl was getting a drink at the bubbler outside that witnesses recall seeing a man allegedly abduct her.The man, described as 35 to 40 with a European appearance and wearing orange swimming trunks, was never located.A witness reported spotting a white, rusty Holden sedan drive from the scene.Three days later, a ransom note demanded $10,000 for Cheryl’s return. Its sender was never found.Detective Sergeant James Dark, who was involved in the 2008 reinvestigation into the case, told the court police believed Cheryl had been abducted and was either killed and buried or was kept by her abductor and had grown up under another name.He said police interviewed a man on January 13, 1970 after officers discovered he had previously been convicted of peeping into a female change shed.The man initially denied being at the beach on the day of Cheryl’s disappearance, but later admitted driving to Fairy Meadow to shower before going to work, the court heard.Witnesses were shown swimmers found in the man’s car, but they did not identify them as those worn by the alleged abductor.Det Sgt Dark told the court he believed the man stood out as a suspect as he lied during his interview with police and lived near bushland at the time of Cheryl’s disappearance.After learning the man had died in 1995, police interviewed members of his family but none of them could connect him to the Grimmer case, the court heard.Another male suspect took part in a line-up but was later eliminated from inquiries. A third man told police in 1971 he had abducted Cheryl and then strangled her, but he was never charged with murder as police found a number of inconsistencies in his story.Yesterday, advocate assisting the coroner, Daniel Maddocks, asked the court to consider offering a reward to encourage anyone with information to come forward.A $5000 reward was offered shortly after Cheryl’s disappearance, but was never claimed.

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