A 50-year-old murder case of British toddler Cheryl Grimmer has prompted Australian police to announce a $1 million reward for information.
Cheryl Grimmer was 3 years old when she was abducted on January 12, 1970, outside Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, NSW.
According to Mail Online, a confession related to the crime was ruled inadmissible last year, leading to the announcement of the substantial reward by the NSW Police homicide squad.
Cheryl’s family is hopeful that the reward will help solve the case and provide them with closure regarding her abduction and murder.
Cheryl’s brother, Ricki Nash, who was present when she went missing, expressed the family’s deep pain and the lasting impact of Cheryl’s disappearance.
Homicide squad commander Daniel Doherty highlighted the lack of progress in the case, stating that there had been no trace of Cheryl since she was seen being carried towards the car park 50 years ago.
On the day of her abduction, Cheryl had been playing with her brothers while her mother was nearby, packing up their belongings.
Despite her elder brother’s awareness that boys were not allowed in the ladies’ bathroom, he was unable to retrieve Cheryl, and someone else abducted her before he could return with their mother.
In a later confession, a teenager admitted to the murder, but the confession was not pursued until 45 years later when detective Frank Sanvitale reopened the investigation.
The confession detailed the teenager’s actions and intentions, but he later claimed that the confession was fabricated during a second interview in 2017.
Despite being charged with Cheryl’s murder, the man was released from custody in 2019 after the original confession was deemed inadmissible by the Supreme Court.
Justice Robert Hulme noted the inability of the Crown’s case to succeed without the confession and highlighted the accused’s troubled mental state, as confirmed by two psychiatrists’ testimonies.