The loss of Tara Catsanis’ childhood friend Samantha Knight still haunts her 30 years on.

It’s not something she enjoys talking about. But she doesn’t want her friend forgotten either.

Samantha would have turned 39 this year but instead, she remains frozen in time, her nine-year-old face etched in the minds of Sydneysiders over a certain age — the little lost girl with the floppy hat and crooked smile.

When the Bondi schoolgirl vanished in 1986, it sent shock waves through Sydney and sparked one of the biggest police investigations for a missing person in NSW history.

At 4.30pm on Tuesday, August 19, 1986, she had simply walked out of her mother’s flat in Imperial Ave, Bondi, to go to the local shops. She never returned.

Samantha had been snatched by paedophile Michael Guider who gave her a fatal overdose of a sleeping drug in preparation of abusing her.

He would later plead guilty to manslaughter, despite the fact that he refused to tell the police where her body lay, and was sentenced to 17 years jail.

But without a proper burial, Ms Catsanis said the case wasn’t over for those who knew and loved Sam.

“I don’t have closure and won’t until she is put to rest the way she deserves,” she told the Telegraph.

“It changed me forever and I’m dreading the day they let him (Guider) out of prison.

“They should throw away the key. It’s not justice.”

A WAVE OF ANXIETY SWEEPS INTO BONDI

The abduction of Samantha profoundly affected her eastern suburbs community, not only because the family’s heartbreak played out so publicly, but because she could have been any kid.

Bondi was still a fairly close-knit community then, and although it had its share of transients, there wasn’t a local who wasn’t affected by her story.

In the days and weeks after she went missing, the beachside suburb was swamped by police scouring the streets looking for signs of the missing girl.

Within 24-hours of her disappearance, it was the biggest story in town. Police enlisted the help of the media in an effort to throw up a clue. Parents Tess Knight and Peter O’Meagher gave interview after interview, hoping to jog someone’s memory.

Grandfather Bill Knight had thousands of posters distributed with his granddaughter’s face, and the little lost girl peered down at residents from every telegraph pole and bulletin board: “Have You Seen Samantha”, “Can You Help?”.

It was the days before social media, with only a handful of TV channels and radio stations, the wave of publicity didn’t rush up and fizzle out. It was relentless and inescapable.

A GHOST STORY OF STRANGER DANGER

False sightings and tips flooded in to police who pursued many avenues of inquiry but they ultimately failed to find Samantha — and the lack of progress wasn’t lost on local parents.

Many admitted feeling terrified for their children in the wake of the disappearance. The anxiety was tangible. Everyone knew it could have been their child.

“None of my kids will be going to the corner shop, or anywhere for that matter, that’s for sure,” one parent told a Daily Telegraph reporter days after the abduction.

“I’m using what happened to Samantha as an example to emphasise to my child how easily it could happen to them,” said another.

With school holidays approaching, the stranger danger message and its flawed logic, was ramped up by police, who issued public warnings to children to tell parents where they were at all times. Small kids were told to learn their phone number and address. Safe Houses were pointed out.

By the end of the first week of her disappearance, three times the usual number of parents waited at the gate to pick up their kids at Bronte Public School, where Samantha had gone.

The overwhelming belief was that the greatest threat to their kids came from an outsider.

No one knew then that the man who snatched, abused and ultimately killed Samantha, wasn’t a stranger at all.

There had been a hidden connection between the little girl and her abductor, Michael Guider, although it wouldn’t be revealed for another decade.

FEAR AND DISBELIEF HAUNT STUDENTS

While adults planned strategies to keep their kids safe, Samantha’s friends were struggling to make sense of her absence.

On their way to school, many would pass the life-size mannequin of the missing girl, placed by police near the corner of Imperial Ave and Bondi Rd, where she was last seen.

One student, 11-year-old Carolyn Sanasi, who regularly walked part way home with Samantha spoke of her own fear: “I’m scared now and I’ve cried about Samantha a lot since she went missing.”

Meanwhile, Ms Catsanis, one of Sam’s closest friends, was riddled with irrational guilt.

“For her mum to ring me first that day and ask if she was there, I felt guilt,” she said.

“I felt like she should have been at my house, and somehow it was my fault. I know it’s silly, but as a kid you don’t understand.’’

Inside the walls of her school, teachers tried to support Samantha’s classmates through their uncertainty and sadness.

“In the days that followed, it was very hard for anyone to think of anything else,” then principal Peter McCallum later told the Telegraph.

“Police were trying to retrace Samantha’s last movements — and because she was a child, that meant the search had to be conducted among children.

“Sometimes I would make the first contact (with families) because people were almost traumatised when the police identified themselves as being homicide branch.

“It was hard just to concentrate on ordinary school routine. There was a very hollow feeling.’’