Cheryl Grimmer was lost but guilt lives on for brothers

The day Ricki Nash’s sister, Cheryl, vanished 49 years ago, tentacles of blame wrapped around him and have never let go.

Ricki Nash in Devonport this week. ‘I still see that moment … the sheer terror on her face,’ he says of his mother when she realised Cheryl was missing. Picture: Heath Holden

The day Ricki Nash’s three-year-old sister, Cheryl Grimmer, vanished from Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong 49 years ago, tentacles of blame wrapped around him and have never let go.

“I can remember the beatings I copped — the hatred my father had for me because he blamed me for leaving her,” Mr Nash says. “And he’s right: I shouldn’t have left.”

In February, a confession to Cheryl’s murder, one of the oldest Australian cold cases to reach court, was ruled inadmissable in the NSW Supreme Court on a technicality.

With the case now under ­review by NSW Attorney-­General Mark Speakman, two of Cheryl’s brothers have spoken about the extent their family was torn apart by her disappearance, the ­exposure of a family secret, and the impact of the court ruling.

Mr Nash was just seven when his sister disappeared on January 12, 1970. The “Ten Pound Poms” were staying at a federal government hostel for migrants. Being a warm summer’s day, he had pestered his mother to take them to the beach.

After a swim, an afternoon storm sent Ricki and siblings ­Stephen, 5, Paul, 4, and Cheryl back to a shower block to wash off.

Brother Ricki with Cheryl.

Cheryl playfully refused to come out of the girls’ change room so Ricki went to fetch their mother, Carole. When they returned 90 seconds later, Cheryl was gone.

“I still see everything crystal clear, like it’s in front of me,” Mr Nash said. “She was just laughing, being her cheeky self, saying ‘no, I’m not coming’.

“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.”

As concern became panic, Mrs Grimmer shook her eldest son and demanded, “Where did you leave her?”

“I still see that moment … the sheer terror on her face.” The first tentacle encircled his heart.

Cheryl has never been found. Mr Nash’s younger brother, Paul Grimmer, confirms that at times their father, John, a sapper based in Penrith when his daughter went missing, took out his pain and anger on his sons. He says their ­father was a good man who had bad moments. “Whenever we got in trouble, Dad would belt the whole lot of us to make sure he got the right one,” Mr Grimmer says from Brisbane. “I don’t think he ever forgave us for losing his little girl that day. It changed him.”

Mr Grimmer assures his brother it was not his fault. “We were all there, we all walked away,” he said.

Soldiers join police in the search for Cheryl.

At 13, Mr Nash learned his dad was not his biological father. It came out “like a volcano exploding”, after he sided with his father over his mother in an argument.

“He looks at me and goes ‘there you go, and he’s not even my son’.”

The man he knew as “Dad” met his mother when he was one. Nash was his mother’s maiden name, which he started using as an adult.

Later they mended bridges, with Mr Nash taking his ill father into his home before his death in 2004. Carole died in 2014, ­moments after her sons promised to keep looking for Cheryl.

Mr Nash reveals that recently he identified and wrote to his biological father — a man with a daughter. If it’s the right person, Mr Nash has a living sister. He has not yet heard back.

“People say, ‘how have you got through it’. I built this story, that she was happy, healthy, taken by a person that couldn’t have kids — that one day she’ll knock on the door.”

A detective burst that mental bubble when he phoned Mr Nash in 2016. Police were reinvestigating and had a strong suspicion about the culprit.

Decades earlier, a 17-year-old boy in juvenile custody in Sydney was said to have told a manager he was responsible for Cheryl’s murder. When two detectives went to see him on April 29, 1971, he confessed, giving a detailed ­account of the murder, according to a typed record of interview.

He said he ran off with Cheryl, intending to sexually assault her. But when she cried out, he strangled her and then covered her body in bushes and dirt. Police, unable to confirm the confession in the 70s, didn’t tell Cheryl’s family.

He went on to live in Frankston, Melbourne. Police gathered further evidence and charged him with murder in March 2017. He was 15 when he allegedly murdered Cheryl and therefore cannot be identified.

Born in England, he came to Australia with his father and stepmother in 1968. They first stayed at the Fairy Meadow migrants’ hostel, where Cheryl and her family later stayed. Four days before Cheryl vanished, he absconded from Victoria’s Sunshine Hostel. Police allege he travelled to somewhere he knew, Fairy Meadow beach. He was picked up in Western Australia the next month.

Three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer vanished 49 years ago.

Custody records detail his volatility in 1970 and 1971, with apparent suicide attempts and drug use. He had told a doctor of night­mares he was going to kill people.

His confession was freely given and legally taken. However, subsequent laws required the presence of a parent, other adult or lawyer for child confessions to be admissible. With the confession out, the murder charge was dropped, an intolerable situation for Cheryl’s family. “He gave this confession of his own free will. Only the person that committed this crime could give such a ­detailed confession,” Mr Nash said.

Generally, laws are not retrospective, but they are for police procedure. This ruled the confession out by default, unless it met two conditions: there was a proper reason for the adult’s absence, and that in the “particular circumstances of the case” it should be admitted.

Judge Robert Allan Hulme ruled there was proper reason, ­because an adult’s presence wasn’t mandatory at the time. But he ­excluded the confession, noting the police interview style — a caution was issued as soon as the teenager started making admissions, but not before — and the “particular vulnerability” of the accused.  Mr Speakman sought advice on the case from Crown Advocate David Kell SC after NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC declined to appeal. “I have ­received advice from (Dr Kell) which I am now considering,” Mr Speakman said yesterday.

He declined to comment on what action he could take, and Cheryl’s family say they have been kept in the dark. The family this week provided the state government with a letter questioning why the law was ­applied retrospectively. It noted the court’s ­obligation to ensure a fair trial is “not limited to the accused but ­extends to all parties including the victims”.

Mr Nash wants a jury to hear the evidence, and if it doesn’t convict, “so be it, we move on”.