WELCOME TO THE TRUE CRIME VAULT 🔐
This book will be focused on ALL THINGS true crime, and that includes sharing both past and present crime cases, that are solved and unsolved.
This is about raising awareness on the crimes that are being committed...
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~• THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHERYL GRIMMER •~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
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• LIFE •
The Grimmer family emigrated to Australia from Knowle, a suburb of Bristol, England, in the spring of 1968, when Cheryl was two years old. They were living in Fairy Meadow Migrant Hostel near the beach where she disappeared. The family consisted of mother Carole (26), father Vince (24), and sons Ricki (7), Stephen (5), and Paul (4). Cheryl was the Grimmers' only daughter.
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• DISAPPEARANCE •
On the morning of 12 January 1970, the Grimmer family went to the beach at Fairy Meadow in Illawarra, except for Vince, who was away working as a sapper for the Australian Army. When the weather turned at 1:30 pm, Carole decided it was time to go home. The children all went to the shower block together while Carole packed up their belongings. Ricki went back to Carole ten minutes later saying that Cheryl was refusing to come out of the shower block. She immediately followed Ricki back to the shower block to find that Cheryl had disappeared. There was no phone nearby, so Carole made her way to a house on nearby Elliotts Road and asked the residents to call the police.
At the time, witnesses claimed that a man was seen holding Cheryl up to drink from a water fountain and then ran off with her wrapped up in a towel. Those claims are now seen as unlikely. Cheryl's brother, Ricki, recalled picking up his sister so that she could drink from the fountain and so it is believed that witnesses had conflated the two occurrences. It was also claimed that Cheryl was spotted in a white car.
• INVESTIGATION •
Cheryl's disappearance sparked a massive search. A day after investigations began, the New South Wales Police announced that they had four theories as to Cheryl's whereabouts: that she was hiding and had fallen asleep, that she had wandered into the ocean and was carried away by currents, that she had fallen into a waterway, or that she had been kidnapped. After a day of searching, all but the latter theory were dismissed and police began pursuing relevant leads, such as the sighting of a blue Volkswagen Type 2 van near the scene of the crime. On the third day, police received a note demanding $10,000 and stating that the child was unharmed. They staged a drop for the money in Bulli, but the purported kidnapper never showed up, despite police believing that the note was credible. Officers disguised themselves as council workers for the ransom drop and originally feared that had led to the kidnapper being spooked, and that the large police operation may have deterred the person from coming forward. However, the writer of the note never contacted police again and it was assumed the note was a hoax. The case became famous in Australia and, to escape the notoriety, the Grimmer family returned to England for ten years afterwards.
