Ricki Nash was just seven years old when his three-year-old sister Cheryl Grimmer vanished from Fairy Meadow Beach in New South Wales in 1970. Now 64, he says not a day passes without him thinking about that fateful day. 'I was supposed to keep her safe,' he told the Daily Mail, speaking after Australian prosecutors decided to review the case, offering a glimmer of hope for the family.
Cheryl, a British toddler who had emigrated to Australia with her family as Ten Pound Poms 18 months earlier, was snatched from the beach. A 17-year-old boy, referred to by the alias Mercury because he was a minor, confessed in 1971 to snatching her, intending to sexually assault her. He said he strangled her when she cried out and hid her body. The confession was later ruled inadmissible on a technicality in 2019, and charges were dropped.
Ricki and his brothers Paul and Stephen, now in their 60s, have lived with the trauma and guilt. 'The guilt I have carried for leaving Cheryl alone that day has only been intensified by the knowledge that the case was mismanaged,' Ricki said. Their parents, Carole and Vince, died without knowing what happened to their daughter. On her deathbed in 2011, Carole made her sons promise never to stop seeking answers.
Last month, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to review the decision to drop the charges against Mercury, now in his 70s. Ricki, who lives in the Philippines, said: 'We could have lived a different life if, back in 1971, police had just done their job.' He remains estranged from three of his four children but keeps his Facebook open in the hope they may one day reconnect.
