On a crisp October day in 2025, the quiet suburb of Balgownie in Wollongong, Australia, found itself at the center of renewed national attention. Volunteers, police, and a family that has waited more than half a century for answers gathered on the edge of bushland, driven by a single hope: to finally discover what happened to Cheryl Grimmer, the three-year-old British girl who vanished from Fairy Meadow Beach in January 1970.
The search, which began on October 2, 2025, is the first of its kind in 55 years. It was prompted by a confession made in 1971 by a teenage boy, codenamed Mercury, who described in remarkable detail where Cheryl’s remains could be found. For decades, that confession—and the location it described—was dismissed and never acted upon by police. Now, thanks to the persistence of Cheryl’s family and the dedication of volunteers from Search Dogs Sydney, the area Mercury described is finally being combed for clues.
Cheryl’s brother, Ricki Nash, who was just seven when his sister disappeared, stood at the search site, his emotions raw. “This is a search that should have been done 55 years ago, when Mercury confessed in detail, details only the person responsible would know,” Nash told ABC Illawarra. “Why police didn’t do it then, and now it’s volunteers with the expertise. I’m just in shock, but as this search will prove today, you can still find something in the soil, the leaves, the roots of trees and bushes from 55 years ago.”
Cheryl disappeared just after 2 p.m. on that fateful day in 1970, while she and her siblings were showering at nearby sheds, preparing to leave the beach. Their father, Vince, raced to join the search after returning from his army barracks in Penrith. He described Cheryl as a “friendly child” who would likely have spoken to strangers, a heartbreaking detail that has haunted the family ever since.
The site now being searched was farmland in 1970 but has since been enveloped by suburban development. The volunteer team, led by Chris D’Arcy, president of Search Dogs Sydney, brought along specialist cadaver dogs trained in archaeological human remains detection—a skill that allows them to locate remains even after more than five decades. “This is the first search in 55 years that has been undertaken in that area,” D’Arcy told local media. “We’ve got two cadaver dogs trained to look for long-term missing persons. Our dogs have previously discovered remains over 50 years old.”
According to the BBC, the dogs exhibited a distinct change in behavior—one even licked a tree, a sign that prompted D’Arcy to say, “He is telling me, ‘Hey there is something here that you need to investigate further.’ What we believe we have located is an area of interest and will pass the information on to the authorities.”
The discovery sent a jolt through Cheryl’s family. “When they think they found something … yeah [it’s] making me tremble,” Nash admitted. “If it is Cheryl out there, she has been laying there for 55 years now [and] she shouldn’t have been.”
Police responded quickly to the volunteers’ findings. Illawarra police officers visited the site on October 2 and confirmed that a search with specialist officers and the dog unit would continue the following day as part of ongoing inquiries. “A search will be conducted tomorrow with the assistance of specialist officers as part of ongoing inquiries,” a police spokesperson told the BBC.
The renewed effort comes after decades of frustration, false starts, and legal setbacks. The 1971 confession by Mercury included specific references to fence lines, cattle grids, and the type of tree near where he claimed to have left Cheryl’s body. Yet, at the time, his admission was dismissed as unreliable, and the site was never searched. In 2016, Detective Senior Constable Frank Sanvitale was tasked with revisiting the cold case. He and his team uncovered Mercury’s confession in police archives and pieced it together with fresh information. In 2017, they charged the man with Cheryl’s murder, but the case collapsed in 2018 when the confession was ruled inadmissible. At the time of the original police interview, minors could be questioned without a parent or lawyer present—a practice later outlawed and applied retroactively, leading to the confession’s exclusion.
Standing at the creek bed now being searched, Sanvitale recalled a haunting phone call from Mercury, who expressed daily regret for his actions. “Give Cheryl’s family some peace, give yourself some peace too,” Sanvitale urged publicly. “I think it’s time for you to come clean, mate, walk into a police station and tell them what you did that day.”
The case has also drawn political attention. A New South Wales MP has offered to use parliamentary privilege to name Mercury and read his full confession into the public record—a move Cheryl’s family calls “a last resort” but one that could happen within weeks if no breakthrough is made.
The BBC’s Fairy Meadow podcast, presented by Jon Kay, has played a pivotal role in keeping the case in the public eye, helping to uncover new witnesses and maintain pressure on authorities. With more than five million downloads, the podcast has become a rallying point for those seeking justice for Cheryl.
The emotional toll on the family remains immense. Ricki Nash’s daughter, Melanie Grimmer, who has four children of her own, waited anxiously at the search command post. “I know my dad hopes that nothing is found. I hope she’s found, I hope the baby girl comes home. My family has been through so much and it is a continuous fight,” she told the BBC. “I feel sick in my stomach being here.”
Search Dogs Sydney, the volunteer organization leading the search, is run entirely on fundraising and donations, with no government funding. “It affects us greatly,” D’Arcy explained. “We do it on no funding, so it’s all fundraising we run on, from fuel to training the dogs. It’s 100 per cent volunteer-run with zero government funding.” Currently, the group has eight dogs at various stages of training and 15 volunteers, all committed to helping families find closure, no matter how many years have passed.
For the Grimmer family, the search is both a painful reminder and a long-overdue step toward truth. “People leave flowers, teddy bears, toys,” Nash said, describing the tributes left on a plaque dedicated to Cheryl on the 50th anniversary of her disappearance. “But we deserve answers as a family, and authorities just don’t want those answers heard.”
As the search continues, hope and heartbreak remain intertwined. No matter the outcome, the determination of Cheryl’s family and the volunteers supporting them stands as a testament to the enduring human need for answers, justice, and peace.
