“ Zone of interest ” found in the search for a girl who disappeared 55 years ago

A volunteer team using corpse detection dogs to search for the body of a British child who disappeared in Australia over 50 years ago found an “area of ​​interest”.

The group hopes that their conclusion will be a breakthrough in the case of Cheryl Grimmer and reported the location to the Southern New Wales Police, which is now on the scene.

The authorities suspect that the three -year -old child, who had emigrated from Bristol with his family, was removed from Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong in January 1970.

“A search will be carried out tomorrow with the help of agents specialized in the current surveys,” the police told the BBC in a statement sent by e-mail.

Today, bathed in the sun, the beach looks as idyllic as it was to be all these years ago. Sand dunes, looking inside the land, the terrain gradually climbs into a dense bush.

Short to the road in the hills, there is a small wooden pocket on the edge of a high -end suburb that could reveal a terrible secret.

Balgownie was the location mentioned in a confession made by a teenager – also from England – a year after the Toddler disappeared. Decades later, a judge refused this admission.

In 2019, a suspect trial, known only by a code name, Mercury, which had been accused of kidnapping and murder of Cheryl Grimmer, collapsed. The man, in the sixties, had denied any reprehensible act.

Cheryl’s brother Ricki Nash was seven years old when his little sister disappeared. He saw her for the last time in the changing rooms of Fairy Meadow.

“It should have been done 55 years ago,” he said while the specialized team with dogs trained to detect human remains began their work. “My question is, why was it not?”

“Yes, it’s extraordinary. The police have never developed this area in detail even if they had a confession. Not just a very detailed confession.”

He spent a life to have answers for life, but does not want to find them here among the big trees, the stream and the bushes.

“We always live with the hope that someone took him who could not have a child, raised it well. One day, she would grow up, discovered that she did not belong to this family. We had people over the years and our family: knock on the door and say that they are Cheryl and that your heart rate goes to a million people.

“We hoped that it is Cheryl one day. So being here in search of a body or a game, I mean, it is not a good thing,” Nash told BBC.

Rufus, nine, is the main research dog. Its manager is Chris d’Arcy, the president of Search Dogs Sydney, a charity, who had proposed to help the Grimmer family after attending a seminar of missing persons in Wollongong. He had also heard the BBC Podcast Fairy Meadow, presented by Jon Kay, who was downloaded five million times.

The canine team succeeded in previous cold cases dating back more than half a century. Last year, they found human remains in a lake in northern New South Wales.

Now, M. d’Arcy’s team believes that it has made a potential breakthrough in the darker case.

“What we think we have located is an area of ​​interest and will transmit information to the authorities,” he said. “The dog has shown a separate change in behavior.”

Ricki Nash said the news had “tremble”.

“If it’s Cheryl there – she has been there for 55 years Now-she shouldn’t have been, “he said.

Balgownie was mainly agricultural land in 1970. Frank Sanvitale, a former detective who worked on the Grimmer case, came to support the members of the Cheryl family. They have become close and share deep frustrations concerning the wider police investigation during the decades.

“To find something after 55 years, I hope we do it, but the chances are one in a million,” he said. “It would be like winning four lotteries in a row. You need to use a little common sense and be reasonable and logical about it.”

The retired investigator challenged the individual or the group responsible for the disappearance of the Toddler to come forward.

“What about doing something for Cheryl, this little girl you have removed and having what you have done and (giving) families here in Australia and England … a certain peace,” he said.

The tragedy sends sorrows of sorrow through families. Ricki Nash’s daughter, Melanie Grimmer, has four children. She also impatiently awaits research news in a command post on the side of the road.

“I know that my father hopes that nothing is found. I hope she found, I hope that the little girl is coming home. My family has lived so much and that it is a continuous fight,” she told the BBC. “I feel sick in my stomach here.”

Many has changed since 1970. But one thing remains firm – the determination of a mourning family to discover the truth.