Brother weeps as little Cheryl’s suspected killer named
Farid Farid and Jack Gramenz |
Revealing the name and confession of a man who admitted killing a three-year-old more than five decades ago has been a hard choice for a grieving family.
Under privilege in the NSW parliament and with the blessing of Cheryl Grimmer’s family, MP Jeremy Buckingham identified the suspect known by the pseudonym “Mercury” and read out his confession to police in 1971.
Mercury was accused of abducting and murdering Cheryl while she enjoyed a day at the beach with her mother and three brothers in January 1970.
But he never faced trial after a court ruled the then-teenager’s confession could not be used.
After Mr Buckingham’s speech, Cheryl’s brother Paul Grimmer broke down in tears and was unable to get through a prepared media statement.
His wife Linda gently wrapped her arm around him and read his words.
“The details of Mercury’s confession have caused our family immense heartache,” she told reporters.
“He has been given the opportunity to declare his innocence or guilt, yet he has chosen to remain silent.
“Once Mercury’s confession is made public, we believe people will understand why we felt we had no choice but to accept Jeremy Buckingham’s offer of support.”
The man’s name remains suppressed by the courts, a fact Mr Buckingham was warned about moments before he read a signed transcript of a 1971 police confession in parliament.
The family hopes the confronting and gruesome details will spur people to come forward to police.
“We are not seeking to harm Mercury or his family,” Ms Grimmer said.
“What we want is now the truth … so that Mercury can be questioned in a court of law and justice for Cheryl can finally be served.”
Mercury was 15 at the time Cheryl went missing from Fairy Meadow beach, south of Sydney, and he was 17 when interviewed.
In the account transcribed by police, the teenager bound and gagged Cheryl after kidnapping her outside a toilet block.
“I’m worried I did something to the little girl,” the teen said, according to the transcript read out by the Legalise Cannabis Party MP.
“I had to put my hands over her mouth to stop her screaming.
“I must have strangled her … she stopped breathing and stopped crying and I thought she was dead, so I panicked and covered her up with bushes and ran for it.”
Wearing red and white ribbons, the distraught members of Cheryl’s family were in the upper-house chamber as Mr Buckingham spoke, choking back tears at times.
The MP called for police to re-investigate the case.
Cheryl’s disappearance has been subject to multiple police investigations and a coronial inquest that determined she had likely died.
Mercury was charged with Cheryl’s murder and extradited from Victoria in 2017.
But as he prepared to fight the charge at trial in 2019, the NSW Supreme Court ruled the 1971 police confession was inadmissible because he was an unaccompanied minor at the time.
Prosecutors did not appeal and withdrew the murder charge because of a lack of other evidence.
The toddler’s disappearance was the subject of a 10-episode BBC podcast, Fairy Meadow, in 2022 that attracted millions of listeners worldwide.
The family credited the series with keeping Cheryl’s name in the public sphere.
Mr Buckingham said identifying Mercury was about achieving justice for the young girl.
“The criminal justice system failed her 50 years ago and it failed her more recently with the inadmissibility of the confession,” he told AAP.
Cheryl’s case is one of many missing persons and unsolved murder cases subject to a recently established parliamentary inquiry, to be chaired by Mr Buckingham.
A search in Wollongong earlier in October turned up bones later determined to be from an animal.
AAP
