Not too late: search for child missing for 55 years

The search for the remains of a three-year-old girl who disappeared more than half a century ago during a day at the beach with her family has resumed.

Cheryl Gene Grimmer was abducted on January 12, 1970, outside a shower block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, on the NSW south coast.

She was enjoying a day at the beach with her mother and three brothers.

In the following decades, numerous searches found little to indicate what happened to her.

Now, NSW Police are mounting a fresh search with the assistance of specialist officers after receiving information from a member of the public.

This information led police to bushland in the Wollongong suburb of Balgownie on Thursday afternoon, marking the start of the new search effort.

At the time of Cheryl's kidnapping, witnesses reported seeing an unknown male carrying a child to a car park.

In 2011, a coronial inquest found Cheryl was very likely dead, although the cause and manner of her death are undetermined.

NSW Police re-investigated in 2012 and arrested a suspect who was extradited from Victoria.

He was charged with her murder in 2017.

But the man, who was about 15 years old when Cheryl vanished, pleaded not guilty ahead of a pending trial.

In the end, prosecutors dropped the charges against him because a confession he made as a minor during a 1971 police interview was ruled inadmissible by the Supreme Court.

This was because no parent, adult or legal practitioner was present at any stage of the interview, raising concerns about how the boy was cautioned.

In 2020, NSW Police announced a $1 million reward for information about the abduction and likely murder of Cheryl.