Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Justice Denied: The Cheryl Grimmer Case | Ricki Nash

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Justice Denied: The Cheryl Grimmer Case | Ricki Nash · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appoche production. This podcast contains discussion of child sexual assault
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Speaker 1: and psychological trauma. It's not recommended for younger listeners and
0:17
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
0:25
Speaker 1: I'm your host Adam Shand. The disappearance and probable murder
0:29
Speaker 1: of three year old Cheryl Grimmer at Ferry Meadow Beach
0:32
Speaker 1: near Wollongong in New South Wales has become one of
0:35
Speaker 1: Australia's best known cold cases one of the state's most
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Speaker 1: tragic and baffling miss traits. Three year old Cheryl Grimmer
0:43
Speaker 1: disappeared from a Woongong beach more than five decades ago.
0:48
Speaker 1: On January twelfth, nineteen seventy. Cheryl was with her family
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Speaker 1: on the beach. It was a blistering hot day before
0:55
Speaker 1: a cool change hit at one thirty pm, sending people
0:58
Speaker 1: scrambling off the beach. Cheryl's mum, Carol, sent her daughter
1:03
Speaker 1: and her brothers to the shower block to wash before
1:06
Speaker 1: going home. Ten minutes later, seven year old Ricky went
1:10
Speaker 1: back to his mother to say Cheryl was refusing to
1:13
Speaker 1: come out of the shower block. When Carol Grimmer got
1:16
Speaker 1: to the shower block, Cheryl had disappeared. She's never been located, but.
1:22
Speaker 2: My daughter I would like her buck unharmed as early
1:26
Speaker 2: as quick as possible.
1:28
Speaker 1: A year later, a troubled youth confessed to police, but
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Speaker 1: he was the one who'd abducted and murdered Cheryl.
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Speaker 2: He gained detectives a detailed confession, but that admission didn't
1:39
Speaker 2: mean it was case closed.
1:42
Speaker 1: But he was dismissed as an attention seeker and set free.
1:48
Speaker 1: In March twenty seventeen, that individual was arrested and charged
1:52
Speaker 1: was Cheryl's murder after New South Vald's detectives had discovered
1:56
Speaker 1: the confession and corroborated key elements of it. However, the
2:00
Speaker 1: prosecution was abruptly halted after a judge found that the
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Speaker 1: nineteen seven only one confession was inadmissible because an adult
2:09
Speaker 1: was not present. Despite this crushing blow, Cheryl's brother Ricky
2:14
Speaker 1: continues to fight for justice for his sister. Meanwhile, the suspect,
2:19
Speaker 1: who cannot be named, hides behind the pseudonym Mercury. Ricky
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Speaker 1: continues to fight and mate, it's a pleasure to welcome
2:27
Speaker 1: you to real crime. Thank you, you've been very busy.
2:31
Speaker 1: I think of all the cases that I cover these
2:33
Speaker 1: long term missing persons cases. It's always about pressure. You've
2:38
Speaker 1: never stopped, You've never never stopped. How are you going now?
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Speaker 2: Still still a battle? Mate's still a battle. And if
2:46
Speaker 2: I stop, or my family stop, on my brothers or
2:49
Speaker 2: my cousin in the UK, we've got family fighting in
2:51
Speaker 2: the UK for us as well. I mean, if we stop,
2:55
Speaker 2: Cheryl gets forgotten. Case will never hear the light of
3:00
Speaker 2: day in court. Boy stopped back in nineteen seventy one
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Speaker 2: and they just put all the boxes into the archives
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Speaker 2: and send them off to homicide. And that's where they sat,
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Speaker 2: per near on forty five years until twenty sixteen, because.
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Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen could have been a moment where you went.
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Speaker 1: That's just the ultimate roadblock. Where the judge says the
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Speaker 1: confession from nineteen seventy one by Mercury, which is so detailed,
3:27
Speaker 1: so corroborated by other witnesses and other evidence, where the
3:31
Speaker 1: judge says, on the basis of this sack the children's
3:34
Speaker 1: criminal proceedings at that this confession was not admissible because
3:40
Speaker 1: allegedly there wasn't an adult supervising or assisting Mercury as
3:45
Speaker 1: we call it, because of legal reasons there wasn't an
3:47
Speaker 1: adult there at the time of this very very good confession.
3:52
Speaker 1: A lot of people would have just gone, that's too much,
3:55
Speaker 1: it's too hard. I can't change the law as well
3:57
Speaker 1: as find the killer, motivate police, keep my own family together,
4:02
Speaker 1: keep my own sanity through all this. It's cost you
4:05
Speaker 1: a lot, but you didn't stop. And I love the
4:08
Speaker 1: way you've kept at it. And you kept hammering me.
4:11
Speaker 1: What have you got? Do you know anybody else? And
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Speaker 1: I referred you to a couple of lawyers that I knew,
4:15
Speaker 1: and they kind of said the same thing, that there's
4:17
Speaker 1: nothing more you can do, but or you're indefatigable.
4:21
Speaker 2: Allegedly not in the room. What if there was somebody there,
4:25
Speaker 2: like You've got to understand. His confession was given after
4:30
Speaker 2: police were called to the juvenile Boys' home in Sydney.
4:35
Speaker 2: They were rung by a person by the name of
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Speaker 2: mister Leckey, who was one of the terrors at the home. Mercury,
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Speaker 2: as he's known, informed mister Lecky that he had some
4:46
Speaker 2: information about the Cheryl Griomer case. Mister Lecky, after being
4:50
Speaker 2: hearing this information, felt that police should have a chat
4:54
Speaker 2: to this guy. So police were invited into the home
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Speaker 2: just to go there and listen to what information he
5:02
Speaker 2: might have on the Cheryl Grumer case. Then after chatting
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Speaker 2: to him and the conversation starts, they realize and they
5:12
Speaker 2: cautioned him. They stop him when they realize he's starting
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Speaker 2: to confess to the crime, and that's when they take
5:18
Speaker 2: his confession. But was mister Lecky still in the room.
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Speaker 2: He's been invited like police have been invited. Isn't that
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Speaker 2: consent enough? Been invited into the home where he resides.
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Speaker 2: Isn't that consent enough for police to do their job?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? I agree, and I think there's even some, at
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Speaker 1: least in my mind, confusion about well, where was he
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Speaker 1: in the home? Where did this interview even take place?
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Speaker 2: Correct? Was it just sitting in the launch room where
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Speaker 2: there are other people listening to it in the background,
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Speaker 2: although they weren't part of the conversation. Were there his
5:53
Speaker 2: minders were there if they felt that he was threatened
5:57
Speaker 2: in any way? This was in his home, not a
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Speaker 2: police station. And as I say, police were invited, they
6:03
Speaker 2: didn't go there to take a confession from him. He
6:06
Speaker 2: starts to confess. It was, as mister Finlay said, one
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Speaker 2: of the officers that was dictating the confession. He says,
6:14
Speaker 2: it was just free, it flowed. We didn't have to
6:18
Speaker 2: stop him. We had to slow him up because he
6:20
Speaker 2: couldn't type quick enough. He didn't go back, he didn't
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Speaker 2: change his conversation in any way. It was just free flowing.
6:29
Speaker 2: He just wanted to get it off his chest, so
6:31
Speaker 2: thinly described to us, and unfortunately for us after that,
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Speaker 2: I mean, he then participated in a walk a few
6:39
Speaker 2: days later, once again permission from the home take him
6:43
Speaker 2: out of the home to do the walk through. So
6:46
Speaker 2: police were doing everything right at the time until it
6:50
Speaker 2: became time do we take this to the courts or
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Speaker 2: do we put it into a carboard box and forget
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Speaker 2: about it for forty five years, which is what they've done.
6:59
Speaker 2: And this is so detailed. I recently met with the
7:04
Speaker 2: Shadow ag at Parliament House in Sydney and he raised
7:08
Speaker 2: a very valid question. Why wasn't he spoken to a
7:11
Speaker 2: year later when he was eighteen? Why wasn't he spoken
7:13
Speaker 2: to over the years. Why did it take forty five
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Speaker 2: years for this confession to be looked at again when
7:21
Speaker 2: homicide should be reviewing their cases. I would have at
7:24
Speaker 2: least thought yearly.
7:26
Speaker 1: Because I understand somebody in the system of police at
7:30
Speaker 1: the time decided that Mercury was an attention seeker, correct,
7:34
Speaker 1: and that he he is a disturbed kid. He's got
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Speaker 1: mental health issues, probably some drug addiction issues as well.
7:41
Speaker 1: But you make the very good point in the very
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Speaker 1: detailed eighteen nineteen pages summary, You've made that if you're
7:47
Speaker 1: going to snatch a three year old girl from the
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Speaker 1: beach stranger, you're disturbed in the first place.
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Speaker 2: You are, And in his confession, he doesn't just abduct
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Speaker 2: her and then murderer. He wants to have physical sexual
8:05
Speaker 2: intercourse with a three year old. You're not right in
8:09
Speaker 2: the head. You're not You're just not right in the head.
8:12
Speaker 1: With all due respect to Supreme Court Justice hum it's
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Speaker 1: not his faults specifically, but I see time and time
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Speaker 1: again the rights of the accused seemed to be looked
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Speaker 1: after more diligently than the rights of the victim.
8:29
Speaker 2: Cheryl's voice hasn't once been heard. He didn't take her
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Speaker 2: rights into consideration at any time when he handed down
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Speaker 2: his judgment. Based on this retrospectiff of aw you'd understand this.
8:41
Speaker 2: It's a law too that didn't come in for a
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Speaker 2: further six years down the track. Police done everything right
8:47
Speaker 2: on the day they cautioned him at the time. It
8:50
Speaker 2: did not need an adult present. Understand, if he was
8:54
Speaker 2: another eight months older, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Speaker 2: He'd be locked up because the confession would have been
9:01
Speaker 2: allowed in because it would have been eighteen even six
9:04
Speaker 2: years later when the laws changed. This retrospective law surely
9:09
Speaker 2: was not put in place to protect a self confess
9:13
Speaker 2: child murderer.
9:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you make the point about possible vested
9:17
Speaker 1: interest in this, and I think the system tends to
9:19
Speaker 1: look after itself.
9:20
Speaker 2: Yep.
9:20
Speaker 1: It doesn't like these inconvenient cases that ten particularly non
9:24
Speaker 1: lawyers who come in and they change laws and they
9:26
Speaker 1: change the way police have done things. But I can
9:30
Speaker 1: see some pretty basic flaws in the original police investigation.
9:33
Speaker 1: For instance, why was there no interview with mister Lecky
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Speaker 1: at the time to say, tell us the circumstances of
9:41
Speaker 1: why we're here. Because just as helm in his wisdom says,
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Speaker 1: it's possible that Mercury was beguiled into a confession, even
9:52
Speaker 1: within the laws and the conditions and the terms of
9:55
Speaker 1: the day, it's important to know the context of a confession.
9:59
Speaker 1: What was Mercury doing before this? At what point did
10:02
Speaker 1: Lecky believe it was time to call the police. If
10:05
Speaker 1: that had been done, we might have had a bit
10:07
Speaker 1: more detail of what was actually going on in the
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Speaker 1: home on that day. What we don't So we were
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Speaker 1: starting behind the eight ball from the beginning, unfortunately.
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Speaker 2: And you know, there are many things. I mean, when
10:18
Speaker 2: you get such a detailed confession, an eight page home
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Speaker 2: page confession, and one of the officers at the time,
10:27
Speaker 2: mister Finlay, he said if he was not the junior officer,
10:31
Speaker 2: he was a senior officer, he would have charged him
10:34
Speaker 2: because he believed every word he was saying. At the time.
10:37
Speaker 2: We're only fourteen months after Cheryl's gone missing. There are
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Speaker 2: lots of witnesses that still remember a lot of information.
10:45
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people on that beach. What
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Speaker 2: did they not put him in a lineup and just
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Speaker 2: see who could pick him? What was he at the
10:52
Speaker 2: beach on the day? That would have been a stunt.
10:55
Speaker 2: Why did they not video the walkthrough that they'd done
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Speaker 2: with him where Vickery took them? Why did they not
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Speaker 2: have photographic evidence? This is a very detail confession. I mean,
11:06
Speaker 2: why wasn't correct policing done, or if it's done, if
11:11
Speaker 2: it's somewhere, where is it buried? I mean you would think.
11:15
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy, a few days after Cheryl went missing,
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Speaker 2: police received a ransom note. Unfortunately, they advertised what was
11:25
Speaker 2: in that ransom note to the general public where the
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Speaker 2: ransom was due to be picked up on the Saturday
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Speaker 2: eleven am at Bullye Library And it's like a circus.
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Speaker 1: I was selling ice creams.
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Speaker 2: They were selling ice creams. And Wollongong University professor said
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Speaker 2: he was actually there on the day. It's in the podcast,
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Speaker 2: the Ferry Meadow Podcast and he said he's thought it
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Speaker 2: was just fascical. How could you do this? This is
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Speaker 2: the only solid lead that they had. This is within
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Speaker 2: the week of Cheryl going missing. Yet they advertise it
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Speaker 2: to the world and they turn it into a circus.
12:02
Speaker 1: And particularly looking back on it now, the handwriting expert
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Speaker 1: called Clark goes down there and looks at this letter
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Speaker 1: which says if you give us ten thousand dollars, will
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Speaker 1: handshare all over. He concludes that it's the handwriting of
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Speaker 1: a fourteen or fifteen year old individual. Yes, well, surprise, surprise,
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Speaker 1: Mercury was exactly that age at that time.
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Speaker 2: Yes he was.
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Speaker 1: And I wonder even now, and you maybe i'd answer
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Speaker 1: this question. I presume that letter is still in the
12:30
Speaker 1: evidence somewhere.
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Speaker 2: Yes it is.
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Speaker 1: Could it not be compared to an example of Mercury's
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Speaker 1: handwriting today? Has a Has that been done?
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Speaker 2: I believe it should, and I believe it hasn't been
12:39
Speaker 2: done to this date. I mean, here, you've got thirteen
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Speaker 2: months later, this now seventeen year old confesses in detail.
12:50
Speaker 2: Thirteen months ago, you get a ransom note where you believe,
12:54
Speaker 2: with your experts looking at it was written by a
12:56
Speaker 2: fourteen to fifteen year old. Wouldn't you connect the two
12:59
Speaker 2: dots and say, okay, well, let's have a look at this.
13:02
Speaker 2: It's still a lineup. Let's do this thing. This really
13:05
Speaker 2: needs to be looked at.
13:07
Speaker 1: I go only assume that they thought, oh, this couldn't
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Speaker 1: be a teenage boy. How could someone have done this
13:14
Speaker 1: heenous crime? This must be either someone known to the fact.
13:18
Speaker 1: The problem is, in those days these things were almost
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Speaker 1: a social welfare issue rather than a police matter. When
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Speaker 1: kids went missing and the finger of suspicion was normally
13:27
Speaker 1: pointed at the family first, that something must have happened
13:29
Speaker 1: and they're coming up. The Bonones went through the same
13:31
Speaker 1: process years earlier and in South Australia, so inexplicable mistakes
13:37
Speaker 1: one after the other. And we can go to the
13:40
Speaker 1: details of many stuff ups that have happened since. But
13:43
Speaker 1: I wonder an overarching apology to your family has it
13:47
Speaker 1: ever been delivered now?
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Speaker 2: Even recently when I've attended a search with the Sydney
13:54
Speaker 2: Search Dog Team.
13:55
Speaker 1: Police.
13:56
Speaker 2: Eventually after the Sydney Search Dog Team locating what they
14:01
Speaker 2: believe some human remains, showed up on Friday last Friday,
14:07
Speaker 2: three hours late, sat around, done nothing, didn't come and
14:10
Speaker 2: talk to me or anything. I'm standing there and there
14:13
Speaker 2: was lots of media there and stuff like that. They
14:15
Speaker 2: couldn't even have the decency to come over and say hello,
14:18
Speaker 2: where he now? Will do what we can for you
14:20
Speaker 2: and the family? Nothing. They sent their Cadiva dog along
14:25
Speaker 2: with a couple of officers up to the area. Press
14:28
Speaker 2: weren't allowed up there, we weren't allowed that, no photos
14:31
Speaker 2: take and know nothing. Yet within forty minutes they come
14:34
Speaker 2: back with what they call bones. Didn't tell us it
14:37
Speaker 2: was in the report later on a few hours later,
14:40
Speaker 2: and then a few hours later these were determined to
14:43
Speaker 2: be animal bones. So they looked for forty minutes and
14:45
Speaker 2: that was their effort for the day, and that was
14:49
Speaker 2: enough for them.
14:51
Speaker 1: You'll talk about this search. I think it's a very
14:53
Speaker 1: important piece of the evidence because Mercury and his confession
14:57
Speaker 1: and his discussions with the police afterwards, nominates a specific
15:01
Speaker 1: place where he took Cheryl and attempted to her, strangled her,
15:07
Speaker 1: and then left her body under a tree or next
15:11
Speaker 1: to a tree covered in brush. And days later there's
15:15
Speaker 1: a report from a local same there's flocks of crows
15:18
Speaker 1: over that area and it corresponds to the same place
15:22
Speaker 1: broke his nose. I believe it's called in balgowniep How
15:25
Speaker 1: far is that away from very minute?
15:27
Speaker 2: About three kilometers so about a thirty minute.
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Speaker 1: Walk right, Quite possible to walk there. So never searched,
15:35
Speaker 1: never searched. So Chris Darcy, for whom I have tremendous
15:39
Speaker 1: admiration for what he does. What an asset to have
15:41
Speaker 1: in your team. So he comes along with Rufus the dog.
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Speaker 1: You were there when the search was going on, tell
15:46
Speaker 1: us what happened.
15:48
Speaker 2: Started and early in the morning we got there sixty
15:52
Speaker 2: minutes for there. They were there for a bit and
15:55
Speaker 2: then once we got going, Chris myself, we've just started walking,
15:59
Speaker 2: started let the dog do it. Seeing I just stayed back,
16:02
Speaker 2: stayed out of the way. And it wasn't till really
16:05
Speaker 2: late in the afternoon, and funny enough, I had a
16:09
Speaker 2: I just wanted some time out on my own, because
16:10
Speaker 2: I'd sort of been busy with sixty minutes in the morning,
16:14
Speaker 2: and I just wanted some time out. So I just
16:15
Speaker 2: started walking through the creek bed looking for areas from
16:20
Speaker 2: my point of view, that haven't been disturbed in the
16:22
Speaker 2: last forty to fifty sixty years. I wanted to find areas,
16:27
Speaker 2: and I found a bit at the top of the
16:28
Speaker 2: creek that to me looked untouched for the last fifty
16:33
Speaker 2: sixty years. And I just sat there for a bit,
16:37
Speaker 2: and then I went back down and Chris was having
16:39
Speaker 2: a bit of a rest and Rufus was having a rest,
16:41
Speaker 2: and I asked Chris, I said, look, would you mind
16:44
Speaker 2: having a look up at the top section of this
16:45
Speaker 2: creek area? He said, yore, whatever the family is, whatever
16:49
Speaker 2: you need, And later that afternoon he took Rufus up
16:53
Speaker 2: at the top of the creek and he came back
16:55
Speaker 2: and he said, we may have located something. Ricky, he said,
16:59
Speaker 2: but don't want you're anywhere near it. But we may
17:02
Speaker 2: have located something, so can stay out of that. I
17:06
Speaker 2: was shaking because I thought it was a one in
17:08
Speaker 2: in a ten million shot of finding something. Anyway, he said, look,
17:13
Speaker 2: we're going to let everything cool down today. We've had enough.
17:16
Speaker 2: I'm going to come early tomorrow morning with the dog.
17:19
Speaker 2: I don't want you here. I'm just going to let
17:22
Speaker 2: Rupus do his thing.
17:23
Speaker 1: Because it's potentially a crime scene. You don't want any
17:26
Speaker 1: possibility that the family might have interfered or done something
17:30
Speaker 1: to contaminate the crime scene. It's a really sensitive moment.
17:34
Speaker 2: Very and I mean Rufus and Chris, they're really not
17:38
Speaker 2: looking for bones. They're looking for something in the soil,
17:42
Speaker 2: DNA residue because it's been now approaching fifty six years.
17:47
Speaker 1: And depending on the acidity of the soil, often there
17:50
Speaker 1: is nothing left there except traces of residue of human remains.
17:54
Speaker 1: And Chris was very clear when I spoke to him
17:57
Speaker 1: during that search. He said, we're not looking for bones,
18:00
Speaker 1: it's a residue. So he understood the soils there and he.
18:03
Speaker 2: Believed that the soil there is great soil to hold DNA,
18:08
Speaker 2: to hold residue within the soil. And then when I
18:11
Speaker 2: went back that morning, he said, the dog has gone
18:15
Speaker 2: back to the same area Riki and has done the
18:17
Speaker 2: same reaction, not the normal reaction that the dog would
18:21
Speaker 2: normally give, but a reaction in the identical same place
18:26
Speaker 2: that he found the day before. So under consultation he
18:30
Speaker 2: spoke to Frank sam Viertali was at the research as well.
18:33
Speaker 1: He was the original well not the vision but the
18:34
Speaker 1: investigators into twenty fifteen sixteen with Damian Luhn, who really
18:40
Speaker 1: breathe life into this whole investigation.
18:42
Speaker 2: And after they spoke for a while, Chris felt that
18:45
Speaker 2: it was prudent now to call police in and what
18:49
Speaker 2: he said, he believes it now to be a crime area.
18:53
Speaker 2: Police came later that afternoon, no dogs, no nothing, went
18:57
Speaker 2: up and had a look. Didn't leave anybody at the
19:00
Speaker 2: site to guard the site overnight, just said look, we'll
19:03
Speaker 2: come back at nine am on the Friday morning with
19:07
Speaker 2: a dog with their own dog and forensics. They did
19:11
Speaker 2: speak to me on that Thursday to detectives that I
19:14
Speaker 2: never saw on the Friday and said, look, we'll bring forensics,
19:18
Speaker 2: we'll bring our dog down, we'll start nine am Friday morning.
19:23
Speaker 2: And I questioned them at the time, and I said, well,
19:25
Speaker 2: if it's a crime, so now would you not tape
19:28
Speaker 2: it off and leave somebody here overnight? I believe one
19:31
Speaker 2: of the officers did try made an attempt to have
19:35
Speaker 2: somebody stationed near the site, but that fell on death
19:40
Speaker 2: is and no one was left there. So anybody could
19:42
Speaker 2: have went on the site would have been a bit
19:45
Speaker 2: difficult to find, but you know, it could have happened.
19:47
Speaker 2: Somebody could have went to this. Well, the practice diligence,
19:51
Speaker 2: show some effort. I felt, Ill, if my sister is
19:55
Speaker 2: there and she's been there for near on fifty six years,
19:59
Speaker 2: lying there on her own, now, I mean, I wasn't
20:02
Speaker 2: the search a done right back in the day, you know,
20:05
Speaker 2: the day that Mercury took and led police to that site.
20:10
Speaker 2: Why wasn't a diligent search done then?
20:13
Speaker 1: Well, wasn't there the excuse profited that, Well, it was
20:18
Speaker 1: a dairy farm when this has occurred, But there was
20:21
Speaker 1: a housing development by the time they go back again,
20:23
Speaker 1: so the area is now, it's changed.
20:27
Speaker 2: Was that the excuse back in the day most likely,
20:30
Speaker 2: but it's untouched this area that we were conducting and
20:35
Speaker 2: with Sydney search dogs, it's untouched. Funny enough, there's a
20:40
Speaker 2: house directly across the road from where Chris and his
20:43
Speaker 2: team set up camp, and there was an Oldish lady
20:48
Speaker 2: out the front doing her gardening and looking wondering what
20:51
Speaker 2: was going on. As a lot of the locals came
20:54
Speaker 2: out and offered to make lunch and teas and coffee
20:57
Speaker 2: because they know about Cheryl and stuff like that. When
20:59
Speaker 2: they realized it was a search for Cheryl, and Frank
21:03
Speaker 2: sam Fittali happened to be speaking to the lady across
21:06
Speaker 2: the road. She's an old Italian lady. She's been there
21:10
Speaker 2: over sixty years. She has photos of what he documents
21:16
Speaker 2: in his confession, where the category was, where the fence
21:19
Speaker 2: line is, where the serpentine trees were. Everything he's got
21:23
Speaker 2: in his confession. We believe she has photos. She can
21:26
Speaker 2: remember the cattlegory, she remembers the serpentine trees, she remembers
21:30
Speaker 2: the wire.
21:32
Speaker 1: I love the diligence of San Vitali and Loon whereby
21:36
Speaker 1: the caval grid gets excluded at some point because it
21:39
Speaker 1: couldn't have been there at that time. But then there's
21:41
Speaker 1: more inquiries and no, no, actually it was there, and
21:43
Speaker 1: another witnesses found to actually corroborate that. So all along
21:47
Speaker 1: I see a strange reluctance to accept key planks of
21:52
Speaker 1: Mercury's confession and to exclude them as superficially as possible.
21:57
Speaker 1: And it's been your job and a couple of diligent
22:00
Speaker 1: police to actually reinstate this confession. And of course they hadn't.
22:04
Speaker 1: They were the first ones to look at this. I mean,
22:07
Speaker 1: this has been there since nineteen seventy one. And I
22:10
Speaker 1: note that there was one of the reviews was a
22:12
Speaker 1: detective who was at the academy doing an assignment, and
22:16
Speaker 1: he could find it. But then when you get to
22:17
Speaker 1: the inquest, so twenty eleven, I think it was they
22:20
Speaker 1: can't even find the two suspects. They can't find Mercury
22:23
Speaker 1: with the other Poratini I think his name was.
22:25
Speaker 2: It's correct.
22:26
Speaker 1: They couldn't even find them. It couldn't curse the research.
22:28
Speaker 1: And then lun and Sanvitali find him in two hours, Mercury.
22:32
Speaker 2: Under two hours. They had his address, God had his
22:34
Speaker 2: driver's license. Yet I think his name Sergeant Dark. At
22:39
Speaker 2: the time him and his team went. He done the
22:43
Speaker 2: review for the twenty eleven inquest, and I may have
22:45
Speaker 2: took forty one years for an inquest. There's another story,
22:49
Speaker 2: and part of that inquest was the guy in the
22:52
Speaker 2: academy doing a review in the academy. Wow. Okay, so
22:57
Speaker 2: not even a police officer yet, and that's part of
23:00
Speaker 2: what he had to do to get his detective badge
23:03
Speaker 2: and so on. But when question by the coroner, mister
23:08
Speaker 2: Dark informed the coroner that his team had made an
23:11
Speaker 2: exhaustive effort to find the author of this confession. So
23:16
Speaker 2: it was touched on in the twenty eleven inquest, which
23:19
Speaker 2: I wasn't part of. I wasn't there. But another five
23:23
Speaker 2: or six years later, the author can be found in
23:26
Speaker 2: hours by one detective.
23:29
Speaker 1: He's not hiding, although he did. I know that he
23:30
Speaker 1: did change his name at a certain point.
23:33
Speaker 2: He has changed his name for reasons unbeknown so us.
23:36
Speaker 2: Why you wonder that's great? So did mister Dark mislead
23:42
Speaker 2: the coroner or did he blatantly lie to the coroner?
23:46
Speaker 3: Well, in my experience, conspiracy or funck. U've always go
23:50
Speaker 3: for a fuck up and I think that's probably what
23:53
Speaker 3: we'll be looking at here. Pretty lazy effort. I don't
23:54
Speaker 3: want to fame the man, but I think a pretty
23:56
Speaker 3: lazy effort. And I think the evidence speaks for itself.
23:59
Speaker 3: They couldn't find the main suspect, really, and everyone went
24:02
Speaker 3: along with that. I mean, I think a decent coroner
24:04
Speaker 3: would have said, go on, go back and do some
24:07
Speaker 3: more work.
24:07
Speaker 2: Find the death certificate of the author, okay, because they
24:11
Speaker 2: knew who the author was. And as I say, six
24:14
Speaker 2: years later, he was found in a couple of hours
24:17
Speaker 2: by one detective, a couple of pushes of the keyboard,
24:19
Speaker 2: and there is larger than life. They had his address,
24:22
Speaker 2: they had his driver's license, they had where he worked,
24:25
Speaker 2: everything within hours. So either mister Dark, as I said,
24:29
Speaker 2: lied blatantly, lied, misled lazy. He should have said, look,
24:33
Speaker 2: we really haven't put in much effort to look for
24:36
Speaker 2: the author. We disregard the confession. I mean, the confession
24:41
Speaker 2: sat there for forty one years. Forty years sat there,
24:45
Speaker 2: such a detailed confession. I think police should be embarrassed
24:49
Speaker 2: that they didn't pick it up again and look at it,
24:51
Speaker 2: you know, over the years, and say, oh, was this
24:54
Speaker 2: guy wasting our top. Let's get him in again. Let's
24:56
Speaker 2: have a look at this, you know, I mean, because
24:59
Speaker 2: I suppose.
24:59
Speaker 1: You can see failure was search failure to find they
25:02
Speaker 1: stopped working on the case for forty odd years. What
25:07
Speaker 1: happens that at least evident of the family.
25:10
Speaker 2: Nothing, We were told nothing, they'd done nothing. They just
25:14
Speaker 2: forgot about Cheryl And when it did get picked up,
25:18
Speaker 2: is it now total embarrassment for them? In twenty and sixteen,
25:23
Speaker 2: You've got to understand the New South Wales authorities, the
25:27
Speaker 2: legal system gave mister Leerne, Damen Learn and Frank sam
25:31
Speaker 2: Bertali a warrant to arrest Mercury. So now it's all
25:36
Speaker 2: all of a sudden being taken very serious. He's going
25:39
Speaker 2: to be arrested, He's going to be charged. They formally
25:42
Speaker 2: interview him at Frankston Police station where he takes ownership
25:46
Speaker 2: of the confession. Again, He's charged, arrested and extradited, all
25:52
Speaker 2: approved by the authorities Victorian and New South Wales at
25:57
Speaker 2: the time. When he walks into Frankston Police station to
26:01
Speaker 2: be interviewed, he's told, you know, to bring lawyers come down.
26:06
Speaker 2: We're going to chat to you about something he knows
26:08
Speaker 2: what he's going to be spoken about, because he admitted.
26:12
Speaker 2: He basically confessed again to mister sam Fatali the week
26:16
Speaker 2: before when he rang Frank Samfertali to say, I believe
26:19
Speaker 2: you're looking for me. What's it in relation? And Frank said, well,
26:24
Speaker 2: you tell me. He actually says to Frank Samfertali, it's
26:29
Speaker 2: about something I've done years ago, and very beach he
26:32
Speaker 2: called it.
26:33
Speaker 1: Frank's a good detective, isn't he.
26:35
Speaker 2: As much as this has broken our family, it's broken
26:38
Speaker 2: him as well.
26:39
Speaker 1: He's yeah, he's told me in the past how the
26:42
Speaker 1: disappointment of this and the seeming like a common sense
26:47
Speaker 1: or anything he can has caused him lot of trauma.
26:51
Speaker 1: The fact that he has nightmares where he does see
26:53
Speaker 1: Cheryl and he feels like he failed.
26:55
Speaker 2: Well, he's challenging, understand, when he's supporting us, he's challenging
27:01
Speaker 2: what he worked twenty five years for in the police.
27:04
Speaker 2: He's that now and he can't put his finger on
27:07
Speaker 2: nor can any of us. Why Sheryl's case has been
27:11
Speaker 2: such a mess. And as I said, from the days,
27:14
Speaker 2: the first days that she went missing, he said, it's
27:18
Speaker 2: the case that no one wants heard now, as we
27:22
Speaker 2: believe no one wants this case heard because of these mistakes.
27:26
Speaker 2: We were told in twenty seventeen at the first hearing
27:31
Speaker 2: for mercury at Wongong Supreme Court, we were told by
27:36
Speaker 2: Crown Prosecutor we've got the right guy. They've got the
27:41
Speaker 2: right guy. He will be serving the rest of his
27:44
Speaker 2: life in jail or he will be fat found guilty.
27:47
Speaker 2: But for me to do that, unfortunately for you and
27:51
Speaker 2: your family, you're going to have to hear about all
27:54
Speaker 2: the mistakes that were made. He knows the mistakes, so
27:59
Speaker 2: now tell us as a family what those mistakes were.
28:02
Speaker 2: He says, I will stay on this case from the
28:06
Speaker 2: start to the very end. Two weeks later, he's moved
28:10
Speaker 2: off the case. So called gets a promotion in Sydney.
28:15
Speaker 2: Weeks later, Frank Sampatali's move left damn Loon who's got
28:20
Speaker 2: a promotion somewhere out towards Tanworth. So the three key
28:25
Speaker 2: players and they're still in this guy's locked up, put away.
28:29
Speaker 2: They're still working on one of Australia's oldest cold cases.
28:35
Speaker 2: We've got the perpetrator, he's locked away. Yet why do
28:39
Speaker 2: you move all the pieces of the chessboard. Why why
28:42
Speaker 2: would you do that?
28:43
Speaker 1: So we get twenty nineteen Supreme Court rules that his
28:47
Speaker 1: confession is inadmissible. He's clearly lying in one or other
28:53
Speaker 1: of his statements, so it all kind of all stops again.
28:58
Speaker 2: They just let him walk out in February of twenty nineteen,
29:02
Speaker 2: and they haven't spoken to him since. Yeah, we've given
29:06
Speaker 2: a lot of people came forward to our family and said, look,
29:10
Speaker 2: we've worked with this character. These are the things, these
29:13
Speaker 2: are his traits over many, many years, long before he
29:17
Speaker 2: was arrested in twenty seventeen. These are the things he
29:21
Speaker 2: used to do at his place of work. These are
29:23
Speaker 2: the things he used to show us. And believe it
29:26
Speaker 2: or not, he used to show his colleagues Cheryl's case
29:31
Speaker 2: and admitted to them. He said, if I'd done that,
29:33
Speaker 2: I'd never get caught. Well, so far he's right, but
29:38
Speaker 2: his time's running out.
29:40
Speaker 1: I've got a single out that source from his workplace
29:43
Speaker 1: who is just another fantastic supporter of you and your
29:46
Speaker 1: family and just never stops. I mean I get messages
29:49
Speaker 1: proving all the time, you know, but I take it
29:52
Speaker 1: seriously because he really cares. And you can see onny
29:55
Speaker 1: people do care, and to the point where other witnesses
29:59
Speaker 1: have come forward as a result of the BBC podcast
30:01
Speaker 1: Very Meta, in particular a young but he was then
30:05
Speaker 1: young nine and seventy seven year old boy with his
30:09
Speaker 1: migrant family living in the hostel there. He gives a
30:13
Speaker 1: very detailed description of seeing a youth carrying a young
30:18
Speaker 1: child away. I mean it's a dramatic scene. Obviously a hot,
30:22
Speaker 1: hot day, and the winds changed and suddenly the ear
30:25
Speaker 1: I was diving off the beach. He did itself and
30:28
Speaker 1: he captures all that detail. He comes forward. What's happened
30:33
Speaker 1: with his testimony?
30:34
Speaker 2: Not think they haven't even spoken to him, No statement taken,
30:38
Speaker 2: no nothing. I mean I believe they called him. Yeah,
30:42
Speaker 2: five minute conversations to say, look, we will interview you
30:45
Speaker 2: at a later date. Nothing to date.
30:49
Speaker 1: I did unsadly. I did follow up with Ane of
30:51
Speaker 1: the homicide detectives and ask that question why walk, Why
30:55
Speaker 1: wouldn't you And the response was well, there's no contemporaneous
31:00
Speaker 1: note at the time, there's no diagram, there's no drawing.
31:04
Speaker 1: We would be concerned that if he put him in
31:05
Speaker 1: the box, he would be destroyed, that he would that
31:09
Speaker 1: they could introduce the idea that he must have seen
31:11
Speaker 1: or heard the podcast or seen the publicity and they're
31:14
Speaker 1: simply making it up. How would you know until you
31:17
Speaker 1: meet him and take the statement. Okay, sit down with
31:21
Speaker 1: him for an hour or two.
31:21
Speaker 2: Damien Lehne actually spoke to him for over an hour,
31:25
Speaker 2: and Damien said he's very creditable and at the very
31:29
Speaker 2: least points should have taken his statement.
31:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this's probably the logical question is, well,
31:34
Speaker 1: why did you hang on to it for so long?
31:36
Speaker 1: Why didn't you say anything? At the time, I understand
31:39
Speaker 1: that they were recent arrivals in Australia, didn't have much English,
31:42
Speaker 1: did they have a television, so didn't understand the significance.
31:45
Speaker 1: But later on he realizes, hey, I think I've seen
31:49
Speaker 1: Cheryl Grimmer being abducted.
31:50
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'd have to sit down with him
31:54
Speaker 2: and ask his reasons and stuff. And obviously people that
31:57
Speaker 2: have known him that the BBC have spoken to as well,
32:00
Speaker 2: like people that know him today, said you know, is
32:03
Speaker 2: this guy looking for attention? And they all said no,
32:06
Speaker 2: this is eating him up over the years. He really
32:09
Speaker 2: didn't know what he saw on that day. Obviously, no
32:12
Speaker 2: televisions his family didn't have any televisions and it wasn't
32:15
Speaker 2: until years later that he realized what he saw. But
32:20
Speaker 2: I believed speaking with Damon, that he thought it was
32:22
Speaker 2: too late, there's nothing that could be done.
32:24
Speaker 1: Now.
32:24
Speaker 2: This was when I say years later, I mean many
32:26
Speaker 2: years later. He's now a teenager, he's got a new
32:29
Speaker 2: life in Australia now and stuff like that. So for
32:33
Speaker 2: him to come forward and want to speak to police
32:37
Speaker 2: at the time, it wasn't interested in the reward. He
32:41
Speaker 2: just wanted to tell them what he believed he saw
32:45
Speaker 2: on the day. Yeah, and also what I didn't know
32:47
Speaker 2: at the time. I spoke to that amicide detective who said,
32:50
Speaker 2: your witness is just a one out you get carved
32:53
Speaker 2: up in the box. What I didn't know he didn't
32:55
Speaker 2: know was that witness's later girlfriend corroborates his story.
33:02
Speaker 1: He told her.
33:03
Speaker 2: Many years ago, years before this million dollar reward. He
33:07
Speaker 2: actually told her. And there was another another lady that
33:11
Speaker 2: knows him. I believe she's a professor at Wollongong Universe
33:14
Speaker 2: and knows him as well, and he has told her
33:17
Speaker 2: the story over years as well what he saw on
33:19
Speaker 2: that day, and she urged him over the years to
33:22
Speaker 2: come forward and tell his story. He eventually has, you
33:27
Speaker 2: offer a million dollar reward, but you don't speak to
33:30
Speaker 2: like I believe, there's like three people that now have
33:32
Speaker 2: come forward as a result of the BBC or Meadow podcast,
33:37
Speaker 2: not one has been spoken to. There were five informants
33:42
Speaker 2: that came forward that used to work with Mercury, and
33:47
Speaker 2: not one of those have been spoken to. So we've
33:49
Speaker 2: now got eight people sitting out there with information that
33:53
Speaker 2: could get Cheryl's case moving forward. Eight people with solid information.
34:01
Speaker 2: There was one one work colleague that he stated he
34:05
Speaker 2: used to steal cars and drive them to Ferry Meadow Beach.
34:09
Speaker 2: That's pretty solid information because now you're saying you've never
34:13
Speaker 2: been to ferry Meadow Breach, but you've told a work
34:15
Speaker 2: colleague because you're in a I believe it's his way
34:18
Speaker 2: of gloating showing Cheryl's case. It's your way of gloating.
34:23
Speaker 2: You're getting it out there, You're feeling good about yourself,
34:26
Speaker 2: You've gotten away with it. It's not on the radar in Victoria.
34:31
Speaker 2: That's probably why hidden Victoria, because it's not on the radar.
34:34
Speaker 2: Advertised very heavily when it first happened and since twenty sixteen,
34:40
Speaker 2: but once again, mostly in New South Wales, he's avoided
34:45
Speaker 2: the spotlight. But from seventy one to twenty and sixteen
34:50
Speaker 2: there's nothing about Cheryl Grimmer. So he's feeling really comfortable
34:53
Speaker 2: in his work environment. I'm going to show my work
34:55
Speaker 2: colleagues we believe his own daughter thought she was Cheryl Grimmer.
35:01
Speaker 1: Yes, I've read this. Also, I don't think it's ever
35:03
Speaker 1: been any effort to try to look at the code
35:06
Speaker 1: of people who was in the Boy's Home or New
35:09
Speaker 1: Mercury back in those days. There's also evidence of another
35:13
Speaker 1: residence in Sydney separate to the Boy's Home where he
35:16
Speaker 1: was staying. What about the people who were with him
35:18
Speaker 1: at the time, where were they these days? There are records.
35:21
Speaker 1: I know they're on paper and that it'll take a
35:22
Speaker 1: while to find, but there are records of of he
35:25
Speaker 1: was with in the Boy's Home. If he's told mister Leckey,
35:28
Speaker 1: I'd back it, and he's told other people as well,
35:30
Speaker 1: his behavior was erratic because he was a disturbed young
35:33
Speaker 1: man who's potentially abducted, strangled and killed a three year
35:38
Speaker 1: old girl. So I mean, I'm going to make an
35:41
Speaker 1: offer to your witness today, because I think there's no
35:44
Speaker 1: way to push this forward except through the court of
35:47
Speaker 1: public opinion. And if his credibility is questioned, let's put
35:51
Speaker 1: him on a polygraph. Steve Van Apron, my friend and
35:55
Speaker 1: colleague from our Channel seven other show, would more than
35:58
Speaker 1: willingly put him on the polygraph and test his credibility
36:03
Speaker 1: and let the public decide whether this should or should
36:09
Speaker 1: not be tested or be spoken to by police. And
36:12
Speaker 1: I think this all comes back to and often say
36:14
Speaker 1: this when I deal with long term missing persons cases
36:16
Speaker 1: and murders as well, is a fresh inquest.
36:19
Speaker 2: We've pleaded for a fresh inquest because there is so
36:23
Speaker 2: much more information now available. You've got the five informants,
36:27
Speaker 2: You've got the three witnesses, You've now got the author
36:33
Speaker 2: of the confession. You've got everything now in front of you.
36:37
Speaker 2: I mean, we believe a lot of things that he does.
36:40
Speaker 2: Like even with mister Leckey, he said to mister Lecky
36:44
Speaker 2: when he was an escapee, he was in a juvenile
36:48
Speaker 2: detention home, had escaped when he had abducted a murdered cheryl,
36:54
Speaker 2: and when he was sort of brought back to the home,
36:56
Speaker 2: he actually said to mister Lecky while it was the
37:00
Speaker 2: boy's shelter in Sydney. He actually says to mister Lacky,
37:04
Speaker 2: he said, I'm going to have to pay for what
37:06
Speaker 2: I've done when I was on the run, and mister
37:09
Speaker 2: lake he said, well what did you do? He said,
37:12
Speaker 2: I killed a security guard in a blue shirt. Hey,
37:17
Speaker 2: you didn't he killed a little three year old in
37:19
Speaker 2: a blue swimming costume. I believe he's a great manipulator.
37:24
Speaker 2: I believe he likes to play games. I believe he's
37:28
Speaker 2: a lot smarter than what police had given him credit for.
37:31
Speaker 2: And who knows what hells he's done.
37:33
Speaker 1: Well, he's certainly's shown. I think it's on the record
37:36
Speaker 1: that he has an ability to manipulate authority. He sets
37:40
Speaker 1: out to do this, and I think he even saw
37:41
Speaker 1: it during the court process in twenty nineteen and before then,
37:45
Speaker 1: that he runs these psychiatrists around in circles.
37:50
Speaker 2: Well understand too, he sat in a prison cell for
37:56
Speaker 2: two years. On the morning of the hearing of the
37:59
Speaker 2: final hearing where Justice him made his decision, the psychiatrist
38:05
Speaker 2: working for the DPP, Now this guy sat in John
38:09
Speaker 2: for two years, comes late to the case, hasn't read
38:13
Speaker 2: the confession, over the two years, hasn't even spoken to
38:17
Speaker 2: Mercury once. Sitting in a New South Wales Security maximum
38:22
Speaker 2: security jail. There was no effort by the DPP, by
38:28
Speaker 2: the New South Wales Authority to look into this guy.
38:31
Speaker 2: He just sat there. No one spoke to him. No
38:34
Speaker 2: one went in to say, you know, this is what
38:37
Speaker 2: you're being charged with, this is what's happened, to tell
38:39
Speaker 2: us you view and have a chat to him. No psychologists,
38:44
Speaker 2: as I say, the New South Wales authorities. He arrives
38:48
Speaker 2: late to the final hearing, not read the confession. Where's
38:54
Speaker 2: the seriousness in batting for Cheryl here? No one's helping
38:59
Speaker 2: a little defenseless three year old. You've got a guy
39:02
Speaker 2: locked up and you say you have got no opportunity
39:06
Speaker 2: to go and have a chat to him. Well, I
39:07
Speaker 2: can tell you where he was in silver Water if
39:10
Speaker 2: you look up the address and the Yellow Pages come
39:13
Speaker 2: and find him. He's really sitting there.
39:15
Speaker 1: When you think of the cost of these proceedings, and
39:16
Speaker 1: they're huge when they get these expert witnesses in My
39:19
Speaker 1: dad was a psychiatrist and that was part of his
39:21
Speaker 1: business was to do just these sort of cases. He
39:23
Speaker 1: took them very seriously fortunately, But I'm not going to
39:26
Speaker 1: cast dispersions on this particular psychiatrist. But I think the
39:29
Speaker 1: facts speak for themselves, and I think these sort of
39:31
Speaker 1: aspects should be tested in the corridor's court in the
39:34
Speaker 1: fresh inquestion. There's certainly illegal path to do that with
39:37
Speaker 1: his fresh and compelling evidence, but also to review the
39:39
Speaker 1: entire police case, which has never really been done. You've
39:43
Speaker 1: got what I'm calling the thermonuclear option. Now. Jeremy Buckingham,
39:47
Speaker 1: Member of Parliament New South Wales has offered to use
39:50
Speaker 1: parliamentary privilege to name Mercury publicly. It's a big step.
39:56
Speaker 2: It's a huge step, and my brothers and I we
40:00
Speaker 2: spoke about it over the last week, family members in
40:05
Speaker 2: the UK, we've all spoke about it, and we think
40:08
Speaker 2: we are at a point we've got no choice but
40:12
Speaker 2: to take Jeremy's offer to name Mercury in parliament, to
40:18
Speaker 2: read the confession out loud, word for word in parliament
40:23
Speaker 2: and put a name to it. Put a name to it.
40:25
Speaker 2: Now we've been told he will be hounded by the media,
40:30
Speaker 2: by the press, his family, everybody, because now what's happened
40:34
Speaker 2: to us over the last seven years since learning about
40:38
Speaker 2: this confession is now going to be on him, and
40:42
Speaker 2: the spotlight will be well and truly on him and
40:45
Speaker 2: his family. I would urge him now to contact his lawyers,
40:51
Speaker 2: set up a meeting with our family, police, his lawyers
40:57
Speaker 2: at a location of his choosing, and tell us if
41:01
Speaker 2: the confession is false, why you made it, and how
41:06
Speaker 2: you knew what you confess to what you saw, and
41:11
Speaker 2: we want to know why and how you knew this information,
41:16
Speaker 2: if it was just you being a teenager and seeking attention,
41:20
Speaker 2: tell us. But at the moment, you just keep hiding
41:23
Speaker 2: behind this retrospective law, staying quiet. We've had homicide detectives
41:29
Speaker 2: tell us they know it's you. You've told us it's you.
41:34
Speaker 2: Everybody's telling us it's you. Now it's your time, your spotlight.
41:40
Speaker 2: Now you have to explain to the media, to the public.
41:45
Speaker 2: The public have so much anger towards you as a
41:48
Speaker 2: person at the moment because you've confessed to this and
41:52
Speaker 2: you hide behind this law. You don't even have the
41:55
Speaker 2: decency if it was a lie, to come and tell us,
41:58
Speaker 2: because you're a coward. A three year old little girl
42:02
Speaker 2: had more courage than you. Implore you to contact your
42:07
Speaker 2: lawyers today because I will push the green light on
42:11
Speaker 2: this next week.
42:14
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you how long will you
42:16
Speaker 1: give him? Because I mean, there's obviously this is a
42:18
Speaker 1: dangerous situation, it's volatile. I mean some would say that
42:22
Speaker 1: it might jeopardize his right to a fair trial. I
42:26
Speaker 1: personally think that's just rubbish. I mean, I've seen this
42:29
Speaker 1: so many times over the years of my crime journalism career,
42:31
Speaker 1: where the defendants barrister says, oh, I know my client
42:35
Speaker 1: is now too well known. He certainly can't get a
42:37
Speaker 1: fair trial because he's been named in the change of
42:39
Speaker 1: the media. But I think the record shows that juries
42:42
Speaker 1: take more time and diligence to look at these questions
42:46
Speaker 1: and get them right. But also in South Wales, he's
42:48
Speaker 1: got the charts for a judge only trial, so it
42:51
Speaker 1: becomes a mood point. So how long will you giving me?
42:54
Speaker 1: A second? Maybe a couple of weeks.
42:55
Speaker 2: I'll give him two weeks to protect his family. Now
42:59
Speaker 2: you've got family out there. I know that you've got
43:01
Speaker 2: a son, you've got a daughter, you've got an ex wife,
43:04
Speaker 2: you've got a current wife, you've got other family members,
43:06
Speaker 2: You've got family members in the UK. Here's your chance
43:10
Speaker 2: to do the right thing, and if it was all
43:12
Speaker 2: a pack of lies, come and tell us and we
43:15
Speaker 2: can stop, we can stop chasing you. But I'm telling
43:18
Speaker 2: you now, it's going to have to be compelling. You're
43:21
Speaker 2: going to have to convince us that this was a
43:24
Speaker 2: bunch of lies when everybody else and you tell us
43:28
Speaker 2: what you said in your confession to be true.
43:31
Speaker 1: Tell me, I mean, this has been something that you've
43:33
Speaker 1: been living with since January the twelve, nineteen seventy. How
43:37
Speaker 1: you going with it all?
43:38
Speaker 2: What do you think? I'm a mess? Our family's a mess.
43:44
Speaker 2: You know, you get blamed by underknownst to me at
43:49
Speaker 2: the time, you're not biological father. And it wasn't until
43:52
Speaker 2: many years later that I found out. But who I
43:55
Speaker 2: believe was my father wasn't my biological father. It wasn't
43:59
Speaker 2: until I was thirtained. So his hatred towards me, and
44:04
Speaker 2: after that, after Cheryl was taken, after that day was
44:08
Speaker 2: we had a volatile relationship thereafter. And when you sort
44:12
Speaker 2: of hear every night when they're arguing, you know, why
44:15
Speaker 2: did he leve he? Why did he lever he? And
44:17
Speaker 2: he carry that blame then with your all your life.
44:21
Speaker 2: And that's why I will not lay down until I
44:25
Speaker 2: know the truth about this confession, about this guy Mercury,
44:29
Speaker 2: and you're all going to know his name within a
44:31
Speaker 2: couple of weeks who he is, and then everybody that's
44:36
Speaker 2: known this guy over the years. We've got stories that
44:38
Speaker 2: a young lady got into his taxi one night. He
44:42
Speaker 2: was a taxi driver as well, got into his taxi.
44:45
Speaker 2: She was so scared she made him stop to get out.
44:49
Speaker 2: She's one of the informants that come forward and years
44:53
Speaker 2: later she runs into him in the same work environment.
44:57
Speaker 2: She was terrified. The ex wife is terrified of him.
45:01
Speaker 2: What type of guy is this out in the st
45:05
Speaker 2: It's running around the streets where his ex wife's terrified.
45:09
Speaker 2: People that used to work with him were terrified of him.
45:13
Speaker 2: What type of person is this guy? Well, he can't
45:16
Speaker 2: hide anymore.
45:17
Speaker 1: No, And I think he also know. I know he's
45:19
Speaker 1: been questioned in relation to the Frankston tyin On murders
45:23
Speaker 1: and with possible links to the I think it's nineteen
45:26
Speaker 1: seventy six disappearance of Elouise wallage Ye. This may open
45:30
Speaker 1: the door to resolve other cases, or at least give
45:32
Speaker 1: him the chance to deny them and be eliminated from
45:36
Speaker 1: all this.
45:37
Speaker 2: You know, you've got a guy that's confessed to murder
45:40
Speaker 2: in one state, he's a person of interest in unsolved
45:45
Speaker 2: homicides in another state. What type of person is this?
45:49
Speaker 2: I mean what drew police in Victoria to him in
45:53
Speaker 2: relation to hunsold homicides in Frankston. They did not know
45:57
Speaker 2: at the time when they interviewed him, but he had
46:00
Speaker 2: confessed already to a child murder in New South Wales.
46:04
Speaker 2: So why don't New South Wales and Victoria police get
46:07
Speaker 2: together start talking build a picture of profile on this guy.
46:11
Speaker 2: I believe he's done more things. You don't stop. I mean,
46:14
Speaker 2: he's gone in confessed and police let him walk out.
46:18
Speaker 2: I thinks, well that's pretty easy. Might be able to
46:21
Speaker 2: do this again. How much more has he done? And
46:23
Speaker 2: he's still walking the streets in Victoria here, it's going
46:27
Speaker 2: to be some pretty angry people when they find out
46:29
Speaker 2: where he lives.
46:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the next several X will be a watershed
46:34
Speaker 1: in this case. And I wish you all the very
46:37
Speaker 1: best of luck and that we move this forward. And
46:41
Speaker 1: you've got to stop blaming yourself, Ricky. You've got you've
46:44
Speaker 1: done everything you possibly could for your sister. You know,
46:46
Speaker 1: I've dealt with a number of people like you have
46:51
Speaker 1: lost banding members and it is very hard. But I
46:54
Speaker 1: think all of Australia is behind you, all the right
46:58
Speaker 1: thinking people, and they know the blinked approach the police
47:01
Speaker 1: had and the courts all the way through to this.
47:05
Speaker 1: We just want this whole thing to be resolved. So
47:06
Speaker 1: I really do wish you all the very best with it, mate,
47:08
Speaker 1: and I will look forward to getting you back on
47:10
Speaker 1: Rukiman Adam Sham when we could talk about this Blake's name.
47:13
Speaker 2: All we want is the honest answers. That's what we want.
47:45
Speaker 1: That's Ricky Nash, brother of Cheryl Grimmer, disappeared in January
47:49
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. This case again highlights something that's a bit
47:53
Speaker 1: unpalatable about a justice system. The victim and their family
47:57
Speaker 1: is not represented in the court. They think the prosecutor
48:01
Speaker 1: is there for them. They're not. They're there for the Crown,
48:05
Speaker 1: the accused as a barrister and they talk through the
48:09
Speaker 1: court proceedings. He's solely there. There's nobody in the court
48:14
Speaker 1: for the victim. Is this right? And I can understand
48:17
Speaker 1: Ricky's frustration and the family. I mean, Ricky wasn't even
48:20
Speaker 1: even interviewed for decades after he was there on the
48:23
Speaker 1: beach that day. At the very least, a fresh inquest
48:27
Speaker 1: must be held into this case to highlight the failures
48:32
Speaker 1: of police not just in nineteen seventy but in twenty nineteen.
48:36
Speaker 1: A million dollar reward, well haha, who's going to pick
48:39
Speaker 1: up that million dollar award? I see there's dozens of
48:42
Speaker 1: million dollar rewards and nothing ever happens. It's got to
48:45
Speaker 1: be human will here. We saw it with Frank san
48:47
Speaker 1: Vittali and Damian Lion. They had the will to attack
48:50
Speaker 1: this case. Ricky just needs a prosecutor a couple more
48:54
Speaker 1: coppers to have the same dash as Frank and Damien.
48:58
Speaker 1: That's all I can say. Get in touch if you've
49:01
Speaker 1: got thoughts about this. Thanks for listening to this episode
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