Australian True Crime

The disappearance of 3-year-old Cheryl Grimmer in 1970 has gripped listeners around the world due to the extraordinary BBC Sounds Podcast Fairy Meadow and our guest for this episode Frank Sanvitale is a big part of that podcast.Now retired from the New South Wales Police, Frank has moved the wheels of justice further for Cheryl’s shattered family more than had ever been done in the more than 50 years since her disappearance.Frank, was teamed up in 2016 with Detective Sergeant Damian Loone and the pair set about looking into this long cold case, combing over boxes of stored evidence.It was a confession made in 1971 by a then 17-year-old that was found in one of these dusty boxes and set in motion events that would see that person, who we can only identify as Mercury, charged with Cheryl’s murder in 2017.But tragically, the case against mercury fell apart because the trial judge applied a retrospective law on the confession and would not allow it as evidence.The collapse of the case against Mercury was the brea