In a significant development in one of Australia’s most haunting cold cases, a volunteer search team using cadaver detection dogs has identified an ‘area of interest’ in the search for Cheryl Grimmer, a British child who vanished over five decades ago. The discovery, reported to New South Wales Police, could potentially provide closure to a family that has endured decades of unanswered questions and heartache. Cheryl, just three years old at the time, disappeared from Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong in January 1970, shortly after her family emigrated from Bristol. Authorities have long suspected she was abducted. The search team, led by Chris D’Arcy of Search Dogs Sydney, believes the dogs’ behavioral changes indicate a possible breakthrough. ‘We believe we have located an area of interest and will pass the information on to the authorities,’ D’Arcy stated. The case has been marred by legal complexities, including a disallowed confession from a teenage boy in 1971 and a collapsed trial in 2019 involving a suspect known only as ‘Mercury.’ Cheryl’s brother, Ricki Nash, who was seven when she vanished, expressed mixed emotions about the search. ‘This should have been done 55 years ago,’ he lamented, questioning why the area had never been thoroughly investigated despite the detailed confession. Nash, along with his daughter Melanie Grimmer, has spent a lifetime hoping for answers, though the prospect of finding Cheryl’s remains is bittersweet. ‘We always lived with the hope that someone took her and raised her well,’ Nash said. ‘To be here looking for a body or part thereof is not a good thing.’ The search continues, with the family and investigators clinging to the slim hope of uncovering the truth after more than half a century.