Casefile Revisited: The Wanda Beach Murders

*** Content warnings: child victims, child sexual assault *** On January 11, 1965, 15-year-old Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt spent the day at Cronulla Beach with Marianne's four younger siblings. After lunch, the two teenagers went for a walk into the nearby sandhills at Wanda Beach, but never returned. The following day, their bodies were found in the sand dunes. The murders shocked the nation, triggering one of the largest homicide investigations in Australian history. Despite an exhaustive inquiry, police were unable to identify the killer. Decades on, the mystery remains. Casefile Revisited features newly re-recorded versions of classic episodes, revisiting the stories with enhanced production, fresh narration, and updated research where possible. --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/casefile-archives-1-the-wanda-beach-murders The Wanda Beach Murders episode was originally released in January 2016. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From journalist Olivia LaVoix, the creator of the hit investigative series The Bakersfield Three, comes the new Case File Presents series, Ada. In 2011, the body of a woman was discovered in a California vineyard. For more than a decade, she was known only as Jane Doe. Then detectives finally discovered her name. But identifying her was only the beginning. Listen to Ada wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 1:36Speaker 00

  It's here. Case File has officially entered its 10th year. I want to take a minute to extend a warm thank you to everyone who has listened, supported and stayed with the show over the past decade. When I made the first episode of Case File, I had no real understanding of podcasting or audio production. My simple hope was that it might reach 100 listens. Fast forward a decade, and I could never have imagined being in this position, with over 330 episodes in the Case File catalogue, a loyal global audience and a small team joining me for the journey.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  To mark the 10-year anniversary, I'd like to introduce you to Case File Archives, a series of special bonus releases revisiting the earliest years of the show. To kick things off, over the next eight weeks, counting down to the new season, we'll be releasing a mix of fully rerecorded episodes from our first year of production, along with episodes that were previously only available to Patreon and premium supporters. Rest assured that these are additional bonus releases and will not replace our standard schedule, which is set to resume on March 7 this year. We also want to reassure you that we'll still be releasing the same number of new Case File episodes this year as we did in 2025.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  The Case File Archives series is strictly bonus content in the lead-up to the new season as a way to mark our 10th year.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  The rerun episodes have been completely edited, polished, rerecorded and freshly produced from start to finish to match our current production standards. They are not complete rewrites. Our goal wasn't to alter the cases or reshape the writing, but to preserve the original storytelling while giving the production the refinement it didn't have when I started the show back in 2016. Where appropriate, updates have been added, but the core structure and storytelling remain faithful to the originals. Because of this, these re-releases may sound a little different to our recent episodes, but they allow us to bring some of the earliest episodes up to the technical quality listeners expect today.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  We're beginning the series with the newly rerecorded Wander Beach case. This was the very first episode of Case File. We are releasing it today on January 9, 2026, exactly 10 years after the original episode first aired on January 9, 2016. It also comes just two days before the 61st anniversary of the crime.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Throughout our 10th year, our goal is to release episodes most weeks of the year, with this Casefile Archives bonus series providing additional material alongside our new episodes. It's a way for us to reflect on those early cases and re-highlight stories that many newer listeners may have missed. Whether you've been listening since the start or have only just tuned in, myself and the rest of the Casefile team thank you for joining us. We couldn't have done it without you.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  On January 12, 1965, the bodies of 15-year-olds Mary Anne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock were found on a desolate and isolated stretch of beach just north of Cronulla in Sydney South. The case would come to be known as the Wander Beach Murders. One mention of the word wander is enough to send chills down the spine of those who remember the case that dominated the television reports, radio airwaves and print media of the day. The killings sparked one of the biggest manhunt's Australia has ever seen. The police file on the case is over 10,000 pages long, and over 14,000 people have been interviewed.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Efforts to solve the case have been exhaustive, and leads have been followed up all around Australia.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  The case raised many questions. What drew Mary Anne and Christine to the Wander Sand Hills that day? Had they arranged to meet someone, or were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? Speculation and theories have surrounded the case since day one, but only one thing is clear: A vicious and ruthless killer has never been brought to justice.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Welcome to Case File, True Crime Podcast. Case one: The Wander Beach Murders.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  In 1958, married couple Helmut and Elizabeth Schmidt decided to migrate to Australia from their hometown in Germany. They made the journey along with their six children: Helmut Junior, Mary Anne, Hans, Peter, Wolfgang and Trixie. Upon their arrival, the family stayed in various migrant camps and soon welcomed a seventh child, a boy named Norbert, before eventually settling down into a home of their own on Brush Road in the Sydney suburb of North Rhyde.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Thirteen-year-old Mary Anne Schmidt quickly struck up a friendship with her next-door neighbour Christine Sharrock, who was the same age. Christine lived with her grandparents, Jim and Jeanette, choosing to do so after her father passed away and her mother remarried. Christine and Mary Anne formed an instant bond, sharing a love of the beach and music, with a particular fondness for Elvis. The two became inseparable. Reflecting on their friendship later on, Christine's uncle said: “They did not go out much, and their main interests were centred around their homes. They were always in each other’s company, and neither went out with boys.”

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Both girls were described as being good students and regular churchgoers who were quiet and well behaved. They weren't known to hang around any unsavoury characters. In 1964, Helmut Senior passed away after a battle with Hodgkin's disease. One can only imagine how much tighter Mary Ann and Christine's bond became, having both lost their fathers at such a young age. By 1965, Mary Ann and Christine were both fifteen and closer than ever. On New Year's Day, the two friends visited Cronulla Beach, a popular spot located around

• 9:26Speaker 00

  thirty kilometres south of Sydney's CBD. Although the journey took around two hours each way, it was the only Sydney beach accessible by train at the time, and therefore it was the only beach the teenagers ever visited. During this trip, they walked a little further north to the less crowded Wander Beach, where they strolled through the sand hills. The next day, Mary Ann visited Cronulla Beach again, this time with her brothers and sisters. She went off on her own for several hours, and when she returned, she told her siblings she had gone for a walk to Wander Beach. She didn't say why.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Around the same time, Mary Ann's mother, Elizabeth Schmidt, was admitted to hospital to undergo an operation. She left her eldest children, Helmut Junior and Mary Ann, in charge of the household while she recovered. On January nine, Mary Ann and Christine visited Elizabeth in hospital, and Mary Ann asked if they could take some of her siblings to Cronulla Beach the following day. Elizabeth gave them permission to do so, but the next day, the weather was terrible, so Mary Ann and Christine decided to postpone their plan.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  The trip went ahead the following morning, on Monday, January 11, 1965.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  While getting ready, Christine told her grandmother Jeanette that it would be fun to walk along the Wanda Sand Hills again.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Jeanette urged her not to, replying: "Don't go today, love. You've got the four little ones with you. It's too far."

• 11:15Speaker 00

  Christine tried to argue, but again, her grandmother warned her against it.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  So what are the Wanda Sand Hills, and what was the girl's fascination with them? Wanda is an Aboriginal name, meaning "sand hills by the sea beach." Wanda Beach is part of a longer stretch of coastline that starts with Cronulla Beach, and includes North Cronulla Beach, Allura Beach, and then Wanda Beach. The Wanda Sand Hills, otherwise known as Green Hills, run behind Wanda Beach and continue north up to the Sydney suburb of Kurnell. The distance from Cronulla Beach to the Wanda Sand Hills is about 2 kilometres. While the main part of Wanda Beach itself was clean and pristine back in 1965,

• 12:09Speaker 00

  the isolated sand hills were a different story entirely. The sand hills were described as being Sydney's filthiest and loneliest stretch of beach, littered with smashed bottles, old shoes, rusted cans, broken toys, and all kinds of discarded junk and rubbish.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Regardless, the isolation meant the Wanda Sand Hills were popular for people wanting to meet up without being seen.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  Given that homosexuality was illegal at the time, certain areas of the sand hills were popular with gay men who wanted to engage in casual sex. The area was also known to attract nude sunbathers, couples engaging in public sex, public masturbators, voyeurs, and men who harassed women and propositioned them for sex. Access to the sand hills could be gained without having to walk along the main beach areas, by either parking behind the hills or following a number of trails.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Many local residents were aware of what went on in the Sandhills and refused to let their children anywhere near them. It obviously didn't sound like the ideal place for two well behaved teenagers like Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, but they weren't from the local area and therefore were likely unaware of its reputation. Back then, information wasn't as readily available and didn't travel anywhere near as fast as it does today.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  And so, on that morning of Monday, January 11, the two Frans got ready for their day at the beach. Christine packed a thermos of cordial and a one pound note to buy lunch with later on, while Maryann packed some sandwiches and fruit. At 8:30 a.m., the two teenagers walked to the West Rye train station along with Maryann's nine-year-old sister Trixie and her brothers, ten-year-old Peter, seven-year-old Wolfgang, and five-year-old Norbert. The other two Schmidt boys, Helmut Junior and Hans, stayed home to complete some household chores.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  The journey to Cronulla required the group to change trains once they reached Redfern Station.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  As they began their first leg of the trip, a tall teenage boy, who looked to be around fifteen years old, struck up a conversation with Maryann and Christine. What they talked about isn't known, but the boy didn't follow them when they switched stations, and the girls didn't talk to anyone else for the rest of the journey.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  The group arrived at Cronulla Beach at around 11 a.m. only to find out that the beach was closed due to dangerous seas and strong winds. Undeterred, they headed to the southern end of Cronulla Beach and hung around the rocks. Wolfgang kept pestering Maryann to take him for a swim, and eventually she gave in and took him to a shallow and more secluded spot for a quick dip, before they rejoined the others to eat lunch on the rocks. At some point, Wolfgang saw Maryann and Christine talking to a boy who was hunting for crabs with a homemade spear. He looked to be around sixteen years old and was of medium build with long fair hair.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Wolfgang couldn't hear what they were talking about.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Shortly after lunch, Mary Anne suggested they all take a walk to the Wanda Sand Hills, and the others agreed. They left their belongings at the rocks and began the two-kilometer journey north. Once they reached a Wanda Beach, the walk became too much for the younger children. The wind was howling, and it was whipping the sand up and stinging their legs.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Wolfgang found a spot that was sheltered from the wind. Mary Anne and Christine told the younger kids to stay there while they walked back to the rocks and grabbed their belongings so they could go home, saying it should only take them about twenty minutes. However, it didn't appear that the pair had any intention of going home just yet. Instead of walking south, they continued north to the sand hills. Peter yelled out to them, "You're going the wrong way." But the girls just looked back and laughed, continuing on into the sand hills.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  About ten minutes later, Peter sent Wolfgang out to look for the girls. Wolfgang walked to the sand hills and saw Mary Anne and Christine talking to a teenage boy who looked to be about sixteen years old. He was a "big boy" with tanned skin, long light-colored hair, and white sun cream on his nose. He wore gray trousers with no shirt and carried a blue towel. Wolfgang thought he looked like a surfer. He looked angry and was asking Mary Anne and Christine for their names. The girls followed the surfer into the sand hills, and Wolfgang decided not to follow them any further.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  About ten minutes later, Wolfgang saw the surfer-looking teenager walking out of the sand hills alone. His blue towel was now tied around his neck. Wolfgang asked the teen, "Where are the girls?", but he walked straight past without answering.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  We can only speculate as to why Maryann and Christine walked into the Sand Hills that day, but it does seem clear that they were determined to go there. Not only had Christine mentioned the plan to her grandmother, but they had also persevered with taking the young children on the long walk despite the poor weather conditions. Because of this, many were later convinced that the girls had planned to meet someone at the Sand Hills that day.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  However, Maryann and Christine had originally planned to go to the beach on the Sunday the day before, and those plans had only changed at the last minute due to the bad weather. Back then, in the days before mobile phones and social media, it wasn't as easy to reschedule as it is today. If they did go to the Sand Hills with the intention of meeting someone, it is possible that it was someone who they had come into contact with that Monday.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  After Wolfgang lost sight of Christine and Maryann, a man named Dennis Dosteen saw the pair hurrying through the Sand Hills. One of them kept looking over her shoulder as though someone was following them, but Dennis couldn't see anyone else and he didn't think much more of it.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, the Schmidt siblings continued to wait. Eventually, they went looking for Maryann and Christine but couldn't find them. At no stage did Wolfgang mention the surfy teenager to the others.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  After a few hours, the children realised that time was slipping away and the last train out of Cronulla would be leaving at 6pm. They made the decision to head home without Maryann and Christine, trudging back down to the southern end of Cronulla Beach where their belongings still sat untouched. They boarded the last train out of Cronulla and arrived home after 8pm, informing both families that the two girls were missing.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  No great alarm bells went off for the police who attended to take the missing persons report. After all, the two friends had happily walked off at their own free will. The officers asked the usual questions: have they done this before? Is there anywhere you think they might be? Did they have boyfriends? Et cetera. Their only concern stemmed from the fact that Mary Anne and Christine both came from happy homes and had never run off before. It was completely out of character for either of them to go off without telling anyone, and even stranger, that they would leave the younger children alone at the beach.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  A description of the pair was broadcast to all police stations in the Sydney area. Just imagine how different it was in 1965. There were no mobile phones to track, no social media accounts to check, no instant media releases that could go viral to keep the public on the lookout. But even if all that modern technology was available, it would have been too late.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  At around 2:30pm on Tuesday, January 12, 17-year-old Peter Smith was walking through the Wanda Sand Hills with his two younger nephews when he saw what looked like a store mannequin lying in the sand.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  A closer inspection revealed the grim reality. Filled with shock and panic, Peter ran to the Wanda Surf Club, which was about 1,500 metres south. He notified the caretaker that he had found the body of a teenage girl and asked to use the phone to call the police.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Police arrived at the surf club and Peter led them to the site in the sand hills. Upon closer inspection, a police officer noticed that there were actually three feet sticking out from under the sand.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  The shocking discovery became that much more horrific when it was discovered that there wasn't just one body, but two.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Local Cronella detectives soon notified the criminal investigation branch and homicide detectives made their way to Wander along with forensic investigators. The crime scene was thoroughly examined and portable lighting was brought in as the work continued into the night. It didn't take long for police to link the gruesome discovery to the missing person report for Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, and a positive identification was made.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  The location where the girls' bodies were found was two dunes back from where they had first wandered off, 150 metres from the water's edge and about 1500 metres north of Wander Surf Club. Maryann's brother, Hans, who hadn't gone to the beach with the group, visited the crime scene and described the area. "The place the girls were killed was very isolated, even though it was only two dunes back from the beach," he said. "It was so quiet, I couldn't even hear the waves crashing. You could scream your head off and no one would hear a thing. No one could have heard the girls screaming for help."

• 23:33Speaker 00

  From the location where the girls' bodies were found, there was a 32-metre-long drag mark in the sand which led to bloodstains and signs of a struggle. The lead detective concluded:

• 23:47Speaker 00

  "It looks as though the Schmidt girl was knocked down and then stabbed. Christine was killed about 20 yards away and her body was then dragged back to where the Schmidt girl lay."

• 24:00Speaker 00

  He believed Christine may have witnessed Maryann being attacked and then ran off, only to be caught a short distance away.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  Every three metres in the drag marks, there were much heavier concentrations of blood. This indicated that whoever was dragging Christine's body had stopped for a rest at certain intervals. Given that Christine was described as a petite girl, this implied that the perpetrator may not have been very strong.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  About thirty metres west of where Christine was attacked, detectives located car tyre tracks, but they couldn't say with certainty whether the tracks were related to the crime. It was also possible that the killer had escaped on foot over the back of the sand hills towards Captain Cook Drive, without ever going back to the beach.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Postmortems revealed that Christine and Mary Anne had both been savagely attacked and mutilated. The official cause of Christine's death was hemorrhage as a result of penetrating wounds to the chest associated with a fracture of the skull and injury to the brain. Mary Anne's official cause of death was hemorrhage as a result of a cut throat and penetrating wounds to the chest.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  There were signs that both girls had been sexually assaulted. Semen was also found on Mary Anne's body.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  The attack was so savage that the full details have never been released to the public.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  The time of death for both girls was estimated to be between 2pm and midnight on Monday, January 11, 1965. The exact time was difficult to pinpoint as both of their bodies had been covered by hot sand. An examination of Christine's stomach contents revealed that she had undigested cabbage and celery in her system. This immediately stood out to investigators as the group had only taken sandwiches and fruit to the beach and Christine hadn't eaten anything containing these ingredients while with the others. For the food to be undigested, it meant she had eaten within one hour of her death.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Christine also had a blood alcohol reading of .015. This was the equivalent of either drinking about a midi of beer or a nip of spirits just prior to her death, or the culmination of drinking several drinks in the hours leading up to her death. The time she had consumed the alcohol couldn't be accurately determined, but the reading of .015 would have been accurate at the time she died and wouldn't have changed thereafter. Mary Anne, on the other hand, had no alcohol in her system.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  This revelation horrified Christine's grandmother as Christine was not known to drink. Her family stated that she had never touched alcohol and couldn't even stand the smell.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Loud alarm bells were going off. The food found in Christine's stomach didn't match what they had brought to the beach, and they certainly hadn't taken any alcohol with them.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Given that the food in Christine's stomach was consumed within one hour of her death, it was likely that Christine had shared food and alcohol with her killer.

• 27:44Speaker 00

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• 30:43Speaker 00

  The injuries the girls had sustained led police to believe they were looking for a fishing knife. They were also looking for a heavy blunt instrument that was used to inflict the injuries on Christine, such as a rock, a lump of wood, or a piece of metal pipe. The police questioned Wolfgang, Peter, Trixie and Norbert Schmidt extensively. On Wednesday, January 13, the children were taken to the sand hills to retrace their steps and provide as much information as possible about what had happened during their visit on Monday. Tragically, at this point, they were still unaware that Mary Ann and Christine were dead.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  It was at this point that detectives first learned that seven-year-old Wolfgang had seen the surfy-looking teenager talking to the girls before they disappeared into the sand hills. He'd first mentioned it to one of his older brothers while they were at home waiting for news about Mary Ann's whereabouts. None of the other children recalled seeing the surfy.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Wolfgang's account was the first major piece of information that detectives had to go by, and the hunt for the surfy teenager began.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Media reports on the TV, radio and newspaper were dominated with details about the suspect last seen with Maryann and Christine just prior to their deaths. The problem was, the description of the surfy matched just about every teenage boy in the Cronulla and Sutherlandshire area.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  In a bid to make sure other potential persons of interest didn't fly under the radar for not matching this description, the police were quick to point out that they didn't necessarily believe the surfy was the murderer. It didn't take long before the police were swamped with hundreds of calls each day about the surfy. The caretaker of the Wander Surf Club revealed that on the Thursday before the murders, he had kicked a teenager who matched that description off the beach for harassing two young girls.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  The media ran wild, and the Police Commissioner made a public appeal for the surfy to come forward. With the hunt in full swing, the media reported that four teenage suspects had been detained, one of them as far away as Queensland, and they were each being questioned. The truth was that they weren't suspects in the Wander Beach murders at all, but just teenagers who had been arrested on other minor matters. The fact that they may have looked like surfies was enough for some people to label them as suspects.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  A mammoth search of the crime scene and surrounding Wander Sandhills commenced. Police, including trainees, were sent from all over Sydney to help. The search wasn't easy. The filthy nature of the sandhills, with all the discarded rubbish, hampered the search for clues immensely.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Several items were located, including shoes and even knives, but they were quickly ruled out as having anything to do with the murders.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  By Thursday, January 14, police had secured a front-end loader from Sutherland Shire Council so they could dig up the sand, which was then put through a sift. Army experts with metal and mine detectors were even sent to help. They dug up 500 tonnes of sand, but found very little to assist their investigation. The only piece of physical evidence that was located was a broken piece of a knife blade that was believed to have come from a kitchen knife. The piece of blade was about one inch long and had a clear cutting edge. It tested positive for blood, however, there was an insufficient amount to conduct any further testing.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  Even if there was, DNA testing didn't exist at the time and wouldn't for another 21 years.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  A forensic pathologist later testified that the stab wounds inflicted on Mary Anne and Christine would have been difficult to inflict with this particular piece of broken blade. Although he did say that some cut marks on Christine could have been made with a knife that had a portion of its blade missing. It was ultimately unclear if this piece of blade was part of the murder weapon and had broken off during the savage attack, or if it was completely unrelated.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  On January 15, Mary Anne's mother, Elizabeth Schmidt, broke her silence about the murders. She was still in hospital recovering from her operation, having been allowed temporary leave to comfort her children after news of Mary Anne's death broke. In a heartbreaking interview, Elizabeth said:

• 35:43Speaker 00

  "My daughter and the other young girl have gone into eternal life. They have met their maker and have therefore entered a new phase of existence. The person responsible, the murderer, has his life ahead of him. How he faces this life is something I cannot answer.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  But his life would appear to be, spiritually speaking, poorer than anything else. He would always be hunted and haunted. The man responsible should meet his punishment, and I think my husband would have felt the same way. He should be made responsible for his action."

• 36:25Speaker 00

  At this time, the police commissioner renewed his appeal for the surfi teenager described by Wolfgang Schmidt to come forward. Reports had been circulating in the media that the surfi was the killer, but the commissioner clarified: “He should not be influenced by published statements. He could very well clear the air for us in our investigations.” The next day, the commissioner made another appeal, stating: “I renew my appeal to this youth to come forward and tell us what happened last Monday. Because he was seen coming away alone from the scene, it does not necessarily follow that he is the killer.”

• 37:09Speaker 00

  He stressed that police believed that the surfi could have been an innocent bystander who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. If he’d just come and talked to the police, they could clear him of suspicion.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  By this stage, police had interviewed over 20 people who had been at the beach on Monday, January 11. More than 40 detectives had been assigned to the case full-time in what was shaping up to be one of the biggest manhunt’s Australia had ever seen. Reports of individuals who matched the description of the surfi teenager were continuing to come in from all over the state, and even the country. Police were receiving hundreds of calls a day and were struggling to keep up with the amount of information that was coming in. Some felt that a vital tip-off may have been lost amongst the thousands of calls that were received.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Both Mary Anne and Christine kept a diaries, and through those diaries, police learnt that when the girls had visited the beach together on New Year’s Day of 1965, they had met and kissed two boys. On January 16, police made a public appeal for those two boys to come forward. And they did. Known only as Ted and Jim, the two teens were interviewed by police and confirmed they had met Mary Anne and Christine at the beach on New Year’s Day. However, they said they hadn’t made any plans to meet up again. Both of their alibis checked out, and Ted and Jim were quickly ruled out of the investigation.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  On January 18, one week after the murders, news reports ran wild that a teenage boy was being held by police after a pair of bloodstained trousers were found on Coogee Beach and identified as belonging to him. Wolfgang Schmidt was rushed to Randwick Police Station where a line-up was conducted, but he didn't identify the teenager as the surfi he had seen on the day of the murders. It turned out that the individual had a simple explanation for the blood being on his trousers, and it was confirmed that he wasn't at Wander Beach on January 11.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, detectives were being flooded with information about several other suspicious males who had been seen at the beach on the day of and days leading up to the murders. A sketch artist was brought in to assist witnesses.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  By this point, Wolfgang Schmidt had revealed another detail. He said that the surfi he'd seen talking to the girls on the day of the murders was the same boy who had been hunting for crabs at the Rocks earlier that day and had struck up a conversation with the girls. Police made an appeal for the crab hunter to come forward, with his description more or less matching that of the surfi.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  On January 20, separate funeral services were held for Mary Anne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock. The service for Mary Anne was held in the West Chapel of the Metropolitan Funeral Home at Burwood, and she was then cremated at Rookwood Crematorium. The service for Christine was held at St Michael's Catholic Church in Meadowbank, and she was then buried at Liverpool Cemetery near her father.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Both services attracted hundreds of mourners. Detectives and police photographers were also in attendance, working on the theory that the girls knew their killer, and that he may be at their funerals.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Just about every male who attended was photographed.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  At Mary Anne's service, two teenage sisters were interviewed separately by detectives after their father alerted police that they may have some valuable information concerning Mary Anne and Christine's backgrounds. Detectives were very interested to hear what the girls had to say, but unfortunately, no light was thrown on the investigation.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  By this stage, a number of suspicious people had been reported as being on the beach on January 11, and police were interested in speaking to each one. Dennis Dosteen, the last known person to have seen Christine and Mary Anne alive, also reported seeing a number of other people around the same time he saw the two girls. Of particular interest to police was a tall, 19-year-old male with pale skin, and a stocky male between the ages of 40 and 50 with tanned, leathery skin. 57-year-old Francis Williams had been at the beach on January 11, and he came forward to report having seen Christine, Mary Anne, and the younger Schmidt children

• 42:15Speaker 00

  at around 1pm. They were walking north along the beach towards Wander, about 100 metres from the Wander Surf Club. Francis thought that they were walking quite quickly, and looked to be in a hurry. He also described a number of other people he saw around Wander that day, including: A male who was sunbathing in the sand hills. As Francis had approached him, the male got up, shook sand off him, and walked off towards Wander Surf Club. Two young boys who were playing on the beach. Two people fishing on the beach. A man sunbathing with a corrugated iron box over his head.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  When some people heard this, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that this man was one of the many perverts who lurked around the Wander Sandhills. However, given it was a windy day, it's also possible that he was just using the box to protect his head from the wind-blown sand. A woman who had become bogged in the sand just behind the Sandhills. She was assisted by Francis. And lastly, another unknown male who drove off in a utility.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  The details of these eight people were released to the media with some immediate success. Upon seeing the report, the woman who was bogged came forward, but she was unable to add anything to the investigation. None of the remaining seven people came forward.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  Given what the Wander Sandhills were renowned for at the time, it is believed that many people were too scared to come forward out of fear that the police would question them as to what they were doing in the area that day.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  On January twenty-two, an interesting article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was only very small and buried on page ten, overshadowed by the other stories that were now dominating the news, such as Winston Churchill's declining health and the Rolling Stones' visit to Australia.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Buried amongst these other articles, a small headline read, "Wander Victims' Claim Lapses".

• 44:38Speaker 00

  The article reported that Mary-Anne Schmidt had been struck by a car on the corner of Victoria Road and Brush Road at Ride on May seven, nineteen sixty-four. She suffered a fractured skull and had spent nine days in hospital, after which she submitted a compensation claim of twenty thousand pounds. Australia was still using the pound as currency at the time, and this was quite a significant sum, the equivalent of over half a million dollars in two thousand sixteen.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  The claim was due to be heard later on in 1965, but as a result of Mary Anne's death, the article confirmed that the claim had elapsed and would not proceed any further.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  That same day, the police commissioner made yet another appeal.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  "I have on more than one occasion asked the public to assist in every way within their power with information which might help detectives engaged on the case. I now make a further and equally sincere appeal. I do this because I am satisfied that there must be some persons in the community who would have some information they have not brought to the notice of police. It is not unreasonable to assume that someone, somewhere in our community, has seen or heard something which would be of great assistance in this matter. For example, since this crime, a person may not have been seen at places he used to

• 46:10Speaker 00

  frequent, or there has been a change in pattern of his normal activity and behaviour. It is possible that to someone's knowledge, he has said or done something which would give rise to a reasonable suspicion that he might have been in some way associated with the crime. That is the type of vital information we would like to get."

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Police were still searching for the seven people that Frances Williams had seen at the beach on January 11. On January 23, a sketch of Wander Beach and the surrounding sand hills was released to the public. It showed the location of the crime scene, as well as the various locations where the seven unidentified people had been seen.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Multiple people came forward to report having been at the beach that day, completely unaware of just how close to the crime scene they had actually been. But none of the people Frances had seen came forward.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  A psychiatrist released a report revealing that they believed the killer lived local to the area. He likely had intimate knowledge of the Sandhills and could have been one of the so-called perverts who frequented the area.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  The psychiatrist said the killer was likely a loner who had spent time at the Wanda Sandhills spying on nude sunbathers and people having sex. They felt the crimes were committed on impulse and that the killer may have acted on a previous urge after seeing Maryann and Christine during their earlier visits to the Sandhills.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  The investigation into the murders was hampered by the lack of physical evidence and identifiable witnesses, as well as the unwillingness of people to come forward. Hoping to overcome this, on January 29, the New South Wales Premier announced a £10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  The currency changed to dollars soon after, and the reward switched to $20,000, roughly the equivalent of a quarter of a million in 2016. Two girls came forward to report that they had been riding horses on the beach on January 11, when they saw a naked man walking around the Sandhills with his clothes in his hands. It was about 400 metres from where Maryann and Christine were killed. One of the girls yelled out, “What are you doing?”, but the man ignored them and kept walking. He was added to the growing list of unidentified people seen at the beach that day.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  Police officers had been assigned to keep watch on the Sandhills round the clock in case the killer returned. On February 1, they thought they’d made a breakthrough when one of these officers located a blue towel washed up on Wanda Beach. This was significant because the surfy teenager described by Wolfgang Schmidt had been carrying a blue towel.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  The towel was immediately sent for scientific testing, but it became another frustrating dead end when a 13-year-old boy came forward and identified the towel as one he had lost at the beach only a few days earlier.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  The large reward was encouraging all types of people to call in, and the police were inundated with false leads, dead ants, hoax callers and fake confessions. By March, anyone who resembled a Surfi teenager had been reported to the police.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  As the weeks passed by, Wolfgang Schmidt added yet another detail. He told the police that when the Surfi walked off into the sand hills with Maryann and Christine, he had a knife in a pouch around his waist. When he walked back out alone ten minutes later, the knife was missing.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  Wolfgang's story had evolved over several interviews, and he'd added vital pieces of information as time went on. It was a source of frustration for detectives, and his version of events was treated with some scepticism. Why Wolfgang's story changed numerous times is anyone's guess, but his father had just died, his mother had just had a serious operation, and his sister had just been brutally murdered. The amount of stress, trauma, fear and grief the seven-year-old would have experienced is almost inconceivable, and he was most likely in severe shock. There was no grief counselling at the time, and people were expected to just suck it up.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  It's not surprising if his memory was a bit muddled.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  By April, three months had passed and there still hadn't been any breakthroughs. On April 19, two fifteen-year-old girls were walking together near Karangbar train station, a short distance from Cronulla, when a fifteen-year-old male grabbed one of them. The girls immediately screamed and managed to frighten the boy off, but their description of him was very similar to that of the Surfi provided by Wolfgang, pushing an already frightened community further towards the edge.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.

• 52:05Speaker 00

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• 53:40Speaker 00

  Police remained frustrated by the fact that several of the people sighted at the beach on the day of the murders still refused to come forward. They released six sketches of the individuals they were most interested in talking to. These included the naked man seen walking through the sand hills, a man who had been exposing himself to women in the months after the murders, and the teenager who had just attacked the girls at Karingbar.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  Wolfgang Schmidt was unable to help police with a sketch of the survey. He agreed with everything the sketch artist said, making it an impossible task. Police were also particularly interested in speaking to two men who had been harassing women in the area. The first was aged between twenty-five and thirty-five, roughly five feet eleven inches tall and of medium to plump build. He had a “slightly foreign” appearance and was known to carry an orange and white towel. On the day of the murders, as well as the days leading up to it, he had been seen in the area wearing grey trousers and a white shirt and carrying a newspaper and radio.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  He approached several women, showing them pornographic pictures and asking them questions of a sexual nature. He told some of them that he was from South Australia.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  The other man was described as being between eighteen and twenty years old, with a slim build, light brown hair and missing teeth. He had been wearing a long-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of fawn-coloured shorts and was propositioning women on the beach for sex. Neither of these men came forward, and they have never been identified.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  On May twenty-nine, a group of youths came forward to reveal that just a few days after Mary Anne and Christine were murdered, they had found a pair of flippers and a homemade crab spear about one kilometre from the crime scene. They handed both of these items in to the police, though it's unclear why they waited four and a half months to provide this information. Wolfgang Schmidt was re-interviewed, but he couldn't remember if the spear was the same as the one he had seen the teenage boy hunting for crabs with on the day of the murders.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  The investigation continued throughout the year and into 1966, but it was starting to stall. The amount of full-time detectives assigned to the case dropped from forty to eight. Police were still assigned to keep watch on the Wanda Sand Hills, and while this had resulted in a number of people being charged with sexual-related offences, police were no closer to identifying Mary Ann and Christine’s killer. On January 29, 1966, just after the one-year anniversary of the murders, another brutal crime shocked the nation. Fifty-seven-year-old Wilhelmina Kruger was found stabbed to death

• 56:46Speaker 00

  at the Piccadilly Shopping Arcade in Wollongong, where she worked as a cleaner. She was killed in the early hours of the morning between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Wilhelmina’s murder was horrific and bore similarities to the Wanda case: a frenzied knife attack, no suspects, no witnesses, and no attempt at hiding her body. Given that Wollongong is less than an hour’s drive from Wanda Beach, some believed that both murders were committed by the same person.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Just weeks later, on February 26, 1966, the body of 27-year-old Anna Dalinkawa was found on the old Illawarra Road in the suburb of Menai in Sydney South. Again, the location was in close enough proximity to both Wanda Beach and Wollongong, and Anna had been the victim of a frenzied knife attack that was almost identical to the one committed against Wilhelmina Kruger. Anna was a sex worker and was last seen leaving a club in King’s Cross after mentioning she was meeting a client. Again, there were no witnesses, no suspects, no physical evidence, and no attempt to hide the body.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Police were almost certain the murders of Wilhelmina Kruger and Anna Dalinkawa were committed by the same person. Although links to the Wanda Beach case have never been proven, some have speculated that the same person might have committed all four murders. The murders of Wilhelmina and Anna remain unsolved. Their stories were covered in detail on episode 72 of Case File.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  On April 20, 1966, a coronial inquest into the deaths of Mary Anne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock was held, presided over by the city coroner. By this point, the number of detectives working the case full-time was down to just six. The investigation log totaled over 5,000 pages and 7,000 interviews. Over three days, many witnesses gave evidence, including the all-important Schmidt children.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  The coroner believed that there must be somebody who could shed a light on the murders. While he acknowledged that the police had already conducted exhaustive inquiries, he hoped it was possible that the investigation could be intensified. There was no doubt in the coroner's mind:

• 59:19Speaker 00

  “The cause of death is very evident: a vicious, brutal murder.”

• 59:26Speaker 00

  After the inquest, the police stated they would be reviewing every page of the case file in the hopes of uncovering a vital piece of information that might have been previously overlooked. They still believed that somebody out there knew something, but was withholding information either because they were protecting someone close to them or were fearful of that person. The investigation continued, but still no suspect was identified. The six sketches that police had previously released were made into full-sized lifelike dummies which were displayed at the 1967 Sydney Easter Show. It was hoped the large crowds of people would be able to put names to faces, but no one could.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  On March 17, 1967, a 28-year-old woman named Brenda Galvin was sunbathing on Wanderbeach with her three children when she was attacked by an unknown male. A witness named Trevor Bats rushed to her aid, and the attacker fled in what was described as an “old white vehicle”.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  The description of the attacker provided by both Brenda and Trevor matched one of the six unidentified police sketches, leading many to believe that the Wanderbeach killer had attempted another attack. Despite an extensive investigation, this offender was never identified.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  The years passed by with no major breakthroughs in the case, but new persons of interest continued to emerge. When it comes to suspects in the murders of Mary Ann Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, three names are often thrown around.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  On Friday, June 10, 1966, 20-year-old Carolyn May Orphan attended a dance in Wollongong, where she met 21-year-old Alan Bassett, a fitter and turner from the nearby suburb of Yunnan Dara. Carolyn accepted a ride home from Bassett, who proceeded to kill her and dump her body on the side of a road. He was quickly identified and charged with her murder. By all reports, Alan Bassett seemed like a quiet, shy, and normal guy. After he was arrested for Carolyn's murder, he claimed he had no idea what came over him, and said he didn't mean to kill her. Despite the fact that she was tied up,

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  strangled, and hit over the head with a large rock, Bassett asked to be found guilty of manslaughter.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  Although there were notable differences between Carolyn's murder and that of Christine Sharrock, Mary Ann Schmidt, Wilhelmina Kruger, and Anna Delencua, some considered Alan Bassett to be a prime suspect in those cases as well. There was the savage nature of the attack on Carolyn, combined with the fact that Yunnan Dara was only a five-minute drive from the Piccadilly Shopping Arcade where Wilhelmina was killed, and within an hour's reach of Manai and Wander Beach. Further investigations led police to believe that Alan Bassett was at Cronulla around the time that Mary Ann and Christine were murdered. A detective named Sess Johnson, who worked the Wander Beach case,

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  grew so convinced of Alan Bassett's involvement in all four unsolved murders that he became obsessed with getting Bassett to confess. His obsession was so strong that it turned unhealthy, and it was even recommended that he resign from the force.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  After his conviction for Carolyn's murder, Bassett was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to Morissette Psychiatric Hospital near Newcastle. Detective Sess Johnson visited him regularly and became even more convinced of his theory after Bassett gave him a painting he had drawn. The detective didn't think much of it at first, considering it to be quite an ugly-looking thing. But, one day, he took a closer look at the painting and thought it depicted the Wanderbeach crime scene and contained a clue that only the killer could know. Whatever that clue was, has never been made public.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  Detective Johnson went to the press with his theory and even started writing a book, but he was killed in an accident before it was complete. While some agreed with Detective Johnson's theory, many others did not. Privately, they thought he'd become too obsessed with Bassett and was seeing things that weren't there. One person he did convince, however, was Alan Bassett's father, who went on public record saying that he believed his son was responsible for the Wanderbeach murders and should never be released. In 1995, Alan Bassett was released from custody and placed back in the community.

• 1:04:32Speaker 00

  He denied being involved in any crime other than the murder of Carolyn Orphan. In the year 2000, Bassett publicly offered to provide a DNA sample to prove his innocence in the other cases, but whether or not the police took him up on his offer is unknown. The second name emerged on April 13, 1984, after the death of a man in the United States sparked the interest of the New South Wales Police and prompted the Wanderbeach case to be re-examined. The reason why? The man was Christopher Wilder, a serial killer dubbed "The Beauty Queen Killer".

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  Wilder was born in Sydney in 1945 and was still living there at the time that Mary Anne and Christine were killed.

• 1:05:25Speaker 00

  Christopher Wilder's first major run-in with the law was two years before the Wonder Beach murders, at the age of seventeen, when he was charged for the gang rape of a woman at another Sydney beach. He got off with probation and electric shock therapy.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  In 1968, Wilder got married, but his wife left him a week later, claiming sexual and physical abuse. In 1969, he lured a nineteen-year-old nursing student to Manly Beach and convinced her to pose for nude photographs. He then tried to force her to have sex with him, and when she refused, he threatened to blackmail her with the photos. The woman escaped and contacted police, but declined to testify against him.

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  Later that year, Wilder immigrated to the United States and settled in Florida. It didn't take him long to find significant wealth due to the booming construction and real estate industries. In 1971, he had his first run-in with the American authorities after he was caught trying to entice women to pose for nude photographs. The following year, he was arrested for trying to force a sixteen-year-old girl to have oral sex with him, but he was later acquitted of this charge.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  A few years later, Wilder posed as a photographer to lure a schoolgirl out of a shopping mall before drugging and raping her. He was somehow able to plea bargain this charge down to probation and therapy. In 1982, Wilder visited his parents in Australia, where he abducted two fifteen-year-old girls, tied them up, and forced them to pose for nude photographs. He was arrested soon after, and his parents posted his bail. Wilder was allowed to leave Australia until his trial, and it was during this wait, in 1984, that he commenced a murderous rampage across nine different states of America, kidnapping a dozen women and killing eight.

• 1:07:33Speaker 00

  His MO was to pose as a photographer and tell a girl how beautiful she was and how he could help her launch a modeling career. Once he convinced a girl to go with him to take photos, he'd then kill her.

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  It's pretty obvious why some people think Christopher Wilder is a prime suspect for the Wanda Beach murders. He was nineteen at the time, living in Sydney, and turned out to be a serial killer. Although he was slightly older than the surfy teenager described by Wolfgang Schmidt, his physical description matched. However, his criminal timeline doesn't seem to match up. Wilder committed a string of sexual offences for many years before escalating to murder in 1984, nineteen years after Mary Anne and Christine were killed. This doesn't fit the behavioural trajectory of most known serial killers.

• 1:08:30Speaker 00

  Once a serial offender crosses the threshold to murder, they rarely de-escalate back to lesser offences. This is what Wilder would have had to do if he was involved in the Wanda Beach killings, which would be almost unheard of.

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  Then again, Wilder has also been suspected of being involved in the unsolved abduction and murder of several women both in the United States and Australia well before 1984. This includes the 1974 murder of eighteen-year-old Trudy Adams in Sydney. However, no definitive links to these crimes have ever been proven.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  By 1984, Wilder had become one of America's most-wanted men. During a confrontation with police, he wounded an officer before he himself was shot dead. After his death, New South Wales Police reopened the Wanda Beach case to examine any possible links between Wilder and the Wanda murders. They also requested a blood sample from Wilder, in the hopes that advances in technology may one day prove whether or not he was involved.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  The third name, and the one that's probably thrown around the most when it comes to the murders of Mary Anne and Christine, is Derek Percy. Percy has been described as Australia's Hannibal Lecter, which tells you just about all you need to know about him. Many consider him to be the chief suspect in not only the Wanda Beach murders, but a number of other unsolved crimes against children committed around Australia in the late 1960s. Among them is the murder of six-year-old Alan Redstone in Canberra, three-year-old Simon Brook in Sydney, and seven-year-old Linda Stillwell in Melbourne. Some also suspect he may have been involved in the disappearance of the three Beaumont

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  children in Adelaide, as was later covered in episode 100 of Case File. So, who is Derek Percy? He was born in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Strathfield on September 15, 1948. In 1956, he moved to Victoria with his family, and they spent the next few years living in different parts of the state before moving to Mount Beauty in the state's north-east. In 1964, women's underwear started to disappear off clotheslines and from inside houses around the Mount Beauty area. There were whispers around town that 16-year-old Derek Percy was responsible.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  He was known to be a bit of a loner who was hard to get to know. This suspicion was never proven, until later that year when two of his schoolmates made their way to a popular swimming hole and saw something so unsettling that no one believed their story. It was Derek Percy, walking around dressed in a woman's petticoat. Percy didn't see the other boys, so they decided to hide and see what he was doing. They watched as Percy pulled out a knife and started stabbing a pair of women's underpants that he had with him. Once he was done, he defecated into the river and then walked off, taking the women's clothing with him.

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  The boys questioned Percy about it at school, but he denied it and claimed he had no idea what they were talking about. The other kids didn't really believe the story either. They knew Percy was a bit different, but stabbing a pair of women's underpants like that seemed to be a stretch.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Around this time, Percy started keeping journals in which he wrote about explicit sexual fantasies involving children. It was the beginning of an extremely dark path. By 1966, Derek Percy was living in the small New South Wales town of Cancoben, just north of the Victorian border. He lured the two young girls who lived next door to him, the youngest of whom was just six years old, into a caravan and convinced them both to remove their pants. The girl's father caught him, but decided not to notify the police, instead leaving it to Percy's father to discipline his son.

• 1:13:04Speaker 00

  Derek's diary entries continued to get darker and increasingly violent. One entry made at this time even detailed his plan to kidnap two girls and take them to a secluded place. Percy joined the Navy in November 1967, and it was during his time as a naval officer that he abducted a 12-year-old girl named Yvonne Toohey from Skeet Beach in southern Victoria. Yvonne had gone for a walk with her friend, 11-year-old Shane, but the pair had become briefly separated when Percy pounced. He was holding Yvonne by knife point when Shane found them.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  Percy tried to abduct Shane too, but Shane was carrying a tomahawk for chopping firewood and used it to threaten Percy and escape.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Shane was able to describe Derek Percy and the car he was driving to the police, and they captured him just hours later. Percy was arrested at the nearby Flinders Naval Depot where he was based, listening to a radio report about Yvonne’s disappearance and trying to wash her blood out of his clothes. Unfortunately, by this time, Yvonne was already dead. A search of Percy’s belongings revealed sickening journal entries and drawings depicting the rape, torture and murder of children. He even had an entry detailing his desire to kidnap a young boy and girl, just as

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  he had attempted to do a few hours earlier. The murder of Yvonne Toohey was one of the worst cases that hardened detectives had ever seen. Derek Percy stood trial at the Melbourne Supreme Court in April 1970. After six days, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was ordered to be kept in custody at the governor’s leisure, or in other words, indefinitely. Fortunately, that’s where he remained until his death in 2013. Yvonne’s murder was the only crime he was ever charged with, but he was questioned

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  and suspected in many others. Percy never confessed to any of the other crimes, but he didn’t exactly deny involvement either. During his incarceration, many more drawings and diary entries were found that outlined his sick fantasies. One rape, torture and murder journal was so organised that it even had an index. Percy has been described as a sadistic paedophile with a morbid and sexual attraction to fecal matter, who views killing as the ultimate sexual act. We could do a whole podcast on Derek Percy and the other crimes he is linked to, which may happen in the future.

• 1:16:05Speaker 00

  But the main question for today is: was Percy involved in the murders of Mary Anne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock?

• 1:16:13Speaker 00

  There is no clear evidence linking him to Wander Beach, but there is one loose circumstantial detail to suggest it's a possibility.

• 1:16:23Speaker 00

  The Percy family had a keen interest in sailing. In January 1965, the National Moth Class Regatta was being held at Botany Bay Yacht Club, which isn't too far from Wander Beach. This is the very class of sailing the Persies were interested in.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  It has been suspected, although never proven, that the Percy family were in Sydney for this regatta. Derek Percy would have been sixteen at the time. If they were indeed there, it is likely they would have been staying at Percy's grandmother's house in Deniston, which is the neighbouring suburb to West Rhyde. To get to the beach, he would have had to travel on the exact same train line as Mary Anne and Christine. Remember when they were approached by a teenage male on the train between Rhyde and Redfern?

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  Percy didn't fit the description of the surfy teenager provided by Wolfgang Schmidt, but some claim he was a match for one of the six suspect sketches released by the police that were later turned into life-sized dummies. It was later revealed that when Percy's journals were found, one contained a newspaper article about the Wander Beach murders that had obscene comments written on it. However, this was a rumour that had gotten a bit twisted. It was actually an article from Playboy magazine titled Wicked Wander that had nothing at all to do with the murders. There is no evidence tying Derek Percy to Wander Beach. Some believe he is guilty, while others don't.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  If he was involved, he took his secret to the grave, and only advancements in DNA technology might be able to prove for sure if Percy was the Wander Beach killer.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  In 2012, there was a major break in the investigation, when technological advancements allowed police to retest the clothing worn by Mary Anne and Christine at the time they were killed. They were in luck. Testing revealed a spot of blood belonging to a male. However, the DNA profile was so weak that further testing couldn't be conducted. With the technology expected to advance further in the years to come, it is hoped that a full DNA profile will be obtained in the future. What about the semen sample? The problem is that back in 1965, DNA testing didn't exist,

• 1:19:01Speaker 00

  and police could never have imagined the technologies that would one day be available.

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, this may have led to less-than-ideal handling of the evidence, and at some point over the years, that semen sample has been lost.

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  The status of the broken knife blade is unknown. While the original investigators had determined there was blood on the knife, they couldn't test it any further. Advanced testing might be possible today, but there is no information to confirm whether the piece of knife blade still exists or if testing has been done.

• 1:19:42Speaker 00

  The Wonder Beach case has always remained open, and the $20,000 reward is still available. Incredibly, the figure has never been increased, not even to match inflation. It may be time for the reward to be reviewed.

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  Was Alan Bassett, Christopher Wilder, or Derek Percy responsible for the Wonder Beach murders? Or was it someone else entirely? Has his name already been given to police, buried amongst the thousands of pages that make up the case file? Or lost amongst the hundreds of calls that were coming in daily and thousands of leads police had to chase down? Or is it someone completely unknown, who has managed to avoid detection all these years? Is there someone out there who was at Wanderbeach that day and saw something, but is still too scared to come forward? Many think there is.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  A number of people seen at the beach never came forward and still haven't been identified. 1965 was a different time. Not only was homosexuality still illegal and considered a psychiatric disorder, society held a very dim view of some of the other behaviours that went on in the Sandhills. Thankfully, times have changed and we can only hope that if anyone did see or hear anything, they might still be alive and come forward. While this person might think the information they hold is insignificant, it could be the vital piece of the puzzle that's needed to finally solve the case and bring answers to the families of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock.

• 1:21:29Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, since this episode first aired in 2016, there have been no major updates in the Wanderbeach investigation. No further DNA advancements have been reported, no new testing announced, and the $20,000 reward remains unchanged.

• 1:21:48Speaker 00

  Sixty-one years on, the case continues to sit open and unsolved, awaiting the crucial piece of information or technological breakthrough that might finally reveal the identity of the killer.

• 1:22:02Speaker 00

  This is Case File. Thanks for listening. See you next episode.

• 1:22:39Speaker 02

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