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The Wanda Beach Murders

Of all the major crimes of the 1960s, none is more mysterious than what became known as the Wanda Beach Murders: two girls were brutally murdered in broad daylight, their bodies buried in shallow graves at Wanda Beach in Sydney’s south.

On the hot eastern Australian summer’s day of Monday, 11 January 1965, best friends Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt, both 15, took Marianne’s siblings, Peter, 10, Trixie, 9, Wolfgang, 7, and Norbert, 6, to the beach for the day. The Schmidt children’s father had died from cancer six months earlier, and that day their mother was in hospital recovering from major surgery. Mrs Schmidt had specifically asked Marianne to take the children to the beach as a special treat. She had no reservations whatever about allowing the youngsters to accompany Marianne and her friend, Christine – the two teenagers were considered extremely reliable and responsible. Marianne had topped her class at Marsden High School the previous year.

Christine’s father had died nine years earlier and her mother had remarried. Christine had been living with her grandmother for the past four years. She was an outgoing girl. She had just left school and was about to begin a secretarial course. She and her grandmother were regulars every Sunday at the local church.

From where the Schmidt family lived in West Ryde, in Sydney’s northwest, it was a pleasant train ride to Cronulla, one of Sydney’s southern beaches. All the children were looking forward to a cooling dip in the ocean. During the train journey, the weather turned unexpectedly bad, but the children were determined to make a day of it anyway. When they arrived at the beach, they sought shelter from the gusting southerly wind behind rocks and ate their lunch – cheese and vegemite and cucumber and tomato sandwiches that Marianne had prepared. She also gave each child a piece of fruit.

No one thought anything of it when Christine stood up and said she was going for a walk and would be back shortly. Where she went has never been determined. When she returned, after a short time, it was agreed that they would have an adventure by walking heads down into the wind past North Cronulla Beach and into the Wanda Beach sand dunes. After the long walk along the open beach, the group was exhausted, and glad to seek refuge from the blustering wind among the sand dunes. Christine and Marianne told the younger children to stay where they were and not to move while they (Christine and Marianne) returned down the beach to collect the beach bags they had hidden back at Cronulla. From there they walked to their deaths.

As the hours ticked by, the children snuggled up in the Wanda Beach sand dunes became worried. They searched the immediate area, but there was no sign of the girls. At 5 pm, they headed back down the beach to Cronulla railway station and caught the train home. They told Christine’s grandmother what had happened, and when the girls hadn’t turned up by late that night, she called the police.

The following day, at about 2.30 pm, Peter Smith, a tourist from Cowra, in western New South Wales, who was visiting the area, was walking along Wanda Beach with his three nephews when they spotted some bloody drag marks in the sand leading into the sand dunes. When they brushed aside the sand where the marks ended, they reeled back in horror at what they saw. It was the brutalised face of a young girl. One of them ran for the police while the others stood guard over their ghastly discovery.

What police uncovered defied their imagination. Christine and Marianne were lying side by side in a shallow grave. The earth around and beneath them was saturated with blood. It was immediately obvious that they had been subjected to a prolonged and vicious attack. Their injuries were horrific. Both girls had been brutally bashed and stabbed many times. Christine’s body had two stab wounds in the back, indicating that she had probably tried to escape but had been chased down by her assailant and stabbed and dragged back to the grave site. An autopsy later revealed that both girls had also been sexually assaulted. Police concluded that the bodies had been violated on the beach, then dragged to where they were buried.

A number of witnesses came forward and said that they had seen the girls walking down the beach, laughing and chatting. Wolfgang Schmidt told detectives that he had disobeyed his sister’s instructions to stay put until they got back and had followed the girls for a short distance. He had seen a ‘surfie’ type talking to Christine and his sister soon after they left the younger children to retrieve their beach bags. Wolfgang described the surfie as being no different from any of the hundreds of young men who frequented Australia’s beaches in search of a good wave. According to the boy, he had long blond hair, zinc cream on his nose, was wearing no top and a pair of light-coloured slacks, and had a towel around his neck. Wolfgang also claimed to have seen the surfie fossicking around rocks near Cronulla Beach with a knife he kept in a sheath tied around his waist. The surfie appeared to be very friendly with the girls, and had his arms around both girls’ shoulders.

Other persons of interest seen that afternoon were: a muscular, suntanned 45- to 50-year-old man walking down the beach; a man aged about 28 who was sunbaking near the Wanda Surf Club then shook off his towel at about 1 pm and headed north along the beach; and another man aged about 20 who was half-submerged in the sand with a piece of corrugated tin with eye holes cut in it wrapped around his head. All three would have had an uninterrupted view along the beach. Despite constant pleas by police for anyone in the vicinity that day to come forward, none of these men responded.

On the evening the girls’ bodies were discovered, a doctor had to tell Mrs Schmidt the dreadful news as she was recuperating from her operation at King George V Hospital. She insisted on being taken home by ambulance to be with her children, even though it was only for a short time.

The following day the sands of Wanda Beach swarmed with police, scouring and digging every inch of the area in search of anything that could help them track down the person or persons who had committed such a terrible crime. Tonnes of sand were lifted by the local council’s front-end loader then emptied onto the beach and sifted. Apart from a few wine bottles, food refuse and the odd thong, the only clue came after a week of digging: a 2.5 centimetre long piece of bloodstained blade, from what appeared to be a kitchen knife, was found about five metres from where the bodies were discovered. Subsequent tests failed to reveal whether or not the blood was human.

Apart from that, the police found nothing else. The NSW government offered a £10,000 reward for any information that might lead to the killer or his accomplices. Mrs Schmidt came home from hospital for her daughter’s funeral. At Marianne’s service, Lutheran pastor W.R. Paegh spoke of the tragedy as a ‘bestial, brutal’ act. Christine Sharrock’s funeral was held the same day. Wreaths arrived from all over Australia, and a police motorcycle escort accompanied each cortege.

Still looking for any clue that may lead to the killer, police organised for several young female police officers in bathers to mix with the crowds at Cronulla and walk along the beach in the same direction that Christine and Marianne had walked on that terrible day, in the vain hope that they may be followed. They weren’t. The NSW government forensic psychiatrist, Dr John McGeorge, not one known to hold back on his opinions of ghastly crimes, said that due to the violent nature of the deaths, he believed that this was just the beginning, and that the killer would strike again … and soon.

At the inquest into the girls’ deaths, which was held 15 months later, on 20 April 1966, the police had to concede that they were no closer to solving the murders than they had been on the day they started investigating the deaths, although they had interviewed more than 3000 people and still had six detectives working full-time on the case. The only clue they had turned up was the tiny piece of bloodstained knife blade. And although police had made up several ‘identikits’ of possible suspects, which included the friendly surfie Wolfgang had seen on the beach with the girls, and the likenesses were published in the daily papers regularly, no one had come forward.

After three days the inquest came to a close. Coroner Loomes concluded that the girls had been murdered by a person or persons unknown and it was his belief that ‘this is not the end. It could be just the beginning.’

The case of the Wanda Beach murders remains open to this day.