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The Mysterious Disappearance of Samantha Knight

It was one of Sydney’s most enduring mysteries that saw the face of Samantha Knight in her urchin’s cap become deep-etched in the memories of those of us who lived through that terrible time. And then, as is so often the case when children come to harm, Samantha’s killer was there all the time, just a heartbeat away, a trusted friend of the family. But it took many years to catch the beast and during that time he assaulted countless other kiddies on his way to his cell in protective custody, away from the other prisoners who would gladly tear him to shreds if they could get their hands on him.

At 4.30pm on the Tuesday afternoon of 19 August 1986, nine-year-old Samantha Knight left her Bondi flat, where she lived with her mother Tess and their black cat Midnight, to go to the shops in nearby Bondi Road to buy some lollies and a pencil. Samantha made her purchases and soon after was positively identified by a neighbour walking alone along Bondi Road. Three other witnesses said that they may have seen Samantha walking – perhaps hand-in-hand, but not for certain – with a man that afternoon, but it couldn’t be confirmed. Then the pretty little girl in the cap simply vanished.

Samantha’s disappearance triggered one of the biggest investigations in Sydney’s history, an investigation which saw her face on posters all throughout Sydney’s suburbs and as far away as Newcastle. They asked the question: ‘Have you seen this girl?’ But no one had. There were countless alleged sightings, the majority from well-meaning citizens and the rest from cruel hoaxers, but none offered the slightest positive clue as to what may have become of Samantha Knight.

Despite relentless campaigning by Samantha’s family to keep the case in the public awareness, a $50,000 reward offered by the NSW Government for any information and the press running stories at the slightest opportunity to keep the case alive, it wasn’t until 14 years later that relentless investigators revealed that at last they had a definite suspect.

On 11 February 2000, convicted Sydney paedophile Michael Anthony Guider, 49, was convicted of sex offences against two five-year-old children between 1982 and 1985. Guider was four years into a 10-year sentence for 60 counts of drugging and molesting 11 children aged two to 16 and possessing thousands of pornographic pictures of children, which he had taken.

Although found guilty, Guider wasn’t given any additional jail time on top of his existing sentence. ‘There is little point in my imposing an additional term – he’s already looking at six more years which in my opinion is long enough to deal with any problems that he has,’ Judge O’Reilly told the court.

Apparently, shortly after Michael Guider was initially sent to Lithgow jail for 10 years in 1996, he was questioned by detectives about Samantha Knight’s disappearance. He was questioned about the matter again in 1999. And he was questioned again before, and after, his 2000 conviction. It seemed that Michael Guider had once been a family friend who had acted as babysitter on several occasions to Samantha Knight and some of her friends.

A year later, on 21 February 2001, Michael Guider stood before the court at his committal hearing charged with the murder of Samantha Knight, more than 14 years earlier. Those who had known him previously gasped as he was brought into the court. Dressed in prison greens, his bespectacled face was almost completely covered in a prison-grown bushy grey beard, and long unkempt hair hung down over his face and shoulders. Guider was unrecognisable. He had grown the ultimate disguise.

Documents presented to the court stated that Guider, a former North Shore landscaper and gardener, had admitted to witnesses that he had drugged Samantha to take naked pictures of her, but he had given her too many sleeping pills and she had accidentally died. Documents also said that Guider had admitted to molesting and taking pornographic pictures of many children over the previous 20 years. Two of the victims were Samantha’s girlfriends.

The documents said that Guider had initially endeared himself to Samantha when she was five and lived at Manly, and had two girlfriends of similar age. Guider was a friend of their families. When Samantha moved to Bondi at the age of seven, she stayed friends with the girls and would regularly visit their homes, sometimes for sleepovers. During the following years Michael Guider occasionally babysat for Samantha and her two girlfriends, drugging them with sleeping pills in soft drink and taking obscene pictures of them while they slept.

Medical records verified that Guider regularly bought the prescription drug Normison, a sleeping pill that could undoubtedly cause toxic overdose, especially in a nine-year-old child, if too many were taken. Michael Guider had purchased Normison in the month leading up to Samantha’s disappearance.

Samantha’s mother Tess and father Peter O’Meagher, who had separated before their daughter went missing, sat intently through the proceedings. They listened as, one by one, three prisoners who had been in jail with Michael Guider told of his confessions to them.

One told the court that Guider had told him he had given Samantha too much Normison, and that if police had looked under bushes in nearby Cooper Park they would have found her. Another said that Guider had told him that he was the man the three witnesses thought they saw Samantha with, and that he had taken her to a cave in North Sydney. There he drugged her and photographed her and went away for a brief time. When he came back she was dead. He buried her in a park then dug her body up later and put it in the garbage, and it was taken away, never to be found.

Michael Guider was committed for trial where he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter, not murder, of Samantha Knight after arriving at a deal with the Crown, with the approval of Samantha’s family. It carried a maximum of 25 years in jail. Guider received 17 years with a minimum of 12, to be served concurrently with the term he was already serving. This means that all he really got for killing Samantha Knight was eight years. That’s if he’s a good boy. But then again, there aren’t any little girls in jail, are there?

It turned out that one of the three prisoners who gave evidence against Michael Guider was his own brother Tim, who was serving a 10-year sentence for matters relating to an armed robbery. Given that it was alleged that it was Tim’s information against his brother that brought about the conviction in the first place, Tim was given a pardon and released from jail.

Here’s a scary thought. Michael Guider will be eligible for parole in 2014. He will be 63. At the very worst they can only keep him in jail until 2019, when he is 68. No one knows what he looks like without a beard, long hair and glasses. Just a nice, cuddly old man with some Normison. That’s unless someone puts him in the mainstream section of the prison by mistake. We can only wish.