A man will be extradited to NSW and charged with abduction and murder almost 50 years after a three-year-old girl disappeared from a beach in Wollongong, in one of the state's most notorious cold cases.
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Cheryl Grimmer disappeared from Fairy Meadow Beach on January 12, 1970, when she went to the surf club change rooms with her brothers after a swim.
A coronial inquest into her disappearance in May 2011 found she died some time after she disappeared, from an unknown cause.
Her body has never been found, despite a $100,000 reward on offer for information leading to the person responsible.
On Thursday, police announced a 63-year-old man had been arrested over her abduction, in a "major breakthrough".
NSW Police detectives arrested the man in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston at 1pm on Wednesday, and successfully applied in Frankston Magistrates Court to have him extradited to NSW.
Police said the man will be taken to Wollongong Police Station on Thursday, where he will be charged with Murder and Detain for Advantage (abduction).
He is expected to face Wollongong Local Court on Friday.
The initial investigation in 1970 sparked a manhunt, with detectives speaking to more than 300 people. However, the trail eventually ran cold.
Cheryl's parents died without knowing what happened to their daughter.
In 2016, police announced they had a new lead, after three other children who were on Fairy Meadow Beach that day said they saw a teenager "loitering" near the surf club pavilion.
Announcing the breakthrough, Detective Inspector Brad Ainsworth said the person of interest would now be in his early 60s.
He was described as being 16 or 17 at the time, 180cm tall, with fair skin, a medium build, brown hair and blue eyes.
"He was seen here in the morning and the afternoon," Detective Inspector Ainsworth said.
"This male person has been described and included in these witness versions. We're appealing for anyone with information about the identity of this person [to come forward]."
Local detectives and officers from the State Crime Command's Unsolved Homicide Team formed Strike Force Wessel to re-investigate the case.
In January, police asked the public for help to locate former staff and residents of Mount Penang Training School, on the NSW Central Coast.
They believed someone "associated with the Mount Penang boys' home in that era might have valuable details about the case".
