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It's here. Case File has officially entered its 10th year. I want to take a minute to extend a warm thank you to
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everyone who has listened, supported, and stayed with the show over the past decade. When I made the first episode of
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Case File, I had no real understanding of podcasting or audio production. My simple hope was that it might reach 100
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listens. Fast forward a decade and I could never have imagined being in this position with over 330 episodes in the
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case file catalog, a loyal global audience, and a small team joining me for the journey.
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To mark the 10-year anniversary, I'd like to introduce you to Case File Archives, a series of special bonus
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releases revisiting the earliest years of the show. To kick things off over the next eight weeks, counting down to the
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new season, we'll be releasing a mix of fully re-recorded episodes from our first year of production along with
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episodes that were previously only available to Patreon and premium supporters. Rest assured that these are additional
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bonus releases and will not replace our standard schedule, which is set to resume on March 7 this year.
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We also want to reassure you that we'll still be releasing the same number of new Case File episodes this year as we
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did in 2025. The Case File Archive series is strictly bonus content in the leadup to the new
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season as a way to mark our 10th year. The rerun episodes have been completely edited, polished, re-recorded, and
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freshly produced from start to finish to match our current production standards.
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They are not complete rewrites. Our goal wasn't to alter the cases or reshape the
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writing, but to preserve the original storytelling while giving the production the refinement it didn't have when I
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started the show back in 2016. Where appropriate, updates have been added, but the core structure and
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storytelling remain faithful to the originals. Because of this, these re-releases may
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sound a little different to our recent episodes, but they allow us to bring some of the earliest episodes up to the
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technical quality listeners expect today. We're beginning the series with the newly re-recorded Wonder Beach case.
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This was the very first episode of Case File. We are releasing it today on January 9th, 2026, exactly 10 years
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after the original episode first aired on January 9th, 2016. It also comes just 2 days before the
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61st anniversary of the crime. Throughout our 10th year, our goal is to release episodes most weeks of the year,
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with this case file archives bonus series providing additional material alongside our new episodes. It's a way
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for us to reflect on those early cases and rehighlight stories that many newer listeners may have missed. Whether
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you've been listening since the start or have only just tuned in, myself and the
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rest of the case team thank you for joining us. We couldn't have done it without you.
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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please
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contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for confidential support, and for a more
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detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
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On January 12th, 1965, the bodies of 15year-olds Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik were found on a
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desolate and isolated stretch of beach just north of Krenella in Sydney South. The case would come to be known as the W
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Beach murders. One mention of the word wonder is enough to send chills down the spine of those
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who remember the case that dominated the television reports, radio airwaves, and
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print media of the day. The killing sparked one of the biggest manhunts Australia has ever seen. The
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police file on the case is over 10,000 pages long and over 14,000 people have been interviewed.
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Efforts to solve the case have been exhaustive and leads have been followed up all around Australia.
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The case raised many questions. What drew Maryanne and Christine to the Wander Sand Hills that day? Had they
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arranged to meet someone, or were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? Speculation and theories have surrounded
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the case since day one, but only one thing is clear. A vicious and ruthless killer has never
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been brought to justice. Welcome to Case File, true crime podcast. Case one, the Wonder Beach
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murders. In 1958, married couple Helmut and Elizabeth Schmidt decided to migrate to
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Australia from their hometown in Germany. They made the journey along with their six children, Helmouth Jr.,
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Maryanne, Hans, Peter, Wolf Gang, and Trixie. Upon their arrival, the family stayed in
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various migrant camps and soon welcomed a seventh child, a boy named Norbert, before eventually settling down into a
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home of their own on Brush Road in the Sydney suburb of Northride. 13-year-old Maryanne Schmidt quickly
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struck up a friendship with her nextdoor neighbor, Christine Sherik, who was the
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same age. Christine lived with her grandparents, Jim and Janette, choosing to do so after
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her father passed away and her mother remarried. Christine and Maryanne formed an instant
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bond, sharing a love of the beach and music with a particular fondness for Elvis.
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The two became inseparable. Reflecting on their friendship later on, Christine's uncle said they did not go
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out much and their main interests were centered around their homes. They were always in each other's company, and
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neither went out with boys. Both girls were described as being good students and regular churchgoers who
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were quiet and well- behaved. They weren't known to hang around any unsaavory characters.
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In 1964, Helmwood Senior passed away after a battle with Hodkdins disease. One can only imagine how much tighter
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Maryanne and Christine's bond became, having both lost their fathers at such a young age.
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By 1965, Maryanne and Christine were both 15 and closer than ever. On New Year's Day, the two friends visited
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Krenella Beach, a popular spot located around 30 km south of Sydney CBD. Although the journey took around 2 hours
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each way, it was the only Sydney beach accessible by train at the time, and therefore, it was the only beach the
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teenagers ever visited. During this trip, they walked a little further north to the less crowded Wander
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Beach, where they strolled through the sand hills. The next day, Maryanne visited Krenella
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Beach again, this time with her brothers and sisters. She went off on her own for several
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hours, and when she returned, she told her siblings she had gone for a walk to W Beach.
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She didn't say why. Around the same time, Maryanne's mother, Elizabeth Schmidt, was admitted to
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hospital to undergo an operation. She left her eldest children, Helmut Jr. and Maryanne in charge of the household
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while she recovered. On January 9, Maryanne and Christine visited Elizabeth in hospital, and
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Maryanne asked if they could take some of her siblings to Krenella Beach the following day.
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Elizabeth gave them permission to do so, but the next day the weather was terrible. So, Maryanne and Christine
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decided to postpone their plan. The trip went ahead the following morning on Monday, January 11, 1965.
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While getting ready, Christine told her grandmother, Janette, that it would be fun to walk along the Wonder Sand Hills
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again. Janette urged her not to, replying, "Don't go today, love. You've got the
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four little ones with you. It's too far." Christine tried to argue, but again, her
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grandmother warned her against it. So, what are the Wonder Sand Hills and what was the girl's fascination with
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them? Wonder is an Aboriginal name meaning sand hills by the sea beach. Wonder beach is part of a longer stretch
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of coastline that starts with Kanala Beach and includes North Kanala Beach, Allura Beach, and then Wonder Beach.
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The Wander Sand Hills, otherwise known as Green Hills, run behind Wonder Beach and continue north up to the Sydney
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suburb of Kernel. The distance from Krenala Beach to the W sand hills is about 2 km.
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While the main part of Wonder Beach itself was clean and pristine back in 1965, the isolated sand hills were a different
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story entirely. The sand hills were described as being Sydney's filthiest and loneliest stretch
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of beach, littered with smashed bottles, old shoes, rusted cans, broken toys, and
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all kinds of discarded junk and rubbish. Regardless, the isolation meant the Wonder Sand Hills were popular for
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people wanting to meet up without being seen. Given that homosexuality was illegal at
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the time, certain areas of the Sand Hills were popular with gay men who wanted to engage in casual sex.
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The area was also known to attract nude sunbathers, couples engaging in public sex, public [ __ ] voyers, and
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men who harassed women and propositioned them for sex. Access to the sand hills could be gained without having to walk
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along the main beach areas by either parking behind the hills or following a number of trails.
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Many local residents were aware of what went on in the sand hills and refused to
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let their children anywhere near them. It obviously didn't sound like the ideal place for two well- behaved teenagers
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like Maryannne Schmidt and Christine Sherik, but they weren't from the local area and therefore were likely unaware
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of its reputation. Back then, information wasn't as readily available and didn't travel anywhere
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near as fast as it does today. And so on that morning of Monday, January 11, the two friends got ready
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for their day at the beach. Christine packed a thermos of cordial and a£1 note to buy lunch with later on
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while Maryanne packed some sandwiches and fruit. At 8:30 a.m., the two teenagers walked to the West Ride train
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station along with Maryanne's 9-year-old sister, Trixie, and her brothers, 10-year-old Peter, 7-year-old Wolf Gang,
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and 5-year-old Norbert. The other two Schmidt boys, Hilmer Jr. and Hans, stayed home to complete some
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household chores. The journey to Krenella required the group to change trains once they reached
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Red Fern Station. As they began their first leg of the trip, a tall teenage boy who looked to
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be around 15 years old struck up a conversation with Maryanne and Christine. What they talked about isn't known, but
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the boy didn't follow them when they switched stations, and the girls didn't talk to anyone else for the rest of the
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journey. The group arrived at Krenella Beach at around 11:00 a.m. only to find out that
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the beach was closed due to dangerous seas and strong winds. Undeterred, they headed to the southern
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end of Kronella Beach and hung around the rocks. Wolf Gang kept pestering Maryanne to
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take him for a swim, and eventually she gave in and took him to a shallow and more secluded spot for a quick dip
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before they rejoined the others to eat lunch on the rocks. At some point, Wolf Gang saw Maryanne
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and Christine talking to a boy who was hunting for crabs with a homemade spear. He looked to be around 16 years old and
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was of medium build with long fair hair. Wolf Gang couldn't hear what they were talking about.
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Shortly after lunch, Maryanne suggested they all take a walk to the W sand hills
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and the others agreed. They left their belongings at the rocks and began the 2 km journey north.
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Once they reached a Wander Beach, the walk became too much for the younger children.
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The wind was howling and it was whipping the sand up and stinging their legs. Wolf Gang found a spot that was
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sheltered from the wind. Maryanne and Christine told the younger kids to stay there while they walked back to the
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rocks and grabbed their belongings so they could go home, saying it should only take them about 20 minutes.
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However, it didn't appear that the pair had any intention of going home just yet.
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Instead of walking south, they continued north to the sand hills. Peter yelled out to them, "You're going
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the wrong way." But the girls just looked back and laughed, continuing on into the sand
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hills. About 10 minutes later, Peter sent Wolf Gang out to look for the girls. Wolf Gang walked to the sand hills and
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saw Maryanne and Christine talking to a teenage boy who looked to be about 16 years old.
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He was a quote big boy with tanned skin, long light colored hair, and white sun cream on his nose.
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He wore gray trousers with no shirt and carried a blue towel. Wolf Gang thought he looked like a
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surfy. He looked angry and was asking Maryanne and Christine for their names. The girls followed the surfy into the
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sand hills and Wolf Gang decided not to follow them any further. About 10 minutes later, Wolf Gang saw
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the surfy looking teenager walking out of the sand hills alone. His blue towel was now tied around his
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neck. Wolf Gang asked the teen, "Where are the girls?" But he walked straight past
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without answering. We can only speculate as to why Maryanne and Christine walked into the sand hills
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that day, but it does seem clear that they were determined to go there. Not only had Christine mentioned the plan to
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her grandmother, but they had also persevered with taking the young children on the long walk despite the
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poor weather conditions. Because of this, many were later convinced that the girls had planned to
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meet someone at the Sand Hills that day. However, Maryanne and Christine had originally planned to go to the beach on
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the Sunday, the day before, and those plans had only changed at the last minute due to the bad weather.
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Back then, in the days before mobile phones and social media, it wasn't as easy to reschedu as it is today.
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If they did go to the Sand Hills with the intention of meeting someone, it is possible that it was someone who they
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had come into contact with that Monday. After Wolf Gang lost sight of Christine and Maryanne, a man named Dennis Dostine
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saw the pair hurrying through the sand hills. One of them kept looking over her shoulder as though someone was following
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them, but Dennis couldn't see anyone else, and he didn't think much more of it. Meanwhile, the Schmidt siblings
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continued to wait. Eventually, they went looking for Maryanne and Christine, but couldn't
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find them. At no stage did Wolf Gang mention the Surfy teenager to the others. After a few hours, the children realized
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that time was slipping away, and the last train out of Kronala would be leaving at 6:00 p.m.
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They made the decision to head home without Marianne and Christine, trudging back down to the southern end of
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Krenella Beach, where their belongings still sat untouched. They boarded the last train out of
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Krenella and arrived home after 8:00 p.m., informing both families that the two girls were missing.
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No great alarm bells went off for the police who attended to take the missing person's report. After all, the two
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friends had happily walked off at their own free will. The officers asked the usual questions.
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Have they done this before? Is there anywhere you think they might be? Do they have boyfriends? etc. Their only
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concern stemmed from the fact that Maryanne and Christine both came from happy homes and had never run off
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before. It was completely out of character for either of them to go off without telling
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anyone, and even stranger that they would leave the younger children alone at the beach.
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A description of the pair was broadcast to all police stations in the Sydney area. Just imagine how different it was
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in 1965. There were no mobile phones to track, no social media accounts to check, no
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instant media releases that could go viral to keep the public on the lookout. But even if all that modern technology
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was available, it would have been too late. At around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January
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12th, 17-year-old Peter Smith was walking through the Wonder Sand Hills with his two younger nephews when he saw
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what looked like a store mannequin lying in the sand. A closer inspection revealed the grim
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reality. Filled with shock and panic, Peter ran to the W Surf Club, which was about
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1,500 m south. He notified the caretaker that he had found the body of a teenage girl and
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asked to use the phone to call the police. Police arrived at the surf club and Peter led them to the site in the sand
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hills. Upon closer inspection, a police officer noticed that there were actually three
00:20:28
feet sticking out from under the sand. The shocking discovery became that much more horrific when it was discovered
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that there wasn't just one body, but two. Local Krenella detectives soon notified
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the criminal investigation branch and homicide detectives made their way to Wander along with forensic
00:20:49
investigators. The crime scene was thoroughly examined and portable lighting was brought in as
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the work continued into the night. It didn't take long for police to link the gruesome discovery to the missing
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person report for Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik, and a positive identification was made.
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The location where the girls bodies were found was two dunes back from where they
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had first wandered off, 150 m from the water's edge and about 1,500 m north of Wander Surf Club.
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Maryanne's brother, Hans, who hadn't gone to the beach with the group, visited the crime scene and described
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the area. "The place the girls were killed, was very isolated, even though it was only
00:21:38
two dunes back from the beach," he said. "It was so quiet, I couldn't even hear the waves crashing. You could scream
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your head off and no one would hear a thing. No one could have heard the girls screaming for help.
00:21:56
From the location where the girl's bodies were found, there was a 32 m long drag mark in the sand which led to blood
00:22:04
stains and signs of a struggle. The lead detective concluded, quote, "It looks as though the Schmidt girl was
00:22:13
knocked down and then stabbed. Christine was killed about 20 yard away and her body was then dragged back to where the
00:22:21
Schmidt girl lay." He believed Christine may have witnessed Maryanne being attacked and then ran off
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only to be caught a short distance away. Every 3 m in the drag marks, there were
00:22:36
much heavier concentrations of blood. This indicated that whoever was dragging Christine's body had stopped for a rest
00:22:43
at certain intervals. Given that Christine was described as a petite girl, this implied that the
00:22:50
perpetrator may not have been very strong. About 30 m west of where Christine was
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attacked, detectives located car tire tracks, but they couldn't say with certainty whether the tracks were
00:23:04
related to the crime. It was also possible that the killer had escaped on foot over the back of the
00:23:11
sand hills towards Captain Cook Drive without ever going back to the beach. Postmortems revealed that Christine and
00:23:20
Maryanne had both been savagely attacked and mutilated. The official cause of Christine's death
00:23:27
was hemorrhage as a result of penetrating wounds to the chest associated with a fracture of the skull
00:23:33
and injury to the brain. Maryanne's official cause of death was hemorrhage as a result of a cut throat
00:23:39
and penetrating wounds to the chest. There were signs that both girls had been sexually assaulted.
00:23:48
Seaman was also found on Maryanne's body. The attack was so savage that the full
00:23:55
details have never been released to the public. The time of death for both girls was
00:24:02
estimated to be between 2:00 p.m. and midnight on Monday, January 11, 1965. The exact time was difficult to pinpoint
00:24:12
as both of their bodies had been covered by hot sand. An examination of Christine's stomach
00:24:19
contents revealed that she had undigested cabbage and celery in her system. This immediately stood out to
00:24:27
investigators as the group had only taken sandwiches and fruit to the beach and Christine hadn't eaten anything
00:24:33
containing these ingredients while with the others. For the food to be undigested, it meant
00:24:39
she had eaten within 1 hour of her death. Christine also had a blood alcohol reading of 0.015.
00:24:49
This was the equivalent of either drinking about a midi of beer or a nip of spirits just prior to her death or
00:24:56
the culmination of drinking several drinks in the hours leading up to her death.
00:25:01
The time she had consumed the alcohol couldn't be accurately determined, but the reading of 0.015 would have been
00:25:08
accurate at the time she died and wouldn't have changed thereafter. Maryanne, on the other hand, had no
00:25:16
alcohol in her system. This revelation horrified Christine's grandmother as Christine was not known
00:25:24
to drink. Her family stated that she had never touched alcohol and couldn't even
00:25:30
stand the smell. Loud alarm bells were going off. The food found in Christine's stomach didn't
00:25:38
match what they had brought to the beach, and they certainly hadn't taken any alcohol with them.
00:25:44
Given that the food in Christine's stomach was consumed within 1 hour of her death, it was likely that Christine
00:25:51
had shared food and alcohol with her killer. The injuries the girls had sustained led
00:26:03
police to believe they were looking for a fishing knife. They were also looking for a heavy blunt
00:26:09
instrument that was used to inflict the injuries on Christine, such as a rock, a
00:26:13
lump of wood, or a piece of metal pipe. The police questioned Wolf Gang, Peter, Trixie, and Norbert Schmidt extensively.
00:26:23
On Wednesday, January 13, the children were taken to the Sand Hills to retrace their steps and provide as much
00:26:30
information as possible about what had happened during their visit on Monday. Tragically, at this point, they were
00:26:38
still unaware that Maryanne and Christine were dead. It was at this point that detectives
00:26:44
first learned that 7-year-old Wolf Gang had seen the surfily looking teenager talking to the girls before they
00:26:51
disappeared into the sand hills. He'd first mentioned it to one of his older brothers while they were at home
00:26:58
waiting for news about Maryanne's whereabouts. None of the other children recalled
00:27:03
seeing the Surfy. Wolf Gang's account was the first major piece of information that detectives had
00:27:10
to go by, and the hunt for the Surfy teenager began. Media reports on the TV, radio, and
00:27:18
newspaper were dominated with details about the suspect last seen with Maryanne and Christine just prior to
00:27:24
their deaths. The problem was the description of the surfy matched just about every teenage
00:27:31
boy in the Krenal and Southerntherland Shire area. In a bid to make sure other potential
00:27:38
persons of interest didn't fly under the radar for not matching this description,
00:27:43
the police were quick to point out that they didn't necessarily believe the Surfy was the murderer.
00:27:50
It didn't take long before the police were swamped with hundreds of calls each day about the Surfy.
00:27:56
The caretaker of the W Surf Club revealed that on the Thursday before the murders, he had kicked a teenager who
00:28:03
matched that description off the beach for harassing two young girls. The media ran wild and the police
00:28:12
commissioner made a public appeal for the Surfy to come forward. With the hunt in full swing, the media
00:28:19
reported that four teenage suspects had been detained. One of them as far away as Queensland, and they were each being
00:28:26
questioned. The truth was that they weren't suspects in the W Beach murders at all, but just
00:28:33
teenagers who had been arrested on other minor matters. The fact that they may have looked like surfies was enough for
00:28:40
some people to label them as suspects. A mammoth search of the crime scene and surrounding Wonder Sand Hills commenced.
00:28:49
Police, including trainees, were sent from all over Sydney to help. The search wasn't easy. The filthy nature of the
00:28:58
Sand Hills with all the discarded rubbish hampered the search for clues immensely.
00:29:04
Several items were located, including shoes and even knives, but they were quickly ruled out as having anything to
00:29:11
do with the murders. By Thursday, January 14, police had secured a front-end loader from
00:29:18
Southerntherland Shia Council so they could dig up the sand, which was then put through a sift.
00:29:24
Army experts with metal and mine detectors were even sent to help. They dug up 500 tons of sand, but found
00:29:33
very little to assist their investigation. The only piece of physical evidence that
00:29:39
was located was a broken piece of a knife blade that was believed to have come from a kitchen knife.
00:29:46
The piece of blade was about 1 in long and had a clear cutting edge. It tested positive for blood. However,
00:29:54
there was an insufficient amount to conduct any further testing. Even if there was, DNA testing didn't
00:30:02
exist at the time and wouldn't for another 21 years. A forensic pathologist later testified
00:30:10
that the stab wounds inflicted on Maryanne and Christine would have been difficult to inflict with this
00:30:15
particular piece of broken blade. Although he did say that some cut marks on Christine could have been made with a
00:30:23
knife that had a portion of its blade missing. It was ultimately unclear if this piece
00:30:29
of blade was part of the murder weapon and had broken off during the savage attack or if it was completely
00:30:35
unrelated. On January 15, Maryanne's mother, Elizabeth Schmidt, broke her silence
00:30:44
about the murders. She was still in hospital recovering from her operation, having been allowed
00:30:50
temporary leave to comfort her children after news of Maryanne's death broke. In
00:30:56
a heartbreaking interview, Elizabeth said, quote, "My daughter and the other young girl have gone into eternal life.
00:31:05
They have met their maker and have therefore entered a new phase of existence. The person responsible, the murderer,
00:31:13
has his life ahead of him. How he faces this life is something I cannot answer. But his life would appear to be
00:31:22
spiritually speaking poorer than anything else. He would always be hunted and taunted.
00:31:30
The man responsible should meet his punishment and I think my husband would have felt the same way.
00:31:37
He should be made responsible for his action. At this time, the police commissioner
00:31:45
renewed his appeal for the Surfy teenager described by Wolf Gang Schmidt to come forward.
00:31:51
Reports had been circulating in the media that the Surfy was the killer, but the commissioner clarified, quote, "He
00:31:59
should not be influenced by published statements. He could very well clear the air for us in our investigations."
00:32:08
The next day, the commissioner made another appeal, stating, "I renew my appeal to this youth to come
00:32:15
forward and tell us what happened last Monday." Because he was seen coming away alone from the scene, it does not
00:32:23
necessarily follow that he is the killer. He stressed that police believed the Surfy could have been an innocent
00:32:31
bystander who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. if he'd just come and talk to the
00:32:37
police, they could clear him of suspicion. By this stage, police had interviewed
00:32:46
over 20 people who had been at the beach on Monday, January 11. More than 40 detectives had been assigned to the case
00:32:54
fulltime in what was shaping up to be one of the biggest manhunts Australia had ever seen.
00:33:01
Reports of individuals who matched the description of the surfy teenager were continuing to come in from all over the
00:33:07
state and even the country. Police were receiving hundreds of calls a day and were struggling to keep up
00:33:15
with the amount of information that was coming in. Some felt that a vital tip off may have
00:33:20
been lost amongst the thousands of calls that were received. Both Maryanne and Christine kept the
00:33:29
diaries. And through those diaries, police learned that when the girls had visited the beach together on New Year's
00:33:35
Day of 1965, they had met and kissed two boys. On January 16, police made a public
00:33:43
appeal for those two boys to come forward. And they did. known only as Ted and Jim. The two teens
00:33:52
were interviewed by police and confirmed they had met Maryanne and Christine at the beach on New Year's Day. However,
00:34:00
they said they hadn't made any plans to meet up again. Both of their alibis checked out and Ted
00:34:06
and Jim were quickly ruled out of the investigation. On January 18, one week after the
00:34:15
murders, news reports ran wild that a teenage boy was being held by police after a pair of bloodstained trousers
00:34:22
were found on Kuji Beach and identified as belonging to him. Wolf Gang Schmidt was rushed to Randwick
00:34:30
Police Station where a lineup was conducted, but he didn't identify the teenager as the surfy he had seen on the
00:34:36
day of the murders. It turned out that the individual had a simple explanation for the blood being
00:34:43
on his trousers, and it was confirmed that he wasn't at Wonder Beach on January 11.
00:34:51
Meanwhile, detectives were being flooded with information about several other suspicious males who had been seen at
00:34:57
the beach on the day of and days leading up to the murders. A sketch artist was brought in to assist
00:35:05
witnesses. By this point, Wolf Gang Schmidt had revealed another detail. He said that the surfy he'd seen talking
00:35:15
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
00:35:22
and had struck up a conversation with the girls. Police made an appeal for the crab
00:35:27
hunter to come forward with his description more or less matching that of the surfy.
00:35:36
On January 20, separate funeral services were held for Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik.
00:35:43
The service for Maryanne was held in the West Chapel of the Metropolitan Funeral
00:35:47
Home at Burwood and she was then cremated at Rookwood Crematorium. The service for Christine was held at
00:35:55
St. Michael's Catholic Church in Meadow Bank and she was then buried at Liverpool Cemetery near her father.
00:36:03
Both services attracted hundreds of mourners. Detectives and police photographers were
00:36:09
also in attendance, working on the theory that the girls knew their killer and that he may be at their funerals.
00:36:17
Just about every male who attended was photographed. At Maryanne's service, two teenage
00:36:24
sisters were interviewed separately by detectives after their father alerted police that they may have some valuable
00:36:31
information concerning Maryanne and Christine's backgrounds. Detectives were very interested to hear
00:36:38
what the girls had to say, but unfortunately no light was thrown on the investigation.
00:36:48
By this stage, a number of suspicious people had been reported as being on the beach on January 11, and police were
00:36:55
interested in speaking to each one. Dennis Dostine, the last known person to have seen Christine and Maryanne alive,
00:37:04
also reported seeing a number of other people around the same time he saw the two girls.
00:37:10
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
00:37:19
50 with tanned leathery skin. 57-year-old Francis Williams had been at the beach on January 11, and he came
00:37:28
forward to report having seen Christine, Maryanne, and the youngest Schmidt children at around 100 p.m.
00:37:35
They were walking north along the beach towards W about 100 m from the W Surf Club. Francis thought that they were
00:37:44
walking quite quickly and looked to be in a hurry. He also described a number of other
00:37:50
people he saw around Wander that day, including a male who was sunbathing in the sand hills. As Francis had
00:38:00
approached him, the male got up, shook sand off him, and walked off towards Wand Surf Club.
00:38:07
Two young boys who were playing on the beach. Two people fishing on the beach, a man
00:38:14
sunbathing with a corrugated iron box over his head. When some people heard this, they
00:38:20
immediately jumped to the conclusion that this man was one of the many perverts who lurked around the wand sand
00:38:26
hills. However, given it was a windy day, it's also possible that he was just using the box to protect his head from
00:38:34
the windb blown sand. a woman who had become bogged in the sand just behind the sand hills. She was
00:38:41
assisted by Francis. And lastly, another unknown male who drove off in a utility.
00:38:51
The details of these eight people were released to the media with some immediate success.
00:38:57
Upon seeing the report, the woman who was bogged came forward, but she was unable to add anything to the
00:39:03
investigation. None of the remaining seven people came forward. Given what the Wander Sand Hills were
00:39:13
renowned for at the time, it is believed that many people were too scared to come
00:39:17
forward out of fear that the police would question them as to what they were doing in the area that day.
00:39:26
On January 22, an interesting article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was only very small and
00:39:34
buried on page 10, overshadowed by the other stories that were now dominating the news, such as Winston Churchill's
00:39:42
declining health and the Rolling Stones visit to Australia. Buried amongst these other articles, a
00:39:49
small headline read, "Wonder victim's claim lapses." The article reported that Maryanne
00:39:57
Schmidt had been struck by a car on the corner of Victoria Road and Brush Road at Ride on May 7, 1964.
00:40:06
She suffered a fractured skull and had spent 9 days in hospital, after which she submitted a compensation claim of
00:40:13
£20,000. Australia was still using the pound as currency at the time, and this was quite
00:40:20
a significant sum, the equivalent of over half a million in 2016. The claim was due to be heard later on
00:40:29
in 1965, but as a result of Maryanne's death, the article confirmed that the claim had elapsed and would not proceed
00:40:38
any further. That same day, the police commissioner made yet another appeal. Quote,
00:40:47
"I have on more than one occasion asked the public to assist in every way within
00:40:52
their power with information which might help detectives engaged on the case. I now make a further and equally sincere
00:41:00
appeal. I do this because I am satisfied that there must be some persons in the community who would have some
00:41:08
information they have not brought to the notice of police. It is not unreasonable to assume that
00:41:15
someone somewhere in our community has seen or heard something which would be of great assistance in this matter.
00:41:22
For example, since this crime, a person may not have been seen at places he used
00:41:28
to frequent or there has been a change in pattern of his normal activity and behavior.
00:41:34
It is possible that to someone's knowledge he has said or done something which would give rise to a reasonable
00:41:40
suspicion that he might have been in some way associated with the crime. That is the type of vital information we
00:41:49
would like to get. Police were still searching for the seven people that Francis Williams had
00:41:57
seen at the beach on January 11. On January 23, a sketch of Wonder Beach and the surrounding sand hills was
00:42:06
released to the public. It showed the location of the crime scene as well as the various locations
00:42:13
where the seven unidentified people had been seen. Multiple people came forward to report
00:42:19
having been at the beach that day, completely unaware of just how close to the crime scene they had actually been.
00:42:27
But none of the people Francis had seen came forward. A psychiatrist released a report
00:42:34
revealing that they believed the killer lived local to the area. He likely had intimate knowledge of the Sand Hills and
00:42:42
could have been one of the so-called perverts who frequented the area. The psychiatrist said the killer was
00:42:49
likely a loner who had spent time at the Wonder Sand Hills spying on nude sunbathers and people having sex.
00:42:57
They felt the crimes were committed on impulse and that the killer may have acted on a previous urge after seeing
00:43:03
Maryanne and Christine during their earlier visits to the Sand Hills. The investigation into the murders was
00:43:13
hampered by the lack of physical evidence and identifiable witnesses as well as the unwillingness of people to
00:43:19
come forward. Hoping to overcome this, on January 29, the New South Wales premier announced a
00:43:26
£10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.
00:43:34
The currency changed to dollars soon after and the reward switched to $20,000, roughly the equivalent of a quarter of a
00:43:43
million in 2016. Two girls came forward to report that they had been riding horses on the beach
00:43:50
on January 11 when they saw a naked man walking around the sand hills with his clothes in his hands.
00:43:58
It was about 400 m from where Maryanne and Christine were killed. One of the girls yelled out, "What are
00:44:06
you doing?" But the man ignored them and kept walking. He was added to the growing list of
00:44:13
unidentified people seen at the beach that day. Police officers had been assigned to
00:44:21
keep watch on the sand hills round the clock in case the killer returned. On February 1, they thought they'd made
00:44:29
a breakthrough when one of these officers located a blue towel washed up on Wonder Beach.
00:44:35
This was significant because the surfy teenager described by Wolf Gang Schmidt had been carrying a blue towel.
00:44:43
The towel was immediately sent for scientific testing, but it became another frustrating dead end when a
00:44:50
13-year-old boy came forward and identified the towel as one he had lost at the beach only a few days earlier.
00:44:57
The large reward was encouraging all types of people to call in, and the police were inundated with false leads,
00:45:05
dead ants, hoax callers, and fake confessions. By March, anyone who resembled a surfy
00:45:13
teenager had been reported to the police. As the weeks passed by, Wolf Gang Schmidt added yet another detail. He
00:45:24
told the police that when the surfy walked off into the sand hills with Marianne and Christine, he had a knife
00:45:30
in a pouch around his waist. When he walked back out alone 10 minutes later, the knife was missing.
00:45:40
Wolf Gang's story had evolved over several interviews, and he'd added vital pieces of information as time went on.
00:45:47
It was a source of frustration for detectives and his version of events was treated with some skepticism.
00:45:55
Why Wolf Gang's story changed numerous times is anyone's guess, but his father had just died. His mother had just had a
00:46:02
serious operation, and his sister had just been brutally murdered. The amount of stress, trauma, fear, and grief the
00:46:10
7-year-old would have experienced is almost inconceivable, and he was most likely in severe shock.
00:46:17
There was no grief counseling at the time, and people were expected to just suck it up. It's not surprising if his
00:46:25
memory was a bit muddled. By April, 3 months had passed, and there still hadn't been any breakthroughs.
00:46:35
On April 19, two 15year-old girls were walking together near Carringbar train station, a short distance from Kronala
00:46:43
when a 15-year-old male grabbed one of them. The girls immediately screamed and managed to frighten the boy off, but
00:46:51
their description of him was very similar to that of the Surfy provided by Wolf Gang, pushing an already frightened
00:46:58
community further towards the edge. Police remained frustrated by the fact that several of the people cited at the
00:47:11
beach on the day of the murders still refused to come forward. They released six sketches of the individuals they
00:47:19
were most interested in talking to. These included the naked man seen walking through the sand hills, a man
00:47:26
who had been exposing himself to women in the months after the murders, and the teenager who had just attacked the girls
00:47:33
at Carringbar. Wolf Gang Schmidt was unable to help police with a sketch of the Surfy. He
00:47:40
agreed with everything the sketch artist said, making it an impossible task. Police were also particularly interested
00:47:48
in speaking to two men who had been harassing women in the area. The first was aged between 25 and 35, roughly 5'
00:47:57
11 in tall and of medium to plump build. He had a quote slightly foreign appearance and was known to carry an
00:48:06
orange and white towel. On the day of the murders, as well as the days leading up to it, he had been
00:48:12
seen in the area wearing gray trousers and a white shirt and carrying a newspaper and radio.
00:48:19
He approached several women, showing them pornographic pictures and asking them questions of a sexual nature. He
00:48:26
told some of them that he was from South Australia. The other man was described as being
00:48:33
between 18 and 20 years old with a slim build, light brown hair, and missing teeth. He had been wearing a
00:48:41
long-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of thorn colored shorts and was propositioning women on the beach for
00:48:47
sex. Neither of these men came forward, and they have never been identified. On May 29, a group of youths came
00:48:59
forward to reveal that just a few days after Maryanne and Christine were murdered, they had found a pair of
00:49:04
flippers and a homemade crab spear about 1 kilometer from the crime scene. They handed both of these items into the
00:49:12
police, though it's unclear why they waited 4 and 1/2 months to provide this information.
00:49:18
Wolf Gang Schmidt was reintered, but he couldn't remember if the spear was the same as the one he had seen the teenage
00:49:25
boy hunting for crabs with on the day of the murders. The investigation continued throughout
00:49:34
the year and into 1966, but it was starting to stall. The amount of full-time detectives assigned to the
00:49:41
case dropped from 40 to 8. Police were still assigned to keep watch on the Wonders Sand Hills. And while this had
00:49:49
resulted in a number of people being charged with sexual related offenses, police were no closer to identifying
00:49:56
Maryanne and Christine's killer. On January 29, 1966, just after the 1-year anniversary of the murders,
00:50:06
another brutal crime shocked the nation. 57-year-old Willilamina Krueger was found stabbed to death at the Piccadilly
00:50:14
Shopping Arcade in Wllingong, where she worked as a cleaner. She was killed in the early hours of the morning between
00:50:21
4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Willamina's murder was horrific and bore similarities to the Wander case, a
00:50:29
frenzied knife attack, no suspects, no witnesses, and no attempt at hiding her body.
00:50:36
Given that Wulingong is less than an hour's drive from Wand Beach, some believed that both murders were
00:50:42
committed by the same person. Just weeks later, on February 26th, 1966, the body of 27-year-old Anna
00:50:52
Dalinka was found on the old Ilawar Road in the suburb of Meni in Sydney's south.
00:50:58
Again, the location was in close enough proximity to both Wonder Beach and Wllingong. And Anna had been the victim
00:51:05
of a frenzied knife attack that was almost identical to the one committed against Willamina Krueger. Anna was a
00:51:12
sex worker and was last seen leaving a club in King's Cross after mentioning she was meeting a client.
00:51:19
Again, there were no witnesses, no suspects, no physical evidence, and no attempt to hide the body.
00:51:28
Police were almost certain the murders of Willamina Krueger and Anna Dalinkoa were committed by the same person.
00:51:35
Although links to the Wonder Beach case have never been proven, some have speculated that the same person might
00:51:42
have committed all four murders. The murders of Willamina and Anna remain unsolved.
00:51:49
Their stories were covered in detail on episode 72 of Case File. On April 20, 1966, a coronial inquest
00:52:00
into the deaths of Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik was held, presided over
00:52:04
by the city coroner. By this point, the number of detectives working the case full-time was down to
00:52:11
just six. The investigation log totaled over 5,000 pages and 7,000 interviews. Over 3 days, many witnesses gave
00:52:22
evidence, including the allimportant Schmidt children. The coroner believed there must be
00:52:30
somebody who could shed light on the murders. While he acknowledged that the police had already conducted exhaustive
00:52:37
inquiries, he hoped it was possible that the investigation could be intensified.
00:52:42
There was no doubt in the coroner's mind. Quote, "The cause of death is very evident. a vicious, brutal murder.
00:52:54
After the inquest, the police stated they would be reviewing every page of the case file in the hopes of uncovering
00:53:00
a vital piece of information that might have been previously overlooked. They still believed that somebody out
00:53:06
there knew something, but was withholding information, either because they were protecting someone close to
00:53:12
them or were fearful of that person. The investigation continued, but still no suspect was identified.
00:53:22
The six sketches that police had previously released were made into full-sized lifelike dummies, which were
00:53:28
displayed at the 1967 Sydney Easter show. It was hoped the large crowds of people would be able to put names to
00:53:36
faces, but no one could. On March 17, 1967, a 28-year-old woman named Brenda Galvin was sunbathing on
00:53:48
Wonder Beach with her three children when she was attacked by an unknown male. A witness named Trevor Betts rushed to
00:53:56
her aid, and the attacker fled in what was described as an old white vehicle. The description of the attacker provided
00:54:05
by both Brenda and Trevor matched one of the six unidentified police sketches, leading many to believe that the Wonder
00:54:13
Beach killer had attempted another attack. Despite an extensive investigation, this
00:54:19
offender was never identified. The years passed by with no major breakthroughs in the case, but new
00:54:29
persons of interest continued to emerge. When it comes to suspects in the murders
00:54:35
of Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik, three names are often thrown around. On Friday, June 10, 1966,
00:54:44
20-year-old Carolyn Mayor Orphan attended a dance in Wllingong, where she met 21-year-old Alan Basset, a fitter
00:54:51
and Turner from the nearby suburb of Yunandera. Caroline accepted a ride home from
00:54:57
Basset, who proceeded to kill her and dump her body on the side of a road. He was quickly identified and charged with
00:55:05
her murder. By all reports, Alan Basset seemed like a quiet, shy, and normal guy.
00:55:14
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
00:55:21
kill her. Despite the fact that she was tied up, strangled, and hit over the head with a
00:55:27
large rock, Basset asked to be found guilty of manslaughter. Although there were notable differences
00:55:36
between Carolyn's murder and that of Christine Sherik, Maryanne Schmidt, Willilamina Krueger, and Anna Delanca,
00:55:42
some considered Alan Basset to be a prime suspect in those cases as well. There was the savage nature of the
00:55:50
attack on Carolyn combined with the fact that Unandera was only a 5-minute drive
00:55:55
from the Piccadilly shopping arcade where Willilamina was killed and within an hour's reach of Menai and Wonder
00:56:01
Beach. Further investigations led police to believe that Alan Basset was at Kronala
00:56:08
around the time that Maryanne and Christine were murdered. A detective named Cess Johnson, who
00:56:15
worked the WonderB case, grew so convinced of Alan Basset's involvement in all four unsolved murders that he
00:56:22
became obsessed with getting Basset to confess. His obsession was so strong that it
00:56:28
turned unhealthy, and it was even recommended that he resign from the force. After his conviction for Carolyn's
00:56:36
murder, Basset was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to Moriceet Psychiatric Hospital near Newcastle.
00:56:44
Detective Ces Johnson visited him regularly and became even more convinced of his theory after Basset gave him a
00:56:51
painting he had drawn. The detective didn't think much of it at first, considering it to be quite an ugly
00:56:58
looking thing. But one day, he took a closer look at the painting and thought it depicted the
00:57:04
Wonder Beach crime scene and contained a clue that only the killer could know. Whatever that clue was has never been
00:57:13
made public. Detective Johnson went to the press with his theory and even started writing a
00:57:20
book, but he was killed in an accident before it was complete. While some agreed with Detective
00:57:28
Johnson's theory, many others did not. Privately, they thought he'd become too obsessed with Basset and was seeing
00:57:36
things that weren't there. One person he did convince, however, was Alan Basset's father, who went on public
00:57:44
record saying that he believed his son was responsible for the Wonder Beach murders and should never be released.
00:57:52
In 1995, Alan Basset was released from custody and placed back in the community. He denied being involved in
00:58:00
any crime other than the murder of Carolyn Orphan. In the year 2000, Basset publicly
00:58:07
offered to provide a DNA sample to prove his innocence in the other cases, but whether or not the police took him up on
00:58:14
his offer is unknown. The second name emerged on April 13, 1984 after the death of a man in the
00:58:28
United States sparked the interest of the New South Wales police and prompted the Wonder Beach case to be re-examined.
00:58:35
The reason why the man was Christopher Wilder, a serial killer dubbed the beauty queen killer.
00:58:43
Wilder was born in Sydney in 1945 and was still living there at the time that Maryanne and Christine were killed.
00:58:52
Christopher Wilder's first major run-in with the law was 2 years before the Wonder Beach murders at the age of 17
00:58:59
when he was charged for the gang rape of a woman at another Sydney beach. He got
00:59:04
off with probation and electric shock therapy. In 1968, Wilder got married, but his
00:59:12
wife left him a week later, claiming sexual and physical abuse. In 1969, he lured a 19-year-old nursing
00:59:21
student to Manly Beach and convinced her to pose for nude photographs. He then tried to force her to have sex
00:59:29
with him, and when she refused, he threatened to blackmail her with the photos. The woman escaped and contacted police
00:59:37
but declined to testify against him. Later that year, Wilder immigrated to the United States and settled in
00:59:46
Florida. It didn't take him long to find significant wealth due to the booming construction and real estate industries.
00:59:55
In 1971, he had his first run-in with the American authorities after he was caught trying to entice women to pose
01:00:02
for nude photographs. The following year, he was arrested for trying to force a 16-year-old girl to
01:00:09
have oral sex with him, but he was later acquitted of this charge. A few years later, Wilder posed as a
01:00:16
photographer to lure a school girl out of a shopping mall before drugging and raping her.
01:00:22
He was somehow able to plea bargain this charge down to probation and therapy. In 1982, Wilder visited his parents in
01:00:32
Australia where he abducted two 15year-old girls, tied them up, and forced them to pose for nude
01:00:39
photographs. He was arrested soon after, and his parents posted his bail. Wilder was allowed to leave Australia
01:00:47
until his trial. And it was during this weight in 1984 that he commenced a murderous rampage across nine different
01:00:55
states of America, kidnapping a dozen women and killing eight. His MMO was to pose as a photographer and tell a girl
01:01:04
how beautiful she was and how he could help her launch a modeling career. Once he convinced a girl to go with him to
01:01:11
take photos, he'd then kill her. It's pretty obvious why some people think Christopher Wilder is a prime
01:01:19
suspect for the Wonder Beach murders. He was 19 at the time, living in Sydney and
01:01:25
turned out to be a serial killer. Although he was slightly older than the surfy teenager described by Wolf Gang
01:01:33
Schmidt, his physical description matched. However, his criminal timeline doesn't
01:01:39
seem to match up. Wilder committed a string of sexual offenses for many years before
01:01:45
escalating to murder in 1984, 19 years after Maryanne and Christine were killed.
01:01:52
This doesn't fit the behavioral trajectory of most known serial killers. Once a serial offender crosses the
01:02:00
threshold to murder, they rarely deescalate back to lesser offenses. This is what Walder would have had to do
01:02:07
if he was involved in the Wonder Beach killings, which would be almost unheard of.
01:02:13
Then again, Walder has also been suspected of being involved in the unsolved abduction and murder of several
01:02:20
women both in the United States and Australia well before 1984. This includes the 1974 murder of
01:02:29
18-year-old Trudy Adams in Sydney. However, no definitive links to these crimes have ever been proven.
01:02:38
By 1984, Wilder had become one of America's most wanted men. During a confrontation with police, he wounded an
01:02:46
officer before he himself was shot dead. After his death, New South Wales police
01:02:52
reopened the Wonder Beach case to examine any possible links between Wilder and the Wonder Murders. They also
01:03:00
requested a blood sample from Wilder in the hopes that advances in technology may one day prove whether or not he was
01:03:06
involved. The third name, and the one that's probably thrown around the most when it
01:03:17
comes to the murders of Maryanne and Christine, is Derek Percy. Percy has been described as Australia's
01:03:24
Hannibal Lectar, which tells you just about all you need to know about him. Many consider him to be the chief
01:03:32
suspect in not only the W Beach murders, but a number of other unsolved crimes against children committed around
01:03:38
Australia in the late 1960s. Among them is the murder of 6-year-old Alan Redston in Canra, 3-year-old Simon
01:03:46
Brookke in Sydney, and 7-year-old Linda Stillwell in Melbourne. Some also suspect he may have been
01:03:54
involved in the disappearance of the three Bowmont children in Adelaide, as was later covered in episode 100 of Case
01:04:00
File. So, who is Derek Percy? He was born in the inner western Sydney suburb of Strathfield on September 15,
01:04:11
1948. In 1956, he moved to Victoria with his family, and they spent the next few
01:04:18
years living in different parts of the state before moving to Mount Beauty in the state's northeast.
01:04:25
In 1964, women's underwear started to disappear off clothes lines and from inside houses around the Mount Beauty
01:04:33
area. There were whispers around town that 16-year-old Derek Percy was responsible.
01:04:40
He was known to be a bit of a loner who was hard to get to know. This suspicion was never proven until
01:04:47
later that year when two of his schoolmates made their way to a popular swimming hall and saw something so
01:04:53
unsettling that no one believed their story. It was Derek Percy walking around dressed in a woman's pett coat. Percy
01:05:03
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
01:05:12
and started stabbing a pair of women's underpants that he had with him. Once he was done, he defecated into the river
01:05:20
and then walked off, taking the women's clothing with him. The boys questioned Percy about it at
01:05:28
school, but he denied it and claimed he had no idea what they were talking about. The other kids didn't really
01:05:35
believe the story either. They knew Percy was a bit different, but stabbing a pair of women's underpants
01:05:43
like that seemed to be a stretch. Around this time, Percy started keeping journals in which he wrote about
01:05:52
explicit sexual fantasies involving children. It was the beginning of an extremely
01:05:58
dark path. By 1966, Derek Percy was living in the small New South Wales town of Canobin,
01:06:07
just north of the Victorian border. He lured the two young girls who lived next door to him, the youngest of whom
01:06:15
was just 6 years old, into a caravan and convinced them both to remove their pants.
01:06:21
The girl's father caught him, but decided not to notify the police, instead leaving it to Percy's father to
01:06:29
discipline his son. Derek's diary entries continued to get darker and increasingly violent.
01:06:37
One entry made at this time even detailed his plan to kidnap two girls and take them to a secluded place.
01:06:46
Percy joined the Navy in November 1967. And it was during his time as a naval officer that he abducted a 12-year-old
01:06:54
girl named Ivon Tui from Ski Beach in southern Victoria. Ivonne had gone for a walk with her
01:07:01
friend, 11-year-old Shane, but the pair had become briefly separated when Percy pounced.
01:07:09
He was holding Ivonne by knife point when Shane found them. Percy tried to abduct Shane, too, but Shane was
01:07:17
carrying a tomahawk for chopping firewood and used it to threaten Percy and escape.
01:07:24
Shane was able to describe Derek Percy and the car he was driving to the police and they captured him just hours later.
01:07:32
Percy was arrested at the nearby Flender's Naval Deo where he was based listening to a radio report about
01:07:39
Ivonne's disappearance and trying to wash her blood out of his clothes. Unfortunately, by this time, Ivonne was
01:07:47
already dead. A search of Percy's belongings revealed sickening journal entries and drawings
01:07:55
depicting the rape, torture, and murder of children. He even had an entry detailing his
01:08:01
desire to kidnap a young boy and girl, just as he had attempted to do a few hours earlier.
01:08:09
The murder of Avon Toui was one of the worst cases that hardened detectives had ever seen.
01:08:17
Derek Percy stood trial at the Melbourne Supreme Court in April 1970. After 6 days, he was found not guilty by
01:08:27
reason of insanity and was ordered to be kept in custody at the governor's leisure, or in other words,
01:08:34
indefinitely. Fortunately, that's where he remained until his death in 2013. Ivonne's murder was the only crime he
01:08:45
was ever charged with, but he was questioned and suspected in many others. Percy never confessed to any of the
01:08:53
other crimes, but he didn't exactly deny involvement either. During his incarceration, many more
01:09:01
drawings and diary entries were found that outlined his sick fantasies. One rape, torture, and murder journal
01:09:09
was so organized that it even had an index. Percy has been described as a sadistic
01:09:15
pedophile with a morbid and sexual attraction to feal matter who views killing as the ultimate sexual act.
01:09:24
We could do a whole podcast on Derek Percy and the other crimes he is linked to, which may happen in the future.
01:09:32
But the main question for today is was Percy involved in the murders of Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik.
01:09:41
There is no clear evidence linking him to Wonder Beach, but there is one loose circumstantial detail to suggest it's a
01:09:48
possibility. The Percy family had a keen interest in sailing. In January 1965, the national mothclass
01:09:58
regata was being held at Botney Bay Yacht Club, which isn't too far from Wonder Beach.
01:10:04
This is the very class of sailing the Percy's were interested in. It has been suspected, although never
01:10:12
proven, that the Percy family were in Sydney for this regata. Derek Percy would have been 16 at the
01:10:19
time. If they were indeed there, it is likely they would have been staying at Percy's
01:10:25
grandmother's house in Denniston, which is the neighboring suburb to West Ride. To get to the beach, he would have had
01:10:33
to travel on the exact same train line as Maryanne and Christine. Remember when they were approached by a
01:10:40
teenage male on the train between Ride and Dread Fern? Percy didn't fit the description of the
01:10:48
surfy teenager provided by Wolf Gang Schmidt, but some claim he was a match for one of the six suspect sketches
01:10:55
released by the police that were later turned into life-sized dummies. It was later revealed that when Percy's
01:11:03
journals were found, one contained a newspaper article about the Wonder Beach murders that had obscene comments
01:11:09
written on it. However, this was a rumor that had gotten a bit twisted. It was actually an article from Playboy
01:11:17
magazine titled Wicked Wander that had nothing at all to do with the murders. There is no evidence tying Derek Percy
01:11:26
to Wonder Beach. Some believe he is guilty while others don't. If he was involved, he took his secret
01:11:34
to the grave, and only advancements in DNA technology might be able to prove for sure if Percy was the Wonder Beach
01:11:42
killer. In 2012, there was a major break in the investigation when technological
01:11:50
advancements allowed police to retest the clothing worn by Marannne and Christine at the time they were killed.
01:11:57
They were in luck. Testing revealed a spot of blood belonging to a male. However, the DNA profile was so weak
01:12:06
that further testing couldn't be conducted. With the technology expected to advance
01:12:12
further in the years to come, it is hoped that a full DNA profile will be obtained in the future.
01:12:20
What about the seaman sample? The problem is that back in 1965, DNA testing didn't exist and police
01:12:29
could never have imagined the technologies that would one day be available. Unfortunately, this may have led to less
01:12:37
than ideal handling of the evidence, and at some point over the years, that seaman sample has been lost.
01:12:46
The status of the broken knife blade is unknown. While the original investigators had
01:12:52
determined there was blood on the knife, they couldn't test it any further. Advanced testing might be possible
01:12:59
today, but there is no information to confirm whether the piece of knife blade still exists or if testing has been
01:13:06
done. The Wonder Beach case has always remained open and the $20,000 reward is still available.
01:13:17
Incredibly, the figure has never been increased, not even to match inflation. It may be time for the reward to be
01:13:25
reviewed. Was Alan Basset, Christopher Wilder, or Derek Percy responsible for the Wonder
01:13:32
Beach murders? Or was it someone else entirely? Has his name already been given to
01:13:38
police, buried amongst the thousands of pages that make up the case file, or lost amongst the hundreds of calls that
01:13:46
were coming in daily and thousands of leads police had to chase down? Or is it someone completely unknown who
01:13:54
has managed to avoid detection all these years? Is there someone out there who was at
01:14:01
Wonder Beach that day and saw something but is still too scared to come forward?
01:14:06
Many think there is. A number of people seen at the beach never came forward and still haven't
01:14:13
been identified. 1965 was a different time. Not only was homosexuality still illegal and
01:14:22
considered a psychiatric disorder, society held a very dim view of some of the other behaviors that went on in the
01:14:29
Sand Hills. Thankfully, times have changed and we can only hope that if anyone did see or
01:14:36
hear anything, they might still be alive and come forward. While this person might think the
01:14:43
information they hold is insignificant, it could be the vital piece of the puzzle that's needed to finally solve
01:14:49
the case and bring answers to the families of Maryanne Schmidt and Christine Sherik.
01:14:56
Unfortunately, since this episode first aired in 2016, there have been no major updates in the Wonder Beach
01:15:03
investigation. No further DNA advancements have been reported, no new testing announced, and
01:15:10
the $20,000 reward remains unchanged. 61 years on, the case continues to sit open and unsolved, awaiting the crucial
01:15:21
piece of information or technological breakthrough that might finally reveal the identity of the killer.
01:15:29
This is Case File. Thanks for listening. See you next episode.