Tragedy, commonly known as the "Wanda" incident, encapsulates the unsolved homicides of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock on January 11, 1965, at Wanda Beach near Cronulla in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Both aged 15, the inseparable friends and neighbors from West Ryde were discovered the following day with their bodies partially concealed. The heinous nature of the murders, set against the desolate and windswept beach backdrop, propelled the case into widespread public scrutiny.
By April 1966, approximately 7,000 interviews had been conducted by the police, marking it as the most comprehensive investigation in Australian history. This event endures as one of the infamous unsolved murder cases from the 1960s in Australia and holds the distinction of being the oldest unsolved homicide case in New South Wales.
Disappearance
On January 1, 1965, during the zenith of the surf music era, Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt visited Cronulla Beach, a customary picnic spot for the Schmidt family. Diary entries, later perused post the tragic events, disclosed the girls' interactions with some boys at the beach that day. The next day, with Schmidt's mother undergoing a significant operation, the Schmidt children revisited Cronulla without Sharrock. On Saturday, January 9, Schmidt and Sharrock sought permission to take the younger children to Cronulla the following day, but rain thwarted their plans.
On January 11, accompanied by Schmidt's four youngest siblings, the girls took a train to Cronulla railway station, arriving around 11:00 am. However, strong winds and the beach closure led them to the southern end, where they sought shelter among the rocks. Despite Wolfgang's desire to swim, Schmidt accompanied him to a shallow part of the surf. After rejoining the group, a picnic ensued. During this period, Sharrock briefly separated from the others.
Upon Sharrock's return, the group decided to explore the sand dunes behind Wanda Beach. Around 1:00 pm, approximately 400 meters beyond the Wanda Surf Club, they took shelter behind a sand dune due to complaints from the younger children.
Schmidt informed her siblings that she and Sharrock would retrieve their bags hidden at the south end and then return to collect the children. However, the girls continued into the sand dunes, disregarding Peter's suggestion that they were heading the wrong way.
The Schmidt children waited behind the sand dune until 5:00 pm before returning to collect their bags, including Schmidt and Sharrock's purses. They headed home on the last train, arriving around 8:00 pm. Sharrock's grandmother reported them missing at 8:30 pm.
On the morning of January 12, while taking his nephews for a walk through Wanda Beach sand dunes, Peter Smith discovered what appeared to be a face-down store mannequin. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a body and promptly alerted the police from the nearby surf club. Initially thinking he had found only one body, Smith's discovery marked the beginning of a tragic investigation.
Upon examining the murder scene, Marianne Schmidt was found lying on her right side with her left leg bent, while Christine Sharrock was face down, her head against the sole of Schmidt's left foot. Both victims displayed scratch marks on their faces. A 34-meter-long drag mark leading to the scene indicated that Sharrock may have attempted to flee while Schmidt was dying, only to be caught, incapacitated, and dragged back to her friend's body. Despite an intensive search, the murder weapons—believed to be a long knife and a blunt instrument—were never found.
The autopsy revealed that Sharrock had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.015, but no alcohol was detected in Schmidt's system. Sharrock had consumed different food (cabbage and celery, possibly a Chiko Roll) than the rest of the group, suggesting this occurred while she was alone. Sharrock had a fractured skull from a blow to the back of the head and had been stabbed fourteen times. Schmidt's throat had been deeply slashed, and she had been stabbed six times. Both girls' underwear had been cut, and attempts had been made to sexually assault them. Semen was found on both victims, although the autopsy indicated that their hymens were intact. Hans, Schmidt's brother, described the brutality of the attacks, stating that his sister had been stabbed 25 to 30 times, nearly decapitated by the vicious slashing of her throat.
During Sharrock's absence, Wolfgang, Schmidt's brother, noticed a teenage boy hunting crabs. Wolfgang claimed to have seen the same boy twice more, once with his sister and Sharrock and again walking alone much later. Wolfgang's descriptions of the person varied over time, suggesting he had a homemade speargun, a fishing knife, or both.
The last officially recorded sighting of the girls was around 12:45 by local fireman Dennis Dostine, who observed them walking about 730 meters north of the surf club. Dostine noted that they appeared to be in a hurry, and one of the girls frequently looked behind as if they were being followed. However, he did not see anyone else, and there were unidentified individuals in the area who never came forward.
Funerals for Schmidt and Sharrock took place on January 20, and a £10,000 reward was posted in February (later converted to A$20,000 in 1966), remaining unchanged as of August 2002. In April 1966, the coroner issued a report, with the police having interviewed around 7,000 people by then, marking it as the largest investigation in Australian history. Despite this, the murders became a cold case, and none of the three main suspects matched the description of the unidentified surfer youth. The case was reopened in 2000, and in February 2012, the New South Wales Police Force’s Cold Case Unit revealed that a weak male DNA sample had been extracted from a pair of white shorts worn by Sharrock. Although current technology couldn’t provide more information, police expressed confidence that future advances would offer more assistance. However, in July 2014, police disclosed that a semen sample taken from Schmidt’s body had been lost and couldn’t be located despite an extensive search.
Suspects
Cec Johnson, a former detective who had previously investigated the Wanda Beach murders, received a painting in 1975 from Alan Bassett, who had been imprisoned for the brutal rape and murder of Carolyn Orphin in Wollongong on June 11, 1966. The painting, titled “A Bloody Awful Thing,” depicted an abstract landscape. Johnson interpreted the painting as showing blood trails, a broken knife blade, and the body of a victim, leading him to believe that Bassett was the Wanda Beach killer. Johnson also thought the painting contained clues to the unsolved murders of Wilhelmina Kruger and Anna Toskayoa Dowlingkoa. Despite skepticism from other detectives, Johnson wrote a book about the case, but before it could be published, he died in an accident. While some detectives respected Johnson professionally, they concluded that he was mistaken in his belief.
Daily Mirror crime reporter Bill Jenkings, convinced by Johnson’s theory, repeated the claims in his ghostwritten memoirs, “As Crime Goes By.” In the chapter on the Wanda Beach murders, Jenkings mentioned Bassett and his painting. Bassett, released from prison in 1995, initiated defamation proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The publisher pleaded defenses of justification (Bassett being a convicted murderer), and the proceedings did not progress further. After his release, Bassett voluntarily provided a DNA sample to clear his name, but whether he has been ruled out as a suspect in the Wanda Beach murders is not publicly known.
Another suspect is serial killer Christopher Wilder. Two years before the Wanda Beach murders, Wilder had been convicted of a gang rape on a Sydney beach, leading police to include him as a suspect. Wilder emigrated to the United States in 1969 and, while visiting Australia in 1982, faced charges for sexual offenses against two 15-year-old girls. He fled back to the US and committed multiple murders in the first half of 1984 before accidentally killing himself during a struggle with police in New Hampshire on April 13, 1984.
A third suspect, not widely publicized until 1998, is Derek Percy, imprisoned since 1969 for the murder of a child on a beach in Victoria. Percy, considered too dangerous for release and the prime suspect in several other child murders in Melbourne and Sydney, passed away from cancer in 2013. Police viewed him as a significant suspect for the Wanda Beach murders, but no additional links were found. It was hoped that Percy would make confessions on his deathbed, but this did not occur.
Possible linked cases
During early 1966, following the highly publicized disappearance of the Beaumont children, two lesser-known murders occurred, sparking police speculation about potential connections to the Wanda Beach murders.
On January 29, 1966, Wilhelmina Kruger, a 56-year-old cleaning lady, was brutally killed in the Piccadilly Centre on Crown Street in Wollongong. Discovered at the foot of the basement-level stairs around 5:45 a.m. by a butcher arriving for work, Kruger had been assaulted three floors above, dragged down escalators and stairs, strangled, stabbed, mutilated, and found naked from the chest down.
Cigarette burns were evident in her clothing, and blond hair was found at the scene. Kruger, who had become nervous about being watched, was driven to work by her husband. Signs of tampering were noted in the car park lights within the Centre. A witness reported seeing a rusty cream-colored utility speeding nearby at approximately 4:55 a.m. on the day of the murder, matching the description given by other witnesses. Despite being considered one of the most brutal attacks in the state’s history, the case remains unsolved. Police believed the Wanda Beach killer might have been involved but did not elaborate on the connection.
Around midnight on February 16, 1966, Anna Toskayoa Dowlingkoa, a 27-year-old shop assistant and prostitute from Bondi, went missing after leaving the Taxi Club in Kings Cross. Ten days later, her semi-naked, strangled, stabbed, and mutilated body was discovered by a truck driver along Old Illawarra Road in Menai at around 5:30 p.m. on February 26.
Most of Dowlingkoa’s clothes and belongings were missing, and drag evidence suggested her body had been moved to a more visible location three to four days before discovery. Investigators immediately linked her murder to that of Kruger, describing it as a “Jack the Ripper-like murder.” Police from the Kruger case were called in to assist, and they believed the Wanda Beach killer might be responsible, primarily based on circumstantial evidence and similarities in modus operandi.
In both Kruger and Dowlingkoa’s murders, police believed the killer was taunting them. In Kruger’s case, a witness called “Gary” provided a statement about a utility seen in Railway Square around 2:30 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. on the morning of the murder, but investigations revealed that no such person existed, and the provided address was false.
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