Imagine watching your child walk to the store and never returning. This is the harrowing reality for Carrie Greenhill, whose six-year-old daughter, Sheree Beasley, vanished on a warm afternoon in Rosebud, Melbourne, in June 1991. We recount the frantic search efforts by police, volunteers, and the local community, all racing against time to find Sherry. As the town grappled with fear and uncertainty, a young boy's report of seeing Sherry being forced into a blue car became a critical lead, breathing new life into the investigation.
Join us as we examine the gripping trial of Robert Arthur Selby Lowe, a church elder charged with Sherry's murder, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. Hear the compelling courtroom testimonies, including those from a boy who witnessed Sherry's abduction and individuals who saw a distressed girl in a blue car. Lowe's estranged wife, Lorraine, offers a chilling glimpse into his dark obsessions, while damning evidence, such as a tape-recorded confession, exposes his shifting narratives. Listen in as we piece together this intricate puzzle of a community shattered by a tragic crime.
Imagine watching your child walk to the store and never returning. This is the harrowing reality for Carrie Greenhill, whose six-year-old daughter, Sheree Beasley, vanished on a warm afternoon in Rosebud, Melbourne, in June 1991. We recount the frantic search efforts by police, volunteers, and the local community, all racing against time to find Sherry. As the town grappled with fear and uncertainty, a young boy's report of seeing Sherry being forced into a blue car became a critical lead, breathing new life into the investigation.
Join us as we examine the gripping trial of Robert Arthur Selby Lowe, a church elder charged with Sherry's murder, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. Hear the compelling courtroom testimonies, including those from a boy who witnessed Sherry's abduction and individuals who saw a distressed girl in a blue car. Lowe's estranged wife, Lorraine, offers a chilling glimpse into his dark obsessions, while damning evidence, such as a tape-recorded confession, exposes his shifting narratives. Listen in as we piece together this intricate puzzle of a community shattered by a tragic crime.
It was a warm afternoon in Rosebud, an outer suburb of Melbourne, victoria, on the 29th of June 1991. This afternoon, six-year-old Sherry Beasley was sent to the nearby store by her mother to pick up some groceries. She hopped on her bicycle and made it safely to the store and purchased the groceries. However, sherry never made it home. Welcome to another episode of Human Wreckage True Crime Podcast. My name is Thomas. I will be taking you through this heartbreaking case of Sherry Beasley and the monster that took her life. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Cherie was a grade one pupil at Rosebud Primary School and lived on South Road. According to her mother, carrie Greenhill, she was a very talkative and lively little girl. She said that she was her firstborn and was very special to her. While Sherry was exceptionally friendly, she still knew of stranger danger and would never speak to somebody that she didn't know. In fact, carrie had always told Sherry if a stranger approached her to run to the nearest house for help. That afternoon, carrie handed Sherry money to pick up some milk, a bottle of lemonade, meat pies and some cigarettes. She also handed her 50 cents to buy herself some sweets. As she left the home that afternoon, sherry called out to her mother I'll be back in a couple of minutes. Mom, I love you. Unbeknownst to Carrie, this was the last time she would ever speak to her daughter.
Speaker 1:Around an hour after Sherry left the store with the groceries, the alarm was raised. A local resident discovered Cherie's abandoned bicycle and groceries in the middle of Parkmore Avenue, a dirt road located just off the Nepean Highway, around a few feet away from the store. The man who found the bicycle placed it against a nearby tree and moments later, another local woman spotted the bicycle. This woman knew Sherry and her family and recognized it immediately as Sherry's bicycle. The woman contacted Sherry's mother, carrie Greenhill, who in turn called police to report her daughter missing.
Speaker 1:Investigators would launch an extensive and exhaustive air and ground search for Sherry, mobilizing all available resources, including sniffer dogs, state emergency services and country fire crews. They stopped motorists on the Nepean Highway and near the crime scene and handed them photographs of Sherry and asked them if they had seen her. In addition, over 100 volunteers assisted in the search for Sherry. They trudged through the surrounding woodland and combed the shoreline. However, the search turned up no evidence. It was as if Sherry had vanished into thin air. Investigators wasted no time in announcing that they were extremely concerned for Sherry's safety.
Speaker 1:The following day Sherry's mother, carrie, made a tearful plea on national television for her safe return. She said If someone has got her, bring her home. She has been through enough trauma. She lost her little brother last year. Please bring her home. We love her too much. Don't hurt her, she's only six.
Speaker 1:Carrie also revealed that around two months earlier somebody had attempted to abduct Sherry. She said that Sherry had been taken to school by a taxi one morning and on her way home a man approached her as she biked home alone. Carrie said that following the terrifying ordeal, sherry hadn't been allowed to bike home alone for a while. Meanwhile, investigators continued to hand out missing child flyers with Sherry's face emblazoned on the front. The flyers described Sherry. They also displayed a mannequin wearing clothing matching those worn by Sherry at the time she vanished, hoping that it would rejog a potential witness's memory. She had been wearing a purple tracksuit and black shoes.
Speaker 1:They would look into whether Sherry's disappearance was related to the abductions of three schoolgirls in Melbourne over the past three years. Those three victims were Carmine Chan, nicola Lenas and Sharon Wills. A police source stated If Sherry has been snatched and that appears to be the most likely scenario, then we are dealing with someone who preys on very young children and someone who is prepared to strike in broad daylight. They said that the modus operandi between Sherry's potential abduction and the abduction of the three other girls varied substantially. The disappearance of Sherry struck fear into the parents of Rosebud and terrified local children. It seemed quite obvious that Sherry's disappearance was being considered an abduction. Investigators would set up an information caravan at the scene where Sherry's bicycle was found, while parents of students at Rosebud Primary School were offered counseling for themselves and their children.
Speaker 1:On the third day of the search for Sherry, 20 detectives from the major crime squad and the Nepean District formed an unofficial task force to investigate her disappearance. Joan Kramer, the premier, said that the apparent abduction showed that the community attitude towards children needed to change. She stated I was able to send my children to the corner of the street to pick up bread or milk, and we just can't tolerate a society where that is not possible. It doesn't matter what penalties you have or what police protection. Unless you can change people's attitudes to what is sacred about kids and life, then we're not going to change. Carrie once again made a public plea asking people with holiday homes in the Mornington Peninsula area to please search their homes. She said that Sherry's two younger sisters were desperately missing their sister and wanted nothing more than her to return home. She said how long can you hold a little girl, wherever she may be? You can't hold her forever. Just let her go, she said. With her statement, she also released a photograph of Sherry in which she was wearing the same purple tracksuit she was wearing when she vanished.
Speaker 1:Finally, the first lead in the case came on the 6th of January, when a young boy informed investigators that he had seen Sherry being forced into a small blue car by a man. He said that Sherry tried to fight the man off, but to no avail. The car then sped down Parkmore Avenue and turned left into Nepean Highway towards Rosebud. They announced that the boy was alone when he allegedly saw the kidnapping and was the only witness to come forward thus far. However, they said that other locals had reported seeing a suspicious blue car in the area. The car was believed to be a Japanese-style sedan, royal or Navy blue in color. They said that the boy had given a description of the abductor, but they wouldn't be publicly releasing it due to the fact that children tend to have a different perspective on height, weight and age, and they didn't want to give out any information that could be incorrect and hamper the investigation. This new lead only concreted the theory that Sherry had been abducted.
Speaker 1:Investigators next turned their attention on local sex offenders. They started to work through a list of more than 50 known pedophiles and sex offenders living on the Mornington Peninsula. They speculated that the abductor of Sherry could potentially be on that list. The following month, a witness came forward with what investigators referred to as their biggest breakthrough in the disappearance to date. A woman had contacted investigators and informed them that she had seen Sherry and her abductor in a small blue car traveling west along the Nepean Highway just minutes after Sherry was abducted. She said that she had been standing on the footpath near Chinaman's Creek, which was near the scene of the abduction, when she spotted the car driving past. She described how she spotted Shiri sitting on the front passenger seat wearing a pink bicycle helmet. She also said that she was crying. She described the driver as a man aged between 25 and 40 years old and clean-shaven.
Speaker 1:Following her revelation, investigators announced that they would be resuming their search for Sherry and would be releasing a photo fit of the suspect. Many people were left questioning why it took the woman so long to come forward with this information. Detective Lori Rapps, who was the head of the task force investigating the case, said that the woman only noticed the significance of what she had seen after reading an updated story in the Sunday Herald Sun, which had corrected a mistake they had published, saying that Sherry's helmet had been found at the crime scene. Old son had seriously hampered the investigation, stating the witness we spoke to yesterday originally read that the helmet had been found at the scene but had seen the girl in the car wearing the helmet and thought that it must have been unrelated. It would be revealed that this woman's witness testimony corroborated witness testimony of the little boy who had informed investigators that he had seen Sherry being dragged into a small blue car.
Speaker 1:Investigators would subsequently release a sketch of the car that was used in the abduction. They were unable to determine what make and model of car it was. They were able to ascertain its shape and size. They said it was similar to a Toyota Corolla hatchback, a Barina, a Charade or a Nova, but they weren't sure which. They also drew up a long list of people living in the area who owned small blue cars similar to the one described by the two witnesses. People who owned similar cars were urged to make themselves known to investigators and to come in for an interview so that they could be eliminated.
Speaker 1:By September, the tips and leads in the case had essentially dwindled to nothing. The task force was still active and in the beginning of the month they renewed their appeal to the public for information in the case. They announced that they believed that the abduction was a random, opportunistic crime as opposed to a targeted one. A $1,100,000 reward was offered by the state government, while Crimestoppers offered a $1,100,000 reward. Towards the end of the month, there was a crushing update in the case when it was announced that a decomposed body was discovered by two horse riders in a drain at Red Hill in Victoria, around five miles from where Sherry disappeared.
Speaker 1:The body was clothed in only a t-shirt and a singlet. Investigators stated that the body had obviously been disturbed by animals and could have been there for several months. They additionally said that there was a public assumption that the body was that of Sherry, but they could not make a positive identification until an autopsy was performed. They did, however, state that clothing found at the crime scene resembled clothing that Sherry had been wearing on the day of her disappearance. Early next month.
Speaker 1:The body had still not been identified. On the day of her disappearance Early next month, the body had still not been identified. The body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that it made identification extremely difficult. Forensic scientists decided to use a controversial method of genetic profiling, known as the polymerase chain reaction, wherein Deanna was tested from muscle tissue taken from the body. The genetic profile would then be compared with blood taken from Carrie, sherry's mother, as well as from Shane Beasley, who was potentially Sherry's father. Sadly, shane died from a drug overdose while in police custody the year beforehand and doubts were raised that he was actually her father. The year before Sherry vanished, two men filed paternity suits claiming they were her father. The DNA method they were using was going to be the first time in Victoria that such a method was used.
Speaker 1:While the body still hadn't been positively identified, it was widely accepted that the body was that of Sherry. From the size of the body, it was evident that it was a child. Moreover, clothing found at the scene matched clothing Sherry was wearing when she vanished. Just the day after the discovery, investigators announced that they were moving closer to an arrest of a suspect. Sergeant Jeff Alway described the case as one of the most callous crimes ever seen in this state and said that, in addition to identifying the body, the medical examiner was also trying to determine her cause of death and whether she had been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1:Sherry's family accepted that the body was likely Sherry almost as soon as she was found. Carrie stated that she believed somebody must know something, stating it's not going to bring Sherry back, but he's got to suffer. On top of that heartache, carrie had just given birth to a baby girl. Meanwhile, the crime scene was being extensively investigated and searched. Sherry's helmet was still missing and more than 30 officers conducted a search of the area around where her body was found, looking in and around the foliage for any kind of clues which could lead to her killer. The foot search was unfruitful in finding any more evidence, so the following day it was announced that Mounted Police would be combing the bushland. The area was surrounded by thick scrub which was inaccessible on foot. In mid-October, investigators finally confirmed that the body had been identified as Sherry. Due to advanced decomposition, a cause of death could not be determined. Just days later, sherry was laid to rest, mourners packed into Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Rosebud to pay their final respects to the six-year-old girl. Afterwards she was buried in the Mornington Cemetery.
Speaker 1:Eventually the tips began to dwindle and by February of 1992, the task force set up to investigate Sherry's murder was scaled down. As the weeks turned to months, it looked less and less likely that there would be a resolution to the case. Sherry's family tried to carry on as best as they could, but there was a child-sized hole in all of their hearts. Sherry married her long-term boyfriend, stephen Ludlow, in a quiet garden ceremony. They moved away from Rosebud because the memories of what had happened to Sherry were far too raw. What had happened to Cherie were far too raw. There was no update in the case or the investigation until the end of May 1993 when it was announced that a man was expected to be charged with Cherie's murder. While the task force had been scaled down, the murder case was still being investigated.
Speaker 1:Just the following day, 56-year-old Robert Arthur Selby Lowe was charged with Cherie's murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of false imprisonment. Robert was a married father of two, a former salesman and a church elder. He appeared before the chief magistrate, mrs Sally Brown, where his defense attorney Peter Ward said that his client would be vigorously defending each of the charges. He also said that he was worried for his client's safety in custody and asked if he could be placed in protective custody as soon as possible. Prosecutor Mick Berkley informed defense ward that special arrangements had already been made, to which Carrie, who was in the courtroom, stood up and objected. She stated he should be allowed to be with the other prisoners. He killed my child.
Speaker 1:In November of that year a committal hearing was held to determine whether Robert would stand trial. During the hearing the little boy who had witnessed the abduction testified. He said he was riding his bicycle when he saw Sherry who was his classmate at the store. He said Sherry had just come out of the store when a man in a car pulled up and told her to stop. He said that Sherry didn't want to get into the car, so the man took her off her bicycle and put her in his car. He said he rode home and said to his stepfather Cherie's got kidnapped.
Speaker 1:His testimony was followed by testimony from Danielle French-Marx, who said that she was playing on the sidewalk beside the Nepean Highway when she saw a girl in a blue car wearing a pink helmet. She said that she looked like she was kneeling with her face close to the glass. She testified her face was screwed up and she seemed to scream something at me. The girl's mother, sue Marks, said that her daughter pointed the girl out and when she looked towards the girl she said she looked terrified and appeared to be trying to get her attention. Sue said I will never forget the look on the child's face. It was either fear, panic or anger. I remember her face was white and she was definitely trying to attract our attention. Sultan Dogan, who was driving on the highway, would testify next. She said she saw a visibly distressed little girl wearing a bike helmet inside a blue car. She said she thought it was strange that the man who was driving the car was staring straight ahead, just ignoring the little girl's distress. When she got home she told her fiancé, who told her that Sherry's helmet had been found at the scene where her bicycle was found, so she assumed that the little girl in the car must not have been Sherry.
Speaker 1:Also testifying during the committal hearing was Lorraine Lowe, robert's estranged wife. She said that on the night of Sherry's abduction he washed his own clothes for the first time in their 19 years of marriage and vacuumed his car. The day afterwards, when she was first questioned about Robert's whereabouts, she had said he was at home with her. However, she later realized that he had dropped one of their two sons off at tennis, attended a breakfast prayer meeting and then was absent for the majority of the day. She said that he was obsessed with the abduction of Carmine Chan as well as the Lindy Chamberlain case. He had kept newspaper clippings on the 1993 abduction of Carmine and would bring it up almost weekly. She further told the courtroom how Robert always talked negatively about the police and accused them of always going after good church-going people. When Robert was brought in for questioning, lorraine said that he was crying and kept telling her that he was sorry, she stated On the 18th of November. The committal hearing was adjourned until the 16th of December. Melbourne magistrate Wendy Wilmoth would bound Robert over for trial on one charge of murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of assault with false imprisonment. Robert pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Speaker 1:Prosecutor Jeffrey Flatman said that there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence against Robert and that one of the horrors of the crime was that it was likely to have been committed by somebody who enjoyed the mystery and notoriety that was attached to it. He said he believed that Robert was fascinated and obsessed with child abduction cases. He revealed that, when questioned, robert had repeatedly lied to police, giving different versions of events as to what happened and where he was when Sherry vanished. He had claimed he didn't know the area or the store where Sherry had been. However, robert was a well-known face in the store. He also revealed that Robert's holiday home was located close to where Sherry had vanished and Robert had visited it alone the day before she disappeared.
Speaker 1:The trial was scheduled for October 1994. During opening statements, Prosecutor Paul Coughlin said that Robert told investigators a complicated series of lies. He said that Robert initially told investigators he was not in the Rosebud area when Sherry vanished but later conceded he was in the area at the time. He said that Robert then gave more complicated lies wherein he provided a version of events which he hoped would be consistent with his involvement in a potential abduction or even manslaughter, but not murder, he stated. That is how the matter develops. First of all, I wasn't there. But if I was there, I wasn't there at the relevant time. And if I was there at the relevant time and I did it. It wasn't murder.
Speaker 1:Prosecutor Coughlin also revealed that in May of 1993, robert was secretly tape-recorded when he told a Pentridge prisoner that he had hidden Sherry's body in a drain. This prisoner was Peter Reed, who had been with Robert under the pretext of helping with his defense, which did not assert total innocence. The defense was that Robert had abducted Sherry, which did not assert total innocence. The defense was that Robert had abducted Sherry but had not murdered her. The tape recording was played out during trial and Robert can be heard saying how Sherry's lips turned blue and he could find no pulse after she had a coughing fit in his car. He said that he panicked when he pulled up on the side of the road, said a prayer and then put Sherry's body in the drain. Robert can be heard saying that he carried Sherry very gently and tried to see if she would fit in the drain, but it was tight. In another version, robert had claimed to pick Sherry up after seeing her argue with a young boy and he had apparently told this version to a psychotherapist that he was seeing A recording of the interview between Robert and investigators.
Speaker 1:He claimed that he was at home on the 29th of June 1991, when he heard about Sherry going missing on the 6pm news. When asked if he could remember what was on the television, he replied no, I don't. No, no, I don't. I was just sort of shocked when shown a photograph of Sherry. Robert denies that he has ever seen her before and denies that he ever had a child in his blue Toyota. He said that he wasn't aware of anybody that had borrowed his car.
Speaker 1:Detective Senior Constable Andrew Gusk testified that he had strange feelings about Robert from the first conversation he had with him. He said that during a telephone conversation he had asked Robert where he was the day Sherry vanished and he immediately replied I was at home with my wife and two kids. This struck the detective as odd, stating it was always a slow process to get people to jog their memory as to where they were two or three weeks ago. Forensic pathologist Dr Stephen Cordner would testify next. He stated that he had never seen a case in which a person died solely from stress or fright. He said that he would expect to find that if somebody died from stress or fright they would have had some kind of abnormality that predisposed a fatal outcome, for example epilepsy, asthma or a heart condition. When asked by defense attorney Boris Kacer if it was possible for Sherry to have died from a heart attack as the result of stress, he said it was not a possibility worth considering unless Sherry had some kind of underlying disease. According to Carey, sherry had been a healthy young girl with no issues or conditions.
Speaker 1:Robert's estranged wife, lorraine, testified once again. She told the jury that when police came to their door to take Robert away he had tears in his eyes as he apologized to their two sons. She said that he was visibly upset, but when he returned mid-afternoon he appeared to be quite pleased with himself. She also revealed that when she spoke with investigators she had given them a list of places in the General Rosebud area where she and Robert had collected pine cones in January of that year. One of the places she pointed out was where Sherry's body was found. Once again she reiterated that Robert wasn't home on the day Sherry vanished. When asked by Prosecutor Coghlan if she had found out where Robert was, she replied no, he wasn't prepared to discuss it very much.
Speaker 1:During trial, secretly tape-recorded sessions between Robert and his psychotherapist, margaret Hobbs, were played out for the jury. They revealed that Robert had considered pleading guilty to manslaughter to save his marriage to Lorraine. As it turned out, robert had been on investigators' radar very early on in the case and these sessions were recorded secretly by investigators in November of 1991. They revealed that Lorraine had said to Robert that she wanted him to tell the truth. In a session from April of 1992, robert gave the doctor an account in which he asked Sherry if she wanted a ride and helped put her seatbelt on. Once she got inside his car, he said she became worried and started coughing and spluttering and he panicked when she fell silent. He realized she wasn't breathing and then hid her body in the drain before driving back home. In that same recording he said that he had said a prayer as he stuffed Sherry's body into the drain, saying Forgive me, lord, for the terrible things I have done and I'll speak to you later about it, lord, or something, perhaps not. Dr Hobbs would later say that it was almost like he was attempting to give Sherry a Christian burial.
Speaker 1:The most distressing testimony during the trial came from Peter Reed, who was incarcerated with Robert. He told the jury how Robert had told him that he had abducted Sherry and that she choked while he was forcing her to do what he described as dirty acts. According to Peter, robert said he also said that Robert had made a statement about cleaning blood from the passenger's seat on his car and when asked where the blood had come from, robert said that Sherry had vomited it up when she was choking. Robert had also allegedly told Peter that he had first noticed Sherry the weekend before her abduction when he had gone to a Rosebud holiday unit to deliver a refrigerator. He had seen her again on Monday and followed her home to see where she lived Apparently. Robert also told Peter that Sherry had begged to go home, pleading take me home to mummy, I want my mummy.
Speaker 1:Following all of the evidence, the jury were sent away to deliberate. It took them just four and a half hours to return with a verdict. They found Robert Lowe guilty of the abduction and murder of Sherry Beasley. As the verdict was read out, carrie shouted suffer, lowe. Sherry got her revenge this time. Rot in hell. Others in attendance clapped and cheered Outside of court. She said that she had been through hell and back and that while they were pleased with the verdict, it didn't bring Sherry back, adding that Robert had shown no remorse for what he had done. Stephen said. Let's hope that Mr Lowe just thinks about it every day of his life for what he's done to my daughter. I wish I had a chance to give her a kiss goodbye as she walked out that door.
Speaker 1:The following week, robert was back in court to be sentenced for the crime. Justice Philip Cummins fought back tears as he sentenced Robert to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He could have given him a minimum term on the life sentence, but refused, stating what you did was every child's fear and every parent's nightmare. He said he believed that Robert was sexually motivated and was fueled by his interest in child abductions. Over the forthcoming years, robert appealed his convictions several times, claiming that he was innocent. There would be rumors that he was involved in the murders of Denise McGregor and Kylie Mayberry, but in 2001, his DNA was collected and he was ruled out of both murders. That about wraps it up for this case. It blows my mind. Someone can be so evil. If you enjoy what we do, please like and subscribe. Take care of yourself. See you soon.