In January of 1965, two 15-year-old girls, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Cherok, took four of

Marianne's young siblings to the beach. The four children returned home at 8 p.m. that night without

their sister and her friend. What started out as a fun outing turned into one of the most famous

unsolved murder cases in Australian history after the teens had an encounter with a monster.

The Mary Ann Schmidt was born on October 30, 1949 in Bavaria, West Germany. Her family immigrated

to Australia in 1957, and they lived in Timora, a town about 400 kilometers or 250 miles inland from

the eastern coast of New South Wales. Marianne was known to be well-behaved in a good student.

Her mother would say she wasn't overly social, but did enjoy going to the beach with her

siblings.

Eventually, the family moved to Sydney and Marianne's father, Helmut, was diagnosed with

Hodgkin's disease in 1963.

He passed away the following year and the family scraped by on her mother Elizabeth's widows pension.

Marianne's older brother, Helmut Jr., worked as an apprentice electrician for New South Wales

Government Railways. They lived in a small house in the West Rides suburb and Marianne attended

Marston High School. After moving there,

Marianne met Christine, who was almost exactly the same age and lived next door.

Christine Sherrick was born on October 5, 1949, in New South Wales. Another thing the two girls

had in common was that they both had lost their fathers, with Christine's father Cecil having passed away in 1953, though the cause of death is unclear.

After that, her mother-barrel remarried and had another child with her new husband.

Christine never felt like she was part of that family, and she opted to move in with her grandparents,

Jim and Jeanette Tag. Their house was next door to the Schmidt's house on Brush Road and West Ride,

which was in northern Sydney not really close to Wanda Beach. Christine was the only child in her home,

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