It occurred straight away – each parent‘s worst nightmare.
On June 12, 1968, Mary Wrethman momentarily left her daughters – toddler Kathy and child Maria – alone within the entrance yard of her dwelling within the Sydney suburb of Dundas to go to the toilet.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Kidnapped Kathy hopes to seek out her last ‘saviour’ from 54 years in the past.
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When she returned, Kathy was gone.
“I used to be two on the time,” Kathy, now in her fifties, tells 7Life.
“We have arrived in Sydney (after migrating) from the UK three weeks earlier than.
“That day we might simply dropped my brother Angus at college and Mum left me with some lollies on the entrance step whereas she went inside to the bathroom.
“My child sister Maria was asleep in her pram.”
Simply two minutes later, Mary Wrethman went again and located solely the child – little Kathy was nowhere to be seen.
The police had been referred to as and a full-scale search was launched.
Terrifyingly, a witness had seen Kathy strolling hand in hand with a red-haired man.
She was crying and the person stated she’d fallen off a slide.
It was clearly a case of kidnapping and, because the hours ticked by, Kathy says her dad and mom turned increasingly more distressed.
“It should have been terrifying for mum. When it bought darkish on the primary night time she needed to be sedated,” Kathy stated.
“She was blaming herself for leaving me.”
On day two of Kathy’s disappearance, the military turned concerned within the search.
Footage of the lovable dark-haired tot had been plastered throughout TV channels, and Kathy’s father John refused to sleep till his daughter was discovered.
Kathy herself remembers little of the ordeal.
“I’ve this reminiscence of a person opening a door and telling me to fall asleep,” she stated.
“And I keep in mind being fearful of a canine, an Alsatian. It was below my mattress and saved licking my face.
“There was additionally a second after I was within the entrance seat of a automobile and I used to be fidgeting with one thing and made it transfer. Somebody was cross with me.”
By the third day, with no leads, issues weren’t trying optimistic for Kathy’s secure restoration.
However then, an infinite stroke of luck.
Youngsters Mark Byrne, John Findlay and Jeffrey O’Neil had been wagging faculty – in Whalan, 30km from the place Kathy disappeared – after they heard whimpering in a paddock.
“It was me,” Kathy stated.
“They instantly acknowledged me from TV, though my hair had been reduce actually quick.
“It was solely after I heard this a part of the story just lately that I vividly remembered being caught in lengthy grass.
“I used to be solely small so I could not get via.”
The boys had been initially nervous they’d get in bother for wagging faculty and tried to go away Kathy with a tradie – however he made them keep and look ahead to the police.
They turned the heroes of the day, and Kathy’s dad introduced every of them with a watch as an expression of his gratitude.
Extremely, Kathy did not find out about any of this till 11 years later – her dad and mom did not inform her the story of her kidnapping till she was 13 years previous.
“It got here out when dad refused to let me go on faculty camp after I was 13,” she stated.
“I could not imagine it at first. It took a very long time to sink in.”
It made sense, although, and she or he out of the blue understood why her dad and mom had all the time been so protecting and why her dad would give her inexplicably lengthy hugs.
No person was ever charged so Kathy had a variety of unanswered questions.
However it additionally helped her make sense of the unexplained reminiscences of the three-day occasion.
“I had nightmares about (the German Shepherd licking my face) however we by no means had that canine,” Kathy stated.
She found later that ‘canine’ was the one phrase her two-year-old self had stated in regards to the kidnapping.
“It is irritating to not keep in mind extra,” she stated.
“I do not know why I used to be taken, what occurred to me or why I used to be let go.”
And there was one other piece of the puzzle she all the time felt was lacking.
She grew up feeling grateful to the boys who’d saved her – however she had no concept the right way to discover them.
Till 2021.
That is when a BBC journalist investigating the disappearance of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer, two years after Kathy’s kidnapping, bought in contact.
Cheryl, whose household had additionally migrated to Australia from the UK, vanished with no hint from a bathe block at Fairy Meadow Seaside in Sydney in 1970.
A person was charged over her abduction and homicide in 2017 however the matter was dropped.
Cheryl’s case – similar to Kathy’s – has by no means been solved.
The BBC reporter could not shed any mild on Kathy’s abductor however he did discover certainly one of her rescuers, Mark Byrne, and the pair met in April 2022.
“It was so emotional,” Kathy stated.
“He nonetheless has the watch my father gave him. On the again it says: To Mark Thanks from Kathy.
“I do know John has died however I might love to seek out Jeffrey and the tradie too.”
Within the new 12 months, Kathy is planning to go to the spot she was discovered, within the hope it should jog some reminiscences about what occurred – and probably finish her lifelong thriller.
If in case you have any data on the place Kathy’s rescue hero Jeffrey O’Neil is now, please contact 7ndtips@seven.com.au
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