Casefile True Crime - Case 191: Sheree Beasley

Episode Date: October 9, 2021

Melbourne psychotherapist Margaret Hobbs was used to dealing with sex offenders. Many of her clients were men who had been referred to her through the court system after committing terrible crimes... --- Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production and music – Mike Migas Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-191-sheree-beasley

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If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local Crisis Centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. This episode involves a crime against children. It may not be suitable for all listeners. Margaret Hobbs was no stranger to sex offenders. After working as a parole officer for many years, she had become a psychotherapist and ran her own private practice in the inner-city Victorian suburb of Fitzroy. Margaret had treated killers and various other criminals, but her specialty was in providing therapy to men who had committed sexually-based offences.

As well as counselling these individuals, Margaret reported on them to the courts, and over the course of 20 years, almost every convicted sex offender in Melbourne had been referred to her at one time or another. Due to the difficult nature of her work, Margaret had grown adept at compartmentalising her life. Professional and compassionate, she was able to present her composed mask to her clients, even when they spoke of having done terrible things. After each working day was over, Margaret would retreat to her home in the Dandenong Ranges, a striking region on the eastern fringes of Melbourne that is characterised by rolling hills, tall mountain ash trees, and dense, furny foliage. Weekends were a chance to completely switch off.

Nestled in her picturesque setting, Margaret completely avoided all news reports and instead spent her time reading and writing. One day in November 1984, Margaret was preparing to meet a new client, 47-year-old Robert Arthur Selby Low. His lawyers had referred him to Margaret in anticipation of an upcoming hearing. Robert Low had exposed himself to some schoolgirls at a shopping centre near his home and made some lewd remarks. He'd been charged and was set to appear in a magistrates' court, so his defence team needed a report they could present. When Margaret greeted Low, she noted that he didn't look like most of her other clients. He was of average height with a lean build and dressed in exceptionally neat clothes. His light-coloured, slightly curly hair was beginning to turn grey and his eyes were framed by fine-rimmed glasses.

When Low spoke, Margaret detected a polished English accent. She found him to be exceedingly polite and well-mannered. As well as working as a salesperson, Robert Low volunteered his time to the community as a church-older, a Sunday school teacher and a children's sports coach. He had been married for more than a decade and had two sons. With a ready smile and a respectful air, Low appeared in every way to be an upstanding member of society. And yet, from almost the first moment that Margaret Hobbs met Robert Low, there was something about him that made her skin crawl. The obscene exposure charge that had led to Margaret Hobbs meeting Robert Low proceeded to court. Low was given a one-year good behaviour bond on the proviso that he begins seeing Margaret regularly for therapy sessions.

He agreed. At first, Low denied that he had done anything wrong despite being charged with a crime. He explained that he had not exposed himself to the schoolgirls as doing so was against the law. He had spoken to them, but Low pointed out that this was not a crime. Yet, Margaret was soon able to coax some admissions from him. Low acknowledged that he had been previously convicted on one count of indecent exposure and one of theft. Despite his respectable appearance, steady job and solid home life, there was something about Low that made Margaret intuitively suspicious of him. He visited for regular sessions and always arrived right on time, armed with a neat sheaf of papers on which he would jot down notes as they talked.

But Margaret sensed that his efforts to change his behaviour were insincere. He minimised and denied the nature of his crimes and was a habitual liar. His dishonesty was often characterised by sly omissions or denying something on a technicality. In a book titled The Evil, co-authored by Margaret Hobbs and journalist Andrew Ruhl, Margaret described Low's slippery way of avoiding the truth. Ask him if he has a blue car and he will say certainly not. If you change the question slightly and ask him if he drives a blue car, he will say yes, but point out that he doesn't own it. Over time, Low admitted to more and more crimes, predominantly indecent exposure and theft. As he became more comfortable with Margaret, Low told her how he often exposed himself to young girls.

Sometimes he deliberately placed items of pornography that he'd stolen in full view of his victims, hoping to shock them with the material. He had committed these acts in his homeland of England and his adopted country of New Zealand, as well as Australia, where he had settled in 1967. Yet, thanks to his skillful lying, he was rarely convicted. When Low was charged, his punishment usually came in the form of a small fine. Sometimes he received good behaviour bonds. He lived in the eastern suburb of Glenwaverly, but his work as a travelling salesperson meant he visited a wide range of areas. This enabled him to operate more stealthily than if he always struck in the same neighbourhood. In 1985, Robert Low's good behaviour bond expired and he was no longer required to attend therapy.

But he kept scheduling the occasional appointment with Margaret, or sometimes he called her on the phone. She felt as though he got off on telling her about the obscene things that he'd done. By April of 1990, Robert Low had been in and out of Margaret Hobbs's life for five and a half years. One day, he arrived for an appointment and almost immediately announced that some police officers had just visited his workplace. They had wanted to question him about an attempted child abduction. Margaret was shocked. What happened, she asked. Low claimed that he hadn't done anything wrong.

He'd just stopped to talk to some schoolgirls in the inner northern suburb of Northcote while he was in the area for work. By now, Margaret recognised when Low was attempting to minimise a crime. Gently, she tried coaxing more information from him with carefully phrased questions. He eventually admitted that he'd seen the girls as he was driving down the street they were on, so he pulled over and approached them. Low attempted to engage the girls in conversation, but when a woman emerged from a nearby shop and stared at him, he decided to leave. As he walked away, he noticed a little girl playing in the front garden of her home. Did you speak to her? Margaret asked, as described in her book The Evil. Low said he hadn't.

Well, did she speak to you then? Margaret persisted. Yes, I think she did, but I didn't speak to her first. Low sounded smug. Margaret asked if he had suggested that the little girl go somewhere with him. He gave a vague reply. I may have. I don't know. Margaret was deeply disturbed. She couldn't help but feel that her client had crossed a whole new line in his offending.

She next saw Low about one month later. He hadn't been charged for the attempted abduction, but he revealed that the police were now investigating him for something else. This time, he had just tried to chat with some 12-year-old girls he'd seen at Flinders Street train station in Melbourne's CBD. Moments after this innocent conversation, a suspicious police officer had approached out of the blue and arrested him. Low asked if Margaret's son-in-law, who was a solicitor, could represent him. His office was in the same building as Margaret's. After Low left, Margaret decided to look into the matter further. She called the police officer who had interviewed Low about the matter to hear his version of events.

The officer told Margaret that the girls were younger than Low described, approximately between 8 and 10 years old. They had been standing on a railway platform holding some balloons when Low walked up to them and said the balloons looked like, quote, big dicks. Then he asked if they'd like to go somewhere with him, quote, for sex. The terrified children ran away and flagged down a police officer. When the officer approached Low, he fled and had to be tackled to the ground. It was obvious that Low couldn't be trusted. He was playing down his crimes and lying about the details. Moreover, his victims were getting younger and he was becoming bolder.

Instead of just exposing himself, now he was attempting to engage girls in conversation and lure them away, out in public, in the middle of the day. Robert Low was soon charged over the incident at Flinders Street Station. He asked Margaret to write a report that could be used as part of his defense as he was planning to plead not guilty. Angered by his decision, Margaret initially refused. She knew that Low was guilty and was upset that he was defending the charges. By pleading not guilty, he would be forcing his young victims to testify at trial and exacerbating their suffering. When she questioned why he wouldn't just admit what he had done, Low smiled and replied, You know me, Marg, what do you think I pay liars for?

Margaret had had enough. It was clear that Low had no remorse and no desire to stop his criminal behavior. He wasn't treating therapy seriously and instead seemed to take a perverse pleasure in the time they spent together. Calmly, Margaret asked her client to leave, stating, I really don't think I want anything else to do with you. It's obvious you're not benefiting from coming here. In fact, I think you're getting worse. Shocked by her demand, Low refused to leave.

But Margaret insisted. Realizing he was fighting a losing battle, Low stormed out of her office, slamming the door as he went. Eventually, Margaret did agree to provide a court report, but it was a damning one. She made a point of noting how dangerous Low's behavior was. Proper punishment would be the only deterrent. After reading what the psychotherapist had written, Low's lawyer decided not to submit her report. It would only harm his client's defense. In November of 1990, Low was convicted of harassing the children at Flinders Street Station and fined $700.

When Margaret Hobbs heard the sentencing, she was very concerned. Surely, such a paltry fine would only serve to further convince Robert Low that he had done nothing wrong. And most likely, he would go on to commit more offenses with impunity. Months ticked by, and Margaret Hobbs moved on. She was no longer treating Robert Low and didn't miss his absence from her life. By the start of July 1991, it had been more than six months since she'd seen him. On the morning of Tuesday, July 1, Margaret was making the long drive from her home in the Dandenong's to her office in Melbourne. It was the first day of her working week, and as per usual, she had avoided the news all weekend long.

As Margaret drove, she switched on her car radio and listened as a presenter ran through the latest headlines. The lead story was about a little girl who had gone missing over the weekend on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Just before 2pm on Saturday, June 29, in the seaside town of Rosebud, 6-year-old Cherie Beasley had ridden her bike to a local milk bar to pick up some things for her mum. Almost half an hour later, her bright pink bicycle was found abandoned in a nearby residential street. A large-scale search of the region and its surrounding bushland had found no trace of the little girl. Police believed Cherie had been abducted and held grey fears for her safety. They were on the lookout for a blue Toyota Corolla.

As Margaret listened to the report, she immediately felt a sinking feeling. Although she hadn't seen him in months, her mind immediately went to Robert Lowe. She knew that he and his wife owned a holiday home in Rosebud, which was a popular tourist destination in the summer months. Cherie Beasley's age and gender fit with Lowe's general pattern of victims, and Margaret had long suspected that his crimes were escalating. But she had no idea what sort of car he drove, and there was nothing tangible that pointed to him as the suspect. Perhaps she was just being paranoid. With nothing more than a hunch to go on, Margaret kept her suspicions to herself.

As the days passed, Margaret Hobbs kept an eye on the news. Cherie Beasley's school portrait was regularly featured in updates, depicting her freckled face, bright blue eyes, long brown hair, and cheeky smile. Yet, there was still no sign of the six-year-old. Nor had police arrested anybody, or indicated that they knew who might be responsible. Some Victorians worried that Cherie was yet another victim of the unidentified serial child rapist that the media had dubbed Mr. Cruel. Covered in episode 41 of Case File, Mr. Cruel attacked several girls in Melbourne's northern and eastern suburbs during the late 1980s and early 90s. Mr. Cruel was also the main suspect in the abduction of 13-year-old Carmen Chan,

who was taken from her home almost three months before Cherie Beasley vanished. But despite these concerns about Mr. Cruel, it was Robert Lowe who Margaret Hobbs couldn't stop thinking about. By Monday, July 29, exactly one month had passed since Cherie's abduction. That same afternoon, Margaret received a surprise at work. She was in her office when her son-in-law's receptionist, Danielle, appeared at her door. Danielle worked downstairs, where Margaret's son-in-law had a law firm. A client had arrived at the building wanting to speak about a legal matter, but Margaret's son-in-law wasn't in. Would Margaret be willing to talk to the client instead? It was Robert Lowe.

Margaret hadn't seen Lowe since his court hearing at the end of the previous year. She agreed to speak with him, and Danielle sent him upstairs. Margaret immediately noticed he looked different. Lowe had always dressed smartly, but that day his jacket clashed with his trousers and tie. Instead of smiling and making polite chit-chat like he usually did, he was rude and upset. Lowe explained that he'd come to see Margaret's son-in-law about a bill before launching into a tirade about the negative court report she had written for him months earlier in relation to the Flinders Street Station incident. Agitated and irritable, Lowe left abruptly.

His erratic behavior was out of character and only served to increase Margaret's suspicions. He went downstairs and asked Danielle whether she had seen what sort of car Lowe had been driving. The receptionist replied that she hadn't, but the next morning she surprised Margaret by saying Lowe had loitered in the area longer than they realized. Shortly after Margaret left for the day, he too had driven away from the premises. The Blue Toyota Corolla Two weeks later, Margaret received a phone call from Robert Lowe. Some detectives had shown up at his house early in the morning. His prior criminal record and the Blue Toyota Corolla he drove had brought them to his door.

He didn't own the vehicle, it belonged to his employer, but he used it daily. Lowe hadn't wanted to let the detectives inside, but when they presented him with a search warrant and informed him he was suspected of abducting 6-year-old Cherie Beasley, he had no other option. Lowe's wife and sons were shocked and confused by the sudden influx of police officers to their home. The family all held hands in the kitchen while Lowe prayed aloud. Then some of the detectives informed Lowe that they would be taking his car in for a forensic examination and he would need to come with them for questioning. As they bundled him into a police car, other officers continued searching the Lowe family home. Upon arriving at Melbourne's police headquarters, Robert Lowe was permitted to make a phone call. As described in the book The Evil, he dialed Margaret Hobbs's number and told her,

I'm in real trouble, could you suggest the best lawyer available? Margaret suggested he stick with the lawyer that he already had and the call concluded. The following month, she heard from Lowe again when he scheduled his first appointment with her in almost a year, the first since she had told him she didn't want to treat him anymore. It turned out that detectives had questioned Lowe for more than 4 hours, but he had resisted their efforts to obtain his fingerprints or a blood sample. They had to let him go as they had no actual evidence to hold him. Lowe turned up for his appointment looking messy and dishevelled. As he explained to Margaret, things have gone off the rails a bit since you threw me out. Investigators had informed Lowe's family what he was suspected of and questioned them at length.

None of them had been able to provide him with an alibi for the afternoon of Cherie's disappearance, with Lorraine telling investigators that she and her husband had attended a prayer meeting at their church in the morning. When the meeting ended at 10.45, Lowe told Lorraine and some other churchgoers that he planned to go to Rosebud to carry out some repairs on their holiday home. Rosebud was roughly an hour's drive from the couple's house in Glenwaverly. Lorraine went home alone that morning. Despite multiple people hearing Lowe say he was going to Rosebud that day, he claimed to have no recollection of travelling to the area. Later, he amended this to say he had driven to his holiday home but had finished making the repairs by 12.50 and was back in Glenwaverly by 2pm, shortly before Cherie was abducted.

But Lorraine disputed this. She said her husband hadn't arrived home until after 5pm and he'd immediately stripped off his clothes and put them in the washing machine. It was the first time she had ever seen Lowe do laundry in his life. Now harboring the same suspicions as Margaret Hobbs and Victoria Police, Lorraine asked Lowe to move out of their house. He began residing at their holiday home in Rosebud, not far from where Cherie Beasley had been abducted. His employer fired him and handed over his company car to detectives. But Lowe assured Margaret that he wasn't worried. He wasn't guilty and if the police had any evidence, he would have been arrested and charged by now.

Soon enough, all of his troubles would fade and life would return to normal. 3 months after Cherie Beasley was abducted, some teenage horse riders were travelling along a country road in Red Hill, a rural town about 10km inland from Rosebud. Suddenly, the teenage girls smelled a foul odor. One of their horses spooked as they passed a concrete stormwater pipe that jutted out beneath the driveway of a property. Squeezed inside the pipe's narrow 30cm entrance was a badly decomposed corpse that the girls initially believed belonged to a kangaroo. When they passed the same spot the following day, the remains had been dragged out into the open, presumably by scavenging animals. In the harsh light of day, it was clear they belonged not to a kangaroo, but to a small human. They were lying on a dirty bright pink jumper, an article of clothing that matched the pink tracksuit Cherie Beasley had been wearing on the day of her disappearance.

Forensic testing confirmed that the body was hers, but she was too badly decomposed for a cause of death to be established. Margaret Hobbs learned about the heartbreaking discovery in the news. She had been following Cherie's case closely ever since she'd grown suspicious of Robert Lowe. After Lowe's long absence from her life, he had started making regular appointments again. Away from his family and with the police watching him closely, Lowe had grown to view Margaret as his primary confidant. When Margaret first saw Lowe after Cherie's remains were recovered, she remarked, I believe they found the body of Cherie Beasley. Lowe appeared unfazed and merely replied, have they?

Then he abruptly added, I don't know the spot where they found it, I've never been there, I wouldn't have a clue where it was. Margaret had mentioned nothing about the body's location. Margaret noted that Lowe was looking worse with every session. He had always taken pride in his appearance, but he had suddenly stopped shaving and was wearing mismatched clothes. The papers that he always brought with him were also starting to look messy as he scrawled notes to himself, crossing things out and rewriting over the top. Convinced that Lowe was responsible for Cherie Beasley's murder, Margaret tried frequently to draw information from him. It was obvious that he enjoyed their conversations about the little girl, viewing them as a kind of cat and mouse game.

Gradually, he would admit to more and more things, though he always twisted away from confessing at the last minute. The more that they spoke about the case, the more Lowe began to discuss the location where Cherie's body had been found. Upon learning that it was in Red Hill, he said that he thought he might know which spot it was. He and his wife had driven to the area once, but Lowe insisted he never got out of the car and didn't see a stormwater drain. Margaret suspected that Lowe was in the process of making a partial confession. He had a tendency to deny things outright before slowly revealing that he knew more than he was letting on. He wouldn't admit outright involvement in one of his crimes, but would change his stories over time and twist the truth to minimize his culpability. Margaret fetched a street directory and handed it to Lowe, asking him to show her where he thought the location was.

He turned to the map of Red Hill and pointed to a spot with a pen that he was holding. About here, he said. Margaret took the directory from him and shifted it up ever so slightly, so the tip of the pen touched the page, staining it with ink. It marked the exact same spot where Cherie Beasley had been found. Not long after this, Lowe arrived for an appointment carrying a small backpack and a plastic bag. Taking a seat in his usual chair, he placed each bag on either side of him on the floor. Then he looked at Margaret and asked, Margaret, do you really think I could bury a child in a drain to be eaten by maggots?

His expression made Margaret's blood run cold. She could tell he was enjoying himself. Then she noticed there was something small and white on the back of Lowe's chair. It looked like a piece of cotton, except that it was moving. Thinking it was a caterpillar, Margaret walked over to dispose of the insect. But as she drew closer, she realized it was actually a maggot, and it wasn't the only one. Falling all over the floor, the wall, and Lowe's chair were hundreds of maggots. Margaret screamed at Lowe, ordering him out of her office.

He grabbed his backpack and exited, leaving the plastic bag behind. Margaret saw that was where the maggots were crawling from. Without looking inside, she bundled the plastic bag up and ran downstairs to throw it in a bin. Months went by. Lowe spent the summer traveling interstate, first visiting Sydney and then going further north to Queensland. By this stage, his wife Lorraine had told him she wanted a divorce, and Lowe did not take the news well. In March of 1992, he began seeing Margaret Hobbs again. During one appointment, Lowe told Margaret that he would typically forget bad things he had done if he was forgiven for them.

He was also prone to blocking out memories that he didn't want to recall. Margaret asked Lowe if such a thing could have happened with regards to Cherie Beasley's murder. What Lowe said next sent a chill down Margaret's spine. Quote, Could I have blocked something out that much, taking a body and ramming it into a drain? I might have done it. I cannot remember it. Despite this disturbing admission, Lowe appeared more concerned with the breakdown of his marriage than with what had happened to Cherie Beasley. In multiple sessions, he told Margaret Hobbs of his love for his wife Lorraine and his desperation to reconcile with her.

Lorraine had ended their relationship because she knew Lowe was a suspect in Cherie Beasley's murder. Lorraine also harboured her own suspicions that her husband was involved. All she wanted, as she put it, was for Lowe to tell the truth. Discussing this matter with Margaret Hobbs, Lowe asked what would happen to him if he confessed to the crime purely in order to win Lorraine back. Margaret explained that he would likely receive a manslaughter charge. How many years, Lowe queried. Eight, with probably a four-year minimum, Margaret replied. Lowe went back and forth on this topic over time. Sometimes he outright denied having anything to do with Cherie's murder.

Other times he said he would admit to manslaughter if Lorraine agreed to recommit to him. Meanwhile, the police continued to haul Lowe in for questioning about the case every so often. It was clear that the stress and the scrutiny was starting to get to him. Finally, during an appointment on April 1, 1992, Robert Lowe said something to Margaret that changed everything. If you want me to tell you the truth, I can tell you how I was involved. Yes, I could tell you how I was involved. Margaret tried to mask her shock. She asked Lowe to repeat what he'd just said. He did, and then he added,

Will you help me? Margaret agreed. Lowe began to speak. He had driven to Rosebud on the afternoon of June 29, 1991, and noticed two children arguing near a milk bar on the Pean Highway. It was Cherie Beasley and a little boy, presumably a friend of hers. Lowe pulled over and opened the passenger door, then asked if Cherie wanted a lift. As he put it, he was trying to help her escape the disagreement with the boy. Cherie got in the car, and Lowe buckled her seatbelt.

He drove in the direction of a creaky new, but as they got further and further away from where he had picked up Cherie, the little girl began to look scared. Deciding he would take her back home, Lowe made a U-turn. Still distressed, Cherie began coughing and choking in panic. Suddenly, all went silent. Lowe quickly pulled over and saw that Cherie had stopped breathing. He attempted to revive her, but it was too late. She had died. Lowe's immediate reaction was that he needed to dig a grave, but he didn't have a shovel with him. Realizing that there was a stormwater drain beneath the road he was on, Lowe decided he would hide Cherie's body in there instead.

As he related how he shoved the little girl inside the pipe, Lowe suddenly remarked, I need to go to Red Hill to the spot where the body was found. Something may jog my memory. Margaret agreed to accompany Lowe to Red Hill. Although she was terrified, she felt an obligation to extract a full confession from the man who had been her client for more than seven years. Several days after Lowe had given his version of events, Margaret drove down to the peninsula to Lowe's holiday home in Rosebud, where he had been living since splitting with Lorraine. She collected Lowe and the two drove west along the Nepean Highway, which begins in Melbourne's CBD and takes motorists through the city's southern suburbs before concluding at the tip of the Mornington Peninsula. Lowe provided directions. First, he wanted to point out the spot where he had, quote, picked up Cherie.

It was on a residential street called Parkmore Road, near a corner where it intersected with Nepean Highway. As they lingered on Parkmore Road, Lowe pointed out an old rotting pine tree growing in the nature strip by the street. The tree marked where Cherie Beasley's bright pink bicycle had been found after she went missing. Someone had tied a yellow ribbon around it in remembrance of the little girl. That's where I picked her up, Lowe explained. Then he told Margaret to make a U-turn and drive back along Nepean Highway. While pointing out exactly where Margaret should go, he kept a running narrative of what had happened after Cherie had gotten into his car. After asking Margaret to pull into a car park on a nearby foreshore, Lowe said,

She's panicking. I'm taking her home now. Then, he directed Margaret to a tree-lined country road where a concrete stormwater drain lay beneath the driveway of a property. This is the spot, Lowe said, and Margaret parked the car. Lowe exited the vehicle, but Margaret stayed seated, scared that she might faint from the stress of the experience. Lowe strolled along the road, then down to the pipe where Cherie's body had been found. Mourners had left flowers by its entrance. After a little while, Lowe returned to the car and told Margaret, That looks like it.

As Margaret drove Lowe back to his home, he kept talking in detail about how he had forced Cherie's body into the narrow pipe. Quote, I got down on my bottom and kicked the body down. I said a prayer. Oh God, forgive me for this terrible thing I've done. Please take care of this child. Something like that. Margaret turned slightly to hide the fact that her eyes had filled with tears and wiped her face on her sleeve. It seemed as though Lowe was excited to be reliving these memories with another individual, And his excitement only increased Margaret's distress.

She dropped Lowe off at his unit, declining his offer to come in for a cup of tea. Then she drove a short distance away and pulled over to vomit. On the morning of Saturday, June 29, 1991, 6-year-old Cherie Beasley woke up before anyone else in her family and dressed herself in a pink tracksuit. After leaving the bedroom she shared with her two little sisters, she carefully closed the door so she wouldn't wake them. She also shut her mum's door for the same reason. After making herself some toast for breakfast, she fixed another plate for her mother, Cherie, and carried it into her with a glass of cordial so her mum could have breakfast in bed. Eventually the rest of the family had gotten up and at around 1pm, Cherie asked if she could ride her bike to a nearby milk bar on the Pean Highway to buy some lollies.

Cherie loved her pink bicycle, it had been a Christmas gift six months earlier. Cherie agreed and also asked Cherie to stop at a nearby boutique that owed her money. She wrote a note for Cherie to give the shopkeeper and also handed over an envelope with $20 inside. On the envelope she wrote the word Cigarettes, an instruction for the milk shop owner who was familiar with the family and accustomed to Cherie running errands for her mum. Cherie told Cherie she could spend $1 from the change on some lollies for herself. The note and the envelope with the money were placed in a beige handbag, which Cherie carried in her bike's basket. Cherie cycled to the boutique first and returned 20 minutes later with her mother's money, having forgotten about the second part of her trip. Cherie jotted down a few more orders on the envelope, a bottle of Coke, a pasty and a pie, then Cherie rode away again.

It was just before 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Parkmore Road resident Vera and her daughter Susan had made plans to go shopping that afternoon. It was a dreary winter's day, with heavy clouds hanging low in the air. Rosebud was always bustling with tourists during the summer months, but in winter it was something of a ghost town. Escaping to a shopping mall was one of the few reasons to leave the house on an overcast day. Vera and Susan both wanted to pick up a few things from Kmart, a budget retailer that had a franchise nearby. At around 2.20pm, the mother and daughter climbed into Susan's car, then started along Parkmore Road towards Napaean Highway. As she drove, Susan noticed a child's bicycle popped up against the rotting pine tree next door to her mother's house.

It was a girl's bike, coloured bright pink with a white woven basket attached to the handlebars, and the brand-name poppy emblazoned in white lettering along the frame. Mum, whose bike's that? Susan asked. Glancing over, Vera recognised the bicycle right away. She had seen a little girl riding it up and down Parkmore Road over the past few months. One day, as Vera and her husband had been doing some repair work on their driveway, the little girl had walked past their home with her mother and two smaller sisters. The girl's mother had paused for a friendly chat, and mentioned that they lived on South Road, which intersected with Parkmore. Vera ordered Susan to turn around and drive to South Road so she could tell the girl's family about the bike. After knocking on a couple of doors, they found the right house, a small fibro and timber property with a sprawling front lawn.

The little girl's 24-year-old mother, Carrie, answered the door and listened as Vera told her that her daughter's bike had been left unattended around the corner. Cherie usually returned from visiting the milk bar within a quarter of an hour, so when 20 minutes had passed with no sign of her, Carrie was a little worried. But perhaps Cherie had just run into a school friend and stopped to play for a little while. By the time Vera knocked on her front door, more than 45 minutes had passed. Upon learning that Cherie's bike had been abandoned, Carrie's concern grew substantially. She asked her partner, Stephen, to go check, and he walked quickly to the location Vera described. The bike was still leaning against the rotted pine tree. Inside the basket was the beige handbag Carrie had given Cherie before she left home.

Checking its compartments, Stephen saw a packet of cigarettes, a pasty, a pie and a bottle of coke, as well as the envelope with change inside. So Cherie had definitely made it to the milk bar. Starting to panic, Stephen called out for Cherie and looked around for her. She was nowhere to be seen. Stephen made his way to a nearby payphone and placed a call to Rosebud Police. Then he raced home to Carrie with tears in his eyes. The police were at Carrie's home within minutes. They took down a description of Cherie, borrowed a photograph of her and began door knocking the neighborhood, asking if anyone had seen the little girl.

Officers took sniffer dogs out to search surrounding bushland and were joined by state emergency service volunteers. A police command center was set up on Parkmore Road, near to where Cherie's bike had been found. The bike remained propped up against the pine tree, the scene now secured with crime scene tape. A forensic team was summoned to examine the evidence. By late afternoon, the media had gotten ahold of the story and radio bulletins alerted the public to the six-year-old's disappearance. Carrie and her boyfriend were asked to provide a statement down at Rosebud Police Station. Carrie explained that she always told Cherie to come straight home after running an errand, then added, I don't know where my daughter is or who could have taken her. I love her very much.

Police wondered whether Cherie's biological father had snatched her, perhaps wanting full custody of his eldest child. But he was away fishing with friends in Victoria's Alpine region. He didn't learn of his daughter's disappearance until he returned home late the following day. When he heard what had happened, he raced to Rosebud, where his parents were already waiting with Carrie. Shocked and upset, he could barely manage to speak. Police instead turned their attention to the possible sightings and leads that had started trickling in almost as soon as word of Cherie's disappearance spread. There was one tip that sounded especially promising. A woman had seen a little girl matching Cherie's description on the afternoon in question.

She had been riding a pink bicycle, but she wasn't alone. Riding on another bike behind her was a little boy. Investigators had no idea who the little boy might be. No parents had come forward to say their children had been playing with Cherie before she went missing. On the morning of Monday, July 1, Detective Peter Butler decided to visit Cherie's school, Rosebud Primary. He worked his way through the classrooms, asking students if any of them had seen Cherie beasily with a boy two days earlier. Eventually, an older male student revealed that his little brother had said something about seeing Cherie on Saturday. His brother was in Cherie's class, and his name was Shane.

Detective Butler fetched Shane from his class. The little boy was shy and reluctant to talk at first. But soon, he began to open up. Shane's initial reluctance in coming forward was because he had snuck out on Saturday without his parents' knowledge. They had gone out for the afternoon, leaving Shane in the care of his older siblings. While they listened to music upstairs, Shane secretly left on his BMX bicycle to go buy some lollies at a nearby petrol station. When he reached the petrol station, Shane saw Cherie beasily on her pink bicycle. Cherie was in Shane's class at school, and the two were friendly, so they began to play together.

They cycled towards the milk bar on the Pan Highway, where Cherie had to buy some things, but Shane stopped on Parkmore Road. He didn't think he should go any further, so he waited there while Cherie went to the milk bar. As he stood by his BMX, watching for Cherie's return, a small blue two-door car turned off on the Pan Highway and into Parkmore Road. The driver braked and pulled over, very close to where Shane stood. Soon, Cherie reappeared, cycling around the corner from the Pan Highway and back on to Parkmore Road where Shane was waiting. The blue car was still there. As Shane watched, the driver called out to Cherie to stop. He was middle-aged and lean, with a clean shaven face.

Come here, the man said to Cherie. Cherie reluctantly approached the vehicle, still wearing her bright pink bicycle helmet. Then the man got out, strode over to Cherie, picked her up, and put her in the front passenger seat. Quickly, he walked back to the driver's side and jumped back in. Reversing into a U-turn, he almost ran over Cherie's pink bicycle, which lay discarded in the middle of the road. Then the man turned back onto the Pan Highway. The entire abduction took place in a matter of seconds. Shane was scared and didn't quite understand what had happened.

He didn't think Cherie had wanted to go with the man. Shane kept standing there, alone. Soon after the car disappeared with Cherie inside, some other motorists drove up Parkmore Road and noticed Cherie's abandoned bike. They stopped and wheeled it over to a nearby tree, assuming its owner was off playing nearby with friends. After seeing this, Shane rode his bike home and crept inside without his siblings realizing that he'd ever gone out. When his parents returned home a little after 3pm, Shane was still playing in the same spot that he'd been when they left hours earlier. Detective Butler was impressed with Shane's recollection. Upon re-examining the crime scene at Parkmore Road, the detectives saw that tire marks on the bitumen perfectly matched the vehicle maneuvers that Shane had described.

Shane didn't know enough about cars to identify the vehicle's specific make or model, but now investigators knew they were looking for a two-door car that was small and blue, likely a hatchback. There was something else. Some early media reports had mistakenly reported that Cherie's pink bike helmet was found at the scene alongside the bike. But police had never come across the helmet in any of their searches, and Shane said that when the man had grabbed Cherie, she was still wearing it. The detectives knew that they had to release this updated information as soon as possible. Once the media began reporting that Cherie had in fact been wearing her bike helmet when she was taken, witnesses who had previously discounted things that they'd seen began coming forward. A woman driving along the highway that afternoon had pulled up alongside a blue hatchback being driven by a white man who looked between 50 and 60 years old. Sitting beside him was a little girl in a pink bike helmet, sobbing as the man stared straight ahead and studiously avoided eye contact. The woman assumed the girl was the man's granddaughter and that he'd told her off for some reason or other.

A mother and daughter at the front of a motel on the PN highway had seen a terrified looking little girl being driven in a blue hatchback. The girl had a pink helmet on and stared desperately at the mother through the passenger window as though trying to communicate something. This woman was able to help police identify the exact type of car the abductor had been driving, a blue Toyota Corolla. Detectives obtained a list of all blue Toyota Corollas registered throughout the state. There were more than 700 and they would have to follow up on each and every one. Senior detective Andrew Guski was responsible for calling the car's owners and asking questions in an attempt to determine whether or not they might be a suspect. Most people were polite, cooperative and eager to be of assistance. On the morning of Tuesday, July 30, Detective Guski's phone rang.

It was a man returning a call that the detective had placed a week earlier. The man didn't own a blue Toyota Corolla, but he drove one that belonged to his employer. Unlike most of the other people Detective Guski had spoken to, this man was standoffish and abrupt. Yet, he also had a crystal clear recollection of what he'd been doing a month earlier on Saturday, June 29, something that struck the detective as odd. He said that he'd spent the day at home with his family in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The man's name was Robert Lowe. When Detective Guski asked Lowe for his phone number, Lowe had abruptly refused. He explained that he had an unlisted number and didn't want to give it out to anyone.

Detective Guski's curiosity was immediately peaked. He searched Lowe's name in Victoria Police's records and saw he had multiple charges for indecent exposure and offensive behaviour. Four months earlier, Lowe had been spotted lurking by the fence of a public swimming pool in the outer eastern suburb of Croydon. A school sports event was taking place at the pool. Two teachers soon noticed Lowe chatting with two young boys while touching himself. When confronted, he ran away to his car, but a teacher had managed to take note of his number plate and passed it on to police. Soon after Detective Guski became convinced that Robert Lowe looked like a prime suspect, another member of the task force showed him an interesting report from Crime Stoppers.

The service had received hundreds of tip-offs in the weeks since Cherie was abducted, but this one seemed especially promising. An anonymous woman had called to report a man named Robert Lowe in connection with the Cherie Beasley case. She had told the operator, I know a guy going through therapeutic dealings who has a history of sex offences, both obscene and willful exposure, and approaching young girls. The woman's reference to therapeutic dealings was curious. Then one investigator noticed something while scrutinizing court reports from Lowe's various charges.

One of the expert witnesses listed was a psychotherapist by the name of Margaret Hobbs. Margaret had made the decision to call Crime Stoppers the same day that she discovered Robert Lowe drove a blue Toyota Corolla. Margaret's guard instinct that he was involved, coupled with his sudden reappearance in her office, made her sick with worry. When she realized he drove the exact same car as Cherie Beasley's abductor, she knew she needed to alert the authorities. Her tip-off, combined with Detective Gusky's suspicious conversation with Lowe and his prior criminal record, led to Lowe becoming the investigation's prime suspect exactly one month after Cherie's abduction. Detectives searched Lowe's home, questioned his family, and took him in for interrogations multiple times over the following months. Detectives found out he had no alibi for the day of Cherie's disappearance, and had told multiple people at his church that he was headed for Rosebud.

After his initial interview, Lowe was placed under 24-hour surveillance, and it quickly became evident he was a compulsive, serial predator. Investigators watched as he went to public areas to masturbate or approach schoolgirls. A search of the work car he drove revealed that Lowe had collected a number of newspaper clippings about the Carmen Chan abduction. Some words were underlined, and he had jotted down some bizarre notes of his own. Although they didn't believe he was involved in Carmen's case, as his offending fit an entirely different pattern, the clippings indicated Lowe was fixated by the girl's abduction. His wife confirmed that Lowe had been obsessed with the Carmen Chan case, and spoke about it so much that she'd had to ask him to stop. Despite all of this, there was no tangible physical evidence tying him to Cherie Beasley. This didn't change when her body was found in September.

Nothing belonging to Lowe was recovered from Cherie's remains or the crime scene, nor did investigators ever find the pink helmet that Cherie had been wearing when she was taken. A nine-year-old girl who lived in Red Hill later came forward to say she'd seen a pink bike helmet lying discarded in some bushes near her school sometime in the spring. But it had disappeared by the following day. Detectives knew they needed to work harder to definitively link Lowe to Cherie Beasley, and they believed their best bet was Margaret Hobbs. Her anonymous tip-off indicated she was already suspicious of him, meaning he likely made incriminating statements during their appointments. Two detectives paid Margaret a visit to explain that they were looking into Robert Lowe. She cooperated with them, but she wasn't able to offer the definitive evidence they were looking for.

So, the investigators decided to go a step further. Without Margaret's knowledge, they secretly installed a small microphone in a vent above her office ceiling. Her sessions with Robert Lowe were all recorded, and detectives listened in on them from a flat in the building next door. Each time Lowe edged closer to making a confession, when he discussed pleading guilty to manslaughter and the spot where he thought Cherie might have been found, investigators heard every word. In late March of 1992, detectives reached out to Margaret and told her that one of them would be acting as her liaison. Detective Alex Barch would speak to her regularly about the case and debrief with her after her sessions with Lowe. Upon sitting down with Margaret for the first time, Detective Barch noted that she seemed uncomfortable discussing one of her clients with a police officer. At the same time, he could see that the strain of working with Lowe was taking a heavy toll on Margaret.

She seemed relieved to have someone she could confide in about it all. In early April, Lowe made his first a genuine confession to Margaret, telling her, If you want me to tell you the truth, I can tell you how I was involved. Yes, I could tell you how I was involved. Unaware that investigators were already listening in on her conversations with their prime suspect, the distressed Margaret in turn spoke with Detective Barch. She informed him that Lowe had made what she believed to be an admission, and she had another appointment with him that day. She would keep him posted on what happened next. Later that same day, Detective Barch and his colleague Detective Andrew Gusky sat quietly in the flat next door as they listened in on Margaret's latest session with Robert Lowe. To their shock, Lowe began to detail how he had driven to Rosebud on Saturday, June 29, 1991, and picked up Cherie Beasley.

He described how she had panicked and choked to death in his passenger seat and the way he had subsequently disposed of her body. Then he told Margaret he needed to visit Red Hill, seeing the exact spot where he had left the little girl might jog his memory further. The two detectives stared at each other. They finally had him. Detective Barch and another officer soon paid a visit to Margaret's office. When she told them of her plans to drive Lowe to Red Hill, they told her they would need to monitor the trip for her own safety. Detectives would tail them out to the location, and Margaret would be given a panic button she could press if she began to feel unsafe. But without her knowledge, the police also did something else. They installed a covert listening device in her car so that they could hear everything that was said throughout the journey.

A few days after Margaret took Lowe to Red Hill, detectives obtained a statement about the trip from Margaret. The experience had fundamentally changed something in her. Before, she had felt a professional discomfort about working with the police against her client. Now, she felt she had to help hold him responsible for the terrible thing he had done. She began recording her sessions with him, though she didn't tell anyone she was doing so. Meanwhile, the detectives collated their evidence. On March 31, 1993, they finally struck. Arresting Robert Lowe at a backpacker hostel he was now staying at in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda.

He refused to speak with them, instead insisting they call his lawyer. Then, he proudly told Detective Alex Barch that he was just like Jesus Christ. He would have to endure a terrible trial, but all would be right in the end. As described in the book The Evil, Detective Barch retorted that Lowe was half right, but he had no chance of being resurrected. When Lowe later appeared in Melbourne's Magistrates Court, he was greeted by a crowd of journalists, news crews, and angry members of the public. Cherie Beasley's mother, Kerry, had travelled to the city so she could see the man accused of her daughter's murder finally in handcuffs. When Lowe was brought into the dock, the grief-stricken Kerry screamed abuse and attempted to run over to him before being restrained. Robert Lowe was charged with the abduction and murder of Cherie Beasley, denied bail, and taken into remand to await his trial.

When it came to the details of Cherie's murder, investigators had never believed Lowe's version of events. His story that she had agreed to get into his car directly contrasted with the description given by Shane, the little boy who Cherie had been playing with. No doubt, Lowe's claim that she had choked while panicking was another attempt to cover up the truth of his crimes. As Cherie's remains had been so badly decomposed, it was impossible to determine exactly what she had endured or what caused her death. As detailed in the book The Evil, three weeks after Lowe was charged, Detective Alex Barch received some intriguing information from a colleague in Victoria Police's prison squad. An inmate at Melbourne's notorious Pentridge Prison was sharing a cell with Robert Lowe while the latter was awaiting trial. Peter Reid was a violent criminal who had been convicted of murdering a police officer in 1982. During a series of conversations with Reid, Lowe had supposedly made some admissions about Cherie's murder, providing a different version of events than he'd given to police.

Depending on a jailhouse snitch for evidence was always risky. Those who knew Reid said he was dangerous, manipulative, and not to be trusted. But the information he was providing also seemed consistent with the Robert Lowe police had become familiar with through his psychotherapy sessions. It was agreed that Peter Reid would wear a wire and attempt to cajole more information from his cellmate. Reid's strategy was to tell Lowe that he knew a lawyer who could create a fake story for Lowe's defense, but only if he was given a true account of what had really happened. He needed to draw upon facts when designing a false narrative. Lowe fell for it. He gave Reid a very different story, admitting that he'd seen Cherie in the area on several previous occasions before abducting her.

Each time, she had been riding her bike to the local shops where she sometimes ran errands for her mother. Lowe had followed her, making a note of where she lived and decided to abduct her. He went to Rosebud on June 29, 1991, with the express purpose of taking the little girl. After forcing Cherie into his car, he drove her to a remote farmland area where he brutally raped her. Cherie had cried and begged to be taken home to her mother. Lowe maintained that while she had choked to death, this hadn't been due to a panic attack. Instead, it had resulted directly from him assaulting her. When Cherie started to choke, Lowe removed the pink bike helmet that she was still wearing.

He later discarded it somewhere. After realizing that Cherie was dead, Lowe drove down a country road and pushed and kicked her underwear-clad body into the stormwater drain where she was later found. His semen had stained most of Cherie's clothing, so he threw the garments away in a rubbish skip. When Reed met with Detective Barch after obtaining this confession, the detective noticed how pale and sick the convicted criminal appeared. Listening to Lowe's admissions over the course of multiple days had clearly taken a severe mental and emotional toll on him. Despite this, he thanked Detective Barch for giving him the opportunity to assist in convicting a child killer. Robert Lowe's trial finally began in October 1994, more than three years after Cherie Beasley was murdered. The prosecution alleged that the crime had been carefully planned and premeditated by Lowe, who clearly had a fascination with such crimes, as evidenced by his obsession with the Carmen Chan case.

Margaret Hobbs was the prosecution's star witness. She testified over four days, and sections of the secret recordings that had been made of her sessions with Lowe were played for the court. Lowe's soulmate, Peter Reed, also gave evidence about his own taped conversations with Lowe. As detailed in The Evil, everyone present in the courtroom listened attentively as Reed made a personal address to the jury. He described himself as one of the worst criminals in the system, but said that even he was shocked and angered by Cherie's murder. That was why he had decided to testify for the prosecution. This admission held Reed in good stead with the jury, despite the defense's attempts to undermine his credibility as a witness. Throughout the duration of the trial, Robert Lowe showed little emotion.

He sat in the dock with a blank expression. As one reporter, who was quoted in The Evil, wrote, The only hint of feeling behind his bespectacled and gray-bearded visage was a nervous facial twitch. It surfaced when witnesses gave evidence that sat uncomfortably with his version of events. A month after the trial began, the jury retired to consider their verdict. After five hours, they returned. They had found Robert Lowe guilty of abducting and murdering Cherie Beasley. When Cherie's mother, Kerry, heard the verdict, she cried out,

Suffer Lowe. Cherie got her revenge this time. Rod in Hell. The public gallery clapped and cheered. Lowe's face remained impassive, but he blinked several times upon learning his fate. His ex-wife Lorraine fainted, and the couple's two sons rushed to her aid, followed shortly by paramedics. The sentencing judge teared up as he gave Robert Lowe life in prison for murder and 15 years for the abduction charge. He refused to give a minimum term, describing the trial as the most harrowing he had ever experienced.

Addressing Lowe directly, he stated, What you did was every child's fear and every parent's nightmare. When Robert Lowe was removed from the courtroom, Kerry shouted, Just remember Lowe, Cherie got a death sentence. You've still got your life. Despite bringing a child killer to justice, Margaret Hobbs had battled with her decision to assist the police and then testify against him. As a psychotherapist, she felt she had an obligation to keep the things her clients told her in confidence, and had indicated to Robert Lowe that she would never disclose what went on during their sessions. But she was so disturbed by the things he told her and the brutality of his actions,

she felt she had no choice but to help the investigation. Many praised Margaret Hobbs for her actions, while others criticized her for breaking patient therapist confidentiality. She accepted what her critics had to say, content in the knowledge that she had done what she knew to be right. In 1997, Robert Lowe lodged an appeal against his conviction, arguing that evidence from his appointments with Margaret shouldn't have been allowed at trial due to confidentiality issues. His appeal was rejected, and the court made clear that public interest overrides confidentiality in situations where an individual in therapy has committed a serious crime. Margaret Hobbs was left traumatized by her dealings with Robert Lowe. Learning of the terrible things he had done took a serious toll on her health and well-being,

and she suffered insomnia and nightmares. She wrote of the experience, I took to staring at children who I judged to be aged about six, watching their movements and imagining. One day, I found a little lost girl who was about this age. She had lost her mother and was sobbing and stuttering out her name. We found her mother, and I sat in my car and cried, aware of the terror of the child at having lost her mother for ten minutes. Margaret began working on a book about the case.

Then, almost six years after Cherie's murder, on January 17, 1996, Margaret and her husband were driving home when her husband blacked out behind the wheel. Their car ran off the road and hit a fence, killing Margaret instantly. In the wake of Margaret's death, journalist and author Andrew Ruhl completed the book she had been working on. It was titled The Evil and published under both their names. The title was chosen because Margaret's dealings with Lowe convinced her that she had, quote, encountered the face of evil in human form. Detective Alex Barch, who worked closely with Margaret during the investigation, wrote a foreword for the book.

He described her as someone driven by the desire to serve the common good, regardless of personal cost. In life, Margaret Hobbs was loved by those who knew her. In death, she is mourned by them. As of mid-2021, Robert Lowe remains alive and incarcerated for his crimes, with his file marked Never to be released. He has continued to maintain his innocence from behind bars, and on the 23rd anniversary of Cherie's murder, he wrote a letter begging authorities to reinvestigate the case. Carrie was extremely distressed by this action, telling Seven News, He is evil. He's not a man.

After Cherie's murder, Carrie found living in Rosebud too painful. Being in the neighborhood constantly reminded her of what had happened to her firstborn child. She moved to another area of the Mornington Peninsula with her partner Stephen and Cherie's little sisters. In the lounge room of their new home was a small shrine to Cherie. Five photographs of her in a frame with the words, our little angel at the top. Another large portrait of Cherie hung from a nearby wall. For years, the pink bicycle that Cherie had loved so much was kept in Victoria Police's headquarters in Melbourne, in a conference room alongside a box of files from the case.

Carrie made a point of visiting the location in Red Hill where Cherie's body had been found, explaining that she had wanted to be in the same place where Cherie last was. Once Cherie was laid to rest at Mornington Cemetery, Carrie and her other two daughters would visit her headstone regularly. Cherie's sisters would bring gifts and chat to Cherie. Sometimes when Carrie found herself struggling late at night, she visited alone. The military gates were locked after hours, but Carrie would park her car outside and talk aloud to her daughter in the hopes she could hear her. Carrie married Stephen and the couple had a daughter together.

In an interview with the journalist from the age, Carrie explained that her new baby helped keep her occupied, but 100% of the time I always have Cherie in the back of my mind. Nothing will ever replace her or be like Cherie was. She was just so special. Words cannot explain.