THE MURDER OF SAMANTHA KNIGHT

Little Girl Lost

The case of Samantha Knight’s disappearance happened when I was a little girl. It was almost a ghost story about “stranger danger”.  Samantha had disappeared after buying a toothbrush on August 9, 1986 at the age of nine.

The pictures of Samantha in a floppy hat looking off into the distance were plastered all over Sydney, in the hope that someone may have seen her, to no avail. All that remained was an image of Samantha frozen in time, as the little girl lost.

Every year on the anniversary of Samantha’s disappearance, a story in the newspaper was printed. Just a reminder of a mother’s vigilance in finding her daughter. It was obvious after such a long time, that something bad had happened to that little girl. There was someone out there who knew, who walked past the posters of her face, who knew what had happened to little Sam.

Ten years later, one of Samantha’s friends went to police. She had finally plucked up the courage to tell them about her babysitter, someone who may be involved in Samantha’s disappearance.  Yet it would be another six years before the man was found guilty of her murder. 

Michael Guider

Michael Anthony Guider was born on October 20 1950. According to his story, he blamed his later paedophilia on being sexually abused as a child. He claims to have been abused by his mother, a family friend and later by a stranger for money. He also claimed to have been raped by other boys at a home for delinquents.

The family friend who abused Guider as a child would take the boy on outings where he drugged and sexually abuse the boy. The method proved successful for the abuser and later Guider would himself use drugs in years to come to subdue his victims.

Guider soon became the abuser, sexually assaulting many younger boys, as had been done to him.

As an adult ,Guider was a true paedophilic predator. Guider would take children from the neighbourhood to his house, where he would drug them with the sedative Normison. Once the victim was asleep, Guider would abuse them, taking photos of the children in various stages of undress. 

Yet the abuse went completely unreported, many of the children unaware of their abuse, having been unconscious when the assaults had taken place. Guider was able to continue the abuse without reprimand. Guider was a popular man, many people trusted him with their children, and he baby sat many of the kids from the neighbourhood. Little did the residents of beachside Bondi know that they had a predator in their midst.

The Pieces Come Together

It was not until 1996 that two seven year old girls told their parents about Guider, about abusing them and taking photos during the assaults. It was the first time that any suspicions were made of the friendly man.

The police were called ,and a search was made of Guider’s residence in early February, 1996. A mountain of child pornography, photos and children’s underwear was found in a shed. On February 6, 1996, Guider was arrested and confessed to sexually assaulting the two young girls. He also went on further to name many of the children in the photos, but vehemently denied having sexually abused any of them.

As the investigation and questioning continued, Samantha’s name came up and Guider claimed to have met the girl twice in 1986 before her disappearance.  He also claimed to have once kept a scrapbook of news clippings on her abduction and also, that of the mysterious disappearance of the Beaumont Children in early 1966. He said he had thrown it away years earlier.

The police investigation concluded in court on September 12, 1996 , with Guider being charged with the sixty offences regarding sexual abuse of nine little girls and two boys over a fifteen year period. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison with a minimum sentence of 10 years.

Now that police had the paedophile behind bars, they pursued further evidence on their suspect, searching a rented unit in Girraween in 1998. The scrapbook on Samantha Knight was found in the search, along with photographs of two friends of Samantha’s. One slide found was to be that of Samantha, naked with her genitals exposed.

Police interviewed the now 22-year-old victims about the abuse 12 years earlier at the hands of Guider. They were unaware of the actions of their babysitter until shown the photographs of their naked prepubescent bodies. Guider was handed two more concurrent sentences of 6 ½ years for each of the two victims.

Now the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Samantha and Guider

Michael Guider had met Tess and Samantha in 1983 at a birthday party for one of the victims. He appeared to be a friendly and polite man, and Samantha had often visited Guider in the company of her friend. During the visits Guider would give the girls a drink of Coca Cola, laced with the sedative Normison. Once the girls were sufficiently sedated Guider would strip off their clothes and take photos of them as he abused them. The abuse occurred during visits in 1984 and 1985.

The Taking of Innocence

Samantha and her mother Tess moved to Bondi in 1986.  Samantha had a regular routine after school when her mother was still at work. She would come home, change out of her school uniform and play with friends until around 6pm.

On August 19, 1986 Samantha’s afternoon began as it normally would. She arrived home from school and changed clothes. She headed back out to find her friends, but instead she found Michael Guider. The man smiled at her and the two of them began chatting. He offered her a lift to see her friends and she accepted. Instead, Guider returned to his house, where Samantha had been on many previous occasions. The man made a story up about a few of her girlfriends being on their way over to his house.  Guider offered Samantha a can of Coke that had been laced with Normison. Samantha happily took the beverage and drank it all.

In no time she had lapsed into a deep sleep. However this time something went wrong. Guider had given the young girl too much and she died from the overdose.

Guider claims that he buried her body in the salt bushes in Cooper Park.  He then returned later, dug up Samantha’s body and threw it into a dumpster near Royal Yacht Squadron at Kirribilli where he was working. Her remains have never been found and in his final confession to police he tried to explain why:

“I never physically harmed the girl, I intended to take her home, it’s a very sad thing. It caught me by surprise that the drug had any effect like that. Naturally I panicked, I went into a, I knew I was in trouble …[I] tried to find some way out of the problem, disposing of the evidence I guess. I’ve blanked all of this out of my mind. I can’t be much more specific. A few years ago I might have been able to... but since then I’ve suffered a horrendous bashing on the head with an iron bar…”

The Years Go By

When Samantha did not come home that evening by 6pm, her mother began to worry she went for a walk down to the local shops and found that Samantha had bought a toothbrush that afternoon, and had continued on her way. The last sighting was at 5.30pm, when she had been seen in the company of a man, no doubt it was Guider.

Soon posters of Samantha were seen all over Sydney, asking people if they had seen her. We all hoped that she would be found alive and well. There were news reports of her being abducted and raised as someone else’s daughter. Yet all the stories were in vain. By the time she was reported missing she was already dead.

The years continued, until finally on February 22, 2001, Guider, while in prison for the other paedophile charges, was charged with Samantha’s murder. The man had told another cellmate that he had drugged Samantha and she had died accidentally. It was the break that police were after. The task force into the disappearance had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete, until the prison cell confession.

Yet when confronted with the confession, Guider claimed he had not made any such admission. Police decided to take a different course of action. They made a deal with Tim Guider.

Tim Guider

Tim Guider, the younger brother of Michael, was in prison for planning an armed robbery. He had been sentenced to less than ten years in prison and had served two-thirds of his sentenced when he made a deal with police. If he was able to get his older brother to plead guilty to Samantha’s murder he would be pardoned from his own prison sentence.

Tim talked to his brother about his involvement in Samantha’s death and over a period of time, the older brother admitted his involvement in the girl’s disappearance and subsequent death. Michael was unaware that Tim reported Michael’s story to police for his own gain.

Throughout the story, the older Guider refused to admit to killing Samantha. He told Tim that Samantha’s death had been an accident; he had drugged the young girl with sedatives so he could take photos of the young girl. Something he’d done on previous occasions, when he had babysat her and her friends. Yet this time she had not woken.

Guider, however, never told his brother exactly where he had dumped the girl’s body; he only gave a vague indication about a rubbish tip.

After consulting with prosecutors in the case of Samantha’s disappearance, Tim talked further with his brother. He begged his brother to find some kindness in his heart and to give Samantha’s family closure. Tim asked Michael to plead guilty to an alternative charge of manslaughter. 

Final Justice

Guider agreed and confessed to police, telling them how he had accidentally killed her, however, he refused to say where the body was, perhaps hiding the forensic evidence of assault her body may provide.

Finally, on September 6, 2002, seventeen years after Samantha’s death, her killer was brought to justice.  Guider was sentenced to seventeen years for the manslaughter of Samantha Knight. Samantha’s killer will be sixty-four-years-old when he is eligible for parole in June 2014.