Court to probe death of Samantha Knight’s heinous killer

No tears were shed for serial child abuser Michael Anthony Guider, who drugged and killed nine-year-old Sydney girl Samantha Knight, when he suddenly died in prison in 2024.

Two years on, survivors hope a court will take “one of the final opportunities” to find answers from Guider’s life, including examining the location of Samantha’s body and to uncover the full extent of his heinous crimes.

Guider was 73 and was sitting in his cell in Long Bay prison, complaining about shortness of breath in September 2024. His heart was giving out.

He died in Prince of Wales Hospital, five kilometres and four decades away from Bondi, where he committed crimes against a dozen children during the 1980s.

A death in custody automatically triggers a coronial inquest, usually to examine the prison’s management of the deceased inmate’s health and wellbeing.

But when NSW Deputy State Coroner Rebecca Hosking convenes her court to explore Guider’s death on Monday, survivors hope the questions will dig deeper into Guider’s life.

“One of the greatest tragedies is that Samantha Knight’s family was never given the answers they deserved,” Chantelle Daly, who survived Guider’s abuse herself, told the Herald.

“Guider never honestly (in my opinion) revealed what happened to Samantha’s body, and, because of that, she was never found.

“No family should be denied the opportunity to bring their child home and lay them to rest. My thoughts remain with Samantha’s family and the unimaginable burden they have carried for so many years.”

Daly hopes this week’s inquest will examine whether Guider committed further crimes or victimised other people who were never fully investigated or understood.

“While he was convicted for some of his offences, there will always be questions about the full extent of the harm he caused,” she said.

What is known is that Guider drugged and killed the nine-year-old in 1986 after abducting her from near her home in Sydney’s east.

But it was not until February 2001 that Guider was arrested for the crime, after he told fellow inmates he dosed the young girl with sleeping pills, and “must have put too much” in her drink because she wouldn’t wake up.

He was in prison at the time, serving lengthy prison terms for assaulting more than a dozen children from 1980 to 1996. He continued to drug children and photograph them after killing Samantha.

Guider pleaded guilty to manslaughter for Samantha’s death in 2002, but he never revealed where her body was left.

Despite the horrific scale and toll of Guider’s crimes against children, and his refusal to accept respo