Back From The Dead

A Killer's 'Victim' Reappears

(CBS)  This story originally aired on Sept. 24, 2005.

It’s never happened before on 48 Hours Mystery, and maybe not ever in history. One of a serial killer’s presumed victims showed up at her alleged killer's trial. Correspondent Bill Lagattuta reports from Rockhampton, Australia.

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Imagine the nightmare. Five women and girls were missing. Keyra Steinhardt, age 9; Natasha Ryan, 14; Sylvia Benedetti, 19, Beverly Leggo, 37, and Julie Turner, 39, vanished one after another from this picturesque small city in Queensland.

Around town, many people stopped going out. They wouldn’t drive at night, not even to a movie theater. Rockhampton was in a state of fear.

Early on, the police got a lucky break and brought in a suspect who had a long and violent history. “He had the hallmarks of a serial killer,” says Dave Hickey, who led the homicide task force on the case. “Lenny Fraser is a psychopath,” declares Prosecutor Paul Rutledge. “He is a very dangerous man.”

Nonetheless, it was a difficult case for the police, who had found little evidence and had not even found all of the bodies. To get a conviction, they needed a confession.

So, to catch a criminal, they turned to a criminal. Allan Quinn brags that he is Australia’s greatest con man. And he was about to embark on the biggest con of his career.

For Quinn, it was “a chance for me to turn my life around to compensate for the terrible life I led.” He was determined to find out what had happened to the missing people of Rockhampton.

But before the case was all over, a murder victim would rise from the grave and walk right into court.