June 24, 2006
Back From The Dead
A Killer's 'Victim' Reappears
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Play CBS Video Video Back From The Grave What happens when a serial killer's presumed victim shows up at his trial? That's just one of the strange plot twists in this 48 Hours Mystery from Correspondent Bill Lagattuta.
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Natasha Ryan was presumed dead (CBS)
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Allen Quinn was a conman with a mission (CBS)
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Keyra Steinhardt's death devastated the town (CBS)
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Interactive Serial Killers & Mass Murder Meet some of the world's worst killers, find out how some have gotten caught and what some have said about their crimes.
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Interactive Forensics 101 Find out more about forensics, DNA and some cases in which DNA has made a difference.
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“I’ve conned lawyers, judges, doctors,” brags Allan Quinn, who was interviewed aboard a boat. “I lived the good life. The quicker I got the money, the quicker I spent it.” He adds that he liked Dom Perignon – for breakfast. Among Quinn’s dubious accomplishments as a lifetime criminal are multiple appearances on Australia’s Most Wanted television series, once for ripping off retirees.
To police, he also claimed that only he could crack the Rockhampton case wide open. With four people missing and all other avenues exhausted, the police agreed to let him try.
At the time of the Rockhampton murder investigation, Quinn was in jail -- caught for a con when a bank customer recognized him. In prison, he ran into Leonard Fraser, then accused of little Keyra's murder.
Frazier was eventually convicted of killing Keyra. But he had never confessed to the murders of Natasha Ryan or the three other women.
And that made Quinn furious. “In a flash, I thought, ‘it’s my job, he’s speaking to me,’” Quinn recalls. “I’ll befriend this guy and I’ll get the information.”
In an old prison yard, Quinn and Fraser would walk and talk every day during their exercise period. Quinn’s plan was to work Frazier as a good con man works any "mark," gain his confidence and trust slowly over time, and then get him to give Quinn what he wanted.
In this case, he wanted information. He wanted to know what Fraser did with the bodies of his victims.
“Fraser was so excited when he talked about serial killers,” Quinn recalls, “I said to him, I said, ‘look, Lenny, if you want to be a serial killer, you can’t be a serial killer unless anybody knows what you done.’ I said, ‘you’ll have to give up the bodies of your victims; you’ll have to tell them the story.’”
He learned that Fraser wanted to be transferred from prison to a psychiatric ward. Quinn promptly convinced him that telling all would get him the transfer.
Eventually, police set Quinn up with secret recording gear. Fraser kept talking, eventually describing his crimes in grisly detail. Over the course of two years, at great risk to himself, Quinn even got authorities to put the accused serial killer in the same cell with him.
Over time, the stories got more detailed and more grisly. But police needed more than stories. They needed bodies.
That leads us to another twist in the story. Quinn, the con man, agreed to stay in prison beyond his release date in order to help build the case. “I’ve hurt a lot of people in my life,” Quinn explains. “I’ve got to do something good, so that is why I set in after Fraser.”
It would take Quinn nearly nine more months of volunteer time in prison to crack the case. “I used every trick in the book,” recalls Quinn, “and all of a sudden it came out…”
Incredible as it seems, Quinn conned Fraser into admitting everything, then lined up the governor’s personal jet to fly him and Fraser to the crime scenes, and Fraser still didn’t realize he was being conned. He willingly stepped onto the plane.
They wound up in the thick jungle-like landscape just outside of Rockhampton. You’d be hard pressed to find anything in there, but Fraser seemed to know the way. He lost his sullen manner and became happy and excited as he led Detective Dave Hickey, with Quinn not far behind, deeper into the bush.
Fraser led them to an isolated tropical setting, where skeletal remains were found. Remains later identified as those of Julie Turner were found in one spot. Beverly Leggo’s remains were found in another. The body of the third woman, Sylvia Benedetti, turned up near the beach.
Nothing was found of Natasha Ryan. But Fraser gave Quinn several maps to Natasha’s body.
Try as they might, the police could not find Natasha’s grave. But with Quinn’s help they were able to make their case.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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