Back From The Dead

A Killer's 'Victim' Reappears

(CBS) 
A Shock In The Court
Three years after she disappeared, her parents held a memorial service for Natasha Ryan.

"I decided that I wanted it to be on Natasha’s birthday,” says her father, Robert Ryan. “It was my way as the dad to say good bye…”

So, with Lenny Fraser finally confessing to Natasha’s murder, her family and friends gathered to remember her.

It had taken Quinn a year to con Lenny Fraser into revealing where he buried Natasha. He drew a map that led police to an eerie stretch of road between Rockhampton and the coast, to a burial site behind an empty house. He described how he killed Natasha under a mango tree, and then buried her on the property using a mechanical trench digger.

Police searched the property with cadaver dogs and via foot searches. They never found Natasha’s grave.

Still, Prosecutor Paul Rutledge felt there was powerful evidence to convict Fraser for all of the murders, including Natasha Ryan’s.

At the trial, Natasha’s father Robert Ryan led the victims’ families.

“I just sat in that courtroom and made sure I sat in that same seat,” Ryan recalls. “I was in that courtroom every morning. When they handcuffed Leonard Fraser, the moment he walked in the door, he had me -- he was looking at me…”

And then it happened, the extraordinary event that would have all Australians shaking their heads in disbelief. The trial was in its 12th day. Witnesses were preparing to testify as to how and why Lenny Frazer would have murdered Natasha Ryan. The court was in its daily recess for lunch when Prosecutor Rutledge got a phone call. As soon as the call ended, he went looking for Robert Ryan.

Paul Rutledge’s words to me were, ‘We found Natasha.’ And I just slumped down,” recalls Ryan. “And then Paul says to me, ‘she’s alive.’”

Rutledge told her father that Natasha was being taken to the police station, and that he would need to speak to her by telephone to identify her.

“I said to the voice on the other end of the phone, ‘if you’re my daughter, what would your dad call you?’ Ryan said. He remembers her reply: “Dad, it’s me, Grasshopper, and I love you and I’m sorry.”

At that point, Robert Ryan dropped the phone, and he now recalls the rest of the day as pretty much a blur.

Confused? So was everyone in the court, as moments later, Paul Rutledge made the announcement: “I told the court: ‘I’m pleased to inform the court that Leonard John Fraser is not guilty of the murder of Natasha. Natasha Ryan is alive.’”

Natasha was alive and well, and she’d been living right under their noses the whole time.