A woman who was at the center of one of Australia’s most notorious and strange disappearances has been found dead on a golf course.
Natasha Ryan’s body was found at Rockhampton Golf Course on Sunday. There are no suspicious circumstances.
Ryan, then 14, ran away from home in 1998 to be with her boyfriend Scott Black, 21.
Former missing person Natasha Ryan (pictured during her interview on the TV show ’60 Minutes’ on April 27, 2003) has been found dead
Ms Ryan was presumed murdered by serial killer and rapist Leonard John Fraser.
But after a tip to police, she was found hiding in a closet at Mr Black’s home in central Queensland in 2003, five years later.
The couple stood trial on charges of falsely provoking a police investigation.
In 2005, Black pleaded guilty to perjury for telling police he did not know where Ryan was and was jailed for 12 months.
Ms Ryan was also found guilty of provoking a false police investigation and fined $1,000.
They later married and had four children.
Natasha Ryan was found alive in 2003, allegedly murdered by Leonard John Fraser.
Ms Ryan (pictured left and right) sparked national concern when she disappeared but was hiding at her boyfriend’s house, a short distance from her parents’ property.
Emergency services had been searching, by land and air, for a missing person in the Rockhampton region for several hours on June 2.
The RACQ CapRescue helicopter service was assisting in the search this morning in the Rockhampton Golf Course area of West Rockhampton, close to the zoo and botanic gardens.
A Queensland Police statement said emergency crews conducting a search for a 40-year-old woman found her body this morning.
“Police will prepare a report for the coroner following the sudden and non-suspicious death of a woman in Rockhampton,” he said.
