Qld: Teenager back from the dead
By Janelle Miles
BRISBANE, April 10 AAP - Teenager Natasha Ryan had everyone fooled.
Her father Robert had been so sure his daughter was murdered that three years afterher disappearance he held a special memorial service to give her family "closure".
On a clear blue day in May, 2001, mourners released balloons and watched a video featuringNatasha as a bridesmaid at her father's wedding to stepmother Debbie.
Mr Ryan told about 70 people at Bundaberg's Crematorium Chapel his vivacious daughterhad cared so much about helping the less fortunate she once gave up her Christmas to visitthe sick and needy.
At the time of the service, Natasha's disappearance from Rockhampton had been linkedto the cases of three other women missing from the central Queensland city around thesame time.
But the auburn-haired daughter Mr Ryan, fondly called "Grasshopper", was in self-imposedhiding the whole time.
Nearly five years after she vanished as a 14-year-old, Natasha Ryan has turned up alive,living in Rockhampton not far from where she disappeared.
Her mother, Jenny Ryan, lives in the same city, about one kilometre from where herdaughter was found.
The teenager's reappearance has shocked her family, police and Queensland prosecutors.
Despite reported sightings of her, police were so certain she was dead that even withouta body they charged convicted child killer Leonard John Fraser with her murder.
Fraser's committal hearing was told last year he had been overheard in his prison cellconfessing to Natasha's murder, claiming he had buried her under a mango tree.
The 51-year-old's trial on four counts of murder, including that of Ms Ryan, was rockedtoday when the court was told police had found the teenager alive and well after receivingan anonymous letter.
They raided a house in Rockhampton and found Ms Ryan and Scott Black, who was Natasha'sboyfriend at the time she disappeared.
Mr Black pleaded guilty in November 1999 to wilful obstruction of police after aidingMs Ryan when she ran away from home in July, 1998, less than two months before her disappearance.
The Rockhampton Supreme Court was told at the time that Mr Black put Ms Ryan up ina motel when she came to him for help.
She was found two days later but went missing again on August 31, 1998, after beingdropped off at school by her mother.
The teenager's disappearance put her parents through hell.
Convinced her daughter was dead, Mrs Ryan said in May 1999: "I don't believe Natashawould have let me go through all the pain if she was out there."
Two years ago her father Robert said the grief he had endured was unlike anything hehad experienced.
"I could go to the grave never knowing what happened to my beautiful girl," he said.
Mr Ryan today heard a voice he perhaps believed he would never hear again.
Speaking to his daughter by mobile phone from Brisbane, he simply asked Natasha toreveal his pet name for her.
There was no hesitation.
AAP jhm/sc/sp
KEYWORD: FRASER (AAP BACKGROUNDER)
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