A TEENAGED Australian girl thought to be dead after being missing for nearly five years has reappeared during the trial of a man the prosecution said had confessed to murdering her.

Natasha Ryan, 18, was last seen in l998 when she was driven away in a car by an unidentified man in her home town of Rockhampton in Queensland.

Last night the young woman was back with her stunned but delighted family after being found in the cupboard of a house she had been sharing with her boyfriend.

Her discovery forced the adjournment of the trial of Leonard Fraser, 51, who is accused of murdering her and three other women between 1998 and 1999. The prosecution had said that Mr Fraser had confessed to killing all four women when detectives secretly taped him in prison.

The case was adjourned until next week to give his lawyers time to consider moves to have the trial dismissed.

News of the teenager’s survival was announced by Paul Rutledge, for the prosecution, in Rockhampton Supreme Court. “I’m pleased to inform the court that Leonard John Fraser is not guilty of the murder of Natasha Anne Ryan,” he said. “Natasha Ryan is alive.”

Her father, Robert, who has remarried, had been so sure that his daughter was dead that he held a special memorial service in Bundaberg Crematorium Chapel three years after she disappeared to give the family “closure”.

“I don’t believe that Natasha would have let me go through all the pain if she was out there,” he said at the time.

When the call came through to say that she had been found alive, he was so sceptical that he asked Natasha to reveal his pet name for her. There was no hesitation. “Grasshopper,” she replied.

Her mother, Jenny, also found it hard to believe the police call at first. “It took a little bit of time before she was able to fully appreciate that they had found her daughter alive and well,” Ross Lo Monaco, the family lawyer, said. “She had to deal with the emotional issue of attending the police station, perhaps with false hope. It was something that was very distressing for her.”

What happened to the auburn-haired girl, who was just 14 when she went missing, is still a mystery, although it is known that she was found with Scott Black, the same boyfriend she had at the time of her disappearance. Mr Black had pleaded guilty in November 1999 to wilful obstruction of police after aiding Natasha when she ran away from home in July 1998, two months before she was last seen by her family. Neighbours near the house where the missing girl was found, which is less than a mile from her mother’s home, said yesterday that they did not know that a woman had been living next door.

The first hint that Natasha was alive came in an anonymous letter to Rockhampton detectives on Wednesday. When police visited the house, they found her hiding in a cupboard. She had left the house only six times since 1998 and was unaccustomed to daylight.

Mr Lo Monaco said that Natasha seemed to be in good health. He added: “There’s no suggestion she’s been ill-treated or maltreated.”

He said that Natasha’s reunion with her mother had been “heart-wrenching”. “Obviously Mrs Ryan was very relieved to see her daughter looking safe and well,” he said. “One can well imagine the emotions that must have been going through particularly the mother’s mind at the time.”

Mr Fraser was charged with Natasha’s murder even though her body had not been found. The bodies of his other alleged victims have been found.

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