Natasha Ryan: Girl who famously hid in her older boyfriend’s cupboard for years after she ran away from home is found dead
A woman at the center of one of Australia’s most famous and bizarre disappearances has been found dead on a golf course.
Natasha Ryan’s body was found on Rockhampton Golf Course on Sunday. There are no suspicious circumstances.
Ms Ryan, then 14, ran away from home in 1998 to be with her 21-year-old boyfriend Scott Black.
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 hid in her boyfriend’s cupboard (pictured) when other people were in the house, sparking a massive missing persons investigation that lasted five years.
Ms Ryan was allegedly murdered by serial killer and rapist Leonard John Fraser.
But after a tip-off to police, she was found hiding in a cupboard at Mr Black’s home in central Queensland in 2003, five years later.
The pair stood trial on charges of falsely causing a police investigation.
In 2005, Mr Black pleaded guilty to perjury for telling police he did not know where Ms Ryan was and was jailed for 12 months.
Ms Ryan was also found guilty of causing a false police investigation and fined $1000.
They later married and had four children.
Natasha Ryan was found alive in 2003 after allegedly being murdered by Leonard John Fraser.
Ms Ryan (pictured left and right) caused national concern when she disappeared but hid at her boyfriend’s house, within walking distance of her parents’ estate.
Emergency services had been searching for a missing person in the Rockhampton region for several hours on June 2, by land and air.
The RACQ CapRescue helicopter service assisted in the search of the Rockhampton Golf Course area in West Rockhampton, near the Zoo and Botanic Gardens, this morning.
Emergency services conducting a search for a 40-year-old woman found her body this morning, according to a statement from Queensland Police.
“Police will prepare a report for the coroner following the sudden and unsuspicious death of a woman in Rockhampton,” the report said.
