Chilling new fears emerge for a heartbroken family still hunting for their daughter’s killer – after detectives dismissed her death as an accident for years until a coroner ruled it a MURDER

EXCLUSIVE

For years, Harmony Bryant’s tragic death was dismissed as a simple car accident, despite her family insisting the evidence showed it was something much more sinister.

Now they fear something even worse.

Eight years after Harmony’s death, a coroner finally ruled that the 26-year-old had been murdered, but by then the trail had disappeared and the perpetrator had never been tracked down.

Now her family is being hit with fresh grief over growing concerns their daughter may have fallen victim to a suspected serial killer prowling northern NSW.

“I spent years looking at other cases and thinking they were similar,” Harmony’s heartbroken mother Karen Bryant told Daily Mail Australia.

“It’s been a long time and there are so many.”

Harmony’s shattered body was found on August 16, 2003 with extensive burns and broken bones near her burnt-out car in bushland at Bonny Hills, south of Port Macquarie.

For years, Harmony Bryant’s tragic death was dismissed as a simple car accident – despite her family insisting all evidence showed it was far more sinister

Harmony’s shattered body was found on August 16, 2003 with extensive burns and broken bones near her burnt-out car in bushland at Bonny Hills, south of Port Macquarie.

Her family now fears Harmony may have been the victim of a suspected serial killer prowling northern NSW, where there is a catalog of 67 unsolved murders and disappearances.

While in intensive care and unable to speak, Harmony had tried to communicate by silently speaking out what had happened to her, but without success.

“The fear in her eyes is something that will never leave us,” mother Karen said at the time.

Harmony died in hospital a month later without being able to reveal her secrets.

Since then, Karen, from Evans Head, has fought tirelessly to have her daughter’s death investigated, but has been met with a wall of resistance from local police.

The mother of five was convinced that Harmony did not die in a car crash, but that someone had violently attacked her only daughter and then staged the accident.

She was finally proven right when a coroner’s inquest in 2011 finally found there could be little doubt that Harmony had engaged in foul play.

The investigation revealed that Ms. Bryant’s car drove off the road under control and even managed to avoid a tree.

The car was found smoldering in dense bushes in Bonny Hills.

But her handbag, car keys and traces of her blood were found on a cliff 600 meters away.

Harmony’s brothers, including Jeremy (center), urged their mother Karen (right) to step back from the investigation for her own well-being.

Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson told the inquest that the system had failed Harmony and her family and expressed his sincere condolences.

He criticized the initial police investigation and recommended increasing the reward for information leading to a conviction to $250,000.

He also referred the investigation to Cold Cases of the State Crime Command, Homicide Squad.

However, the hunt for her killer has so far proven fruitless.

But chilling new details about the suspected serial killer terrorizing the New Zealand coast south of the paradise shores of Byron Bay have sparked new fears for Harmony’s family.

Tammy Bryant grew up with her “fun and energetic” cousin Harmony and forged a close bond with her over their only 18-month age difference.

The horrific circumstances that led to her death are still etched in her mind.

“I woke up in the early hours of the morning to a phone call from my dad telling me they had found her,” Tammy told Daily Mail Australia.

“It was winter and I remember thinking she was cold as she lay there in the bushes.”

Harmony (microphone in hand) and her cousin Tammy (right) grew up close together.

The Gold Coast mother had not realized until last week that her cousin’s murder was one of several unsolved attacks stretching from Byron to the Central Coast.

But she now has no doubt they are connected, and has spoken out in the hope it can help her family finally get justice and unmask the killer on the loose.

“There are a lot of people missing or murdered – there must be connections,” she said. ‘It has been a big shock for me.

‘We talk about Harmony a lot and I use her story to warn my own daughter to be safe.

“There are too many cases there and I think one killer could be responsible for many of them.”

She has criticized detectives for failing the family in the aftermath of Harmony’s death by writing it off as a road accident.

But Taylor lives in hope that the killer will one day be identified.

“It was a botch from the start, losing all those years of evidence and opportunities with no one working on it,” she said.

“But one day they will make a mistake and tell the wrong person. No one can keep a secret like that forever.”

Harmony’s mother Karen has all but given up hope after decades of trying to find out the truth about what happened to her child.

“It doesn’t matter what I say now because it will never happen,” she admitted.

While in intensive care and unable to speak, Harmony Bryant (pictured with brother Jeremy) tried to communicate by silently speaking out what had happened to her, but without success

“I’d like it to happen. When the inquest ended, my sons sat me down and talked to me about it.

“They said mom, we already lost Harmony and our dad, we can’t lose you too, you have to take a step back.”

The family are urging anyone with information about Harmony’s death to call Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000.