True Crime Society – Natasha Ryan – the tragic case of the ‘Girl in the Cupboard’

This is a wild case that we think many people would not have heard of. It is the case of Australian woman Natasha Ryan. Natasha went missing at age 14, and both a friend of hers and a serial killer were thought to be suspects in her disappearance.

Natasha was found alive five years later which we will get into. She became known as ‘The Girl in the Cupboard.’ There is a lot going on in this case.

Natasha Anne Ryan was born on 9 May 1984. Little is known about her family – we do know that her mother is Jenny Ryan, her father is Robert and Donna is her sister. Natasha was given the nickname ‘Grasshoppper’ by her father.

Natasha and her family lived in Rockhampton in Queensland. In the 2021 census, the population of Rockhampton was 79,293.

In 1998, Natasha’s parents divorced. This caused turmoil in the household and Natasha began to act out. She started to skip school and also began dating a 22 year-old named Scott Black. Scott worked as a milk delivery driver at the time.

In July 1998, Scott helped Natasha to run away from home. Scott told authorities during this time that he had not seen her. Natasha was away for two days before she returned.

Since Scott lied to law enforcement by saying he hadn’t seen Natasha while she was missing, he was charged with willful obstruction of police work. He later pleaded guilty to this charge in Rockhampton Magistrates Court in November 1999.

Natasha told her mother Jenny that she would never try to run away again. Jenny began driving her daughter to school every morning and tried to get her to stop seeing Scott. Things seemed to improve in the household and Natasha seemed happier.

One of Natasha’s close friends was Moaioha Tokotaua. The pair, along with some friends, had begun experimenting with drugs. One night in 1998, they went to pick up some drugs from two older men – one of them was named Leonard Fraser. When they got to the pickup, they were attacked. Moaioha said that was drugged by Leonard and was raped.

Natasha was unable to help due to the stature of the aggressors. “I remember lying there and feeling a needle go into my arm. I started feeling heavy,” said Moaioha. “From that point on, everything was a blur.” Moaioha and Natasha eventually were able to return to their homes. This is a crazy incident that barely gets a mention in most media reports.

On 31 August, 1998, Jenny dropped Natasha off at school. Natasha was 14 years old at this time. When she did not return home later that day, Natasha was reported missing.

The search for her began. Jenny assumed that Natasha was with Scott and that she would return home within a few days or weeks when her money ran out. Despite this theory, Natasha did not resurface.

One of the last people to see Natasha alive had been her friend Moaioha. He spoke to the media after Natasha disappeared:

“I felt guilty because Natasha was there when I was raped,” says Moaioha. “When she went missing a week later, I blamed myself, feeling that Natasha had run away after she saw what happened to me.”

“I cried every single night because I believed Natasha was dead.” he said.

Oaioha became a prime suspect in the case. Plain clothes police watched his home 24 hours a day, trying to obtain evidence against him.

In December 1998, a woman named Julie Turner (39) disappeared in Rockhampton after a night on the town. Julie had been out with friends and decided to walk home as she did not have enough money for a taxi. In March of 1999, another woman, Beverly Leggo also disappeared in Rockhampton.

A woman named Sylvia Benedetti (19) also went missing in Rockhampton in April 1999.

Jenny Ryan apple in 1999 and said that she thought her daughter was dead. “I don’t believe Natasha would have let me go through all the pain if she was out there.”

In April 1999 in Rockhampton, Keyra Steinhardt (9) was attacked, sexually assaulted and murdered while walking home from school. She was knocked unconscious by her attacker, and thankfully, a woman witnessed a man carrying the girl and immediately contacted police.

The woman provided a description of the man and a prison guard then reached out to authorities. He suggested that they look into Leonard Fraser in relation to the attack on the child and the cases of the missing women.

Leonard had been in and out of prison for decades, and was known to be a serial rapist. Leonard would eventually confess to murdering Keyra and would lead police to her body. Police found four different DNA profiles in Leonard’s car and also discovered ponytails from three women in his apartment.

In 2000, two years after Natasha disappeared, Moaioha was arrested and charged in relation to the case. He was 16 years old.

“They arrested me during my English class, in front of my classmates. My teacher was crying and my school counsellor came running in, telling the cops that they couldn’t do this,” he said.

Police were unable to prosecute Moaioha. “It was horrible,” says Moaioha. “I couldn’t face walking down the street and I didn’t go to school for months because people were looking at me and thinking that I had murdered my best friend.”

It was only after Leonard Fraser (the man who had allegedly raped Moaioha) was arrested on other charges that Moaioha was cleared. Leonard was secretly taped while in prison, confessing to Natasha’s murder. Leonard confessed to burying Natasha’s body under a mango tree.

In May 2001, after Leonard’s confession, Natasha’s family held a memorial for her at a crematorium in Bundaberg in Queensland.

Her father Robert spoke during the service about how Natasha had cared so much about helping the less fortunate she once gave up her Christmas to visit the sick and needy. More than 70 people attended the memorial.

In December 2001, Leonard drew maps which indicated where Julie Turner, Beverly Leggo and Sylvia Benedetti were buried.

The remains of the three women would be recovered on 21 December 2001. Leonard kept drawing maps of where Natasha’s remains were, but they were never able to be found.

Leonard’s murder trial began in 2003. On 10 April 2003, police received a tip and they raided a home in North Rockhampton that night. Natasha was found alive, hiding in a bedroom cupboard in Scott Black’s home.

The following day, the news of Natasha’s recovery was announced during the murder trial.

This info is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Her father Robert said he almost collapsed. His daughter had come back from the dead.

“All I can think is that I’ve got the chance to cuddle her again,” he said.

When Robert spoke to Natasha, he asked her to confirm the pet name he had for her – Grasshopper.

This info is from The Guardian:

The family’s lawyer, Ross Lo Monaco, said that when police phoned Ms Ryan’s mother, Jenny Ryan, yesterday to tell her they had found Natasha, she at first assumed they were talking about a body.

“Mrs Ryan was in shock, she didn’t know if she could believe it and she was concerned it may have been a false alarm,” Mr Lo Monaco said.

He said the reunion had been an emotional scene. “It was sad to realise that Mrs Ryan for all of these years had assumed that her young daughter was dead, but it was nice to see them finally reunited,” he said.

It was discovered that Natasha and Scott had been living together since her 1998 disappearance. They had moved houses a few times since then, but for six months, their house had been only 4kms/ 2.5 miles from the home of her family.

Despite Natasha being found alive, Leonard’s defense did not lodge an appeal for a mistrial and the trial continued for the murder of the other women.

Natasha actually attended the trial to answer questions on 30 April 2003. She told the court that she had never met Leonard and that she did not know the witness (her friend) who said that she had previously met Leonard. Weird.

As a strange aside to this case, Maioha made the media again in 2017:

Taranaki man Maioha Tokotaua moved to Australia to confront his traumatic past- only to have his husband suffer from a horrific incident that has left him in a critical condition.

Tokotaua (33) found Joth Wilson’s (25) battered and unconscious body under a train bridge in Gladstone, Brisbane on New Year’s morning after Wilson didn’t return home from buying cigarettes.

Suffering from a broken neck, back, ribs and burns to nearly half his body, Tokotaua suspects Wilson’s injuries were sustained from a “gay hate crime”. But since reports of the incident have surfaced, Queensland Police have said they are not pursuing Tokotaua’s version of events. Media have reported Wilson was involved in a separate incident on Boxing Day, in which he climbed onto the roof of a stadium until he was talked down by police.

Tokotaua has been by Wilson’s bedside for the last five days and is distraught.

“My heart is real mamae (hurting) at the moment,” he told Māori Television. “He is my most favourite person in the world. I should have protected him.”

Tokotaua says the pair, who married in 2014, moved to Australia from Taranaki for an “extended holiday” two years ago. The main focus for their move was to help Tokotaua confront and heal from painful experiences he endured while living in Australia as a youngster.

“I come here to settle some of my childhood stuff,” he says.

“This is my life in Australia. It’s drama filled. I’ve never copped a break over here,” he says.

In June 2003, Leonard was sentenced to three indefinite prison terms for the murders of Beverley Leggo and Sylvia Benedetti, and the manslaughter of Julie Turner in the Rockhampton area in 1998 and 1999. Jumping ahead, he died from a heart attack in 2007 while incarcerated.

Natasha became known as the ‘Girl in the Cupboard.’

She would later tell the media “I remember exactly when I left home,” she said.

“I was only 14, but Mum was always nagging about Scott and me. I felt I needed to get away for a little while.”

She left the house, which was five minutes from her mother’s home, only six times to go to the beach at night, and battled a bout of food poisoning when she was learning how to cook.

She said that she wore men’s clothes, watched the hunt for her body on TV and took out her frustrations on a punching bag during her time in hiding.

Natasha also said that she had also learnt yoga positions to hide comfortably in Scott’s cupboard when he had visitors.

“Every time someone came around to Scott’s house, as they did a lot in the early days, I hid,” Natasha said.

“In the clothes cupboard there was room for me to stand up if I bent my head … but I sat in a yoga position because it was comfortable.”

She told police that one of the reasons she stayed in hiding was because the lie had become too big.

Natasha and Scott faced criminal charges for their role into the false investigation into her murder. Scott was sentenced to a three-year jail sentence for perjury in 2005 after he pleaded guilty to lying about Natasha’s whereabouts. Two years of the sentence was suspended.

In 2006, Natasha was found guilty of causing a false police investigation and was fined $1,000. Also during these proceedings, Scott was fined $3,000 dollars and was ordered to pay $16,000 towards investigation costs.

Natasha did interviews after her ‘disappearance’. Some reports indicate that she made over $200,000 from appearances and interviews.

“He was protecting me and I caused him to do it – it was my fault he did that,” Natasha told New Idea in 2007.

“It was my decision to run away. He was doing something really lovely and protecting me and I felt like I should have been, or deserved to be, punished.”

“I’m never going to say publicly why I left.

“I know why I left. I’m not sure my mum and my sister completely know all the reasons.

“I’m not sure it would make any difference saying why I left – I feel whatever I say wouldn’t be good enough for the pain I’ve caused my family.”

Natasha and Scott got married in 2008. Some online reports indicate that they signed a deal with Woman’s Day magazine for exclusive photo rights for $200,000.

The couple had gold wedding bands made with the words ‘Happy Days Always’ engraved onto them.

The couple ended up having three or four children together (reports vary). Things remained quiet until 2011 when they faced court following an argument they had.

Natasha studied nursing after her reappearance into the world and was working as a radiology nurse.

On Sunday 2 June, 2024, police responded to a welfare check at the Rockhampton Golf Club. Scott alerted authorities after Natasha disappeared from their home.

Natasha was found dead. Authorities said at the time that her death was not being treated as suspicious.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said it was a tragic story.

“My sympathies go to her family and loved ones,” he said.

Natasha’s sister Donna wrote this online:

“You loved hard, laughed loud, and gave loyalty its definition,” she wrote.

“My heart is shattered that I have lost a little sister … Fly high and fly free sissy. Until we meet again. You will for ever be in my heart.”

Another Facebook user, Angie Page, claimed to be one of Natasha’s closest high school friends and wrote: “Rest in Peace Tash!

“The media needs to stop referring to her as the girl in the cupboard … She had a family, she was a devoted mum who loved her kids, she had a good job and just wanted a peaceful life.”

Articles indicate that a report will be prepared for the coroner, and suicide help resources are also linked in the articles about Natasha’s death. Australian media do generally not report on suicides and the inclusion of suicide support resources is how they essentially let the public know what happened.