Michelle Coral LEWIS
Fraser, 55, who was serving four indefinite life sentences for killing three Rockhampton women and a schoolgirl, died in his sleep after going into a cardiac arrest in the secure unit at Princess Alexandra Hospital on New Year's Eve.
The convicted serial rapist had been admitted a week ago after suffering a heart attack in his cell at Brisbane's Wolston Correctional Centre.
While there was no confession before his death at 4am yesterday, Fraser has previously claimed he murdered up to five other women during his criminal career, which spanned 30 years and two states.
He made the claims to a prisoner turned police informant and a homicide detective during a 2001 investigation by Taskforce Alex into the disappearances of four Rockhampton women.
At the time of the investigation, Fraser was serving an indefinite life sentence for the 1999 murder of Rockhampton schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt, 9.
Fraser claimed he murdered a hitchhiker by the name of Sandy Lawrence in an abandoned crocodile zoo in north Queensland in 1982.
Fraser also spoke of the murder of his 17-year-old Aboriginal girlfriend, claiming she had her throat cut in the back streets of Kings Cross in the early 1970s.
The taskforce recorded Fraser on a listening device saying he murdered two female hitchhikers in separate incidents in the Port Macquarie area in NSW in the 1970s.
He said he had returned to the area to find their skeletal remains still intact.
Some detectives remain convinced that Fraser had a hand in the murder of Rockhampton woman Michelle Coral Lewis, 21, who disappeared on the night of January 14, 1989, after leaving a friend's home in north Rockhampton.
Fraser, who was in "secure custody" at a Rockhampton jail at the time, was known to frequent the area and had buried his pet dog, which he killed after having sex with it, on the road where she vanished.
Taskforce Alex investigated the claims but could not find enough evidence.
Chief Superintendent Graham Rynders, who headed Taskforce Alex, said he hoped Fraser's death would bring closure to the families of his victims.
"It is the end of a very sad chapter of Queensland's criminal history and hopefully one that will never be repeated," he said.
Another mystery that may go unsolved surrounds three ponytails of human hair found in Fraser's bedroom when he was arrested for the Steinhardt murder.
Forensic testing in Australia and the US failed to match the hair to any of his murder victims or missing persons in Australia.
Police suspect Fraser had kept them as trophies.
In 2003, he became Queensland's first convicted serial killer when a jury found him guilty of murdering Rockhampton women Beverley Leggo, 36, and Sylvia Benedetti, 19, and the manslaughter of Julie Turner, 39.
He also had been charged with murdering teenager Natasha Ryan, who later made headlines when she was found alive during Fraser's murder trial.
Paula Doneman is also the author of Fraser's unofficial biography Things a Killer Would Know
A motley crew of two. A pair of outcasts taunted and teased for their supposed shortcomings.
But for a few years, Kenny Harris and Michelle Lewis had each other. Then, one day, she didn't come home.
Michelle was a tomboy from a broken family. She loved to fix things. She was never without her BMX. It took her everywhere she needed to go.
Shuffled between relatives after her mother gave her up, Michelle was about 16 when her latest guardian, her grandmother, died.
Rockhampton in the late 1980s was small enough for townsfolk to know she had run out of relatives.
Adeline Salhus or Dell to her friends, was selling seedlings and cut flowers from a trestle table at a Rockhampton market when she was approached by a friend.
"The girl's been moved from pillar to post," the friend told Adeline.
Surely there was someone who could take her in?
There was. Dell opened her door to the girl and for the first time in her life, Michelle had a home.
She had her own bedroom in Dell's lowset, suburban house. It had a big backyard. It was clean and neat and homely.
The divorcee with a heart as big as an ocean didn't have much but she made sure her teenage foundling had a room full of nice things.
Michelle was grateful. She kept that room in immaculate condition.
Dell's adult children lived in Tully, where the family had its roots but her grandson, Kenny, would come to occupy another bedroom in Dell's house. Kenny wanted to be a racing car driver.
"I think he set his heights too high," his mother Ruby Harris said. "Ken had cerebral palsy. He was paralysed in one arm and one leg, his right side. One leg was shorter than the other so he walked with a limp.
"He could ride a bike and eventually was able to drive. His independence was really important to him and we knew we wouldn't always be there to take care of him."
Life was cruel for Ken. He endured endless taunts in the schoolyard and it was just as bad when he eventually entered the workforce.
Michelle had been teased too. She was a shy tomboy with no real family. She didn't notice his disability and he didn't notice her background.
They watched movies together and toured the town's nightclubs. He was like her brother and they were fiercely protective of each other. Kenny was 19 when Michelle turned 21. It was a big day and Dell marked it by throwing a party at the house.
"She said to Mum, 'you know, this is the only birthday party I've ever had','' Dell's daughter Ruby said.
On January 14, 1989, Michelle got up and put on her pink tie-dyed singlet and a pair of shorts. That afternoon she rode her Malvern Star bike - a red and white BMX she rode everywhere - and pedalled to her friend's house on nearby Stenlake Ave.
"It was after 10pm and the friend wanted to watch one more movie but Michelle was worried that Mum would be worried," Ruby said.
The most direct route from Stenlake Ave to Dell's house on Alexandra St would have been no more than a kilometre and it would have taken her only a few minutes.
She should have made it home in no time at all but she didn't make it home at all.
"If you find that bike, you'll find Michelle," said retired detective Ann Gumley, who led the investigation.
"To think that someone who had such a sad life in her younger years, who ended up with a foster family who did look after her - I mean, her room was beautiful, all her clothes were folded in her drawers - just disappeared"
Dell became frantic when Michelle didn't turn up. She searched endlessly. Kenny took off to look for her. He trawled nightclubs, searched the streets and kept turning up where police were searching. They wanted to know what he was doing. He told them: "She's my mate.''
Dell was convinced something terrible had happened to her foster daughter.
There was a man she knew who seemed to have been taking too keen an interest in Michelle and Dell began to suspect him. She voiced those suspicions to detectives, who grilled the man but found nothing.
"I spent a lot of time on that investigation," Ann said.
Police interviewed hundreds of people in their hunt.
Eventually, Ann was moved to another part of Queensland. After seven years she was asked to write a report for the coroner on Michelle's disappearance.
"It was probably one of the saddest things I've ever done," she said. "I'd worked on a lot of fairly big jobs up in Rocky but she was the one where I always said if it ever came to light what had happened, I wanted to be the one to arrest the person involved. I needed to have that closure myself."
Kenny eventually moved home to Tully and took a job with another man managing a rural property. He was beaten to death by that man, Shaun Dennis, after an argument over Dennis borrowing Kenny's car.
That made two lives needlessly lost. Dell died last year. And now there's just Ruby - and Ann the retired detective who cannot forget.
"It was just one of those jobs you can't walk away from,'' Ann said. "You just wonder what happened. I'd bet my life somebody killed her.
"I don't believe she left of her own accord. She was a girl who'd had such a sad life and met such a sad end.
"For years I'd see posters put up about missing persons. I always looked for her but her photo never came up."
It’s the mystery that has haunted a retired detective for years. Now Ann Gumley wants a specialist cold case homicide squad to take up the search for answers, writes Kate Kyriacou.
Many investigators believed her to be the victim of serial killer Leonard John Fraser, a convicted rapist who confessed to killing Beverley Leggo, Sylvia Benedetti, Julie Turner and schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt in the late 1990s.
Fraser was in prison serving time for rape when Michelle disappeared however some believe there were times when he was able to walk from correctional facilities with lower security.
The case has stuck with retired detective Ann Gumley, who investigated whether a man connected to Michelle’s foster mother was behind the 21-year-old’s disappearance.
“Even now, I often think of her and wonder whatever happened to her,” Ms Gumley said. “She had such a sad life – and for her to just disappear. We never found her bike. I’ve always said if we find her bike, we’ll find Michelle.”
Michelle was taken in by a local woman, Adeline “Dell” Salhus after her grandmother died. She lived in a home on Alexander St with Dell and Dell’s grandson Kenny, who became a close friend.
Michelle had lived a tough life and a party Dell threw for her 21st was the first birthday celebration she’d had.
On the night of January 14, 1989, Michelle left home to visit a friend on nearby Stenlake Ave. They watched movies before Michelle left for home at 10pm.
The trip home should have only taken a few minutes but Michelle was never seen again. Her friend Kenny looked for her for a long time, trawling nightclubs, walking streets and turning up where police were searching.
Ms Gumley said she believed a man known to Dell had done something to Michelle.
“We took him back to the Yeppoon police station and spoke to him but by then he’d had plenty of time to think about it,” she said.
“Even driving home after speaking to him, I remember saying, ‘I bet he knows something’.
“It was a hard case because normally when you investigate a murder you have a victim, a body. We had nothing.”
Ms Gumley said she would like to see the Homicide Investigation Unit’s cold case team look into Michelle’s disappearance.
The team recently made the oldest cold case arrest in Australian history, with charges laid against Vincent O’Dempsey for the 1964 murder of Vincent Raymond Allen.
“I would love a result for Michelle, oh God yes,” Ms Gumley said.
“It would be lovely to tie someone to her or even just to locate her.”
Detective Senior Sergeant Tara Kentwell, who heads the cold case team, said they had “carriage of the investigation”. “We would like to find some closure for Michelle’s family and her community,” she said.
“We would encourage anyone who has any information, no matter how small or insignificant, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”
Homicide detectives are hopeful the announcement of a $500,000 reward for information into the 1989 suspicious disappearance of Michelle Lewis from Rockhampton will generate new leads.
The State Government reward was announced today during National Missing Persons Week as detectives from the Homicide Cold Case Investigation Unit renewed their appeal to the community for information.
Michelle Lewis, aged 21 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen alive riding her bike leaving a friend’s house on Stenlake Avenue, North Rockhampton, intending to ride a short distance to her home on Alexandra Street about 10.45 pm on Saturday, January 14 1989.
Detective Senior Sergeant Tara Kentwell said the Homicide Cold Case Investigation Unit began re-examining the case in 2021 and was confident the case could be solved
“Despite extensive investigations at the time and since, Michelle has never been located, nor has her bike, and police now strongly suspect she was murdered around the time she disappeared,” Detective Senior Sergeant Kentwell said.
“We believe there are people out there with information and with this significant reward announced, now is the time for those people to re-consider 33 years’ of silence and come forward to police.”
Former lead investigator, retired detective Ann Gumley joined today’s appeal, hopeful the renewed focus and reward announcement leads to a breakthrough in the case.
“I spent a lot of my time as a Rockhampton police officer searching for Michelle and I still remain committed to seeking justice for her,” Detective Gumley said.
“Michelle’s family and friends deserve answers, so if you know something, please come forward.”
The State Government’s reward offering $500,000 is for information that leads to the conviction of the person, or persons, found to be responsible for Michelle’s suspected murder.