It was one of the most famous missing person cases in Australian history. A Queensland teenager, presumed murdered, was found alive in a cupboard almost five years after she first disappeared.
For many Australians, Natasha Ryan was known as the “girl in the cupboard” but for her family and central Queensland community, she was a dedicated nurse, daughter, a mother of four and a friend.
Ryan – also known as Tash Black – was found dead on Sunday in non-suspicious circumstances at a Rockhampton golf course.
Her husband, Scott Black, alerted the authorities after the mother-of-four went missing overnight from her home in Rockhampton, according to the Courier Mail.
Queensland police confirmed on Sunday morning the body of a missing 40-year-old woman had been located by emergency crews. A report will be prepared for the coroner.
In an online tribute, her older sister, Donna Bradbury, said she “struggled to articulate” what Ryan “represented” to her.
“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.”
Trudy McCabe wrote on Facebook that she “had the pleasure of working with Tash.”
“She was a fabulous nurse and a treasured friend. This is so very sad. I truly feel for all her family and friends,” she wrote.
James Elliot said he remembered her as his “student who loved high jump … she lost her way and made some big life choices and mistakes.”
Another Facebook user, Angie Page, claimed to be one of Ryan’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.”
Ryan was reported missing in 1998 at 14 years of age. She was initially presumed murdered and believed to have been the target of serial killer Leonard John Fraser, who was charged with her murder.
The serial killer had even confessed to killing Ryan after detectives secretly recorded him in prison.
But the teenager had actually run away from home to be with her then 22-year-old boyfriend, milkman, Scott Black.
The missing person case cost an estimated $400,000.
The search started two years after she went missing, with police also looking for several missing women in the area at the time – suspected victims of a serial killer.
Her family had been so convinced she was dead, they held a memorial service for Ryan on her 17th birthday.
Then police received an anonymous tip-off in April 2003 that she was alive.
Ryan – then 18 years old – was found cowering in a cupboard at the home of Black, who was then 26. It was later revealed that she had been hiding at the home for almost five years.
Her skin was bleached white, according to reports from the Guardian at the time, as she had been outdoors only six times in four years.
Speaking to 60 minutes that same year, Ryan revealed she only rarely left the property under the cover of darkness to go to the beach. She and her boyfriend moved a number of times, with the final home just a few kilometres from her family home.
The house always had the heavy curtains drawn. In lieu of schooling, Ryan learned to sew and practised German on the internet.
“I feel really excited that I don’t have to hide any more. I feel free,” she told 60 minutes.
“[When I disappeared] I just felt angry at everybody and everything. I didn’t want to be at school, I didn’t want to be at home. I didn’t want to be there in that life.”
Ryan spoke with the program about how difficult it had been to cut off contact with her family. She explained there were many times she went to call them but she couldn’t get the words out.
“Just gutless,” she said.
Ryan said she kept quiet largely because she was scared about what would happen if she told the truth.
“I was really scared of the consequences. I thought I would’ve been sent to prison – I would’ve been sent away – either to prison or a bad place,” she told 60 minutes.
“I do deserve severe punishment for what I’ve done.”
The media descended on the central Queensland town after the news that Ryan had been found. Her extraordinary story attracted the curiosity of international media.
Black was sentenced to a year in jail in 2005 for lying to police about Ryan’s disappearance. At the time he was sentenced Ryan was the 21-year-old mother of Black’s one-year-old son.
A sworn statement by Black was presented at serial killer Leonard Fraser’s trial. It claimed Black had not seen or heard from his girlfriend since she went missing.
Fraser – a diagnosed psychopath – served a life sentence without parole for the murders of two women, a nine-year-old Rockhampton schoolgirl and for the manslaughter of another woman.
A year later Ryan was fined $1,000 and found guilty of causing a false police investigation.
In 2008, the couple married and Ryan told Woman’s Day: “I’m sick of being known as Natasha Ryan – ‘the girl in the cupboard’. I made mistakes and I’m sorry that I hurt my family, but now I want to start a new life.”
Ryan went on to study nursing and had been working as a radiology nurse at the time of her death.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14 and the Kids Helpline is 1800 55 1800. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
