Leonard John Fraser

Murder of Keyra Steinhardt

Keyra Steinhardt

On April 22, 1999, 9-year-old Keyra Steinhardt disappeared when she was taking a shortcut through a vacant lot on her way home from school. An eye witness to the abduction, Lynette Kiernan, who lived opposite the vacant lot, told police that she saw a man catch up with the little girl and hit her from behind in the head area. The child fell to the ground and she couldn't see her in the long grass but she saw her assailant fall on her and move as if he was raping her.

Then the assailant ran away and returned shortly after with a car and lifted the little girl from the ground into the trunk and drove away. Terrified of repercussions, it took Ms. Kiernan a critical 20 minutes to pluck up the courage to make an anonymous phone call to the police. But by then, little Keyra was dead and disposed of.

The following day police traced Fraser through Ms. Kiernan's description of his early model red Mazda 626 sedan and picked him up. It was two weeks before Fraser broke and confessed to Keyra's murder and took police to her naked body. He had abandoned it on a thick bed of grass near the Rockhampton racecourse. Her throat had been cut and as if in a belated veil of chastity, Fraser had draped Keyra's green school jumper over her torso.

When questioned by investigators, Fraser's flatmate, Cristine Wraight, said that she had gone for a drive with Fraser along a bush track near Rockhampton's racecourse on the day that Keyra had gone missing. Ms. Wraight said that Fraser stopped the car and told her not to watch what he was doing.

With that she said he removed what looked like a blonde doll wearing a green school uniform from the trunk. Ms. Wraight said that when Fraser saw her looking, he dropped what he was carrying and went back to the car and reached into the window and punched her. She then looked straight ahead and after a little while Fraser got back into the car and drove away. Ms. Wraight said that when they returned home that evening, Fraser washed the trunk out thoroughly.

DNA samples taken from the blood and hair found in the trunk of Fraser's car matched that of Keyra Steinhardt. There was also another female's blood on the trunk hinge and on a cigarette paper in the glove box. On 7 May, Fraser was charged with the rape and murder of Keyra Steinhardt.