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Rockhampton Killer Leonard Fraser Dies in Custody in a Brisbane Hospital After a Heart Attack

Fraser was serving life for killings in Rockhampton, including the murder of nine-year-old Keyra Steinhardt. His lawyer said he maintained his innocence.

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Illustration of a nurse walking away down a dim hospital corridor at night. Not an actual scene from the case.

Leonard John Fraser was serving life for the deaths of a nine-year-old girl and three women in Rockhampton. On January 1, 2007, he died in custody in a Brisbane hospital, aged 55.

Fraser had been rushed from Wolston Correctional Centre to the secure unit of Princess Alexandra Hospital on December 26, 2006, after a heart attack. He began to recover, but suffered another one shortly after the turn of the year and could not be revived. He had been in prison for 19 of the last 21 years of his life, including more than 11 years for rape between 1985 and 1997. He began his last prison term in April 1999 with a life sentence for murder, and in 2003 received a second life term for another murder and 16 years for manslaughter. The victims named by the ABC were Keyra Steinhardt, 9, Beverley Leggo, Sylvia Bennedetti and Julie Turner.

"I'm actually rather glad that he's now gone. I think it's now actually going to let me get on with my life," Keyra's father told the ABC. Fraser's lawyer, Peter Shields, said his client had maintained his innocence to the end and that the system had failed him by releasing him from an earlier rape sentence without psychiatric support.

In March 2012, State Coroner Michael Barnes found that Fraser died of natural causes. He said the medical care Fraser received at the prison in the weeks before was not of the expected standard in some respects, but that it could not be shown to have contributed to his death.

The coroner recorded that Fraser was sentenced for two murders and one manslaughter, while the ABC reported in 2010 that he had been convicted of three murders and one manslaughter.

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