HUGE REWARD OFFERED IN SEARCH FOR MICHELLE CORAL LEWIS

A $500,000 reward has been announced to help crack the case of a woman who went missing along Queensland’s central coast more than 30 years ago.

Michelle Coral Lewis, who was 21 at the time of her disappearance, vanished on January 14, 1989, after leaving a friend’s house in Rockhampton at 10.45pm to ride her bike a short distance home.

But she never arrived home and neither she nor her red bike were ever seen again.

The state government and Queensland Police on Tuesday announced the reward for information regarding Ms Lewis’s disappearance amid the nation’s Missing Persons Week.

On the afternoon of her disappearance, Ms Lewis rode her bike to her friend’s house on Stenlake Ave, which was no more than a kilometre away, to watch a movie.

She was wearing a pink tiedyed singlet, a pair of shorts and white dunlop sneakers at the time of her disappearance.

Ms Lewis also did not access any of her bank accounts.

More than 150 “tasks” were completed by police and 42 statements were made, including reported sightings of Ms Lewis – although none were confirmed.

At the time, police believed that she was the victim of serial killer Leonard John Fraser, who was a convicted rapist that confessed to killing Beverley Leggo, Sylvia Benedetti, Julie Turner and schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt in the late-1990s.

Investigations revealed Fraser was in prison at the time of Ms Lewis’s death, although some members of the public believed there were times when he was allowed to roam from lower-security correctional facilities.

Fraser died in 2007 while serving life imprisonment.