COLD CASE
WAS KRYSTAL FRASER MURDERED NINE YEARS AGO?
SOMEONE in Pyramid Hill is keeping a dark secret.
Concealing a vital piece of information onto the disappearance of heavily pregnant Krystal Fraser nine years ago.
Police and her family believe then 24-year-old Krystal was murdered, yet extensive investigations have failed to find any trace of her.
The Missing Persons Squad arrested a 61-year-old Pyramid Hill man in February this year in relation to her disappearance, but was released pending further inquiries.
Days later, he was no longer deemed a person of interest.
There were hopes the arrest would provide answers for Krystal’s mother Karen Fraser, who has been living in limbo for almost a decade.
Karen said, like the police, she also had always believed her intellectually impaired daughter was murdered because Krystal was always on her phone and she heard from her every day.
Ms Fraser said her daughter had the mental age of a 14-year-old and believes someone took advanatge of her unsuspecting nature.
‘‘Someone is hiding something,’’ she has told the Riv.
‘‘Whoever knows something is keeping it very close to them, but they have to live with their conscience and that is like cancer. It will eat away at them and karma will get them in the end.’’
Krystal — who was only days away from giving birth at the time she disappeared — had only recently
Whoever knows something is keeping it very close to them, but they have to live with their conscience and that is like cancer
moved out of the family home to a unit around the corner, telling her mother she wanted more independence.
At the time of her disappearance, she was staying in accommodation next to the maternity ward at Bendigo hospital, where she had been due to give birth to a son she wanted to name Ryan. The evening she vanished — June 20, 2009 — she had caught a V/Line train from Bendigo to Pyramid Hill, after checking herself out of hospital.
She was last seen alive at a house in Albert Street, Pyramid Hill, which she left at 9.40pm.
She made a phone call from there on her mobile and had spoken of visiting another house but, according to police, she went home.
Police said just before midnight, Krystal received a phone call on her mobile from a public phone booth outside the Leitchville Post Office in Findlay St — 32km away.
Her phone was tracked travelling in the direction of Leitchville along a two-lane bush road about 3am before the signal ended. Police do not know whether Krystal was dead or alive at this time. The phone has never been found. Krystal was due to give birth to a boy the day after she vanished, although the father of her child was never mentioned.
‘‘He was to be the first grandchild,’’ Karen said.
In June 2012, a $100,000 reward was offered in relation to her disappearance, which has remained unclaimed.
The reward will still be paid at the discretion of the Chief Commissioner, for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the person
‘ ’
or persons responsible for Krystal’s death.
Police are in the process of preparing a report for the coroner in relation to Krystal’s disappearance.
‘‘The police investigation into the 2009 disappearance remains open and ongoing,’’ a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
‘‘As the investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further.’’
Not knowing what had happened to Krystal has been the hardest part for her mother.
‘‘When a person dies of cancer or a sickness or an accident, you get to grieve and bury that person and put it to bed,’’ Karen said.
‘‘How can you grieve when you don’t know what you’re grieving for? So I just sit here and wait.
‘‘At the end of the day though, I want answers.’’