THE lead detective investigating the disappearance of Krystal Fraser believes he knows who killed her, as shocking new information surfaced last week at an inquest into her disappearance from Pyramid Hill in 2009.
Fraser’s friend, Robert Glennie, on Wednesday revealed he saw Fraser get into a red station wagon with an unknown man who told her to “get in, get in”.
He said he did not tell police because he believed the station wagon belonged to an officer.
Heavily pregnant Fraser, 23, disappeared on June 20, 2009 and has not accessed her bank account or been seen since.
She was days away from giving birth to her son and had discharged herself from hospital, telling friends she was going to a party in Cohuna.
Her family fears she was murdered by her unborn baby’s father.
“Maybe she told someone they were the father and things got out of control and somebody accidentally hurt her,” her mother, Karen Fraser, said.
The 23 year old, who was intellectually impaired, was over-friendly with associates who used her for sex or to transport drugs when she disappeared from regional Victoria while heavily pregnant.
“She didn’t have a bad bone in her body, she was always doing nice things for everybody, how could somebody do something so bad to a pregnant woman?” Karen told the inquest.
Mr Glennie said Fraser visited his house in Pyramid Hill just after 9pm on June 20, making several phone calls from his landline.
“She was scared. It’s unusual for her to be there at that time of night,” he told the inquest.
She called Alan Summers, who has since died, about seven times and then rang Jason McPherson, who was fixing her computer.
Both men denied seeing her that night.
Fraser received a 40-second phone call from a public phone at 11.59pm on the night she disappeared.
Almost three hours later, her mobile phone was pinged by a tower in Leitchville, 27km from Pyramid Hill, where she was last seen.
The court heard Fraser could not have walked the distance to Leitchville and she couldn’t drive.
Mr Glennie said Fraser left his house, crossed the road and walked in the direction of her mother’s house, which was three doors down.
She walked towards a red station wagon and he heard an unknown man say to her “get in, get in”.
“She did get in the car and they did leave,” he said.
He did not see the man, but said the car drove away and turned right at the bottom of the hill.
Asked why he did not tell police about the red station wagon, Mr Glennie said he did not trust them because he believed the car may have belonged to a Boort police officer.
Detective Inspector Wayne Woltsche, who headed up the investigation over a nine-year period, told the inquest he was shocked after eight years of investigating Fraser’s disappearance to learn that Mr Glennie, saw her get into a red station wagon the night she disappeared.
“I nearly fell over – yes, I was very surprised,” Det-Insp Woltsche said.
“He never mentioned a car. This is news.”
The inquest is investigating the circumstances leading to her disappearance and whether she was killed.
Fraser’s friend Nicholas Dingfelder told the inquest on Tuesday he had bumped into her on a train on the night of June 20.
The pair were getting off the train together at Pyramid Hill when Mr Dingfelder noticed a man walking on the train tracks about five or six metres from them.
“He had his hands in his pockets and he was kicking train rocks and I didn’t think anything of it at first,” he said.
“She said ‘I’ve gotta get going, he’s going to get angry at me’.”
Fraser went to meet the man, who Mr Dingfelder described as being stocky with short brown hair and sporting a fresh haircut.
He said the man seemed agitated and was well-dressed, wearing a black suede jacket, and jeans and “looked like he had a bit of money”.
He saw Fraser walk away with the man across the train tracks towards the shops and did not see her again.
Mr Dingfelder said police showed him photographs of a number of men about a month ago and he identified one man that matched his description.
“I’m pretty confident that was the person I’d seen that night,” he said.
He said police did not tell him the man’s name.
The inquest heard from Chantel Fraser, who said her sister was in a heated argument with a man named Peter Jenkinson in the weeks before she disappeared.
“He was pretty mad, he was screaming down the phone at her,” she said.
“He was yelling at her, asked for the money, said ‘come meet me’, but she didn’t go and meet him.”
Fraser told her family she did not know who the father of her child was but, she was considering doing a DNA test.
Several men have been named as possible fathers, including Jenkinson, who gave evidence at the time of print yesterday and Gareth David, who earlier denied having sex with Ms Fraser.
Coroner Katherine Lorenz said there was no evidence to suggest Ms Fraser or her baby were alive today.
Det-Insp Woltsche told the inquest Peter Jenkinson, from Gunbower, was quickly established as a suspect in the case after evidence disputing his claim to not have spoken to Fraser for about three weeks prior to her disappearance was uncovered.
“Krystal was a prolific phone user,” he said. “The fact that her phone use stopped at 2.49am (on June 21, 2009) was most unusual. I viewed it as a probable homicide immediately.”
The inquest will conclude tomorrow.
