By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - Queensland police have confirmed the identities of three women killed and dumped near Rockhampton in what may become one of the state's worst cases of serial murder.
Using DNA tests, forensic scientists named the victims as three women who disappeared over a two-year period. A fourth, a teenager, is still missing and feared dead.
Late last year police were led to two of the bodies by a convicted child-killer, Leonard John Fraser, aged 49, who has since been charged with the murder of one of the three, Julie Dawn Benedetti, 19.
Fraser spent more than 20 years in jail before his release in 1997, a year before the killings began.
Benedetti vanished on April 17, 1999, five days before Fraser abducted and killed 9-year-old Keyra Steinhardt as she walked home from school.
The other two bodies identified by DNA tests were those of Julie Dawn Turner, 39, who disappeared on December 27, 1998, and Beverley Doreen Leggo, 36, missing since March 1, 1999.
Grave fears are also held for Natasha Ryan, 14, last seen as she left for school on September 2, 1998, and for as many as 10 other women.
Although Fraser has been convicted of one murder and charged with another, police are reluctant to confirm that these killings are linked to those of Turner and Leggo, and continue to list Ryan as a missing person.
A spokesman said the deaths of the three women were still being investigated separately, although police would continue to explore whether the murders were connected.
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