Natasha Ryan, famously known as Queensland’s “Girl in the Cupboard,” has been found dead on a golf course in Rockhampton, central Queensland.
Local police made the discovery after her husband notified authorities about her disappearance.
The 40-year-old, who had adopted the name Tash Black, gained notoriety in the 1990s when she vanished from her home at the age of 14, eloping with her 21-year-old boyfriend, Scott Black.
The girl’s disappearance sparked a massive and unsuccessful search effort after she failed to show up for school on August 31, 1998.
Her mother, Jenny Ryan, told the media: “I don’t believe Natasha would have let me go through all the pain if she was out there.”
Natasha’s milkman boyfriend also told police at the time he had no idea where his girlfriend was.
Queensland Police investigations led to wrongful accusations against her best friend, 15-year-old Maioha Tokotaua and a local serial killer, Leonard Fraser, who was put on trial for Ms Black’s death.
Fraser, known as the Rockhampton Rapist, even confessed to the murder along with having killed five other women between 1998 and 1999.
After police received a tipoff that the teen runaway was alive and well, she was found at her boyfriend’s house hiding in a cupboard.
Ms Ryan revealed she had been in the house for five years, living with the curtains drawn and occasionally hiding in cupboards.
At the time, the couple faced trial for falsely causing a police investigation and Ms Ryan was fined $1,000 while Mr Black was jailed for 12 months for lying to police.
“He was protecting me and I caused him to do it – it was my fault he did that,” Natasha told New Idea in 2007.
“It was my decision to run away. He was doing something really lovely and protecting me and I felt like I should have been, or deserved to be, punished.”
She never revealed the reason for her letting her family believe she was dead for five years and only said: “I’m never going to say publicly why I left.”
Despite the tumultuous events of her youth, Ms Black went on to marry her boyfriend and the couple reportedly had three children together.
The mother and wife had retreated from the public eye after she and her husband sold their wedding pictures to tabloids.
Queensland Police have confirmed that they will be preparing a report for the coroner, treating her death as sudden and non-suspicious.