Thursday, October 29, at 7.30pm
On the night of May 4, 1982, 13-year-old Terry Ryan rushed into his family home in Marsden, a southern suburb
of Brisbane, and told his mother an astonishing story. Terry said that he had been forced by two men to participate in the sexual assault, prolonged torture and murder of his best friend, 13-year-old Peter Aston. He said Aston was buried in a shallow grave in scrubland, over the New South Wales’ border, near the seaside hamlet of Kingscliff. Belita Ryan immediately rang the police.
Terry retold his story to Detectives of the Queensland Criminal Investigation Branch. At approximately 4:45 on the morning of May 5, the detectives drove Terry and his mother into New South Wales. Terry led his mother and the detectives along the sandy track into the scrub. After about 200 metres, the track opened onto a roughly cleared area and the tire tracks disappeared into bush land on the other side of it. "There ... in there," Terry Ryan said as he pointed into the foliage. "It's in there."
