It was an impulsive decision she still can’t explain.

A moment of weakness, that on reflection, she acknowledges was exceptionally brave.

She’d agreed to let a man stay in her house – a man she hadn’t seen for years but had known all her life.

"Every night, I would push my wardrobe against the door and sleep with my dog in the bedroom," Missy Rigby told 7NEWS in an exclusive interview.

The barricade was to keep out Leonard John Fraser – now known as one of Queensland’s most violent killers ever.

Rigby still can’t believe she is directly related to the state’s first convicted serial killer, child murderer, and rapist of least 20 women and girls.

She battles with her own demons, suffering bipolar disorder which can lead to violent outbursts and blackouts.

"I am terrified of who I am when I’m angry, because of him," Rigby said.

Missy Rigby, daughter of Leonard Fraser. Credit: 7NEWS

Rigby grew up with her grandmother, Fraser’s mother, repeatedly warning her never to be alone with her father, never to trust or live with him as he would only come to harm her.

Unknown to Rigby and the outside world, he had already taken the lives of two vulnerable Rockhampton women he preyed upon, Julie Dawn Turner and Beverley Leggo.

After Fraser stayed with Rigby and her foster father at Deception Bay for three days in February 1999, he returned to the central Queensland city where he committed more carnage.

By April 18, he had raped and bashed to death 19-year-old Sylvia Benedetti in a Rockhampton hotel.

Four days later, he abducted, raped and murdered nine-year-old schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt as she walked home from school.

This year marks 20 years since Keyra’s death, which ultimately exposed Fraser as a serial killer.

Police images of Leonard John Fraser following his arrest in 1999. Credit: Supplied

Rigby’s first memories of Fraser as a father is of him being jolly, affectionate and caring.

"He was fun."

Rigby is Fraser’s only child.

She was born out of Fraser’s longest relationship with her mother, Pearl, between September 1982 and July 1985.

Violent crimes bookended his relationship with Pearl and his life in Mackay in north Queensland.

The couple moved into a two-bedroom flat in Mackay and Fraser finally appeared settled.

He had a full-time job with Queensland Railways as a ganger.

He was stepfather to Pearl’s nine-year-old son and then they had Missy in 1983.

Leonard Fraser with baby Missy in 1983. Credit: Supplied

Rigby was only two years old when her parents’ relationship started to unravel in August 1985.

Two detectives knocked on the door of their family home asking to speak with Fraser over the brutal rape of a woman, days before, on a beach at Shoal Point, just north of Mackay.

Pearl would learn that the man she met in a north Queensland caravan park was a former pimp and standover merchant, on parole for a series of brutal rapes in NSW.

He had been released after doing only seven years of a 21-year sentence.

'Untreatable psychopath'

A prison psychiatrist had already deemed him an untreatable psychopath.

The Queensland detectives learnt Fraser’s parole had been revoked in 1982 after he served two months jail for assaulting a Mackay woman.

However, it was not policy for NSW parole authorities to seek extradition.

In October 1985, Fraser was found guilty of the Shoal Point rape and jailed for 12 years.

Leonard Fraser (left). Credit: 7NEWS

When sentencing Fraser, Supreme Court Justice Des Derrington told Fraser he was a dangerous man who caused his victims great agony and degradation.

Rigby said her mother was devastated upon learning of Fraser’s actions and secret past.

Rigby was too young to notice her father’s absence and was raised at first to believe another man was her father – a very kind man.

She was first told of her real father when her family started taking her to Rockhampton’s Etna Creek jail to visit.

Her beloved grandparents explained Fraser’s absence as him needing to be held accountable for his actions.

"He had done something very naughty, and he wasn’t well, so he had to stay where he was,’’ she said.

Her first memories of her father were running and playing in an undercover area.

She had also spoken on the phone to him to thank him when presents arrived in the mail.

From the time she was about six years old, she started visiting her father in jail – although Rigby did not notice it was a prison.

She and her Nanna, who thought her granddaughter should know her father, would catch a prison-provided bus to Rockhampton.

"I was very, very nervous," she said.

"I remember the big fuss of going shopping for something nice to wear.

"And then when I met him, it was quite a happy day."

Rigby said after their first meeting, she couldn’t understand her family’s reservations and hesitations about her father.

Chevron Right Icon "And then when I met him, it was quite a happy day"

He scooped her up and told Rigby how much he missed her.

"He was laughing about the colour of my hair because it was so blonde, I had these horrible Shirley Temple curls," she said.

"I didn’t know who he was at that point in time, because he was just a dad. He was Dad," she said.

However, when she turned 11, she demanded her mother tell her why her father was away.

Rigby said she had been sexually abused so, when her mother and grandmother explained Fraser’s crimes to her, everything changed.

"After that, I switched off, the letters stopped," Rigby told 7NEWS.

"He even stopped sending presents. Mum didn’t want to tell me but I demanded it.

"I lost it ... and because it had been done to me (sexual abuse), hearing what he was, it switched something off that would never, ever bring him back into my mind as a Dad."

'Soulless predator'

He went from Dad to a soulless predator.

"(He) was a creature, an animal… a thing… When I think of him, I think of a shark, emotionless, cold and constantly hunting," she said.

Rigby says she stopped visiting her father or taking his calls.

She wrote him a series of letters but said they were returned to her as the then prison management thought they would be too upsetting to Fraser.

"I barraged him with more and more letters until I sent him the right one with acceptable terminology," she said of the disgust and disappointment she felt towards Fraser.

"I berated him in the most diplomatic way. It would have cut him to pieces.

"I think any human part of him that may have been left was definitely gone."

Leonard Fraser as a child. Credit: Supplied

Rigby did not see her father until his release from Rockhampton’s Etna Creek jail after he served 12 years for the rape at Shoal Point.

He left under the shadow of grim predictions from prison psychologists and staff that he would re-offend and possibly kill.

He stopped Rigby and a friend as they walked home from high school.

He cuddled his daughter, asked how she was before telling her could not stay long because he “had to keep moving”.

It scared Rigby so much, she ran away.

Within months of his release, he raped a terminally ill woman in a Brisbane hospital chapel – the woman had become Fraser’s pen pal while he was in jail.

He also attacked girls and women while living at Mount Morgan, an old mining town 40 kilometres south-west of Rockhampton. Local vigilantes eventually ran Fraser out of town and he resettled in Rockhampton.

The next time Rigby crossed paths with her father was in February 1999 when Fraser stayed with her and her foster father.

Chevron Right Icon "I thought I am going to face the devil and I am going to let him stay"

He was only allowed to stay after Rigby’s foster father was assured she was comfortable with Fraser staying in the same house.

"I thought I am going to face the devil and I am going to let him stay," she said.

Fraser asked her to travel back to Rockhampton and move in with him.

Rigby immediately said no – a word from a female that could trigger her father’s murderous rage.

Fraser showed restraint around his daughter.

There were no signs of his volcanic temper, rage or lack of impulse control.

Instead, he locked himself in a room for a few hours to calm down.

"I am not under any false assumption that once I turned into a teenage girl and physical changes came about that I would’ve been in a position of danger," Rigby said.

The house Fraser rented in the town of Mount Morgan. Credit: Supplied

Rigby said she feels that, had she moved to Rockhampton with her father, Keyra Steinhardt may have been spared.

"I believe that was the last kick in the guts because I refused him," she said.

"I was devastated hearing of Keyra’s murder.

"I felt like I had just cost someone else their life because I wasn’t willing to risk my own.

"Because I selfishly protected myself, she lost her life and I will always feel her death is partially on my shoulders too."

Rigby believes her father should never have been paroled in NSW or released from prison in Queensland in 1997.

She tried to write to her father shortly after his arrest for Keyra’s murder but, again, her letters were returned.

In 2003, Fraser received an indefinite life sentence for Keyra’s murder and, two years later, was jailed for three indefinite life sentences for the manslaughter of Julie Turner, and the murders of Beverley Leggo and Sylvia Benedetti.

Beverley Leggo. Credit: Supplied

Rigby was contacted by prison authorities in the months before Fraser’s death in 2007.

"A person from the prison rang on his behalf asking if I would talk to him, as he felt Dad was about to pass away, and I just shut them down," she said.

"I thought I have nothing to say at all, I don’t want to see him. I feel nothing," she said.

Fraser died in his sleep after going into cardiac arrest in the secure unit at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital at age 55 on New Year’s Eve 2007.

Rigby she felt a wave of relief when she learned of her father’s death.

"I already had my first child (but) I couldn’t fully enjoy my daughter because my first thought was 'I am going to have to protect you now until he dies, you’re not safe either'. So the day he died was a celebration," she said.

When she was contacted about whether she wanted to take her father’s ashes and belongings, she wanted to nothing to do with him.

"Since when does a man like that deserve an honourable burial," she said.

"I told them to throw it in a dumpster or send it to a lab and learn from it."

Chevron Right Icon "I told them to throw it in a dumpster or send it to a lab and learn from it."

Unlike her father who never took responsibility for his crimes, Rigby said accountability for her own actions was important.

"I will never know whether my bipolar is a genetic thing handed down from Dad, although it is a huge fear that he could be somewhere in my mind but I will never know. I manage it very well and not going to hide behind an instable (sic) mind to excuse my actions even though it’s a big thing to say 'my dad’s a serial killer'."

Rigby – now a mother of three – said she has told her eldest daughter about Fraser but will most likely not tell her other two children.

Rigby said she has had varied reactions when people learn she is the daughter of a serial killer.

"I am not him and he wasn’t in my life enough to have impacted who I developed into… he’s like the boogie man in the closet now," Rigby said, adding she has made her peace separating the monster from the man she knew as Dad.

Julie Turner

Julie Turner’s daughter, Kylie Elder, told 7NEWS.com.au there was nothing Rigby could have done to stop her father.

"I truly believe that there is nothing Missy could have done to stop Fraser, he had already murdered two women and he did that whilst having his girlfriend Chrissy living with him," Elder said.

"He was a predator who waited for the right opportunity to move onto his next victim. Making them younger each time."

Chevron Right Icon "He was a predator who waited for the right opportunity to move onto his next victim. Making them younger each time."

Since Fraser robbed Kylie of her mother in 1998, she has struggled with relationships.

After the 2005 trial, Elder said her marriage broke down and an interstate custody battle ensued.

“Losing mum in such a way was a traumatic experience to say the least. With investigations being so drawn out by her being classed as a missing person for so long, then the investigation stages of a homicide, it really did take its toll on me and my ability to function properly as a person let alone as a young parent," Elder said.

"I had to rebuild my world again, knowing mum is definitely not coming back," Elder said.

"I have a constant feeling that I need to do better no matter what I’m doing either personal or professional by showing the kids to work hard and studying for what you want."

Julie Turner (left). Julie Turner with her daughter Kyle (right). Credit: Supplied.

Now a mother of four, life took another brutal turn in 2016 for Elder when her oldest son Jess was charged with manslaughter and jailed last year for 10 years.

Asked if her son’s crime could have any connection with the impact of her mother’s demise, Elder said the whole process drained her energy to the point she was not able to be there mentally or emotionally for her own children.

"There was so much time spent speculating what could of happen or where she could be? The other time was spent wondering why the Rockhampton police would not listen to me in the first place," Elder said.

Elder said she isolated herself after her son was charged and found it difficult to navigate and understand the court system.

Kylie Elder and her son Baylie. Credit: Supplied

She focused on family and study, adding criminal law to her university subjects so she could better understand the court process.

"It was so different being the family member of a person whom has committed a serious crime. We received death threats, abuse to my other children, I lost people I thought were friends," Elder said.

"I was not there when it happened and I do not support violence because I personally know what it feels like to lose a loved one by someone else’s hands."

Chevron Right Icon "I was not there when it happened and I do not support violence because I personally know what it feels like to lose a loved one by someone else's hands."'

Elder said an invitation to a detectives conference in Mt Isa last year inspired her to work in youth justice and that she hopes to work in victim support.

"I have worked so hard to get where I am today, I have volunteered my time to victim organisations with court support, first contacts for victims of homicide," Elder said.

"Most of all there is support for families who have committed crime, including families who have one member of the family convicted of murder of another family member not all of that family is supported.”

Paula Doneman is the author of Things A Killer Would Know – the story of Leonard John Fraser, Queensland’s first convicted serial killer.