For 25 years, Megan Rose’s death
was treated as a suicide. Then investigators revisited the evidence, uncovered
questions surrounding a life insurance policy and began searching for her
former partner. After 18 months on the run under the name “David,” he was
arrested following a tip from someone who heard her story on a podcast.
On the morning of July 18, 1997, a passer-by walking
through the coastal reserve at Point Cartwright on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast
noticed an unusual sight near the edge of the headland.
A wine cask stood beside a bench. A drinking glass
lay in the grass. Beyond the bench, the land dropped sharply towards the rocks
below.
When the man looked over the cliff, he saw the body
of a young woman.
She was 25-year-old Megan Louise Rose.
Within 24 hours, police had reached a conclusion
about her death. The case was treated as a suspected suicide, and the
investigation did not develop into a homicide inquiry.
But the questions surrounding Megan's final hours did
not disappear.
Who had driven her car to the headland? Why had the
wine cask and glass never been subjected to forensic testing? And what
significance, if any, did a $250,000
life insurance policy have when its sole beneficiary was the
man who had been living with her?
A quarter of a century later, detectives reopened the
investigation. Their work eventually led to the arrest of Megan’s former
partner, Keith Lee, who had allegedly spent 18 months moving between Australian
states while using the identity of another man.
The case did not end with a dramatic DNA
breakthrough. Instead, one of the most important developments came from an
unexpected source: a listener who recognized a voice and a family connection
while hearing Megan’s story on a true-crime
podcast.
The discovery at Point Cartwright
Point Cartwright, near Buddina, is a familiar
landmark on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Its lighthouse overlooks the entrance
to Mooloolaba Harbour, while the surrounding reserve offers sweeping coastal
views.
During daylight, the headland attracts walkers and
visitors. At night, however, the area is much quieter.
On July 17, 1997, something happened there that would
remain unresolved for decades.
Megan had moved from Victoria to Queensland
approximately a year earlier. She was living with Keith Lee, a man 19 years older
than her, and worked as a nursing assistant providing disability and aged-care
support.
Her job involved the demanding, often overlooked work
of caring for vulnerable people. Those who knew her would later describe a
young woman whose life ended far too soon.
According to Lee's account, he last saw Megan alive
at their Sunshine Coast unit at approximately 6:45 p.m.
He told investigators that he offered her a warm
drink, which she declined. He said he left the room and returned around 8 p.m.,
only to discover that Megan and her white Suzuki hatchback were gone.
Lee later claimed that Megan had seemed unhappy that
day and had mentioned visiting a friend. He also said he tried calling her at
approximately 11 p.m. but received no answer.
The following morning, her vehicle was discovered in
a car park near Point Cartwright.
Megan's body was found below the cliff.
The circumstances immediately raised questions that
would become central to the investigation decades later. Someone had driven the
Suzuki to the headland, but the identity of that driver was not established in
the original inquiry.
Why the first investigation became
a turning point
The initial examination found alcohol and medication
in Megan's system.
An autopsy recorded a blood alcohol concentration of 0.148,
along with traces of oxazepam, a prescription medication sometimes used to
treat anxiety and insomnia.
Those findings could be interpreted in different
ways. They did not, by themselves, establish whether Megan had gone to the
headland alone, whether another person had accompanied her or how she had
reached the location.
Nevertheless, police treated the death as
non-suspicious.
No formal homicide crime scene was established, and
the investigation did not pursue several questions that would later become
significant.
One particularly important detail involved the wine
cask and drinking glass found near the bench.
Both objects were photographed and recorded, but they
were never subjected to the kind of forensic examination that might have
identified biological material from another person.
When detectives revisited the case years later,
records reportedly showed no clear account of what happened to the two objects.
There was no documented laboratory examination or disposal record that could
explain their disappearance.
That missing evidence became one of the most
troubling features of the Megan
Rose cold case.
A drinking glass left at a possible death scene could
potentially contain fingerprints or DNA. Such evidence might have helped
investigators establish who had been present.
But once the original inquiry treated the death as
non-suspicious, the opportunity for a more extensive forensic investigation was
lost.
The case remained closed for years.
The $250,000 insurance policy that
raised new questions
As investigators examined Megan's circumstances,
financial evidence became another important part of the case.
Megan had a life
insurance policy worth $250,000. Keith Lee was reportedly its
sole beneficiary.
According to evidence later presented in court, the
policy had been taken out approximately 13 months before her death. It included
a suicide-exclusion period, and Megan died around three weeks after that period
had expired.
The timing attracted renewed attention.
Insurance policies commonly contain exclusions
designed to prevent certain claims, including suicide within a specified
initial period. The precise terms depend on the policy.
In Megan's case, the prosecution would later argue
that the timing of the policy and Lee's position as beneficiary formed part of
the circumstantial evidence against him.
The insurer paid the benefit, and Lee received the money.
That payment did not, on its own, prove that a crime
had occurred. Nor did it establish that Lee had planned Megan's death. Those
are matters for the court to determine.
But when detectives reopened the investigation, the
policy became one of several details they examined alongside the original
scene, witness accounts and Lee's later movements.
For a case that had been classified as a suicide, the
financial questions were difficult to ignore.
Twenty-five years later,
detectives reopened the file
In 2022, a Queensland Police Service cold-case team
began reviewing Megan's death.
The passage of time had made the investigation more
difficult. Witnesses had grown older, memories had faded and some people who
might once have been able to provide information were no longer available.
Nevertheless, detectives began reconsidering the
evidence and the decisions made during the original investigation.
The case was no longer being approached simply as a
death that had already been explained. Investigators were examining whether
Megan had been the victim of a homicide
and whether the original conclusion had prevented important lines of inquiry
from being pursued.
In June 2023, police publicly announced that they
considered the circumstances suspicious and offered a $500,000 reward
for information.
Detective Senior Sergeant Tara Kentwell appealed to
people who had known Megan on the Sunshine Coast or had encountered Lee in
Victoria to come forward.
Investigators also raised the possibility of
indemnity from prosecution for people who might have assisted after the alleged
killing, provided they had not been involved in the killing itself.
The appeal suggested detectives believed there could
be people who knew more about the events surrounding Megan's death.
One of the next developments would take the
investigation far beyond Queensland.
The man who allegedly disappeared
under another name
On June 25, 2023, Queensland detectives travelled to
Portland, in Victoria, to speak with Lee.
The contact was brief.
The following day, his vehicle was reportedly found
abandoned near Cape Nelson Lighthouse, another coastal headland.
Police also examined CCTV footage from several
locations. Investigators alleged that Lee had been seen in Port Fairy, where he
may have provided a false name, and that further sightings placed him at a
shopping centre in Geelong and at the railway station in Shepparton.
Then he disappeared from view.
On July 28, 2023, homicide detectives issued a
warrant for his arrest on a murder charge.
But Lee was not immediately located.
According to police, he remained at large for
approximately 18 months, during which time he allegedly used the name David and
established a new identity.
He was reportedly living first in the Northern
Territory and later in a rented property in Dural, in Sydney's northwest.
People who encountered him knew him as David. He
allegedly told neighbours that he came from Perth and occasionally worked for a
local church.
Police said he possessed New South Wales
identification documents under that name, including a driver's licence and a
pensioner concession card.
The contrast was striking: investigators were
searching for a man wanted in connection with a murder investigation, while the
person they were seeking was allegedly living in another community under a
different identity.
Religious organisations and charities reportedly
helped him settle into his new surroundings, unaware of the allegations attached
to the identity he had left behind.
For investigators, finding him had become a separate
challenge from establishing what happened to Megan.
The unexpected breakthrough: a
podcast listener recognised the story
The search eventually took an unexpected turn.
In late December 2024, the Australian True Crime
podcast released an episode examining Megan's death. The program included an
interview with Lee's adult daughter, Ren Dornong.
Someone listening recognised details that connected
the story to a man they knew.
Rather than dismissing the resemblance, the listener
contacted authorities.
Detective Senior Sergeant Kentwell later confirmed
that information from a podcast listener had helped police identify Lee's
whereabouts.
It was an unusual development in a long-running Australian cold-case investigation.
There had been no sudden discovery of the missing
wine glass. No new forensic test had conclusively solved the case. Instead, the
publicity surrounding Megan's story reached someone who could connect the
details to the man investigators had been searching for.
The tip provided the lead that police needed.
On January 2, 2025, officers from Ku-ring-gai Police
Area Command arrived at a property on Kenthurst Road in Dural.
A 72-year-old man was arrested.
Police alleged that he attempted to bite an officer
during the arrest.
The man was identified as Keith Lee.
From “David” to a murder charge
By the time of his arrest, Lee's appearance had
changed considerably.
Images circulated during the search had shown a man
with a receding hairline and a relatively clean-shaven face. The man arrested
in Dural was reportedly bald and had a full white beard.
He was taken into custody and flown to Brisbane,
where he was charged with Megan's murder.
Police also alleged separate offences involving the
assault of an officer and possession of false identity documents.
Lee was extradited to Queensland and appeared briefly
in Brisbane Magistrates Court before the proceedings moved to Maroochydore,
close to the area where Megan had died.
He remained in custody.
The arrest brought an end to the 18-month search, but
it did not settle the central question: could prosecutors prove beyond
reasonable doubt that Lee was responsible for Megan's death?
That question would move to the next stage of the
criminal justice process.
What witnesses told the court
The committal hearing took place over two days at the
end of April 2026.
The prosecution outlined four major parts of its
case:
·
Lee
was the sole beneficiary of Megan's $250,000 life insurance policy.
·
The
policy's suicide-exclusion period had expired only weeks before Megan died.
·
Lee
allegedly staged the appearance of his own suicide in Victoria.
·
He
allegedly spent approximately 18 months living under a false identity while
wanted by police.
These were allegations and pieces of circumstantial
evidence, not a finding of guilt.
The court also heard testimony from people who
remembered conversations and events from many years earlier. Their accounts
were important, but the passage of time and the challenges of recollection were
also relevant to how the evidence would be assessed.
One of the witnesses was Lee's daughter.
The court heard that her account of the night Megan
died had changed over the years. Prosecutors alleged that her father had
pressured her at one stage to tell police that he had remained at home.
She told the court that she had been afraid of him.
Defence barrister Simon Lewis challenged her
evidence, suggesting that her account had changed because of hostility towards
her father.
The competing explanations remain matters for the
court process.
Another witness, Katrina Willet, gave evidence by
video link about a conversation she said she had with Lee before Megan's
funeral.
She could not recall every detail, but remembered him
saying that he had gone looking for Megan after an argument between them.
Willet described him as agitated and highly emotional
during the conversation.
A further witness, Michelle Bourke, spoke about an
exchange she said took place in late 2020 or early 2021.
She told the court that she had been looking at old
news reports and online discussions about Megan's death when she asked Lee
whether there was anything police could charge him with.
According to Bourke, he answered that there was.
She said he later told her that he had snapped and
that he had gone to the bottom of the cliffs to retrieve Megan's glasses.
However, under cross-examination, Bourke acknowledged
that she had never received a direct confession. She also agreed that after Lee
asked her to stop contacting him, she sent him a photograph of Megan with a
message.
“I will haunt you.”
Her testimony became another part of the evidence the
prosecution would need to establish and the defence would be entitled to
challenge.
The court allows the case to proceed
At the end of the committal proceedings, Magistrate
Chris Callaghan noted that he had not received all the information he had
expected.
Some witnesses had not been available to give
evidence and were expected to be dealt with at a later pre-trial hearing.
Nevertheless, the magistrate ruled that there was
sufficient material for the matter to proceed to trial.
Lee's barrister consented to the committal.
When asked whether he wished to enter a plea, Lee
initially said he had not yet discussed the matter with his legal team. After a
short adjournment, he returned and answered:
“No, Your Honor.”
That response did not amount to an admission of
guilt.
Under Australian criminal procedure, a committal
hearing determines whether a case should proceed to trial. It does not decide
whether the accused committed the offence.
Lee, then 73, was committed to stand trial for murder
in the Supreme Court of Queensland in Brisbane.
At the time described in the court proceedings, no
trial date had been set.
The prosecution would still need to prove its
allegations, and Lee remained entitled to the presumption of innocence.
A family waiting nearly three
decades for answers
For Megan's family, the arrest represented a major
development after years of uncertainty.
Her mother had waited 27 years for investigators to
identify someone as a suspect in her daughter's death. By the time police
announced the arrest, she was reportedly living with advanced dementia and
receiving palliative care.
Family members said she had been told that a man had
been arrested and that she understood, as far as her condition allowed, what
the news meant.
The timing was heartbreaking.
The arrest came after decades of waiting, when the
person who had spent so much of her life hoping for answers was no longer well
enough to fully absorb them.
For the people who loved Megan, the court process
could not restore the years that had passed. But it offered the possibility of
a public examination of the circumstances that had surrounded her death.
The evidence that may never be
recovered
One of the most unsettling parts of the Megan Rose
investigation remains the wine cask and drinking glass discovered near the
bench at Point Cartwright.
Those objects might have provided useful forensic
evidence. Investigators could have examined them for fingerprints or biological
material that might have helped establish whether someone else had been
present.
Instead, the objects were never tested, and later
investigators could not establish what had happened to them.
Their disappearance illustrates the lasting
consequences of decisions made during the earliest stages of an investigation.
Evidence that is not collected, preserved or examined
at the right time may be impossible to recover decades later.
Modern DNA
testing technology can sometimes reopen old cases by
identifying biological material that was unavailable for analysis when an
investigation first began. But technology cannot help when potentially
important objects have vanished without a trace.
In Megan's case, the prosecution must rely on the
evidence that remains: witness testimony, financial records, investigative
findings and the circumstances surrounding Lee's alleged disappearance under
another identity.
Whether that evidence will be sufficient to establish
guilt is a question for the Supreme Court.
A podcast, a forgotten
investigation and a case still awaiting trial
Megan Rose was 25 when her body was found beneath the
cliffs at Point Cartwright.
For years, her death was treated as a suicide. The
original investigation did not develop into a homicide case, and evidence that
might have helped answer questions about the scene was never fully examined.
The reopening of the file in 2022 changed the
direction of the investigation. The insurance policy, the original
circumstances and Lee's later movements became part of a renewed examination.
The public appeal brought the case to a wider
audience. Eventually, a listener to a podcast recognised details that helped
police locate the man they had been seeking.
But an arrest is not the same as a conviction.
The final legal question remains whether the
prosecution can prove its allegations beyond reasonable doubt. Until a verdict
is reached, Lee must be treated as an accused person, not as someone whose
guilt has already been established.
There is also a larger question that remains
difficult to ignore.
If the original investigators had treated Megan's
death as suspicious in 1997, would the case have taken 25 years to reach this
point? Would the wine glass have been tested? Would the identity of the driver
have been established? Could her family have received answers much sooner?
No one can know what might have happened.
What is clear is that Megan's story was not
forgotten. It survived through family memories, old records, witness accounts
and, eventually, a podcast heard by someone who recognised a connection.
For the people who waited nearly three decades, the
arrest marked an important moment. The trial will determine whether it also
brings the answers they have been seeking.
Editorial note: The source describes the case as “solved,” but the proceedings outlined end with Lee committed to stand trial—not convicted. The revised headline therefore avoids declaring guilt before the trial.
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