Update on woman found buried in wall
Police are offering a $500,000 reward for information as they investigate the murder of a woman whose remains were found after more than a decade in a Brisbane basement.
Cleaners discovered the skeletal remains of Tanya Lee Glover hidden behind a wall in the basement of a unit block in Alderley on December 2022, with the new reward announced one year after her body was found.
Despite police believing her body had been hidden there more than 12 years ago, they had not received any reports of a bad smell or any other suspicious activity before the shocking discovery.
Ms Glover was found tightly wrapped in clothing and bedding, believed to have stopped any smell from alerting residents to the hidden body.
Acting Superintendent Craig Williams said police believed the public “holds the key” to more information, including cause of death, which was unable to be determined by autopsy due to decomposition.
“It’s been a particularly difficult investigation because the body wasn’t found for quite a number of years afterwards,” Superintendent Williams said.
He urged the public to come forward, as “the smallest piece of information may give us what we need”.
Despite the difficulty with the case, police believe the crime is “solvable” and have discovered pieces of key information about the reclusive woman.
“If you are the principle offender then there’s a very good chance we are going to find who you are,” Superintendent Williams said.
“To anybody else who was involved, there is now a significant amount of money that is being offered if you can provide that information that leads us to identify the principal offender or offenders and a conviction of those offenders.”
Ms Glover moved to Queensland from NSW in 2006 and was living in Fortitude Valley until her death, believed to have occurred in 2010.
She was a “vulnerable person” with impaired hearing and vision and was not reported missing, as she “did not have a lot of contact with her family and she did not have a lot of known friends”, according to Superintendent Williams.
Her family is assisting police but have not been able to provide much information about her movements prior to her death.
Ms Glover’s parents did not realise she was missing and thought she was somewhere else in the country, Superintendent Andrew Massingham said in August.
“They are obviously upset, they are obviously traumatised as a result of the news we’ve provided to them,” he said.
“They fell out of contact with her some time ago and were of the mistaken belief she was in some other part of the country.”
Queensland Police will persist in finding Ms Glover’s killer, according to Commissioner Katarina Carroll.
“If anything, our pursuit will be relentless because she was a vulnerable person that should have been protected by friends and family and the organisations,” she said.