While findings are expected to be handed down in the abduction and murder of Sunshine Coast schoolboy Daniel Morcombe and the Dreamworld Thunder River Rapids tragedy, inquest proceedings are also expected to progress in the 1973 firebombing of the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub and the 1986 disappearance of Sharron Phillips.

Fifteen years after Daniel disappeared from the side of the road – and eight years after hearings were first held before a Coroner - the 13-year-old’s family hopes 2019 is the year the case will finally be brought to a close.

State coroner Terry Ryan is expected to soon hand down his assessment of the biggest police investigation in Queensland history.

The examination of the adequacy of the police response is the final chapter of an inquest that stretches back to 2010 and was instrumental in finding Daniel and capturing his killer, Brett Peter Cowan.

Daniel’s father Bruce said the family had not been given a date for Coroner Terry Ryan’s findings, but had been informed they were expected before the end of 2018.

“That’s obviously not going to happen, but hopefully we will hear something in the new year,” he said.

“We are at a loss as to why it’s taking so long as it’s been two years since the last witnesses were called. It’s frustrating, but completely out of our control.

“We’re very much looking forward to finishing the process and putting it behind us.

“If the Coroner has any suggestions about improving the system - and there have been a number of improvements already introduced - then we will welcome them. All we have ever wanted was to help others.’’

Daniel, 13, was abducted from an unofficial bus stop on the Sunshine Coast by Brett Peter Cowan on December 7, 2003. On March 14, 2014, Cowan was sentenced to life in prison.

This year, a hearing was held into the 2016 deaths of four people at Dreamworld, killed when their raft on the Thunder River Rapids Ride overturned.

The hearing ran over 31 days, as the families of Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi, listened to testimony from a series of witnesses about the safety of the park and training given to staff.

Findings will be handed down at a date yet to be finalised. A Coroner will examine whether changes need to be made to operating standards for amusement park rides in Australia “to ensure a similar incident does not happen in the future”.

Coroner David O’Connell will examine the deaths of those on board the fishing trawler MV Dianne, which sank in a storm off the north Queensland town of 1770 in 2017.

Only one man from the seven-member crew survived when the trawler rolled in rough seas.

Police divers located the bodies of two of the men and the rest remain missing at sea. A pre-inquest conference is scheduled for February.

Ruben McDornan, 32, the sole survivor, managed to escape through a tiny gap to get to the surface, where he was forced to listen, helplessly, as his trapped mates screamed and banged on the inside of the hull.

He clung to the upturned boat until it sank, treading water for hours until a passing catamaran spotted him in the water.

An inquest into the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Toowoomba teen Annette Mason will resume in January. Annette was found bludgeoned to death in her bed.

Annette’s family fought for years to have a new inquest held after the investigation into her murder - and an initial inquest - failed to find her killer. Several persons of interest have been linked to Annette’s murder over the years.

Meanwhile, findings are expected to be handed down into the 1982 disappearance of backpacker Tony Jones, last seen on the outskirts of Townsville.

And the family of murdered Mackay woman Shandee Blackburn have been given renewed hope of closure with an inquest confirmed for next year.

Blackburn’s ex-partner was found not guilty of her 2013 stabbing murder in a jury trial.

In 2017, police revealed a taxi driver named Raymond Peter Mulvihill, who died in 2002, was the man they believe responsible for the murder of 20-year-old Sharron Phillips.

Sharron disappeared after her car ran out of petrol on Ipswich Rd at Wacol. She found a nearby payphone to call her boyfriend, asking him to pick her up outside a petrol station. She called again when he didn’t arrive, having gone to the wrong place.

Police believe Mulvihill, who would park his taxi each night behind the shops where Sharron was waiting, discovered her there alone, abducted and murdered her.

Sharron’s disappearance has been one of Queensland’s most high-profile mysteries. Mulvihill’s involvement in Sharron’s presumed murder is expected to be examined in Queensland’s Coroner’s Court, although a hearing date is yet to be set.

Sharron’s body has never been found.