Case 322: William Tyrrell (Part 1)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A Cast recommends Hello, this is blind By.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Around every two years or so, I'm contractually obligated to
record an advertisement for my own podcast, The blind By Podcast.
I'm a writer and I like to use the podcast
space for writing. I write with my mouth for you
to read with your ears. I write about curiosity, and
I've delivered an episode every week for the past eight years.

(00:25):
I love doing it. If you want to listen to
If you don't, I'm sure we'll be grand, but most importantly,
mind yourself. The blind By podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
A cast is home to the world's best podcast, including
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Speaker 1 (00:40):
To right now.

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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If
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Please seed the show notes for this episode on your
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(01:24):
children and won't be suitable for all listeners. Please note
that the names of several individuals have been changed due
to court suppression orders preventing them from being identified, while
others have been changed to protect their privacy. It was

(01:45):
ten fifty on the morning of Friday, September twelve, twenty fourteen,
when a call came through to the New South Wales
Police emergency helpline. On the other line was a woman
named Angelo, calling from the small hinterland the town of Kendall,
located on the state's mid the north coast.

Speaker 5 (02:05):
Please yeh hi, my son didn't think it's two half
So your address Senner Room Drive, Kendall. Okay, Benny Room
Drive in Kendall. Yeah, all right, I'm just going to
bring that up on my map.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
I won't be a moment.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
How long has he been missing? Well, I think, well
we've been looking for him now, it's about fifteen or
twenty minutes. Okay, I thought it could be five, it
could be longer. It's displaying around here. We heard him and.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Then we heard nothing.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
Okay, So got the nearest cross streeting our present? Is
that right?

Speaker 4 (02:39):
So?

Speaker 5 (02:39):
What is it? Ellen Dale Crescent? I don't know, mom,
this is my mom's house. He's been missing since about
ten thirty where I'd say, so, okay, can you just
drive him to me?

Speaker 1 (02:50):
How tall? Obviously not?

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Rachel, Well you.

Speaker 5 (02:52):
Can do about turn huston. He's wearing a spider Man outfit.
Yeap for our hairs. He go dark brandy colored hair.
It's short and he's got big brown and green colored eyes. Okay,
do you get any eat shoes on? Do you know
any other distinguishing He has always got a freckle on

(03:19):
the top of his head when you cut the hair
on the left hand side to see a freckle on
the top of his head. All right, do you know
where he might have gone? We're actually moved wi mum's
property here a state borrows and they're one huge block.
Would have walked up and down Benny Ruin dry and
we can't find him. Okay, what's his name? William's William's

(03:44):
surname two or two Y, double R and double L.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
Senior Constable Christopher Rowley was already in the area when
he received a word of the missing three year old
boy in Candle. He arrived at Bannaroon Drive at eleven
o six a m. By which time William Tyrrell had
reportedly been missing for just over half an hour. The
single story brick homeb of William's grandmother Mary Saunders, sat

(04:34):
on a sharp slope high upon a corner block elevated
above a large garage and workshop space. Hers was one
of the last houses on the dead end street, with
three sides of the property backing onto dance bushland framed
by lawns and native trees. A verandah wrapped around the
length of the house, with a five meter higher balcony,

(04:56):
providing the perfect spot to take in the scenic east views.
Senior Constable Rowley found William Tyrrel's mother, Angela, in a
clear state of distress, walking down the middle of the
street in tears. Her husband Peter was frantically dashing around,
calling William's name and to checking the surrounding properties. The

(05:20):
family of four had only arrived in Kendall at around
nine the previous evening, after driving the roughly four hour
journey from their home in Sydney's Northern Beaches. Angela's father
had recently passed away and the purpose of the visit
was to help her mother Mary, organize her house for sale.
The substantial three bedroom, two bathroom house on a one

(05:43):
point two acre block was simply too big for the
elderly woman to look after on her own, according to Angela,
that morning of Friday September twelve, twenty fourteen, the two
Tyrrell children had woken up in good spirits. William and
his four year old sister Lindsey were excited to be

(06:04):
at their grandmother's house, a place they had visited several
times before. Their father, Peter, had to make a video
call for work, but the internet reception in Kendle was
notoriously lousy, so he left the house at around eight
thirty a m. To make the call from the nearby
town of Lakewood instead. While Peter was gone, William and

(06:27):
Lindsey rode their bikes around Mary's driveway and explored the yard. Afterwards,
William played a game with his mother called Mummy Monster,
which involved Angela chasing her son around the garden. When
they were done, they climbed the steep slope back up
to the house. The grass was covered in loose twigs

(06:49):
and leaves, and they kept slipping over. One of the
slips resulted in Angela injuring her hand, so they went
inside to tent to the wound. Lindsay had heard them
playing Mummy Monster and wanted to join in the game,
so they went back outside for a while. After the
kids grew Bored of that, William and Lindsay decided to

(07:13):
make some cards to bring to their grandfather's grave when
they visited later that day. Angela set them up with
some art supplies on the back deck that overlooked the
rear lawn. Shortly after nine thirty am, she grabbed her
digital camera and snapped some photos of them. William was

(07:34):
thrilled that he'd been allowed to wear his new favorite outfit,
a two piece blue and red Spider Man costume that
his parents had bought him on a recent family holiday
to Bali. He put a Spider Man T shirt underneath
the polyester suit so he could be head to toe
in his favorite superhero get up. At nine thirty seven am,

(07:55):
Angela stood above William and pointed the lens towards him
as he crowded on the deck, pretending to be a tiger.
The little boy looked up at her, his eyes cast
to the sky and mouth agape as he let out
a loud roar. It wasn't long before William lost interest
in the craft session and began a new game he

(08:17):
called Daddy Tiger. This involved him crawling around and launching
himself off the dack as he roared and clawed his
hands in the air. He asked Lindsey to join in,
but she was too engrossed in the card making process.
William continued the game alone, ducking around the site of

(08:37):
the house out of sight for a moment before reappearing
with a loud raw. Just before ten a m Angela
said that she and her mother were sitting and watching
the kids over a cup of tea. Mary remarked how
loud William was being, and Angela explained that's just how
he was, always full of energy. The two women looked

(09:02):
on as William darted around the garden, jumping and roaring enthusiastically.
He then ran around the northwest corner of the house
and out of sight, the sound of his roar still
clearly audible. After a few minutes, Angela noticed it had
gone unusually quiet. She got up and walked around the

(09:25):
side of the house, but she couldn't see William anywhere.
Angela called out William's name, saying where are you? I
can't see you. There was no reply. She looked for
splashes of his red spider man costume against the vibrant
green foliage, noting it was suddenly so quiet that even

(09:48):
the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. Angela told Mary
that she couldn't see William anywhere, thinking he was hiding
and playing a trick on them. Mary remarked, oh, the
little devil. But Angela was starting to get worried. She
went around the eastern side of the house and looked

(10:10):
in the ferns that sat underneath the balcony, all the
while calling William's name. When he didn't appear, she became frantic.
Mary's property had no fance or other barrier to prevent
William from wandering beyond its boundary. Angela ran to the street,
checking each side of the yard, but she still couldn't

(10:33):
see or hear William. She ran into her mother's house
with Mary following, checking each room and opening cupboards to
see if he was hiding inside. Angela tried to remain
calm so that William wouldn't panic, thinking he was in trouble.
Keeping her composure, she called William, you have to come out.

(10:57):
You have to talk to me. No more hiding wi William,
I can't see you. There was no reply. While all
this was happening, Angela's husband, Peter, had been at the
Lakewood shopping precinct, making his work calls from inside his
brand new land Rover Discovery. After stopping to grab a newspaper,

(11:22):
he headed straight back to Candle. Peter told the police
that at around ten thirty am, as he neared Benarun Drive,
he'd sent Angela a voice to text message suggesting it
was a good time to send the kids outside. William
had a deep fascination with cars, trucks, and planes, which

(11:43):
was an interest Peter encouraged. The Tyrrell children always got
a thrill out of watching their father arrive home and
running out to greet him. It was a moment Peter
looked forward to every day. But as he pulled up
to his mother in law's house, it wasn't his children
who came out to greet him. It was his wife.

(12:06):
Angela looked panic stricken. She gestured urgently for Peter to
roll down his window. Have you got William, she asked.
Peter frowned, confused, of course not, he said, why would
you think that? Frantically, Angela replied, because he's missing. Peter

(12:30):
didn't ask for any more information. He lapped out of
his car and took off, running, shouting out William's name.
Neighbors heard the commotion going on outside and came out
to see what was going on. I am looking for
a little boy in a spider Man suit. Angela told them,
have you seen him? His name is William. The neighbors

(12:53):
searched their yards, checked their swimming pools, and any other
places that might be of interest to a young boy,
such as cubby houses and play equipment. When Police Senior
Constable Christopher Rowley arrived at Benirun Drive, he conducted a
thorough search of Mary's house. He was soon joined by
additional officers who arrived at the scene. They checked cupboards

(13:18):
and under furniture, going so far as to remove cushions
from the couch and pitches from the walls. Benirun Drive
is a secluded, quiet street that backs onto scrubland. It
consists of twenty one houses, each of which is situated
on a large block and set back from the road.

(13:40):
At the end of the no through road is a
rugged dirt track surrounded by dense bush that eventually leads
to the Kendall Cemetery. There is no foot traffic and
no reason to be in the area unless you live
there or are visiting one of the residents. Angela told
the police she had only seen one unfamiliar car in

(14:02):
the area, and that had been earlier on when the
two Tyrrell children had been riding their bikes outside. It
was a dark green or gray sedan that had briefly
pulled into a neighbor's driveway before immediately reversing out and
driving away. A couple who lived nearby heard the car too,

(14:23):
but just assumed it was the local postal worker. It
therefore seemed highly unlikely to the police that William had
been abducted, especially given the very short amount of time
between when his mother last heard him and when he
went missing. They thought the most likely explanation was that

(14:44):
he had wandered off and gotten lost in the bush.
The rugged area was thick with weeds, reedy grass, and
spiky lantana bushes. There were also numerous waterways, cliffs, abandoned mineshafts,
and wild animals, creating plenty of hazards to explain why
the young boy hadn't yet been found, But Peter and

(15:09):
Angela were dubious. Although William was adventurous and had a
mischievous sight, they said he was also clingy and reserved.
While he might hide and jump out for fun. He
was the kind of kid who wouldn't try to cross
the street by himself, and it would be very out
of character for him to just wander off on his own.

(15:31):
They said he had a clear understanding of boundaries and
would deem rocky slopes and rugged terrain too dangerous to
scale alone. They also said he would never blindly go
off with the stranger. He didn't warm to people immediately,
but rather sat back and assessed them first. A benaruin

(15:54):
Drive resident created a Facebook post online calling for volunteers
to assist in the search. Within minutes, locals of all
ages and demographics swarmed to the area, traversing through the
surrounding scrub and driving the neighboring streets shouting William's name.
A three year old girl sat in her pram calling out,

(16:17):
you're not in trouble, William, you can come out now.
The operation was overseen by experienced land search and rescue coordinators.
Line searchers were conducted in the surrounding bush land, while
horses and motorbikes traversed the dance scrub, and police helicopters

(16:38):
searched overhead. Mary's house was thoroughly checked multiple times, as
were other houses along Benaroon Drive. Different personnel were brought
in to search the homes in case a fresh set
of eyes noticed something that others had missed. Shads, roof spaces,
wall cavities, and cupboards were meticulously checked. Sniffer dogs also

(17:04):
battled the rugged terrain, but were unable to detect any
scent of William Tyrrel Beyond Mary's garden. The primary concern
for the search party was that the young boy might
be injured or unconscious, preventing him from coming forward to rescuers.
There was also a serious fear he had drowned, prompting

(17:25):
police divers and the Rural Fire Service to search and
to drain numerous dams, storm drains and water tanks in
the area. The day was mild at eighteen degrees celsius,
but as nightfall approached, dark clouds gathered and the temperature
dropped significantly. With no sign of William, concerns mounted that

(17:49):
if he was still alive, he might succumb to the
elements overnight. Untreated dehydration or hypothermia posed serious risks. William
also suffered from asthma, which worsened in the cold conditions
and could be triggered by stress or by the powdery
pollen released by the surrounding lantana bushes. The search continued overnight,

(18:16):
with police calling for volunteers to register at the Kendle
Showgrounds at seven the following morning. Rain was expected and
volunteers were asked to wear high visibility clothing suitable for
wet weather and to bring plenty of water. The search
was expanded beyond the scrub near Benarun Drive and into

(18:38):
the nearby Kendal and Middle Brother State forests. No stone
was left unturned, yet there was still no sign of William.
By Sunday, September fourteenth, the two day search for William
remained fruitless. However, angel told the police that she might

(19:01):
have seen something significant on Benarun Drive the day her
son vanished. After all, She said she'd completely forgotten about
it at first, but the memory had come back to
her while driving to pick up a relative from the airport.
According to Angela, on the morning William went missing, she

(19:21):
had looked out the window at around six forty and
noticed two cars parked strangely on the street. They stuck
out to her because both of their driver's side windows
had been left open, which was something you wouldn't see
in the city. Both of the cars were dirty, older
models with tinted windows and no hub caps. One was

(19:45):
a gun metal grace at dan possibly a Falcon or
a Commodore, and the other an off white station wagon
with a boxy back end, possibly a Camery. They were
parked close to one another on the road between two properties,
which Angela noted as odd given that any visitors to
the area typically parked in the driveway of whichever home

(20:08):
they were visiting. Angela hadn't mentioned any of these cars
to her mother or husband. When she'd called emergency services
to report William's disappearance, the operator had asked if she'd
seen any suspicious vehicles in the area, and Angela had
firmly answered no. No other residents of Benarun Drive recalled

(20:30):
seeing the parked cars either, but it was a helpful
bit of information for the police. While William's disappearance continued
to make the news, Peter and Angela stayed away from
the spotlight and didn't make any public appearances. As the
days passed with no sign of the three year old,

(20:52):
public conjecture started to grow about why the parents weren't talking.
The speculation only escalated when a family friend made a
national appeal for information on Peter and Angela's behalf if
they were genuinely concerned about William. The public wondered why
they weren't doing everything in their power to keep their

(21:13):
son's disappearance in the media. Some speculated that their lack
of exposure meant they had something to hide. Case file

(21:33):
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Speaker 1 (21:42):
A Cast recommends Hello, this.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Is blind By. Around every two years or so, I'm
contractually obligated to record an advertisement for my own podcast,
the blind By Podcast. I'm a writer and I like
to use the podcast space for writing. I write what
my mouth for you to read what your ears. I
write about curiosity, and I've delivered an episode every week

(22:06):
for the past eight years. I love doing this. If
you want to listen to do If you don't, I'm
sure we'll be grand, But most importantly, mind yourself.

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Blame By podcast a cast is home to the world's
best podcast, including Crime World, The Other Hand, and the
one you're.

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Listening to right now.

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Thank you for listening to this episode's ad. By supporting
our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. Peter and Angela had always wanted children
unable to have any of their own, they decided to

(22:53):
help those in need. In twenty eleven, the married couple
applied to become foster parents. They were put on the
books of what was then called the Department of Family
and Community Services or FACTS. After successfully completing the mandatory
foster care a training classes and two short term assignments.

(23:16):
As a successful couple from Sydney's affluent north Shore, Peter
and Angela made attractive candidates when Lindsay Tyrrell was placed
into the foster care system in twenty twelve. Lindsay was
sent to live with Peter and Angela, followed shortly after
by her eight month old brother William. According to those

(23:39):
who knew Peter and Angela, the two were doting foster
parents to the Tyrrell children. They gave them everything a
kid could possibly want. A play room full of toys,
regular trips to playgrounds and parks, family holidays, birthday parties,
and most importantly, a stable and comfortable home life. Peter

(24:01):
and William had a particularly strong bond, with Angela describing
the two as absolutely adoring each other. As the children
settled into their new home life, Peter and Angela transitioned
from short term careers to long term careers, making them
the legal guardians of the two Tyrrell siblings until they

(24:21):
turned eighteen. The reality was when it came to William's disappearance,
his status as a foster child made it difficult for
Peter and Angela to front the media. For starters, they
weren't illegally allowed to identify themselves as his careers. Police

(24:42):
needed permission from the relevant government departments before they were
allowed to divulge any details regarding William's family situation. Secondly,
they wanted to protect Lindsay Tyrrell's identity. If news got
out that William was a foster child, it oubted Lindsay too.

(25:03):
Based on advice from facts, Peter and Angela made the
decision to remain anonymous. This would also protect the reputation
of the department who had assigned to the children to
their care. The true identities of William's foster parents, foster grandmother,
and sister were banned from publication under court suppression orders.

(25:26):
Any journalist or reporter who broke this rule was warned
that they could face potential prosecution. Peter, Angela and Mary
a pseudonym's case file has created for clarity, while Lindsay
is the pseudonym created for her by the courts. The
decision to withhold Peter and Angela's identities from the public

(25:50):
ultimately muddied public opinion. With no face of parental grief
and desperation for the Australian public to cling onto, the
case sparked suspicion against the parents instead of compassion. But
Peter and Angela weren't the only ones feeling the weight
of this decision. William's biological mother, twenty six year old

(26:17):
Amy Tyrrell not her real name, was heavily pregnant with
her fourth child when the police knocked on her door
in Western Sydney on the evening of Friday, September twelve,
twenty fourteen. Officers entered the house and were shocked to
find a young boy matching William's description playing in the backyard.

(26:37):
One of the officers looked at Amy and said accusingly,
what have you done? But the boy wasn't William. It
was his eighteen month old brother. Amy and her partner
Tyler Martin not his real name, who was William's biological father,
were confused by the police presence. They knew they were

(27:01):
on the authority's radar for a string of domestic violence
Assaul turned a drug related offenses, and Amy's initial thought
was that there might have been a warrant out for
her arrest. When she was told that William went missing
that morning, she was in disbelief. Amy had never wanted
to put William and Lindsey into foster care, and she'd

(27:23):
been taking steps to get them back. She wondered how
her son could be missing when he'd been put into
the care of guardians who were supposed to keep him safe.
At first, Tyler thought it was a joke, but as
the police began searching their house, the reality of the
situation started to sink in. The police asked Amy and

(27:49):
Tyler about their movements that day. Tyler said he'd woken
up before sunrise to go to the local McDonald's restaurant
to grab breakfast and use the establishment's free WiFi. He
was scheduled to work that day, but he sent his
boss at text to let him know he couldn't make
it due to a shoulder injury. When Tyler got home,

(28:12):
Amy took their eighteen month old son now to shopping
for the soon to be born baby. She said. The
two caught the train to the suburb of Blacktown, visiting
various shops and making several purchases along the way before
returning home at around four pm. The police were dubious.

(28:33):
After all, if Amy or Tyler had anything to do
with the William's disappearance, it wouldn't be the first time.
Amy Tyrrell and Tyler Martin were both raised in low
socioeconomic conditions and each struggled with their own set of

(28:53):
personal issues and run ins with the law. In two
thousand and eight, they were introduced by one of Amy's brothers,
and they later began dating. It wasn't long before Amy
became pregnant with Lindsay, but the young couple struggled. They
had limited support and finances, and the demands of parenthood

(29:14):
took a toll on their already volatile relationship. One night,
after the couple had a fight, Amy began drinking heavily.
She was pushing Lindsay in a pram on the street
when police spotted her and thought she was acting erratically.
Concerned for the baby's safety, they approached Amy and one

(29:35):
of the officers tried to take Lindsay away. Amy subsequently
punched the officer in the face. The incident was reported
to FACTS and Lindsey was handed over to the state
and eventually put into Peter and Angela's care. By the
time Amy gave birth to William, he was already on

(29:56):
the department's radar for potential foster care. FACTS believed that
Amy and Tyler's toxic and often violent relationship created an
unsafe home environment for children. The department therefore ruled that
Amy wouldn't be able to keep William if she continued
living with Tyler. The couple stayed together, but told the

(30:20):
authorities their relationship had ended. Eventually, they were caught out
and the New South Wales Family Court ordered that William
be handed over to FACTS. Determined to keep William, Amy
and Tyler took him and went on the run. A
police task force was assembled and several weeks later the

(30:42):
family was found hiding out in a small flat in
Sydney's Upper north Shore. William was taken from his biological
parents and reunited with Lindsay in the custody of Peter
and Angela. As per standard procedure, Ami and Tyler were
forbidden from having any contact with the foster carers, and

(31:05):
they were only granted the occasional supervised visits with William
and de Lindsay. Each of these visits was overseen by
a social worker. At first, the visits were weekly, then monthly,
and then eventually by the time William went missing for
one hour every two months, Amy and Tyler reluctantly adhered

(31:29):
to these rules with every intention of regaining custody of
their children. They undertook anger management courses, counseling, and joint
parenting groups, unaware that the foster parents were already thinking
about formal adoption. As soon as the police looking into
William Tyrell's disappearance became aware of his family situation, the

(31:52):
possibility was raised that Amy and Tyler could have taken him.
Yet the pair were adamant that they had nothing to
do with it. They both insisted they wouldn't do anything
that could hinder their chances of legally regaining custody of
their kids. They also knew how close William and Lindsay

(32:13):
were and wouldn't dare take one without the other. Police
checked CCTV footage, bank statements, and receipts, all of which
backed up the couple's claims that they were nowhere near
Candle on the day William went missing. The futile search

(32:35):
for William Tyrrel continued for five days until police concluded
that if he had simply gotten lost in the bush,
it was no longer possible that he could still be alive. Instead,
Strike Force Rozanne was created as investigators began to operate
under the assumption that the three year old had been
abducted and possibly killed. The fact that William's disappearance had

(33:01):
been treated as a missing person case from the get
go instead of a major crime, presented some problems for
the investigation. For starters, Mary Saunder's house on Beniruon Drive
had never been considered a crime scene, and therefore it
wasn't courted off or properly secured. With hundreds of volunteers,

(33:22):
visitors and official personnel having already trampled through the yard
and at surrounds, any forensic evidence such as footprints, tire
tracks or DNA were long gone or contaminated. Cars had
also been free to come and go from the area.
Without being checked. In addition, the police had searched some

(33:45):
of the twenty one houses on the street, but not
all of them, with some of their residents having been
relied upon to conduct their own searchers. If William had
been taken, each of these factors meant that vital evidence
or a person of interest could have been overlooked. Police
had no way of knowing what they might have missed.

(34:08):
In Australia, it is extremely rare for a child to
be abducted by a stranger. The person responsible is typically
a relative or someone close to the family. Therefore, Peter
and Angela were obvious suspects. Accepting this uncomfortable fact, the
couple willingly handed over their phones, vehicles, and computers for

(34:33):
forensic analysis. Eager to be ruled out, police looked into
Peter's claims that he'd been in the next town over
at the time William disappeared. Phone records and CCTV footage
confirmed that he'd been in Lakewood at the time in question.
Peter had made a conference call that lasted for thirty

(34:55):
nine minutes before making another call and then ducking into
a grocery store to buy newspaper. Police considered the possibility
that William could have died by accident and his foster
family had disposed of his body and then faked his
disappearance out of sheer panic, but they found absolutely no

(35:15):
evidence to support such a theory, and by all accounts,
Peter and Angela's desperation to find William seemed completely genuine.
Lindsay had also been present when William went missing, and
she hadn't said anything to the police to raise suspicion
on her foster parents. When questioned about what William had

(35:37):
been doing before he went missing, Lindsay told police that
he was running out to see Daddy's car. Police also
considered the possibility that William's biological parents could have organized
to have someone snatch William on their behalf. The problem
with this theory was that Amy and Tyler didn't even

(35:58):
know William and Lindsey's fostercare's names or their address. Furthermore,
no one had told Amy and Tyler that the trip
to Kendall was going ahead. While the foster care agency
had approved the trip, the biological parents weren't made aware
of it. The trip to Kendall had also gone ahead

(36:21):
a day earlier than was originally planned. Peter and Angela
told the police they had been scheduled to drive up
on Friday night, but Peter had finished work early on Thursday,
so they'd decided to get a head start on the
bumper to bumper traffic that typically jammed the Pacific Highway
on Fridays. They had picked William and Lindsay up from

(36:44):
daycare early on Thursday afternoon and headed straight to Kendall
from there, stopping only to have dinner at McDonald's and
to change the kids into their pajamas. The unplanned nature
of the trip ruled out the possibility that it was
a targeted attack. As far as Peter and Angela were aware,

(37:04):
no one had followed them on their drive from Sydney
to Candle either. Police checked CCTV footage of their journey
and the stops they'd made along the way, but found
nothing to indicate the family was being trailed. The footage
from their stopover at McDonald's showed William joyfully riding into

(37:25):
the restaurant on Peter's shoulders, the very image of a
happy family. Both William's foster parents and his biological parents
were ruled out as suspects. Regardless the possibility that William
could have been snatched in an opportunistic attack was difficult

(37:48):
for investigators to comprehend. Beniruon Drive was a safe place
where none of the other residents had ever encountered anything untoward,
and children played on the street without fear. The isolated
location of Mary Saunder's house at the end of the street,
coupled with the lack of street traffic in the area,

(38:09):
meant that a kidnapper would have had to coincidentally walk
or drive past in the mere minutes that William jumped
around the side of the house unsupervised. Had such a
rare moment occurred, it would have taken an incredibly brazen
offender to snatch a child in broad daylight with his
family just meters away, on a quiet street where any

(38:31):
of the neighbors could have easily noticed and outsider. Several
residents were home at the time, and all of them
said they hadn't noticed anyone or anything out of the ordinary.
None of them had been expecting any visitors on the
morning that William went missing either. Still, police couldn't discount

(38:52):
the possibility that someone could have dropped by without warning,
seen William and made the split second des decision to
take him. It was also possible that William had heard
a car coming and ran onto the street thinking it
was his father arriving home, before being snatched, However unlikely.

(39:14):
Investigators also theorized that someone could have heard the children
playing earlier that morning and to lay in wait, ready
to strike if an opportunity arose. If so, they would
have had to move incredibly fast. The fact that William
was wearing the distinct Spider Man outfit would have made
it easy for someone to initiate a conversation with him,

(39:37):
as it was an immediate talking point that would have
appealed to William. A perpetrator could have used that to
lure the young boy away voluntarily, or simply grabbed him
and forced his silence. According to Angela, when she first
realized that William went missing, she was struck by how

(39:57):
silent everything had gone. Then she thought she heard a short,
high pitched scream coming from the bush land, the type
of scream a child would make if they'd hurt themselves.
Angela said she had ventured into the reeds towards the
direction of the sound, but couldn't see any splashes of
red from William's spider Man suit. She had brushed it

(40:22):
off as her imagination, thinking it must have been a bird.
Kendall was home to a species of bird known as
a catbird, which makes a sound very similar to that
of a crying child. At the end of Benaroon Drive,
a dirt fire truck leads into the dense scrub. If

(40:44):
the perpetrator had been on foot, this could have provided
an escape route for them to grab William and run
off undetected, but the terrain in the surrounding bush was
rough and running off with a three year old boy
would have been no easy feet. If this was indeed
a random, opportunistic attack, everyone agreed it would be one

(41:07):
of the rarest and most unfortunate cases of William Tyrell
being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When
asked if anyone unusual lived in the area, Mary Saunders
pinpointed one person, a former taxi driver aged in his
fifties who mostly kept to himself. While there wasn't anything

(41:31):
overtly suspicious about him, he lived alone in a small
house surrounded by bush land, where he kept odd hours,
typically sleeping during the day and hanging around his house
at night. In the days following William Tyrell's disappearance, some
neighbors noticed that the taxi driver had uncharacteristically left his house.

(41:52):
When he returned home a couple of days later, he
was carrying a backpack and walked around his property as
though checking each of his windows before going inside. An
officer went to visit the former taxi driver and notice
something odd. A box had been installed over one of
his windows, making it impossible to see inside. When questioned

(42:17):
about his whereabouts on the day of William's disappearance, the
taxi driver claimed he'd been sleeping at home alone, an
alibia that couldn't be verified. The officer noted that the
man had a small red mark on his wrist. A
cursory search of the property revealed a step ladder in
the laundry that led up to a manhole. The officer

(42:40):
climbed to the ladder, wondering if the manhole could be
used as a hiding place, but it was obvious the
manhole hadn't been accessed in some time. When the police
returned to visit the taxi driver again, his television had
been paused on a news channel providing updates about William's disappearance.

(43:02):
Although this indicated he was keeping an eye on the story.
Police found nothing to suggest he was involved in the
crime in any way. The taxi driver soon sold his
house and moved out of Kendall, saying there was too
much activity in the area. By day fourteen of the
hunt for William, Line searchers had painstakingly covered an area

(43:26):
of eighteen square kilometers. Various items were found, including an
abandoned children's cubbyhouse, number plates from a stolen vehicle, animal bones,
a shovel, a spear gun, and other miscellaneous items, but
all of them were ruled out of having anything to
do with William's disappearance, and still there was no sign

(43:49):
of him, investigators had no choice but to scale the
search back. Instead, they turned their focus to known sex
offenders in the area. This was no easy task. Within
the thirty kilometer radius of Benarun Drive alone, eighteen known

(44:10):
sex offenders lived among the rural properties. Just further beyond
that lived another sixty Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubilin, who
would later come to Front Strike Force. Rozanne remarked, it's
as if they've settled on this quiet, overlooked backwater like mosquitoes.

(44:34):
Detective Jubilan told reporters that police intended to track the
movements of everyone who was within a one kilometer radius
of Benarun Drive on the day William went missing. If
anyone who had been in the area failed to come
forward and identify themselves, Jubilan warned, it would give the
police grave concerns and be an immediate cause for suspicion.

(44:58):
CCTV footage was collected from twelve businesses around Kendall. Police
were particularly interested in the footage captured by the Kendal
Tennis Club between five and eleven on the morning of Friday,
September twelve, twenty fourteen. This camera faced one of the
main roads leading in and out of the village and

(45:19):
there was a chance that had captured the abductor's car. However,
the footage was grainy and only captured the sides of
the vehicles, not their number plates, making it difficult to
identify the cars that came and went. However, there were
numerous roads leading to Benarun Drive, and it was possible
the kidnapper hadn't been captured on any cameras at all.

(45:44):
Although William Tyrell's disappearance had made national headlines, Investigative resources
were limited, and questioning witnesses and persons of interest was
a time consuming task. Police were also inundated with reported
side of William coming from all over the country. It
didn't help that Spider Man costumes were incredibly popular amongst

(46:08):
young boys. Every potential lead, citing and piece of information
was diligently recorded, but the hard part for police was
figuring out which to prioritize. They worked tirelessly for several months,
checking one hundred and sixty nine CCTV cameras from outside

(46:29):
Candle as well as analyzing data from traffic cameras and
mobile phone towers. But things moved slowly, and as the
year drew to an end, they didn't seem to be
any closer to finding William. Then a call came in
from someone who wanted to report a member of the
community as a potential person of interest. Four days before

(46:57):
William Tyrell went missing, his grandmother Mary called a local
Whitewoods repair company called Spedo's Repairs, after her washing machine
stopped working. The business owner, sixty three year old Bill Spedding,
came to the house to provide a quote, only to
discover that he needed to order a new part. He

(47:18):
told Mary he would come back to conduct the repairs
whenever the part came in. On Friday September twelve, just
ninety minutes before William vanished, Angela had called Bill Spedding
on her mother's behalf to follow up on the replacement part,
as the washing machine still wasn't working. The call had

(47:40):
gone straight to voicemail, so she left a message asking
Spedding to call her back. Mary said that he would
likely show up at any time without prior notice. That's
just how things were done in Candle. Given that Bill
Spedding was one of the few visitors to Benarun in

(48:00):
the days leading up to William's disappearance, police had already
taken him in for questioning. In the early stages of
the investigation, Spedding had confirmed to details about the initial
repair call out, but he denied having received a follow
up phone call from Angela. On September twelve, police confiscated

(48:21):
Spedding's phone and found no record of Angela's voicemail. This
was immediately suspicious. Police already had Angela's phone data confirming
she had made the call to Bill Spedding, leaving officers
to wonder if he had deleted it if he had
nothing to do with William's disappearance. They wondered why he

(48:43):
would do such a thing, but Bill Spedding steadfastly denied
having ever received the message at all. He also claimed
to have an alibia. For the day of William's disappearance.
According to Spedding, he and his wife Margaret had coffee
at a local cafe, leaving around nine forty five am

(49:05):
to attend a school assembly where their grandson had received
an award. Afterwards, Spedding said he went back to his
office and worked a normal day before picking his grandchildren
up from school. While Spedding said his wife was the
only one who could verify his alibi, police weren't overly

(49:26):
concerned until the tip off came through from a member
of the public to report that Bill Spedding had been
accused of sexually assaulting two young girls in the past.
It was alleged that in nineteen eighty seven, Spedding had
sexually assaulted a three and five year old during an
overnight stay in a caravan park. Another tipster also came

(49:50):
forward to report having seen Spedding access some storage sheds
he owned six hours inland from Kendall. On the day
after William disappeared. Suddenly, Bill Spedding was looking much more
interesting to the police. They obtained bank statements from the
cafe Spedding claimed to have dined at on the morning

(50:11):
William Tyrell went missing, and confirmed that he and Margaret
had indeed been there at nine forty two. However, the
cafe was only an eighteen minute car trip from Benaroon Drive.
If Spedding was lying about attending his grandson's school assembly,
police theorized that he could have driven to Mary's house

(50:33):
to work on her washing machine when he'd come across
William and made the split second decision to snatch him.
They questioned school faculty members and some other parents who
attended the assembly on the day in question, but given
the passing of time, no one could specifically recall seeing
Bill Spedding there, although they said that the assemblies occurred

(50:58):
frequently and each one to blur into the other. One
woman had taken photos of the event on September twelve,
but she had since dropped her phone in the toilet
and lost its contents. Strikeforce investigators were conflicted about how
to act if they decided to pursue a raid on

(51:20):
Spedding's home and business. The news would surely leak if
Spedding found out he was a suspect. This would give
him a chance to destroy any potential evidence. But if
they got it right, they just might find William Tyrrell.

(51:44):
Case File will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting
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Thank you for listening to this episode's ad. By supporting
our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. On Tuesday, January twenty two, twenty fifteen,
just over four months after William Tyrell disappeared, detectives from

(53:05):
Strikeforce Rozanne descended on Bill Spedding's home in Bonnie Hills,
a small town twenty kilometers northeast of Kendall. He lived
there with his wife and three grandchildren, for whom they
were the current legal guardians. It was a dramatic scene,
with an excavator, cadaver dog, and forensic experts on standby.

(53:28):
The search team scoured each room of the house and
the dark, dank recesses of the basement before turning their
attention to the yard and a woodpile outside. A plumber
was even brought in to drain the property's septic tank.
Eleven kilometers from Kendall, in the coastal town of Loreton,

(53:48):
a search was also conducted at Spedding's office, as feared
news of the raids had leaked, and throngs of media
gathered outside both properties, ready to capture any breaks in
the story. Police seized phones, computers, and a mattress, but
found no sign of William. There was one item of

(54:10):
particular interest found in his van, though a spider man toy.
Bill Spedding was taken into custody and subject to six
hours of grueling interrogation. Investigators put it to him that
on Friday September twelve, twenty fourteen, he showed up at
a Benaroon drive to fix Mary Saunders's washing machine, but

(54:34):
saw William playing outside and made the snap decision to
abduct him. They suggested that Spedding had taken the three
year old in his work van and quickly fled the scene.
Spedding strongly rejected these allegations. He stuck by his alibi
and denied having deleted a voicemail from Angela on the

(54:55):
day William went missing. As for the spider mantoy found
in his van, he claimed it belonged to one of
his grandchildren. His wife supported this, saying one of the
kids had given it to Spedding to keep him company
while he worked, but detectives weren't convinced. They thought there

(55:17):
was something off about Spedding and that he had a
sly way of answering questions. Regardless, with nothing eventuating from
the raids, he was free to go. By this point,
Bill Spedding's potential involvement in William's disappearance was a hot
topic around town. A month before the raids, he had

(55:39):
shared a Facebook post from another user that contained a
picture of William Tyrell and rad to day, somebody is
keeping a secret. They got up this morning, had breakfast,
realized that they need to pick up some more milk,
made some calls, all the while maintaining a poker face.

(56:02):
Some viewed this as Spedding's way of taunting the police,
as though to say catch me if you can. A
week after the raids on Bill Spedding's properties, the investigation
was officially handed over to Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubilin
after the case's initial lead Detective Retired Detective jubilan was

(56:26):
a veteran of the New South Wales Police Force. Known
for his tenacity and resoluteness. Jubilin applied disciplined thinking and
creative policing to help solve some of the country's most
high profile murder cases. He also worked on the Bauerville murders,
as covered in episode one eight six of Case File,

(56:47):
and on the Matt Levison case covered in the Case
File presant series Maddie. Although he had a hard edge,
Jubilin was admired by victim's families for his genuinely and
compassionate nature. He was the kind of detective who took
each case personally, giving the investigation his' all and refusing

(57:09):
to accept mediocrity. He promised William's foster family he would
do everything he could to find William. By the time
William had been missing for six months, police interviewed an
elderly Candle resident after hearing he had some information that
could be useful to the investigation. Ronald Chapman lived on

(57:32):
Laurel Street, about half a kilometer from Benaron Drive. At
around ten forty five on the morning that William went missing,
Ronald claimed that he had stepped outside to check the mail.
A fawn colored four wheel drive sped past, rounding the
corner so fast that loose gravel flew onto Ronald's lawn.

(57:55):
In the back seat, Ronald saw a young boy matching
William Tyrrel's dist description, standing up without a seatbold on.
He had a bewildered look on his face and was
wearing a blue and red outfit with black patterns on it,
resembling a Spider Man costume. The car was being driven
by a woman, who Ronald described as a plump blonde

(58:18):
in her thirties. A blue sedan with a mail driver
sped behind in close proximity, as though the two vehicles
were traveling together. Ronald said he swore at the woman
under his breath for driving so fast with an unrestrained
child on board. Police weren't sure what to make of

(58:40):
this information. Ronald was adamant that the incident had happened,
but it begged the question of why he hadn't reported
it sooner. Ronald claimed that when he heard about William's disappearance,
he did tell some acquaintances about what he'd seen. He
assumed they would pass the information onto a local officer

(59:02):
they were friendly with, and expected police to come and
question him about it. When they didn't, he just assumed
they had more significant leeds worth following. Ronald was known
to be an honest man with a knife at detail,
but some relatives who were staying with him at the
time of this supposed incident said he'd never mentioned it.

(59:26):
When pressed by detectives, Ronald admitted he could have dreamt
the whole thing, but when shown a photo of William,
he was certain it was the same boy that he'd
seen for William's foster parents. The decision to return to
Sydney after William's disappearance had not been easy, but they

(59:50):
felt there was little they could do to help in
Kendall and they needed life to return to as normal
as possible for Lindsey. While the case continued making national headlines,
things were tainted by the mysterious nature surrounding William's family status.
The public still hadn't been made aware that William was

(01:00:11):
a foster child, and suspicion continued to be cast upon
his parents. The fact that they weren't talking led many
to believe the family had something to hide, with their
enigmatic status hindering public sympathy. The Strikeforce bargained with the
Department of Family and Community Services to let them release

(01:00:33):
an interview with Angela and Peter online. While it still
couldn't be revealed that William was a foster child, the
aim of the video was to let people know he
was dearly loved and sorely missed, and to give the
foster parents the chance to plead for his return. The

(01:00:53):
twenty one minute video interview went ahead in April twenty fifteen,
over six months after William vanished. While Peter and Angela's
faces were blanked out. They could be heard crying as
they talked about their love for the cheeky and vibrant
little boy, describing their ordeal as a living nightmare. I

(01:01:15):
just can't believe it's happened, Angela said. We just don't
have our boy. We just we have no idea where
he is. We don't know who's got him. We don't
know what's happening to him. We know nothing about it.
We just want it to be over. The couple said
they continued to hold hopes that William would be found alive.

(01:01:39):
Angela pleaded, if somebody has him, and if he is alive,
I want him to be safe. I want him to
be feeling loved, and I want someone to be looking
after him, because to imagine something else is going on,
we can't live a life like that. We need to
know where he is. His sister can't grow up and

(01:02:00):
never knowing what happened to her brother. Just to give
him back, take him to a church, take him to
a police station, take him to a school, give him back,
give him back. The video provoked to mixed responses. While
some people felt deeply for the grieving family, others questioned

(01:02:24):
why their identities continued to be withheld online. Sleuths wondered
whether the parents were involved in the crime, were in
witness protection, or were part of something dangerous like a
criminal gang. The police did their best to dispel these suspicions,
but the questions loomed over public opinion like a dark cloud.

(01:02:49):
Peter and Angela began working with a not for profit
public relations firm as a means to communicate with the
public without having to reveal their faces. Together, they created
a campaign titled Where's William, which included the launch of
a website, billboards, and social media. The aim of the

(01:03:10):
campaign was to provide the community with more information about
William's disappearance, while hopefully generating information that could assist with
the investigation and ultimately bring the little boy home. They
created missing person posters that the public and businesses could share,
with coasters placed in pubs in the hopes someone might

(01:03:31):
become loose lipped after one too many drinks. To coincide
with the launch, Peter and Angela released a statement that
rad in part, this has torn away the fabric and
foundation of our life as we know it. There is
a huge gap of space emptiness in our lives that

(01:03:51):
we feel. Without William being here with us, we have
been entirely shattered, emotionally exhausted, physically and mentally beaten. This
is a pure living nightmare. William's sister continues to ask
where her brother is and when he'll be home. We've

(01:04:12):
tried so hard to keep life as normal as possible
for her, reminding her how loved and safe she is
even though William is not here. They were like two
peas in a pod. For those who have families and
children of their own, this is so unbelievably confronting. If
it could happen to us, it could happen to them. Meanwhile,

(01:04:41):
the implications against Whitewood's repairman, Bill Spedding kept coming. One
of his neighbors, a man named Dean Pollard, came forward
to claim that on Saturday, September thirteenth, twenty fourteen, the
day after William Tyrrell went missing, he saw Spedding's work
driving down a dirt track. It was near an area

(01:05:04):
of dense forest colloquially known as Ghost Road. Dean claimed
that when Spedding saw him, he ducked down to avoid
being spotted. Dean told police it was definitely Bill's van,
I would know it anywhere. With this new information coming

(01:05:26):
to light, a major search was organized of the bushlands
surrounding the area in question. If William's body had been
left out in the elements, police were aware that there
would be nothing left at this point but his small
skeletal remains, which would be easy to miss. However, if
he was buried with his clothes on, the polyester spider

(01:05:48):
Man suit would take hundreds of years to disintegrate, and
the rubber soles of his shoes would take decades. Dozens
of uniformed police officers searched with the help of cat adogs,
but found nothing relevant to the William Tyrell investigation. Yet
something of interest did come out of it. While the

(01:06:12):
search was underway, camera crews were on standby ready to
capture any discoveries. As the cameras rolled, they captured Bill
Spedding's van as it drove right past the search site,
with Spedding looking out the window. When questioned, Spedding denied
having been anywhere near Ghost Road. On September thirteen, He

(01:06:35):
claimed he had been celebrating the end of the football
season at the local footy club approximately twenty kilometers away.
Although police still had no evidence against Spedding in relation
to William tyrrel suspicion against him was growing. The allegations
that he'd sexually assaulted two young girls in the past

(01:06:56):
were enough to warrant an arrest If police brought Spedding
in for that crime. Their hopes were that with enough pressure,
he might cave and admit to being involved with William's disappearance.
On Wednesday, April twenty two, twenty fifteen, almost seven and
a half months after William went missing, a team of

(01:07:19):
detectives arrived at Bill Spedding's house in Bonnie Hills. They
placed him under arrest for the historic sexual assault crimes
he'd been accused of. He was charged with five counts
of sexual intercourse with a child under ten, as well
as two counts of common assault. Spedding vehemently denied the allegations.

(01:07:43):
He claimed the crimes were fabricated by his ex wife
during a time when the two were going through a
bitter divorce and custody battle. At the time, his ex
wife had been advised not to pursue the charges due
to lack of evidence, and a judge had thrown the
entire case out. This time, Spedding was held in jail

(01:08:04):
pending the outcome of a trial. Bill Spedding's cellmate was
a sex offender in his late fifties named Tony Jones,
who was serving a three year sentence. Although Jones had
a master long criminal rap sheet that included charges for assault,
breaking and entering, and various drug offenses, his latest charge

(01:08:29):
was one of the more vile. Jones had joined a
local community group called Grandparents as Parents Again, which supported
older people who had been given custody of their grandchildren
for various reasons. Jones used his position to take advantage
of a young, intellectually disabled girl by overdosing her with

(01:08:51):
autism medication and sexually assaulting her while she was semi conscious.
He was subsequently convicted of aggravated old sexual assault. The
fact that Tony Jones and Bill Spedding were cellmates was
no accident. Jones, who lived twenty three kilometers from Kendall

(01:09:13):
in the town of Warhope, had also been established as
a person of interest in William Tyrell's disappearance. On the
day William went missing, the unemployed former truck driver left
home early, telling his partner Debbie, he was going out
into the bush with their son to collect scripe metal,
but Debbie soon found their son at home with no

(01:09:36):
knowledge of this supposed doubting. Enraged, she waited at home
to confront Jones about the lie. When Jones returned home
at around two pm on September twelve, Debbie claimed he
was so intoxicated he could barely speak. This wasn't out
of the ordinary. Jones was an alcoholic, often scroundeding up

(01:10:00):
scrap metal that he could trade for beer money. He
allegedly told Debbie he'd been out drinking with his mate
Paul Bickford. Bickford was the former president of Grandparents as
Parents Again, who had once been named Senior Volunteer of
the Year, But far from heroic, Bickford removed himself from

(01:10:22):
the group after he was accused of sexually assaulting an
intellectually disabled eleven year old girl while on a drive
to buy her lollies. The separate sex offenses committed by
Tony Jones and Paul Bickford ultimately came to light during
the investigation into William Tyrell's disappearance, and both men faced

(01:10:44):
charges for their crimes. Police explored the possibility that the
two men could have been part of a pedophile ring,
but given they were both more solitary predators, this was
deemed unlikely. However, there was something about Tony Jones that
the police couldn't ignore. His partner, Debbie, drove a white

(01:11:06):
station wagon similar to the one William's foster mother claimed
to have spotted on Benaroon Drive on the morning of
William's disappearance. Additionally, his habit of collecting scrap metal meant
he had intimate knowledge of the bushland around Kendall and surrounds. Jones,

(01:11:26):
who no longer had a driver's license, told police he
didn't have access to the white station wagon. This was
disputed by several witnesses, who said he often took it
without Debbie's knowledge. Jones also gave various alibis for the
morning of Friday, September twelve, twenty fourteen. First, he claimed

(01:11:49):
he was out in Bago State Forest collecting scrap metal
on his own. Then he changed his mind and said
he was out chopping wood. Later, he changed his story
entirely and said he was offsourcing a hot water heater
from a neighbor. He denied ever being with Paul Bickford,
despite telling his partner that the two had been drinking together.

(01:12:14):
At around lunchtime on the day William went missing, a
man was walking his dog around the bush tracks near
Queen's Lake in Loreton. He looked over and noticed a
tanned man with a mustache sitting in a parked car
with fogged up windows. Something about the way the man
was acting seemed suspicious. The dog walker waved at the man,

(01:12:38):
who quickly wound up his window in response. When the
dog walker returned from his stroll, the car and the
man were gone. He didn't think much of it until
he saw Tony Jones in the newspaper eight months later
and immediately recognized him as the occupant of the vehicle.

(01:12:59):
What's more, the car in question was an old white
Toyota Camry station wagon. Jones denied being near Queen's Lake
that day. He said it couldn't have been him, as
he had emphysema and couldn't sit in a car with
the windows rolled up. Debby's white station wagon was towed

(01:13:21):
and taken in for forensic testing, but nothing of interest
to the William Tyrell investigation was found. However, it wasn't
the only vehicle that could be linked to Jones. Police
later received a tip off from some one who had
come across a silver car abandoned in the Candle bush land.

(01:13:42):
They recognized it as the same make and model as
a vehicle belonging to Jones. The informant led police to
the area, but when they got to the location, they
found that the car had been overturned and set on fire.
Jones's companion, Paul Bickford, also denied any involvement in William's disappearance.

(01:14:07):
He claimed he wasn't with Tony Jones on September twelve
at all, but forty one kilometers away in Port Macquarie,
having lunch with Franz, although he couldn't recall which France
or where they ate. In a bizarre coincidence, Bill Spedding
and Tony Jones had once lived across the street from

(01:14:28):
one another. Police hoped that by pairing them in a
cell together, one of them might be compelled to say
something incriminating to the other about William Tyrrell, but the
plan didn't work, and three months after Bill Spedding's arrest
for the unrelated child sex crimes, he was granted conditional

(01:14:49):
bail and allowed to return home pending trial. News of
his arrest had made national headlines with the inference that
he was the prime suspect in Willlliam's abduction. This had
a hugely detrimental impact on Spedding's family and business, and
he took it upon himself to try to change the

(01:15:09):
public's perception. Within days of his release from jail, a
video appeared online. Reading from a pre prepared script. Spedding
offered his condolences to William's family and stated that he
had no involvement whatsoever in the young boy's disappearance, but

(01:15:30):
the damage to his reputation was already done, with many
thinking the bizarre video did nothing but further solidify his guild.
In September twenty fifteen, as the one year anniversary of
William's disappearance approached, police released the details about the two

(01:15:51):
cars Angela had seen on Benaruon Drive on the morning
William went missing for the first time. Many questioned why
they had waited so long to do this, as vital
witness accounts could be forgotten due to the time lapsed.
The recording of Angela's call to emergency services was also
released in the hopes it might elicit an emotional response

(01:16:15):
and prompt a new witness to come forward. To mark
the anniversary and to support the ongoing search, thousands of
people participated in community walks held across the country. Organizers
of the Walk for William Evance hoped the show of
support would encourage somebody to come forward with information, with

(01:16:37):
one walk held as far away as Canada. Detective Inspector
Gary Jubilin had been working tirelessly on the case and
to the anniversary was a rude awakening. By this point,
the strikeforce had been presented with every possible theory, from
the credible to the ludicrous. With thousands of lines of

(01:16:59):
inquiry still to be followed, there weren't enough hands on
deck or hours in the day, and the work continued
to pile up. Detective jubilan remarked to the press, the
anniversary is a milestone that no one in the community
or family wanted to reach. Twelve months without finding out

(01:17:20):
what happened to William. From a police point of view,
that plays very heavily on us. We feel like we've
let them down. By December that year, the strike force
was no closer to finding answers William's foster parents released
a Christmas poem to keep the case in the public consciousness.

(01:17:43):
It read, in part, Christmas is a time for happiness.
It's a time when families come together and hold each
other tight. But not our family, and not this Christmas night,
while our beautiful little boy William is still missing, absent
from our side. We love you, our darling boy. You

(01:18:06):
were never far from our thoughts. We remember everything about you,
your amazing laugh, your kindness and the love you share
with your sister, Your complete adoration of your daddy, your
funny faces for Mummy, your kisses, your hugs and your tears.
We remember your first words, your first steps, your first fears.

(01:18:31):
We miss everything about you, our beautiful little boy. Although
Peter and Angela had been cleared from the investigation in
its very early stages, some among the strike force thought
it was worth looking into them again to be one
hundred percent sure. Some questions had arisen about a possible

(01:18:53):
inconsistency in Angela's story. In police interviews, she had claimed
that William was wearing shoes at the time he went missing. However,
in the photos she'd taken of William at nine thirty
seven am just minutes before he disappeared. He'd been barefoot.
His shoes a pair of sandals with vulcro straps, sat

(01:19:16):
near the back door. Members of the public had also
responded negatively to the recording of her call to police.
Many thought she sounded much too calm for a mother
whose child had just gone missing. The couple were summoned
to the police station under the guise of it being

(01:19:36):
a routine appointment. Once they arrived, they were separated and
interrogated at length about the day of William's disappearance. Detective
Jubilant went hard on them. Asked about the shoes. Angela
said William had been barefoot when she took the photos,

(01:19:57):
but she had told him to put shoes on, which
she was capable of doing on his own because there
were prickly weeds and dog feces in the grass. Unbeknownst
to the couple, while all this was going down, covert
listening devices were placed in their car. If Peter and
Angela had anything to hide, police hoped that they might

(01:20:20):
divulge something important as they discussed what they had just
experienced on their drive home, but both of their stories
remained unchanged and nothing of interest was captured in the
covert recordings. Detective Jubilan was confident that there was absolutely
no evidence that raised any suspicion in regards to their involvement,

(01:20:43):
and again they were eliminated from the investigation. By September
twenty sixteen, the search for William Tyrrell had become one
of the largest eva in Australian history. A second arm
of the Strike Force was established purely to work through
the one thousand plus names that police had identified as

(01:21:06):
potential persons of interest. Detectives were required to travel all
over the country to locate each individual and cross them
off the list, but despite the epic scale of work
being put in, the investigation continued with no significant breakthroughs.
Strikeforce detectives wanted to offer a reward for information, but

(01:21:28):
they knew what would need to be a sizeable amount
of money if it was going to encourage anyone to speak.
As Detective Jubilan explained, it would need to be enough
money to make a wife turn against her husband, or
for one pedophile to betray another. With support from the
new South Wales Police Commissioner and the state Premier, they

(01:21:52):
got their wish. On the second anniversary of William Tyrell's
disappearance a one million dollar reward announced. At the time,
it was the largest reward ever offered in New South Wales,
and the announcement was broadcast heavily on television and shared
across social media. When nobody tried to claim it, investigators

(01:22:16):
drew two conclusions. Either William's abductor had acted alone and
not hold a soul, or if more than one person
had been involved. None of the offenders were prepared to
wrap the others out. The Strike Force continued questioning known
sex offenders and pedophiles. Some officers were given the grim

(01:22:39):
task of viewing child exploitation material in case William could
be identified in footage or photographs. It was a brutal
job that took a severe emotional toll, but members of
the Strike Force persevered with one ultimate goal to bring
William Tyrrell home. In mid twenty sixteen, the Department of

(01:23:06):
Housing received an application that made them stop in their tracks.
A woman named Kim Loki had applied for a home
in Sydney, citing William Tyrrell's biological grandmother, Tracy Martin, not
her real name, as her intended roommate. The two women
had worked together in the past and had recently rekindled

(01:23:29):
their friendship, with Kim posting photos of herself and to
Tracy together online to acknowledge their bond. But there was
something that rang alarm bells for the Department of Housing.
Kim had applied for a three bedroom house, even though
she stated that she and Tracy would be the only occupants.

(01:23:51):
When William had been a baby and his biological parents
had hidden him from the authorities, Tracy Martin had apparently
helped them. This led the department to question whether that
third bedroom was intended for William. Perhaps Kim had been
helping hide him all along. The department notified the police,

(01:24:14):
who placed Kim under covert surveillance. What they discovered was shocking.
Kim drove a gray Holden Commodore Sedan similar in color
and shape to one of the vehicles Angela claimed to
have spotted on Bennerum Drive on the day of William's disappearance.
Kim was also a former customer of Bill Spedding, having

(01:24:39):
hired him to fix her washing machine several years prior.
But perhaps most alarming, one of Kim's flatmates had a
notable brother in law person of interest in the William
Tyrrell case convicted sex offender Tony Jones. She was also
friends with the Joneses now ex partner, Debbie. When questioned

(01:25:04):
about her whereabouts on Friday September twelve, twenty fourteen, Kim
Loki claimed she was at home in Sydney, some three
hundred and sixty kilometers from Kendall, but she had nothing
to verify her other by. Her explanation for wanting a
third bedroom was that she needed a studio for her art.

(01:25:27):
Kim appeared on Channel nine's A Current Affair program to
deny having anything to do with William's disappearance. She rejected
allegations that it was her car seen on Benirun Drive,
stating I wouldn't be gained to do stuff like that,
kidnapping a little kid. The heat was placed on William's

(01:25:49):
biological grandmother, Tracy Martin, until another twist emerged. Tracy wasn't
close friends with Kim Loki at all. The two women
were nothing more than former work colleagues. Kim had used
photos of them taken at a work function years prior
as testimony to their friendship and had simply wanted to

(01:26:13):
ingratiate herself into the William Tyrell investigation. She tried to
sue a current affair for money they promised her for
the interview, but the case was thrown out of court.
The fact that William was a foster child had been
publicly discussed online by those invested in the case, but

(01:26:37):
by mid twenty seventeen this fact still hadn't been officially clarified.
It continued to muddy public perception, with sympathy for the
anonymous family slowly dissipating in the eyes of those who
viewed them as detached. A woman who wasn't connected to
either of the families in any way took it upon

(01:26:58):
herself to fire to make this detail public. Having been
sexually assaulted in a foster home during her own adolescence,
the woman became an advocate for other foster children and
believed the public had a right to know the truth
about William's family situation. The case went to court, where

(01:27:19):
lawyers for the Department of Family and Community Services argued
that there was a stigma attached to being a foster child.
If William was ever found alive, this stigma would follow
him for life. Likewise, his sister Lindsey would suffer from
the same stigma. William's foster parents agreed that they wanted

(01:27:40):
to keep this information secret, along with their identities. Up
until this point, William's biological parents, Amy Tyrrell and Tyler
Martin had mostly been kept on the sidelines of the investigation.
They didn't receive the same regular updates as his foster parents,
weren't acknowledged in the media, and had been excluded from

(01:28:04):
the national public relations campaign aimed at bringing awareness to
the case. However, they had always wanted it to be
publicly known that William was in fostercare at the time
he went missing. The judge agreed that the public had
been misled to believe that Peter and Angela were William

(01:28:25):
Tyrrell's biological parents. In a landmark decision, he lifted the
restrictions that prevented this fact from being reported, ruling that
William being in fostercare was a legitimate matter of public interest.
For the first time since William went missing, the names
of his biological parents were allowed to be shared, while

(01:28:47):
the names of his foster parents and sister continued to
be suppressed by a court order. Afterwards, Amy Tyrrell appeared
on national television for the first time the heart felt
interview with the television presenter Melissa Doyle for Channel seven's
Sunday Night program. She admitted to having made poor choices

(01:29:08):
in the past, but said she was trying to be
the best mum she could be. No longer in a
relationship with Tyler Martin, Amy said William and Lindsey shouldn't
have been taken away from her in the first place.
She believed the whole situation could have been improved if
there had just been better support for mothers who were

(01:29:29):
experiencing domestic violence. Amy cried as she fondly recounted memories
of William as a baby. She spoke of how difficult
the experience of losing him twice had been and how
much had hurt her to know that William and Lindsay
were no longer together. Sobbing, she begged whoever had her

(01:29:51):
son to bring him home unharmed, saying whoever was responsible
quote needs a bullet. Whatever had happened to William, Amy
believed that his foster parents should feel guilty. I don't
want to blame the Carriers, she said, but they were
responsible for looking after William, and they failed As police

(01:30:19):
continued to make their way through the long list of
persons of interest, when speaking with Kendall locals, one name
in particular kept coming up. The individual lived a reclusive
lifestyle in an overgrown property near Benaroon Drive, and some
people thought he was worth looking into. Police arrived at

(01:30:41):
the man's house and what they found was disturbing. Outside,
animal carcasses hung from pieces of string. Inside was even creepier.
At the end of the man's bed, a shrine of
sorts had been made to William Tyrrell. It featured photos

(01:31:01):
of William, along with quotes about the investigation that had
been cut from the newspaper, as well as handwritten poetry
about the case. Due to the man's unconventional lifestyle, police
nicknamed him Gorillas in the Mist after the book and
film of the same name about an American scientist who

(01:31:21):
moved to the remote forests of Rwanda to study primates.
Police questioned Gorillas in the Myst extensively, but found nothing
to suggest he was involved in William's abduction. If anything,
they thought he seemed lonely and appreciated the police company. However,

(01:31:43):
there were certain things about his behavior that they deemed concerning.
Not wanting to take any chances, the police decided to
put Gorillas in the mist under surveillance by installing hidden
cameras in the bush surrounding his property. Before long, one
of the cameras went missing. Police had no idea what

(01:32:06):
had happened to it until six weeks later when it
suddenly reappeared under strange circumstances. To be continued.

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Case 322: William Tyrrell (Part 1)

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