November 9, 2024 • 51 mins
We go back to the beginning of the police investigation.
All news footage used in this episode courtesy of 7NEWS.
Witness: William Tyrrell is the new, landmark investigation from news.com.au. Read more and watch exclusive video content here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Yeah, hi, my son is you think it's three and
a half.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Okay, So how did we get here?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
How long has well we've been looking for him now
for that fifteen or twenty minutes, okay, I thought it
could be father, it could be longer.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
It's just playing around here. We heard him and then
we heard nothing. Okay, So what the newest question?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Last week, an inquest into William Tile's disappearance heard the
police have no forensic evidence, no witness evidence, no direct
evidence at all about what happened to him, despite the
police previously saying on the front page of a newspaper
they had a new suspect they believed was responsible for
(00:44):
William's death and disappearance, despite detectives going to this suspect's
house and telling her you'll have to live with it.
We aren't guessing. We know why, we know how, we
know where William is. And despite police saying in court
on oath their theory is that William's foster mother disposed
(01:08):
of his body, we now know they have no evidence
she did this, and the coroner overseeing the inquest has
refused to even call the lead detective, David Laidlaw, as
a witness. So you have to wonder where did all
these accusations start.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, yeah, I can see.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I can see where you are, and it's Benner and
driving Kendle and I've got you nearest the prostrate as.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Being ellen Dale Crescent. It could be I don't know. Okay,
they've been missing since about ten thirty. Yeah, I'd say so.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
I listened to the foster mother's phone call, and something something.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Quick for me.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This woman doesn't want to be identified.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Okay, can you describe him? Tommy?
Speaker 5 (01:56):
How to maybe that to and a half wearing a
spider man out. I'm listening to this Troop of zero call,
and I've had something similar happen to me.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
She's one of the many thousands, if not millions, who've
listened to the Triple zero recording of William's foster mother
reporting him missing since it was made public.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
My first child had a horrible accident at home when
she was about nine to ten months of age, and
she sort of pushed on a screen window and I
mustn't have been secured properly or it wasn't safe enough.
She went all the way out and I couldn't catch her.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like thousands of other people, this woman has gone online
written about the case, sharing her opinions.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
But I remember running down the stairs and just screaming,
and I was hysterical, finding her, you know, in the grass, crying,
and I just remember grabbing her and coming back upstairs
to where my phone wasn't calling emergency services, and I
was absolutely hysterical, screaming and begging for someone to help me,
(03:07):
for the ambulance to please come, and and screaming for
help the whole time.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Ye hair, he's got dark sandy colored hair. It's sure.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
He's got big brown and green colored eyes.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Thinking back to the foster mother's triple zerr call, she
was calm, She just wasn't fhased. She was able to
answer questions, and she was just cool as a cucumber.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And just like the police, she's become suspicious despite having
no real evidence.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Okay, I'll see you get any shoes on. Do you
know any other distinguishing thanks he has?
Speaker 7 (03:54):
Oh, he's got a freckle on the top of his head.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
When you put the hair on the left hand side,
you'll see a freckle on probably paid you know.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Did he have any identifying features? Oh, well, he had
a freckle, and you know, was he wearing shoes? Yeah,
you don't do that when you're in a crisis because
you don't have that presence of mind.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So is it fair to say that you started to
suspect the foster mum because in that triple zero call,
her grief wasn't the same as your grief. Yeah, today,
ten years on from that phone call reporting William missing,
that's really all we do have suspicion, people pointing fingers,
(04:37):
but no evidence. And you have to ask why is that?
Why after ten years of the most high profile police
investigation in the country, is there still no direct evidence
of what happened to William? How was that allowed to happen?
(04:58):
And is the person who really responsible for William's disappearance
still walking around today? To find those answers, We're going
back to the moment of this triple zero calls and
the police investigation that followed. We're going to look at
what was done, what was not done, what was missed,
(05:20):
and how that planted suspicions which grew forcing their way
into every part of the investigation, leading it in crazy, twisted,
damaging directions, threatening to strangle it completely.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
I haven't heard him a bit to go.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
All right, we'll please to see you at Minnery driving
kennel or to get them a message to all the
people look out for him as well.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Okay than all, by bye bye.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I'm Dan Box and this is Witness William Tyrrell, Episode six,
Missing Evidence. The morning of William's disappearance, the twelfth of
(06:14):
September twenty fourteen, starts off quiet. He's the first to
wake up, then his foster father, his sister, and his
foster mother, who would later remember seeing two cars parked
on the road outside the house, one white, one gray,
Despite saying in that triple zero call she didn't see
(06:37):
anything suspicious at the time, there.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Wasn't anyonecious in the area.
Speaker 7 (06:42):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Later in the morning, when the kids have got up,
had breakfast and are playing with their bikes outside the house,
William's foster mother remembers seeing a third car, a gray
or green sedan, turn into the driveway of the next
door house, reverse out and drive back down the road.
She says, the drivers in his fifties maybe sixties, and
(07:06):
it's odd. She thinks. Benirun Drive, where the family is
staying for the weekend, is a dead end road outside
a small town called Kendall, surrounded by forest and empty farmland.
You just don't get that many cars, particularly ones where
you don't recognize the driver. Later another witness will also
(07:31):
describe seeing a white car that morning, a Holden, being
driven by a man on nearby roads, but that only
comes to light years later during the police investigation that
will follow after William disappears. At some point that morning,
(07:53):
the twelfth of September, a man called Tony Jones leaves
his house in Warhope, which is about twenty minute drive
from where William would go missing. Tony tells his wife Debbie,
he's going scrapping, looking for scrap metal in the state forest,
and that their son is going with him. Only Tony's
son will later say that he wasn't with his father.
(08:17):
When Tony's asked about this at the inquest into William's disappearance,
he says, quote, I have no recollections, none whatsoever, and
I'll be honest. If I wasn't scrapping, I was probably
sleeping with Debbie's friend next door. Another witness will also
come forward saying that they see Tony sitting in a
(08:39):
white Toyota, although he denies this when the police ask
questions because weeks after William is reported missing, Tony Jones
will be jailed of unrelated child sex offenses, although there's
no evidence today he was involved in William's disappearance.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Why I run away from the camera, Johns? Go away?
Speaker 8 (09:01):
Mate?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Why did you run away from the camera? Why did
you write camera? What should I camera? Will you enkindle
that day? William to now?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I was not?
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Now go away, mister Johns?
Speaker 9 (09:13):
Can you explain your car?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Look?
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I hated your questions my gown.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Why Around nine am on the morning William is reported missing,
his foster mother wants to do some washing and realizes
the machine is broken. They're staying at her mum's house
for the weekend. A local repairman's been asked to fix it.
(09:40):
By chance Tony Jones and that local White Goods repairman
used to be neighbours years ago in another town, a
long way from where William goes missing. His foster mum
calls the repairman, but he doesn't answer. She leaves a
message asking him to come and fix the washing masie.
(10:04):
Another local tradesman, Jeff Owen, calls the homes soon after
to talk about some work that needs doing on the deck,
Jeff is good mates with a man named Frank Abbott.
Frank has previously been found not guilty of murder. A
year after William's disappearance, Frank moves into a caravan on
(10:25):
Jeff's property, and at that time he's on bay Off
Child's sex abuse charges. And by chance, Frank Abbott is
also connected to Tony Jones. Frank's son in law is
Tony's neighbour. And I promise you we'll get into all
of that later in this series, but for now we're
(10:46):
getting closer to the moment on the twelfth of September
twenty fourteen, when William is reported missing, after which different
people will look again at those phone calls with different
tradesmen and the cars see that morning and start asking
if they might be important, particularly after another local, a
(11:07):
man called Ron Chapman, will tell police he saw a
car driving fast through Kendle just a few minutes before
William's foster mum makes her triple zero corn.
Speaker 10 (11:24):
At the time, I didn't know what makes the now
through Adelai and Cruiser and our models from the box
type vehicle of Beijan color all right.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Then, Ron says the car was screaming around the corner,
driven by a woman in her late twenties or thirties,
and he says she's plump, not very tall, with blonde
hair tied in a bun on top of her head.
Ron says he sees a boy in the back seat
of the car, standing up with his hands on the window.
(12:04):
The boys about three or maybe four, with light blondie
brownie hair, wearing a red and blue outfit like the
Spider Man suit William is wearing this morning. Ron tells
police he sees another car coming after.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Okay, well, now you talked about.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This time a blue forward sedan really really accelerating.
Speaker 11 (12:32):
How long was it between the first vehicle and the
second vehicle?
Speaker 10 (12:38):
What have I only heard a couple of seconds, I
should imagine because the concern it was a man in
the vehicle, I didn't get a clear enough look to
anyone come up hearing what even they looked like.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You'd think the police would want to follow up on
Ron's sighting two cars driving fast away from Benirun Drive,
one driven by a man, the other by a woman
with a boy standing up on the back seat, matching
William's description even down to the red and blue suit.
(13:20):
William is wearing, but Ron's evidence it kind of goes
missing for a few years, partly because Ron himself doesn't
go to the police, at least at first. Instead, when
Ron sees the news reports about William going missing, he
(13:40):
waits for the police to knock on his door, but
they don't do that. Ron's sister tells him he should
contact the cops, but Ron doesn't do it directly. Instead,
he gets in touch with another local woman, saying he
wants to speak to her sister in law, who is
the local cop. So a detective doesn't speak to Ron
(14:01):
until March twenty fifteen, six months after William goes missing,
and the police don't interview Ron until the August, another
five months later. They don't record this until April twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The time is now four twenty seven pm and the
ringactmant at the premises to mister Ron Chapman is now complete.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
At one point in his conversations with police, Ron says
he got such a shock when he saw the news
reports about William going missing that he wondered for a
moment if he dreamt seeing the cars. When asked directly
about this, he says, I didn't dream it. No, And
when I speak to him for this podcast, he says
(14:50):
the same thing. Ron's in his mid eighties now, but
sounded clear and confident. When I speak to him, he
doesn't want to do an interview, tells me, but he
does tell me, I know what I saw. That's the
thing with police investigations. You don't know what you don't
(15:14):
know until you realize that the thing you're missing turns
out to be important. And all of this evidence about
cars and people whose movements can't be accounted for or
had reason to contact the house where William was staying,
it might have meant something if police had known about
(15:35):
it at the time, but they didn't. Some of it
isn't found out until years later, which is a problem
if you're trying to find out what's happened to a
missing child. Back at the house where William goes missing,
his foster mother calls Triple zero at ten fifty six
(15:55):
that morning, and the first police officer arrives in about
ten minutes, which is impressively fast. He goes through the house,
opening cupboards, looking under beds, though he doesn't go into
the roof space or open the door to the garage.
Soon after, another uniformed cop arrives and stays in the
house while the first starts searching outside it, looking in yards,
(16:21):
the nearby forest, talking to neighbors. He thinks they need
to check the drains as a priority in case William
has somehow fallen into one, and William's foster mum asks
at least three times if she should call the government
department overseeing his foster care to let them know what's happened.
The police say, no, not yet, Let's see if we
(16:43):
can find him. More cops arrive within minutes, including an inspector,
who establishes a command post starts keeping written logs of
what's happening. He requests the state Emergency Service search all
the water drains, and that the police send a specially
qualified search coordinator and a helicopter, and the rescue squad,
(17:06):
the trail bike Unit, the mounted unit, and the police
media unit send out an alert, after which everything changes.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
I thought we'd find him. I honestly thought we'd find him.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
I thought he would have been found really quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
News of William's disappearance spreads fast.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
I just heard from someone at school bringing in people.
There was massive social media posts about.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Everyone volunteers in their hundreds.
Speaker 12 (17:41):
So then I went home and got my torch and
dressed up and left my kids at home and went
looking for him.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
The police bringing divers.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
My daughter, who was at twelve at the time, she
said to me, Mum, I want to come.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
All these people descend on the dead end road where
William was reported.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
And I was like, okay, well, let's go.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
People start searching backyards, dams, the waterways.
Speaker 12 (18:09):
There were hundreds of cars there, There were hundreds of people.
There seemed to be people going in different directions in
different places, with different groups.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
To be honest, it was bedlam.
Speaker 12 (18:20):
People had come with motorbikes. People had come with all
their own equipment.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
People camped down there.
Speaker 12 (18:26):
I recognized quite a few locals, but there's lots of
people there that I didn't recognize.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
Everyone got told to just go go for a walk,
go look for it.
Speaker 12 (18:35):
People had come from a lot of different places.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
There was just people wandering around, walking through scrub.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
This is one of many line searches underway. Afternoon turned
into evening that first night. The searchers keep on looking
by torch light.
Speaker 8 (18:51):
Volunteers were exhausted after putting in such long days.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Day after day, the search continues.
Speaker 13 (18:58):
The sees, the surf clubs, the fire.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
Brigade, the lifeguards, the fieries.
Speaker 12 (19:05):
All resources and means available are being used on the
ground and in the air.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
William's foster father is among them. Up at dawn the
next morning and out to walking through the bush.
Speaker 8 (19:17):
We did have the foster father come down and he
kind of just sort of started sobbing, and I said, oh,
it's all right, it's all right, and he goes, no,
it's no. I just want to thank you. I said,
don't think us. We're We're just here looking for the
little boy.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Until the days start to fall into a pattern.
Speaker 12 (19:38):
Sometimes it was hopeful and then some afternoons you could
see the exhaustion, but no one stops.
Speaker 8 (19:45):
Fifty people are working shoulder to shoulder to check every
squear meter close to the home.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
Like it was just total chaos.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Over the next fortnight. Police records so the search will
cover about eighteen square kilometers, which I think is about
two and a half thousand football pitches. A police press
release says it's fifty square kilometers, so around seven thousand
football pitches, which is incredibly impressive. Except they missed things.
Speaker 9 (20:30):
I witness a gradular confusion from Bursley Police ANDBSS.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
This man is visiting a relative in Benerum Drive the
same morning William is reported missing. He says the police
and sees are doing a great job, no doubt, but
there are no cordons put in place on the road
to stop cars.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
No accordingly off of the street at all. While the
cars were driving up and down the street.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Meaning anyone can come or go in a vvehicle without
being checked.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
There should have been the police at the intersection and
any vehicle that there should have been stopped in question.
That would be a priority for concent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And that wasn't happening from what you saw.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
No, not at all, not for some time. But I
don't even think until the following day it took place
that way because he was still vehicles driving up and down.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
For a bit of a show.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
He also says some things just don't get searched.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
The sees would go walk into a home or driveway
in Both them and the police on the various occasions
through that day did the same thing. However, I would
have mentioned that the fact that there was a caravan
and that caravan was bypassed by both the police and
the sees each time they came into the premises.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So it was never searched.
Speaker 9 (21:50):
It was never searched, never asked to be looked at,
and never searched.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The police do a forensic search of the house where
William was reported missing, but not until the next day,
by which time his foster family have stayed in it overnight.
A neighbour's house directly across the road is not searched
until three days later. The man living there, Paul Savage,
is one of only three adults known to heal William
(22:20):
and his sister playing at the house that morning. Paul
is home alone just before William is reported missing, but
the police find no evidence he was involved. In fact,
far from finding anything, some of the neighbors living on
this road say they have things stolen from their cars
(22:41):
and their properties during the search, and some of them
are still angry. Ten years later.
Speaker 14 (22:50):
A straight was full of cars from one end of
the other. And we've got hundreds, if not thousands, of
people calling me in their homes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And did it look like it was organized?
Speaker 13 (23:05):
Far from organized.
Speaker 14 (23:08):
A bunch of pierced idiots ramble and orion the.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Straight, And what were they doing.
Speaker 14 (23:15):
Walking Ariane, yelling it at William and just having a
general check out of everyone's homes and property.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And was there any attempt that you could see by
the police to stop them going too certain areas not
in no noise? And what did you think when you
saw that?
Speaker 14 (23:39):
I thought this was a fucking debarcle. This is just wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
One thing everyone can agree on is the forest on
either side of Benerin Drive is too thick for a
little boy to wander off in. What's it like trying
to search through that bush at the time?
Speaker 15 (24:00):
Oh horrendous because you've got lin tana an even sing Litana?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Would you show me?
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well it's what this sort of the thin Yeah, like
a thin tree.
Speaker 15 (24:25):
Yeah, that's tana.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So what's the problem with lantana? When you're trying to
search you can get shredded?
Speaker 16 (24:32):
Oh really?
Speaker 15 (24:33):
Yeah, it's a stem itself. It got foreming points.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
On it, yeah, pins on it.
Speaker 15 (24:39):
If you get entangled in it, you can end up
with cats and you can get treaded. I don't know
how invented it, but it's lias.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And you're saying that we couldn't get through it with
boots and you've got I'll have.
Speaker 15 (24:52):
To get me work boots on or the face boots
to walk in me. I'm still not guidy it for it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I don't think a three old boy would have got
through the bush then, no, no.
Speaker 15 (25:05):
He would pan. I'd say it would be cruel and
of course screaming.
Speaker 9 (25:14):
Hm.
Speaker 15 (25:17):
Did you see everywhere around it?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The vast weeks long police search finds nothing worse than
that the search itself potentially destroys forensic evidence.
Speaker 11 (25:35):
Driving up it was, I guess you kind of went, wow,
look at all these people that are out looking. Isn't
that fantastic? But then upon reflection, you go, well, that's uh,
destroying any you know, possibly destroying any any evidence that
might be around if something afarious has happened.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
This woman also visits Benaruin Drive during the early days
of the police search.
Speaker 11 (25:59):
So there were people all up and down Banarun Drive.
I was amazed at how many people. And then when
I got up to the house just see amount of people.
I couldn't believe it that people all over the front lawn.
There were people on horseback riding around on the bottom
of the front lawn. So you know, even in that
area where they say, will he might have run down
to the lawn and met someone on the road or
(26:21):
ended up on the road like there were. I don't
know how they'd be able to find anything.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And when you say I don't think they would be
able to find anything, you're talking about how.
Speaker 11 (26:31):
Can you find something when you've got horses trampling over
a front lawn and people walking all up and down
the front lawn and on the curb side and out
the front of the house, and just there was. It's
not to criticize the police because I guess at that
time they felt they were looking for a missing boy,
(26:51):
but there was zero control over the site that he
went missing.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
This, then, is the first tragic mistake in the police investigation.
Police records say at the time of this initial search,
there is no crime scene established. The search was not
conducted with the view that there may have been deliberate
human intervention, nor was it done with the view of
(27:20):
recovering forensic evidence. The focus was on finding William. But
once the search had failed to find William, without forensic evidence,
the police are playing catch up, not knowing what it
is that they are missing, which is tragic because the
opportunity was there to collect that evidence. Less than four
(27:45):
hours after William's foster mother makes that triple zero call,
detectives arrive, whose job it is to investigate what happened,
and like the searchers, they try their hearts out. The
sheer scale of the investigation that will follow is stunning.
(28:06):
William's birth and foster families are spoken to, who knew, what,
where were they? Those accounts are tested, evidence gathered, and
at the same time, the police are spreading out. In
the coming days and weeks and years, the police will
speak to everyone who lives on Benirun Drive, some more
than once. In nearby Kendall. They will knock on doors,
(28:29):
post appeals for information through letterboxes, and ultimately interview over
two hundred and sixty different people. The police will also
canvas hotels, motels, and caravan parks within a ten kilometer radius.
A week after William is reported missing, they will stop
every vehicle traveling along the road that leads to Benurune Drive,
(28:53):
recording details of the driver and passengers. The police will
obtain CCTV from two local businesses, as well as one
hundred and sixty nine CCTV cameras from outside Kendle they'll
examine data from people's phones, from traffic cameras and mobile
cell towers. They will receive thousands, literally thousands of reports
(29:18):
from people who will say they have seen William from
right across the country. At one point, William's foster parents
will be shown a photo of a man and a
boy seen on a train and oh, my gosh, it
looks like William. The police will track that man down,
only to find the boy is his son. The police
(29:40):
will also be inundated with information from people claiming to
be clairvoyance who can speak to the dead, or saying
information has come to them through dreams or visions, and
it's easy to imagine even the most organized police force
drowning in paperwork. And even with the huge flood of information,
(30:02):
there are still things that are missing. There's no CCTV
camera that records the cars going in or out of
Benirun Drive, and it's not until the day after William
disappears that police check the CCTV from the Kendall Tennis Club,
which films cars going in and out of Kendall, But
(30:25):
that camera only shows vehicles from the side, not their
registration plates, making it difficult to identify them, and while
it covers the main road in and out of Kendall,
there are several other roads where the cars aren't recorded.
Very early on in the investigation, the local detectives start
(30:49):
speaking to their counterparts in the specialized sex Crime Squad
and Homicide Squad, both based in Sydney. Sex crimes detectives
visit Kendall within days William's disappearance. If their involvement so
early on surprises you, that's a reflection of the fact
that it is a really dark world sometimes and the
(31:10):
police have often seen first hand what lives in those
darker shadows. During their investigation, the police will identify people
listed on the Child Protection Register on the mid North
Coast of New South Wales, meaning those people who have
been sentenced for child sex offenses or the kidnap, manslaughter
(31:32):
or murder of a child. The cops will concentrate their
inquiries on those living within a thirty kilometer radius of
where William was reported missing, identifying dozens and speaking to
them all. Police records show there was nothing to suggest
any of those people on the child Protection Register had
(31:52):
any knowledge or involvement in William's disappearance, but detectives keep
a record of their names on what becomes known as
the Persons of Interest List. It's basically a list of
people who require investigation to rule them in or out.
Almost everyone, or maybe everyone, on the list will turn
(32:14):
out to have nothing to do with William's disappearance, but
the police still have to work through the names to
be certain. Once someone's identified as a person of interest,
the police look for any information about them on the
CoP's central computer system, like details of criminal history, intelligence reports,
(32:35):
whether they're on the Child Protection Register and any known
personal details. That's all written up in an information report
and put on another police database called Eagle Eye. It's
also put into the Investigations Intelligence Collection Plan and background
checks on all of these people are carried out. For
(32:57):
some detectives will seek out law enforcement records from other
states across Australia, telecommunication records, financial records, which are all
analyzed to see if the person of interest has any
links to William Tyrell, his family, or the place where
William was reported missing. In time, a forensic psychologist will
(33:20):
be brought in to consult with the detectives. The police
looking at whether each of their persons of interest has
the motive opportunity and capability to do something to William.
They then divide the list of people up into low,
medium and high risk, with all the high risk persons
of interest targeted for further investigation and individual briefs of
(33:44):
evidence about them compiled, explaining why they came under suspicion,
what investigations have been carried out, and any evidence both
for and against them, all of which will later be
sent to a coroner overseeing an inquest into what happened
to William. What I'm saying is it's a lot of work,
(34:05):
a lot to manage. In time, the police will have
over one thousand persons of interest. Four days after Williams
reported missing, the police announce a dedicated strike force will
investigate what happened to him. It's made up of three
officers from the Homicide Squad, one from the Unsolved Homicide Team,
(34:29):
two from Sex Crimes, one from the Robbery Squad, and
two from the local police command. But there is some confusion,
at least for me looking in from the outside as
a reporter covering William's disappearance at the time, over who's
in charge?
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Sorry, spook, I didn't get.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Super Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
This is the local Area Commander, Intendent Paul Filon, speaking
at press conference a year after Williams reported missing.
Speaker 7 (35:06):
The investigation has continued. As has been said many times,
there is a wealth of information and intelligence that has
come through and it has to be followed up. And
at this point in time, we are no closer to
saying where.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
We amuse, which is not the message the homicide Squad
want people to be given. They're put in charge of
the investigation six days after Williams reported missing, according to
police records, and they don't want people going around saying
they're no closer to solving the case. But Paul Fion,
the local police commander, he keeps appearing in the media.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
You would always like to have an early result of
any matter.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
We just have to be commuted to it.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
And the strike force is very communal to following up
every single piece of information.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
The strike force is committed. They set up a dedicate
in a local police station. But as a reporter covering
the investigation, I hear odd things like how they get
told to move out of the room when the local
cops went to have a meeting, and so they.
Speaker 7 (36:14):
Are trying to locate what happened to a young child
who was playing with his sister, grandmother and mother in
what you would think is the most safe environment.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That confusion is compounded by the fact police are actually
misleading the public. Listen again to what Paul Fion says
about William's family.
Speaker 7 (36:37):
A young child who was playing with his sister, grandmother
and mother.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
William wasn't with his grandmother and mother. He was with
his foster grandmother and foster mother. In those first few
days and weeks following his disappearance, we reporters aren't allowed
to say William is a foster child. The state government
department responsible for William's care tell us that the law
(37:05):
actually prevents us from doing so. It puts out written
warnings to the media talking about legal action and penalties
of up to two years in prison. Years later, this
official silence will be challenged in court and a judge
will say the department's use of the law is misconceived.
(37:26):
But at the time, no one talks in public about
William being a foster child, and instead everyone calls William's
foster parents simply his parents, meaning William's biological family, do
not get a mention in anything that's said in public,
and even then the state government insists that the same
(37:49):
laws mean William's foster parents cannot be pictured or named
or speak in public, meaning they do not get to
make a public appeal for infant. You know the kind
of thing you see in news reports and TV shows
about tragic cases where the grieving families say, please, if
(38:09):
you know anything, come forward. But the thing about those
public appeals is they work. People do come forward sometimes,
but that is not allowed to happen in William's case,
so we will never know if it might have made
a difference. And just like with the failure to establish
(38:32):
a crime scene right at the beginning to protect any
possible forensic evidence. With police work, you don't know what.
You don't know until you realize it might have been important.
But I do know detectives who look at this case
(38:52):
say this is a wasted chance that might have made
a difference. And of course the secrecy also doesn't work.
William's name, the fact he was in care, and the
identities of both his birth and foster parents start spreading
over social media, as if the official attempts to shut
(39:12):
down this information only spark a wildfire of speculation, and
some of that is cruel. Late the same night William
is reported missing. His birth mum gets a call from
someone saying there's something written online that her son's body
has been discovered, and of course that isn't true. As
(39:47):
a reporter covering the investigation into William's disappearance in the
weeks and months and years that follow, one thing that
strikes me is the sheer scale of the police operation
and how hard it must be to keep track over
all of that information. The uncertainty about different cars continues.
(40:09):
The foster mother remembers seeing two cars parked outside the
house on the morning William went missing, a gray Sedan
and a white station wagon. A year later, the police
will be unable to find those cars.
Speaker 11 (40:26):
Then there's the information that for the first time tonight
is being made public by police.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
And will use the nine Networks sixty Minutes program to
appeal for information.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Oh, we've got the general description of the vehicles.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Ones a white station wagon, another is an older style
grayish colored dar Sadin.
Speaker 16 (40:46):
That white Toyota Camry station wagon, but was published on
the news.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
This is Richard Brindle. He's a truck driver who says
he was driving his b double up in Queensland.
Speaker 16 (40:56):
That car well that was part of the side of
the ride halfway between Miriam Val and Ginger and Central Queensland.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Richard says the car driver was a bit weird.
Speaker 16 (41:08):
And he got out and started waving to me, and
he followed me, and he followed me, and he followed me,
and I stopped and I said, what's who are you?
What's your problem? Anyway, he went around me, flopped us,
clean us out, heaving a pee on the side of the road,
waving at me. And I thought, this drives a nutter.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Richard says. The station wagon has New South Wales plates.
He drove away and at home that night he saw
a sketch that looked exactly like the car on sixty minutes.
He also recognized the man he saw from news reports.
Speaker 16 (41:44):
It was on the news, a description of the blog
on the and the sketch of the bloke. And I said,
does a go on at white station wagon is up
there in Central Queensland.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
That's a car.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Richard says. He called Crime Stoppers, which allows you to
report information to police sien crimes.
Speaker 16 (42:00):
I was to tell them all about it, like I said,
you know, do you want to what they could have done?
There's cameras. We know all the survioleance cameras. I said,
you know, go through the cameras. I've got my log books.
They've got records of my run, you know, and you
can get this car's ridge and there's a start for you.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Only Richard didn't hear back yeah twice now off rang
them and he was talking about a car. The police
had been on TV appealing for information about.
Speaker 16 (42:29):
Just my frustration. I thought, you know, there's a boy's life.
I'm missing you. I've got kids on my own. I thought,
I'm not abut to reward money anything like that, very
serious stuff. It's a boy's life.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And maybe all that shows you is how much information
the police were receiving. And the car Richard saw, maybe
it wasn't the white car in the police appeal, and
maybe memory can be unreliable except there's lowest BA.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Because I had got in touch with the crime Stoppers.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Who says she saw a boy she swears was William
with a group of other kids and two adults in
Central Australia shortly after he went missing.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
As I was walking across, one of the boys said,
what's the matter will And I looked across and here's
William Tyrell.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Lois says she tried to report it at the local
police station.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
The policeman came out and he didn't let me get
to finish, and he said, look, I'm in a meeting.
Don't worry about it. There's all sorts of funny things
going on up heres. Just go home and have a
good night's sleep and don't worry about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
And Lois says she called crime stoppers more than once
but never heard from a detective.
Speaker 17 (43:54):
Then all of a sudden, I noticed this little boy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
And then there's Matilda Pollens, who was on a bus
journey two days after William was reported missing.
Speaker 17 (44:05):
And I think I just noticed him more so because
he had that spider man outfit, you know, That's why
what I really do remember.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And saw a boy she later recognized from news reports
as William.
Speaker 17 (44:19):
Uh and of course the brown hair.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And this was before you'd heard about William going missing.
Speaker 17 (44:25):
Yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Matilda tried to report this to crime Stoppers, but says
the person on the line says she must have got
it wrong.
Speaker 17 (44:36):
She asked me if he had blonde hair, and of
course I said no, and then she just said no,
that's not the boy.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
It wasn't to real.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So she asked you if the boy you saw had
blonde hair, and he.
Speaker 17 (44:49):
Said no, that's one hundred percent yes. She specifically said.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That yes, only William wasn't blonde. He had brown hair
like the on the bus. So if this conversation happened,
like Matilda remembers, crime Stoppers got that wrong and maybe
something important wasn't passed to the detectives. Richard Lois and
(45:15):
Matilda all saying they called crime Stoppers and nothing. We
asked Crime Stoppers about this. Their chief exec Peter Price,
said they can't respond to quote comments made by members
of the public which can't be substantiated or proven in
any shape or form, and these comments may end up
(45:36):
being a matter of opinion, which is fine, except we
gave crime Stoppers the names of the people making what
he calls these comments, and I would have thought crime
Stoppers keeps records so these comments could be substantiated or
proven either way. We do know there are gaps and
(45:57):
the police investigation and no crime scene was established, so
there was no forensic evidence and some places never got searched.
Amid confusion over who was really running the investigation, which
was also dealing with an avalanche of tips, leads, and sightings,
so some got missed or only followed up on years later.
(46:21):
And if we know now the police have got no
evidence about what happened to William, all that makes you
wonder what they might have missed right from the beginning.
Speaker 13 (46:36):
So this was in within I'm guessing two weeks of
William going missing.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
This woman was close enough to what was going on
to know about the local white goods repairmen we mentioned
at the start of the episode, who was due to
come and fix the washing machine in the house where
William was reported missing.
Speaker 13 (46:54):
So I just thought I'd call crime stoppers.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
She says that she read so thing about how if
William was abducted, it was likely to be someone who
had a reason to be at the property.
Speaker 13 (47:08):
And so that just made me immediately think about the
washing machine guy, because we knew that he'd been there.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
And what did you hear back?
Speaker 13 (47:17):
I didn't hear back, ever, No.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
And what did you think about that?
Speaker 13 (47:23):
I've never called crime stoppers before, so I wasn't sure
whether they would bring me back or whether they would
just take the information and pass it on to the.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Police, and maybe that happened because somehow, out of all
the noise and chaos of the search and the investigation,
the clairvoyance, the media reporting, the thousands of sightings, and
all the other persons of interest, the police will zero
(47:52):
in on this one suspect who will come to dominate
all their attention, blotting out other leads, meaning again, you'll
never know what you missed if you had been looking,
and the police pursuit of this one suspect will ultimately
lead to what a court will describe as the worst
(48:15):
case of malicious prosecution in the state's history. But right now,
one week after William was reported missing, as his foster
parents load up their car, including the empty car seat,
for the long drive home to Sydney, this washing machine
repair man has no idea what is about to hit him.
(48:38):
How he will become front page news. He'll be assaulted,
forced to move, have a new neighbor tell him she
doesn't want him to be outside while her children are playing.
How he will be arrested accused of child sex offenses,
have details of those charges shared with journalists outside the
(48:59):
court police, And only years later, when he has lost
his business and his reputation been separated from the children
who were living with him. Only then, when it's too
late for all of those things, will this man be
found not guilty? And even today, ten years into the
(49:21):
police investigation into William's disappearance, there is no evidence that
he or Tony Jones or Jeff Owen were on Benerum
Drive that morning. But there are people who wrongly remember
only the bad headlines and ask who was that guy,
the one from the TV reports? What happened to him?
(49:45):
Maybe let's start at the beginning. Could you introduce yourselves
on door Spading? Yes, that's next time on Witness William tyrrel.
If you know any thing about William's disappearance, please contact Crimestoppers.
There's a number in the show notes for this series,
(50:07):
but if there's anything you want to tell us, you
can email Witness at news dot com dot au or
I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential.
A lot of different people have been involved in making
this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young.
The sound design was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have
(50:28):
been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar, Phoebe Sakowski, Wallace, and
Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor.
Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news dot
com dot Au is Kerry Warren. Voice acting in this
episode by Beg Day and Bridget Bush. I'm Dan Box.
Yeah, hi, my son is you think it's three and
a half.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Okay, So how did we get here?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
How long has well we've been looking for him now
for that fifteen or twenty minutes, okay, I thought it
could be father, it could be longer.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
It's just playing around here. We heard him and then
we heard nothing. Okay, So what the newest question?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Last week, an inquest into William Tile's disappearance heard the
police have no forensic evidence, no witness evidence, no direct
evidence at all about what happened to him, despite the
police previously saying on the front page of a newspaper
they had a new suspect they believed was responsible for
(00:44):
William's death and disappearance, despite detectives going to this suspect's
house and telling her you'll have to live with it.
We aren't guessing. We know why, we know how, we
know where William is. And despite police saying in court
on oath their theory is that William's foster mother disposed
(01:08):
of his body, we now know they have no evidence
she did this, and the coroner overseeing the inquest has
refused to even call the lead detective, David Laidlaw, as
a witness. So you have to wonder where did all
these accusations start.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, yeah, I can see.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I can see where you are, and it's Benner and
driving Kendle and I've got you nearest the prostrate as.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Being ellen Dale Crescent. It could be I don't know. Okay,
they've been missing since about ten thirty. Yeah, I'd say so.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
I listened to the foster mother's phone call, and something something.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Quick for me.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This woman doesn't want to be identified.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Okay, can you describe him? Tommy?
Speaker 5 (01:56):
How to maybe that to and a half wearing a
spider man out. I'm listening to this Troop of zero call,
and I've had something similar happen to me.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
She's one of the many thousands, if not millions, who've
listened to the Triple zero recording of William's foster mother
reporting him missing since it was made public.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
My first child had a horrible accident at home when
she was about nine to ten months of age, and
she sort of pushed on a screen window and I
mustn't have been secured properly or it wasn't safe enough.
She went all the way out and I couldn't catch her.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like thousands of other people, this woman has gone online
written about the case, sharing her opinions.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
But I remember running down the stairs and just screaming,
and I was hysterical, finding her, you know, in the grass, crying,
and I just remember grabbing her and coming back upstairs
to where my phone wasn't calling emergency services, and I
was absolutely hysterical, screaming and begging for someone to help me,
(03:07):
for the ambulance to please come, and and screaming for
help the whole time.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Ye hair, he's got dark sandy colored hair. It's sure.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
He's got big brown and green colored eyes.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Thinking back to the foster mother's triple zerr call, she
was calm, She just wasn't fhased. She was able to
answer questions, and she was just cool as a cucumber.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And just like the police, she's become suspicious despite having
no real evidence.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Okay, I'll see you get any shoes on. Do you
know any other distinguishing thanks he has?
Speaker 7 (03:54):
Oh, he's got a freckle on the top of his head.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
When you put the hair on the left hand side,
you'll see a freckle on probably paid you know.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Did he have any identifying features? Oh, well, he had
a freckle, and you know, was he wearing shoes? Yeah,
you don't do that when you're in a crisis because
you don't have that presence of mind.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So is it fair to say that you started to
suspect the foster mum because in that triple zero call,
her grief wasn't the same as your grief. Yeah, today,
ten years on from that phone call reporting William missing,
that's really all we do have suspicion, people pointing fingers,
(04:37):
but no evidence. And you have to ask why is that?
Why after ten years of the most high profile police
investigation in the country, is there still no direct evidence
of what happened to William? How was that allowed to happen?
(04:58):
And is the person who really responsible for William's disappearance
still walking around today? To find those answers, We're going
back to the moment of this triple zero calls and
the police investigation that followed. We're going to look at
what was done, what was not done, what was missed,
(05:20):
and how that planted suspicions which grew forcing their way
into every part of the investigation, leading it in crazy, twisted,
damaging directions, threatening to strangle it completely.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
I haven't heard him a bit to go.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
All right, we'll please to see you at Minnery driving
kennel or to get them a message to all the
people look out for him as well.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Okay than all, by bye bye.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I'm Dan Box and this is Witness William Tyrrell, Episode six,
Missing Evidence. The morning of William's disappearance, the twelfth of
(06:14):
September twenty fourteen, starts off quiet. He's the first to
wake up, then his foster father, his sister, and his
foster mother, who would later remember seeing two cars parked
on the road outside the house, one white, one gray,
Despite saying in that triple zero call she didn't see
(06:37):
anything suspicious at the time, there.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Wasn't anyonecious in the area.
Speaker 7 (06:42):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Later in the morning, when the kids have got up,
had breakfast and are playing with their bikes outside the house,
William's foster mother remembers seeing a third car, a gray
or green sedan, turn into the driveway of the next
door house, reverse out and drive back down the road.
She says, the drivers in his fifties maybe sixties, and
(07:06):
it's odd. She thinks. Benirun Drive, where the family is
staying for the weekend, is a dead end road outside
a small town called Kendall, surrounded by forest and empty farmland.
You just don't get that many cars, particularly ones where
you don't recognize the driver. Later another witness will also
(07:31):
describe seeing a white car that morning, a Holden, being
driven by a man on nearby roads, but that only
comes to light years later during the police investigation that
will follow after William disappears. At some point that morning,
(07:53):
the twelfth of September, a man called Tony Jones leaves
his house in Warhope, which is about twenty minute drive
from where William would go missing. Tony tells his wife Debbie,
he's going scrapping, looking for scrap metal in the state forest,
and that their son is going with him. Only Tony's
son will later say that he wasn't with his father.
(08:17):
When Tony's asked about this at the inquest into William's disappearance,
he says, quote, I have no recollections, none whatsoever, and
I'll be honest. If I wasn't scrapping, I was probably
sleeping with Debbie's friend next door. Another witness will also
come forward saying that they see Tony sitting in a
(08:39):
white Toyota, although he denies this when the police ask
questions because weeks after William is reported missing, Tony Jones
will be jailed of unrelated child sex offenses, although there's
no evidence today he was involved in William's disappearance.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Why I run away from the camera, Johns? Go away?
Speaker 8 (09:01):
Mate?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Why did you run away from the camera? Why did
you write camera? What should I camera? Will you enkindle
that day? William to now?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I was not?
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Now go away, mister Johns?
Speaker 9 (09:13):
Can you explain your car?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Look?
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I hated your questions my gown.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Why Around nine am on the morning William is reported missing,
his foster mother wants to do some washing and realizes
the machine is broken. They're staying at her mum's house
for the weekend. A local repairman's been asked to fix it.
(09:40):
By chance Tony Jones and that local White Goods repairman
used to be neighbours years ago in another town, a
long way from where William goes missing. His foster mum
calls the repairman, but he doesn't answer. She leaves a
message asking him to come and fix the washing masie.
(10:04):
Another local tradesman, Jeff Owen, calls the homes soon after
to talk about some work that needs doing on the deck,
Jeff is good mates with a man named Frank Abbott.
Frank has previously been found not guilty of murder. A
year after William's disappearance, Frank moves into a caravan on
(10:25):
Jeff's property, and at that time he's on bay Off
Child's sex abuse charges. And by chance, Frank Abbott is
also connected to Tony Jones. Frank's son in law is
Tony's neighbour. And I promise you we'll get into all
of that later in this series, but for now we're
(10:46):
getting closer to the moment on the twelfth of September
twenty fourteen, when William is reported missing, after which different
people will look again at those phone calls with different
tradesmen and the cars see that morning and start asking
if they might be important, particularly after another local, a
(11:07):
man called Ron Chapman, will tell police he saw a
car driving fast through Kendle just a few minutes before
William's foster mum makes her triple zero corn.
Speaker 10 (11:24):
At the time, I didn't know what makes the now
through Adelai and Cruiser and our models from the box
type vehicle of Beijan color all right.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Then, Ron says the car was screaming around the corner,
driven by a woman in her late twenties or thirties,
and he says she's plump, not very tall, with blonde
hair tied in a bun on top of her head.
Ron says he sees a boy in the back seat
of the car, standing up with his hands on the window.
(12:04):
The boys about three or maybe four, with light blondie
brownie hair, wearing a red and blue outfit like the
Spider Man suit William is wearing this morning. Ron tells
police he sees another car coming after.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Okay, well, now you talked about.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This time a blue forward sedan really really accelerating.
Speaker 11 (12:32):
How long was it between the first vehicle and the
second vehicle?
Speaker 10 (12:38):
What have I only heard a couple of seconds, I
should imagine because the concern it was a man in
the vehicle, I didn't get a clear enough look to
anyone come up hearing what even they looked like.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You'd think the police would want to follow up on
Ron's sighting two cars driving fast away from Benirun Drive,
one driven by a man, the other by a woman
with a boy standing up on the back seat, matching
William's description even down to the red and blue suit.
(13:20):
William is wearing, but Ron's evidence it kind of goes
missing for a few years, partly because Ron himself doesn't
go to the police, at least at first. Instead, when
Ron sees the news reports about William going missing, he
(13:40):
waits for the police to knock on his door, but
they don't do that. Ron's sister tells him he should
contact the cops, but Ron doesn't do it directly. Instead,
he gets in touch with another local woman, saying he
wants to speak to her sister in law, who is
the local cop. So a detective doesn't speak to Ron
(14:01):
until March twenty fifteen, six months after William goes missing,
and the police don't interview Ron until the August, another
five months later. They don't record this until April twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The time is now four twenty seven pm and the
ringactmant at the premises to mister Ron Chapman is now complete.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
At one point in his conversations with police, Ron says
he got such a shock when he saw the news
reports about William going missing that he wondered for a
moment if he dreamt seeing the cars. When asked directly
about this, he says, I didn't dream it. No, And
when I speak to him for this podcast, he says
(14:50):
the same thing. Ron's in his mid eighties now, but
sounded clear and confident. When I speak to him, he
doesn't want to do an interview, tells me, but he
does tell me, I know what I saw. That's the
thing with police investigations. You don't know what you don't
(15:14):
know until you realize that the thing you're missing turns
out to be important. And all of this evidence about
cars and people whose movements can't be accounted for or
had reason to contact the house where William was staying,
it might have meant something if police had known about
(15:35):
it at the time, but they didn't. Some of it
isn't found out until years later, which is a problem
if you're trying to find out what's happened to a
missing child. Back at the house where William goes missing,
his foster mother calls Triple zero at ten fifty six
(15:55):
that morning, and the first police officer arrives in about
ten minutes, which is impressively fast. He goes through the house,
opening cupboards, looking under beds, though he doesn't go into
the roof space or open the door to the garage.
Soon after, another uniformed cop arrives and stays in the
house while the first starts searching outside it, looking in yards,
(16:21):
the nearby forest, talking to neighbors. He thinks they need
to check the drains as a priority in case William
has somehow fallen into one, and William's foster mum asks
at least three times if she should call the government
department overseeing his foster care to let them know what's happened.
The police say, no, not yet, Let's see if we
(16:43):
can find him. More cops arrive within minutes, including an inspector,
who establishes a command post starts keeping written logs of
what's happening. He requests the state Emergency Service search all
the water drains, and that the police send a specially
qualified search coordinator and a helicopter, and the rescue squad,
(17:06):
the trail bike Unit, the mounted unit, and the police
media unit send out an alert, after which everything changes.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
I thought we'd find him. I honestly thought we'd find him.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
I thought he would have been found really quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
News of William's disappearance spreads fast.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
I just heard from someone at school bringing in people.
There was massive social media posts about.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Everyone volunteers in their hundreds.
Speaker 12 (17:41):
So then I went home and got my torch and
dressed up and left my kids at home and went
looking for him.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
The police bringing divers.
Speaker 8 (17:48):
My daughter, who was at twelve at the time, she
said to me, Mum, I want to come.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
All these people descend on the dead end road where
William was reported.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
And I was like, okay, well, let's go.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
People start searching backyards, dams, the waterways.
Speaker 12 (18:09):
There were hundreds of cars there, There were hundreds of people.
There seemed to be people going in different directions in
different places, with different groups.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
To be honest, it was bedlam.
Speaker 12 (18:20):
People had come with motorbikes. People had come with all
their own equipment.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
People camped down there.
Speaker 12 (18:26):
I recognized quite a few locals, but there's lots of
people there that I didn't recognize.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
Everyone got told to just go go for a walk,
go look for it.
Speaker 12 (18:35):
People had come from a lot of different places.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
There was just people wandering around, walking through scrub.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
This is one of many line searches underway. Afternoon turned
into evening that first night. The searchers keep on looking
by torch light.
Speaker 8 (18:51):
Volunteers were exhausted after putting in such long days.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Day after day, the search continues.
Speaker 13 (18:58):
The sees, the surf clubs, the fire.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
Brigade, the lifeguards, the fieries.
Speaker 12 (19:05):
All resources and means available are being used on the
ground and in the air.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
William's foster father is among them. Up at dawn the
next morning and out to walking through the bush.
Speaker 8 (19:17):
We did have the foster father come down and he
kind of just sort of started sobbing, and I said, oh,
it's all right, it's all right, and he goes, no,
it's no. I just want to thank you. I said,
don't think us. We're We're just here looking for the
little boy.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Until the days start to fall into a pattern.
Speaker 12 (19:38):
Sometimes it was hopeful and then some afternoons you could
see the exhaustion, but no one stops.
Speaker 8 (19:45):
Fifty people are working shoulder to shoulder to check every
squear meter close to the home.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
Like it was just total chaos.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Over the next fortnight. Police records so the search will
cover about eighteen square kilometers, which I think is about
two and a half thousand football pitches. A police press
release says it's fifty square kilometers, so around seven thousand
football pitches, which is incredibly impressive. Except they missed things.
Speaker 9 (20:30):
I witness a gradular confusion from Bursley Police ANDBSS.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
This man is visiting a relative in Benerum Drive the
same morning William is reported missing. He says the police
and sees are doing a great job, no doubt, but
there are no cordons put in place on the road
to stop cars.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
No accordingly off of the street at all. While the
cars were driving up and down the street.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Meaning anyone can come or go in a vvehicle without
being checked.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
There should have been the police at the intersection and
any vehicle that there should have been stopped in question.
That would be a priority for concent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And that wasn't happening from what you saw.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
No, not at all, not for some time. But I
don't even think until the following day it took place
that way because he was still vehicles driving up and down.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
For a bit of a show.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
He also says some things just don't get searched.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
The sees would go walk into a home or driveway
in Both them and the police on the various occasions
through that day did the same thing. However, I would
have mentioned that the fact that there was a caravan
and that caravan was bypassed by both the police and
the sees each time they came into the premises.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So it was never searched.
Speaker 9 (21:50):
It was never searched, never asked to be looked at,
and never searched.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The police do a forensic search of the house where
William was reported missing, but not until the next day,
by which time his foster family have stayed in it overnight.
A neighbour's house directly across the road is not searched
until three days later. The man living there, Paul Savage,
is one of only three adults known to heal William
(22:20):
and his sister playing at the house that morning. Paul
is home alone just before William is reported missing, but
the police find no evidence he was involved. In fact,
far from finding anything, some of the neighbors living on
this road say they have things stolen from their cars
(22:41):
and their properties during the search, and some of them
are still angry. Ten years later.
Speaker 14 (22:50):
A straight was full of cars from one end of
the other. And we've got hundreds, if not thousands, of
people calling me in their homes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And did it look like it was organized?
Speaker 13 (23:05):
Far from organized.
Speaker 14 (23:08):
A bunch of pierced idiots ramble and orion the.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Straight, And what were they doing.
Speaker 14 (23:15):
Walking Ariane, yelling it at William and just having a
general check out of everyone's homes and property.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And was there any attempt that you could see by
the police to stop them going too certain areas not
in no noise? And what did you think when you
saw that?
Speaker 14 (23:39):
I thought this was a fucking debarcle. This is just wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
One thing everyone can agree on is the forest on
either side of Benerin Drive is too thick for a
little boy to wander off in. What's it like trying
to search through that bush at the time?
Speaker 15 (24:00):
Oh horrendous because you've got lin tana an even sing Litana?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Would you show me?
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well it's what this sort of the thin Yeah, like
a thin tree.
Speaker 15 (24:25):
Yeah, that's tana.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So what's the problem with lantana? When you're trying to
search you can get shredded?
Speaker 16 (24:32):
Oh really?
Speaker 15 (24:33):
Yeah, it's a stem itself. It got foreming points.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
On it, yeah, pins on it.
Speaker 15 (24:39):
If you get entangled in it, you can end up
with cats and you can get treaded. I don't know
how invented it, but it's lias.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And you're saying that we couldn't get through it with
boots and you've got I'll have.
Speaker 15 (24:52):
To get me work boots on or the face boots
to walk in me. I'm still not guidy it for it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I don't think a three old boy would have got
through the bush then, no, no.
Speaker 15 (25:05):
He would pan. I'd say it would be cruel and
of course screaming.
Speaker 9 (25:14):
Hm.
Speaker 15 (25:17):
Did you see everywhere around it?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The vast weeks long police search finds nothing worse than
that the search itself potentially destroys forensic evidence.
Speaker 11 (25:35):
Driving up it was, I guess you kind of went, wow,
look at all these people that are out looking. Isn't
that fantastic? But then upon reflection, you go, well, that's uh,
destroying any you know, possibly destroying any any evidence that
might be around if something afarious has happened.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
This woman also visits Benaruin Drive during the early days
of the police search.
Speaker 11 (25:59):
So there were people all up and down Banarun Drive.
I was amazed at how many people. And then when
I got up to the house just see amount of people.
I couldn't believe it that people all over the front lawn.
There were people on horseback riding around on the bottom
of the front lawn. So you know, even in that
area where they say, will he might have run down
to the lawn and met someone on the road or
(26:21):
ended up on the road like there were. I don't
know how they'd be able to find anything.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And when you say I don't think they would be
able to find anything, you're talking about how.
Speaker 11 (26:31):
Can you find something when you've got horses trampling over
a front lawn and people walking all up and down
the front lawn and on the curb side and out
the front of the house, and just there was. It's
not to criticize the police because I guess at that
time they felt they were looking for a missing boy,
(26:51):
but there was zero control over the site that he
went missing.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
This, then, is the first tragic mistake in the police investigation.
Police records say at the time of this initial search,
there is no crime scene established. The search was not
conducted with the view that there may have been deliberate
human intervention, nor was it done with the view of
(27:20):
recovering forensic evidence. The focus was on finding William. But
once the search had failed to find William, without forensic evidence,
the police are playing catch up, not knowing what it
is that they are missing, which is tragic because the
opportunity was there to collect that evidence. Less than four
(27:45):
hours after William's foster mother makes that triple zero call,
detectives arrive, whose job it is to investigate what happened,
and like the searchers, they try their hearts out. The
sheer scale of the investigation that will follow is stunning.
(28:06):
William's birth and foster families are spoken to, who knew, what,
where were they? Those accounts are tested, evidence gathered, and
at the same time, the police are spreading out. In
the coming days and weeks and years, the police will
speak to everyone who lives on Benirun Drive, some more
than once. In nearby Kendall. They will knock on doors,
(28:29):
post appeals for information through letterboxes, and ultimately interview over
two hundred and sixty different people. The police will also
canvas hotels, motels, and caravan parks within a ten kilometer radius.
A week after William is reported missing, they will stop
every vehicle traveling along the road that leads to Benurune Drive,
(28:53):
recording details of the driver and passengers. The police will
obtain CCTV from two local businesses, as well as one
hundred and sixty nine CCTV cameras from outside Kendle they'll
examine data from people's phones, from traffic cameras and mobile
cell towers. They will receive thousands, literally thousands of reports
(29:18):
from people who will say they have seen William from
right across the country. At one point, William's foster parents
will be shown a photo of a man and a
boy seen on a train and oh, my gosh, it
looks like William. The police will track that man down,
only to find the boy is his son. The police
(29:40):
will also be inundated with information from people claiming to
be clairvoyance who can speak to the dead, or saying
information has come to them through dreams or visions, and
it's easy to imagine even the most organized police force
drowning in paperwork. And even with the huge flood of information,
(30:02):
there are still things that are missing. There's no CCTV
camera that records the cars going in or out of
Benirun Drive, and it's not until the day after William
disappears that police check the CCTV from the Kendall Tennis Club,
which films cars going in and out of Kendall, But
(30:25):
that camera only shows vehicles from the side, not their
registration plates, making it difficult to identify them, and while
it covers the main road in and out of Kendall,
there are several other roads where the cars aren't recorded.
Very early on in the investigation, the local detectives start
(30:49):
speaking to their counterparts in the specialized sex Crime Squad
and Homicide Squad, both based in Sydney. Sex crimes detectives
visit Kendall within days William's disappearance. If their involvement so
early on surprises you, that's a reflection of the fact
that it is a really dark world sometimes and the
(31:10):
police have often seen first hand what lives in those
darker shadows. During their investigation, the police will identify people
listed on the Child Protection Register on the mid North
Coast of New South Wales, meaning those people who have
been sentenced for child sex offenses or the kidnap, manslaughter
(31:32):
or murder of a child. The cops will concentrate their
inquiries on those living within a thirty kilometer radius of
where William was reported missing, identifying dozens and speaking to
them all. Police records show there was nothing to suggest
any of those people on the child Protection Register had
(31:52):
any knowledge or involvement in William's disappearance, but detectives keep
a record of their names on what becomes known as
the Persons of Interest List. It's basically a list of
people who require investigation to rule them in or out.
Almost everyone, or maybe everyone, on the list will turn
(32:14):
out to have nothing to do with William's disappearance, but
the police still have to work through the names to
be certain. Once someone's identified as a person of interest,
the police look for any information about them on the
CoP's central computer system, like details of criminal history, intelligence reports,
(32:35):
whether they're on the Child Protection Register and any known
personal details. That's all written up in an information report
and put on another police database called Eagle Eye. It's
also put into the Investigations Intelligence Collection Plan and background
checks on all of these people are carried out. For
(32:57):
some detectives will seek out law enforcement records from other
states across Australia, telecommunication records, financial records, which are all
analyzed to see if the person of interest has any
links to William Tyrell, his family, or the place where
William was reported missing. In time, a forensic psychologist will
(33:20):
be brought in to consult with the detectives. The police
looking at whether each of their persons of interest has
the motive opportunity and capability to do something to William.
They then divide the list of people up into low,
medium and high risk, with all the high risk persons
of interest targeted for further investigation and individual briefs of
(33:44):
evidence about them compiled, explaining why they came under suspicion,
what investigations have been carried out, and any evidence both
for and against them, all of which will later be
sent to a coroner overseeing an inquest into what happened
to William. What I'm saying is it's a lot of work,
(34:05):
a lot to manage. In time, the police will have
over one thousand persons of interest. Four days after Williams
reported missing, the police announce a dedicated strike force will
investigate what happened to him. It's made up of three
officers from the Homicide Squad, one from the Unsolved Homicide Team,
(34:29):
two from Sex Crimes, one from the Robbery Squad, and
two from the local police command. But there is some confusion,
at least for me looking in from the outside as
a reporter covering William's disappearance at the time, over who's
in charge?
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Sorry, spook, I didn't get.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Super Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
This is the local Area Commander, Intendent Paul Filon, speaking
at press conference a year after Williams reported missing.
Speaker 7 (35:06):
The investigation has continued. As has been said many times,
there is a wealth of information and intelligence that has
come through and it has to be followed up. And
at this point in time, we are no closer to
saying where.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
We amuse, which is not the message the homicide Squad
want people to be given. They're put in charge of
the investigation six days after Williams reported missing, according to
police records, and they don't want people going around saying
they're no closer to solving the case. But Paul Fion,
the local police commander, he keeps appearing in the media.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
You would always like to have an early result of
any matter.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
We just have to be commuted to it.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
And the strike force is very communal to following up
every single piece of information.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
The strike force is committed. They set up a dedicate
in a local police station. But as a reporter covering
the investigation, I hear odd things like how they get
told to move out of the room when the local
cops went to have a meeting, and so they.
Speaker 7 (36:14):
Are trying to locate what happened to a young child
who was playing with his sister, grandmother and mother in
what you would think is the most safe environment.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That confusion is compounded by the fact police are actually
misleading the public. Listen again to what Paul Fion says
about William's family.
Speaker 7 (36:37):
A young child who was playing with his sister, grandmother
and mother.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
William wasn't with his grandmother and mother. He was with
his foster grandmother and foster mother. In those first few
days and weeks following his disappearance, we reporters aren't allowed
to say William is a foster child. The state government
department responsible for William's care tell us that the law
(37:05):
actually prevents us from doing so. It puts out written
warnings to the media talking about legal action and penalties
of up to two years in prison. Years later, this
official silence will be challenged in court and a judge
will say the department's use of the law is misconceived.
(37:26):
But at the time, no one talks in public about
William being a foster child, and instead everyone calls William's
foster parents simply his parents, meaning William's biological family, do
not get a mention in anything that's said in public,
and even then the state government insists that the same
(37:49):
laws mean William's foster parents cannot be pictured or named
or speak in public, meaning they do not get to
make a public appeal for infant. You know the kind
of thing you see in news reports and TV shows
about tragic cases where the grieving families say, please, if
(38:09):
you know anything, come forward. But the thing about those
public appeals is they work. People do come forward sometimes,
but that is not allowed to happen in William's case,
so we will never know if it might have made
a difference. And just like with the failure to establish
(38:32):
a crime scene right at the beginning to protect any
possible forensic evidence. With police work, you don't know what.
You don't know until you realize it might have been important.
But I do know detectives who look at this case
(38:52):
say this is a wasted chance that might have made
a difference. And of course the secrecy also doesn't work.
William's name, the fact he was in care, and the
identities of both his birth and foster parents start spreading
over social media, as if the official attempts to shut
(39:12):
down this information only spark a wildfire of speculation, and
some of that is cruel. Late the same night William
is reported missing. His birth mum gets a call from
someone saying there's something written online that her son's body
has been discovered, and of course that isn't true. As
(39:47):
a reporter covering the investigation into William's disappearance in the
weeks and months and years that follow, one thing that
strikes me is the sheer scale of the police operation
and how hard it must be to keep track over
all of that information. The uncertainty about different cars continues.
(40:09):
The foster mother remembers seeing two cars parked outside the
house on the morning William went missing, a gray Sedan
and a white station wagon. A year later, the police
will be unable to find those cars.
Speaker 11 (40:26):
Then there's the information that for the first time tonight
is being made public by police.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
And will use the nine Networks sixty Minutes program to
appeal for information.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Oh, we've got the general description of the vehicles.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Ones a white station wagon, another is an older style
grayish colored dar Sadin.
Speaker 16 (40:46):
That white Toyota Camry station wagon, but was published on
the news.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
This is Richard Brindle. He's a truck driver who says
he was driving his b double up in Queensland.
Speaker 16 (40:56):
That car well that was part of the side of
the ride halfway between Miriam Val and Ginger and Central Queensland.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Richard says the car driver was a bit weird.
Speaker 16 (41:08):
And he got out and started waving to me, and
he followed me, and he followed me, and he followed me,
and I stopped and I said, what's who are you?
What's your problem? Anyway, he went around me, flopped us,
clean us out, heaving a pee on the side of the road,
waving at me. And I thought, this drives a nutter.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Richard says. The station wagon has New South Wales plates.
He drove away and at home that night he saw
a sketch that looked exactly like the car on sixty minutes.
He also recognized the man he saw from news reports.
Speaker 16 (41:44):
It was on the news, a description of the blog
on the and the sketch of the bloke. And I said,
does a go on at white station wagon is up
there in Central Queensland.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
That's a car.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Richard says. He called Crime Stoppers, which allows you to
report information to police sien crimes.
Speaker 16 (42:00):
I was to tell them all about it, like I said,
you know, do you want to what they could have done?
There's cameras. We know all the survioleance cameras. I said,
you know, go through the cameras. I've got my log books.
They've got records of my run, you know, and you
can get this car's ridge and there's a start for you.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Only Richard didn't hear back yeah twice now off rang
them and he was talking about a car. The police
had been on TV appealing for information about.
Speaker 16 (42:29):
Just my frustration. I thought, you know, there's a boy's life.
I'm missing you. I've got kids on my own. I thought,
I'm not abut to reward money anything like that, very
serious stuff. It's a boy's life.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And maybe all that shows you is how much information
the police were receiving. And the car Richard saw, maybe
it wasn't the white car in the police appeal, and
maybe memory can be unreliable except there's lowest BA.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Because I had got in touch with the crime Stoppers.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Who says she saw a boy she swears was William
with a group of other kids and two adults in
Central Australia shortly after he went missing.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
As I was walking across, one of the boys said,
what's the matter will And I looked across and here's
William Tyrell.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Lois says she tried to report it at the local
police station.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
The policeman came out and he didn't let me get
to finish, and he said, look, I'm in a meeting.
Don't worry about it. There's all sorts of funny things
going on up heres. Just go home and have a
good night's sleep and don't worry about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
And Lois says she called crime stoppers more than once
but never heard from a detective.
Speaker 17 (43:54):
Then all of a sudden, I noticed this little boy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
And then there's Matilda Pollens, who was on a bus
journey two days after William was reported missing.
Speaker 17 (44:05):
And I think I just noticed him more so because
he had that spider man outfit, you know, That's why
what I really do remember.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And saw a boy she later recognized from news reports
as William.
Speaker 17 (44:19):
Uh and of course the brown hair.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And this was before you'd heard about William going missing.
Speaker 17 (44:25):
Yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Matilda tried to report this to crime Stoppers, but says
the person on the line says she must have got
it wrong.
Speaker 17 (44:36):
She asked me if he had blonde hair, and of
course I said no, and then she just said no,
that's not the boy.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
It wasn't to real.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So she asked you if the boy you saw had
blonde hair, and he.
Speaker 17 (44:49):
Said no, that's one hundred percent yes. She specifically said.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That yes, only William wasn't blonde. He had brown hair
like the on the bus. So if this conversation happened,
like Matilda remembers, crime Stoppers got that wrong and maybe
something important wasn't passed to the detectives. Richard Lois and
(45:15):
Matilda all saying they called crime Stoppers and nothing. We
asked Crime Stoppers about this. Their chief exec Peter Price,
said they can't respond to quote comments made by members
of the public which can't be substantiated or proven in
any shape or form, and these comments may end up
(45:36):
being a matter of opinion, which is fine, except we
gave crime Stoppers the names of the people making what
he calls these comments, and I would have thought crime
Stoppers keeps records so these comments could be substantiated or
proven either way. We do know there are gaps and
(45:57):
the police investigation and no crime scene was established, so
there was no forensic evidence and some places never got searched.
Amid confusion over who was really running the investigation, which
was also dealing with an avalanche of tips, leads, and sightings,
so some got missed or only followed up on years later.
(46:21):
And if we know now the police have got no
evidence about what happened to William, all that makes you
wonder what they might have missed right from the beginning.
Speaker 13 (46:36):
So this was in within I'm guessing two weeks of
William going missing.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
This woman was close enough to what was going on
to know about the local white goods repairmen we mentioned
at the start of the episode, who was due to
come and fix the washing machine in the house where
William was reported missing.
Speaker 13 (46:54):
So I just thought I'd call crime stoppers.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
She says that she read so thing about how if
William was abducted, it was likely to be someone who
had a reason to be at the property.
Speaker 13 (47:08):
And so that just made me immediately think about the
washing machine guy, because we knew that he'd been there.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
And what did you hear back?
Speaker 13 (47:17):
I didn't hear back, ever, No.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
And what did you think about that?
Speaker 13 (47:23):
I've never called crime stoppers before, so I wasn't sure
whether they would bring me back or whether they would
just take the information and pass it on to the.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Police, and maybe that happened because somehow, out of all
the noise and chaos of the search and the investigation,
the clairvoyance, the media reporting, the thousands of sightings, and
all the other persons of interest, the police will zero
(47:52):
in on this one suspect who will come to dominate
all their attention, blotting out other leads, meaning again, you'll
never know what you missed if you had been looking,
and the police pursuit of this one suspect will ultimately
lead to what a court will describe as the worst
(48:15):
case of malicious prosecution in the state's history. But right now,
one week after William was reported missing, as his foster
parents load up their car, including the empty car seat,
for the long drive home to Sydney, this washing machine
repair man has no idea what is about to hit him.
(48:38):
How he will become front page news. He'll be assaulted,
forced to move, have a new neighbor tell him she
doesn't want him to be outside while her children are playing.
How he will be arrested accused of child sex offenses,
have details of those charges shared with journalists outside the
(48:59):
court police, And only years later, when he has lost
his business and his reputation been separated from the children
who were living with him. Only then, when it's too
late for all of those things, will this man be
found not guilty? And even today, ten years into the
(49:21):
police investigation into William's disappearance, there is no evidence that
he or Tony Jones or Jeff Owen were on Benerum
Drive that morning. But there are people who wrongly remember
only the bad headlines and ask who was that guy,
the one from the TV reports? What happened to him?
(49:45):
Maybe let's start at the beginning. Could you introduce yourselves
on door Spading? Yes, that's next time on Witness William tyrrel.
If you know any thing about William's disappearance, please contact Crimestoppers.
There's a number in the show notes for this series,
(50:07):
but if there's anything you want to tell us, you
can email Witness at news dot com dot au or
I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential.
A lot of different people have been involved in making
this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young.
The sound design was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have
(50:28):
been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar, Phoebe Sakowski, Wallace, and
Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor.
Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news dot
com dot Au is Kerry Warren. Voice acting in this
episode by Beg Day and Bridget Bush. I'm Dan Box.
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