November 24, 2024 • 66 mins
The pressure builds on both police and those they’re pursuing, until somebody cracks.
Witness: William Tyrrell is the new, landmark investigation from news.com.au. Read more and watch exclusive video content here
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Should you just tell me where we go?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We're heading into the township I suppose you call it
the Kendall where William Tyrell disappeared.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
From this time, driving back to Kendall, I'm traveling with
Gary Jubilin, the detective who led the investigation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How long has it been since you were here?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, there would be a matter of three years, four years,
I'd say that since I've been up here.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Like I've said before, Gary and I go back a
long way, and my first impression of him was he's interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
That hasn't changed the lawn, and that brings back every
memory in the book.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
What memories are.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I think an overriding one of sadness of what's happened
in this town and what's happened to William.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Gary doesn't hide his feelings. He's capable of great compassion,
but also anger.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
With that sadness that there's a frustration. It probably a
better term his anger, but I'll try to be nice
and say frustration in the way that the matter's been handled.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He's driven.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It was a tough investigation, but it was an investigation that, Yeah,
I was up for the challenge. I've been investigating homicide
for a long time, and I was confident that, yeah,
I would get a result on it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There are other words people used to describe him, because
Gary has made enemies, partly because he had a way
of getting in the newspapers and on television.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You see this, Yeah, well he was kidnapped this member
and then done putting a strike force on it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm going to put my hand up.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You go for God, Gary.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
If all he and I met, Gary had been the
subject of a primetime TV drama about his life and
another of his investigations. That show was called Underbelly, and
this is how they described him.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Gary Kevin Jubilan was an aries, a practicing Buddhist and
drank green tea instead of coffee.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
His workmates called him crazy fuck.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
The green tea and the nickname. That's all true. I'd
add the shaved head, the nose he's broken three times
boxing the facts. Gary meditates to find some inner balance
and can also be so demanding.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He's told more than one.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Of his bosses to fuck off if they can't get
him more time, resources, or staff for his investigations.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
I heard you request that, as Elizabe.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I know this.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Every time you put your hit up I'm going to
kick it.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
But the thing that really stands out to me about
Gary is the way he pursued his cases.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
It's taken us years and now I've gone you.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
To destruction.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
So if you really want to help yourself, then you
make a.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Statement putting pressure on a suspect.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Tell me what.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Happened, doing everything he could think.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of to crack them.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Why he did it at the risk even of ruining
their life or his own.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, we're heading down towards where William, who was the
last saying alive in being around drive and that's something
that has played very heavily in my life, this particular road.
And yeah, we'll stop and look at the house. How
(03:56):
does a child disappear from there? And we haven't got
the answers and yo, as the New South Wales place,
we should be judged by it. These are the type
of cases that you need to solve.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I'm Dan box and from News dot com dot Au.
This is Witness William Tyrell Episode eight.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Pressure.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
You know, you could feel the tension, You could feel
that the bosses were doing things that they were all
by the book. This might sound a strange thing to say,
but you could just see there was at tension to detail.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
This is another of the cops who worked on the
investigation into William's disappearance in September twenty fourteen.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Normally, you know, cops, we trivialize things because it's like, oh,
we've been to a million missing kids and we found them.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But for this to happen, they don't want to be identified.
So Nina, the producer on this podcast, is reading their words.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
You've got the sense of like, oh, everyone's definitely taking
it on as a serious detective investigation.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
But that doesn't mean everything was working smoothly.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
As soon as we got there, we had tasks, so
they're just kind of giving us stuff to do. But
you know, they weren't telling us much. I didn't really
get a sense of or any briefing of how they
were attacking it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
This was before Gary Jubilin was put in charge, when
the strike force was being led by a detective called
hands Up.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Hands Up was pretty old school. I never never had
a conversation with him. Gary was the first person that
when he came aboard, he wanted everyone to tell him
what they thought. He didn't care whether I was a
constable or I was a detective or if I was
the boss. He wanted to know. He wanted to get
everyone's ideas.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
This was around the start of twenty fifteen when Hans
retired and Gary Jubilin took over the investigation.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
When he came in and I met him and we
chatted that first day, I saw him as a real
fucking detective. He was the real deal. Like I knew
about the underbelly and all that bullshit. But you know,
it wasn't until he came on board that I really
actually understood, Oh, this is what we've got to do.
We've got to put this timeline together.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
We've got to do this.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
We've got to do that. He wants everyone's import he
wants everyone to talk. He wants you to go and
have a beer after work and discuss things and argue
over ideas and theories, because that's how shit happens. I
really enjoyed working under Gary's direction because he sort of
thinks like a business person, where it's like time, we've
got to get this shit done. We've got a deadline.
(06:28):
We've got to figure this out.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, Gary didn't want things to get slowed down
by the petty bureaucracies you often run up against in
the police force, like not wanting to pay overtime, or
which police commander would let others use which resources, even
if that meant Gary falling out with other bosses.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
People ask me about it, and what I say is
he's tenacious and he'll do things that you would expect
cops in movies to do, but that's not reality, and
he's the guy that would do that. So if one
of my family members was murdered, I want Gary to investigate.
That's how I explain it.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Gary also found supporters in William Tyrell's foster parents, who
were now approaching the anniversary of his disappearance.
Speaker 8 (07:16):
The anniversary brings a huge amount of mixed emotions. Again,
we don't have an outcome. We don't know whether he's
whereabouts or anything.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
This is William's foster father speaking at the time to
the journalist Leah Harris.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
It's quite scary to think that we don't have you
know anything. One you're on. I crossed my fingers, I
look into I look into can you mother, and just
(08:11):
proposed for his return.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The first time Gary met the foster parents, he looked
at them as potential suspects.
Speaker 9 (08:24):
When we were meeting. I could feel that he was
just sizing me up, and you know, you could feel
the suspicion coming all over again.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
This is William's foster mother. In another interview with Leah Harris.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
At that point, I'd never heard of Gary jubut I know,
connection or reference to the name whatsoever. I googled him
and I thought, wow, this is good, this is really good.
He'd been on a number of he'd been on a
number of high profile yeah. But I remember somebody telling
(08:56):
me that he was the character on an underbelt and
I'm thinking, oh my god and thinking wow, okay. But
what it gave us, I think, was this sense of
We've got the right guy.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Eventually, Gary discounted the foster parents as likely suspects, just
like hands Rup had done before him. And William's foster parents.
They grew close to Gary.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
We had the then Ministry of Police telling us that
he was new South Wales Police top cop. We had
people within the police force telling us we don't have
anybody better. We trusted, we trusted police, We trusted him.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Between them, Gary Jubilin and William's foster parents turbo charged
the investigation into the three year old's disappearance. Instead of
just being a police matter, it became a massive publicity campaign.
The Where's William campaign launched in twenty fifteen. That August,
(10:02):
there was this public performance of bring Him Home from
the musical lem Asarabler.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
They are focus today at and supporting other Where's William campaign.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Local politicians spoke up.
Speaker 9 (10:25):
I can only imagine as a father and is apparent
the grief and the anxiety that the family is going through.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
There were TV news reports.
Speaker 9 (10:35):
Let's continue to work together to bring William home.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
There were billboards, thousands of leaflets were distributed.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Where's William wig the search for Little William Tyrell on
wearing the badge that they've released. They're putting out flyers,
They're asking for everyone to get involved, get on board.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
William's foster parents were driving this behind the scenes, although
the state government barred them from speaking publicly because William
was a child in care.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
William is a little boy who needs to be home.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
With his family, so instead they provided a written statement.
Speaker 10 (11:11):
Please please, whoever you are, if you know something about
William's disappearance, please help police find our little boy.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Tens of thousands of people took part in Walk for
William events right across Australia.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
They're looking at what is called a Walk for William now.
Speaker 11 (11:31):
These will be held across New South Wales as well
as in Queensland.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Other walks took place in New York, Canada, New Zealand,
Japan and Ireland.
Speaker 11 (11:42):
We are expecting up to a thousand people to pack
into the Kendall Showgrounds.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
The Kendall Showgrounds had been the focus of the search
effort after William first went missing.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
The grand of applause to for Gary and his team.
It's obviously at distressing time for them, and I'd been
doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Everybody involved in the search was invited to say thank you.
There were flags and cake and a big book for
people to sign, and Gary spoke, we don't.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Have any self doubt in regards to this investigation. We're
going out of hammer and tongs and doing everything that
we can do.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And if you signed the book there was a chance
to win a prepaid visa card. But really it was
part of a covert operation because Gary wanted to identify
the people who turned up in case the person responsible
for William's disappearance was somewhere among the.
Speaker 12 (12:32):
Crowd and we had one hundred and twelve taxi backs
between Sydney and Brisbane. We had one thousand bumper stickers
all around the area. We had one hundred thousand coasters
go out around the mid North Coast and around Sydney
in key areas.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
With the whole purpose behind that is that people have
a few drinks and if they know something, they might
say something.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (12:59):
So everything that we did was strategic.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Claire and Alice Collins are a mother and daughter team
who run a small pr company.
Speaker 12 (13:08):
There are so many cases of missing children over the
years that have just disappeared into people's memory. They don't
know about those children because there was no campaign. Everyone
knows about William. I'm not saying that's because of us,
but the campaign I think pushed his face and his
(13:32):
message into nearly every single home across Australia.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Working for free alongside the police and foster parents, they
organized the Where's William campaign, eventually taking it to the
State Parliament. Thank you the Premier, Administer of Justice and Police,
the Honorable Troy Rats and those in law enforcement, campaigners
and politicians.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Wept openly and it.
Speaker 13 (13:56):
Starts with William.
Speaker 10 (13:57):
It starts with we're going to bring him home.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
In its first year, the Where's William Campaign helped generate
thousands of newspaper, magazine and TV news reports. It held
over two hundred community events, encouraged almost three thousand new
reports of information to crime stoppers and almost two hundred
direct to the police. It was a huge effort and
(14:24):
it didn't stop. There was an events in the Federal Parliament.
Speaker 9 (14:29):
This has to resonate with every person in this nation
because Australia can never become that country that just turns
the other cheek on this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And the second anniversary of William's disappearance was marked by
the New South Wales Police Commissioner announcing the state's first
million dollar reward for information.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That's one million reasons why somebody that knows what's happened
should come forward and talk to us and do it soon.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
That reward was something else garage the campaigners and William's
foster parents fought for. Gary got up in front of
the TV cameras up stuff that we are announcing a
second strike force made up of detectives from across New
South Wales to help work through the long list of
(15:18):
people whose names had come up in the investigation. The
state Premier Mike Baird spoke about his sense of grief
over William's disappearance.
Speaker 11 (15:29):
It's an incredibly difficult thing to watch as appearent every
appearing across the nation sits and is absolutely in the
sense of deep grief with that family.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And privately, Mike Baird would go up to Gary and
tell him whatever you need in this investigation, You've got it.
Speaker 11 (15:51):
I want to pay tribute to Gary and his team.
We have the best police I think in the world.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
All of which is hugely impressive. But another year passed
without any answers, and listening to William's foster parents, it
sounds like things felt very different for them. By the
second anniversary.
Speaker 9 (16:18):
We created our Where's William campaign to keep William alive
in the public's conscious. You can't forget about this boy.
You cannot forget about William. He's three years old and
I don't think the public can say that it's okay
(16:38):
that this crime is not solved, because it's not okay,
and we need to hold police to account and we
need to push it and it needs to be solved.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Holding police to account is different to the simple trust
they described once feeling in the police force, and.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
I think part of what's helped us is we've had
Gary who has kept it going.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I saw it as a sort of pinnacle of my career.
You go through stages in your career where you're learning
your trade as a homicide detective, then you're feeling a
little bit comfortable you're up to leading an investigation, and
then you get to the point where I was in
my career as one of the most experienced homicide detectives
in the state, if not the country, and to lead
(17:31):
an investigation like this, I felt comfortable doing it. I
felt that I had the skills, I felt they had
the energy, I felt they had the experience, and so
I wasn't overawed by leading the William terial investigation.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
When Gary talks about leading, he means leading the two
strike forces now working on it, as well as his
team in the homicide squad, who all worked on William's disappearance,
but none of them were working only on this job.
They all had other cases. In the course of half
a day that I spent with Gary and Kendall around
(18:09):
this time talking about William's disappearance, he took a dozen
phone calls about other murders. He was leading right across
New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Like you're working around the clock, weekends leave. I didn't
know whether I was working or not. I was working
twenty four to seven. But making those sacrifices it was
worth it because you knew you were doing it for
the right reason and to help the families find justice.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You talk about making sacrifices, were you also prepared to
make enemies to do that job.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't seek to make enemies, but if someone is
in the way of doing a homicide investigation efficiently and effectively,
they put barriers in place.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And you're talking about other cops now I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Talking about the cops. I talk about lazy cops, whether
they're junior to me or my colleagues, or the ones
that I particularly didn't like. With a senior police that
put their career ahead of what we're meant to be
doing as homicide detectives, I think anyone that's a committed
police officer would be changed. That changes your view on life.
(19:22):
You know that you've got an awesome responsibility, a heavy
responsibility that weighs on you, that you've got to do
the right thing. So that's what drove me without doubt.
But sometimes you've just got to stand up for what's right.
Sometimes it's not easy. No one likes confrontation. I don't
like confrontation. I'm good at it if it gets the confrontation,
but I don't like it.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
He once told me that when you're working a homicide investigation,
you'll go in like a bondozer and people will get hurt. Yep,
what does you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
The very nature of homicide investigation. If people think you
can tip, you te around the homicide investigation. Living in
La La Laine, homicide investigation is about finding out what's happened.
I'm not talking about breaking rules here or going too far.
I'm talking about you've got to go after a person.
You've got to hunt that person, find that person, and
(20:15):
gather the evidence.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Gary's drive and determination was matched by some of those
who worked on the strike force into William's disappearance. His
officer in charge, Craig Lambert, was a former kickboxing champion.
The two men would actually spa together in a car
park outside the police station. Another detective, Louise Curry, was
(20:38):
a former Olympic athlete. In twenty sixteen, a few months
short of the third anniversary of William's disappearance. Louise challenged Gary,
saying she didn't believe there was enough information to exclude
William's foster parents as suspects. She wanted to pull them
back in for interview. Gary agreed, and he sprung it
(21:02):
on the couple without warning, pretending to invite them to
a normal meeting, then taking them off separately under escort
to windowless interview rooms where Louise had planned the questions.
Transcripts of these recorded interviews show both detectives asked William's
foster parents about things that would turn up years later
(21:26):
in the theory now being pursued by the new South
Wales Police Force, or in leaks from the police to
the media, like how William wasn't wearing shoes at the
time of the last known photo of him, and the
timing of exactly when William's foster mother says she spoke
to a neighbor outside. At one point, Gary asks William's
(21:48):
foster father whether the three year old might have hurt
himself accidentally and his foster mum covered it up. Never likely,
William's foster father replies, would have been a driveway tragedy
where William was hit and killed accidentally by one of
their cars. No, could William's foster grandmother have done something
(22:10):
terrible by accident and his foster mum cover it up.
William's foster father says these police theories are completely laughable.
The detectives also challenge William's foster mother about how she
deleted a text from her husband saying he was on
his way back to the house. Gary Jubilin puts it
(22:32):
to her that William might have fallen from the balcony
or a tree and she panicked and covered it up.
She denies this. You understand why the accusing finger gets
pointed back this way, Gary asks her, because invariably it's
the people that had care or custody of the child.
(22:54):
William's foster mother says no, She repeats it, no, no, never.
Gary Jubilin doesn't ask her about the drive, though, where
William's foster mother says she got into her mum's car
and went down the road towards the crossroads. William's foster
mother starts to bring this up, but Gary asks her
(23:16):
about something else, and they never come back to it.
After William's foster parents were interrogated. They go home, not
knowing the police have fitted their car with a listening device.
The couple say nothing either in the car or in
their interviews with the detectives, for the Strike Force to
(23:38):
decide that yes, they should be suspects. Instead, asked in
her interview what she thinks happened to William, his foster
mother talks about the two cars. She says she remembers
seeing parked on the road that morning. I also wonder
about Paul, she says. I'm thinking if those two cars
(23:59):
are there, they're visiting him. I just find Paul really odd.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Pod here.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
This is electronically recorded the interview between Detective Chief Inspector
Jubilin and mister Paul Savage at Port la Quarry Police Station.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Paul Savage lives opposite the house where William was last seen,
and you can't miss Paul pretty much. Every time I've
been on Benirun Drive, he comes out to say hello
or see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The Time is twelve forty two pm on Wednesday, the
sixth nighth of August two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Paul was seventy when William went missing, but still fit.
He walked in the bush every morning. In person, he's
earnest and awkward, but there's something raw about him, as
if he's always on the edge of a big emotion.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Assisting with this interview today is Detective Sergeant Laura Bluecroft.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Paul had seen William before he was reported missing at
a party on Benirun Drive months earlier.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
For the record, Sergeant Beekroff, would you please state your
name and full rank Detective Sergeant or A.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Beekroff.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
After again ruling out William's foster parents, Laura Beecroft was
the detective who initially took the lead in investigating Paul.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Mister Savage. I'm going to ask you some questions about
the disappearance of three year old missing boy William Tyrell.
Do you understand that if.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Paul agreed to do this interview voluntarily and he didn't
have a lawyer present.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
My questions and any answers you give will be recorded
on this machine. Do you understand that.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yes, and his account of what happened that morning is complicated.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Do you understand that you're free to ly of the
police station today at any time you wish yeth.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
The last known photo of William is taken at nine
p thirty seven in the morning of the twelfth of
September twenty fourteen. At nine point thirty nine, a phone
call is made from Paul's house opposite to Casino Hospital
where his brother was being treated.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Was he getting near the hospital or something? What was
and so you were going to facilitate him?
Speaker 13 (26:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Getting him out?
Speaker 13 (26:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
That call lasts eight or nine minutes. Afterwards, Paul goes
outside and can hear children playing over the road.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
William's playing up there. You can hear him.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I heard kids playing. I didn't say it was him.
I said I heard kids playing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Squeally take it from the only kids playing in the street.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
About twenty minutes later, so around ten past ten, some
other neighbors hear the sound of a car on gravel.
There's gravel at the top of Benerom Drive between Paul's
house and the house where William is reported missing. Shortly after,
Paul's wife, Heather, leaves home.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
See a time at ten thirty eight, ten thirty eight. Okay,
I'll let him.
Speaker 13 (27:03):
Know what the time was because she would be like
for binger.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Ten thirty eight. Paul's specific about this time.
Speaker 13 (27:12):
He repeats it hither hadn't lived or ten thirty.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Eight, and says the same in different interviews, but CCTV
shows Heather must have left earlier about ten thirty. At
ten forty one, there's a phone call from Paul's house
to a medical center in Port Macquarie, and around that time,
a neighbor also knocks on Paul's door.
Speaker 13 (27:39):
She said, have you heard um? They? Do you know
the little boydy on the ride go on missing?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Paul says, he walks over to the house where William
was last seen.
Speaker 13 (27:48):
Oh, I come straightly out and walked down and see
if I can help.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
He speaks to William's foster grandmother.
Speaker 13 (27:55):
She said he was there. He applied, and.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Also speaks to the neighbors Peter and Cherill. Only Peter
and Cherrell will later say that they didn't see Paul
Savage that morning.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And then you walked up into the bush.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
That's right, okay, I said, Well, I'll go up there
in the bush in case.
Speaker 13 (28:12):
It went up that way.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Paul says. Everyone else was looking for William down Benurrun Drive,
so he turned up the road alone where a dirt
trail leads into the forest.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Now, describe what you did in the bush. You indicated
that's the rough area that you'll walked at as okay,
in the general area that area that you walked that's right, okay.
And you also indicated that you got a little bit lost,
which I did. Where did you get lost?
Speaker 13 (28:49):
Just walking down here?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I couldn't remember where we begyard was, So I've come
down here and that's why I've come around.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It, okay?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And what did you do after you've so, you've taken it.
You're trying to help. You're telling me you're trying to
help and look for this child. Yeah, and you've gone
off in the bush and I think you've described as
for thirty minutes or so. Yes, I can remember you've
walked up around the bush for thirty minutes.
Speaker 13 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
After those thirty minutes, Paul says he comes home without
seeing anyone, but he doesn't go down the road to
ask if William's been found, or talk to anyone to
let them know which area of bush he's just searched.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
You didn't think to go back and say, hey, he's
not up there, or have you found him? You've just
gone back in and had a cup of tea.
Speaker 13 (29:39):
Well, everybody else to make that nice noise.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
What's going to me garring out there and join a
crowd of people when they're running around like with their throatcut.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You weren't even curious. You go in there and have
a cup of two.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
You don't have to be curious when I can hear
everybody else looking for a little bit, so you.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Know he's still lost and you're having a cup of tea.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Well, what else do you want me to do?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
PEPs go out there and help.
Speaker 13 (29:59):
Look, he had a look, and I was thirsty after
a walk. I press.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
You walk for two hours a day.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Paul says he stays inside the house for ten minutes.
In a separate interview, he'll say it was fifteen minutes.
But neither of those times really add up looking at
the timings. If Paul walked in the bush for thirty minutes,
as he says, he must have been home alone drinking
tea for nearly two hours.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well, and at once I finished in there, and
the brother in law and then showed up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Paul says he leaves his house just as his brother
and sister in law arrive for a planned visit, and
they say they got there about one pm. Though in
another interview, Paul says he left his house, walked over
the road, talked to William's foster grandmother and a police officer,
then came back and only then saw his relatives car
(30:56):
pull up.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Was it just pure cow incidence? Sitting there heaving a
cup two with all this commotion, the biggest commotion inner
room drive's ever seen, and you just happened to decide
to come out just when your brother in law and
sister in law turner.
Speaker 13 (31:11):
Now, well, what else would you call?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'd call it the remarkable coincidence.
Speaker 13 (31:16):
Well, I've got nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
You'd nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
No, okay, okay, So I have questions. In an earlier
interview with the police, Paul says he's pretty sure he
didn't know that his relatives were coming to visit that day,
but in this interview with Gary Jubilin, he says maybe
(31:41):
he did know.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I can't remember, but I dare say because Heather's brother
and sister in law were due to arrive, now we're
coming to visit us.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Paul himself was also due to leave that morning at
eleven to drive four hours north to Casino, where his
brother was getting out of hospital. But it's unsure when
Paul called his brother that day to say he wasn't coming,
and why Heather didn't seem to notice anyone out in
the street earlier that morning when she left for Bingo,
(32:17):
given we know at least William's foster mother, grandmother, and
possibly one neighbor were out there around that time looking
for him. Heather died in the months after William went missing.
Speaker 13 (32:31):
Since you had the passed a while, I heaven left
this area right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And look, you'll love the Heather, I know it's strong.
And yeah, you walked around with a picture around unique
for a month or so, as I understand them.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
In case you didn't catch that, Paul agrees that he
carried a picture of Heather around his neck for a
month after she died.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Himself.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Spoke to police on the day William was reported missing,
but his house wasn't searched until three days later. A
year later, a detective spoke to Paul again at home,
and again in January twenty sixteen. Two months after that,
in March, Detective Sergeant Laura Beecroft spent four hours with
(33:22):
Paul taking a formal witness statement, where he described spending
half an hour in the bush searching for William on
his own, and.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
How he got a bit lost.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Paul has said the same thing to me in person,
though he didn't want to be recorded, and I've got
questions about that. Also in Kendall, after talking to Paul,
I walk up the hill from the house where William
(33:55):
was reported missing, trying to get lost. Paul used to
walk this track every day, and he said that it's
quite easy to get lost through the bush here. Even
from here, you're still just in sight of the roofs
(34:16):
of the houses. But if you were looking for a
child and you set off away from the track like this,
then suddenly it seems quite different. The bush kind of
swallows you up on either side. Hang on. It is
pretty thick and it is pretty tangled. But the space
(34:38):
between the track that I've turned off and the houses
on Benermon Drive itself isn't that big. So there is
a little track here, might just be an animal track,
and then it kind of almost disappears. But I'm gonna
(34:59):
take it and follow. The longer I spend doing this,
the harder I find it to understand Paul's explanation of
his actions, because having been here, you can get these
glimpses of the houses through the trees, and there's a
(35:22):
couple of tracks, and everything is on a slope back
down to the houses of Ben Ruin Drive. And then
you walk through here for a while and you hit
this creek, which is in front of me. So it's
currently dry, maybe five meters wide. But I'm not a local.
I've been here maybe half a dozen times now, but
I knew that creek runs behind the houses, and so
(35:46):
Paul must have known if he walked here every day.
And if I follow this creek down through the forest
very quickly, I do see the sun shining off the
roof of one of the houses behind Benirun Drive. So
(36:11):
Paul's getting lost in an area that is contained by
the first track he walked off on, which is a
basically a fire trail, the slope of the hill, and
then the dry creek. I do struggle to see how
he got lost, But I'm not in Paul's mind, and
(36:36):
so my experience of this today is not Paul's experience.
And the problem is now to get out of the bush,
I think I'm gonna have to walk through someone's guard.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And in fact, and I'm walking through is Paul Savage's garden.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Another thing that caught the detective's attention was in March
twenty sixteen when Paul found a covert surveillance camera on
a tree in the bush surrounding his property. So obviously
the camera wasn't very covert. The police had put it
there to keep an eye on someone else, because at
this point they're investigating more than one of what they
(37:34):
called persons of interest. And one thing I do know
about Gary Jubilin is he loves a covert surveillance operation.
This surveillance camera kept recording as Paul picked it up,
looked straight into it, then took the camera inside.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
When Polson working and looking around this area, you find
the camera and just hang on to it. If a
police didn't turn up with a view, just hung on
to it forever.
Speaker 13 (38:01):
No I that in Lauren Blues.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
When would of you have taken into.
Speaker 13 (38:04):
I'm not quite sure how long I didn't have it
all that long.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
How long did he have.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
If you had the camera, mister Savage, approximately five weeks.
Speaker 13 (38:14):
I don't know that long. I can tell you how long.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
I'll tell you had the camera for five weeks.
Speaker 13 (38:19):
Well, that's not a small amount of Tom.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
The voice you can hear.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
There is Detective Sergeant Laura Beecroft, who is the detective
looking at Paul Savage. Based on what she told him.
Gary Jublin decided to make Paul the focus of the
strike Forces investigation, and Paul's home and phones are placed
under surveillance. The police also put a tracker on his car.
(38:46):
Two undercover cops are sent in to talk to Paul,
one posing as a freelance journalist, the other as a psychic,
both wanting to talk about William Tyrol and the listening
devices are recording and the po are waiting to see
how Paul reacts. Now, if you're thinking that sounds similar
(39:07):
to what police did with their previous person of interest,
Bill Spreading, using covert surveillance then dialing up the pressure
to see if someone will crack, then yeah, it's from
the same playbook.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I told you.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Gary likes a surveillance operation, and one thing Gary himself
was focused on was the fact that Paul also had
a history of approaching people when he might not be welcome,
including William's foster grandmother.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
No one's ever asked you to stay away from a
house because you make him feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 13 (39:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No one's ever done it, not that I know, okay.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
But William's foster grandmother had done that, asking Paul's wife, Heather,
to pass on the message.
Speaker 13 (39:57):
Well, if that's it, I used to go up there
and i'd ask her, did she on a hand? That's
I was worried about.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Her, and heaven didn't relate to you. To stay away
because you're making her feel uncomfortable. Think about this, ye.
Speaker 13 (40:11):
I am, I'm trying to remembers.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (40:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
None of this is evidence that Paul had anything to
do with William's disappearance. But Gary does go on raising
the fact that there's an apprehended violence order in place
against Paul preventing him from approaching the local postwoman. That
postwoman didn't want to talk about it when I call her,
(40:41):
But court documents say that in the years before William
was reported missing, more than once Paul did approach her,
crying and shaking, saying I love you, or I want
to spend more time with you, or followed the postwoman
in his car saying I can't live like this not
seeing you. Eventually, Australia posts stopped delivering to Paula's house. Then,
(41:09):
after the av OH was granted, Paul approached the postwoman again,
saying he wanted to wish her a happy birthday. He
was charged and pleaded guilty to breaching an av oh,
but when questioned about it by Gary, Paul denies his
behavior was threatening, calling the court case a conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
The idea was a lad, explain to me how you
stalking a woman is a setup.
Speaker 13 (41:36):
I never thought to her at any time.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So it's all lies with So when you went into
the post office cry and shaking, that was a lie
and everyone that saw it said it was a lie.
Speaker 13 (41:49):
What when did I go in crime? I went in
there once and I was upset and I was crying.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Why were you upset and crying?
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Because our film really depressed. So I went home and
I went straight back and I apologized.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Right and when the police issued an abo. Yeah, what
happened after that?
Speaker 13 (42:10):
After the abo? Yeah, bloody nothing.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You didn't get charged?
Speaker 13 (42:14):
Oh yeah, because I got one day's notice to get help.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
One day's notice to get help. What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Well, I had to court on Tuesday. I got nothing
on Saturday night to turn up in court. I had
no idea what I had to do.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Look, mister Savage, what I think we need to take
a step back. I'm not sitting here in judgment of you.
But what I can't sit here and is take lies.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Okay, okay, then now that and have been because that's
a pack of rubbies.
Speaker 13 (42:43):
It's not a pack of it is the pack of rubbies.
Well you ask her, I have asked her. Okay, then you.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I asked her, why did you ring me in July,
three months after I got the ADL on me?
Speaker 13 (42:55):
Why did you ring me and told me? She loved me?
She loves you, That's what she said.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Let's get this clear. You're telling me that this wasn't
you stalking her. She was in love with you.
Speaker 13 (43:06):
I didn't stalk that.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
She's in love with you.
Speaker 13 (43:08):
It's invitably.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
You can hear it in Paul's voice. Now, the pressure building,
and at his home, the listening devices were in place.
The transcript of what's recorded on just one of those
devices in Paul's kitchen runs to over one hundred pages,
though the quality of the devices themselves wasn't great, so
there's gaps in the recordings where no one can make
(43:34):
out what Paul is saying, or places where the transcript
says file does not exist, And in other places there's
disputes between detectives, with one saying they heard one thing
and another saying they heard something else.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
What you can say is.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That almost always Paul is talking on his own, sometimes
ranting at the television. Often it seems like he's talking
to his dead wife, Heather. He calls her angel or
more often Mum. He breaks down sobbing or seems bitter,
saying things like you set me up, don't lie, lunatic,
(44:15):
or no one will know it was you. Listening to
these recordings, Gary Jubilin decided to increase the.
Speaker 7 (44:26):
Pressure, okay, recording Where we Go.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Was this track where the police under Gary Jubilin left
the Spider Man suit for Paul Savage to find, deliberately
left it for him to find on his morning walk.
A Spider Man suit was what three year old William
Tyrrell was wearing on the morning he was reported missing.
And at this point, Paul Savage under pressure. He's got
(45:03):
listening devices in his house, listening device in his car,
his phone calls are being recorded, and the idea is
just to increase that pressure but putting a Spider Man's
suit last identified with a disappeared three year old on
the path of his morning walk. I mean, I've said
(45:24):
this to Gary jud but it sounds crazy. But they
did it, and then they watched his reaction. The people
watching Paul's reaction were specialized surveillance officers brought up from
Sydney and waiting hidden in the scrub on either side.
Paul walks up, wearing in a coubra hat with a
(45:44):
water bottle hanging over his shoulder. He gets to the
suit and stops a few meters from where it lies,
and Paul looks one, two, three four. The waiting police
count twelve seconds, and at the same time they're filming
(46:06):
Paul and taking photographs. Unfortunately, all of the photos we've
seen taken by the surveillance police who are hiding in
the bushes on either side, none of them show Paul
and the Spider Man suit in the same frame, so
none of them conclusively show that he is definitely looking
(46:28):
at that suit. They show that he's looking in the
direction of where the suit is known to be, and
the specialist surveillance cops who were in the bushes reported
that they saw him looking at the suit. But because
you haven't got that one bit of photographic evidence that
proves it conclusively, it's always open to doubt. What's not
(46:50):
open to doubt is that Paul does not report seeing
the suit that morning. Instead, he goes home, where the
listening device cords him saying something like have to do it,
though on the transcript one detective has added a comment
that says, possibly, why did I have to do it?
(47:11):
Or why did they have to do it? It's not certain.
So the next day the police left the suit out
waiting for Paul. Again, you've got this guy under surveillance.
You want to know what he might know, either to
include him or to exclude him from your investigations, so
you just dial up the pressure. I mean, there's a
(47:34):
whole question about how fair that is or how much
trauma you might be exposing this guy too. But then
you rationalize that if you're the police, by saying, we're
investigating a possible child abduction, so almost anything we do
is okay because we're trying to put right that wrong.
The next day, Paul leaves for his morning walk at
(47:56):
seven point thirty three am thirty seven. The waiting police
watch him stop, bend over to look at the Spider
Man's suit, then stand walk back the way he came.
Paul starts to run as he enters his driveway, and
within minutes he's on the phone reporting seeing the suit
to the police. And later that same morning, Paul's recorded
(48:20):
on a listening device in his house saying the suit
wasn't there yesterday, He couldn't have missed it and sobbing
the word mum.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
It's almost like the Truman Show. I kind of think
it'll be quite hard to come through this and not
have that in the back of your mind for a
long time.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
I don't think anyone's come through this investigation unscathed, because
once you've had the experience, like on your morning walk,
you literally had police on either side hiding watching you.
How you ever let that go, particularly if you're innocent.
But then the police's job is to establish whether or
not you're innocent, and so the question is how far
(49:05):
is it okay for them to go to establish your
innocence or your guilt. In his interview with Paul Savage,
Gary Jubilin goes at him hard, accusing Paul of lying
about whether he saw that suit.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
The first morning.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
This fascinates me that you can sit here and lie
to me like that when I know and you know,
you're telling a lie.
Speaker 13 (49:29):
No, I'm not. I'm not lying.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
I walked up there, I'm seen that suit, and I
went straight back home.
Speaker 13 (49:37):
I ranged the police and.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I just sorry. It just fascinates me that you can
lie like this.
Speaker 13 (49:42):
I'm not lying. I'm not lying. I'm not interested in lying.
What is a lie?
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Well, then if you don't think you're lying, then you're
totally delusional. And everything you're telling me comes in. They
get me nis air and just let.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Up the rock dead.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well you considered that the first.
Speaker 13 (50:01):
I went right down and reported it.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
No you didn't, Yes, I did. No, you're lie.
Speaker 13 (50:09):
I'm not lying.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Back at Paul's home, the listening devices are recording as
he repeatedly denies seeing the Spider Man suit. On the
first of the two days police left it on the
bush track. Paul says other things to himself. Also one day,
Paul says, no, no, he tells me what he's going
(50:32):
to do. No, he tells me that he's going to
whether I want it or not.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yeah, well I'm going to run into your property too.
This is my place. You're in my place. You do
what I want. You're a little boy. You're nobody. You're
just a little boy. You're nobody. You don't tell me,
I'll tell you. I did tell you another time. He
says murderers are sick and charge abuses a rotten bit
(51:01):
of rubbish. Paul accuses Gary Jubilin of setting him up
and insists on his innocence over anything to do with
William Tyrol. He says police are going to try and
square it up on me. I haven't got a witness.
It's all lies, He says, he now won't help police.
I was going to tell them about the two boys,
(51:23):
but bugger it, He says, I couldn't hurt a kid,
and later, I haven't deliberately hurt anything or anybody in
a long, long time. Paul says he can't sleep because
of the police investigation, meaning the pressure is getting to him.
He talks about his dead wife, Heather, saying he's sorry,
(51:46):
saying quote, he's a boy and great, they're going to
find something. Mum, don't dob on me, okay, And oh mum,
what do I do?
Speaker 1 (51:56):
What do I do?
Speaker 3 (51:58):
Later the same day, Paul says, what is it God?
And forgive me?
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Please? What did I do? Mar? What did I do?
Speaker 3 (52:08):
And a couple of days later, on the tenth of
September twenty seventeen, Paul moans and possibly talks in his sleep, saying,
it is what it is, and you've done it again.
You've done it again. You're going overboard, you know. On
the eleventh of September twenty seventeen, that's one day before
(52:29):
the third anniversary of William's disappearance, Paul says, it's in
the paper, that's the last time I seen him. And
because it's true, it's true if I don't remember, because
it's true. Other people stirring things up. And he says,
get it right, mate, They had no proof, nothing, because
there can't be nothing ever happened. And he says his
(52:53):
memories are gone. He says, I can't remember anything. If
you tell me what you were doing on eleven thirty five,
on the twelfth of fucking September in twenty fourteen, can
you remember? And he says to himself, but I think
he's imagining talking to Gary. I've not lied to you once.
(53:14):
I might have forgotten things. I might have twisted them up.
But I've not lied. I don't lie to you. I
make mistakes, and that I think is all that you
can take from the thousands of hours of listening device
recordings that Paul can be mistaken, meaning even Paul Savage
(53:38):
sometimes doesn't know whether his own thoughts are accurate.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
So I get then, Look, I'm actually look stop, I'm
not interested in your making up your lives.
Speaker 13 (54:02):
I'm not making up live all right.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
We'll move on to the next next thing. Okay, but
that saam, We'll just have to change some tapes. So
the time now is two thirty three pm. The interview
between Detective Chief Inspector Jubilin and mister Paul Savage is suspended.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
During this break in his interview with the detectives, Paul
leaves the room to use the toilet. Unrecorded, the two detectives,
Laura Beecroft and Gary Jubilin talk about whether they think
Paul really did see the Spider Man suit that they
left on the bush track on the first day or
only on the second as Paul claims. Laura thinks Paul's
(54:48):
telling the truth, but Gary Jubilin still has questions.
Speaker 14 (54:54):
The interview resumes electronic we recorded interview between Detective Chief
Inspector Gary Jubilant and mister Paul Savage.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Recommenced the time is two forty two pm. Yes, all right,
Well we'll continue on with the.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Interview outside the interview room. Disagreement between the detectives is
starting to divide the police strike Force. Not all of
them are as driven as Gary Juberlin or Craig Lambert,
the two leaders. Some are less motivated or unhappy to
be there, or have other human failings. One member of
(55:39):
the strike force will later leave the cops after an
internal investigation found he had sex in his police car
while on duty, took photos of his genitalia in the office,
and pretended to be at work when he wasn't. And
others among the strike force are also hard to manage.
Some start to disagree with Gary's focus on Paul Savage,
(56:03):
and Gary's answer is always to keep working.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
If you're sitting there and you honestly believe you're telling
me the truth about the spider Man suit, I know
you're lying and that.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
You don't I'm telling you the truth. I never say
that the I before. Why would I leave it to
die and then go? They han't ring up.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Why would I do that because you're involved in the
abduction of William tyrrel.
Speaker 13 (56:29):
I am why would I bile the line This is
bybly ridiculous. I'm not a liar.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
At the same time he is running this investigation, Gary's
also going through a divorce his second and his strike
force is starting to founder under the sheer weight of
their workload. By the end of twenty seventeen, they have
over fourteen thousand separate products meaning reports or photographs or
(56:57):
documents to work through about William. They have listening device
recordings still to go through. Some of those on the strikeforce,
like Craig Lambert, have thousands of tasks allocated to them.
Craig later describes their workload saying, quote, from start to
finish of my shift, I'm literally churning through these products
(57:20):
as quickly as possible. It was a race against myself
to get them done onto the next bang bang bang bang.
Police records show Gary's repeatedly asking for more staff, but
his staff numbers are cut instead by his bosses, and
stuff gets missed and information keeps on coming in, not
(57:43):
least because the Where's William campaign keeps encouraging people to
come forward, meaning despite everything the police are doing to
exclude them, the number of people on their persons of
interest list increasing. There is a difficulty in targeting any
(58:05):
person of interest as we have literally no evidence, Gary
writes in one report to his bosses. He warns the
investigation could go on for years.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
I'll strip it down. I won't even call you mister Savage.
I'll call you Paul.
Speaker 13 (58:20):
Yeah. Well, less of this one, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Because this is we're getting down to the nitty gritty.
Speaker 13 (58:25):
Yep, which is good.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
Gary Strikeforce start turning on each other, criticizing him between themselves,
and particularly Gary's focus on Paul Savage. Some of the
junior detectives even drive up to Kendall, walk out along
the bush track and try to prove Paul couldn't have
seen the Spider Man suit that first morning when he
(58:49):
did not report it. Only they can't prove it, and
their mini investigation is kind of fascicle. They don't even
take a tape measure to make sure they know where
Paul was standing. But it does prove that Gary's grip
on his team is slipping and he can no longer
trust them to back each other and his leadership. Gary
(59:14):
keeps on working, pushing himself and the team around him harder.
He makes some bad decisions. Three times, in twenty seventeen
and twenty eighteen, Gary visits Paul at home alone. Their
conversations are recorded on the listening devices and also on
(59:35):
Gary's mobile. Gary also records a phone conversation with Paul,
asking again about the Spider Man's suit.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Hello, Paul, Gary, jubilant here from the place.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
At the same time, Gary's preparing to hold an inquest
into William's disappearance. The sole reason Gary wants to have
this inquest is to pray Paul, to ask him everything
how he got lost in the bush. The listening device
recordings the Spider Man suit, whether he did or didn't
see it, But preparing for the inquest means even more
(01:00:14):
work for the strikeforce, which is now disintegrating, to the
point that Gary and his officer in charge, Craig Lambert,
physically square off against each other in the offices of
the Homicide Squad and have to be separated. Craig, who
thinks the continued pursuit of Paul Savage is wrongheaded and
(01:00:35):
a waste of time, has his gun taken from him
and is escorted from the building. Gary goes back to work.
The inquest is due to start in months in March
twenty nineteen. There are other persons of interest other than
Paul that Gary asks his team to look at on
(01:00:56):
top of this. On the nineteenth of January, weeks out
the inquest, Gary is sent to Northern New South Wales,
a seven hour drive from Sydney, to investigate the shooting
of two police officers. The next day, the twentieth of January,
he's sent to Newcastle to lead another murder investigation. Two
(01:01:17):
days later, on the twenty second, Gary is told that
he's under internal investigation and taken off all active homicide cases,
meaning he never works on the disappearance of William Tyrol again.
(01:01:39):
In March twenty nineteen, Paul gave evidence at the inquest
looking at what happened to William. He said his memory
was now a bit cloudy and gave some of his
evidence in private behind closed doors. So we don't know
if Paul was asked about what he said on those
listening device recus recordings, or whether he did see the
(01:02:03):
Spider Man suit on that first day or only on
the second, like he told the police.
Speaker 13 (01:02:09):
I did not see the suit, and I before or
I want to record them help I can.
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
And speaking of listening device recordings, after Paul Savage leaves
this interview with the detectives, he's recorded on a listening
device in his car, saying, make sure you don't tell
anyone love. They're right after me. Don't tell anyone love, please,
they're right after me. Sorry. And we don't know if
(01:02:37):
he was ever asked about that as well. Years later,
when I go up to Kendall for this podcast, I
park on Benirum Drive and Paul walks up. We get talking.
Paul tells me he did see the suit. He doesn't
(01:02:59):
want to be recalled, but I make shorthand notes as
he's talking. Paul says, on the first day, he saw
only the top and thought, I don't know about that,
and maybe it was some other kids who left it.
He says, the next day he saw the whole suit.
He says he did think of William Tyrell when he
(01:03:21):
saw half the suit, but because it was only the top,
he thought it wasn't important. On the second day, when
he saw the whole suit, Paul says, I thought it
was probably his williams He says, I felt hopeful. I
hoped we could solve the case. I ask him why
he didn't tell the police this at the time, and
(01:03:44):
Paul doesn't really explain it. He says, I've left it
a bit longer than I should have, but it will
come out eventually, only it hasn't until now. At the inquest,
one of the detectives, Laura Beecroft, said she didn't think
(01:04:06):
Paul was still what she called an active person of interest,
but at that point Laura herself was no longer on
the strikeforce so couldn't be certain. But one of the
detectives who's still working on the investigation gave evidence about Paul.
In a separate court hearing that detective Mark Jukes, said
(01:04:27):
there was no exculpatory evidence that I was aware of
that could completely eliminate Paul Savage from the investigation. In court,
Mark said his view was that Paul should not be
written out of the case. That was in February twenty nineteen,
just after Gary Jubilin was taken off it. But I
(01:04:47):
think that's what happened. The police are no longer looking
at Paul Savage, and Paul is eighteen now and even
he admits his memories can be mistaken. There are still
unanswered questions. Nina, the producer on this podcast, spoke to
Paul on the phone last week and he said no
(01:05:10):
one from the police had been to talk to him
since Gary was taken off the investigation. And that decision
to take Gary off the investigation that changed everything, and
we'll get into that in detail next week on Witness.
Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
William tyrrel.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
This electronic interview between Detective Inspector Jubilee and Paul Savage
is now concluded. Before I turned the tapes off, ask
you a couple of questions. Oh, has any threat, promise
or inducement been held out to you to give the
answers you were given in this interview? Have you provided
those answers of your own free will listen? Is there
(01:05:56):
anything further you wish to say in relation to this manner?
Speaker 13 (01:06:00):
I didn't know. I'm gonna work inside. I can't hips obviously,
all right, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
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
been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, jazz Bar, Phoebe Zakowski, Wallace
and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by
Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at
(01:06:35):
news dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
I'm Dan Box
Should you just tell me where we go?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We're heading into the township I suppose you call it
the Kendall where William Tyrell disappeared.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
From this time, driving back to Kendall, I'm traveling with
Gary Jubilin, the detective who led the investigation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How long has it been since you were here?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, there would be a matter of three years, four years,
I'd say that since I've been up here.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Like I've said before, Gary and I go back a
long way, and my first impression of him was he's interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
That hasn't changed the lawn, and that brings back every
memory in the book.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
What memories are.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I think an overriding one of sadness of what's happened
in this town and what's happened to William.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Gary doesn't hide his feelings. He's capable of great compassion,
but also anger.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
With that sadness that there's a frustration. It probably a
better term his anger, but I'll try to be nice
and say frustration in the way that the matter's been handled.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He's driven.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It was a tough investigation, but it was an investigation that, Yeah,
I was up for the challenge. I've been investigating homicide
for a long time, and I was confident that, yeah,
I would get a result on it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There are other words people used to describe him, because
Gary has made enemies, partly because he had a way
of getting in the newspapers and on television.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You see this, Yeah, well he was kidnapped this member
and then done putting a strike force on it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm going to put my hand up.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You go for God, Gary.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
If all he and I met, Gary had been the
subject of a primetime TV drama about his life and
another of his investigations. That show was called Underbelly, and
this is how they described him.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Gary Kevin Jubilan was an aries, a practicing Buddhist and
drank green tea instead of coffee.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
His workmates called him crazy fuck.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
The green tea and the nickname. That's all true. I'd
add the shaved head, the nose he's broken three times
boxing the facts. Gary meditates to find some inner balance
and can also be so demanding.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He's told more than one.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Of his bosses to fuck off if they can't get
him more time, resources, or staff for his investigations.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
I heard you request that, as Elizabe.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I know this.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Every time you put your hit up I'm going to
kick it.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
But the thing that really stands out to me about
Gary is the way he pursued his cases.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
It's taken us years and now I've gone you.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
To destruction.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
So if you really want to help yourself, then you
make a.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Statement putting pressure on a suspect.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Tell me what.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Happened, doing everything he could think.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of to crack them.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Why he did it at the risk even of ruining
their life or his own.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, we're heading down towards where William, who was the
last saying alive in being around drive and that's something
that has played very heavily in my life, this particular road.
And yeah, we'll stop and look at the house. How
(03:56):
does a child disappear from there? And we haven't got
the answers and yo, as the New South Wales place,
we should be judged by it. These are the type
of cases that you need to solve.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I'm Dan box and from News dot com dot Au.
This is Witness William Tyrell Episode eight.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Pressure.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
You know, you could feel the tension, You could feel
that the bosses were doing things that they were all
by the book. This might sound a strange thing to say,
but you could just see there was at tension to detail.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
This is another of the cops who worked on the
investigation into William's disappearance in September twenty fourteen.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Normally, you know, cops, we trivialize things because it's like, oh,
we've been to a million missing kids and we found them.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But for this to happen, they don't want to be identified.
So Nina, the producer on this podcast, is reading their words.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
You've got the sense of like, oh, everyone's definitely taking
it on as a serious detective investigation.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
But that doesn't mean everything was working smoothly.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
As soon as we got there, we had tasks, so
they're just kind of giving us stuff to do. But
you know, they weren't telling us much. I didn't really
get a sense of or any briefing of how they
were attacking it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
This was before Gary Jubilin was put in charge, when
the strike force was being led by a detective called
hands Up.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Hands Up was pretty old school. I never never had
a conversation with him. Gary was the first person that
when he came aboard, he wanted everyone to tell him
what they thought. He didn't care whether I was a
constable or I was a detective or if I was
the boss. He wanted to know. He wanted to get
everyone's ideas.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
This was around the start of twenty fifteen when Hans
retired and Gary Jubilin took over the investigation.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
When he came in and I met him and we
chatted that first day, I saw him as a real
fucking detective. He was the real deal. Like I knew
about the underbelly and all that bullshit. But you know,
it wasn't until he came on board that I really
actually understood, Oh, this is what we've got to do.
We've got to put this timeline together.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
We've got to do this.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
We've got to do that. He wants everyone's import he
wants everyone to talk. He wants you to go and
have a beer after work and discuss things and argue
over ideas and theories, because that's how shit happens. I
really enjoyed working under Gary's direction because he sort of
thinks like a business person, where it's like time, we've
got to get this shit done. We've got a deadline.
(06:28):
We've got to figure this out.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, Gary didn't want things to get slowed down
by the petty bureaucracies you often run up against in
the police force, like not wanting to pay overtime, or
which police commander would let others use which resources, even
if that meant Gary falling out with other bosses.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
People ask me about it, and what I say is
he's tenacious and he'll do things that you would expect
cops in movies to do, but that's not reality, and
he's the guy that would do that. So if one
of my family members was murdered, I want Gary to investigate.
That's how I explain it.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Gary also found supporters in William Tyrell's foster parents, who
were now approaching the anniversary of his disappearance.
Speaker 8 (07:16):
The anniversary brings a huge amount of mixed emotions. Again,
we don't have an outcome. We don't know whether he's
whereabouts or anything.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
This is William's foster father speaking at the time to
the journalist Leah Harris.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
It's quite scary to think that we don't have you
know anything. One you're on. I crossed my fingers, I
look into I look into can you mother, and just
(08:11):
proposed for his return.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The first time Gary met the foster parents, he looked
at them as potential suspects.
Speaker 9 (08:24):
When we were meeting. I could feel that he was
just sizing me up, and you know, you could feel
the suspicion coming all over again.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
This is William's foster mother. In another interview with Leah Harris.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
At that point, I'd never heard of Gary jubut I know,
connection or reference to the name whatsoever. I googled him
and I thought, wow, this is good, this is really good.
He'd been on a number of he'd been on a
number of high profile yeah. But I remember somebody telling
(08:56):
me that he was the character on an underbelt and
I'm thinking, oh my god and thinking wow, okay. But
what it gave us, I think, was this sense of
We've got the right guy.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Eventually, Gary discounted the foster parents as likely suspects, just
like hands Rup had done before him. And William's foster parents.
They grew close to Gary.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
We had the then Ministry of Police telling us that
he was new South Wales Police top cop. We had
people within the police force telling us we don't have
anybody better. We trusted, we trusted police, We trusted him.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Between them, Gary Jubilin and William's foster parents turbo charged
the investigation into the three year old's disappearance. Instead of
just being a police matter, it became a massive publicity campaign.
The Where's William campaign launched in twenty fifteen. That August,
(10:02):
there was this public performance of bring Him Home from
the musical lem Asarabler.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
They are focus today at and supporting other Where's William campaign.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Local politicians spoke up.
Speaker 9 (10:25):
I can only imagine as a father and is apparent
the grief and the anxiety that the family is going through.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
There were TV news reports.
Speaker 9 (10:35):
Let's continue to work together to bring William home.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
There were billboards, thousands of leaflets were distributed.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Where's William wig the search for Little William Tyrell on
wearing the badge that they've released. They're putting out flyers,
They're asking for everyone to get involved, get on board.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
William's foster parents were driving this behind the scenes, although
the state government barred them from speaking publicly because William
was a child in care.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
William is a little boy who needs to be home.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
With his family, so instead they provided a written statement.
Speaker 10 (11:11):
Please please, whoever you are, if you know something about
William's disappearance, please help police find our little boy.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Tens of thousands of people took part in Walk for
William events right across Australia.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
They're looking at what is called a Walk for William now.
Speaker 11 (11:31):
These will be held across New South Wales as well
as in Queensland.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Other walks took place in New York, Canada, New Zealand,
Japan and Ireland.
Speaker 11 (11:42):
We are expecting up to a thousand people to pack
into the Kendall Showgrounds.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
The Kendall Showgrounds had been the focus of the search
effort after William first went missing.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
The grand of applause to for Gary and his team.
It's obviously at distressing time for them, and I'd been
doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Everybody involved in the search was invited to say thank you.
There were flags and cake and a big book for
people to sign, and Gary spoke, we don't.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Have any self doubt in regards to this investigation. We're
going out of hammer and tongs and doing everything that
we can do.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And if you signed the book there was a chance
to win a prepaid visa card. But really it was
part of a covert operation because Gary wanted to identify
the people who turned up in case the person responsible
for William's disappearance was somewhere among the.
Speaker 12 (12:32):
Crowd and we had one hundred and twelve taxi backs
between Sydney and Brisbane. We had one thousand bumper stickers
all around the area. We had one hundred thousand coasters
go out around the mid North Coast and around Sydney
in key areas.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
With the whole purpose behind that is that people have
a few drinks and if they know something, they might
say something.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (12:59):
So everything that we did was strategic.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Claire and Alice Collins are a mother and daughter team
who run a small pr company.
Speaker 12 (13:08):
There are so many cases of missing children over the
years that have just disappeared into people's memory. They don't
know about those children because there was no campaign. Everyone
knows about William. I'm not saying that's because of us,
but the campaign I think pushed his face and his
(13:32):
message into nearly every single home across Australia.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Working for free alongside the police and foster parents, they
organized the Where's William campaign, eventually taking it to the
State Parliament. Thank you the Premier, Administer of Justice and Police,
the Honorable Troy Rats and those in law enforcement, campaigners
and politicians.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Wept openly and it.
Speaker 13 (13:56):
Starts with William.
Speaker 10 (13:57):
It starts with we're going to bring him home.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
In its first year, the Where's William Campaign helped generate
thousands of newspaper, magazine and TV news reports. It held
over two hundred community events, encouraged almost three thousand new
reports of information to crime stoppers and almost two hundred
direct to the police. It was a huge effort and
(14:24):
it didn't stop. There was an events in the Federal Parliament.
Speaker 9 (14:29):
This has to resonate with every person in this nation
because Australia can never become that country that just turns
the other cheek on this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And the second anniversary of William's disappearance was marked by
the New South Wales Police Commissioner announcing the state's first
million dollar reward for information.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That's one million reasons why somebody that knows what's happened
should come forward and talk to us and do it soon.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
That reward was something else garage the campaigners and William's
foster parents fought for. Gary got up in front of
the TV cameras up stuff that we are announcing a
second strike force made up of detectives from across New
South Wales to help work through the long list of
(15:18):
people whose names had come up in the investigation. The
state Premier Mike Baird spoke about his sense of grief
over William's disappearance.
Speaker 11 (15:29):
It's an incredibly difficult thing to watch as appearent every
appearing across the nation sits and is absolutely in the
sense of deep grief with that family.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And privately, Mike Baird would go up to Gary and
tell him whatever you need in this investigation, You've got it.
Speaker 11 (15:51):
I want to pay tribute to Gary and his team.
We have the best police I think in the world.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
All of which is hugely impressive. But another year passed
without any answers, and listening to William's foster parents, it
sounds like things felt very different for them. By the
second anniversary.
Speaker 9 (16:18):
We created our Where's William campaign to keep William alive
in the public's conscious. You can't forget about this boy.
You cannot forget about William. He's three years old and
I don't think the public can say that it's okay
(16:38):
that this crime is not solved, because it's not okay,
and we need to hold police to account and we
need to push it and it needs to be solved.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Holding police to account is different to the simple trust
they described once feeling in the police force, and.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
I think part of what's helped us is we've had
Gary who has kept it going.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I saw it as a sort of pinnacle of my career.
You go through stages in your career where you're learning
your trade as a homicide detective, then you're feeling a
little bit comfortable you're up to leading an investigation, and
then you get to the point where I was in
my career as one of the most experienced homicide detectives
in the state, if not the country, and to lead
(17:31):
an investigation like this, I felt comfortable doing it. I
felt that I had the skills, I felt they had
the energy, I felt they had the experience, and so
I wasn't overawed by leading the William terial investigation.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
When Gary talks about leading, he means leading the two
strike forces now working on it, as well as his
team in the homicide squad, who all worked on William's disappearance,
but none of them were working only on this job.
They all had other cases. In the course of half
a day that I spent with Gary and Kendall around
(18:09):
this time talking about William's disappearance, he took a dozen
phone calls about other murders. He was leading right across
New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Like you're working around the clock, weekends leave. I didn't
know whether I was working or not. I was working
twenty four to seven. But making those sacrifices it was
worth it because you knew you were doing it for
the right reason and to help the families find justice.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You talk about making sacrifices, were you also prepared to
make enemies to do that job.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't seek to make enemies, but if someone is
in the way of doing a homicide investigation efficiently and effectively,
they put barriers in place.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And you're talking about other cops now I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Talking about the cops. I talk about lazy cops, whether
they're junior to me or my colleagues, or the ones
that I particularly didn't like. With a senior police that
put their career ahead of what we're meant to be
doing as homicide detectives, I think anyone that's a committed
police officer would be changed. That changes your view on life.
(19:22):
You know that you've got an awesome responsibility, a heavy
responsibility that weighs on you, that you've got to do
the right thing. So that's what drove me without doubt.
But sometimes you've just got to stand up for what's right.
Sometimes it's not easy. No one likes confrontation. I don't
like confrontation. I'm good at it if it gets the confrontation,
but I don't like it.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
He once told me that when you're working a homicide investigation,
you'll go in like a bondozer and people will get hurt. Yep,
what does you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
The very nature of homicide investigation. If people think you
can tip, you te around the homicide investigation. Living in
La La Laine, homicide investigation is about finding out what's happened.
I'm not talking about breaking rules here or going too far.
I'm talking about you've got to go after a person.
You've got to hunt that person, find that person, and
(20:15):
gather the evidence.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Gary's drive and determination was matched by some of those
who worked on the strike force into William's disappearance. His
officer in charge, Craig Lambert, was a former kickboxing champion.
The two men would actually spa together in a car
park outside the police station. Another detective, Louise Curry, was
(20:38):
a former Olympic athlete. In twenty sixteen, a few months
short of the third anniversary of William's disappearance. Louise challenged Gary,
saying she didn't believe there was enough information to exclude
William's foster parents as suspects. She wanted to pull them
back in for interview. Gary agreed, and he sprung it
(21:02):
on the couple without warning, pretending to invite them to
a normal meeting, then taking them off separately under escort
to windowless interview rooms where Louise had planned the questions.
Transcripts of these recorded interviews show both detectives asked William's
foster parents about things that would turn up years later
(21:26):
in the theory now being pursued by the new South
Wales Police Force, or in leaks from the police to
the media, like how William wasn't wearing shoes at the
time of the last known photo of him, and the
timing of exactly when William's foster mother says she spoke
to a neighbor outside. At one point, Gary asks William's
(21:48):
foster father whether the three year old might have hurt
himself accidentally and his foster mum covered it up. Never likely,
William's foster father replies, would have been a driveway tragedy
where William was hit and killed accidentally by one of
their cars. No, could William's foster grandmother have done something
(22:10):
terrible by accident and his foster mum cover it up.
William's foster father says these police theories are completely laughable.
The detectives also challenge William's foster mother about how she
deleted a text from her husband saying he was on
his way back to the house. Gary Jubilin puts it
(22:32):
to her that William might have fallen from the balcony
or a tree and she panicked and covered it up.
She denies this. You understand why the accusing finger gets
pointed back this way, Gary asks her, because invariably it's
the people that had care or custody of the child.
(22:54):
William's foster mother says no, She repeats it, no, no, never.
Gary Jubilin doesn't ask her about the drive, though, where
William's foster mother says she got into her mum's car
and went down the road towards the crossroads. William's foster
mother starts to bring this up, but Gary asks her
(23:16):
about something else, and they never come back to it.
After William's foster parents were interrogated. They go home, not
knowing the police have fitted their car with a listening device.
The couple say nothing either in the car or in
their interviews with the detectives, for the Strike Force to
(23:38):
decide that yes, they should be suspects. Instead, asked in
her interview what she thinks happened to William, his foster
mother talks about the two cars. She says she remembers
seeing parked on the road that morning. I also wonder
about Paul, she says. I'm thinking if those two cars
(23:59):
are there, they're visiting him. I just find Paul really odd.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Pod here.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
This is electronically recorded the interview between Detective Chief Inspector
Jubilin and mister Paul Savage at Port la Quarry Police Station.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Paul Savage lives opposite the house where William was last seen,
and you can't miss Paul pretty much. Every time I've
been on Benirun Drive, he comes out to say hello
or see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The Time is twelve forty two pm on Wednesday, the
sixth nighth of August two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Paul was seventy when William went missing, but still fit.
He walked in the bush every morning. In person, he's
earnest and awkward, but there's something raw about him, as
if he's always on the edge of a big emotion.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Assisting with this interview today is Detective Sergeant Laura Bluecroft.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Paul had seen William before he was reported missing at
a party on Benirun Drive months earlier.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
For the record, Sergeant Beekroff, would you please state your
name and full rank Detective Sergeant or A.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Beekroff.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
After again ruling out William's foster parents, Laura Beecroft was
the detective who initially took the lead in investigating Paul.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Mister Savage. I'm going to ask you some questions about
the disappearance of three year old missing boy William Tyrell.
Do you understand that if.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Paul agreed to do this interview voluntarily and he didn't
have a lawyer present.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
My questions and any answers you give will be recorded
on this machine. Do you understand that.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yes, and his account of what happened that morning is complicated.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Do you understand that you're free to ly of the
police station today at any time you wish yeth.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
The last known photo of William is taken at nine
p thirty seven in the morning of the twelfth of
September twenty fourteen. At nine point thirty nine, a phone
call is made from Paul's house opposite to Casino Hospital
where his brother was being treated.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Was he getting near the hospital or something? What was
and so you were going to facilitate him?
Speaker 13 (26:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Getting him out?
Speaker 13 (26:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
That call lasts eight or nine minutes. Afterwards, Paul goes
outside and can hear children playing over the road.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
William's playing up there. You can hear him.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I heard kids playing. I didn't say it was him.
I said I heard kids playing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Squeally take it from the only kids playing in the street.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
About twenty minutes later, so around ten past ten, some
other neighbors hear the sound of a car on gravel.
There's gravel at the top of Benerom Drive between Paul's
house and the house where William is reported missing. Shortly after,
Paul's wife, Heather, leaves home.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
See a time at ten thirty eight, ten thirty eight. Okay,
I'll let him.
Speaker 13 (27:03):
Know what the time was because she would be like
for binger.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Ten thirty eight. Paul's specific about this time.
Speaker 13 (27:12):
He repeats it hither hadn't lived or ten thirty.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Eight, and says the same in different interviews, but CCTV
shows Heather must have left earlier about ten thirty. At
ten forty one, there's a phone call from Paul's house
to a medical center in Port Macquarie, and around that time,
a neighbor also knocks on Paul's door.
Speaker 13 (27:39):
She said, have you heard um? They? Do you know
the little boydy on the ride go on missing?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Paul says, he walks over to the house where William
was last seen.
Speaker 13 (27:48):
Oh, I come straightly out and walked down and see
if I can help.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
He speaks to William's foster grandmother.
Speaker 13 (27:55):
She said he was there. He applied, and.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Also speaks to the neighbors Peter and Cherill. Only Peter
and Cherrell will later say that they didn't see Paul
Savage that morning.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And then you walked up into the bush.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
That's right, okay, I said, Well, I'll go up there
in the bush in case.
Speaker 13 (28:12):
It went up that way.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Paul says. Everyone else was looking for William down Benurrun Drive,
so he turned up the road alone where a dirt
trail leads into the forest.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Now, describe what you did in the bush. You indicated
that's the rough area that you'll walked at as okay,
in the general area that area that you walked that's right, okay.
And you also indicated that you got a little bit lost,
which I did. Where did you get lost?
Speaker 13 (28:49):
Just walking down here?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I couldn't remember where we begyard was, So I've come
down here and that's why I've come around.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It, okay?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And what did you do after you've so, you've taken it.
You're trying to help. You're telling me you're trying to
help and look for this child. Yeah, and you've gone
off in the bush and I think you've described as
for thirty minutes or so. Yes, I can remember you've
walked up around the bush for thirty minutes.
Speaker 13 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
After those thirty minutes, Paul says he comes home without
seeing anyone, but he doesn't go down the road to
ask if William's been found, or talk to anyone to
let them know which area of bush he's just searched.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
You didn't think to go back and say, hey, he's
not up there, or have you found him? You've just
gone back in and had a cup of tea.
Speaker 13 (29:39):
Well, everybody else to make that nice noise.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
What's going to me garring out there and join a
crowd of people when they're running around like with their throatcut.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You weren't even curious. You go in there and have
a cup of two.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
You don't have to be curious when I can hear
everybody else looking for a little bit, so you.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Know he's still lost and you're having a cup of tea.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Well, what else do you want me to do?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
PEPs go out there and help.
Speaker 13 (29:59):
Look, he had a look, and I was thirsty after
a walk. I press.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
You walk for two hours a day.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Paul says he stays inside the house for ten minutes.
In a separate interview, he'll say it was fifteen minutes.
But neither of those times really add up looking at
the timings. If Paul walked in the bush for thirty minutes,
as he says, he must have been home alone drinking
tea for nearly two hours.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well, and at once I finished in there, and
the brother in law and then showed up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Paul says he leaves his house just as his brother
and sister in law arrive for a planned visit, and
they say they got there about one pm. Though in
another interview, Paul says he left his house, walked over
the road, talked to William's foster grandmother and a police officer,
then came back and only then saw his relatives car
(30:56):
pull up.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Was it just pure cow incidence? Sitting there heaving a
cup two with all this commotion, the biggest commotion inner
room drive's ever seen, and you just happened to decide
to come out just when your brother in law and
sister in law turner.
Speaker 13 (31:11):
Now, well, what else would you call?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'd call it the remarkable coincidence.
Speaker 13 (31:16):
Well, I've got nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
You'd nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
No, okay, okay, So I have questions. In an earlier
interview with the police, Paul says he's pretty sure he
didn't know that his relatives were coming to visit that day,
but in this interview with Gary Jubilin, he says maybe
(31:41):
he did know.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I can't remember, but I dare say because Heather's brother
and sister in law were due to arrive, now we're
coming to visit us.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Paul himself was also due to leave that morning at
eleven to drive four hours north to Casino, where his
brother was getting out of hospital. But it's unsure when
Paul called his brother that day to say he wasn't coming,
and why Heather didn't seem to notice anyone out in
the street earlier that morning when she left for Bingo,
(32:17):
given we know at least William's foster mother, grandmother, and
possibly one neighbor were out there around that time looking
for him. Heather died in the months after William went missing.
Speaker 13 (32:31):
Since you had the passed a while, I heaven left
this area right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And look, you'll love the Heather, I know it's strong.
And yeah, you walked around with a picture around unique
for a month or so, as I understand them.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
In case you didn't catch that, Paul agrees that he
carried a picture of Heather around his neck for a
month after she died.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Himself.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Spoke to police on the day William was reported missing,
but his house wasn't searched until three days later. A
year later, a detective spoke to Paul again at home,
and again in January twenty sixteen. Two months after that,
in March, Detective Sergeant Laura Beecroft spent four hours with
(33:22):
Paul taking a formal witness statement, where he described spending
half an hour in the bush searching for William on
his own, and.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
How he got a bit lost.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Paul has said the same thing to me in person,
though he didn't want to be recorded, and I've got
questions about that. Also in Kendall, after talking to Paul,
I walk up the hill from the house where William
(33:55):
was reported missing, trying to get lost. Paul used to
walk this track every day, and he said that it's
quite easy to get lost through the bush here. Even
from here, you're still just in sight of the roofs
(34:16):
of the houses. But if you were looking for a
child and you set off away from the track like this,
then suddenly it seems quite different. The bush kind of
swallows you up on either side. Hang on. It is
pretty thick and it is pretty tangled. But the space
(34:38):
between the track that I've turned off and the houses
on Benermon Drive itself isn't that big. So there is
a little track here, might just be an animal track,
and then it kind of almost disappears. But I'm gonna
(34:59):
take it and follow. The longer I spend doing this,
the harder I find it to understand Paul's explanation of
his actions, because having been here, you can get these
glimpses of the houses through the trees, and there's a
(35:22):
couple of tracks, and everything is on a slope back
down to the houses of Ben Ruin Drive. And then
you walk through here for a while and you hit
this creek, which is in front of me. So it's
currently dry, maybe five meters wide. But I'm not a local.
I've been here maybe half a dozen times now, but
I knew that creek runs behind the houses, and so
(35:46):
Paul must have known if he walked here every day.
And if I follow this creek down through the forest
very quickly, I do see the sun shining off the
roof of one of the houses behind Benirun Drive. So
(36:11):
Paul's getting lost in an area that is contained by
the first track he walked off on, which is a
basically a fire trail, the slope of the hill, and
then the dry creek. I do struggle to see how
he got lost, But I'm not in Paul's mind, and
(36:36):
so my experience of this today is not Paul's experience.
And the problem is now to get out of the bush,
I think I'm gonna have to walk through someone's guard.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And in fact, and I'm walking through is Paul Savage's garden.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Another thing that caught the detective's attention was in March
twenty sixteen when Paul found a covert surveillance camera on
a tree in the bush surrounding his property. So obviously
the camera wasn't very covert. The police had put it
there to keep an eye on someone else, because at
this point they're investigating more than one of what they
(37:34):
called persons of interest. And one thing I do know
about Gary Jubilin is he loves a covert surveillance operation.
This surveillance camera kept recording as Paul picked it up,
looked straight into it, then took the camera inside.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
When Polson working and looking around this area, you find
the camera and just hang on to it. If a
police didn't turn up with a view, just hung on
to it forever.
Speaker 13 (38:01):
No I that in Lauren Blues.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
When would of you have taken into.
Speaker 13 (38:04):
I'm not quite sure how long I didn't have it
all that long.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
How long did he have.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
If you had the camera, mister Savage, approximately five weeks.
Speaker 13 (38:14):
I don't know that long. I can tell you how long.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
I'll tell you had the camera for five weeks.
Speaker 13 (38:19):
Well, that's not a small amount of Tom.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
The voice you can hear.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
There is Detective Sergeant Laura Beecroft, who is the detective
looking at Paul Savage. Based on what she told him.
Gary Jublin decided to make Paul the focus of the
strike Forces investigation, and Paul's home and phones are placed
under surveillance. The police also put a tracker on his car.
(38:46):
Two undercover cops are sent in to talk to Paul,
one posing as a freelance journalist, the other as a psychic,
both wanting to talk about William Tyrol and the listening
devices are recording and the po are waiting to see
how Paul reacts. Now, if you're thinking that sounds similar
(39:07):
to what police did with their previous person of interest,
Bill Spreading, using covert surveillance then dialing up the pressure
to see if someone will crack, then yeah, it's from
the same playbook.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I told you.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Gary likes a surveillance operation, and one thing Gary himself
was focused on was the fact that Paul also had
a history of approaching people when he might not be welcome,
including William's foster grandmother.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
No one's ever asked you to stay away from a
house because you make him feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 13 (39:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No one's ever done it, not that I know, okay.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
But William's foster grandmother had done that, asking Paul's wife, Heather,
to pass on the message.
Speaker 13 (39:57):
Well, if that's it, I used to go up there
and i'd ask her, did she on a hand? That's
I was worried about.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Her, and heaven didn't relate to you. To stay away
because you're making her feel uncomfortable. Think about this, ye.
Speaker 13 (40:11):
I am, I'm trying to remembers.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (40:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
None of this is evidence that Paul had anything to
do with William's disappearance. But Gary does go on raising
the fact that there's an apprehended violence order in place
against Paul preventing him from approaching the local postwoman. That
postwoman didn't want to talk about it when I call her,
(40:41):
But court documents say that in the years before William
was reported missing, more than once Paul did approach her,
crying and shaking, saying I love you, or I want
to spend more time with you, or followed the postwoman
in his car saying I can't live like this not
seeing you. Eventually, Australia posts stopped delivering to Paula's house. Then,
(41:09):
after the av OH was granted, Paul approached the postwoman again,
saying he wanted to wish her a happy birthday. He
was charged and pleaded guilty to breaching an av oh,
but when questioned about it by Gary, Paul denies his
behavior was threatening, calling the court case a conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
The idea was a lad, explain to me how you
stalking a woman is a setup.
Speaker 13 (41:36):
I never thought to her at any time.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So it's all lies with So when you went into
the post office cry and shaking, that was a lie
and everyone that saw it said it was a lie.
Speaker 13 (41:49):
What when did I go in crime? I went in
there once and I was upset and I was crying.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Why were you upset and crying?
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Because our film really depressed. So I went home and
I went straight back and I apologized.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Right and when the police issued an abo. Yeah, what
happened after that?
Speaker 13 (42:10):
After the abo? Yeah, bloody nothing.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You didn't get charged?
Speaker 13 (42:14):
Oh yeah, because I got one day's notice to get help.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
One day's notice to get help. What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Well, I had to court on Tuesday. I got nothing
on Saturday night to turn up in court. I had
no idea what I had to do.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Look, mister Savage, what I think we need to take
a step back. I'm not sitting here in judgment of you.
But what I can't sit here and is take lies.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Okay, okay, then now that and have been because that's
a pack of rubbies.
Speaker 13 (42:43):
It's not a pack of it is the pack of rubbies.
Well you ask her, I have asked her. Okay, then you.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I asked her, why did you ring me in July,
three months after I got the ADL on me?
Speaker 13 (42:55):
Why did you ring me and told me? She loved me?
She loves you, That's what she said.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Let's get this clear. You're telling me that this wasn't
you stalking her. She was in love with you.
Speaker 13 (43:06):
I didn't stalk that.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
She's in love with you.
Speaker 13 (43:08):
It's invitably.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
You can hear it in Paul's voice. Now, the pressure building,
and at his home, the listening devices were in place.
The transcript of what's recorded on just one of those
devices in Paul's kitchen runs to over one hundred pages,
though the quality of the devices themselves wasn't great, so
there's gaps in the recordings where no one can make
(43:34):
out what Paul is saying, or places where the transcript
says file does not exist, And in other places there's
disputes between detectives, with one saying they heard one thing
and another saying they heard something else.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
What you can say is.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That almost always Paul is talking on his own, sometimes
ranting at the television. Often it seems like he's talking
to his dead wife, Heather. He calls her angel or
more often Mum. He breaks down sobbing or seems bitter,
saying things like you set me up, don't lie, lunatic,
(44:15):
or no one will know it was you. Listening to
these recordings, Gary Jubilin decided to increase the.
Speaker 7 (44:26):
Pressure, okay, recording Where we Go.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Was this track where the police under Gary Jubilin left
the Spider Man suit for Paul Savage to find, deliberately
left it for him to find on his morning walk.
A Spider Man suit was what three year old William
Tyrrell was wearing on the morning he was reported missing.
And at this point, Paul Savage under pressure. He's got
(45:03):
listening devices in his house, listening device in his car,
his phone calls are being recorded, and the idea is
just to increase that pressure but putting a Spider Man's
suit last identified with a disappeared three year old on
the path of his morning walk. I mean, I've said
(45:24):
this to Gary jud but it sounds crazy. But they
did it, and then they watched his reaction. The people
watching Paul's reaction were specialized surveillance officers brought up from
Sydney and waiting hidden in the scrub on either side.
Paul walks up, wearing in a coubra hat with a
(45:44):
water bottle hanging over his shoulder. He gets to the
suit and stops a few meters from where it lies,
and Paul looks one, two, three four. The waiting police
count twelve seconds, and at the same time they're filming
(46:06):
Paul and taking photographs. Unfortunately, all of the photos we've
seen taken by the surveillance police who are hiding in
the bushes on either side, none of them show Paul
and the Spider Man suit in the same frame, so
none of them conclusively show that he is definitely looking
(46:28):
at that suit. They show that he's looking in the
direction of where the suit is known to be, and
the specialist surveillance cops who were in the bushes reported
that they saw him looking at the suit. But because
you haven't got that one bit of photographic evidence that
proves it conclusively, it's always open to doubt. What's not
(46:50):
open to doubt is that Paul does not report seeing
the suit that morning. Instead, he goes home, where the
listening device cords him saying something like have to do it,
though on the transcript one detective has added a comment
that says, possibly, why did I have to do it?
(47:11):
Or why did they have to do it? It's not certain.
So the next day the police left the suit out
waiting for Paul. Again, you've got this guy under surveillance.
You want to know what he might know, either to
include him or to exclude him from your investigations, so
you just dial up the pressure. I mean, there's a
(47:34):
whole question about how fair that is or how much
trauma you might be exposing this guy too. But then
you rationalize that if you're the police, by saying, we're
investigating a possible child abduction, so almost anything we do
is okay because we're trying to put right that wrong.
The next day, Paul leaves for his morning walk at
(47:56):
seven point thirty three am thirty seven. The waiting police
watch him stop, bend over to look at the Spider
Man's suit, then stand walk back the way he came.
Paul starts to run as he enters his driveway, and
within minutes he's on the phone reporting seeing the suit
to the police. And later that same morning, Paul's recorded
(48:20):
on a listening device in his house saying the suit
wasn't there yesterday, He couldn't have missed it and sobbing
the word mum.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
It's almost like the Truman Show. I kind of think
it'll be quite hard to come through this and not
have that in the back of your mind for a
long time.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
I don't think anyone's come through this investigation unscathed, because
once you've had the experience, like on your morning walk,
you literally had police on either side hiding watching you.
How you ever let that go, particularly if you're innocent.
But then the police's job is to establish whether or
not you're innocent, and so the question is how far
(49:05):
is it okay for them to go to establish your
innocence or your guilt. In his interview with Paul Savage,
Gary Jubilin goes at him hard, accusing Paul of lying
about whether he saw that suit.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
The first morning.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
This fascinates me that you can sit here and lie
to me like that when I know and you know,
you're telling a lie.
Speaker 13 (49:29):
No, I'm not. I'm not lying.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
I walked up there, I'm seen that suit, and I
went straight back home.
Speaker 13 (49:37):
I ranged the police and.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I just sorry. It just fascinates me that you can
lie like this.
Speaker 13 (49:42):
I'm not lying. I'm not lying. I'm not interested in lying.
What is a lie?
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Well, then if you don't think you're lying, then you're
totally delusional. And everything you're telling me comes in. They
get me nis air and just let.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Up the rock dead.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well you considered that the first.
Speaker 13 (50:01):
I went right down and reported it.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
No you didn't, Yes, I did. No, you're lie.
Speaker 13 (50:09):
I'm not lying.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Back at Paul's home, the listening devices are recording as
he repeatedly denies seeing the Spider Man suit. On the
first of the two days police left it on the
bush track. Paul says other things to himself. Also one day,
Paul says, no, no, he tells me what he's going
(50:32):
to do. No, he tells me that he's going to
whether I want it or not.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yeah, well I'm going to run into your property too.
This is my place. You're in my place. You do
what I want. You're a little boy. You're nobody. You're
just a little boy. You're nobody. You don't tell me,
I'll tell you. I did tell you another time. He
says murderers are sick and charge abuses a rotten bit
(51:01):
of rubbish. Paul accuses Gary Jubilin of setting him up
and insists on his innocence over anything to do with
William Tyrol. He says police are going to try and
square it up on me. I haven't got a witness.
It's all lies, He says, he now won't help police.
I was going to tell them about the two boys,
(51:23):
but bugger it, He says, I couldn't hurt a kid,
and later, I haven't deliberately hurt anything or anybody in
a long, long time. Paul says he can't sleep because
of the police investigation, meaning the pressure is getting to him.
He talks about his dead wife, Heather, saying he's sorry,
(51:46):
saying quote, he's a boy and great, they're going to
find something. Mum, don't dob on me, okay, And oh mum,
what do I do?
Speaker 1 (51:56):
What do I do?
Speaker 3 (51:58):
Later the same day, Paul says, what is it God?
And forgive me?
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Please? What did I do? Mar? What did I do?
Speaker 3 (52:08):
And a couple of days later, on the tenth of
September twenty seventeen, Paul moans and possibly talks in his sleep, saying,
it is what it is, and you've done it again.
You've done it again. You're going overboard, you know. On
the eleventh of September twenty seventeen, that's one day before
(52:29):
the third anniversary of William's disappearance, Paul says, it's in
the paper, that's the last time I seen him. And
because it's true, it's true if I don't remember, because
it's true. Other people stirring things up. And he says,
get it right, mate, They had no proof, nothing, because
there can't be nothing ever happened. And he says his
(52:53):
memories are gone. He says, I can't remember anything. If
you tell me what you were doing on eleven thirty five,
on the twelfth of fucking September in twenty fourteen, can
you remember? And he says to himself, but I think
he's imagining talking to Gary. I've not lied to you once.
(53:14):
I might have forgotten things. I might have twisted them up.
But I've not lied. I don't lie to you. I
make mistakes, and that I think is all that you
can take from the thousands of hours of listening device
recordings that Paul can be mistaken, meaning even Paul Savage
(53:38):
sometimes doesn't know whether his own thoughts are accurate.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
So I get then, Look, I'm actually look stop, I'm
not interested in your making up your lives.
Speaker 13 (54:02):
I'm not making up live all right.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
We'll move on to the next next thing. Okay, but
that saam, We'll just have to change some tapes. So
the time now is two thirty three pm. The interview
between Detective Chief Inspector Jubilin and mister Paul Savage is suspended.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
During this break in his interview with the detectives, Paul
leaves the room to use the toilet. Unrecorded, the two detectives,
Laura Beecroft and Gary Jubilin talk about whether they think
Paul really did see the Spider Man suit that they
left on the bush track on the first day or
only on the second as Paul claims. Laura thinks Paul's
(54:48):
telling the truth, but Gary Jubilin still has questions.
Speaker 14 (54:54):
The interview resumes electronic we recorded interview between Detective Chief
Inspector Gary Jubilant and mister Paul Savage.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Recommenced the time is two forty two pm. Yes, all right,
Well we'll continue on with the.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Interview outside the interview room. Disagreement between the detectives is
starting to divide the police strike Force. Not all of
them are as driven as Gary Juberlin or Craig Lambert,
the two leaders. Some are less motivated or unhappy to
be there, or have other human failings. One member of
(55:39):
the strike force will later leave the cops after an
internal investigation found he had sex in his police car
while on duty, took photos of his genitalia in the office,
and pretended to be at work when he wasn't. And
others among the strike force are also hard to manage.
Some start to disagree with Gary's focus on Paul Savage,
(56:03):
and Gary's answer is always to keep working.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
If you're sitting there and you honestly believe you're telling
me the truth about the spider Man suit, I know
you're lying and that.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
You don't I'm telling you the truth. I never say
that the I before. Why would I leave it to
die and then go? They han't ring up.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Why would I do that because you're involved in the
abduction of William tyrrel.
Speaker 13 (56:29):
I am why would I bile the line This is
bybly ridiculous. I'm not a liar.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
At the same time he is running this investigation, Gary's
also going through a divorce his second and his strike
force is starting to founder under the sheer weight of
their workload. By the end of twenty seventeen, they have
over fourteen thousand separate products meaning reports or photographs or
(56:57):
documents to work through about William. They have listening device
recordings still to go through. Some of those on the strikeforce,
like Craig Lambert, have thousands of tasks allocated to them.
Craig later describes their workload saying, quote, from start to
finish of my shift, I'm literally churning through these products
(57:20):
as quickly as possible. It was a race against myself
to get them done onto the next bang bang bang bang.
Police records show Gary's repeatedly asking for more staff, but
his staff numbers are cut instead by his bosses, and
stuff gets missed and information keeps on coming in, not
(57:43):
least because the Where's William campaign keeps encouraging people to
come forward, meaning despite everything the police are doing to
exclude them, the number of people on their persons of
interest list increasing. There is a difficulty in targeting any
(58:05):
person of interest as we have literally no evidence, Gary
writes in one report to his bosses. He warns the
investigation could go on for years.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
I'll strip it down. I won't even call you mister Savage.
I'll call you Paul.
Speaker 13 (58:20):
Yeah. Well, less of this one, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Because this is we're getting down to the nitty gritty.
Speaker 13 (58:25):
Yep, which is good.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
Gary Strikeforce start turning on each other, criticizing him between themselves,
and particularly Gary's focus on Paul Savage. Some of the
junior detectives even drive up to Kendall, walk out along
the bush track and try to prove Paul couldn't have
seen the Spider Man suit that first morning when he
(58:49):
did not report it. Only they can't prove it, and
their mini investigation is kind of fascicle. They don't even
take a tape measure to make sure they know where
Paul was standing. But it does prove that Gary's grip
on his team is slipping and he can no longer
trust them to back each other and his leadership. Gary
(59:14):
keeps on working, pushing himself and the team around him harder.
He makes some bad decisions. Three times, in twenty seventeen
and twenty eighteen, Gary visits Paul at home alone. Their
conversations are recorded on the listening devices and also on
(59:35):
Gary's mobile. Gary also records a phone conversation with Paul,
asking again about the Spider Man's suit.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Hello, Paul, Gary, jubilant here from the place.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
At the same time, Gary's preparing to hold an inquest
into William's disappearance. The sole reason Gary wants to have
this inquest is to pray Paul, to ask him everything
how he got lost in the bush. The listening device
recordings the Spider Man suit, whether he did or didn't
see it, But preparing for the inquest means even more
(01:00:14):
work for the strikeforce, which is now disintegrating, to the
point that Gary and his officer in charge, Craig Lambert,
physically square off against each other in the offices of
the Homicide Squad and have to be separated. Craig, who
thinks the continued pursuit of Paul Savage is wrongheaded and
(01:00:35):
a waste of time, has his gun taken from him
and is escorted from the building. Gary goes back to work.
The inquest is due to start in months in March
twenty nineteen. There are other persons of interest other than
Paul that Gary asks his team to look at on
(01:00:56):
top of this. On the nineteenth of January, weeks out
the inquest, Gary is sent to Northern New South Wales,
a seven hour drive from Sydney, to investigate the shooting
of two police officers. The next day, the twentieth of January,
he's sent to Newcastle to lead another murder investigation. Two
(01:01:17):
days later, on the twenty second, Gary is told that
he's under internal investigation and taken off all active homicide cases,
meaning he never works on the disappearance of William Tyrol again.
(01:01:39):
In March twenty nineteen, Paul gave evidence at the inquest
looking at what happened to William. He said his memory
was now a bit cloudy and gave some of his
evidence in private behind closed doors. So we don't know
if Paul was asked about what he said on those
listening device recus recordings, or whether he did see the
(01:02:03):
Spider Man suit on that first day or only on
the second, like he told the police.
Speaker 13 (01:02:09):
I did not see the suit, and I before or
I want to record them help I can.
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
And speaking of listening device recordings, after Paul Savage leaves
this interview with the detectives, he's recorded on a listening
device in his car, saying, make sure you don't tell
anyone love. They're right after me. Don't tell anyone love, please,
they're right after me. Sorry. And we don't know if
(01:02:37):
he was ever asked about that as well. Years later,
when I go up to Kendall for this podcast, I
park on Benirum Drive and Paul walks up. We get talking.
Paul tells me he did see the suit. He doesn't
(01:02:59):
want to be recalled, but I make shorthand notes as
he's talking. Paul says, on the first day, he saw
only the top and thought, I don't know about that,
and maybe it was some other kids who left it.
He says, the next day he saw the whole suit.
He says he did think of William Tyrell when he
(01:03:21):
saw half the suit, but because it was only the top,
he thought it wasn't important. On the second day, when
he saw the whole suit, Paul says, I thought it
was probably his williams He says, I felt hopeful. I
hoped we could solve the case. I ask him why
he didn't tell the police this at the time, and
(01:03:44):
Paul doesn't really explain it. He says, I've left it
a bit longer than I should have, but it will
come out eventually, only it hasn't until now. At the inquest,
one of the detectives, Laura Beecroft, said she didn't think
(01:04:06):
Paul was still what she called an active person of interest,
but at that point Laura herself was no longer on
the strikeforce so couldn't be certain. But one of the
detectives who's still working on the investigation gave evidence about Paul.
In a separate court hearing that detective Mark Jukes, said
(01:04:27):
there was no exculpatory evidence that I was aware of
that could completely eliminate Paul Savage from the investigation. In court,
Mark said his view was that Paul should not be
written out of the case. That was in February twenty nineteen,
just after Gary Jubilin was taken off it. But I
(01:04:47):
think that's what happened. The police are no longer looking
at Paul Savage, and Paul is eighteen now and even
he admits his memories can be mistaken. There are still
unanswered questions. Nina, the producer on this podcast, spoke to
Paul on the phone last week and he said no
(01:05:10):
one from the police had been to talk to him
since Gary was taken off the investigation. And that decision
to take Gary off the investigation that changed everything, and
we'll get into that in detail next week on Witness.
Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
William tyrrel.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
This electronic interview between Detective Inspector Jubilee and Paul Savage
is now concluded. Before I turned the tapes off, ask
you a couple of questions. Oh, has any threat, promise
or inducement been held out to you to give the
answers you were given in this interview? Have you provided
those answers of your own free will listen? Is there
(01:05:56):
anything further you wish to say in relation to this manner?
Speaker 13 (01:06:00):
I didn't know. I'm gonna work inside. I can't hips obviously,
all right, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
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
been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, jazz Bar, Phoebe Zakowski, Wallace
and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by
Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at
(01:06:35):
news dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
I'm Dan Box
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