October 13, 2024 • 49 mins
William’s birth family, and the decision to take him away.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
One Monday a couple of months ago, I got into
the car with Nina, who's their producer.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
On this series, checking my levels again.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Pulled out into the traffic and went looking for someone
we've been trying to talk to for the past eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Where are we going?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
What are we doing? Dan? We're going to try and
find William's birth mother, Carly. And the reason I want
to talk to Carly is really just to let her
know what we're doing and why we're doing it, and
to give her the chance to tell us what she
(00:42):
thinks of what happened. And the reason to do that
is because if it was my child, I would want
someone to contact me before doing this. Yeah, but they're
not an easy family to get hold of.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
No, So what we're doing today is our last option really,
because we've tried contacting Carly through social media, We've tried
contacting Carlie on the phone, We've tried several furgn numbers.
So our last effort, because we really do want to
make sure Carli is at least aware of this podcast,
(01:22):
even if she doesn't want to speak to us, We're
going to door knock.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, We've got three addresses and we're going to knock
each of those houses and ask if she's there and
ask if she wants to talk to us. And we've
done this for Brendan as well. It is William's dad.
You have been driven out like this. And the first
house we went to, remember it had obviously been bought
(01:48):
and sold and done up, and every record of them
living there. We've just been quite clean.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And then the second house, it wasn't a house, it
was a unit in a block that had row after
row after row of units. And we knocked doors and
got nowhere. And then when we got back, I tried
the strata agent and I said, is Brendan living there?
And he had no record of Brendan ever being there.
And then the third place was an apartment block with
(02:15):
six units in it, and we knocked all the doors
and no one there had heard of them either, so
we weren't able to find Brendan.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Since this afternoon in the car with Nina, I've spoken
to someone who said they would pass on my phone
number to Brendan. And it's possible, Brendan that you're listening
to this, and if so, and you do want to talk,
just give me a call Another reason we want to
talk to you, Brendan and to Carly is that when
(02:50):
you look at the disappearance of William Tyrell, there's one
decision that is the start of everything that follows. That's
the decision to take William off his biological parents and
put him in foster care. So, knowing what we know now,
it's easy to say that that was a bad decision,
(03:13):
or it was the decision that if it hadn't happened,
William wouldn't have disappeared. But that's different from knowing what
was known at the time, and at the time it
might not have been a bad decision. To understand if
it was a bad decision, you have to go back
(03:37):
to before when William was reported missing on the twelfth
of September twenty fourteen, to the other time William went missing,
this time when he was just a baby and when
it was his birth parents who took him and hid
him from the police. I'm Dan Box and from New
(04:00):
dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrol Episode two, Looking
for Carly. After trying to find Brendan, we did contact
(04:21):
his mum, Natalie Collins. She's William's biological grandmother.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She's traditionally sort of been the spokesperson for the biological family.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, that was kind of what I hoped that she'd
be up for talking, but it didn't work out that way.
I spoke to her and she said, yep, I'm happy
to do an interview. And then I called her back
and she didn't answer. So then I called her back
a bit later, and she agreed to do an interview,
(04:52):
but at a certain time, and so I called her up.
She heard my voice and just hung up, and she
hasn't answered the phone to me since. So then you called.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Her, yeah, So then I called her, Uh, hello, Hey, Natalie?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Hey, you going okay?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It was a phone conversation, and the audio isn't great.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm recording, by the way. I'm to let you know
every time, otherwise, you know, I get in trouble. H Oh, sorry,
I wasn't try.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
If you hung up on me, no, no, no, it
cuts out. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So did you listening to this interview? I think Nina
sounds nervous.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I felt she was very emotional.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Nina and Natalie are speaking the day after news broke
that the police are seeking to charge William's foster mother
over his disappearance, and so.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I was just a little bit worried going into it
how she was going to take the conversation or whether
it was a good time to have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
William's foster mother, who was in the house with him
at the time he went missing, insists she had nothing
to do with it. She's not as yet been charged.
Listening to Nina's conversation, it's pretty clear what Natalie thinks.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The thing is that they shouldn't have taken the kids
off them in the first place, and that's where it's
all going to start.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Natalie says the authorities were wrong to take William away
from his biological parents.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
William was devoted to Brendan. I've seen William I think
when he was taken off them, and then that day
that they pulled him upstairs.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
In a prayering job from the prayer and riding to
Brinda's arts.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
William was about nine months old when he was taken
from his birth parents. He was born on the twenty
sixth of June twenty eleven at the Royal north Shore
Hospital in Sydney. I don't know why, but Brendan's name
is not on the birth certificate. That box is just
left blank, and a court would later hear. There was
a history of drug use and of domestic violence between
(07:12):
Brendan and Carly. Both of them have criminal records. Brendan's
been arrested dozens of times, and he's been in prison
on a few occasions, although the only dates I can
find for that are after William went missing. In their conversation,
Nina asks Natalie about the most recent search for William.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
When there was the search back in twenty twenty one.
I read a quote from you that said you kind
of didn't feel like there was any point in what
they were doing, because you already knew at that point
that he was gone.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Have you born been up there?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
No, I haven't yet.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Oh, you can't say that until you go up there,
and then you'll then you'll see why you have to
go to the house and actually see the house, and
then you'll understand why.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What did you think about Natalie telling you that you
have to go to the road where William went missing
to understand how she feels about it.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I didn't fully understand what she meant by that. I
haven't been there yet. You've been there at least once
a few times, four times now and we are going
to go soon.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But did it give you some insight?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah? I think Natalie's right. You do have to see
that house, because it's not until you see it and
you realize it's a dead end street. It's dead quiet.
There's no way you'd go there unless you had a
reason to be on that street at that time. And
it's when you see that that you realize the chance
(08:45):
of a chance subduction. It just it's almost impossible. Yeah,
the only people could go there have a reason and
then almost certainly someone sees them on the street. And
I think Natalie right in saying that you have to
see the place to understand how she feels. And the
(09:06):
way Natalie feels is angry.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It's killed me three years old. He just vanishes from
the face of the earth.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Angry, I think at the damage done to her family
after William was taken away from them.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Like all the shit that I have been through from
day one, Like Brendan, he lost his son. I lost
my son and I lost myself as well.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
What do you mean by that, You've lost yourself.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I'm not going to talk to you anymore. It's a
waste of time, you know. Like, what do you mean
if you were in my shoes, you wouldn't even ask that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's all fucked up.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
All your reporters are the same. I don't I haven't
talked to you reporters for a long time, Christian.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
No, you're hounding me, and I'm talking from my heart.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
No one, you haven't.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Been in my shoes. I'm sick of it.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I'm sick to death of it, Like this has been
my life for ten years. My son has been in
figging jail, he's been homeless, he's buddy hit rock bottom,
rock bottom after ten years. You wouldn't believe what that
child's been through or what I've been through with him.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And who cares about that?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
No one?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
And I've done it on my own and I'm still
doing it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I don't want to hound you, Natalie, and I don't
want to pretend that I do know what you're going through.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's why I'm asking.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Like you reporters are all the same, like daily mail shit,
it's all crap. You know, you've got to be honest
and help someone. You don't fucking put crap on there.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
I don't want this recording.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I'm done, okay, I'll stop recording.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I wanted to ask you, how did you feel? How
do you feel about us using that tape of that
conversation in this series.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, look, I'm not comfortable. I mean, I am comfortable.
It's hard, isn't it. I can't even answer that question properly.
I guess the part of me that will be uncomfortable
with that running is just mostly kind of ego. I
think why because I really don't like to push people
(11:45):
when they're not comfortable. I like to put their safety
and their emotional safety first. So to have her respond
really negatively to something I said, I don't feel good
about that at all. You know, I felt awful that happened.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Do you understand why I wanted to use it?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I mean I think so you tell me why
you want to use it.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I want to use it because it puts you on
the spot, and I know that and I appreciate that's hard.
But the other thing it does is it demonstrates the
sheer emotion and the sheared trauma that those close to
William have gone through and is still going through now
as a result of him going missing and there being
(12:37):
no resolution of what happened to him, yeah, and I
think that is important that in this case that has
become headlines and new specials and social media chatter, and
at the heart of it, there is absolute grief and
no thing, nothing we can say, you and me can
(13:01):
describe that better than that tape of Natalie getting upset
and getting angry.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
There's no way I understand.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I absolutely don't understand, and I'm actually I'm fine with
her getting angry at me. I didn't feel angry at
her for getting angry at me, because I think if
we can try and put ourselves in her shoes a
little bit. They've really been quite powerless throughout this situation, right,
(13:30):
They've been powerless since.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Losing their child to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The foster system.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Then they're powerless through the police investigation. They're pretty powerless
through the media reporting when we weren't allowed to say
who they were. Again, the police and the government got
in the way and sort of said this is what
can be said, this can't be said. So they've been
censored sort of from being able to say what they want.
(13:58):
So I think to be that powerless and then to
have yet another journalist calling you, I don't know, at
such a low point, I can get why she's angry,
and I think it's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
After that first phone call, Nina sent Natalie a text
message just saying sorry, and she didn't hear back and
didn't talk to Natalie again. But another producer, Emily, tried
calling instead.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Okay, you can still hear me.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (14:35):
Perfect, And so you're happy for the phone call to
be recorded, yep, yeap, wonderful. So we were just talking.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The conversation had a similar start. They're talking about the
impact of William's loss.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
What has done to my family from day one has
stuffed all of us up, and I lost my son
and I lost myself on the way.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
Hmm. I'm so sorry to hear Natalie. It must be
absolutely awful.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
How would you deal with it if it was your son,
it was your daughter.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
I can't even imagine.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
A ten years is a long time, you know, ten
years of my life that no one should really.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Have to go through.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
How are you going.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Like it's a long story, this bloody story, you know,
like it's a long drawn out, sad story. But the
thing is that these dogs people, they failed to do
their job properly, because this shouldn't happen these days with
poster care children like William was only a little baby
(15:48):
three years old, he vanished from the face of the earth.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
M okay, so we're pulling up shortly to the first address,
(16:17):
and what's your plan.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Honestly, I don't think we overthinking. We are here to
try and talk to Karli, to tell her what we're
doing and why we're doing it, and just be as
straightforward and as honest as possible with her.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
What we're not going to do is run up and
shove a microphone at our face. If you walked up
to my house with a microphone.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Recording to talk about yours, I wouldn't talk to you.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
But if it gets hostile, do you want me to
get out and record?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
So I forgets hostile, You're going to be sitting inside.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
The car, not going to be standing by recording it.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I don't think it's going to get hostile. Is this it? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (17:15):
It is?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Are you going to stay in the car?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What would you prefer I do?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Stay in the car? I think it's fairer on Carly.
What cannot have felt fair on Carly was the way
having William taken from her meant other people like caseworkers
or the state government Department of Family and Community Services
(17:44):
effectively passed judgment on her as a mother. William's foster
placement is recorded in hundreds of pages of documents, and
one of these notes that, at the time William was taken,
his birth parents quote maintained a high level of denial
regarding domestic violence in their relationship. The documents also say
(18:07):
that Carly had quote unresolved attachment needs affecting her parenting
capacity and looked to her children for what the documents
call developmentally inappropriate care and comfort. But nowhere in any
of those documents that I've seen, can you see what
Carl has to say about that. I think that's the
(18:33):
wrong house. So there was no one there, and I
spoke to the neighbor, and the neighbors said, it's not
a Carli who lives there, but it is a TYRL. Okay.
She looked a little bit circumspect.
Speaker 7 (18:53):
Because you're just a strange man in the middle of
the door.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I'm probably not the first strange reporter he's turned out,
but their house eyes over the years. But no, so
I think we try.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Okay, the next address on WS to house two.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Or be honest, it probably wasn't until I went to
knock on the door that I realized how actually faintly
sick I feel doing this.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Help me through.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's just it's just that you know, if it is
the right person, you just know it's going to be
unpleasant for them.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, this is probably the most confronting way you'd have
to do it.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So I left a letter there. We'll see, all right,
what's the next address. One thing that makes the decision
to take William off Carly and into care seemed more
open to question is that Carly had other children who
stayed with her, and as far as I know, they're
(20:00):
still with her. Carl was also pregnant when William was
taken and has had other children since. It feels like
each time she has a child. The Daily Mail writes
articles based on Facebook photos, and in those photos the
family look happy. Natalie, William's biological grandmother, says that was
(20:25):
not the case for William with his foster parents.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Like when William was in their kid black eyes, skinny,
no shoes on. You know, we used to have supervised
visits and my son was too scared to love his
children because he knew if they go.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Home, they're going to be in trouble for that? How
is that? How does that work out?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Natalie is really critical of William's foster parents, and particularly
critical of his foster mother.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Then she stopped everything.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Allowed to give them Lollie's not allowed to give them kinders,
the process, not led to give them the food that
we were bringing. She pecked the lunches, dry pasta, no
in costume clothes, all the time barking her orders.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You know, a lot of what Natalie says about William's
foster parents, We're not going to repeat here, because what's
not certain is whether what she's saying is fair or accurate.
Some of what she says is right, like how William
was encouraged to call his birth parents by their first names,
(21:37):
Brendan and Carly. But read through the records of William's
foster care and you see that once William started using
first names, it was his caseworkers who supported this, not
his foster parents, and the idea behind it was to
help William adjust to his foster family. At other times,
(21:59):
Natalie's version of what happened contrasts completely to conversations I've
had with other people or with documents from the time.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
In their eyes, it was like, they don't have a
mother and father. You know, you go and you call
them Brendan and Carli. You don't call them mam and
dad because they're not your mom and dad. We are like,
who does all that?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Every visit by William's caseworker is documented saying how William seemed,
what he was wearing, his general health, the fact he
liked his daycare, how he and his caseworker were playing
together building a train set. As he grows up, the
documents record that Williams starts going to soccer training on
a Monday and dance class on a Friday. His placement
(22:45):
with his foster parents is described as being very stable,
and after eighteen months, the documents record that Williams started
saying his foster parents are his parents.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
So there's a lot to answer for.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Natalie keeps coming back to the allegation that William was
mistreated by his foster parents, But I haven't found any
real evidence of that in the files.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
How did William get a black life?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
There is a record in the files of William getting
a black eye, In fact, there's pages about it. It
was in July twenty fourteen, just after his third birthday.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Oh, he fell off my lap. No, it was a
black eye.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The foster records say William fell on a coffee table
while crawling on his foster mother's lap.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
You don't get a black wife from falling from anee.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And speaking as a dad of three kids do pick
up injuries that way. They fall off your lap, or
run into tables or trip downstairs, The files show. The
foster mother reported this fall to William's caseworker the next
morning and sent through some photographs of the bruising. She
also took him to the Royal north Shore Hospital. The
(23:58):
doctors noted a haema tone, which is a pool of
blood under the skin, and swelling to his cheek. There
was no sign of concussion. He didn't need an X ray,
and William was discharged. A week later. The caseworker recorded
the bruise was going down and that William was not
in obvious pain or distressed. But two months later, on
(24:20):
the day that William goes missing, his foster father told
police that a week before, William had fallen backwards off
a stool and struggled to get back up, and those
records about William have since been used online and in
the mainstream media. Has reasons to say he wasn't okay
in the care of his foster parents.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
There was heaps of reasons, you know, like William was
never seen.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
William was always happy.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
But the last time I think Brendan seen him was
in August and he was crying and screaming. He didn't
want to go back. Not long that he vanished from
the face of the earth. Now you tell me that
one you just like that happened and then all of
a sudden, three days or four days later, the little
boy's gone. Hell.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why In the years after William was taken from them,
other documents show support workers saying Brendan and Carly go
(25:34):
to huge lengths to do well in their parenting. Carly
is quoted as saying her entire life is turned towards
having the children return to their care. Brendan coped with
the stress of losing William by partly by working long
hours six days a week, the documents say. They say
(25:54):
he took part in a course called Choosing Change, which
is for men who've been violent or abusive, but Brendan's
said to have missed a couple of the sessions and
not really participated in the group discussions, so the course
organizer recommended that he start the course again.
Speaker 6 (26:11):
Has William's father have you spoken to him?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Oh? Yes, I have.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
How does he feel about it all?
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Oh well, I don't even know. He's trying to get himself,
like he's getting better, do you know what I mean? Like,
but he's got a lot of support where he So,
you know, we talk about it, and you know, like
I feel bad for my son, like I just you know,
look at his life. His life has been turned upside
down since that poor little boy disappeared. He's still in rehab.
(26:45):
You know, he knocked himself around for quite a long time,
you know, punishing himself. And it really wasn't his fault.
He was a good dad, He was a good provider.
He loves his kids, you know. So and you know.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
He's worked hard to get where he is today.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
How long has it been since you've done our door knock?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Less than a year. But the last time I did
the doorknock, no one answered. The last time I did
a doorknock for a family whose child had been murdered
or gone missing and actually got hold of them was
two or three years now. And a lot of people
(27:42):
hate doing it, but I've never minded doing it as
long as you are sufficiently respectful and sufficiently apologetic. And
it doesn't always go well, it goes well more often
than you'd think it would.
Speaker 9 (28:10):
All right, this is the second address. All right, if
she does want to talk, I'll give you a shower.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
A week after their first conversation, Emily, the producer called
William's biological grandmother again.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Okay, can you hear me? Natalie?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yep?
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Amazing, And you're happy for me to record our chat?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Perfect?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
This time, the target of Natalie's criticism isn't only William's
foster mother, it's also Carly, who's in Natalie's sights.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
I'd love to learn a little bit more about Brendan
and Carly's relationship. How did they first meet?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I don't even know like that.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
That was probably the worst thing he ever did in
his life to meet her.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
Oh, you weren't that fond of her?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
No, she was. She had a lot of problems, a
lot of issues that girl.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Do you know how long they were together before they
had William?
Speaker 5 (29:28):
Or they've been together for probably three years or something.
They were together for a long time. But she shouldn't
have ever had kids out lady either. That's my opinion
as well.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
So it was a bit of a turbulent relationship, would
you say.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
It was a bit of like, well, Brendan was always
doing the right thing, you know, going to work, paying
the bills, and me and my daughter had to go
down there like twice a week to make sure he
could please come in the door and have a shower,
have dinner. And then after we left them, they started
fighting and then he's the people would call the police
and it was like, oh, he's got to go, you know,
But nothing nothing major. I mean, I grew up in
(30:10):
that sort of environment. No one mean and said my
mother and father were fighting and blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
How did it feel when Brendan Carly's photos were out
in the media and their names were used. Yeahs terrible
And the whole time the foster parents, their identities were
all hidden.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Terrible. Brenda more than as bad as what everyone thought.
And you know, I was a decent mom. I wasn't
you know, I am mount to your mama. I was
a decent Like do you think he had a dinner
a mother? I know he didn't. He had a good up.
Britney who was a good, you know kid, but met
the wrong person.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Like with what Natalie says about William's foster mother. Some
of the things she says about Carly, we're not repeating
here because we're not able to say they're right or
they contrast with the evidence we've got from elsewhere, and
all you're left with is one person's opinion on another,
in this case, Brendan's mum's opinion on Carly as a mother.
(31:16):
And that's another reason to want to talk to Carly herself.
Nothing again, no one there, A couple of cars in
(31:37):
the driveway, couple of motorbikes, one of them is being
worked on. So I thought someone might be there, But
no answer at all. So I left a letter under
the door. Okay, driving away from the second house. I
don't doubt Carly wanted to be a good mum. Among
the documents from William's time in foster care is one
(31:59):
saying that Carly told one caseworker she only agreed to
having William in long term care so that she and
Brendan could focus on parenting their remaining children.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
Well, what do you remember about William as a little baby?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Oh, I was always happy, he was never seen like
always happy, you know, happy happy baby Helsey.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
We would go there for one hour supervised vidiots, sat down,
had a picnic or like kind serprises and lollipops and stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
But we're allowed to have that or this crap happens.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
So with William, like every time you see in Britan
he just loved him and screaming and crying to go home.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Okay. So there are different versions of these contact visits.
There's Natalie Collins version and then there's the written version.
In the documents of William's time in foster care, the
biological parents were allowed of these contact visits a year,
for one hour each. Natalie describes William screaming and crying
(33:07):
when he had to leave them, but the written records
from the time say quote there were no observed signs
of distress or sadness when William separated from his parents.
Those words appear in the records twice for different visits.
There are records saying that William became anxious or hyperactive
(33:29):
or aggressive, slapping and punching his foster care as, he
was described as defiant or having oppositional behavior, and he
had nightmares. But all of this seems to happen mostly
just after these contact visits, and reading through it seems
more of a response to the difficulty of meeting different
(33:51):
sets of parents. You find yourself starting to imagine what
was going through a three year old's mind. On the
morning of their last contact visit, Williams recorded as saying
he didn't want to go, but he got excited when
told it was at Chipmunks, which is a play center
with a huge maze with different levels and nets and
(34:12):
is full of obstacles. It would be the last time
William saw his birth parents, Carly and Brendan. Ten days later,
William disappeared, And so.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
Carly and Brendan don't have any contact.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
Do you mind me asking when did their relationship end?
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The day that William went missing?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
That very day?
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yep, that was the end of it.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Was William's disappearance a contributor to that.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, if William.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Didn't go missing. Do you think Brendan and Carly might
still be together today?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Oh? No, I think so?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
You know thinks how you don't hope so do so?
Do you know roughly how old Brendan and Carli were
when they met.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
I think Carlie was only like seventeen or something, and
Brendan moved. I don't know, I'm about twenty two or something.
Only young, very silly. You can't change some people, you know.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I'm just worry about why dudes?
Speaker 6 (35:23):
You know, what's your biggest worry about them?
Speaker 4 (35:29):
I'm always worrying than Adam.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Yeah, it's a mother's instinct, worry about your kids.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
The more I look at everything that's happened since William's disappearance,
so much of it seems to come down to different
kinds of judgment on motherhood. Who's a good parent, and
particularly who is a good mother. For Carly, having the
state government come in and take her child way must
have felt like someone saying you're not good enough mother,
(36:06):
And as a parent, that feels wrong. I mean, who
really gets to make decisions about your kids, which might
explain why in the months before William went missing, after
his biological family first learned that the government was planning
to take him, Brendan and Carly and Natalie they took
(36:28):
William and they hid.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
I had them for three months after I knew they're
in the are.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
You talking about before William went into foster care, when
ye when took William.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It was me, it wasn't he.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
So I them really good for three months and then
they got caught.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Carl Brendan and William lived with Natalie for weeks during
this time, and Natalie, as she arranged it.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I arranged the call.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
You're the mastermind.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Yeah, that's right, and so you were. I should have
taken in myself. I should have just tugging myself in
the nile. We've been able to take him off me.
That's all I should have done.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
This was in February twenty twelve, when the state government
Department of Family and Community Services, which is also known
as FACTS, asked police to help find William. So a
police sergeant went to Carl's address and there was no
one there. The police went to another address they had
for William's biological grandmother, but the person who answered the
(37:38):
door said they didn't know either Carli or the grandmother.
So a caseworker called four different telephone numbers they had
on file for the family, and all of them were disconnected.
They called a fifth, but incoming calls were restricted. Back
in the car with Nina, we're still involved in our
own search.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Number three is the one I think is most likely
okay to be her house currently. Why do you think,
because we are aware that other journalists have been at
this property in the last year.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And have seen her there, and how did that go?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Not well?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Not well?
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Well, there's photos of that journalist being pushed away from
the house by friends or relatives.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
As the days passed and William stayed hidden with his family,
the police kept trying different addresses. You had plain closed.
Detectives canvassing the neighbors, just knocking on doors. The police
tried the extended family. A nurse arrived for a regular
appointment with Carly, but no one answered. Here we are
(38:55):
is it number eight? I'm glad you told me that
thing about how badly it when last time? All right, yeah,
forward a little just so you can see the.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Door, yea, as if they do come out and shove
youry I'm going to get out of the car.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Are you good?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
William was officially listed as a missing person. A month later.
The police did catch up with his biological father, Brandon.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
Remember the day, like this's come to me, It's all
over now, mum. They arrested him and arrested both of them,
actually took William away and William was screaming and crying.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
Were you there the moment that the police came and
arrested and Carly.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
No, it was at work.
Speaker 6 (39:59):
What was is it like going to work that morning?
You've got your grandkids and Brendan and Carly in the
in the granny flight out the back, and then you
come home and your whole life's being uprooted.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
The sad things is the story is very sad from
the engineer.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
After baby William was found being hidden by his birth parents,
he was taken to hospital and found to be medically well.
The next day, the sixteenth of March twenty twelve, William
was placed with authorized cares, and a year later, April
twenty thirteen, a court ordered William to remain in care
(40:38):
technically under the parental responsibility of a government minister until
he turned eighteen, meaning that court and the state government
did not anticipate William ever returning to Carly and Brendan.
And there are two ways of looking at that decision.
What we know now that he would disappear again for
(41:01):
good this time, and what was known then no answer
and all the curtains are drawn. I looked over the
(41:23):
back fence and the garden's pretty overgrown, but there are
some kids toys that there's a paddling pool hanging over
the back deck, and you can see through one of
the windows that the kitchen's got the stuff in it,
so someone is living there. So I left a letter
hopefully she'll call.
Speaker 7 (41:48):
That was our last house.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Right now, Nina and I never do manage to speak
to Carlie, and Carlie, if you're listening and you do
want to talk, please do contact us. But we do
have some idea of how she feels about what has
happened to William And over the past decade. The year
(42:15):
after he disappeared in twenty fifteen, Carli gave an interview
to the Seven Network that was broadcast on TV. What
sort of mom did you think you would be?
Speaker 5 (42:28):
Like?
Speaker 6 (42:28):
A nurturing mom, caring, loving, Yeah, a good mom.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
No one knows their baby better than the mom.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Okay, So anyone that's watching this, anyone that's going to
see you, what do you say to them?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
What can we do?
Speaker 10 (42:46):
I don't heard him, let me come home.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
The more I learn about this, the more I think
we actually can't separate what we know now about the
decision to take William from his biological parents. From what
was known at the time, there is only the knowledge
that William did go missing and is still missing. Since
(43:26):
recording this episode, I've spoken again to Natalie, William's biological grandmother,
and asked her to pass my number on to Brendan,
her son. And I was talking to Natalie about this
decision to take William away from his birth parents. I
told her how even some of the people who played
a role in what happened still ask themselves if it
(43:49):
was the right decision. One of those was one of
the officials who was sent to take William away from Carly,
who was there at the moment William was taken from
one family before being given to another. He doesn't want
to be identified, so these are his words, but not
his voice.
Speaker 8 (44:12):
Looking back. It was hard, but we take kids off,
you know, families all the time. You do it. You know,
it's just it. It is part of the job. But
you know, and ironically, this is the thing I get
said about is sorry, mate, No, it's all right. Yeah,
(44:40):
it's we took William off Carli to protect him. Yeah,
and well, no one knows what happened. I mean, we've
all got stories and thoughts. But I thought, how fucking
ironica is? Are you facts? And we took him off, Carli,
off the mother because you know, just a shit family.
You know that you probably met them, I'm assumed, you know,
(45:01):
And you go, you take William, take this baby, defenseless,
poor little baby of a family because you've decided, or
the government's decided that the family is too shit to
look after the child. And then this happens. Yeah, you know,
I can still see myself walking into that bloody unit.
(45:22):
It's just up the stairs and turn left and you
go into Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
And what did you see when you got in there?
Speaker 8 (45:31):
Oh, it's just a well it's just a little housing
commission unit. And there was shit everywhere and kids toys everywhere,
and that was just yeah. And there was with Liam
on the floor and Carlie just abusing this shit out of.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Us, Carlie doing what sorry.
Speaker 8 (45:48):
Oh, just abusing us, just you know, because we were
there to take the kid.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
And I'm assuming you'd been told by Facts or whoever
passed that instruction to you that he's in danger.
Speaker 8 (46:01):
Well I knew, I knew the family. I knew the
Tyroll family, and it was a shit environment for William
to be and there's no doubt in the world. But ironically,
it's just okay, I thought we were all protecting him. Yeah,
I just think, fuck, did did we do the right thing?
(46:23):
And did we? But he just shake your head sometimes
you go, you know, would he still be alive? Maybe
you don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
You don't know, and you can't say, but you're you're
only human if you're asking the question.
Speaker 8 (46:37):
Well, exactly right, you go, well, I don't know if
he'd be alive, but there's a chance in mind. I
just think we thought we were all doing the right thing.
Well we knew, Sorry I shouldn't say we thought we
knew we were doing the right thing. Is the situation
in the family. So the family was very ordinary. The
family is very very ordinary in the facts. Thought so too,
(46:59):
But it's it's just the irony of it that we
took him to protect him because we thought he needed
protecting him. This is what happened.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I've not I've obviously not been in your position, and
I haven't seen a fraction of the things that you
would have seen in your career. And I know that
this probably isn't the worst of it, but that stuff
isn't ever going to leave you or any of the
people who were there that day, is it?
Speaker 8 (47:24):
Well, no, not really, but it is the thing you
go because of all the other shit we saw, like
the deceased and the fadals and the kids and the
CID's deaths and all the rest of it. You know,
they're gone there in the back of my head and
another ironic thing, you know, they're in my head, they're
squared away. They're like, I'm fine with all of it.
(47:49):
It is it occasionally, but ninety nine percent of the time,
I'm fine. It doesn't affect me day to day. Yeah,
but William William does because it keeps coming back.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It keeps coming back, he says, because of what would
end up happening to William.
Speaker 8 (48:13):
Yeah, it's just it's just shit. I mean, someone knows
more than one person knows the actual truth of what
happened one hundred percent, because William didn't walk away one
hundred miles. He didn't get you know, either it was
in a car or whatever. It is. Fucking someone knows
what happened to William.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Today, police suspect the person who knows what happened to
William is his foster mother. She insists on her innocence,
So next time on Witness we look at William's foster family.
If you know anything about William's disappearance, please contact crime Stoppers.
(48:55):
There's a number in the show notes for this series,
but if there's anything you want to tell us, you
can email Witness at News dot com dot Au or
I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential.
A lot of 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,
(49:19):
Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar and Phoebe Zakowski Wallace. Voice acting on
this episode by Marcus Obern, research by Aidan Patrick, music
by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs and the
editor at News dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.
I'm Dan Box
One Monday a couple of months ago, I got into
the car with Nina, who's their producer.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
On this series, checking my levels again.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Pulled out into the traffic and went looking for someone
we've been trying to talk to for the past eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Where are we going?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
What are we doing? Dan? We're going to try and
find William's birth mother, Carly. And the reason I want
to talk to Carly is really just to let her
know what we're doing and why we're doing it, and
to give her the chance to tell us what she
(00:42):
thinks of what happened. And the reason to do that
is because if it was my child, I would want
someone to contact me before doing this. Yeah, but they're
not an easy family to get hold of.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
No, So what we're doing today is our last option really,
because we've tried contacting Carly through social media, We've tried
contacting Carlie on the phone, We've tried several furgn numbers.
So our last effort, because we really do want to
make sure Carli is at least aware of this podcast,
(01:22):
even if she doesn't want to speak to us, We're
going to door knock.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, We've got three addresses and we're going to knock
each of those houses and ask if she's there and
ask if she wants to talk to us. And we've
done this for Brendan as well. It is William's dad.
You have been driven out like this. And the first
house we went to, remember it had obviously been bought
(01:48):
and sold and done up, and every record of them
living there. We've just been quite clean.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And then the second house, it wasn't a house, it
was a unit in a block that had row after
row after row of units. And we knocked doors and
got nowhere. And then when we got back, I tried
the strata agent and I said, is Brendan living there?
And he had no record of Brendan ever being there.
And then the third place was an apartment block with
(02:15):
six units in it, and we knocked all the doors
and no one there had heard of them either, so
we weren't able to find Brendan.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Since this afternoon in the car with Nina, I've spoken
to someone who said they would pass on my phone
number to Brendan. And it's possible, Brendan that you're listening
to this, and if so, and you do want to talk,
just give me a call Another reason we want to
talk to you, Brendan and to Carly is that when
(02:50):
you look at the disappearance of William Tyrell, there's one
decision that is the start of everything that follows. That's
the decision to take William off his biological parents and
put him in foster care. So, knowing what we know now,
it's easy to say that that was a bad decision,
(03:13):
or it was the decision that if it hadn't happened,
William wouldn't have disappeared. But that's different from knowing what
was known at the time, and at the time it
might not have been a bad decision. To understand if
it was a bad decision, you have to go back
(03:37):
to before when William was reported missing on the twelfth
of September twenty fourteen, to the other time William went missing,
this time when he was just a baby and when
it was his birth parents who took him and hid
him from the police. I'm Dan Box and from New
(04:00):
dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrol Episode two, Looking
for Carly. After trying to find Brendan, we did contact
(04:21):
his mum, Natalie Collins. She's William's biological grandmother.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She's traditionally sort of been the spokesperson for the biological family.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, that was kind of what I hoped that she'd
be up for talking, but it didn't work out that way.
I spoke to her and she said, yep, I'm happy
to do an interview. And then I called her back
and she didn't answer. So then I called her back
a bit later, and she agreed to do an interview,
(04:52):
but at a certain time, and so I called her up.
She heard my voice and just hung up, and she
hasn't answered the phone to me since. So then you called.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Her, yeah, So then I called her, Uh, hello, Hey, Natalie?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Hey, you going okay?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It was a phone conversation, and the audio isn't great.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm recording, by the way. I'm to let you know
every time, otherwise, you know, I get in trouble. H Oh, sorry,
I wasn't try.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
If you hung up on me, no, no, no, it
cuts out. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So did you listening to this interview? I think Nina
sounds nervous.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I felt she was very emotional.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Nina and Natalie are speaking the day after news broke
that the police are seeking to charge William's foster mother
over his disappearance, and so.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I was just a little bit worried going into it
how she was going to take the conversation or whether
it was a good time to have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
William's foster mother, who was in the house with him
at the time he went missing, insists she had nothing
to do with it. She's not as yet been charged.
Listening to Nina's conversation, it's pretty clear what Natalie thinks.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The thing is that they shouldn't have taken the kids
off them in the first place, and that's where it's
all going to start.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Natalie says the authorities were wrong to take William away
from his biological parents.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
William was devoted to Brendan. I've seen William I think
when he was taken off them, and then that day
that they pulled him upstairs.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
In a prayering job from the prayer and riding to
Brinda's arts.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
William was about nine months old when he was taken
from his birth parents. He was born on the twenty
sixth of June twenty eleven at the Royal north Shore
Hospital in Sydney. I don't know why, but Brendan's name
is not on the birth certificate. That box is just
left blank, and a court would later hear. There was
a history of drug use and of domestic violence between
(07:12):
Brendan and Carly. Both of them have criminal records. Brendan's
been arrested dozens of times, and he's been in prison
on a few occasions, although the only dates I can
find for that are after William went missing. In their conversation,
Nina asks Natalie about the most recent search for William.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
When there was the search back in twenty twenty one.
I read a quote from you that said you kind
of didn't feel like there was any point in what
they were doing, because you already knew at that point
that he was gone.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Have you born been up there?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
No, I haven't yet.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Oh, you can't say that until you go up there,
and then you'll then you'll see why you have to
go to the house and actually see the house, and
then you'll understand why.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What did you think about Natalie telling you that you
have to go to the road where William went missing
to understand how she feels about it.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I didn't fully understand what she meant by that. I
haven't been there yet. You've been there at least once
a few times, four times now and we are going
to go soon.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But did it give you some insight?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah? I think Natalie's right. You do have to see
that house, because it's not until you see it and
you realize it's a dead end street. It's dead quiet.
There's no way you'd go there unless you had a
reason to be on that street at that time. And
it's when you see that that you realize the chance
(08:45):
of a chance subduction. It just it's almost impossible. Yeah,
the only people could go there have a reason and
then almost certainly someone sees them on the street. And
I think Natalie right in saying that you have to
see the place to understand how she feels. And the
(09:06):
way Natalie feels is angry.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It's killed me three years old. He just vanishes from
the face of the earth.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Angry, I think at the damage done to her family
after William was taken away from them.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Like all the shit that I have been through from
day one, Like Brendan, he lost his son. I lost
my son and I lost myself as well.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
What do you mean by that, You've lost yourself.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I'm not going to talk to you anymore. It's a
waste of time, you know. Like, what do you mean
if you were in my shoes, you wouldn't even ask that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's all fucked up.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
All your reporters are the same. I don't I haven't
talked to you reporters for a long time, Christian.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
No, you're hounding me, and I'm talking from my heart.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
No one, you haven't.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Been in my shoes. I'm sick of it.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I'm sick to death of it, Like this has been
my life for ten years. My son has been in
figging jail, he's been homeless, he's buddy hit rock bottom,
rock bottom after ten years. You wouldn't believe what that
child's been through or what I've been through with him.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And who cares about that?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
No one?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
And I've done it on my own and I'm still
doing it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I don't want to hound you, Natalie, and I don't
want to pretend that I do know what you're going through.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's why I'm asking.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Like you reporters are all the same, like daily mail shit,
it's all crap. You know, you've got to be honest
and help someone. You don't fucking put crap on there.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
I don't want this recording.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I'm done, okay, I'll stop recording.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I wanted to ask you, how did you feel? How
do you feel about us using that tape of that
conversation in this series.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, look, I'm not comfortable. I mean, I am comfortable.
It's hard, isn't it. I can't even answer that question properly.
I guess the part of me that will be uncomfortable
with that running is just mostly kind of ego. I
think why because I really don't like to push people
(11:45):
when they're not comfortable. I like to put their safety
and their emotional safety first. So to have her respond
really negatively to something I said, I don't feel good
about that at all. You know, I felt awful that happened.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Do you understand why I wanted to use it?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I mean I think so you tell me why
you want to use it.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I want to use it because it puts you on
the spot, and I know that and I appreciate that's hard.
But the other thing it does is it demonstrates the
sheer emotion and the sheared trauma that those close to
William have gone through and is still going through now
as a result of him going missing and there being
(12:37):
no resolution of what happened to him, yeah, and I
think that is important that in this case that has
become headlines and new specials and social media chatter, and
at the heart of it, there is absolute grief and
no thing, nothing we can say, you and me can
(13:01):
describe that better than that tape of Natalie getting upset
and getting angry.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
There's no way I understand.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I absolutely don't understand, and I'm actually I'm fine with
her getting angry at me. I didn't feel angry at
her for getting angry at me, because I think if
we can try and put ourselves in her shoes a
little bit. They've really been quite powerless throughout this situation, right,
(13:30):
They've been powerless since.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Losing their child to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The foster system.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Then they're powerless through the police investigation. They're pretty powerless
through the media reporting when we weren't allowed to say
who they were. Again, the police and the government got
in the way and sort of said this is what
can be said, this can't be said. So they've been
censored sort of from being able to say what they want.
(13:58):
So I think to be that powerless and then to
have yet another journalist calling you, I don't know, at
such a low point, I can get why she's angry,
and I think it's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
After that first phone call, Nina sent Natalie a text
message just saying sorry, and she didn't hear back and
didn't talk to Natalie again. But another producer, Emily, tried
calling instead.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Okay, you can still hear me.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (14:35):
Perfect, And so you're happy for the phone call to
be recorded, yep, yeap, wonderful. So we were just talking.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The conversation had a similar start. They're talking about the
impact of William's loss.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
What has done to my family from day one has
stuffed all of us up, and I lost my son
and I lost myself on the way.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
Hmm. I'm so sorry to hear Natalie. It must be
absolutely awful.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
How would you deal with it if it was your son,
it was your daughter.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
I can't even imagine.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
A ten years is a long time, you know, ten
years of my life that no one should really.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Have to go through.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
How are you going.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Like it's a long story, this bloody story, you know,
like it's a long drawn out, sad story. But the
thing is that these dogs people, they failed to do
their job properly, because this shouldn't happen these days with
poster care children like William was only a little baby
(15:48):
three years old, he vanished from the face of the earth.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
M okay, so we're pulling up shortly to the first address,
(16:17):
and what's your plan.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Honestly, I don't think we overthinking. We are here to
try and talk to Karli, to tell her what we're
doing and why we're doing it, and just be as
straightforward and as honest as possible with her.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
What we're not going to do is run up and
shove a microphone at our face. If you walked up
to my house with a microphone.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Recording to talk about yours, I wouldn't talk to you.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
But if it gets hostile, do you want me to
get out and record?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
So I forgets hostile, You're going to be sitting inside.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
The car, not going to be standing by recording it.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I don't think it's going to get hostile. Is this it? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (17:15):
It is?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Are you going to stay in the car?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What would you prefer I do?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Stay in the car? I think it's fairer on Carly.
What cannot have felt fair on Carly was the way
having William taken from her meant other people like caseworkers
or the state government Department of Family and Community Services
(17:44):
effectively passed judgment on her as a mother. William's foster
placement is recorded in hundreds of pages of documents, and
one of these notes that, at the time William was taken,
his birth parents quote maintained a high level of denial
regarding domestic violence in their relationship. The documents also say
(18:07):
that Carly had quote unresolved attachment needs affecting her parenting
capacity and looked to her children for what the documents
call developmentally inappropriate care and comfort. But nowhere in any
of those documents that I've seen, can you see what
Carl has to say about that. I think that's the
(18:33):
wrong house. So there was no one there, and I
spoke to the neighbor, and the neighbors said, it's not
a Carli who lives there, but it is a TYRL. Okay.
She looked a little bit circumspect.
Speaker 7 (18:53):
Because you're just a strange man in the middle of
the door.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I'm probably not the first strange reporter he's turned out,
but their house eyes over the years. But no, so
I think we try.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Okay, the next address on WS to house two.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Or be honest, it probably wasn't until I went to
knock on the door that I realized how actually faintly
sick I feel doing this.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Help me through.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's just it's just that you know, if it is
the right person, you just know it's going to be
unpleasant for them.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, this is probably the most confronting way you'd have
to do it.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So I left a letter there. We'll see, all right,
what's the next address. One thing that makes the decision
to take William off Carly and into care seemed more
open to question is that Carly had other children who
stayed with her, and as far as I know, they're
(20:00):
still with her. Carl was also pregnant when William was
taken and has had other children since. It feels like
each time she has a child. The Daily Mail writes
articles based on Facebook photos, and in those photos the
family look happy. Natalie, William's biological grandmother, says that was
(20:25):
not the case for William with his foster parents.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Like when William was in their kid black eyes, skinny,
no shoes on. You know, we used to have supervised
visits and my son was too scared to love his
children because he knew if they go.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Home, they're going to be in trouble for that? How
is that? How does that work out?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Natalie is really critical of William's foster parents, and particularly
critical of his foster mother.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Then she stopped everything.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Allowed to give them Lollie's not allowed to give them kinders,
the process, not led to give them the food that
we were bringing. She pecked the lunches, dry pasta, no
in costume clothes, all the time barking her orders.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You know, a lot of what Natalie says about William's
foster parents, We're not going to repeat here, because what's
not certain is whether what she's saying is fair or accurate.
Some of what she says is right, like how William
was encouraged to call his birth parents by their first names,
(21:37):
Brendan and Carly. But read through the records of William's
foster care and you see that once William started using
first names, it was his caseworkers who supported this, not
his foster parents, and the idea behind it was to
help William adjust to his foster family. At other times,
(21:59):
Natalie's version of what happened contrasts completely to conversations I've
had with other people or with documents from the time.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
In their eyes, it was like, they don't have a
mother and father. You know, you go and you call
them Brendan and Carli. You don't call them mam and
dad because they're not your mom and dad. We are like,
who does all that?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Every visit by William's caseworker is documented saying how William seemed,
what he was wearing, his general health, the fact he
liked his daycare, how he and his caseworker were playing
together building a train set. As he grows up, the
documents record that Williams starts going to soccer training on
a Monday and dance class on a Friday. His placement
(22:45):
with his foster parents is described as being very stable,
and after eighteen months, the documents record that Williams started
saying his foster parents are his parents.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
So there's a lot to answer for.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Natalie keeps coming back to the allegation that William was
mistreated by his foster parents, But I haven't found any
real evidence of that in the files.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
How did William get a black life?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
There is a record in the files of William getting
a black eye, In fact, there's pages about it. It
was in July twenty fourteen, just after his third birthday.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Oh, he fell off my lap. No, it was a
black eye.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The foster records say William fell on a coffee table
while crawling on his foster mother's lap.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
You don't get a black wife from falling from anee.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And speaking as a dad of three kids do pick
up injuries that way. They fall off your lap, or
run into tables or trip downstairs, The files show. The
foster mother reported this fall to William's caseworker the next
morning and sent through some photographs of the bruising. She
also took him to the Royal north Shore Hospital. The
(23:58):
doctors noted a haema tone, which is a pool of
blood under the skin, and swelling to his cheek. There
was no sign of concussion. He didn't need an X ray,
and William was discharged. A week later. The caseworker recorded
the bruise was going down and that William was not
in obvious pain or distressed. But two months later, on
(24:20):
the day that William goes missing, his foster father told
police that a week before, William had fallen backwards off
a stool and struggled to get back up, and those
records about William have since been used online and in
the mainstream media. Has reasons to say he wasn't okay
in the care of his foster parents.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
There was heaps of reasons, you know, like William was
never seen.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
William was always happy.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
But the last time I think Brendan seen him was
in August and he was crying and screaming. He didn't
want to go back. Not long that he vanished from
the face of the earth. Now you tell me that
one you just like that happened and then all of
a sudden, three days or four days later, the little
boy's gone. Hell.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why In the years after William was taken from them,
other documents show support workers saying Brendan and Carly go
(25:34):
to huge lengths to do well in their parenting. Carly
is quoted as saying her entire life is turned towards
having the children return to their care. Brendan coped with
the stress of losing William by partly by working long
hours six days a week, the documents say. They say
(25:54):
he took part in a course called Choosing Change, which
is for men who've been violent or abusive, but Brendan's
said to have missed a couple of the sessions and
not really participated in the group discussions, so the course
organizer recommended that he start the course again.
Speaker 6 (26:11):
Has William's father have you spoken to him?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Oh? Yes, I have.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
How does he feel about it all?
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Oh well, I don't even know. He's trying to get himself,
like he's getting better, do you know what I mean? Like,
but he's got a lot of support where he So,
you know, we talk about it, and you know, like
I feel bad for my son, like I just you know,
look at his life. His life has been turned upside
down since that poor little boy disappeared. He's still in rehab.
(26:45):
You know, he knocked himself around for quite a long time,
you know, punishing himself. And it really wasn't his fault.
He was a good dad, He was a good provider.
He loves his kids, you know. So and you know.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
He's worked hard to get where he is today.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
How long has it been since you've done our door knock?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Less than a year. But the last time I did
the doorknock, no one answered. The last time I did
a doorknock for a family whose child had been murdered
or gone missing and actually got hold of them was
two or three years now. And a lot of people
(27:42):
hate doing it, but I've never minded doing it as
long as you are sufficiently respectful and sufficiently apologetic. And
it doesn't always go well, it goes well more often
than you'd think it would.
Speaker 9 (28:10):
All right, this is the second address. All right, if
she does want to talk, I'll give you a shower.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
A week after their first conversation, Emily, the producer called
William's biological grandmother again.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Okay, can you hear me? Natalie?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yep?
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Amazing, And you're happy for me to record our chat?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Perfect?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
This time, the target of Natalie's criticism isn't only William's
foster mother, it's also Carly, who's in Natalie's sights.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
I'd love to learn a little bit more about Brendan
and Carly's relationship. How did they first meet?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I don't even know like that.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
That was probably the worst thing he ever did in
his life to meet her.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
Oh, you weren't that fond of her?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
No, she was. She had a lot of problems, a
lot of issues that girl.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Do you know how long they were together before they
had William?
Speaker 5 (29:28):
Or they've been together for probably three years or something.
They were together for a long time. But she shouldn't
have ever had kids out lady either. That's my opinion
as well.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
So it was a bit of a turbulent relationship, would
you say.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
It was a bit of like, well, Brendan was always
doing the right thing, you know, going to work, paying
the bills, and me and my daughter had to go
down there like twice a week to make sure he
could please come in the door and have a shower,
have dinner. And then after we left them, they started
fighting and then he's the people would call the police
and it was like, oh, he's got to go, you know,
But nothing nothing major. I mean, I grew up in
(30:10):
that sort of environment. No one mean and said my
mother and father were fighting and blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
How did it feel when Brendan Carly's photos were out
in the media and their names were used. Yeahs terrible
And the whole time the foster parents, their identities were
all hidden.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Terrible. Brenda more than as bad as what everyone thought.
And you know, I was a decent mom. I wasn't
you know, I am mount to your mama. I was
a decent Like do you think he had a dinner
a mother? I know he didn't. He had a good up.
Britney who was a good, you know kid, but met
the wrong person.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Like with what Natalie says about William's foster mother. Some
of the things she says about Carly, we're not repeating
here because we're not able to say they're right or
they contrast with the evidence we've got from elsewhere, and
all you're left with is one person's opinion on another,
in this case, Brendan's mum's opinion on Carly as a mother.
(31:16):
And that's another reason to want to talk to Carly herself.
Nothing again, no one there, A couple of cars in
(31:37):
the driveway, couple of motorbikes, one of them is being
worked on. So I thought someone might be there, But
no answer at all. So I left a letter under
the door. Okay, driving away from the second house. I
don't doubt Carly wanted to be a good mum. Among
the documents from William's time in foster care is one
(31:59):
saying that Carly told one caseworker she only agreed to
having William in long term care so that she and
Brendan could focus on parenting their remaining children.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
Well, what do you remember about William as a little baby?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Oh, I was always happy, he was never seen like
always happy, you know, happy happy baby Helsey.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
We would go there for one hour supervised vidiots, sat down,
had a picnic or like kind serprises and lollipops and stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
But we're allowed to have that or this crap happens.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
So with William, like every time you see in Britan
he just loved him and screaming and crying to go home.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Okay. So there are different versions of these contact visits.
There's Natalie Collins version and then there's the written version.
In the documents of William's time in foster care, the
biological parents were allowed of these contact visits a year,
for one hour each. Natalie describes William screaming and crying
(33:07):
when he had to leave them, but the written records
from the time say quote there were no observed signs
of distress or sadness when William separated from his parents.
Those words appear in the records twice for different visits.
There are records saying that William became anxious or hyperactive
(33:29):
or aggressive, slapping and punching his foster care as, he
was described as defiant or having oppositional behavior, and he
had nightmares. But all of this seems to happen mostly
just after these contact visits, and reading through it seems
more of a response to the difficulty of meeting different
(33:51):
sets of parents. You find yourself starting to imagine what
was going through a three year old's mind. On the
morning of their last contact visit, Williams recorded as saying
he didn't want to go, but he got excited when
told it was at Chipmunks, which is a play center
with a huge maze with different levels and nets and
(34:12):
is full of obstacles. It would be the last time
William saw his birth parents, Carly and Brendan. Ten days later,
William disappeared, And so.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
Carly and Brendan don't have any contact.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
Do you mind me asking when did their relationship end?
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The day that William went missing?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
That very day?
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yep, that was the end of it.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Was William's disappearance a contributor to that.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, if William.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Didn't go missing. Do you think Brendan and Carly might
still be together today?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Oh? No, I think so?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
You know thinks how you don't hope so do so?
Do you know roughly how old Brendan and Carli were
when they met.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
I think Carlie was only like seventeen or something, and
Brendan moved. I don't know, I'm about twenty two or something.
Only young, very silly. You can't change some people, you know.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I'm just worry about why dudes?
Speaker 6 (35:23):
You know, what's your biggest worry about them?
Speaker 4 (35:29):
I'm always worrying than Adam.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Yeah, it's a mother's instinct, worry about your kids.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
The more I look at everything that's happened since William's disappearance,
so much of it seems to come down to different
kinds of judgment on motherhood. Who's a good parent, and
particularly who is a good mother. For Carly, having the
state government come in and take her child way must
have felt like someone saying you're not good enough mother,
(36:06):
And as a parent, that feels wrong. I mean, who
really gets to make decisions about your kids, which might
explain why in the months before William went missing, after
his biological family first learned that the government was planning
to take him, Brendan and Carly and Natalie they took
(36:28):
William and they hid.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
I had them for three months after I knew they're
in the are.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
You talking about before William went into foster care, when
ye when took William.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It was me, it wasn't he.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
So I them really good for three months and then
they got caught.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Carl Brendan and William lived with Natalie for weeks during
this time, and Natalie, as she arranged it.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I arranged the call.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
You're the mastermind.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Yeah, that's right, and so you were. I should have
taken in myself. I should have just tugging myself in
the nile. We've been able to take him off me.
That's all I should have done.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
This was in February twenty twelve, when the state government
Department of Family and Community Services, which is also known
as FACTS, asked police to help find William. So a
police sergeant went to Carl's address and there was no
one there. The police went to another address they had
for William's biological grandmother, but the person who answered the
(37:38):
door said they didn't know either Carli or the grandmother.
So a caseworker called four different telephone numbers they had
on file for the family, and all of them were disconnected.
They called a fifth, but incoming calls were restricted. Back
in the car with Nina, we're still involved in our
own search.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Number three is the one I think is most likely
okay to be her house currently. Why do you think,
because we are aware that other journalists have been at
this property in the last year.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And have seen her there, and how did that go?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Not well?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Not well?
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Well, there's photos of that journalist being pushed away from
the house by friends or relatives.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
As the days passed and William stayed hidden with his family,
the police kept trying different addresses. You had plain closed.
Detectives canvassing the neighbors, just knocking on doors. The police
tried the extended family. A nurse arrived for a regular
appointment with Carly, but no one answered. Here we are
(38:55):
is it number eight? I'm glad you told me that
thing about how badly it when last time? All right, yeah,
forward a little just so you can see the.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Door, yea, as if they do come out and shove
youry I'm going to get out of the car.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Are you good?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
William was officially listed as a missing person. A month later.
The police did catch up with his biological father, Brandon.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
Remember the day, like this's come to me, It's all
over now, mum. They arrested him and arrested both of them,
actually took William away and William was screaming and crying.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
Were you there the moment that the police came and
arrested and Carly.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
No, it was at work.
Speaker 6 (39:59):
What was is it like going to work that morning?
You've got your grandkids and Brendan and Carly in the
in the granny flight out the back, and then you
come home and your whole life's being uprooted.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
The sad things is the story is very sad from
the engineer.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
After baby William was found being hidden by his birth parents,
he was taken to hospital and found to be medically well.
The next day, the sixteenth of March twenty twelve, William
was placed with authorized cares, and a year later, April
twenty thirteen, a court ordered William to remain in care
(40:38):
technically under the parental responsibility of a government minister until
he turned eighteen, meaning that court and the state government
did not anticipate William ever returning to Carly and Brendan.
And there are two ways of looking at that decision.
What we know now that he would disappear again for
(41:01):
good this time, and what was known then no answer
and all the curtains are drawn. I looked over the
(41:23):
back fence and the garden's pretty overgrown, but there are
some kids toys that there's a paddling pool hanging over
the back deck, and you can see through one of
the windows that the kitchen's got the stuff in it,
so someone is living there. So I left a letter
hopefully she'll call.
Speaker 7 (41:48):
That was our last house.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Right now, Nina and I never do manage to speak
to Carlie, and Carlie, if you're listening and you do
want to talk, please do contact us. But we do
have some idea of how she feels about what has
happened to William And over the past decade. The year
(42:15):
after he disappeared in twenty fifteen, Carli gave an interview
to the Seven Network that was broadcast on TV. What
sort of mom did you think you would be?
Speaker 5 (42:28):
Like?
Speaker 6 (42:28):
A nurturing mom, caring, loving, Yeah, a good mom.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
No one knows their baby better than the mom.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
Okay, So anyone that's watching this, anyone that's going to
see you, what do you say to them?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
What can we do?
Speaker 10 (42:46):
I don't heard him, let me come home.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
The more I learn about this, the more I think
we actually can't separate what we know now about the
decision to take William from his biological parents. From what
was known at the time, there is only the knowledge
that William did go missing and is still missing. Since
(43:26):
recording this episode, I've spoken again to Natalie, William's biological grandmother,
and asked her to pass my number on to Brendan,
her son. And I was talking to Natalie about this
decision to take William away from his birth parents. I
told her how even some of the people who played
a role in what happened still ask themselves if it
(43:49):
was the right decision. One of those was one of
the officials who was sent to take William away from Carly,
who was there at the moment William was taken from
one family before being given to another. He doesn't want
to be identified, so these are his words, but not
his voice.
Speaker 8 (44:12):
Looking back. It was hard, but we take kids off,
you know, families all the time. You do it. You know,
it's just it. It is part of the job. But
you know, and ironically, this is the thing I get
said about is sorry, mate, No, it's all right. Yeah,
(44:40):
it's we took William off Carli to protect him. Yeah,
and well, no one knows what happened. I mean, we've
all got stories and thoughts. But I thought, how fucking
ironica is? Are you facts? And we took him off, Carli,
off the mother because you know, just a shit family.
You know that you probably met them, I'm assumed, you know,
(45:01):
And you go, you take William, take this baby, defenseless,
poor little baby of a family because you've decided, or
the government's decided that the family is too shit to
look after the child. And then this happens. Yeah, you know,
I can still see myself walking into that bloody unit.
(45:22):
It's just up the stairs and turn left and you
go into Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
And what did you see when you got in there?
Speaker 8 (45:31):
Oh, it's just a well it's just a little housing
commission unit. And there was shit everywhere and kids toys everywhere,
and that was just yeah. And there was with Liam
on the floor and Carlie just abusing this shit out of.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Us, Carlie doing what sorry.
Speaker 8 (45:48):
Oh, just abusing us, just you know, because we were
there to take the kid.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
And I'm assuming you'd been told by Facts or whoever
passed that instruction to you that he's in danger.
Speaker 8 (46:01):
Well I knew, I knew the family. I knew the
Tyroll family, and it was a shit environment for William
to be and there's no doubt in the world. But ironically,
it's just okay, I thought we were all protecting him. Yeah,
I just think, fuck, did did we do the right thing?
(46:23):
And did we? But he just shake your head sometimes
you go, you know, would he still be alive? Maybe
you don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
You don't know, and you can't say, but you're you're
only human if you're asking the question.
Speaker 8 (46:37):
Well, exactly right, you go, well, I don't know if
he'd be alive, but there's a chance in mind. I
just think we thought we were all doing the right thing.
Well we knew, Sorry I shouldn't say we thought we
knew we were doing the right thing. Is the situation
in the family. So the family was very ordinary. The
family is very very ordinary in the facts. Thought so too,
(46:59):
But it's it's just the irony of it that we
took him to protect him because we thought he needed
protecting him. This is what happened.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I've not I've obviously not been in your position, and
I haven't seen a fraction of the things that you
would have seen in your career. And I know that
this probably isn't the worst of it, but that stuff
isn't ever going to leave you or any of the
people who were there that day, is it?
Speaker 8 (47:24):
Well, no, not really, but it is the thing you
go because of all the other shit we saw, like
the deceased and the fadals and the kids and the
CID's deaths and all the rest of it. You know,
they're gone there in the back of my head and
another ironic thing, you know, they're in my head, they're
squared away. They're like, I'm fine with all of it.
(47:49):
It is it occasionally, but ninety nine percent of the time,
I'm fine. It doesn't affect me day to day. Yeah,
but William William does because it keeps coming back.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It keeps coming back, he says, because of what would
end up happening to William.
Speaker 8 (48:13):
Yeah, it's just it's just shit. I mean, someone knows
more than one person knows the actual truth of what
happened one hundred percent, because William didn't walk away one
hundred miles. He didn't get you know, either it was
in a car or whatever. It is. Fucking someone knows
what happened to William.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Today, police suspect the person who knows what happened to
William is his foster mother. She insists on her innocence,
So next time on Witness we look at William's foster family.
If you know anything about William's disappearance, please contact crime Stoppers.
(48:55):
There's a number in the show notes for this series,
but if there's anything you want to tell us, you
can email Witness at News dot com dot Au or
I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential.
A lot of 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,
(49:19):
Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar and Phoebe Zakowski Wallace. Voice acting on
this episode by Marcus Obern, research by Aidan Patrick, music
by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs and the
editor at News dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.
I'm Dan Box
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