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