Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: All right, then, welcome back Part two. Are we still
Speaker 1: friends at this stage? I suppose we're still friends, threatening
Speaker 1: that we're not going to have friendship. I can be
Speaker 1: very fitable with my friends. Look, it's interesting sitting there
Speaker 1: and talking about William Tyrell, and I know you know
Speaker 1: how much emotion that invokes in me and I and
Speaker 1: I'm not on my own. I'm sure you've spoken to
Speaker 1: a lot of different people in researching the podcast, and
Speaker 1: that it is just something that really triggers, is a
Speaker 1: triggering thing for so many people who have you had
Speaker 1: access to whilst doing the podcast.
Speaker 2: Look, we've tried to speak to everybody. That's what that's
Speaker 2: our job. Try and speak to everybody and then and
Speaker 2: then go away and work out how to tell the
Speaker 2: story from there. So William's biological family, Williams Foster family,
Speaker 2: cops who worked on it at the time, the lead detectives,
Speaker 2: We've tried to speak to them, with mixed success. People
Speaker 2: who were in the street at the time, people who
Speaker 2: became persons of interest, people who were caught up in
Speaker 2: the investigation and charged with other offenses like Bill Spedding,
Speaker 2: subsequently found not guilty. It's almost like you know that
Speaker 2: old thing about dropping a stone into water and then
Speaker 2: the ripples spread out. William went missing, and then the
Speaker 2: ripples started to spread out, and the sheer number of
Speaker 2: people who are affected either really close to where the
Speaker 2: ripples start or just further and further and further out.
Speaker 2: The sheer number of people involved is extraordinary, and all
Speaker 2: of them have been hurt in some way either by
Speaker 2: the fact that William went missing, and it is upsetting
Speaker 2: or by what has followed since.
Speaker 1: What's the saints of the community up there at the
Speaker 1: Kendle is that.
Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting. As time has gone on, I
Speaker 2: think it's changed, and I've spoken to people up there,
Speaker 2: and we were up there most recently around the tenth anniversary,
Speaker 2: so that was a few weeks ago now and very
Speaker 2: much which the feeling I got was people just didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk about it anymore. It's a small it's
Speaker 2: a village really, and it had been dominated by this
Speaker 2: event for the past ten years, so that when people
Speaker 2: say I'm from Kendall, oh, that's where that William Tior
Speaker 2: went missing, and people without willing to meaning any disrespect
Speaker 2: to his families, but they just kind of wanted that
Speaker 2: to no longer be hanging over them, but of course
Speaker 2: it is. And the other thing that's really surprised me
Speaker 2: is that there was a sense of anger, not from many,
Speaker 2: but from some, particularly who lived on Benner and Drive
Speaker 2: at the time William went missing, so that's the road
Speaker 2: where he was staying that weekend. A sense of anger
Speaker 2: about maybe what happened, but also about what has followed
Speaker 2: because for different reasons, you know, you get quite a
Speaker 2: lot of people who go to Benerom drive effectively as
Speaker 2: tourists sightseeing. People turn up and take photos or turn
Speaker 2: up and film videos of themselves. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: I did that as a reporter, but I didn't do
Speaker 2: it for fun. And there's a lot of that and
Speaker 2: it still happens, and you get people who turned up
Speaker 2: at the time. Remember speaking to one of the neighbors
Speaker 2: and he was angry. He talked about that first search
Speaker 2: when you had hundreds, literally hundreds of people coming in
Speaker 2: to look for William, and he was talking about how
Speaker 2: stuff went missing from his property, like in his car
Speaker 2: overnight that first night, and he thinks people were searching
Speaker 2: for William and Nick stuff and others. A couple of
Speaker 2: people have told me about how some of those searchers
Speaker 2: were drinking and we're kind of not having a good
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's having a good time, but weren't
Speaker 2: treating it with maybe the respect it deserved. And there's
Speaker 2: a lot of anger about that, and I didn't expect
Speaker 2: any of that.
Speaker 1: The way you describe it, I can almost picture what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I can see how it would be
Speaker 1: disrespectful when a three year old child the families. I
Speaker 1: haven't spoken to the families, but biological or foster families
Speaker 1: in a long time. How are they caping with this?
Speaker 2: Our relationship, if I'm really honest with you, our relationship
Speaker 2: with the two families is different. And this goes back.
Speaker 2: I think we talked a bit about how people have
Speaker 2: become quite partisan with this case. You're either for the
Speaker 2: foster parents or you're against them, and it feels like,
Speaker 2: you know, the two families have almost become two camps.
Speaker 2: So we've spoken to both more than once quite a
Speaker 2: few times. I've not spoken to William's biological mum. We've tried, really,
Speaker 2: we've tried, and you can hear in the podcast some
Speaker 2: of the work that's gone into trying to contact her.
Speaker 2: And I've not spoken to Williams's biological dad directly, and
Speaker 2: again you can hear some of the work that's gone
Speaker 2: into trying to contact him. And we're definitely if they
Speaker 2: wanted to contact us, I think they know how to
Speaker 2: do it, or at least I hope they do. And
Speaker 2: I've said it in the podcast. If you do want
Speaker 2: to talk about anything, even if it's just to criticize me,
Speaker 2: please do so. Spoken to other members of that family, though,
Speaker 2: how are they feeling. I don't think you ever recover
Speaker 2: from there, this kind of a loss of a child.
Speaker 2: And remember, for them, it's a double loss. So William's
Speaker 2: taken into foster care, so who's taken away from that family?
Speaker 2: And then they're told the state is effective going to
Speaker 2: look after him, the state, the minister becomes his parent,
Speaker 2: and then he goes missing. So to have that double loss,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of anger, and there's a lot of trauma,
Speaker 2: and I think it's complicated and it makes that relationship difficult.
Speaker 2: The only thing we can do with everyone, and we
Speaker 2: do with them as well, is just try and be
Speaker 2: as honest about what we're doing and why we're doing.
Speaker 2: And we do try and reflect what they're feeling and
Speaker 2: what they say in the podcast very much so. And
Speaker 2: then there's the foster family, and the relationship with them
Speaker 2: is different, and it's almost funny. I've met the foster
Speaker 2: parents quite a few times over the years, and we
Speaker 2: meet in safe houses or we meet in pubs, and
Speaker 2: when we meet, we turn our phones off. And all
Speaker 2: of that might sound paranoid if it wasn't for the
Speaker 2: fact that they do know they've been under police surveillance.
Speaker 2: They know that they've had listening devices in their house,
Speaker 2: They've had COVID cameras outside their house, They've had people
Speaker 2: listening to their phone calls. They've had listening devices in
Speaker 2: their car, They've had undercovered police officers sent in to
Speaker 2: try to talk to them. They know all of that
Speaker 2: has happened, so they've got every reason to be paranoid.
Speaker 2: It might still be happening now. So when we have
Speaker 2: those conversations, it feels a bit cloak and dagger, but
Speaker 2: also got to say, I can see why they want
Speaker 2: to do that, but when it comes to how they're responding,
Speaker 2: I think it's some of the same emotions. It's loss
Speaker 2: and trauma. I mean, I've seen I've seen them in
Speaker 2: tears a lot, and I've seen them grappling with the
Speaker 2: loss and the effect it's had on them, and then
Speaker 2: the loss of essentially becoming Certainly Williams foster mother has
Speaker 2: become the suspect. The police have said that in court
Speaker 2: they believe she had something to do with William's disappearance,
Speaker 2: and the pressure that must come with that must be immense.
Speaker 2: She's an incredibly strong and tough woman, But I've seen her.
Speaker 2: I've seen her cry and I've seen her broken, and
Speaker 2: she might not. She's also very private and probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: appreciate me saying any of this, but I've seen the
Speaker 2: emotions she must be feeling almost take control. And the
Speaker 2: same with Williams foster dad. And you know, I'm never
Speaker 2: going to know what it's like to lose a three
Speaker 2: year old child, at least I hope I never know.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what it's like to be in that positions.
Speaker 2: But they keep turning up and they keep talking, and
Speaker 2: same goes for biological family. We keep talking as best
Speaker 2: we can, and you've got to give credit to both
Speaker 2: of them for that.
Speaker 1: I look the sadness and why I ask about both
Speaker 1: families is that I understand the impact that a disappearance
Speaker 1: or a crime of the nature of William's disappearance has
Speaker 1: on families and people with connections with the child. And
Speaker 1: then that coupled with all the controversy and turmoil surrounding
Speaker 1: the investigation, and I can't separate myself from that because
Speaker 1: I'm embedded in the content and I just feel like
Speaker 1: it's it's so unfair, Like the one thing that you
Speaker 1: would hope as families, as with the bearable kids, when
Speaker 1: the barable kids disappeared, that everyone would be united heading
Speaker 1: like as in law enforcement, the governments whatever, united in
Speaker 1: finding out what's happened to what's happened to their loved ones.
Speaker 1: And yeah, with the William case, they see the two
Speaker 1: of them frow in the arguments, the internal conflict within
Speaker 1: the police. What's happened to me? And that must give
Speaker 1: must not give them a great deal of confidence And.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and I look, there's a part of me
Speaker 2: that really hopes the police have got this right. So
Speaker 2: the current detectives when they come out, and I've seen
Speaker 2: them say it in court, we believe that the foster
Speaker 2: mother had something to do with what happened to William.
Speaker 2: I mean bluntly. They believe that William maybe fell from
Speaker 2: the verandah in the house, there was some kind of accident,
Speaker 2: and that she chose to cover that up, almost a
Speaker 2: snap decision to cover it up, and that she drove
Speaker 2: his body away and disposed of it. There's a crossroads
Speaker 2: a few hundred meters away and we can get in
Speaker 2: to all of that. But that's what the police think
Speaker 2: as far as we can know, and that's what they've said.
Speaker 2: And there's a part of me that hopes they've got
Speaker 2: it right, because, well, A, then we know what happened,
Speaker 2: and we know who's responsible, and maybe we can find
Speaker 2: where William is in the grieving process, can move forward
Speaker 2: for all those people. But also because if the police
Speaker 2: have got it right, then everything they've done to that family,
Speaker 2: the Foster family, is kind of justified. And I'm talking
Speaker 2: about their lives have been destroyed by the police investigation.
Speaker 2: They've been on the front page of newspapers identified as
Speaker 2: the suspect. Their friends, their neighbors, their families must be
Speaker 2: looking at them and thinking, did you dispose of a
Speaker 2: child's body? Did you do kind of the worst kind
Speaker 2: of crime you can do. Everyone must be questioning them.
Speaker 2: I know they've lost work. I know that their lives
Speaker 2: have I mean, they haven't just kind of hit the buffers.
Speaker 2: They've been crumpled. But if the police have got it right,
Speaker 2: then that's kind of justified. And so there's a part
Speaker 2: of me that hopes the police have got it right.
Speaker 2: But if they have, nobody's been charged. We haven't seen
Speaker 2: any of that evidence. There's nothing public yet to back
Speaker 2: up what the police are.
Speaker 1: Saying, Dan, can I make the point and I hear
Speaker 1: what you're saying there. I was always considered someone that
Speaker 1: played hardball when I go after investigations. I make no
Speaker 1: excuses for that whatsoever. But there's lines that you don't cross.
Speaker 1: What I've seen occur in relation to the foster mother,
Speaker 1: the Foster family, I think it's been absolutely brutal. And
Speaker 1: I asked the question. I asked the question, what if
Speaker 1: they got it wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we go back to in the first part of
Speaker 2: this conversation, we said that your investigation of William Til's disappearance,
Speaker 2: part of that was described as the worst case of
Speaker 2: malicious prosecution in the state. If the police have got
Speaker 2: it wrong, and it is a big if, but if
Speaker 2: they have, then I think you're looking at the same
Speaker 2: kind of judgment here, partly because it's the same tactics.
Speaker 2: So you've talked about how you go in hard when
Speaker 2: you were detective, and you know, as I understand it,
Speaker 2: you're kind of thinking, was I've got this person of interest,
Speaker 2: there's some evidence that means that they're worth looking at.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do everything it takes to either establish
Speaker 2: their innocence or their guilt and it doesn't matter which,
Speaker 2: but at least I can tick them off the list then,
Speaker 2: And you would go in as hard as you knew
Speaker 2: how because you we're trying to catch a killer, to
Speaker 2: solve a homicide, and you'd use pressure tactics. So put
Speaker 2: them under surveillance, pressure them, see if they would break.
Speaker 2: The same tactics have been used against William's foster power.
Speaker 2: Put them under pressure, see if they will break, use surveillance.
Speaker 2: It's exactly the same approach. And if yours was found
Speaker 2: to be wrong, and if theirs is wrong, then it
Speaker 2: absolutely deserves the same kind of public inquiry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll just address that, and I understand the
Speaker 1: concept of what you're saying, but there's levels and degrees
Speaker 1: in regards to Bill Spedding situation. There were charges laid
Speaker 1: and I was comfortable. And when I say charges laid,
Speaker 1: I didn't investigate it. I had specialists investigated. And I
Speaker 1: don't want the drag Bill Spedding back into this, but
Speaker 1: so we're just I'll just say it in a very
Speaker 1: general term. It was investigated, evidence was obtained. Legal services
Speaker 1: say there's enough to charge a person, the person's charge
Speaker 1: and the courts acquitted the person. Okay, And I'll ask
Speaker 1: you this because I want to keep it on track
Speaker 1: with the podcast that you've got with the foster parents.
Speaker 1: I sat in court when they were charged with the
Speaker 1: assault matters, which was very public, and I saw the
Speaker 1: whole investigative team sit there, and I'll make these comments,
Speaker 1: and I've earned the right to make these comments. That's
Speaker 1: not how I'd manage an investigation, having all those people
Speaker 1: sitting in the local court matter. When you're looking for
Speaker 1: a three year old job.
Speaker 2: You're talking about the detectives from the strike from US.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, but we can talk about that. That's
Speaker 1: just me venting because I'm really at the point with
Speaker 1: this whole investigation that there's so many things that need
Speaker 1: to be said that haven't been said. And I'm asking
Speaker 1: you on your podcast. I sat in court during that
Speaker 1: and I saw a senior detective giving evidence saying we
Speaker 1: know where William Tyrell is. And then the question was asked,
Speaker 1: well where is he yea to which the person didn't
Speaker 1: have a I don't think a reasonable explanation. He's saying
Speaker 1: under oath, we know where William Tyrell is. Then in
Speaker 1: that same and correct me if I'm wrong, because I
Speaker 1: was in there as an observer, you're in there as
Speaker 1: a journalist reporting on it, that they in fact told
Speaker 1: William's foster mother that they know what's happened to William,
Speaker 1: they know where William is and again acknowledge that under oath.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and both of these things happen, and if they don't,
Speaker 2: then it's extraordinary because you're right. What did happen was
Speaker 2: to the detectives on the strike force go to Williams
Speaker 2: foster mother to serve with the summons to give evidence
Speaker 2: at the Crime Commission, which is this hugely powerful, very
Speaker 2: secretive body. You're not even allowed to tell anyone you've
Speaker 2: received a summon. So they turn up, they give her
Speaker 2: this thing and they say to her, you'll have to
Speaker 2: live with it. We know what happened to William, we
Speaker 2: know how, we know why they're telling her. We know
Speaker 2: as a fact what you did to William. And that's
Speaker 2: one thing. So I hope they've got the evidence to
Speaker 2: back it up. But then in court, this detective he's asked,
Speaker 2: do you know what happened to William? And he says yes,
Speaker 2: and then he's asked, well, have you found William's body
Speaker 2: and he says no, and he's asked again, but you
Speaker 2: said you know what happened to William and he says, yes,
Speaker 2: I do, Well have you found him? No, And the
Speaker 2: two things just seem to be in like stark contrast.
Speaker 2: But then later at a different court hearing, that same
Speaker 2: detective is asked, so you know what happened to William
Speaker 2: and he says something different. He says, well, that was
Speaker 2: one of the theories, so point he says, yep, we
Speaker 2: know what happened to William. And then later he says,
Speaker 2: this is one of the theories. And those two things
Speaker 2: seem in stark contrast as well, and you're just left thinking,
Speaker 2: I really hope you guys have got the evidence to
Speaker 2: back this up.
Speaker 1: People that listen to the podcast, the upcoming episodes, and
Speaker 1: are they are you going to take them into a
Speaker 1: deep dive in those those sort of things that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, because I found I found that watching quite remarkable,
Speaker 1: and the fact that it wasn't reported on the way
Speaker 1: I thought it would have been. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: and I was gobsmacked what was coming out, but it
Speaker 1: didn't really get it.
Speaker 2: Didn't get reported, reported on and that. Okay, so I
Speaker 2: had the same thought process. But but when you're in
Speaker 2: court as a daily news reporter, you've got maybe four
Speaker 2: hundred words to describe everything from that day in court,
Speaker 2: and all the other reporters in there were daily court reporters,
Speaker 2: and for them, maybe that aspect that you're talking about
Speaker 2: and I picked up on, it wasn't the big news
Speaker 2: from the day, or maybe not. All of them have
Speaker 2: followed the case for as long as you have and
Speaker 2: I have, or as closely, and so maybe it just
Speaker 2: didn't stand out to them. But I remember hearing that
Speaker 2: and thinking that's a big deal, and then it wasn't
Speaker 2: reported the next day. But that is what the podcast
Speaker 2: can do. So we're telling this story differently. We've got
Speaker 2: way more than four hundred words, but also we get
Speaker 2: part of what the podcast does is go back to
Speaker 2: the beginning of the investigation, so the moment of that
Speaker 2: triple zero call where William's foster mother says he's gone missing,
Speaker 2: and then we walk the investigation through from that point
Speaker 2: over the years that followed, saying this was what was
Speaker 2: done right and this was what was done wrong, and
Speaker 2: there's both, but it allows people to understand it differently
Speaker 2: because most people, like everyone over the past ten years,
Speaker 2: have followed the William Tyrell disappearance in headlines or things
Speaker 2: they've seen on their phone, or there's something on the radio,
Speaker 2: or there's a bit on TV which is talking about
Speaker 2: some evidence that came out today, But that evidence is
Speaker 2: actually something that happens three years ago, and everything is
Speaker 2: kind of in short bursts and is out of sequence.
Speaker 2: No one before now has said, right, We're going to
Speaker 2: go right from the beginning the whole way through, put
Speaker 2: everything in the order in which it happened, and let
Speaker 2: you understand it differently. And when you do that, so
Speaker 2: I talked about this timeline we've drawn up. When you
Speaker 2: see things put in that kind of order, it completely
Speaker 2: changes the way you look at it.
Speaker 1: I'm starting the longer I stay out of the cops,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to look at it from a media point
Speaker 1: of view rather than the policing point of view. Probably
Speaker 1: still drift back into the policing point of view more
Speaker 1: more not, But yeah, I see so many things come up.
Speaker 1: I know when I gave and this is whine in
Speaker 1: the back four years or so ago, when I gave
Speaker 1: evidence at my criminal hearing I was saying things that
Speaker 1: became public record on the reason I was looking at
Speaker 1: a particular person, and I think that was very significant
Speaker 1: what was out there. And to balance out where you've
Speaker 1: got the Commissioner of Police orce soon you're police saying
Speaker 1: there's only one suspect, and then some of the things
Speaker 1: that I said on public record that I was looking
Speaker 1: at when I was heading up the investigation, and that
Speaker 1: just again, that just seems to be forgotten, just a brushstroke.
Speaker 1: You're going to take the listener in this podcast into
Speaker 1: that type of.
Speaker 2: Depth we are. And the other thing we're going to
Speaker 2: do is there's a whole bunch of different names that
Speaker 2: have come up in this investigation as what you guys
Speaker 2: in the cops called persons of interest, which basically meant
Speaker 2: someone who requires further investigation. There's a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: names that have come up, and we've heard stuff about
Speaker 2: them in the public, and then we've just heard nothing,
Speaker 2: you know, the inquest and the cops have stopped talking
Speaker 2: about them. We're going to go back to those and say, okay,
Speaker 2: so why did we start to hear about these people
Speaker 2: and why has it stopped? Because to my knowledge, they
Speaker 2: haven't been ruled out. No, there's no official body, not
Speaker 2: the coroner, not the cops, have ever said this is
Speaker 2: why we stopped looking at these people. And if there
Speaker 2: isn't a reason why they stop looking at those people.
Speaker 2: But the police are now saying it must be the
Speaker 2: foster mother, which they seem to be saying, then how
Speaker 2: can they be so sure if we don't know for sure,
Speaker 2: they haven't ruled those people out. And we're going to
Speaker 2: look at those people, and I promise you in more
Speaker 2: depth than they've been reported on before, because we've got
Speaker 2: the time, and we've got the resources, and we've also
Speaker 2: got evidence that just hasn't been made public before from
Speaker 2: different sources that we've collected over the years. But there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of information out there that's never really
Speaker 2: been reported on.
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to see that, and I think that's
Speaker 1: been been my frustration that over the years. And it's
Speaker 1: been about two years now since the foster mother was identified.
Speaker 2: It's been longer how long it's been, it's been about
Speaker 2: three and a bit years. And I can remember when
Speaker 2: it happened. I wasn't in the country, but I remember
Speaker 2: the news breaking and my first thought was well, they
Speaker 2: must have got something because they were so confident. Front
Speaker 2: page of the paper, police quoted saying basically, we're close
Speaker 2: to cracking this case. I remember thinking, well, they must
Speaker 2: have got something to be that confident, but we still
Speaker 2: haven't heard what.
Speaker 1: It is and exactly. And I think I've made a comment,
Speaker 1: or I'm starting to make public comments. It's time to
Speaker 1: put up or shut up. You can't, yeah, throw like that,
Speaker 1: not present some evidence to back it up. But my
Speaker 1: concern has been in when I was running the investigation,
Speaker 1: people that I considered we call them person persons of interest,
Speaker 1: and the interpretation might be a suspect, but the bar
Speaker 1: is very low to be a person of interest. It's
Speaker 1: just someone we've got to have a little look.
Speaker 2: A little further, look a thousand of people on that list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And so we've got those persons of interest,
Speaker 1: and I look at opportunity, capability motive. Motive is a
Speaker 1: subjective thing. Opportunity is the one that I look at
Speaker 1: a great deal when you've got no forensic evidence. And
Speaker 1: this has taken you into the world of homicide detective thinking.
Speaker 1: When you've got no forensic evidence, opportunities is quite often
Speaker 1: the only thing that you can eliminate a person by,
Speaker 1: as in, they didn't have the opportunity because they weren't
Speaker 1: in the location. So a lot of these people that
Speaker 1: I call persons of interest, they would have been very
Speaker 1: hard to eliminate. And to say definity that person hasn't
Speaker 1: done it, well, I need the evidence to show they
Speaker 1: couldn't have done it because they are with someone. Okay,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. That's what's worried me about this narrative,
Speaker 1: that there's only one person. We're focusing on this one
Speaker 1: person and being the being the foster mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've got to think if you were a
Speaker 2: defense barrister, if if she ever were to get caught,
Speaker 2: and she's not been charged with anything, but if she
Speaker 2: ever were, then it's almost the first thing your defense
Speaker 2: barrister looks at is, well, what about person X, person Y,
Speaker 2: person's ed all of whom we know the police have
Speaker 2: looked at, all of whom we've heard this evidence against.
Speaker 2: Have you ruled them out?
Speaker 1: How have you eliminated?
Speaker 2: Well, if you haven't, then there's no way you can
Speaker 2: say it's this other person. So we are we are
Speaker 2: going to be looking at that and the other thing
Speaker 2: that's happening is because we've now released some of the
Speaker 2: episodes and done some of the reporting for news dot
Speaker 2: Com dot AUE are contacting us with tips and things
Speaker 2: that they've seen or heard or tried to report to
Speaker 2: crime stoppers at the time. And there's been a couple
Speaker 2: of those so far that I've looked at and thought, ah, okay,
Speaker 2: that should probably get passed on to the coroner, because
Speaker 2: there's stuff that's come into us that I've not heard
Speaker 2: as far as I know, hasn't come out publicly, but
Speaker 2: it seems like the kind of thing you'd definitely want
Speaker 2: to follow up. So we're actually passing stuff onto the
Speaker 2: coroner at the moment, and maybe, you know, maybe those
Speaker 2: aren't the key bit of evidence that will make a difference,
Speaker 2: but what it does show is there's still things out
Speaker 2: there that haven't been tied down. And until you've done
Speaker 2: all of that, I don't see how you can be
Speaker 2: so certain it's this other person unless you've got witness evidence,
Speaker 2: forensic evidence, something as solid as that. And if you have,
Speaker 2: why haven't you charged her? Of course, we've got to say.
Speaker 2: She protests her innocence one hundred percent, has always said
Speaker 2: she has nothing to do with what happened to.
Speaker 1: Any Well, it's when it was leaked, and I say
Speaker 1: leaked the information that a brief of evidence has been
Speaker 1: provided to the DPP. Again, I've lost track of how
Speaker 1: long that was, probably twelve months ago, maybe longer. We
Speaker 1: call them in policing sufficiency advising, so you present all
Speaker 1: the evidence, so you go to the DPP on complex
Speaker 1: matters or gray area type matters and they come back
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, there's sufficient evidence to proceed with this
Speaker 1: sort of a safeguard to check. I've never seen any
Speaker 1: take that long, and I've sent some very very complicated
Speaker 1: sufficiency advisings to the DPP and they come back a
Speaker 1: lot quicker than a lot quicker than that. So I
Speaker 1: met a loss why it's taken so long. I also
Speaker 1: want to address I've seen articles that flowed on so
Speaker 1: you not just the podcasts articles going out and I
Speaker 1: think the headlines were and coreact me if I'm wrong
Speaker 1: with something like four witnesses of William to all matter
Speaker 1: haven't been spoken to by police or about sightings or
Speaker 1: four sightings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was five at that point, yees, so people
Speaker 2: who had that we'd spoken to, who had contacted crime Stoppers,
Speaker 2: where you can report information to the police. Contacted crime
Speaker 2: stoppers with different sightings or different bits of potential evidence.
Speaker 2: Some of them sightings are William at different times, or
Speaker 2: people they thought were William. There was one other who
Speaker 2: had seen a car and a driver that matched that
Speaker 2: in a TV appeal for information. I think the same
Speaker 2: day or the night before. They'd contacted crime Stoppers and
Speaker 2: said here's this information, and they've just never heard back.
Speaker 2: I've spoken to all I've spoken to all five of them,
Speaker 2: and they seemed credible, like they didn't seem like they
Speaker 2: were making this up. They might be wrong, or it
Speaker 2: might not be important, but it struck me as the
Speaker 2: kind of thing that'd be worth following up. So have
Speaker 2: things fallen through the gaps. But the thing about those
Speaker 2: five is that it's now eight So three more people
Speaker 2: have got in touch with us and said I saw
Speaker 2: this or here's something that I knew at the time,
Speaker 2: and I contacted crime stoppers and I never heard back.
Speaker 2: And two of those are the information that we've passed
Speaker 2: on to the coroner, which I've looked at and I've said, Okay,
Speaker 2: not only does that person sound credible, but that actually
Speaker 2: sounds like it might be important, like massively, the odds
Speaker 2: are massively weighed against it being that important. I get that,
Speaker 2: But if they weren't followed up at the time, how
Speaker 2: can the police be certain they're not missing something important.
Speaker 1: Well, I read that article with interest because just prior
Speaker 1: to me being taken off the investigation, I completely a
Speaker 1: comprehensives are in charge statement to present to the coroner,
Speaker 1: detailing everything that was done with the investigation, why we
Speaker 1: made these decisions, how the sightings were treated, like we
Speaker 1: had like a matrix of how the sightings would be treated.
Speaker 1: And if someone phones up and says I saw a
Speaker 1: boy in Spider Man suit five years after William disappeared,
Speaker 1: we don't get excited about that. So there was a rating,
Speaker 1: a way that we assess the information, which ones need
Speaker 1: to be followed up, which ones don't, and we're in
Speaker 1: undated with information. I would be more comfortable, and I'm
Speaker 1: saying this is a member of the public now, if
Speaker 1: an article goes out to the media along those lines,
Speaker 1: that the police address those issues, Because when I was
Speaker 1: running the investigation, if things like that came out, I
Speaker 1: would address, explain the situation, give the public confidence. But
Speaker 1: when you did that article, and I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you were even the author of the article, but the
Speaker 1: did the police respond to the we're explain what they're doing.
Speaker 2: No, they're not going to comment because the Kate willing
Speaker 2: Tiller's disappearances before the inquest. So I get your point
Speaker 2: with that kind of thing, where we're saying, well, here's
Speaker 2: some potential problems. It can cause the public to lose
Speaker 2: faith in the police, and the police aren't coming out
Speaker 2: and saying well, actually, you should have faith in us
Speaker 2: because of this and this and this and this is
Speaker 2: how we dealt with it. Yeah, they haven't said anything
Speaker 2: at all. The other thing that struck me about to
Speaker 2: be really candid about this was we got in touch
Speaker 2: with crime Stoppers about that before the article went out,
Speaker 2: and I said, here are the names of the people
Speaker 2: we've spoken to and an outline of what they've said.
Speaker 2: They told crime Stoppers at the time. I think I
Speaker 2: gave them the dates in terms of the years at least,
Speaker 2: and I said, do you want to you know, say anything,
Speaker 2: Do you want to correct us, do you want to this,
Speaker 2: do you wist to have a chat off the record,
Speaker 2: or do you want to make any kind of comment,
Speaker 2: and the comment we got back from crime Stoppers was look,
Speaker 2: forgive me. I can't remember the exact words. We was
Speaker 2: basically saying, we can't comment on stuff that is impossible
Speaker 2: for us to prove whether or not it's true, and
Speaker 2: these people might have got it wrong. And I just
Speaker 2: remember looking at it and thinking, but I gave you
Speaker 2: the name, and I gave you an outline of what
Speaker 2: they were saying, and don't you keep records? But that
Speaker 2: was it. We just got, you know, we get a
Speaker 2: few lines written down in an email. There's not an
Speaker 2: attempt to actually engage and say, what's the greater good here?
Speaker 2: What do we need to be saying to make sure
Speaker 2: this is reported accurately and people understand what's going on.
Speaker 2: It's very defensive the journalist police relationship on this story,
Speaker 2: accepting those cases where stuff has been leaked to the
Speaker 2: media and then it's it's right.
Speaker 1: Look, it might be an explanation on that. Just as
Speaker 1: you're talking like there's a degree of people that provide
Speaker 1: information that crime Stoppers can do it on an anonymous basis.
Speaker 1: That might be part of it, that wishy washy message,
Speaker 1: But that's something that could probably be if someone explained
Speaker 1: the situation. We can't give out the details, but yeah
Speaker 1: they can confirmed perhaps, But see again, this is all
Speaker 1: this misinformation. So what I'm hoping, without putting pressure on
Speaker 1: your dan, is the definitive story of what happened to
Speaker 1: Wim Turl comes out. Not to not because I've got
Speaker 1: a vested interest in it, It's because it's what needs
Speaker 1: to be done. There is too many people theorizing, speculating
Speaker 1: and lives being destroyed about this whole investigation, and if
Speaker 1: it's been done wrong, we all need to be held
Speaker 1: accountable and make sure this doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look we do, and I say we because the
Speaker 2: media do as well, because we've got a part in that.
Speaker 2: And that is what we're attempting with this podcast is
Speaker 2: the definitive telling, but also a fair telling, an honest telling.
Speaker 2: That's all that we're interested in doing with this version
Speaker 2: of it. But the one thing we can't do is
Speaker 2: tell the definitive story or what happened to William. And
Speaker 2: I've said this to everyone, to his foster family, biological family.
Speaker 2: I said, we're not going to find William better people
Speaker 2: than us have tried, Cops have tried. The inquest team
Speaker 2: are trying still. But what we can do is give
Speaker 2: the definitive story of the investigation to find William, So
Speaker 2: right back to the beginning, what was done and not done.
Speaker 2: So that's our job is to look at what was
Speaker 2: done to find William and tell that story. Because the
Speaker 2: sad truth of it is ten years on, I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody has any evidence of what happened to William.
Speaker 1: Well you can take this and people listening can take
Speaker 1: it for what it is. Look deeply in the evidence.
Speaker 1: It was already available when I was running the investigation,
Speaker 1: and I think you might find this answers.
Speaker 2: That's what a lot of cops say, isn't it that
Speaker 2: the answer is always in the files and you look
Speaker 2: at other cases. So Daniel Morcambe, the boy went missing
Speaker 2: up in Queensland tragically, so years later the police do
Speaker 2: identify and do arrest and do convict the person responsible
Speaker 2: for his abduction. I think that person's name was in
Speaker 2: the file. But these investigations is you know better than me.
Speaker 2: You are dealing with so much information and managing that
Speaker 2: and processing that and pulling out of it, which is
Speaker 2: your job and the other cops job. Is to pull
Speaker 2: out that thread that matters and then follow that one.
Speaker 2: That's a high pressure.
Speaker 1: It's a high pressure job, but it's a job that
Speaker 1: you evolve into. You don't get leading. You don't lead
Speaker 1: an investigation of that nature unless you've got the experience.
Speaker 1: And I think I've said this to you in just
Speaker 1: off the cuff comments that if I didn't think I
Speaker 1: was up to the task, I would have stepped away
Speaker 1: from that investigation because of the pressure. But twenty years
Speaker 1: of experience doing this, so I felt right for it.
Speaker 1: And this is not me justifying my position when I
Speaker 1: say the answers might be in there. My concern is if,
Speaker 1: as you've quite rightly pointed out, if the police have
Speaker 1: got it wrong with the foster mother. Where I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the extent of the surveillance that's been done and
Speaker 1: what's come out in court, that would occupy a lot
Speaker 1: of police time. What's happened to the other people, the
Speaker 1: people who I were looking at, the people that are
Speaker 1: before I was taken off that I wanted explored through
Speaker 1: the inquest are you going to touch on that or
Speaker 1: a will that come out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We are, yeah, because some of those names that
Speaker 2: you were looking at are names where that have become
Speaker 2: publicquently and through different means, Like when you were put
Speaker 2: on trial and convicted, we heard a lot of evidence
Speaker 2: about the people or the person you were looking at
Speaker 2: at the time, and in the inquest other names have
Speaker 2: come up that actually, thinking about it, the strikeforce, when
Speaker 2: you were leading it was starting to look at one
Speaker 2: or two other people. We're going to look at those
Speaker 2: names and say, well, what's the evidence that has been collected,
Speaker 2: and what's the reason, if any, that we can establish
Speaker 2: that people have stopped looking at them? Because and this
Speaker 2: is something the foster mother, William's foster mother said, so
Speaker 2: she released she's basically said nothing since she became identified
Speaker 2: as a suspect. So she released a written statement. But
Speaker 2: her point is in that statement she says basically, if
Speaker 2: the police have been because she says she's innocent, if
Speaker 2: the police have been wrongly looking at me, then who
Speaker 2: have they missed over the last five years? And that
Speaker 2: becomes really important. And I know there's a couple of ifs,
Speaker 2: like if the police have got it wrong, then who
Speaker 2: have they missed? But if the police have got it wrong,
Speaker 2: that means the person who is responsible for William's disappearance
Speaker 2: is still out there somewhere, maybe with someone the police
Speaker 2: were looking at at some point because there were so
Speaker 2: many people as a thousand people on your persons of
Speaker 2: interest list, and maybe the opportunity to gather the evidence
Speaker 2: against that person has now been lost because memories fade,
Speaker 2: forensic evidence can be destroyed, witnesses die, people get old.
Speaker 2: And if that's the case, oh that's a tragedy.
Speaker 1: I'd say it's beyond the tragedy. It's unforgivable. If that's happened,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to sit and say strongly on this.
Speaker 1: If people that I were following up haven't been followed
Speaker 1: up merely on the basis that I was following up
Speaker 1: those people, I think it's disgraceful.
Speaker 2: That is something that it did strike me. So when
Speaker 2: you left the police, and you left the police because
Speaker 2: let's not beat around the bush, you were investigating someone
Speaker 2: in relation to Williams Seal's disappearance and recorded conversations with
Speaker 2: that person, which you say you had every right to do,
Speaker 2: which the police force said you didn't, and so they
Speaker 2: took you off the investigation. At that point, it very
Speaker 2: much felt as an outsider looking in that you were
Speaker 2: just about to start the inquest. You'd got your investigation
Speaker 2: focused on very few people. The inquest was also focusing
Speaker 2: the same way as the police were thinking. And then
Speaker 2: you were taken off the investigation and suddenly the focus
Speaker 2: of the inquest under the police investigation that followed swerved
Speaker 2: away to other people. So things stopped and things changed.
Speaker 2: You got to hope that that was done with good reason.
Speaker 1: Well, the inquest was at my request that I was
Speaker 1: prepping for the inquest. That's why I did the statement.
Speaker 1: Prepping for the inquest with a very clear strategy in mind.
Speaker 1: That search, I think it was twenty eighteen, the forensic
Speaker 1: search that was done so I could give evidence before
Speaker 1: the coroner and say that based on all this information,
Speaker 1: I can say that William's disappearance wasn't through misadventure, that's
Speaker 1: human intervention. That was the purpose of a forensic search.
Speaker 1: Great deal of money was spent making sure everything was
Speaker 1: documented and recorded and we went there and so that's
Speaker 1: been my concern, Dan, And this is why I'm happy
Speaker 1: that you're doing the podcast, because I think these things
Speaker 1: can be sometimes lost because I don't have the faith
Speaker 1: in the media fully comprehending and these reasons, as you said,
Speaker 1: the amount of words you can put in an article
Speaker 1: when you attend the court. Are you for me with
Speaker 1: the case from the start? I saw this with bearable.
Speaker 1: These long protracted investigations tend to get points amissed, and
Speaker 1: when you can tied all together, the picture is a
Speaker 1: lot clearer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping with your podcast. I'm glad you're doing
Speaker 1: the podcast because I'm anytime I speak about William Tyrol,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm setting myself up to be criticized
Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to justify my position.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, and I'll be blunt. You are going to
Speaker 2: get criticized a bit in the podcast as well, because
Speaker 2: I don't agree with everything you did. And again, it's
Speaker 2: very easy as the armchair critics to say, well, that
Speaker 2: could have been done differently or better. So, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you might not be quite as happy with it when
Speaker 2: it comes out, but that is the intention to try
Speaker 2: and say, look, this is the best version of what
Speaker 2: has happened, and one hundred percent doing it has changed
Speaker 2: the way I've looked at that investigation, So I think
Speaker 2: listening to it will change the way other people listen.
Speaker 1: Well, I'd be a coward if I didn't say that,
Speaker 1: if I said, I know, I don't want it exposed.
Speaker 1: Let's just move on. Let's forget about the week. My
Speaker 1: life's pretty good at the moment, like I don't need
Speaker 1: to be dragged back into the whim to all matter.
Speaker 1: And I know we had conversations on the tenth anniversary.
Speaker 1: I spoke to you and just get your advice as
Speaker 1: a friend and someone that understands the media. When I've
Speaker 1: been reached out to make comments on the tenth anniversary,
Speaker 1: and I had one night when the TV network contacted
Speaker 1: me and said would you like to make a comment,
Speaker 1: And I said no, And then I thought about it,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting at home thinking, you're not the type
Speaker 1: of person you thought you were, Gary, if you haven't
Speaker 1: got the tenacity to stand up and make comments that
Speaker 1: you think need to be made. And I came to
Speaker 1: the realization that if I don't speak up, no one
Speaker 1: else is going to speak up. So instead of saying no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do a stand up, I end up.
Speaker 1: I think I had five TV crews in my house
Speaker 1: at week.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the fact that you said you asked
Speaker 2: my advice as a friend, because I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 2: have never taken.
Speaker 1: My I don't take your friendly or not.
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have tried to say, don't do.
Speaker 1: But you know, let's the issue, the issue I have
Speaker 1: with this, So with your podcast, whatever comes out needs
Speaker 1: to come out. We can't sweep this under the carpet.
Speaker 2: Look just on that point. So during the timeline, you
Speaker 2: do notice that William's foster mother publicly at your trial
Speaker 2: supports you and publicly criticizes senior New South Wales police officers.
Speaker 2: And subsequent to that you do see that she becomes
Speaker 2: a focus of the police investigation and then is publicly
Speaker 2: identified as their suspect. But you know, it's like that thing,
Speaker 2: correlation is not causation. I've got no evidence to suggest that,
Speaker 2: you know, the one thing led to the other, but
Speaker 2: certainly one thing followed another, and there was a complete
Speaker 2: shift of focus in who the police were looking at
Speaker 2: between your time on it and between the police investigation
Speaker 2: now And the other thing that's interesting is that you
Speaker 2: had the inquest which ran for period of years and
Speaker 2: identified a number of people who we hadn't heard about publicly.
Speaker 2: But even the inquest wasn't looking at William's foster parents
Speaker 2: as potential people who might be involved. The lawyer who's
Speaker 2: leading that inquest stands up at the beginning and he
Speaker 2: says something to the effect of, you know, it's very
Speaker 2: very few cases where child goes missing and it's who's involved,
Speaker 2: something like it's a few percent, but this might be
Speaker 2: one of those cases. So even the inquest isn't looking
Speaker 2: at Williams foster parents, but the police are now, So
Speaker 2: I really hope they have got the evidence to back
Speaker 2: that up, because it's a It's the worst kind of
Speaker 2: thing you could say about a person.
Speaker 1: We looked at the prospect of William being involved in
Speaker 1: the excellent and someone cover of that. But why cover that?
Speaker 1: And the theory can correct me if I'm wrong. That
Speaker 1: seems to be being need to beer at the moment
Speaker 1: wim fill off the balcony, and then in a yeah,
Speaker 1: a moment of I can't even articulate why personally if
Speaker 1: the child fill off that balcony there, I can I'm
Speaker 1: going to cover.
Speaker 2: This up, you know what? This is where you start
Speaker 2: to get into like the misinformation and the speculation that
Speaker 2: surrounds this because there's both. There's a lot so we
Speaker 2: know that Williams. We do know for a fact that
Speaker 2: William's foster mother has become the focus of police attention
Speaker 2: because it was on the front page of the Daily
Speaker 2: Telegraph newspaper with a police source basically saying that, And
Speaker 2: we know that the police have pretty much confirmed that
Speaker 2: in court that this is what they think happened, or
Speaker 2: we've heard evidence in court that seems to confirm that.
Speaker 2: But we've heard no suggestion as to why she might
Speaker 2: have done that, like what's the motive for doing it.
Speaker 2: We have heard a lot of speculation in the mainstream
Speaker 2: media and on social media, which wild speculation, but in
Speaker 2: both we've heard speculation about possible motives, but we've also
Speaker 2: heard speculation about all kinds of other things to do
Speaker 2: with this case. There was one article shortly after Williams's
Speaker 2: fosterman was identified as kind of the lead suspect. There
Speaker 2: was an article on the headline was something like inside
Speaker 2: the police thinking on William's disappearance, and it was the
Speaker 2: idea was, here's the big scoop on what the police
Speaker 2: have got that makes them think William's foster mother is responsible.
Speaker 2: And one of the things was that the last known
Speaker 2: photograph of William, so the last time we know for
Speaker 2: a fact he was alive. He was barefoot in the photo.
Speaker 2: Yet William's foster mother's evidence to police was that he
Speaker 2: was wearing shoes at the time he went missing, and
Speaker 2: that she'd said to him, put your shoes on. It
Speaker 2: was Bindi season. So Bindi's those spiky little things you
Speaker 2: see in the grass. But according to this article, it
Speaker 2: wasn't Bindi season. Go her story is not true and
Speaker 2: therefore she must be responsible. So when we went up
Speaker 2: to where William went missing on the tenth anniversary, so
Speaker 2: this is ten years to the day since he went missing,
Speaker 2: we stood outside the house that he disappeared from and
Speaker 2: we tried to walk through what had happened to him
Speaker 2: and what the police think happened. And my colleague Nina,
Speaker 2: she looks down at the grass at the moment I'm
Speaker 2: talking about this bindi and she says, oh, what's that,
Speaker 2: And it's a Bindi on the grass. So this whole
Speaker 2: I'm gonna like, yeah, it is. It's speculation, this whole
Speaker 2: thing about shoes not shoes, Bindi's not bindy season. Well,
Speaker 2: there was a Bindi on the grass ten years to
Speaker 2: the day since he went missing. And the other thing
Speaker 2: is William knew how to put his own shoes on,
Speaker 2: so none of it seems to matter.
Speaker 1: Then, just on the Bindi, it's called the Bindi situation.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation, off the record, friendly conversation with
Speaker 1: a journalist I respect, and this journalist said to me,
Speaker 1: because I was arguing the toss on, yeah, why of
Speaker 1: the police suspect the foster mother and that story was
Speaker 1: relaid to me, but the Bindi the Bindi story, so
Speaker 1: it was more than one journalist. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: this is how it was told to me to convince
Speaker 1: me that I've got it wrong. It's a foster mother
Speaker 1: and this is not verbatim, but my recollection of the
Speaker 1: conversation was, but Gary, guess what the foster mother said
Speaker 1: that she told William to put his shoes on because
Speaker 1: there's Bindi's And I'm going, yeah, it wasn't Bindy Susan
Speaker 1: and I've gone wow, like sarcastically wow. But there's more,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, Okay, well, hopefully there's something, because that's nothing.
Speaker 1: She also said put your shoes on because you might
Speaker 1: tread in dog Purr and guess what, Gary, they didn't
Speaker 1: have a dog. The dog had died six months ago.
Speaker 1: Now this is the person I respect. But this is
Speaker 1: irrational thinking. When this narrative comes in about about William
Speaker 1: tyrol Ca.
Speaker 2: It's irrational because you know what bannermuin Drive looks like,
Speaker 2: and I do. There's not much in the way offenses
Speaker 2: between properties. There are dogs they could be.
Speaker 1: But it's also irrational what you say to a three
Speaker 1: year old child like I would tell, yeah, there's a thousand,
Speaker 1: put your shoe on, they'll give you a lully like.
Speaker 2: It's I Look, honestly, I've thought about this. I can't
Speaker 2: see how anything turns on the shoes.
Speaker 1: Well that's not proof, I'm saying. Here, you put it
Speaker 1: in effect sheet and see what.
Speaker 2: But you know, what is significant from what you've said
Speaker 2: isn't so much that the police might have said, you know,
Speaker 2: to a court that that's their key bit of evidence.
Speaker 2: But it's what they're telling journalists, or at least somebody's
Speaker 2: telling journalists. There's the piece that I read in the paper,
Speaker 2: and you've got another journalist who's said this to you, Like,
Speaker 2: who's telling the journalists what evidence the police have got
Speaker 2: in a live homicide investigation. Well, because they shouldn't be
Speaker 2: doing that. Well, I mean, as a journalist, I love
Speaker 2: it when they do, but they shouldn't.
Speaker 1: And I know, and I would say within the journalistic
Speaker 1: circles that I mix in, I'm saying, why isn't there
Speaker 1: any inquiry about who released the information about the brief
Speaker 1: of evidence coming to the DP.
Speaker 2: Because everyone thinks you were releasing evidence?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I I as I said, And the challenges
Speaker 1: here bring someone forward that has evidence that I released
Speaker 1: any information When I was heading up investigations, I actually
Speaker 1: had someone reported and for releasing information in one of
Speaker 1: the very early homicide investigations I was on, and that
Speaker 1: was going against a culture within the cops because I
Speaker 1: put in a complaint against someone for releasing information.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess anyone listening to this podcast who was
Speaker 2: leaked to by yourself can put it in the comments
Speaker 2: to this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, put the calls out. Can I say sorry?
Speaker 1: One other thing? And I apologize when I talk William
Speaker 1: Troll because it does evoke emotions. But I want to
Speaker 1: make this other comment. Take homicide had away media head way,
Speaker 1: the foster mother, Yeah, is a let's say a person
Speaker 1: of interest in a murder investigation. I've never in all
Speaker 1: my time as a homicide detective, and I asked the
Speaker 1: public to think this through. Had someone complain that the
Speaker 1: investigation has made shut down the flower of the person responsible?
Speaker 2: All right? See, that's interesting about the foster monk because
Speaker 2: she has campaigned publicly and privately for more police attention
Speaker 2: on this case. So probably anyone listening to this who
Speaker 2: was in Australia at the time will remember the Where's
Speaker 2: William campaign which was massive, like billboards on the side
Speaker 2: of the road, like you drive from Sydney to Kendall
Speaker 2: and you'd go past two or three of them. I
Speaker 2: remember being in pubs up that way and you be
Speaker 2: a matt would have William's face and a little thing
Speaker 2: saying you know, if you know anything, contact crime stuff
Speaker 2: is TV stuff, social media like a huge campaign which
Speaker 2: you were involved in a bit is a cop at
Speaker 2: the time, and the foster parents were heavily involved in
Speaker 2: basically saying if you know anything, please come forward. And
Speaker 2: we now know that she was also over the years
Speaker 2: privately writing letters to the police commissioner and others saying
Speaker 2: put more resources onto this, not just asking nicely. One
Speaker 2: of those letters has been made public and she's basically
Speaker 2: threatening him, you are not doing enough on this case.
Speaker 2: If you don't do more, we will get in touch
Speaker 2: with the politicians. You know. The wording is much more
Speaker 2: polite there, but you can read between the lines like
Speaker 2: she's saying, if you don't do more, we will get
Speaker 2: on your case. If she actually is responsible, then she's
Speaker 2: playing a very clever, dangerous game of double bluff, because
Speaker 2: that's not what most guilty people would do in that case.
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone And people might argue, we've all
Speaker 1: seen the husband that has murdered the wife and gets
Speaker 1: on the TV see that and implied for we need
Speaker 1: to catch the killer. I've seen that in homicide. But
Speaker 1: we're talking five years down the track, so the foster
Speaker 1: mother could quite easily have just drifted off in the
Speaker 1: background say it. Look, I appreciate the effort the police
Speaker 1: have done. Sadly we haven't got results, and no one
Speaker 1: would think anything of it five years down the track.
Speaker 1: Her concern was the investigation was going to be shut
Speaker 1: down under resource and all that. She wanted it investigated thoroughly.
Speaker 1: She wanted answers. Okay, I'm doing what I've criticized other people.
Speaker 1: I'm speculating, but these are the things that you've got
Speaker 1: to take in take into account. I just find it
Speaker 1: extremely unusual, and it was someone that said it to
Speaker 1: me when I was talking about just in a casual conversation.
Speaker 1: But why would she be asking for it to be
Speaker 1: ramped up? And I'm thinking that's a good point, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a good point. And at this point,
Speaker 2: only one of two things can be true, which is
Speaker 2: either the police are right, in which case she has
Speaker 2: misled the entire country for the best part of a
Speaker 2: decade by calling for more attention on this case, or
Speaker 2: the police have got it wrong, in which case they
Speaker 2: have wrongly targeted her and her family. And only one
Speaker 2: of those two things can be true, and either one
Speaker 2: of them is a pretty unsettling prospect. And this case,
Speaker 2: the inquest is going to conclude this year, so November
Speaker 2: December is the last two scheduled public cares, so everything's
Speaker 2: got to come to a head. Like at the end
Speaker 2: of that, you'd hope we know which of those versions
Speaker 2: is true, because only one of them can be the
Speaker 2: true story. And the podcast we're doing will run through
Speaker 2: and we'll report on those in quest hearings as well.
Speaker 2: So as part of this series, we are going back
Speaker 2: to the beginning of the investigation, saying, here's what happened
Speaker 2: and what was done right and what was done missed.
Speaker 2: But we're going to be there for those inquest hearings
Speaker 2: and we'll report on what comes out there. And I'm
Speaker 2: expecting it to be shocking, actually, because there's so much
Speaker 2: that's now weighing on this. And at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, the thing that gets lost and this is
Speaker 2: a couple of people have said this to me, and
Speaker 2: I'm guilty of it, and maybe we're guilty of it
Speaker 2: in this conversation because we're talking about, oh, what about
Speaker 2: the police, and what about the media, and what about
Speaker 2: the foster parents? And the thing that gets lost is
Speaker 2: William himself. You know, there's a line in one of
Speaker 2: the episodes in the podcast where someone says that it's
Speaker 2: almost like William's become an absence in his own story.
Speaker 2: And probably the person we haven't actually really spoken about
Speaker 2: enough in this conversation is William himself. And we are
Speaker 2: going to get to the end of the year, and
Speaker 2: one of these two accounts of what happened to him
Speaker 2: will hopefully be the one we realize is the true one,
Speaker 2: and then maybe at that point we can actually stop
Speaker 2: and start thinking about the boy himself who went missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said then, because I know what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and I feel uncomfortable talking about that. It's always poked
Speaker 1: the beer when they talk to me about William Tyrell.
Speaker 1: But it's a three year old kid that sis and
Speaker 1: the lives that's impacted on the lives of the Buron
Speaker 1: shaded these biological Foster family. Cute little kid, and I
Speaker 1: think perhaps that's why it's in the psyche of the
Speaker 1: whole country, and because you see those angelic fatos of
Speaker 1: him running around plane and in the Spider Man suit,
Speaker 1: we can all relate and his life is Yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't know what's happened to him, so we need to
Speaker 1: get answers. I'm hoping your podcast will assist and not
Speaker 1: just encourage people to come forward with information, put the
Speaker 1: spotlight on the people that are involved in the investigation
Speaker 1: where the cards lie. If I'm due for criticism, we
Speaker 1: don't want the situation like this happening again. But we've
Speaker 1: got to accept the responsibility that comes not just the police,
Speaker 1: the coroner. Everyone that's involved in the media on a
Speaker 1: situation like this, we need to bring an a game
Speaker 1: to it, So hopefully your podcast delivers.
Speaker 2: I hope.
Speaker 1: So I've seen you looking tired on different times. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: here is a friend Dan, I can see the pressure
Speaker 1: on you working on this case. And a shout out
Speaker 1: to her too, because she's good. There's been putting in
Speaker 1: the big effort, but you need that type of effort
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of what this is all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I've actually worked this hard on
Speaker 2: anything before, and it does feel relentless and like it's
Speaker 2: definitely having an effect. And but you know this is
Speaker 2: true of everyone who's worked on it, isn't it. Like
Speaker 2: you take these cases on because they're important and they're
Speaker 2: worth doing, but they take something out of you in return.
Speaker 2: I've worked on each of the last three weekends. I've
Speaker 2: currently got four ulcers in my mouth because my body's
Speaker 2: trying to tell me that I'm a bit run down. Like,
Speaker 2: my wife's been great and the kids have been really supportive,
Speaker 2: but like we're on this until Christmas now, because that's
Speaker 2: how long the inquest is running for. And I'm already thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: that's going to be a long trip. But you do
Speaker 2: it because it's important, and you do it because you
Speaker 2: know there is a little three year old kid and
Speaker 2: something happened, and there are other people who got involved,
Speaker 2: not out of choice, but got involved in everything that followed,
Speaker 2: and they are important. So I really hope that we
Speaker 2: can get to the end of this year. And I
Speaker 2: say we, I mean collectively, like we the public, we
Speaker 2: the media, we the police, we the Inquest, and we
Speaker 2: can say we gave that our best shot.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the right person's doing it. The effort
Speaker 1: you're putting into it, that needs that effort. And I
Speaker 1: say this not naively, like if it comes back and
Speaker 1: bites me, so be it. But we need answers and
Speaker 1: that hopefully this will help in some way, and we'll
Speaker 1: get answers for how can people listen to the podcast?
Speaker 2: You can listen to this podcast anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: The podcast is out. We're releasing episodes weekly when the
Speaker 2: Inquest is on. We might end up doing more than
Speaker 2: one a week just to report on what's happening. You
Speaker 2: can google it witness William Tyrrell and the reportings in
Speaker 2: news Dot com dot Au. So it's out there and
Speaker 2: it's pretty easy to find.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'm just going to say, as someone that
Speaker 1: was involved in the investigation, there's more to this investigation
Speaker 1: that's been reported in the media.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if you're this than I ever.
Speaker 1: Thought so many later yeap, So good luck with it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: I think we're still friends. I'll wait the rest of
Speaker 1: the need to wait until you've heard the episodes about you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is actually the one I'm writing today.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, great timing, all right, thanks then,
Speaker 1: thank you. I always find it difficult talking about the
Speaker 1: William tool case. Obviously I'm heavily invested in it. But
Speaker 1: I hope the podcast is Den Bock and Nina Young
Speaker 1: as working on, called Witness William Tyrell, will provide answers
Speaker 1: about all the issues that have gone on with this investigation,
Speaker 1: and also the main focus needs to be that we've
Speaker 1: got a three year old child that's disappeared and no
Speaker 1: one's been called into account.