Speaker 1: Okay, I called David Laidlaw.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: David Laidlaw is the detective leading the investigation into William
Speaker 3: Tihan's disappearance.
Speaker 4: How would you take your oath for an information?
Speaker 5: Cudney.
Speaker 3: He's tall and heavy set, with white hair and a
Speaker 3: thick white mustache.
Speaker 2: And your occupation.
Speaker 6: I'm a detective chief inspector and you're with the homicide squad.
Speaker 3: That's correct, Thank you. David's what you might call a
Speaker 3: veteran policeman.
Speaker 7: You've been with the force since the late seventies.
Speaker 3: That's correct, meaning he's been a cop for longer than
Speaker 3: I have been alive.
Speaker 7: And you've been a detective since nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 6: That's correct.
Speaker 3: Train And he's been a detective investigating serious crimes since
Speaker 3: I was in primary school and still getting pocket money.
Speaker 7: And you joined the Unsolved Homicide Team in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 7: is that right?
Speaker 6: That's correct.
Speaker 3: His job today is as Investigation Coordinator of the New
Speaker 3: South Wales Police Unsolved Homicide Team, roughly forty detectives whose
Speaker 3: job it is to go back over cases that others
Speaker 3: couldn't solve and solve them. Every one of those cases
Speaker 3: represents a grieving family who might have waited decades for
Speaker 3: an answer. New South Wales Police has around eight hundred
Speaker 3: unsolved cases on its books, although the numbers are a
Speaker 3: bit uncertain.
Speaker 7: And you say that as at the date of your statement,
Speaker 7: there were eight hundred and twenty nine of those cases.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 7: Yes, the figures provided by New South Wales Police as
Speaker 7: at yesterday for that period is seven hundred and ninety.
Speaker 6: Yes, I can assist.
Speaker 7: Now, do you know what's happened to those files?
Speaker 4: No? I don't know.
Speaker 2: He should know.
Speaker 3: That's why David's being questioned by this special Commission of
Speaker 3: Inquiry held last year to investigate the police response to
Speaker 3: specific hate crimes, because it's his job to oversee the
Speaker 3: review of those unsolved cases. The way it works is
Speaker 3: another cop takes a first look at the file, called
Speaker 3: a triage. They then report to David, who decides if
Speaker 3: the case will be formally reviewed. Only then can it
Speaker 3: be reinvestigated. And all of this can take weeks or
Speaker 3: months or years.
Speaker 7: Two hundred and thirteen have not yet been triarched.
Speaker 6: Now with their figures should be one hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 6: I see, So.
Speaker 3: That's one hundred and twenty five possible unsolved murders. The
Speaker 3: Unsolved Homicide Team have never looked at.
Speaker 7: Some of those cases, maybe decades off.
Speaker 3: They could be is The Unsolved Homicide Team was established
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and four, but the triage is
Speaker 3: just the first stage of their work.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: According to these figures, there are two hundred and ninety
Speaker 7: one cases where it appears at least that no review
Speaker 7: has been completed.
Speaker 6: That's correct.
Speaker 3: One hundred and twenty five cases plus two hundred and
Speaker 3: ninety one cases equals quite a backlog. That's hundreds of
Speaker 3: possible murders grieving families. David says, it's a resource issue.
Speaker 6: You have to understand the resource implications. We don't have
Speaker 6: enough people to do them. Mean enough people are made
Speaker 6: by people who are qualified.
Speaker 3: At this point, the head of the inquiry interrupts him.
Speaker 4: Out of more resource has been requested.
Speaker 3: No, so David hasn't asked for any help.
Speaker 6: That's correct. But I know there's nineteen three hours ready
Speaker 6: for me to vid. I haven't had the opportunity to
Speaker 6: vid yet for how long since? Since I'd say since June,
Speaker 6: I would say.
Speaker 7: Last year, so that there was nineteen where somebody has
Speaker 7: completed a review and sent it to you to assist,
Speaker 7: I've been sitting on your desk.
Speaker 6: For over twelve months, that's correct.
Speaker 7: Yes, when do you expect to get to them?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just to stress, that's nineteen families waiting maybe decades for
Speaker 3: an answer to what happened, not knowing the file detailing
Speaker 3: their loved ones possible murder has been triaged by a detective,
Speaker 3: then sat unopened on David's desk for the past year.
Speaker 4: And have you drawn this to the Commissioner's attention that
Speaker 4: you need more resources one way or the other?
Speaker 6: No, I haven't, sir.
Speaker 4: Why not if the work is that important or does
Speaker 4: it not require urgent attention?
Speaker 6: It does require a little.
Speaker 4: Well, then why hasn't somebody said something to the commissioner
Speaker 4: instead of sitting quietly leaving files collecting dust on the desk.
Speaker 6: If I can reiterate what I said before, is that
Speaker 6: we're going from a backlog of we've still got treo
Speaker 6: as forms that have been completed that we cannot get
Speaker 6: out of even the review because there's so many of them.
Speaker 4: Do I work on the basis that the present Commissioner
Speaker 4: is entirely unaware of the resources issues that you currently face.
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 6: That's correct?
Speaker 4: So well, it is remarkable form assosa, Yes, that's true.
Speaker 3: The inquiry's final report set it is difficult to see
Speaker 3: how these resource issues could provide a justification for Detective
Speaker 3: Chief Inspector laid Law to fail to perform his own
Speaker 3: function in relation to these nineteen cases. David said part
Speaker 3: of the reason was he was busy investigating the disappearance
Speaker 3: of William Tyrol. He's still investigating William's disappearance. I'm Dan
Speaker 3: box and from news dot com dot Au. This is
Speaker 3: Witness William tyrrel Episode four. The police theory. Those nineteen
Speaker 3: files David laid Law's not had time to open, and
Speaker 3: the nineteen grieving families they represent, I can't help but
Speaker 3: see them as part of the fallout from the investigation
Speaker 3: into William's disappearance. And there are others like William's biological family,
Speaker 3: where his grandmother says she lost her son over the
Speaker 3: past ten years when they haven't had any answers and
Speaker 3: she lost herself as well. David is still working to
Speaker 3: solve the case, though, and the police have now set
Speaker 3: their sights on William's foster mother.
Speaker 6: Where are we.
Speaker 2: This is the house where William went missing.
Speaker 3: So Nina, who's the producer on this podcast, and I
Speaker 3: have come to the house where William was reported missing
Speaker 3: to try walking through the police's theory of what happened
Speaker 3: to him. So this is what the police now think
Speaker 3: happened to William, and we've pieced this together from the
Speaker 3: cross examination of their new suspects in the New South
Speaker 3: Wales Crime Commission and the cross examination of one of
Speaker 3: the detectives investigating William's disappearance in court. In court, that
Speaker 3: detective confirmed that this is one of their theories and
Speaker 3: he said the police believe they know where William's body
Speaker 3: was disposed of, and that he's formed the view that
Speaker 3: William's foster mother knows where William Tool is. The house
Speaker 3: where William was reported missing is a big, two story
Speaker 3: building at the top of a dead end road called
Speaker 3: Bennerum Drive. The neighbour's houses are all set back from
Speaker 3: the road and each house is surrounded by a wide garden.
Speaker 3: It looks like a nice place to live, blue sky,
Speaker 3: green grass, the quiet, but behind the houses on either
Speaker 3: side is forest. The last known photograph of William Tool
Speaker 3: was taken at nine thirty seven on the morning he
Speaker 3: went missing, and he's wearing his Spider Man suit on
Speaker 3: this verandah of the house. The photo is taken by
Speaker 3: his foster mother, and you can see William's happy. His
Speaker 3: mouth is open like he's laughing or he's excited or
Speaker 3: he's roaring. And we know the foster mother's there because
Speaker 3: she took the photograph, and we know that her mum
Speaker 3: is there, but the foster father, her husband, he's left
Speaker 3: the home earlier that morning. He's gone to make a
Speaker 3: work call. He needs internet reception to do that.
Speaker 8: And just to say, we do have a point in
Speaker 8: time for when he left because there was CCTV, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So all of that's been confirmed, but the uncertainty
Speaker 3: is over the time of the photographic could be out
Speaker 3: by two hours, so that would make it seven thirty seven,
Speaker 3: not nine thirty seven. The foster mum told police when
Speaker 3: she was asked about this, that she didn't know how
Speaker 3: to set the camera. But the police and later the
Speaker 3: inquest have looked at this. There's been forensic examination and
Speaker 3: both accept that nine thirty seven is accurate.
Speaker 9: And I look at that picture and I just think.
Speaker 1: Minutes, minutes and our world has changed.
Speaker 3: This is William's foster mother from an interview with both
Speaker 3: foster parents recorded by New South Wales police months after
Speaker 3: he was reported missing. So Evan, let's start the timer
Speaker 3: now after the photograph's taken. The foster mother tells police
Speaker 3: that William Tirell did more drawing on the verandah, and
Speaker 3: she remembers playing with dice with him. She was teaching
Speaker 3: the kids how to count, and William's sister came over
Speaker 3: and she wanted to join in, and William withdrew.
Speaker 2: So that's all his foster mum's account.
Speaker 3: She's told police that William then got bored and he
Speaker 3: tried different activities, including a game that they called Daddy Tiger.
Speaker 2: So William was roaring at the grown ups.
Speaker 3: But the foster mother tells police that at some point
Speaker 3: William Tirell jumped down off the deck on his own.
Speaker 8: He's got a really good sense of adventure, but he's
Speaker 8: got a really good understanding of his limitations.
Speaker 1: He's not not a wanderer, not a child to run away.
Speaker 8: Always had us in earshot or eyesight.
Speaker 2: She says.
Speaker 3: She told him to put his shoes on, but he's
Speaker 3: barefoot in the photograph. But the thing is, there's been
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of controversy about this photo. There's been
Speaker 3: headlines in the newspaper about did he have shoes on?
Speaker 2: Didn't he have shoes on? And does that mean somebody
Speaker 2: is lying.
Speaker 3: The foster mother says she told him to put his
Speaker 3: shoes on because there might be bindi's in the grass.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that's that was the argument that was made,
Speaker 8: that there weren't bedis.
Speaker 3: There was a whole bunch of controversy online in the
Speaker 3: newspapers about whether or not.
Speaker 2: It was bindy season.
Speaker 8: We're at the house and there's a bindi and it's
Speaker 8: that time of year.
Speaker 3: So look the long and the short of that is.
Speaker 3: I think it's all irrelevant. William could put his own
Speaker 3: shoes on, and his shoes.
Speaker 2: Had velcro straps, so.
Speaker 3: Whatever the foster mother said, he could have put shoes on.
Speaker 3: At the time, William is said by his foster mother
Speaker 3: to have jumped down off this verandah and run off
Speaker 3: around the corner of the house. He's running up and
Speaker 3: roaring and running away, and she says she asked William,
Speaker 3: can you see Daddy's car? Because his foster father was
Speaker 3: due to come back at any moment.
Speaker 1: He's not a kid that would just run into something.
Speaker 8: He would stop and think, he would consider what he
Speaker 8: would do before he would do anything else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, and sid stay within within distance, knowing how
Speaker 5: far away he was from.
Speaker 3: Us, and the foster mum remembers that her tea was hot,
Speaker 3: and she remembers drinking some of it, and she remembers
Speaker 3: hearing William row and then she told police, I hear nothing.
Speaker 6: I can't hear him. Why why can't I hear him?
Speaker 8: And I walked around. It was just two meters three
Speaker 8: meters away from where we were sitting, and I've just
Speaker 8: walked out and I just see nothing.
Speaker 3: And she goes around the corner of the house. I
Speaker 3: don't know if she's on the funda or if she's
Speaker 3: on the garden next to it, but she's moved around
Speaker 3: the corner of the house so she can see down
Speaker 3: the slope from the back of the property.
Speaker 1: And I'm yelling out, William, where are you? You need
Speaker 1: to talk to Mommy, tell me where you are. I
Speaker 1: can't see you, I can't hear you. Where are you?
Speaker 3: And she says she remembers standing there, just staring into space,
Speaker 3: thinking why can't I hear him? Why can't I see him?
Speaker 3: Why can't I see the red through the bushes down there?
Speaker 3: So the red is the Spider Man suit that we
Speaker 3: know he was wearing because it was in that photograph,
Speaker 3: and she says, she goes back to her mum and
Speaker 3: she says, he's not here. William's not here. Now this
Speaker 3: is where we start to lose the timing. She tells
Speaker 3: the police that the gap between the photograph being taken
Speaker 3: to William and her going to look for William was
Speaker 3: maybe five ten minutes. But she's quest on this at
Speaker 3: different times by the police, and she's inconsistent on exactly
Speaker 3: how long it was, and at one point the police
Speaker 3: actually ask her. They say, sometimes five minutes doesn't always
Speaker 3: feel like five minutes, which is fair, and.
Speaker 2: She accepts that.
Speaker 3: So let's say five minutes for playing the dice, for
Speaker 3: William getting bored, for running off and back for playing
Speaker 3: Daddy Tiger being told can you see Daddy's car, and
Speaker 3: the foster mother realizing she can't hear him. So the
Speaker 3: minimum estimate that she gives so five minutes. If the
Speaker 3: photo was at nine thirty seven, it's now nine forty
Speaker 3: two and on our timer. We've been six in a
Speaker 3: bit minutes. But the police theory is that William went
Speaker 3: around the other side of the house and fell off
Speaker 3: the verandah here, and that at this point the foster
Speaker 3: mother found William's body and these ferns and the foliage
Speaker 3: around under the verandah, that he was dead, but she
Speaker 3: makes a snap decision to hide his body. Now for
Speaker 3: that to happen for the police theory to be right,
Speaker 3: a lot has to happen very quickly. The foster mum
Speaker 3: has to walk down here, find William's body and.
Speaker 8: Reaction quietly enough that no one in the neighborhood hears.
Speaker 3: It, or because we know it's a quiet street, you
Speaker 3: can hear.
Speaker 2: It's a quiet street, so.
Speaker 3: There's no audible reaction that either her mum or William's
Speaker 3: sister notice. She has to decide not to call for help,
Speaker 3: So that's a very quick decision. There's no triple zero
Speaker 3: call at that point. And she has to decide to
Speaker 3: hide William's body rather than seeking any kind of medical attention.
Speaker 3: And William's sister is also in the house, so she's four.
Speaker 3: The foster mum has to decide whether to bring her
Speaker 3: mum and William's sister into the conspiracy and get them
Speaker 3: to lie with her about what's happened to William.
Speaker 8: Or avoid them. Final yet that anything has happened.
Speaker 3: So William's sister, who's four, is interviewed more than once
Speaker 3: by specialist detectives and she gives the same version, which
Speaker 3: is that William is playing Daddy Tiger. So if it
Speaker 3: is a conspiracy, William's foster mother then has to pretend
Speaker 3: to look for William herself. She has to convince her
Speaker 3: own mother what happened. The foster mother later tells police
Speaker 3: that she runs around this garden and the foster Mum's
Speaker 3: calling out, I can't hear you. I need to see you.
Speaker 3: I need to hear your voice because I can't see you.
Speaker 1: I can't hear you. Where are you? And he was nowhere, and.
Speaker 3: At some point, according to the police theory, she walked
Speaker 3: up to the carport just here around the house, and
Speaker 3: when she got there, she loaded William's body into her
Speaker 3: mum's Gray MASD three. According to the police, so.
Speaker 2: So far, we are.
Speaker 3: Eleven minutes since the time when William is last known
Speaker 3: to be alive. Okay, William's foster mother has always denied
Speaker 3: any involvement in his disappearance, so at this point it's
Speaker 3: worth stepping back and asking who are the police coming
Speaker 3: up with this theory. William's disappearance is currently being investigated
Speaker 3: by detectives from the New South Wales Police Unsolved Homicide Team.
Speaker 3: It's part of the bigger Homicide Squad and it exists
Speaker 3: to go back to those old cases that weren't solved
Speaker 3: the first time to see if anything was missed, if
Speaker 3: any mistakes were made, or if new technology, particularly DNA,
Speaker 3: could lead to a breakthrough. And these are serious cases,
Speaker 3: possible murders, so the detectives working for Unsolved are expected
Speaker 3: to be good, but their work is not perfect. In
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, the year before William went missing, New South
Speaker 3: Wales Police discovered evidence relating to twenty two unsolved homicide
Speaker 3: cases sitting in a basement. No one seemed to know
Speaker 3: it was there. That led to the then senior officer
Speaker 3: on the Unsolved Homicide Team to write a damning internal
Speaker 3: report on just how much evidence was missing, scattered, misfiled
Speaker 3: or lost. The report was confidential at the time. It's
Speaker 3: marked through official use only. It said one search recovered
Speaker 3: eight entire palettes of evidence that had been improperly stored.
Speaker 3: Many of these items may relate to unsolved homicide cases.
Speaker 3: Many of these poorly secured items included homicide victim's clothing,
Speaker 3: post mortem and crime scene specimen swabs, meaning detectives today
Speaker 3: didn't know what was missing and DNA analysis had not
Speaker 3: been carried out.
Speaker 10: One of the reasons to write this document was to
Speaker 10: let command know what the issue was and the problems
Speaker 10: was that we faced.
Speaker 3: This is the former officer who wrote that report, giving
Speaker 3: evidence that the same inquiry you heard at the start
Speaker 3: of the episode.
Speaker 10: All of the investigators in the office were aware of
Speaker 10: the problems regarding retention and proper exhibit handling procedures.
Speaker 3: That officer didn't get to see if those problems were
Speaker 3: ever fixed. He ended up leaving the police for medical
Speaker 3: reasons shortly after submitting his report. The current boss of
Speaker 3: the New South Wales Police Homicide Squad told the inquiry
Speaker 3: those problems still existed when he took over in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 9: Yes, but we're talking about certain cases. We're not talking
Speaker 9: about every case, but yes.
Speaker 4: It was known.
Speaker 3: Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty is a stout stolid, gray bearded policeman.
Speaker 3: He looks like a safe pair of hands. But when questioned,
Speaker 3: he didn't know how many unsolved homicide cases were affected,
Speaker 3: and was.
Speaker 7: It well known that these problems may have existed in
Speaker 7: relation to a large number of unsolved homicides.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't say large number.
Speaker 7: Was it well known that these problems arose in a
Speaker 7: number of cases, and nobody knew how many cases the
Speaker 7: problems arise in.
Speaker 9: I think that now, with the work of the unsol
Speaker 9: homicides to them, that would be a small number of cases.
Speaker 7: What's the basis on which you tell the commissioner that
Speaker 7: the number of cases that suffer from this problem is
Speaker 7: a small number rather than an unknown number, or it
Speaker 7: is an unknown number.
Speaker 3: So there's an unknown number of cases where the unsolved
Speaker 3: homicide team don't know what evidence they're missing, and that
Speaker 3: was still the case last year. That's ten years after
Speaker 3: that discovery of evidence relating to those twenty two unsolved
Speaker 3: homicides in a police basement that first brought this issue
Speaker 3: to light.
Speaker 7: Are you aware of those problems having been addressed?
Speaker 9: What's been an ongoing issue. I know that there's been
Speaker 9: some reviews of some record services, and I know there's
Speaker 9: reviews in writing to exhibits, and that's been an ongoing issue.
Speaker 7: The problems were well known as problems within the Unsolved
Speaker 7: Homicides team when you started in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 9: Yes, well they brought to my.
Speaker 7: Tench and it's well known that there's still problems within
Speaker 7: the unsolved homicide.
Speaker 9: Team in terms of those issues have been riseeous.
Speaker 3: So the Unsolved Homicide Team is not perfect. There's problems
Speaker 3: with record keeping, missing exhibits, and an inability to fix
Speaker 3: those problems over a whole decade. But that itself doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that the investigation into William's disappearance has faced the
Speaker 3: same problems. Back to the police theory that William's foster
Speaker 3: mother drove his body away from the house in her
Speaker 3: mother's Gray Master three.
Speaker 8: She described driving very slowly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, William's foster mother doesn't mention this drive in her
Speaker 3: initial statement to police on the day that William goes missing,
Speaker 3: but she does describe it in a video walkthrough of
Speaker 3: what happened the police recorded with her about six days later.
Speaker 3: And there's been different reports about whether this drive was
Speaker 3: made before William's foster father came home or after but
Speaker 3: if you look at William's foster father's witness statements, he
Speaker 3: doesn't mention the drive. So you've got to think it's
Speaker 3: more likely that the foster mum makes this drive before
Speaker 3: he gets home.
Speaker 2: So she drives down here.
Speaker 8: She describes, with her head out the window.
Speaker 3: She's looking out the window, she's calling for Williams. And
Speaker 3: yet so she's driven down and she turns right here
Speaker 3: now on the drive, Williams foster mum tells police that
Speaker 3: on this road, so it's almost a single lane road,
Speaker 3: it's narrow, there's no road markings, there's trees on either side.
Speaker 3: She describes this semi trailer coming down really fast.
Speaker 8: And I pulled. He think he thought I pulled over
Speaker 8: because he acknowledged me by saying thanks for pulling over.
Speaker 8: But I pulled over because I've just got my head
Speaker 8: out the window looking for William. Yeah, she said she
Speaker 8: wasn't pulled over, she was just just driving so slowly.
Speaker 8: Doing this driver, it does make sense to me that
Speaker 8: this is how you might look. You're covering a lot
Speaker 8: of ground here, and.
Speaker 3: You can imagine that if you are looking for a kid,
Speaker 3: You've got a thick bush on either side of the
Speaker 3: road you're desperately looking for you know that red or
Speaker 3: that blue of the Spider Man's suit. You're shouting his
Speaker 3: name as you go, and it's a paniced response like
Speaker 3: this isn't a You know, you're not in your rational
Speaker 3: mind if you're looking for a kid, But equally you're
Speaker 3: not in your rational mind if you're trying to cover
Speaker 3: something up. But she gets here, and according to the
Speaker 3: foster mother, she stops and I.
Speaker 8: Get to the riding school and I just think it's
Speaker 8: my here.
Speaker 3: So this is the corner of Batar Creek Road and
Speaker 3: this dirt track that's called Cobb and Co.
Speaker 5: Road.
Speaker 8: So this is where the place are alleging the body
Speaker 8: could have been left. They've specifically called.
Speaker 3: Out this specifically in court. They have suggested the body
Speaker 3: of William Tirell was left here. But if you get out,
Speaker 3: I don't look.
Speaker 8: Very open.
Speaker 2: It is very open, isn't it.
Speaker 3: So just testing the police theory if you were trying
Speaker 3: to hide a body. When you get here, there are
Speaker 3: riding school. So there's several buildings maybe one hundred meters
Speaker 3: away overlooking where we are now. There's another house on
Speaker 3: the other side of the road. A second houset there
Speaker 3: and a third one there, all within eyeshot. When if
Speaker 3: you hadn't turned right at the bottom of Benner and
Speaker 3: Drive and you'd turn the left, or if you'd continue
Speaker 3: down this road another few hundred meters, you'd just be
Speaker 3: in forest on either side. There would be no houses
Speaker 3: looking at you. So this spot here is probably the
Speaker 3: worst place to try and hide anything if you wanted
Speaker 3: to commit a criminal act.
Speaker 8: If we're working on the theory that this driver goes
Speaker 8: before the husband.
Speaker 2: Comes home, which seems most likely.
Speaker 8: It does seem most likely if we're working on that theory,
Speaker 8: we don't have much time to bury a boy.
Speaker 3: And also, to be blunt, burying a body's quite hard work,
Speaker 3: and there's no suggestion that there's any digging tools in
Speaker 3: the car, So the best you're going to do at
Speaker 3: this point, if you are hiding a child's body, the
Speaker 3: best you're going to do is carry it. Also, she's panicking,
Speaker 3: and maybe panicking explains why you'd pick this spot, which
Speaker 3: is in sight of several houses. But if you had
Speaker 3: stopped here and you tried to hide something, you could
Speaker 3: walk what's that fifty meters and leave the body behind
Speaker 3: one of these piles of leaves and sticks. But it's
Speaker 3: not going to be very well hidden. So if you
Speaker 3: wanted to hide it properly, and I know this is.
Speaker 8: Morehag fuck, so it's get some it gets very unworkable
Speaker 8: very quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you wanted to hide something as obvious as
Speaker 3: a child's body in a bright red out in a
Speaker 3: bright red outfit, you have to go another ten meters
Speaker 3: maybe into the bush, and that's.
Speaker 2: Hard walking and you're carrying a body.
Speaker 3: You're carrying something that's heavy. So but maybe you do it.
Speaker 3: It's not impossible.
Speaker 2: But either way.
Speaker 8: You notice that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll show you what this is. Actually, this rake
Speaker 3: is a memorial left by the police when they did
Speaker 3: the big forensic search and just a few years ago,
Speaker 3: and it.
Speaker 2: Did have this message on it, we will never to
Speaker 2: get home.
Speaker 3: It's hard to read now and there's a date, but
Speaker 3: it's Warrior left by police who when they came down here,
Speaker 3: did search this area. They ripped the bush apart, they
Speaker 3: dug up tons of soil. They were using tools like
Speaker 3: this to just scrape through everything. And if they found anything,
Speaker 3: they've never made it public. And the detectives are Adama
Speaker 3: when questioned in court about this location. So one of
Speaker 3: the detectives on the strike force says that the police
Speaker 3: do believe William's body was disposed in this area on
Speaker 3: the corner of those two roads. And he's asked in
Speaker 3: court if he's lying about whether the police know the location,
Speaker 3: and he says he's not, and then he says, I
Speaker 3: formed the view that the foster mother knows where will
Speaker 3: Interil is, which does lead you to the question, well,
Speaker 3: if you believe that, then why have you not been
Speaker 3: able to find him?
Speaker 2: But we don't know.
Speaker 3: So the faster mon then drives back into Benerine Drive. Okay,
Speaker 3: so she says, she drives up here, she says, she
Speaker 3: tells police, she brings the car back up, and she
Speaker 3: just runs out and she looks for him again and
Speaker 3: she's running around. How long have we been.
Speaker 2: We've been twenty six minutes.
Speaker 3: So if William was last seen at nine thirty seven,
Speaker 3: that's about ten o'clock now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but you're discounting their old time player.
Speaker 3: All of yeah, you're having a cup of tea. We
Speaker 3: know that at about ten point thirty, Williams foster father
Speaker 3: sends a text to his foster mother saying I'll be
Speaker 3: home in five yea and he is home, and he
Speaker 3: is home within five minutes. But the foster mother deletes
Speaker 3: that message. So at the time when she's on her
Speaker 3: evidence running around looking for William, she deletes the message
Speaker 3: from William's foster father. Now she tells police that that's habit.
Speaker 3: She just deletes messages as they come in. And it
Speaker 3: is true that other messages on her phone are deleted.
Speaker 3: And there's a part of me that gets that. I
Speaker 3: delete emails as quickly as I can. And she is
Speaker 3: from personal Experience office. She's a really organized, a really
Speaker 3: efficient person. Does it mean anything that she deleted that message.
Speaker 3: If the police theory is right and she's at this
Speaker 3: point involved in a conspiracy to dispose of William's body,
Speaker 3: what does she gain by deleting that message?
Speaker 8: Hard to tell And I think also hard to read
Speaker 8: too much into the actions of someone under extreme stress.
Speaker 3: Either way, Yeah, because on the police theory, she has
Speaker 3: to decide in that moment whether or not to bring
Speaker 3: him into the conspiracy. Either if the police are right
Speaker 3: and she is trying to hide the fact of William's death,
Speaker 3: she has to decide very very quickly whether she is
Speaker 3: going to lie to him that William has just disappeared,
Speaker 3: or tell him the truth and convince him very quickly
Speaker 3: to lie with her. The husband gets home about ten
Speaker 3: point thirty three or soon after he arrives home where
Speaker 3: we are now, and he pulls into this driveway here,
Speaker 3: and the foster mother walks towards him from the veranda area,
Speaker 3: so that side of that house there, and she asks him,
Speaker 3: have you seen William? And the foster father's response, on
Speaker 3: his evidence and her evidence, is that he says, what
Speaker 3: are you talking about? Why would I have William? The
Speaker 3: foster mother tells her husband that William's missing, and he
Speaker 3: takes off.
Speaker 5: I then said, where is he?
Speaker 6: Where?
Speaker 2: Where?
Speaker 5: Where's he going? She said he was he was here
Speaker 5: at five minutes ago here, five minutes ago, yep.
Speaker 1: I can't find him.
Speaker 5: I was calling his name, William, Carl, William.
Speaker 2: Where are you? She said that he was.
Speaker 5: He was last saying around here, yep. But I thought, okay, well,
Speaker 5: you know, if he was down the road, you possibly
Speaker 5: would have seen him.
Speaker 2: You've checked that dollhouse over there, and.
Speaker 5: Then absolutely went through there, went through there, went unnath
Speaker 5: their house, went around their house, went in there because
Speaker 5: they went home. I went in there in there carport.
Speaker 3: So he's running all around there, and then he's running
Speaker 3: in wider and wider circles up and down the street here,
Speaker 3: and he says he kept coming back to the house
Speaker 3: to check for any updates.
Speaker 2: So has William come back?
Speaker 5: Yeah, they've got a caravan in there.
Speaker 1: It's all locked away.
Speaker 5: I went in there.
Speaker 1: I checked on and was locked.
Speaker 2: Caravan was locked, yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I was looking in everything I possibly could.
Speaker 5: I then couldn't find him. I then found there's a
Speaker 5: walking trial or a trail that leads to the cemetery.
Speaker 5: I followed that. You know, I was still looking for
Speaker 5: things on the ground, if there's something, you know, I've
Speaker 5: lost a shoe or something like that.
Speaker 1: You were yelling all this all.
Speaker 5: The time, all time, yelling for him all the time.
Speaker 3: I remember when I've lost, even for a moment, one
Speaker 3: of our kids, it's like the whole world is shaking.
Speaker 3: It's that much emotion, it's that much adrenaline and panic.
Speaker 3: So I can imagine him running literally up and down
Speaker 3: this street looking for William. But then about ten four,
Speaker 3: so just over an hour after that photograph was taken
Speaker 3: the Foster month, she runs down the road here to
Speaker 3: a neighbour's house, asking if the neighbor has seen a
Speaker 3: little boy in a Spider Man outfit. But the significance
Speaker 3: of that is, from that moment on, the foster mother
Speaker 3: is with someone from outside her family, someone who has
Speaker 3: no reason to lie to protect her. So we know
Speaker 3: that from that moment on, she's not hiding a body. Yeah, So,
Speaker 3: having walked it through, what do you think about the
Speaker 3: police theory?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's doable, it is doable, it's.
Speaker 2: Tied, it's doable.
Speaker 3: But I don't think it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: And the thing that got me was driving down to
Speaker 3: the corner of those two roads that the police say
Speaker 3: they believe William's foster mother hid his body. You're right
Speaker 3: in front of the ride school. You're in view with one,
Speaker 3: two three other houses. When if you wanted to hide
Speaker 3: something and you'd driven another two hundred meters, there'd be nothing.
Speaker 3: They'd just be forest. So why pick that point?
Speaker 8: But it's entirely possible that we're looking at a puzzle
Speaker 8: that's missing a lot of pieces, and that the place
Speaker 8: could have pieces.
Speaker 3: But if they have pieces, why haven't they done anything
Speaker 3: about it? Why has she not been charged. The one
Speaker 3: person who does know what other puzzle pieces the police
Speaker 3: hold is the man leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector
Speaker 3: David Laidlaw. He took over more than five years ago,
Speaker 3: so back in twenty nineteen, which was months after the
Speaker 3: public announcement of a separate plan to overhaul the way
Speaker 3: the Unsolved Homicide Team deals with its backlog of cold cases.
Speaker 3: It was announced in an exclusive story in Sydney's Daily
Speaker 3: Telegraph newspaper that promised that every murder mystery to have
Speaker 3: baffled New South Wales police in the past forty years
Speaker 3: will be revisited in one of the biggest ever shakeups
Speaker 3: of cold case homicides in the state. The paper said
Speaker 3: that cases that could be solved would be prioritized and
Speaker 3: another internal police report also marked for official use only,
Speaker 3: so the officer in charge of the process would be
Speaker 3: David Laidlaw.
Speaker 6: There was a time frame given of three months for
Speaker 6: the review to be undertaken. However, we identified that some
Speaker 6: matters have been out there for three years.
Speaker 7: And in the last five years since the twenty eighteen
Speaker 7: system was introduced, there are still one hundred and twenty
Speaker 7: five that have not been triarged into on hundred and
Speaker 7: ninety one that have not been reviewed, and that number
Speaker 7: of cases that have been neither triaged nor reviewed. They
Speaker 7: may include cases from the seventies and eighties, the cold Yes,
Speaker 7: And at the moment, is this the case? The review
Speaker 7: committee receives five to ten reviews every three.
Speaker 6: To six months approximately years.
Speaker 7: So that's fewer than twenty in a year.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 7: So of the four hundred and forty two undetected cases,
Speaker 7: it'll take twenty two years to review all of them
Speaker 7: on that average.
Speaker 6: Yes, it could do.
Speaker 7: When you joined the Unsolved Homicide Team in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 7: were you already aware of difficulties in locating exhibits that
Speaker 7: were appreciated within that team? Was that notorious within the
Speaker 7: unsold Homicide Team?
Speaker 6: It's a rather strong word notorious. I would say it was.
Speaker 3: Known, well known.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 6: Therefore, the reconciliation plan was to get all exhibits for
Speaker 6: forensic analysis to be back into one place, which is
Speaker 6: the Metropolitan Exhibited and Property Center.
Speaker 7: And that project was underway, was it when you joined
Speaker 7: the team?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 7: And have that project been completed?
Speaker 6: I'm unable to tell the commissioner.
Speaker 7: That have you received written updates as to the progress
Speaker 7: of that project. If you haven't received any written update
Speaker 7: as to the progress of that project since you commenced,
Speaker 7: that's correct.
Speaker 4: Yes, either person who would be expected to receive the updates, Yes, sir?
Speaker 4: Have you asked for them? No, sir, why not?
Speaker 6: I can't give the commissioner a reason why not.
Speaker 3: The second voice, the one who's just started asking questions,
Speaker 3: is the inquiry's head, a Supreme Court judge.
Speaker 4: These are all people's lives and people's families lives.
Speaker 6: I appreciate that, and.
Speaker 4: As anyone, as far as you know, ever put to
Speaker 4: the Commissioner that some specially founded project is urgently needed
Speaker 4: to get a grip on all of these unsolved cases.
Speaker 3: David says he does know requests for missing exhibits from
Speaker 3: unsolved cases were sent out to different parts of the
Speaker 3: police force. That happened in twenty seventeen, so seven years ago.
Speaker 2: Now where are the replies kept?
Speaker 6: I don't know. I can find I would burn what
Speaker 6: we call our record management system.
Speaker 7: Is there someone responsible for collating the replies and reviewing them?
Speaker 6: Well, I suppose responsibility now at rest.
Speaker 7: With me, But you haven't conducted that exercise now have
Speaker 7: you taken any steps towards reviewing the responses that have
Speaker 7: been received?
Speaker 6: No, I haven't.
Speaker 7: The physical exhibits are, of course critically important to unsolved homicides.
Speaker 6: Of course, yes, thank you m Seku for a I'll
Speaker 6: a journal team.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: To be honest, I struggle to get my head around
Speaker 3: what David's saying. Unsolved homicides are real people, real grieving families.
Speaker 3: But New South Wales Police is missing exhibits, missing documents
Speaker 3: by the palette load, and the detective in charge of
Speaker 3: going back through all these cases says he doesn't know
Speaker 3: basic things like where they keep replies to requests for information,
Speaker 3: or what's in those replies, or how big the problem
Speaker 3: really is. I get David Laidlaw's busy, among other things.
Speaker 3: He's running the investigation into William's disappearance, But the record
Speaker 3: of the New South Wales Police isn't actually perfect there too.
Speaker 3: If the current police theory of what happened is William's
Speaker 3: foster mother drove his body away in her mum's gray
Speaker 3: mas to three, then surely it's a problem.
Speaker 2: The police at.
Speaker 3: The time didn't examine that car until the twentieth of
Speaker 3: September twenty fourteen, five days after William was reported missing.
Speaker 3: I'd like to ask David about all of this, but
Speaker 3: I've been told no. Instead, New South Wales Police have
Speaker 3: given us a short written statement saying police are quote
Speaker 3: unable to provide comment or interviews as the matter is
Speaker 3: before the coroner, meaning the inquest into William's disappearance, which
Speaker 3: is due to start again next week.
Speaker 1: So if anyone out there is thinking I might have
Speaker 1: gotten away with this, what's your message?
Speaker 3: They haven't, though that didn't stop David giving this interview
Speaker 3: to Sky News in twenty twenty one, when the inquest
Speaker 3: was also ongoing.
Speaker 6: We will continue with this investigation as long as it takes.
Speaker 1: Do you believe you know who the person is?
Speaker 6: We believe we can identify who it may be or
Speaker 6: some of the circumstances of him going missing.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know what happened, don't you? You know who
Speaker 1: it is?
Speaker 6: We have thoughts about what occurred to William, Yes, is
Speaker 6: and there's a range of thoughts of what happened to him.
Speaker 1: Yes, and who was responsible?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: We started this episode talking about the lives that have
Speaker 3: been damaged so far by the police investigation. The families
Speaker 3: of those nineteen cases where reports have sat on David
Speaker 3: Laidlaw's desk for a year unopened. Right now, other lives
Speaker 3: are at risk of harm. Also because today only one
Speaker 3: of two things can be right. Either the police theory
Speaker 3: is correct and William's foster mother disposed of his body
Speaker 3: and has deceived everyone over the past ten years when
Speaker 3: she's been publicly campaigning for more attention, not less, on
Speaker 3: this case. Or the police are wrong and William's foster
Speaker 3: mother has been wrongly and tragically described as a suspected
Speaker 3: criminal in front of her friends and family and the
Speaker 3: entire country. That's the reality of unsolved homicide investigations.
Speaker 2: The stakes are very, very.
Speaker 3: High, and which of those two theories has evidence to
Speaker 3: support It might become clear next week when the inquest
Speaker 3: into William's disappearance resumes its public hearings, and we will
Speaker 3: be there reporting on what happens in the next episode.
Speaker 3: Because one thing walking through the police theory with Nina
Speaker 3: has made obvious to me is you don't know what
Speaker 3: you don't know? What do you feel about the foster parents.
Speaker 8: Now in that timeline. For the police theory to be true,
Speaker 8: you'd have to be a psychopath to be able to
Speaker 8: react that quickly.
Speaker 3: Because at the very least you are seeing a child's body,
Speaker 3: deciding not to seek help, picking that child's body up,
Speaker 3: hiding it, and then driving away to hide it further,
Speaker 3: with the intention almost certainly of coming back to move
Speaker 3: it again because it wasn't found.
Speaker 8: Breaking down sobbing in front of other.
Speaker 3: People, including the people who know you best, your mum,
Speaker 3: your husband, William's sister. The other alternative is that William's
Speaker 3: foster mother sits her mum down and says, this is
Speaker 3: what's happened. William has died and we need to hide
Speaker 3: that fact, and she deals with her mum's grief, shock,
Speaker 3: horror and turns that into a willing conspirator.
Speaker 2: Then she does that again.
Speaker 3: With William's four year old sister and turns a four
Speaker 3: year old child into someone who will convincingly light a
Speaker 3: police more than once for several years. And then she
Speaker 3: either lies to her own husband and has done for
Speaker 3: the past ten years because he's defended her when examined
Speaker 3: by police, or she also convinces him.
Speaker 8: And at that point you've got four people hiding a
Speaker 8: secret without cracking for a decade. Yeah, under extreme pressure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know what here in this cars made
Speaker 3: me think, like it's so obvious when a car drives
Speaker 3: up here because there's no other traffic that the other
Speaker 3: option is that someone takes William and drives off with him.
Speaker 2: And listening to that, you just would somebody not have heard.
Speaker 3: That's next time on The Witness, William Tyrell. If you
Speaker 3: know anything about William's disappearance, please contact crime Stoppers. There's
Speaker 3: a number in the show notes for this series, but
Speaker 3: if there's anything you want to tell us, you can
Speaker 3: email Witness at news dot com dot Au or I'm
Speaker 3: on social media and it can be completely confidential. A
Speaker 3: lot of different people have been involved in making this series.
Speaker 3: Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound
Speaker 3: design was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon,
Speaker 3: Nicholas Adams, Jazz Bar, Phoebe Zakowski, Wallace and Tabby Wilson.
Speaker 3: Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor. Our
Speaker 3: lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at News dot com
Speaker 3: dot Au is Kerry Warren.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Box