Speaker 1: Yeah, hi, my son is you think it's three and
Speaker 1: a half.
Speaker 2: Okay, So how did we get here?
Speaker 3: How long has well we've been looking for him now
Speaker 3: for that fifteen or twenty minutes, okay, I thought it
Speaker 3: could be father, it could be longer.
Speaker 4: It's just playing around here. We heard him and then
Speaker 4: we heard nothing. Okay, So what the newest question?
Speaker 2: Last week, an inquest into William Tile's disappearance heard the
Speaker 2: police have no forensic evidence, no witness evidence, no direct
Speaker 2: evidence at all about what happened to him, despite the
Speaker 2: police previously saying on the front page of a newspaper
Speaker 2: they had a new suspect they believed was responsible for
Speaker 2: William's death and disappearance, despite detectives going to this suspect's
Speaker 2: house and telling her you'll have to live with it.
Speaker 2: We aren't guessing. We know why, we know how, we
Speaker 2: know where William is. And despite police saying in court
Speaker 2: on oath their theory is that William's foster mother disposed
Speaker 2: of his body, we now know they have no evidence
Speaker 2: she did this, and the coroner overseeing the inquest has
Speaker 2: refused to even call the lead detective, David Laidlaw, as
Speaker 2: a witness. So you have to wonder where did all
Speaker 2: these accusations start.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I can see.
Speaker 3: I can see where you are, and it's Benner and
Speaker 3: driving Kendle and I've got you nearest the prostrate as.
Speaker 4: Being ellen Dale Crescent. It could be I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 4: they've been missing since about ten thirty. Yeah, I'd say so.
Speaker 5: I listened to the foster mother's phone call, and something something.
Speaker 6: Quick for me.
Speaker 2: This woman doesn't want to be identified.
Speaker 4: Okay, can you describe him? Tommy?
Speaker 5: How to maybe that to and a half wearing a
Speaker 5: spider man out. I'm listening to this Troop of zero call,
Speaker 5: and I've had something similar happen to me.
Speaker 2: She's one of the many thousands, if not millions, who've
Speaker 2: listened to the Triple zero recording of William's foster mother
Speaker 2: reporting him missing since it was made public.
Speaker 5: My first child had a horrible accident at home when
Speaker 5: she was about nine to ten months of age, and
Speaker 5: she sort of pushed on a screen window and I
Speaker 5: mustn't have been secured properly or it wasn't safe enough.
Speaker 5: She went all the way out and I couldn't catch her.
Speaker 2: Like thousands of other people, this woman has gone online
Speaker 2: written about the case, sharing her opinions.
Speaker 5: But I remember running down the stairs and just screaming,
Speaker 5: and I was hysterical, finding her, you know, in the grass, crying,
Speaker 5: and I just remember grabbing her and coming back upstairs
Speaker 5: to where my phone wasn't calling emergency services, and I
Speaker 5: was absolutely hysterical, screaming and begging for someone to help me,
Speaker 5: for the ambulance to please come, and and screaming for
Speaker 5: help the whole time.
Speaker 4: Ye hair, he's got dark sandy colored hair. It's sure.
Speaker 1: He's got big brown and green colored eyes.
Speaker 5: Thinking back to the foster mother's triple zerr call, she
Speaker 5: was calm, She just wasn't fhased. She was able to
Speaker 5: answer questions, and she was just cool as a cucumber.
Speaker 2: And just like the police, she's become suspicious despite having
Speaker 2: no real evidence.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll see you get any shoes on. Do you
Speaker 3: know any other distinguishing thanks he has?
Speaker 7: Oh, he's got a freckle on the top of his head.
Speaker 3: When you put the hair on the left hand side,
Speaker 3: you'll see a freckle on probably paid you know.
Speaker 5: Did he have any identifying features? Oh, well, he had
Speaker 5: a freckle, and you know, was he wearing shoes? Yeah,
Speaker 5: you don't do that when you're in a crisis because
Speaker 5: you don't have that presence of mind.
Speaker 2: So is it fair to say that you started to
Speaker 2: suspect the foster mum because in that triple zero call,
Speaker 2: her grief wasn't the same as your grief. Yeah, today,
Speaker 2: ten years on from that phone call reporting William missing,
Speaker 2: that's really all we do have suspicion, people pointing fingers,
Speaker 2: but no evidence. And you have to ask why is that?
Speaker 2: Why after ten years of the most high profile police
Speaker 2: investigation in the country, is there still no direct evidence
Speaker 2: of what happened to William? How was that allowed to happen?
Speaker 2: And is the person who really responsible for William's disappearance
Speaker 2: still walking around today? To find those answers, We're going
Speaker 2: back to the moment of this triple zero calls and
Speaker 2: the police investigation that followed. We're going to look at
Speaker 2: what was done, what was not done, what was missed,
Speaker 2: and how that planted suspicions which grew forcing their way
Speaker 2: into every part of the investigation, leading it in crazy, twisted,
Speaker 2: damaging directions, threatening to strangle it completely.
Speaker 4: I haven't heard him a bit to go.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll please to see you at Minnery driving
Speaker 3: kennel or to get them a message to all the
Speaker 3: people look out for him as well.
Speaker 4: Okay than all, by bye bye.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Box and this is Witness William Tyrrell, Episode six,
Speaker 2: Missing Evidence. The morning of William's disappearance, the twelfth of
Speaker 2: September twenty fourteen, starts off quiet. He's the first to
Speaker 2: wake up, then his foster father, his sister, and his
Speaker 2: foster mother, who would later remember seeing two cars parked
Speaker 2: on the road outside the house, one white, one gray,
Speaker 2: Despite saying in that triple zero call she didn't see
Speaker 2: anything suspicious at the time, there.
Speaker 3: Wasn't anyonecious in the area.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: Later in the morning, when the kids have got up,
Speaker 2: had breakfast and are playing with their bikes outside the house,
Speaker 2: William's foster mother remembers seeing a third car, a gray
Speaker 2: or green sedan, turn into the driveway of the next
Speaker 2: door house, reverse out and drive back down the road.
Speaker 2: She says, the drivers in his fifties maybe sixties, and
Speaker 2: it's odd. She thinks. Benirun Drive, where the family is
Speaker 2: staying for the weekend, is a dead end road outside
Speaker 2: a small town called Kendall, surrounded by forest and empty farmland.
Speaker 2: You just don't get that many cars, particularly ones where
Speaker 2: you don't recognize the driver. Later another witness will also
Speaker 2: describe seeing a white car that morning, a Holden, being
Speaker 2: driven by a man on nearby roads, but that only
Speaker 2: comes to light years later during the police investigation that
Speaker 2: will follow after William disappears. At some point that morning,
Speaker 2: the twelfth of September, a man called Tony Jones leaves
Speaker 2: his house in Warhope, which is about twenty minute drive
Speaker 2: from where William would go missing. Tony tells his wife Debbie,
Speaker 2: he's going scrapping, looking for scrap metal in the state forest,
Speaker 2: and that their son is going with him. Only Tony's
Speaker 2: son will later say that he wasn't with his father.
Speaker 2: When Tony's asked about this at the inquest into William's disappearance,
Speaker 2: he says, quote, I have no recollections, none whatsoever, and
Speaker 2: I'll be honest. If I wasn't scrapping, I was probably
Speaker 2: sleeping with Debbie's friend next door. Another witness will also
Speaker 2: come forward saying that they see Tony sitting in a
Speaker 2: white Toyota, although he denies this when the police ask
Speaker 2: questions because weeks after William is reported missing, Tony Jones
Speaker 2: will be jailed of unrelated child sex offenses, although there's
Speaker 2: no evidence today he was involved in William's disappearance.
Speaker 6: Why I run away from the camera, Johns? Go away?
Speaker 8: Mate?
Speaker 6: Why did you run away from the camera? Why did
Speaker 6: you write camera? What should I camera? Will you enkindle
Speaker 6: that day? William to now?
Speaker 4: I was not?
Speaker 6: Now go away, mister Johns?
Speaker 9: Can you explain your car?
Speaker 4: Look?
Speaker 5: I hated your questions my gown.
Speaker 2: Why Around nine am on the morning William is reported missing,
Speaker 2: his foster mother wants to do some washing and realizes
Speaker 2: the machine is broken. They're staying at her mum's house
Speaker 2: for the weekend. A local repairman's been asked to fix it.
Speaker 2: By chance Tony Jones and that local White Goods repairman
Speaker 2: used to be neighbours years ago in another town, a
Speaker 2: long way from where William goes missing. His foster mum
Speaker 2: calls the repairman, but he doesn't answer. She leaves a
Speaker 2: message asking him to come and fix the washing masie.
Speaker 2: Another local tradesman, Jeff Owen, calls the homes soon after
Speaker 2: to talk about some work that needs doing on the deck,
Speaker 2: Jeff is good mates with a man named Frank Abbott.
Speaker 2: Frank has previously been found not guilty of murder. A
Speaker 2: year after William's disappearance, Frank moves into a caravan on
Speaker 2: Jeff's property, and at that time he's on bay Off
Speaker 2: Child's sex abuse charges. And by chance, Frank Abbott is
Speaker 2: also connected to Tony Jones. Frank's son in law is
Speaker 2: Tony's neighbour. And I promise you we'll get into all
Speaker 2: of that later in this series, but for now we're
Speaker 2: getting closer to the moment on the twelfth of September
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, when William is reported missing, after which different
Speaker 2: people will look again at those phone calls with different
Speaker 2: tradesmen and the cars see that morning and start asking
Speaker 2: if they might be important, particularly after another local, a
Speaker 2: man called Ron Chapman, will tell police he saw a
Speaker 2: car driving fast through Kendle just a few minutes before
Speaker 2: William's foster mum makes her triple zero corn.
Speaker 10: At the time, I didn't know what makes the now
Speaker 10: through Adelai and Cruiser and our models from the box
Speaker 10: type vehicle of Beijan color all right.
Speaker 2: Then, Ron says the car was screaming around the corner,
Speaker 2: driven by a woman in her late twenties or thirties,
Speaker 2: and he says she's plump, not very tall, with blonde
Speaker 2: hair tied in a bun on top of her head.
Speaker 2: Ron says he sees a boy in the back seat
Speaker 2: of the car, standing up with his hands on the window.
Speaker 2: The boys about three or maybe four, with light blondie
Speaker 2: brownie hair, wearing a red and blue outfit like the
Speaker 2: Spider Man suit William is wearing this morning. Ron tells
Speaker 2: police he sees another car coming after.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, now you talked about.
Speaker 2: This time a blue forward sedan really really accelerating.
Speaker 11: How long was it between the first vehicle and the
Speaker 11: second vehicle?
Speaker 10: What have I only heard a couple of seconds, I
Speaker 10: should imagine because the concern it was a man in
Speaker 10: the vehicle, I didn't get a clear enough look to
Speaker 10: anyone come up hearing what even they looked like.
Speaker 2: You'd think the police would want to follow up on
Speaker 2: Ron's sighting two cars driving fast away from Benirun Drive,
Speaker 2: one driven by a man, the other by a woman
Speaker 2: with a boy standing up on the back seat, matching
Speaker 2: William's description even down to the red and blue suit.
Speaker 2: William is wearing, but Ron's evidence it kind of goes
Speaker 2: missing for a few years, partly because Ron himself doesn't
Speaker 2: go to the police, at least at first. Instead, when
Speaker 2: Ron sees the news reports about William going missing, he
Speaker 2: waits for the police to knock on his door, but
Speaker 2: they don't do that. Ron's sister tells him he should
Speaker 2: contact the cops, but Ron doesn't do it directly. Instead,
Speaker 2: he gets in touch with another local woman, saying he
Speaker 2: wants to speak to her sister in law, who is
Speaker 2: the local cop. So a detective doesn't speak to Ron
Speaker 2: until March twenty fifteen, six months after William goes missing,
Speaker 2: and the police don't interview Ron until the August, another
Speaker 2: five months later. They don't record this until April twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: The time is now four twenty seven pm and the
Speaker 3: ringactmant at the premises to mister Ron Chapman is now complete.
Speaker 2: At one point in his conversations with police, Ron says
Speaker 2: he got such a shock when he saw the news
Speaker 2: reports about William going missing that he wondered for a
Speaker 2: moment if he dreamt seeing the cars. When asked directly
Speaker 2: about this, he says, I didn't dream it. No, And
Speaker 2: when I speak to him for this podcast, he says
Speaker 2: the same thing. Ron's in his mid eighties now, but
Speaker 2: sounded clear and confident. When I speak to him, he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to do an interview, tells me, but he
Speaker 2: does tell me, I know what I saw. That's the
Speaker 2: thing with police investigations. You don't know what you don't
Speaker 2: know until you realize that the thing you're missing turns
Speaker 2: out to be important. And all of this evidence about
Speaker 2: cars and people whose movements can't be accounted for or
Speaker 2: had reason to contact the house where William was staying,
Speaker 2: it might have meant something if police had known about
Speaker 2: it at the time, but they didn't. Some of it
Speaker 2: isn't found out until years later, which is a problem
Speaker 2: if you're trying to find out what's happened to a
Speaker 2: missing child. Back at the house where William goes missing,
Speaker 2: his foster mother calls Triple zero at ten fifty six
Speaker 2: that morning, and the first police officer arrives in about
Speaker 2: ten minutes, which is impressively fast. He goes through the house,
Speaker 2: opening cupboards, looking under beds, though he doesn't go into
Speaker 2: the roof space or open the door to the garage.
Speaker 2: Soon after, another uniformed cop arrives and stays in the
Speaker 2: house while the first starts searching outside it, looking in yards,
Speaker 2: the nearby forest, talking to neighbors. He thinks they need
Speaker 2: to check the drains as a priority in case William
Speaker 2: has somehow fallen into one, and William's foster mum asks
Speaker 2: at least three times if she should call the government
Speaker 2: department overseeing his foster care to let them know what's happened.
Speaker 2: The police say, no, not yet, Let's see if we
Speaker 2: can find him. More cops arrive within minutes, including an inspector,
Speaker 2: who establishes a command post starts keeping written logs of
Speaker 2: what's happening. He requests the state Emergency Service search all
Speaker 2: the water drains, and that the police send a specially
Speaker 2: qualified search coordinator and a helicopter, and the rescue squad,
Speaker 2: the trail bike Unit, the mounted unit, and the police
Speaker 2: media unit send out an alert, after which everything changes.
Speaker 8: I thought we'd find him. I honestly thought we'd find him.
Speaker 12: I thought he would have been found really quickly.
Speaker 2: News of William's disappearance spreads fast.
Speaker 6: I just heard from someone at school bringing in people.
Speaker 6: There was massive social media posts about.
Speaker 2: Everyone volunteers in their hundreds.
Speaker 12: So then I went home and got my torch and
Speaker 12: dressed up and left my kids at home and went
Speaker 12: looking for him.
Speaker 2: The police bringing divers.
Speaker 8: My daughter, who was at twelve at the time, she
Speaker 8: said to me, Mum, I want to come.
Speaker 2: All these people descend on the dead end road where
Speaker 2: William was reported.
Speaker 6: And I was like, okay, well, let's go.
Speaker 2: People start searching backyards, dams, the waterways.
Speaker 12: There were hundreds of cars there, There were hundreds of people.
Speaker 12: There seemed to be people going in different directions in
Speaker 12: different places, with different groups.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 6: To be honest, it was bedlam.
Speaker 12: People had come with motorbikes. People had come with all
Speaker 12: their own equipment.
Speaker 6: People camped down there.
Speaker 12: I recognized quite a few locals, but there's lots of
Speaker 12: people there that I didn't recognize.
Speaker 8: Everyone got told to just go go for a walk,
Speaker 8: go look for it.
Speaker 12: People had come from a lot of different places.
Speaker 6: There was just people wandering around, walking through scrub.
Speaker 2: This is one of many line searches underway. Afternoon turned
Speaker 2: into evening that first night. The searchers keep on looking
Speaker 2: by torch light.
Speaker 8: Volunteers were exhausted after putting in such long days.
Speaker 2: Day after day, the search continues.
Speaker 13: The sees, the surf clubs, the fire.
Speaker 8: Brigade, the lifeguards, the fieries.
Speaker 12: All resources and means available are being used on the
Speaker 12: ground and in the air.
Speaker 2: William's foster father is among them. Up at dawn the
Speaker 2: next morning and out to walking through the bush.
Speaker 8: We did have the foster father come down and he
Speaker 8: kind of just sort of started sobbing, and I said, oh,
Speaker 8: it's all right, it's all right, and he goes, no,
Speaker 8: it's no. I just want to thank you. I said,
Speaker 8: don't think us. We're We're just here looking for the
Speaker 8: little boy.
Speaker 2: Until the days start to fall into a pattern.
Speaker 12: Sometimes it was hopeful and then some afternoons you could
Speaker 12: see the exhaustion, but no one stops.
Speaker 8: Fifty people are working shoulder to shoulder to check every
Speaker 8: squear meter close to the home.
Speaker 6: Like it was just total chaos.
Speaker 2: Over the next fortnight. Police records so the search will
Speaker 2: cover about eighteen square kilometers, which I think is about
Speaker 2: two and a half thousand football pitches. A police press
Speaker 2: release says it's fifty square kilometers, so around seven thousand
Speaker 2: football pitches, which is incredibly impressive. Except they missed things.
Speaker 9: I witness a gradular confusion from Bursley Police ANDBSS.
Speaker 2: This man is visiting a relative in Benerum Drive the
Speaker 2: same morning William is reported missing. He says the police
Speaker 2: and sees are doing a great job, no doubt, but
Speaker 2: there are no cordons put in place on the road
Speaker 2: to stop cars.
Speaker 9: No accordingly off of the street at all. While the
Speaker 9: cars were driving up and down the street.
Speaker 2: Meaning anyone can come or go in a vvehicle without
Speaker 2: being checked.
Speaker 9: There should have been the police at the intersection and
Speaker 9: any vehicle that there should have been stopped in question.
Speaker 9: That would be a priority for concent.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't happening from what you saw.
Speaker 9: No, not at all, not for some time. But I
Speaker 9: don't even think until the following day it took place
Speaker 9: that way because he was still vehicles driving up and down.
Speaker 6: For a bit of a show.
Speaker 2: He also says some things just don't get searched.
Speaker 9: The sees would go walk into a home or driveway
Speaker 9: in Both them and the police on the various occasions
Speaker 9: through that day did the same thing. However, I would
Speaker 9: have mentioned that the fact that there was a caravan
Speaker 9: and that caravan was bypassed by both the police and
Speaker 9: the sees each time they came into the premises.
Speaker 2: So it was never searched.
Speaker 9: It was never searched, never asked to be looked at,
Speaker 9: and never searched.
Speaker 2: The police do a forensic search of the house where
Speaker 2: William was reported missing, but not until the next day,
Speaker 2: by which time his foster family have stayed in it overnight.
Speaker 2: A neighbour's house directly across the road is not searched
Speaker 2: until three days later. The man living there, Paul Savage,
Speaker 2: is one of only three adults known to heal William
Speaker 2: and his sister playing at the house that morning. Paul
Speaker 2: is home alone just before William is reported missing, but
Speaker 2: the police find no evidence he was involved. In fact,
Speaker 2: far from finding anything, some of the neighbors living on
Speaker 2: this road say they have things stolen from their cars
Speaker 2: and their properties during the search, and some of them
Speaker 2: are still angry. Ten years later.
Speaker 14: A straight was full of cars from one end of
Speaker 14: the other. And we've got hundreds, if not thousands, of
Speaker 14: people calling me in their homes.
Speaker 2: And did it look like it was organized?
Speaker 13: Far from organized.
Speaker 14: A bunch of pierced idiots ramble and orion the.
Speaker 6: Straight, And what were they doing.
Speaker 14: Walking Ariane, yelling it at William and just having a
Speaker 14: general check out of everyone's homes and property.
Speaker 2: And was there any attempt that you could see by
Speaker 2: the police to stop them going too certain areas not
Speaker 2: in no noise? And what did you think when you
Speaker 2: saw that?
Speaker 14: I thought this was a fucking debarcle. This is just wrong.
Speaker 2: One thing everyone can agree on is the forest on
Speaker 2: either side of Benerin Drive is too thick for a
Speaker 2: little boy to wander off in. What's it like trying
Speaker 2: to search through that bush at the time?
Speaker 15: Oh horrendous because you've got lin tana an even sing Litana?
Speaker 2: Would you show me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well it's what this sort of the thin Yeah, like
Speaker 2: a thin tree.
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's tana.
Speaker 2: So what's the problem with lantana? When you're trying to
Speaker 2: search you can get shredded?
Speaker 16: Oh really?
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's a stem itself. It got foreming points.
Speaker 6: On it, yeah, pins on it.
Speaker 15: If you get entangled in it, you can end up
Speaker 15: with cats and you can get treaded. I don't know
Speaker 15: how invented it, but it's lias.
Speaker 2: And you're saying that we couldn't get through it with
Speaker 2: boots and you've got I'll have.
Speaker 15: To get me work boots on or the face boots
Speaker 15: to walk in me. I'm still not guidy it for it.
Speaker 2: I don't think a three old boy would have got
Speaker 2: through the bush then, no, no.
Speaker 15: He would pan. I'd say it would be cruel and
Speaker 15: of course screaming.
Speaker 9: Hm.
Speaker 15: Did you see everywhere around it?
Speaker 2: The vast weeks long police search finds nothing worse than
Speaker 2: that the search itself potentially destroys forensic evidence.
Speaker 11: Driving up it was, I guess you kind of went, wow,
Speaker 11: look at all these people that are out looking. Isn't
Speaker 11: that fantastic? But then upon reflection, you go, well, that's uh,
Speaker 11: destroying any you know, possibly destroying any any evidence that
Speaker 11: might be around if something afarious has happened.
Speaker 2: This woman also visits Benaruin Drive during the early days
Speaker 2: of the police search.
Speaker 11: So there were people all up and down Banarun Drive.
Speaker 11: I was amazed at how many people. And then when
Speaker 11: I got up to the house just see amount of people.
Speaker 11: I couldn't believe it that people all over the front lawn.
Speaker 11: There were people on horseback riding around on the bottom
Speaker 11: of the front lawn. So you know, even in that
Speaker 11: area where they say, will he might have run down
Speaker 11: to the lawn and met someone on the road or
Speaker 11: ended up on the road like there were. I don't
Speaker 11: know how they'd be able to find anything.
Speaker 2: And when you say I don't think they would be
Speaker 2: able to find anything, you're talking about how.
Speaker 11: Can you find something when you've got horses trampling over
Speaker 11: a front lawn and people walking all up and down
Speaker 11: the front lawn and on the curb side and out
Speaker 11: the front of the house, and just there was. It's
Speaker 11: not to criticize the police because I guess at that
Speaker 11: time they felt they were looking for a missing boy,
Speaker 11: but there was zero control over the site that he
Speaker 11: went missing.
Speaker 2: This, then, is the first tragic mistake in the police investigation.
Speaker 2: Police records say at the time of this initial search,
Speaker 2: there is no crime scene established. The search was not
Speaker 2: conducted with the view that there may have been deliberate
Speaker 2: human intervention, nor was it done with the view of
Speaker 2: recovering forensic evidence. The focus was on finding William. But
Speaker 2: once the search had failed to find William, without forensic evidence,
Speaker 2: the police are playing catch up, not knowing what it
Speaker 2: is that they are missing, which is tragic because the
Speaker 2: opportunity was there to collect that evidence. Less than four
Speaker 2: hours after William's foster mother makes that triple zero call,
Speaker 2: detectives arrive, whose job it is to investigate what happened,
Speaker 2: and like the searchers, they try their hearts out. The
Speaker 2: sheer scale of the investigation that will follow is stunning.
Speaker 2: William's birth and foster families are spoken to, who knew, what,
Speaker 2: where were they? Those accounts are tested, evidence gathered, and
Speaker 2: at the same time, the police are spreading out. In
Speaker 2: the coming days and weeks and years, the police will
Speaker 2: speak to everyone who lives on Benirun Drive, some more
Speaker 2: than once. In nearby Kendall. They will knock on doors,
Speaker 2: post appeals for information through letterboxes, and ultimately interview over
Speaker 2: two hundred and sixty different people. The police will also
Speaker 2: canvas hotels, motels, and caravan parks within a ten kilometer radius.
Speaker 2: A week after William is reported missing, they will stop
Speaker 2: every vehicle traveling along the road that leads to Benurune Drive,
Speaker 2: recording details of the driver and passengers. The police will
Speaker 2: obtain CCTV from two local businesses, as well as one
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty nine CCTV cameras from outside Kendle they'll
Speaker 2: examine data from people's phones, from traffic cameras and mobile
Speaker 2: cell towers. They will receive thousands, literally thousands of reports
Speaker 2: from people who will say they have seen William from
Speaker 2: right across the country. At one point, William's foster parents
Speaker 2: will be shown a photo of a man and a
Speaker 2: boy seen on a train and oh, my gosh, it
Speaker 2: looks like William. The police will track that man down,
Speaker 2: only to find the boy is his son. The police
Speaker 2: will also be inundated with information from people claiming to
Speaker 2: be clairvoyance who can speak to the dead, or saying
Speaker 2: information has come to them through dreams or visions, and
Speaker 2: it's easy to imagine even the most organized police force
Speaker 2: drowning in paperwork. And even with the huge flood of information,
Speaker 2: there are still things that are missing. There's no CCTV
Speaker 2: camera that records the cars going in or out of
Speaker 2: Benirun Drive, and it's not until the day after William
Speaker 2: disappears that police check the CCTV from the Kendall Tennis Club,
Speaker 2: which films cars going in and out of Kendall, But
Speaker 2: that camera only shows vehicles from the side, not their
Speaker 2: registration plates, making it difficult to identify them, and while
Speaker 2: it covers the main road in and out of Kendall,
Speaker 2: there are several other roads where the cars aren't recorded.
Speaker 2: Very early on in the investigation, the local detectives start
Speaker 2: speaking to their counterparts in the specialized sex Crime Squad
Speaker 2: and Homicide Squad, both based in Sydney. Sex crimes detectives
Speaker 2: visit Kendall within days William's disappearance. If their involvement so
Speaker 2: early on surprises you, that's a reflection of the fact
Speaker 2: that it is a really dark world sometimes and the
Speaker 2: police have often seen first hand what lives in those
Speaker 2: darker shadows. During their investigation, the police will identify people
Speaker 2: listed on the Child Protection Register on the mid North
Speaker 2: Coast of New South Wales, meaning those people who have
Speaker 2: been sentenced for child sex offenses or the kidnap, manslaughter
Speaker 2: or murder of a child. The cops will concentrate their
Speaker 2: inquiries on those living within a thirty kilometer radius of
Speaker 2: where William was reported missing, identifying dozens and speaking to
Speaker 2: them all. Police records show there was nothing to suggest
Speaker 2: any of those people on the child Protection Register had
Speaker 2: any knowledge or involvement in William's disappearance, but detectives keep
Speaker 2: a record of their names on what becomes known as
Speaker 2: the Persons of Interest List. It's basically a list of
Speaker 2: people who require investigation to rule them in or out.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone, or maybe everyone, on the list will turn
Speaker 2: out to have nothing to do with William's disappearance, but
Speaker 2: the police still have to work through the names to
Speaker 2: be certain. Once someone's identified as a person of interest,
Speaker 2: the police look for any information about them on the
Speaker 2: CoP's central computer system, like details of criminal history, intelligence reports,
Speaker 2: whether they're on the Child Protection Register and any known
Speaker 2: personal details. That's all written up in an information report
Speaker 2: and put on another police database called Eagle Eye. It's
Speaker 2: also put into the Investigations Intelligence Collection Plan and background
Speaker 2: checks on all of these people are carried out. For
Speaker 2: some detectives will seek out law enforcement records from other
Speaker 2: states across Australia, telecommunication records, financial records, which are all
Speaker 2: analyzed to see if the person of interest has any
Speaker 2: links to William Tyrell, his family, or the place where
Speaker 2: William was reported missing. In time, a forensic psychologist will
Speaker 2: be brought in to consult with the detectives. The police
Speaker 2: looking at whether each of their persons of interest has
Speaker 2: the motive opportunity and capability to do something to William.
Speaker 2: They then divide the list of people up into low,
Speaker 2: medium and high risk, with all the high risk persons
Speaker 2: of interest targeted for further investigation and individual briefs of
Speaker 2: evidence about them compiled, explaining why they came under suspicion,
Speaker 2: what investigations have been carried out, and any evidence both
Speaker 2: for and against them, all of which will later be
Speaker 2: sent to a coroner overseeing an inquest into what happened
Speaker 2: to William. What I'm saying is it's a lot of work,
Speaker 2: a lot to manage. In time, the police will have
Speaker 2: over one thousand persons of interest. Four days after Williams
Speaker 2: reported missing, the police announce a dedicated strike force will
Speaker 2: investigate what happened to him. It's made up of three
Speaker 2: officers from the Homicide Squad, one from the Unsolved Homicide Team,
Speaker 2: two from Sex Crimes, one from the Robbery Squad, and
Speaker 2: two from the local police command. But there is some confusion,
Speaker 2: at least for me looking in from the outside as
Speaker 2: a reporter covering William's disappearance at the time, over who's
Speaker 2: in charge?
Speaker 5: Sorry, spook, I didn't get.
Speaker 6: Super Thank you.
Speaker 2: This is the local Area Commander, Intendent Paul Filon, speaking
Speaker 2: at press conference a year after Williams reported missing.
Speaker 7: The investigation has continued. As has been said many times,
Speaker 7: there is a wealth of information and intelligence that has
Speaker 7: come through and it has to be followed up. And
Speaker 7: at this point in time, we are no closer to
Speaker 7: saying where.
Speaker 2: We amuse, which is not the message the homicide Squad
Speaker 2: want people to be given. They're put in charge of
Speaker 2: the investigation six days after Williams reported missing, according to
Speaker 2: police records, and they don't want people going around saying
Speaker 2: they're no closer to solving the case. But Paul Fion,
Speaker 2: the local police commander, he keeps appearing in the media.
Speaker 7: You would always like to have an early result of
Speaker 7: any matter.
Speaker 4: We just have to be commuted to it.
Speaker 7: And the strike force is very communal to following up
Speaker 7: every single piece of information.
Speaker 2: The strike force is committed. They set up a dedicate
Speaker 2: in a local police station. But as a reporter covering
Speaker 2: the investigation, I hear odd things like how they get
Speaker 2: told to move out of the room when the local
Speaker 2: cops went to have a meeting, and so they.
Speaker 7: Are trying to locate what happened to a young child
Speaker 7: who was playing with his sister, grandmother and mother in
Speaker 7: what you would think is the most safe environment.
Speaker 2: That confusion is compounded by the fact police are actually
Speaker 2: misleading the public. Listen again to what Paul Fion says
Speaker 2: about William's family.
Speaker 7: A young child who was playing with his sister, grandmother
Speaker 7: and mother.
Speaker 2: William wasn't with his grandmother and mother. He was with
Speaker 2: his foster grandmother and foster mother. In those first few
Speaker 2: days and weeks following his disappearance, we reporters aren't allowed
Speaker 2: to say William is a foster child. The state government
Speaker 2: department responsible for William's care tell us that the law
Speaker 2: actually prevents us from doing so. It puts out written
Speaker 2: warnings to the media talking about legal action and penalties
Speaker 2: of up to two years in prison. Years later, this
Speaker 2: official silence will be challenged in court and a judge
Speaker 2: will say the department's use of the law is misconceived.
Speaker 2: But at the time, no one talks in public about
Speaker 2: William being a foster child, and instead everyone calls William's
Speaker 2: foster parents simply his parents, meaning William's biological family, do
Speaker 2: not get a mention in anything that's said in public,
Speaker 2: and even then the state government insists that the same
Speaker 2: laws mean William's foster parents cannot be pictured or named
Speaker 2: or speak in public, meaning they do not get to
Speaker 2: make a public appeal for infant. You know the kind
Speaker 2: of thing you see in news reports and TV shows
Speaker 2: about tragic cases where the grieving families say, please, if
Speaker 2: you know anything, come forward. But the thing about those
Speaker 2: public appeals is they work. People do come forward sometimes,
Speaker 2: but that is not allowed to happen in William's case,
Speaker 2: so we will never know if it might have made
Speaker 2: a difference. And just like with the failure to establish
Speaker 2: a crime scene right at the beginning to protect any
Speaker 2: possible forensic evidence. With police work, you don't know what.
Speaker 2: You don't know until you realize it might have been important.
Speaker 2: But I do know detectives who look at this case
Speaker 2: say this is a wasted chance that might have made
Speaker 2: a difference. And of course the secrecy also doesn't work.
Speaker 2: William's name, the fact he was in care, and the
Speaker 2: identities of both his birth and foster parents start spreading
Speaker 2: over social media, as if the official attempts to shut
Speaker 2: down this information only spark a wildfire of speculation, and
Speaker 2: some of that is cruel. Late the same night William
Speaker 2: is reported missing. His birth mum gets a call from
Speaker 2: someone saying there's something written online that her son's body
Speaker 2: has been discovered, and of course that isn't true. As
Speaker 2: a reporter covering the investigation into William's disappearance in the
Speaker 2: weeks and months and years that follow, one thing that
Speaker 2: strikes me is the sheer scale of the police operation
Speaker 2: and how hard it must be to keep track over
Speaker 2: all of that information. The uncertainty about different cars continues.
Speaker 2: The foster mother remembers seeing two cars parked outside the
Speaker 2: house on the morning William went missing, a gray Sedan
Speaker 2: and a white station wagon. A year later, the police
Speaker 2: will be unable to find those cars.
Speaker 11: Then there's the information that for the first time tonight
Speaker 11: is being made public by police.
Speaker 2: And will use the nine Networks sixty Minutes program to
Speaker 2: appeal for information.
Speaker 1: Oh, we've got the general description of the vehicles.
Speaker 5: Ones a white station wagon, another is an older style
Speaker 5: grayish colored dar Sadin.
Speaker 16: That white Toyota Camry station wagon, but was published on
Speaker 16: the news.
Speaker 2: This is Richard Brindle. He's a truck driver who says
Speaker 2: he was driving his b double up in Queensland.
Speaker 16: That car well that was part of the side of
Speaker 16: the ride halfway between Miriam Val and Ginger and Central Queensland.
Speaker 2: Richard says the car driver was a bit weird.
Speaker 16: And he got out and started waving to me, and
Speaker 16: he followed me, and he followed me, and he followed me,
Speaker 16: and I stopped and I said, what's who are you?
Speaker 16: What's your problem? Anyway, he went around me, flopped us,
Speaker 16: clean us out, heaving a pee on the side of the road,
Speaker 16: waving at me. And I thought, this drives a nutter.
Speaker 2: Richard says. The station wagon has New South Wales plates.
Speaker 2: He drove away and at home that night he saw
Speaker 2: a sketch that looked exactly like the car on sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: He also recognized the man he saw from news reports.
Speaker 16: It was on the news, a description of the blog
Speaker 16: on the and the sketch of the bloke. And I said,
Speaker 16: does a go on at white station wagon is up
Speaker 16: there in Central Queensland.
Speaker 4: That's a car.
Speaker 2: Richard says. He called Crime Stoppers, which allows you to
Speaker 2: report information to police sien crimes.
Speaker 16: I was to tell them all about it, like I said,
Speaker 16: you know, do you want to what they could have done?
Speaker 16: There's cameras. We know all the survioleance cameras. I said,
Speaker 16: you know, go through the cameras. I've got my log books.
Speaker 16: They've got records of my run, you know, and you
Speaker 16: can get this car's ridge and there's a start for you.
Speaker 2: Only Richard didn't hear back yeah twice now off rang
Speaker 2: them and he was talking about a car. The police
Speaker 2: had been on TV appealing for information about.
Speaker 16: Just my frustration. I thought, you know, there's a boy's life.
Speaker 16: I'm missing you. I've got kids on my own. I thought,
Speaker 16: I'm not abut to reward money anything like that, very
Speaker 16: serious stuff. It's a boy's life.
Speaker 2: And maybe all that shows you is how much information
Speaker 2: the police were receiving. And the car Richard saw, maybe
Speaker 2: it wasn't the white car in the police appeal, and
Speaker 2: maybe memory can be unreliable except there's lowest BA.
Speaker 1: Because I had got in touch with the crime Stoppers.
Speaker 2: Who says she saw a boy she swears was William
Speaker 2: with a group of other kids and two adults in
Speaker 2: Central Australia shortly after he went missing.
Speaker 1: As I was walking across, one of the boys said,
Speaker 1: what's the matter will And I looked across and here's
Speaker 1: William Tyrell.
Speaker 2: Lois says she tried to report it at the local
Speaker 2: police station.
Speaker 1: The policeman came out and he didn't let me get
Speaker 1: to finish, and he said, look, I'm in a meeting.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. There's all sorts of funny things
Speaker 1: going on up heres. Just go home and have a
Speaker 1: good night's sleep and don't worry about it anymore.
Speaker 2: And Lois says she called crime stoppers more than once
Speaker 2: but never heard from a detective.
Speaker 17: Then all of a sudden, I noticed this little boy.
Speaker 2: And then there's Matilda Pollens, who was on a bus
Speaker 2: journey two days after William was reported missing.
Speaker 17: And I think I just noticed him more so because
Speaker 17: he had that spider man outfit, you know, That's why
Speaker 17: what I really do remember.
Speaker 2: And saw a boy she later recognized from news reports
Speaker 2: as William.
Speaker 17: Uh and of course the brown hair.
Speaker 2: And this was before you'd heard about William going missing.
Speaker 17: Yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: Matilda tried to report this to crime Stoppers, but says
Speaker 2: the person on the line says she must have got
Speaker 2: it wrong.
Speaker 17: She asked me if he had blonde hair, and of
Speaker 17: course I said no, and then she just said no,
Speaker 17: that's not the boy.
Speaker 3: It wasn't to real.
Speaker 2: So she asked you if the boy you saw had
Speaker 2: blonde hair, and he.
Speaker 17: Said no, that's one hundred percent yes. She specifically said.
Speaker 2: That yes, only William wasn't blonde. He had brown hair
Speaker 2: like the on the bus. So if this conversation happened,
Speaker 2: like Matilda remembers, crime Stoppers got that wrong and maybe
Speaker 2: something important wasn't passed to the detectives. Richard Lois and
Speaker 2: Matilda all saying they called crime Stoppers and nothing. We
Speaker 2: asked Crime Stoppers about this. Their chief exec Peter Price,
Speaker 2: said they can't respond to quote comments made by members
Speaker 2: of the public which can't be substantiated or proven in
Speaker 2: any shape or form, and these comments may end up
Speaker 2: being a matter of opinion, which is fine, except we
Speaker 2: gave crime Stoppers the names of the people making what
Speaker 2: he calls these comments, and I would have thought crime
Speaker 2: Stoppers keeps records so these comments could be substantiated or
Speaker 2: proven either way. We do know there are gaps and
Speaker 2: the police investigation and no crime scene was established, so
Speaker 2: there was no forensic evidence and some places never got searched.
Speaker 2: Amid confusion over who was really running the investigation, which
Speaker 2: was also dealing with an avalanche of tips, leads, and sightings,
Speaker 2: so some got missed or only followed up on years later.
Speaker 2: And if we know now the police have got no
Speaker 2: evidence about what happened to William, all that makes you
Speaker 2: wonder what they might have missed right from the beginning.
Speaker 13: So this was in within I'm guessing two weeks of
Speaker 13: William going missing.
Speaker 2: This woman was close enough to what was going on
Speaker 2: to know about the local white goods repairmen we mentioned
Speaker 2: at the start of the episode, who was due to
Speaker 2: come and fix the washing machine in the house where
Speaker 2: William was reported missing.
Speaker 13: So I just thought I'd call crime stoppers.
Speaker 2: She says that she read so thing about how if
Speaker 2: William was abducted, it was likely to be someone who
Speaker 2: had a reason to be at the property.
Speaker 13: And so that just made me immediately think about the
Speaker 13: washing machine guy, because we knew that he'd been there.
Speaker 2: And what did you hear back?
Speaker 13: I didn't hear back, ever, No.
Speaker 2: And what did you think about that?
Speaker 13: I've never called crime stoppers before, so I wasn't sure
Speaker 13: whether they would bring me back or whether they would
Speaker 13: just take the information and pass it on to the.
Speaker 2: Police, and maybe that happened because somehow, out of all
Speaker 2: the noise and chaos of the search and the investigation,
Speaker 2: the clairvoyance, the media reporting, the thousands of sightings, and
Speaker 2: all the other persons of interest, the police will zero
Speaker 2: in on this one suspect who will come to dominate
Speaker 2: all their attention, blotting out other leads, meaning again, you'll
Speaker 2: never know what you missed if you had been looking,
Speaker 2: and the police pursuit of this one suspect will ultimately
Speaker 2: lead to what a court will describe as the worst
Speaker 2: case of malicious prosecution in the state's history. But right now,
Speaker 2: one week after William was reported missing, as his foster
Speaker 2: parents load up their car, including the empty car seat,
Speaker 2: for the long drive home to Sydney, this washing machine
Speaker 2: repair man has no idea what is about to hit him.
Speaker 2: How he will become front page news. He'll be assaulted,
Speaker 2: forced to move, have a new neighbor tell him she
Speaker 2: doesn't want him to be outside while her children are playing.
Speaker 2: How he will be arrested accused of child sex offenses,
Speaker 2: have details of those charges shared with journalists outside the
Speaker 2: court police, And only years later, when he has lost
Speaker 2: his business and his reputation been separated from the children
Speaker 2: who were living with him. Only then, when it's too
Speaker 2: late for all of those things, will this man be
Speaker 2: found not guilty? And even today, ten years into the
Speaker 2: police investigation into William's disappearance, there is no evidence that
Speaker 2: he or Tony Jones or Jeff Owen were on Benerum
Speaker 2: Drive that morning. But there are people who wrongly remember
Speaker 2: only the bad headlines and ask who was that guy,
Speaker 2: the one from the TV reports? What happened to him?
Speaker 2: Maybe let's start at the beginning. Could you introduce yourselves
Speaker 2: on door Spading? Yes, that's next time on Witness William tyrrel.
Speaker 2: If you know any thing about William's disappearance, please contact Crimestoppers.
Speaker 2: There's a number in the show notes for this series,
Speaker 2: but if there's anything you want to tell us, you
Speaker 2: can email Witness at news dot com dot au or
Speaker 2: I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential.
Speaker 2: A lot of different people have been involved in making
Speaker 2: this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young.
Speaker 2: The sound design was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have
Speaker 2: been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar, Phoebe Sakowski, Wallace, and
Speaker 2: Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor.
Speaker 2: Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news dot
Speaker 2: com dot Au is Kerry Warren. Voice acting in this
Speaker 2: episode by Beg Day and Bridget Bush. I'm Dan Box.