Speaker 1: So we're driving back up to the Mid North Coast
Speaker 1: and New South Wales, which is where William Tiler went missing.
Speaker 1: And I didn't think we'd be coming back, but we've
Speaker 1: still got questions. And the questions were about one of
Speaker 1: the people who was held up at the inquest into
Speaker 1: William's disappearance as a suspect, potential suspect. And his name's
Speaker 1: Frank Abbott. What do we know about Frank Abbott?
Speaker 2: So, Frank Abbott is a man that has been around
Speaker 2: the Mid North Coast since the late eighties or nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's lived in both John's River and Heron's Creek, both.
Speaker 1: Of which and near Kendall where William were missing.
Speaker 2: And I guess there's no clear connection between.
Speaker 1: Human except that he keeps talking about it. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing that stands out, is Frank keeps talking about
Speaker 1: William's disappearance. There's people who give evidence at the inquest
Speaker 1: and say that Frank used to bring it up. He
Speaker 1: used to say that other people must have been involved
Speaker 1: in what happened to William. Or he would talk about
Speaker 1: an area of the bush where he said he could
Speaker 1: smell a body, or he knew what the smell of death.
Speaker 2: Was and you have a difference between a dead kangaroo and.
Speaker 1: A dead body. And there was evidence that he actually
Speaker 1: bragged in front of children that he killed William and
Speaker 1: disposed of William I think under their house.
Speaker 2: In a port, in a suitcase, in the suitcase.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it wasn't true. There's no evidence, actual
Speaker 1: evidence that Frank was involved in what happened to William,
Speaker 1: but Frank keeps talking about it.
Speaker 2: And inserting himself into the investigation. So he even contacted
Speaker 2: the police while he was in prison for child sex
Speaker 2: abuse in twenty eighteen. He contacts the police and he
Speaker 2: asks to speak to a local detective and he tells him,
Speaker 2: you know, I saw Tony Jones somewhere with a child
Speaker 2: or you know, he tells them things that there's no
Speaker 2: evidence of, but he's inserting himself into that insony, right.
Speaker 1: He demands to speak to someone who's on the William
Speaker 1: Tool strike force, and he knows people, so he knows
Speaker 1: Tony Jones, who's another convicted pedophile and another person of
Speaker 1: interest in the William Tool investigation. And again no evidence
Speaker 1: that Tony was involved in what happened to William, but
Speaker 1: the police are looking at him, and Frank knows Jeff Owen,
Speaker 1: the tradesman who does work on the house where William
Speaker 1: goes missing, and is on the phone to the house
Speaker 1: that day. So there's this connection between Frank and the
Speaker 1: house where William goes missing, but there's no evidence that
Speaker 1: puts Frank at the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yet as he goes through all the evidence
Speaker 2: heard at the inquest, Frank just keeps popping up throughout
Speaker 2: it in these strange ways, like.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, then there's Ray Porter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Ray Porter is this guy who is really elderly.
Speaker 1: He's in a care home and he's dying, and his
Speaker 1: nurse gives evidence that Ray says before he dies that
Speaker 1: he gave his mate a lift with a boy driving
Speaker 1: north away from Kendall, further north in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: And the nurse says, is that the boy is that
Speaker 1: William Tyroll And apparently Ray says yes. And there's the
Speaker 1: white car. So William's foster mother says there's a white
Speaker 1: station wagon parked outside the house on the day that
Speaker 1: William goes missing. Nobody else has seen it, but she
Speaker 1: insists there was. Frank is seen driving a white station
Speaker 1: wagon in Kendall on different days. So there's all of
Speaker 1: these reasons to look at Frank and say, we should
Speaker 1: probably talk to you, as in the police should talk
Speaker 1: to him. And he's at the inquest. He's allowed to
Speaker 1: be in the hearings, and he joins them from prison
Speaker 1: where he's serving time for child sexual abuse. But he
Speaker 1: calls in on a video link and he's allowed to
Speaker 1: question witnesses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we established earlier in the series that he
Speaker 2: in fact gets all the evidence from the inquest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this I was speaking to a former detective
Speaker 1: about exactly this, just a couple of days ago and
Speaker 1: telling him about what happened, and this detective was horrified
Speaker 1: that the inquest had sent Frank well parts of, if
Speaker 1: not the complete brief of evidence. While Frank is preparing
Speaker 1: himself to give evidence at the inquest, so he knows
Speaker 1: what everyone is saying. He's allowed to question witnesses who
Speaker 1: are saying things about him, and everyone is waiting for
Speaker 1: Frank to be called to answer questions at the inquest,
Speaker 1: and then he doesn't. He's not questioned in person, he's
Speaker 1: not questioned in private, and then the inquest stops and
Speaker 1: we don't know why. So there's all these questions and
Speaker 1: we still don't have answers. So we decided it was
Speaker 1: time to drive back up to the Mid North Coast
Speaker 1: and to try and find some.
Speaker 2: Answers to those questions, or find out if the police
Speaker 2: have tried to find some answers to those questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm danbox and from news dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: This is Witness William Tyrell, episode twelve, The Bird Tree
Speaker 1: and here we are. Where we are is a little
Speaker 1: town called John's River. It's just off the Pacific Highway
Speaker 1: on the Mid North coast of New South Wales, which
Speaker 1: is where Frank moved back in the nineties, but then
Speaker 1: he stayed for years. John's River is about a ten
Speaker 1: maybe twelve minute drive from Kendall, where William Tyrell was
Speaker 1: reported missing. And it's small. It's got one shop, one pub,
Speaker 1: a service station. The trees overhang a few old cars,
Speaker 1: some of them upon blocks or in pieces in the
Speaker 1: front yards of the single story weatherboard houses. Just a
Speaker 1: few hundred people live here. It's barely a town.
Speaker 2: It's going to say, you said by driving in almost.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a straggler houses on either side of
Speaker 1: the road and looks like a Symbda days. But people
Speaker 1: here knew Frank because he lived here, he worked here. Frankly,
Speaker 1: in a place this big, you can't get away with not.
Speaker 3: Knowing your neighbors.
Speaker 1: So we're going to try talking to people and find
Speaker 1: out anything we can about Frank Abbott. When I say
Speaker 1: find out anything we can about Frank Abbott, I mean it.
Speaker 1: Since the last episode of this series, Nina and I
Speaker 1: have gone deep on Frank, looking at court files and
Speaker 1: electoral roles. Hello, following the different branches of Frank's family,
Speaker 1: where he's one of eleven brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: Hello, Drive around the back.
Speaker 1: We've traced phone numbers and property records to see where
Speaker 1: Frank's family lived over decades, from western Sydney north to Wooton,
Speaker 1: a hilltop town surrounded by cattle farms and forests, and
Speaker 1: further north to the city of Taree, which sits in
Speaker 1: a loop in the wide Manning River, and here to
Speaker 1: John's River.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure there's somebody at home TVSA.
Speaker 1: Then Heron's Creek, a tiny township built around a sawmill
Speaker 1: and a rail line where the police searched after William
Speaker 1: went missing.
Speaker 3: Sorry to bother you, in turn of our Nowhere.
Speaker 1: We followed Frank to Logan's Crossing, where he lived in
Speaker 1: a caravan belonging to a man called Jeff Owen, a
Speaker 1: tradesman who called the house where William was reported missing
Speaker 1: on that morning. My name's Dan, This is Nina, and
Speaker 1: north again into Queensland, where Frank's family are now scattered.
Speaker 3: We've been trying to get in touch with it. Julie
Speaker 3: Abbott Abbot.
Speaker 1: We've read the death certificates of Frank's wife, Katrina, who
Speaker 1: died in nineteen ninety one of liver failure, and of
Speaker 1: Frank's two year old son Darren, who died in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four and whose inquest file has been sealed, meaning
Speaker 1: it cannot be made public. We've also seen Frank's parents'
Speaker 1: marriage certificate, which showed they married at nineteen and lists
Speaker 1: his dad's job as a laborer and his mum's as
Speaker 1: domestic duties. And we've read the police witness statement and
Speaker 1: the old court reports that say Frank's dad, Henry Abbott,
Speaker 1: was a child abuser. We've gone through old TV, radio
Speaker 1: and newspaper reports about Frank that show how he's been
Speaker 1: in and out of prison. Over decades do.
Speaker 3: You think Frank Abbot was involved in the disappearance?
Speaker 1: That I cannot answer, including one time when he broke
Speaker 1: out of prison, stole a car and drove across the
Speaker 1: country to his sisters.
Speaker 3: But do you think he's capable?
Speaker 1: Well, he scares me. They're still scilling in that name's there,
Speaker 1: so I really want to say. Over the decades, Frank's
Speaker 1: done time for smaller crimes including drugs, breac and enters,
Speaker 1: car thefts, and he's now doing time for big crimes,
Speaker 1: specifically child sex abuse, including four counts of indecently assaulting
Speaker 1: a child under sixteen and six counts of having sex
Speaker 1: with a child under ten against three victims, two girls
Speaker 1: and a boy, for which he's currently serving sixteen years
Speaker 1: in Long Bay Prison in Sydney's East, where one of
Speaker 1: our colleagues recently saw Frank Abbot sitting and laying out
Speaker 1: the playing cards for a game of Solitaire. Among everything
Speaker 1: we've learned about Frank Abbot are new details about the
Speaker 1: circumstances of William's disappearance, including that Frank told one person
Speaker 1: he'd never even been to the street where three year
Speaker 1: old William was reported missing, but he told someone else.
Speaker 1: He'd been among the hundreds of people who volunteered to
Speaker 1: search that area in the days that followed. So we're
Speaker 1: at the pub now where people have told us Frank
Speaker 1: was living in a couple of white sheds out the
Speaker 1: back of the property. I've just been speaking to the
Speaker 1: guy who owns it and he said, he said, look,
Speaker 1: Frank did rent some white sheds down here further on
Speaker 1: the property. He said he didn't think Frank was living
Speaker 1: in them, but he did bar Frank from the pub.
Speaker 1: He said Frank stank and he was aggressive and he
Speaker 1: just didn't want him in there. Frank denies having anything
Speaker 1: to do with William Tyrell's disappearance. He's claimed to other
Speaker 1: people that a bank withdrawal proves he was somewhere else
Speaker 1: that morning. And we can't speak to Frank because he's
Speaker 1: in prison, though we have written to him, and we've
Speaker 1: spoken to his sister, Elaine Harding, who didn't want to
Speaker 1: be recorded, but told us that Frank was innocent and
Speaker 1: that he'd been willing to give evidence at the inquest
Speaker 1: into William's disappearance, which is strange because everyone expected Frank
Speaker 1: to be called to answer questions, including both William's biological
Speaker 1: and foster parents. Only Frank never did so. He wasn't
Speaker 1: called to give evidence in public and not in private,
Speaker 1: and the coroner who's leading the inquest into William's disappearance
Speaker 1: has ordered there be no publication of her decision. Why not?
Speaker 1: We asked the Coroner's court to explain why Frank has
Speaker 1: not given evidence. We were told an answer might take weeks,
Speaker 1: as they are quote currently occupied with other work. We're
Speaker 1: still waiting.
Speaker 2: Okay, Dan's walking up to the house. It's coming in,
Speaker 2: appearing at them through the curtains of us.
Speaker 1: In this case, getting answers isn't easy, all right. So
Speaker 1: that guy didn't want to be recorded.
Speaker 2: And then we haven't talked about the woman that I
Speaker 2: contacted through Facebook.
Speaker 1: Right since the last episode of this series. The coroners
Speaker 1: also confirmed there won't be any more evidence heard in public. Instead,
Speaker 1: the coroner wants to see written submissions from the various lawyers,
Speaker 1: which also won't be made public, and aunt ju for
Speaker 1: months from now, meaning it will likely be months more
Speaker 1: before the coroner publishes her findings.
Speaker 2: I asked her how she knew Frank hmm.
Speaker 1: The coroner has released a short statement saying it is
Speaker 1: to be understood that the New South Wales Police Force's
Speaker 1: investigation into the disappearance and suspected death of William Tyrrell
Speaker 1: may continue.
Speaker 2: Her reply was sorry, it's taken song to get back
Speaker 2: to you. I wasn't sure I was ready to talk
Speaker 2: about this. Frank sexually assaulted me as a teenager when
Speaker 2: I was living in Tare.
Speaker 1: We asked the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions
Speaker 1: what's happening with a brief of evidence submitted by the
Speaker 1: police seeking to charge William's foster mother, and she.
Speaker 2: Said he was never charged for it. My parents knew
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 4: Hmm.
Speaker 1: That brief of evidence was submitted almost two years ago
Speaker 1: now and there's still been no decision as to whether
Speaker 1: to actually charge her. The DPP did not respond to
Speaker 1: our questions. So that was a call from a guy
Speaker 1: called Patrick Tealing and we knocked on his house half
Speaker 1: an hour ago and I left a message on his phone.
Speaker 1: The police did charge William's foster mother and foster father
Speaker 1: with assaulting and intimidating another child who wasn't William. He
Speaker 1: was the guy who ran the store in John's River,
Speaker 1: which is where Frank Abbott was living, and William's foster
Speaker 1: parents were convicted. But in the months since the last
Speaker 1: episode of this series, William's foster father has appealed his
Speaker 1: conviction for intimidation and had it overturned. And the guy
Speaker 1: from Taree's in the store delivering bread, and he pulls
Speaker 1: Patrick aside and says, stay away from that guy. That's
Speaker 1: Frank Abbot. And William's foster mothers also appealed her convictions,
Speaker 1: and he's waiting on a decision. I know him from
Speaker 1: Tari Warn your kids, don't let your kids go near him.
Speaker 1: And when you put all of this together, what you've
Speaker 1: got is that so far, neither the police nor the
Speaker 1: coroner seem to have any real answers about what happened
Speaker 1: to William. And so from then on, Patrick the storekeeper
Speaker 1: is keeping an eye on Frank Abbot, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: like what he sees, which is why Nina and I
Speaker 1: have come here to the town of John's River to
Speaker 1: ask questions. Bringing us back to Frank Abbot, he said,
Speaker 1: over and again and again and again, he'd notice outside
Speaker 1: the store Frank Abbot talking to women or women and
Speaker 1: children and just getting too close. He said, he used
Speaker 1: to at night. Sometimes he'd be awake and he'd see
Speaker 1: Frank backing out of his property with his lights off,
Speaker 1: getting down the road, and then the lights would turn on,
Speaker 1: and he said Frank was out and he was stealing stuff.
Speaker 1: And the local people would say in John's River, if
Speaker 1: you're missing something, go and look at Frank's house. He says,
Speaker 1: I'm just reading my notes. I made shorthand notes of
Speaker 1: the conversation. He says, he's just one of those guys.
Speaker 1: He didn't have any scruples, and he said he was
Speaker 1: worried about him. And then Patrick said, of Frank, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't feed him. He said, jail's too good for him. Wow,
Speaker 1: So why did his old neighbors say jails too good
Speaker 1: for Frank Abbott? What had he done? So we recording
Speaker 1: this man used to live next door to Frank. He
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be named. We're sitting on the front
Speaker 1: porch of his home in John's River, the main road
Speaker 1: behind us, and the bodies of old cars seemingly scattered,
Speaker 1: almost half forgotten, in the surrounding forest.
Speaker 3: Tell me about Frank, Well, we're not first viny. We
Speaker 3: sort of got on for a while and then.
Speaker 5: I heard stories about some girl in Sydney.
Speaker 3: Did you hear those stories from him or from other people?
Speaker 5: Now was in the paper too. He sort of kept
Speaker 5: to himself, but me X missage used to get it
Speaker 5: and do the garden. He used to look over the
Speaker 5: fence and stuff.
Speaker 3: So when she was out in the garden.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when it was hard, she was in a bkinie
Speaker 5: at the back, like we had a fence.
Speaker 3: But they used to look over so you could see
Speaker 3: him like peering over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I record you.
Speaker 3: What did you do?
Speaker 5: I wasn't going to flog you, but I didn't because
Speaker 5: he came.
Speaker 3: Out with you. So you got into a blue with him.
Speaker 3: I didn't fight, but you were.
Speaker 1: And then he went back in and came out with
Speaker 1: a machete. Yeah, and this is your next door neighbor.
Speaker 1: How did you get on after that? Not really before
Speaker 1: you kind of he pulled a machete on you.
Speaker 3: Did you ever talk to him about anything at all?
Speaker 3: Did you get on with him much?
Speaker 5: I used to talk with him. He was all right.
Speaker 3: Tell me about what he was like.
Speaker 5: Oh, he was just he was pretty dirty.
Speaker 6: It wasn't that plain. Yeah, and the house was pretty feral.
Speaker 6: Had Chuck's living in it living. We used to go
Speaker 6: to the tips and night and breaking the tip.
Speaker 3: So he used to go and steal stuff and break
Speaker 3: into the bag and tipt a hold the fence and
Speaker 3: bring it back here. But none of you kids were
Speaker 3: all out over there. Why not? Well, just the way
Speaker 3: he walked, Just the stories, what stories that.
Speaker 1: He was a bit of of As a police ever
Speaker 1: spoken to you about the.
Speaker 5: Degnies about Frank on the phone, I just same thing.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you something. And then they never came back
Speaker 3: after that.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 1: The police who spoke to Frank's old neighbor were detectives
Speaker 1: from the Strike Force investigating the disappearance of William Tyrrel.
Speaker 1: But they only called him, he says, they never visited
Speaker 1: in person. Sitting on his front porch, I look next
Speaker 1: door at Frank Abbott's old house. Someone new lives there
Speaker 1: now since Frank moved out, And there were more cars
Speaker 1: on the front lawn, a little boats, a tinney up
Speaker 1: on a trailer, and what looks like a black stone
Speaker 1: gargoyle of some kind of winged mythical creature beside the
Speaker 1: screen door. I look over at all of that and
Speaker 1: I think, all right, it's worth a visit.
Speaker 3: Let's have another knock hed tat him.
Speaker 1: Before the screen doors shut, But the main door behind
Speaker 1: it is open, and I can see it's dark inside
Speaker 1: the house although it's late morning, almost midday. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure we wake the owner up. I'm sorry to bother
Speaker 1: you on the The man comes to the doorway, scratching
Speaker 1: himself in shirtless, wearing only shorts, and he's big, muscular,
Speaker 1: he's got tattoos across his body, but he's friendly.
Speaker 3: How long did you know him for?
Speaker 8: Not more?
Speaker 3: As were more disposed.
Speaker 1: The man invites us in.
Speaker 3: How long you've been there?
Speaker 1: He says he's lived here since twenty ten, four years
Speaker 1: before William was reported missing. We sit down in a
Speaker 1: lounge room dominated by a long black sofa and a big,
Speaker 1: noisy fish tank. The man starts talking about how they
Speaker 1: took over the house from Frank Abbott.
Speaker 9: I think we've done about thirteen loads thirteen loads of
Speaker 9: rubbish from the backyard. What kind of rubbish about everything?
Speaker 9: A washing machines over in this corner, there was and
Speaker 9: steal bathtubs over in that corner.
Speaker 1: Scrap metal and bits things you could.
Speaker 3: Sell maybe yeah, I don't know about selling them.
Speaker 9: But yeah, and that's even now, like you go they
Speaker 9: you could dig the dirt, Yeah, and you're still find
Speaker 9: shot in.
Speaker 3: The dirt like that was that thick? What was he
Speaker 3: like in cider house?
Speaker 9: Very dark and gloomy, Like the bathroom was basically rotted
Speaker 9: out side of thing in the bathroom. Yeah, like you know,
Speaker 9: the walls inside the floor, and it was very like old.
Speaker 9: And it was one of these houses where he could have,
Speaker 9: you know, it was fifty fifty you can push it
Speaker 9: down and start building again, or he could start renovating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we chose to renovated. And was it clean?
Speaker 9: It was very old and dusty inside. And then stuff
Speaker 9: that was inside it was like he can say antique furniture,
Speaker 9: but he got it from out the front of someone's
Speaker 9: house or whatever, Like it wasn't proper you know.
Speaker 3: Old furniture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much antique is old and he'd been thrown away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about Frank himself.
Speaker 3: What was he like?
Speaker 9: I told to him, and that like straight up, I
Speaker 9: just assumed to know an old boat, you know, a
Speaker 9: bit a bit funny in his ways. But then once
Speaker 9: you've heard the stories and stuff, like from people around
Speaker 9: town and even from his He's brother brother named Bluie.
Speaker 9: That was his nickname. Blue Even he had nothing nice
Speaker 9: to say about him. What stories did you hear about Frank?
Speaker 3: Well, I heard about.
Speaker 9: I don't know know who it was at the time,
Speaker 9: but as young girls and young boys, something about he
Speaker 9: took him out to the forest out here, just something
Speaker 9: here and but tied him up the trees. What. Yeah,
Speaker 9: tired him up the trees and did I can't I'm
Speaker 9: not going to sit here and make up something that
Speaker 9: I don't know. I'm just saying tied him up the
Speaker 9: trees and did something bad out there. Did you hear
Speaker 9: anything else? Yeah, Well, Frank was basically like creeked around
Speaker 9: any any girl. They would be onto him.
Speaker 1: One story, this man tells us. We hear more than
Speaker 1: once in John's River from other people who knew Frank.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to repeat it, not because we
Speaker 1: don't think that story's true, but because we fear it
Speaker 1: might be and I don't want to identify the people involved.
Speaker 9: What I'm saying didn't really have any hate or anything
Speaker 9: towards him, because I've said, there are stories, you know,
Speaker 9: and he's always wandering around town and making and he
Speaker 9: was going to get a lift to help out someone
Speaker 9: or like cleaning or something for people.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's as much as I knew him.
Speaker 9: They don't like And then he stopped in here and
Speaker 9: sub twice I said a couple of times more, and
Speaker 9: my dad's given him a lift, like see, you was
Speaker 9: always hunting for a lift of the shops or something.
Speaker 9: So that's as much as we knew of him, right,
Speaker 9: you know, And just you give my lift.
Speaker 3: Be nice, you know, don't.
Speaker 1: Be nice. Don't fuck with Frank Abbott and give him
Speaker 1: a lift if you see him. Soon after this mention
Speaker 1: of his dad giving Frank Abbot a lift, the man's
Speaker 1: father walks into the lounge room behind us.
Speaker 3: Here's my dad, he.
Speaker 4: Say.
Speaker 1: I walk over and introduce myself.
Speaker 3: We're journalists.
Speaker 9: This is colleague of mine, a story and a news
Speaker 9: thing on Frank Abbott.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you boy.
Speaker 3: Yes, you sit down and have a chat in a.
Speaker 9: Minute, Serett, Because my dad knew him just as much
Speaker 9: as I did.
Speaker 1: So we swap over. The first man goes outside to
Speaker 1: the front yard of the house to smoke a cigarette,
Speaker 1: and we're left there sitting in the lounge room on
Speaker 1: the big black sofa talking to his father. You knew
Speaker 1: Frank Abbott for how long?
Speaker 4: Since we're moved up here two thousand and ten?
Speaker 1: How would you describe him?
Speaker 4: Dirty? I've dragged the end to our bar once, and Frank.
Speaker 3: The always by my bride. You offer him a lift.
Speaker 1: He says. He gave Frank a lift to Old Bar,
Speaker 1: which is another little town about a half hour drive
Speaker 1: south along the highway where the Manning River flows out
Speaker 1: between two long empty beaches to the ocean.
Speaker 4: You had a job there to do with cut my
Speaker 4: woman's lawn. I dropped in that house and I said, Frank,
Speaker 4: how long? Because I wanted to have a little around
Speaker 4: Old Bar as well myself. And he said, oh, a
Speaker 4: couple of hours. I said, well, if he's going to
Speaker 4: be that long, i'll pick you up. Like so, I
Speaker 4: come back and picked him up, and I was a
Speaker 4: standard what he said to me. He said, this woman's
Speaker 4: got heaps of money in the house. And he didn't
Speaker 4: necessarily stay the words that he wanted to me to.
Speaker 3: Come in with him to rob her.
Speaker 4: A load of person.
Speaker 1: He is like everything of that him was shifting. There's
Speaker 1: no proof Frank was thinking of robbing that woman, but
Speaker 1: so far in John's River. I've heard so many different
Speaker 1: stories about Frank that this one doesn't surprise me. Did
Speaker 1: you ever hear Frank say anything that he might have
Speaker 1: done worse than stealing? This time, the answer does surprise me.
Speaker 4: It's rather Bluey, a nice boat.
Speaker 1: Frank's brother Jeffrey, whose nickname was Bluey because he had
Speaker 1: orange hair. Apparently it's an Australian thing. Go figure anyway,
Speaker 1: Bluey he died in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Quite a few years back now, but he always said,
Speaker 4: when the stories are going on, were two all that he.
Speaker 3: Didn't do it.
Speaker 1: He didn't do it.
Speaker 10: Right, pretty close to when he died. Bui, he said
Speaker 10: to my son, he said he did do it, he said,
Speaker 10: and he is buried up on Big Bird.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're that big truths Big Bird. They've got a
Speaker 4: song on them. And yeah. I thought that was a
Speaker 4: turning around from Blue sating that because he wanted to
Speaker 4: like each father.
Speaker 9: He didn't.
Speaker 4: You could say it in your medi life.
Speaker 1: Wait stop, as the older man is saying this, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to process what we're hearing. So the story goes.
Speaker 1: Bluie was Frank's brother, and apparently Blue used to say
Speaker 1: Frank was not involved in William Tootle's disappearance, except right
Speaker 1: up just before he died, Bluie said to this man's son,
Speaker 1: Frank was involved. He did do and Williams buried up
Speaker 1: on Big Bird Mountain.
Speaker 4: Is buried upon Big Bird.
Speaker 1: Where there's some kind of big tree where.
Speaker 4: There big trees Big Bird. They've got a song on there.
Speaker 1: Later we'll discover there's this big tree outside of John's
Speaker 1: River called the Bird Tree, which is this giant black
Speaker 1: butt tree. It's about seventy or so meters high and
Speaker 1: eleven meters around the trunk, and everyone who lives on
Speaker 1: the Mid North Coast apparently knows this tree. Other members
Speaker 1: of Frank Abbot's family will tell us they used to
Speaker 1: visit it as children. The Bird Tree stands on the
Speaker 1: slopes of Middle Brother, which is a mountain.
Speaker 4: Up on Big Bird.
Speaker 1: But where my brain starts to do loops is when
Speaker 1: we learn that the Bird Tree is next to another
Speaker 1: giant black butt called Benaroon, which is the same name
Speaker 1: as the road where William Tyrell was reported missing, Benerun Drive.
Speaker 1: And when I google the Bird Tree, a state government
Speaker 1: website says you get there via Batar Creek Road. Which
Speaker 1: is the road leading to Benerun Drive. Most of that
Speaker 1: area is forest, a national park named after the Middle
Speaker 1: Brother Mountain. And we learn that the morning after William
Speaker 1: is reported missing, at nine to twenty two am, Frank
Speaker 1: Abbott's mobile phone pings off the Middle Brother cell tower,
Speaker 1: which is described in evidence before the inquest as covering
Speaker 1: the Kendall area. So the area around the town where
Speaker 1: William was reported missing, But that Kendal area, it's a
Speaker 1: huge chunk of land. Looking at a map, it must
Speaker 1: be dozens of square kilometers of mostly empty forest, farmland
Speaker 1: and dirt roads. So this mobile phone ping doesn't actually
Speaker 1: prove anything except that Frank is likely somewhere in that area.
Speaker 1: But right now, in this conversation with the old man
Speaker 1: inside what used to be Frank Abbot's house in the
Speaker 1: town of John's River, I'm thinking, why bring this up.
Speaker 1: We haven't even asked you about William. I'm also thinking
Speaker 1: none of this is evervidence. In court, a judge would
Speaker 1: dismiss it and call it hearsay. It's just a story
Speaker 1: told by one person who says they heard it from another.
Speaker 1: It proves nothing, and I'm not suggesting it's true. Far
Speaker 1: from it. But sitting here listening to this man's say
Speaker 1: what his son said that Bluey told him?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I thought that was a tune. Ahoy, I'm
Speaker 4: from Blue.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking we really need to talk to your son.
Speaker 1: We might just go and ask your son about what
Speaker 1: you've just told us about BLUEI. The old man seems
Speaker 1: relaxed and jokes that we should remind his son to
Speaker 1: mow the lawn while we're out there.
Speaker 4: He's just waiting for the.
Speaker 1: So we bundle up our recording kit and head out
Speaker 1: of the house. When he says something, only I'm distracted
Speaker 1: and miss it, and later, listening back, it's hard to
Speaker 1: hear because the microphone's bumping as we hurry out the
Speaker 1: front to where his son is smoking. He probably forgot
Speaker 1: about that, but I didn't forget about it.
Speaker 3: He chanted his version.
Speaker 1: His brother the way he changed his version with his
Speaker 1: brother meaning Frank and his brother Bluie.
Speaker 4: No one ever checked out.
Speaker 3: He must have thought, what a few people that story?
Speaker 1: No one ever checked that out, and he must have
Speaker 1: told quite a few people all that story. But Blue
Speaker 1: he's dead, so he can't tell us if he really
Speaker 1: said that. Later we asked Frank about this in writing
Speaker 1: in a letter we send to him in prison, but
Speaker 1: we haven't heard back.
Speaker 3: God, he died. What do you remember when he died?
Speaker 4: Blue?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the best thing we can do right now
Speaker 1: is go outside to the front of the house where
Speaker 1: the old man's son is smoking next to the front
Speaker 1: porch and an unused lawnmower. All right, the dad's got
Speaker 1: a message for you.
Speaker 3: To finish the lawn. Hey.
Speaker 1: There was one thing he said though, which I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about, and maybe it's just slipped your mind.
Speaker 3: He said about Blewis.
Speaker 1: At this point, the wind outside the house starts blowing.
Speaker 1: I can see Nina frowning. The wind makes it hard
Speaker 1: to record what someone's saying.
Speaker 3: Do you.
Speaker 1: We go inside the house and crowd together in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: There's a TV playing in the background. Your dad was
Speaker 1: talking about Frank's brother, Blue, and he was also saying
Speaker 1: that remember that little lad William Tyrrell and missing looking candle.
Speaker 1: He said afterwards, Blue would always say Frank didn't do it,
Speaker 1: because it was in the news that Frank had been
Speaker 1: looked at by the inquest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is that right, memory.
Speaker 9: I remember saying that he doesn't like he didn't believe
Speaker 9: Frank had anything. But then at the same time he'd
Speaker 9: sit there and to so I would anything nice to
Speaker 9: say about anybody?
Speaker 1: And then your dad said that before Blue died, he
Speaker 1: came to you and he may have said something different.
Speaker 3: I can't remember that. I don't Blue.
Speaker 1: He didn't say anything about maybe Frank could have done it,
Speaker 1: not that I'm not that I remember that William may
Speaker 1: have been buried.
Speaker 3: Is it Big Bird Hill?
Speaker 9: Ah?
Speaker 8: No, No, no, no, like him good Bluey was always
Speaker 8: like he was the only one that basically of his
Speaker 8: family that he didn't really have contact, but he used
Speaker 8: to hear the stuff that was going on because he
Speaker 8: was the first family. And there's now a brother poluting Queensland.
Speaker 8: So if Blue used to hear the stories of what's
Speaker 8: going on with Frank through his brother in Queensland. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and it's just from them stories that Blue used to hear,
Speaker 8: Like he'd sometimes passed on to us like blueby transfer
Speaker 8: and messages, not messages, but just talk us how happening,
Speaker 8: for what's happening at court? Yeah he's getting charge of
Speaker 8: this and stuff like that. But I know he did
Speaker 8: say something. I didn't believe it. Frank was guilty, but
Speaker 8: he also said that I think it's under the below
Speaker 8: Frank made the child. I like, because what he's done
Speaker 8: in his past that sort of makes that for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he deserved to be in jail because the
Speaker 1: things he'd done in his past.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while, so I can't really
Speaker 9: Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Speaker 3: We'll get at your hair.
Speaker 1: Nina and I walk out Frank's old house into the sun,
Speaker 1: thinking about this story of the bird tree. I'm convinced
Speaker 1: it's just that a story. And even if Bluie really
Speaker 1: said that, which I doubt, then who's to say it
Speaker 1: wasn't Blue himself who was involved and trying to shift
Speaker 1: attention to Frank, his brother. We're get in our car
Speaker 1: and drive off outside John's River on the highway. We
Speaker 1: pass the turning with a road sign pointing to the
Speaker 1: bird tree, and we ignore it. We just keep on driving.
Speaker 1: Then weeks later, Nina and I are back in John's River,
Speaker 1: still working on this podcast, and we pull up again
Speaker 1: outside Frank's old house. The older man is sitting outside
Speaker 1: on the front deck records. I walk up and he
Speaker 1: says hello. The conversation goes straight back to Frank Abbott
Speaker 1: and his brother Bluey.
Speaker 4: These jaysus monder berea.
Speaker 3: Who's that bridge brother blue?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the old man and waves me over to a
Speaker 1: metal gate beside the house.
Speaker 3: Boy's dog. That's Bluey's dog.
Speaker 1: Behind it is a big old dog that reminds me
Speaker 1: of a bloodhound. And the old man says, that was
Speaker 1: Bluey's dog.
Speaker 3: How did you end up with Bluey's dog? We've got
Speaker 3: six dogs.
Speaker 4: Six dogs love dogs, love ven and wants to make it.
Speaker 3: So did you get Bluey's dog?
Speaker 1: After blue he died. Day before he died.
Speaker 4: He hit again and the tar at the hospital.
Speaker 1: Right walking back to the front Verandah, the old man
Speaker 1: sits at the table and I pull up a toolbox
Speaker 1: to sit on with him. I realized his memory isn't perfect.
Speaker 1: He sometimes loses track of what he's saying. I lost,
Speaker 1: He trails off.
Speaker 4: I don't know what was I just saying, he said,
Speaker 4: you went.
Speaker 1: But on one thing, he's insistent.
Speaker 4: That's the words I heard by my son, what Bloy
Speaker 4: told him.
Speaker 10: Frank did do it, and he's buried up there on
Speaker 10: bird somewhere.
Speaker 3: When you say big bird, I mean the bird tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that mountain.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, if you go up the top of the
Speaker 4: mountain and you look down on top of him, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4: And that's the words. And I couldn't get that because
Speaker 4: they still has you still have family.
Speaker 1: When your son came and told you about Bluie saying
Speaker 1: that about Frank, did you think we should do something
Speaker 1: with that? We should tell someone? Oh, he doesn't really answer.
Speaker 10: It's sounded like Bluie just give up.
Speaker 4: Defending him, or something like that. And that's that's what
Speaker 4: I heard.
Speaker 1: We asked your son about if Bluie said that to him,
Speaker 1: and he said he couldn't remember.
Speaker 4: He would have said it us, I remember like.
Speaker 10: Tired, dipped or shadow?
Speaker 1: May I remember tight lipped or shut your mouth, he
Speaker 1: tells us. Then the old man's son arrives, driving onto
Speaker 1: the front lawn. He gets out, angry, shirtless again and
Speaker 1: walks across the grass towards us, shouting saying he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about Frank Abbott and waving at us
Speaker 1: to get a way and get out. So we get out.
Speaker 1: We've been in John's River long enough. We reckon and
Speaker 1: this time driving away again, we passed the sign for
Speaker 1: the bird tree and keep driving. It's probably nothing. We'll
Speaker 1: tell the police, but I'm thinking about something. The younger man,
Speaker 1: the son, told us when we spoke to him the
Speaker 1: first time and asked him about whether Frank Abbott's brother
Speaker 1: Bluie told him something about William Tyrrell, and his reply was,
Speaker 1: I don't remember.
Speaker 9: I know he did say something, right, I didn't believe
Speaker 9: it Frank was guilty.
Speaker 1: Blue didn't believe that Frank was guilty of anything to
Speaker 1: do with William.
Speaker 9: But he also said that eyeing is under the below
Speaker 9: for Frank made the child. I like it's done in
Speaker 9: his past. That sort of makes that for it.
Speaker 1: But Bluie was under the belief Frank needed jail time
Speaker 1: to make up for what Frank had done in his past,
Speaker 1: which makes me ask the question, what did Frank do?
Speaker 1: And that's when Nina and I start looking at the
Speaker 1: young woman who disappeared and where Frank was found not guilty.
Speaker 7: She was riding the pushbike I think it was, and
Speaker 7: and he picked her up through them. I think he
Speaker 7: had ut And what did he say he did with
Speaker 7: the pushbike? I think he did that, But so he
Speaker 7: picked her up with her bike, maybe put the bike
Speaker 7: in the back of the yute apparently, and then did
Speaker 7: he tell you what happened next? That's next time on
Speaker 7: Witness William Tyrrell. A lot of different people have been
Speaker 7: involved in making this series. Among them, the executive producer
Speaker 7: is Nina Young. The sound design was by Tiffany Dimack.
Speaker 7: The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar, Phoebe
Speaker 7: Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original
Speaker 7: music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The
Speaker 7: editor at news dot com dot au is Kerry Warren.
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Box