WEBVTT - Mistaken | William Tyrrell: 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.440 When I think of William, I think of a little 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:11.200 boy who I think of his dimples. You know, when 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:11.959 he smiled. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.280 What if I told you everything you thought you knew 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.960 about the disappearance of William Tyrrel was wrong. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:31.600 This side smile that just is cheeky, m but sweet 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:37.479 and funny and mischievous, all kind of wrapped into one. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.599 Not the big things, those are true. A three year 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.360 old boy missing from a tiny country town on the 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.159 mid north coast of New South Wales, and ten years 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.600 later we've still not found him. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.600 He just shone this little smile and a bit of 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.000 swagger about him, but also a bit of a shark, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:03.080 a shy guy as well. 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:09.119 But what about everything else, Like how the police say 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:13.360 they know what happened, they know why, they know how, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.360 they know where William is. The police suspect William's foster 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.880 mother is involved, But what if they're wrong. I do 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.399 know there are other people with no alibi for what 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.800 they were doing on the morning William vanished, who have 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.840 never been asked to explain that in public, And I 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.440 do know there are gaps in the evidence. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.040 And then obviously we've watched lots of home videos and yes, 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.400 he's giggle and I heard that giggle in real life, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:56.480 and it's dynamic, and it's beautiful and it's vibrant, and yeah, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:04.960 he's just a sweet boy. 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.200 I do know the police did get some things wrong 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.480 going right back to the beginning, and real people's lives 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.040 were damaged as a result, including the lives of children. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.320 This case has left a trail of broken lives behind it, 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.880 and a lot of what you've seen in the newspapers, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.360 on TV, or social media is mistaken or misleading. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.400 One of the challenges that I think has been a 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:42.000 part of William's disappearance is that there are many people 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:44.840 who have their own stories. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.639 So where do we start with this story? Well, how 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:51.160 about with William's parents. 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.120 William is not a post a child for somebody else. 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.760 He's not a campaign, He's not a vehicle for somebody 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:05.600 else to express their own view and disgruntledness. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.080 One thing you might not know is, at the time 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.480 William went missing, legally, his parents were not the couple 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.519 who conceived him. His parents weren't the foster careers he 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.120 was living with on the day he disappeared. 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.960 William has his own story. William is his own person, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:31.720 William's family in many ways has been exploited by other 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.920 people with their own agendas of what they want to achieve. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.160 As a foster child. There was a court order in 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.160 place which meant William was under what the law called 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.080 the parental responsibility of a state government minister. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:51.400 And I think that that's a really sad. I think 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.680 it's an indictment on ours as a society that we 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.640 allow that to happen, and that we hunger for that 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.840 when we go clicking through social media and all kinds 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:04.320 of things looking for that stuff. 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.160 But of course the minister didn't do the day to 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.120 day parenting. That responsibility was passed on. So the person 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.719 who decided if William went on holiday, who was told 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.880 if he got sick or injured, Who was responsible for 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.159 his health and his safety? Whose job it was to 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:28.120 know where William was? So his parent that was this woman, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:29.479 Michelle White. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.440 William deserves to have his own story. He shouldn't be 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.320 exploited for any other purpose. 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.960 I'm Dan box and from news dot com dot Au. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.480 This is witness William till. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.160 Yeah, hi, my son. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:53.400 Did you think he's three and a half? 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.880 You're this is a triple ocor where William's foster mother 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:05.680 is reporting him missing to police. This is the twelfth 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.599 of September twenty fourteen, a Friday, and it's at ten 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.719 fifty six am, and that time will become important. His 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.400 foster mother says William went missing around ten thirty am. 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.680 And later his foster mother would get criticized for this 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.880 call for being too calm. People will say that a 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:27.360 real mother wouldn't do that. 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.039 And we hear y roaring around the garden and I 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.960 haven't heard him a bit of go on him in Okay. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.839 You can make your own mind up. When I listen 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.279 to this, I wonder if I can hear a woman 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.640 who's just holding it together, who's doing her best to 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.240 tell the police what they need to know to help 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.920 her child, because right now the stakes couldn't be higher. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.440 Thousands of children are reported missing every year in Australia, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.760 but most are found within hours or days or a week. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.039 Wasn't anyone US in the area. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:07.880 People Around a dozen children die by homicide each year, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.760 and most are killed by someone in their family. A few, 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.960 and it's a very few are abducted, but it does happen. 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.039 There's one US study that shows that three quarters of 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.880 children who are abducted are murdered within the first three hours, 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.440 and nine out of ten of them are dead within 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:31.160 the first. 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:37.599 Day's probably near state borest. Okay, we've walked up and 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:38.960 down and we can't find in. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.479 This call is being made from William Thiol's foster grandmother's house. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.480 So that's the house of his foster mother's mum. It's 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.440 a big brick house on a dead end road called 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:57.240 Benaroon Drive. The road is quiet and it's empty. There's 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.880 a few houses, each of them on big blocks, and 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.440 the road doesn't lead anywhere, so you wouldn't go there 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.680 if you didn't have a reason to. Benuruin Drive is 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.320 a short way outside a small town called Kendall, which 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.480 is on the mid north coast of New South Wales. 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.880 The town's named after a poet, Henry Kendall, and he 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.640 wrote about the eucalypt forest and the sound of the 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.960 bell birds in the morning, and that kind of suits 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.960 the place. When you drive into Kendall, you go over 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.360 the bridge, then you cross a railway line and then 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.480 you go up past the village green and there's a 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.320 war memorial and it's surrounded by bush there's just a 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.880 handful of shops and a few wooden houses. It's the 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.080 kind of place you'd move to if you wanted to 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.360 know your neighbors and you want to have them know 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:51.840 your business too. The first time I went to Kendall, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.240 I flew in. I was a crime reporter for a newspaper, 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.160 and this was shortly after he went missing, and I 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:03.240 remember you were right over dense forest and looking down 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.800 out the plane window you could just see this thick, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.520 tangled bush and in between it pools of what looked 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:15.480 like blackwater, and very few roads and hardly any paths, 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.560 and looking down from the air, I remember thinking, if 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.680 William is lost in that kind of country, we're never 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.960 going to find him. It's been ten years now since 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.240 William disappeared, and he's still missing. So in this series, 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.240 we're going to look at the case in a way 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.120 that it hasn't been looked at before. We're not trying 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.439 to find William, but what we are going to do 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.000 is try to find out why it's taken police ten 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.959 years to find him and they still haven't done it. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.520 We're going to look at what they've done right and 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.480 what they've done wrong, and We're going to see how 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.560 those decisions would come to damage the lives of so 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.400 many people in ways that no one talks about. And 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.680 I don't know what answers we're going to find, at 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.520 least not yet, but I do know that we are 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.960 going to find some answers. 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.680 Hello, Michelle White speaking. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.920 We're going to start at the beginning. It's me just 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.520 talking with the woman you heard from at the start 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:29.320 of this episode. 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.319 It just feels so weird when you're just doing the 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:31.840 sound check. 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.800 Doesn't it just confirm that you are happy that this 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:35.600 be recorded. 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:37.880 Yes, yeah, happy. 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:40.680 If you would introduce yourself in your role, what would 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:41.000 you say? 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:47.800 So, my name is Michelle and my role was the 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.000 director and principal officer of the non government out of 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:56.680 home care organization that had responsibility for the care of 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.520 William and the authorization of his foster cares. 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.560 What did you like about the job? 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.199 There was so much I loved about working at Young Hope. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.640 I founded the service children don't choose to come into care. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:19.000 Children love their families irrespective of the circumstances that bring 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.520 them into care. So being able to work with their 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.240 families and work with their cares to create safe places 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.800 and help them to see who they are and to 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.160 help them to dream big dreams for their futures. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.280 This is the first time Michelle was given an interview 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.240 to a journalist, and she and I are sitting in 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.960 her house in a small office, surrounded by stacks of paper. 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.800 There's a filing cabinet and outside it there's children's toys 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.280 just everywhere across the floor. You can hear in her 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:56.960 voice that Michelle is serious, She's quite intent, and that's 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:02.280 because her job is important. Understand why it's important. You 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.640 need to understand the system she was working in. Kids 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.640 get taken away from their birth families because the government 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.960 thinks it needs to protect them because their families can't. 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.720 But that government system has always struggled for funding. There's 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.960 never been enough money. And at the time William went missing, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.560 the system was also going through huge change. All those 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.560 children that were in government care were being transferred to 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.560 third party providers like the organization called Young Hope, which 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.120 Michelle founded. 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:40.960 And that was quite an intensive transfer period and it 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.480 meant a lot of new service providers came on board. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.520 So you got this huge process of reform of change. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.880 Was it working or was problems being thrown up. 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:56.199 I'm not going to answer that. 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.080 Yeah, but there were problems. There were agreements over money, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.360 there was problems with the paperwork. One example of that 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.280 is that the single document confirming when William Pile started 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.080 foster care says that he started on the fifth of 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.960 September twenty thirteen, so the year before he went missing, 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.920 But the document is dated the twenty first of either 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.320 October or November twenty fourteen. It's hard to read with 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:32.000 the handwriting, but either way, that's after he disappeared, regardless 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.320 of the date on the document. Though, William's foster careers 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:40.480 were already looking after him before Michelle took over responsibility 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:41.559 for that placement. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:47.920 So the way that William and his foster cares came 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.600 to be with Young Hope is that there was a 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.960 process of transition from the Department of Communities and Justice, 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.200 and William's careers had identified that they would like to 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.680 seider coming across to Young Hope, and so I met 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.960 with them and we didn't just accept that they were 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.120 fit and proper based on somebody else's assessment. We did 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.280 our own independent assessment. I think that if I am 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:20.839 ultimately legally responsible for children under my care and ultimately 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.280 signing off on decisions that impact the future lives of 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:31.119 children that I need to be informed by some knowledge 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.120 of them and get to know them to some degree. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.800 One of the decisions that Michelle still lives with is 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.200 that she gave approval for William's foster care is to 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.520 take him to Kendall, which is where he went missing. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.720 It was a family trip to visit his foster grandmother. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.120 They'd made it before, they'd been given approval before, but 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.040 Michelle did allow it. 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:02.720 William was a child who was under the care of 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:12.480 an organization I had responsibility for. Whilst I am not 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:21.240 responsible for William's disappearance, I had responsibility for him, and 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:25.240 so I made a very strong commitment to myself and 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:32.560 to him that I would not walk out on finding 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:39.040 out what has happened to him. 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.560 Michelle's been interviewed by police more than once over the 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.880 years after William went missing. She flew up to Kendall 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.680 to spend time with his foster family. That was part 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:51.400 of her job. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:58.000 I expected to arrive to years that William had been found. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:06.880 There were masses of people looking for William, looking for 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.680 him everywhere the longer William went missing, the more and 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:15.160 more resources came to try and find him. Everything from 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:21.840 police on motorbikes, horses, divers, They went in drains, they 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.880 cleared ponds, they pumped things out, they went in dams, 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.440 they went in waterways, they went through the houses in 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.880 the block multiple times. Under round about it was. I 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:40.880 sat in the house with William's sister and it was 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:47.160 searched multiple times. On one occasion, officers from the Public 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:49.520 Order and Riot squad came through and we actually had 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:51.520 to get off the lounge and they lifted up the 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.640 cushions and they even took photos off the wall and 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.800 looked behind the photos, and you know, it was that 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.600 kind of extentive of search. I remember under the house 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.360 was this big mound of dirt. I don't even know 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.880 how else to describe it. I'm not even sure what 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.440 it was, but remember feeling really helpless a few times, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.920 and even I myself climbed in under there just to 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.680 even look. Of course, he wasn't there, he wasn't there, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:21.760 he wasn't there. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.760 Michelle also watched Williams foster parents. This is what she 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.520 was trained for. Her job was to protect the welfare 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.160 of the children in her care, and if something happened 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.840 to one of them, her job was to ask questions. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.160 Her mind had to go to those bad places. Michelle 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.240 knows the statistics that show that if a child gets 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:52.040 hurt or worse, mostly almost always, it's those closest to 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.640 them who were to blame. I asked her what she 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:57.560 saw in Williams's foster parents. 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:11.680 Absolute distress, visceral distress. I remember when I first arrived 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:18.600 and the male foster Caira collapsing into me and sobbing 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:31.040 into my neck, the female foster Kira, collapsing at different 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:35.000 points and having to lift her from the ground where 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:43.360 she'd collapsed, heaving sobs of where is he? 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:43.960 Where is he? 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.720 You know, then getting information, oh, we might have found him. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.080 Almost from the moment william disappeared, there was confusion. There 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.640 were sightings of him, there were rumors, people said they'd 0:17:57.720 --> 0:17:59.920 seen him all over. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.320 The and I remember, in one particular time being told, oh, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.600 we've might have found him, and the three of us 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.360 separately being showed a photo of a little boy that 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.879 they thought they'd found, and all of us thinking it 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:18.639 might be him. But it constantly misses with your mind 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.000 and just the ups and downs of that journey and 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.760 just going it was a completely surreal world. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.439 And at the time or looking back, did you see 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:35.480 anything that made you doubt the foster parents or believe 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.840 there might be something more than they were telling you 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:41.200 about what happened? 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.080 Not at all, not once. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.040 And given. Since William went missing, there have been years 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:56.720 of police investigation. Now there's been a coronial inquest into 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:02.680 his apparent death. Has anyone asked you about what you 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.280 saw in those first few days when you were with 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:07.600 his foster parents. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.520 Nobody has asked me about what I observed in his 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.440 foster parents those first few days. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:20.800 No, Michelle did keep extensive records though, questioning what she 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.760 saw in the days, weeks, and months that followed. These 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.720 have since been tended in court, so were public records. 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.679 Then in recent years the police came asking other questions. 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:43.000 Yes, I was interviewed about William's disappearance, and he became 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:51.919 evident during that interview that happened in October of twenty 0:19:52.040 --> 0:20:02.680 twenty one that the investigation appeared to be making inquiries 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:08.520 of the female foster care and I was very surprised 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:17.680 about that angle, and there were questions being asked that 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.520 made no sense to me. 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.320 One possible reason that their questions didn't make any sense 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.000 to Michelle is that she was on heavy painkillers at 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:29.520 the time following an operation. 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:35.520 They seemed to be focus on apparent different things. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.600 This was a few years ago and the current strike 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.000 force who are now working on the case, and two 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.880 detectives who turned up at Michelle's door without warning saying 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.240 they needed to do an interview. Michelle says she was 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.320 in her pajamas. She says she told the detectives she 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.120 was on this medication, but they went ahead with the interview. 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.560 I've never been asked about what I observed. I was 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.640 in the home with William's foster parents. I spent all 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:07.119 day every day with them for I think it was 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.280 nine days after William disappeared. I was on the property. 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.120 I walked around the property. I took photos of the property. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.320 I did all of that, and they weren't making inquiries 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:21.040 about those things. 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.959 When you were being interviewed by them, and I think 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.680 you were talking to them for five hours or thereabouts, 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.920 did they give you a sense of what they were 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:38.639 thinking William's foster mother may have done. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:49.800 No, they didn't, Just that they implied that she had 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.640 something to do with William's disappearance and that all would 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:57.800 be forthcoming in a few days. Interestingly, at the time, 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:05.080 Cleo was missing in Western Australia, and during that interview 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:10.359 they said to me, surely you know you don't think 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.119 that somebody else has come into the tent. You can't 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:14.800 tell me that you wouldn't hear the zipper. 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.480 To understand this, you need to know about another missing child, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:21.879 four year old Cleosmith. 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.600 Living first tonight, a young wa family is in the 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.520 middle of a nightmare ordeal. Their little girl is missing 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.399 after vanishing from their tent at a remote campsite in 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:33.240 the state's north. 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:35.520 Searching the fence line for fingerprints. 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.800 Forensics today examining the family home of four year old 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:40.800 Cleo Smith. 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:42.880 Hurry up, my daughter's gone. 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:48.000 How old your daughter us? 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.840 Cleo was camping with her family in Western Australia on 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.480 the sixteenth of October twenty twenty one, and she went 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.880 missing from a tent in which her family was sleeping. 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.120 So at the time the Western Australia Police were investigating 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:09.080 that disappearance, the New South Wales detectives were asking Michelle 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:11.080 questions about William going missing. 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.760 They asked me what I thought had happened to Cleo, 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:20.760 and I said that I didn't know. They said words 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:24.680 to the effect of, surely you'd hear somebody undoing a 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:27.120 zipper if your child was sleeping next to you, and 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:32.000 I took it to mean that, yeah, surely, if there's 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.679 no other answers that are apparent, then it's the parent, 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:42.920 and the implication being similar in the situation of William missing, 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:47.400 when there's no other clear answer, it must be her. 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:49.800 And what did you think of that? 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:55.119 I became upset with them, and I said, are you 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.960 telling me that, after this many years, this is the 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:04.520 best you've got? And the interviewing officer became angry with 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.680 me and began to raise his voice and said he's 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.600 been working on this three year and he's focused on 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.840 finding William. And he was implying to me that he 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.879 was the only person who cared about finding William. I 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:21.879 became quite upset and began to cry, and I said, 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:24.439 quite abruptly to him, don't you dare sit in my 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:28.560 home and accuse me of not caring about William. And 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.000 I pointed to a picture that I had sitting on 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.639 a filing cabinet and said you may have been working 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:36.159 on this for a year, but I've lived with this 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:39.639 since Williams disappeared and he backed off. 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:43.120 And that's that photograph you've got on the filing cabinet 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:51.600 there it is. In Cleo's case, it turned out it 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:53.600 wasn't her family who abducted her. 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:57.480 It is one of the most extraordinary stories of the year. 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.919 Four year old Cleo Smith this morning has been found. 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.560 Alive and well police breaking into a locked home in 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:14.640 Canarvan where she was found in a room. 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:16.920 I can confirm that we have a man from Canarvon 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:19.480 in custody who is currently being questioned by detectives. 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:22.560 Kidnapper, the doll obsessed loner Terence Kelly. 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.120 Little Cleo left locked in a room allowed radio used 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:27.359 to conceal her cries. 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:30.760 He had his fantasies and he was trying to make 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:32.359 them come to life. 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:34.800 It just happened to be that it was our. 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:39.879 Tent that he got into. The point being that in 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:43.159 the vast majority of cases it does turn out to 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:48.720 be the parents, but not all. In Cleo's case, her 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:53.840 family didn't hear the tent zipper. The New South Wales 0:25:53.920 --> 0:25:58.080 Police are now focused on William's foster mother. They went 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:01.960 to charter her. So only one of two things can 0:26:02.000 --> 0:26:05.760 be true. Either the police are right and she's a 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.800 criminal and she has misled the entire country for ten 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:15.840 years by seeming to be an innocent grieving mother, or 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:20.520 the police are wrong, and that matters because William is 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:36.000 not the only child that's been taken from those foster parents. 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:34.399 And that someone else's house a foster home, and I 0:26:34.440 --> 0:26:36.520 want to go to your house, and I love this one. 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:40.600 Yes, we'll talk about this more later in the series, 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:44.600 but I'm legally prevented from telling you who that child is. 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:50.000 So much of this case is surrounded in secrecy. Right 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:53.280 from the beginning, there's been almost two versions of this story. 0:26:53.600 --> 0:26:57.200 What the police and the media knew about William's disappearance 0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:00.760 and what the public were allowed to be told, and 0:27:00.800 --> 0:27:05.040 the space between them was vast. Right at the beginning, 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:08.840 the state government even said that the fact William was 0:27:08.880 --> 0:27:12.560 a foster child couldn't be made public. I remember getting 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:16.200 the emails that said journalists could go to prison if 0:27:16.240 --> 0:27:21.239 we did print that. Even today, we can't name or 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:26.080 identify William's foster cares, and so much else about this 0:27:26.240 --> 0:27:32.439 case is still secret. There's been inquest hearings behind closed doors. 0:27:32.640 --> 0:27:36.000 There's been statutory bars on what we can and can't report. 0:27:36.040 --> 0:27:39.679 There's been court orders suppressing what we can say. I 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:42.879