Cherylee |15

Summary

Witness: William Tyrrell – Episode 15: Cherylee

Host: news.com.au
Release Date: May 21, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 15 of Witness: William Tyrrell, titled "Cherylee," hosts Dan Box and Nina Young delve deeper into the enigmatic disappearance of three-year-old William Tyrrell ten years after he was last seen. This episode uncovers unsettling connections between William's case and other unresolved disappearances and murders on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, raising critical questions about police investigations and potential overlooked evidence.

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The Initial Investigation and Iris Northam's Statement

The episode begins with Dan and Nina attempting to verify statements made by Iris Northam, a witness whose testimony links Frank Abbott—a significant figure in William Tyrrell's disappearance—to multiple unsolved murders.

Dan Box (00:02):
"This is the sound of us hitting an obstacle, or in this case, a series of obstacles."

Iris Northam's statement to the inquest suggested that Frank Abbott often used back roads to evade police presence, specifically mentioning Brimbyn Road—the same area where the body of 17-year-old Sherily Masters was discovered. However, Dan and Nina encounter difficulties in locating this route, indicating potential inaccuracies or deceptions in Iris's account.

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Exploring Cheryl Lee Masters' Case

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Cheryl Lee Masters, Sherily's brother, who provides poignant insights into his sister's disappearance and the subsequent police investigation.

Tony Masters (11:24):
"Frank used to help there just about every month. It was okay."

Tony Masters recounts how Cheryl Lee was last seen hitchhiking south in the year 2000 and how the police investigation was fraught with negligence. Notably, Cheryl Lee's remains were mismanaged, with her body being misplaced and her family left without closure.

Iris Northam (35:00):
"I think every possible system really let her down, also let the whole family down."

The episode highlights the systemic failures in handling Cheryl Lee's case, including inadequate police response and the absence of meaningful communication with the family. The coroner's report further exacerbates the family's anguish, citing an "undeterminable cause" of death and numerous clerical errors, such as misspelling Cheryl Lee's name.

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Police Response and Oversight Failures

Dan and Nina critically examine the New South Wales Police Force's handling of these cases, emphasizing a pattern of overlooked evidence and insufficient investigations.

Gary Jubalin (32:08):
"If you're looking at a person of interest, you've got to look at them completely."

Dan Box reveals that Iris Northam's statement, which implicated Frank Abbott in Sherily's disappearance, was reportedly not escalated to the Unsolved Homicide team as promised. Attempts to obtain clarity from the police yielded little to no response, suggesting a lack of transparency and possible suppression of crucial information.

Dan Box (34:50):
"The clues were right there in the statement Iris gave the inquest... And they didn't even pass that along."

This segment underscores the frustration and helplessness felt by the families of the missing and murdered, as well as by Dan and Nina, who struggle to uncover the truth amidst bureaucratic indifference.

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Patterns of Unsolved Murders on the North Coast

To illustrate the extent of unresolved cases, Dan and Nina map out numerous unsolved murders and disappearances along a specific stretch of the North Coast of New South Wales. Their research uncovers decades of missing persons, many of whom share commonalities such as hitchhiking alone or being found near specific backroads.

Dan Box (52:07):
"And that we know almost certainly is a serial killer."

The hosts identify patterns suggesting the possibility of serial offenders operating in the area, including known killers like Ivan Milat and the Granny Killer. However, they also speculate about the existence of additional unidentified perpetrators responsible for several cases that remain unsolved.

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The Emotional Toll and Final Reflections

As the investigation progresses, Dan and Nina share their emotional responses to the harrowing stories and systemic issues uncovered.

Nina Young (58:17):
"I just, I think... I just want to document it here."

Their journey culminates in a somber visit to the location where William was last seen, symbolizing the long quest for answers that remains unresolved. The episode poignantly addresses the human cost of these tragedies, both for the families involved and for those seeking justice.

Dan Box (77:28):
"You couldn't have done any more. You've done so much more than we ever set out to do."

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Conclusion and Call to Action

The episode concludes with a poignant reflection on the legacy of William Tyrrell's case and its broader implications for other unresolved cases in the region. Dan and Nina urge the New South Wales Police to re-examine old evidence, follow up on new leads, and prioritize the families seeking closure.

Dan Box (69:06):
"It's up to the police if and how they decide to act."

By shedding light on these interconnected cases, Witness: William Tyrrell – Episode 15: Cherylee not only honors the memories of the lost but also serves as a compelling call to action for greater accountability and thoroughness in law enforcement investigations.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dan Box (00:02):
  "This is the sound of us hitting an obstacle, or in this case, a series of obstacles."

• Iris Northam (35:00):
  "I think every possible system really let her down, also let the whole family down."

• Gary Jubalin (32:08):
  "If you're looking at a person of interest, you've got to look at them completely."

• Dan Box (34:50):
  "The clues were right there in the statement Iris gave the inquest... And they didn't even pass that along."

• Dan Box (52:07):
  "And that we know almost certainly is a serial killer."

• Nina Young (58:17):
  "I just, I think... I just want to document it here."

• Dan Box (77:28):
  "You couldn't have done any more. You've done so much more than we ever set out to do."

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Witness: William Tyrrell – Episode 15: Cherylee is a powerful exploration of unresolved tragedies and the quest for justice, highlighting the urgent need for renewed investigations and support for affected families.

Transcript

[Dan Box]

Okay, look, we're past the tree.

[Nina Young]

Okay. And then we've got a gate up here.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. Gates open, we're fine. This is the sound of Nina and I back in the car on the trail of Frank Abbott. I'm not 100% this car will get to the gate. And this is the sound of us hitting an obstacle, or in this case, a series of obstacles. Big rough bumps and rocks in dirt road.

[Nina Young]

It's definitely not a way anyone goes regularly.

[Dan Box]

No, it's not. Though calling it a road is probably overstating it.

[Nina Young]

No one has come out and screamed at us to get off their property, so we're probably not on someone's property.

[Dan Box]

Well, I also think that's because no one lives here. To fully appreciate the situation Nina and I are now in, it helps to know that the car we're driving is almost brand new.

[Nina Young]

Very high grass here that we're driving through.

[Dan Box]

The car also belongs to our employers.

[Nina Young]

We're gonna crack down.

[Dan Box]

And our bosses have absolutely no idea what we're up to. What I'm gonna do is get to the gate and then just check the underside of the car. Yeah. But to understand why Nina and I have got ourselves into this situation, Dan's.

[Nina Young]

Gone to move a fallen tree. Failing an effort, he might do it. It's a full tree.

[Dan Box]

Car's fine.

[Nina Young]

Really objectively creepy looking forest.

[Dan Box]

To understand why we're bumping our way through this creepy looking forest and why we've ignored the advice of local people who say, you cannot get through on the road this way.

[Nina Young]

No. Well, the local kids said we couldn't get through this way.

[Dan Box]

Well, they might be right.

[Nina Young]

They may be right.

[Dan Box]

To understand why you have to go back. And I think at this point we run out of road. Back to that witness statement from Iris Northam, which was released to us by the inquest into William Tyrell's disappearance. I think we have to walk from him.

[Nina Young]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

The witness statement we looked at in the last episode, which talks about Frank Abbott and the unsolved murder of Margaret Cox. Because that witness statement also talks about Frank and another unsolved murder, this time of a teenage girl whose body was discovered near a rough dirt road like this one.

[Nina Young]

So let's go for a walk. Maybe lock the car.

[Dan Box]

I'm Dan box and from news.com au this is witness William Tyrell. Episode 15, Sheri Lee. All right, let's go back to the beginning.

[Nina Young]

What are we doing?

[Dan Box]

All right, so we're sitting in the car in Cundletown, which is a village outside Taree on the north coast of New South Wales. And the reason we're sitting here is Iris Northam, who's the witness who gives evidence at the inquest. In her statement, she says that Frank Abbott would go the back road from Cundle Town through Brimbyn Road, which was partly forest, and make his way to Taree. And he'd also drive a back road from Cedar Party onto Wingham Road, which brings you back to Tari if you're struggling to follow. The key thing is Frank Abbott told Iris Northam that he drove the back roads, he'd gone the back roads to avoid the police.

[Nina Young]

According to Iris.

[Dan Box]

According to Iris. But we also know from other evidence of the inquest that Frank often drove cars without a license and he often drove unregistered cars. So he had a reason to want to avoid the police. Other people we've spoken to have said the same, that people used to drive the back roads through the forest between Kundal Town and Taree. And that might be important because Iris also said that another girl went missing from Taree and her body was found a few years after she went missing. And Iris says her body was found in Brimbyn Road, Brimbin Road being the back road between Cundle Town and Taree. And Iris says she only mentions it because it's one of the roads that Frank used to drive to avoid being caught by the police. Now, Iris doesn't name that girl, but she names her father. And you worked out that that girl's a teenager called Cheryl Lee Masters, who's ultimately found on a bush track not far from Brimbren Reserve. So what Iris is doing is she's the one making the connection in the evidence before the inquest between Frank and this girl's disappearance. But when I looked at a map, this back road from Cundle Town to Taree, I don't think you can drive a back road from Cundle Town to Taree because on the map, it doesn't seem to work. There's a river in the way and no bridge that I can see. And if it's not possible, then everything Iris says there falls apart. There is no connection that she's made between Frank Abbott and this girl's disappearance because you can't drive this back road. So there's only one way to test it, which is to go and try and drive the back road.

[Nina Young]

Yeah. So let's do it.

[Dan Box]

We're gonna do it. So we set out to test Iris's statement. Can you go this way.

[Nina Young]

What am I looking for? Brimbon Road.

[Dan Box]

Brimbon Road. Aiming to see if we can find the road Iris describes, which she says Frank Abbott used to drive and where the body of a 17 year old girl known as Sherily Masters was discovered. Sheri Lee was a carefree, spirited teenager who was crazy about horses and cats and dogs, any animal really. And she was last seen around the year 2000 in Taree telling friends she was going to hitchhike south. At first, our attempt to find this back road doesn't go well.

[Nina Young]

Directions. It's off, lands down right.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Stuck.

[Iris Northam]

In 300 meters, turn left onto Denison Street.

[Dan Box]

We don't need that.

[Nina Young]

Where are we going?

[Dan Box]

Oh, we're not too far away. And hilariously, it's the other direction to the one we were driving in. So we turn around, leave Cundle Town behind us, and quickly the road empties and starts heading into empty country. Like there's no road markings after here.

[Nina Young]

Where do we think we're going to turn up?

[Dan Box]

It could be this one here.

[Nina Young]

And my observation is this is quite far.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, you've got to really want to not meet the police.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, because this isn't the convenient way to go.

[Dan Box]

No. So it's empty road, gum trees on one side, fields on either side, horses. Okay, so the next question then is, can you get to Tari?

[Nina Young]

What street are we looking for? That was Mayuna.

[Dan Box]

That's the street. Okay, looking at the map, that's the one that I think is most likely a back way to Tariq.

[Nina Young]

Could always just ask the local children.

[Dan Box]

Actually, that's a really good idea. There's a bunch of kids here mucking around on motorbikes.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

Hey guys, is there a back road from here to Tari without having to go down all the way to the main road?

[Nina Young]

No, no, that's on the main road.

[Dan Box]

You have to go along the main.

[Iris Northam]

Road, you have to go all the way back and then chuck the right back up.

[Dan Box]

So none of these turns on the right take you down there. So the kids who live here and who muck around on these roads on their dirt bikes, they seem to be saying that Iris must be wrong because you can't drive a back road from Kundal Town to Taree like she says. Thank you, guys. Nina and I decide to ignore the locals and try to find a back road like the one Iris describes. Anyway.

[Nina Young]

I reckon we're on someone's property.

[Dan Box]

No, not on the property, but I don't know what is at the end of the road.

[Nina Young]

You got the map?

[Dan Box]

Yeah, yeah. So this one, that one there the kids told us ended in the sewage works.

[Nina Young]

Yeah. One of them is going to take us to this.

[Dan Box]

This takes us right to the river.

[Nina Young]

Does it? This is the only one. This is the only way I think you could go from having a look at.

[Dan Box]

If we go down here and there's an old bridge, it might be usable, it might not.

[Nina Young]

Then confirmed. You could go this way. It's a very inconvenient way to go.

[Dan Box]

But it's going to be inconvenient because I don't know if we can actually turn around once we start driving down here. So let's go. As you know, this ends badly. I'm not 100% this car will get to the gate. What Nina and I do discover is that the kids on bikes were right. You definitely can't drive on a back road between Cundle Town and Taree, as Iris says in her statement to the William Tyrrell inquest. So Iris statement is wrong. Except it turns out that that's not quite what Iris was saying.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, but we're just doing a little bit more follow up.

[Tony Masters]

I see.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Some of the questions that we have that came out in the inquest about.

[Dan Box]

Break.

[Tony Masters]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

We visit Iris and ask her specifically about this back road you mentioned in.

[Nina Young]

Your statement as well, some of the back roads.

[Tony Masters]

Oh, yes. That Frank used to take. He used to do that because he said they took me license away because of fines for different things that I hadn't paid. And he said I couldn't go on the highway in case they picked me up. I used to use the old fire tracks, fire trails.

[Dan Box]

In Australia, a fire trail is a rough dirt road cleared through the bush for fire crews to use in case of a bushfire.

[Nina Young]

We were trying to drive them yesterday, but our car got broken.

[Dan Box]

We tell Iris the road that we tried to follow.

[Tony Masters]

No, no, that's another one. Yeah, that's out near Cundle Town.

[Dan Box]

Talking about another back road from Cundle Town to Taree.

[Tony Masters]

Yeah. Well, this one leads from. You've got.

[Dan Box]

Iris gets a pen and paper and starts drawing a rough map.

[Tony Masters]

You've got Johns river there. Next down here is Moorlen. And from there he used to go through the forest to Lansdowne.

[Dan Box]

Suddenly we realize from Lansdowne it used.

[Tony Masters]

To come into Cundletown.

[Dan Box]

Nina and I had been on the wrong road.

[Tony Masters]

You turn to Brimbon Road, out into the bushes and whatever.

[Dan Box]

We thought we'd been following the route in Iris's witness statement.

[Tony Masters]

And from there around it comes out. I think it's Young's Road.

[Dan Box]

But we were mistaken. We'd been trying to follow Google Maps.

[Tony Masters]

Mostly and from there they used to go along.

[Dan Box]

Wingham Road and the route Iris is drawing on this piece of paper on her kitchen table and turn.

[Tony Masters]

Left to go to the 10 bin bowling.

[Dan Box]

So that would take you to 10 tari then?

[Tony Masters]

Yeah, yeah. Goes to Tari.

[Dan Box]

It isn't marked on our map.

[Tony Masters]

And the other one goes to Brimbon.

[Dan Box]

I've been looking at a map while you've been saying that, so I've been looking at this map on my phone. That road you're describing takes you straight through the Yarrat Forest, the state forest there. But that's where that body you're talking about, Chevrolet Masters. That's the rough area where she was found.

[Tony Masters]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Box]

So if Frank did used to drive along this road, that would put Frank in the area where Sherily's body was discovered.

[Tony Masters]

He told us that's the way he went because he didn't have a license, didn't want to get picked up.

[Dan Box]

So taking the map Iris has now drawn for us, Nina and I decide again to go and try to drive.

[Nina Young]

It and we'll give you a call.

[Tony Masters]

If we get started.

[Dan Box]

How's about that truck?

[Nina Young]

You could tow us out with us.

[Dan Box]

So this is the Old Port Macquarie Road, a few kilometres north of Taree. And we're here because, bluntly, we're looking for where the body of Sheryl Lee Masters was found, which is in this forest. And all we really know is from newspaper reports at the time that it's described as a rarely used bush track within a kilometre of where you come off the Sealed Road.

[Nina Young]

I mean, she wasn't found for six years.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, it's rarely used. But the problem with that newspaper report is I don't know if the reporter had actually been here because they got the name of the road wrong. They called it the Old Port Road and it's actually the Old Port Macquarie Road.

[Nina Young]

It was written like they saw the crime scene tape.

[Dan Box]

Huh. Could it be that that looks like it might once have been a track?

[Nina Young]

Do you have the description?

[Dan Box]

Yeah, yeah. It says the crime scene tape roped off a rarely used bush track leading off the Old Port Road, not far from Brimbyn Reserve. The track is located less than a kilometre off the Tard Cedar Party Road, which is the road we drove up to get here. It could be. If that is an old bush track, let Me have a look. I get out and walk into the forest following the bush track, trying to see if it could be the same place described in the old newspaper clippings as where Sherily's body was discovered. And if you're thinking this all seems quite vague. Well, so are we. One thing we are learning is there's so little known about Sherily's murder it's almost as if she vanished. Yeah, that's an old bush track. It doesn't get much traffic and there's no obvious gravesite or anything but I wouldn't expect one. What there is, is there's a bunch of stuff that's been fly tipped there. So there's some old kind of old sofa cushions maybe and some kind of household.

[Nina Young]

It said in the article that this is a popular dumping area.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, people have been out there and just chuck stuff in the bush. But I guess the significance of it isn't so much that that might be the track where Sherily was found. As we know she was found in this forest. We know she was found on this road and when we just were talking to Iris then and the description she gave us of how Frank drove from Cundletown to Taree on back roads, the roads she described, the only way you can get between them are on this Old Port Macquarie road. So if her description of how Frank drove at the time to escape the police is accurate, then he had to come along this road which is where Chevrolet Masters was found. But looking at a map, I don't know if you can actually do that. Loop through the forest if you can. It's on this road which is a dirt track and the only way to find out if you can or not is to keep going. But I don't, I don't know if this car is going to make it.

[Nina Young]

More concerning, the phrase she used was roads and fire trails.

[Dan Box]

Well, it's more concerning if you're the owner of this car, which neither of.

[Nina Young]

Us are, and there's a trail going that way.

[Tony Masters]

What's that?

[Dan Box]

That one's not even on the map.

[Nina Young]

That one looked like you could have driven on it.

[Dan Box]

You said this earlier, you're only going to know these roads if you're a local.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

So you're only going to find this as a place to dispose of Sherily's body and I hate saying it as bluntly as that and I'm sorry if anyone's listening that did know her, but you're only going to use these places and come to these places if you know of them. And you'd have to be a local to do that. It does make me think one of two things. One is, if Frank Abbott's really driving this road, then why is he so keen to avoid police? Like getting stopped for driving without a license. Okay, yeah, you'd get in trouble for that. But driving this far out of your way, rather than taking the chance on, like the three kilometer drive on the main road, feels like you really wanted to avoid police. But the other thing it makes me think is right. Say you can't get through on these roads like Iris said Frank told her he used to do. Say you can't do that. That doesn't mean that Iris is wrong. It might mean that Frank was lying to Iris, that he wanted to give her a different reason for why he was driving on these roads. And maybe he had a reason he wanted to disguise, not necessarily that he was involved in Chevrolet Master's murder. I'm not suggesting that, but maybe there was something else he did up here that he didn't want Iris to know about. Yeah, but the problem is, you can see on the map here, we're about.

[Nina Young]

To hit the end of where Google says this map is.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. And then there's a river, and that river's a problem, because if you can't get through on this road, like Iris says Frank used to in her witness statement, then there is nothing to connect Frank Abbott to the place where Sherily's body was discovered. And if Iris's statement is wrong about that, then maybe she's also wrong about everything else, including the alleged links between Frank Abbott and the unsolved murder of Margaret Cox, which we looked at in the last episode.

[Nina Young]

All right.

[Dan Box]

That'S not on the map. You can't get past the river. But if we're going to find a way, it's going to be just here.

[Nina Young]

He says as he drives towards a closed gate.

[Dan Box]

As he says. Yeah, as there's a massive closed gate. But the thing about that closed gate.

[Nina Young]

Old Port Macquarie Road.

[Dan Box]

Old Port Macquarie Road goes beyond it and it's now a footpath.

[Nina Young]

Authorized vehicles only.

[Dan Box]

But how old's the gate? So we're talking 30 years ago.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

And if that gate wasn't there 30 years ago when Sherily was murdered, maybe you could keep driving on this road over the river for now. Nina and I pull up at a little picnic area. It's completely empty. I walk over to a wooden sign where there's a map saying Brimbyn Nature Reserve. Yeah, look at this. Look at this. Look at this. This is the map on the. I don't know, what is it? Nature reserve information sign. And it shows. So we're there, See the end of the road at the picnic area, but it shows that that old Fort Macquarie Road turns into a footpath here and then it crosses the river. It says it's called the trail Tommy Owens Crossing. And then the track goes on through the bush here and Mrs. Kelly's Crossing and Ms. Kelly's Crossing of the river further up. And then if you look here on my phone and you look at that bend in the river again, that takes you back over, it's the Dawson river there and onto dirt tracks in the forest that lead you back to Brim Bin Road. So possibly actually there was a way to drive through here. It's really out of the way. So maybe, maybe you could once drive the whole way the way Frank told Iris that he used to. So it's only now that you can actually put Frank above but as having been at the place where Sherily Master's body was found. So it's only now we've got that connection. But none of this is proof of anything. Far from it. Particularly because when Nina and I do get to the river, there's no way you could drive a car across it.

[Nina Young]

At least in its current state. No, you can't drive that.

[Dan Box]

You can't get across that. There is a bridge, but it's a narrow walking bridge again, 30 years and.

[Nina Young]

Floods, I don't know what it looks like.

[Dan Box]

Unless there's any evidence that there was a bigger bridge there once when it's a library.

[Nina Young]

Where's your local library full of old maps?

[Dan Box]

Well, it's in Taurine. Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Stop the stage?

[Dan Box]

I think so, yeah. We stop recording and head back to the car feeling subdued. No bridge, no road, no connection between Frank once driving this route through the forest where she's body was discovered after she was last seen in Tari in the year 2000. Back at our motel, I go to bed and wake up to a text message from Nina. She wants to talk.

[Nina Young]

Good morning.

[Dan Box]

Morning.

[Nina Young]

So I did some reading about the town planning. I am not the navigator as we've established, so I need you to interpret this and tell me if I'm right.

[Dan Box]

Okay?

[Nina Young]

So have a look.

[Dan Box]

So you won't.

[Nina Young]

I want you to look at this email. I sent you it in the middle of the night, okay. About town planning in the early 2000s in Tariq.

[Dan Box]

Okay. All right. So this is the email you sent which you sent to me at. Oh in fairness, it was only 10 past 11 at night.

[Nina Young]

That's great.

[Dan Box]

And it's the one titled Brim Bin Reserve development plan in 2005.

[Nina Young]

Click that link.

[Dan Box]

So just click on that link.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

Okay, so it's the Brimbyn Nature Reserve Plan of Management from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service for May 2005. This is what you were reading in the middle of the night last night?

[Nina Young]

Sure was.

[Dan Box]

Okay. Oh, hang on, that's interesting. So there's a map.

[Nina Young]

There's a map.

[Dan Box]

There's a map of where we were yesterday, isn't there? The Brimbyn picnic area.

[Tony Masters]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

And then that bit there that says addition to Brimbren Nature Reserve.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. When on marks the Old Port Macquarie Road, which is what we were driving on as continuing across the river, which is where we stopped yesterday and we couldn't get across. But this shows that there was a road there.

[Nina Young]

Page seven.

[Dan Box]

So part 3.5, two wheel drive vehicle access to the reserve is available along the Old Port Macquarie Road. So that's what we drove along the road. Reserve for the Old Port Macquarie Road continues east across Tommy Owens Creek towards Lansdowne, though this section is overgrown and not suitable for vehicle access. But it was the route of the old road. So when was Chevrolet Masters discovered she.

[Nina Young]

Went missing in 2000.

[Dan Box]

2000.

[Nina Young]

Yeah. So this document's from 2005 calling that road untrafficable. We don't know if it was untraffickable in 2000.

[Dan Box]

No, you're right. But it shows that the road continued. You can't do it now, but the Park Service took it over in 1999, just before Chevrolet Masters goes missing. So, yeah, it's quite possible at that point you could still drive that road. I think that's it, Nina. I think it shows there is an alleged connection between Frank Abbott and the place Sheri Lee was discovered, contained in the witness statement Iris Northam gave to the William Tyrell inquest. And there is another alleged connection there in Iris's statement. But you have to look closely, blink and you'd miss it. Because in her witness statement, Iris doesn't actually mention Sherily by name. Instead, she describes a girl who went missing maybe five years after Margaret Cox's murder and says this girl's body was only found a few years later on Brimbin Road and that she was about 15 or 16 and her father was a man called Rex Nolan.

[Tony Masters]

The one I was talking to them about was Rex's daughter. Rexon.

[Dan Box]

Yes, it's Nina who puts the clues together.

[Nina Young]

That's Cheryl Lee Marston.

[Tony Masters]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Box]

Cheryl Lee was found in Brimbin Reserve, not Brimbin Road, and she was 17, not 15 or 16. But she was Rex Nolan's daughter.

[Tony Masters]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dan Box]

When did you start thinking about this other young woman who was found in that bit of bush? And maybe in connection to Frank?

[Tony Masters]

Well, only that reason because he used to go out around that way and with the connection that he knew Rex and Karen, but that.

[Dan Box]

That Frank knew Rex, Cheryl Lee's father, and Karen, Sherylee's stepmother.

[Tony Masters]

And they worked at the markets.

[Dan Box]

This is new. It's not in Iris's witness statement.

[Tony Masters]

The only connection that could be Frank worked at the markets.

[Dan Box]

Which market's the Beats?

[Tony Masters]

Johns River.

[Dan Box]

Johns river is the tiny town where Frank once lived in the years before Cheryl Lee went missing. The town has a market held on the second Saturday of each month at the Johns River Community hall, which is opposite the house where Frank was living.

[Tony Masters]

He helped at the markets out there where Rex and Karen used to sell stuff. He used to go to the markets and he'd help, you know, help them set up things and do little odd jobs for them there.

[Dan Box]

So he knew Chevrolet's parents?

[Tony Masters]

Yeah. Yeah, he knew them.

[Dan Box]

And did you ever see them together?

[Tony Masters]

No.

[Dan Box]

How do you know the connection?

[Tony Masters]

No, I only know that Frank lived opposite the hall. Yeah, where they had the. The markets.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Tony Masters]

Frank used to help there just about every month. It was okay.

[Dan Box]

Other people from John's river tell us the same thing. Frank was always at the markets where Cheryl Lee's family were regulars. That alone proves nothing. But here's what bothers me about it. We found this connection, me and Nina, not the police. And it didn't take us long to do it. The clues were right there in the statement Iris gave the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance, which was signed by a police detective. And Iris has previously told us this detective promised to pass the information on to the Unsolved Homicide team for them to follow up. But Iris says she never heard back. We ask the New South Wales Police what happened? Was this information ever passed on? But they declined to answer. So we find our own detective.

[Nina Young]

Are we still recording through the red light?

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Okay. Imagine if we were.

[Dan Box]

Our colleague, Gary Jubalin, who used to be the lead detective on the investigation into William's disappearance.

[Gary Jubalin]

I left the investigation at the time when there was certain lines of inquiry that had to look at Frank Abbott.

[Dan Box]

Gary says he can't answer for what the police did after he left the investigation.

[Gary Jubalin]

And then, to my surprise, Frank Abbott became the only suspect in the William Tyrrell matter.

[Dan Box]

Okay, Gary's making a point here. Frank was not the only suspect in the William Tyrrell investigation, but he was a very prominent person of interest that the police were clearly focused on at that point. But given how much attention Frank was.

[Gary Jubalin]

Getting, you'd be doing a deep dive into him and this type of stuff based on that statement. You'd want to have a look at that. Because I would. What's written in the statement from Iris Northam? I would imagine that when you're sitting there taking the statement, she's adding some other bits and pieces to it.

[Dan Box]

When we sat down with her, we learned more than was in her statement.

[Gary Jubalin]

Yeah. If you're asking me how I would approach it, if we're looking at Frank Abbott, which, once I'm taken off the investigation, if it was being run the way an investigation should be run, there'd be briefings and that certainly would be brought to the attention of the person running the investigation. She said this, said that. Okay, we've got to have a look at that. How do we have a look at that? We look at the cases, we get that information in. And is Frank Abbott involved in that? I want to preface that with it's not going to solve the William Tyrrell matter. Like, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's involved in William Tyrrell. But you'd be looking as deep. As deep as you can. You want as much information. So I don't want to be critical of it. Cause I just don't know the full circumstances. I'm just looking at it from an investigative point of view. I think I'm informed enough, having led the investigation for four years, know how we had to go through persons of interest and you had to look at everything about the person of interest. If someone's presented a statement from sitting in the briefing room and been told this and told that. Okay, well, we've got to have a look at this. We've got to have a look at that. Does it solve the William Tyrrell matter? Perhaps not. But if we're looking at a person of interest, you've got to look at them completely. So.

[Dan Box]

So you would have looked at these two cases.

[Gary Jubalin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Box]

Margaret Cox and Sheryl Leigh Masters. Yeah.

[Gary Jubalin]

And knowing the way that the investigation was run, if you're saying someone's a person of interest, you look at absolutely everything about that person. And when you're looking at a murder investigation, which William Tyrrell is there's enough there in the way that you've relayed the information, what you've provided to me to think. Yeah, it's worth looking at coming back to Cheryl Lee Masters. Yeah. If you knew her father was associated with the markets around there. Yeah. You'd have a look and you do it as a matter of course. I would anyway.

[Dan Box]

We suspect the New South Wales Police have not looked closely enough at the information about Sheralee contained in Iris Northam's statement. We suspect this because Nina tracks down Sheryl Lee's brother, Tony Masters, and he says he hasn't heard anything from the police in years.

[Iris Northam]

Cheryl Lee was a very carefree, spirited, very outgoing person. She had very itchy feet. She never could seem to stay in one place for too long. She was a very kind person.

[Dan Box]

Tony has a kind face and a nervous energy. Sitting on a park bench near his home in northwest Sydney, he tells Nina how his sister Sheralee grew up tough.

[Iris Northam]

With her slow development, like she was 17, but probably in the mind of a 13 or 14 year old child. So that's where she was at.

[Dan Box]

Sheralee lived in and out of foster care, always seeming to fall through the gaps in the system.

[Iris Northam]

You learn not to trust. Like if we ever saw the police we'd run. So I feel like the authorities weren't people that she could turn to and trust. So she really had no one, she had herself and that I think kind of helped a lot to her demise.

[Dan Box]

While still only in her mid teens, Sheri Lee was living on her own in an apartment, but under the watch of the State Government Department of Community Services, which has since changed its name but is the same department that was later responsible for, for looking after 3 year old William Tyrrell, who also disappeared.

[Iris Northam]

I just feel like every possible system really let her down, also let the whole family down.

[Dan Box]

It's easy to understand why Tony's family might feel this way. He says Cheryl Lee was last seen in the year 2000 when she told some friends in TARI she was going to hitchhike south.

[Iris Northam]

It was pretty much her main motive, transportation. I don't think she really had money to pay for transport, so she just used to hitchhike.

[Dan Box]

Tony first heard his sister was missing in a phone call.

[Iris Northam]

I got a phone call from the police saying, you know, she's a missing person.

[Nina Young]

Did the place seem consent?

[Iris Northam]

Not overly. They. It was more of a. I felt like the, the calls were just a duty like for them, like a responsibility, like we have to notify somebody what.

[Nina Young]

Were they doing that you're aware of to find her?

[Iris Northam]

Not much. I don't even think they bothered to place the mannequin they had with a previous lady in. At the shopping center near where I worked put a mannequin that was wearing the same clothes as a young lady that disappeared.

[Dan Box]

If that sounds odd that Tony would talk about the police not putting a mannequin of his sister in the shopping center after she went missing, there's a reason. Four years before Sherily was last seen in Tari, another woman went missing from the same small city. That was Margaret Cox, who we talked about in the last episode. And then the police put a mannequin of Margaret dressed in the clothes she'd been wearing in the local shopping center, hoping it would remind someone that they'd seen her on that day.

[Iris Northam]

I used to work at Kmart in Tari, and I was about 15. I just used to walk past the mannequin every day going into work.

[Dan Box]

Sheryl Lee would also have seen that mannequin, according to Tony.

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, I actually think one time come even sit down near that mannequin.

[Dan Box]

So when Sherily went missing, Tony wondered, where's her mannequin? Were the police just not so interested in his sister? Nina and I have spoken to the cop who oversaw the detectives working in Taree in 2000. He says he does not remember Sherily's disappearance being reported. And six years passed. In 2006, a group of soldiers were on an exercise in the state forest just north of Taree when they discovered human remains. And the police got back in touch with Tony.

[Iris Northam]

They told me that they had actually found some remains and they wanted DNA testing.

[Dan Box]

It was two more years, 2008, before the DNA tests finally identified the body as Cheryl Lee. Finally, it seemed the police were doing something.

[Iris Northam]

They said that there was a special task force that they'd been set up to investigate Cheryl Lee's murder. I think I met them maybe twice over the whole duration, but I invited them to Sherily's memorial, but they. They didn't come. I spoke with them once after that, and they just said that it was still an ongoing investigation and therefore they can't talk about anything. And that was pretty much. I made numerous phone calls to them, who always took forever to get phone calls returned. So they couldn't tell us really any. Anything at all. Any. Any possible leads or anything. They couldn't tell us anyone's name, and they couldn't tell us anything at all. So, yeah, we really didn't get anything from them.

[Dan Box]

Unbelievably Tony says his family were never even told the results of the autopsy saying how Sherily died.

[Iris Northam]

There was literally nothing explained. The extent of what we knew was it was a shallow grave.

[Dan Box]

A shallow grave. Tony says he almost hoped his sister had died in an accident.

[Iris Northam]

Maybe she got like, hit by a car or something while hitchhiking because, you know, sometimes hard to see people on the side of highways.

[Dan Box]

If it's raining and stuff, that wouldn't be so bad. He says. At least that way, Sheri Lee might not have suffered.

[Iris Northam]

And when we questioned the police, they're like, we can't tell you anything. But they said that it definitely was homicide. She had actually been murdered.

[Dan Box]

In the end, it was the funeral director, not the police detectives, who explained that Sherily had suffered a massive head injury.

[Iris Northam]

She showed us the back of Shirley's skull and said that her professional opinion was that Cheryl Lee had actually taken something to the back of the head which would have been enough to kill her.

[Nina Young]

I. I can't imagine how difficult that must have all been to go through.

[Iris Northam]

I think I just felt really sorry for her.

[Dan Box]

Then things got worse. Sherily's family were told her remains were missing.

[Nina Young]

How long were they missing for?

[Iris Northam]

Probably a couple of years. It took them a while to get it back to us.

[Nina Young]

Years.

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, it was a long time.

[Nina Young]

How do you miss place something that important?

[Iris Northam]

I think she was just. I think because they have a whole lot of unsolved crimes and just evidence in, in storage, and they maybe mislabeled it or the box was behind another box, or maybe they're short on staff that really didn't want to take the time to look. We were never really given any. A reason why, just that she was misplaced, so. And they would, they would get her to us as soon as they could.

[Dan Box]

It wasn't soon enough, though. Cheryl Lee's father, Rex Nolan, died before his daughter's remains were returned to the family.

[Iris Northam]

So he actually never got to bury her.

[Dan Box]

With her murder still unsolved, the family held a memorial service, and the police.

[Iris Northam]

Didn'T come to it, even though they were invited. And it was a big turnout, like a lot of people from Tyree were there. We thought they could come and maybe, you know, hear some stories about her. They might hear something that matches up with something they already had, I thought. But they didn't bother coming. And, yeah, we didn't really hear much from them over that whole period.

[Dan Box]

By this time, there had been an inquest, so a formal investigation into how she died. But Tony says his family were not invited to take part. And the inquest findings are easily the most upsetting of any that I've seen in almost 20 years of reporting on crime.

[Nina Young]

Are you okay if I read this letter? So it says, inquest into the death of Cheryl Lee Masters, I make the following finding. I find that the deceased, Cheryl Lee Master, they spelled her name wrong between October. October 1995 and October 2005 at an unknown place in the state of New South Wales, died of an undeterminable cause in circumstances that I've also not been able to determine.

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, that. That pretty much sounds like the whole, you know, we don't really know, and that they one would misspell her name. And in fact, legally, her name isn't married Masters, it's actually Nolan. And my father was really upset because her name was never legally changed to Masters. And on her gravestone it's hyphenated. We actually have Masters, Nolan. So the fact that they'd never even used her actual legal name in the.

[Nina Young]

In the coronial finding.

[Iris Northam]

In the coronial finding and there was no reference to it, but also to the fact that the dates were so broad, they didn't even mention when she was actually discovered.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, because. Because I noticed that the earliest date there is 1995. She was definitely seen alive post 1995, right?

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, she was definitely seen alive. I had seen her in 98, 99, and she'd been out to Tamworth to see our mum and our little sisters out there, and she had actually been dating a guy, his name was Patrick. So she had actually been seen. And I just don't think the police had bothered to try to track any of these people down, interview any of these people, and if they did, they made no reference of it to me at all.

[Nina Young]

Were you able to submit anything for the inquest?

[Iris Northam]

I don't believe I was actually asked to submit anything for the inquest. I didn't think that was something you could do. So, no, I don't think I did.

[Dan Box]

Families can very much provide information to an inquest, and most inquests I've seen, the grieving family is right at the heart of the process. The fact Tony wasn't told that his family could be appalls me. And then when we asked the Coroner's court to see the records from the inquest into Sherily's death, we were told, quote, archives have not had any luck finding this file after numerous searches, meaning they can't find the file of Sheryl Lee's Inquest, they've lost it after somehow. Also misplacing Sherily's body. How does that happen with a murder victim who leaves these gaps in the system?

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, it just still baffled me that the police didn't treat it a little bit more with more urgency in case the killer was still out there. Out there still killing people.

[Dan Box]

Tony says he doesn't know who, if anyone, is now responsible for catching his sister's killer.

[Iris Northam]

No, just an unsolved murder mystery, just like so many other cases. Like, there's a lot. And I just feel like Cheryl Lee's now just another number, you know, on someone's desk or locked away in a room that nobody bothers to go into anymore.

[Dan Box]

Nina asks if anyone from the police has recently contacted Tony.

[Iris Northam]

No, I haven't heard from the police for decades now.

[Dan Box]

Meaning it is Nina who first tells Tony about Iris Northam's evidence to the William Tyrell inquest, which mentions his sister's disappearance.

[Nina Young]

Okay, so this is the statement of a woman named Iris Northam that she made to the William Tyrell inquest about a person of interest called Frank Abbott.

[Dan Box]

Nina shows Tony the part of Iris's statement that talks about his dad, Rex.

[Nina Young]

So I'll show you where you can.

[Dan Box]

Go from and tells him what Iris told us about Rex and Frank both working at the John's river market.

[Iris Northam]

Yeah, so Rex and Karen, they used to, like, go to all the markets. Al Bar Tari definitely in John's river was one of the areas that they would go to.

[Nina Young]

Would Sheryl Lee have been to those markets with them?

[Iris Northam]

Cheryl Lee may have, but I can't say definitely.

[Dan Box]

We don't know exactly where Sherilee was living at the time, whether she even was living with Rex or Karen, so it's hard to know how much time they spent together. But even if there's a possibility, Tony thinks the police should have told him about Iris Northam's evidence.

[Iris Northam]

I feel a bit annoyed, I think. I feel, yeah, annoyed that people knew this. I just. I feel a bit, I think, disappointed that people have actually given information to the police and they haven't passed that along.

[Dan Box]

So that's now three unsolved murders. Helen Harrison, where Frank Abbott was found not guilty. Margaret Cox, who we talked about in the last episode, and Sheryl Lee in all three cases. New evidence has come to light at the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance. But the victims families and the potential witnesses that we've spoken to, none of them have been contacted by the New South Wales police.

[Iris Northam]

You think you would at least inquire, ask around, and do a little bit of digging. I kind of feel like when people go missing, too many people are just, you know, a pitcher on the side of a milk carton, and that's so detached. But when you actually start thinking of them, oh, this is actually somebody that, you know, used to play hopscotch and skip and, like, playing with dolls and loved animals. And if people actually got to see that this was a person and not just, you know, some kind of wild teenager that deserved what she got, it'd be different, because really, like, people don't deserve it.

[Dan Box]

Nobody deserves what happened to Tony's sister, Sheryl Lee, who was lost and whose murderer has not been brought to justice. But as Nina and I discover, there are other unsolved murders of women and children up here on the New South Wales north coast. In fact, there are dozens of them. So we've taken pages out of a road atlas and stuck them on the wall. So we've got a map of the whole North Carolina coast of New South Wales all the way up to the Queensland border. The map reaches almost floor to ceiling, and it looks like a long way, but it's what? It's a day's drive, really, isn't it? It's a long day's drive. But what I want to do is try to get a sense of the number of unsolved murders and missing people on this one stretch of coast. So we've got a list, and I've got some sticky labels, and I thought we'd literally just stick an arrow on the map for each of these unsolved murders or missing persons. Okay, so Narelle Cox disappears from Grafton.

[Nina Young]

1977.

[Dan Box]

1977. Next up, Joy Hodkins and Annie Tominac. They either go missing or their bodies are found in Mayfield.

[Nina Young]

You want two or one sticker?

[Dan Box]

Two. It takes Nina and I an hour to work through the list of missing and unsolved murder victims. I've actually noticed that both our houses are on here. So there's you at the bottom, and there's me just there. We got the list of names from Questions and Answers in the New South Wales State Parliament. Same year, 1978. Leanne Goodall, last seen outside the Star Hotel in Newcastle. And this information comes from the police themselves. 1979, Robin Hickey disappears from Belmont. Same year, Amanda Robinson disappears from Swansea. Annika Adriansen and Alan Fox, Caroline Dow, Kingscliffe.

[Nina Young]

Are we still in the 70s?

[Dan Box]

We're still in the same year through the 70s. 80s. 90s 2000s and 2000s. The names just keep on coming. Alfred C. Amanda Zollis, Hazel Fidler, Elizabeth Dixon, Susan Mary Smith. And slowly we start noticing patterns. There's five in a group just around Newcastle and South. Then we've actually got three in Barrowville. So Evelyn Greenup, Colleen Walker Craig and Clinton Speedy Durow in 1990s.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

1990 and 1991. But over six months. And that we know almost certainly is a serial killer.

[Nina Young]

All right.

[Dan Box]

And then We've got another 1990. Veronica Rigney, Hazel Christian. 1991. 1992. Ada Collins in Swansea. So that's just outside Newcastle again. God, there's so many of them in Newcastle.

[Nina Young]

It's actually getting hard to read the map with all the stickers. Yeah.

[Dan Box]

We're not saying Frank Abbott has any link to any of these cases.

[Nina Young]

Some of these in the 90s are the ones that they were looking at for De Granicula.

[Dan Box]

As in they thought they were all possible victims of another known serial killer.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

In fact, we're saying there is no link between Frank and almost all of them. Bronwyn Winfield, Alison Newstead and Melissa Astil. It's just there are so many unsolved cases. 1994. Gordana Kotebsky disappears from Charlestown. Melissa Hunt, Janelle Megan Pitt, Margaret Howlett, Angela Foley, Inika Hinckley, Margaret Cox, murdered in Tari. And when you see them all together on the wall in front of you, it's a lot to get your head around. Lee Ellen Stace, murdered in Yamba. Marion Barter, Lois Roberts, Bernadette Donaldson, Elizabeth.

[Nina Young]

Wright, Lisa Varagnola, from Hexham.

[Dan Box]

The police have looked at connections between some of these unsolved cases. In 1998, a task force was set up to look at potential links between 10 missing people and the Backpacker killer. Ivan Malat.

[Nina Young]

Just, just, just flag. Malat's arrested here.

[Dan Box]

1994.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

But the murders continue.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

Other police investigations also looked for links between some of the cases. And there was a quote from. In one of the papers. We've had one young woman murdered at a truck stop barely an hour away. So it would be stupid to dismiss the possibility the same person could have struck again. But, said the lead detective, both women were young, blonde and hitchhiking alone. Both disappear from busy roads. And there's a possible link to the Pacific Highway. Then there's Task Force Metz, which is a police investigation looking at the disappearance and murder of Lois Roberts. But it's reported as also looking at the deaths of Lee Ellen Stace, Inika Hinckley and Margaret Cox. But few of these police investigations are successful and the names just keep on coming. Susan Kay and Joanne Tetterin and then Celeste Gilbert and Shirley Masters. Tyre Colwell or Taya Colwell. Rhonda Bickley, Lucy McDonald, Margaret Gaul. 2003 Rose Howell disappears from Bellingham Engine 2004. Kylie Ann Shaffer. 2005 Rosalind Ray, Simone Strobel, Amanda O' Dell murdered in Kempsey. Danika Dixon Lismore, third in Lismore. 2008 Stacy McMore. 2009 Jasmine Morris disappears from Grafton. And the last one on this list is Ellen Wilson who disappears from Ballina in 2015. Got it. So that's it. What do you think?

[Nina Young]

It's. It's shocking to look at. Even more so when I remember that these aren't just the leaves list of murders that have happened, these are just the unsolved murders.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. So why are all these cases unsolved? Nina and I go back and read through some of the inquest findings that have looked at some of these cases and they are utterly damning of the initial police investigations. One coroner talks about major failure. Another describes a violent death wrongly written off by police as an accident. They talk about people who are reported missing who are just not properly investigated, evidence that is lost, witnesses who are not taken seriously. And by the time other detectives do go back and pick up some of these cases, years have passed, those witnesses have grown old or died and more records have gone missing. Meaning these missing or murdered people like Sherylee keep falling through the gaps.

[Nina Young]

Alright, it's almost 1am and I am really, really tired.

[Dan Box]

Both Nina and I are troubled by what we've discovered.

[Nina Young]

Not like to be seen sleep. But my head is, my head is spinning trying to sort of digest all of the information that we got today. And there's just one point that's kind of stuck out to me that I just want to document. So I'm documenting it here. Okay, so we know that there are a lot of unsolved murders on the north coast and there's been a lot of talk of, of them being linked or, you know, serial killers. And there's been talk of malat. There's been talk of other serial killers that could have operated in the area and there's been task forces during that time that have looked at various links and we know that. But two of those women went missing near Tari 1996, Margaret is murdered. Four years after that, Cheryl Lee Masters goes missing. Those women were found with head injuries. And all this rambling is just for me to say, if you're looking at all these unsolved cases and you're the place and you and you're looking at linking cases and potential links, why is no task force publicly looked at those cases? Okay, I'm going to bed now. I've got that out of my system. Good night.

[Dan Box]

The next morning, Nina and I get ready to leave the north coast. This might be our last visit to Kendal. You know, I've been coming here for 10 years. But before we do leave, there's one last place we both want to go to. And there's the house. The house where all this started. Where 3 year old William Tyrrell is last known to have been alive because of a photograph taken at 9:37am on 12th September 2014. So we're sitting outside the house where William Tyrrell was reported missing. There's a grey sky, crowded trees on either side, the same silence you always hear on this road. There's nobody moving, no noise. And in the past 10 years, more than 10 years now, it's like everything has changed and nothing has changed. The people who live in this house weren't the people who lived in that house then. Plenty of people in this street have gone, some of them because of what happened. And yet the street is almost identical to the first time I came here, just after William was reported missing. God, it feels quite oppressive being here.

[Nina Young]

I was just looking at you and looking at how much more tired you are.

[Dan Box]

More tired than the last time we were here. Is it that obvious? Yeah, I do feel tired and I feel that there's too much of this in my head now, like last night as I went to sleep. It's at the point I say, don't think about William Tyrrell and don't think about Frank Abbott. And I'm not even close to the centre of this. I'm not one of those people actually directly affected by it. But I do feel tired. But there is one thing, thing which we haven't done. One place we haven't been and which we know that the police haven't searched. And that's the bird tree where we've been told that William's body was buried. But look, we've got no reason to think it's true. It's a secondhand account that Frank Abbott's brother told someone. And when we spoke to that person, they said they didn't remember. But still it is the one place we haven't been. And if we're going to look for answers to what happened. I think we do have to go, though, so I think we should go. All right. So if we start driving here from outside the house where William was reported missing, you drive down bennering drive, and here at the bottom, you've got a choice of left or right. And left takes you to Kendal, which is the town. But if you want to get away, you choose right, which takes you here. This is batar creek road. Single lane, no paint on the road, no street lights. Feels like you're driving deep into the forest. And here's the crossroads where the police most recently were alleging that William's foster mother disposed of his body, despite the fact there's no evidence she even went there that morning. And when they searched it, they found nothing. And the police haven't been back since that search, which was what, now four years? Country opens up a little. There's horses, a couple of really isolated buildings. So far, there's been two turnings, both of them onto very small roads. Haven't seen any other cars, haven't seen any people. But here we turn off the bitumen onto, and there's kind of a road now. It's very narrow, and now we're on dirt. So again, we're on the back roads. If you thought it was isolated before, now the forest is really crowding in, reaching into the road on either side, and the trees are hanging right over the road. So it's dark. There's no turning around on the road. There's no going back.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, the same feeling when we were driving brimbon road.

[Dan Box]

That was where Chevrolet masters was found, wasn't it?

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

And again, on the road out to where Margaret Cox's clothes were found was these thin dirt roads out when no one's looking. Up until this point, we've been following google maps, but that's now lost us. There's just no reception here. There's a couple of really small dirt tracks leading off this dirt track sign for the bird tree. 4km. I love the fact I'm indicating like there's anyone to see it. And we're getting higher now. Just through the few breaks in the trees, you can see we've come right almost to the top of this. Well, I guess it's a mountain. It's middle brother mountain. Okay, so now do we go here?

[Nina Young]

Looks like it.

[Dan Box]

I think, all up. It takes less than 20 minutes to drive from the house where William was reported missing to the bird tree. I feel actually like my skin's Crawling, I think it's.

[Nina Young]

The forest is so dense, the ground cover is so thick.

[Dan Box]

I can remember flying in the first time I came up here for this and looking out of the plane and looking down at the dark forest and these pools of black water and just thinking if William is lost in there, it's an almost. No, it's not impossible. Like he has to found and we do have to find answers. Come on, let's go and find the bird tree. There's a picnic table and a map.

[Nina Young]

Look at that tree.

[Dan Box]

That might be the bird tree. See, people have walked around the outside of it. There's like a faint path walking around it. It must be 4,5 meters across at the base. It's enormous. The bush is so thick, if you're going walking out onto it, you're going to be walking on a dense mass of rotting leaves and branches and bark. You'd only have to force your way out into that for 10, 15 meters and anything you left there will not be found. Unless the police were to come out in force on the kind of scale we've seen them do before, more than once in William's case, and just strip everything away so they can do it. Nina and I start walking out into the forest.

[Nina Young]

I reckon that way.

[Dan Box]

Even though I don't think we'll find anything.

[Nina Young]

The ground is just thick with wet.

[Dan Box]

Leaves and I don't think there's even anything to be found here. But having come this far, imagine if we didn't at least try. We kind of have to. Nina and I get separated in the forest, lost in our own thoughts and it takes a while before we find each other. How you doing? Yeah, I went out and I found a footpath that isn't marked on the maps and I followed it and it takes you to another one of these huge blackbut trees, but this one, the trunk's been hollowed out at the bottom and you can go inside. And inside there's this great pile of earth, almost like it's been dug up. And you can see termites are building spires up out of it. And then the path goes on and it turns out this forest is riddled with them, completely unmarked footpaths. And I followed two now and I have no idea where they take you, but the one thing I do know is that if you wanted to hide something, I can think of no better place. I try showing Nina where I was looking in the forest. So that footpath isn't marked on the maps, but that's not the one I ended up on. We stop at another of those giant trees. This tree is so big and inside the trunk it's been burnt out, maybe by a bushfire, but it's so big I can stand inside it. And you could fit, what, 15 people in here. And I look up and I cannot see the top. It's just blackness. I am. I think I actually feel sick.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

I think we came out when we started this, we were looking at the investigation into a missing child and we found child abuse and unsolved murders and broken lives and broken families. And I think I don't have. I think we're all human. I don't think we have the ability to deal with this much horror. But that's what the disappointment appearance of William Tyll has led to, is that horror, particularly for those people who knew him and loved him and now live with it. We've been looking for answers since the inquest finished and we've only got questions just with Frank Abbott. So much time has passed and the people with the answers to those questions, so many of them are dead. There's Frank's mum and his dad and his brother Ted, all of them alibi witnesses when he was put on trial for the murder of Helen Harrison. There's Frank's brother Bluey, who is the person who apparently said that William was here near the bird tree. There's the prison informant who gave evidence against Frank at his trial, all dead. There's Noel, Santa and Dooley, Iris's husband, who they're still with us, but they're old and they're no longer able to give evidence. And we know that, that the police failed to follow up on two of those witnesses, Frank's wife's sister and her cousin back in the 70s when they came forward. But the bigger question, and the question for right now is whether the police have followed up the evidence about Frank that has come up at the William Tyrrell inquest. And from what we've seen, they haven't. When we looked at all those unsolved murders up the north coast, I asked the police about them and they sent us a written statement that says there is no evidence to indicate a common offender was responsible for the disappearances. So they're saying there's no serial killer. And then I thought about that and I thought, actually, that's not entirely true, because I know the police have argued in court, because I was there, that three of those unsolved murders were committed by one offender, a serial killer. And I know from the inquest that the police do suspect that some of those murders were committed by Ivan Milat, another serial killer. And we know that the police also suspect some of those murders may have been committed by a third convicted serial killer, the Granny Killer. So if the police do accept that there may be three serial killers who've committed some of these dozens of unsolved murders, and the question is, will the police accept that there may be another killer out there who's not been convicted? Will the police investigate? And if not, all of these murdered women and children, all of those families like William, risk being forgotten. And I. I feel pretty sick at that thought. How do you feel?

[Nina Young]

Do you feel like I might cry?

[Dan Box]

Don't cry. Hey, you know what? You couldn't have done any more. You've done so much more than we ever set out to do, and more than I ever expected you to do. And for a long time, more than I knew you were doing. You couldn't have done any more. And now the rain comes. Oh, we should go. There is a postscript to this episode. Back at the start of this series, I talked about the sheer number of lives that have been caught up and damaged by the police investigation into William Tyburn's disappearance. Talking about family members and witnesses, those wrongly put under suspicion and arrested, even charged, and then their families. I'm tempted to add to that number the families of Helen Harrison, Margaret Cox and Sheryl Lee Masters, who now have to come to terms with the fact that the police and the inquest into William's disappearance received new, alleged information about their deaths and did not even contact either the witnesses or these women's families. After we spoke to one of those relatives, Sherily's brother, Tony Masters, he called police, asking who's now handling his sister's murder and if he could have an update. That was more than two months ago, and as of this morning, Tony has never heard back. But it doesn't have to end there. After 10 years in which the New South Wales Police Force has failed to find William Tyrrell, this may be a part of his legacy, that this alleged evidence has been uncovered and through. Through this podcast, it has been made public. It's now up to the police if and how they decide to act. A lot of different people have been involved in making this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was by Tiffany Dimmack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jasbar, Phoebe Zukowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Aidan Patrick. Original Music by Rory O' Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs, the editor at news.com is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Bo.