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- [00:00]
Yvette Elliott
I've got my photos kind of here, thinking one day I'll put them on the wall.
- [00:04]
Dan Box
But Yvette Elliott is showing me some photos in her home.
- [00:08]
Yvette Elliott
Yeah, it was just a moment in time where it kind of captured, you.
- [00:12]
Dan Box
Know, I've just arrived. We haven't set up for a proper interview yet and Yvette's dog starts bouncing around us in excitement.
- [00:19]
Yvette Elliott
This was before. So this is William off. The babe must be under one when this was the good old days.
- [00:27]
Dan Box
Yvette's house is neat and nice. White walls, the afternoon sun coming through the windows. And Yvette herself is lovely. She's welcoming, but also worried. The photos make her think back to a different time, years ago now.
- [00:45]
Yvette Elliott
So we were all Lane Cove ladies and we all lived in and around Lane Cove.
- [00:51]
Dan Box
Lane Cove is a suburb in Sydney. It's a bit posh. And the Lane Cove ladies just that. A group of women who'd meet up once a month and talk about their lives and their careers and their children.
- [01:05]
Yvette Elliott
So we used to go to music festival. Not many music festivals.
- [01:08]
Nina Young
What were they?
- [01:09]
Yvette Elliott
They were like a wine and food festivals and the kids are just dance at the front.
- [01:13]
Dan Box
One of those kids was William Tyrrell.
- [01:16]
Yvette Elliott
That was the happy days.
- [01:18]
Dan Box
Yeah, looks it.
- [01:19]
Yvette Elliott
You just wonder, what would we all be doing now if it wasn't for what happened.
- [01:26]
Dan Box
Are you suggesting that what happened to William may have fractured that group?
- [01:32]
Yvette Elliott
Oh, absolutely. Everything regarding our relationship changed.
- [01:39]
Dan Box
Years after William was reported missing. Detectives turned up at Yvette's door without warning. She and I sit down together for the proper interview and Yvette tells me what the police asked her.
- [01:52]
Yvette Elliott
It was incredibly targeted. It was very, very targeted and they were trying to find something. And I asked them whether they had any suspects and they said definitively, yes, they did. And there was a lot of questions. And I guess thinking back now, they were probably cleverly put together. Majority of it seemed to be very focused on William's mum.
- [02:20]
Dan Box
After a couple of hours, Yvette tells me the police left, finishing our interview. I turn off the microphone and then Yvette tells me how after saying goodbye to the detectives, she phoned her old friend William's foster mother, saying, I've just been interviewed by the police and it was the weirdest thing. And William's foster mother told her another of the Lane Cove ladies had just called, saying detectives had also been asking her questions. William's foster mother told Yvette the police were trying to throw her under the bus. I'm Dan Box and from news.com. this is witness William Tyrrell, episode three, the Foster Par. Try again.
- [03:20]
Nina Young
Hello. Hello. Hello.
- [03:22]
Dan Box
Yep.
- [03:23]
Nina Young
Talking on Mike. One door closed. Slide on.
- [03:31]
Dan Box
Okay, so this is unscripted.
- [03:34]
Nina Young
Yeah.
- [03:34]
Dan Box
So, Nina, you're the producer on this podcast. You've seen more than most people. You've been through documents, interview statements, seen or listened to hours of interviews that we've done so far. So, at this stage, months in, what do you think of the foster parents?
- [03:54]
Nina Young
I think I'd like to say upfront that I currently do not have any inkling, theory, predisposition on what happened to William. And the reason for that is, if you read through everything, I think you could make a flimsy case for almost any person of interest, and that includes, to me, the foster parents.
- [04:19]
Dan Box
It feels like everyone has an opinion on them. We can't name them for legal reasons, but their lives have been made public on front pages in newspapers and online in excruciating details. Have a look at this. That is incoming passenger cards dug out of the National Archives.
- [04:43]
Nina Young
So the date on this document is 1968?
- [04:46]
Dan Box
Yep. There's passenger cards from 1968 and 1970 showing the entry of a family into Australia from Papua New Guinea.
- [04:54]
Nina Young
Okay. What's a passenger card?
- [04:56]
Dan Box
Passenger card is when you fly into Australia or if you catch a ship in, you have to fill in your details, saying who you are, where you're going to be staying, who your parents are, if you're a child. And one of these passengers is a child born a few years earlier. It's William's foster mother. And you can see her father's an engineer, her mother's listed as a housewife. The reason for their journey is a holiday. They're going to stay a month. You got the flight number, you got the address in Queensland, where they're going to be staying. Someone's gone into the National Archives and dug these out, then shared them online. Yeah, they've been pored over and commented on, probably seen by, I'm guessing, hundreds, maybe thousands. These have been sent to journalists, so I've been sent them.
- [05:47]
Nina Young
What's supposed to be the significance of it?
- [05:50]
Dan Box
I don't know. The person who sent those to me told me you could do a whole podcast episode on those passenger cards.
- [05:57]
Nina Young
Okay, I can say that's not interesting.
- [05:58]
Dan Box
But that's the level of attention in William's foster mother and her husband.
- [06:02]
Nina Young
I think that's terrible. And I couldn't imagine living like that, just having every element of your life under the microscope. Must have been. It must be horrifying. For them.
- [06:12]
Dan Box
Okay, let's jump forward to 1996.
- [06:18]
Unnamed Friend
So in 1996, I started working at a new company and she was already there.
- [06:23]
Dan Box
This is another of the foster mother's close friends. She doesn't want to be identified, so these are her words, but not her voice.
- [06:31]
Unnamed Friend
So we kind of bonded and bonded at work and then bonded out of work and became a friendship outside of work as well.
- [06:38]
Dan Box
And what was your impression of her?
- [06:40]
Unnamed Friend
Smart. She was smart. She was fun, though. Like, it was just, you know, we'd go out shopping at lunchtime sometimes, just try on dresses. It was just. It was just fun. We were both sort of 30. 30 ish.
- [06:53]
Nina Young
Yeah.
- [06:53]
Unnamed Friend
I think I just turned 30 after.
- [06:55]
Dan Box
I started there a few years later. This friend was a bridesmaid at the foster mother's wedding.
- [07:02]
Unnamed Friend
We went up the night before because we had. They put on, like, welcome drinks for everybody on the Friday night. And then on the day we had hair and makeup done. It was just a happy day. You know, we went in an old car and the groom and his groomsmen showed up in a helicopter, which I'm not sure if the bride even knew about. She probably did, but I didn't know. It was hilarious. The. The red helicopter came in. It was just fun. It was really, really nice.
- [07:30]
Dan Box
She says the couple wanted to have a family, but they couldn't. And the reasons for that are personal and they're deeply painful. They did have IVF for years. William's foster mum would later tell detectives she wanted to have five or six children. She'd tell police that she also always wanted to foster and adopt. She'd say she'd always grown up wanting to help others. And it's weird, she'd tell police. That's a direct quote. But I always knew I would end up having children that weren't mine.
- [08:08]
Unnamed Friend
When they first started fostering, I was taken by how naturally they took to parenting.
- [08:13]
Dan Box
This is from a written reference her friend would later provide for William's foster parents.
- [08:19]
Unnamed Friend
They were not foster parents, they were parents. None of our friendship group considered the children to be foster children. They were simply their children. They did what lots of other families with young children do. They had a toy room, they ate dinner together as a family, went on holidays to the park, bike riding, adventures. And as the children grew up, they were a normal, close family.
- [08:44]
Dan Box
I also spoke to another of the foster mother's close friends, Sarah.
- [08:48]
Sarah
I thought she was a wonderful parent. I mean, I thought she was very thoughtful and considered very loving. And the children loved Her.
- [08:58]
Dan Box
Did you get any sense that there were difficulties within that household at that time?
- [09:04]
Sarah
Oh, no, none at all. I mean, I would say nothing other than what a normal parenting, children, family life is, you know, like nothing's perfect. Nothing's all roses and unicorns and rainbows. But no, I think her and her husband, both unbelievably good parents and, you know, and William in particular, if the foster father was away and then would come home and he'd be running towards him to greet him, just the absolute love was amazing. And I think even, you know, in the videos that they've had in the media, the home videos, like, I think it's very evident.
- [09:51]
William's Foster Father
Here I come. Where's that William guy? You're doing really well.
- [10:07]
Dan Box
A third friend, Yvette Elliot, showed me that photograph of their families together and talked about the Lane Cove Ladies.
- [10:14]
Yvette Elliott
I remember just coming up to Christmas and, you know, it was the gathering again of Lane Cove Ladies. And our kids were all of the same age. William being a couple of years younger, you know, was my son's shadow because he was the bigger boy. They were fun times, you know, we were just living life, I guess. There was, without thinking, it was just a. It was just, you know, a magical time. There was no evil, you know, there was no evilness that was to come.
- [10:49]
Dan Box
William was nine months old when he came to live with his foster parents. That was March 2012. So, Nina, this is the point when you start to have questions.
- [11:00]
Nina Young
I don't necessarily have questions about the relationship between them and William because I think it's fairly documented. And the picture that's painted, I think it paints a picture of a mother who is really struggling. She says at one Stage that by 8am in the morning, she's already incredibly frustrated and can't believe that she could be feeling that way by 8am in the morning. And it isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. Totally understandable. Where I start to have questions is how the foster mother described the relationship with William to the police. It just there seems like there's a disconnect between what I'm seeing in the foster care documents and what has been painted as a quite a happy relationship in police statements.
- [11:51]
Dan Box
Well, let's unpack that a bit. So the foster parents have very rarely spoken. This is them describing William.
- [11:58]
William's Foster Father
He's the cheeky, vibrant little boy, full of energy, loves interacting with his sister. He loved interacting with us.
- [12:10]
Dan Box
It's from an interview released by police less than a year after William was reported missing.
- [12:15]
William's Foster Father
I Mean, he's my little boy just bringing me to tears.
- [12:18]
Dan Box
They're pretty cheeky in that, aren't you?
- [12:20]
William's Foster Father
They're very cheeky. But also they've got that love, you know, and the father and boy love that, you know, he had, it was just.
- [12:32]
Sarah
And he adored. He adored. He adored his dad. Just absolutely. His eyes and his. There was a smile like, I look at some back at some of the pictures, and I look at pictures when William was smiling for me, and I look at pictures where William was smiling for his dad. And it's different.
- [12:53]
Dan Box
Daddy's little boy.
- [12:53]
Sarah
Oh, completely. They adored each other. Absolutely adored each other.
- [12:58]
Nina Young
And it's heartbreaking.
- [13:00]
Dan Box
And a few months later, on the first anniversary of William's disappearance, William's foster parents recorded an interview with the journalist Leah Harris from the Sunday Telegraph. The audio's not great, but you can hear them saying the same thing. One of their friends told me how William would always be waiting for his foster father to arrive home from work.
- [13:22]
William's Foster Father
He would always wait out the front with his sister. As soon as I drove in the driveway, they would be just leaping, running, jumping. That was the highlight of my day, every day, really. And I'm sure the highlight of theirs, too. You know, I need to come home and hugs and cuddles and kisses and go inside and start to do the routine of bath time and dinner and all those sorts of things.
- [13:48]
Dan Box
Eight years later, in 2022, the foster parents recorded another interview with Leah Harris, who by now was working as a TV reporter for Network ten. She asked them to describe their family life.
- [14:00]
Sarah
Just life was an adventure and it was to be enjoyed. And it was all about learning, discovery and just being so innocent and just. It's that joyness of just being so innocent and loving life that I remember most about William. How did him coming into your lives change your lives?
- [14:28]
William's Foster Father
Changed it forever, but in a really positive way.
- [14:32]
Dan Box
Nina, what you were saying was that we've got more than one account of that family's life together. There's what we know from the foster care records as what we know from court hearings. In April 2012, a month after William came to stay with his foster parents, an official from the state government team that was supporting the foster care visits the home. And he'd later say in court, and I was there, that the foster parents disciplined William's sister using timeouts. But for them, timeout meant time outside, and the sister was two at the time.
- [15:10]
Nina Young
See, there's a. There's. That's judgment. But, yeah, I would agree that's not appropriate for a two year old, which is, I assume, what the foster care person was saying. Yeah, yeah.
- [15:21]
Dan Box
And the foster mum also told this official that she'd threatened to smack William's sister but had never done it. And we've got other documents. So 11th of October 2013, William shows a strong preference for his foster dad, but rejects interaction with his foster mum. And this is what you were talking about. 29th of October 2013, the foster mum emailed their caseworker about William's behavioral issues. And she says it's like he's operating at warp speed. He's recorded as being defiant and sullen at daycare, but both of those are after a contact visit with his biological parents. And that's a pattern. So the worst of it that I can find is William cutting the hair of other kids at childcare and deliberately urinating on the floor, which are pretty bad behaviors. And more than once the foster mom emailed their caseworker saying she was struggling to understand why those contact visits couldn't be less frequent. And she says she was, quote, very tired physically and emotionally. Do you read anything into that?
- [16:33]
Nina Young
Yeah, I mean, like I said, that all sounds relatively what I would expect for a child who's in foster care. He's quite a young child. I can imagine that it would be really confusing for a kid to have these regular visits with one set of parents, go home to another set of parents and struggle to understand that. So that all sounds, I think, okay. And I can imagine that she would be feeling tired and frustrated and look.
- [17:02]
Dan Box
Being a parent isn't easy.
- [17:05]
Nina Young
No.
- [17:05]
Dan Box
So you're a parent? I'm a parent. I've got a 3 year old, a 10 year old and a 13 year old and I get tired and at times I might have thrown things just to deal with. I mean, there's frustration. There's been times when the three year old and I are both shouting at each other, but the difference is my life isn't documented.
- [17:32]
Nina Young
It's not documented. Yeah.
- [17:34]
Dan Box
So there is evidence in these documents that William's foster care placement was working. And you can hear it in those home videos go William. And in the documents, his foster care placement is described as being very stable. When William had his third birthday, his foster mum made him a cake in the shape of a fire engine.
- [17:59]
William's Foster Father
Happy birthday, William.
- [18:01]
Dan Box
I dare.
- [18:02]
William's Foster Father
Have you finished?
- [18:03]
Sarah
No, I don't.
- [18:05]
William's Foster Father
Lick your fingers. Lick your hand.
- [18:09]
Dan Box
And William told his case worker that he really loved his party, which was held in the family's backyard. There was friends from daycare and neighbours. This is mid 2014, a few months before he went missing. And at times, the records of his foster care show his behaviour seeming to get better. It might take only 20 or 30 minutes to settle him in bed at night rather than hours. At other times, though, his behaviour is harder to manage. There's hyperactivity. He's described as slapping and punching his carers, his defiant oppositional behaviour. It's not the simple happy family that the foster care parents have described in public. And William's foster mum is quite a private person and she's quite controlled and maybe controlling. This is her talking to Leah Harris again.
- [19:07]
William's Foster Mother
It's just so personal for us. I feel like I want to keep a lot of those really special memories for us, personal. They're our family memories and I know people want to know more, but I just. I've just got to keep some things private and special. It's just really hard now to keep talking about what happened on that morning.
- [19:36]
Dan Box
William's foster care worker went to the family's house on the 5th of September 2014. So that's nine days before William goes missing. And the records say that William ran up and hugged his caseworker around his legs. William was wearing his Spider man costume, which was his favorite. And the foster mum said William's behavior had been a struggle since the last contact visit with his parents. And for a while there'd been this back and forth where William's foster mother wanted to have fewer contact visits and William's birth mother wanted more. The foster parents wanted to formally adopt William, but they feared his birth mother would fight that in court. One thing that does strike me about this case is a lot of it comes down to judgments on motherhood. Do you?
- [20:27]
Nina Young
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned the birthday party. Yeah, I was looking at a photo of from that birthday party on social media. There's. So one person says the candles aren't even lit. How is this really a birthday party? The candles aren't even lit. Then someone else comes in and goes, this is incredibly dangerous because William is sitting at the corner of the table and it's pointed right at his neck. Any slip from any person could knock him onto the table. And it's just there was like 20, 30 comments of people picking apart this photo. Literally a photo of a little boy smiling in front of a birthday cake.
- [21:05]
Dan Box
So making judgments on the foster mother's parenting. Yeah, you do see that. The trolls online compare the two mothers. So I've seen posts describing Carly as William's natural mother and saying that her family needs reunification, saying William belongs to his natural mother and the thoughts of foster parents are irrelevant. And I've seen another where that says William's mummy pleads don't hurt him, while the Fosters still hide their faces. But you can't help but compare the two sets of parents. And you can't help but compare the life William had with his foster parents to the life he had before. So William's foster parents take him and his sister on expensive holidays months apart, to the Gold coast, to Cairns, to Bali. When his birth mum is told about the Bali trip, she says they went again. Lucky them. And there were other trips including to Kendal on the mid north coast of New South Wales. William's foster mother's parents lived there.
- [22:13]
William's Foster Father
It was normally a long weekend, like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Saturday, Sunday, Monday or something like that. Might be once every three or four months, especially Nana's birthday or what. It might be there be an occasion, but it's also a good time to catch up.
- [22:30]
Dan Box
Kendall is about a four or five hour drive north from Sydney, which is not an easy thing to do with young children.
- [22:38]
William's Foster Father
The trip included, you know, the halfway point, stopping at their favorite little snack that they'd get, you know, which would be McDonald's. I mean that's really the only time that they would actually get it. On the way up and on the way back I think it was because just it's the halfway point. They get their Happy Meal type thing and they got excited but they're still excited about the overall journey which was to Nanna's. So that was, that was what they were looking forward to.
- [23:07]
Dan Box
William's foster Nanna lived in a big house at the top of a wide dead end road called Benaroon Drive.
- [23:14]
Sarah
That location, it's quiet. The only people who go up that road are typically the people who live there. A cul de sac at Mum and Dad's place. They knew it, he knew it. He was incredibly comfortable there. So like he knew the layout, he knew everything. You, you have to assume that children are safe in their own backyards and in their own homes and they've been up there more than enough.
- [23:41]
Dan Box
But the lead up to that last visit was unsettled. William's foster grandfather had recently died. His foster Nana was about to sell the house. And there are emails from the time between William's foster mother and his case worker talking again about those contact visits with the biological parents. And on the 9th of September, William's foster mum sends his caseworker an email saying I am close to giving up or in. And that phrase, close to giving up or in, would get repeated over and over in the years since, both online and in the newspapers. One newspaper said the phrase appears to explain at least some of the dramatic developments in the police investigation that followed. And it's used to almost imply that there's something darker about the foster mom. And it does contrast with what the foster mom later told police. Have a look at this. So this is a copy of the foster mum's interview with police or one of her interviews with police.
- [24:52]
Nina Young
Yeah. So this is a police report from 2016.
- [24:56]
Dan Box
2016.
- [24:57]
Nina Young
So this is not the initial statement that she gave to police.
- [25:00]
Dan Box
This is a couple of years later.
- [25:02]
Nina Young
Okay. So it says, and this is the thing that kills me about this, is that he and I were just reaching that absolute 100% open, true mum son relationship. And he was just beautiful.
- [25:20]
Dan Box
Which does seem to directly contrast this idea that she's close to giving up or giving in. But when you actually read the full email chain, I think it's been misreported. I don't think in the context of that email chain that the foster mum is talking about giving up or giving in about William's behavior. The sentence is I'm close to giving up or in. I don't have the energy to argue against this.
- [25:51]
Nina Young
That's a good point.
- [25:53]
Dan Box
I think giving up or giving in is about the back and forth on the number of contact visits with the biological parents. The email chain shows that they're not going to reduce the number of visits like the foster mum has asked. And the foster mom is reacting against this back and forth, but she's close to giving in. She's not giving up or giving in about being a foster mom or about dealing with William's behavior, which is how it's been presented in the years that have followed.
- [26:25]
Nina Young
Is that one interpretation? Should I read the whole sentence?
- [26:31]
Dan Box
Go for it. Yay.
- [26:32]
Nina Young
Okay. So she's replying to an email. I haven't censored my initial thoughts because they are still there, but I am close to giving up or in. I don't have the energy to argue against this. And this is what you're saying, arguing against the visits. I'm feeling pretty ragged at the moment. William has not settled one bit and is still overly emotional. But managing it better with help, it's possible. I get your interpretation of it. I still think, reading through the whole chain, that she was a woman who was struggling.
- [27:08]
Dan Box
Yeah. In that same email, the foster mum says the family are going up to her mum's house in Kendall that weekend. So the plan is to go up on the Friday, which is the 12th of September 2014, but the day before. So Thursday the 11th of September, they make a snap decision to go up a day early. So they book their cats in for boarding at short notice and they drive up, stopping at McDonald's and they recorded ordering at the counter on CCTV. So all of that has been confirmed by police and the foster mother's phone records from that day have been published online. So you can see that apart from William's caseworker and William's foster nana, who she calls and maybe the staff at McDonald's and maybe the people looking after their cats because they go up early, no one knows that William is going to be in Kendal the next morning. So they got there late in the evening of the 11th, about 8:30 or 9:00, the kids went to bed. William is sharing a room with his foster dad and William's sister is sharing with their mum and the grown ups sat up talking. The foster dad was tired, he went to bed. Next, William was not scared of the dark and at home he slept with the door shut.
- [28:30]
Gary Jubilant
Are you ready to get an inside look at crime from someone who has investigated some of Australia's worst crimes?
- [28:37]
Dan Box
It was like Aladdin's cave. The luminal found bloodied footprints and bloodied.
- [28:42]
Unnamed Friend
Handprints on a wall.
- [28:43]
Dan Box
So it's just like a horror movie.
- [28:45]
Gary Jubilant
Former homicide detective Gary Jubilant sits down with cops, crims, addicts, victims, small time cheats and big town lawyers as they tell their incredible stories.
- [28:55]
William's Foster Father
My house got raided. Next thing you know I got bail refused. Next thing you know I'm on a.
- [28:58]
Dan Box
Truck to park le prison.
- [29:00]
Gary Jubilant
Listen to I catch killers early and ad free on Crimex plus on Apple podcasts today or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:11]
Dan Box
Cocaine is a global industry where the profits are counted up in millions and the losses measured out in murders. Because it's only business and right now business is good. And I'm like torture seller. What are you talking about? I don't think we can arrest our.
- [29:30]
Nina Young
Way out of this.
- [29:32]
Dan Box
Listen to Cocaine Inc.
- [29:34]
Unnamed Friend
Wherever you get your podcasts or visit.
- [29:36]
Dan Box
Cocaineinc.Com au William was the first to wake up on 12 September, according to his foster parents. In one of their conversations with Leah Harris, William's foster father said they watched TV together.
- [29:52]
William's Foster Father
William and I were in one room but William wanted to watch. I think it was bananas in pyjamas or Something like that off and Sam. And so we're watching that in the morning. And so that was good fun because he was giggling and laughing and enjoying himself.
- [30:06]
Sarah
And that was the sound that you woke to that morning? Yeah, the laughter. The laughter, yeah, it was. Giggle was infectious.
- [30:13]
William's Foster Father
Oh, incredible.
- [30:14]
Dan Box
Yeah.
- [30:14]
Sarah
People would hear that and you couldn't help but smile.
- [30:19]
Dan Box
William's foster mother told police that she got him dressed that morning.
- [30:24]
Sarah
I remember the discussion I had with William about putting on his Spider man clothes because I wanted him to wear a singlet, he didn't want to wear a singlet. So the compromise was he'd wear a Spider Man T shirt underneath his Spider man clothes. So he was spider manned out completely. You know, all these little things that I just remember, it was just a normal family doing normal family things.
- [30:50]
Dan Box
Except one thing wasn't normal. In another of their conversations with the journalist Leah Harris, William's foster mother, described seeing two cars parked on the dead end road opposite her mum's house.
- [31:03]
William's Foster Mother
When we woke up, I always open up this sliding door that's on the veranda looking out back down Binneroon Drive from Mum's place. And as I opened it and I walked out because there's normally a kookaburra that comes up on to the balcony of the veranda and I sort of just say hello to the kookaburra. But I'm looking out over the veranda and I see two cars and I see these two cars just sitting there in the road. And my first thought was, oh, that's, that's odd. I was, I looked at these cars thinking, why would two cars be parked on Benaroon Drive? And I looked again and both these cars had their driver's side windows down. And I just looked again and I thought, well, that's weird because they were parked in the middle of two driveways and you know, and I had direct view of them, they would have had direct view of me. And I just, I thought it's odd and went back inside and didn't think another thing of it.
- [32:07]
Dan Box
It's odd because you don't see a lot of cars parked on Benny Drive. There's few houses there and each of them has got a long drive with space for a few cars. So you don't park on the road if you live there or if you're visiting and you don't go there unless you do live there or you've got a good reason to do so. And something else is odd too. William's foster mother told Leah Harris she forgot about Seeing the two cars, then remembered seeing them the same night.
- [32:40]
William's Foster Mother
I realized that night that William went missing, that I had actually seen two cars.
- [32:48]
Dan Box
But she told police she didn't remember this until a few days later.
- [32:54]
Nina Young
I remember reporting the other cars to the guys in the police rescue van that was parked here when he. When we picked up my sister from the airport. Because on the way home from the airport, I'm driving the car and I just went, there were cars there. And my sister goes, what cars? And I've gone, oh, my God. So that's when I've talked about the two cars.
- [33:13]
Dan Box
So maybe that's a mistake. One time she says she remembered seeing the cars that night, and another time she says she remembered seeing the cars a few days later. But there are other confusions. On one occasion, William's foster mother seems to say one of the cars was on the road the morning she reported William missing. When the first police officer arrived, his name was Chris Rowley.
- [33:40]
William's Foster Mother
Because when Chris Rowley came up, he was a responding policeman from when I called Triple O. I actually walked across where that white station wagon was because I met him on the road. And as Chris Rowley's coming up Benaroon Drive, I'm on the left hand side, standing near where that white car, that white station wagon was. I've walked past there.
- [34:03]
Dan Box
So it's not obvious there if William's foster mother is saying she walked past the white station wagon when Chris Rowley arrived, or if she's saying she walked past where the station wagon had been. But in her interview with police, she seems more certain. She says the cars weren't there when Chris Rowley arrived.
- [34:25]
Nina Young
I'm not making this up. Those cars were there and they were outside that house. And when Chris Rowley came up, those cars weren't there.
- [34:33]
Dan Box
So listening to the different interviews, you might not be sure if William's foster mother is consistent on whether the station wagon was there or it wasn't.
- [34:46]
Nina Young
I mean, I found that the description of the cars, I definitely noticed this as well, that she's been a bit inconsistent about the timings of the cars. It seems to me that the police, that the police haven't been able to verify at any point over the years that the cars were there.
- [35:09]
Dan Box
You're right, yeah. In his witness statement, Chris Rowley, the police officer, doesn't mention the cars being there. And the police have asked neighbours and nobody says they saw them. So why might the cars be important?
- [35:26]
Nina Young
Well, the cars are important. If we're looking at the theory that William was Abducted. Right. So if we're looking at the abduction theory, which is already statistically the least likely thing.
- [35:42]
Dan Box
Yeah.
- [35:43]
Nina Young
To have happened, those cars being there and the time that they were there is really, really important to nail down. If the cars in fact weren't there and they can verify that they weren't there, then that makes a case in a completely different direction. So that's just as important.
- [36:00]
Dan Box
And in different interviews, it's William's foster mum who keeps coming back to the importance of her seeing those cars.
- [36:07]
William's Foster Mother
So either they're involved or they've seen what's happened and we just need them to come forward to say this is what we saw.
- [36:18]
Sarah
So from your memory, were they gone when you realised that William had gone missing? Were they not there anymore?
- [36:25]
William's Foster Mother
I really realized that they weren't there that night when I remembered walking across the road to see Chris Rowley.
- [36:33]
Dan Box
So there William's foster mother is again, talking about remembering seeing those cars that night. And to make it all more confusing, there was a witness who was interviewed by police only years later, who described seeing a white Holden driving near where William was reported missing on the day he disappeared. Only that witness described seeing a Holden sedan, not a station wagon, which William's foster mother described. And any inconsistency in someone's evidence, it can attract suspicion.
- [37:12]
Sarah
They took our laptops and we were grilled.
- [37:15]
William's Foster Father
We were completely grilled, you know, separately, in isolation, in back of detectives vehicles. They took my vehicle away. They completely searched it, checked it. You know, I mean, they did, they did everything.
- [37:25]
Sarah
And we had multiple conversations with multiple police people and, you know, detectives and all sorts of other police, always just checking in, just looking at, you know, corroborating things, checking with us, all sorts of things. And I remember saying to you that we would had to have been their prime suspects because we were the last people to see him. And if they didn't completely investigate us, I would be absolutely gobsmacked because you've got to rule us out.
- [38:07]
Dan Box
I remember at the time I was newspaper reporter speaking to a senior detective days after William disappeared. And he told me, we've ruled out both sets of parents. And then the years passed, and the Department of Family and Community Services, so the state government body that manages foster care, continued to give William's foster parents other children to look after. And that feels like a judgment on them as parents as well, saying, these guys are safe, we can give them other children to look after. William's foster parents kept calling for more public attention on William's disappearance.
- [38:50]
William's Foster Father
Here for Some wonderful kids. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to the Kendall Public School choir who are going to sing Bring Him Home, the official Where's William? Campaign theme song as chosen by William's mummy and daddy. Give them a big round of applause.
- [39:08]
Dan Box
We're coming up to a very important week Where's William Week. The search for little William Tyrrel. Up to a thousand people to pack into the Kendall showgrounds to offer their.
- [39:17]
William's Foster Father
Support not only to William Tyrrell's family.
- [39:22]
Dan Box
What is called a walk for William. Now, these will be held across New South Wales as well.
- [39:27]
Gary Jubilant
Flyers.
- [39:27]
Dan Box
They're asking for everyone to get involved, get on board if you know something. Please, please say something.
- [39:35]
Sarah
We can't let people forget William. We can't. It's a three year old boy that was abducted. How can we? The public police say that's okay and let it go.
- [39:53]
Dan Box
They also called for more police attention on William's disappearance, including in this interview with Leah Harris.
- [40:00]
Sarah
Will you ever give up fighting for him?
- [40:03]
Yvette Elliott
Never.
- [40:04]
William's Foster Father
Never till my last breath.
- [40:07]
Sarah
Absolutely. Absolutely. If police think they've seen the last of us, big mistake. You won't be going quietly. We will not give up on William and we will not let other people give up on him. He is too important to give up on. Never going to happen. Ever.
- [40:30]
Dan Box
William's foster parents have declined to be interviewed for this series on advice from their lawyers. I have met them. We meet in safe houses at different hotels and when we meet, we turn off our phones, which might sound paranoid, but they have reason to be paranoid. William's foster parents know in recent years that the police have been intercepting their calls. They know they've had listening devices in their homes and surveillance cameras outside it. And we'll get into all of that later in this series. William's foster mother has given us a written statement and it's the first time she's said anything in public about William's disappearance in the years since she was publicly identified in the media and by the police as a suspect. These are her words. Just over 10 years ago, my little boy, William Tyrrell, disappeared from my mother's yard at her house at Kendal. I believe that William was taken. I have no idea who took William or what happened to him. If he is in fact dead. I have no idea where his little body is. I have no knowledge of or involvement in his disappearance. Even though William was not my child by birth. I loved William as much as any mother could love her child. I loved him as if he was my child by Birth, if not more. It did not matter one bit that he was not connected to us biologically. William made my life complete. I loved him fiercely. I just loved being his mummy. My life with William was happy, fun and an adventure. Every day was different. Never, ever for a moment did I regret becoming a foster mother. We were a family, not the traditional version of a family. It didn't matter. We were and still are a family and we connected as one. For the past five years, the police have done nothing to try to discover who took William and what has happened to him. Instead, they have concentrated all their efforts on trying to build a case that I was in some way to blame for his death and the disposal of his precious little body. They have gone to great lengths to blacken my character in the media. I believe that if the police had properly investigated this case, instead of persecuting me, they may well have found the person responsible for William's disappearance. It's challenging to have hope and build plans for the future when our hearts remain shattered and in pieces. All I can hope for is that some person who knows something comes forward. Working on this podcast, I drove up to the house of Yvette Elliot, the old friend of William's foster parents, who told me about the Lane Cove ladies. We talked about how for years after William went missing, different police seemed to agree the foster parents had nothing to do with his disappearance. But something must have made them suspicious, because Yvette told me how detectives turned up at her house asking questions in October 2021.
- [43:56]
Yvette Elliott
It was incredibly targeted. It was very, very targeted and they were trying to find something and I, you know, I had nothing to give them.
- [44:06]
Dan Box
They told you they had a suspect, they didn't tell you who it was at that stage, no.
- [44:11]
Yvette Elliott
They didn't necessarily categorically mention William's mum. But when you look back at the pointed questions and how much time was spent on her personality, on her relationships, on who she was as a person then, you know, it was very much. I became very much aware of who they were focused on.
- [44:39]
Dan Box
Looking back now at that interview with the police and everything that's happened before after William went missing, what's your perspective of the police now and has that changed.
- [44:57]
Yvette Elliott
Before? I had the absolute respect for police and when I was 18, I wanted to join the police, so I absolutely held the police in the highest regard. I don't feel that way anymore. I'm nervous for William's mum and dad because it feels like a very targeted campaign. And now their attention has only turned to one person. And that terrifies me.
- [45:29]
Dan Box
After leaving Yvette's, I also spoke to two other friends of William's foster parents. They both described how the police came asking questions.
- [45:39]
Unnamed Friend
I found the questioning quite. I didn't understand why they wanted to know about her past boyfriends and, like, what's the relevance? Asking me things like, what sort of family were they? And I just said, they're just a normal family. Well, do they sit down and have dinner together? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. They just felt like they were trying. It felt like they knew what they wanted to know and they were trying to find evidence to support that. And I was like, I'm the wrong person. I'm the wrong person.
- [46:12]
Dan Box
Why were you the wrong person?
- [46:14]
Unnamed Friend
Well, because I don't believe that they had anything to do with William's disappearance, so. And I've known his foster mother since 1996. Right. And I know her well. I've been on holidays with her. I've been her bridesmaid. Like, I know her well.
- [46:33]
Dan Box
There's also something else, another reason I wanted to talk to this woman in particular. That's because her name came up in court last year. One of the detectives investigating William's disappearance, Sean Ogilvy, was giving evidence about all the evidence they've gathered, including, quote, a substantial number of witness statements. Sean Ogilvy said four people had declined to give a witness statement and he named them. This woman is one of those four people, and you're one of those four names. What did you think when you heard that?
- [47:12]
Unnamed Friend
I was. I was just super angry, super angry that my friends had to sit in a courtroom and hear that. I refused to support them because I was never asked. I did not decline. I was never asked. I was never even asked to provide a statement or that reference or whatever it was. I have provided other references in the past. I've recently been asked to provide one for my friend's lawyer. I did it that day. I was never, ever asked to provide that. And it made me very angry that my name was read out and that they had to sit there and listen to that.
- [47:49]
Dan Box
If you had been asked to give a statement, what would you have said?
- [47:53]
Unnamed Friend
Well, I don't know. I don't know anything about what they were asking. I don't know what they were asking for because I was never asked.
- [48:03]
Dan Box
If they were asking you if you'd ever seen any evidence that William's foster mum or foster dad could intimidate a child, what would you have said?
- [48:13]
Unnamed Friend
Um, yeah, I've seen the dad be a bit cranky, but nothing outside the ordinary bounds of parenting. Parenting kids is hard. Not everyone's an angel. You lose your temper sometimes, but that's what I would have said. Not physical, though.
- [48:27]
Dan Box
Do you think they were good parents?
- [48:30]
Unnamed Friend
I do. I really do. They really made a family for those children. They really, they got into bike riding and, you know, the backroom at their house before they renovated, the whole back room was just for the kids play area with chalkboards, bags of toys and there was always laughter in that house. They, they were a fun family.
- [48:51]
Dan Box
And that's what you would have told the police if you had given that statement.
- [48:55]
Unnamed Friend
Yeah.
- [48:58]
Dan Box
So did the police get confused? Were they mistaken to say this woman declined to give a witness statement? Why are the police targeting William's foster parents? And who's in charge of their investigation? That's next time on Witness. If you know anything about William's disappearance, please contact Crime Stoppers. There's a number in the show notes for this series, but if there's anything you want to tell us, you can email witness.com au or. I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential. 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 dimack. The producers have been Emily Pidgeon, Nicholas Adams, Jasbah, Phoebe Zukowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Voice acting on this episode by Bridget Bush. Research by Aidan Patrick. Original Music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news.com au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Bo.
- [50:25]
Gary Jubilant
The podcast Faith on Trial looks into Hillsong, both in Australia and the US and takes both the listener and hosts on unexpected twists and turns. In the story of Brian Houston and.
- [50:38]
Dan Box
The singing preachers, there are two incidents involving Pastor Brian.
- [50:43]
Gary Jubilant
The Australian journalists uncovered a litany of alleged criminal behavior in the megachurch.
- [50:48]
Dan Box
Financial gifts were being given to the.
- [50:50]
Gary Jubilant
Leaders of the church. Listen to Faith on Trial Hill song ad free on CrimeX plus, on Apple Podcasts today or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [51:01]
William's Foster Father
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