What led to William Tyrrell’s disappearance and what’s happened since?
People close to the William Tyrrell case have made some extraordinary revelations during a week of frantic searching for the little boy’s remains.
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The young boy who vanished in his Spider-Man suit became the subject of a seven-year investigation into what remains one of Australia’s most perplexing missing person cases.
William Tyrrell is yet to be found despite years of detective work, the identification of hundreds of people of interest, a $1 million reward for information and a coronial inquiry that remains open.
William, then 3, was playing “tigers” with his sister before he vanished at his foster grandmother’s home in Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast, in 2014.
Police returned to the house five days ago and have spent the week scouring the property and surrounding bushland after launching a fresh search based on new information.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller earlier this week confirmed detectives were focusing on one person of interest.
In a radio interview, he made an unusual public criticism of the way the early investigation into William’s disappearance was run.
He said the current team had inherited “a bit of a mess” of an investigation that had initially “wasted” time pursuing individuals who were “clearly” not linked to the crime.
“The investigation was looking at some persons of interest that were clearly not, and I think some time was wasted on that, and bushland is overgrown,” Mr Fuller told 2GB on Tuesday.
It has since emerged that the person of interest in the case is William’s foster mother, a 56-year-old woman from Sydney.
She has strongly denied any involvement in or any knowledge of his disappearance and there has been no evidence found.
William’s foster parents were on Wednesday charged over the alleged assault of a child — not William — on Sydney’s upper north shore.
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, NSW Police said the couple were charged with common assault of a child who cannot be named for legal reasons.
In the years since William disappeared, his foster parents have led the ‘Where’s William’ campaign and made regular public pleas for his safe return.
William went to live with his foster family in 2012 after he was taken from his biological parents as a toddler.
On September 11, 2014, William Tyrrell, 3, his five-year-old sister and his foster parents drove to visit his foster mother’s mother in Kendall. He disappeared about 10.15am the next day.
Police released a recording of the triple-0 call his foster mother made shortly after he vanished, in which she described his disappearance as “completely out of character”.
“We heard him roaring around the garden,” she said.
“Then I thought, ‘Oh, I haven’t heard him, I better go check on him’. And I couldn’t find him.”
Within hours residents and emergency service workers combed the scrub, creeks and paddocks for him but he appeared to have vanished without a trace.
High-profile detective Gary Jubelin, who had previously led the investigation into the Bowraville murders, was put in charge of the case five months later.
Mr Jubelin headed the investigation for more than four years from early 2015 until 2019 when he was sensationally stood down as the head of Strike Force Rosann not long before he left the NSW Police Force.
He was convicted in April last year of making four illegal recordings of interviews with a person of interest in the case and fined $10,000.
Mr Jubelin this week gave a radio interview in which he defended William’s foster mother as a “decent human being”.
He said there had been nothing to make him suspect she or her husband had anything to do with his disappearance at the time he left the investigation.
Gary Jubelin told Sydney radio 2GB he had interrogated the couple and bugged their car to listen in on their conversations before they were ruled out as suspects.
At one stage in the investigation, there were about 600 persons of interest.
Bill Spedding, a washing machine repairman, was publicly named as a person of interest and wrongly targeted by police in 2015.
Mr Spedding is suing NSW Police for their handling of the case and told ABC Four Corners the experience ruined his life.
He was cleared in 2019 by a coronial inquest which heard evidence supporting his alibi that he was with his wife at the time William went missing.
During the inquest, Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame heard evidence from William’s birth parents and foster family as well as information gathered by police.
The inquest was interrupted by the pandemic and eventually concluded on October 8, with the Coroner yet to deliver her findings.
William’s biological mother this week told The Daily Telegraph she was a “mess” but that she was glad detectives were looking at a new person of interest.
His biological grandmother has shared her heartbreak and said she hopes the fresh search will finally uncover answers about what happened to her grandson.
“He’s not alive. I knew he wasn’t alive for the last seven years. So, I’m just scared,” she told A Current Affair.
She said she didn’t believe the theory William might have fallen from a balcony and his body disposed of, saying “I don’t think anyone really knows what happened that morning”.
A Current Affair reported that emails from a case worker in 2014 revealed William’s foster parents were making inquiries about adopting the boy.
No members of William’s biological or foster families can be named for legal reasons.
Police have said they are looking for William’s remains.
Originally published as What led to William Tyrrell’s disappearance and what’s happened since?
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