William Tyrrell’s foster mum breaks silence amid new claims aired about person of interest in case

William Tyrrell’s foster mother has called for police to investigate bombshell new claims aired about another person of interest in the case.

William Tyrrell’s foster mother has broken her silence to call for police to investigate a convicted child abuser allegedly linked to the victims of three unsolved murders.

It follows a series of groundbreaking reports this week by news.com.au’s Witness: William Tyrrell podcast, revealing that evidence of these alleged links has not been followed up by police.

“In the middle of William’s inquest we find three more families who don’t have answers,” said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

“That’s not acceptable. How can they be forgotten?”

Asked if she thought police should investigate this new evidence, much of which was tendered to the inquest into William’s disappearance and suspected death, she said, “Yes.”

It is the first time the three-year-old’s foster mother has spoken publicly since she was identified as a “suspect” by police investigating William’s disappearance in a leaked, front-page story in September 2021.

That described police as “now confident they will solve the mystery of the disappearance of the three-year-old boy” who was reported missing from a house on the NSW Mid North Coast in 2014.

Almost four years on from that newspaper report the foster mother has not been charged and has repeatedly denied any involvement in what happened to William.

After reviewing the police investigation, the lawyer leading an inquest into the case said last November it was “beyond argument” that no forensic or eyewitness evidence had been found “that provides a clue to his disappearance”.

NSW Police Force detectives did submit a brief of evidence to the state’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in June 2023, seeking to charge William’s foster mother over his disappearance.

There has been no public statement of the ODPP’s advice in the two years since, however, with a spokeswoman referring our questions about this to the police force, who themselves refused to answer.

The same detectives did charge both of William’s foster parents with unrelated offences, including assaulting and intimidating another child, who is not the three-year-old.

William’s foster father had his convictions overturned on appeal, and the foster mother will learn the results of her own appeal at a court hearing today.

William Tyrrell’s foster parents have broken their silence. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

Frank Abbott, then 79, in June of 2014. Abbott is a person of interest in the disappearance of William Tyrrell.

The convicted child abuser allegedly linked to the three unsolved murder victims in evidence before the inquest is a man called Frank Abbott.

Abbott was previously identified as a “person of interest” to police investigating William’s disappearance, but was never called to answer questions at the inquest.

Over the past week, news.com.au has published a series of reports about the unsolved murders of 17-year-old Helen Harrison, 38-year-old Margaret Cox and 17-year-old Cherylee Masters.

Cherylee Masters went missing in 2000 and her body was found six years later.

Margaret Cox went missing in 1996 and her body was found the following weekend.

Helen Harrison, found murdered near East Kurrajong in 1968. Frank Abbott was arrested in June 1991 over her death but was acquitted of her murder.

All three went missing close to where Abbott was living at the time and evidence before the inquest includes witnesses describing alleged links between him and each of the three victims.

We are not suggesting the alleged links are true, or that Abbott was in any way involved in either case, just that they are contained in evidence before the inquest and have not been fully investigated. Abbott has previously been found not guilty of murdering Helen.

Despite having possession of this evidence for several years now, the victim’s families and other witnesses said they have not been contacted by the police.

Abbott, who is in prison for sexually assaulting two girls and a boy, has privately denied any involvement in what happened to William.

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Originally published as William Tyrrell’s foster mum breaks silence amid new claims aired about person of interest in case