William Tyrrell’s foster mother tells inquest she heard a ‘high-pitched and sharp’ scream

William Tyrrell’s foster mother has told a coroner how she heard a shrill scream during the early moments of her heart-rending search for the three year old at their home on the NSW mid north coast in 2014.

• ‘It’s too quiet’: Foster mum’s frantic search for William

William Tyrrell’s foster mother heard a shrill “scream” in the first moments of her heart-rending search for the little boy in the Spider-Man suit.

During a gruelling evidence session before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame, the woman said she heard the sound at one end of the street, after rushing out of her mother’s Kendall home calling for William.

“It was like a scream. Like when a child hurts themselves unexpectedly,” the foster mother said.

William’s foster mother said she heard a “high pitched, sharp” scream.

MORE NEWS

Hadley: ‘I can’t change opinions of haters on social media’

One Nation demands probe amid gun cash backlash

Tourist’s shock at camera hidden in deodorant stick

“It was quick, it was high pitched, and it was sharp.”

She went into thick reeds in the direction of the noise.

“I got into the bush and I thought ‘I can’t see any red’, I thought ‘maybe I imagined it, maybe it was a bird’,” she said.

The inquest — now in its second day — is examining every piece of evidence unearthed so far in the case which has gripped the nation since William disappeared from his foster grandmother’s home on the Mid North Coast on September 12, 2014.

The little boy has been missing since 2014.

The foster mother also described the eerie silence when she first walked onto her mother’s front lawn and scanned for William.

“I couldn’t hear a thing it was silent, there was no wind, there was no birds, nothing,” she said.

“I’m standing there, why can’t I see him, why can’t I hear him.”

She said she immediately doubted William had simply wandered off.

“My immediate thought was somebody’s taken him,” she said.

The inquest also heard William’s foster mother rang a washing machine repair man Bill Spedding earlier on the morning William vanished because she was incensed her mother may have to wait two weeks for the appropriate machine parts.

“I remember thinking that’s ridiculous, I know those parts don’t take two weeks,” the foster mother told the inquest.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for my mum to have a washing machine that’s not working.”

A lawyer for Mr Spedding, Peter O’Brien said evidence from the foster grandmother stated Mr Spedding had been at the house just three days before William disappeared. He put it to the foster mother that her mother was wrong in stating it was going to take two weeks to repair the machine.

“It’s quite possible yes, she’s an elderly woman … she does tend to under exaggerate and over exaggerate at different times,” she said.