AJ Elfalak: Police still search for answers to boy’s disappearance

While Anthony “AJ” Elfalak was miraculously found alive after going missing for three days, police investigations are still ongoing.

The state’s police commanders were sitting in a statewide hook-up discussing what at that point was feeling eerily like another William Tyrrell case.

It had been almost 72 hours since Anthony “AJ” Elfalak was last seen at his family’s Putty property, and with every hour that passed, it seemed less and less likely that the three-year-old would be found alive.

But, as the high-ranking cops sat discussing the case, the news came through – AJ had been found alive.

Strike Force Jaylang was formed after the youngster went missing and while he has been reunited with his parents, police investigations are ongoing.

The moment Anthony “AJ” Elfalak was found by a PolAir crew. Picture: NSW Police

Police sources said detectives ­believe AJ likely simply wandered off from the rural home where his parents Anthony and Kelly moved their four sons ahead of lockdown – ­however some of the questions that initially left police scratching their head still remain.

Comparisons between the disappearances of AJ and that of William Tyrrell were first made very early on.

Having missed many important steps in the early days after William went missing from a Kendall property in 2014, this time around detectives were taking no chances.

That was evidenced by the seizure of a white ute which matched the ­description given by a member of AJ’s family about a car seen in the area around the time he went missing.

AJ’s father Anthony openly raised the possibility his son had been kidnapped after he had been missing for 48 hours.

“Little boys don’t just up and disappear,” Mr Elfalak said.

AJ Elfalak is back home. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Peter Lorimer

Police are understood to have even looked into historical links between Mr Elfalak and the Bandidos bikie gang, however there has never been any evidence of their ­involvement.

While police, SES and RFS crews led the search, they were joined in the dense bushland by Mr Elfalak and his wife – and dozens of relatives and friends who had driven up from Sydney – in search of their son.

Which is why when at 3am on Monday morning, just hours before AJ would be found, a number of men linked to the family arrived at a local cafe and woke up the owner, the ­assumption was they wanted coffee to keep the search going.

Instead they asked her for alcohol and settled in for a drinking session.

The next morning half-drunk bottles of Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels remained on the cafe’s bench.

That same morning, AJ’s godfather Alan Hashem appeared on multiple breakfast TV shows claiming that the only plausible assumption was that the little boy had been abducted.

“There is no other reasonable ­explanation than an abduction,” he said.

Mr Hashem also raised queries about CCTV cameras installed on a tree overlooking the driveway leading up to the property.

The CCTV footage, he claimed, had mysteriously cut out at the exact moment it was needed.

Others claimed the cameras had been damaged weeks ­earlier, with ­Superintendent Tracy Chapman saying on Monday even she did not know what had happened.

“I don’t understand what has ­happened with some footage, however it’s subsequently part of our ­inquires still,” Supt Chapman said.

Mum Kelly Elfalak collapses trying to get to the scene of where her son AJ was found alive. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Peter Lorimer

AJ and his rescuers.

AJ found safe and sound.

Detectives are understood to be currently talking with experts on survivability about whether the condition AJ was found in matches up with what would be expected of a young boy alone in the bush for three nights.

When picked up out of a creek by SES volunteer Greg “Bluey” Chalmers on Monday, AJ was covered in ant bites and scratches, had a full nappy, and bruises up and down his legs.

He was starving and dehydrated, and in the back of an ambulance he devoured a pizza, a banana and two bottles of water.

Moments before he picked up AJ, Mr Chalmers had been searching in a wombat hole and said he saw what appeared to be a little boy’s footprint.

Experts have raised the possibility AJ had sheltered from the freezing 2C nights by crawling into a hole and that his severe autism had in many ways helped him, as AJ may not have realised at any point he was lost.

However, in the pandemonium that followed AJ being rescue, Mr Hashem doubled down on his comments.

“Did he leave, who did he leave with? Did anything sinister happen?” he said to media.

“These are questions that need to still be answered and we will not stop until we actually find the truth.”

Until detectives have completed their investigations, they are questions which remain.

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Originally published as AJ Elfalak: Police still search for answers to boy’s disappearance