Detectives believe William Tyrrell’s foster mother disposed of his body after driving to an isolated crossroads – but when news.com.au recreated this alleged journey, the results were alarming.

For the police theory of what happened to be correct a LOT has to take place very quickly, and even then the outcome seems unlikely.

For the podcast investigation Witness: William Tyrrell, news.com.au pieced together the police theory, based on cross-examination of the detectives in court, examination of the foster mother before the NSW Crime Commission, and witness testimony.

In court, one of the detectives, Andrew Lonergan, said “We believe (William’s body) was disposed” near the house in Kendall, on the Mid North Coast of NSW, where William was reported missing on 12 September 2014.

Police suspect the three-year-old died after falling from the house’s veranda, that his foster mother discovered him, and she chose to conceal this by putting his body in her mother’s grey Mazda 3 for the two-minute drive to the crossroads of Batar Creek Road and Cobb & Co Road.

“That was one of the theories, yes,” Mr Lonergan said in court in 2022.

“I’ve formed the view that (the foster mother) knows where William Tyrrell is,” he told the court.

Another detective, Scott Jamieson, told the foster mother in 2021, “You’ll have to live with it … we aren’t guessing, we know why, we know how, we know where he is,” the court heard.

William’s foster mother, who cannot be identified, has repeatedly denied any involvement in what happened.

News.com.au is not suggesting the police theory is true, just that this is what they suspect took place that morning.

In fact, there are several problems with it.

For one thing, William’s foster mother had very little time.

We know William was alive at 9.37am as that is when the last known photograph of him was taken.

There has been some controversy over this time but it has since been confirmed at the ongoing inquest into his disappearance.

Police have previously asserted that William’s foster mother went to a neighbour’s house at around 10.40 -10.45am, saying he was missing.

That gives her just over an hour to do the following:

• Realise William is missing and look for him,

• Discover William’s body,

• Decide not to call for help, or call triple-0, despite records showing that a previous time William was hurt in a fall, she took him to hospital,

• Decide to conceal his death,

• Fetch the car keys,

• Carry William’s body to the car,

• Hide what she is doing from her own mother and William’s four-year-old sister, who are also in the house, or,

• Tell both people what has happened and convince them to conspire with her to conceal it. William’s foster grandmother and sister have been questioned by police repeatedly over the years,

• Drive to the crossroads,

• Dispose of William’s body. There is no evidence of any digging tools being in the car, and the bush here is hard to walk through. Subsequent searches are not known to have recovered any evidence,

• Drive back to the house,

• When her husband arrives home around 10.33am, William’s foster mother must either lie to him about what has happened or convince him to conspire with her,

• Run down the street to the neighbour’s house, asking if she has seen William. From this point on, the foster mother is with people other than her family, meaning there would be potential witnesses to any attempt to conceal his body.

In September, news.com.au recreated this theory of what happened, returning to the house in Kendall to repeat her alleged movements including the drive.

We discovered it was physically possible – just.

What alarmed us was visiting the crossroads where police allege William’s body was disposed of that morning.

It is in full view of several buildings that used to be a riding school.

On the other side of the main road are three houses, each further away but close enough for a person inside or standing on the property to potentially have a clear view of the crossroads.

One or more of these houses may have been built in the years since William went missing but the closest, the old riding school, was definitely there at the time.

Standing at the crossroads, it is not possible to see if anyone is behind the windows of these buildings looking out.

Yet a few hundred metres in either direction the road goes through bush on either side, out of the sight of any property.

Meaning, were anyone to want to hide a body, this crossroads seems the least likely place.

The crossroads was one focus of a weeks-long police search in 2021, involving dozens of officers, archaeologists and ground penetrating radar.

Details of what evidence, if any, was recovered are expected to be made public next week when the ongoing inquest into William’s disappearance resumes its public hearings.

Relations between the coroner’s court and police have become mired in conflict and confusion, however, news.com.au can reveal.

One example is the police force calling on the coroner overseeing the inquest, Harriet Grahame, to stand down from all cases involving police officers over an alleged “perception of bias”.

The extraordinary request came in an August 2023 letter from the NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb to Ms Grahame’s boss, the state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan.

The letter detailed how distressing video footage of Ms Grahame’s elderly mother being restrained by police had been shared on social media by another member of the family.

The body-worn camera footage shows the 81-year-old woman, who has dementia, screaming for help.

“You big bully … you’re a big brute,” she can be heard saying as uniformed officers put her in two sets of handcuffs.

“What occurred with Ms Grahame might give rise to a perception of bias on DSC Grahame’s part,” the police letter said.

“DSC Grahame is currently presiding and has presided over a number of matters … which squarely focus on the exercise of police powers.”

Ms Grahame subsequently declined to step down, describing it in a public ruling as “fanciful” and “unreasonable”.

“Clearly, the Commissioner was at least comfortable writing privately to the head of my jurisdiction to request consideration of quietly removing me from presiding over all matters in which she or other (police) officers were involved,” she said.

All judges and coroners had to “compartmentalise” their personal experiences while carrying out their duties, Ms Grahame said.

The lead lawyer working with the coroner, Gerard Craddock SC, has also appeared to publicly distance the inquest from the current police investigation.

“I should make as clear as is possible that that request for advice has nothing to do with the inquest, it’s not a coronial referral,” Mr Craddock told a court hearing last year, after detectives sought legal advice on whether to charge William’s foster mother.

“It did not come from the counsel assisting team,” he continued.

“It’s not a request for advice by this court or anyone associated with this court.”

The decision by detectives to seek possible charges against William’s foster mother is a clear break from the previous course of the inquest, which interrogated a number of potential suspects outside her family.

Mr Craddock has previously said William’s disappearance “may be one of those rare … cases” where a child is abducted by a stranger.

At one stage, the police decision even threatened to halt the years-long inquest, with Ms Grahame saying earlier this year, “I really can’t proceed until that issue is finalised”.

That apparent stalemate between the coronial and police investigations was compounded by the inability of detectives to provide evidence to the inquest when asked.

In February this year Mr Craddock told the inquest that the head of the police investigation, Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw, had not yet provided a witness statement despite one being requested in April 2023 – a delay of 10 months.

“We are still waiting on that statement. We don’t know when it’s going to be provided. We’ve followed up on that statement a number of times,” Mr Craddock told the inquest.

The final public hearings of the inquest were subsequently postponed, meaning the inquest has now been running for close to six years.

Ms Grahame’s findings in relation to William’s disappearance were originally due to be handed down in June 2021 but this was delayed after police refocused their attention on his foster mother.

The delayed hearings are due to resume in November, after the NSW Police Force asked the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions to “suspend” a decision on whether to charge this woman.