William Tyrrell inquest: Boys claim William killed, stuffed in suitcase

Two small boys told a woman they knew pedophile Frank Abbott killed William Tyrrell, but ‘we’re not supposed to say anything’.

William Tyrrell. Picture: AAP

Two small boys have claimed to know that the missing foster child, William Tyrrell, was killed and stuffed into a suitcase by a local pedophile named Mr Frank Abbott.

The boys knew Mr Abbott, and were frightened of him.

Their identity cannot be revealed, and they have not been questioned at the inquest into William’s disappearance, which has been sitting in the mid-north coast township of Taree this week.

The evidence came instead from a woman who knows the two boys.

She said she was visiting them in 2018, and by chance was playing a William Tyrrell song on her phone app when the younger of them told her that he knew who had killed William.

He then suggested it was Frank Abbott, who was living about eight kilometres from the village of Kendall when William went missing from outside his foster Nana’s house on Benaroon Drive in September 2014.

His brother told him to be quiet, because they were worried about their Mum having “her neck snapped” if they told anyone.

The court is calling the boys Geoffrey and Matthew.

The woman told the court that Geoffrey had told her that William “was in a suitcase, and they had seen the suitcase.”

She was asked: “Did he also say he was dead, but they didn’t see the body?”

“Yes,” the woman replied.

“Did he say: you’re not supposed to tell anyone?”

“Yes,” she replied.

She said Matthew was “getting a bit cross with Geoffrey and trying to shush him.”

She agreed he was saying things like: “We’re not supposed to say anything.”

“Geoffrey seemed serious, but like scared,” the woman said, and Matthew seemed worried that “something was going to happen.”

This all happened on the woman’s first meeting with the boys.

She later told her mother, who urged her to contact CrimeStoppers.

She agreed that NSW police then came and took a statement.

The woman told the court that she didn’t ask the boys where they’d seen the suitcase.

‘She’s been through enough already’

Mr Abbott, who is watching proceedings from a cell in the Cessnock jail, declined to ask her any questions, saying: “She’s only a young person. She’s been through enough already.”

Her mother told the court that Geoffrey had always been the most talkative of the boys.

Matthew would “signal agreement.”

“Matthew’s only hesitation seemed to be from fear, and protecting his brother,” she said.

She agreed that her daughter told her about the conversation she’d had with the boys.

She agreed that her daughter had told her that Geoffrey claimed to know who killed William and placed him in a suitcase.

Matthew was trying to shush him, she agreed.

NSW senior constable, Rob Dingle, told the court that Mr Abbott, who is serving time for unrelated sex offences, had in 2018 indicated that he wanted to speak to police about William Tyrrell.

Mr Dingle made hand-written notes of their conversation, which took place while Mr Abbott was in jail.

Mr Dingle said Mr Abbott had wanted to tell him that he’d travelled with a man named Ray Porter to a property in the area west of Kendall, near where William went missing in September 2014.

He said there was a large communications tower nearby, and a “log dump.”

The inquiry is continuing.