William Tyrrell: Foster parents not suspects, ex-top cop Gary Jubelin says
The former head detective on the William Tyrrell investigation has defended the missing boy’s foster mother as a ‘very decent human being’.
The former head detective on the William Tyrrell investigation has defended the missing boy’s foster mother – now NSW Police’s main person of interest in the case – as a “very decent human being”.
Ex-investigator Gary Jubelin on Thursday said he had no reason to suspect the foster parents and revealed he had bugged their conversations during his inquiries, in the latest of a war of words between Mr Jubelin and NSW Police leadership.
The search at a Kendall home – from where William disappeared in 2014 – hit its fourth day on Thursday, as police used radars to detect remains and passer-bys divulged their own theories on what happened to the boy.
Two pieces of string found 1km from the house have been sent to Sydney for testing, and the team in Kendall includes a graves expert and a water expert who helped solve the murder of Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe.
Mr Jubelin on Tuesday said that after interrogating the foster parents and conducting a “covert operation” into their conversations, he was sure they played no role in William’s disappearance.
“My impression is that (the foster mother) is a very decent human being … I’m always looking out for something suspicious but I’ve got to say I have not picked up on that,” he said.
“Based on the answers to those questions (during interrogation) and also the information that we gathered during the covert operation, they were again eliminated. If the evidence has changed, I’m not aware of it.”
The foster parents were charged this week with the assault of another child. The Australian revealed on Wednesday they vehemently deny those accusations and say the child fell off a horse.
Mr Jubelin’s comments came days after NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller criticised the original investigations into William’s disappearance – now stretching seven years – and said current detectives had “inherited what was a bit of a mess”.
William was three when he vanished from the care of his foster parents at his foster grandmother’s house in Kendall, on the NSW mid-north coast, in 2014. He has not been found despite several searches and a coronial inquest, which remains open.
Mr Jubelin headed the investigation from early 2015 until 2019, when he was stood down as the head of Strike Force Rosann for allegedly recording phone calls without a warrant.
Officers were joined on Thursday by hydrologist Jon Olley, who in 2011 assisted police in finding the remains of Morcombe, the Queensland schoolboy murdered eight years earlier.
Tony Lowe, a forensic grave archaeologist, was also on site.
As dusty investigators sifted through hundreds of kilograms of dirt, the Rural Fire Service pulled down branches and trees further down the road to make room for a wider investigation.
Meanwhile, locals drove past to make their theories known to reporters standing nearby.
“They’re digging up the wrong site,” one passer-by said. “They should all be up the road, digging up Grandma’s house.”
Another suggested William was alive and living just one town away.
Police on Thursday deployed a ground-penetrating radar at the garage of William’s foster grandmother’s home to search for abnormalities below the concrete floor. The Australian Federal Police team rolled the machine around the garage for hours, pausing only to check the screen mounted on its handlebars.
Police hoped for clues that could lead them to solving the case but the device returned “clean data”. “Nothing that would indicate any abnormalities of interest to the investigation,” a NSW Police spokesman said.
Meanwhile, dozens of officers swarmed an excavated site 1km down the road – the first of three sites to be searched during the new investigation.
As clouds rolled over the Kendall dig site and rain began to pelt down, investigators called it a day. They rolled black tarpaulins over the excavated site, and will return on Friday.
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