Nowhere Child: Suspicious cars

William Tyrrell’s foster mum initially said she didn’t remember seeing any suspicious cars. She said otherwise days later | See maps of the street

William Tyrrell’s foster mother initially told police that she could not remember seeing any suspicious cars in the street on the day William went missing.

She later had a sudden memory of some cars a few days later and reported her recollections to police.

In episode 4 of The Australian’s podcast Nowhere Child, you can hear a portion of one of the foster mother’s statements where she recalls how she saw two cars parked in an unusual position on the road, opposite her mother’s house, around 7.30am on the day William went missing.

An aerial view of Benaroon Drive, Kendall, where William was last seen. The red circle indicates William’s foster-grandmother’s house, and the yellow rectangle shows the place where William’s foster mother says she saw two suspicious cars parked on the morning he went missing.

She says the cars looked out of place — there were never usually cars parked there, and that they were oddly close together and in-between driveways.

She described the first car as an old model, dark grey, medium-sized sedan, and the other as an old model white station wagon.

Where William’s foster mother says she saw the two suspicious cars.

These weren’t the only cars the foster mother remembered seeing. A third car had come down the street while she was outside, about an hour before William went missing. William’s sister Lindsay spotted the car as she was riding her bike, saying to her foster mother, “who’s that car, mummy?”

The foster mother says she looked up and saw a dark green-grey sedan drive past her mother’s house and into the next-door neighbour’s driveway. She says the car nosed into the driveway before turning around and driving back down the street.

The blue circle shows the home of William's foster grandmother's neighbours, the Millers, where a green sedan was seen pulling into the driveway and turning around on the morning of William's disappearance.

Initially the foster mother said she only saw it for seconds and could not recall seeing the driver of the car. But at the inquest currently under way, she said she remembered the driver being an overweight man.

She explained the changes in her recollections saying “it’s not until your brain is not overwhelmed by everything that’s happened; these things come back in seconds of clarity. That day so much had happened. I’m firm on it now. I saw that man. I saw that car.”