William Tyrrell’s foster mother was asked point blank if she found the toddler underneath the house where he disappeared ‘under the verandah in the ferns’ the morning he vanished.
The foster mother was asked direct questions about ‘what she did with William’s body’ during an interrogation by the NSW Crime Commission – a secretive government body – in 2021.
A video of the foster mother’s secret testimony was played in open court for the first time on Thursday, as part of an inquest into the little boy’s disappearance and presumed death.
The foster mother, who cannot be legally identified, was also asked in the video why she didn’t call Triple-0 – or the foster father – when she first realised the then-three-year-old child was missing on September 12, 2014.
‘I thought maybe William had walked off and maybe (the foster father had) seen him on the road and picked him off,’ she said.
During the first half of the star chamber interrogation, the foster mother repeatedly – more than 50 times – said ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t remember’.
William Tyrrell’s foster mother (right) was asked point blank if she found him lying under the house on the day he vanished. She is seen wearing a ‘Where’s William’ ribbon
The foster mother was asked in a NSW Crime Commission interview if she found William lying in the tree ferns under the verandah of her mother’s house
In the video, counsel assisting the NSW Crime Commission, Sophie Callan is heard asking the foster mother why she didn’t check the verandah of the Kendall house on the NSW Mid North Coast when William went missing.
She replies: ‘It never occurred to me to look on the verandah’.
Ms Callan then asks: ‘In different statements about that, the clearest account is in the crime scene walk through, (when you said you were) looking for William outside the house, you looked under the verandah, in the ferns.
‘Did you find him there?’ she asked.
The foster mother responded: ‘No’.
The foster mother was also asked about discrepancies in one of her accounts that she was outside on the verandah when William vanished, and the version that nine people, including her siblings, said she’d been inside making tea when he vanished.
Ms Callan asked: ‘Do you accept it’s possible you were in fact inside making tea when William disappeared?’.
Foster mother: ‘I don’t know … yes it’s a possibility.’
Police search the Kendall house in 2021 around the time the foster mother and father was being grilled in the NSW Crime Commission
She was told by NSW Crime Commissioner Michael Barnes at the commencement of the hearing that: ‘You have no right to silence.
He told her she had no right to refuse to answer questions, and if she gave a false answer she could go to jail for up to five years.
‘Our primary objective is to recover William’s body and to allow it to be respectfully interred, to accept he is gone and won’t be coming back,’ the Commissioner told her
‘We all accept you loved William and would not have intentionally done him harm.
‘We all accept accidents can happen and even the most organised persons .. can be forced to make snap decisions.
‘If that is what happened on the day William went missing, this is your chance to safely and privately explain that.’
Both the foster mother and father were later charged with lying to the NSW Crime Commission, and both were acquitted.
The foster mum was also asked: ‘Did you find his body and realise he has died and there’s no point calling emergency services?’
Another question asked of the foster mother was: ‘I want to suggest to you what happened that day was William went around on that verandah and toppled over and it was nobody’s fault’.
The inquest into William’s disappearance heard that everyone wants to be able ‘to accept he is gone and won’t be coming back’
Each of the questions were accompanied by the foster mother’s steadfast denials of having any knowledge of Tyrrell’s disappearance, injury, disappearance and death.
William Tyrrell disappeared as a three-year-old and hasn’t been seen since September 12, 2014, with the case becoming Australia’s most notorious missing person’s case.
It had been suggested to the foster mother at the Crime Commission hearing that she ‘may have dumped William’s body near a riding school’.
Ms Callan asked the foster mother: ‘Did you take his body down (to the riding school at Kendall, on the NSW Mid North Coast)?’
SD answered: ‘No’.
SD was then asked: ‘Did you decide to take care of the situation that was beyond remedy?’ and ‘did you decide to take care of the situation and hide his body rather than let your (the foster mother’s) mother take .. responsibility’.
SD denied both of those propositions. They related to William Tyrrell’s foster grandmother, who owned the home where he disappeared from, and has since died.
Ms Callan then put to the foster mother that the foster mother found William’s body ‘and you put his body in your mother’s car, and that’s why you took the drive (to the nearby Kendall riding school) that day?’
Ms Callan then said: ‘Just to be clear there is no suggestion you injured him or caused his death, just that you moved his body’.
The foster mother denied Ms Callen’s allegations: ‘No, I didn’t.’
William Tyrrell was last seen playing at his grandma’s house in Kendall (above) on the NSW Mid North Coast in 2014 and has not been seen since
One of the last photographs of William Tyrrell taken on the verandah of the Kendall home on the morning that he vanished without trace
The 2021 Crime Commission questioning of both foster parents about William’s case came just before police renewed efforts to find the remains of the missing boy.
The inquest is currently investigating the police theory that William Tyrell’s foster mother buried his body in bushland after he fell from a balcony and died on the morning he vanished.
Counsel assisting the inquest, Gerard Craddock SC, told the inquest when reopening on Monday that the police theory was that ‘William must have died at [his foster grandmother’s home at] 48 Benaroon Drive [in Kendall].
‘The theory… police assert, is that she must have quickly resolved that if the accidental death of William was discovered she might lose ‘Lindsay’.’
Lindsay – not her real name, which can’t be revealed for legal reasons – was another foster child in the care of the foster mother at that time, who also can’t be named.
‘Police assert that in that frame of mind, [the foster mother] placed William in her mother’s car,’ Mr Craddock said.
‘After alerting [a neighbour] to William’s disappearance, [she] drove her mother’s car to Batar Creek Road and placed William’s body somewhere in the undergrowth.’
Mr Craddock has said the area around Batar Creek Road had been extensively searched by police who did not believe any trace of William was left there.
He also said that in the search for William after his disappearance – with police, fire fighters, cadaver dogs, chainsaws and hydraulic equipment – meant that the little boy had not simply just been lost in the search area.
‘William under his own steam could not travel beyond the area of the intensive search,’ he said.
‘The conclusion there must have been human intervention.
‘It’s beyond argument that no eye eyewitness can provide an account about how he left the boundaries of 48 Benaroon Drive.’
The inquest, which began in 2019 but has been beset by protracted delays has now entered its final block of hearings, is being held this week, and over the week before Christmas.
William’s disappearance has become one of Australia’s most notorious missing persons cases.
The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame – examining William’s disappearance and suspected death – was delayed last year when prosecutors weighed up charges against the boy’s foster mother.
Police handed a brief of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions that recommended William’s foster mother be charged with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse.
William’s foster father was also acquitted of five counts of lying to the NSW Crime Commission.
The couple has denied any wrongdoing or disposing of his corpse.
