The foster mother of the missing New South Wales toddler William Tyrrell has tearfully rejected the police theory that she was involved in disposing of the child’s body after his accidental death.
In a recording played at an inquest into William’s disappearance, she emphatically denied she knew where the boy’s body was and what happened to him.
“I didn’t take William [that day]. I haven’t dumped his body, I have not touched him. I don’t know where he is. I can’t believe you guys are saying that I did that.”
The interview took place in late 2021, days before an intensive forensic search of the area was due to take place.
“If you want to, dig up that entire house,” she said. “I didn’t touch him.”
But she was unable to explain, under questioning, why she didn’t call triple zero for 20 minutes after he disappeared.
In the interview, she conceded it was possible she took a drive, allegedly in search of the three-year-old boy, before she called emergency services and before she informed her husband of William’s disappearance.
“I don’t know,” she said, in relation to the nearly 20-minute gap.
“I thought that maybe William had walked off and that [the foster father] may have seen him on the road and may have picked him up.
“It’s a panic … all I could think was, I don’t know, I panicked. Where is he? I don’t know where he is.
“I cannot give you an explanation as to why I didn’t call him, I don’t know why.”
William vanished on the morning of 12 September 2014 from Kendall on the state’s mid-north coast and, despite extensive searches and a decade-long police investigation, no clues to his whereabouts or fate have been found.
On Monday, as the inquest into William’s disappearance reopened for a fifth round of evidence, the counsel assisting Gerard Craddock SC said the focus would be on the theory the foster mother was involved in unlawfully disposing of the child’s body after his accidental death.
As part of the evidence presented to support that theory, police on Thursday played a video of an interview with the foster mother conducted by the NSW Crime Commission in late 2021.
In the video, she is taken through the minute details of her recollection of the day William disappeared, including what she was thinking at the exact moment she noticed him missing.
She recalled taking a drive in her mother’s Mazda soon after registering William had disappeared, but conceded she had never before travelled down that part of Kendall.
She said she had driven down to a riding school on Batar Creek Road, looking for William, before thinking it was “silly” and returning to her mother’s house.
She could not with certainty say if she took that drive before or after calling triple zero, but said it was unlikely she would call emergency services and then take a drive.
She said she thought looking for him by car was quicker. But when asked why she went in that direction and why she wouldn’t seek more help immediately, she responded that she “didn’t know”.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. All I could think about was I have to find him. I can’t give you an answer to that.
“I remember driving, I remember stopping, I remember thinking I can’t see him, this is silly, so I went back.”
Asked if she expected police to find William’s body in the area around where she drove to that day, she said “no”.
“Because I didn’t take him there,” she said. “Because I didn’t take him anywhere.”
She was also questioned about a phone call with a friend that police had taped, in which she says she doesn’t “believe” she could have dumped the body. She also says she believes he won’t be found for “30, to 40, maybe 50 to 60, even 200 years without clearing [the surrounding forrest]”.
The property at Kendall is surrounded by thick vegetation that is difficult to traverse.
Asked how she knew police would need to clear the vegetation to potentially find William’s body, the foster mother broke down again.
“I said clearing as in he could be anywhere. All of Kendall is surrounded by state forest. What I was saying was that the bush around there is unbelievably thick.”
Early in the interview, she said she believed William was “taken” by someone.
Asked if it had been minutes between when she had last heard him and when she had formed the view he had been “taken”, she said she wasn’t sure.
“I wouldn’t say it was minutes,” she said. “When I stood up, and went around the corner, I just looked and I couldn’t see him.
“All I could think was that someone had taken him.”
Asked if the view that William had been taken altered the way she immediately searched for him, she said no: “I just needed to find him.”
Asked then if she could exclude the possibility he had walked off, she said she wasn’t sure in the moment: “All I could think was I can’t see him. I can’t see where he is.”
On the day he disappeared, she said William had been playing games in the morning after breakfast.
She then said she had made a cup of tea and sat down, before thinking she could not hear him any more.
“He was running in front of us, he was roaring. I was talking with Mum, he goes towards the patio, and I can hear him roaring, and I am still talking to Mum. And then I don’t hear a sound, and I tell Mum, ‘That’s too quiet.’
“That’s when I get up and walk around the corner, and couldn’t see him.”
The foster mother has always denied having anything to do with William’s disappearance.
According to the inquest, police now believe she had found William dead after a fall from the balcony.
They suspect the foster mother might have then loaded the body into her mother’s Mazda, the court has heard.
Detectives believe she then alerted a neighbour to William’s disappearance before driving down the road to dispose of his remains in some undergrowth. It was only then that she called triple zero, according to the police theory.
As part of the renewed investigation based on that theory, police seized the Mazda and conducted a forensic search of Batar Creek Road in 2021, where they believe the body was placed.
The current round of the inquest is examining the 2021 search of the Kendall property and surrounds – the third by police into William’s whereabouts.
The inquest started in March 2019 and was adjourned in October 2020.
The inquest continues.
• This article was amended on 7 November 2024. The subheading and text of an earlier version said that William Tyrrell went missing on 14 September 2014 when it should have said 12 September 2014.
