William’s birth family, and the decision to take him away.
Witness: William Tyrrell is the new, landmark investigation from news.com.au. Read more and watch exclusive video content here
Follow us on socials: Instagram: @newscomauhq Facebook: News.com.au TikTok: @news.com.au
Subscribe to Crime X+ and listen to this podcast ad-free
If you know anything about what happened to William, please call CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000
Contact us confidentially at witness@news.com.au
One Monday a couple of months ago, I got into the car with Nina, who's their producer.
On this series, checking my levels again.
Pulled out into the traffic and went looking for someone we've been trying to talk to for the past eighteen months.
Where are we going?
What are we doing? Dan? We're going to try and find William's birth mother, Carly. And the reason I want to talk to Carly is really just to let her know what we're doing and why we're doing it, and to give her the chance to tell us what she thinks of what happened. And the reason to do that is because if it was my child, I would want someone to contact me before doing this. Yeah, but they're not an easy family to get hold of.
No, So what we're doing today is our last option really, because we've tried contacting Carly through social media, We've tried contacting Carlie on the phone, We've tried several furgn numbers. So our last effort, because we really do want to make sure Carli is at least aware of this podcast, even if she doesn't want to speak to us, We're going to door knock.
Yeah, We've got three addresses and we're going to knock each of those houses and ask if she's there and ask if she wants to talk to us. And we've done this for Brendan as well. It is William's dad. You have been driven out like this. And the first house we went to, remember it had obviously been bought and sold and done up, and every record of them living there. We've just been quite clean.
Yeah.
And then the second house, it wasn't a house, it was a unit in a block that had row after row after row of units. And we knocked doors and got nowhere. And then when we got back, I tried the strata agent and I said, is Brendan living there? And he had no record of Brendan ever being there. And then the third place was an apartment block with six units in it, and we knocked all the doors and no one there had heard of them either, so we weren't able to find Brendan.
Yeah.
Since this afternoon in the car with Nina, I've spoken to someone who said they would pass on my phone number to Brendan. And it's possible, Brendan that you're listening to this, and if so, and you do want to talk, just give me a call Another reason we want to talk to you, Brendan and to Carly is that when you look at the disappearance of William Tyrell, there's one decision that is the start of everything that follows. That's the decision to take William off his biological parents and put him in foster care. So, knowing what we know now, it's easy to say that that was a bad decision, or it was the decision that if it hadn't happened, William wouldn't have disappeared. But that's different from knowing what was known at the time, and at the time it might not have been a bad decision. To understand if it was a bad decision, you have to go back to before when William was reported missing on the twelfth of September twenty fourteen, to the other time William went missing, this time when he was just a baby and when it was his birth parents who took him and hid him from the police. I'm Dan Box and from New dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrol Episode two, Looking for Carly. After trying to find Brendan, we did contact his mum, Natalie Collins. She's William's biological grandmother.
She's traditionally sort of been the spokesperson for the biological family.
Well, that was kind of what I hoped that she'd be up for talking, but it didn't work out that way. I spoke to her and she said, yep, I'm happy to do an interview. And then I called her back and she didn't answer. So then I called her back a bit later, and she agreed to do an interview, but at a certain time, and so I called her up. She heard my voice and just hung up, and she hasn't answered the phone to me since. So then you called.
Her, yeah, So then I called her, Uh, hello, Hey, Natalie?
Hey, you going okay?
It was a phone conversation, and the audio isn't great.
I'm recording, by the way. I'm to let you know every time, otherwise, you know, I get in trouble. H Oh, sorry, I wasn't try.
If you hung up on me, no, no, no, it cuts out. Okay, good.
So did you listening to this interview? I think Nina sounds nervous.
I felt she was very emotional.
Nina and Natalie are speaking the day after news broke that the police are seeking to charge William's foster mother over his disappearance, and so.
I was just a little bit worried going into it how she was going to take the conversation or whether it was a good time to have that conversation.
William's foster mother, who was in the house with him at the time he went missing, insists she had nothing to do with it. She's not as yet been charged. Listening to Nina's conversation, it's pretty clear what Natalie thinks.
The thing is that they shouldn't have taken the kids off them in the first place, and that's where it's all going to start.
Natalie says the authorities were wrong to take William away from his biological parents.
William was devoted to Brendan. I've seen William I think when he was taken off them, and then that day that they pulled him upstairs.
In a prayering job from the prayer and riding to Brinda's arts.
William was about nine months old when he was taken from his birth parents. He was born on the twenty sixth of June twenty eleven at the Royal north Shore Hospital in Sydney. I don't know why, but Brendan's name is not on the birth certificate. That box is just left blank, and a court would later hear. There was a history of drug use and of domestic violence between Brendan and Carly. Both of them have criminal records. Brendan's been arrested dozens of times, and he's been in prison on a few occasions, although the only dates I can find for that are after William went missing. In their conversation, Nina asks Natalie about the most recent search for William.
When there was the search back in twenty twenty one. I read a quote from you that said you kind of didn't feel like there was any point in what they were doing, because you already knew at that point that he was gone.
Have you born been up there?
No, I haven't yet.
Yeah.
Oh, you can't say that until you go up there, and then you'll then you'll see why you have to go to the house and actually see the house, and then you'll understand why.
What did you think about Natalie telling you that you have to go to the road where William went missing to understand how she feels about it.
I didn't fully understand what she meant by that. I haven't been there yet. You've been there at least once a few times, four times now and we are going to go soon.
But did it give you some insight?
Yeah? I think Natalie's right. You do have to see that house, because it's not until you see it and you realize it's a dead end street. It's dead quiet. There's no way you'd go there unless you had a reason to be on that street at that time. And it's when you see that that you realize the chance of a chance subduction. It just it's almost impossible. Yeah, the only people could go there have a reason and then almost certainly someone sees them on the street. And I think Natalie right in saying that you have to see the place to understand how she feels. And the way Natalie feels is angry.
It's killed me three years old. He just vanishes from the face of the earth.
Angry, I think at the damage done to her family after William was taken away from them.
Like all the shit that I have been through from day one, Like Brendan, he lost his son. I lost my son and I lost myself as well.
What do you mean by that, You've lost yourself.
I'm not going to talk to you anymore. It's a waste of time, you know. Like, what do you mean if you were in my shoes, you wouldn't even ask that.
It's all fucked up.
All your reporters are the same. I don't I haven't talked to you reporters for a long time, Christian.
No, you're hounding me, and I'm talking from my heart.
No one, you haven't.
Been in my shoes. I'm sick of it.
I'm sick to death of it, Like this has been my life for ten years. My son has been in figging jail, he's been homeless, he's buddy hit rock bottom, rock bottom after ten years. You wouldn't believe what that child's been through or what I've been through with him.
And who cares about that?
No one?
And I've done it on my own and I'm still doing it.
Well.
I don't want to hound you, Natalie, and I don't want to pretend that I do know what you're going through.
That's why I'm asking.
Like you reporters are all the same, like daily mail shit, it's all crap. You know, you've got to be honest and help someone. You don't fucking put crap on there.
Anyway.
I don't want this recording.
I'm done, okay, I'll stop recording.
I wanted to ask you, how did you feel? How do you feel about us using that tape of that conversation in this series.
Yeah, look, I'm not comfortable. I mean, I am comfortable. It's hard, isn't it. I can't even answer that question properly. I guess the part of me that will be uncomfortable with that running is just mostly kind of ego. I think why because I really don't like to push people when they're not comfortable. I like to put their safety and their emotional safety first. So to have her respond really negatively to something I said, I don't feel good about that at all. You know, I felt awful that happened.
Do you understand why I wanted to use it?
Yeah, I mean I think so you tell me why you want to use it.
I want to use it because it puts you on the spot, and I know that and I appreciate that's hard. But the other thing it does is it demonstrates the sheer emotion and the sheared trauma that those close to William have gone through and is still going through now as a result of him going missing and there being no resolution of what happened to him, yeah, and I think that is important that in this case that has become headlines and new specials and social media chatter, and at the heart of it, there is absolute grief and no thing, nothing we can say, you and me can describe that better than that tape of Natalie getting upset and getting angry.
There's no way I understand.
I absolutely don't understand, and I'm actually I'm fine with her getting angry at me. I didn't feel angry at her for getting angry at me, because I think if we can try and put ourselves in her shoes a little bit. They've really been quite powerless throughout this situation, right, They've been powerless since.
Losing their child to.
The foster system.
Then they're powerless through the police investigation. They're pretty powerless through the media reporting when we weren't allowed to say who they were. Again, the police and the government got in the way and sort of said this is what can be said, this can't be said. So they've been censored sort of from being able to say what they want. So I think to be that powerless and then to have yet another journalist calling you, I don't know, at such a low point, I can get why she's angry, and I think it's fair.
After that first phone call, Nina sent Natalie a text message just saying sorry, and she didn't hear back and didn't talk to Natalie again. But another producer, Emily, tried calling instead.
Okay, you can still hear me.
Yep.
Perfect, And so you're happy for the phone call to be recorded, yep, yeap, wonderful. So we were just talking.
The conversation had a similar start. They're talking about the impact of William's loss.
What has done to my family from day one has stuffed all of us up, and I lost my son and I lost myself on the way.
Hmm. I'm so sorry to hear Natalie. It must be absolutely awful.
How would you deal with it if it was your son, it was your daughter.
I can't even imagine.
A ten years is a long time, you know, ten years of my life that no one should really.
Have to go through.
How are you going.
Like it's a long story, this bloody story, you know, like it's a long drawn out, sad story. But the thing is that these dogs people, they failed to do their job properly, because this shouldn't happen these days with poster care children like William was only a little baby three years old, he vanished from the face of the earth.
M okay, so we're pulling up shortly to the first address, and what's your plan.
Honestly, I don't think we overthinking. We are here to try and talk to Karli, to tell her what we're doing and why we're doing it, and just be as straightforward and as honest as possible with her.
What we're not going to do is run up and shove a microphone at our face. If you walked up to my house with a microphone.
Recording to talk about yours, I wouldn't talk to you.
But if it gets hostile, do you want me to get out and record?
So I forgets hostile, You're going to be sitting inside.
The car, not going to be standing by recording it.
I don't think it's going to get hostile. Is this it? Yeah?
It is?
Are you going to stay in the car?
What would you prefer I do?
Stay in the car? I think it's fairer on Carly. What cannot have felt fair on Carly was the way having William taken from her meant other people like caseworkers or the state government Department of Family and Community Services effectively passed judgment on her as a mother. William's foster placement is recorded in hundreds of pages of documents, and one of these notes that, at the time William was taken, his birth parents quote maintained a high level of denial regarding domestic violence in their relationship. The documents also say that Carly had quote unresolved attachment needs affecting her parenting capacity and looked to her children for what the documents call developmentally inappropriate care and comfort. But nowhere in any of those documents that I've seen, can you see what Carl has to say about that. I think that's the wrong house. So there was no one there, and I spoke to the neighbor, and the neighbors said, it's not a Carli who lives there, but it is a TYRL. Okay. She looked a little bit circumspect.
Because you're just a strange man in the middle of the door.
And I'm probably not the first strange reporter he's turned out, but their house eyes over the years. But no, so I think we try.
Okay, the next address on WS to house two.
Or be honest, it probably wasn't until I went to knock on the door that I realized how actually faintly sick I feel doing this.
Help me through.
It's just it's just that you know, if it is the right person, you just know it's going to be unpleasant for them.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is probably the most confronting way you'd have to do it.
So I left a letter there. We'll see, all right, what's the next address. One thing that makes the decision to take William off Carly and into care seemed more open to question is that Carly had other children who stayed with her, and as far as I know, they're still with her. Carl was also pregnant when William was taken and has had other children since. It feels like each time she has a child. The Daily Mail writes articles based on Facebook photos, and in those photos the family look happy. Natalie, William's biological grandmother, says that was not the case for William with his foster parents.
Like when William was in their kid black eyes, skinny, no shoes on. You know, we used to have supervised visits and my son was too scared to love his children because he knew if they go.
Home, they're going to be in trouble for that? How is that? How does that work out?
Natalie is really critical of William's foster parents, and particularly critical of his foster mother.
Then she stopped everything.
Allowed to give them Lollie's not allowed to give them kinders, the process, not led to give them the food that we were bringing. She pecked the lunches, dry pasta, no in costume clothes, all the time barking her orders.
You know, a lot of what Natalie says about William's foster parents, We're not going to repeat here, because what's not certain is whether what she's saying is fair or accurate. Some of what she says is right, like how William was encouraged to call his birth parents by their first names, Brendan and Carly. But read through the records of William's foster care and you see that once William started using first names, it was his caseworkers who supported this, not his foster parents, and the idea behind it was to help William adjust to his foster family. At other times, Natalie's version of what happened contrasts completely to conversations I've had with other people or with documents from the time.
In their eyes, it was like, they don't have a mother and father. You know, you go and you call them Brendan and Carli. You don't call them mam and dad because they're not your mom and dad. We are like, who does all that?
Every visit by William's caseworker is documented saying how William seemed, what he was wearing, his general health, the fact he liked his daycare, how he and his caseworker were playing together building a train set. As he grows up, the documents record that Williams starts going to soccer training on a Monday and dance class on a Friday. His placement with his foster parents is described as being very stable, and after eighteen months, the documents record that Williams started saying his foster parents are his parents.
So there's a lot to answer for.
Natalie keeps coming back to the allegation that William was mistreated by his foster parents, But I haven't found any real evidence of that in the files.
How did William get a black life?
There is a record in the files of William getting a black eye, In fact, there's pages about it. It was in July twenty fourteen, just after his third birthday.
Oh, he fell off my lap. No, it was a black eye.
The foster records say William fell on a coffee table while crawling on his foster mother's lap.
You don't get a black wife from falling from anee.
And speaking as a dad of three kids do pick up injuries that way. They fall off your lap, or run into tables or trip downstairs, The files show. The foster mother reported this fall to William's caseworker the next morning and sent through some photographs of the bruising. She also took him to the Royal north Shore Hospital. The doctors noted a haema tone, which is a pool of blood under the skin, and swelling to his cheek. There was no sign of concussion. He didn't need an X ray, and William was discharged. A week later. The caseworker recorded the bruise was going down and that William was not in obvious pain or distressed. But two months later, on the day that William goes missing, his foster father told police that a week before, William had fallen backwards off a stool and struggled to get back up, and those records about William have since been used online and in the mainstream media. Has reasons to say he wasn't okay in the care of his foster parents.
There was heaps of reasons, you know, like William was never seen.
William was always happy.
But the last time I think Brendan seen him was in August and he was crying and screaming. He didn't want to go back. Not long that he vanished from the face of the earth. Now you tell me that one you just like that happened and then all of a sudden, three days or four days later, the little boy's gone. Hell.
Why In the years after William was taken from them, other documents show support workers saying Brendan and Carly go to huge lengths to do well in their parenting. Carly is quoted as saying her entire life is turned towards having the children return to their care. Brendan coped with the stress of losing William by partly by working long hours six days a week, the documents say. They say he took part in a course called Choosing Change, which is for men who've been violent or abusive, but Brendan's said to have missed a couple of the sessions and not really participated in the group discussions, so the course organizer recommended that he start the course again.
Has William's father have you spoken to him?
Oh? Yes, I have.
How does he feel about it all?
Oh well, I don't even know. He's trying to get himself, like he's getting better, do you know what I mean? Like, but he's got a lot of support where he So, you know, we talk about it, and you know, like I feel bad for my son, like I just you know, look at his life. His life has been turned upside down since that poor little boy disappeared. He's still in rehab. You know, he knocked himself around for quite a long time, you know, punishing himself. And it really wasn't his fault. He was a good dad, He was a good provider. He loves his kids, you know. So and you know.
He's worked hard to get where he is today.
How long has it been since you've done our door knock?
Less than a year. But the last time I did the doorknock, no one answered. The last time I did a doorknock for a family whose child had been murdered or gone missing and actually got hold of them was two or three years now. And a lot of people hate doing it, but I've never minded doing it as long as you are sufficiently respectful and sufficiently apologetic. And it doesn't always go well, it goes well more often than you'd think it would.
All right, this is the second address. All right, if she does want to talk, I'll give you a shower.
A week after their first conversation, Emily, the producer called William's biological grandmother again.
Okay, can you hear me? Natalie?
Yep?
Amazing, And you're happy for me to record our chat?
Yeah?
Perfect?
This time, the target of Natalie's criticism isn't only William's foster mother, it's also Carly, who's in Natalie's sights.
I'd love to learn a little bit more about Brendan and Carly's relationship. How did they first meet?
I don't even know like that.
That was probably the worst thing he ever did in his life to meet her.
Oh, you weren't that fond of her?
No, she was. She had a lot of problems, a lot of issues that girl.
Do you know how long they were together before they had William?
Or they've been together for probably three years or something. They were together for a long time. But she shouldn't have ever had kids out lady either. That's my opinion as well.
So it was a bit of a turbulent relationship, would you say.
It was a bit of like, well, Brendan was always doing the right thing, you know, going to work, paying the bills, and me and my daughter had to go down there like twice a week to make sure he could please come in the door and have a shower, have dinner. And then after we left them, they started fighting and then he's the people would call the police and it was like, oh, he's got to go, you know, But nothing nothing major. I mean, I grew up in that sort of environment. No one mean and said my mother and father were fighting and blah blah blah.
How did it feel when Brendan Carly's photos were out in the media and their names were used. Yeahs terrible And the whole time the foster parents, their identities were all hidden.
Terrible. Brenda more than as bad as what everyone thought. And you know, I was a decent mom. I wasn't you know, I am mount to your mama. I was a decent Like do you think he had a dinner a mother? I know he didn't. He had a good up. Britney who was a good, you know kid, but met the wrong person.
Like with what Natalie says about William's foster mother. Some of the things she says about Carly, we're not repeating here because we're not able to say they're right or they contrast with the evidence we've got from elsewhere, and all you're left with is one person's opinion on another, in this case, Brendan's mum's opinion on Carly as a mother. And that's another reason to want to talk to Carly herself. Nothing again, no one there, A couple of cars in the driveway, couple of motorbikes, one of them is being worked on. So I thought someone might be there, But no answer at all. So I left a letter under the door. Okay, driving away from the second house. I don't doubt Carly wanted to be a good mum. Among the documents from William's time in foster care is one saying that Carly told one caseworker she only agreed to having William in long term care so that she and Brendan could focus on parenting their remaining children.
Well, what do you remember about William as a little baby?
Oh, I was always happy, he was never seen like always happy, you know, happy happy baby Helsey.
We would go there for one hour supervised vidiots, sat down, had a picnic or like kind serprises and lollipops and stuff.
But we're allowed to have that or this crap happens.
So with William, like every time you see in Britan he just loved him and screaming and crying to go home.
Okay. So there are different versions of these contact visits. There's Natalie Collins version and then there's the written version. In the documents of William's time in foster care, the biological parents were allowed of these contact visits a year, for one hour each. Natalie describes William screaming and crying when he had to leave them, but the written records from the time say quote there were no observed signs of distress or sadness when William separated from his parents. Those words appear in the records twice for different visits. There are records saying that William became anxious or hyperactive or aggressive, slapping and punching his foster care as, he was described as defiant or having oppositional behavior, and he had nightmares. But all of this seems to happen mostly just after these contact visits, and reading through it seems more of a response to the difficulty of meeting different sets of parents. You find yourself starting to imagine what was going through a three year old's mind. On the morning of their last contact visit, Williams recorded as saying he didn't want to go, but he got excited when told it was at Chipmunks, which is a play center with a huge maze with different levels and nets and is full of obstacles. It would be the last time William saw his birth parents, Carly and Brendan. Ten days later, William disappeared, And so.
Carly and Brendan don't have any contact.
Yeah.
Do you mind me asking when did their relationship end?
The day that William went missing?
That very day?
Yep, that was the end of it.
Was William's disappearance a contributor to that.
Yeah, yeah, if William.
Didn't go missing. Do you think Brendan and Carly might still be together today?
Oh? No, I think so?
You know thinks how you don't hope so do so? Do you know roughly how old Brendan and Carli were when they met.
I think Carlie was only like seventeen or something, and Brendan moved. I don't know, I'm about twenty two or something. Only young, very silly. You can't change some people, you know.
I'm just worry about why dudes?
You know, what's your biggest worry about them?
I'm always worrying than Adam.
Yeah, it's a mother's instinct, worry about your kids.
Yeah, that's right.
The more I look at everything that's happened since William's disappearance, so much of it seems to come down to different kinds of judgment on motherhood. Who's a good parent, and particularly who is a good mother. For Carly, having the state government come in and take her child way must have felt like someone saying you're not good enough mother, And as a parent, that feels wrong. I mean, who really gets to make decisions about your kids, which might explain why in the months before William went missing, after his biological family first learned that the government was planning to take him, Brendan and Carly and Natalie they took William and they hid.
I had them for three months after I knew they're in the are.
You talking about before William went into foster care, when ye when took William.
It was me, it wasn't he.
So I them really good for three months and then they got caught.
Carl Brendan and William lived with Natalie for weeks during this time, and Natalie, as she arranged it.
I arranged the call.
You're the mastermind.
Yeah, that's right, and so you were. I should have taken in myself. I should have just tugging myself in the nile. We've been able to take him off me. That's all I should have done.
This was in February twenty twelve, when the state government Department of Family and Community Services, which is also known as FACTS, asked police to help find William. So a police sergeant went to Carl's address and there was no one there. The police went to another address they had for William's biological grandmother, but the person who answered the door said they didn't know either Carli or the grandmother. So a caseworker called four different telephone numbers they had on file for the family, and all of them were disconnected. They called a fifth, but incoming calls were restricted. Back in the car with Nina, we're still involved in our own search.
Number three is the one I think is most likely okay to be her house currently. Why do you think, because we are aware that other journalists have been at this property in the last year.
And have seen her there, and how did that go?
Not well?
Not well?
Well, there's photos of that journalist being pushed away from the house by friends or relatives.
As the days passed and William stayed hidden with his family, the police kept trying different addresses. You had plain closed. Detectives canvassing the neighbors, just knocking on doors. The police tried the extended family. A nurse arrived for a regular appointment with Carly, but no one answered. Here we are is it number eight? I'm glad you told me that thing about how badly it when last time? All right, yeah, forward a little just so you can see the.
Door, yea, as if they do come out and shove youry I'm going to get out of the car.
Are you good?
Yeah?
Yeah.
William was officially listed as a missing person. A month later. The police did catch up with his biological father, Brandon.
Remember the day, like this's come to me, It's all over now, mum. They arrested him and arrested both of them, actually took William away and William was screaming and crying.
And.
Were you there the moment that the police came and arrested and Carly.
No, it was at work.
What was is it like going to work that morning? You've got your grandkids and Brendan and Carly in the in the granny flight out the back, and then you come home and your whole life's being uprooted.
The sad things is the story is very sad from the engineer.
After baby William was found being hidden by his birth parents, he was taken to hospital and found to be medically well. The next day, the sixteenth of March twenty twelve, William was placed with authorized cares, and a year later, April twenty thirteen, a court ordered William to remain in care technically under the parental responsibility of a government minister until he turned eighteen, meaning that court and the state government did not anticipate William ever returning to Carly and Brendan. And there are two ways of looking at that decision. What we know now that he would disappear again for good this time, and what was known then no answer and all the curtains are drawn. I looked over the back fence and the garden's pretty overgrown, but there are some kids toys that there's a paddling pool hanging over the back deck, and you can see through one of the windows that the kitchen's got the stuff in it, so someone is living there. So I left a letter hopefully she'll call.
That was our last house.
Right now, Nina and I never do manage to speak to Carlie, and Carlie, if you're listening and you do want to talk, please do contact us. But we do have some idea of how she feels about what has happened to William And over the past decade. The year after he disappeared in twenty fifteen, Carli gave an interview to the Seven Network that was broadcast on TV. What sort of mom did you think you would be?
Like?
A nurturing mom, caring, loving, Yeah, a good mom.
No one knows their baby better than the mom.
Okay, So anyone that's watching this, anyone that's going to see you, what do you say to them?
What can we do?
I don't heard him, let me come home.
The more I learn about this, the more I think we actually can't separate what we know now about the decision to take William from his biological parents. From what was known at the time, there is only the knowledge that William did go missing and is still missing. Since recording this episode, I've spoken again to Natalie, William's biological grandmother, and asked her to pass my number on to Brendan, her son. And I was talking to Natalie about this decision to take William away from his birth parents. I told her how even some of the people who played a role in what happened still ask themselves if it was the right decision. One of those was one of the officials who was sent to take William away from Carly, who was there at the moment William was taken from one family before being given to another. He doesn't want to be identified, so these are his words, but not his voice.
Looking back. It was hard, but we take kids off, you know, families all the time. You do it. You know, it's just it. It is part of the job. But you know, and ironically, this is the thing I get said about is sorry, mate, No, it's all right. Yeah, it's we took William off Carli to protect him. Yeah, and well, no one knows what happened. I mean, we've all got stories and thoughts. But I thought, how fucking ironica is? Are you facts? And we took him off, Carli, off the mother because you know, just a shit family. You know that you probably met them, I'm assumed, you know, And you go, you take William, take this baby, defenseless, poor little baby of a family because you've decided, or the government's decided that the family is too shit to look after the child. And then this happens. Yeah, you know, I can still see myself walking into that bloody unit. It's just up the stairs and turn left and you go into Yeah.
And what did you see when you got in there?
Oh, it's just a well it's just a little housing commission unit. And there was shit everywhere and kids toys everywhere, and that was just yeah. And there was with Liam on the floor and Carlie just abusing this shit out of.
Us, Carlie doing what sorry.
Oh, just abusing us, just you know, because we were there to take the kid.
And I'm assuming you'd been told by Facts or whoever passed that instruction to you that he's in danger.
Well I knew, I knew the family. I knew the Tyroll family, and it was a shit environment for William to be and there's no doubt in the world. But ironically, it's just okay, I thought we were all protecting him. Yeah, I just think, fuck, did did we do the right thing? And did we? But he just shake your head sometimes you go, you know, would he still be alive? Maybe you don't know.
You don't know, and you can't say, but you're you're only human if you're asking the question.
Well, exactly right, you go, well, I don't know if he'd be alive, but there's a chance in mind. I just think we thought we were all doing the right thing. Well we knew, Sorry I shouldn't say we thought we knew we were doing the right thing. Is the situation in the family. So the family was very ordinary. The family is very very ordinary in the facts. Thought so too, But it's it's just the irony of it that we took him to protect him because we thought he needed protecting him. This is what happened.
I've not I've obviously not been in your position, and I haven't seen a fraction of the things that you would have seen in your career. And I know that this probably isn't the worst of it, but that stuff isn't ever going to leave you or any of the people who were there that day, is it?
Well, no, not really, but it is the thing you go because of all the other shit we saw, like the deceased and the fadals and the kids and the CID's deaths and all the rest of it. You know, they're gone there in the back of my head and another ironic thing, you know, they're in my head, they're squared away. They're like, I'm fine with all of it. It is it occasionally, but ninety nine percent of the time, I'm fine. It doesn't affect me day to day. Yeah, but William William does because it keeps coming back.
It keeps coming back, he says, because of what would end up happening to William.
Yeah, it's just it's just shit. I mean, someone knows more than one person knows the actual truth of what happened one hundred percent, because William didn't walk away one hundred miles. He didn't get you know, either it was in a car or whatever. It is. Fucking someone knows what happened to William.
Today, police suspect the person who knows what happened to William is his foster mother. She insists on her innocence, So next time on Witness we look at William's foster family. If you know anything about William's disappearance, please contact crime Stoppers. There's a number in the show notes for this series, but if there's anything you want to tell us, you can email Witness at News dot com dot Au or I'm on social media and it can be completely confidential. A lot of people have been involved in making this series, among them, the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar and Phoebe Zakowski Wallace. Voice acting on this episode by Marcus Obern, research by Aidan Patrick, music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs and the editor at News dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box