One Monday, a couple of months ago, I got into the car with Nina, who's the producer on this series.

Just checking my levels again.

Pulled out into the traffic and went looking for someone we've been trying to talk to for the past 18 months.

Where are we going? What are we doing, Dan?

We're going to try and find William's birth mother, Carly. And 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 Carly on the phone. We've tried several phone numbers. So our last effort, because we really do want to make sure Carly 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 not 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 Brenda as well, who's William's dad. You and me have driven out like this. And the first house we went to, do you remember? It had obviously been bought and sold and done up. And every record of them living there had just been wiped clean. 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 Brenda 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 Brenda. And it's possible, Brenda, 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, Brenda, and to Carly, is that when you look at the disappearance of William Thirrell, there's one decision that is the start of everything that follows. That's the decision to take 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 12th of September, 2014, 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 At news. Com. Au, this is Witness, William Tyrell. Episode 2, Looking for Carly. After trying to find Brandon, we did contact his mum, Natalie Collins.

She's William's biological grandmother.

She's traditionally been the spokesperson person for the biological family.

Well, that was 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, Yeah, 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.

Hello?

Hey, Natalie. How are you doing?

Yeah, okay.

It was a phone conversation, and the audio isn't great.

I'm recording, by the way. I just got to let you know every time, otherwise, you get in trouble.

Hi.

Oh, sorry. I wasn't sure if you hung up on me.

No, no, no. It cuts out.

Okay, good. No, no, no.

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.

I was just a little bit worried going into it, how she was 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 Brenda. I've seen William, I think when he was taken off them, and then that day that they pulled him upstairs in a pramium jump from the pram riding to Brenda's art.

William was about nine months old when he was taken from his birth parents. He was born on the 26th of June 2011 at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. I don't know why, but Brenda'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 Brenda and Carly. Both of them have criminal records. Brenda has 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 Anna asks Natalie about the most recent search for William.

When there was the search back in 2021, I read a quote from you that said you 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 ever been up there?

No, I haven't yet.

Yeah, well, you can't say that until you go up there and then you'll see why. You have to go to the house and actually see the house and then I don't 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.

I've been there-Few times?

Three, 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, you realise 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 realise the chance of a chance abduction, it's almost impossible. The only people who go there have a reason, and then almost certainly someone sees them on the street. And I think Natalie is is 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. It 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 I've 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. What do you mean? If you were in my shoes, you wouldn't even ask that. It's all fucked up. All you reporters are the same. I haven't talked to your reporters for a long time. No, I understand, Natalie. And then just said, Christian, no, you're hounding me. And I'm talking from my heart. You haven't been in my shoes. I'm sick of it. I'm sick to death of it. This has been my life for 10 years. My son has been in frigging jail. He's been homeless. He's bloody hit rock bottom. After 10 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, your reporters are all the same, like daily mail shit. It's all crap. You got to be honest and help someone. You don't fucking put crap on there. Anyway, I don't want this recorded. I'm done.

Okay, I'll stop recording.

I wanted to ask you, 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 would be uncomfortable with that running is just mostly 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 then their emotional safety first. So to have her respond really negatively to something I said, I don't feel good about that at I felt awful that happened.

Do you understand why I wanted to use it?

Yeah, 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 sheer trauma that those close to William have gone through and are still going through now as a result of him going missing and there being no resolution of what happened to him. And I think that is important, that in this case that has become headlines and news specials and social media chatter. And at the heart of it, there is absolute grief. And nothing we can say, you 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 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. They've Yeah. They've been powerless since losing their child to the foster system. Yeah. Then they were powerless through the police investigation. They were pretty powerless through the media reporting when we weren't allowed to say who they were. Yeah. Again, the police and the government got in the way and said, This is what can be said. This can't be said. So they've been censored from being able to say what they want. Yeah. 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 that'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, He tried calling instead.

Okay, you can still hear me?

Yeah.

Perfect. You're happy for the phone call to be recorded?

Yeah.

Yeah. Wonderful. 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 In a way.

I'm so sorry to hear, Natalie. It must be absolutely awful.

How would you deal with it if it was your son or your daughter?

I can't even imagine.

Ten years is a long time. Ten years of my life that no one should really have to go through.

How are you going?

It's a long story, this bloody story. It's a long, drawn-out, sad story. But the thing is that these docs people, they failed to do their job properly. Because this shouldn't happen these days with foster care children. William was only a little baby, three years old. He vanished from the face of the Earth.

Okay, so we're pulling up shortly to the first address. And what's your plan?

Look, honestly, I don't think we're ever thinking. We are here to try and talk to Carly, to tell her what 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 to She's not going to shove a microphone in her face. No. If you walked up to my house with a microphone recording.

To talk about your missing child. I wouldn't talk to you. Yeah, fair enough.

But if it gets hostile, do you want me to get out and record? Or no?

Oh, so if it gets hostile, you're going to be sitting inside the car.

No, I'm 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 fair 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 pass judgement 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, unresolved attachment needs affecting her parenting capacity. And look 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 Carly has to say about that. I think that's the wrong house. Okay. So there was no one there, and I spoke to the neighbour, and the neighbour said it's not a Carly who lives there, but it is a Tyrell. Okay. She looked a little bit circunspect.

Yeah, because you're just a strange man in the middle of a day.

I'm probably not the first strange reporter who's turned at their house either over the years. But no, so I think we try the next address.

Onwards to house, too.

I'll be honest, it probably wasn't until I went to knock on the door that I realised how actually faintly sick I feel doing this.

Talk me through it.

It's just that you know if it is the right person. You just know it's going to be unpleasant for them.

Yeah. This is probably the most confronting way you'd have to do it.

So I left a letter there? Yeah. We'll see. All right. What's the next This address. One thing that makes a decision to take William off Carly and into care seem 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. Carly 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 looked happy. Natalie, William's biological grandmother, says that was not the case for William with his foster parents.

Like when William was in their care, black eyes, skinny, no shoes on. 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 does that work out?

Natalie is really critical of William's foster parents and particularly critical of his foster mother.

Then she stopped everything. Not allowed to give them lollies, not allowed to give them Kinder surprises, not allowed to give them the food that we were bringing. She packed the lunches dry pasta. No. In costume clothes all the time, marking her orders.

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, Brenda and Carly, not to call them Mum and Dad. But read through the records of William's foster care, and you see it was his caseworkers who encouraged this, not his foster parents. 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 You go and you call them Brindon and Carly. You don't call them Mum and Dad because they're not your Mum and Dad. We are. Who does all that?

Every visit by William's case worker is documented saying how William seemed, what he was wearing, his general health, the fact he liked his daycare, how he and his case worker were playing together, building a train set. As he grows up, the documents record that William 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. After 18 months, the documents record that William started saying his foster parents are his parents.

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 eye?

There is a record in the files of William getting a black eye. In fact, there's pages about it. It was in July 2014, just after his third birthday.

Oh, he fell off my lap. No, it was a black eye.

The foster records say William fell on coffee table while crawling on his foster mother's lap.

You don't get a black eye from falling from a knee.

And speaking as a dad of three, kids do pick up injuries that way. They fall off your lap or run into tables or tripped downstairs. The files show the foster mother reported this fall to William's case worker 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 hematoma tumour, 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 case worker 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 as reasons to say he wasn't okay in the care of his foster parents.

There was heaps of reasons. William was never sick. William was always happy. The last time I think, Brandon had seen him was in the August, and he was crying and screaming. He didn't want to go back. Not long after 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. How? Why?

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In the years after William was taken from them, other 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, 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, Brenda said to have missed a couple of the sessions and not really participated in the group discussions. So the course organiser recommended that he start the course again.

Has William's father, if Have you spoken to him?

Oh, yes, I have.

How does he feel about it all?

Well, I don't even know. He's trying to get himself... Like, he's getting better. Do you know what I mean? But he's got a lot of support. We talk about it, and I feel bad for my son. I just look at his life. His life has been turned upside down since that poor little boy disappeared. He's still in rehab. He knocked himself around for quite a long time, punishing himself. And it really wasn't his fault. He was a good dad. He was a good provider. He loves his kids. And And he's worked hard to get where he is today.

How long has it been since you've done a door knock?

Less than a year. But the last time I did a door knock, no one answered. The last time I did a door knock for a family who 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. But 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 shout, okay? Okay, sure. A week after their first conversation, Emily, the producer, called William's biological grandmother again.

Okay, can you hear me, Natalie? Yeah. 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 Brenda and Carly's relationship. How did they first meet?

I don't even know. That was probably the worst thing he ever did in his life, is meet her.

You weren't that fond of No, she had a lot of problems, a lot of issues, that girl. Do you know how long they were together before they had William?

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 by the other. That's my opinion as well.

So it was a bit of a It was a turbulent relationship, would you say?

It was a bit of like, well, Brandon was always doing the right thing, 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, to have dinner. And then after we left, then they started fighting. And then the people would call the police, and it was like, well, he's got to go. But nothing major. I mean, I grew up in that environment, no one rang and said my mother and father were fighting and blah, blah, blah.

How did it feel when Brenda and Carly's photos were out in the media and their names were used?

Yeah, terrible.

And the whole time, the foster parents, their identities were were all hidden.

Yeah, terrible. Brenda wasn't as bad as whatever I thought. I was a decent mum. I wasn't like a Mount Jules mum. I was a decent mum. You think he had a terrible mother? No, he didn't. He had It would have been me. It was a good 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, Brenda's mum's opinion on Carly as a mother. And that's another reason to want to talk to Carly herself. All right, nothing again. No one there. A couple of cars in the driveway, a 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 case worker she only agreed to having William in long-term care so that she and Brenda could focus on parenting their remaining children well.

What do you remember about William as a little baby?

He was always happy. He was never sick. Always happy. Happy, happy baby, healthy. We would go there for one hour, supervised visits. Sat down and had a picnic, or like, kinds of crises and bought Kinder's of Crisis and Lolypops and stuff, but we weren't allowed to have that. All this crap happens. With William, every time he's seeing Brandon, he just loved him and screaming and crying and crying and crying and crying and Okay, so there are different versions of these contact visits.

There's Natalie Collins's version, and then there's the written version in the documents of William's time in foster care. The biological parents were allowed six 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, 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 carers. He was described as defiant or having oppositional behaviour, 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, William's recorded as saying he didn't want to go, but he got excited when told it was at Chipmunk's, which is a play centre 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 Brenda. Ten days later, William disappeared.

And so Carly and Brenda don't have any contact now?

Oh, no.

Do you mind me asking, when did their relationship end?

The day that William went missing.

That very day?

Yeah, that was the end of it.

Was William's disappearance a contributor to that?

Yeah.

If William didn't go missing, do you think Brenda and Carly might still be together today?

Oh, no. I don't think so.

You don't think so, or you don't hope so?

I don't think so.

Do you know roughly how old Brenda and Carly were when they met?

I think Carly was only 17 or something, and Brenda was about 22 or something. Only young. Very young. Silly. You can't change some people, but I'm just worried about my kids.

What's your biggest worry about them?

I'm I'm always worrying about them.

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, experience. So much of it seems to come down to different kinds of judgement 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 while away, must have felt like someone saying, You're not a 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, Brenda and Carly and Natalie, they took William and they hid.

I hid them for three months after I knew they were going to take William.

You're talking about before William went into foster care, when- Yeah. When Brenda took William.

Yeah. It was me. It wasn't him. So I hit them. I hid them for three months, and then they got caught.

Carly, Brenda, and William lived with Natalie for weeks during this time, and Natalie says she arranged it.

I arranged it all.

You were the mastermind.

Yeah, that's right. And so you were saying- I should have taken him myself. I should have just took him myself, then no one would have been able to take him off me. That's how I should have done.

This was in February 2012, 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 Carly'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 Carly or the grandmother. So a case worker called four different telephones phone 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.

How House number three is the one I think is most likely to be her house currently.

Why do you think that?

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. How well? Well, there is 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 plainclothed detectives canvassing the neighbours, 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 8?

I'm glad you told me that thing about how badly it went last time. All right.

Yeah, drive forward a little.

Just so you can see the door. Yeah.

Because if they do come out and shove you, I am going to get out of the car and record it. Are you good? Yeah. Okay.

William was officially listed as a missing person. A month later, the police did catch up with his biological father, Brandon.

I remember the day he'd 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.

Were you there the moment that the police came and arrested Brandon and Carly?

No, I was at work.

What What was it like going to work that morning? You've got your grandkids and Brandon and Carly in the granny flat out the back, and then you come home and your whole life's been uprooted.

The sad thing is the story is very sad from the beginning to the end.

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 16th of March 2012, William was placed with authorised carers. And a year later, April 2013, a court ordered William to remain in care, technically under the parental responsibility of a government minister, until he turned 18. Meaning that court and the state government did not anticipate William ever returning to Carly and Brenda. 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. There's a paddling hanging over the back deck. You can see through one of the windows that the kitchen's got stuff in it, so someone is living there. I left a letter, and hopefully she'll call.

That was our last house. Yeah. What now?

Nina and I never do manage to speak to Carly. Carly, 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 2015, Carly gave an interview to the Seven Network that was broadcast on TV. What mum did you think you would be?

Like a nurturing mum, caring, loving.

Yeah, a good mum. No one knows their baby better than the mum. 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 hurt him.

Just let him 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 Brenda, 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 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 families all the time. You do it. It's just it is part of the job. But, and ironically, this is the thing I get What I'm upset about is… Sorry, mate.

No, it's all right.

Yeah. We took William off Carly to protect him.

Yeah.

Well, no one knows what happened. I mean, we've all got stories and thoughts, but I thought, How fucking ironic is that? Facts. We took him off Carly, off the mother because just a shit family. You know them, you probably met them, I'm assuming. You take William, take this defenceless, poor little baby of a family because you've decided or the government's decided the family is too shit to look after the child, and then this happens. I can still see myself walking into that bloody unit. It's just up the stairs and turn left and you go inside. Yeah.

And what did you see when When you got in there?

Oh, 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 Wiglim on the floor. And Carly just abusing this shit out of us.

Carly doing what, sorry?

Just abusing us because we were there to take the kid.

I'm assuming you'd been told by fax or whoever passed that instruction to you that he's in danger?

Well, I knew the family. I knew the Thierry family, and it was a shit environment for William to be in. 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 we do the right thing? But you just shake your head sometimes. You go, Would he still be alive? Maybe. You don't know.

You don't know and you can't say, but 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 he might. 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 because the situation in the family. So the family was very ordinary. The family is very, very ordinary, and the facts thought so, too. But It's just the irony of it that we took him to protect him because we thought he needed protecting, and this is what happened.

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, the deceased and the fatals and the kids and the Sids deaths and all the rest of it, they're gone. They're in the back of my head. And another ironic thing, they're in my head. They're squared away, they're squared away. They're like, I'm fine with all of it. They visit occasionally, but 99% of the time I'm fine. It doesn't affect me day to day.

Yeah.

But 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 shit. I mean, someone knows. More than one person knows the actual truth of what happened 100 %, because William didn't walk away 100 miles. He didn't get... 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@news. Com. 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, Nicolas Adams-Jasbar, and Phoebe Zakowski-Wallace. Voice acting on this episode by Marcus O'Burn. Research by Aidan Patrick, music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Cooms, and the editor at news. Com. Au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box.

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