I've got my photos here, thinking one day I'll put them on the wall.

But-yvette Elliot is showing me some photos in her home.

It was just a moment in time where it captured.

I've just arrived. We haven't set up for a proper interview yet, and Yvette's dog starts bouncing around us in excitement. This was before.

So this is William. Off the bit.

He must be under one.

When this was the good old days.

Yvette's house is neat and nice, white walls, the afternoon sun coming through the windows. And Yvette herself is lovely. She's welcoming, but also worried. The photos make her think back to a different time, years ago now.

We didn't Cove. We were all Lane Cove ladies, and we all lived in and around Lane Cove.

Lane Cove is a suburb in Sydney. It's a bit posh. And the Lane Cove ladies were just that, a group of women who'd meet up once a month and talk about their lives and their careers and their children.

So we used to go to music festivals. Well, not really music festivals. They were like a wine and food festival, and the kids would just dance at the front.

One of those kids was William Tyrell.

That was the happy days.

Yeah, it looks it.

You just wonder, what would we all be doing now if it wasn't for what happened?

Are you suggesting that what happened to William may fractured that group.

Oh, absolutely. Everything regarding our relationship changed.

Years after William was reported missing, detectives turned up at Yvette's door without warning. She and I sit down together for the proper interview, and Yvette tells me what the police asked her.

It was incredibly targeted. It was very, very targeted, and they were trying to find something. I I asked them whether they had any suspects, and they said definitively, yes, that they did. And there was a lot of questions. And I guess thinking back now, they were probably cleverly put together. Majority of it seemed to be very focused on William's mum.

After a couple of hours, Yvette tells me the police left. Finishing our interview, I turn off the microphone, and then Yvette tells me how, after saying goodbye to the detectives, she phoned her old friend, William's Foster mother, saying, I've just been interviewed by the police, and it was the weirdest thing. And William's Foster mother told her another of the Lane Cove ladies had just called, saying detectives had also been asking her questions. William's Foster mother told Yvette, the police were trying to throw her under the bus. I'm Dan Box, and from news com. Au, this is Witness, William Tyrell. Episode 3, The Foster Parents.

Hello, hello, hello. Yeah. Talking on mic one. Door closed. Light on.

Okay, so this is unscripted. Nina, you're the producer on this podcast. You've seen more than most people. You've been through documents, interview statements, seen or listened to hours of interviews that we've done so far. So at this stage, months in, what do you think of the foster parents?

I think I'd like to say upfront that I currently do not have any inkling, theory, predisposition on what happened to William. And the reason for that is if you read through everything, I think you could make a flimsy case for almost any person of interest. That includes, to me, the foster parents.

It feels like everyone has an opinion on them. We can't name them for legal reasons, but their lives have been made public on front pages and newspapers and online in excruciating detail. Have a look at this. That is incoming passenger cards dug out of the National Archives.

So the date on this document is 1968? Yeah.

There's passenger cards from 1968 and 1970, showing the entry of a family into Australia from Papua New Guinea.

Okay, what's a passenger card?

Passenger card is when you fly into Australia or if you catch a ship in, you have to fill in details saying who you are, where you're going to be staying, who your parents are, if you're a child. And one of these passengers is a child, born a few years earlier. It's William's foster mother. And you can see her father's an engineer, her mother's listed as a housewife. The reason for their journey is a holiday. They're going to stay a month. You got the flight number, you got the address in Queensland where they're going to be staying. Someone's gone into the National Archives and dug these out, then shared them online. They've been poured over and commented on, probably seen by, I'm guessing hundreds, maybe thousands. These have been sent to journalists, so I've been sent them.

What's supposed to be the significance of it?

I don't know. The person who sent those to me told me you could do a whole podcast episode on those messenger cards.

Okay, I can say that's not interesting.

But that's the level of attention in William's foster mother and her husband.

I think that's terrible. I couldn't imagine living like that, just having every element of your life under the microscope. It must be horrifying for them.

Okay, let's jump forward to 1996.

In 1996, I started working at a new company, and she was already there.

This is another of the foster mother's close friends. She doesn't want to be identified. So these are her words, but not her voice. Place.

So we bonded and bonded at work and then bonded out of work and became a friendship outside of work as well.

And what was your impression of her?

Smart. She was smart. She was fun, though. It was just We'd go out shopping at lunchtime, sometimes just try on dresses. It was just fun. We were both 30, 30-ish. Yeah, I think I just turned 30 after I started there.

A few years later, this friend was a bridesmaid at the foster mother's wedding.

We went up the night before because they put on welcome drinks for everybody on the Friday night. And then on the day, we had hair and makeup done. It was just a happy day. We went in an old car and the groom and his groom showed up in a helicopter, which I'm not sure if the bride even knew about. She probably did, but I didn't know. It was hilarious. The red helicopter came in. It was just fun. It was really nice.

She says the couple wanted to have a family, but they couldn't. The reasons for that are personal and they're deeply painful. They did have IVF for years. William's foster mum would later tell detectives she wanted to have five or six children. She'd tell police that she also always wanted to foster and adopt. She'd say she'd always grown up wanting to help others. It's weird, she'd tell police. That's a direct quote. But I always knew I would end up having children that weren't mine.

When they first started fostering, I was taken by how naturally they took to parenting.

This is from a written reference her friend would later provide for William's foster parents.

They were not foster parents. They were parents. None of our friendship group considered the children to be foster children. They were simply their children. They did what lots of other families with young children do. They had a toy room, they ate dinner together as a family, went on holidays to the park, bike riding adventures. And as the children grew up, they were a normal close family.

I also spoke to another of the foster mother's close friends, Sarah.

I thought she was a wonderful parent. I thought she was very thoughtful and considered, very loving, and the children loved her.

Did you get any sense that there were difficulties within that household at that time?

Oh, no, none at all. I mean, I would say nothing other than what a normal parenting children family life is. You know, like nothing's perfect. Nothing's all roses and unicorns and unicorns. But no, I think her and her husband are both unbelievably good parents, and William in particular. If the foster father was away and then would come home, and he'd be running towards him to greet him. Just the absolute love was amazing. And I think even in the videos that they've had in the media, the home videos, I think it's very evident. Let's see if I can catch up with William.

Here I come.

Where's that William guy? He's doing really well.

A third friend, Yvette Elliott, showed me that photograph of their families together and talked about the Lane Cove Ladies.

I remember just coming up to Christmas, and it was the gathering again of Lane Cove Ladies, and our kids were all of the same age. William, being a couple of years younger, was my son's shadow because he was the a bigger boy. They were fun times. We were just living life. I guess without thinking, it was just a it was just a magical time. There was no evil, there was no evil that was to come.

William was nine months old when he came to live with his foster parents. That was March 2012. So, Nina, this is the point when you start to have questions.

I We don't necessarily have questions about the relationship between them and William because I think it's fairly documented. The picture that's painted, I think, it paints a picture of a mother who is really struggling. She says at one stage that by 08:00 AM in the morning, she's already incredibly frustrated and can't believe that she could be feeling that way by 08:00 AM in the morning. It isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. Totally understandable. Where I start to have questions is how the foster mother describes the relationship with William to the police. It just seems like there's a disconnect between what I'm seeing in the foster care documents and what has been painted as quite a happy relationship in police statements.

Well, let's unpack that a bit. The foster parents have very rarely spoken. This is them describing William.

He's the cheeky, vibrant little boy, full of energy, loves interacting with his sister. He loved interacting with us.

It's from an interview released by police less than a year after William was reported missing.

I mean, my little boy, just brings me to tears.

They're pretty cheeky in that, aren't they?

They're very cheeky. But also they've got that love. And the father and boy love that he had.

It was just- He adored his dad. Just absolutely. His eyes and there was a smile. I look back at some of the pictures, and I look at pictures when William was smiling for me, and I look at pictures where William was smiling for his dad, and it's different. Daddy's little boy. Oh, completely. They adored each other. Absolutely adored each other, and it's heartbreaking.

And a few months later, on the first anniversary of William's disappearance, William's foster parents recorded an interview with the journalist Leah Harris from the Sunday Telegraph. The audio is not great, but you can hear them saying the same thing one of their friends told me, how William would always be waiting for his foster father to arrive home from work.

He would always wait at the front with his sister. As soon as I drive in the driveway, that would be just leaping, running, jumping. This is the highlight of my day every day, really. I'm sure the highlight of there is, too. I just come home and hugs and cuddles and kisses and go inside and start to do the routine of bath time and dinner and all those sorts of things.

Eight years later, in 2022, the foster parents recorded another interview with Leah Harris, who by now was working as a TV reporter for Network 10. She asked them to describe their family life.

Just life was an adventure, and it was to be enjoyed. And it was all about learning and discovery and just being so innocent. It's That joyness of just being so innocent and loving life that I remember most about William. How did him coming into your lives change your lives?

Changed it forever, but in a in a really positive way.

Nina, what you were saying was that we've got more than one account of that family's life together. There's what we know from the foster care records, there's what we know from court hearings. In April 2012, a month after William came to stay with his foster parents, an official from the state government team that was supporting the foster care visits the home. And he'd later say in court, and I was there, that the foster parents disciplined William's sister using time out But for them, time out meant time outside. And the sister was two at the time.

See, that's judgement. But yeah, I would agree that's not appropriate. For a two-year-old, which is what the foster care person was saying.

And the foster mum also told this official that she'd threatened to smack William's sister but had never done it. And we've got other documents. 11th October 2013, William shows a strong preference for his foster dad but rejects interaction with his foster mum. This is what you were talking about. 29th of October 2013, the foster mum e-mailed their case worker about William's behavioural issues, and she says it's like he's operating at warps speed. He's recorded as being defiant and sullen at daycare. But both of those are after a contact visit with his biological parents, and that's a pattern. So the worst of it that I can find is William cutting the hair of other kids at childcare and deliberately urinating on the floor, which are pretty bad behaviours. And more than once, the foster mum emailed their case worker saying she was struggling to understand why those contact visits couldn't be less frequent. And she says she was, quote, very tired, physically and emotionally. Do you read anything into that?

Yeah. I mean, like I said, that all sounds relatively what I would expect for a child who's in foster care. He's quite a young child. I can imagine that it would be really confusing for a kid to have these regular visits with one set of parents, go home to another set of parents, and struggle to understand that. So that all sounds, I think, okay. I can imagine that she would be feeling tired and frustrated.

And look, being a parent isn't easy.

No.

You're a parent, I'm a parent. I've got a three-year-old, 10-year-old, and a 13-year-old, and I get tired. And at times, I might have thrown things just to deal with... I mean, there's frustration. There's been times when the three-year-old and I are both shouting at each other. But the difference is my His life isn't documented.

It's not documented. Yeah.

So there is evidence in these documents that William's foster care placement was working, and you can hear it in those home videos. Go, William.

In the documents, his foster care placement is described as being very stable.

When William had his third birthday, his foster mum made him a cake in the shape of a fire engine. Happy birthday, William. I'll get it.

Have you finished? No, I'll get it. Lick your fingers, lick your head.

William told his case worker that he really loved his party, which was held in the family's backyard. There was friends from daycare and neighbours. This is mid-2014, a few months before he went missing. At times, the records of his foster care show his behaviour seeming to get better. It might take only 20 or 30 minutes to settle him in bed at night rather than hours. At other times, though, his behaviour is harder to manage. There's hyperactivity, he's described as slapping and punching his carers, his defiant oppositional behaviour. It's not the simple happy family that the foster care parents have described in public. And William's foster mum is quite a private person, and she's quite controlled. And maybe be controlling. This is her talking to Leah Harris again.

It's just so personal for us. I feel like I want to keep a lot of those really special memories for us, personal. They're our personal, they're our family memories, and I know people want to know more, but I've just got to keep some things private and special. It's just really hard now to keep talking about what happened on that William's foster care worker went to the family's house on the fifth of September, 2014.

So that's nine days before William goes missing. And the records say that William ran up and hugged his case worker around his legs. William was wearing his Spider-Man costume, which was his favourite. And the foster mum said William's behaviour had been a struggle since the last contact visit with his parents. And for a while, there'd been this back and forth where William's foster mother wanted to have fewer contact visits, and William's birth mother wanted more. The foster parents wanted to formally adopt William, but they feared his birth mother would fight that in court. One thing that does strike me about this case is a lot of it comes down to judgments on motherhood.

Absolutely. Well, you mentioned the birthday party. I was looking at a photo from that birthday party on social media. So one person says, The candles aren't even lit. How is this really a birthday party? The candles aren't even lit. Then someone else comes in and goes, This is incredibly dangerous because William is sitting at the corner of the table and it's pointed right at his neck. Any slip from any person could knock him onto the table. And there was like 20, 30 comments of people picking apart this photo, literally a photo of a little boy smiling in front of a birthday cake.

So making judgments on the foster mother's parenting.

The foster mother's parenting, yeah.

You do see that the trolls online compare the two mothers. So I've seen posts describing Carly as William's natural mother and saying that her family needs reunification, saying William belongs to his natural mother, and the thoughts of foster parents are irrelevant. And I've seen another where that says William's mommy pleads, don't hurt him while the fosters still hide their faces. But you can't help but compare the two sets of parents, and you can't help but compare the life William had with his foster parents to the life he had before. So William's foster parents take him and his sister on expensive holidays, months apart to the Gold Coast, to Cairns, to Bali. When his birth mum is told about the Bali trip, she says, They went again? Lucky them. And there were other trips, including to Kendall on the mid-north Coast of New South Wales. William's foster mother's parents lived there.

It was not really a long weekend, like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or something like that. Might be once every three or four months, especially Nana's birthday or whatever it might be. There'd be an occasion, but it's also a good time to catch up.

Kendall is about a four or five hour drive north from Sydney, which is not an easy thing to do with young children.

The trip included the halfway point, stopping at their favourite little snack that they'd get, which would be McDonald's. That's really the only time that they would actually get it on the way up. And on the way back, I think it was because it's the halfway point. They get their happy meal type thing, and they got excited, but they're still excited about the overall journey, which was to Nana's. So that was what they were looking forward to.

William's foster Nana lived in a big house at the top of a wide dead-end road called Benaroon Drive.

That location It's quiet. The only people who go up that road are typically the people who live there.

It's a cul-de-sac.

At Mum and Dad's place, they knew it. He knew it. He was incredibly comfortable there. So like-He knew the layout.

He knew the layout. The tenure of everything.

You have to assume that children are safe in their own backyards and in their own homes. And they've been up there more than enough.

But the lead up to that last visit was unsettled. William's foster grandfather had recently died. His foster nana was about to sell the house. And there were emails from the time between William's foster mother and his case worker talking again about those contact visits the biological parents. On the ninth of September, William's foster mum sends his case worker an email saying, I am close to giving up or in. That phrase close to giving up or in, would get repeated over and over in the years since, both online and in the newspapers. One newspaper said the phrase appears to explain at least some of the dramatic developments in the police investigation that followed. It's used to almost imply that there's something darker about the foster mum. And it does contrast with what the foster mum later told police. Have a look at this. This This is a copy of the foster mum's interview with police, or one of her interviews with police.

Yeah. So this is a police report from 2016.

So this is not the initial statement that she gave to police? It was a couple of years later.

Okay. It says, and this is the thing that kills me about this, is that he and I were just reaching that absolute 100% open, true mum-son relationship. And he was just beautiful.

Which does seem to directly contrast this idea that she's close to giving up or giving in. But When you actually read the full email chain, I think it's been misreported. I don't think in the context of that email chain that the foster mum is talking about giving up or giving in about William's behaviour The sentence is, I'm close to giving up or in. I don't have the energy to argue against this.

That's a good point.

I think giving up or giving in is about the back and forth on the number of contact visits with the biological parents The email chain shows that they're not going to reduce the number of visits like the foster mum has asked. And the foster mum is reacting against this back and forth, but she's close to giving in. She's not giving up or giving in about being a foster mum or about dealing with William's behaviour, which is how it's been presented in the years that have followed.

Is that one interpretation? Should I read the whole sentence? Go for it. She's replying to an email. I haven't censored my initial thoughts because they are still there, but I am close to giving up or in. I don't have the energy to argue against this. This is what you're saying, arguing against the visits. I'm feeling pretty ragged at the moment. William has not settled one bit and is still overly emotional, but managing it better with help. It's possible. I get your interpretation of it. I still think reading through the whole chain that she was a woman who was struggling.

Yeah. In that same email, the foster mum says the family are going up to her mum's house in Kendall. That weekend. The plan is to go up on the Friday, which is the 12th of September, 2014. But the day before, so Thursday, the 11th of September, they make a snap decision to go up a day early. They book their cats in for boarding at short and they drive up stopping at McDonald's. They recorded ordering at the counter on CCTV. So all of that has been confirmed by police. The foster mother's phone records from that day have been published online. So you can see that apart from William's case worker and William's foster nana who she calls, and maybe the staff at McDonald's, and maybe the people looking after their cats, because they go up early, no one knows that William is going to be in Kendall the next morning. So they got there late in the evening of the 11th, about 8:30 or 9:00. The kids went to bed. William is sharing a room with his foster dad, and William's sister is sharing with their mum. And the grown up sat up talking. The foster dad was tired.

He went to bed next. William was not scared of the dark, and at home, he slept with the door shut. Cocaine is a global industry where the profits are counted up in millions and the losses measured out in murders because it's only business. Right now, business is good. I'm like, What's your selling? What are you talking about? I don't think we can rest our way out of this. Listen to Cocaine Inc, wherever you get your podcast, or visit cocaineinc.

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William was the first to wake up on the 12th of September, according to his foster parents. In one of their conversations with Leah Harris, William's foster father said they watched TV together.

William and I were in one room, but William wanted to watch, I think it was bananas in pyjamas or something like that, or Fireman Sam. And so we're watching that in the morning. And so that was good fun because he was giggling and laughing and enjoying himself.

And that was the sound that you woke to that morning? Yeah, the The laughter. His giggle was infectious.

Incredible.

People would hear that, and you couldn't help but smile.

William's foster mother told police that she got him dressed that morning.

I remember the discussion I had with William about putting on his Spider-Man clothes because I wanted him to wear a singlet. He didn't want to wear a singlet, so the compromise was he'd wear a Spider-Man T-shirt underneath his Spider-Man clothes, so he was Spider-Man out completely. All these little things that I just remember. It was just a normal family doing normal family things.

Except one thing wasn't normal. In another of their conversations with the journalist, Leah Harris, William's foster mother describes seeing two cars parked on the dead-end road opposite her mum's house.

When we woke up, I always open up this sliding door that's on the veranda, looking out back down Benaroon Drive from Mum's place. And as I opened it, and I walked out, because there's normally a cuckaburra that comes up onto the balcony of the veranda and just say hello to the cuckaburra. But I'm looking out over the veranda, and I see two cars, and I see these two cars just sitting there in the road. And my first thought was, Oh, that's odd. I looked at these cars thinking, Why would two cars be parked on Benaroon Drive? I looked again, and both these cars had their driver's side windows down, and I just looked again and I thought, Oh, that's weird, because they were parked in the middle of two driveways. I had direct view of them. They would have had direct view of me. I thought, It's odd, and went back inside and didn't think another thing of it.

It's odd because you don't see a lot of cars parked on Benaroon Drive. There's a few houses there, and each of them has got a long drive with space for a few cars. So you don't park on the road if you live there or if you're visiting. And you don't go there unless you do live there or you've got a good reason to do so. And something else is odd, too. William's foster mother told Leah Harris she forgot about seeing the two cars, then remembered seeing them the same night.

I realised that night that William went missing, that I had actually seen two cars.

But she told police she didn't remember this until a few days later.

I remember reporting the other cars to the guys in the police rescue van that was parked here when we picked up my sister from the airport. Because on the away home from the airport, I'm driving the car and I just went, There were cars there. My sister goes, What cars? I've gone, Oh, my God. That's when I've talked about the two cars.

Maybe that's a mistake. One time, she says she remembered seeing the cars that night, and another time, she says she remembered seeing the cars a few days later. But there are other confusions. On one occasion, William's foster mother seems to say one of the cars was on the road the morning she reported William missing when the first police officer arrived. His name was Chris Rauley.

Because when Chris Rauley came up, he was a responding policeman from when I called Triple O, I actually walked across where that white station wagon was because I met him on the road. And as Chris Rauley is coming up Benaroon Drive. I'm on the left-hand side, standing near where that white station wagon was. I've walked past there.

So it's not obvious there if William's foster mother is saying she walked past the white station wagon when Chris Rauley arrived, or if she's saying she walked past where the station wagon had been. But in her interview with police, she seems more certain. She says the cars weren't there when Chris Rauley arrived.

I'm not making this up. Those cars were there and they were outside that house. When Chris Rauley came up, those cars weren't there.

Listening to the different interviews, you might not be sure if William's foster mother is consistent on whether the station wagon was there or it wasn't.

I found that the description of the cars, I definitely noticed this as well. That she's been a bit inconsistent about the timings of the cars. It seems to me that the police haven't been able to verify at any point over the years that the cars were there.

You're right.

Yeah.

In his witness statement, Chris Rauley, the police officer, doesn't mention the cars being there. And the police have asked neighbours, and nobody says they saw them. So why might the cars be important?

Well, the cars are important if we're looking at the theory that William was abducted, right? So if we're looking at the abduction theory, which is already statistically the least likely thing to have happened. Those cars being there in the time that they were there is really, really important to nail down. If the cars, in fact, weren't there, and they can verify that they weren't there, then that makes the case in a completely different direction. So that's just as important.

In different interviews, it's William's foster mum who keeps coming back to the importance of her seeing those cars.

So either they're involved or they've seen what's happened. We just need them to come forward to say, This is what we saw.

From your memory, were they gone when you realised that William had gone missing?

Were they not there anymore? I realised that they weren't there that night when I remembered walking across the road to see Chris Rauley.

So there, William's foster mother is again talking about remembering seeing those cars that night. And to make it all more confusing, there was a witness who was interviewed by police only years later who described seeing a white Holden driving near where William was reported missing on the day he disappeared. Only that witness described seeing a Holden sedan, not a station wagon, which William's foster mother described. And any inconsistency in someone's evidence, it can attract suspicion.

They took our laptops. We were grilled.

We were completely grilled separately in isolations in back of detectives' vehicles. They took my vehicle away. They completely searched it, checked it. They did everything.

And we had multiple conversations with multiple police people and detectives and all sorts of other police, always just checking in, just looking at corroborating things, checking with us, all sorts of things. And I remember saying to you that we would have had to have been their prime suspects because we were the last people to see him. And if they didn't completely investigate investigate us. I would be absolutely gobsmacked because you've got to rule us out.

I remember at the time, I was newspaper reporter, speaking to a senior detective days after William disappeared, and he told me, We've rolled out both sets of parents. And then the years passed, and The Department of Family and Community Services, so the state government body that manages foster care, continued to give William's foster parents other children to look after. And that feels like a judgement on them as parents as saying, These guys are safe. We can give them other children to look after. William's foster parents kept calling for more public attention on William's disappearance.

We're going to hear for some wonderful kids. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to the Kendall Public School Choir who are going to sing, Bring Him Home, the official Where's William campaign theme song, which is chosen by William's mommy and daddy. Give them a big round of applause.

We're coming up to a very important week. Where's William Week? The Search for a Little William Tyrell. Now we're expecting up to a thousand people to pack into the Kendall showgrounds to offer their support, not only to William Tyrell's family. What is called a Walk For William. Now, these will be held across New South Wales as well.

They're asking for everyone to get involved, get on board.

If you know something, please say something.

We can't let people forget William.

We can't.

It's a three-year-old boy that was abducted. How can we, the public, police, say that's okay and let it go?

They also called for more police attention on William's disappearance, including in this interview with Leah Harris.

Will you ever give up fighting for him?

Never.

Never. Never.

Till my last breath. Absolutely.

Absolutely. If police think they've seen the last of us, big mistake. You won't be going quietly. We will not give up on William, and we will not let other people give up on him. He's too important to give up on. Never going to happen, ever.

William's foster parents have declined to be interviewed for this series on advice from their lawyers. I have met them. We meet in safe houses, different hotels. When we meet, we turn off our phones, which might sound paranoid, but they have reason to be paranoid. William's foster parents know in recent years that the police have been intercepting their calls. They know they've had listening devices in their homes and surveillance cameras outside it. We'll get into all of that later in this series. William's foster mother has given us a written statement, and it's the first time she said anything in public about William's disappearance in the years since she was publicly identified in the media and by the police as a suspect. These are her words. Just over 10 years ago, my little boy, William Tyrell, disappeared from my mother's yard at her house at Kendall. I believe that William was taken. I have no idea who took William or what happened to him. If he is in fact dead, I have no idea where his little body is. I have no knowledge of or involvement in his disappearance. Even though William was not my child by birth, I loved William as much as any mother could love her child.

I loved him as if he was my child by birth, if not more. It did not matter one bit that he was not connected to us biologically. William made my life complete. I loved him fiercely. I just loved being his mommy. My life with William was happy, fun, and an adventure. Every day was different. Never, ever for a moment did I regret becoming a foster mother. We were a family, not the traditional version of a family. It didn't matter. We were and still are a family, and we connected as one. For the past five years, the police have done nothing to try to discover who took William and what has happened to him. Instead, they have concentrated all their efforts on trying to build a case that I was in some way to blame for his death and the disposal of his precious little body. They have gone to great lengths to blacken my character in the media. I believe that if the police had properly investigated this case instead of persecuting me, they may well have found the person responsible for William's disappearance. It's challenging challenging to have hope and build plans for the future when our hearts remain shattered and in pieces.

All I can hope for is that some person who knows something comes forward. Working on this podcast, I drove up to the house of Yvette Elliott, the old friend of William's foster parents, who told me about the Lane Cove ladies. We talked about how for years after William went missing, different Different police seemed to agree the foster parents had nothing to do with his disappearance, but something must have made them suspicious, because Yvette told me how detectives turned up at her house asking questions in October 2021.

It was incredibly targeted. It was very, very targeted, and they were trying to find something, and I had nothing to give them.

They told you they had a suspect. They didn't tell you who it was at that stage?

No, they didn't necessarily categorically mention William's mum. But when you look back at the pointed questions and how much time was spent on her personality, on her relationships, on who she was as a person, then it was very much... I became very much aware of who they were focused on.

Looking back now at that interview with the police and everything that's happened before after William went missing, what's your perspective of the police now and has that changed?

Before, I had the absolute respect for police. And when I was 18, I wanted to join the police. So I absolutely held the police in the highest regard. I don't feel that way anymore. I'm nervous for William's mum and dad because it feels like a very targeted campaign. And now their attention is I only turned to one person, and that terrifies me.

After leaving Avets, I also spoke to two other friends of William's foster parents. They both described how the police came asking questions.

I found the questioning quite… I didn't understand why they wanted to know about her past boyfriends and what's the relevance? Asking me things like, What family were they? I just said, They're just a normal family. Well, do they sit down and have dinner together? I'm like, Yeah. I don't know. They just felt like they were trying. It felt like they knew what they wanted to know, and they were trying to find evidence to support that. I was like, I'm I'm the wrong person. I'm the wrong person.

Why were you the wrong person?

Well, because I don't believe they had anything to do with William's disappearance. I've known his foster mother since 1996, right? I know her well. I've been on holidays with her. I've been her bridesmaid. I know her well.

There's also something else, another reason I wanted to talk to this woman in particular. That's because her name came up in court last year. One of the detectives investigating William's disappearance, Sean Ogilvie, was giving evidence about all the evidence they've gathered, including, a substantial number of witness statements. Sean Ogilvie said four people had declined to give a witness statement, and he named them. This woman is one of those four people. And you're one of those four names. What did you think when you heard that?

I was just super angry. Super angry that my friends had to sit in a courtroom and hear that I refused to support them because I was never asked. I did not decline. I was never asked. I was never even asked to provide a statement or that reference or whatever it was. I have provided other references in the past. I've recently been asked to provide one for my friend's lawyer. I I did it that day. I was never, ever asked to provide that. It made me very angry that my name was read out and that they had to sit there and listen to that.

If you had been asked to give a statement, what would you have said?

Well, I don't know. I don't know anything about what they were asking. I don't know what they were asking for because I was never asked.

If they were asking you if you'd ever seen any evidence that William's foster mum or foster dad dad could intimidate a child, what would you have said?

Yeah, I've seen the dad be a bit cranky, but nothing outside the ordinary bounds of parenting. Parenting kids is hard. Not everyone's an angel. You lose your temper sometimes. But that's what I would have said. Not physical, though.

Do you think they were good parents?

I do. I really do. They really made a family for those children. They got into bike riding and the back room at their house before they renovated, the whole back room was just for the kids' play area, with chalkboards, bags of toys, and there was always laughter in that house. They were a fun family.

That's what you would have told the police if you had given that statement?

Yeah.

So did the police get confused? Were they mistaken to say this woman declined to give a witness statement? Why are the police targeting William's foster parents and who's in charge of their investigation? That's next time on Witness. 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 different 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 Jazzbar, Phoebe Zakowski-Wallace, and Tabi Wilson. Voice acting on this episode by Bridget Bush. Research by Aidan Patrick. Original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Cooms. The editor at news. Com. Au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box.

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