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[Music] Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
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any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for
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confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this
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episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable for all
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listeners. [Music] Please note that the names of several individuals have been changed due to
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court suppression orders preventing them from being identified, while others have
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been changed to protect their privacy. It was 10:50 on the morning of Friday, September 12th, 2014, when a call came
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through to the New South Wales Police Emergency Helpline. On the other line was a woman named
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Angela calling from the small hinterland town of Kendall located on the state's midn north coast.
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>> Police emergency. This is Simone. >> Yeah. Hi. North distance is 3 and a half.
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>> Um sorry. >> Your address? >> Benoon Drive. Kendall. >> Okay. Benner Room Drive in Kendall.
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>> Yes. >> All right. I'm just going to bring that up on my map. It won't be moment.
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>> Thank you. >> How long has he been missing? I well I think well we've been looking in for him
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now for about 15 or 20 minutes but >> I thought it could be five it could be longer cuz just playing around here we
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heard him and then we heard nothing. Okay. So, I've got the nearest cost street being Ellenale Cresant. Is that
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right? So, what is it? >> Ellenale Cresant. >> I don't know. This is my mom's house.
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>> Um, >> so he's been missing since about 10:30. >> Yeah, I'd say so. >> Okay. Can you describe him to me? How
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tall? Obviously, not very tall. >> He'd be about 2 and 1/2 ft. He's wearing a Spider-Man outfit.
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>> Yeah. What color hair is he got? >> He's got um dark sandy colored hair. short and he's got really big uh brownie
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green colored eyes. >> Okay. >> What do you get in each shoes on? Do you know any any other distinguishing
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faces? >> Um um he has Oh, he's got a freckle on the top of his head. When you cut the hair
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on the left hand side, >> you'll see a freckle on the top of his head. >> Okay. All right.
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>> You know where he might have gone? Um, we're we actually live we're on properties near a state forest.
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>> Okay. >> And they're on skewed blocks. We've walked up and down Benoon Drive >> and we can't find him.
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>> Okay. What's his name? >> William. >> What's William's surname? >> Uh, Tur T Y R E L.
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[Music] Senior Constable Christopher Rowley was already in the area when he received
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word of the missing 3-year-old boy in Kendall. He arrived at Beneroon Drive at 11:06
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a.m. by which time William Tur had reportedly been missing for just over half an hour.
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The singlestory brick home of William's grandmother, Mary Saunders, sat on a sharp slope high upon a corner block
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elevated above a large garage and workshop space. Hers was one of the last houses on the dead end street with three
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sides of the property backing onto dense bush land. Framed by lawns and native trees, a
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veranda wrapped around the length of the house with a 5 m high balcony providing
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the perfect spot to take in the scenic easterly views. Senior Constable Rowley found William
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Tier's mother, Angela, in a clear state of distress, walking down the middle of the street in tears. Her husband Peter
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was frantically dashing around, calling William's name and checking the surrounding properties.
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The family of four had only arrived in Kendall at around 9 the previous evening after driving the roughly 4-hour journey
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from their home in Sydney's northern beaches. Angela's father had recently passed
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away, and the purpose of the visit was to help her mother Mary organize her house for sale.
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The substantial 3-bedroom, two-b house on a 1.2 acre block was simply too big for the elderly woman to look after on
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her own. According to Angela, that morning of Friday, September 12th, 2014, the two
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Tier children had woken up in good spirits. William and his 4-year-old sister, Lindsay, were excited to be at their
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grandmother's house, a place they had visited several times before. Their father, Peter, had to make a video call
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for work. But the internet reception in Kendall was notoriously lousy, so he left the house at around 8:30 a.m. to
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make the call from the nearby town of Lakewood instead. While Peter was gone, William and
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Lindsay rode their bikes around Mary's driveway and explored the yard. Afterwards, William played a game with
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his mother called Mummy Monster, which involved Angela chasing her son around the garden.
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When they were done, they climbed the steep slope back up to the house. The grass was covered in loose twigs and
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leaves, and they kept slipping over. One of the slips resulted in Angela injuring her hand, so they went inside
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to tend to the wound. Lindsay had heard them playing Mummy Monster and wanted to join in the game.
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So, they went back outside for a while. After the kids grew bored of that, William and Lindsay decided to make some
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cards to bring to their grandfather's grave when they visited later that day. Angela set them up with some art
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supplies on the back deck that overlooked the rear lawn. Shortly after 9:30 a.m., she grabbed her
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digital camera and snapped some photos of them. William was thrilled that he'd been
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allowed to wear his new favorite outfit, a two-piece blue and red Spider-Man costume that his parents had bought him
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on a recent family holiday to Balley. He put a Spider-Man t-shirt underneath the polyester suit so he could be head
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to toe in his favorite superhero get up. At 9:37 a.m., Angela stood above William
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and pointed the lens towards him as he crouched on the deck, pretending to be a tiger.
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The little boy looked up at her, his eyes cast to the sky and mouth a gape as he let out a loud roar.
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It wasn't long before William lost interest in the craft session and began a new game he called Daddy Tiger.
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This involved him crawling around and launching himself off the deck as he roared and clawed his hands in the air.
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He asked Lindsay to join in, but she was too engrossed in the card making process.
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William continued the game alone, ducking around the side of the house out of sight for a moment before reappearing
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with a loud roar. Just before 10:00 a.m., Angela said that she and her mother were sitting and
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watching the kids over a cup of tea. Mary remarked how loud William was being, and Angela explained that's just
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how he was, always full of energy. The two women looked on as William darted around the garden, jumping and
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roaring enthusiastically. He then ran around the northwest corner of the house and out of sight, the sound
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of his roar still clearly audible. After a few minutes, Angela noticed it had gone unusually quiet.
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She got up and walked around the side of the house, but she couldn't see William
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anywhere. Angela called out William's name, saying, "Where are you? I can't see you."
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There was no reply. She looked for splashes of his red Spider-Man costume against the vibrant
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green foliage, noting it was suddenly so quiet that even the bird seemed to have
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stopped chirping. Angela told Mary that she couldn't see William anywhere. Thinking he was hiding and playing a
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trick on them, Mary remarked, "Oh, the little devil." But Angela was starting to get worried.
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She went around the eastern side of the house and looked in the ferns that sat underneath the balcony, all the while
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calling William's name. When he didn't appear, she became frantic. Mary's property had no fence or other
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barrier to prevent William from wandering beyond its boundary. Angela ran to the street, checking each
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side of the yard, but she still couldn't see or hear William. She ran into her mother's house with
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Mary following, checking each room and opening cupboards to see if he was hiding inside.
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Angela tried to remain calm so that William wouldn't panic thinking he was in trouble.
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Keeping her composure, she called, "William, you have to come out. You have to talk to me. No more hiding, William.
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I can't see you." There was no reply. While all this was happening, Angela's husband, Peter, had been at the Lakewood
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shopping precinct making his work calls from inside his brand new Land Rover Discovery.
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After stopping to grab a newspaper, he headed straight back to Kendall. Peter told the police that at around
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10:30 a.m., as he neared Beneroon Drive, he'd sent Angela a voice to text message
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suggesting it was a good time to send the kids outside. William had a deep fascination with
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cars, trucks, and planes, which was an interest Peter encouraged. The Tur children always got a thrill out
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of watching their father arrive home and running out to greet him. It was a moment Peter looked forward to every
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day. But as he pulled up to his mother-in-law's house, it wasn't his children who came out to greet him. It
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was his wife. Angela looked panicstricken. She gestured urgently for Peter to roll
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down his window. "Have you got William?" she asked. Peter frowned confused. "Of course not," he said. "Why would you
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think that?" Frantically, Angela replied. "Because he's missing." Peter didn't ask for any more
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information. He leapted out of his car and took off running, shouting out William's name. Neighbors heard the
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commotion going on outside and came out to see what was going on. I am looking for a little boy in a Spider-Man suit,
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Angela told them. Have you seen him? His name is William. The neighbors searched their yards,
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checked their swimming pools and any other places that might be of interest to a young boy, such as cubby houses and
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play equipment. When police senior constable Christopher Rowley arrived at Beneroon Drive, he
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conducted a thorough search of Mary's house. He was soon joined by additional officers who arrived at the scene.
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They checked cupboards and under furniture, going so far as to remove cushions from the couch and pitches from
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the walls. Benaroon Drive is a secluded, quiet street that backs onto Scrubland.
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It consists of 21 houses, each of which is situated on a large block and set back from the road.
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At the end of the no through road is a rugged dirt track surrounded by dense bush that eventually leads to the
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Kendall cemetery. There is no foot traffic and no reason to be in the area unless you live there
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or are visiting one of the residents. Angela told the police she had only seen one unfamiliar car in the area and that
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had been earlier on when the two tier children had been riding their bikes outside.
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It was a dark green or gray sedan that had briefly pulled into a neighbor's driveway before immediately reversing
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out and driving away. A couple who lived nearby heard the car, too, but just assumed it was the local
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postal worker. It therefore seemed highly unlikely to the police that William had been
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abducted, especially given the very short amount of time between when his mother last heard him and when he went
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missing. They thought the most likely explanation was that he had wandered off and gotten
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lost in the bush. The rugged area was thick with weeds, reedy grass, and spiky Lantana bushes.
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There were also numerous waterways, cliffs, abandoned mine shafts, and wild animals, creating plenty of hazards to
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explain why the young boy hadn't yet been found. But Peter and Angela were dubious.
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Although William was adventurous and had a mischievous side, they said he was also clingy and reserved.
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While he might hide and jump out for fun, he was the kind of kid who wouldn't try to cross the street by himself, and
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it would be very out of character for him to just wander off on his own. They said he had a clear understanding
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of boundaries and would deem rocky slopes and rugged terrain too dangerous to scale alone.
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They also said he would never blindly go off with a stranger. He didn't warm to people immediately,
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but rather sat back and assessed them first. A Benoon Drive resident created a Facebook post online calling for
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volunteers to assist in the search. Within minutes, locals of all ages and demographics swarmed to the area,
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traversing through the surrounding scrub and driving the neighboring streets, shouting William's name.
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A 3-year-old girl sat in her pram, calling out, "You're not in trouble, William. You can come out now."
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The operation was overseen by experienced land search and rescue coordinators. Line searches were conducted in the
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surrounding bushland while horses and motorbikes traversed the dense scrub and police helicopters searched overhead.
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Mary's house was thoroughly checked multiple times, as were other houses along Beneroon Drive.
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Different personnel were brought in to search the homes in case a fresh set of eyes noticed something that others had
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missed. Sheds, roof spaces, wall cavities, and cupboards were meticulously checked.
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Sniffer dogs also battled the rugged terrain, but were unable to detect any scent of William Tier beyond Mary's
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garden. The primary concern for the search party was that the young boy might be injured
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or unconscious, preventing him from coming forward to rescuers. There was also a serious fear he had
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drowned, prompting police divers and the rural fire service to search and drain numerous dams, storm drains, and water
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tanks in the area. The day was mild at 18° C, but as nightfall approached, dark clouds
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gathered and the temperature dropped significantly. With no sign of William, concerns
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mounted that if he was still alive, he might succumb to the elements overnight. Untreated dehydration or hypothermia
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posed serious risks. William also suffered from asthma, which worsened in the cold conditions and
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could be triggered by stress or by the powdery pollen released by the surrounding lantana bushes.
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The search continued overnight with police calling for volunteers to register at the Kendall showgrounds at 7
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the following morning. Rain was expected and volunteers were asked to wear high visibility clothing
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suitable for wet weather and to bring plenty of water. The search was expanded beyond the scrub
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near Beneroon Drive and into the nearby Kendall and Middle Brother state forests.
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No stone was left unturned. Yet, there was still no sign of William. By Sunday, September 14, the 2-day
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search for William remained fruitless. However, Angela told the police that she might have seen something significant on
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Beneroon Drive the day her son vanished. After all, she said she'd completely forgotten
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about it at first, but the memory had come back to her while driving to pick up a relative from the airport.
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According to Angela, on the morning William went missing, she had looked out the window at around 6:40 and noticed
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two cars parked strangely on the street. They stuck out to her because both of their driver's side windows had been
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left open, which was something you wouldn't see in the city. Both of the cars were dirty older models
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with tinted windows and no hub caps. One was a gunmetal gray sedan, possibly a Falcon or a Commodore, and the other
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an off-white station wagon with a boxy back end, possibly a Camry. They were parked close to one another on
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the road between two properties, which Angela noted as odd given that any visitors to the area typically parked in
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the driveway of whichever home they were visiting. Angela hadn't mentioned any of these
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cars to her mother or husband. When she'd called emergency services to report William's disappearance, the
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operator had asked if she'd seen any suspicious vehicles in the area, and Angela had firmly answered no.
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No other residents of Beneroon Drive recalled seeing the parked cars either, but it was a helpful bit of information
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for the police. While William's disappearance continued to make the news, Peter and Angela
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stayed away from the spotlight and didn't make any public appearances. As the days passed with no sign of the
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three-year-old, public conjecture started to grow about why the parents weren't talking.
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The speculation only escalated when a family friend made a national appeal for information on Peter and Angela's
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behalf. if they were genuinely concerned about William. The public wondered why they
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weren't doing everything in their power to keep their son's disappearance in the
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media. Some speculated that their lack of exposure meant they had something to hide.
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Peter and Angela had always wanted children. Unable to have any of their own, they decided to help those in need.
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In 2011, the married couple applied to become foster parents. They were put on the books of what was
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then called the Department of Family and Community Services, or FACK, after successfully completing the mandatory
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foster career training classes and two short-term assignments. As a successful couple from Sydney's
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affluent Northshore, Peter and Angela made attractive candidates when Lindsay Tier was placed into the foster care
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system. In 2012, Lindsay was sent to live with Peter and Angela, followed shortly after
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by her 8-month-old brother, William. According to those who knew Peter and Angela, the two were doting foster
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parents to the Tier children. They gave them everything a kid could possibly want. A playroom full of toys, regular
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trips to playgrounds and parks, family holidays, birthday parties, and most importantly, a stable and comfortable
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home life. Peter and William had a particularly strong bond with Angela describing the
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two as absolutely adoring each other. As the children settled into their new home life, Peter and Angela transitioned
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from short-term carers to long-term carers, making them the legal guardians of the two tier siblings until they
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turned 18. The reality was when it came to William's disappearance, his status as a
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foster child made it difficult for Peter and Angela to front the media. For starters, they weren't legally
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allowed to identify themselves as his carers. Police needed permission from the relevant government departments before
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they were allowed to divulge any details regarding William's family situation. Secondly, they wanted to protect Lindsay
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Tier's identity. If news got out that William was a foster child, it outed Lindsay, too.
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Based on advice from facts, Peter and Angela made the decision to remain anonymous.
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This would also protect the reputation of the department who had assigned the children to their care.
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The true identities of Williams foster parents, foster grandmother, and sister were banned from publication under court
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suppression orders. Any journalist or reporter who broke this rule was warned that they could face potential
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prosecution. [Music] Peter, Angela, and Mary, a pseudonym's case file has created for clarity, while
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Lindsay is the pseudonym created for her by the court. The decision to withhold Peter and
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Angela's identities from the public ultimately muddied public opinion. With no face of parental grief and
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desperation for the Australian public to cling on to, the case sparked suspicion
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against the parents instead of compassion. But Peter and Angela weren't the only
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ones feeling the weight of this decision. Williams biological mother, 26-year-old
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Amy Tier, not her real name, was heavily pregnant with her fourth child when the
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police knocked on her door in Western Sydney on the evening of Friday, September 12th, 2014.
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Officers entered the house and were shocked to find a young boy matching William's description playing in the
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backyard. One of the officers looked at Amy and said accusingly, "What have you done?"
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But the boy wasn't William. It was his 18-month-old brother. Amy and her partner, Tyler Martin, not
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his real name, who was William's biological father, were confused by the police presence.
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They knew they were on the authorities radar for a string of domestic violence, assault, and drugrelated offenses. And
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Amy's initial thought was that there might have been a warrant out for her arrest.
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When she was told that William went missing that morning, she was in disbelief. Amy had never wanted to put William and
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Lindsay into foster care, and she'd been taking steps to get them back. She wondered how her son could be
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missing when he'd been put into the care of guardians who were supposed to keep him safe.
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At first, Tyler thought it was a joke. But as the police began searching their house, the reality of the situation
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started to sink in. The police asked Amy and Tyler about their movements that day.
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Tyler said he'd woken up before sunrise to go to the local McDonald's restaurant
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to grab breakfast and use the establishment's free Wi-Fi. He was scheduled to work that day, but
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he sent his boss a text to let him know he couldn't make it due to a shoulder injury.
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When Tyler got home, Amy took their 18-month-old son out shopping for the soon-to-be born baby.
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She said the two caught the train to the suburb of Blacktown, visiting various shops and making several purchases along
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the way before returning home at around 400 p.m. The police were dubious. After all, if
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Amy or Tyler had anything to do with Williams disappearance, it wouldn't be the first time.
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Amy Tier and Tyler Martin were both raised in low socioeconomic conditions and each struggled with their own set of
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personal issues and run-ins with the law. In 2008, they were introduced by one of Amy's brothers and they later
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began dating. It wasn't long before Amy became pregnant with Lindsay, but the young
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couple struggled. They had limited support and finances and the demands of parenthood took a toll on their already
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volatile relationship. One night after the couple had a fight, Amy began drinking heavily.
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She was pushing Lindsay in a pram on the street when police spotted her and thought she was acting erratically.
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Concerned for the baby's safety, they approached Amy and one of the officers tried to take Lindsay away.
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Amy subsequently punched the officer in the face. The incident was reported to fax and
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Lindsay was handed over to the state and eventually put into Peter and Angela's care. By the time Amy gave birth to
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William, he was already on the department's radar for potential foster care. Fax believed that Amy and Tyler's toxic
00:27:59
and often violent relationship created an unsafe home environment for children. The department therefore ruled that Amy
00:28:07
wouldn't be able to keep William if she continued living with Tyler. The couple stayed together but told the
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authorities their relationship had ended. Eventually, they were caught out and the
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New South Wales family court ordered that William be handed over to Fax. Determined to keep William, Amy and
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Tyler took him and went on the run. A police task force was assembled and several weeks later, the family was
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found hiding out in a small flat in Sydney's Upper Northshore. William was taken from his biological
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parents and reunited with Lindsay in the custody of Peter and Angela. As per standard procedure, Amy and Tyler
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were forbidden from having any contact with the foster carers, and they were only granted the occasional supervised
00:29:03
visits with William and Dinday. Each of these visits was overseen by a social worker.
00:29:11
At first, the visits were weekly, then monthly, and then eventually by the time William went missing for 1 hour every 2
00:29:19
months. Amy and Tyler reluctantly adhered to these rules with every intention of
00:29:26
regaining custody of their children. They undertook anger management courses, counseling, and joined parenting groups,
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unaware that the foster parents were already thinking about formal adoption. As soon as the police looking into
00:29:43
William Tier's disappearance became aware of his family situation, the possibility was raised that Amy and
00:29:49
Tyler could have taken him. Yet, the pair were adamant that they had nothing to do with it. They both insisted they
00:29:58
wouldn't do anything that could hinder their chances of legally regaining custody of their kids.
00:30:05
They also knew how close William and Lindsay were and wouldn't dare take one without the other.
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Police checked CCTV footage, bank statements, and receipts, all of which backed up the couple's claims that they
00:30:20
were nowhere near Kendall on the day William went missing. The futile search for William Tier
00:30:31
continued for 5 days until police concluded that if he had simply gotten lost in the bush, it was no longer
00:30:38
possible that he could still be alive. Instead, Strike Force Rosanne was created as investigators began to
00:30:46
operate under the assumption that the 3-year-old had been abducted and possibly killed.
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The fact that William's disappearance had been treated as a missing person case from the get-go instead of a major
00:31:00
crime presented some problems for the investigation. For starters, Mary Saers's house on
00:31:07
Benoon Drive had never been considered a crime scene, and therefore, it wasn't cordoned off or properly secured.
00:31:15
With hundreds of volunteers, visitors, and official personnel having already trampled through the yard and its
00:31:22
surrounds, any forensic evidence, such as footprints, tire tracks, or DNA, were long gone or contaminated.
00:31:31
Cars had also been free to come and go from the area without being checked. In addition, the police had searched
00:31:40
some of the 21 houses on the street, but not all of them, with some of the residents having been relied upon to
00:31:46
conduct their own searches. If William had been taken, each of these factors meant that vital evidence or a
00:31:55
person of interest could have been overlooked. Police had no way of knowing what they
00:32:00
might have missed. In Australia, it is extremely rare for a child to be abducted by a stranger.
00:32:09
The person responsible is typically a relative or someone close to the family. Therefore, Peter and Angela were obvious
00:32:18
suspects. Accepting this uncomfortable fact, the couple willingly handed over their
00:32:25
phones, vehicles, and computers for forensic analysis, eager to be ruled out. Police looked into Peter's claims that
00:32:34
he'd been in the next town over at the time William disappeared. Phone records and CCTV footage confirmed
00:32:42
that he'd been in Lakewood at the time in question. Peter had made a conference call that
00:32:49
lasted for 39 minutes before making another call and then ducking into a grocery store to buy a newspaper.
00:32:57
Police considered the possibility that William could have died by accident and his foster family had disposed of his
00:33:04
body and then faked his disappearance out of sheer panic. But they found absolutely no evidence to support such a
00:33:12
theory. And by all accounts, Peter and Angela's desperation to find William seemed completely genuine.
00:33:20
Lindsay had also been present when William went missing and she hadn't said anything to the police to raise
00:33:26
suspicion on her foster parents. When questioned about what William had been doing before he went missing,
00:33:34
Lindsay told police that he was running out to see Daddy's car. Police also considered the possibility
00:33:42
that William's biological parents could have organized to have someone snatch William on their behalf.
00:33:50
The problem with this theory was that Amy and Tyler didn't even know William and Lindsay's foster career's names or
00:33:56
their address. Furthermore, no one had told Amy and Tyler that the trip to Kendall was going
00:34:03
ahead. While the foster care agency had approved the trip, the biological parents weren't made aware of it.
00:34:14
The trip to Kendall had also gone ahead a day earlier than was originally planned.
00:34:20
Peter and Angela told the police they had been scheduled to drive up on Friday night, but Peter had finished work early
00:34:27
on Thursday, so they'd decided to get a head start on the bumper-to-bumper traffic that typically jammed the
00:34:34
Pacific Highway on Fridays. They had picked William and Lindsay up from daycare early on Thursday afternoon
00:34:42
and headed straight to Kendall from there, stopping only to have dinner at McDonald's and to change the kids into
00:34:48
their pajamas. The unplanned nature of the trip ruled out the possibility that it was a
00:34:55
targeted attack. As far as Peter and Angela were aware, no one had followed them on their drive from Sydney to
00:35:02
Kendall either. Police checked CCTV footage of their journey and the stops they'd made along
00:35:10
the way, but found nothing to indicate the family was being trailed. The footage from their stopover at
00:35:18
McDonald's showed William joyfully riding into the restaurant on Peter's shoulders, the very image of a happy
00:35:25
family. Both William's foster parents and his biological parents were ruled out as
00:35:35
suspects. Regardless, the possibility that William could have been snatched in an
00:35:41
opportunistic attack was difficult for investigators to comprehend. Beneroon Drive was a safe place where
00:35:49
none of the other residents had ever encountered anything untoward and children played on the street without
00:35:55
fear. The isolated location of Mary Saers's house at the end of the street, coupled
00:36:01
with the lack of street traffic in the area meant that a kidnapper would have had to coincidentally walk or drive past
00:36:08
in the mere minutes that William jumped around the side of the house unsupervised.
00:36:13
Had such a rare moment occurred, it would have taken an incredibly brazen offender to snatch a child in broad
00:36:21
daylight with his family just meters away on a quiet street where any of the neighbors could have easily noticed an
00:36:29
outsider. Several residents were home at the time, and all of them said they hadn't noticed
00:36:36
anyone or anything out of the ordinary. None of them had been expecting any visitors on the morning that William
00:36:43
went missing either. Still, police couldn't discount the possibility that someone could have
00:36:49
dropped by without warning, seen William, and made the split-second decision to take him.
00:36:57
It was also possible that William had heard a car coming, and ran onto the street, thinking it was his father
00:37:03
arriving home before being snatched. However unlikely, investigators also theorized that someone could have heard
00:37:12
the children playing earlier that morning and had lay in weight, ready to strike if an opportunity arose.
00:37:20
If so, they would have had to move incredibly fast. The fact that William was wearing the
00:37:26
distinct Spider-Man outfit would have made it easy for someone to initiate a conversation with him, as it was an
00:37:33
immediate talking point that would have appealed to William. A perpetrator could have used that to
00:37:39
lure the young boy away voluntarily or simply grabbed him and forced his silence.
00:37:47
According to Angela, when she first realized William went missing, she was struck by how silent everything had
00:37:54
gone. Then she thought she heard a short, high-pitched scream coming from the bushland. The type of scream a child
00:38:02
would make if they'd hurt themselves. Angela said she had ventured into the reads towards the direction of the
00:38:10
sound, but couldn't see any splashes of red from William's Spider-Man suit. She had brushed it off as her
00:38:17
imagination, thinking it must have been a bird. Kendall was home to a species of bird
00:38:25
known as a cat bird, which makes a sound very similar to that of a crying child.
00:38:32
At the end of Beneroon Drive, a dirt fire track leads into the dense scrub. If the perpetrator had been on foot,
00:38:41
this could have provided an escape route for them to grab William and run off undetected.
00:38:48
But the terrain in the surrounding bush was rough, and running off with the 3-year-old boy would have been no easy
00:38:54
feat. If this was indeed a random opportunistic attack, everyone agreed it would be one of the rarest and most
00:39:03
unfortunate cases of William Tier being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When asked if anyone unusual lived in
00:39:15
the area, Mary Saers pinpointed one person, a former taxi driver aged in his 50s who mostly kept to himself.
00:39:24
While there wasn't anything overtly suspicious about him, he lived alone in a small house surrounded by bushland
00:39:31
where he kept odd hours, typically sleeping during the day and hanging around his house at night.
00:39:38
In the days following William Tier's disappearance, some neighbors noticed that the taxi driver had
00:39:44
uncharacteristically left his house. When he returned home a couple of days later, he was carrying a backpack and
00:39:52
walked around his property as though checking each of his windows before going inside.
00:39:59
An officer went to visit the former taxi driver and noticed something odd. A box had been installed over one of his
00:40:07
windows, making it impossible to see inside. When questioned about his whereabouts on
00:40:13
the day of William's disappearance, the taxi driver claimed he'd been sleeping at home alone, an alibi that couldn't be
00:40:21
verified. The officer noted that the man had a small red mark on his wrist. A cursory
00:40:29
search of the property revealed a step ladder in the laundry that led up to a manhole.
00:40:34
The officer climbed to the ladder, wondering if the manhole could be used as a hiding place.
00:40:41
But it was obvious the manhole hadn't been accessed in some time. When the police returned to visit the
00:40:49
taxi driver again, his television had been paused on a news channel providing updates about William's disappearance.
00:40:57
Although this indicated he was keeping an eye on the story, police found nothing to suggest he was involved in
00:41:03
the crime in any way. The taxi driver soon sold his house and moved out of Kendall, saying there was
00:41:11
too much activity in the area. By day 14 of the hunt for William, line searchers had painstakingly covered an
00:41:20
area of 18 square kilm. Various items were found, including an abandoned children's cubby house, number
00:41:29
plates from a stolen vehicle, animal bones, a shovel, a spear gun, and other miscellaneous items. But all of them
00:41:37
were ruled out of having anything to do with William's disappearance, and still there was no sign of him.
00:41:46
Investigators had no choice but to scale the search back. Instead, they turned their focus to
00:41:53
known sex offenders in the area. This was no easy task. Within the 30 km radius of Beneroon Drive alone, 18 known
00:42:05
sex offenders lived among the rural properties. Just further beyond that lived another
00:42:12
60. Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubilan, who would later come to front Strike
00:42:19
Force Rosanne, remarked, "It's as if they've settled on this quiet, overlooked backwater like
00:42:26
mosquitoes." Detective Jubilant told reporters that police intended to track the movements
00:42:34
of everyone who was within a 1 km radius of Beneroon Drive on the day William went missing. If anyone who had been in
00:42:41
the area failed to come forward and identify themselves, Jubilan warned it would give the police grave concerns and
00:42:49
be an immediate cause for suspicion. CCTV footage was collected from 12 businesses around Kendall.
00:42:59
Police were particularly interested in the footage captured by the Kendall Tennis Club between 5 and 11 on the
00:43:05
morning of Friday, September 12th, 2014. This camera faced one of the main roads
00:43:12
leading in and out of the village, and there was a chance it had captured the abductor's car.
00:43:19
However, the footage was grainy and only captured the sides of the vehicles, not
00:43:23
their number plates, making it difficult to identify the cars that came and went.
00:43:29
However, there were numerous roads leading to Beneroon Drive, and it was possible the kidnapper hadn't been
00:43:35
captured on any cameras at all. Although William Tier's disappearance had made national headlines,
00:43:44
investigative resources were limited and questioning witnesses and persons of interest was a time-consuming task.
00:43:52
Police were also inundated with reported sightings of William coming from all over the country.
00:43:59
It didn't help that Spider-Man costumes were incredibly popular amongst young boys.
00:44:06
Every potential lead, sighting, and piece of information was diligently recorded. But the hard part for police
00:44:13
was figuring out which to prioritize. They worked tirelessly for several months, checking 169 CCTV cameras from
00:44:23
outside Kendall, as well as analyzing data from traffic cameras and mobile phone towers.
00:44:30
But things moved slowly and as the year drew to an end, they didn't seem to be any closer to finding William.
00:44:39
Then a call came in from someone who wanted to report a member of the community as a potential person of
00:44:46
interest. 4 days before William Tier went missing, his grandmother Mary called a local
00:44:56
whites repair company called Spedto's Repairs after her washing machine stopped working.
00:45:03
The business owner, 63-year-old Bill Speding, came to the house to provide a quote only to discover that he needed to
00:45:10
order a new part. He told Mary he would come back to conduct the repairs whenever the part came in.
00:45:20
On Friday, September 12th, just 90 minutes before William vanished, Angela had called Bill Speding on her mother's
00:45:27
behalf to follow up on the replacement part, as the washing machine still wasn't working.
00:45:34
The call had gone straight to voicemail, so she left a message asking Sping to call her back.
00:45:41
Mary said that he would likely show up at any time without prior notice. That's just how things were done in Kendall.
00:45:51
Given that Bill Sping was one of the few visitors to Beneroon Drive in the days leading up to Williams disappearance,
00:45:58
police had already taken him in for questioning in the early stages of the investigation.
00:46:04
Spetting had confirmed details about the initial repair call out, but he denied having received a follow-up phone call
00:46:11
from Angela. On September 12th, police confiscated Spetting's phone and found no record of Angela's voicemail.
00:46:21
This was immediately suspicious. Police already had Angela's phone data, confirming she had made the call to Bill
00:46:29
Sping, leaving officers to wonder if he had deleted it. If he had nothing to do with William's disappearance, they
00:46:37
wondered why he would do such a thing. But Bill Speding steadfastly denied having ever received the message at all.
00:46:48
He also claimed to have an alibi for the day of William's disappearance. According to Spetting, he and his wife
00:46:56
Margaret had coffee at a local cafe, leaving around 9:45 a.m. to attend a school assembly where their grandson had
00:47:03
received an award. Afterwards, Sping said he went back to his office and worked a normal day
00:47:10
before picking his grandchildren up from school. While Sping said his wife was the only
00:47:17
one who could verify his alibi, police weren't overly concerned until the tip off came through from a
00:47:25
member of the public to report that Bill Sping had been accused of sexually assaulting two young girls in the past.
00:47:33
It was alleged that in 1987, Sping had sexually assaulted a three and 5-year-old during an overnight stay in a
00:47:41
caravan park. Another tipster also came forward to report having seen Sping access some
00:47:48
storage sheds he owned 6 hours in land from Kendall on the day after William disappeared.
00:47:56
Suddenly, Bill Sping was looking much more interesting to the police. They obtained bank statements from the
00:48:03
cafe Spetting claimed to have dined at on the morning William Tier went missing and confirmed that he and Margaret had
00:48:10
indeed been there at 9:42. However, the cafe was only an 18-minute car trip from Beneroon Drive.
00:48:21
If Spetting was lying about attending his grandson's school assembly, police theorized that he could have driven to
00:48:27
Mary's house to work on her washing machine when he'd come across William and made the split-second decision to
00:48:34
snatch him. They questioned school faculty members and some other parents who attended the
00:48:41
assembly on the day in question, but given the passing of time, no one could specifically recall seeing Bill sping
00:48:48
there. Although they said that the assemblies occurred frequently and each one tended
00:48:55
to blur into the other. One woman had taken photos of the event on September 12th, but she had since
00:49:03
dropped her phone in the toilet and lost its contents. Strikeforce investigators were
00:49:10
conflicted about how to act. If they decided to pursue a raid on Spetting's home and business, the news would surely
00:49:19
leak. If Sping found out he was a suspect, this would give him a chance to destroy any potential evidence.
00:49:28
But if they got it right, they just might find William Terrell. On Tuesday, January 20, 2015, just over
00:49:42
4 months after William Tier disappeared, detectives from Strike Force Rosanne descended on Bill Spedding's home in
00:49:49
Bonnie Hills, a small town 20 km northeast of Kendall. He lived there with his wife and three
00:49:57
grandchildren for whom they were the current legal guardians. It was a dramatic scene with an
00:50:04
excavator, cadaavver dog, and forensic experts on standby. The search team scoured each room of the
00:50:11
house and the dark, dank recesses of the basement before turning their attention
00:50:16
to the yard and a wood pile outside. A plumber was even brought in to drain the property's septic tank.
00:50:26
11 km from Kendall in the coastal town of Lauratan. A search was also conducted at Spetting's office.
00:50:34
As feared, news of the raids had leaked and throngs of media gathered outside both properties ready to capture any
00:50:41
breaks in the story. Police seized phones, computers, and a mattress, but found no sign of William.
00:50:50
There was one item of particular interest found in his van, though, a Spider-Man toy.
00:50:58
Bill Sping was taken into custody and subject to 6 hours of grueling interrogation.
00:51:05
Investigators put it to him that on Friday, September 12th, 2004, he showed up at a Benaroon Drive to fix Mary
00:51:13
Saers's washing machine, but saw William playing outside and made the snap decision to abduct him.
00:51:20
They suggested that Sping had taken the three-year-old in his work van and quickly fled the scene.
00:51:28
Sping strongly rejected these allegations. He stuck by his alibi and denied having
00:51:34
deleted a voicemail from Angela on the day William went missing. As for the Spider-Man toy found in his
00:51:42
van, he claimed it belonged to one of his grandchildren. His wife supported this, saying one of
00:51:49
the kids had given it to Spetting to keep him company while he worked. But detectives weren't convinced.
00:51:57
They thought there was something off about Spetting and that he had a sly way of answering questions.
00:52:03
Regardless, with nothing eventuating from the raids, he was free to go. By this point, Bill Sped's potential
00:52:13
involvement in Williams disappearance was a hot topic around town. A month before the raids, he had shared
00:52:20
a Facebook post from another user that contained a picture of William Tier and Rad.
00:52:26
Today, somebody is keeping a secret. They got up this morning, had breakfast, realized they need to pick up some more
00:52:35
milk, made some calls, all the while maintaining a poker face. Some viewed this as Betting's way of
00:52:45
taunting the police, as though to say, "Catch me if you can." A week after the raids on Bill Speding's
00:52:56
properties, the investigation was officially handed over to Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubilan after the
00:53:02
case's initial lead detective retired. Detective Jubilan was a veteran of the New South Wales Police Force.
00:53:11
Known for his tenacity and resoluteness, Jubilan applied disciplined thinking and
00:53:16
creative policing to help solve some of the country's most high-profile murder cases.
00:53:22
He also worked on the Bowerville murders as covered in episode 186 of Case File and on the Matt Leverson case covered in
00:53:31
the case file present series Maddie. Although he had a hard edge, Jubilan was admired by victim's families for his
00:53:40
genuinely kind and compassionate nature. He was the kind of detective who took each case personally, giving the
00:53:48
investigation his all and refusing to accept mediocrity. He promised William's foster family he
00:53:55
would do everything he could to find William. By the time William had been missing for
00:54:02
6 months, police interviewed an elderly Kendall resident after hearing he had some information that could be useful to
00:54:09
the investigation. Ronald Chapman lived on Laurel Street about half a kilometer from Benaroon
00:54:17
Drive. At around 10:45 on the morning that William went missing, Ronald claimed that he had stepped outside to check the
00:54:25
mail. A thorncoled four-wheel drive sped past, rounding the corner so fast that loose
00:54:33
gravel flew onto Ronald's lawn. In the back seat, Ronald saw a young boy matching William Tier's description
00:54:41
standing up without a seat belt on. He had a bewildered look on his face and was wearing a blue and red outfit with
00:54:49
black patterns on it resembling a Spider-Man costume. The car was being driven by a woman who
00:54:56
Ronald described as a plump blonde in her 30s. A blue sedan with a male driver sped
00:55:04
behind in close proximity as though the two vehicles were traveling together. Ronald said he swore at the woman under
00:55:13
his breath for driving so fast with an unrestrained child on board. Police weren't sure what to make of this
00:55:22
information. Ronald was adamant that the incident had happened, but it begged the question of
00:55:28
why he hadn't reported it sooner. Ronald claimed that when he heard about William's disappearance, he did tell
00:55:36
some acquaintances about what he'd seen. He assumed they would pass the information on to a local officer they
00:55:43
were friendly with and expected police to come and question him about it. When they didn't, he just assumed they had
00:55:51
more significant leads worth following. Ronald was known to be an honest man with a knife for detail, but some
00:56:00
relatives who were staying with him at the time of this supposed incident said he'd never mentioned it. When pressed by
00:56:08
detectives, Ronald admitted he could have dreamt the whole thing, but when shown a photo of William, he was certain
00:56:15
it was the same boy that he'd seen. For William's foster parents, the decision to return to Sydney after
00:56:27
William's disappearance had not been easy. But they felt there was little they could do to help in Kendall, and they
00:56:34
needed life to return to as normal as possible for Lindsay. While the case continued making national
00:56:42
headlines, things were tainted by the mysterious nature surrounding William's family status.
00:56:49
The public still hadn't been made aware that William was a foster child, and suspicion continued to be cast upon his
00:56:56
parents. The fact that they weren't talking led many to believe the family had something
00:57:03
to hide. With their enigmatic status hindering public sympathy, the strike force
00:57:09
bargained with the Department of Family and Community Services to let them release an interview with Angela and
00:57:15
Peter online. While it still couldn't be revealed that William was a foster child, the aim of
00:57:23
the video was to let people know he was dearly loved and sorely missed and to give the foster parents the chance to
00:57:30
plead for his return. The 21-minute video interview went ahead in April 2015, over 6 months after
00:57:41
William vanished. While Peter and Angela's faces were blanked out, they could be heard crying
00:57:47
as they talked about their love for the cheeky and vibrant little boy, describing their ordeal as a living
00:57:54
nightmare. "I just can't believe it's happened," Angela said. "We just don't have our
00:58:01
boy. We just we have no idea where he is. We don't know who's got him. We don't know what's happening to him. We
00:58:09
know nothing about it. We just want it to be over. The couple said they continued to hold
00:58:17
hopes that William would be found alive. Angela pleaded. If somebody has him, and if he is alive,
00:58:25
I want him to be safe. I want him to be feeling loved and I want someone to be looking after him because to imagine
00:58:33
something else is going on. We can't live a life like that. We need to know where he is. His sister can't grow up
00:58:42
never knowing what happened to her brother just to give him back. Take him to a church. Take him to a police
00:58:49
station. Take him to a school. Give him back. Give him back. The video provoked mixed responses.
00:59:01
While some people felt deeply for the grieving family, others questioned why their identities continued to be
00:59:08
withheld. Online sleuths wondered whether the parents were involved in the crime, were
00:59:14
in witness protection, or were part of something dangerous like a criminal gang.
00:59:21
The police did their best to dispel these suspicions, but the questions loomed over public opinion like a dark
00:59:28
cloud. Peter and Angela began working with a not for-p profofit public relations firm
00:59:35
as a means to communicate with the public without having to reveal their faces. Together, they created a campaign titled
00:59:43
Where's William? Which included the launch of a website, billboards, and social media.
00:59:50
The aim of the campaign was to provide the community with more information about William's disappearance while
00:59:56
hopefully generating information that could assist with the investigation and ultimately bring the little boy home.
01:00:04
They created missing person posters that the public and businesses could share with coasters placed in pubs in the
01:00:11
hopes someone might become loose lipped after one too many drinks. To coincide with the launch, Peter and
01:00:19
Angela released a statement that read in part, "This has torn away the fabric and
01:00:25
foundation of our life as we know it. There is a huge gap of space, emptiness in our lives that we feel without
01:00:33
William being here with us. We have been entirely shattered, emotionally exhausted, physically and mentally
01:00:41
beaten. This is a pure living nightmare. William's sister continues to ask where
01:00:49
her brother is and when he'll be home. We've tried so hard to keep life as normal as possible for her, reminding
01:00:57
her how loved and safe she is, even though William is not here. They were like two peas in a pod.
01:01:06
For those who have families and children of their own, this is so unbelievably confronting.
01:01:13
If it could happen to us, it could happen to them. [Music] Meanwhile, the implications against
01:01:24
Whitewoods repairman Bill Sping kept coming. One of his neighbors, a man named Dean
01:01:31
Pollard, came forward to claim that on Saturday, September 13, 2014, the day after William Tier went missing, he saw
01:01:40
Spetting's work van driving down a dirt track. It was near an area of dense forest,
01:01:46
colloially known as Ghost Road. Dean claimed that when Spetting saw him, he ducked down to avoid being spotted.
01:01:57
Dean told police, "It was definitely Bill's van. I would know it anywhere." With this new information coming to
01:02:07
light, a major search was organized of the bushland surrounding the area in question.
01:02:13
If William's body had been left out in the elements, police were aware that there would be nothing left at this
01:02:20
point but his small scalidal remains, which would be easy to miss. However, if he was buried with his
01:02:27
clothes on, the polyester Spider-Man suit would take hundreds of years to disintegrate, and the rubber soles of
01:02:33
his shoes would take decades. Dozens of uniformed police officers searched with the help of cadaavver
01:02:41
dogs, but found nothing relevant to the William Tier investigation. Yet, something of interest did come out
01:02:49
of it. While the search was underway, camera crews were on standby, ready to capture
01:02:57
any discoveries. As the cameras rolled, they captured Bill Speding's van as it drove right
01:03:04
past the search site with Spetting looking out the window. When questioned, Sping denied having
01:03:12
been anywhere near Ghost Road on September 13. He claimed he had been celebrating the
01:03:18
end of the football season at the local footy club approximately 20 km away. Although police still had no evidence
01:03:27
against Spetting in relation to William Tier, suspicion against him was growing,
01:03:33
the allegations that he'd sexually assaulted two young girls in the past were enough to warrant an arrest.
01:03:40
If police brought spetting in for that crime, their hopes were that with enough pressure, he might cave and admit to
01:03:47
being involved with William's disappearance. [Music] On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, almost 7
01:03:56
and 1/2 months after William went missing, a team of detectives arrived at Bill Speding's house in Bonnie Hills.
01:04:05
They placed him under arrest for the historic sexual assault crimes he'd been accused of.
01:04:11
He was charged with five counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, as well as two counts of common
01:04:18
assault. Sping vehemently denied the allegations. He claimed the crimes were fabricated by
01:04:26
his ex-wife during a time when the two were going through a bitter divorce and custody battle.
01:04:33
At the time, his ex-wife had been advised not to pursue the charges due to lack of evidence, and a judge had thrown
01:04:40
the entire case out. This time, Sping was held in jail pending the outcome of a trial.
01:04:51
Bill Speding's cellmate was a sex offender in his late 50s named Tony Jones, who was serving a 3-year
01:04:58
sentence. Although Jones had amassed a long criminal rap sheet that included charges
01:05:04
for assault, breaking and entering, and various drug offenses, his latest charge
01:05:10
was one of the more vile. Jones had joined a local community group called grandparents as parents again,
01:05:18
which supported older people who had been given custody of their grandchildren for various reasons.
01:05:25
Jones used his position to take advantage of a young intellectually disabled girl by overdosing her with
01:05:32
autism medication and sexually assaulting her while she was semi-conscious. He was subsequently convicted of
01:05:40
aggravated child sexual assault. The fact that Tony Jones and Bill Sping were cellmates was no accident.
01:05:51
Jones, who lived 23 km from Kendall in the town of War Hope, had also been established as a person of interest in
01:05:58
William Tier's disappearance. On the day William went missing, the unemployed former truck driver left home
01:06:06
early, telling his partner Debbie he was going out into the bush with their son to collect scrap metal.
01:06:14
But Debbie soon found their son at home with no knowledge of this supposed outing.
01:06:20
Enraged, she waited at home to confront Jones about the lie. When Jones returned home at around 2:00
01:06:28
p.m. on September 12th, Debbie claimed he was so intoxicated he could barely speak.
01:06:35
This wasn't out of the ordinary. Jones was an alcoholic, often scrging up scrap metal that he could trade for beer
01:06:43
money. He allegedly told Debbie he'd been out drinking with his mate, Paul Bickford.
01:06:51
Bickford was the former president of grandparents as parents again, who had once been named senior volunteer of the
01:06:58
year. But far from heroic, Bickford removed himself from the group after he was accused of sexually assaulting an
01:07:06
intellectually disabled 11-year-old girl while on a drive to buy her lollies. The separate sex offenses committed by
01:07:16
Tony Jones and Paul Bickford ultimately came to light during the investigation into William Tier's disappearance, and
01:07:24
both men faced charges for their crimes. Police explored the possibility that the
01:07:30
two men could have been part of a pedophile ring, but given they were both more solitary predators, this was deemed
01:07:37
unlikely. However, there was something about Tony Jones that the police couldn't ignore.
01:07:45
His partner, Debbie, drove a white station wagon similar to the one Williams foster mother claimed to have
01:07:51
spotted on Beneroon Drive on the morning of William's disappearance. Additionally, his habit of collecting
01:07:59
scrap metal meant he had intimate knowledge of the bushland around Kendall and surrounds.
01:08:07
Jones, who no longer had a driver's license, told police he didn't have access to the White Station wagon.
01:08:14
This was disputed by several witnesses who said he often took it without Debbie's knowledge.
01:08:22
Jones also gave various alibis for the morning of Friday, September 12th, 2014. First, he claimed he was out in Bego
01:08:31
State Forest collecting scrap metal on his own. Then he changed his mind and said he was out chopping wood.
01:08:39
Later he changed his story entirely and said he was off sourcing a hot water heater from a neighbor. He denied ever
01:08:47
being with Paul Bickford despite telling his partner that the two had been drinking together.
01:08:55
At around lunchtime on the day William went missing, a man was walking his dog around the bush tracks near Queens Lake
01:09:02
in Lauron. He looked over and noticed a tanned man with a mustache sitting in a parked car
01:09:09
with fogged up windows. Something about the way the man was acting seemed suspicious.
01:09:17
The dog walker waved at the man who quickly wound up his window in response. When the dog walker returned from his
01:09:25
stroll, the car and the man were gone. He didn't think much of it until he saw Tony Jones in the newspaper 8 months
01:09:34
later and immediately recognized him as the occupant of the vehicle. What's more, the car in question was an
01:09:43
old white Toyota Camry station wagon. Jones denied being near Queens Lake that day.
01:09:52
He said it couldn't have been him as he had emphyma and couldn't sit in a car with the windows rolled up.
01:10:00
Debbie's white station wagon was towed and taken in for forensic testing. But nothing of interest to the William Tur
01:10:07
investigation was found. However, it wasn't the only vehicle that could be linked to Jones.
01:10:15
Police later received a tip off from someone who had come across a silver car abandoned in the Kendall bush land.
01:10:23
They recognized it as the same make model as a vehicle belonging to Jones. The informant led police to the area,
01:10:33
but when they got to the location, they found that the car had been overturned and set on fire.
01:10:41
Jones's companion, Paul Bickford, also denied any involvement in Williams disappearance.
01:10:48
He claimed he wasn't with Tony Jones on September 12 at all, but 41 km away in Port McQuary having lunch with France,
01:10:57
although he couldn't recall which France or where they ate. In a bizarre coincidence, Bill Speding
01:11:06
and Tony Jones had once lived across the street from one another. Police hoped that by pairing them in a
01:11:14
cell together, one of them might be compelled to say something incriminating to the other about William Tier.
01:11:21
But the plan didn't work. And 3 months after Bill Speding's arrest for the unrelated child sex crimes, he was
01:11:29
granted conditional bail and allowed to return home pending trial. News of his arrest had made national
01:11:37
headlines with the inference that he was the prime suspect in Williams abduction.
01:11:43
This had a hugely detrimental impact on Spetting's family and business and he took it upon himself to try to change
01:11:50
the public's perception. Within days of his release from jail, a video appeared online.
01:11:59
Reading from a pre-prepared script, Sping offered his condolences to William's family and stated that he had
01:12:06
no involvement whatsoever in the young boy's disappearance. But the damage to his reputation was
01:12:13
already done, with many thinking the bizarre video did nothing but further solidify his guilt.
01:12:23
[Music] In September 2015, as the one-year anniversary of William's disappearance
01:12:29
approached, police released details about the two cars Angela had seen on Beneroon Drive on the morning William
01:12:36
went missing for the first time. Many questioned why they had waited so long to do this, as vital witness accounts
01:12:44
could be forgotten due to the time lapsed. The recording of Angela's call to emergency services was also released in
01:12:53
the hopes it might elicit an emotional response and prompt a new witness to come forward
01:13:00
to mark the anniversary and support the ongoing search. Thousands of people participated in community walks held
01:13:08
across the country. Organizers of the Walk for William events hoped the show of support would
01:13:14
encourage somebody to come forward with information with one walk held as far away as Canada.
01:13:22
Detective Inspector Gary Jubilant had been working tirelessly on the case and the anniversary was a rude awakening.
01:13:30
By this point, the Strike Force had been presented with every possible theory from the credible to the ludicrous.
01:13:39
With thousands of lines of inquiry still to be followed, there weren't enough hands on deck or hours in the day, and
01:13:46
the work continued to pile up. Detective Jubilant remarked to the press. The anniversary is a milestone that no
01:13:56
one in the community or family wanted to reach. 12 months without finding out what happened to William. From a police
01:14:04
point of view, that plays very heavily on us. We feel like we've let them down. By December that year, the strike force
01:14:15
was no closer to finding answers. Williams foster parents released a Christmas poem to keep the case in the
01:14:23
public consciousness. It read in part, "Christmas is a time for happiness. It's a time when families come together and
01:14:32
hold each other tight. But not our family and not this Christmas night. While our beautiful little boy William
01:14:40
is still missing, absent from our sight. We love you, our darling boy. You are never far from our thoughts. We remember
01:14:50
everything about you. Your amazing laugh, your kindness and the love you share with your sister, your complete
01:14:58
adoration of your daddy, your funny faces for mommy, your kisses, your hugs, and your tears. We remember your first
01:15:07
words, your first steps, your first fears. We miss everything about you, our beautiful little boy.
01:15:19
Although Peter and Angela had been cleared from the investigation in its very early stages, some among the strike
01:15:25
force thought it was worth looking into them again to be 100% sure. Some questions had arisen about a
01:15:33
possible inconsistency in Angela's story. In police interviews, she had claimed that William was wearing shoes at the
01:15:42
time he went missing. However, in the photos she'd taken of William at 9:37 a.m., just minutes
01:15:49
before he disappeared, he'd been barefoot. His shoes, a pair of sandals with Velcro
01:15:56
straps, sat near the back door. Members of the public had also responded negatively to the recording of her call
01:16:04
to police. Many thought she sounded much too calm for a mother whose child had just gone missing.
01:16:13
The couple were summoned to the police station under the guise of it being a routine appointment.
01:16:20
Once they arrived, they were separated and interrogated at length about the day of William's disappearance.
01:16:28
Detective Jubilan quote went hard on them. asked about the shoes. Angela said William had been barefoot when she took
01:16:37
the photos, but she had told him to put shoes on, which he was capable of doing on his own because there were prickly
01:16:44
weeds and dog feces in the grass. Unbeknownst to the couple, while all this was going down, covert listening
01:16:54
devices were placed in their car. If Peter and Angela had anything to hide, police hoped that they might divulge
01:17:02
something important as they discussed what they'd just experienced on their drive home.
01:17:08
But both of their stories remained unchanged and nothing of interest was captured in the covert recordings.
01:17:16
Detective Jubilant was confident that there was absolutely no evidence that raised any suspicion in regards to their
01:17:23
involvement. and again they were eliminated from the investigation. By September 2016, the search for
01:17:34
William Tier had become one of the largest ever in Australian history. A second arm of the strike force was
01:17:42
established purely to work through the 1,000 plus names that police had identified as potential persons of
01:17:48
interest. Detectives were required to travel all over the country to locate each
01:17:53
individual and cross them off the list. But despite the epic scale of work being
01:17:59
put in, the investigation continued with no significant breakthroughs. Strikeforce detectives wanted to offer a
01:18:08
reward for information, but they knew what would need to be a sizable amount of money if it was going to encourage
01:18:14
anyone to speak. As Detective Jubilant explained, it would need to be enough money to make a
01:18:21
wife turn against her husband or for one pedophile to betray another. With support from the New South Wales
01:18:30
Police Commissioner and the state premier, they got their wish. On the second anniversary of William
01:18:37
Tier's disappearance, a $1 million reward was announced. At the time, it was the largest reward
01:18:45
ever offered in New South Wales, and the announcement was broadcast heavily on television and shared across social
01:18:52
media. When nobody tried to claim it, investigators drew two conclusions. Either William's abductor had acted
01:19:02
alone and not told a soul, or if more than one person had been involved, none of the offenders were prepared to rat
01:19:09
the others out. The strike force continued questioning known sex offenders and pedophiles.
01:19:18
Some officers were given the grim task of viewing child exploitation material in case William could be identified in
01:19:25
footage or photographs. It was a brutal job that took a severe emotional toll, but members of the
01:19:32
strike force persevered with one ultimate goal, to bring William Tier home. In mid 2016, the Department of Housing
01:19:48
received an application that made them stop in their tracks. A woman named Kim Loki had applied for a
01:19:55
home in Sydney, citing William Tier's biological grandmother, Tracy Martin, not her real name, as her intended
01:20:03
roommate. The two women had worked together in the past and had recently rekindled their
01:20:10
friendship with Kim posting photos of herself and a Tracy together online to acknowledge their bond.
01:20:18
But there was something that rang alarm bells for the department of housing. Kim had applied for a three-bedroom
01:20:26
house even though she stated that she and Tracy would be the only occupants. When William had had been a baby and his
01:20:34
biological parents had hidden him from the authorities, Tracy Martin had apparently helped them.
01:20:42
This led the department to question whether that third bedroom was intended for William.
01:20:48
Perhaps Kim had been helping hide him all along. The department notified the police who
01:20:56
placed Kim under covert surveillance. What they discovered was shocking. Kim drove a gray Holden Commodore sedan
01:21:05
similar in color and shape to one of the vehicles Angela claimed to have spotted
01:21:10
on Benoon Drive on the day of William's disappearance. Kim was also a former customer of Bill
01:21:18
Sping, having hired him to fix her washing machine several years prior. But perhaps most alarming, one of Kim's
01:21:28
flatmates had a notable brother-in-law, person of interest in the William Tur case, convicted sex offender, Tony
01:21:36
Jones. She was also friends with the Jones's now exartner Debbie. When questioned about her whereabouts on
01:21:47
Friday, September 12th, 2014, Kim Loki claimed she was at home in Sydney. some 360 km from Kendall, but she had nothing
01:21:58
to verify her alibi. Her explanation for wanting a third bedroom was that she needed a studio for
01:22:06
her art. Kim appeared on Channel 9's current affair program to deny having anything
01:22:13
to do with Williams disappearance. She rejected allegations that it was her car seen on Benaroon Drive, stating,
01:22:22
"I wouldn't be game to do stuff like that, kidnapping a little kid." The heat was placed on William's
01:22:31
biological grandmother, Tracy Martin, until another twist emerged. Tracy wasn't close friends with Kim Loki
01:22:40
at all. The two women were nothing more than former work colleagues. Kim had used photos of them taken at a
01:22:48
work function years prior as testimony to their friendship and had simply wanted to ingratiate herself into the
01:22:56
William Tier investigation. She tried to sue a current affair for money they promised her for the
01:23:02
interview, but the case was thrown out of court. [Music] The fact that William was a foster child
01:23:13
had been publicly discussed online by those invested in the case. But by mid 2017, this fact still hadn't been
01:23:21
officially clarified. It continued to muddy public perception with sympathy for the anonymous family
01:23:29
slowly dissipating in the eyes of those who viewed them as detached. A woman who wasn't connected to either
01:23:37
of the families in any way took it upon herself to fight to make this detail public.
01:23:44
Having been sexually assaulted in a foster home during her own adolescence, the woman became an advocate for other
01:23:50
foster children and believed the public had a right to know the truth about Williams family's situation.
01:23:58
The case went to court where lawyers for the Department of Family and Community Services argued that there was a stigma
01:24:05
attached to being a foster child. If William was ever found alive, this stigma would follow him for life.
01:24:14
Likewise, his sister Lindsay would suffer from the same stigma. William's foster parents agreed that
01:24:21
they wanted to keep this information secret along with their identities. Up until this point, William's
01:24:29
biological parents, Amy Tier and Tyler Martin, had mostly been kept on the sidelines of the investigation.
01:24:37
They didn't receive the same regular updates as his foster parents, weren't acknowledged in the media, and had been
01:24:44
excluded from the national public relations campaign aimed at bringing awareness to the case.
01:24:51
However, they had always wanted it to be publicly known that William was in foster care at the time he went missing.
01:25:00
The judge agreed that the public had been misled to believe that Peter and Angela were William Tier's biological
01:25:07
parents. In a landmark decision, he lifted the restrictions that prevented this fact
01:25:13
from being reported, ruling that William being in foster care was a legitimate matter of public interest.
01:25:21
For the first time since William went missing, the names of his biological parents were allowed to be shared, while
01:25:28
the names of his foster parents and sister continued to be suppressed by a court order.
01:25:35
Afterwards, Amy Tier appeared on national television for the first time. In a heartfelt interview with television
01:25:43
presenter Melissa Doyle for Channel 7's Sunday Night program, she admitted to having made poor choices in the past,
01:25:50
but said she was trying to be the best mom she could be. No longer in a relationship with Tyler
01:25:57
Martin, Amy said William and Lindsay shouldn't have been taken away from her in the first place.
01:26:03
She believed the whole situation could have been improved if there had just been better support for mothers who were
01:26:10
experiencing domestic violence. Amy cried as she fondly recounted memories of William as a baby. She spoke
01:26:20
of how difficult the experience of losing him twice had been and how much it hurt her to know that William and
01:26:26
Lindsay were no longer together. Sob, she begged whoever had her son to bring him home unharmed, saying,
01:26:35
"Whoever was responsible, quote, needs a bullet." "Whatever had happened to William," Amy
01:26:43
believed that his foster parents should feel guilty. "I don't want to blame the carers," she
01:26:50
said, "but they were responsible for looking after William, and they failed. As police continued to make their way
01:27:01
through the long list of persons of interest when speaking with Kendall locals, one name in particular kept
01:27:08
coming up. The individual lived a reclusive lifestyle in an overgrown property near
01:27:15
Beneroon Drive, and some people thought he was worth looking into. Police arrived at the man's house, and
01:27:23
what they found was disturbing. Outside, animal carcasses hung from pieces of string. Inside was even
01:27:33
creepier. At the end of the man's bed, a shrine of sorts had been made to William Tier.
01:27:41
It featured photos of William along with quotes about the investigation that had
01:27:46
been cut from the newspaper as well as handwritten poetry about the case. Due to the man's unconventional
01:27:54
lifestyle, police nicknamed him Gorillas in the Mist after the book and film of the same name about an American
01:28:02
scientist who moved to the remote forests of Rwanda to study primates. Police questioned Gorillas in the Mist
01:28:10
extensively, but found nothing to suggest he was involved in William's abduction.
01:28:16
If anything, they thought he seemed lonely and appreciated the police company. However, there were certain things about
01:28:26
his behavior that they deemed concerning. Not wanting to take any chances, the police decided to put gorillas in the
01:28:34
mist under surveillance by installing hidden cameras in the bush surrounding his property.
01:28:41
Before long, one of the cameras went missing. Police had no idea what had happened to
01:28:48
it until 6 weeks later when it suddenly reappeared under strange circumstances. [Music]
01:28:59
to be continued. [Music] [Music]