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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always, ladies and gentlemen, the pride of Columbus, he is the captain.
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I'm also the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts, where it's always good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for
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listening and thanks for telling a friend. We are drinking James Boag's Premium Lager. Garage rates three out of five
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temperature and matured longer than other lagers, resulting in a crisp, a very crispy lager. Today's beer was
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brought to us by these crispy critters. First up, we have Miss Mel's Tattoos. A big shoutout to Stacy in Pflugerville,
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Texas, not to be confused with Snugerville. And here's a double long-distance cheers to Scott, his
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girlfriend Sarah in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Cheers. Cheers. And a big we like your jib to Andrew in Greenville,
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South Carolina. And a shoutout to Brandon all the way in Bay of Plenty over in New Zealand. And last but not
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least, a cheers to our friend Rachel P who is on bed rest. Where is Rachel these days, Captain? Is it like
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Lakewood, Ohio, maybe? Well, I don't think we should give out her information. Anyway, it's somewhere
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garage, go to truecrimegarage.com and click on the donate button. All right, gather around, grab a chair, grab a
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beer, and let's talk some true crime. In the disappearance of 3-year-old William Tyrrell. Now, we spoke about the
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dynamics of his family yesterday. He has biological parents, he has foster parents. The 3-year-old went missing
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while in the care of his foster parents at the grandmother's home. Now, the parents, the foster parents, have not
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been without suspicion because especially very early on in this investigation, the public wanted to
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know, one, why can't we learn the identity of these parents? And two, what are what else are they hiding? Mhm. So,
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the parents agreed to an interview. This took place in April of 2015. It's my understanding that this was a
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police interview and this was released to the public. And there's some interesting answers and questions here
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during the course of this interview. Now, I want you to keep in mind when you listen to this
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that not only have the um the identities been been hidden from the public in this
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interview. Mhm. video of this, but you're just going to see shadow images of these two
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individuals. And the voices that you are hearing have been altered to further disguise the identity of these two
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people. We're just going to read the questions from the interviewer because those are
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the hardest to hear. And also, the audio at the beginning isn't so great, but it
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gets better as the interview goes along. The first question that is posed by the
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interviewer is he asked the foster parents to explain to the public this whole process. You know, this is a very
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high-profile case. He's asking them to tell the public what it is like to walk a mile in their shoes and what they have
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been through. It's like it's the never-ending nightmare. We wake up. We we it we just relive it. It's just
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it's I just can't believe it's happened. It's um We we we just don't have our boy. We
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just he's We have no idea where he is. We don't know who's got him. We don't know what's happening to him.
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We know nothing about it. We just want it to be over. Now, there's been a lot of people that have taken this interview
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and they've kind of tore it apart and really analyzed the answers that the foster parents are giving to these
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questions. And that first question there is one that has been scrutinized quite a
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bit where people question the foster mother stating where she states that we don't know where he is, we don't know
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what happened to him, we just want this to be over. And I think you could make an argument for either side of the fence
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here because a lot of people say this might point to some sort of guilt by the foster parents. You know, where they're
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they're claiming their innocence in a question where it wasn't necessary for them to claim their innocence. We don't
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know where he is, we don't know what happened to him. And then the other portion is that people state that when
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she says we just want this to be over Mhm. that she might be referring to the investigation. Personally, Captain
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I I tend to argue the other side of the fence here where when she started off with her answer, it's we are living a
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nightmare. We wake up every day and it's repeated is what she's basically saying.
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Yeah, I think she's implying that she wants the nightmare to be over. Exactly. She's heartbroken. She can't imagine
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what could have happened to this child. It's a nightmare and she just wants that
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portion of it to be over. The interviewer is going to ask them, when was the last time you saw William? That
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morning, on the 12th at mom's place. 10:00 about 10:15. No. And uh could you just give a bit of
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background? What was he doing? Is that his grand So, that's a little odd. Yeah. Yeah, very odd. When asked when was the
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last time that you saw William, you hear the foster father start to give an answer of about 10:15 Mhm. and it sounds
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like his wife is correcting him at that point. She says, "No, no." But then but then they're cut off by the
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interviewer. Right. And I'm curious, what would she have said? What was she about to say to her husband
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before she was cut off by the interviewer? Right, because all the reports say that she saw him last about
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10:15. Not only that, it's almost as if she's trying to remind her husband, wait
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a second you were gone when he went missing. By all reports, you were off making this
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business call or this Skype communication. And we don't want to speculate too much because it could have
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been as simple as him saying, "Oh, 10:15." And again, if she's going to correct him, "Well, no,
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you were gone." And he he could have been saying "Well, he asked us as a group." Mhm. Right.
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You know what I mean? So, it's like my wife saw him last at 10:15. Right. So. And that's that's interesting that you
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say that because we've all come across husband and wife combos that They're the best, aren't they?
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When asked a question, you may have one person in the group that thinks that it's it's a question specifically for
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them and for their knowledge and what they know about the situation only where you have either the wife or the husband
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going, "Well, we Mhm. collectively, we last saw him around 10:15 on that day." Now, we will speed along through this
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interview because it's quite lengthy and we're not there's no reason to play the
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whole thing here. So, before we get to their next response um one thing I do want to tick off my
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list here is that when asked what William was last doing, the mother states that he was having fun, he was
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playing, he was playing Daddy Tiger. She gives some kind of name to the game that
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she believes that they were playing. Mhm. Now, the father, the foster father, I find his answer a little
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a little weird in the sense that it's very vague. His answer is William was just doing what he would
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normally do. And and I get that that William's foster father was not present or not supposed
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to have been present at the approximate time that he was the boy was abducted or
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went missing. However, we need to keep in mind that in in April of 2015, when this interview
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was being conducted, police are working under the assumption that this little boy has been abducted. It seems strange
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to me and I know that these parents are probably traumatized in their in their own manner, in their own way from living
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through this experience. But it seems a little strange to me that they are quite
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vague with this answer of what the little boy was doing when he was last seen. Because if we are talking about an
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a an abduction here, Well, the mom's not that vague. there could be some importance as to what the boy was doing
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when he was last being supervised by an adult. go over the foster mother's accounts of
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the moment that she realized that William was missing. I just I'm And I don't I think back to that that
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moment where I just went I can't hear him. Why why why can't I hear him? And I walked around
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just it was just 2 m 3 m away from where we were sitting. And I've just walked out and I just see
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nothing. I I see nothing. I hear nothing. I I'm speechless. I'm walking around in a
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circle on the spot thinking, "Where is he? Why can't I see him?" Mhm. And I'm yelling out, "William, where are
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you? You need to talk to Mommy. Tell me where you are. I can't see you. I can't hear you.
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Where where are you?" And he was nowhere. And I just And I just started to thinking, "How could he just
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disappear?" Cuz he just disappeared. I don't I don't get it. I don't get it. Later in the interview, the foster
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parents are asked, "When did you first suspect abduction?" I I from the from in my mind it was immediate because there
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was no way in the world William would have gone into that bush. It's too thick. There's lantana all through it. There is
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no way in the world he would have gone into that bush. And being a cautious boy as you said, he's going to think twice
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about doing it. Yeah. Yeah, I it was it was in my head. And even Mom even when I was talking
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with Mom while we were waiting and I was doing the frantic thing around running through the house and opening up
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cupboards and all sorts of stuff. I just kept going in my head, "Somebody's taken him. I can't There was
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it In my mind it was the only logical explanation for what could have happened. Yeah, a child
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in that situation in that circumstance in those surrounds would not just disappear into thin air.
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I mean I have my I have my doubts. I I didn't know what to believe at the time, especially in the first
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hour or two or two. I I didn't know what to believe, but um I guess my mind was wondering as to what
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what what could have happened to him, but I just had to keep on going and and have the support of the the community
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around us that were also looking for him. The police were on on scene within minutes. Yeah. Which was absolutely
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fantastic. Um but I didn't know what to believe. But, in that community, you don't expect you don't expect someone to
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take a child. I mean seriously, it's a tiny community. Everybody knows each other in those
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around those streets. There's complete trust. It just It just I'm I'm astounded that there there could be somebody
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living there or people living there that could do this. It just it's just It's not the place where you
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would You'd expect it in the city. You'd expect abductions in the city. You don't expect to sit here about
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abductions in Kendall. And out of my mom's street. I mean, it's just ridiculous. The thing that I want to red
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flag here, Captain, is I find it a little strange that you know, we heard the 911 call Sorry, I said 911. We heard
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the triple zero emergency call. Same same. Where she reports little William as missing. Now, here in this interview,
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which is conducted, you know, nearly half more than half a year later, she states that
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when did you think that he first was abducted? Did somebody came and physically took this child? And she says
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almost immediately, "Immediately I felt that that was the only thing that could have happened. It was the only
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reasonable explanation why I could not find this little boy." She had a intuition.
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Which Look, the only thing to me here is for my thought, the when I first heard the
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triple zero call, listened to it multiple times, I always thought that she sounded a little a little concerned,
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but um very calm, maybe a little reserved. Um my thought though was always that your first immediate thought usually is
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not that the child is abducted. Is that this child is just missing, they've wandered off somewhere, they found
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somebody to play with down the street, and now once we bring in some people to help with this search, once we raise the
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alarm, we're going to feel a little embarrassed because he will be easily found. That was my thought listening to
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those emergency calls before. However, after hearing this interview, I'm a little perplexed here
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at at her saying that she believed that he was abducted almost immediately and then sounding so calm on that emergency
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call. Well, I think part of it is not wanting to You can feel things or have senses of
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things, but she might have not wanted to believe that. I also think that she sounded a lot more distraught on that
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call, and I think she was holding back a lot. I think there's little moments of that call that that allude to that. And
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you bring up a good point here. If if people are able to stay somewhat reserved and that they don't go into panic mode,
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usually they are able to be more productive in a solution to whatever problem everyone is experiencing. So,
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yes, maybe she's just kind of cool under pressure here and trying to stay from panicking so that she can help find her
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little boy and present as much information as she can. Yeah, and could you know, put yourself in her shoes. I
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mean, she gets up to go look for William cuz she does not hear him. Let's And her
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first gut reaction is somebody took him. Mhm. You don't want to be going around while
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people are looking for him going, "I have a feeling somebody took him." Right. And then you're going to freak
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everybody else out. Yeah. So, I think that's part of it, too. And I think now she's stating
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And what's kind of fascinating to me is the how it's impossible, you know, it's like she can't she's
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having a hard time in her brain connecting the dots, you know, on how he went missing in this
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small gap and how it doesn't make any sense. Right. And and that's to me very real.
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Like if you know, it's hard for me to believe that she had something to do with it
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when that is real. Like she's You can tell that her brain is still confused on how he went how he just kind
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of poof and went missing. Yeah, even 7 months later still kind of processing the events of that day and how this
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could have possibly have happened. Now, moving on in the interview, she will be asked They will be asked, "If William
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was abducted, do you feel that it was somebody from the area?" I don't think it's somebody from the community. I
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think it's someone who doesn't have a history there. I think it's I'm saying I if if I mean, I don't know
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for sure. I can't see I can't see a true local who knows my mom, who knows us and knows
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our family choosing to take our child. I can't see that. And if that's the case, then I feel so
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sorry for that community because that is absolutely disgraceful and nobody can trust a soul. That's not the community
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of Kendall. People trust each other there. Do you feel the same way? I absolutely I
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I I I think the community is probably going through just a tougher time as we are because
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there are so many families there with young children that are now changed their lives as well on the impact that
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that's actually had on them. Um for for I don't know what's what period of time, but it's it's it's Yeah, it is
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disgraceful. And probably the toughest question that they had to ask was, "What do you think happened to William?"
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It's a it's a hard question. Um I I think that if I could answer it by saying that I'm in for I think
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I trod those grounds myself for three or four days, you know, every morning until almost
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nightfall. Um we had police We had police from all around. We had, you know, SES. We had the
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community. If he was out there in the bush, he would have been found. Yeah. Which, you know, as I was walking
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through the bush with other people, it it became more aware to me as time went on that this event is this is not a
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normal event. This is not a child gone missing in the bush. This this is heading down the path of abduction or
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something more more sinister. Um that's that's what I I I believe I truly believe now and I'm
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I still pray to this day that I still believe strongly that he's alive. If he is still alive, then someone has
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him. So, what would the foster parents say to that person right now? Just give him back. Do the right thing.
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Give him back. Take him to church. Take him to a police station. Take him to a school.
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Give him to someone. Give him Give him back. And if somebody out there knows something or knows the person that took
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William, what would you say to them? Say something to police straight away. Yeah.
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Say something because what what what they say or what they potentially bring is another piece to the puzzle that can
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at least uh give it get us closer to an outcome. Um And as I said before, you have
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praying for a miracle for him to return alive, but praying for an outcome so that at
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least we we can know what's happened to him. That's That's That's the goal at the end of the
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day. I suppose the other thing, too, is if they don't come forward or even the person who might be
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very close to whoever's done this, if they don't come forward, you don't want this happening to anyone
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else. No. You don't want this person striking again. You said right at the beginning, walk a
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mile in our shoes. You can't walk a mile in our shoes unless you've actually it's actually
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happened. And I don't think any parent anywhere deserves to walk a mile in our shoes.
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It shouldn't happen. It just should not happen. All right, we're back. Cheers, Captain. Cheers. Cheers, me
00:21:11
mateys. Some powerful stuff from the foster parents of William Tyrrell there in that
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interview. Now, some more thought on the possibility of either a pedophile ring being involved in the abduction of
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little William or at least the thought that maybe more than one abductor was present on the day that he was taken.
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This comes from information that it was provided to authorities from the family of a convicted pedophile. Now, the
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family states that there are two people here, and these should be two persons of
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interest in this case. Both are convicted pedophiles or at least convicted to have had some kind of child
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sex offender charges on their record. They claim that their family member has claimed to have met up with his friend
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who is also a child sex offender on the day that William happened to be abducted
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or at least disappeared. Mhm. Okay, so the first individual that we're talking about is a man named Tony Jones. So, he
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was the pedophile whose white station wagon was seized in the investigation into William's disappearance. Now, this
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man has 90 offenses on his criminal record, 9 0 offenses on his criminal record. He has charges against him for
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pedophile type crimes before and after the disappearance of William Tyrrell. Now, he claims that he was going to go
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meet up with a man by the name of Bickford. Paul Bickford, another um These guys are both pieces of [ __ ]
00:22:56
Yes, thank you, Captain. Yeah, Paul Bickford. So, this is the story, Captain. Well, and I so I don't go off
00:23:03
on a 3-hour rant, if you have 90 charges against you, you shouldn't be out with the rest of the population. We should be
00:23:12
protecting our kids. You should spend the rest of your life in jail. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.
00:23:17
90. 90. 9 0 You should get a year for at least every charge, and then so you'd be
00:23:24
in jail for 90 years, you piece of [ __ ] Yeah. And um Like I said, he has charges before and
00:23:31
after the disappearance of William. So, he was out during that time. Now, their story, here's their story, all right?
00:23:38
Now, keep in mind, this was brought to police and brought to investigators by family members of one of these
00:23:45
individuals. So, the story was that the two of them were supposed to meet up. They were going to spend the day in the
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bush, in the woods, in the forest, looking for and collecting scrap metal. Okay.
00:24:01
The report what the family would say is that they did not see Jones until later that afternoon. He did
00:24:09
return home, but at when he returned home, he was drunk, and he did still claim that he had spent
00:24:16
the day in the woods collecting scrap metal. It seems very very I mean, we talk about
00:24:24
strange coincidences along the way here. It seems very strange that you have two
00:24:29
persons, one with nine with 90 offenses against him Mhm. that happened to meet up on the day that little William goes
00:24:39
missing, and we have two, maybe three vehicles spotted in the area of his disappearance.
00:24:46
Yeah, and wasn't one of the vehicles spotted the white S the white station wagon? Yes, and that was what was seized
00:24:54
from this man's possession. So, to further add weight to this thought and theory is that it was reported that
00:25:01
both men had lived in the Kendall area, and both had been driving vehicles that would match the description of one of
00:25:08
the vehicles seen near the Tyrrell house on that day or around the time that William had disappeared.
00:25:15
Mhm. Police have also alluded to the thought that possibly remember Bill Spedding
00:25:22
that we had talked about earlier, the individual that was scheduled to fix the washing machine. Yeah, the maintenance
00:25:28
man. That they that news reports have claimed they found a Spider-Man toy in his van. Police would not confirm this
00:25:36
or deny it. Mhm. Um but police have alluded that there's a possibility that Bill Spedding may be friends or
00:25:43
acquaintances with one or both of these individuals that we just mentioned. Mhm.
00:25:49
Now, So, now we got three pieces of [ __ ] Publicly, these men have denied that they are friends.
00:25:56
Um and But we have two of them at least hanging out together, but we're not friends. We just We just
00:26:03
went to the bush to collect scrap metal. We have Yes, we have at least one of them that told their family member, I'm
00:26:10
going to meet this specific person and go to the woods with the with the objective of collecting as much scrap
00:26:17
metal as we can for the day. And I do want to give a little more information regarding this
00:26:23
individual Bill Spedding. So, he was a repairman, right? He had gave the foster grandmother a quote. Her washing machine
00:26:32
was broke. And apparently he had done this several days before the child had arrived. She wanted to get the washing
00:26:40
machine fixed. One, just to get it fixed, but two, expecting house guest, you don't want the laundry to pile up.
00:26:48
Apparently, there was a part that was needed to repair this washing machine. Uh-huh. And
00:26:55
actually, Bill was scheduled to be there on that on the day that William went missing.
00:27:02
Mhm. On the Friday. Correct. The story goes like this, though. That he was waiting for the part to come
00:27:10
in. Mhm. There are some reports out there that state that he tried calling the grandmother. Now, the reports go
00:27:19
fork There's a fork in the road here, Captain, because the reports go one of two directions.
00:27:24
A lot of the reports state that Bill Spedding had called the grandmother. She did not pick up the phone,
00:27:31
and he was calling to let her know that he was still waiting on the part, that it had not arrived. He was not going to
00:27:37
be able to fix the machine that day. Uh-huh. The other side of the fork in the road was that he was calling to
00:27:43
report that the item had in fact come in, and he would like to come by and repair the washing machine. However,
00:27:52
regardless of the fork in the road, both stories, all reports indicate that the phone
00:27:57
the phone call was not received, that she did not answer the call. Yeah. I don't know if a message was left that
00:28:04
would clear up what was actually about to happen had she answered the phone. However,
00:28:10
the report states the report state that she then tried to call him back to figure out what it was that he had
00:28:17
wanted. Mhm. So, apparently, once they were able to make contact, whether it be he called her or
00:28:25
she called him, apparently by this point they were busy. This kid has gone missing.
00:28:31
We don't want anybody coming out to repair the washing machine that day. He did eventually go out to her home and
00:28:37
repair the washing machine. I believe it was anywhere from 5 to 7 days after the
00:28:43
boy had gone missing, but he did return to that home. Now, where was he that day? According to his wife that his that
00:28:53
Bill had gone out for a cup of coffee. They attended some kind of midday event together, and then he went back to work
00:29:02
that afternoon, and then returned home as normal that evening. So, during the According to his wife, during the time
00:29:11
that William would have gone missing or would have been abducted, around that 10:15 to 10:30 marker,
00:29:18
this man was according to his wife, his whereabouts were accounted for. Yeah, I don't believe her. Well, I don't
00:29:25
I'm not I'm not necessarily going to go too much into whether I need to believe her or not for my own thoughts. My
00:29:32
thought is We don't have any investigators coming forward saying, "Yeah, we've already cleared this
00:29:38
individual." Right. We We've heard his wife's side of the story. He's been cleared. Let's move on.
00:29:43
We have other suspects to investigate. This dude, as far as I can find has not been cleared. He's still he's still
00:29:50
considered a person of interest in this investigation. Let's get into some of these theories
00:29:56
here Captain because there's several theories about what possibly could have happened on September 12th, 2014.
00:30:04
Okay. So the first thought would be much more innocent than a lot of the other theories out there. The first thought
00:30:11
would be that the the children are outside playing. Mom and the grandmother go inside to get
00:30:17
a cup of tea. They're gone for a little bit of time and during this time William
00:30:22
goes wandering off. He goes wandering into the forest or to the bush as they call it.
00:30:28
And this is a vast area. This is rugged terrain. Yeah. If you know, I want I want everybody to keep in mind. It's
00:30:35
possible that if somebody were to wander in there and get lost or to keep venturing deeper and deeper into those
00:30:42
woods. If a proper search is not conducted, there's a good chance that somebody could not only succumb to the elements.
00:30:51
And pass away in those woods. There's a chance that they may not be found. Right. Especially a three-year-old. Yes.
00:31:01
What are your thoughts on that on that theory Captain? Well, his foster parents talk about him being
00:31:07
a cautious kid. So I don't know if he would actually roam that far away. We also have
00:31:13
countless reports of people searching the property that you know, within what 15 minutes or so 20 minutes or so of the
00:31:22
boy going missing the foster dad is running the whole property lines. Looking I think he would have been
00:31:29
found. I also if you've ever been to the grocery store with a three-year-old. They don't like to walk that long.
00:31:35
That's true. So I think that once he got into if he did get into the bush. At some point he would be stopping and
00:31:44
not moving at all. And is is there some kind of you know, look that the animals I know are a
00:31:50
little bit different there. Is it possible that he went to the edge of the bush and then somehow like an animal got
00:31:56
him? One of those Tasmanian devil things that spins around and creates a tornado and
00:32:02
makes weird noises. Yeah. No, I just think I I don't think it's that likely. They
00:32:07
had a they had adequate well, not even adequate. They had amazing search team. They had amazing
00:32:15
volunteers looking for this child. I think they would have they would have found him.
00:32:20
You know, I question how long the the gap is of not you know, not hearing William play. Mhm. Cuz like we've said
00:32:29
before there's a lot of times where somebody thinks it was a couple minutes, but maybe it was a little bit longer.
00:32:34
I do question that, but I do find the fact that the foster mother is just baffled
00:32:43
by the fact that he went missing. She still she still seems so baffled today that I I do believe that it was a
00:32:50
very short gap. Yeah, and I think I think you nailed it there Captain. I think you hit the nail
00:32:56
on the head for me as well because you bring up one thing that that really kind of sums it up for me with this
00:33:02
thought in it not being a very likely maybe even a impossibility. Mhm. Is it there was an abundance of
00:33:10
searchers. There was an abundance of resources that they used to try to find that little boy. They used helicopters,
00:33:17
motorcycles, dogs. They used people that were experienced in searching through that type of
00:33:23
terrain. Now it's Well, and you bring up a good point with the dogs is we don't have any evidence.
00:33:29
If if these dogs got a scent trail, they would they would have followed that scent into the bush.
00:33:34
Yeah. Yeah, and it's my understanding that the early searches. Now this would be the grandmother the the foster mom
00:33:41
and the people that helped in the neighborhood. God bless the people that helped in the neighborhood. And and I I
00:33:47
didn't go too far into the details of that, but it also sounds to me like some of the children that were playing in the
00:33:53
area not only provided answers to questions to adults that are hey, have you seen a boy? Have you seen a kid
00:33:59
wearing a Spider-Man outfit? Not only did they say no, we haven't seen this child, but they also helped look for
00:34:05
this child and some of the kids and some of the neighbors went door-to-door knocking on doors asking for other
00:34:11
people's assistance or if they had saw some boy wandering around. Now as far as going into the bush
00:34:20
the one thing here that that really makes me question that and I understand that maybe valuable time should he have
00:34:26
wandered into there maybe valuable time could have been lost while they searched
00:34:30
the neighborhood not expecting a cautious young boy to walk into the woods. But I don't think his little legs could
00:34:37
have carried him very far before Right. before we're talking about that abundance of resources coming into look
00:34:45
in that area specifically look in that area. And as we mentioned, they covered fairly quickly 3 km from the spot that
00:34:54
he went missing. That's a good amount of ground. The other item here is that Spider-Man
00:35:01
outfit he's wearing. That's half of that thing is bright red. The other half of it's bright blue. These are pretty easy
00:35:09
colors to spot even if you're in a helicopter far above the canopy of the of the bush or the woods. Mhm.
00:35:16
And I've I've heard several searchers talk about searching that day and one thing that they said was that the the
00:35:22
bush was so thick that the clothes that they were wearing some of them experienced tears on their
00:35:29
clothing. Now if any items if little threads of of red or bright blue pieces of clothing would have been torn from
00:35:37
from William which I would expect that more likely than that from the searchers. That would we would have seen
00:35:43
evidence Mhm. that he was at least in that woods at some point. And again, I don't know the animal situation, but
00:35:50
animals don't just kind of pick you up and cuddle you as they carry you away. There would have been some type of
00:35:56
evidence to suggest that something terrible had happened to the poor little boy. Now one thing that scares me
00:36:03
was that in looking at pictures of the neighborhood and near that lot. There was a a large sewer nearby. Mhm. Um and
00:36:15
I'm sure and I hope well, I shouldn't say I'm sure, but I hope that that that area was checked and I hope
00:36:23
that if they used dogs to check that area like they said that there were no tracks leading them to that sewer area.
00:36:31
It looked large enough that a small child could could fit down in there. Mhm. And as they had said that it sounds
00:36:37
like they were playing hide-and-go-seek when he was last seen. Could he have been looking for a place to hide and it
00:36:44
attempt to hide in there not understanding what it actually was. Um for me I find this to be this thought
00:36:52
this theory to be one that part of me wishful thinking would hope that this would be more of a likelihood.
00:37:00
However, it doesn't seem very likely that this was in fact the scenario. Now regarding the next theory Captain
00:37:08
was that we're not hearing the full story from the foster parents that somehow the foster parents be at the
00:37:14
father be at the mother be at them together in some kind of team were responsible for the demise of this young
00:37:23
child and they've been able to successfully hide his corpse all these years later.
00:37:29
Well, let's have you tackle this one first. Well, my thoughts on the foster parents are this.
00:37:35
And I share a suspicion that you have, but I think my thoughts are I suspect a little more from the foster
00:37:44
parents. The only thing I actually think that the foster parents might be guilty
00:37:47
of is I think that that window of time when William was unsupervised. I think it might be considerably larger
00:37:55
than what we're told. Now I don't when I say that I don't mean to throw shade at the foster mom.
00:38:04
What I mean by that is is there a chance that that's not deliberate that they're not
00:38:10
deliberately saying, yeah, I watched the kid until 10:15 and that was the last time I saw him and at 10:30 I I figured
00:38:17
out that he was missing because I didn't hear him anymore and we have a five-minute window.
00:38:22
My thought is they might not have been watching the clock the entire time that you're sitting there. You're catching up
00:38:29
with your mother that you haven't seen in a while face-to-face. Felt like a couple minutes.
00:38:34
Yeah, it felt like 15 minutes. It felt like 5 minutes that they hadn't heard him. 15 minutes that they hadn't seen
00:38:39
him. Maybe it could have been 15 minutes you hadn't heard him. A half an hour that you had not seen
00:38:45
him. So I think that really I don't find anything there. I mean, I do have some questions about some of the answers that
00:38:53
they've provided in that interview. But Mhm. But really what you hear toward the
00:39:00
end of that interview and we didn't play the entire thing, but you hear the heartache in their voices. You hear
00:39:07
their voices cracking and they are sort of trying to fight through tears as the interview goes on and on.
00:39:14
And so I think that there's real heartache there. I think that they their hearts are broken. I think that they
00:39:20
intended to permanently adopt William and his sister. I think they thought of William as their own little boy. So the
00:39:29
only thing that they may be guilty of in my mind the foster parents is that possibly
00:39:35
their memory is not as clear as we would like it to be for the morning that he went missing and maybe that window of
00:39:42
time that he before he was noticeably missing is a little larger. Yeah, I it's just the way she goes over that and
00:39:54
I'm going to bring it up again, the the minute that, you know, she realizes he's
00:39:59
missing. And that he just kind of poof, disappeared. I mean, you can tell that her brain
00:40:05
is just baffled by this. So, that to me lends to the idea that, you know, she has no clue what happened
00:40:12
to him. So, not guilty of that. The problem with this though is that we don't know who these individuals are.
00:40:20
And there could be other suspects based off of these individuals. If we knew, for example,
00:40:27
oh, this person is so-and-so and this person is so-and-so and the husband was having an affair. And then, if he's
00:40:35
having an affair with somebody, then that person becomes a possible suspect. You know what I mean? So, there's little
00:40:42
things. I don't think they're guilty of anything. You know, that's what my gut is telling
00:40:48
me based off their answers, based off the research, but it's also we're not getting a full picture of these
00:40:53
individuals and if we did, is there something that would be brought to the surface that you go, oh, well.
00:40:59
Right, I question that. So, it's I see what you're saying. It's hard for us to give a full assessment where police
00:41:05
obviously know who these people are and they're able to dive into their lives much better than we can. Um, but I see
00:41:12
what you're saying here. That there could be other things at play. And the thought there too is, you know,
00:41:18
was this a planned visit? You know, there's been speculation about that. We've proved it was a planned visit. The
00:41:24
straight from the foster mother's mouth, they planned to go there on that Friday.
00:41:28
They planned to be there that weekend. The only thing that was unplanned about it was that they left on that Thursday
00:41:35
instead. Right. And you point out something that's very interesting there, Captain.
00:41:39
Who in their lives would have known, you know, just because just because that portion of the trip was unplanned, there
00:41:46
are people in their lives that could have known we're leaving a day early. My work I told my work or I told this
00:41:53
person. I told the babysitter that would typically help out. You know, different
00:41:57
people. So, yeah, I get what you're saying there. So, now we have to ponder the question,
00:42:04
if we don't think that it's likely that the foster parents were involved. And you know, one more one more little
00:42:09
tidbit on that before we move on, would be if if the foster parents were involved and somehow maybe even a freak
00:42:18
accident or some something strange happened and they decided to cover it up, the foster grandmother would have to be
00:42:26
going along with that. You know what I mean? It just adds one more piece of the pie, one more thing to
00:42:32
the equation there, you know, because if if the foster grandmother's telling the
00:42:37
truth and and her story is is real, then both of these individuals, their whereabouts are accounted for. William's
00:42:45
time with them is accounted for up until the point where he disappears. So, that
00:42:50
in itself clearing both of them essentially. The other thought though here is, if it wasn't the foster parents,
00:42:58
could it have potentially been the biological parents of William? Right. They weren't
00:43:05
they arrested that that day? Yeah, and I this is why I didn't want to go too far
00:43:09
into that. And here here's my thoughts. First of all, I've seen several interviews with the biological mother.
00:43:17
And to be honest, she seems very genuine. She I can't say for certain that she's
00:43:23
telling the truth, but she seems she comes off to be very honest to me. So, I don't see anything with the
00:43:30
biological mother. But, what I can gather from some of the interviews, it actually sounds like the
00:43:36
biological mother and father were not together on the day that William disappeared.
00:43:42
Right. And where we get the information that the the biological parents were arrested at 4:30 on the day that William
00:43:50
had gone missing, we get that information from the biological grandmother, from from the biological
00:43:55
father's mother. Now, we have some problems with her statements there. While they may not be entirely untrue,
00:44:05
you have to weigh them against what the biological mother says in her interviews. She does not say that she
00:44:11
was arrested. She says that she yes, police knocked on her door the day that William went missing. Right. That they
00:44:17
questioned her, that they forced their way inside and they searched her her home and she and they searched the
00:44:24
grounds of her home. And one thing that one thing that is a little telling to me to make me believe
00:44:31
that she is honest, she kind of criticizes their search. She's like, yeah, they came into
00:44:37
my home and they went looking around for William, but she's like, that was my son
00:44:42
missing. I when they were searching my home, I hope they put more effort into it when they were searching other
00:44:47
people's homes because they didn't search my home very thoroughly. Right. Now, there was one interesting thing
00:44:53
when when they did search her home was they found a little boy in her backyard playing and they thought that that was
00:44:59
William, but that was actually another son of hers that she has. So, uh, the son that she
00:45:08
is choosing to raise. Well, these children were taken from her. Right. So, because of her choices. Well,
00:45:17
yeah, I I I think it's a little harsh to to And that that's just my opinion. You
00:45:22
know, you can you can be forceful about it if you like. Um, I think that's Well, don't you think you have to be
00:45:27
pretty bad as a parent for them to take your kids away? I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to know 100% the
00:45:34
circumstances of why the children were taken from them because I don't. Cuz I mean, I grew up in the '80s and pretty
00:45:40
much all my friends' parents were not that great of parents and none of them ever got taken away. Right.
00:45:48
But But again, I know that neither of us know the circumstances of that situation, so I think it's a little
00:45:54
it's a for me, you can you can have your opinion. For me, it's a little out of bounds, I think. I do agree with some of
00:45:59
your statement there. I think that she probably could have made some other choices that would have possibly have
00:46:05
helped her. Her number one complaint is that a lot of the situation was her boyfriend at the time, the the child's
00:46:15
father. yeah. And because they were still together, she was kind of lumped in with
00:46:20
him. She does state that she That was her choice. She does state that she failed some kind of drug test.
00:46:29
Uh, that she tested positive for marijuana, which was going to help them decide to take away her children. Mhm.
00:46:37
Um, but this is also a woman that that says that she was um, in a domestic violence relationship
00:46:45
Right. during that time and I don't feel that she feels that she had much control
00:46:51
over the situation at the time. I really do feel that she feels more guilty than
00:46:56
anybody involved uh, for what has happened to her herself. kind of was forgetting about the
00:47:04
domestic violence cuz it seemed like it was coming from both sides. And it could
00:47:09
it could have been, but I don't know the details. That's a lot harder of a situation to be
00:47:14
in. What I do know is that currently or at least as of 2017, she was raising other children of hers. So,
00:47:25
for her. Hopefully, she got her life together. So, either getting rid of this guy, this
00:47:31
Brandon Collins, either getting rid of him was able to help her straighten out herself or she has done some things to
00:47:39
straighten herself out since this happened. the biological parents would have been
00:47:44
roughly what, 4 hours away anyways? Yeah. Now, if they were separate, if they were not together that day, here's
00:47:52
where I here's where I do want to throw some shade. I want to throw some shade on the biological father. Mhm. Okay,
00:47:58
because I don't I don't feel like I can trust this grandmother, the biological grandmother, because
00:48:05
through her own words, she states that the state was going to come and take William away and she helped provide
00:48:12
money to to the biological parents so they could go on the run to keep their child.
00:48:19
Right. So, she aided in that situation with them being out on the run. Once once the children were taken taken away
00:48:28
from them, this the biological father was in and out of jail. When he was not in jail, it sounds like he was living
00:48:34
with his mother and it sounds like she paints this picture of this guy that was a teetotaler until the point that his
00:48:43
son went missing. I don't know that I can believe that. He's had a strong history of of
00:48:50
alcoholism and drug addiction. He's addicted to ice, the drug ice. I don't see any break in
00:48:58
that chain in in his history. It appears that this was violent. This has been a constant for
00:49:04
him as well. So, I think what we have here is we have the grandmother painting one picture and
00:49:11
I think in reality, there's a much different reality out there than what she's trying to throw into the public.
00:49:18
That this guy was sober, he was doing the right thing and he couldn't get his kid back.
00:49:23
Um, and that, you know, my these kids were not involved because they were arrested fairly quickly afterwards. The
00:49:30
mother says that we weren't arrested. They searched my home, they questioned me, that was it. Now, she doesn't state
00:49:35
anything about her boy her ex at that time, Brandon Collins. Now, maybe maybe they show up to question Collins about
00:49:42
his whereabouts, if he was involved, if he's if he's seen William, and they catch him with drugs, or they find him
00:49:48
and he's high, and he's broken some type of probation, and they actually arrested
00:49:52
him. I don't know that. Yeah, or they just took him down to the station for questioning. And and his
00:49:58
mom's calling that a arrest. Who knows? Right. I I just think that we're getting
00:50:02
one bad story, and it doesn't seem to be the truth coming from his side. And I kind of question that. I think that if
00:50:10
there were any it's 4 hours away. He would also have to know where they were. Or they followed
00:50:15
him. Right. I mean, that's possible, but again, I'm not saying he did it. What I'm
00:50:20
saying, Captain, is that we we've already seen a situation where the grandmother has aided the escape in the
00:50:26
in the aided them to keep the child. And and I don't need to be proven right or wrong
00:50:31
here. What I'm saying is that I for for the biological father to be ruled out, I need some more information.
00:50:39
Mhm. I'm not saying that I think he's guilty of anything. What I What I don't find truth coming from his mother, I
00:50:46
question her story. Right. I question her story, therefore I question him. I question his actions. I
00:50:52
would need some more information to clear him from as a possible suspect in this situation. What are your thoughts
00:50:59
on the biological parents? Uh I I I don't think it was them. I I don't think the likelihood I mean,
00:51:07
it's 4 hours away. You know, they left the day before. So, if you did follow them, you know, you'd
00:51:13
have to be gone Thursday night, and nobody saw you in your car. There's no record of them getting a
00:51:19
hotel room. So, I just I don't think it's likely. And then also, you're going to capture
00:51:25
your kid, and then where did you put your kid? Mhm. You know, you were arrested that day.
00:51:31
And maybe not arrested, but questioned that day. Both parents were. The scary thought though is that a stranger
00:51:37
abduction, or the pedophile ring, or more than one abductor almost seems like a much more likely
00:51:45
situation than any of the other theories that we've discussed. Mhm. That it it's
00:51:50
it's sad to think that. It's sad and scary to think that that possibly somebody was watching the area. Someone
00:51:57
was cruising and looking for a child, and came across William playing in the backyard, and decided to wait till he
00:52:05
was unattended, and took him, or lured the him into their vehicle. Well, and there was a pedophile ring in the area.
00:52:13
Suspected pedophile ring in the area. Yeah, but that's I mean, that's that's all I need to
00:52:19
know. As far as like I mean, that's that's a pretty big uh suspicion. You know, it's not just that there's one
00:52:28
offender here or there. It's there's a ring in that area. So, again, and then we have the situation
00:52:35
where we have two pedophiles meeting up to collect uh scrap metal. So, here's these guys that are going to
00:52:42
go into the bush and go searching, you know, willy-nilly for scrap metal to make a couple dollars.
00:52:50
You know, these rings they put a price on children. Is it that far-fetched just that that we
00:52:56
have two pedophiles in the area, both their cars have been seen in the area, they were going out to look for scrap
00:53:04
money metal get money, and they just came across an opportunity. They would make more money
00:53:10
off of William than they would off that scrap metal. Well, and not only that, Captain, but what if What about this
00:53:17
Bill Spedding? Is there a chance that when his phone call went unanswered, he decided to
00:53:22
drive by the house, to knock on the door and say, "Hey, I got the part. I can go ahead and do the
00:53:26
work today." He pulls up, he sees this child playing in the backyard, Mhm. and he decides to take the child and whether
00:53:34
for his own purposes, or to to Well, he sell him off to people that he may know.
00:53:41
Police have said that he may have known these other two individuals that they've
00:53:45
questioned in the situation. Is that why is he so willing to toss up his DNA? You
00:53:51
know, where it looks like, "Hey, I'm super innocent. Here's my DNA. Go ahead and clear me." But also, if all I did
00:53:57
was take the child, and I didn't do anything with them sexually, or physically attack them, or whatever, the
00:54:03
the chances of me leaving DNA on that individual go down significantly at that point. Well, you're right. I understand
00:54:12
that, but I also think, you know, his his vehicle, what it makes it seem like is that he had a work
00:54:17
vehicle. You would think that somebody would have noticed a work vehicle more so than just any normal car.
00:54:24
Yeah, that's the one thing that we don't get good clear understanding of here is
00:54:29
where we have several vehicles that are described to have been in the area at the time. And when we talk about um
00:54:37
Tony Jones's vehicle, how it matched one of the vehicles, how his vehicle was seized, how Paul Bickford
00:54:44
Bickford. how he had a vehicle that matched one of those vehicles. We hear that we have Spedding, who his
00:54:51
property was searched, who was questioned, who they may have found a Spider-Man toy in his work van or work
00:54:57
vehicle. Right, but he had grand grandchildren, right? We also get no description of that
00:55:03
vehicle. Mhm. You know what I mean? Did it Did it match any of the descriptions that we've already given of of
00:55:09
eyewitness accounts of vehicles that were spotted in the area roughly around the time that William had gone missing.
00:55:17
Yeah, but you got to be pretty ballsy to just go, "Hey, take my DNA." Well, yeah,
00:55:21
of course. To me, it seems that to me, that action seems more like somebody that, you know, like you said, he had he
00:55:29
did have some charges against him. I don't know what those charges were. It sounds to me like somebody that's
00:55:35
saying, "Hey, I I didn't do this, and I want to be cleared right away. And and go ahead and take my DNA, and I'll do
00:55:41
anything I can to help you." I mean, they searched his property as well. Yeah, I don't want to go too far into
00:55:45
his charges because I don't have a full understanding of them, but um the limited understanding I have of them
00:55:52
is he has some allegations against him regarding a 6- and 3-year-old girl. Um and the the other thought though,
00:56:00
there's some confusion regarding the allegations. Uh one being was he He was charged, but was
00:56:07
he convicted? Mhm. I don't know that he was convicted. The the other issue seems
00:56:12
to be that he at one time in his life was friends with a pretty horrific sexual predator, and his claim
00:56:22
regarding those allegations is that the witnesses, the victims, are wrong, that he was not the one that victimized them,
00:56:29
that the the person that was that he knew Right. was the one that had in fact victimized them. He doesn't claim to
00:56:37
have knowledge of this other than that's his speculation after having been charged.
00:56:42
Right, right. And it seems to me like there's a very high probability that if this guy, Spedding, wasn't involved in
00:56:49
these allegations against these girls, he was unaware of his friend's activities, and he might even have been
00:56:57
family members with this individual at the time. It just seems to ring true, you know? Like it sounds a little goofy,
00:57:04
but it's like I think there's a lot of people that get charged with these pedophile crimes, and it's a shock to a
00:57:11
bunch of people in the a community, let alone somebody that was friends with somebody, or somebody that was related
00:57:17
to somebody else. Now, despite all of the efforts, despite various search efforts by the police and the forensic
00:57:24
testing that's been conducted throughout the years, all of which have failed to turn up any trace of William, or any
00:57:31
clues about his disappearance, and police to this day have have yet to conclude what actually happened to
00:57:39
little William. Now, I do want to leave everybody with uh this thought. This is This is kind of where I go with this,
00:57:46
Captain. My final thoughts on this is one that One thing that really scares me is that just because we've not found
00:57:54
him, or found trace of him, doesn't necessarily mean that the worst didn't happen. We know that we know from the
00:58:01
Jacob Wetterling case, we know from several other cases, that sometimes these things happen, and the the child
00:58:08
is taken and very quickly killed and disposed of afterwards, and it can be Sometimes it can be many many years
00:58:16
before we find proof of that. The thing that the the thought that helps me put my head on the pillow at the end of
00:58:24
the night and and go to sleep is I hold on to hope that that if William was taken,
00:58:31
that by chance, you know, it is rare. A a a a child sexual predator abduction that ends in murder is somewhat of a
00:58:38
rare thing. What is even a little more rare is that maybe a female that wanted to uh that took him with the thought
00:58:47
that she would raise him as his own, that she couldn't have children for whatever reason. That has happened on
00:58:54
occasion. It's very rare, but um at least in that scenario, he would be taken care of, and probably loved. Um
00:59:02
so, that's where I kind of keep my fingers crossed and and hope and pray that that might be the situation. Yeah,
00:59:09
I mean, you you hope for stuff like that, but I mean, you know, a lot of times when you get
00:59:15
these cases, it's just, you know, you see William's name, and right beside it it's missing child case.
00:59:22
And then once you start diving into it, you just see the I think the worst part of the the
00:59:29
universe, if that makes any sense. Mhm. And it's just one that um crimes against
00:59:34
children is just the worst. And um and I think the worst happened to him. Um that's my gut feeling. Um I do want to
00:59:43
quote Bruce Morcombe, who he is the father of Daniel Morcombe, who was abducted and killed in Queensland,
00:59:49
Australia in 2003. He had some words for the parents of little William. And Bruce
00:59:55
said, "Have no fear. William is loved by the whole of Australia, and we will not
01:00:01
rest until we find that answer and who is responsible." Well, and this this is a awful problem that's happening down
01:00:09
there and and they they got to do something to to fix it. Uh the recommended reading for this
01:00:25
week, Captain, is With One Shot, Family Murder and a search for justice. Now, this is about the brutal murder of
01:00:34
LaVern Stordock. And later his widow would confess to having killed him in cold blood, but the niece, this is the
01:00:43
author, Dorothy Marcic, she sus- she suspected a more sinister tale that was at the heart of her beloved uncle's
01:00:52
violent death. So, recommending With One Shot, you don't have to write down that
01:00:57
title or that author right now because you can go to truecrimegarage.com, click on the recommended page, we will
01:01:04
have that listed there along with other rec- recommendations from previous shows. Well, thank you guys so much for
01:01:11
listening. Thanks for telling your friends. Thanks for sharing on social media. It means the world.
01:01:16
And until next time, be good, be kind, and don't litter.