Australia’s biggest mystery: Dan Box Pt.2

and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. All right, then, welcome back Part two. Are we still friends at this stage? I suppose we're still friends, threatening that we're not going to have friendship. I can be

very fitable with my friends. Look, it's interesting sitting there and talking about William Tyrell, and I know you know how much emotion that invokes in me and I and I'm not on my own. I'm sure you've spoken to a lot of different people in researching the podcast, and that it is just something that really triggers, is a triggering thing for so many people who have you had access to whilst doing the podcast.

We've tried to speak to them, with mixed success. People who were in the street at the time, people who became persons of interest, people who were caught up in the investigation and charged with other offenses like Bill Spedding, subsequently found not guilty. It's almost like you know that old thing about dropping a stone into water and then

the ripples spread out. William went missing, and then the ripples started to spread out, and the sheer number of people who are affected either really close to where the ripples start or just further and further and further out. The sheer number of people involved is extraordinary, and all of them have been hurt in some way either by the fact that William went missing, and it is upsetting or by what has followed since.

want to talk about it anymore. It's a small it's a village really, and it had been dominated by this event for the past ten years, so that when people say I'm from Kendall, oh, that's where that William Tior went missing, and people without willing to meaning any disrespect to his families, but they just kind of wanted that to no longer be hanging over them, but of course

it is. And the other thing that's really surprised me is that there was a sense of anger, not from many, but from some, particularly who lived on Benner and Drive at the time William went missing, so that's the road where he was staying that weekend. A sense of anger about maybe what happened, but also about what has followed because for different reasons, you know, you get quite a lot of people who go to Benerom drive effectively as tourists sightseeing. People turn up and take photos or turn

up and film videos of themselves. And I'll be honest, I did that as a reporter, but I didn't do it for fun. And there's a lot of that and it still happens, and you get people who turned up at the time. Remember speaking to one of the neighbors

and he was angry. He talked about that first search when you had hundreds, literally hundreds of people coming in to look for William, and he was talking about how stuff went missing from his property, like in his car overnight that first night, and he thinks people were searching for William and Nick stuff and others. A couple of people have told me about how some of those searchers were drinking and we're kind of not having a good I don't think anyone's having a good time, but weren't

treating it with maybe the respect it deserved. And there's a lot of anger about that, and I didn't expect any of that.

few times. I've not spoken to William's biological mum. We've tried, really, we've tried, and you can hear in the podcast some of the work that's gone into trying to contact her. And I've not spoken to Williams's biological dad directly, and again you can hear some of the work that's gone into trying to contact him. And we're definitely if they wanted to contact us, I think they know how to do it, or at least I hope they do. And

I've said it in the podcast. If you do want to talk about anything, even if it's just to criticize me, please do so. Spoken to other members of that family, though, how are they feeling. I don't think you ever recover from there, this kind of a loss of a child. And remember, for them, it's a double loss. So William's taken into foster care, so who's taken away from that family? And then they're told the state is effective going to look after him, the state, the minister becomes his parent,

and then he goes missing. So to have that double loss, there's a lot of anger, and there's a lot of trauma, and I think it's complicated and it makes that relationship difficult. The only thing we can do with everyone, and we do with them as well, is just try and be as honest about what we're doing and why we're doing. And we do try and reflect what they're feeling and what they say in the podcast very much so. And then there's the foster family, and the relationship with them

is different, and it's almost funny. I've met the foster parents quite a few times over the years, and we meet in safe houses or we meet in pubs, and when we meet, we turn our phones off. And all of that might sound paranoid if it wasn't for the fact that they do know they've been under police surveillance. They know that they've had listening devices in their house, They've had COVID cameras outside their house, They've had people

listening to their phone calls. They've had listening devices in their car, They've had undercovered police officers sent in to try to talk to them. They know all of that has happened, so they've got every reason to be paranoid. It might still be happening now. So when we have those conversations, it feels a bit cloak and dagger, but also got to say, I can see why they want to do that, but when it comes to how they're responding, I think it's some of the same emotions. It's loss

and trauma. I mean, I've seen I've seen them in tears a lot, and I've seen them grappling with the loss and the effect it's had on them, and then the loss of essentially becoming Certainly Williams foster mother has become the suspect. The police have said that in court they believe she had something to do with William's disappearance, and the pressure that must come with that must be immense. She's an incredibly strong and tough woman, But I've seen her.

I've seen her cry and I've seen her broken, and she might not. She's also very private and probably wouldn't appreciate me saying any of this, but I've seen the emotions she must be feeling almost take control. And the same with Williams foster dad. And you know, I'm never going to know what it's like to lose a three year old child, at least I hope I never know. I can't imagine what it's like to be in that positions. But they keep turning up and they keep talking, and

same goes for biological family. We keep talking as best we can, and you've got to give credit to both of them for that.

on families and people with connections with the child. And then that coupled with all the controversy and turmoil surrounding the investigation, and I can't separate myself from that because I'm embedded in the content and I just feel like it's it's so unfair, Like the one thing that you would hope as families, as with the bearable kids, when the barable kids disappeared, that everyone would be united heading like as in law enforcement, the governments whatever, united in

finding out what's happened to what's happened to their loved ones. And yeah, with the William case, they see the two of them frow in the arguments, the internal conflict within the police. What's happened to me? And that must give must not give them a great deal of confidence And.

his body away and disposed of it. There's a crossroads a few hundred meters away and we can get in to all of that. But that's what the police think as far as we can know, and that's what they've said. And there's a part of me that hopes they've got it right, because, well, A, then we know what happened, and we know who's responsible, and maybe we can find where William is in the grieving process, can move forward

for all those people. But also because if the police have got it right, then everything they've done to that family, the Foster family, is kind of justified. And I'm talking about their lives have been destroyed by the police investigation. They've been on the front page of newspapers identified as the suspect. Their friends, their neighbors, their families must be looking at them and thinking, did you dispose of a child's body? Did you do kind of the worst kind

of crime you can do. Everyone must be questioning them. I know they've lost work. I know that their lives have I mean, they haven't just kind of hit the buffers. They've been crumpled. But if the police have got it right, then that's kind of justified. And so there's a part of me that hopes the police have got it right. But if they have, nobody's been charged. We haven't seen any of that evidence. There's nothing public yet to back up what the police are.

So you've talked about how you go in hard when you were detective, and you know, as I understand it, you're kind of thinking, was I've got this person of interest, there's some evidence that means that they're worth looking at. I'm going to do everything it takes to either establish their innocence or their guilt and it doesn't matter which, but at least I can tick them off the list then, And you would go in as hard as you knew how because you we're trying to catch a killer, to

solve a homicide, and you'd use pressure tactics. So put them under surveillance, pressure them, see if they would break. The same tactics have been used against William's foster power. Put them under pressure, see if they will break, use surveillance. It's exactly the same approach. And if yours was found to be wrong, and if theirs is wrong, then it absolutely deserves the same kind of public inquiry.

general term. It was investigated, evidence was obtained. Legal services say there's enough to charge a person, the person's charge and the courts acquitted the person. Okay, And I'll ask you this because I want to keep it on track with the podcast that you've got with the foster parents. I sat in court when they were charged with the assault matters, which was very public, and I saw the whole investigative team sit there, and I'll make these comments,

and I've earned the right to make these comments. That's not how I'd manage an investigation, having all those people sitting in the local court matter. When you're looking for a three year old job.

under oath, we know where William Tyrell is. Then in that same and correct me if I'm wrong, because I was in there as an observer, you're in there as a journalist reporting on it, that they in fact told William's foster mother that they know what's happened to William, they know where William is and again acknowledge that under oath.

live with it. We know what happened to William, we know how, we know why they're telling her. We know as a fact what you did to William. And that's one thing. So I hope they've got the evidence to back it up. But then in court, this detective he's asked, do you know what happened to William? And he says yes, and then he's asked, well, have you found William's body and he says no, and he's asked again, but you said you know what happened to William and he says, yes,

I do, Well have you found him? No, And the two things just seem to be in like stark contrast. But then later at a different court hearing, that same detective is asked, so you know what happened to William and he says something different. He says, well, that was one of the theories, so point he says, yep, we know what happened to William. And then later he says,

this is one of the theories. And those two things seem in stark contrast as well, and you're just left thinking, I really hope you guys have got the evidence to back this up.

from the day, or maybe not. All of them have followed the case for as long as you have and I have, or as closely, and so maybe it just didn't stand out to them. But I remember hearing that and thinking that's a big deal, and then it wasn't reported the next day. But that is what the podcast

can do. So we're telling this story differently. We've got way more than four hundred words, but also we get part of what the podcast does is go back to the beginning of the investigation, so the moment of that triple zero call where William's foster mother says he's gone missing, and then we walk the investigation through from that point over the years that followed, saying this was what was done right and this was what was done wrong, and

there's both, but it allows people to understand it differently because most people, like everyone over the past ten years, have followed the William Tyrell disappearance in headlines or things they've seen on their phone, or there's something on the radio, or there's a bit on TV which is talking about some evidence that came out today, But that evidence is actually something that happens three years ago, and everything is kind of in short bursts and is out of sequence.

No one before now has said, right, We're going to go right from the beginning the whole way through, put everything in the order in which it happened, and let you understand it differently. And when you do that, so I talked about this timeline we've drawn up. When you see things put in that kind of order, it completely changes the way you look at it.

I know when I gave and this is whine in the back four years or so ago, when I gave evidence at my criminal hearing I was saying things that became public record on the reason I was looking at a particular person, and I think that was very significant

what was out there. And to balance out where you've got the Commissioner of Police orce soon you're police saying there's only one suspect, and then some of the things that I said on public record that I was looking at when I was heading up the investigation, and that just again, that just seems to be forgotten, just a brushstroke. You're going to take the listener in this podcast into that type of.

about them. We're going to go back to those and say, okay, so why did we start to hear about these people and why has it stopped? Because to my knowledge, they haven't been ruled out. No, there's no official body, not the coroner, not the cops, have ever said this is why we stopped looking at these people. And if there isn't a reason why they stop looking at those people.

But the police are now saying it must be the foster mother, which they seem to be saying, then how can they be so sure if we don't know for sure, they haven't ruled those people out. And we're going to look at those people, and I promise you in more depth than they've been reported on before, because we've got the time, and we've got the resources, and we've also got evidence that just hasn't been made public before from

different sources that we've collected over the years. But there's a whole lot of information out there that's never really been reported on.

in the location. So a lot of these people that I call persons of interest, they would have been very hard to eliminate. And to say definity that person hasn't done it, well, I need the evidence to show they couldn't have done it because they are with someone. Okay, if that makes sense. That's what's worried me about this narrative, that there's only one person. We're focusing on this one person and being the being the foster mother.

crime stoppers at the time. And there's been a couple of those so far that I've looked at and thought, ah, okay, that should probably get passed on to the coroner, because there's stuff that's come into us that I've not heard as far as I know, hasn't come out publicly, but it seems like the kind of thing you'd definitely want

to follow up. So we're actually passing stuff onto the coroner at the moment, and maybe, you know, maybe those aren't the key bit of evidence that will make a difference, but what it does show is there's still things out there that haven't been tied down. And until you've done all of that, I don't see how you can be so certain it's this other person unless you've got witness evidence, forensic evidence, something as solid as that. And if you have,

why haven't you charged her? Of course, we've got to say. She protests her innocence one hundred percent, has always said she has nothing to do with what happened to.

sort of a safeguard to check. I've never seen any take that long, and I've sent some very very complicated sufficiency advisings to the DPP and they come back a lot quicker than a lot quicker than that. So I

met a loss why it's taken so long. I also want to address I've seen articles that flowed on so you not just the podcasts articles going out and I think the headlines were and coreact me if I'm wrong with something like four witnesses of William to all matter haven't been spoken to by police or about sightings or four sightings.

day or the night before. They'd contacted crime Stoppers and said here's this information, and they've just never heard back. I've spoken to all I've spoken to all five of them, and they seemed credible, like they didn't seem like they were making this up. They might be wrong, or it might not be important, but it struck me as the kind of thing that'd be worth following up. So have

things fallen through the gaps. But the thing about those five is that it's now eight So three more people have got in touch with us and said I saw this or here's something that I knew at the time, and I contacted crime stoppers and I never heard back. And two of those are the information that we've passed on to the coroner, which I've looked at and I've said, Okay, not only does that person sound credible, but that actually sounds like it might be important, like massively, the odds

are massively weighed against it being that important. I get that, But if they weren't followed up at the time, how can the police be certain they're not missing something important.

we don't get excited about that. So there was a rating, a way that we assess the information, which ones need to be followed up, which ones don't, and we're in undated with information. I would be more comfortable, and I'm saying this is a member of the public now, if an article goes out to the media along those lines, that the police address those issues, Because when I was running the investigation, if things like that came out, I

would address, explain the situation, give the public confidence. But when you did that article, and I'm not sure if you were even the author of the article, but the did the police respond to the we're explain what they're doing.

at all. The other thing that struck me about to be really candid about this was we got in touch with crime Stoppers about that before the article went out, and I said, here are the names of the people we've spoken to and an outline of what they've said.

They told crime Stoppers at the time. I think I gave them the dates in terms of the years at least, and I said, do you want to you know, say anything, Do you want to correct us, do you want to this, do you wist to have a chat off the record, or do you want to make any kind of comment, and the comment we got back from crime Stoppers was look,

forgive me. I can't remember the exact words. We was basically saying, we can't comment on stuff that is impossible for us to prove whether or not it's true, and these people might have got it wrong. And I just remember looking at it and thinking, but I gave you the name, and I gave you an outline of what they were saying, and don't you keep records? But that was it. We just got, you know, we get a

few lines written down in an email. There's not an attempt to actually engage and say, what's the greater good here? What do we need to be saying to make sure this is reported accurately and people understand what's going on. It's very defensive the journalist police relationship on this story, accepting those cases where stuff has been leaked to the media and then it's it's right.

this misinformation. So what I'm hoping, without putting pressure on your dan, is the definitive story of what happened to Wim Turl comes out. Not to not because I've got a vested interest in it, It's because it's what needs to be done. There is too many people theorizing, speculating and lives being destroyed about this whole investigation, and if it's been done wrong, we all need to be held accountable and make sure this doesn't happen again.

than us have tried, Cops have tried. The inquest team are trying still. But what we can do is give the definitive story of the investigation to find William, So right back to the beginning, what was done and not done. So that's our job is to look at what was done to find William and tell that story. Because the sad truth of it is ten years on, I don't think anybody has any evidence of what happened to William.

your job and the other cops job. Is to pull out that thread that matters and then follow that one. That's a high pressure.

say the answers might be in there. My concern is if, as you've quite rightly pointed out, if the police have got it wrong with the foster mother. Where I'm looking at the extent of the surveillance that's been done and what's come out in court, that would occupy a lot of police time. What's happened to the other people, the people who I were looking at, the people that are before I was taken off that I wanted explored through the inquest are you going to touch on that or a will that come out?

or two other people. We're going to look at those names and say, well, what's the evidence that has been collected, and what's the reason, if any, that we can establish that people have stopped looking at them? Because and this is something the foster mother, William's foster mother said, so she released she's basically said nothing since she became identified

as a suspect. So she released a written statement. But her point is in that statement she says basically, if the police have been because she says she's innocent, if the police have been wrongly looking at me, then who have they missed over the last five years? And that becomes really important. And I know there's a couple of ifs, like if the police have got it wrong, then who

have they missed? But if the police have got it wrong, that means the person who is responsible for William's disappearance is still out there somewhere, maybe with someone the police were looking at at some point because there were so many people as a thousand people on your persons of interest list, and maybe the opportunity to gather the evidence against that person has now been lost because memories fade, forensic evidence can be destroyed, witnesses die, people get old.

And if that's the case, oh that's a tragedy.

just about to start the inquest. You'd got your investigation focused on very few people. The inquest was also focusing the same way as the police were thinking. And then you were taken off the investigation and suddenly the focus of the inquest under the police investigation that followed swerved away to other people. So things stopped and things changed. You got to hope that that was done with good reason.

Great deal of money was spent making sure everything was documented and recorded and we went there and so that's been my concern, Dan, And this is why I'm happy that you're doing the podcast, because I think these things can be sometimes lost because I don't have the faith in the media fully comprehending and these reasons, as you said, the amount of words you can put in an article when you attend the court. Are you for me with the case from the start? I saw this with bearable.

These long protracted investigations tend to get points amissed, and when you can tied all together, the picture is a lot clearer.

could have been done differently or better. So, yeah, you know, you might not be quite as happy with it when it comes out, but that is the intention to try and say, look, this is the best version of what has happened, and one hundred percent doing it has changed the way I've looked at that investigation, So I think listening to it will change the way other people listen.

a friend and someone that understands the media. When I've been reached out to make comments on the tenth anniversary, and I had one night when the TV network contacted me and said would you like to make a comment, And I said no, And then I thought about it, and I'm sitting at home thinking, you're not the type of person you thought you were, Gary, if you haven't got the tenacity to stand up and make comments that

you think need to be made. And I came to the realization that if I don't speak up, no one else is going to speak up. So instead of saying no, I'm not going to do a stand up, I end up. I think I had five TV crews in my house at week.

correlation is not causation. I've got no evidence to suggest that, you know, the one thing led to the other, but certainly one thing followed another, and there was a complete shift of focus in who the police were looking at between your time on it and between the police investigation now And the other thing that's interesting is that you had the inquest which ran for period of years and identified a number of people who we hadn't heard about publicly.

But even the inquest wasn't looking at William's foster parents as potential people who might be involved. The lawyer who's leading that inquest stands up at the beginning and he says something to the effect of, you know, it's very very few cases where child goes missing and it's who's involved, something like it's a few percent, but this might be

one of those cases. So even the inquest isn't looking at Williams foster parents, but the police are now, So I really hope they have got the evidence to back that up, because it's a It's the worst kind of thing you could say about a person.

know that Williams. We do know for a fact that William's foster mother has become the focus of police attention because it was on the front page of the Daily Telegraph newspaper with a police source basically saying that, And we know that the police have pretty much confirmed that in court that this is what they think happened, or we've heard evidence in court that seems to confirm that. But we've heard no suggestion as to why she might have done that, like what's the motive for doing it.

We have heard a lot of speculation in the mainstream media and on social media, which wild speculation, but in both we've heard speculation about possible motives, but we've also heard speculation about all kinds of other things to do with this case. There was one article shortly after Williams's

fosterman was identified as kind of the lead suspect. There was an article on the headline was something like inside the police thinking on William's disappearance, and it was the idea was, here's the big scoop on what the police have got that makes them think William's foster mother is responsible. And one of the things was that the last known photograph of William, so the last time we know for a fact he was alive. He was barefoot in the photo.

Yet William's foster mother's evidence to police was that he was wearing shoes at the time he went missing, and that she'd said to him, put your shoes on. It was Bindi season. So Bindi's those spiky little things you see in the grass. But according to this article, it wasn't Bindi season. Go her story is not true and

therefore she must be responsible. So when we went up to where William went missing on the tenth anniversary, so this is ten years to the day since he went missing, we stood outside the house that he disappeared from and we tried to walk through what had happened to him and what the police think happened. And my colleague Nina, she looks down at the grass at the moment I'm talking about this bindi and she says, oh, what's that, And it's a Bindi on the grass. So this whole

I'm gonna like, yeah, it is. It's speculation, this whole thing about shoes not shoes, Bindi's not bindy season. Well, there was a Bindi on the grass ten years to the day since he went missing. And the other thing is William knew how to put his own shoes on, so none of it seems to matter.

me that I've got it wrong. It's a foster mother and this is not verbatim, but my recollection of the conversation was, but Gary, guess what the foster mother said that she told William to put his shoes on because there's Bindi's And I'm going, yeah, it wasn't Bindy Susan and I've gone wow, like sarcastically wow. But there's more, and I'm thinking, Okay, well, hopefully there's something, because that's nothing.

She also said put your shoes on because you might tread in dog Purr and guess what, Gary, they didn't have a dog. The dog had died six months ago. Now this is the person I respect. But this is irrational thinking. When this narrative comes in about about William tyrol Ca.

doing that. Well, I mean, as a journalist, I love it when they do, but they shouldn't.

public to think this through. Had someone complain that the investigation has made shut down the flower of the person responsible?

and you'd go past two or three of them. I remember being in pubs up that way and you be a matt would have William's face and a little thing saying you know, if you know anything, contact crime stuff is TV stuff, social media like a huge campaign which you were involved in a bit is a cop at the time, and the foster parents were heavily involved in

basically saying if you know anything, please come forward. And we now know that she was also over the years privately writing letters to the police commissioner and others saying put more resources onto this, not just asking nicely. One of those letters has been made public and she's basically threatening him, you are not doing enough on this case. If you don't do more, we will get in touch

with the politicians. You know. The wording is much more polite there, but you can read between the lines like she's saying, if you don't do more, we will get on your case. If she actually is responsible, then she's playing a very clever, dangerous game of double bluff, because that's not what most guilty people would do in that case.

Her concern was the investigation was going to be shut down under resource and all that. She wanted it investigated thoroughly. She wanted answers. Okay, I'm doing what I've criticized other people. I'm speculating, but these are the things that you've got to take in take into account. I just find it extremely unusual, and it was someone that said it to me when I was talking about just in a casual conversation. But why would she be asking for it to be

ramped up? And I'm thinking that's a good point, right.

of them is a pretty unsettling prospect. And this case, the inquest is going to conclude this year, so November December is the last two scheduled public cares, so everything's got to come to a head. Like at the end of that, you'd hope we know which of those versions is true, because only one of them can be the true story. And the podcast we're doing will run through and we'll report on those in quest hearings as well.

So as part of this series, we are going back to the beginning of the investigation, saying, here's what happened and what was done right and what was done missed. But we're going to be there for those inquest hearings and we'll report on what comes out there. And I'm expecting it to be shocking, actually, because there's so much

that's now weighing on this. And at the end of the day, the thing that gets lost and this is a couple of people have said this to me, and I'm guilty of it, and maybe we're guilty of it in this conversation because we're talking about, oh, what about the police, and what about the media, and what about the foster parents? And the thing that gets lost is

William himself. You know, there's a line in one of the episodes in the podcast where someone says that it's almost like William's become an absence in his own story. And probably the person we haven't actually really spoken about

enough in this conversation is William himself. And we are going to get to the end of the year, and one of these two accounts of what happened to him will hopefully be the one we realize is the true one, and then maybe at that point we can actually stop and start thinking about the boy himself who went missing.

shaded these biological Foster family. Cute little kid, and I think perhaps that's why it's in the psyche of the whole country, and because you see those angelic fatos of him running around plane and in the Spider Man suit, we can all relate and his life is Yeah, we don't know what's happened to him, so we need to get answers. I'm hoping your podcast will assist and not just encourage people to come forward with information, put the spotlight on the people that are involved in the investigation

where the cards lie. If I'm due for criticism, we don't want the situation like this happening again. But we've got to accept the responsibility that comes not just the police, the coroner. Everyone that's involved in the media on a situation like this, we need to bring an a game to it, So hopefully your podcast delivers.

trying to tell me that I'm a bit run down. Like, my wife's been great and the kids have been really supportive, but like we're on this until Christmas now, because that's how long the inquest is running for. And I'm already thinking, oh,

that's going to be a long trip. But you do it because it's important, and you do it because you know there is a little three year old kid and something happened, and there are other people who got involved, not out of choice, but got involved in everything that followed, and they are important. So I really hope that we can get to the end of this year. And I say we, I mean collectively, like we the public, we the media, we the police, we the Inquest, and we can say we gave that our best shot.