The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy a side of life the average persons never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
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. Welcome to another episode that I Catch Killers. Today, we're going to have a conversation I need to have. I'm going to talk about an investigation that has had a huge impact, not only in my own life, but has devastated other lives. To talk about the William Tyrell investigation.
I led that investigation for four years before I was removed from the investigation over five years ago, and I was criminally charged and convicted. Some people might say, who cares what I've got to say? Well, I've sat on the sideline since that time and have witnessed misinformation and seen speculation flourish. Everyone seems to have an opinion of what happened to William. It's time the record set straight.
I'm hoping the person I'm speaking to today will put a spotlight on the issues surrounding the William Tyrell case with an in depth podcast series called Witness William Tyrell. Our guest is award winning journalist Stand Box, who I have had the pleasure to work with on many occasions. I consider him a mate and respect his integrity. Hopefully we'll still be friends after this podcast. If you listen, you'll understand where I'm coming from with that comment, Dan Box, Welcome, Do I catch killers?
Thank you?
This is going to be a think an awkward conversation because of the subject matter.
Look, it's going to be a sad conversation in places because of the subject matter, and it's going to be an angry conversation I think probably for you definitely, and maybe for me in places as well, because of the subject matter. And it's going to be awkward.
Yeah, have you have you You've been a crime reporter for a very long time. Have you been involved in reporting on or investigating a matter such as William Tyrell that evokes so much emotion polarizes people. Have you seen anything like this in your time?
No, And I was thinking about exactly this on the walk here today. There's things that set this case apart. And it's not just the fact that it's a child at the center of it, because I've worked on cases like you have that have had children at the center of them, and it's not just the emotions. But what it is I think is two things for me at least, One is the sheer scale of this case and the work that we've done on it. So we've been on
this for two years, working on this podcast series. This case or the people involved in it have been to every court in New South Wales local court, District court,
Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, Coroner's court. So we've got court files and documents, an incredible amount of information with three four different coronial cases we've looked at as part of the research into this case, and it will be a fifth because I think to get access to that we're going to have to probably challenge a suppression order. And that's the other thing that sets this case apart
is the secrecy that surrounds it. I have never worked on any criminal investigation as a reporter that has been shrouded in this amount of secrecy, non publication orders, suppression orders, legal bars and what you can and can't say. And maybe because of all that secrecy, the amount of speculation and the amount of misinformation, and the way people, including the media, have split into frankly two camps. You're either
four Williams foster mum or you're against her. I've never seen anything like that before.
Yeah. Well, I think you've summed it up nicely, the type of intensity that surrounds it. But the way that polarizes people and what And I've been sitting on the sideline for five and a half years, almost six years now, Yeah, watching it. What concerns me. All the opinions don't seem to be fact based. It's an emotional investigation. People are very strong one way or the other, but they don't look at the facts. And coming from a homice, I
had to take this point of view now myself. Moving into the media, I thought stories would be driven by facts, but they don't seem to me.
You're talking about the public response. Look, A good example of that is the stuff that people are saying about us online, like I've been abused, which is fair enough, maybe I deserve it. The people I work with have been abused.
When you're talking, this is the people you're working on the podcast with.
Yeah, yeah, called oh look, hohorendous things and yeah, okay, I went into this with my eyes open. I knew there was going to be a bit of abuse, but to say the things they have and about the people I work with, and about the fact that you and I have got a professional relationship that goes back a long time now, even just this weekend, people are I don't go looking for it, but sometimes it finds you. People are saying things. But they're not saying things because
they know the facts. They're not saying things because frankly, they've got a legitimate opinion that they'd be happy to say in the same room if they were sitting here. They're saying things because they think we disagree with them. And so people are just throwing these kind of angry online abuse as because it has split into these two different camps. And you're right, a factual understanding of what
happened in terms of the public response. Sadly, that seems to be more than some people can deal with.
Yeah, well, look, I doesn't hold me well when I'm now working in the media, but I hold the media partly responsible for it, because I think I've been in the media long enough now to understand that what the story should be based on. And it's some stories that I've read, whether it be in print media, on rate audio, or television, that is clearly misleading and all the facts
haven't been presented. If you take one point in isolation and put that out as a story without giving a balance, of course, it's going to evoke people at reactions.
Yeah, and this is the point where I start to lose friends because I am a journalist. I like journalists. I'm friends with some journalists. But I think you're right. There's been misreporting because people didn't know the facts. And that's one thing, like most of the time as journalists, we're scratching around trying to work out what the truth is and then telling our best version of it. But there's been misreporting that is Ah, look, I'd hate to
say deliberately slanted, but at least subconsciously slanted. And there's been stuff that I've seen reported and then we've gone away and worked on it and come up with a bunch of documents or spoken to various people, and I've looked at these original reports and gone, you just got that wrong. But I go back to the fact that this case was shrouded in secrecy from the start. So William Tyrell is a foster child, and for I think
years we couldn't say that. You and the police knew who he knew he was, We in the media knew he was, a bunch of people online were saying he was, but the laws prevented us from saying it. So there's a secrecy right from the start that has been compounded and made more secret by all these different court orders restricting what you can say. And so as a result, Yeah, people in the media have got some facts, and a
lot of them are doing a really good job. But when you've got basically an absence of truth, an absence of facts, yeah, mistruths start to creep in to fill a void.
Yeah. Well, I can say it's been frustrating for me sitting on the sidelines watching it, for the people involved directly involved in the investigation. I taught the biological parents of Foster Pearance. I can only imagine what they're going through with the information. But wind it back the genesis of the podcast. Now people know, and I'm glad you mentioned that. I mentioned it in the introduction. We've got a relationship. It's been a professional relationship from when you're
a crime reporter and I was in the police. We've since worked together and I think it's fair enough. And don't correct me here because it could be embarrassing. I think you could cause friends at this stage, but we'll depending on what happens here in the podcast. It was always my intent when I found myself out of the police and working in the podcast space, to do a podcast on William tyrrel because I wanted to set the records straight. And it's not about defending my position, it's
just let get all the facts out. I made a conscious decision that I think it would have been better for me to step away from doing a podcast because I'm too heavily invested in it emotionally, professionally and everything else, and I think it could look like it's self serving. It's just a narrative I'm putting out you come along, You're going to do a podcast, and I I said, well, I don't want to be involved in it. I'll come in as a guest. And you caution me that you're
not going to slant the podcast in my favor. You're going to do a deep dive into the investigation and wherever that goes.
So be it.
Yeah, I accept that, and I've got to say here and you can respond if you want. I was happy that you're doing it because I know the depth of investigative journalism that you do and your ethical approach to things. What's your take on the podcast? Why did you feel the need to do the podcast in the first place about William Tirel.
Yeah, look, so just on that question and then going back to what you were saying about how the two of us do have this pre existing relationship, because that's I've got to be frank about that as well. Think with the podcast and the reason I like working with them, there's two things. One is there massive So this thing is the series we're right in the middle of making at the moment. So I'm going to walk out here and I'm going to script one of the episodes. So
we're right in the heart of it now. That's probably going to run to maybe eleven episodes, maybe twelve episodes. It's going to be running until the end of the year. Each of those, let's say it's forty five minutes long. I can't even do the maths in my head, but that is hours and hours and hours of documentary reporting. There isn't a medium available today that gives you that much time that you know, you look at four Corners. We're going to do multiple the equivalent of multiple episodes
of Four Corners. We're going to do the equivalent of probably something like sixty to seventy thousand words of script. That would be like an entire newspaper, maybe two days worth of a newspaper. So we're going to get into detail. We're going to be able to interrogate those facts that have maybe been misunderstood or misreported. We're going to be able to challenge different people's accounts and just give a better understanding of this thing, which isn't really that well
understood because a podcast series is so big. So that's one of the reasons to do it. And the other reason, and this goes back to something new and I have worked together on is a podcast lets you hear people tell their story in their own words, so you can hear the most honest version. And I'm not just talking about telling the truth honest, but emotionally honest. So you can hear the catch in their throat as they're trying
not to cry and they're talking to you. You can hear that kind of pause when they're almost trying to process just the fact that they're dealing with, in this case, the loss of a three year old boy. And that is a better way of telling this story than I can do on my own. I can write stuff down and it might be in a newspaper, but it's never going to be as powerful or as honest emotionally as having the people who are at the center of this
story tell that story in their own words. But to go back to you and I, because you and I first met and first ended up working on something that became another podcast, which was the Bauerville Murders, murder of three children up in little town called Bauerville in the mid North Coast. And I remember at the time that I didn't know you from Adam, You didn't know me. You I was a journalist, but you were working on
that case and have been for twenty odd years. I came in and said, look, let's let's try doing a podcast about it. And I remember you saying, I think I can't remember if you said, what's a podcast? But you weren't impressed, like you'd never really heard of.
It in fairness, and then you're quite right, Yeah, that was a great statement. I think I did say, what do you mean a podcast? What's a podcast? But that was that was one of the very early true crime podcasts.
Yeah, but it worked. It told that story well. And at the same time you guys and the police were calling for the the a ledged suspect to go be sent back to court. The families were doing the same thing. And then we came along and at the same time, and we created enough of a noise and he ended up getting sent back to court and that was a good result. But it does flag you know, that was the best part of a decade ago. Now, so you
and I have known each other for that long. We worked in as much as I was a reporter on that case, and then I've reported on other cases you worked on, not because I well, you do do some interesting work, but also that was my job. I was a crime reporter and you were working on high profile cases. But then you left the cops. You and I co wrote a couple of books which were memoirs, so you're
talking about your career. And then I came back to Australia and ended up working for News Court in podcasting, including overseeing the podcast that we're talking on now. So you and I have a professional relationship personal relationship that goes back a long time. So you talked about with this William Tyrrell podcast wanting to step back, and probably the thing I've got to say, and I will say in the podcast is you know, Gary and I have
got a long and established relationship. That doesn't mean I always agree with you on everything, and I don't, and I've told you that. But people listening to this today and to the William Tyrell podcast, if they do, are going to have to judge for themselves. If I can still be objective about you and your actions and what I think you got right and what I think you got wrong, even though you and I do know each other.
Well, yeah, yeah, and I look and I think it's important we get it out in this forum. Talking about your podcast series that people understand we're not hiding the fact. I don't want people to come out and go, oh yeah, but Dan and Jubeian know each other and blah.
It's not a secret.
But just to reassure people because they're trusting us on what we're saying here, I got respect for you as a crime journalist, and I think I've said this to you. But in case people haven't heard this story, it was over an investigation. I forget which investigation I was working on, but you were doing an article where there was going to be some criticism of the police in an investigation, and you pulled me aside at the court and you said,
can we just catch up for a second. I just want to tell you something, And you said to me, look, I don't know, this is an awkward conversation, but I'm going to be reporting on something. I'm going to be critical of an investigation you were involved in or leading
or whatever. And I think my response was I laughed, and I laughed at well, that's your job, Dan, Like I had respect for you, that the fact that you would report unbiasedly regardless of whether we were forming a friendship or you knew me, and I respect journalism like that. So that's where I'm comfortable in what you're doing on the Terial investigation. And I've always said with the Teral investigation,
bring on an inquiry. I invite your scrutiny. In the William Tyrell podcast, I've deliberately not got involved.
We're deliberately well you as much as we do interview you, but you're not involved in No.
You interviewed me, and I think you apologized before we walked into this very room. You said you might like me after this and with the stuff that you put to me. But from my position, and I challenge everyone for this that unless you ask the hard questions, I can't justify my position. So I didn't want it brushed over, and I'm confident with the podcast you're going to do that.
The other thing about the Witness William Tyrell podcast, I've seen how hard you've worked on it, and I haven't stuck my nose and go what are you doing here? What are you doing there? And I'm mainly listening to the podcast episodes when they come out and available to the public because I don't want to be involved, because I want I don't want criticism saying I jub once had his hands over this, so where it falls, it falls.
And I think when I'm talking from a police point of view, when you're being handed the responsibility of investigating the disappearance of a three year old child, you should be accountable. You should be responsible, and if you've made mistakes, they should be acknowledged and learned from. So that's my position. So I think we can still be friends.
Are so far so far, but we actually haven't done the episodes about you yet.
Jesus, Okay, no, Look, Dan, I invite it. It needs to be scrutinized. It's too important.
Look, I'm with you one hundred percent. I think these things do need to be scrutinized. And I think this case, and particularly the fallout from the investigation, so in ten years William's been missing, we're still in terms of the public still have no idea what happened to him. Maybe the police do, but if they do, they haven't charged anyone. I think that does deserve scrutiny because it's it's like a collective responsibility to say, what happened here and did
we get the response right? If only to stop it happening again or help stop it happening again. That said, it's going to be uncomfortable. I joke before that I'm
going to lose friends over this, but I will. I've been aware of that for a while because any account of the investigation into William Till's disappearance is going to involve saying that some things weren't done well, and some things weren't done well by the police, and some things weren't done well by the media, and some things weren't done well by the state government, particularly the foster care authorities.
And I know people in all of those groups, and already there's one person who I thought we had a really good professional relationship with who is no longer responding to text messages. And that's fair enough. You know, people get to make their own judge, but I don't really, I don't really have any choice. I'm committed to doing this the best way I know how, which won't be perfect, and I'll make mistakes, and people have already spotted a
couple and pointed them out and we've corrected them. But if I'm going to do this the best way I know how, then it is going to be uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah, And look at the two I won't say take a stand, that's not the right thing, but to look at something in depth objectively, there is always going to be collateral damage. That's the nature of what you do. Hendley Thomas Teachers Pet, and I use that as a reference point because I'd see here comfortably saying if the podcast series Teachers Pet didn't occur, that that investigation wouldn't have been solved. That created an environment where the investigation
was solved. I think the landscape has changed greatly. And I know this from being a police officer for thirty four years that it was very insular in what came out in the place. You had your contacts in the in the media, and the senior place would be contacting that brief briefing the media. It was very controlled. Podcasting has turned that world upside down. Police can no longer control a narrative. I think with Teacher's Pitt Place lost control of the narrative there and look what resulted.
In One thing that was interesting about Teacher's Pet. And I think I probably know this from maybe listening because you interviewed Headley on this podcast, and maybe he was talking about it then. But at the start, when Headley was working on that. The police weren't cooperating at all, which is basically standard, and that's fair enough. They're running live homicide investigations. They got to control what said and what's known to the best of their ability. So the
police weren't cooperating with Headley. But then you stop putting the series out and things change because people see their under scrutiny. And that's where we are. So we're two episodes. Three episodes have been published so far. People now know they're under scrutiny and people are coming forward. We're being contacted with tips constantly, which is part of the reason I'm so tired at the moment, because we're trying to make the podcast but also investigate all this new stuff
that's coming in. And Hedley was doing the same, but the big thing that changed with him was the police came on board. So I remember Hegley saying he sat down and had lunch with the then police commissioner Mick Fuller and basically said, you guys aren't cooperating and explained what he was doing and how he was doing it,
and the relationship changed. So where we are at the moment is the police aren't talking to us, and I've been in and I've sat down with different heads of their media operation, because people have left the job and said, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, and how we're doing it, and these are the people I want to talk to, and so far they are
saying nothing. But if we've got a common purpose, which I do think we have, which is to try and establish what was done right and wrong in the ten years since William went missing, to hopefully stop it happening again, then the more we can talk to the police and the more they can at least engage with us, then I think the better everyone is. That said, we are being quite critical of them, well, you know, and what I say in response to that, because I was part
of the investigation. There's a responsibility that comes with investigating a three year old child. It's a big responsibility and to step into that role you need to accept the consequences of it. The police not cooperating on a podcast, I can understand that. I'll give a benefit of doubt on certain aspects.
With policing. Sometimes there is stuff that you want to withhold and we're always cautious not to overstep the mark. But We've got an investigation now ten years and there's been missing for the public, the media, the police have gone off in all different directions. It's chaotic. I look from the sideline and I think I'm as confused as
the rest of the public about what's going on. When I was involved in leading the investigation, part of my responsibility was to keep the public informed, make appeals for witnesses, and answer questions from the media. So there was no address misinformation. Because there's a lot of rumors going around when I was running, I haven't seen that for the past, and it's now it's almost going on six years since
I've been off this investigation. I have not seen a senior police officer stand there and take open questions about the wim Tyrrell investigation.
And you know the reason they're giving us. So at the moment every episode I write, I send the cops an email and say this is basically what we're going to say. And every news story we write, because we're also writing news stories for news dot com dot ae, every one of those right to the cops and we
say this is what we're going to say. And every time they write back and say we cannot comment because there's an ongoing inquest, which is right, and the inquest is going to have its next public hearing next month. But what they're not doing, and what I've asked them if they want to do, pretty much every single time, is say, all right, let's have a conversation about what
you're saying. So I'm happy to say to them in this upcoming news story or this upcoming episode, I'm broadly going to say this, this, this, and this, and there's no secrecy because it's all going to get made public when it's published. But it gives them an opportunity to tell me if I'm wrong, to say, well, actually you've misunderstood that, you've got that fact wrong, so why don't you correct that so at least the version that's going out to the public is more accurate and for you
to be honest. The big part of the reason I'm trying to talk to them is so that can happen, so we can get the disinformation, the misinformation and corrected. And hopefully there's none in our reporting, but it would help if the police would engage on there. Just not for me and maybe not for them, but both of us would like people's understanding of this case to be as accurate as possible, So if nothing else, I would
have thought they'd want to engage with that. But the attitude at the moment is much more now, we're just not going to say anything.
I call it like a hidden the sceand approach. And that's interesting saying that, And this is my opinion, not yours. I'm amused by the fact that we're not commenting because it's a meta before the coroner. But then they come out and say there's only one suspect, or the senior serving police officer as in the commission that comes out and says there's only one suspect in this matter.
Well that is true. So the line we get is we're not going to comment because it's an ongoing in quest. But the lead detective detective Chief Inspector laid Law was on TV admittedly a couple of years ago, but the inquest was still going and he was asked, do you know who did this? And he goes he's basically says, yeah, we've got an idea who did this? And then you're
right that. Then Police Commissioner Mick Fuller is interviewed and he confirms the police have one person they're particularly looking at. And we know the police are speaking off the record to different newspapers about the same thing. So there is communication that's happening from the police about this case while the inquest is ongoing. When they choose to communicate, and it's not happening with us, And look, that's not sour grapes.
They can do whatever they like. They're running the homicide investigation. That's a big, important job. But it's just different at different times and in different cases.
All right, then I just check your not check you on one thing, but just bring back one one point. You're saying that you hope with the podcast that you know, if there's failings in the investigation, they're identified so correct that it doesn't happen again one hundred percent. But I think we all, all the different parties and the people that hate you like you, the people that hate me like me, everyone, we all should the hot focus should
be on finding out what's happened to William Tyrol. Yeah, And I think with a podcast, what you're doing, a factual podcast, it really opens the door and it opens the door to laying the facts out so people fully understand. It has to set up the best possibility of getting the result with the investigation.
Oh look, this is one thing I say to people. So when I talk to people in my line of work as a reporter, and I've had a conversation last week which has said exactly the same thing. You're often talking to people who are grieving a loss, and sometimes with an unsolved thomicide. They're grieving a loss and they've got they're grieving the lack of answers. They just don't
know why happened to their loved one. And I talked to them and I say, look, you might talk to me, we might do an interview, and probably nothing will change. And I've got to be honest like that. I don't have the ability to fix things as a journalist. All I can really do is say this is the best version of events is I've got it, and hopefully point a spotlight to that. But it doesn't always make a difference.
Well, you're right, but in my experience solving homicides, it's at one percent that little thing that can your across the line.
You were always interested in that, you were much more happy to talk to the media, and let's be honest, you weren't doing it out of the goodness of your heart. You were doing it because you saw the media as a tool one hundred percent to use to help you and what you were doing, which was trying to catch a killer, probably I used as a tool. In fact,
definitely I got used as a tool. That how we met was you asked the State Crime Command media officer to put you in touch with some journalists to talk about that Bower Ofville investigation because you wanted some publicity around the case, probably because you worked on the basis that more publicity around the case meant more political pressure, meant more resources for your case. And I was one of the journalists who came in and went, well, definitely I'm going to report on that. So did kind of
what you wanted. But I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.
I don't I look at it. And if you felt used, I'm sorry.
No, I didn't feel used. I think I think we both had to go into that again like with our eyes open. Like definitely I wasn't there to do your bidding one hundred percent not and I'm not now, but I could see there was a public interest and reporting on that case, you could see there was a public interest in having the media report on that case, and so it helped at that point that we had those conversations I'm talking about that aren't happening at the William Tyrell investigation now.
And look, I don't know what the mindset is in policing, but as I learned my career as a major crime detective and working with people that I respected, people that were experienced major crime investigators, that the media was a tool to use. It's in the tools of every other thing that you use forensic evidence, you make appeals to the media, you keep the public informed. It's a tool.
And I'm not saying that in a disrespectful way or using but every time that I spoke, and particularly on the William Tyrel matter, I spoke in consultation with a forensic psychologist on what messaging to get out. When I'm doing those doing the media, I'm making specific appeals. So yeah, I think it is an important role. But just bringing it back what we're talking about here with podcasts is that police have lost control with podcasting because they don't
have the narrative. It was normally the media organizations and whatever camp they are in, they could release information that way. What's happened. Like with Hedley Thomas's Teacher's Pet Bearable, you went a little bit rogue. You're reporting on things that the police would make no comment on. It makes people scrutinize the investigation. Then I can say, from an ex cops point of view, scrutiny on an investigation is a good thing.
You know what to do? You know what you have to accept to do this job is you have to accept that you're an outsider and you're going to stay an outsider. So Hadley is some Queensland, was reporting on a murder case in New South Wales. So by dint of that, he's already a bit of an outsider. He's not relying on the New South Wales Police every day,
Toma his stories and his contacts with this one. I've got to accept that if I do this podcast we're working on now about William ty Or, honestly, then maybe there's going to be people who don't want to talk to me afterwards, including maybe the New South Wales Police, because we are critical and we're critical of the police investigation right from the beginning. I mean right from day one.
There's a lot that was done right, and there's some that was done wrong, and we're going to say that, but you've got to accept that that means they're not going to help me out with stories in the future, or there's always that possibility. I'm not saying they are that petty, but there's that possibility they're not going to want to talk.
Well, isn't it, aren't they patheious?
Well that's kind of human nature, though that's charis but no. But the thing is a lot of journalists don't necessarily make that same judgment. And I'm not pointing out anyone at the moment at all, but there are journalists out there who rely on politicians, rely on institutions like the cops to get their stories. And I've been there. I've got stories from politicians and I've got stories from police forces.
And then when you find yourself working on a story that's a bit critical, you do find yourself thinking, oh, I write this, I might not get that next drop of a story. But you have to accept that that is going to happen, and you have to be happy to be the outside.
I see that, and they understand what you're saying. I just don't respect that. I don't respect the fact that police who are public servants feel like they've got control over what they'll release because it might reflect badly on them. They're there to serve the public.
But if they are using the media, and I'm not trying to pick a fight, but if they are using the media to further their investigations like you used to, then fine. But the thing is, like all of this is done in the shadows, isn't it like that there's
no official rules of engagement. Maybe the police have got a long book on media practices, but I'm sure it doesn't include the off the record briefings that I know happen because I've had them, and I'm sure it doesn't include, you know, the very frank exchanges of information when it suits the police. And I'd be amazed if it included the fact that the police can basically decide who they talk to because they think this journalist is more sympathetic
than the other. And all of that's fine, that's their job. But as the journal you have to accept the reality of all of that. And if you are going to do this, and you're going to do it honestly, it is going to mean possibly that people don't want to talk to you afterwards.
Well, I suppose for what it's worth. I respect the journalists that yeah, I think the journalists I look up to, and I've now been in there long enough to understand who i'd like to I won't say follow, but adopt the practices. Are the ones that have got the carriage to report the truth. I thought that's what journalism is all about. And in regards to police, like what you're going to because it doesn't reflect well on you, you're going to withhold that from the media.
But that's the problem with it all being done in the shadows, isn't it. Like if it's all done informally through these bluntly, fairly cozy relationships, then there's no way of knowing if the police are doing this engagement with the media because it's in the interest of the investigation, or they're doing it because it's in their own interests.
And look, you've got to be really honest, particularly in New South Wales, and I do have some experience of this because I've been a crime reporter in New South Wales for a long time. The police in the media have a really cozy relationship. We're really tight and the New South Wales police leaks like a sieve, and as a journalist that's great, but it means they have the ability to leak like a sieve to certain journalists and they get to choose who they do work with. Anyway,
I'm not complain I'm definitely not complaining. I'm definitely not saying I'm bitter about it. But it is the reality of it, and it has affected this investigation into William Thiol's disappearance.
Okay, Well, look, I'm probably burning bridges for you as we keep talking.
I seem to be merrily burning the.
Look, Dan, let me give you some advice. I've basically burn every bridge I've.
Ever walked down.
Well, I keep moving forward because you can't go back. It's probably not the best practice.
Okay, So just one thing that is worth flagging on this whole thing about leaking to the press. You've been accused of that time and time and time again. Yeah, and I've spoken to people in the course of making this podcast who have swarm blind to me that you've leaked X to Y as a detective, and it's been said in court. I've sat in court when people have been talking about how you leaked. No one ever actually asked you in court. But he's been said about you.
I know from the limited dealings I had with you that you didn't leak to me, because I tried to get you to leak more than once, and I tried quite hard sometimes and you didn't. But I'd be remiss if I didn't flag that people have accused you of the thing I'm accusing.
Others of speculation here. And sometimes if you don't know the answer, shouldn't ask the question. I learned that, but I'm going to ask this question. Has anyone said directly I leaked, like a journalist said directly?
I know, But there's a problem. Like journalists, it's kind of like an ethica, I can't ask each other. But as an example, sorry to interrupt, and we can talk about this all now because it's all come out and it's all been made public. One of in fact, the early we can call him this because he's subsequently been found to be completely not guilty of anything to do
with William's disappearance. But one of the first high profile suspects in that case was a guy called Bill Spedding, who was a local washing machine repair man, and one of the things the police found when they raided his home and his business and searched his cars. Was a Spider Man toy in his work fan and that was significant because William Tool was wearing a Spider Man suit at the time he went missing, or at least it
was thought to be significant. Now that subsequently came out in the papers, and I don't know how it got out, and people have speculated it was a deliberate leak from yourself. I've seen that speculation. But the one thing I do know is I found out about that Spider Man toy from talking to another cop who wasn't on the strike force, who wasn't even in homicide, because it was obviously just chatter around the police force. And he mentioned it to me over a coffee and I tried to get you
to confirm it. I can remember the conversation. We were actually up near Kendall on the mid North Coast where William went miss and I'd been told this and I tried to get you to confirm it so I could write it, and you asked me please don't report that because it was sensitive for the investigation, and as a result, I didn't report it because the most important thing was that the investigation did its best job to try and find William and if I was going to trip that up,
then I didn't want to part of that. So all I do know is that when I have tried to get you to leak, and that's an example, you've actually refused to and then said if you think that's true, please don't report it.
Well, thanks for saying that, Dan, And I just want to wind it back because you know, when I talk about the start, we're talking about the rumor, speculation, the neuendos that flow with the Ural investigation. I've been accused of so many things. And I say here and this is going out to all the public that listen, it's going out to the police, that's going out of the journalists.
I defy any journalists to put their hand up and say I leaked information to them, because because I haven't leaked the information, and the fact that I wasn't going to get emotional or cranky during this podcast, but as we talked about the wim Tural matter evokes that type of response. I ran that investigation for four years. There weren't leaks going when I was running the investigator. There were from someone on which issue. So when Bill Spedding
got arrested. There was a leak that that was going to happen, because the morning before he got arrested, pretty much every media organization was waiting outside his house.
And I know because I was there, and I know you've been accused in court of leaking that.
And you heard me give evidence under oath.
No, because no one asked you about that.
Did you get I got I asked, I got asked questions about that.
Yeah, and what did you say?
I said, it wasn't released by me, and I'm confident that wasn't people under me.
In that case. It's come up in two different court matters because I was thinking of another one where this was talked about and was basically said that you leaked that. I know that I got that from another journalist and it was it was kind of chatter, Oh, you know, Bill Spedding is going to get arrested on such and such a date. You might want to be there. And I remember calling you up again and trying to get
you to confirm it, and you wouldn't. It's really I was really frustrated that you wouldn't, because I basically had to go to my editor and say, I think this is happening. We should definitely pay for the flight to get me there. But all I can substantiate that with is that another journal told me. Yeah, it turns out it was right. So someone was leaking.
So someone was leaking. But that Bill Spedding situation, the arrests there, I think for the four years that I read the investigation, that wasn't names throwing out. This person's a suspect. And I think since you've done a deep dive into the investigation, you'd get a sense of how many people we were looking at during that four year period. Yeah, never ever came out.
Yeah, other names that didn't come out. Yeah, point that's true. And the other thing I should say is Bill Spedding was arrested for unrelated offenses, which he was subsequently found not guilty of. Bill Spedding has never been charged in relation to William Teal's disappearance. No evidence has ever come to light that he was in any way involved in or had any knowledge of William's disappearance. He's always protested
his innocence. He has said he's got an alibi that he was at the school watching one of his kids get an award. There's evidence to support that alibi. He's known to have made a payment in the cafe across the road. There is, frankly, nothing that I have seen that the police have come forward with to suggest he was involved at all. And this is the point where
we might fall out. That was an investigation that you oversaw, and it was subsequently described is the worst case of malicious prosecution in the state.
Yeah, and I think I've had the conversation with you that hit me harder than when I was criminally charged, like saying a malicious prosecution. I've said my evidence at court. I'm not sure how far I can push what I want to say about that. But the way that position was defended, I, in my humble opinion, think it could
have been defended in a different, different way. And again, and people are probably sick of hearing me say this, I stand by what I did on the investigation and ivite proper scrutiny not Courts can only make decisions based on the information that's provided to them and probably enough said that moved on from that, but point not, well, I'm not trying to make a point. I want to
talk about your podcast. But again, I think what our conversation just said it reflects so many people have got opinions. There's misinformation floating around, and what I sincerely hope and this is why I keep putting my hand up and say, let's have a parliamentary inquiry, Let's have a public inquiry, because I'm sick of the misinformation not just impacting on me, impacting on other people more importantly, whims, foster parents and
biological parents of misinformation going around. So I'm hoping, hoping that your podcast will shine the light on it. You said you've been working on it for two years. Give us a sense of the magnitude of what you do, because I've seen how you work, and I've got to say this, Dan, you would have made a good homicide detective.
Ah, that's very coming. But I don't know. That's a hard job. I've seen anyway, that's a side issue. Homicide detectives work hard. But this, I've never done anything like this. I mean I've done I've worked hard on other cases before, for podcasts and books, but the scale of this is
unlike anything else. Just to give you an idea, just a sheer number of documents and it is literally folders and folders and folders full of documents and dozens and dozens and dozens of interviews, and to give you an idea of just how much information we're trying to process. One of the things I really like to do with these long investigations is just build up a timeline, just
bullet points. You know, this happened, then that happened, then that happened, then that happened, and put a footnote at the end of each bullet point saying, this is the source of that fact, and it's always got to be a primary source. It's not a newspaper article or another report. It's you know, witness statement, it's a court transcript or
an interview we've done. So just that timeline, that list of bullet points is currently at something over one hundred and sixty thousand words, So that's the length of two entire books, and that's our starting point. You know, from there you can follow the footnotes to of those documents or to the interview we've done. And it's massive and it's overwhelming, and that's also probably part of the reason I'm so tired right at the moment, because we are
working through that. But that is kind of like the keystone in what we do. From everything there. We can write those episodes, we can write those new stories because we know we've got our facts as best we can laid out in order. But yeah, I and the people I'm working with, and there's several of us working on this, I've never worked on anything as big or as complicated as this.
And I think the nature of this investigation, like this is organized crime investigations, there can be a lot of different pathways, different layers to that. This is complex in that the starting point with Whim's disappearance, no forensic evidence, no eyewitness Well.
That's the thing, isn't it. Like, Actually, this shouldn't be that complicated. It's not an organized crime. It's not a financial crime, which is you know, huge amounts of financial reports and data. This was one child going missing. It shouldn't be that complicated to what it's become now. And a big part of that goes back to what you just said. There's no forensic evidence. And part of the reason there's no forensic evidence is when William went missing,
it was treated as a little boy lost. The police were on the scene within minutes, like hugely impressive response, and they called in other officers, they called in mounted police, cops on trail bikes, they called in the sees, they had a helicopter up, they called in divers. Hundreds and hundreds of people just volunteered their time to look for William. And that's all incredible. But the one thing that wasn't
done was a crime scene established. So I've spoken to people who were there that day and they talk about people just walking over the lawn in and out of house where William went missing, cars being allowed to drive up and down the road with no one checking who was in them or where they were going, or taking note of the regio plates. And as a result, that moment, when there would have been some forensic evidence, if there was going to be any, and let's be honest, there
usually is, all of that was lost. It either wasn't collected or it was literally trampled into the dirt beneath the feet of the well meaning people who were looking for William because they thought he'd walked off.
Look, I'm sitting there listening and that I'm agreeing with everything you're saying. And I've been asked questions in the past about that and the focus, the primary focus was on looking for the little boy loss, which in ninety nine point nine the central time they find the child. In those circumstances, I'm.
Not look, you know, I was. It's dead easy for me being the journalist, because I get to just say, well, that was done wrong. I don't have to be the person on the scene, the inspector who's coordinating that massive response and is responsible for it. I don't have to be that person. So it's really easy for me to criticize.
But it was done with the best will in the world. Fine, it was done under incredible pressure and everyone's concentrating on finding a missing boy, but the fact remains there's no forensic evidence, and that meant the investigation was struggling from the start.
It made it harder. And I can obviously speak of that from my homicide experience. I made recommendations in accountable documents, progress reports and different things that we've got to look at the SAPs for that type of situation standing operating procedure.
Yes that I was making this as strong as I could, and the recommendations that when a situation presents itself like that concurrently running independent of the search operation, there should be a criminal investig that might be after the first hour if the child hasn't been found, detective should be called out and they start running a criminal investigation.
Well, I mean, yeah, you are right on that on this one. I think there were detectives, local detectives on the scene looking at the investigation within about four hours. Yeah, so going through the police records, they were there. But still the focus is on has William wandered off? And strangely that seemed to still be the focus for weeks, or at least there was confusion over what the focus is because the case is given to the homicide squad
about a week after William goes missing. But after that you've got the local police commander is still doing all the media interviews and it's still saying and I was checking this this morning, he's still saying, well, it might be a kid who's wandered off, or it might be human intervention. We don't know. And so you've got these mixed messages like who's in charge? Is it the locale, is it the homicide squad? What really is the focus in this investigation? It doesn't have that kind of laser
like focus on this could be a homicide. We need to gather all the information and shut this down. And control the public perception of this. So it felt like there was a lot of confusion.
Dan look in sitting down with you the day, I want to give people an understanding of what's going to be presented with the podcast series that you've done, but you've touched on things and I can't help but offer an opinion. I've been sitting on the sidelines for a long time, and I think, yeah, it's been ten years since we have disappeared, over ten years now. When I took over the investigation five months after the very thing that you talked about there I identified as a problem.
And that's where I made a conscious decision saying, hey, homicide is running this investigation. I'm running this investigation. That wasn't a strake. My ego that was to get control of an investigation that was the wrong messaging was going out. We needed to get that laser focus, as you said, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, and put the pressure on the person or persons that might be have knowledge or involvement of William's disappearance.
So I guess that's the reason for it, isn't it. Because I remember being a reporter and covering the case at the time, and we didn't know who was in charge. Was it homicide? Was it the local police? Who were they looking at? And if you've got the local police commander saying bluntly saying, we don't know what happened. It could be this, it could be that, then whoever is
responsible isn't feeling the pressure. They're feeling like they might have got away with it, and that changes what they do, and it changes what the people around them who might know something do. And that's when I talk about messaging. I don't you know, I'm not talking about pr here. I'm talking about was there an opportunity missed to put that pressure on to basically use the media to speak to that person or the people who know them and
say we're coming for you. We're going to get you, just in case they slip up.
Well, Dan, and again I'm not sure if it comes out in your podcast, but I got a certain amount of criticism for going out of aggressively with the media when I said, anyone move in a square kilometer that hasn't come forward, I'm wondering why you haven't come forward. We're going to be looking at you. I've got a lot of complaints about that, the members of the public going, how dare you accuse us of this? But that was
done for a reason. That was an aggressive strategy to flush people out and put pressure on.
Yeah, and look again, it's really easy for me to criticize things that aren't done, and it's you know, it's easy for you to sit here and say, I think that should be a public inquiry. It's possible that we're wrong and that the current police who've been working on it for the past five and a bit years, have identified the right suspect and have gathered all of the evidence they need and are any moment about to crack this case wide open, and that will prove them right
and us wrong. But if they've done that, then why haven't they done it yet? Why haven't they charged someone? Why haven't they made public what they know by going to a court and saying this is the evidence we've got. Why are they still sitting on it? You've got an inquest. It's all going to come to a head in the
next couple of months. The inquest has got hearing in November and hearing in December, and I don't see how those hearings can happen without the police having to basically say this is what we've been doing, this is the evidence we've got. And if we do get to the end of that and we still don't know what happened to William a decade on, and we do know that several lives we talked about Bill Spedding, several lives have been damaged by the police investigation, then yeah, I'm with you.
I think if we get to that point, there does need to be a public inquiry and some kind of public reckoning.
Well, an inquest in effect is a public inquiry.
It is, but it's not looking at the police investigation.
That's true, that's true.
Has specifically said I'm not looking at the police investigation.
That is true, but I'm hoping answers information that comes out. So with the investigation that you've done and the work that you've done on the podcast, are you surprised by some of the things that you've come across.
Yeah, I really have been. I knew the case because I worked on it at the time and probably for a few years, and then when we were co writing your books, A big part of those was the William Tooele investigation because it was the case that did lead essentially to the end of your career in the police,
so we had to include it. And then again because you got publicly criticized by Mick Fuller, the then police commissioner, we had to change the way we wrote one of those books because we weren't planning on right in the second one and mentioning the William tool case at all, and then he came out and publicly criticizes you, and it felt strange not to be including that if you're now publicly identified with getting this case wrong and you put out a book and pretend that that hasn't been said.
So we changed that book and we put the William tool case back in. So I've been reporting on this case in different ways for a long time over the past decade, and even then, the stuff we've heard in the last two years has surprised me, and it's been it's not been a good series of surprises. I haven't been surprised by how well everything's been doing. But like the one that stands out is what I've learned about
how the unsolved homicide team work. Because when I used to be a crime report I had a huge amount of respect for new South Wales Police probably too much. And probably a bit of that was because I did get stories from them and I thought the Unsolved Homicide Team was part of the homicide squad and they did a great job catching the bad guys and then working on this, I've learned more about how the Unsolved Homicide
Team works and some of this was made public. In fact, a lot of it was made public by a Special Commission of Inquiry last year. We're talking about missing evidence, not just bits of evidence, but palette loads of evidence that the police didn't know they had. We're talking about cases that have gone for decades because bits of paper were left in a pocket and had never been no by police. We're talking about DNA tests that weren't done
even after the technology became available. They've got a backlog of cases that they haven't looked at. It's about four hundred cases haven't ever even looked at them. And yeah, they're working on all of those things, and you know they're trying to get it better now since that inquiry. But the one that really sticks out is the detective who's now leading the investigation to William Till's disappearance, David Laidlaw is from the Unsolved Homicide team. He's one of
the most senior people in that team. He's the investigations coordinator. He has had nineteen files of unsolved homicides sitting on his desk for a year, which he hasn't opened. And these are files that other detectives have gone through and said I think you should have a look at this, and it goes to him to decide whether they take it to the next step and maybe reinvestigate it. Files sitting on his desk gathering dust which he hasn't opened for a year. So that's nineteen families who don't know
what happened to their loved one. And he was asked in the Special Commission of Inquiry, why why have you not opened them? And he said, while I was busy mostly with the William Toole investigation. And they said to him, well, did you tell anyone about that? And he said no. He said did you ask for any other resources to work on that? And he said no, And they said why not and he said, I don't know. That shocked me that I get he's busy. I get he's working
on the William tool investigation. But in the past few years I've seen him sitting in court for fairly minor matters as part of this investigation, day after day after day after day. I think thirteen days I counted them. So he's had all those files sitting on his desk and he's chosen not to open them because he's looking elsewhere, and he's not asked for any help to open them. And that did shock me. I can't imagine what those nineteen families who sat there not knowing that no one
was looking at their loved one's case. I can't imagine what they felt.
It's cruel, really, it's And I can speak speak with confidence with dealing with victims families in homicides that that type of thing is soul destroye. They suffer from losing their loved one and then suffer if it's not being followed up properly. And it's a difficult world to work in. But I suppose the relevance of that, And this is I'm looking from the outside, the relevance of, Yeah, the
inefficiencies or what was happening with unsolved homicide. Willim's foster mother when she gave evidence at my court matter, when I was charged, charged, convicted, appealed, still convicted. So I put that out there and people have heard the story enough. She gave evidence, and part of her concern was if I was taken off the investigation, the mother was going to be referred to unsolved homicide and you're looking at unsolved homicide because well, are they legitimate concerns or yeah?
Is it good that that went there?
Well, that's it. I was in court when she said that, and I remember hearing her say it. She had this fear that William's case would be sent to unsolved homicide, and I from memory, I think she was told it was going to be by a senior officer, and at that point I remember thinking, oh, yeah, but the unsolved homicide team are pretty good, because I still thought that,
you know, I thought the homicide squad were great. I thought the unsolved Homicide team were part of that, and they were great too, And in fairness, I have met one or two unsolved homicide detectives subsequently who've been great, and so I thought that maybe her fears were a bit overblown. But then what I've learned in the past two years working on this investigation, her fears were completely accurate.
Missing evidence cases, you've never reviewed cases that will take years and years and years for them to even open the file. William's foster mother was right to be frightened that a case ends up there, and that is shocking.
And I think you look at now, we're five and a half years since I've been taken off, or almost six years since I've been taken off. Part of my battle when I was running the investigation was that they wanted to shut it down and get it to unsolved Thomas side. And now I look and all there's been supposedly five and a half years more work to do on an investigation they wanted to shut down when I was running.
That's interesting. I want you know, one thing the cops have said to us, because we wrote about these nineteen cases gathering dust. The one thing the cops did say was they said, we're not going to talk about William Tiol other than to say WILLIAMS. Toiol's case has never
been formally refined to the Unsolved Homicide Team. And so I wrote back, and I said, that is true, but the guy running William Tool's investigation is in the Unsolved Homicide Team, and so are some of the other people on the William Tool strike Force, and they said, yes, that's true. So it's not formally an unsolved homicide, but it is unsolved homicide detectives who are working it's.
These are the layers of the William Tyrell investigation. I haven't finished with your Dan. Look, we're gonna we'll have a break, and then when we get back, I just want to get more of a sense of the podcast, what people are to expect, and hopefully shed some light on I think it's fair to say this is the country's one of the country's biggest mysteries, isn't it.
I think it's the biggest case that I've covered, and I think it's the most high profile case in the country in the last ten years. Yeah, nothing has come a place.
I look at it. Everyone can identify with William and the circumstances of disappearing in your grandparents place, playing and safe space. So okay, we'll take a break and we'll get back shortly.
Mm hmm