The Foster Parents | 3

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

But Ivette Elliott is showing me some photos in her home.

It was just a moment in time where it kind of captured.

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

Is brilliant after bite.

The day.

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

So we were all lane Cove Ladies, and we've all lived in and around lane Cove.

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

So we used to go to a music festival.

When the music festivals were they were like a wine and food festivals, and the kids had just dance at the front.

One of those kids was William tyrrel that was the happy days.

Yeah, looks I just wonder what would we all be doing now if it wasn't for.

What happened, and suggesting that what happened to William may fractured that group.

Oh, absolutely everything regarding our relationship changed.

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

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

After a couple of hours, Ivette tells me the police left finishing our interview, I turn off the microphone and then Ivette tells me how, after saying goodbye to the detectives, she phoned her old friend William's foster mother, saying, I've just been interviewed by the police. And it was the weirdest thing, and William's foster mother told her another of the Lane Cove ladies had just called, saying detectives had

Hello, La La Tokyo, Mike one, do your close slide on?

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

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

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

Archives, so that the date on this document is nineteen sixty eight.

Yeah, there's passenger cards from nineteen sixty eight in nineteen seventy showing the entry of a family into Australia from Papua New Guinea.

Okay, what's a passenger card.

Passenger card is when you fly into Australia if you catch a ship in you have to fill in your details saying who you are, where you're going to be staying, who your parents are. If you're a child, and one of these passengers is a child born a few years earlier. It's William's foster mother, and you can see her father's an engineer, her mother's listed as a housewife. The reason for their journey is a holiday. They're going to stay a month. You've got the flight number, you've got the

Is what's supposed to be the significance of it.

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

Okay, and I can say that's not interesting.

But that's the level of Attentionilliam's foster mother and her husband.

I think that's terrible. And I couldn't imagine living like that. Just having every element of your life under the microscope must have been it must be horrifying for them.

Okay, let's jump forward to nineteen ninety six.

So in nineteen ninety six, I started working at a new company and she was already there.

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

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

Work as well. And what was your impression of her?

Smart? She was smart. She was fun though, like it was just you know, we'd go out shopping at lunchtime sometimes just try on dresses. It was just fun. We were both sort of thirty thirty ish. Yeah, I think I just turned thirty after I started there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh no, none at all.

I mean I would say nothing other than what a normal parenting children family life is. You know, like nothing's perfect, nothing's all roses and unicorns and rainbows.

But no.

I think her and her husband both unbelievably good parents.

And you know, I'm William in particular if the foster father was away and then would come home and he'd be running towards him to greet him. But the just the absolute love was was amazing. And I think even you know, in the videos that they've had in the media, the home videos, like, I think it's very evident.

William, you're doing really well.

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

I remember just coming up to Christmas and you know, it was the gathering again of Lane Cove Ladies, and our kids were all of the same age. William being a couple of years younger, you know, was my son's shadow.

Because he was the bigger boy.

They were fun times, you know, we were just living life.

I guess there was.

Without thinking it was just a it was just you know, a magical time. There was no evil, you know, there was no evilness that was to come.

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

We don't necessarily have questions about the relationship between them and William, because I think it's fairly documented, and the picture that's painted, I think it paints the picture of a mother who is really struggling. She says at one stage that by eight am in the morning, she's already incredibly frustrated and can't believe that she could be feeling that way by eight am in the morning, and it isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time.

Well, let's unpack that. So the foster parents are very rarely spoken. This is them describing William is the.

The cheeky, vibrant little little boy, full of energy, loves interacting with his sister, he loved interacting with us.

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

I mean, he's my little boy, just bringing me to tears. Pretty cheeky, very chey, but also they've got that, they've got that love, you know, and the father and boy love that you know he had.

It was just.

He adored, he adored, he adored his dad.

Just absolutely his eyes and there was a smile like I look at some of the back at some of the pictures, and I look at pictures when William was swineing smiling for me, and I look at pictures where William was smiling for.

His dad, and it's different. Oh, completely.

They adored each other, absolutely adored each.

Other, and it's heartbreaking.

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

Who would always wait at a frondom with his sisters driving the driveway. That would be just leaping, running and jumping. That was the highla of my day.

Every day, really and I'm sure the high out of these turks, you know, I'm come him and hogs and puddles and kisses and go and start and start to do the routine of about time and dinner and all those sorts of things.

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

Just.

Life was an adventure, and it was to be enjoyed, and it was all about learning, discovery and just being so innocent and just it's that join us of just being so innocent and loving life that I remember most about William.

How did him coming into your lives change your lives?

Changed it forever, but in a really positive way.

Nina, What you were saying was that we've got more than one account of that family's life together. There's what we know from the foster care records, is what we

See there's that's judgment. But yeah, I would agree that's not appropriate for a two year old, which isn't w ashume what the foster care person was saying.

Yeah, yeah, And the foster mum also told this official that she'd threatened to smack William's sister but had never done it. And we've got other documents. So eleventh of October twenty thirteen, William shows a strong preference for his foster dad but rejects interaction with his foster mum, and this is what you were talking about. Twenty ninth of October twenty thirteen, the foster mum emailed their caseworker about William's behavioral issues and she says it's like he's operating

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

Being a parent isn't easy. Nice you're a parent. I'm a parent. I've got three year old, ten year old and a thirteen year old, and I get tired and at times I might have thrown things just to deal with I mean, there's frustration. There's been times when the three year old and I are both shouting at each other. But the difference is my life isn't documented.

It's not documented.

Yeah, so there is evidence in these documents that William's foster care placement was working, and you can hear it in those home videos and in the documents. His foster care placement is described as being very stable. When William had his third birthday, his foster mum made him a cake in the shape of a fire engine.

Happy birthday, William.

They are good, dear, have you finished now?

Our dear dear lucky fingers, look your hair.

And William told his caseworker that he really loved his party, which was held in the family's backyard. There was friends from daycare and neighbors. This is mid twenty fourteen, a few months before he went missing, and at times the records of his foster care show his behavior seeming to get better. It might take only twenty or thirty minutes to settle him in bed at night, rather than hours at other times, though his behavior is harder to manage.

It's just so personal for us. I feel like I want to keep a lot of those really special memories for us personal. There are family memories, and I know people want to know more, but I just I've just got to keep something's private and special. It's just really hard now to keep talking about what happened on that morning.

William's foster care worker went to the family's house on the fifth of September twenty fourteen, so that's nine days before William goes missing, and the records say that William

Well, you mentioned the birthday party. Yeah, I was looking at a photo from that birthday party on social media. There's so one person says, the candles aren't even lit. How is this really a birthday party? The candles aren't even lit. Then someone else comes in and goes, this is incredibly dangerous because William is sitting at the corner of the table and it's pointed right at his neck. Any slip from any person could knock him onto the table.

So making judgments on the foster mother's parenting. Yeah, you do see that. The trolls online compare the two mothers. So I've seen posts describing Krly as William's natural mother and saying that her family needs reunification, saying William belongs to his natural mother and the thoughts of foster parents are irrelevant. And I've seen another where that says William's mummy pleads don't hurt him. While the fosters still hide

It was not really a long weekend like a Friday Settle a Sunday or a Saturlly Sunday Monday or something like that. Might be once every three or four months, especially Nana's birthday, or it might be the bit Debbie an occasion but also a good time.

To catch up.

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

The trip included, you know, at the halfway point, stopping at their favorite little snack that they'd get, you know, which would be McDonald's I mean, that's really the only time that they would actually get it well. On the way up and on the way back. I think it was because that's the halfway point they get their happy meal type thing, and they got but they're still excited about the overall journey, which was to Banna's, so that was that was what they were looking for.

To Williams foster nana lived in a big house at the top of a wide, dead end road called Benerine Drive.

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

It's a colder cirque at Mum and Dad's place. They knew it.

He knew it is incredibly comfortable there. So you have to assume that children are.

Safe in their own backyards and in their own homes, and they've been up there.

More than enough.

But the lead up to that last visit was unsettled. William's foster grandfather had recently died, his foster nana was about to sell the house, and there are emails from the time between William's foster mother and his caseworker talking again about those contact visits the biological parents, and on

Yeah, so this is a place report from twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen, So this is not the initial statement that.

She left to place a couple of years later.

Okay, So it says, and this is the thing that kills me about this is that he and I were just reaching that absolute, one hundred percent open true mum's son relationship and he was just beautiful.

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

That's a good point.

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

Is that one interpretation should I read the whole sentence. So she's replying to an email I haven't censored my initial thoughts because they are still there. But I am close to giving up or in. I don't have the energy to argue against this, And this is what you're saying, arguing against the visits. I'm feeling pretty ragged. At the moment, William has not settled one bit and is still over the emotional but managing it better with help. It's possible.

Yeah. In that same email, the foster mums says the family are going up to her mum's house in Kendall that weekend. So the plan is to go up on the Friday, which is the twelfth of September twenty fourteen, but the day before, so Thursday, the eleventh of September, they make a snap decision to go up a day early, so they book their cats in for boarding at short notice, and they drive up, stopping at McDonald's and they recorded

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

And that was the sound that you worked to that morning. He is a laugh The laughter was infectious. Yeah, people would hear that, and Nat, you couldn't help but smile.

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

I remember the discussion I had with William about putting on his Spider Man clothes because I wanted him to wear a singlet.

He didn't want to wear a singlet.

So the compromise was he'd wear a.

Spider Man T shirt underneath his Spider Man clothes, so he was Spider maned out completely.

All these little things that I just remember.

It was just a normal family doing normal.

Family things, except one thing wasn't normal. In another of their conversations with the journalist Leah Harris, William's foster mother described seeing two cars parked on the dead and Road opposite her mum's house.

When we woke up, I always open up the sliding door that's on the veranda looking out back down and drive from Thumb's case.

And as I.

Opened it, I walked out because there's normally cook a barrow that comes up on to the balcony of the verandah, and was sort of just say hello to the cook borough. But I'm looking out over the verandah.

And I see two cars.

And I see these two cars just sitting there in the road, and my first thought was, oh, that's odd. I looked at these cars, thinking why would two cars

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

I realized that night that William me seeing that I had actually seen two cars, but she.

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

I remember reporting the other cars to the guys in the place rescue van that was parked here when we picked up my sister from the airport. Was on the way home from the airport. I'm driving the car and I just went there were cars there, and my sister goes, what cars. I've gone, Oh my god. So that's when I've talked about the two cars.

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

Because when Chris Rowley came up, he was a responding policeman from when I called for below, I actually walked across where that white station wagon was because I met him on the road, and as Chris Rowley's coming up in a room drive, I'm on the left hand side standing near with that white car. That white station wagon was, I've walked past it.

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

So either they're involved or they've seen what happened, and we just need them to come forward to say this.

Is what we thought.

So from your memory, were they gone when you realize that William had gone missing? Were they not there anymore?

I realized that they weren't there that night when I remembered walking across the road to see Chris Rowley.

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

They took our laptops.

We're grilled.

We were completely grilled, separately in isolations in back of detectives vehicles. Every time they took my vehicle away, they completely searched to check it, you know, I mean they did.

They did everything.

And we had multiple conversations with multiple police people, and you know, detectives and all sorts of other police always just checking in, just looking at you know, corroborating things, checking with us, all sorts of things.

And I remember saying to you that we.

Would have had to have been their prime suspects because we were the last people to see him, and if they didn't completely investigate us, I would be absolutely.

Gobsmacked, because you've got.

To rule us out.

I remember at the time, I was newspaper reporter speaking to a senior detective days after William disappeared, and he told me, we've ruled out both sets of parents. And then the years passed and the Department of Family and Community Services, so the state government body that manages foster care continued to give William's foster parents other children to look after, and that feels like a judgment on them as parents as well, saying these guys are safe, we

Some wonderful kids.

Ladies and gentlemen, would like to introduce you to the Kendall Public School choir who were going to sing bring Him Home, The official Where's William campaign theme song was chosen by William's mummy and dad either we'd be riand.

Of appoint.

We're coming up to a very important week, Where's William Week? The search for Little William checking.

Up to one thousand people to pack into the Kendall Showgrounds and so if they're important not only to William Tyrell's family, but.

What he's called a walk for William Now, these will be held across New South Wales as well as flowers. They're asking for everyone to get involved, get on board. If you know something, please say something.

We can't let people forget William.

We can't.

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

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

Will you ever give up fighting for him? Never?

Never till my last breath?

Absolutely? Absolutely.

If police think they've seen the last.

Of us, big mistake, you won't be going quietly.

We will not give up on William, and we will not let other people give up on you. He's too important to give up on. Never going to happen.

Ever, William's foster parents have declined to be interviewed for this series on advice from their lawyers. I have met them. We meet in safe houses at different hotels, and when we meet we turn off our phones, which might sound paranoid, but they have reason to be paranoid. Williams foster parents know in recent years that the police have been intercepting their calls. They know they've had listening devices in their homes and surveillance cameras outside it, and we'll get into

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

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

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

It was very much.

I became very much aware of who they were focused on.

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

Before?

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

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

I found the questioning quite. I didn't understand why they wanted to know about her past boyfriends, and like, what's the relevance asking me things like what sort of family were they? And I just said, they're just a normal family. Well do they sit down and have dinner together? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. They just felt like they were trying. It felt like they knew what they wanted to know and they were trying to find evidence

Why were you the wrong person?

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

There's also something else, another reason I wanted to talk to this woman in particular. That's because her name came up in court last year. One of the detectives investigating William's disappearance, Sean Ogilvie, was giving evidence about all the evidence they've gathered, including quote, a substantial number of witness statements, Sean Oglevie said four people had declined to give a

Huh?

I was.

Just super angry, super angry that my friends had to sit in a court room and hear that I refused to support them because I was never asked. I did not decline. I was never asked. I was never even asked to provide a statement or that reference or whatever it was. I have provided other references in the past. I've recently been asked to provide one for my friend's lawyer.

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

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

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

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

Do you think they were good parents?

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

And that's what you would have told the police if you had given that statement. Yeah, So did the police get confused? Were they mistaken to say this woman declined to give a witness statement? Why are the police targeting Williams foster parents? And who's in charge of their investigation? That's next time on Witness. If you know anything about