William Tyrrell's foster grandmother was initially suspicious of a neighbour on Benaroon Drive in the wake of her grandson's disappearance, because he lives alone and keeps odd hours, according to her witness statement taken two days after he went missing.
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Dressed in what would become his infamous Spiderman suit, the little boy vanished from his grandmother's front yard in sleepy Kendall, on NSW's Mid North Coast, in September 2014.
Despite a mammoth police effort, a $1 million reward on offer and now a coronial inquest, no trace of the little boy has ever been found and nobody has ever been charged with his abduction.
Released to the Herald on Tuesday, the statement reveals the foster grandmother initially told police that her neighbour could have been involved in the toddler's disappearance.
"I can't think of anyone who would want to harm William. I was asked this question initially by Wendy HUDSON (a police woman who lives in Kendall) and I suggested [a neighbour] across the road (as he keeps odd hours and lives alone). Wendy assures me that she has checked him out thoroughly," it reads.
William's foster parents decided to take him and his sister to Kendall in September 2014 because his grandmother, then 81, wanted to sell her house after her husband had died.
The little boy's foster parents, who both have a "long history of experience in real estate", were concerned "that I was going to do the wrong thing", the statement said.
"They decided to come up to Kendall so that [they] could find me a solicitor, finalise the contract and look at new places," the statement reads.
William's foster grandmother, now 85, will not testify at the upcoming weeks of the coronial inquest.
In its initial week, deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame heard from William's foster parents and biological parents, as well as a number of neighbours and police involved in what was initially a search for a little boy lost.
William's biological mother, who cannot be named, said that she had been fighting to get her children back from the foster carers at the time he went missing.
His biological father told the coroner's court he blamed the foster system for his son's disappearance, and was "very angry" about it.
After one of the state's largest police investigations involving over 600 persons of interest, a four-week "forensic examination" and 15,000 pieces of information, Strike Force Rosann detectives handed the investigation, which remains active, over to the coroner in the hopes that an inquest will reveal further information about what happened to the little boy.
Re-commencing in August, the next phase of the inquest is expected to zero in on one particular individual.
- SMH/The Age
