EXCLUSIVE
One of the country’s longest-serving homicide bosses has defended his former detectives against accusations there was “a pattern” of ignoring “credible tips” about the whereabouts of missing boy William Tyrrell.
Former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Mick Willing said huge resources – and countless hours of work – had been devoted to finding the three-year-old since he went missing during a visit to his adoptive grandmother’s home in 2014. .
Willing said the state’s dedicated detectives were left heartbroken by their inability to locate the innocent young man in the decade since his disappearance despite numerous interstate and international sightings.
He rejected any suggestion that investigators had made a public appeal for information about William’s fate, only to intentionally discount subsequent leads telephoned to Crime Stoppers or reported to the police.
“Strike Force Rosann investigators, under the direction of Senior Detective, followed hundreds of reported sightings of William Tyrrell in the weeks, months and years following his disappearance,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘While I was homicide squad commander, I can recall several occasions when alleged sightings of William Tyrrell both in New South Wales and other states occurred in circumstances where investigators’ hopes were raised to the point of the emotion.
“But sadly none of the sightings turned out to be him.”
His comments come after a new podcast exploring the boy’s disappearance alleged it had “uncovered troubling claims suggesting a pattern of information not being passed on to detectives or being followed up by police”.
Missing boy William Tyrrell was wearing a distinctive Spider-Man costume on the day he disappeared during a visit to his adoptive grandmother’s home on the New South Wales north coast.
The three-year-old boy was last seen playing hide-and-seek with his sister outside this house.
The podcast cited five people who felt investigators had not taken reported sightings of the missing child seriously.
One woman claimed to have seen the missing boy with a group of people on a camping trip near Uluru a year after he disappeared, while another claimed to have seen him on a bus trip from Albury to Sydney.
Another potential witness said he was “angry at Crime Stoppers” for not taking him seriously after he reported seeing two cars outside the house where William disappeared, even though a lead detective who worked the case publicly revealed the tip. It had been a line of research.
Willing, who commanded the NSW homicide squad between 2011 and 2017, said investigators had been inundated with leads following Williams’ disappearance.
While the overwhelming number of tips generated by the public appeal made it impractical to provide personal comments to each informant, I wanted to assure the public that detectives had worked diligently on all incoming information.
He said investigators had pursued numerous possible sightings of William in their search only to repeatedly have their hopes of finding him alive dashed.
Former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Mick Willing says police are equally heartbroken at their inability to locate the missing boy after doing everything they could to find him.
“The sheer volume of information obtained by a high-profile investigation such as the disappearance of William Tyrell, especially if the investigation focuses on the use of the media as a tool, can be extremely difficult to manage,” he said.
“However, processes were put in place to respond to alleged sightings of William Tyrell which included close liaison with New South Wales Police and investigators in other Australian states.”
Another potential witness who spoke to the podcast complained that she called Crime Stoppers to suggest that police investigate a local resident who lived near William’s adoptive grandmother, but never received a response.
Willing said the fact that the resident was later publicly identified as a person of interest in William’s disappearance, before eventually being ruled out as a suspect, showed how seriously detectives had taken tips from the community.
He said the hunt had been so extensive that the workload had to be shared across the entire police force.
“In the months following the disappearance, there were literally hundreds of ‘persons of interest’ who had to be assessed, prioritized and investigated,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
“To achieve this, follow-up investigations were carried out by the Homicide Squad, highest priority assessments, other squads across the State Crime Command and investigators from Local Area Command.”
Investigators initially thought William Tyrrell had been kidnapped by an opportunistic kidnapper but, 10 years later, they now believe he is dead.
Willing admitted that police had ruled out some of the incoming tips, but said they only did so after investigators determined they were not “genuine.”
“Among the thousands of genuine calls about alleged sightings of William Tyrrell were calls from crackpots, clairvoyants and others who wanted to inject themselves into the public arena,” he said.
The last confirmed sighting of William was at his adoptive grandmother’s house in the quiet town of Kendall, about half an hour’s drive southwest of Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast, on September 12, 2014.
He was wearing a distinctive Spider-Man costume and playing hide-and-seek with his sister outside the house on Benaroon Drive before disappearing around 10.30am after his foster mother came in to make a cup of tea.
She reported him missing in a triple-0 at 10:57 a.m., sparking one of the longest-running missing persons investigations in the country.
Although police initially feared William had been kidnapped, he is now presumed dead.
Multiple searches (and a million-dollar reward for information) have failed to locate his remains.
Police offer a $1 million reward for information leading to little William’s whereabouts
Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame led an 18-month investigation into the boy’s disappearance and suspected death before it was adjourned in October 2020 while prosecutors considered charges against the boy’s adoptive mother.
Both of William’s adoptive parents had repeatedly and strenuously denied having any role in his disappearance.
The inquest is due to resume next month at the New South Wales Coroner’s Court, with final evidence to be heard the week before Christmas, before findings are handed down next year.
Willing said that while he shared the public’s frustration that police had not yet solved the long-running mystery, he insisted that the detectives involved were doing everything they could to bring those responsible for William’s disappearance to justice.
“At the end of the day, we all want to know what happened to William and we hope the investigation provides some answers,” he said.
