A lorry driver told the William Tyrrell inquest he saw a woman “acting suspiciously” near where the boy went missing on the morning he disappeared.
Peter Bashkurt was collecting an excavator on Batar Creek Road, a few hundred meters from the house in the New South Wales north coast town of Kendall where the three-year-old was last seen.
Appearing via audio-visual link at the inquest in Sydney, Bashkurt said he had called Radio 2GB and the police after William was reported missing from his adoptive grandmother’s home at 48 Benaroon Drive, Kendall.
When asked where he had seen the car “considered acting suspiciously” and driven by a woman, Bashkurt said he saw it twice, in Kendall and in nearby Kew.
He described a black Toyota Camry driven by an overweight blonde woman.
But the police theory about William’s disappearance is that his adoptive mother allegedly drove his mother’s gray Mazda 3 to dispose of the boy’s body that day.
Bashkurt told police he had seen the black Toyota parked in front of him at an old bus stop and that she had unnecessarily crossed the street in her car and parked too close to it.
‘I don’t know what prompted her to move from the place she was in. “She didn’t need to come and park in front of me,” he said.
‘Something must have prompted her to do that. I actually got out from behind her, because she was so close that I had to back away a little. “That was a little strange to me.”
William’s adoptive mother (center, maroon jacket) was seen throwing an object from the car his mother was driving the morning the boy disappeared in 2014.
Police seized the car driven by the foster mother the morning William disappeared in September 2014, but the gray Mazda 3 (above) doesn’t look like the vehicles the trucker saw on the road that morning.
When he saw the car again in Kendall, he saw an overweight, blonde woman get out of it and walk into the town’s Op Shop.
‘Then, five to ten minutes later, I turned up at the same location where I had met (his contact to pick up the excavator).
‘Why would she be there killing time? What was its purpose? I have no idea.’
Bashkurt’s third car sighting occurred when he was leaving with the excavator loaded on his truck along Batar Creek Road, where police conducted extensive searches in 2021.
He saw a gunmetal gray crew cab truck approaching loaded with tools and an early 1980s model BMW that he told police at the time was black with a ladder on top.
But testifying Wednesday, he said it was “dark red, maybe burgundy.”
Bashkurt said he reported the sightings because “he thought, maybe I can help, I don’t know if that black car had anything to do with it.”
The inquest is currently investigating the police theory that William Tyrell’s adoptive mother buried his body in bushland after he fell from a balcony to his death on the morning he disappeared.
Counsel assisting the investigation, Gerard Craddock SC told the inquest upon reopening on Monday that the police theory was that ‘William must have died at (his adoptive grandmother’s home at) 48 Benaroon Drive (in Kendall).
“The theory… police claim is that she must have quickly resolved that if William’s accidental death was discovered, she might lose ‘Lindsay.'”
Lindsay (not her real name, which cannot be revealed for legal reasons) was another foster child in the care of the foster mother at the time, who also cannot be identified.
“Police claim that in that state of mind, (the foster mother) placed William in his mother’s car,” Craddock said.
“After alerting (a neighbor) about William’s disappearance, (she) drove her mother’s car to Batar Creek Road and placed William’s body somewhere in the brush.”
Craddock has said police had extensively searched the area around Batar Creek Road and did not believe there was any trace of William there.
The latest hearings in the William Tyrrell inquest look into the police theory that William fell from the balcony of his grandmother’s house and his remains were buried in bushland.
Police search bushland along Batar Creek Road, Kendall, where a truck driver said he saw a woman throw an object from a car on the morning William Tyrrell disappeared.
He also said the search for William after he went missing – with police, firefighters, cadaver dogs, chainsaws and hydraulic equipment – meant the boy had not simply gotten lost in the search area.
“William was unable to travel beyond the intensive search area under his own power,” he said. ‘The conclusion must have been human intervention.
“It is indisputable that no eyewitness can provide an account of how he left the confines of 48 Benaroon Drive.”
Forensic anthropologist Dr Jennifer Menzies gave evidence that William’s skeletal remains could have survived in the bush or could have been disintegrated by weather, rain or predation by “rabbits, wombats, dogs or foxes”.
Water science expert Professor Jon Olley described how he combed a local rubbish tip and streams in search of William, whose body he said would have become snagged and trapped if the water had carried him down the hill.
On Tuesday, Sergeant Robyn Ross, a police intelligence analyst, testified that a mountain of tips that had come in since William’s disappearance had resulted in a list of 6,000 people’s names.
Originally called the “persons of interest spreadsheet,” the identities were categorized into low, medium and high risk of possible involvement in the case, and were investigated by the task force.
Sergeant Ross said that even when the investigation concluded, detectives would continue to accept and analyze any tips they received.
The inquiry, which began in 2019 but has been hit by lengthy delays, has now entered its final block of hearings, which will take place this week and during the week before Christmas.
Task force commander Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw (above search site in 2021) will not give evidence in the last and final part of the investigation.
A forensic anthropologist provided evidence that William’s skeletal remains could have survived in the bush or been disintegrated by weather, rain or predation by “rabbits, wombats, dogs or foxes”.
William’s disappearance has become one of Australia’s most notorious missing persons cases.
The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame, examining William’s disappearance and presumed death, was delayed last year as prosecutors weighed charges against the boy’s adoptive mother.
The police handed a brief of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions recommending that William’s adoptive mother be charged with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a dead body.
Around that time, the adoptive parents’ attorney, Rylie Hahn, asked police to release any evidence.
“William’s adoptive mother maintains that she had nothing to do with his disappearance… and is calling on police to continue searching for William and what happened to him.” Mrs. Hahn said.
In August this year, Ms Grahame received a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service outlining the status of a request for advice.
In the letter, Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC said that in April NSW Police had asked her office to “suspend” its application for advice until the conclusion of the final block of investigative hearings.
In 2022, William’s adoptive mother was found not guilty of lying to the New South Wales Crime Commission.
In November last year, William’s adoptive father was also cleared of five charges of lying to the NSW Crime Commission.
The court was told at the time that during the Crime Commission hearing, assisting counsel Sophie Callan SC questioned the foster mother about whether William had fallen from the balcony and whether she had disposed of the body.
The couple has denied any wrongdoing or disposal of his body.