Former police officer Gary Jubelin has admitted he remains obsessed with the disappearance of toddler William Tyrrell, even a decade after the boy disappeared and he was removed from the case.
Jubelin, a former homicide investigator who was removed as head of the Tyrrell task force after illegally recording a then-suspect, spoke on Stellar magazine’s podcast, Something To Talk About.
His comments come after an inquest examined William’s disappearance from his adoptive grandmother’s home in Kendall, on the New South Wales Mid North Coast, in September 2014.
Despite extensive searches at the time, no trace of him was found, and a New South Wales Supreme Court judge has since ruled that he was most likely dead.
Despite his exclusion from the official investigation, Jubelin confessed that he cannot leave the case.
‘I’m still passionate about the William Tyrrell thing. ‘I can’t let it go,’ he said.
‘There was criticism of the things I did. I still stand by what I did. The courts have criticized me.
‘I have to accept the court’s conclusions. But I also believe that courts are only as good as the information they have been given.
Former police officer Gary Jubelin admits he is still obsessed with the disappearance of William Tyrrell a decade after the boy disappeared and launched a broadside against the current investigation.

Jubelin said he believed people have a right to criticize the investigation into William’s 2014 disappearance, which has found no trace of the missing boy.
Jubelin was appointed commander of Strike Force Rosann, then removed as lead detective on the case and resigned from the force in 2019 after being accused of secretly recording one of Tyrrell’s adoptive grandmother’s neighbors.
Jubelin was tried and convicted, but lost his appeal against that conviction.
Now, more than a decade later, Tyrrell remains Australia’s most high-profile missing person and many fear Coroner Grahame will not find much more than what was established during his hearings: that the boy did not leave the Kendall home because of his own media.
Although police told the coroner they believed William’s adoptive mother was involved in the three-year-old’s disappearance and disposed of his body, which she denies, no one has been charged.
Jubelin denounced the unconfirmed police theory about the adoptive mother.
‘I led that investigation for four years, documented every decision I made and directions I took, and I’m quite confused by the way it played out publicly and how the adoptive mother was named as a person of interest.
‘When I started the investigation more than five months after William disappeared, at the handover Detective Hans Rupp, who was leading the investigation at the beginning, told me at the handover that the family had been eliminated.
‘When I was leading the investigation, I took another look at the family, and there was a strike force to explore some aspects of it, I took a very vigorous look at the family again, overt and covert investigation techniques.
‘I came out of there very certain that the foster mother and foster father had nothing to do with William’s disappearance.
‘The adoptive mother presented evidence on my behalf at my hearing and also criticized senior police officers.
He then becomes a person of interest after criticizing senior police officials, and that was leaked to the media.
‘There’s something about this that doesn’t seem right to me.
“I can’t let it go, I won’t let it go, and it’s not me who loses perspective, nor is it me trying to justify my position. I think we should be judged (and I still include myself as a police officer in this term) by the way the investigation was handled.
‘I don’t know how the public can have confidence in what is happening.
There was a forensic investigation and we heard the police commissioner say that there is only one suspect, pointing the finger at the adoptive mother, and there is no evidence to support it.
“You can’t make accusations like that.

Police search the house from which William disappeared in 2014, but this renewed investigation in 2021 turned up no clues as to where the boy’s remains could be.
Jubelin said he believed the public has the right to criticize the investigation.
“I still think it’s embarrassing how things are developing right now.
‘I am as confused as the public about the information that has been leaked. Not just blaming the police, the media has reported on things. Everyone has an opinion.
‘In terms of closure, I think there really needs to be some line of inquiry into what happened with that investigation.
—I don’t see that things emerge in the investigation that I thought were relevant.
‘A little boy has gone missing, and that shouldn’t be lost in all the politics and infighting. We should all work in the same direction to achieve some closure.
‘Therein lies my frustration for not being able to make the transfer.
‘How can you remove someone from an investigation they’ve been working on for four years without a transfer?
‘And it wasn’t me spitting on the doll saying no, I’m not going to talk to you because you’ve been horrible to me. I’m saying I’ll help in any way I can.
“I showed up at the investigation with my suit and ready to testify.
“I have not been called as a witness. I led the investigation for four years.
And Dave Laidlaw, who has led the investigation for six years, has not been called as a witness.

This image created by US-based Parabon Nano Labs shows what William Tyrrell would look like at age 13, 10 years after he disappeared without a trace.

Despite millions of dollars and thousands of police investigations, William has not been seen since he disappeared from his adoptive grandmother’s home in Kendall, on the New South Wales north coast, on September 12, 2014.
‘I haven’t seen anything like it.
“That said, if there is a question, if I haven’t done something well or whatever, I welcome the criticism because we have to improve.” We have to be judged by that.
“Everything is sad and it breaks my heart.
‘The people who have pointed the finger at the adoptive mother, if they find out that that is not correct, I don’t know how they can sleep with themselves because they have destroyed the person’s life.
Of his withdrawal from the Tyrrell investigation, Jubelin said “that hurt me more than losing my career.”
“I had committed myself to William Tyrrell’s family, adopted and biological, and would do everything humanly possible.”
On leaving the force after 34 years as a police officer, he said: ‘Take my gun, take my badge, take my power, take everything from me and look, I’m still standing, I’m still surviving.’
The final week of evidentiary hearings during the latest investigation into Tyrrell’s disappearance was canceled at the last minute in December.
It has not been revealed when Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame will deliver her findings.