William Tyrrell investigation turns to grandparent support groups

After months chipping away with no breakthrough, a photo came across the desks of Strike Force Rosann detectives.

It was well-focused and sharp, despite being hastily captured by a member of the public.

There was no denying the baby face in the image looked heart-stoppingly similar to William Tyrrell.

With the child was a man with a chilling resemblance to someone police investigating three-year-old William's abduction had been interested in.

The photograph, captured in central Queensland, filled investigators with hope.

Detectives had finally found the little boy in the Spiderman suit whose disappearance had captivated Australia, they thought.

They went to sleep that night in June, comforted by the thought they were about to pluck the boy from harm and place him back into his parents' arms.

Missing three-year-old William Tyrrell. Photo: Supplied by NSW Police

The next day detectives on the soon-to-be 12-month investigation and senior police were briefed at the State Crime Command in Parramatta.

They were liaising with their Queensland counterparts about how William's extraction would play out.

Flights were about to be booked.

Then at the last minute, word from the ground reached investigators and obliterated their hope – it wasn't William.

The disappointment, confirmed by multiple sources, has become one of the complex investigation's most crippling lows.

Investigators were shattered and left asking the question everyone else has since September 12, 2014 – where is he?

Next Saturday, William's family, police and the Australian public will solemnly mark 12 months since the toddler disappeared from his grandmother's yard in Kendall on the Mid North Coast.

William Tyrrell went missing from his grandmother's home on September 12 last year. Photo: Supplied

William was playing with his sister when he stepped off a wooden deck and onto grass near the side of the home as his mother made a cup of tea inside.

He made his way around the side of the house, built on a large block in a quiet cul-de-sac where the sounds of birds chirping and a car engine pierces the air.

Police believe William went down towards the sloping backyard.

A five-minute window was all it took.

By the time his mother realised she hadn't heard his giggles, William had vanished.

A frantic search of the home yielded nothing and about half an hour later at 11.06am, police arrived.

Forty-eight hours later the sex crimes squad was involved. Less than a week on, the homicide squad had carriage of the case.

Seven days after William wandered down the side of his grandmother's semi-rural property, where neighbours said she had lived for more than 15 years, his parents and sister made the four-hour drive home with an empty car seat.

They entered their Sydney home and realised William wasn't tucked safely in bed.

It became clear after police and hundreds of volunteers searched 50 square kilometres of unforgiving bush, creeks, dams and every corner of the 31 homes in the Benaroon Drive estate that William wasn't lost.

NSW Police searching for the missing toddler. Photo: Port Macquarie News

Someone, police believe, had entered the street on the outskirts of Kendall and taken William in a bewildering set of circumstances that aligned in the abductor's favour.

A Benaroon Drive resident said his wife drove out of the street, which William's grandmother no longer lives in, one minute before William disappeared.

It was 26 or 28 minutes to 11am, he remembered with minute detail.

"She never saw a car or noticed anything strange," he said.

The man spent the next day with a pool net in hand searching through a dam and waterholes, anxious about what he might find.

Over the past year police have received thousands of reported William sightings across Australia and overseas.

Earlier this year two passengers and a member of the flight crew thought they saw William on their New Zealand-bound flight.

Police met the plane on the tarmac and watched passengers disembark. It wasn't William.

The discovery of a child's remains in a suitcase on a rural highway in July prompted a call from South Australian detectives to their NSW counterparts.

Social media was in a frenzy over the possibility the remains could be his. It was later revealed they belonged to a little girl.

One of three billboards on the Pacific Highway for the Where's William? campaign. Photo: Wolter Peeters

Every single report of a Spider-Man suit found, from those in second-hand shops to another on a golf course south of Sydney, have been assessed by police, with some sent off for forensic testing.

While police stress there have been several persons of interest in the case, none have been pursued as publicly as washing machine repairman Bill Spedding.

His Bonny Hills home was searched in January as was his pawnbroker business and adjoining office in the main street of Laurieton.

A mattress and computer were carried away by detectives, in full view of curious locals, for examination.

A "for lease" sign is now in the window where the yellow "Speddo's" pawnbroker sign used to be.

His business name has been removed from his white van and locals says they haven't seen Spedding's familiar face around Laurieton since he was dragged into the spotlight.

A property in his former hometown of Wellington, in NSW's central west, was also searched.

However, he has strenuously denied any involvement in William's disappearance.

Dense bushland in Bonny Hills was targeted in March, after police received a tip-off about a vehicle seen driving into the thick bush.

Nothing significant was found.

Karlee and mother Cheryl Butler and Camden Haven SES volunteer Gordon Hutchinson were among the volunteers who assisted in the search for William Tyrrell. Photo: Wolter Peeters

Now almost 12 months on, the 12-person strike force is revisiting square one.

In the past few weeks detectives have returned to the scene of William's abduction to talk with Kendall residents and canvass the area again.

The investigator in charge of the case, Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin, previously said they would treat the case as though William was alive until they had evidence proving otherwise.

"There's is not a day that we wake up and think 'is this the day we are going to crack this case?'" he said earlier this year.

Fairfax Media approached William's family for comment. They are away and expected to respond in the coming days.

Unanswered William Tyrrell mystery "hangs over community's head"

There was no leaf left unturned in the town of Kendall by the time the search for William Tyrrell was wound back last September.

Police were meticulous in the operation – every path, every fire trail and in between.

Despite this local police still return to the search zones – from Kendall to bushland near the coast – to carry out training exercises just in case they stumble across something significant.

Locals still take extra care on their walks and drives around the town, just in case.

"You wonder did I miss something, more than anything else," one Benaroon Drive resident said.

Most of the Kendall community had never met three-year-old William before he vanished on September 12, 2014, but they treat him as one of their own.

Posters with his face on it grace the windows of businesses in town.

A poster in a Laurieton shop window about missing toddler William Tyrrell. Photo: Wolter Peeters

"They picked the wrong community to take him from because we won't give up," said Rheannon Chapman, who runs the local bottle shop.

"We've never met that family but we've got them. We will help them and do what we can."

Twelve months on Ms Chapman says her community is more aware.

"Things have gone back to normal but it's a new normal. It's not what it was before the 12th of September last year," she said.

"I think we are more aware we know where our kids are at all times now."

Karlee Butler helped run the kitchen for all the volunteers at the Kendall Showground over the lengthy search.

"It is horrible to think it has reached 12 months," she said.

"No one wants to be here talking about it. You want answers for the family, for the community.

"It is unanswered and until then it is always going to hang over the community's head."

Locals and volunteers will return to the showground on September 12 when representatives of William's family will express their gratitude to those who helped during the search.

First responding volunteers had little doubt William Tyrrell would be found

As Gordon Hutchison moved through the lantana-ridden bush, there was little doubt in his mind the search party would find the missing little boy.

"Everyone was pretty enthusiastic about it," he remembered.

"We thought if he was were there, we were going to find him."

Mr Hutchison, a retired builder who joined the State Emergency Service's Camden Haven unit three years ago, arrived in Kendall on the afternoon of September 12.

It was a few hours after three-year-old William Tyrrell disappeared from his grandmother's home, which fronts onto the Kendall State Forest.

He was fitted with a GPS tracker before he and his fellow volunteers ventured into the bush around Benaroon Drive so police could map out every inch of land covered.

Anything unusual, including pieces of cloth between foliage, were enough to grab attention and warrant sniffer dogs being brought in.

"Anything that is odd, you call it in straightaway and don't touch it," Mr Hutchison said.

"It was very intense around the house, on all the properties, every single property in that street was searched.

"Some of the young kids were in the cars at night going around. They just wanted to find him."

Camden Haven SES volunteer Gordon Hutchinson began searching for William a few hours after he disappeared. Photo: Wolter Peeters

Camden Haven Surf Life Saving Club president Glen O'Brien had volunteers sleeping on the club floor each night so they could help find William.

The first night was "mayhem" with people everywhere trying to find the little boy in the dark.

"I remember vividly the next morning the police were more or less saying to us 'he is going to be cold and scared, he may feel he is in trouble so don't rush at him … make him feel comfortable'," Mr O'Brien said.

"I don't think anyone didn't think they weren't going to find him."

Mr O'Brien said the search effort was unbelievable and everyone knew they tried everything they could to find him.

"I don't think anybody begrudged being there," he said.

"And it was hard work. People were scratched or cut from the bushes, there were rolled ankles …

"It's just what needed to be done."