A decade on from disappearance of three-year-old William Tyrrell, we may never know what happened

William Tyrrell had a radiant smile and an infectious giggle. He danced, drew pictures and rode his bike. 

The three-year-old with the cheeky grin loved Bananas in Pyjamas, Fireman Sam and of course, Spider-Man.

William should be starting high school around now. 

Instead, for those who searched for him and those who loved him, William will forever be a toddler.

Ellen Bott was one of the first to join the search for the little boy in September 2014.

At the time, she had a son around the same age.

"Everybody wanted to help, we were all upset," Ms Bott said.

"I think there was about eight of us girls, close friends, that all went out, and men in four-wheel drives were going up looking in the bush tracks."

The day William disappeared on September 12, news quickly rippled through the small community of Kendall.

It was a Friday morning in early spring and William had been playing at his foster grandmother's house on a quiet cul-de-sac on the outskirts of the village on the NSW Mid North Coast.

A search party was quickly mounted, with locals, police and State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers combing through the town's streets and bushland.

"We were trying everything to find him."

Just down the road Kendall cafe owner Jenelle Nosworthy kept herself busy making meals for those searching.

"I remember some people having morning tea [at the cafe] and getting the phone call to see if we can help look for a missing little boy," she said.

"It's hard not to remember that kind of thing, just the response from the public, just how everyone pulled together to go looking."

Early mistakes

In hindsight, the investigation into William's disappearance was flawed from the very first day. 

It is likely one of the many reasons we still don't know what happened to him.

Police initially assumed he had simply wandered off into the bush, and by the time they considered an alternative, it was too late to preserve evidence at the crime scene.

The search party, family members and emergency services wandered through the property in the hours after he went missing, contaminating any forensic clues which may have been left behind.

Michelle Dalton was among the locals who helped search and now says she never believed he had wandered off.

"They just kept saying 'we'll find him, we'll find him'. We looked everywhere for that child."

As a result of the Tyrrell case, NSW Police now have a mandate to treat a missing child as a possible abduction or homicide until proven otherwise.

Criminologist Xanthe Mallett, who has been following the case closely over the past decade, said the lost pieces of evidence form a critical abyss.

"Ultimately we will never know what evidence and witnesses were lost in that first 24 hours which is absolutely crucial in a missing child investigation," she said.

"Sadly you never get that back."

A fractured Strike Force and a foster mother

In the years that followed the team tasked with finding William, Strike Force Rosann, has been plagued by in-fighting.

In 2015 detectives publicly zeroed in on local washing machine repairman Bill Spedding and charged him with historic child sex offences, which he was later acquitted of.

Mr Spedding successfully sued NSW Police for malicious prosecution last year.

Then, in 2021, another person of interest emerged; William's foster mother.

The Strike Force went public with their new theory that William had died in an accident and his death was covered up.

A fresh search in Kendall became a media spectacle after journalists were backgrounded and police announced answers could be close, but it proved fruitless.

Last year, detectives handed a brief of evidence against the foster mother to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for consideration.

No charges have been laid.

William's foster mother, who can't be named for legal reasons, has always denied any knowledge of what happened to him.

Embattled former lead detective on the case Gary Jubelin is one of the only people successfully prosecuted by the strike force, convicted of illegally recording another suspect.

The evidence police have against William's foster mother is expected to be heard at a two-week hearing in November and December.

Dr Mallett said that evidence was unlikely to result in any charges or closure.

"I do get the sense that if police had enough evidence to charge William's foster mother in relation to this, that would've happened by now," Dr Mallett said.

"I'm sadly not expecting it will bring us any closer to determining what happened to William or who's responsible."

Dr Mallett believes the only possible conclusion for the inquest will be for the coroner to make an open finding, which means the case remains unsolved and no cause of death is determined.

'I still think of him'

While the endless court hearings and internal police politics have played out, those who still call Kendall home can't forget the little boy at the centre of it all.

Ms Dalton remembers when Benaroon Drive was just "a lovely little street".

"A soon as you mention Kendall now they go 'Oh that's where that little boy went missing'," she said.

Ms Bott is still moved to tears thinking about the boy in the Spider-Man suit.

"I still think of him," she said.

Dr Mallett said it would take a major breakthrough to solve the case.

"Sadly at this point I think that if William's final location is ever discovered that may be by accident," she said.

"It's rare that somebody can commit a crime as serious as a child abduction without ever telling someone, so someone out here knows something.

"Unless we have a significant new lead, I am fearful we won't ever know what happened to William."