The coronial inquest into the mysterious 2014 disappearance of toddler William Tyrell has been told alarming details of what his foster mother heard minutes after the young boy disappeared from the family’s yard.
The child disappeared from the NSW mid north coast on September 12, 2014. His fate has never been determined, but police believe he may have been snatched, possibly by a paedophile ring.
Revealing she heard a piercing scream as she checked vegetation near the family home, the unnamed carer said she wondered if the sound was her imagination, or perhaps a bird.
‘It was like a scream. It was like when a child hurts themselves unexpectedly there’s a scream,’ she told the inquest.
‘And it felt like a scream. It was quick and it was high pitched and it was sharp.’

She went to a reedy area where she felt the sound may have come from, but saw nothing.
‘I got into the bush and I thought; I can’t see any red.
‘I thought maybe I imagined it. Maybe it’s as a bird.’
The inquest took a further unsettling turn when a lawyer for Bill Spedding, the washing machine repairer who was once described as a person of interest in the case, grilled the foster mother about a call she made to his business the day the child went missing.
The witness explained she had been anxious that the washing machine still had not been fixed after two weeks, and was annoyed for her own mother who had requested the work.
‘I remember thinking, distinctly, that’s ridiculous,’ she recalled.
The inquest continues.