The person involved William Tyrrell makes astonishing claims about the boy’s foster grandmother
EXCLUSIVE
The man once considered the prime suspect in the disappearance of William Tyrrell has described how the three-year-old boy’s foster grandmother harassed him about the case.
Paul Savage – who was targeted by Tyrrell taskforce commander Gary Jubelin before being sacked from the role – described the strange behavior of the woman whose home was the last place William was last seen alive.
Mr Savage remembers going to the foster grandmother’s home after the alarm was raised on September 12, 2014, when neighbors helped in the desperate search.
He still lives opposite the house on Benaroon Drive, Kendall, on the NSW north coast, where William went missing while wearing his blue and red Spider-Man suit.
Mr Savage told Daily Mail Australia that when he and other residents arrived at the house, the foster grandmother “kept talking about how William had been there on the verandah, and then he was gone,” he recalled.
He said William’s foster father was present in the home, but the foster mother was not. For legal reasons, none of the foster families can be identified.
Mr Savage, now 80 but still fit, said he quickly went to the bushy edge across the road, which he knew from his daily walks, to look for William.
William’s foster grandmother, above with a police officer during a crime scene walk through the house where the boy disappeared, was never called to testify at the inquest into the toddler’s disappearance
Paul Savage said that on the morning William disappeared, neighbors were called to the grandmother’s house to help search for the three-year-old who is still missing
Police search the foster grandmother’s home in late 2021 as the task force renewed its investigation into what has become Australia’s most high-profile missing child case
He said some neighbors remembered William from a previous stay at the foster grandmother’s home, when the child had attended a street party to mark a local resident’s 90th birthday.
“The little boy didn’t want to let his foster father out of his sight and followed him like he was stuck to him like glue,” Mr Savage said.
He said it wasn’t clear that first weekend that William was anything but a lost boy, until more sinister theories emerged, such as kidnapping by a pedophile, or a cover-up after an accidental death.
Mr Savage later suffered the glare of suspicion cast upon him when it was leaked to the media that he was a ‘person of interest’ in the case.
Detective Chief Inspector Jubelin identified Mr Savage as a likely perpetrator and illegally recorded a telephone conversation with him from police headquarters in November 2017, and then three face-to-face conversations on Benaroon Drive between May and December 2018.
No evidence was ever produced to suggest Mr Savage was involved and he was cleared by Strike Force Rosann investigators who took over the case from former officer Jubelin.
William’s foster grandmother (left) points out a policewoman while walking the crime scene where William may have gone. Paul Savage (right) says the lady pointedly questioned him before he was wrongly identified as a suspect
But Mr Savage said that in the months after William’s disappearance, while still living in the house in question, the foster mother would visit and ask him questions that showed she suspected him.
Referred to at the inquest of William Tyrrell as ‘nanna’ who was drinking ‘cups of tea’ with the foster mother around the time William disappeared from her verandah, the woman was never called to testify at the coroner’s inquest into William’s disappearance and suspected dead.
‘I don’t know who said to her, oh he could have done it, but she came up to me and got in my face and said emphatically, “how are you Paul”, “what’s going on?” , “Are you okay?” “I want to talk about something,” “what’s going on,” and look at me in a certain way,” Mr. Savage said.
“I tried to brush her off, but she kept doing it.”
The foster grandmother sold the house just weeks after William disappeared, moved out and later died in 2021.
Eight months later, police dropped word that they were now considering the foster grandmother’s daughter – William’s foster mother – as a suspect in William’s case.
Detectives recommended charging the 59-year-old woman with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse, and a brief in evidence was given to prosecutors.
At a subsequent hearing at the local court on another case, a detective from the Tyrrell task force said police told the foster mother: ‘we know why, we know how’. William disappeared and his body was removed.
“It is my opinion that (the foster mother) knows where William Tyrrell is,” Detective Sergeant Andrew Lonergan told Downing Center Local Court in 2022.
The foster mother has strongly denied any involvement and the inquest will resume next month.
SF Rosann detectives have asked the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to suspend its review of alleged evidence against William Tyrrell’s foster mother until after the next court hearings.
