The lead investigator into the disappearance of William Tyrrell says authorities have significantly narrowed down persons of interest surrounding the highly-publicised case.
Speaking with 9 News, Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin of the NSW Police Homicide Squad said it was “highly likely” police had already come across the perpetrator of the crime.
Det. Jubelin added that police are now turning their attention to a group of just a few hundred persons of interest, narrowed down from a list of thousands.
“The strongest likelihood is that we’ve already got the name of the person involved,” he said.
“I would be sweating.”
He later added: “Even if it is one person involved, I am sure that there’s people close to that person that have suspicions about that person. They’re the people that we’re interested in speaking to.”
Det. Jubelin also said it’s no longer believed the kidnapper is a member of a pedophile ring, but rather that they were acting as a lone operator.
What’s more, the perpetrator could be male or female and would likely have links to the Port Macquarie area.
William disappeared from his grandmother’s yard in Kendall on the Mid North Coast of the state of New South Wales, on the morning of September 12, 2014.
William’s foster family issued impassioned pleas on Facebook this week to mark the third anniversary of his disappearance.
“Where are you William? Where are you our precious little boy?,” they wrote. “Tomorrow will mark the 3rd anniversary of your abduction and 3 tragic years of unspeakable heartbreak and endless tears. Tomorrow will mark 3 years without you, 3 years of not knowing where you are, 3 years of keeping hope in our hearts that with every new tomorrow will come the day that you’ll be found.”
“William, we will never stop loving you. We will never stop looking for you, and until the tomorrow we yearn for comes, we will never give up hope that you will be found and returned home to the arms of your loved ones where you belong.”
William disappeared from his grandmother’s yard on the Mid North Coast three years ago.
It comes just one month after a bombshell court ruling that William was indeed in foster care at the time of his disappearance. He was therefore in the care of the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS), being cared for by his foster parents when he went missing from his foster grandmother’s house.
Statutory restrictions previously prevented this from becoming public knowledge but a Supreme Judge has now deemed this information to be “legitimate public interest.”
Last year an unprecedented award of $1 million was offered by the NSW government, for any information leading to the recovery of William Tyrrell.
