William Tyrrell's foster father says he started searching "everywhere" when he got home from a business meeting in 2014 and his wife asked "Is William with you?".
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"Why would he be with me?" the male carer replied.
The man, who cannot be identified, gave evidence at the NSW Coroners Court on Wednesday - day three of an inquest into the three-year-old's disappearance and suspected death at Kendall.
The first week of a coronial inquest to test and hear evidence by Strike Force Rosann investigators is being heard in Sydney before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame.
The week-long hearing into the child's disappearance and suspected death in September 2014 is likely to find it "was the direct result of human intervention".
The evidence is the culmination of a four-and-a-half-year search for the little boy, led by Strike Force Rosann.
William's foster father was in Kendall with his wife and their two foster children, visiting the woman's mother, when William vanished while wearing his beloved Spiderman costume on September 12.
I had assumed in the time that I got home, if she couldn't find him, that she'd already actually done the immediate area including inside and outside the house.
- William's foster father
The man said he drove to nearby Lakewood about 9am for a strong internet connection for a conference call and planned to be home around 10.30am.
He sent a text to his wife about that time to say he'd be home in five minutes.
The foster mother called police at 10.56am to report the missing boy, estimating he'd been gone since 10.30am.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Gerard Craddock SC, on Wednesday asked: "You didn't stop and have a conversation with her (the foster mother) about where she'd already searched, is there any reason for that?"
"I had assumed in the time that I got home, if she couldn't find him, that she'd already actually done the immediate area including inside and outside the house," he said.
"I knew it would probably be best for me to start to branch out."
He told the inquest the boy knew the sound of his voice and he was hoping to find him "quickly" if he came close.
He looked under houses, external fences, pits, drains and sheds.
"Everything, everywhere he might have gone," he said.
"There was method to my madness, if I can say that, searching the immediate areas where I knew he could potentially travel in a period of time."
In a police interview on September 18, the foster father told an officer: "He never wanders. He's not a wanderer."
Tyrrell's foster mother told the coroner on Tuesday she heard what sounded like a high-pitched and muffled "scream" minutes after the three-year-old vanished.
The woman also testified she thought he'd been snatched when it went quiet while the boy, dressed as Spiderman, was playing "daddy tiger".
"I couldn't hear a thing. It was silent. There was no wind. There were no birds."
A widespread search involving emergency services personnel from across the Mid-North Coast and Kendall residents was launched the same day and continued for several days in and around the bushland surrounding Benaroon Drive.
Police on the scene at the time of the initial search indicated while it is possible William Tyrrell was abducted, they were treating the investigation as a search for a lost little boy.
During the inquest proceedings on Monday, the foster mother said she saw three cars on the street the morning he disappeared - including one white and one grey car parked between two driveways.
They (the foster parents) were shouting and screaming off their heads for William
- Neighbour Peter Crabb
Multiple neighbours gave evidence on Tuesday that they saw the "hysterical" foster father running around, screaming the child's name.
"I'm sure if William had been around, he would have come to him," neighbour Sharelle Crabb told the inquest.
Her husband, Peter Crabb, said he "looked in places where a little boy might hide" including driving to a nearby swimming pool but there was "nothing, absolutely nothing".
"They (the foster parents) were shouting and screaming off their heads for William," Mr Crabb said, noting numerous others were "coming out of the woodwork" to help.
Mr Craddock said he expected the evidence would establish William "was taken".
William's final known movements:
- William's foster parents, who can't be identified, were planning to take the boy and his sister to Kendall on Friday, September 12, 2014 but left a day early.
- They arrived at 9pm on September 11 and put the children to bed, no one including the foster grandmother had advance knowledge they would leave Sydney at that time.
- The foster mother awoke the next morning to the sound of William's giggle in a nearby room, got up and opened the sliding glass door.
- She noticed two cars, parked on the nearby street, one was white the other grey, parked close together. They were dirty, had missing hubcaps and tinted windows.
- She did not see number plates but instead went to get the children ready as her husband prepared for a business call.
- William's foster father went to nearby Lakewood about 9am for a solid internet connection for the call. He had a prescription filled at a chemist there at 10.19am.
- William and his sister started riding bikes on the driveway after he left.
- Another man drove past them in the dead-end street. The foster mother locked eyes with him as he continued down the road in an old teal-coloured car.
- William and his foster mother played a game called "mummy monster" where they would roar at one another.
- They explored the tree-lined yard as William's sister sat inside with their grandmother drawing art for their late grandfather's grave.
- William's foster mother made cups of tea before snapping the now iconic photo of the three-year-old boy sitting on the deck dressed as Spider-Man at 9.37am.
- As the woman and her mother drank tea William jumped around the deck, again roaring while playing a new game called "daddy tiger".
- She heard him roar, then silence so she raced around the house trying to find him in the yard. She then searched inside the home in every cupboard and under the house.
- She checked her phone and saw a text from her husband saying he was nearly home after stopping to buy some newspapers at a nearby store.
- She ran out the front and told her husband William was missing. He began searching yards while the foster mother alerted neighbours and then police.
Australian Associated Press
