
William Tyrrell: Buried near the ‘Bird Tree' on NSW Mid North Coast, according to explosive new claims
Explosive allegations have surfaced pointing to a new location where William Tyrrell's body could be buried.
It is believed that William is buried near the 'Bird Tree' on the New South Wales Mid North Coast, according to fresh claims revealed in news.com.au's investigative podcast,
Witness: William Tyrrell
.
The claims were allegedly made by the brother of a convicted pedophile, who was named a 'person of interest' to the investigation.
It is reported that the disputed allegation was never heard during the inquest into the three-year-old's disappearance.
The Bird Tree is a prominent landmark near Kendall, the area where William was reported missing in September 2014. It is one of a pair of very tall eucalyptus trees, with the other known as Benaroon.
William disappeared from Benaroon Drive, which is around a 20-minute drive from the two trees, although reports state the area has not been searched by police.
The allegation is one of a series of disturbing claims revealed during a months-long investigation into the former person of interest, Frank Abbott,
news.com.au
reports.
Among the claims are allegations that Mr Abbott, who is currently in prison for child sex offences, also sexually assaulted other young or teenage individuals. These claims were made independently by three people: one alleged victim, one alleged witness and a third man who said he personally knew the victim.
Mr Abbott's history of child abuse convictions was also widely known among his former neighbours in Johns River, a small town not far from Kendall, where William was reported missing.
The inquest looking into William's disappearance heard other claims about Mr Abbott, including that he boasted about having killed the three-year-old and burying him in a suitcase.
Mr Abbott was not questioned at the inquest.
Members of Mr Abbott's family have told news.com.au they used to visit the Bird Tree as children.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Perth Now
31-05-2025
- Perth Now
Sister's move after young mum killed
The sister of a mother who was allegedly killed by her husband in a suspected murder suicide is raising money to support the couple's child, now in her care following the tragedy. The bodies of Krystel and James Paul, both aged 41, were found after emergency services were called to a Cairns home about 7.15pm on Tuesday to conduct a welfare check. When officers arrived at the Mount Sheridan home on Verbena Dr they found both bodies with gunshot wounds. Those close to Ms Paul said she was allegedly planning to leave her husband, The Cairns Post reported. Mr Paul was reportedly a registered gun owner who kept multiple firearms at the home. The bodies of Krystel and James Paul were found on Tuesday evening following a welfare check. Instagram. Credit: Supplied Ms Paul's sister, Jasmin Bolt, has set up a fundraiser to support the couple's child, who had sought help from a neighbour on Tuesday evening. More than $10,000 has been raised on the Go Fund Me page, with Ms Bolt writing she would be looking after he niece, along with her mother, following her sister's death. 'I need to make sure (her niece) is financially secure for her future, to help with schooling moving forward,' Ms Bolt wrote on the fundraiser. 'Thank you everyone for your kind words and support.' Cairns' Police Detective Acting Inspector Alina Bell earlier told media the couple's nine-year old daughter had gone to neighbour Danna Lancini's home to seek help on Tuesday evening. 'We provided an immediate response due to the concerns of the welfare of the occupants of that house, and unfortunately upon arrival, both male and female were located deceased,' Acting Inspector Bell said. Ms Lancini said the young girl told her 'dad sent me here because (my mum) is dead', the Cairns Post reported. '(Her dad) told her to run to (my) house and then ring her grandma and tell her that the mum's dead,' Ms Lancini said. 'I didn't believe it …(but) he must've rung the ambulance because when I looked out, the police was there. 'It happened all at one … the daughter was in shock, and the police didn't really say anything.' mental health helplines

Courier-Mail
24-05-2025
- Courier-Mail
Guy's ex-manager breaks silence on fallout
Don't miss out on the headlines from Celebrity Life. Followed categories will be added to My News. Guy Sebastian's former manager and close friend Titus Day have spoken to on the eve of his return to court on Monday for his embezzlement trial. Day has long maintained his innocence relating to the charges which arose after the two men, friends for a dozen years, had a bitter falling out in 2017 over claims and counterclaims they each owed the other hundreds of thousands of dollars. Day, 52, has avoided the media since he was charged in 2020. This week the reserved Sydney agent let his guard down to speak to about his shattered friendship with the singer and his wife Jules Sebastian, whose media career Day also launched and guided for five years. Much changed by his experience, Day acknowledged the eight-year legal battle had taken its toll on him and his family. Titus Day and Guy Sebastian, before their bitter falling out. MORE: 'Guy is paranoid': Aussie stars in neighbour wars Wife Courtney will be missing from the district court on Monday when the trial begins. 'Courtney won't be there because we've both decided it's in our kids' best interest to be protected from it as much as possible. They don't need any further exposure to it. She will be with them,' Day said. From the outset, Day's three children have seen too much of their father's distress concerning the business dispute. Day had just sat down to dinner with them in the family's Bondi home on a Wednesday night in July 2020 when police knocked on his door and arrested him. The intensely private Day, who has never courted media attention, said that the shock of the arrest had been 'very tough' on his young family. 'It's been very tough for me but even more so for my wife and children,' he said. While unable to discuss the allegations that will be put by the court next week, Day recalled the time when he and Sebastian were remarkably close, so close in fact at one time stories surfaced in the press claiming Day's other clients were envious of their manager's relationship with the Sebastians. Titus Day and wife Courtney. Day began representing the 'Battle Scars' singer in 2006, two years after the he'd won the inaugural season of Australian Idol on Network Ten. 'Idol had been massive for Guy but by the time I approached him his career was starting to dwindle,' Day recalled last week. 'I thought he was very talented but being poorly managed and so made the approach and ended up signing him. 'My first album with him went to number one and we had a number of hit records and tours together after that.' With Sebastian's career going from strength to strength, a few years later Day's Six Degrees Management launched the career and podcast of Jules, the singer's then little-known wife. 'I took her from just being known as Guy's wife to being a successful media personality in her own right. We launched and built her Tea With Jules brand. We did all her TV deals, her endorsements and built her profile,' Day said. Guy Sebastian with wife Jules, who was also managed by Day. Picture: Jonathan Ng The joint management arrangement would see the two couples, the Sebastians and the Days, spend more time together. Day explained that a good management relationship is 'like a marriage'. 'Quite often management is like a marriage itself and you become very close friends with your clients,' he said. 'When Guy and I would be on the road touring, Jules and their kids (Hudson and Archer) would sometimes go and stay at my house with my wife. The lines definitely blur occasionally but that's not always a bad thing. My work is most of my life and so it's natural that my clients become friends.' Day has represented a roster of high profile stars including game show host Grant Denyer, presenter Sophie Monk, Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice, singer Tina Arena, and UFC world champion Robert Whittaker. As a result of his arrest however he is today unable to work as a company director. Before he can do so, he will need to clear his name before the court. Asked if he looked forward to having his day in court on Monday, a contemplative Day said 'yes and no'. 'I am looking forward to righting a wrong but I also just want it over. Being persecuted and going through two jury trials is extremely hard,' he said. 'I wouldn't wish what I've been through on anyone. It's been going on for nearly eight years now and I just want it to end so we can move on with our lives.' Originally published as Guy Sebastian's ex-manager Titus Day breaks silence on pair's fallout ahead of trial

Mercury
21-05-2025
- Mercury
Cherylee Masters murder linked to William Tyrrell person of interest Frank Abbott, according to inquest evidence
Don't miss out on the headlines from National. Followed categories will be added to My News. Tony Masters wants people to know his sister Cherylee was someone who used to play hopscotch and skip, and who loved horses, cats and dogs – she wasn't only the teenager who went missing. If more people knew her story, Tony said, maybe Cherylee wouldn't have ended up the victim of an unsolved murder. Her body was found buried in a shallow grave on the NSW Mid North Coast. 'I just feel like every possible system really let her down,' said Tony. Today, podcast Witness: William Tyrrell can reveal just how badly Cherylee was let down – and it is shocking. After Cherylee's remains were recovered in 2006 they were lost again by the authorities for years, meaning Cherylee's father died before the family could hold a funeral. The police did not attend a memorial service for her, despite being invited, Tony said. The records of an inquest into Cherylee's death also seem to have been misplaced, with the Coroner's Court of NSW now saying ' archives have not had any luck finding this file after numerous searches'. The podcast also reveals new evidence linking Cherylee to a convicted child abuser came to light at the William Tyrrell inquest almost six years ago – but was not followed up with her family by the police. 'I feel annoyed that people knew this,' Tony said. 'I just feel like she surely is now just another number on someone's desk. Or locked away in a room that nobody bothers to go into anymore.' Tony said he has not heard from the NSW Police Force for years, but called them after speaking to us about these revelations, to ask who is handling his sister's case. Months later, he has still not heard back. Earlier this week we revealed other evidence tendered to the inquest into three-year-old William Tyrrell's disappearance allegedly links two other unsolved murder victims to the same convicted child offender, Frank Abbott. Abbott, who is in prison for assaulting two girls and a boy, was named a 'person of interest' by police investigating William's likely death but was not questioned at the inquest. He has privately denied any role in what happened to William and was found not guilty of one of those murders, of 17-year-old Helen Harrison. We are not suggesting the alleged links are true, or that Abbott was in any way involved in either case, just that they are contained in evidence before the inquest and have not been fully investigated. Cherylee Masters was last seen in 2000 when she was 17. Cherylee's remains were recovered in 2006 but authorities then lost them. Seventeen-year-old Cherylee spent much of her life in and out of foster care, said Tony, and had developmental challenges that meant she was mentally closer to a 13- or 14-year-old. She was last seen in 2000, telling friends she planned to hitchhike from the city of Taree down the coast to Maitland. She never arrived. She was reported missing, but a former police officer who oversaw the work of the Taree detectives at this time told us he did not remember Cherylee's case being passed on for investigation. Six years later, her body was discovered in a shallow grave near what is now the Brimbin Reserve Picnic Area, just north of Taree. Police 'couldn't tell us anything – not how they believed she died, not any leads,' said Tony, and it was left to a funeral director to show the family that Cherylee had suffered a blow to the head. The findings of a 2009 inquest into her death make depressing reading, appearing to misspell Cherylee's surname and seeming not to acknowledge evidence she was seen alive in 2000. 'The deceased Cherylee Master (sic), between October 1995 and October 2005, at an unknown place in the state of New South Wales, died of an undeterminable cause in circumstances that I have also not been able to determine,' the coroner wrote. The coronial inquest essentially concluded she died somehow, somewhere, sometime. Cherylee was found buried in a shallow grave six years after she went missing. Ten years after this inconclusive inquiry, a woman called Iris Northam gave a written witness statement to the inquest investigating William's unrelated disappearance. That statement describes a teenage girl who went missing from Taree a few years after the disappearance and murder of another local woman, Margaret Cox, and whose body was found 'in Brimbin Road'. 'I don't remember the girl's name but her father was Rex Nolan,' Mrs Northam said in her statement. Rex Nolan was Cherylee's father. Mrs Northam told us that Abbott also used to work at a local market where Cherylee's father had a stall: ' He helped at the markets out there, where Rex and (Cherylee's stepmother) Karen used to sell stuff.' Her statement alleges that Frank Abbott used to describe how he drove a particular back road north of Taree, close to the site where Cherylee's body was discovered. It also alleges a number of potential links between Abbott and Margaret Cox, whose body was recovered from the Manning River outside Taree in 1996. The detective who took this statement, and who worked on the strike force investigating William's disappearance, said this information would be provided to the force's Unsolved Homicide Team, Mrs Northam told us. Years later, she has not heard back from the police. Another potential witness named in her statement has also not been contacted. Cherylee and Margaret are two of 67 women and children murdered or reported missing between 1977 and 2009 on the NSW North Coast whose cases remain unsolved. Inquest files from some of these cases describe failures in the police investigations. Frank Abbott, then 79, in June of 2014. Abbott is a person of interest in the disappearance of William Tyrrell and has been linked to three other murders including that of Cherylee Masters, according to new evidence tendered at the inquest. Frank Abbott as a younger man in 1994. Picture: Dean Sewell/SMH The Witness: William Tyrrell podcast has also revealed major flaws within the Unsolved Homicide Team, including missing evidence, huge backlogs of cases and files sitting unopened on one senior officer's desk unopened for a year. Mrs Northam said it weighed heavily on her that she had given that evidence to the William Tyrrell inquest and ' even though I did say something to someone … nothing's been done or I haven't heard anything'. Tony Masters now wants to see the police investigate these latest allegations, saying ' you think you would at least inquire and ask around and do a little bit of digging.' Abbott and the Coroner's Court of NSW both declined to answer questions. The NSW Police Force also declined to answer questions, except to release a statement, saying, 'The Margaret Cox and Cherylee Masters matters are with the Unsolved Homicide Team, who are also aware of the Helen Harrison matter. 'Any information that is identified relating to a homicide is assessed and relevant inquiries conducted,' the statement continued. Tony Masters is still waiting for the police to get in touch. | Originally published as Third murder victim linked to William Tyrrell person of interest Frank Abbott, according to inquest evidence