The foster mother of William Tyrrell heard a 'high pitched scream like a child' in the bush while searching for her little boy in the minutes after he disappeared.
The mother told day two of his coronial inquest that she could not see anything when she investigated the noise, and thought it may have just been a bird, or her imagination.
'It was like a scream. It was like when a child hurts themselves unexpectedly there's a scream,' she recalled to counsel assisting the coroner Gerard Craddock SC.
The mother told day two of his coronial inquest that she could not see anything when she investigated the noise, and thought it may have just been a bird, or her imagination. Pictured: Kendall, the town where William was last seen
The female foster carer was emotional at points throughout the hearing which is looking into the boy's (pictured) disappearance
'And it felt like a scream. It was quick and it was high pitched and it was sharp,' she recalled.
She said she went into reeds where she thought the noise was coming from.
'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.
'I thought I'm just going to walk back. And I walked back'.
The female foster carer was emotional at points throughout the hearing which is looking into the boy's disappearance from a Kendall home on the NSW mid north coast on September 12, 2014.
She described in vivid detail how silence gripped the house when William vanished.
'I couldn't hear a thing. It was silent. There was no wind. No birds. Nothing. Couldn't hear a thing.
'All I could think was why can't I hear him? Why can't I see the red (of his Spiderman suit)?
'I'm standing there and - why can't I see him? Why can't I hear him.
'It was silence. I couldn't hear a thing.'
The foster mother (pictured) of William Tyrrell heard a 'high pitched scream like a child' in the bush while searching for her little boy in the minutes after he disappeared
In September 2014, the William Tyrell (pictured) vanished without a trace from the front garden of his foster grandmother's home
A lawyer for Bill Spedding, once described as a person of interest in the child's disappearance, questioned the foster mother about a phone call she made to the washing machine repairman the day he disappeared.
The foster mother said when she and the family arrived at her mother's home in Kendall that week, one of the first things her mother did was complain about her washing machine.
'(She said) the washing machine's broken, you won't be able to do any clothes,' she told the inquest on Tuesday.
'I felt more frustrated for mum.
'I found out afterwards it had been a couple of weeks she hadn't been able to do her washing and that was unreasonable'.
The inquest was shown a police statement where the foster mother recalled ringing Mr Spedding and leaving a message on the morning that William vanished.
In the police statement, the foster mother recalled she said something along the lines of: 'This is (the female foster nanna's) daughter, can you please call me back and let me know if the washing machine part has arrived.'
Mr Spedding has long denied any involvement in the boy's disappearance and was named by police as person of interest in the case many years ago.
His lawyer, Peter O'Brien, asked the female foster carer to accept that evidence suggested Mr Spedding had been at the Kendall house to look at the washing machine on Tuesday, September 9, three days before William went missing.
William and his family did not arrive at the property until Thursday
