After seven years of false leads, delay and police blunders Australia's most baffling missing child case was blown apart this week with bombshell twists which could lead police to finding the boy's remains.
The investigation which has supposedly confounded police since the three-year-old boy vanished from a tranquil country town in 2014 town took a sharp turn in a wild week of rollercoaster developments.
When it seemed the cold case which has intrigued people around the world would never be solved, NSW Police announced a series of unexpected revelations.
A new team of detectives are now 'extremely confident' that they will find the toddler's remains at one of three potential covert burial sites within 700m from where William disappeared.
As police dug up evidence on a site strategic to a single person of interest in the case, they disclosed for the first time some shocking facts.
William vanished on the morning of September 12, 2014 from a street in tiny, picturesque Kendall on the NSW Mid North Coast.
Hopeful of a swift recovery of a little boy lost in the bush, neighbours mounted a search and were joined by police and SES volunteers, fanning out into thick lantana scrub and then fields and lakes.
The last photo of William Tyrrell on his grandma's verandah dressed in a Spider Man suit with his mouth wide open in a playful roar went around the world.
But as no sign of William emerged, hope turned to suspicion and from lost boy in the bush, William Tyrrell had become an alleged child abduction case.
Despite multiple searches, alleged suspects who turned out to be innocent and a coroner's inquest, William's disappearance remained a mystery.
However this week a new team of investigating police took hold of the case and their new high-intensity search promises to find the boy's body once and for all.
Here's built a blow-by-blow account of how the week unfolded:
The search for William Tyrrell was blown apart this week with twists which could lead police to finding the boy's remains
MONDAY
Morning: Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Bennett announced a massive new high-intensity search in the William Tyrrell case would begin immediately around Kendall, where the boy vanished in 2014.
He said hundreds of police would descend on the NSW Mid North Coast at three locations and search with 'specialist assistance', using new technologies, clearing ground and going subterranean.
He said police were 'looking for the remains of William Tyrrell, no doubt about that' and that it was highly likely if they found something 'it would be a body'.
Afternoon: Police and Rural Fire Service officers arrive at a corner site on Batar Creek Road, around 700m as the crow flies from the Benaroon Drive house where William was last seen around 10.30am on September 12, 2014.
RFS officers began clearing undergrowth with brushcutters and felling trees with chainsaws. Cadaver dogs do a sweep of the area, the size of several city terrace blocks, bordered by a creek and connected by fire trails up the back through dense bush to the Tyrrell abduction house.
The NSW Coroner's Court subpoenas files, recordings and documents from Channel Ten's 2019 podcast 'Where's William Tyrrell'.
The 2019 series extensively interviewed William's foster parents, in part about their distress about how former Strike Force Commander Gary Jubelin was removed from the case.
News breaks that NSW Police have taken out an Apprehended Violence Order against William Tyrrell's foster father in relation to an assault on a child and that the mattter is listed in Hornsby Local Court in Sydney on November 23.
Cadaver dogs (pictured) scoured underneath William Tyrrell's foster grandmother's house where the little boy went missing
TUESDAY
Morning: Police begin digging up the garden underneath the Benaroon Drive house and taking evidence from the ground beneath the home's 5m high verandah.
Police do not deny that they are acting on a theory that William may have fallen to his death from the verandah and then his body was taken away and buried.
A cadaver dog searches the area, evidence is bagged and police feed vegetation into hand sifters and a mechanical separator used for 'challenging materials' set up on the back lawn of the house.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller goes on radio confirming there was 'certainly one person in particular we are looking at closely' in relation to William's death.
The Commissioner says he's confident the current team can solve it and criticises the earlier investigations into the case saying the current team 'inherited what was a bit of a mess and have really cleaned up that investigation'.
'The investigation was looking at some persons of interest that were clearly not, and I think some time was wasted on that, and bushland is overgrown,' Mr Fuller told Radio 2GB.
He said the 'inherited mess' would probably be subject to an internal police review.
At the Batar Creek Road dig site, more vegetation is cleared and police begin collecting dirt samples.
Evening: After spraying the blood-detecting chemical Luminol on the lower areas of the house, police return to look for positive results.
Police do not deny that they are acting on a theory that William may have fallen to his death from the verandah, and begin digging up a garden bed in his foster grandmother's backyard
WEDNESDAY
Morning: Police
