EXCLUSIVE
An elderly man who was once the prime suspect in the William Tyrrell case has criticized the former head of the investigation for failing to find the boy or his killer.
Paul Savage, 80, still lives across the road from the house in Kendall on the NSW north coast where the three-year-old disappeared without a trace 10 years ago.
But he believes he knows what happened to the toddler – and mocked former top detective Gary Jubelin for leaving out possible suspects.
Jubelin was the commander of the investigation when he wrongly identified Mr Savage as his prime suspect in William’s kidnapping and murder.
The former detective chief inspector was later convicted of illegally recording a conversation with Mr Savage after he left the NSW Police Force.
Mr Savage has since been acquitted and this week mocked the ex-detective when he told Daily Mail Mail Australia: ‘Well, he’s a convicted criminal now, isn’t he?’
Jubelin now runs the I Catch Killers podcast, and in another podcast he shared details of a mysterious local man who had created a shrine for the missing boy.
Mr Savage also recalled locals whose behavior was labeled as ‘highly suspicious’ by the podcast – but concerns were dismissed by the pensioner.
“Yeah, that old guy who lived in the rough woods on the other side [of the property where William vanished]Mr Savage told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.
Paul Savage, once the prime suspect in the William Tyrrell case and who lives across the street from where the toddler disappeared, was fully acquitted and says he knows what happened to the missing boy.
William Tyrrell (left) has been missing for ten years and the ex-lead detective in charge of his case, Gary Jubelin (right), has attacked the police who took over the investigation unit
‘He had a few photos of William, but I’m not suggesting he had anything to do with it at all. Jubelin was in charge, why didn’t he look at it instead of attacking me?
“He failed, but now he’s come out and said if he was still leading the strike force, he would have sorted it out? Ha!
‘Jubelin was always too close to (one of the suspects), and what exactly did he solve? Tyrrell? No, the other one? No.
‘He talks his talk, but he can’t walk. It will probably never be resolved now.
“And that’s all we want: for William’s case to be solved.”
The new podcast claimed this week that the man Savage said was living in the woods, “who had a few photos of William, but he’s long gone now,” was never properly investigated.
The podcast interviews Jubelin and criticizes the work Strike Force Rosann has done on the case since the DCI left the force in 2019.
Paul Savage (interviewed above by Gary Jubelin, who was later convicted of illegally recording Savage) fears William Tyrrell’s case has been so mishandled that it may never be solved
Paul Savage, now aged 80, remembers the morning in 2014 that William went missing and he helped search in vain in the bush around Benaroon Drive for the three-year-old
Jubelin quit after being removed from the Strike Force Rosann investigation into William’s disappearance. He resigned before being accused of illegally recording four conversations with Mr Savage.
He was convicted and lost an appeal against his conviction, and later co-wrote a book about the case, Badness, with Dan Box three years later.
In the 2022 book, Jubelin mocked the efforts of the strike force investigators, insisting he had already tried what they did.
He added that digging up dust at a high-profile police dig in Kendall in 2021 was pointless because it had all been done before.
Jubelin famously organized media walk-throughs, dressed in his signature black suit, white shirt and skinny black tie, into the Tyrrell investigation.
Detectives at Paul Savage’s home across the road from where William was last seen, after Kendall’s neighbor was wrongly targeted for being a possible suspect in the boy’s alleged death
One-time Detective Jubelin, above in signature black suit, during a 2018 police investigation in Kendall into the remains of missing toddler William Tyrrell
In Badness, Jubelin ridiculed its follow-up, Chief Inspector David Laidlaw’s filmed walk-through of Kendall locations, as ‘a piece of B-quality television’.
Pressure on DCI Laidlaw resumed this week via Box’s new William Tyrrell podcast – Witness – in which he claimed the top cop had prioritized investigating the boy’s disappearance while putting aside 19 other cold cases for a year .
After preparing the Tyrrell briefing for the NSW Coroner’s inquest in March 2019, Gary Jubelin was dismissed as head of the task force the same month and left the NSW Police Force two months later.
Mr Savage was called as a witness and heard in court by counsel assisting Gerard Craddock. The police have now cleared him of any suspicion or wrongdoing.
The man with the shrine to William was never mentioned as a witness in the brief, and criticism has since been leveled at the differential treatment of people at the inquest.
Current strike force commander Chief Inspector David Laidlaw (grey t-shirt, centre) with police officers at William Tyrrell’s excavation site on Batar Creek Road, Kendall in 2021
The last known photograph taken of William Tyrrell on the morning he disappeared from the verandah of his foster grandmother’s home in Benaroon Drive, Kendall on September 12, 2014
Since William went missing, police have identified approximately 700 persons of interest, conducted hundreds of interviews and collected more than 4,000 pieces of evidence.
The inquest into William’s disappearance and presumed death will now resume, with NSW coroner Harriet Graham holding another block of hearings from November 4 and December 16, and she will report its findings at a later date.