Justice for William Tyrrell HE WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

Missing for seven years, the little boy in the Spider-Man suit has been kept alive in people’s hearts

Every morning for seven years, the small New South Wales community of Kendall has woken up with fresh hope that this will be the day the precious little boy in the Spider-Man suit will finally be found safe and sound.

Shortly before 10.30am on September 12, 2014, 10km from the village, a three-year-old boy with wide hazel eyes named William Tyrrell was happily playing in his foster grandmother’s garden, when suddenly he went missing.

Over the next five hours, local volunteers joined forces with emergency services to comb through scrubland, creeks and paddocks, desperate for a clue to where the little boy might be hiding.

He became the town’s poster child for all the wrong reasons. As his missing-persons flyer beamed across Australia, Kendall residents wondered if their tiny town would ever be the same.

“It’s been incredibly harrowing for the entire community – he simply disappeared into thin air,” a local mum-of-two tells Woman’s Day. “We’ve never given up hope. Even after seven years, we prayed he would come home like little Cleo Smith did.”

Indeed, just 18 days after the little girl’s safe return home after vanishing from a campsite in Western Australia, shock new developments were being made almost hourly as forensic investigators swarmed the property where William was last seen.