Almost five years after toddler William Tyrrell vanished from his grandmother's backyard detectives are empty-handed, his family is devastated and the fate of the boy in the Spiderman costume remains known only to a suspected predator.
This year the thousands of pieces of evidence, hundreds of interviews, lengthy suspect lists and countless tips amassed during the closely-guarded police investigation will be laid bare in the NSW Coroner's Court.
Witnesses will take the stand in Sydney on Monday, less than a year after a large-scale forensic search of bushland around the Kendall home, under the command of Strikeforce Rosann's then-lead investigator Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin.
"Until we know conclusively that William is not alive, we'll treat it with the possibility that he still is alive," he said in June, noting the search would rule out that William wandered into the scrub around the mid-north coast home in September 2014.
In 2018 search teams looked for evidence about four kilometres from where the three-year-old boy was last seen nearly four years ago. Source: AAP
Those words were echoed at a directions hearing for the inquest in December, where counsel assisting the coroner Gerard Craddock SC said it wasn't possible - yet - to conclude William was dead.
The first week of hearings will see William's family and loved-ones "set the stage" for investigators to show the three-year-old was likely snatched by a predator, a police source told AAP this month.
Throughout the investigation numerous persons of interest have been identified. Some were charged with unrelated crimes as detectives dug into their pasts, others were cleared entirely.
In 2015 it emerged a ring of pedophiles had been active in the area and were being investigated. Years later, that theory has not conclusively been ruled out.
Police from Sydney and Newcastle searched for the three-year-old in Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast last year. Source: NSW Police
Public fascination with the mystery deepened in 2017 when a court ordered William's unusual family situation could be revealed.
William and his younger sister were in foster care when he disappeared.
The revelation, as with every development in the case, played out across national news bulletins and front pages while sending armchair conspiracy theorists into overdrive on social media.
Hearings for the William Tyrrell inquest will start next week. Source: AAP
The second tranche of hearings, beginning August 5, will be watched closely by detectives as people they've identified as worthy of suspicion take the stand.
The coroner's legal powers mean witnesses could be forced to explain their movements and what they know about William's disappearance - unlike conventional police interviews.
Many of the people have never been named in the media, a police source told AAP earlier this year, adding only "some names" came out publicly during the investigation.
While his foster parents have remained anonymous, their identities protected by suppression orders, William's biological mother Karlie Tyrrell has shared her grief.
Karlie Tyrelll, the biological mother of missing toddler William Tyrell. Source: AAP
"Don't hurt him. Just let him come home, please," she told the Seven Network's Sunday Night program last year.
"I feel like whoever has him needs a bullet."
Investigators hope someone on the witness list will reveal a scrap of information which leads them to her lost little boy and closes the grim chapter.
