‘Dead arm’ claim in body in barrel case
POLICE hope their new search for William Tyrrell will prompt someone in the small New South Wales town of Kendall to reveal their dark secret and tell them who was behind the boy’s disappearance.
Search crews wore waders yesterday as they dredged through a swamp in the forensic hunt for the little boy in the Spider-Man suit.
Cadaver dogs sniffed through the undergrowth as police and volunteers spent hours slashing bush for the second consecutive day.
Detectives believe the search site is too far for William to have walked there but believe someone may have taken him there. A WOMAN claims she saw “a dead arm” sticking out of a barrel when a man roared up in a black ute, pointed a shotgun at her and demanded to be let into her housing estate south of Brisbane.
Police discovered a teenage girl’s body inside a barrel in the back of a ute at The Lodge estate in Stapylton on Wednesday, sparking a manhunt in the Logan and Gold Coast areas for Zlatko Sikorsky.
Police believe the 34-yearold, who has distinctive tattoos around his neck, has access to guns.
Police were making inquiries into the disappearance of 16-year-old Sandgate girl Larissa Beilby at a house in the Logan suburb of Buccan on Wednesday afternoon when Mr Sikorsky fled the property evidence as a precaution but were not believed to be linked to William.
Rosann head Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin has appealed for information on any suspicious sightings near the intersection at the time of William’s disappearance or recently.
Local resident Clive Wilmott remembers seeing search parties near the site in the first days of the search but does not recall anyone acting suspiciously.
“It’s fairly dense rugged bushland,” he said. “If you were looking to take something in there, you would have had to know what the area was like.”
The search will return to the junction this morning before returning to their original search area until July 5. in a black ute. The car was tracked to The Lodge, about 20 minutes away, where Mr Sikorsky dumped the car.
He then left in a silver 2014 Holden Commodore with Queensland registration plates 966 WKB.
Mr Sikorsky and Ms Beilby knew each other, police said yesterday.
But they are yet to confirm the body is that of Ms Beilby, who was described in a missing person report on Tuesday as not having been in contact with family or friends since June 18.
A resident of The Lodge said a tattooed, caucasian man pulled up in a ute with the windows shot out and bulletholes through the bonnet, which was flipped up over the windscreen.
“He pulled out a shotgun and said to me and my partner, ‘I’ll give you two grand if you let me in the gate right now’,” said the woman, who did not want to be named.
“We lifted up the gate and let him in. He was a big white dude, tattoos everywhere.”
As the car passed, the woman said she saw a blue barrel in the tray with “an arm flapping out”.
“There was just the one barrel, it wasn’t massive either, it was only small,” she said.
“I just seen an arm, a dead arm.”
The woman spent yesterday morning making a formal statement to Logan police.
Other residents said they had seen the hotted-up black ute driving in and out of the estate over the past fortnight.
Jacqueline and Christopher Anthony said good morning to the driver on Wednesday.
“He’d been staring us very intensely and now, knowing what he is and what he’s done, it’s very nerve-racking and scary,” Ms Anthony said.
Detectives say they are still working to identify the victim.