When I approached the mechanical workshop near thepropertys front entrance (its a huge shed), the police officer stationedthere collared me and was about to order me off the property until I explainedwho I was. He told me the official search for little Tyler was called off at5:30 pm. .But he also told me that as I was a family member, he couldnt stopme from continuing to search. I asked him was he aware that there were wellshafts on the property - he wasnt. At that time, about 7pm, I couldnt see orhear anyone else outside the house.
I resumed searching on my own, and eventually I decided togo back to the house to get fresh torch batteries. The most heartening sight Iever saw was when I came out of the pine forest. Suddenly there were over ahundred people assembled on the dirt road at the property gates - a huge numberof cars - all parked inside the exclusion zone and refusing to leave. It wasawesome manpower. They had come in answer to calls on social media not to giveup the search. People came from as far away as Macksville, Newcastle and even Wollongong.
I went to speak to the troops and let them in through thefence furthest from the one cop theyd left there. But he turned a blind eyeanyway and didnt stop me from showing the searchers where to go.
When we looked for Tyler we tramped right around the areawhere he was found - with sniffer dogs. Didn't find him until fifteen hours hadpassed and more than 300 searchers had gone through.
The official search party had police dogs that had not beenable to track Tyler. I was within metres of him in the marshy area, and Icouldn't find him either. Eventually, it was a guy who had made a pet of aretired army dog who found him - around one oclock in the morning. He andthree other people - a father, mother and daughter from Forster - had teamedup. One woman heard a faint cry coming from the swampy part of the propertyjust on the edge of the pine forest. They took the dog over and the dog hadbeen giving indications that she wanted to go that way. They found the littleboy lying half-conscious in water a few inches deep, among reed beds. Tyler hadbeen gone since around 10 that morning and it was just 5 degrees.
The authorities gave up on that little guy and we (thecommunity) found him AGAINST their orders. It was five frigging degrees outthere that night, with a river and two dams, and well holes on the property.There was no way some uniform was going to stop me from searching! Later, theyadmitted that the local command got it wrong and shouldn't have called off thesearch just because it got dark.