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Search for William Tyrell heads for swamp

Police scouring bushland for missing three-year-old boy William Tyrell plan to send divers to a swamp about two kilometres off a NSW country road where they have been concentrating their search after a tip-off.

Investigators earlier said they had confidence in the tip-off that led them to bushland in the Lake Innes Conservation Area on the state’s mid-north coast.

William was last seen wearing a Spider-Man costume and playing in his grandmother’s front yard at Kendall, south of Port Macquarie, in September.

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A large-scale search at the time failed to find any trace of the boy, and it is now thought he was abducted.

Detectives have said it was likely he was taken.

A police source told the ABC that officers were looking for the boy’s body.

Drink cans and stakes, similar to boundary markers, have been found in the search and sent off for forensic testing, a police source said.

The source said they were looking for a Spider-Man suit and any other items of interest.

Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin says part of combing for evidence includes looking for a body.

“The question has been asked ‘does that include a body’ and of course when we are looking for evidence that would also include a body,” he says.

While the items seized at the search zone weren’t believed to be linked to William’s disappearance almost six months ago, they have been sent off for testing.

“But we are erring on the side of caution and we will conduct tests on those items,” Det Insp Jubelin says.

A creek and possibly a small lake are expected to be the focus of day three of the search with water police and divers tipped to arrive on Wednesday.

This week’s fresh search came on the back of a tip-off and information gathered by detectives.

“Clearly the fact and the resources that we have dedicated to this search, we thought it was worthwhile information to follow up,” Det Insp Jubelin says.

Det Insp Jubelin and another detective stopped by the home of local washing machine repairman William Spedding on Tuesday.

Mr Spedding was named as a person of interest in the case after it emerged he was due to fix William’s grandmother’s washing machine around the time the toddler vanished.

However, he has told police he didn’t go to the grandmother’s home in Kendall on the day the toddler disappeared.

Mr Spedding has strongly denied any involvement and police stress he isn’t the only line of inquiry and isn’t a suspect.

Det Insp Jubelin wouldn’t detail who he spoke to on Tuesday, but revealed almost 1000 people had spoken with police during the investigation.

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