Day four of the committal hearing into Daniel Morcombe's murder has begun. Follow our rolling coverage for regular updates.

5pm: THE remains of Daniel Morcombe will be handed over to his parents on Friday, allowing a grieving family to finally lay him to rest.

The State Coroner Michael Barnes today ordered the bones be given to his grieving parents after the man accused of killing the teenager provided a written statement saying he did not require them for his defence.

The bone fragments found at a Sunshine Coast crime scene last year will be released tomorrow to funeral directors acting on behalf of the family.

The Morcombes, who have been privately agitating for the return of their son, were told of the news today outside the committal hearing of Brett Peter Cowan, who has pleaded not guilty to their son's murder.

Earlier today, before the coroner's announcement, Bruce Morcombe said it was time for everyone involved to sign off on releasing his son's remains.

"Daniel's remains were discovered 467 days ago," he said.

"He has been not in the family's unit for 3280 days.

"On anyone's perception, both of those are long numbers.

"We treat this as no joy, that announcement, but it is a step in the process to getting Daniel's remains released to the family and once they are released, obviously we can make plans for a funeral from there."

4pm: A WOMAN on the bus Daniel Morcombe was waiting for on the day he disappeared said she "felt sorry" for a boy she saw trying to wave them down.

Fiona Theuerkauf told the court she was sitting on the back seat of the Sunbus when she spotted a boy - who she now believes was Daniel Morcombe - waving for the driver to stop.

She said there was a man standing several metres behind the boy, who she described as having dark shoulder length hair and a goatee beard.

"I was travelling to Maroochydore and we went under the bridge and I saw a little boy standing there," Ms Theuerkauf said.

"The bus did not stop."

She said she remembered him because she felt bad he had been left behind.

"When I turned around I kind of felt sorry for him that we didn't stop for him," she said.

"There was a man standing behind him when we went past and I could see him when I turned around."

Ms Theuerkauf said the man and the boy were not talking or interacting.

She said she noticed the man had a tattoo on one arm but could not remember exactly what he was wearing.

Police later showed her a photo board - or images of different men - but she told the court she had trouble picking out anyone matching the person she'd seen.

The committal will continue tomorrow.

3pm: A WITNESS has described seeing a man leaning against a blue sedan talking to a boy on the day Daniel Morcombe disappeared.

Arthur Whitworth said the man was only a metre from the boy when he drove past.

"They looked like they were talking," he said.

"It was a blue car, it was an oldish car.

"What make it was, I didn't really know."

Mr Whitworth was shown a photograph of a white 4WD and agreed it was not the car he'd seen.

2.30pm: A MAN has described how his neighbour joked he had "Daniel Morcombe" in the back as they discussed a bad smell coming from his car.

Toowong man Rodney Plant told the Brisbane Magistrates Court he had a strange conversation with his neighbour "Klaus" after seeing him using chemicals to clean his car.

Mr Plant had been asking about the missing Sunshine Coast boy after meeting a friend of his neighbour's called Andrew who once visited with a boy named Daniel.

Mr Plant said there was something "immediately striking" about the boy when he saw him on December 8, 2003.

"They were there to see friends ... a neighbour of mine," he said.

"He (the boy) had striking blue eyes and a mole on the side of his neck.

"He looked like he just had a fresh haircut."

It wasn't until he later saw media reports showing images of Daniel that he thought it might have been the boy who visited his neighbour.

"'When I first saw Daniel on the television, it looked like the same boy I saw at the flats," he said.

"I said (to Klaus) it looks like that boy that was here that day."

On another day he saw Klaus cleaning his car, the court heard.

"He said 'I'm using this grease stuff, it's good stuff, it gets the grease stains out and everything'."

They later discussed a smell coming from the car.

"(He said) I've got a body under there, Daniel Morcombe, and then he sort of winked at me like he was joking."

Klaus later became angry, Mr Plant said, saying "Daniel's dead and you're never going to find him".

1.35pm: Outside court, Bruce Morcombe said it was time for everyone involved to sign off on releasing his son's remains.

"Daniel's remains were discovered 467 days ago," he said.

"He has been not in the family's unit for 3280 days.

"On anyone's perception, both of those are long numbers.

"We treat this as no joy, that announcement, but it is a step in the process to getting Daniel's remains released to the family and once they are released, obviously we can make plans for a funeral from there."

He said the family had been included in constant correspondence between police, the DPP and the defence team about the remains but "largely not respected" in having them returned swiftly.

"There are a number of players that appear to have held up Daniel's remains and we are just now going through that process," Mr Morcombe said.

"But 467 days since Daniel's remains were found, one would suggest that is more than ample time for everybody concerned in this matter to do their own tests and be satisfied with those results and cross check and triple check if required."

12.18pm: Witness Tracey Carpentar has described how she saw a young boy at a bus stop with a man and a woman who were on "drugs or alcohol".

Ms Carpentar said it wasn't until later she was a news report of a missing boy that she thought it might have been Daniel Morcombe.

''The boy stood back from them the whole time,'' she said.

''There was no talking, interaction at all.

''The woman rolled a cigarette and passed it to the man.

''Something just didn't feel right - I don't know what it was.

''You know when a kid's head is down, they're either scared or not happy.''

She said the man had scruffy, dark hair and a beard and the woman had missing or bad teeth.

Ms Carpentar said she could not remember much about what the boy looked like but said she was ''80 to 90 per cent'' certain it had been Daniel.

12.06pm: A woman has told how she saw a young boy she believed was Daniel Morcombe wrestled into submission in the back of a panel van by a "well dressed man" who held a cloth over his face.

Denise Lincoln told the Brisbane Magistrates Court how she walked into a Yabulu service station near Townsville on January 3, 2004, to buy a copy of that day's newspaper.

She said she was carrying the paper - which had a picture of Daniel on the front page - when she walked past a young boy at the back of the service station.

Mrs Lincoln - who did not report what she saw until two years later - said the boy gestured at the paper and mouthed ''come on'' to her.

She said she tried to say ''hello Daniel'' but the ''well dressed'' man accompanying the boy became angry and pushed him into a toilet block.

Later, she said she saw the boy wrestling with the man in the back of a panel van.

Mrs Lincoln said a young couple were in the front seats as the boy kicked the back window, the well dressed man sitting on his chest.

''Did you call the police that day?'' defence lawyer Tim Meehan asked.

''No,'' she said.

''I was thinking, did I see what I saw? Was it really him?

''I did go once (to the police) and they turned me away.''

11.22am: The Morcombes are one step closer to being able to bury their son after lawyers for accused murderer Brett Peter Cowan announced they had no further need of bones recovered from the Glass House Mountains.

Michael Bosscher has just revealed to the court his client has signed a consent order saying they had no intention of ordering any further tests from the remains.

It means it is now only up to the Crown to sign off on their release to the family.

Members of the Morcombe family have hugged at hearing the news they may soon be able to bury Daniel.

Crown Prosecutor Glen Cash had asked for a short adjournment to inform investigating officers of the defence's decision.

''I just want to be able to immediately be able to convey that to them,'' he told the court.

''I'd say there would be a desire to move rather rapidly...allow them to put things in place.''

10.49am: Mr Erpf said the crime scenes were particularly flood prone and would have ''gone under'' even in a one-in-10-year storm.

''It just shows the site, even in a small storm, would go under water,'' he said.

10.43am: Police called in a Sunshine Coast Regional Council hydrologist to give advice on where remains could have ended up after the 2011 Queensland floods.

Investigators knew flood waters had moved through the Glass House Mountains crime scenes months before they began searching for Daniel Morcombe's remains and sought expert advice on where they should start digging.

Hydrologist Michael Erpf said the council was able to use a complex computer model developed for the Caloundra South Development that showed flood prone areas in a one-in-100-year flooding event.

''Flood flows can alter terrain and move debris around, particularly over the course of time and also carry large deposits of sediment,'' Mr Erpf said.

''Having that flood model and the digital data we had helped to inform the police officers on the site to understand how the flood waters entered the site and how the sand was deposited.''

Mr Bosscher said police had an area where they believed the remains would be found but wanted to gain an understanding about whether the bones would have shifted.

''That was my understanding,'' Mr Erpf said.

10.25am: Glass House Mountains crime scenes where police recovered bones would have been inundated during the Queensland floods, a geotechnical expert has told the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

Graham Smith, director of Sunshine Coast firm GEO Consulting, was called in by police in August 2011 to give geotechnical advice - or a profile of the soil at the crime scene.

The court heard police were hoping Mr Smith could tell them how deep they had to dig to reach the level the soil would have been at in 2003.

''They were also after what impact different acts of nature would have had on that particular site,'' Mr Bosscher said.

''What effects water flow, floods, etc might have had over a period of time.''

Mr Smith told the court there was anecdotal evidence the January and February floods had covered the Glass House Mountains crime scenes, including filling a disused sand mine.

9.57am: A third expert who performed DNA tests on bones found in the Glass House Mountains believes they belong to Daniel Morcombe, the Brisbane Magistrates Court has heard.

Dr Jeremy Austin, a DNA expert from the University of Adelaide, tested DNA samples from part of a humerus bone against samples from four members of the Morcombe family and received matches for all.

Daniel was lured away from a Sunshine Coast bus stop and murdered in 2003.

Brett Peter Cowan, 43, has been charged with his murder.

Seventeen ''skeletal elements'' were discovered during extensive searching in the Glass House Mountains in 2011.

The court has previously heard from scientists who have compared the bones to DNA taken from Daniel's mother Denise and a toothbrush believed to have been used by the Sunshine Coast teenager.

Both mitochondrial DNA testing - comparing samples against female family members - and Y chromosome testing was done.

''Y chromosome testing allows us to look at the paternal line of the family tree,'' Dr Austin said.

He said he was given a sample of bone on August 24, 2011, and the following day was brought family members' DNA samples to use as a comparison.

The court heard the method of DNA testing was particularly sensitive to contamination.

Dr Austin said he worked in three separate laboratories with a full protective suit, face mask and at least two pairs of gloves to ensure the samples were not contaminated.

''Of course you have no ability to control or influence what has happened...prior to it being delivered into your possession?'' defence lawyer Michael Bosscher asked.

''It is possible of course...contamination has already occurred.''

Dr Austin said a high intensity UV light and a procedure where the top layer of bone is stripped from the sample is used to remove any contaminates.

Mr Bosscher also argued there was no Australian database in existence to determine how many people might share the same DNA sequences - or might have also matched DNA sequences from the bones found at the Glass House Mountains.

He said despite Dr Austin saying the samples had matched, the tests could only determine Daniel could not be ruled out as the owner of the bones.

"The highest that you put was that they cannot exclude Daniel Morcombe,'' Mr Bosscher said.

''Yes, that's correct,'' Dr Austin said.

Crown Prosecutor Glen Cash asked Dr Austin whether there was any real chance that the bone sample he tested had been contaminated with all the controls put in place.

''I have never (in 10 to 12 years) detected a clear signal of contamination,'' he said.

Earlier, when search crews uncovered bones from a Glass House Mountains crime scene, they drove them to the house of a senior pathologist and laid them on the table under his veranda.

The initial examination of a left humerus, left tibia and left fibula thought to be Daniel Morcombe's was in stark contrast to later examinations of bones carried out in sterile laboratories behind screens preventing scientists from so much as breathing on them.

The unusual revelation was made on day three of the committal hearing into Daniel Morcombe's murder during the cross-examination of Professor Peter Ellis, a pathologist of more than 30 years experience.

Brett Peter Cowan, 43, has been charged with five offences, including murder, over the teenager's death.

The Brisbane Magistrates Court heard the bones were driven to the professor's house by Detective Sergeant Graeme Farlow and forensic biologist Kirsty Wright on August 21, 2011.

Police at the time had been seeking advice to ensure the bones were human.

Prof Ellis later conducted an autopsy, but was unable to determine a cause of death from the remains recovered.

Defence lawyer Michael Bosscher said that while steps were taken to prevent contamination, it had "clearly" not been a controlled environment.

"You indicate in your statutory declaration that that was done using careful isolation protocols to maintain DNA integrity," he said.

Prof Ellis agreed, saying he changed gloves between the handling of each bone and placed a sterile sheet over the table.

"Kirsty Wright is actually a forensic biologist so she made sure that we were suitably protected, if that's the right word, or the bones were suitably protected from me by having the mask and the sterile unused gloves," he said.

"It was actually done on the table under the veranda, quite literally, and that was covered by a sheet.

"Not one of our sheets, but a disposable paper sheet to protect it from anything on the table."

On Tuesday, the court heard some of the bones later underwent DNA testing in a New Zealand laboratory where scientists worked behind screens and wore hats, face masks, glasses, lab coats, booties and two pairs of gloves.

"I have an image in my mind of a James Bond movie where you are all in semi-space suits," Mr Bosscher told NZ-based forensic scientist Catherine McGovern.

Ms McGovern said there was no indication the samples had been contaminated.

It is believed Cowan will contest the charges.

Originally published as Morcombe crime scenes flooded