This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The mother of missing Sydney boy William Tyrrell has made an emotional plea to the child’s alleged kidnapper to let her son come home.

Three-and-a-half years after losing her boy in one of Australia’s most high-profile missing child cases, a tearful Karlie Tyrrell has made a direct appeal to William’s alleged abductor to return him unharmed.

“Don’t hurt him. Just let him come home, please,” the 29-year-old told the Seven Network’s Sunday Night program. “I feel like whoever has him needs a bullet.”

Tyrrell’s then three-year-old child was wearing his Spiderman costume while playing in his foster grandmother’s yard south of Port Macquarie when he vanished in September 2014.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest William Tyrrell has been missing for three-and-a-half years. If he’s alive he will turn seven in June. Photograph: NSW Police

But Tyrrell broke down in tears when she described feeling like “the worst mum in the world” in the aftermath, saying she’d rather die than live out every parent’s nightmare each day.

The boy was removed from the care of his biological parents as a seven-month-old following domestic violence and drug use concerns.

Tyrrell said it wasn’t safe for her children to be around their father Brendan Collins, who was jailed last month, and she thinks there should be better support for family violence victims.

“It wasn’t working and my kids come first, so I had to leave ... I don’t want him in their life,” she said.

William’s foster family remains out of the media spotlight as they continue to raise William’s older sister, but Tyrrell wants her daughter back and believes both kids should have stayed with her.

The troubled biological mother of William has a long criminal history. Last month she pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer and using offensive language at a Sydney shopping centre. She faces sentencing on 19 March.

Police spent days scouring bushland and neighbouring houses in Kendall after William vanished to no avail and a $1m reward for information leading to his return remains on offer.

Members of both the biological and foster family have been ruled out as persons of interest.

If he’s alive William will turn seven in June, and Tyrrell remains hopeful of finding him. That optimism is shared by forensic psychologist and former New South Wales police officer Brad Jones.

“I, like the investigators and probably everyone else are of the opinion that he’s alive, and with any luck and efforts he’ll come home,” he told the Seven Network.

