An elderly patient told a nurse before he died he had driven his "best mate" and William Tyrrell 300km away from the boy's home, an inquest heard.
The aged-care nurse said one of her patients was "distressed" when he told her he had driven his friend and Tyrrell hundreds of kilometres north of Kendall on the NSW Mid-North Coast.
Kirston Okpegbue began working at the Uniting Mingaletta Port Macquarie four years after Tyrrell vanished from his foster grandmother's home on Benaroon Drive in September 2014.
One of her patients was Ray Porter, who died at the end of last year.
The court heard Ms Okpegbue was giving medicine to patients when Mr Porter approached her in the corridor and said she "had one of those faces you could trust".
"I asked him what he was talking about and he said, 'I don't want any more visitors'," she said.
"He said, 'I didn't do anything wrong, all I did was give my best mate and [a] boy a lift'."
Counsel Assisting Gerard Craddock asked Ms Okpegbue, giving evidence before Taree Courthouse, whether Mr Porter said "that boy that went missing in Kendall".
"Yes," she said.
"Are you talking about William Tyrrell?," Mr Craddock asked, to which she replied, "Yes".
Ms Okpegbue told the inquest that Mr Porter seemed "distressed" and "quite withdrawn" during the conversation.
The court heard Mr Porter picked up "his best friend" and Tyrrell from a shed out the back of Kendall Public School and "drove 300km north".
Tara Schofield was the service manager at the aged care facility in Port Macquarie and told the court she called police after the conversation was reported to her.
She described Mr Porter as having "no form of mental decline" before he died at the end of 2019.
The inquest continues.
