Speaker 1: Listeners are advised that this podcast series brow contains coarse
Speaker 1: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian.
Speaker 2: I'm Claire Harvey from The Australian. I'm the editorial director
Speaker 2: and I host our daily news podcast, The Front. It's
Speaker 2: been a year since Headley Thomas started visiting Lennox head
Speaker 2: in the investigation for this podcast. Bromwyn Subscribers to The
Speaker 2: Australian get all our episodes first a special way to
Speaker 2: thank them and all of our listeners. From time to
Speaker 2: time we hold special live events where we invite the
Speaker 2: audience to come along to meet the team, share a
Speaker 2: drink and some refreshments. It's a chance to reflect on
Speaker 2: how far we've come, to meet the listeners who make
Speaker 2: it all possible, and to answer their questions. This episode
Speaker 2: of Bromwyn It's episode twenty four in this our third season,
Speaker 2: is a recording from a live event we held in
Speaker 2: Sydney on February twenty seven, twenty twenty five, featuring Headley,
Speaker 2: me National Crime correspondent David Murray, Senior writer Matthew Condon,
Speaker 2: and Bromwin's cousin Mattie Walsh, who's become an invaluable part
Speaker 2: of our podcast team. You'll hear some laughs as we
Speaker 2: gently rib one another, and some serious and heartfelt moments too.
Speaker 2: We reflect on the thoughtful, intelligent woman Bromwin was and
Speaker 2: on the arrival in this story of characters we didn't expect,
Speaker 2: including former nurse Judy Singh, John Winfield's secret daughter Sonia Lee,
Speaker 2: and John's late neighbor Beverly Brooker. We'll discuss the mystery
Speaker 2: of how John became the beneficiary of Beverly's significant estate
Speaker 2: and Andy Reid's please to police and the coroner to
Speaker 2: act on the nearly thirty two year old disappearance of
Speaker 2: his sister Bromwin. We'll hear Hedley and Dave Murray reflect
Speaker 2: on exactly where the new South Wales Police investigation is going.
Speaker 2: On the night, we had a chance to thank our
Speaker 2: wonderful team, including producers Slade Gibson, Kristin Amiot, Leat, Sammaglou
Speaker 2: and Stephanie Comes, and our events guru Jason Hamilton and
Speaker 2: his team in the audience. We're our colleagues Leah Mendez
Speaker 2: and Bianca far Marcus, plus many more, and as Hedley says,
Speaker 2: we're blessed with an amazing crew who are also our friends.
Speaker 2: Good evening everyone. My name is Michelle Gunn.
Speaker 3: I'm editor in chief of The Australian and it is
Speaker 3: my absolute pleasure to be here and to welcome you
Speaker 3: all here tonight. Podcasts are a very, very and port
Speaker 3: part of what we do at The Australian. There's such
Speaker 3: a powerful medium for storytelling, including hard hitting investigations such
Speaker 3: as Bromwyn and The Teacher's Pet. The special source of
Speaker 3: The Australian's podcasts is journalistic integrity and instinct.
Speaker 2: These guys have it in spades.
Speaker 3: It's an unwavering commitment to uncover the truth and a
Speaker 3: strong desire, a very strong desire to make a difference.
Speaker 3: And that is what our newspaper is all about. That
Speaker 3: storytelling kind of brings our journalism to life. It's wonderful
Speaker 3: to see so many of you here tonight. The story
Speaker 3: of Bromwyn Winfield is beginning to captivate the nation. Eight
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people listen to the very first episode alone.
Speaker 3: There are so many people who want to get Behindhead
Speaker 3: and Bromwin's family who are here tonight in their quest
Speaker 3: for justice. We've seen Headley do this before. He's not
Speaker 3: someone to be underestimated. So I'm looking very much forward
Speaker 3: to joining you in listening to tonight's conversation. Before I go,
Speaker 3: I'd just like to finally thank Katie Page and Jerry Harvey,
Speaker 3: who are here tonight. They have been such wonderful and
Speaker 3: steadfast supporters of The Australian and of Headley's journalism. We
Speaker 3: are so very grateful for your belief and support in
Speaker 3: our journalism and what we do. Thank you everybody, and.
Speaker 2: I'll hand over to claiv Thanks Michelle. You guys are
Speaker 2: the most important people. None of this matters at all
Speaker 2: if nobody listens. And more than seven point four million
Speaker 2: downloads of Bronwin have happened so far, that's because I've
Speaker 2: been in part Australians really do care about stories about
Speaker 2: missing women. In fact, The Australian, through the work of
Speaker 2: journalists like Hedley and Dave and Matt, we've been covering
Speaker 2: issues of violence against women in the most important way
Speaker 2: for a really long time. So I'm going to start
Speaker 2: with a bit of a serious question Headley and Dave,
Speaker 2: this is a really hard issue to cover, violence against
Speaker 2: women is as we often so often hear a really
Speaker 2: serious problem in Australia and throughout the world. Did you
Speaker 2: think when you stepped a toe into this new medium
Speaker 2: of podcasting that it would be this issue that would
Speaker 2: engage you the most.
Speaker 1: I understood when I first started looking at the murder
Speaker 1: of Lynn, that underlying that case was the most horrendous
Speaker 1: example of a failure of the criminal justice system, of community,
Speaker 1: of an education, department, of police, of prosecution service, and
Speaker 1: all of those things added up to a failure to
Speaker 1: properly deal with a violent crime against a female Linn.
Speaker 1: But out of that has just blossomed the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do all of these cases that we can that are
Speaker 1: similarly needful. We couldn't have designed it this way. It's
Speaker 1: just happened naturally and organically through goodwill of listeners, the
Speaker 1: good will of people who have come forward to help
Speaker 1: me and offer special expertise, some of whom are in
Speaker 1: the audience tonight. People have been united and wanting to
Speaker 1: make a difference in this area.
Speaker 2: Dave, you're one of Australia's most experienced crime reporters. Throughout
Speaker 2: your body of work as a journalist and particularly in
Speaker 2: your work in audio, you've covered violence against women. How
Speaker 2: do you think Australians have changed the way they perceived
Speaker 2: this issue over the years that you've been reporting.
Speaker 4: I've been reporting on violence against women in one form
Speaker 4: or another for my entire career, you know, going back
Speaker 4: to the nineties when I first started out as a journalist,
Speaker 4: cases of women going missing and their family seeking answers.
Speaker 4: Of course, now there's all these other platforms to tell
Speaker 4: these stories and then more detail. But we've been striving
Speaker 4: to tell these stories for some time and talking about
Speaker 4: changing attitudes. I mean, you look at Lyn Dawson and
Speaker 4: you look at now know as Lynn Simms at the
Speaker 4: request of a family, You look at Bromwyn and you wonder, well,
Speaker 4: how many other women out there went missing and were
Speaker 4: just treated runaways? They weren't investigated properly at the time,
Speaker 4: and then you know, many years later, the investigators to
Speaker 4: pick up those cases, have to pick up the pieces
Speaker 4: and they just in some cases, you know, then languish
Speaker 4: for years and years and years. So you know, fortunately,
Speaker 4: now you know these cases, you know, we've got a
Speaker 4: medium to look at them in incredible debt through podcasts, and.
Speaker 2: You know that's why Headley's work has been so incredible.
Speaker 2: Matt is a national treasure. He's an acclaimed author. He
Speaker 2: has some brilliant podcasts of his own, which I'm not
Speaker 2: going to mention because they were published by the ABC.
Speaker 2: But he's also the creator and host of the next
Speaker 2: true crime podcast will be publishing, so that one is
Speaker 2: coming soon. Matt is such a beautiful writer and such
Speaker 2: a beautiful speaker, and so Matt, no pressure, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about Bromwin. She is, of course the
Speaker 2: subject of this podcast. Matt, I asked you to write
Speaker 2: the feature that we would publish to kind of kick
Speaker 2: off this story in the paper, and you dug through
Speaker 2: Bromwin's writings. What sort of person emerged in those diaries
Speaker 2: and letters that you read?
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you, cir I. Just before I answered that,
Speaker 5: I just wanted to share a thought I had sitting
Speaker 5: there watching you and listening to the audience. In terms
Speaker 5: of the journalism that we do. We get incredible support
Speaker 5: obviously from Michelle and The Australian and our sponsors Katie Page,
Speaker 5: Harvey Norman, but listening to the audience humming as different
Speaker 5: questions were coming up, it's a very unique experience in journalism.
Speaker 5: To have this incredible support base of tens of thousands
Speaker 5: of people you've never met, and to know that you're
Speaker 5: there and you have the teams back, it's very special.
Speaker 5: So I just wanted to share that firstly with you
Speaker 5: before I lost my train of thought. But my first
Speaker 5: introduction to Bronwyn was her writing, and I read it
Speaker 5: very carefully, and I read it over and over, and
Speaker 5: it was very poignant and very touching, and I tried
Speaker 5: to find the woman behind the words. These peripheral judgments
Speaker 5: may be wrong Andy her brother, but I sensed a
Speaker 5: very loving human being, a very dedicated mother. I sensed
Speaker 5: a woman who was trying to make the most of
Speaker 5: a very difficult personal situation. I got the sense that
Speaker 5: she was psychologically and physically in a vice, and that
Speaker 5: she was trying to express herself.
Speaker 6: When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
Speaker 6: The house that was built became John's castle in my prison.
Speaker 6: My children have suffered from the environment that surrounded them.
Speaker 6: I was surrounded by hate and abuse in various ways
Speaker 6: as a child, and am determined not to allow this
Speaker 6: to happen to my girls or myself. Ever again. No
Speaker 6: one will ever intimidate me again, nor will I allow
Speaker 6: anyone to force their opinions onto me, as this can
Speaker 6: cause damage to myself as well as my children.
Speaker 5: And at the end of those writings, she's very positive
Speaker 5: and she says, I'm looking forward. I'm going to move
Speaker 5: forward positively with this. So I saw a woman who
Speaker 5: had an enormous amount to give, but it was falling
Speaker 5: on fallow ground, and she was in a very awkward scenario.
Speaker 2: She wrote beautifully, didn't she She did?
Speaker 5: She did write beautifully. She wrote, to my mind, very honestly.
Speaker 5: She didn't hold back in terms of her emotions, which
Speaker 5: was another for me, a key insight into the sort
Speaker 5: of person that she would have been. To my mind,
Speaker 5: I would have loved to have met her, you know,
Speaker 5: just one of those straight up people, a lot of
Speaker 5: love to give, but was in a despicable situation near
Speaker 5: the end that she was trying to find a way
Speaker 5: out of. And the writing reflects that she's trying to
Speaker 5: keep it together and.
Speaker 7: Move forward in a positive way.
Speaker 2: Helly, get into the big question first, why do you
Speaker 2: think when twenty years ago the police went to the coroner.
Speaker 2: The coroner went to the DVP, no charge was laid.
Speaker 1: The coroner recommended a murder charge. The decision was made
Speaker 1: I think, initially in a regional office in northern New
Speaker 1: South Wales, that there would be no prosecution. And it
Speaker 1: seems at first blush unfathomable, why after so much work,
Speaker 1: with such a compelling, circumstantial case, wouldn't you put it
Speaker 1: before a jury. It's not to say that the accused
Speaker 1: is guilty, just that there should be a determination. And
Speaker 1: I've thought about this deeply over the years since I've
Speaker 1: heard about Bromin's case, and since I've been talking to Andy,
Speaker 1: read and reading the evidence, and all I can come
Speaker 1: up with is a human error. I believe that the system,
Speaker 1: clearly and quite obviously, in this case and in others
Speaker 1: that I've been involved in, fails to grasp what most
Speaker 1: people who can step back and look at all of
Speaker 1: the evidence can see. That there is a strong prema
Speaker 1: face case and that as the coroner, a very experienced
Speaker 1: judicial officer, recommended, it should have been prosecuted. And the
Speaker 1: coroner doesn't make a decision like that lightly. He has
Speaker 1: to satisfy under the Coroner's Act a certain test, that
Speaker 1: is that in his view, a jury would be likely
Speaker 1: to find beyond reasonable doubt that the known person would
Speaker 1: be found guilty. And that's an important bar. It's not
Speaker 1: a balance of probabilities test. It's a strict legal test
Speaker 1: at the higher level. So it's our job in journalism
Speaker 1: and with these podcasts to try to re ignite these cases,
Speaker 1: to refresh them because the families don't have anyone else.
Speaker 1: After the police have tried and failed or the DPPs
Speaker 1: said well we're not going to take this forward, the
Speaker 1: families then go back and say, well, where do we
Speaker 1: go from here? And I think that police, even cold
Speaker 1: case teams, unsolved homicide units, which are a more recent innovation,
Speaker 1: they struggled because they've got limited resources and a huge
Speaker 1: number of these cases that didn't go forward, or cases
Speaker 1: that didn't even get to the stage of a brief
Speaker 1: of evidence. And so we have the opportunity, with the
Speaker 1: resources that the Australian makes available, with the goodwill of
Speaker 1: the listenership and the help of people who want to
Speaker 1: volunteer their time, we have the opportunity to make a
Speaker 1: difference and find new evidence, new witnesses, people like Judy
Speaker 1: Singh who came forward and who many people heard in
Speaker 1: episode seven of the podcast. I mean that should have
Speaker 1: been a game changer in my view. Right there, this
Speaker 1: woman who said that she saw the Winfield family car
Speaker 1: and Bromwin's estranged husband driving it with what appeared to
Speaker 1: be a body wrapped in sheets in the vehicle late
Speaker 1: at night, the night that Brombin disappeared. Now that's an
Speaker 1: eye witness who's come forward with that evidence, and we
Speaker 1: filmed her and tested her. And there was even another
Speaker 1: witness who said she didn't see anything that night. She
Speaker 1: wasn't there that night, but she had contact with Judy
Speaker 1: who had clearly over the years been up said about
Speaker 1: this and having the burden of this information and seeing
Speaker 1: nothing done about it, all we can promise Andy and
Speaker 1: Michelle and Caitlin and all of the Reed family is
Speaker 1: that we'll keep trying. We'll keep trying to find new evidence.
Speaker 1: And it's not our job to directly pressure the DPP
Speaker 1: or the police. They have to do their job independently.
Speaker 1: But we believe that with the weight of the evidence
Speaker 1: that comes out, we hope that it gets to a
Speaker 1: tipping point where skilled prosecutors say, well, this is more
Speaker 1: than enough, we can make something of this.
Speaker 2: Dave, what do you think the delay in this case
Speaker 2: has done to it? You know, the fact that charges
Speaker 2: were not laid in two and two when the coroner
Speaker 2: recommended that they should be, and of course John Winfield
Speaker 2: denies any wrongdoing and that that is yet to be
Speaker 2: tested in any kind of court. We've seen a significant
Speaker 2: delay there. In a very separate matter, Chris Dawson is
Speaker 2: still pursuing his right to appeal. He's now telling the
Speaker 2: High Court that because of delays and what is called
Speaker 2: forensic disadvantage in the legal system, he can't get a
Speaker 2: fair trial. He couldn't get a fair trial because police
Speaker 2: delayed for so long. What do you think about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we're eagerly awaiting that decision of Chris Dawson's appeal.
Speaker 4: I know that delay was cited in the letter that
Speaker 4: Nicholas cardre the DPP way back at the time of
Speaker 4: the inquest when he wrote to Andy Reid. You know,
Speaker 4: he from memory cited the delay and the initial investigation
Speaker 4: before he was taken up and investigated really thoroughly for
Speaker 4: the first time.
Speaker 8: The disappearance of your sister Bronwin Winfield in May nineteen
Speaker 8: ninety three has no doubt caused much grief to you
Speaker 8: and your family, and I offer my sympathies. My advice
Speaker 8: to police in the coroner, after very careful consideration of
Speaker 8: all the evidence presently available, is that there is not
Speaker 8: sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan in Winfield or any other person.
Speaker 8: Bronwin's disappearance was not reported to the police for two
Speaker 8: weeks and was initially treated as a missing person inquiry.
Speaker 8: By the time it was dealt with as a possible homicide,
Speaker 8: years had passed and any potential scientific evidence was long gone.
Speaker 8: There is nobody and no known cause of death. While
Speaker 8: Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have seen
Speaker 8: her alive, there is no evidence that he killed her
Speaker 8: or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot be
Speaker 8: substitution for evidence.
Speaker 4: That was twenty plus years ago, so we're further down
Speaker 4: the track. I think we've seen that these cases still
Speaker 4: are solvable, even though there is a delay. It might
Speaker 4: be a barrier, but it doesn't mean that they can't
Speaker 4: be solved. It was solved in Linn's case. It was
Speaker 4: solved in other cases that come to mind where women
Speaker 4: went missinging as far back as the nineteen seventies. In
Speaker 4: one case in South Australia, Colleen Adam, she was found
Speaker 4: buried under concrete in the family property. So these cases
Speaker 4: cant will be solved even though they resided delay.
Speaker 2: Now, Headley, when you started this investigation, we had our
Speaker 2: usual conversation where I say, you know, tell me about
Speaker 2: the case, and you say, I think it can be solved.
Speaker 2: It's really exciting. And then you say, I think it's
Speaker 2: going to be six or seven episodes. We'll have it
Speaker 2: done by March. So what went wrong?
Speaker 1: Did I say six or seven episodes or seasons? You
Speaker 1: keep finding new information and if we set a rigid
Speaker 1: finished date or episode number, then how would we accommodate
Speaker 1: all of the people with more information and unpack this
Speaker 1: extraordinary case in the sort of detail that it deserves.
Speaker 1: And I feel that while we still have the extraordinary
Speaker 1: support of the listenership and of the Australian and Andy
Speaker 1: and Michelle and Maddie, who's still helping me wherever I ask,
Speaker 1: she's been amazing, we've got more to do and I
Speaker 1: don't want to get to a point where I say, well,
Speaker 1: we should have done this and we should have done that.
Speaker 1: But we were running out of time, we decided to
Speaker 1: end it there. No, we keep going until every stone
Speaker 1: and every newstone gets overturned, and that is my pledge
Speaker 1: to the family and to the listenership. For some people,
Speaker 1: the podcasts that we do, that I do particularly, are
Speaker 1: just too detailed. There's too much information, that's too many people.
Speaker 1: And I have a friend who says, man, I've got
Speaker 1: a whiteboard in my garage and all the names. He said,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in one of those true crime
Speaker 1: dramas because stuff around. But he said I needed to
Speaker 1: do that to work out all the different family connections.
Speaker 1: He said, I got to know everybody you know, and
Speaker 1: I feel like they've become part of my daily kind
Speaker 1: of routine. Where he was thinking, I wonder how Andy
Speaker 1: is today, and I wonder what Mattie's going to say next,
Speaker 1: which is what I wonder sometimes.
Speaker 2: Matte is definitely the breakout star of the podcast I
Speaker 2: Eat It, Yeah, Dave, There were twists in this story
Speaker 2: that we could not possibly have seen coming. At the beginning,
Speaker 2: Judy seeing the former nurse who described seeing what she
Speaker 2: thought was a body wrapped in sheets driving past her
Speaker 2: window in a car driven she says by John Winfield.
Speaker 9: I saw the car pull out at the end of
Speaker 9: the street and the light was on in the car.
Speaker 9: There's very squeaky brakes on that car, and he drove
Speaker 9: very slowly along the street, but he had left the
Speaker 9: car light on and I could see directly into the car,
Speaker 9: and I had a small lantern on the balcony rail
Speaker 9: and he kind of looked up this night and I
Speaker 9: saw this what looked to be like a mummy in
Speaker 9: the back of the car, and I thought, well, if
Speaker 9: he was taking out belonging, you wouldn't make it look
Speaker 9: like a body.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? So when you say
Speaker 1: a mummy, it was wrapped in something.
Speaker 10: Yes, it was either very pale green or cream, not white,
Speaker 10: but maybe like a bed sheet or something like that.
Speaker 10: And I wanted the police to know that because I
Speaker 10: thought the pressure of that, the weight of that on
Speaker 10: the door might have been what was keeping the light on.
Speaker 2: You were involved in testing that theory and with the
Speaker 2: hardest part of which was obtaining an original which at
Speaker 2: Headley was absolutely insistent on.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was a Ford XS nine eighty seven sedan,
Speaker 4: and absolutely insistent on getting it that day pretty much.
Speaker 2: So Dave and I joined about forty Facebook groups. I'm
Speaker 2: still getting friend requests from Ford xf fans on Facebook
Speaker 2: to try and track one down.
Speaker 4: I remember sitting on the sidelines watching one of my
Speaker 4: sons played football, or trying to watch, while I was
Speaker 4: madly joining Facebook groups, sending messages to people responding to
Speaker 4: ads selling these except Sedan's calling up car groups and
Speaker 4: ridiculously that day got onto an incredible couple out at Ipswich.
Speaker 4: He responded yet very quickly and basically said yeah, come
Speaker 4: come out tomorrow. And we needed to do it that
Speaker 4: quick because we needed to get people down from Sydney.
Speaker 4: We needed to go out and film this in time
Speaker 4: for the episode, which was that week.
Speaker 2: So Healy's initial request, by the way, was for us
Speaker 2: to buy this.
Speaker 1: Car the family, nice young couple who allowed us to
Speaker 1: use their car for the day, and put one of
Speaker 1: our colleagues Bianca. Where is Bianca, She's here. We wrapped
Speaker 1: the anchor up in one of the one of those
Speaker 1: sheets from home. Ruth said, oh, I take this one,
Speaker 1: and so bianchor was on the ground being rolled over
Speaker 1: in this sheet. But I felt that that was so amazing.
Speaker 1: It just showed the team effort and we don't have
Speaker 1: a full time staff team. We have lots of people
Speaker 1: who come and help at at integral moments and they
Speaker 1: help enormously, and so Claire and Dave and others, you know,
Speaker 1: bi Anchor, they just all pitch in and we have
Speaker 1: a you know, it's a serious business and we're talking
Speaker 1: about dramatic and often really distressing stories and angles, but
Speaker 1: we come together and work professionally and everyone gets on
Speaker 1: really well. There haven't been a couple of tense moments,
Speaker 1: and you know, I still feel really bad about getting
Speaker 1: cross last year with someone, sorry Bianchor, but you know, we've.
Speaker 2: Had I've become really worried about hix Plane, having repped
Speaker 2: her in sheets with.
Speaker 1: Stress levels are going through the roof. It also makes
Speaker 1: a huge difference when you're working with and having contact
Speaker 1: with people like Andy and Michelle. You know, they're just
Speaker 1: such down to earth, decent, cooperative people who have supported
Speaker 1: what we've done. They haven't always agreed with some of
Speaker 1: the angles that have been addressed, and I understand that
Speaker 1: they're raw. They're very sensitive issues. Who wants to have
Speaker 1: family tensions broadcast to the world, But you know, they've
Speaker 1: been up for everything, and I'm incredibly grateful that they
Speaker 1: have because it has allowed us to tell this story
Speaker 1: in an unvarnished way, and the human elements, the human interest,
Speaker 1: are really important. I feel that those elements are almost
Speaker 1: as important as the hard evidence of what happened, when,
Speaker 1: how and why. It's all part of that piece that
Speaker 1: makes people want to keep listening, and if they keep
Speaker 1: listening as a chance that they'll share it with someone
Speaker 1: who knows something and contacts us. If we make a
Speaker 1: really boring podcast that sticks only to the black and
Speaker 1: white evidence and doesn't develop the human interest, then I
Speaker 1: think we risk failing to solve the crime because that
Speaker 1: kind of storytelling is not going to engage an audience
Speaker 1: and is not going to draw from the audience that
Speaker 1: person who has that little bit of evidence that could
Speaker 1: grow and make a massive difference.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: A perfect example of that is the story of Sonia Lee,
Speaker 2: who emerged from of all places, the Facebook group that
Speaker 2: we run. I'm sure you guys are all members of
Speaker 2: the Facebook group. It routinely gives me and the dedicated
Speaker 2: Christen Amiot a stroke dealing with the highly problematic and
Speaker 2: defamatory comments that you guys will want to post in there. Dave,
Speaker 2: could you have imagined that the long lost daughter of
Speaker 2: John Winfield would come forward one.
Speaker 4: Of the stories you just did not see coming out
Speaker 4: of this. And the thing I remember her saying was
Speaker 4: that I just want John's daughters just to.
Speaker 1: Know this story.
Speaker 4: I know what happened, so that they can have the
Speaker 4: full story, and then they can be more informed in
Speaker 4: making up their mine's about what might have happened, what
Speaker 4: might not have happened.
Speaker 11: He'll never be my dad, He'll never be my father,
Speaker 11: will never be mates, We'll never sit down and have
Speaker 11: a copper together. I will never break bread with him,
Speaker 11: purely because my grandmother would be disgusted in me if
Speaker 11: I did.
Speaker 2: And then the story of Beverly Brooker.
Speaker 1: We first heard about BEV when we were in Lenox
Speaker 1: attempting to search Lake Ayneswerth, and there were some locals
Speaker 1: who were just making furtive approaches to Andy and I
Speaker 1: and one in particular mentioned Brooker and how this woman,
Speaker 1: an elderly woman who became very sick, had died, and
Speaker 1: it sounded like something that we needed to delve into deeply.
Speaker 1: But there was so much work ahead of us, and
Speaker 1: that weekend at Lenox was really full. We were trying
Speaker 1: to comb a lake because of suspicion that Murray had
Speaker 1: and others had that possibly Bromin was put into the lake.
Speaker 1: I resolved that we would find out as much as
Speaker 1: we could try and contact Bev's brothers and talk to them,
Speaker 1: and we did that, and Maddie and I interviewed after
Speaker 1: some time Jeff Brooker, and Jeff told us his story
Speaker 1: and Jeff, is this just sold of the earth guy
Speaker 1: who talked about how his sister became really sick. He
Speaker 1: felt isolated during her final days, isolated by John Winfield,
Speaker 1: whod suddenly presented himself as her care her guardian, the
Speaker 1: person in charge on pretty much everything that was going
Speaker 1: on in Bev's life, including the funeral. And then Jeff
Speaker 1: talked about the exclusionary tactics that were deployed at the funeral,
Speaker 1: where Jeff's family, Bev's relations were not welcomed. There are
Speaker 1: only eight people there and that was at John's direction.
Speaker 1: He said, this is what beb would have wanted. But
Speaker 1: Jeff new his sister better than anyone, and he said,
Speaker 1: that's not right. How was the funeral conducted? What happened?
Speaker 12: I mean, my brother asked can we help arrange things
Speaker 12: in the funeral? And he said, no, there's no need.
Speaker 12: Everything's sorted out. He's got it all under control. And
Speaker 12: I said, well, can we help with the flowers? Can
Speaker 12: we do the flower No, no need to touch the flowers.
Speaker 12: No one was allowed to.
Speaker 1: Come to the funeral.
Speaker 12: A couple of the people that did attend the funeral
Speaker 12: he didn't want them there. He was very upset about
Speaker 12: them being there. He reckons it was all my sister's
Speaker 12: requests that it was kept private, which is very strange
Speaker 12: because Beverley wasn't like that. She had a lot of
Speaker 12: close friends and work colleagues and she would have been happy.
Speaker 1: To know that they were there.
Speaker 12: At in service, he took control of everything, and there
Speaker 12: was a slide show of my sister's life, and he
Speaker 12: did not have one plato of himself in that slide show.
Speaker 1: We thought, gosh, this is quite remarkable and we need
Speaker 1: to know more and more about this, and so we
Speaker 1: finally got hold of Bev's wills, and it turned out
Speaker 1: that Bev's wills had changed quite fundamentally six months before
Speaker 1: Bev died, and John became almost the sole beneficiary of
Speaker 1: this multimillion dollar estate. He's a total blow in.
Speaker 12: We never met him and didn't know anything about him,
Speaker 12: and it was a real surprise and shop I think
Speaker 12: that he would inherit everything that my sister owned a Birshley.
Speaker 1: And Bev's cousin was all but cut out. She received
Speaker 1: an amount that was a fraction of what she would
Speaker 1: have received and then she wasn't even contacted about the money.
Speaker 1: John was the executor of the world. So there was
Speaker 1: all of this going on. This is so different to
Speaker 1: what we started with. It's got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: bromwyn Winfield. You know, should we be even going there?
Speaker 1: Like what is it relevant to this important murder investigation
Speaker 1: that we're doing. But the answer is it is important
Speaker 1: and it is part of the case because it goes,
Speaker 1: in my view, to character and it goes to the
Speaker 1: alleged manipulation and the influence and the propensity to be
Speaker 1: obsessive about money assets at a very valuable house and
Speaker 1: Bev had that and as most listeners know, bromwin had
Speaker 1: that too. Was Roman referred to as John's castle. He
Speaker 1: did not want to lose his castle and he would
Speaker 1: she you fight her to keep it. So we've unpacked that,
Speaker 1: and there'll be more about BEV in coming episodes. But
Speaker 1: these are the tangents that you have with the case
Speaker 1: like this, where they develop momentum. People want us to
Speaker 1: know information that we had no inkling of when we started.
Speaker 2: Dave, you are I don't want to embarrass you, but
Speaker 2: you are the most ethical and gentle and thoughtful journalists
Speaker 2: I think I've ever worked with a far from heavily.
Speaker 2: Of course, Dave is a pure gentleman, but I did
Speaker 2: have a moment of just delight within this episode listening
Speaker 2: to something that all journalists have gone through. When Dave
Speaker 2: rang one of Bev's brothers, and he wouldn't have a
Speaker 2: bar of you would.
Speaker 4: He He is very wary that I was working with
Speaker 4: John Winfield, and so he asked me that directly. So
Speaker 4: I had to come up with a plan, and Jeff
Speaker 4: Is made it clear he doesn't use technology very much,
Speaker 4: because I was saying, oh, can I send you an
Speaker 4: email from my work email address.
Speaker 5: Anyway, we end up coming up with something suitable.
Speaker 4: I got Headley to text him and just verify that
Speaker 4: he was allowed to speak to it. He's dealing with
Speaker 4: a lot, even you know him and his brother Paul.
Speaker 4: They have just been devastated by the events around their
Speaker 4: sister's death. And Jeff said to me, look, I'm just
Speaker 4: glad that this is all out there now and just
Speaker 4: want people to know this information.
Speaker 2: But Dave, this led us down yet another path that
Speaker 2: we couldn't have expected. Not only were we exploring this
Speaker 2: story of Bev and her final year, but then we
Speaker 2: were exploring the pain of her family, very sensitive questions
Speaker 2: of their relationship with their sister, the fact that they
Speaker 2: had lost contact with her, a little a cousin who
Speaker 2: had also lost contact but who had a deep love
Speaker 2: for Bev. This is part of crime reporting, isn't It's
Speaker 2: probably the main thing digging into these very private, painful things.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: And you know, fortunately in this case, this is something
Speaker 4: that they did want out there, they did want to discussed.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of like an open wound for their
Speaker 4: family and just being kind of completely unsettled. It's prompted us,
Speaker 4: when in doubt, to go and find out a bit
Speaker 4: more about wills and what are the rules around those wills,
Speaker 4: And you know, an experts have told us, Look, the
Speaker 4: other beneficiary should have been told by John Winfield, for
Speaker 4: instance that they were a beneficiary much sooner than they
Speaker 4: were and also confirmed that is appealable. You know, if
Speaker 4: there's cousin Kathy wants to appeal that that's an option. Now,
Speaker 4: these are deeply personal stories, but you can also help
Speaker 4: people potentially towards a resolution.
Speaker 2: So we're going to have a few minutes of questions. Now,
Speaker 2: I just want to were the police in all of this.
Speaker 14: We find it very frustrating that all this evidence is
Speaker 14: coming out and yet there's only just in the last
Speaker 14: episode there was a little mention of the police looking
Speaker 14: into something, but apart from that, the police seemed to
Speaker 14: be not there.
Speaker 2: That's my question.
Speaker 1: Thank you. The police, who had been doing a big
Speaker 1: review of Bromin's case told Andy in i think early
Speaker 1: May last year that following their review, they didn't believe
Speaker 1: that they could take this case any further, that they'd
Speaker 1: been knocked back by the DPP before, and that they'd
Speaker 1: run out of leeds and angles and evidence. Now what's
Speaker 1: happened as a result of the podcast is more leads
Speaker 1: and angles and evidence and witnesses have come to light,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the police have been doing more work.
Speaker 1: They've taken a statement from Judy seeing they've taken a
Speaker 1: statement from other people that the police didn't know about.
Speaker 1: And that is as it should be. That's great. What
Speaker 1: is a bit frustrating is, and I'll speak briefly for
Speaker 1: Andy here, because I think I know from everything he's
Speaker 1: told me, he feels that he is the last person
Speaker 1: to know anything that's going on. The police won't share
Speaker 1: with us or anyone else in the podcast team what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and I totally understand that they don't need to.
Speaker 1: They would have serious trust issues that it would end
Speaker 1: up in episode twenty four, and so that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: But I think that there's got to be a balance
Speaker 1: struck between them being able to do their job effectively
Speaker 1: and us being able to do our job independently. But
Speaker 1: they're being a better way for them to jump onto
Speaker 1: evidence that could make a difference. They can always ask
Speaker 1: at the first opportunity for anything that they believe could
Speaker 1: help their investigation. They only have to pick up the phone,
Speaker 1: and it's that easy. You know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: be obstructive. We wouldn't be. We would share with them
Speaker 1: a contact detail, an audio file, as long as we're
Speaker 1: not breaching any confidentiality. With a secret source or confidential informant.
Speaker 1: It's not a problem. I have done that in the
Speaker 1: Teacher's Pet investigation with the detective from the unsold homicide unit.
Speaker 1: But in this investigation, it's just struck me that there
Speaker 1: has been a very deep reluctance of police to be
Speaker 1: as proactive in going after the relevant and I believe
Speaker 1: important information. And that's really disappointing for everybody who wants
Speaker 1: to see a result here. And I know it's incredibly
Speaker 1: disappointing for Andy and Michelle because they know how sometimes
Speaker 1: this information is just coming up out of the blue,
Speaker 1: and how willing we are to share it.
Speaker 2: I just had today.
Speaker 4: I caught up with Andy yesterday for a new story
Speaker 4: for the paper, and he reminded me of what the
Speaker 4: former New so Wells Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said after
Speaker 4: the Teacher's Patty said, and this is when Chrystalson had
Speaker 4: been convicted, he said, this is the most powerful investigative
Speaker 4: tool I've ever seen for an experienced policeman like that
Speaker 4: to say that things are still pretty new for police
Speaker 4: back then. But we're now at a stage with these
Speaker 4: podcast investigations that I think police should be you know
Speaker 4: what to do now.
Speaker 1: They should have a plan.
Speaker 4: It should be on the front foot, and they should
Speaker 4: see it as an opportunity because it's not something they
Speaker 4: can stop.
Speaker 1: It's beyond their control.
Speaker 4: And they should be ready to get all the evidence
Speaker 4: that they can because I'll never get a better opportunity
Speaker 4: to get new evidence. Then if it's taken up on
Speaker 4: a global platform.
Speaker 1: Like that, they've taken the caution to an extreme level.
Speaker 1: There won't be a collusion. We're not going to cause
Speaker 1: the police to breach any ethics they have, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to breach any confidences. But I think in
Speaker 1: their determination to try to not put a foot wrong
Speaker 1: and not have a judge castigating them in the event
Speaker 1: of there being some proceeding at a later date, they've
Speaker 1: become so cautious in dealing and asking for information from
Speaker 1: us that I think it has become probably a detriment
Speaker 1: to their own investigation.
Speaker 15: What brings you here this cping, Well, I'm a big
Speaker 15: fan of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Our friend and colleague producers Stephanie Coombs, was roaming the crowd,
Speaker 2: meeting the listeners who'd come out on this warm Sydney
Speaker 2: late summer evening and What is it about true crime
Speaker 2: that you're enjoyed in solving puzzles.
Speaker 3: I'm actually an investigator for work, so yeah, I like
Speaker 3: the puzzle.
Speaker 2: The riddle needs to be solved true Oh you're a
Speaker 2: bit of a heavy fan.
Speaker 16: I am, and I'm one of the voiceovers that appears
Speaker 16: in episode twenty one, particularly these ones that are about women,
Speaker 16: women's stories, looking after other women and how unfair the
Speaker 16: justice system is and finally someone gets to tell the
Speaker 16: truth and see the truth that it's a nice way
Speaker 16: to change the law and the way of being.
Speaker 17: I love how deep they go on all the information
Speaker 17: and no question is left unanswered. So I really enjoy
Speaker 17: sitting at home or doing all my work with the
Speaker 17: kids around and having one AirPod in listening to what's
Speaker 17: going on and knowing that Edley or whoever it is
Speaker 17: doing the research is going to get to the next
Speaker 17: point that was a question already in my mind, so
Speaker 17: nothing left unanswered.
Speaker 18: I listened to the podcast fanatically. I think I got
Speaker 18: drawn into it by Headley and how he gives all
Speaker 18: the detail in all the podcasts Teachers Pat. I was
Speaker 18: hooked on and amazing outcome, and I believed him all
Speaker 18: the way and everything he presented, and I just started
Speaker 18: out of interest with Headley.
Speaker 2: I think he presents incredibly.
Speaker 18: My husband is bizarre that I'm coming, but I'm just interested.
Speaker 18: And also he's helping other people by getting an outcome.
Speaker 18: I think it's also the context, like women disappearing and
Speaker 18: everyone sweeps under the carpet and it's just horrendous and
Speaker 18: blaming them other.
Speaker 2: What is it about true crime that you find interesting?
Speaker 19: Just the fact that it's real, and I mean, especially
Speaker 19: in this case, the fact that it's a real story
Speaker 19: that can be solved, and it's just so clever the
Speaker 19: way he's piecing together so much complicated little facts and
Speaker 19: details into such a to be a timeline. And yeah,
Speaker 19: that's why I here. This one's the one I most
Speaker 19: look forward to. I'm always eagerly looking at my up
Speaker 19: to see if a new episode's being released.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, all right, now joining me on stage once again,
Speaker 2: of course, he saidly Thomas. Next to him is Maddie Walsh,
Speaker 2: bromwyn Winfield's cousin and an invaluable member of the team
Speaker 2: on this podcast. I don't think any of us expected
Speaker 2: that we'd be working with a brilliant young person who
Speaker 2: has helped us so much. I don't think you expect
Speaker 2: about either, Maddie. No, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 2: And next to Maddie is Matthew Condon. One of the
Speaker 2: things I love about this kind of storytelling is how
Speaker 2: it helps us look beyond what we might think about people.
Speaker 2: You know, this is someone who was working in the
Speaker 2: local takeaway shop. You know she was a young mum
Speaker 2: dealing with all the pressures of time that young mums
Speaker 2: are dealing with, and yet she had this deep, soulful
Speaker 2: outpouring of very intelligent thinking. Maddie in your family's life
Speaker 2: and you're growing up. What did you know about Bromwin.
Speaker 15: Despite never meeting her. I knew that she had the
Speaker 15: biggest heart. She cared for everyone around her no matter what,
Speaker 15: and her devotion to her kids was like none other.
Speaker 15: She would have never left her kids, and she loved
Speaker 15: everyone around her. She was positive, happy, and just a
Speaker 15: really kind soul.
Speaker 2: What have you thought as you've discovered more about her
Speaker 2: as time has gone on, and the kind of situation
Speaker 2: she was in, because she's closer to your age than
Speaker 2: she is to our age.
Speaker 15: Really yeah, Look, she just wanted to make a great
Speaker 15: life for her kids. You can tell that through her writing,
Speaker 15: so you can tell that through you know, her relationships
Speaker 15: with her family. And it's really kind of confronting to
Speaker 15: realize that she was close in age to me and
Speaker 15: she was going through something that was normalized back then.
Speaker 15: It was you were told, you know, just to suck
Speaker 15: it up and keep going.
Speaker 2: And to know that when now I'm.
Speaker 15: This situation thirty one years later, it is so hard
Speaker 15: to fat them because there are still so many people
Speaker 15: in that kind of situation.
Speaker 2: You're seeing your friends, you know, having their first big,
Speaker 2: serious relationships, embarking on those adult bonds that are going
Speaker 2: to shape their next couple of decades. Do you see
Speaker 2: you know, similar patterns emerging the people around you and
Speaker 2: your generation.
Speaker 15: Oh, one hundred percent, the patterns are still there. I
Speaker 15: see a lot of people I know that are in
Speaker 15: toxic relationships, and there is still such a big fear
Speaker 15: that comes with going to the police or reporting these things,
Speaker 15: because the police still now sometimes just don't listen, they
Speaker 15: don't acknowledge these things. They just say, oh, you know,
Speaker 15: get out of the relationship belief, But sometimes you can't.
Speaker 15: And I think that's a big part of responsibility that
Speaker 15: comes down to the police and what they should do
Speaker 15: in these situations, because I feel like people are getting
Speaker 15: younger and younger and getting trapped in these relationships and
Speaker 15: that and so tragically.
Speaker 2: Mattie's part of a generation which is very fluent in
Speaker 2: the language of I suppose what you will call therapy.
Speaker 2: They know phrases like gas lighting or coercive control that
Speaker 2: we didn't have as younger people to describe situations that
Speaker 2: we are our friends might have been in. Matt and Headley,
Speaker 2: what do you think about that empowerment that has come
Speaker 2: Has it changed things for people of your kids generation?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 1: Gee? I think that the information and the intelligence that
Speaker 1: I get from people like Maddie and my own daughter
Speaker 1: who's just two years older than Maddie, makes me really
Speaker 1: concerned for their safety. And I remember Maddie. It was
Speaker 1: only this time last year that Maddie told me and
Speaker 1: I couldn't get on the phone for several days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she wasn't applying to messages, and then finally she said, oh,
Speaker 1: I had the most terrible experience where she meets her friends.
Speaker 1: She'd been spiked, She'd been injected with something that was
Speaker 1: supposed to render her unconscious like rhypnole. Many just tell
Speaker 1: me what's happened.
Speaker 15: Well, Saturday night, I went out with my friends and
Speaker 15: one second I was sitting at the table, and the
Speaker 15: next second I woke up at home the next day
Speaker 15: and I had this really sore upper thigh and it
Speaker 15: felt like a really deep bruise. I cannot remember a
Speaker 15: single thing. My memory was completely gone. And it was
Speaker 15: a very small bruise and it felt very very deep,
Speaker 15: like any pressure on it hurt. Within like two days after,
Speaker 15: I was very dizzy. I got a really really bad headache.
Speaker 15: I went to the doctor on the Monday. It was
Speaker 15: going to be really hard to find traces because it
Speaker 15: had been over twenty four hours. However, they were able
Speaker 15: to find minimal traces of something they couldn't exactly identify.
Speaker 1: What has it made you less trusting?
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's essentially a day rate drug. I don't know
Speaker 15: whether it's because they feel like they can't come up
Speaker 15: and talk to us.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they do it.
Speaker 15: I was looking into it and it said, if you've
Speaker 15: had one or two drinks and you're destructed, chances are
Speaker 15: the needle is so tiny you won't feel it. My
Speaker 15: friends were all wearing pants. I was the only one
Speaker 15: wearing a skirt. There really is no other explanation.
Speaker 1: She was with friends, and she got out of that situation,
Speaker 1: and she was brave enough to confront the hotel managers
Speaker 1: and try to take it forward get CCTV. They couldn't
Speaker 1: have been less interested, sadly in that situation. And we
Speaker 1: talked about even trying to deal with this in the
Speaker 1: podcast episode as a warning to other young women. And
Speaker 1: you could be in a really fancy hotel or pub
Speaker 1: and some guy would just be using a spiking device
Speaker 1: to try to make you unconscious and then take you away,
Speaker 1: and who knows what could have happened. You probably have
Speaker 1: to be a whole lot more savvy about your safety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 15: I mean I told everyone about it because I want
Speaker 15: them to be aware too, especially considering there was no
Speaker 15: responsibility taken by the pub, And then through talking to people,
Speaker 15: found that it had happened so many other times and
Speaker 15: nothing had been done, and all they really wanted was
Speaker 15: just awareness for it, be cautious of what's going on.
Speaker 15: So they kind of still is that level of hopelessness
Speaker 15: despite being so far into the future from when Brown disappeared,
Speaker 15: where it's like, you know, bad things are still happening.
Speaker 15: Despite being so aware of these things and having avenues
Speaker 15: like podcasts to talk about them or things being on
Speaker 15: the news, it's still so difficult because so many things
Speaker 15: just get swept under the carpet, especially things to do
Speaker 15: with violence against women.
Speaker 2: Matte, you live in northern New South Wales. Lenox Head
Speaker 2: is really part of your community, and you spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time there during this investigation. I'm really intrigued
Speaker 2: about how in this community this story became something that
Speaker 2: was discussed in the surf break at the local shops,
Speaker 2: that it didn't go any further. What do you think
Speaker 2: about that? What was going on in lenox Head.
Speaker 5: It's a very complex question. I just want to let
Speaker 5: you know that my daughter's about to turn seventeen and
Speaker 5: I sought advice from a very close friend and he
Speaker 5: said it's very simple. By a double barrel shotgun and
Speaker 5: you leave it in the umbrella stand by the front door.
Speaker 5: So I'm working on that. I've been living in far
Speaker 5: northern Newsathlales now for about six years. I was living
Speaker 5: at a place called Suffolk Park. But then if you
Speaker 5: just go ten or fifteen minutes south you hit Lennox Head,
Speaker 5: which really is a hamlet that has not changed that
Speaker 5: much over the decades. You can wander down there and
Speaker 5: still find every morning at six or seven o'clock in
Speaker 5: the morning, a particular group of old surfers in their
Speaker 5: seventies and eighties still talking like they might have when
Speaker 5: they were in their twenties, as if time has not passed.
Speaker 5: This is heaven. Let's look at the break and discuss
Speaker 5: things at old surfers discuss. I mean, it's that sort
Speaker 5: of place where you know someone can have the same
Speaker 5: shop for forty years, so you have a very tight community.
Speaker 5: And the fact that nothing happened with Bronwyn for me,
Speaker 5: it goes to the heart of the issue and this podcast,
Speaker 5: the Bronwin podcast, and indeed the teacher's pet at the
Speaker 5: core of both of these stories is something that really
Speaker 5: upsets me. And this might sound a little grandiose, but
Speaker 5: thinking about Bronwyn and male behavior around her, I have
Speaker 5: this thought that the Australian male narrative that we've all
Speaker 5: lived with and accepted since the seventeen late seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 5: this story of the knock about larkan beer swilling yobo
Speaker 5: with a heart of gold. We need to rewrite the
Speaker 5: Australian male narrative for starters, I think in our history
Speaker 5: and teach the next generation of boys that being a
Speaker 5: yobo and hitting women is not right. You are not
Speaker 5: a great Australian And that's why I think we should begin.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry I drifted off into that, but really, when
Speaker 5: I look at Andy and Michelle and I think about
Speaker 5: Bronwyn and what she went through. As Headley and his
Speaker 5: remarkable work unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer to me
Speaker 5: that we have to do something essential otherwise this is
Speaker 5: going to happen over and over and over again as
Speaker 5: it is happening. So I'm sorry if I sounded like
Speaker 5: I was on a soapbox. But the impact of working
Speaker 5: with the team, with Headley and the team, and it
Speaker 5: brings up these elemental human stories that are so critical
Speaker 5: and go to the heart of how we live and
Speaker 5: behave towards each other.
Speaker 2: Matt raised a great point there, But we've been talking
Speaker 2: about all these complex and sensitive issues, and what experts
Speaker 2: say about cocive control is that perpetrators often don't present
Speaker 2: as overtly aggressive or violent. And that's the point. It's
Speaker 2: much more true and more frightening to confront the reality
Speaker 2: that it's the quiet, insidious, creeping control that is the
Speaker 2: most dangerous and that can ultimately lead to intimate partner homicide.
Speaker 2: It's not just the beast willing your bo you have
Speaker 2: to look out for. It might be the quiet guy,
Speaker 2: the apparently sensitive guy. It might be the guy who
Speaker 2: doesn't drink or smoke. Coercive control is strongly linked to
Speaker 2: intimate partner homicide, and there is powerful evidence that behaviors
Speaker 2: like attempted strangulation are often precursors to homicide. Yeah, one
Speaker 2: of the wonderful things about true crime podcasting is an
Speaker 2: opportunity to step back in time and examine what society
Speaker 2: used to be like and maybe hold a mirror up
Speaker 2: to our own society. It's also a bit of a
Speaker 2: like a road movie. And on this road movie, the buddies,
Speaker 2: you two divided by a generation, kind of a bit
Speaker 2: of a father daughter vibe, annoying big brother, demanding younger sister. Maybe, Maddie,
Speaker 2: how do you keep headly in line?
Speaker 15: Oh it's easy, Look, I just tell him how it
Speaker 15: is he's like, can you do this for me?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 15: And he's like, okay, okay, and it works. It works well.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 15: I feel like if I did everything he said, it
Speaker 15: wouldn't be the same.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to get cross with Maddie. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: just got such a big heart and beautiful spirit and
Speaker 1: she strives to help. And I don't think I could
Speaker 1: have got as far as we have with this podcast.
Speaker 1: In fact, I know I wouldn't have if it hadn't
Speaker 1: been for Maddie's help and support, but also for her
Speaker 1: sense of humor. She is so funny, and you need
Speaker 1: humor in these dark cases, these stories that involve a
Speaker 1: lot of sadness and stress and looking at death and
Speaker 1: forensic issues and awful things like body decomposition and so on.
Speaker 1: And we do all of that, and then in the
Speaker 1: lighter moments, Maddie just comes to the fore and she's
Speaker 1: got these incredible one liners, and I find that has
Speaker 1: been an enormous help. And the other thing Maddy's been
Speaker 1: able to do is make a great bridge between members
Speaker 1: of the family and helping to mediate sometimes difficult situations
Speaker 1: that if Maddie hadn't been around, probably would have been
Speaker 1: almost impossible to negotiate.
Speaker 2: I can see a question right there in the middle,
Speaker 2: and please ask us a question, thank you.
Speaker 13: I was curious with regards to John Winfield selling his
Speaker 13: home and if there would be enough grounds to implement
Speaker 13: an order for him not to leave the country or
Speaker 13: if there was anything with regards to where that was at.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I know that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been concerned about that possibility. There's probably every opportunity for
Speaker 1: police if anything happens, to bring back someone who has
Speaker 1: left the jurisdiction. And John Winfield has to have the
Speaker 1: presumption that our rule of law entitles into the presumption
Speaker 1: of innocence, and he should be free to take a
Speaker 1: holiday in my view, like he can go to Bali
Speaker 1: or Fiji wherever he likes. But I suspect that if
Speaker 1: he does, the authorities will know that that's where he is.
Speaker 1: And there may well be even more than that in
Speaker 1: terms of knowledge of where he might be traveling within
Speaker 1: other countries. Possibly. I don't know he's gone on holidays before,
Speaker 1: surfing trips and so on. And if he takes another one,
Speaker 1: then as long as he's bought a return ticket, that's okay.
Speaker 4: Another question my Christopher Heavily, I've got actually zoom out
Speaker 4: a moment.
Speaker 2: Did you find podcasting or did podcasting find you?
Speaker 1: I reckon it was a bit of both. Actually. I
Speaker 1: had my wife Ruth, who was urging me to start
Speaker 1: a podcast investigation, and my cousin Rob, who was doing
Speaker 1: the same. Like everybody here, probably I listened to Cereal
Speaker 1: and I hope like most people here, I thought ad
Speaker 1: Nan definitely did it. And I see that in breaking
Speaker 1: news yesterday. The courts in the US have determined that
Speaker 1: they're not going to vacate the conviction and they're looking
Speaker 1: at possibly reducing his sentence. But something weird went on
Speaker 1: about a year ago when they said they were going
Speaker 1: to withdraw the can against him for killing Hayman Lee.
Speaker 1: That was the podcast that really got me thinking seriously
Speaker 1: about doing one. But once I discovered how deeply you
Speaker 1: can delve into true crime and possibly make a positive
Speaker 1: and permanent difference in a case, which is what we
Speaker 1: did in the Teacher's Pet, I realized that it would
Speaker 1: be impossible to go back to the journalism that I
Speaker 1: was doing before, which was all writing. It didn't involve
Speaker 1: any audio, all video. You know, it's going to be grueling.
Speaker 1: They're exhausting. I mean, here we are in February, end
Speaker 1: of February twenty twenty five. I first heard about this
Speaker 1: case almost seven years ago, but we didn't start really
Speaker 1: investigating it properly until I guess January of last year,
Speaker 1: and we've still got several months ago. Hard to let
Speaker 1: go once you've started, and you also know that there's
Speaker 1: so many other cases that need delding into. You know,
Speaker 1: I received probably twenty emails a week from people who
Speaker 1: are almost pleading for help in relation to someone they know,
Speaker 1: often a loved one, and the unsolved murder or disappearance
Speaker 1: of that person. We're going to a tiny fraction of those,
Speaker 1: but if we do them properly, and we choose well
Speaker 1: slect well ones that can be sold, we can continue
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure whether you're aware, but had these podcasts
Speaker 5: actually have a sort of health and medicinal benefit. We
Speaker 5: were flying from Brisbane today. He was seated behind me
Speaker 5: and I looked over. He was fast asleep with his
Speaker 5: ear podged in and on the gangplank off the plane.
Speaker 5: I said, what we're listening to? Is said, I was
Speaker 5: listening to the latest episode of Bronwin and he said no,
Speaker 5: he said, bear me out. He said, women often come
Speaker 5: up to me and say, I go to bed with
Speaker 5: you every night and it helps me sleep. And Henry said,
Speaker 5: you know what it does, and it was the episode
Speaker 5: that is due out next week.
Speaker 1: Say to deliver the draft to me, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I'll just hear it on the plane. I can't take
Speaker 1: notes so what I want to change, but at least
Speaker 1: I can get a sense of it. So, like most
Speaker 1: of you, I fall asleep to my own podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, we've got time for one more question and then
Speaker 2: you'll have to take your questions out back out to
Speaker 2: the chase just right here at the front. Thank you.
Speaker 20: Thank you to everyone and the panel, Mattie and your family,
Speaker 20: your bravery for coming forward. I've been fortunate enough to
Speaker 20: live in a few countries before Australia, and unfortunately there's
Speaker 20: been a common thread where men do act like that
Speaker 20: no matter the country. And there's a word for that,
Speaker 20: which is femicide, violence upon women because of their gender.
Speaker 20: There's a long discussion of loneliness, algorithms, social media creating
Speaker 20: the void that creates the islands. But I was just
Speaker 20: wondering What were the panel's views on that issue, especially
Speaker 20: in the context of men.
Speaker 2: What do you think maybe about the men who you know? Well, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: she's going to rip into a few people.
Speaker 15: I don't know, like I mean my age, no offense,
Speaker 15: They all suck. I just do think there is a
Speaker 15: lot of change that needs to happen. And I think
Speaker 15: maybe it's because they have been given so many excuses for.
Speaker 2: The way they act. And oh, it's frustrating. Matt and Henley,
Speaker 2: we are all raising somes. All three of us are
Speaker 2: different ages. What do you think about how the generations
Speaker 2: who are coming into their maturity now might differ, and
Speaker 2: whether social media does play a part in their struggles.
Speaker 5: Well, I have a nineteen year old son who he
Speaker 5: seemed to have just missed the TikTok obsession, and so
Speaker 5: he's out of that. Having said that, I've got a
Speaker 5: twelve year old son. His hands are soldered to his
Speaker 5: gaming apparatus, but then he's not that fussed with the phone,
Speaker 5: whereas my daughter is absolutely obsessed with the phone. I'm
Speaker 5: sorry to answer your incredibly brilliant question, would I don't
Speaker 5: know whether we've got enough time in a month to
Speaker 5: do it. It's a very complicated question. But I went
Speaker 5: to pick up my daughter. She was sitting on the
Speaker 5: ground with her girlfriend. They were sitting side by side
Speaker 5: and texting each other. So the idea of dialogue was anathema,
Speaker 5: and I just thought, that's a snapshot of her generations,
Speaker 5: what we're discovering as older.
Speaker 1: I guess Maddie would look at Matt and I as
Speaker 1: pretty old. You know, she's twenty two next week. I'll
Speaker 1: be fifty eight, and a couple of months match recently
Speaker 1: turned sixty. But Maddie had to adjust pretty quickly to
Speaker 1: me picking up the telephone and ringing her.
Speaker 2: Regularly.
Speaker 1: All right me and email me?
Speaker 2: And what's so aggressive?
Speaker 1: And I would and I just go, yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to.
Speaker 21: Ring Maddie and we'll have a conversation and we'll communicate.
Speaker 21: And the communication skill is what we've lost, what the
Speaker 21: younger people, I believe, have forfeited with their obsession with
Speaker 21: screens and platforms and so on. Us coming together like
Speaker 21: this and talking and communicating and having eye contact and
Speaker 21: meeting each other and touching and being able to share
Speaker 21: interesting anecdotes.
Speaker 1: That just should be the norm. And we've got to
Speaker 1: get back to a proper communication, whereby the loneliness that
Speaker 1: you're talking about is less of an issue because we're
Speaker 1: having interaction, we're having normal contact.
Speaker 15: I would like to say, you do often call me
Speaker 15: before nine am.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pick that up because.
Speaker 5: I've been working, I've been working for four hours or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I must say I often get the calls before
Speaker 2: nine a m. As well, I think only when you
Speaker 2: don't pick up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, that's it. Thank you very much for coming tonight,
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 11: And.
Speaker 1: Just an update on the state of play arising from
Speaker 1: Andy Reid's letter to State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan. That's the
Speaker 1: letter that was emailed to her office on December seventh,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. You heard about Andy Reid's letter in
Speaker 1: episode twenty one, the first episode of this season three.
Speaker 1: Now it took two months for Andy to receive a
Speaker 1: very brief written acknowledgment from someone in the State Coroner's
Speaker 1: office or registry. A few lines of text were finally
Speaker 1: sent to Andy in that acknowledgment soon after we disclosed
Speaker 1: it episode twenty one, and in related stories in The
Speaker 1: Australian that Andy had sent the letter to urge the
Speaker 1: Date Coroner to use her powers and order a search
Speaker 1: of the Illewong property. The email confirmed that Andy Reid's
Speaker 1: eleven page letter of two months earlier had been received. Well.
Speaker 1: Andy already knew that the email to Andy Reid from
Speaker 1: an unnamed individual in the Coroner's office did not address
Speaker 1: Andy by name. The email did not even reference the
Speaker 1: name of the deceased. Andy's sister, Romwin Winfield. She could
Speaker 1: have been anyone too, and the email did not say
Speaker 1: from whom it originated. What do we have there? For
Speaker 1: two months, not even the courtesy of an acknowledgment from
Speaker 1: the Coroner's office of a crucially important eleven page letter
Speaker 1: drafted in good faith for Andy by a very experienced lawyer.
Speaker 1: When families seeking answers about loved ones are treated that
Speaker 1: shabbily by taxpayer funded agency such as the state Coroner's office,
Speaker 1: it is no wonder in my view that people like
Speaker 1: Andy reach out to journalists and podcasters to help. Andy
Speaker 1: is aware that the Unsolved Homicide Unit has a copy
Speaker 1: of the letter which Andy had sent to the State Coroner,
Speaker 1: Theresa O'Sullivan. The Unsolved Homicide Unit must have got that
Speaker 1: copy from the State Coroner's Office. The State Coroner will
Speaker 1: no doubt be seeking advice from police about whether Andy's
Speaker 1: reasons for seeking a search of the property at Illawong
Speaker 1: are solid and at the recent request of police, I
Speaker 1: have provided further information to a senior detective from the
Speaker 1: Unsolved Homicide Unit in relation to the suspicions we have
Speaker 1: over the Illawong property. We will follow next steps closely.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, someone in the New South Wales government
Speaker 1: needs to take a good hard look at whether staff
Speaker 1: supporting the State Coigner's Office are competent and trained to
Speaker 1: communicate in a timely and courteous fashion with families of
Speaker 1: the deceased. Bronwyn is written and investigated by me Headley
Speaker 1: Thomas as a podcast production for The Australian. If anyone
Speaker 1: has information which may help solve this cold case, please
Speaker 1: contact me confidentially by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot
Speaker 1: com dot au. You can read more about this case
Speaker 1: and see a range of photographs and other artwork at
Speaker 1: the website Bronwyn podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered
Speaker 1: users here episodes. First, the production and editorial team for
Speaker 1: bromwn Inus Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiert, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca,
Speaker 1: far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and Matthew
Speaker 1: Condon and David Murray with assistance from Isaac Iron's. Audio
Speaker 1: production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and
Speaker 1: original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been assisted
Speaker 1: by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can
Speaker 1: only do this kind of journalism with the support of
Speaker 1: our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman. For
Speaker 1: all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and documents
Speaker 1: about this podcast and other podcasts, including The Teacher's Pet,
Speaker 1: The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy
Speaker 1: and The Night Driver, go to the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot au and subscribe,