Speaker 1: Hi, Bromwyn listeners, and welcome to season two. It's Claire
Speaker 1: Harvey from The Australian. Just like season one, episodes in
Speaker 1: miss season two will be available to our subscribers first
Speaker 1: over at bromwinpodcast dot com. Our subscribers heard this episode
Speaker 1: in early October. This kind of journalism where we try
Speaker 1: to solve cold cases, just can't be done without the
Speaker 1: support of our subscribers, so we reward them with early
Speaker 1: access to our episodes and all our stories, pictures, videos,
Speaker 1: maps and graphics. If you're listening later via Apple, Spotify
Speaker 1: or another podcast player and you're wondering where episodes eleven
Speaker 1: and twelve are, there're subscriber exclusives which are available to
Speaker 1: listen now at bromwinpodcast dot com. In those exclusive episodes
Speaker 1: eleven and twelve, there's more than two hours of new audio,
Speaker 1: new information, and case revelations. This weekend, we're releasing episode
Speaker 1: fifteen to our subscribers. Subscribing is the most powerful way
Speaker 1: you can support Headley and our journalism. It's a dollar
Speaker 1: a week for the first four weeks and you can
Speaker 1: cancel anytime. Check us out at bromwan podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwan contains course
Speaker 2: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 2: you by me Headley Thomas and the Australian Father's Day
Speaker 2: in Australia fell on September one, a fortnight after our
Speaker 2: return for Manuel leave at home in Brisbane. I pictured
Speaker 2: John Winfield in his ocean facing house which looks a
Speaker 2: little like a fortress near Lennox Head. Everything inside the
Speaker 2: property must have been spotlessly clean and in its proper place.
Speaker 2: After months of scrutiny and public intrigue arising from the
Speaker 2: first season of the Bromin podcast series, John might have
Speaker 2: been fondly acknowledged that Father's Day by his two daughters
Speaker 2: living nearby, Jody, the eldest, whose mother is John's first
Speaker 2: wife Jenny, and Lauren, the youngest, whose mother Bromin was
Speaker 2: John's third wife. Cristel, Broman's first daughter, lives some seven
Speaker 2: hundred kilometers south in Sydney, and although she does not
Speaker 2: share John's DNA, Cristel had started calling John dad when
Speaker 2: she was five. Her biological father, Mark Davis, died when
Speaker 2: Cristel was in her twenties. Over the past three decades,
Speaker 2: Crystal's views about the fate of her mother and the
Speaker 2: alleged role of John have changed many times. In episode twelve,
Speaker 2: which dealt with the recent defrauding of Crystal by a
Speaker 2: self proclaimed sole doctor, Crystal.
Speaker 3: Wrote, both Mom and I were very trusting people, and
Speaker 3: as a result, I was recently scammed my entire life
Speaker 3: savings by strangers. It wouldn't surprise me if she trusted
Speaker 3: the wrong person, someone she'd just met, and they were
Speaker 3: responsible for her disappearance. I also have other theories, but
Speaker 3: this seems likely to me as I know she never
Speaker 3: would have left us for long. Imagine growing up with
Speaker 3: some people around you thinking your dad murdered your mom.
Speaker 3: I never wanted our next generation to go through what
Speaker 3: my sisters and I experienced, ostracized and at times ridiculed
Speaker 3: for being the daughter of JW. If anyone knows JW best,
Speaker 3: it's us people that actually lived with him and Mum
Speaker 3: behind closed doors. This has destroyed our lives at times,
Speaker 3: and honestly, at the end of the day, there is
Speaker 3: no body. It's all circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 4: I feel this.
Speaker 3: Podcast has only explored one possibility when there are other
Speaker 3: possibilities to her disappearance. Our mum would never want this
Speaker 3: kind of pain and heartache on her daughters and grandchildren.
Speaker 3: She'd be devastated, as I know, she would just want
Speaker 3: a happy life for us, just like we want for
Speaker 3: our children. Thank you to those that have been there
Speaker 3: for us throughout these years. It's hard enough growing up
Speaker 3: without a mum, but having so much gossip about it
Speaker 3: made it so much harder for us, and that's coming
Speaker 3: from the daughter of a nurturing mum aka Brodwin Winfield.
Speaker 2: Currently, Crystal is not on board with the new South
Speaker 2: Wales Police position that John murdered Bronwin. This episode was
Speaker 2: going to revolve around John's side of the story, the
Speaker 2: version that he gave in the one and only recorded
Speaker 2: interview he did with a detective that was in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight. I have the lengthy record of it and
Speaker 2: for weeks I've been pouring over the detail and comparing
Speaker 2: it with known facts as well as highly probable scenarios.
Speaker 2: That exercise has been very worthwhile. It has yielded promising
Speaker 2: new angles.
Speaker 5: Hi Headley, here's the documents sent to us in two
Speaker 5: thousand and.
Speaker 2: Nine on Father's Day. While working out what to do
Speaker 2: with some of the new and yet to be revealed
Speaker 2: evidence in this case and where it should sit. In
Speaker 2: season two of Bromman, I opened an email and his
Speaker 2: wife Michelle Lead had taken some time between episodes to
Speaker 2: do a thorough search of her files and email inbox,
Speaker 2: just in case she had missed something of relevance.
Speaker 5: Stumbled on them today going through my email archives. I
Speaker 5: honestly don't remember ever seeing them, Michelle.
Speaker 2: The largest file is titled Chronology. It is a Microsoft
Speaker 2: word document and the metadata shows that it was first
Speaker 2: printed in November two thousand and eight. It originated in
Speaker 2: the New South Wales Police Unsolved Homicide Unit and one
Speaker 2: of its authors must have been the highly respected senior
Speaker 2: Detective George Radmore. George Radmore and other police from the
Speaker 2: Unsolved Homicide Unit dedicated many hundreds of hours to the
Speaker 2: case a decade after the Baalinot Detective Glenn Taylor's investigation.
Speaker 2: Here is Bromwin's cousin, Meghan Reid, recalling some of her
Speaker 2: contact back then with the now retired George Radmore. Meghan
Speaker 2: spoke as Maddie Walsh went through folders of the evidence
Speaker 2: with me at Meghan's home on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Months
Speaker 2: before the podcast they started.
Speaker 6: Here we have witness statements from nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 4: Yours isn't in nut war and yours are the plastic value.
Speaker 7: I'd layne in two and nine twenty ten with George.
Speaker 4: Add Moore, who I had a great relationship with. This
Speaker 4: was the one case really upsetting.
Speaker 2: It wasn't sold.
Speaker 6: I'll think a lot of those emails are between Meagan
Speaker 6: and George Radmore.
Speaker 4: That's from George.
Speaker 8: Thank you for your efforts last week. I know it
Speaker 8: was draining, but it is necessary to get the full picture. Already,
Speaker 8: you have provided evidence that I previously did not know existed,
Speaker 8: and it is very important to the investigation. It makes
Speaker 8: it all the more difficult and time consuming to try
Speaker 8: to remember things from sixteen years ago, which is why
Speaker 8: the documentation that I have requested is so important. It
Speaker 8: would certainly have been easier if your statement had been
Speaker 8: taken in more detail during the original investigation. However, we
Speaker 8: cannot change that now.
Speaker 7: George Radmore had successfully put away quite a few people
Speaker 7: without bodies, and that's why they assigned him to it.
Speaker 7: He's brilliant, He really is brilliant, and he was so disappointed.
Speaker 2: Michelle Reid told me that the forty three page word
Speaker 2: document titled Chronology was provided to her and Andy by
Speaker 2: George Radmore. Perhaps the detective wanted Michelle and Andy to
Speaker 2: fact check some of the details. The secondary heading on
Speaker 2: the document states.
Speaker 8: Strikeforce Chelmsbrook Murder of Bronwyn Winfield.
Speaker 2: There are several hundred separate entries spanning almost forty years.
Speaker 2: Everything that the police regarded as potentially relevant to their
Speaker 2: investigation is in the Chronology document. The entries are in
Speaker 2: columns under these headings day and time, then occurrence or event,
Speaker 2: then reference document, and then matters arising. The first entry
Speaker 2: is dated nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 8: Jonathan Winfield and Sybil Green meet while students at high school.
Speaker 8: Nineteen seventy Jonathan and Sybyl commence sexual relationship while Sybil
Speaker 8: fourteen years old. Nineteen seventy two, Sybil falls pregnant to
Speaker 8: Jonathan while still fifteen years old. Parents decide they should marry.
Speaker 8: Winfields suddenly ban Sybil from seeing Jonathan in March or
Speaker 8: April nineteen seventy two. November nineteen seventy two, Sybil gives
Speaker 8: birth to Sonya early nineteen seventy three. Jonathan denies paternity.
Speaker 2: Before going further, some important points need to be clarified.
Speaker 2: Sybil Green is a pseudonym. We are not identifying the
Speaker 2: woman who was just fifteen when she conceived a child
Speaker 2: during a relationship with John. John is older than the
Speaker 2: woman we are calling Sybil by a couple of years.
Speaker 2: When I opened the email from Michelle read and read
Speaker 2: the names in the chronology document, I checked the records
Speaker 2: of the Australians Bronman Facebook discussion group as an administrator
Speaker 2: to see if Sonya and her mother had joined. I
Speaker 2: didn't approach Sonya or her mother, but soon after Michelle's
Speaker 2: fortuitous discovery of the chronology document, Sonya approached us.
Speaker 6: I got a message, am I a message request from
Speaker 6: a lady called Sonya.
Speaker 2: And that's why this episode is fundamentally different now to
Speaker 2: the one that I had planned. Instead of revolving around
Speaker 2: John's claims and John's shifting version in his nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: eight police interview of who, What, When, where and why
Speaker 2: at the time of Bromwin's disappearance, this first episode of
Speaker 2: season two is the story of a woman fathered by John,
Speaker 2: a woman who wants nothing to do with her father
Speaker 2: apart from her objective to help Bromwin and her family
Speaker 2: get justice. I'm talking here to Maddie Walsh a fortnight
Speaker 2: after Father's Day as she sat in her car in
Speaker 2: Sydney and I hunched over my laptop at home in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: And there's some video at Bromwin podcast dot com.
Speaker 4: All right, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2: Saturday morning.
Speaker 4: Saturday morning.
Speaker 2: Tell me about this Facebook message.
Speaker 6: Well, I actually got it at five pm yesterday, but
Speaker 6: I didn't process it until today. And it says hello
Speaker 6: Andy and read JW. Does Jodie realize she is not
Speaker 6: his firstborn child. I'm asking you this as if she does, great,
Speaker 6: But if not, then I'm thinking that could throw a
Speaker 6: spanner in the works of her bond with her father.
Speaker 6: Perhaps the words needed for her and Lauren to question
Speaker 6: his truths pre nineteen seventy two. I don't really have
Speaker 6: any info in him, except that the look in his
Speaker 6: eye and the way he treated women as a seventeen
Speaker 6: year old was not well received by a certain fifteen
Speaker 6: year old girl's mother, my grandmother. On her deathbed, I
Speaker 6: made a promise that I would reach out when the
Speaker 6: time was right. As a fifty one year old. I'm
Speaker 6: not sure when that time is, but now kind of
Speaker 6: feels right. I've been tossing up all week as to
Speaker 6: who to contact, as strangely enough, Crystal is the only
Speaker 6: one I feel any type of connection with, but I
Speaker 6: don't think she is in the right frame of mind.
Speaker 6: My kindest regards to you, Andy, You're an amazing brother, and.
Speaker 4: Maddie, you are rock sol girl.
Speaker 6: Your parents must be over the moon beaming proud.
Speaker 2: I know who this woman is, and I'm so glad
Speaker 2: that she's made contact.
Speaker 6: I didn't realize who she was until I spoke to
Speaker 6: you about it.
Speaker 2: Well, when you called me a short time ago and
Speaker 2: you said, hey, I got this message from a woman
Speaker 2: called Sonya, I immediately knew what you were going to
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, which is crazy that she reached out.
Speaker 2: She is the daughter of a woman who was fifteen
Speaker 2: when she became pregnant in nineteen seventy two. And my
Speaker 2: understanding is that the parents of John and Sonya's mother
Speaker 2: agreed or decided that they should marry.
Speaker 6: So was that after his daughter was born.
Speaker 2: That must have been before she was born. He was
Speaker 2: older than her. From the documents I've seen, Maddie, Sonya
Speaker 2: was born in November nineteen seventy two. The relationship had
Speaker 2: just fallen apart, and they'd gone from being prepared to
Speaker 2: marry to estrangement. And this poor young girl is having
Speaker 2: John's baby. So when you got that message from Sonya,
Speaker 2: what were you thinking?
Speaker 6: I was still stuck trying to figure out how she
Speaker 6: knew this and how she was related.
Speaker 2: And she does describe a little cryptically in that key sentence,
Speaker 2: doesn't she It.
Speaker 6: Wasn't as though she said I am John's first daughter.
Speaker 2: She's asking whether Jody knows that Sonya is actually John's
Speaker 2: first child? But why is that important to Sonya?
Speaker 4: Too?
Speaker 6: Kind of breakdown that layer of trust that John and
Speaker 6: Jody have shown that they have with each other, that
Speaker 6: maybe Jody will take a step back and reevaluate what
Speaker 6: her father has told her and all the truths he
Speaker 6: has supposedly told her, and maybe rethink that not everything
Speaker 6: is the truth.
Speaker 2: That does sound like it's part of her motivation.
Speaker 6: And I don't know many people who know about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a very well kept secret. I don't
Speaker 2: think she's had any contact at all with her father.
Speaker 6: I get that impression because she says pre nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 6: I don't really have any info on him, which means
Speaker 6: since she was born, she hasn't ever known him. Quite possibly,
Speaker 6: her mother told her who her father was, but she
Speaker 6: never had a relationship with him. And since this podcast
Speaker 6: has come out, she's heard about him and she's felt
Speaker 6: that she should reach.
Speaker 2: Out this deathbed point. What do you take from that.
Speaker 6: Well, it's almost as though her grandmother, Sonya's grandmother knew
Speaker 6: that John wasn't a good person. Her grandmother had this
Speaker 6: inkling that something wasn't quite right with him, and the
Speaker 6: fact that she felt the need to tell Sonya on
Speaker 6: her deathbed. We don't know much about John previous to
Speaker 6: his first two wives. This is the earliest recollection of
Speaker 6: any kind of relationship. It seems as though his behavior
Speaker 6: wasn't good.
Speaker 2: Then he's taken no responsibility for the care and upbringing
Speaker 2: of his first child.
Speaker 6: He doesn't seem like Sonya wants to know her father.
Speaker 6: It's almost as though she wants Jodie to know the
Speaker 6: truth about her father and Lauren to know that their
Speaker 6: father isn't as great as he may seem. If she
Speaker 6: really doesn't know, and she doesn't know this information, it
Speaker 6: might cause her to take a little step back and
Speaker 6: kind of really think about it.
Speaker 2: Sonya's mother would have been John's first wife if things
Speaker 2: had turned out differently.
Speaker 6: If everything else played out, four wives or by the
Speaker 6: time he was thirty Now, honestly, to me, that's weird behavior.
Speaker 6: Who knows about this and just hasn't mentioned it. If
Speaker 6: Lauren's aware, if Jodie's aware, I don't know. Would he
Speaker 6: have confided that in them when they got older.
Speaker 2: It also seems from the tone of that message that
Speaker 2: she's formed a view of John, which is the same
Speaker 2: view that the police and others have formed of John
Speaker 2: as being responsible for Bromwin's disappearance.
Speaker 6: It's just stuff coming out of the wouldwork like this
Speaker 6: that changes a lot in terms of someone's character and
Speaker 6: skeletons in the closet could.
Speaker 2: Say, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of
Speaker 2: someone who's to become involved in a physical relationship with
Speaker 2: a girl. She's far too young, But he's also very
Speaker 2: young too. He's not a man in his thirties. His
Speaker 2: brain is still developing at that age. However, on the
Speaker 2: character point, the failure to be prepared to try to
Speaker 2: support her contribute to her upbringing and education and her needs.
Speaker 6: This does add into John's behaviors and patterns as well
Speaker 6: of John's parents and his mother, and the constant need
Speaker 6: to push the women away if they step on the
Speaker 6: wrong toes or something happens. We know he tried to
Speaker 6: pay off Jenny with Jodie for John to have City.
Speaker 2: Maddie is referring to evidence given to the police by
Speaker 2: John's first wife, Jennifer in the lead up to the
Speaker 2: two thousand and two inquest. You heard some of it
Speaker 2: in episode ten.
Speaker 9: I remember John's mother saying something like no woman walks
Speaker 9: out on my son. I recall John's parents turned up
Speaker 9: one day with John and they.
Speaker 4: Picked up Jody and walked out the door.
Speaker 9: Grandma Winfield said, when you get your act together, you
Speaker 9: can have a back. I blame myself now, but at
Speaker 9: the time I didn't understand the laws properly, and I
Speaker 9: was depressed and having problems with my life. And after
Speaker 9: this John and myself initiated divorce proceedings. John offered me
Speaker 9: twenty thousand dollars so he could keep custody of Jody.
Speaker 9: I told him to stick his twenty thousand dollars and
Speaker 9: take good care of Jody, and that's how John ended
Speaker 9: up having custody of her. The way I was at
Speaker 9: the time, I was mentally depressed and I'd become suicidal.
Speaker 9: John wouldn't allow me to visit already at school, and
Speaker 9: they constantly pushed me away from her. I used to
Speaker 9: sit outside the school watching Jody play at lunchtime in
Speaker 9: the school grounds.
Speaker 6: There's this controlling nature that kind of threads through the family,
Speaker 6: trying to gain control of the situation and pushing people
Speaker 6: away when it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Go the way they want.
Speaker 6: It would have been John's parents at that stage making
Speaker 6: the decisions for John, I would assume, especially his mother,
Speaker 6: given how much we know he adored her and how
Speaker 6: much of a part she had in his life. I
Speaker 6: do definitely think it would have been more of his
Speaker 6: mother's decision to get Sonya and her mother out of
Speaker 6: his life. Why are the women not being kept around?
Speaker 6: Is it based on they're not perfect enough for John?
Speaker 6: Or no, they're not perfect enough for John's mother.
Speaker 2: Shortly before her disappearance, Bromwin wrote about John, his and
Speaker 2: her unhappiness, perfectionism, and John's mother. Here it is in
Speaker 2: the first episode.
Speaker 10: I drifted away from John as he became more and
Speaker 10: more depressed about the house being less than immaculate and
Speaker 10: the death of his mother, the only woman he thought
Speaker 10: was perfect. Eventually I switched off and became cold inside.
Speaker 10: He had a heart of ice and always criticized me
Speaker 10: no matter what I did. The man was cold and
Speaker 10: heartless and gave nothing but expected everything.
Speaker 2: Have you replied to Sonya, No, not yet. What do
Speaker 2: you intend to say?
Speaker 6: Well, I was going to thank her for reaching out.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure it could have been easy. This is
Speaker 6: her father. She's never had a relationship with him, and
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure she knows she never will. But she
Speaker 6: also has sisters out there, half sisters.
Speaker 4: I feel like she wants to help.
Speaker 6: She feels as though this is the starting of his lies.
Speaker 6: I mean it's time. She said she was waiting for
Speaker 6: the right time. Then I really think that time is now,
Speaker 6: I guess before it's too late.
Speaker 2: Feeling like she has a connection with Crystal and admiring
Speaker 2: from Afar, you and Andy as she's listening to everything.
Speaker 2: At the same time, it seems she suspects that her
Speaker 2: biological dad killed a beautiful woman called Bromin.
Speaker 6: Maybe she has that thought in the back of her
Speaker 6: mind that he.
Speaker 4: Could have been her mother.
Speaker 6: With Jenny's statement as well, and how John was violent
Speaker 6: with her.
Speaker 9: He'd yell at me and he made him scared of him.
Speaker 9: He said to me, I'll kill you if you say
Speaker 9: that again. And at the time he had his hands
Speaker 9: around my throat and was squeezing. I remember I managed
Speaker 9: to say go ahead. Into my surprise, he kept squeezing
Speaker 9: me around the throat. I managed to kick him in
Speaker 9: the groin and I got away from him and hitting
Speaker 9: the outside laundry.
Speaker 6: After hearing the podcast, maybe she counts herself lucky that
Speaker 6: she didn't grow up with her father like John.
Speaker 2: Does she say anywhere in her note to you that
Speaker 2: it's confidentially No, she didn't. Can you just mention to
Speaker 2: her that you've shared it with me and we've talked
Speaker 2: about it, and that we would really like to chat
Speaker 2: to her. Yeah, we're happy to chat to her on
Speaker 2: background or off the record at first, if she wants
Speaker 2: to get comfortable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, for sure.
Speaker 6: I just think it's honestly insane. The developments that have
Speaker 6: happened with in this case are crazy. We need to
Speaker 6: dive right back into John's childhood. It might be hard
Speaker 6: to get there, but I think that will answer a
Speaker 6: lot his relationship with his parents when he was younger,
Speaker 6: what he went through in school, everything that was really
Speaker 6: going on during John's childhood and upbringing, and the family dynamic. Ultimately,
Speaker 6: I really think it would answer a lot of questions
Speaker 6: as to his character and why he is the way
Speaker 6: he is, and why he keeps such picked secrets like
Speaker 6: this to keep it so tightly under wraps. Even John's
Speaker 6: parents not to have a relationship with their granddaughter, their
Speaker 6: first granddaughter, is also a little bit unbathomable because she
Speaker 6: was just an innocent baby.
Speaker 2: Recording stopped, Maddie wrote back to Sonya, and then I
Speaker 2: phoned her. We worked out that at the exact time
Speaker 2: she was assigning to reach out to Andy and Maddie,
Speaker 2: the police chronology document naming her as John's daughter was
Speaker 2: being recovered by Michelle and sent to me. Sonya sounded
Speaker 2: completely unemotional, unaffected. During our twenty minutes on the phone.
Speaker 2: She matter of factly told me that her biological father
Speaker 2: was a bad liar. His lying had shattered Sonya's mother
Speaker 2: when John publicly denied being the father of the baby
Speaker 2: growing inside the girl. The cruel result was the false
Speaker 2: claim that a fifteen year old dealing with unplanned pregnancy
Speaker 2: and whose first and only love back then had been John,
Speaker 2: had slept around with different guys. Nothing could be further
Speaker 2: from the truth. Part of Sonya's point is that significant
Speaker 2: lies define a person's character. Exposing these lies might help
Speaker 2: resolve Bromwin's case. It might prompt people aware of other
Speaker 2: lies relevant to Broman's disappearance to come forward, and it
Speaker 2: possibly explains why detectives on Bromin's case went to the
Speaker 2: trouble of investigating John's conduct from the nineteen seventies. They
Speaker 2: took a statement from the mother of Sonya. We agreed
Speaker 2: to meet the following morning in Southport at the offices
Speaker 2: of the Gold Coast Bollton newspaper, where I started forty
Speaker 2: years ago as a copyboy. I was taken aback when
Speaker 2: I saw her waiting for me in the lobby near
Speaker 2: the elevator. Sonya is a physical near replica of John Winfield.
Speaker 2: She's just younger. The likeness is incredible and at first disconcerting.
Speaker 2: An accused murderer who has always emphatically denied wrongdoing and
Speaker 2: emphatically denied that Sonya was his daughter, would surely admit
Speaker 2: to being her father within moments of seeing her. Now,
Speaker 2: I would wage a good money that a DNA test
Speaker 2: would confirmternity. Margaret is Sonya had thoughtfully brought a family
Speaker 2: pack of biscuits for us to snack on and leave
Speaker 2: behind for the papers reporters.
Speaker 4: Grandma raised me well.
Speaker 2: We rowed the lift and crossed the floor of the
Speaker 2: newsroom with the editor, Ryan Keene, who let us use
Speaker 2: his office. I'm just going to use my phone, Ye
Speaker 2: to do the recording. Sonya started telling her story. The
Speaker 2: mother of two teenage boys tethered it to her grandmother,
Speaker 2: who died in April twenty eighteen. In her last months,
Speaker 2: Sonya was with the elderly woman almost every.
Speaker 4: Day, and during that time a lot of conversations. We
Speaker 4: had stories, who told secrets, who shared. Back in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy two, things were great financially, and my grandma pregnancy
Speaker 4: thought it would be a great idea to separate the
Speaker 4: two of them for my mother's benefit mental and emotional reasons,
Speaker 4: which at the time wasn't told to my mother. In truth,
Speaker 4: she thought her heart had been broken John was breaking
Speaker 4: up with her was in fact my grandmother separated the
Speaker 4: two of them for the final stages of the pregnancy.
Speaker 4: She never said a nice word about him. She never
Speaker 4: said a nice word about the Winfields. They were always
Speaker 4: the words she uses, hoity tweety. My grandmother sent something
Speaker 4: and removed my mother and myself from that circle. Fraternity
Speaker 4: was always denied on his part. Abortion wasn't legal back then,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't affordable within the family. My grandparents had
Speaker 4: no money. They lived day to day. He drove a taxi,
Speaker 4: so whatever fair he brought home at the end of
Speaker 4: the day went to buy the food and what not
Speaker 4: for the kids. So it was arranged for my mother
Speaker 4: to go to South Australia where it could be done financially.
Speaker 4: They weren't in a position for her to get to
Speaker 4: South Australia. The pregnancy had gone along too far, so
Speaker 4: termination wasn't possible in a safe sense. Then I was
Speaker 4: to be adopted. I was supposed to be taken from
Speaker 4: mom to become adopted. My grandfather became involved on the
Speaker 4: day of my birth and refused that. Part of the
Speaker 4: conversation was difficult for my grandmother to have emotionally, and
Speaker 4: she kept getting very upset I think that was guilt
Speaker 4: on her part because she thought it was the best
Speaker 4: thing to do, and had my grandfather not stepped in,
Speaker 4: that would have happened. Moving forward through the seventies eighties,
Speaker 4: my bond with my grandmother was inseparable. She was like
Speaker 4: my mom. I pretty much went from the hospital to her.
Speaker 4: Mom was sixteen. She didn't know anything. My grandma had
Speaker 4: already raised two girls, so she knew exactly what was
Speaker 4: going on. My grandfather fell ill. He had many strokes
Speaker 4: and many heart attacks before he passed away. I was eight.
Speaker 4: He was like my dad, so I didn't miss having
Speaker 4: a mom and dad figure. It's just that my real
Speaker 4: mom was really really young. So when Grandma is sitting
Speaker 4: with me passing away and telling me the truth of
Speaker 4: the story, to me as an adult, it hadn't affected
Speaker 4: my life for forty seven years, and it hasn't affected
Speaker 4: my life since then. I've known that he didn't want me.
Speaker 4: I'm known that his parents thought horrible things about my
Speaker 4: mother and vocalized those things. It wasn't just her having sex.
Speaker 4: He was involved as well. But he was the golden
Speaker 4: child within his family and very very, very heavily influenced
Speaker 4: by his mother. The first time I ever saw his
Speaker 4: face was on the front page of The Australian.
Speaker 2: When you saw the man you know is your father
Speaker 2: for the first time. It was a photograph of him
Speaker 2: in relation to this podcast, Romlan correct must have come
Speaker 2: as quite a shop.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I text my mom straight away and said, I'm
Speaker 4: growing my hair.
Speaker 2: You've just taken your calf after when I first saw
Speaker 2: you downstairs in the lobby. Even it was struck by
Speaker 2: the likeness.
Speaker 4: That part with my mum has been difficult. There's a
Speaker 4: photo on my great aunt's TV and it's a photo
Speaker 4: of me in a school uniform at twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 4: And that photo on the front page where he has
Speaker 4: a mustache when he's younger. That's me. That is that
Speaker 4: photo less than mustache. And until I saw that, I
Speaker 4: never actually got what mum was saying, because sometimes she'd
Speaker 4: say to me, I, forgot's sake, can you go and
Speaker 4: put a shirt on. I just can't see your arms
Speaker 4: or your shoulders because I'm that much for her a resemblance.
Speaker 4: But I didn't see it until four months ago. It
Speaker 4: wasn't really spoken about within our house. His name is very, very,
Speaker 4: very rarely mentioned. I can remember as a teenager and
Speaker 4: I was a silly smoker, and I came home with
Speaker 4: a packet Wingfield cigarettes. My grandmother blew her stack. I
Speaker 4: still didn't get it until on her deathbed and she
Speaker 4: spoke about it, and I was like, ahuh, is.
Speaker 2: There a name of a man on your birth certificate?
Speaker 4: It's blank or father unknown. I believe that your maternal
Speaker 4: family was one hundred percent responsible to prove paternity. There
Speaker 4: was no money for the test needed to prove what
Speaker 4: they needed to prove. She would have been fourteen when
Speaker 4: their relationship started, fifteen.
Speaker 2: As it progressed, John had moved on by late nine
Speaker 2: teen seventy two. Sonya was born in November of that year.
Speaker 2: He is more from Jennifer Mason's statement to police, which
Speaker 2: you heard in episode ten.
Speaker 9: In approximately December nineteen seventy two, when I was sixteen
Speaker 9: years of age, I met a young man named John
Speaker 9: Winfield and we.
Speaker 4: Formed a relationship.
Speaker 9: We'd only been going out for about three months when
Speaker 9: I fell pregnant. John Winfield and I married when I
Speaker 9: was about three months pregnant.
Speaker 2: When Sonya was born, her father would have been a
Speaker 2: few months shy of his eighteenth birthday. Her mother had
Speaker 2: just turned sixteenth.
Speaker 4: I've known what the girls have looked like for many
Speaker 4: many years. Strangely enough, would have been a very very
Speaker 4: early two thousands. I was mistaken for Jodie in a
Speaker 4: music shop in Byron Bay. I had long hair then,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't until many years later that I realized,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, she's mistaken me for Jodie Winfield. Fifteen
Speaker 4: years ago, I was mistaken again as one of the girls.
Speaker 4: I don't recall which one. Someone came up and said,
Speaker 4: I know you, I know you and your sister from
Speaker 4: down ATLANTICX. And I don't have a sister, So I said,
Speaker 4: I'm not me, mister. Sorry, I don't have a sister.
Speaker 4: Oh sorry, I just got the resemblance is uncanny. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's been a minute.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you had seen photographs of the daughters,
Speaker 2: and I think you're referring to Jody, Lauren and Crystal.
Speaker 4: Correct. My wife, her best friend from school's friends with Jody.
Speaker 2: Sonya explained that for about twenty years she had avoided
Speaker 2: going to her wife's best friend's house in Lennox Head.
Speaker 2: She recently asked that best friend.
Speaker 4: Do you know these people, but I know she does.
Speaker 4: When she was like, oh my god, he's that They
Speaker 4: refer to him as JTM. She knows him from the
Speaker 4: local lenox Head IgA.
Speaker 2: I asked if her wife's friend had talked to Jodi
Speaker 2: Wimfield about the existence of her half sister Sonya.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: Never, she would never air my laundry. She just knows
Speaker 4: her socially through Lenox Head their friends.
Speaker 2: Sonya had seen photographs of her half sisters Jody and
Speaker 2: Lauren because of the mutual friend in Lennox Head, coincidentally
Speaker 2: tagging them on Facebook. That friend was unaware at the
Speaker 2: time of the biological ties.
Speaker 4: Gosh, this is my boys were in nappies a long
Speaker 4: time ago, and so I clicked on and I was like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, I can see the resemblance.
Speaker 2: Have you wanted to reach out to Jodie or the
Speaker 2: other girls?
Speaker 4: Never? Never, I feel so thankful that my grandmother had
Speaker 4: the foresight that she had. I feel very, very sorry
Speaker 4: for the girls more Crystal. I think that's because she
Speaker 4: knew her mum. You know your mom at ten, you
Speaker 4: miss your mom at ten. I feel really sorry for Crystal.
Speaker 4: She must have so many stories going around in her mind.
Speaker 4: But as far as any of the Windfield, I don't
Speaker 4: like them. I don't dislike them. They exist and I exist.
Speaker 4: We just exist separately. My grandmother had said to me
Speaker 4: that they're all kidding themselves if they don't believe that
Speaker 4: you exist. He knows you're his.
Speaker 2: When you were growing up, Sonya, and when you were
Speaker 2: old enough to understand that you were being raised by
Speaker 2: your mother and your grandparents, did you ask questions? Did
Speaker 2: you yearn to know who was your biological father?
Speaker 4: There was a gentleman in my life who is still
Speaker 4: in my life. He's been a fantastic father to me.
Speaker 4: He's been an exceptional dad to me. He's been all
Speaker 4: I've known and all I have needed as a father.
Speaker 4: We have an awesome relationship as father and daughter. I
Speaker 4: didn't come from him, He didn't make me, but we're
Speaker 4: father and daughter.
Speaker 2: Were you at the same time ever yearning to know
Speaker 2: who your dad was biologically No?
Speaker 4: Never, I've never felt the need to reach out to
Speaker 4: establish any connection. My grandmother was troubled. She was worried
Speaker 4: for me maturing, not knowing things like my medical history.
Speaker 4: And I said to her, Grammy, you're just being eastily
Speaker 4: you're on your Deathbedge, you're overthinking, You're worrying, Like, just
Speaker 4: relax and enjoy your life. She said to me, you're
Speaker 4: very blunt in your decision to just cut And I
Speaker 4: think that I'm very blunt in my decision because from
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy two until two thousand she lived in the
Speaker 4: same house. If he wanted to reach out, he could
Speaker 4: have reached out at any moment in his life.
Speaker 2: When Bromwin disappeared in May nineteen ninety three, John's daughter
Speaker 2: was six months away from her twenty first birthday. In
Speaker 2: September of that year, John wrote to the family of
Speaker 2: one of Roman's former boyfriends, Mark Guthrie. Mark and his
Speaker 2: family believed at the time that he was the biological
Speaker 2: father of Crystal, who was then aged ten. John took
Speaker 2: the moral high ground in his letter. He explained to
Speaker 2: Mark Guthrie what paternal responsibility really meant. Here's a reminder
Speaker 2: from episode ten. John wrote to the family and to
Speaker 2: their solicitor. I have a copy of the letter. These
Speaker 2: are John's words, but it's not John's voice. One.
Speaker 11: Mark has never personally or in writing approached us in
Speaker 11: regards to access to Crystal. Two. We have always been locatable.
Speaker 11: We have always been in the telephone book. Had he
Speaker 11: really wanted to, Mark could have found us at any time.
Speaker 11: Not only have you failed to mention the possibility of
Speaker 11: child support, something that has been my responsibility for almost
Speaker 11: eleven years, but you have failed to consider Crystal's feelings
Speaker 11: and what she wants to do.
Speaker 2: About this delicate situation.
Speaker 11: I have a responsibility to Crystel to introduce her to
Speaker 11: her real biological father, and I will. The lack of
Speaker 11: any offers of financial support in almost eleven years also
Speaker 11: tells me that mister Guthrie is not sure of fatherhood. Consequently,
Speaker 11: that would lead us to the child support agency, and
Speaker 11: a deduction from Mark's wages to the tune of one
Speaker 11: hundred and forty five dollars per month backdated maintenance to
Speaker 11: December nineteen eighty two with an interest adjustment would be
Speaker 11: the best part of ten thousand dollars maintenance if I
Speaker 11: am is payable up to the age of sixteen years,
Speaker 11: so we could develop into a nice little nest egg
Speaker 11: for Crystal in her later years. Yours, sincerely, John Winfield.
Speaker 4: If you have never had it, you can't miss it.
Speaker 4: So as a person I've never had him, so I
Speaker 4: don't know him, so I've never missed him. I don't
Speaker 4: know what it means to miss having a sister. I
Speaker 4: do know that I have no inclination to have them
Speaker 4: in my life. That was his choice back in the seventies.
Speaker 4: You can make a choice, that's fine, but you can't
Speaker 4: live your life denying. If the girls need to question
Speaker 4: anyone's truths, his truths, start questioning them. Poor Crystal, as
Speaker 4: a human, How can you put somebody through that.
Speaker 2: I spoke to Crystal yesterday and I said, have you
Speaker 2: ever known of any other siblings? And she said, no, no,
Speaker 2: there's no one else. When do you think you understood
Speaker 2: that your biological father's surname was Wingfield? Sonia said that
Speaker 2: she was in her early twenties and her mother needed
Speaker 2: to have.
Speaker 4: Surgery and she was extremely paranoid that she wasn't going
Speaker 4: to make it. And that's the first time she told
Speaker 4: me his actual full name. I recall the conversation. I
Speaker 4: said to her, why are you telling me this? You
Speaker 4: know I'm not interested. Why now, in this moment of
Speaker 4: our lives, are you telling me? And I was more
Speaker 4: worried about surgery. I know she loved him. I know
Speaker 4: she was smitten by young sexy sir for John first
Speaker 4: loves that. Whether she was his, I don't know. There
Speaker 4: could be older kids than me. All I know is
Speaker 4: in seventy two he denied me, which broke my mother's heart.
Speaker 2: Many of us would jump straight onto Google and start
Speaker 2: looking for someone, but you never did that. You didn't
Speaker 2: want to check him out. You didn't understand the case
Speaker 2: that the police had tried to build. Sonya recalled having
Speaker 2: to go to Balana with her mother for a meeting
Speaker 2: with detectives investigating Bromin's alleged murder.
Speaker 4: I mean I didn't want to go because I wasn't interested.
Speaker 4: I still don't really know why I was in there
Speaker 4: that day.
Speaker 2: Her mother made a police statement at the time.
Speaker 4: I never researched. I was never interested. I did feel. However,
Speaker 4: on one episode of the plot cast, you were driving
Speaker 4: in Lennox and I was in the car with you
Speaker 4: in my mind.
Speaker 12: Literally around the corner at five ten minutes, I can
Speaker 12: take you there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll take you
Speaker 12: for a drive. We call this the Headlands. That's where
Speaker 12: I see John walking around here.
Speaker 2: A millionaires role.
Speaker 12: I call it he bought a dual block, one for
Speaker 12: himself and one for Jody. Always get him confused, Sorry, Ledley,
Speaker 12: now here we are here. Yeah, he bought that block
Speaker 12: and that block the house next saw that to jobs.
Speaker 12: That's a fortress.
Speaker 2: That is very odd looking.
Speaker 12: It a big needs of him inside.
Speaker 4: That's his car and the driveway.
Speaker 2: That's him there right, very ecclusive. As you can see.
Speaker 4: You're sitting up there in your smug castor.
Speaker 12: Seemed like a terrible person do.
Speaker 2: This has weighed on you for a long time.
Speaker 12: Because I have a sister, and if it hadn't been
Speaker 12: my family, I just don't know how I would be
Speaker 12: able to handle that.
Speaker 2: She was a friend and a good friend at the time.
Speaker 2: We'd still be friends today. I know we would.
Speaker 4: I was sitting on the footstool next to my bed.
Speaker 4: I got on Google Maps, and before you'd finished speaking,
Speaker 4: I'd worked out his address. I google Maps searched the
Speaker 4: house and there was a photo of him on the
Speaker 4: Google Maps of his house standing over what looked like
Speaker 4: a shower area, an outside shower. That's the first and
Speaker 4: the last time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that photo you're talking about. We paused
Speaker 2: to open the packet of biscuits she had brought.
Speaker 4: Grandma always said, you have to blame someone to the table,
Speaker 4: no matter where you're going, you have to take something
Speaker 4: to the table, old Scotch finger.
Speaker 2: How's your mum doing.
Speaker 4: The relationship between my mum and I is amazing.
Speaker 2: Sonya told me her mother had been following the case
Speaker 2: again with the podcast.
Speaker 4: Regarding the podcast, I think she's like everybody else, wondering
Speaker 4: what the police were are and will be doing. We're
Speaker 4: very hopeful that you guys will get a good outcome
Speaker 4: for the girls, whatever that may be. She's content that
Speaker 4: I'm content. Every now and then I'm forced to think
Speaker 4: of him because my mum will bring something garp. There
Speaker 4: was a time I lost patience with her, which was
Speaker 4: not long after she found out that Bronwin Winfield was
Speaker 4: a missing person. She found out by chance. She saw
Speaker 4: her missing person sign on the IgA notice board at
Speaker 4: Lennox Head, noticed the surname, put three and three together,
Speaker 4: worked it out that Ron win Winfield and John Winfield
Speaker 4: was the same John Winfield that was my father. For
Speaker 4: a long time, it was all she wanted to speak about,
Speaker 4: and for all of that long time I would avoid
Speaker 4: speaking to her. Because it was all she wanted to
Speaker 4: speak about. I said to my grandma the one day
Speaker 4: on the phone, I just I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 4: I cannot listen to it anymore. It's not what life is.
Speaker 4: Life is different. And that's the decision he chose back
Speaker 4: in the seventies, and thank god you chose what you
Speaker 4: chose in the seventies. Mattie said something, and I thought
Speaker 4: to myself, I know that there's documents with my name
Speaker 4: on it, whether it's a statement or whether it's just
Speaker 4: a note that I was in the station that day.
Speaker 4: I thought that I would reach out purely because you
Speaker 4: would never have found me. I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 4: All you have is the name of Sonya. I don't
Speaker 4: even go by that name, but I go by the
Speaker 4: name of Lee. I've done nothing wrong, though, I have
Speaker 4: nothing to be ashamed of. And that's what Grandma said
Speaker 4: to me. Well, you'll know when the time is right
Speaker 4: to reach out. Whether she meant reaching out to one
Speaker 4: of the girls, whether she meant reaching out to one
Speaker 4: of Bronwyn's family, I don't know who she meant reaching
Speaker 4: out to. This might sound a bit silly, but you
Speaker 4: mentioned that you had read the document with my name
Speaker 4: on it about the same time that I had started
Speaker 4: thinking about maybe now is the right time.
Speaker 2: Coincidences like these sometimes seem more likely to be calmer.
Speaker 4: It might give the girls a different light to see
Speaker 4: their father in. You know, if you can't be honest
Speaker 4: and open about it now that yes, I got a
Speaker 4: girl pregnant on the beach in Cronulla in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 4: I own it. I did it, and I lied about it.
Speaker 2: When you say he lied about it, are you referring
Speaker 2: to his denial of patunity.
Speaker 4: Because he may as well have lied about the whole relationship,
Speaker 4: which is I think what broke my mother's heart.
Speaker 2: The shame and stigma of teenage pregnancy must have shaped
Speaker 2: some of the decisions made by Sonya's grandparents.
Speaker 4: They thought that they would pretend that I was Grandma's baby,
Speaker 4: because no one had actually seen Mom pregnant as such,
Speaker 4: because she was a very slim girl, quite slight. So
Speaker 4: there was this thing I will just say that it's
Speaker 4: Grandma's new baby. My auntie, who was like eight at
Speaker 4: the time, was playing silly buggers on the stairs and fell.
Speaker 4: Mom came out, Grandma came out, the neighbors saw Mom's
Speaker 4: big belly and the couple was won.
Speaker 2: And then where were you raised?
Speaker 4: In the shire?
Speaker 2: Sonia told me that she had listened carefully to the
Speaker 2: first ten episodes of the Broman podcast series, as well
Speaker 2: as these subscriber only bonus episodes of eleven and twelve.
Speaker 2: Have you formed a view?
Speaker 4: I think I formed my grandmother's view. My opinion of
Speaker 4: him is what she feed into me.
Speaker 2: What did she feed into you of him?
Speaker 4: How different my life would have been with him in it?
Speaker 4: For the negative?
Speaker 2: For what reasons? What did she describe in his personality
Speaker 2: or character?
Speaker 4: His controllingness? She said, him and his mother had a
Speaker 4: look in their eye, a look that you wouldn't cross.
Speaker 4: And the day she saw that look was the day
Speaker 4: she knew and she saw the look about three and
Speaker 4: a half, four months into the pregnancy, she said. Prior
Speaker 4: to the pregnancy, he was very welcomed within the house.
Speaker 4: It's come over for dinner all the time. The whole
Speaker 4: couple think they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time.
Speaker 4: They were in a relationship. It's not like she had
Speaker 4: just a small version of John. He loved her cooking.
Speaker 4: He would often come to the home and you know,
Speaker 4: they'd sit down and then Pa would run him home
Speaker 4: again in the gab So she knew him well and
Speaker 4: she said he was lovely at stuff.
Speaker 2: Sonya spoke of the nineteen eighties movie Puberty Blues. The
Speaker 2: Australian classic is based on the book of the same name,
Speaker 2: written in the seventies by Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lett.
Speaker 2: It weaves a story about teenage girls growing up in
Speaker 2: the Shire and around Cronulla in a culture of underage sex,
Speaker 2: panel vans, surfing and deeply entrenched misogyny.
Speaker 4: Who is he one of the boys he's sending down
Speaker 4: at the beach Worksy's old man and he's got a
Speaker 4: panel band. Oh god, do I look it right?
Speaker 2: Routable?
Speaker 4: If you meet Bruce Bruce, Debbie hie, yeah, ghetto Bruce,
Speaker 4: go for it.
Speaker 2: Well, come on, he won't fight.
Speaker 4: Will you go around with me? Yeah? Give have a
Speaker 4: good time.
Speaker 13: I was conceived on Valentine's Day seventy two, so I
Speaker 13: was born nine months after that. It just all blew up,
Speaker 13: And Grandma believes it all blew up over money.
Speaker 4: They'd spoken about married joining. His mother's bond was unbreakable.
Speaker 2: At the same time. Your grandmother wanted to separate her
Speaker 2: daughter and John.
Speaker 4: Not until mid pregnancy when it started to get nasty.
Speaker 4: On the Winfields part. It was all about what John
Speaker 4: said and what John's mother said, and Mum having any
Speaker 4: say in her pregnant self was not going to be allowed.
Speaker 4: She was going to be controlled. Grandma remembers Mom coming
Speaker 4: home and they'd been out for dinner. He used to
Speaker 4: like to eat Chinese food. The meal was sweet and
Speaker 4: sour pork. Grandma said that. Mom's like, oh, John's such
Speaker 4: a gentleman. He pulls my chair out for me and
Speaker 4: he justhes my food up for me. He only lets
Speaker 4: me have a couple of spoons of rice though, And
Speaker 4: Grandma was like what, and she said, oh, yeah, he
Speaker 4: likes me to watch my weight. I can remember Grandma saying,
Speaker 4: That's the minute I knew I was right.
Speaker 2: Sonya's mother was badly smeared in the blame game which
Speaker 2: followed her pregnancy. The decision of John and the Winfield
Speaker 2: family to walk away from responsibility and formally deny a
Speaker 2: paternity cut deeply. Sonya's mother was still besotted with John.
Speaker 2: She had changed her life. She was forced to hide
Speaker 2: from local busybodies. As her belly grew with John's baby,
Speaker 2: her wounding over John's claim that he was not the
Speaker 2: father of her unborn baby was made worse. Sonya's mother
Speaker 2: was characterized as a girl who must have cheated on John.
Speaker 2: She was tarnished as a girl who was carrying an
Speaker 2: unknown man's baby.
Speaker 4: I remember Grandma saying, missus Winfield. The words were something
Speaker 4: along the lines of an easy piece of work. Of course,
Speaker 4: she goes all the way to the city for tech,
Speaker 4: so here's no saying that it's John's baby, because she's
Speaker 4: an easy piece of work.
Speaker 2: Sonya knew from our first conversation on the telephone that
Speaker 2: I had read about her on Father's Day in a
Speaker 2: sixteen year old police document recovered by Bromwin's sister in law,
Speaker 2: Michelle read, that's the document that mentions Sonya and her
Speaker 2: birth in nineteen seventy two. I told Sonya in that
Speaker 2: call that Michelle was going through her emails to make
Speaker 2: sure that she hadn't overlooked anything. Michelle was wanting to
Speaker 2: ensure that season two of Bromin leaves no stone unturned,
Speaker 2: at least as far as her own documents and files
Speaker 2: are concerned. I wondered whether you were aware of the podcast,
Speaker 2: and whether you were connected in any way to what
Speaker 2: was unfolding, and whether your mom was I decided to
Speaker 2: just let it rest for a bit and just see
Speaker 2: what would happen. And then you came forward.
Speaker 4: I pressed send, and I was like, Okay, well, there
Speaker 4: you go. You've done it. But I felt so relieved
Speaker 4: that I pressed send.
Speaker 2: And what happens with these podcasts investigations is people listen
Speaker 2: and hear other good people coming forward for the first
Speaker 2: time disclosing information that they've held pretty close for a
Speaker 2: long time, and that has a very powerful effect on
Speaker 2: listeners who also have information. And he think I'm alone.
Speaker 2: Other people are sharing information that's more or less valuable
Speaker 2: than mine. I should just do it.
Speaker 4: I had a feeling the same time that you were
Speaker 4: reading the document.
Speaker 2: Hypothetical seem John Winfield makes contact with you and says, look,
Speaker 2: i'm your father and I want to you and tell
Speaker 2: you a bit about why I haven't been in touch.
Speaker 2: How do you respond?
Speaker 4: I would probably not respond. I don't feel he's worthy
Speaker 4: of a response from me. I'm not a Winfield. I
Speaker 4: know who I am, and I don't need anything from him,
Speaker 4: whether it be an apology, whether it be I still
Speaker 4: don't believe your mind. I'm complete. If anything that he's
Speaker 4: reaching out for is something that's going to benefit him,
Speaker 4: whether it be emotionally, mentally, whatever that's on him, I'm
Speaker 4: blessed he's not in my life.
Speaker 2: Do you have any anger towards.
Speaker 4: I don't have anything toward him except oh my god,
Speaker 4: I've got to grab my hair. And that is just
Speaker 4: purely for my mum. Obviously, I'm not the most girliest
Speaker 4: of girls you've ever come across, and Mum is and
Speaker 4: was a very girly girl. She was very glamorous in
Speaker 4: the seventies, you know, very petite and beautiful with gorgeous
Speaker 4: blond hair. Nothing like me. When I saw him on
Speaker 4: the front page of the paper, I was like, you
Speaker 4: can't deny. You're going to look like a fool. Every
Speaker 4: time I walked into a room up until I was thirty,
Speaker 4: my mother would be like, oh my god, it's so
Speaker 4: much like him. When I told my wife over lunches
Speaker 4: today that I was catching up with you today, and
Speaker 4: she said, oh my god, I've got goosebumps, I said,
Speaker 4: I do you think I should pre warn Headley, he's
Speaker 4: going to feel like he's sitting opposite John. The resemblance
Speaker 4: is uncanny. There literally is nothing. I don't like him.
Speaker 4: I don't dislike him. I don't respect him. I don't
Speaker 4: disrespect him. He's just a guy I saw on the
Speaker 4: front page of the newspaper for the first time four
Speaker 4: months ago, who happened to get my mother pregnant. That's
Speaker 4: all he is to me. He'll never be my dad.
Speaker 4: He'll never be my father, will never be mates, will
Speaker 4: never sit down and have a copper together. I will
Speaker 4: never break bread with him, purely because my grandmother would
Speaker 4: be disgusted in me if I did.
Speaker 2: From everything I've been told about John, he's extraordinarily tight
Speaker 2: with money. He would possibly be concerned that any acknowledgment
Speaker 2: by him of your existence could reduce the wealth that
Speaker 2: he has and the estate that he has.
Speaker 4: It's always about money with Winfield. Grandma always said that,
Speaker 4: and in nineteen seventy two it was about eleven dollars
Speaker 4: a week or seventeen dollars a week or whatever. In
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four it's about ocean front estates. I remember
Speaker 4: Grandma saying something along the lines of eleven dollars seventeen
Speaker 4: dollars per week that they didn't want to have to
Speaker 4: pay for you to.
Speaker 2: Be As you listen to the story with the knowledge
Speaker 2: that the person at the center of it, the person
Speaker 2: suspected by police and read family of having murdered Promin,
Speaker 2: knowing that he's your father, are you affected?
Speaker 4: I don't think of him as my father. I've managed
Speaker 4: to successfully be unaffected by it. As I said, I
Speaker 4: feel for.
Speaker 2: Crystal, there seems to be still a curiosity in you,
Speaker 2: because otherwise why would you be listening to it.
Speaker 4: Back when I was in ballin a police station, I
Speaker 4: didn't understand why I was there, but I also left
Speaker 4: there thinking this is going to be finished off soon.
Speaker 2: Would love me to show you some of the start
Speaker 2: of that documentary. Referring to yes please, I started to
Speaker 2: make a point apparently your dad's sorry, I shouldn't callim
Speaker 2: your dad Sonya's face changed, she appeared uncomfortable and excused
Speaker 2: herself to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 4: Just threw me a bit before when you said your dad.
Speaker 4: Of course he's not and it will never be. No
Speaker 4: one's actually said those words ever before your you know,
Speaker 4: But I yeah, sorry about that I understand. Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 4: I'm happy if that helps you in any way with
Speaker 4: your investigations. It's actually really nice to know that my
Speaker 4: grandmother's eye for detail was so detailed when my mom
Speaker 4: was that young. There's photos of me and my mom,
Speaker 4: and some of those photos are very very similar to
Speaker 4: photos I've got on your website of Bridman and the
Speaker 4: girls when the girls were young. I have a very
Speaker 4: similar photo and it's like, oh.
Speaker 2: My God, like.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Goma, But it could have been me and
Speaker 4: my mom. I think she was spot on with the
Speaker 4: controlling and the dominating.
Speaker 2: What would you say to Lauren, Crystal and Jodi about
Speaker 2: their beliefs and what they've been.
Speaker 4: Told, even if they deep down inside, no, the answer
Speaker 4: is going to hurt them. Ask the question anyway. Jody's
Speaker 4: coming up to an age where she's going to, whether
Speaker 4: she likes it or not, biologically, start questioning things. As
Speaker 4: you're coming up to fifty and you're going through menopause
Speaker 4: and everything, think inside dey's changing, and you can have
Speaker 4: the lowest of lows and the highest of highs. And
Speaker 4: if there's a time in her life where she's wondering
Speaker 4: what the true answers to the questions are this is
Speaker 4: the time where she should lighten her load, just be open.
Speaker 4: There's a level of dishonesty, whether it's the story of
Speaker 4: whatever happened to Bronwyn, whether it's the story of John
Speaker 4: Winfield and his life, that it just seems to get
Speaker 4: these extra levels of layers of unbelievable things on top
Speaker 4: of them. The girls should just be allowed to know
Speaker 4: their truths.
Speaker 2: You said before that you were very hopeful there would
Speaker 2: be a good outcome. What do you believe is a
Speaker 2: good outcome.
Speaker 4: For the girls? Then? What happened to Bronwyn, the good,
Speaker 4: the bad, the ugly, whatever it may be, they deserve
Speaker 4: to know. It's got to be the heaviest load for
Speaker 4: them to carry.
Speaker 2: Bronwyn is written and investigated by me Headley Thomas as
Speaker 2: a podcast production for The Australian. If anyone has information
Speaker 2: which may help solve this cold case, please contact me
Speaker 2: confidentially by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 2: You can read more about this case and see a
Speaker 2: range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn
Speaker 2: podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
Speaker 2: The production and editorial team for bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Speaker 2: Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
Speaker 2: Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Speaker 2: Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
Speaker 2: and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
Speaker 2: assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromin Winfield. We
Speaker 2: can only do this kind of journalism with the support
Speaker 2: of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
Speaker 2: For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
Speaker 2: documents about this podcast and other podcasts including The Teacher's Pet,
Speaker 2: The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy
Speaker 2: and The Night Driver. Go to the Australian dot com
Speaker 2: dot au and subscribe