Speaker 1: Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains coarse
Speaker 1: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. The Dark
Speaker 1: Lake Lake Ainsworth, with its eerie looking water stained dark
Speaker 1: by tammins from the leaves of the tea trees ringing
Speaker 1: the shoreline. It lies just north of Lennox Head's caravan
Speaker 1: park and a short walk from the perfect waves crashing
Speaker 1: onto the beach. I've seen a photograph of Bromman sitting
Speaker 1: on the grass near here. It was a family outing
Speaker 1: with friends. The lake is now an even more popular
Speaker 1: place or a picnic and a barbecue. It's a great
Speaker 1: swimming hole and for hundreds, probably thousands of years, Indigenous
Speaker 1: tribes revered this place for its therapeutic qualities. After childbirth,
Speaker 1: Indigenous women bathed here. They believed that the unique qualities
Speaker 1: of the fresh water helped prevent infection and helped recover
Speaker 1: from it. In the ninth episode, Maddie Walsh talked about
Speaker 1: the possibilities of a search here.
Speaker 2: And the police aren't doing anything, so might just have
Speaker 2: to be asked.
Speaker 3: I don't have a sonar thingy we won't be able
Speaker 3: to see anything.
Speaker 4: Scooba diving wise, we can do it.
Speaker 5: It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: Mary's offered to help. Oh amazing, and listeners with expertise
Speaker 1: in underwater search emailed me and contacted Maddie to volunteer
Speaker 1: their help and their equipment. Chris Darcy, who is an
Speaker 1: experienced operator of side scan SONA and regularly undertakes on
Speaker 1: water searches, offered to come from Sydney with three other volunteers.
Speaker 1: Then former Australian Navy Captain Ashley McDonald, a highly trained diver,
Speaker 1: got in touch to volunteer to dive on any items
Speaker 1: of interest that might be identified by SONA. With Murray Nolan,
Speaker 1: we held a hastily organized zoom call to talk about
Speaker 1: what might be possible, at least for starters.
Speaker 6: Murray, can you.
Speaker 1: Explain the area that you reckon needs to be targeted,
Speaker 1: how we'd get access to it, and why you want
Speaker 1: to focus on that above everything else.
Speaker 7: The life was pretty accessible back in the day, and
Speaker 7: I've got the opinion that he would have dropped her
Speaker 7: off on the western side of the lake. A lot
Speaker 7: of people say the eastern side was more accessible. I
Speaker 7: doubt where we went down the eastern side of the lake.
Speaker 7: He could have because it was more accessible, but of
Speaker 7: the opinion he went down the western side of the lake.
Speaker 7: It meant he would have had to carry her and
Speaker 7: whatever he had, probably for about twenty meters, maybe a
Speaker 7: bit less. In the last thirty one years, I've planned
Speaker 7: it out. They're still planning it out. There's a lot
Speaker 7: of more trees on and vegetation there now.
Speaker 1: And would you mind just briefly telling Murray about your
Speaker 1: expertise and then we can get started.
Speaker 6: In that experience, we did lots of searchers, so different
Speaker 6: types of searches on the bottom projects, but also searches
Speaker 6: in zero visibility on the hulls of ships and so forward.
Speaker 6: So a lot of experience and trying to find stuff
Speaker 6: when you can't see anything. In more recent times, working
Speaker 6: in the maritime industry more generally in Australia, following podcast
Speaker 6: with interests and I thought if there was anything I
Speaker 6: could do to help with this latest turn of events,
Speaker 6: I put my name forward.
Speaker 8: That's great thinking back in the eighties and nineties, it's
Speaker 8: a windsurf across the lake, go back and forth, back
Speaker 8: and forth. There were days when it was pressable to
Speaker 8: take off from the western side of the lake. So
Speaker 8: I'm saying that he wouldn't have much of a problem.
Speaker 7: To carry everything he had to carry down on that
Speaker 7: western side of the lake.
Speaker 9: Does it drop off or is it still reasonably show
Speaker 9: it drops off? Yeah, okay, so it changes in different places.
Speaker 9: It's undulating, so it goes up and down, up and down.
Speaker 9: For some strange reason, I could stand up in different
Speaker 9: places in the middle of the lake.
Speaker 1: Here is Chris. He's president of Search Dog Sydney, the
Speaker 1: name of his group. Before the core, Chris and Ash
Speaker 1: had been reading a scientific study of the lake from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. That study looked into the lake's physical, hydraulic,
Speaker 1: and sedimentary processes, among other things. Maddie found it on line.
Speaker 10: It did show on the hydrology report that there was
Speaker 10: a sandbar from one of another word, yes, exactly cut
Speaker 10: across it. I'll work it on that deep area.
Speaker 7: And I was at the opinion that John's dragged her out,
Speaker 7: And I'm sort of thinking that he's actually grabbed the
Speaker 7: nose of the board or the leg rape of the
Speaker 7: board and dragged her out so far. And then when
Speaker 7: he hasn't had footing, he would have just give him
Speaker 7: her a shove and tipped her house on. Well, the opinion,
Speaker 7: she's not that far off the shore.
Speaker 10: I'll get the mapping and all of that done and
Speaker 10: then we can go from there. You can tell me
Speaker 10: if it's covering the area that you've got in mind.
Speaker 7: Beautiful, Yes, If she's not there, she could be anywhere
Speaker 7: really in that lake somewhere.
Speaker 6: I don't only have a picture of how many branches
Speaker 6: or logs would have fallen into the water and sunk
Speaker 6: to the bottom.
Speaker 7: The vegetation around it is only just tea tree like
Speaker 7: paper back trees, so they ain't growing real high. They
Speaker 7: hang in there. So I've never hit any card in
Speaker 7: the lake. It's, you know, like a big tree bread.
Speaker 7: There's seats of little branches.
Speaker 1: And in your memory, has the lake ever try it
Speaker 1: out significantly so that the areas that we might serve
Speaker 1: a bit have been exposed.
Speaker 7: The level of the lake doesn't bury that much in
Speaker 7: dry times. It seems to be fed from underground water.
Speaker 7: There's all these little two tree lakes and they all
Speaker 7: feed into Lake Ainsworth, and so the level of the
Speaker 7: water stays the same most of the time, unless it's
Speaker 7: really raining.
Speaker 6: It's very very helpful if we want to interrogate items
Speaker 6: of interest as we go, how to diver and stand
Speaker 6: by and go right over. We just found something, let's
Speaker 6: go back over it, drop a shot and go down
Speaker 6: and have a look, come back up and then go again.
Speaker 7: As soon as we spot an object. I think we
Speaker 7: should have all of it straight away.
Speaker 10: Yeah, what is your recollection of the bag that was
Speaker 10: utilized back in the day that you believe was utilized.
Speaker 10: Did you ever see that bag? Did you ever see
Speaker 10: other bags on different days?
Speaker 7: Well, they had multiple bags, but was that that transition
Speaker 7: period where people going into polypant bags or zippers on them.
Speaker 1: Maury's view about the lake is not just based on
Speaker 1: the fact that Judy Singh witnessed the surfboard in the
Speaker 1: car late at night. It's also that he was driving
Speaker 1: north along Granite Street from his house and that was
Speaker 1: a bit of a tell, along with the fact that
Speaker 1: the lake is secluded. It's easy to access if you
Speaker 1: know your way around.
Speaker 7: He used to go to the lake only you take
Speaker 7: the kids down the lake someday afternoons, we're all getting
Speaker 7: above due down the lake. It's like a bit of
Speaker 7: a ritual sort of thing.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, when Bromwin disappeared, the beach facing
Speaker 1: caravan park of Lennox Head was mostly for permanent van
Speaker 1: owners who lived there. John and his second wife we've
Speaker 1: called her D were caravan park residents for a short
Speaker 1: time while they were building in Sandstone Crescent. But that
Speaker 1: was the first house, the one that came before the
Speaker 1: one John built higher up the street, the one in
Speaker 1: which Bronwan was last seen by John.
Speaker 7: Back in those days, there wasn't that many tourists at
Speaker 7: that end of the park. There was a lot of
Speaker 7: residents there. We would have been pretty isolated there.
Speaker 10: Well, that allows me a good search area.
Speaker 6: That's Murray's sailings. You're good to interrogate things as we
Speaker 6: find them if it's a fairly clean butter.
Speaker 10: So actually mark the spots as we're going. I'll be
Speaker 10: try and get there early on Friday afternoon so I
Speaker 10: can have a look at the place and.
Speaker 1: And get a feel for it.
Speaker 10: Just finalize any mapping that needs to be done prior
Speaker 10: to the Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll come down Friday afternoon as well with a
Speaker 1: colleague called Sean, who probably put a drone up. He's
Speaker 1: already checked open skies and it should be fine for
Speaker 1: drone flying. Maddie Walsh will come into Brisbane and drive
Speaker 1: down with us too, and food beverages are on me
Speaker 1: for the weekend.
Speaker 7: So I'm looking forward to seeing how all you guys
Speaker 7: on the weekend.
Speaker 1: It'll be good Rave.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's always nice to have local knowledge. It makes
Speaker 10: a hell of a difference when you're doing something, so
Speaker 10: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Later in this episode, you'll hear more about the Dark
Speaker 1: Lake and our visit to Lennox Head to comb some
Speaker 1: of the lake bed with the help of Sona and
Speaker 1: some brilliant volunteers Chris Darcy, his wife Adele, their assistant Jody,
Speaker 1: Captain Ash McDonald, Murray Nolan, Maddie Walsh, Deb Hall and others,
Speaker 1: even Scruffy who came to help. But first I want
Speaker 1: to bring everyone up to speed. As you know, this
Speaker 1: is episode ten of Bromwin and when the podcast investigation
Speaker 1: started I believe that it would be a total of
Speaker 1: six to eight episodes. Something remarkable has happened during the
Speaker 1: eight weeks we've been releasing weekly episodes. We've been deluged
Speaker 1: with him from from members of the public. We've discovered
Speaker 1: more from our own investigations. Friends and acquaintances of Bronwyn
Speaker 1: and John have been sharing a lot too, and of
Speaker 1: course remarkable witnesses such as Judy Singh have come forward
Speaker 1: with what we believe is a crucial observation. Hundreds of
Speaker 1: listeners have contacted me, mostly via Bronwyn at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au, with information, and some of it
Speaker 1: is we believe very significant. Our Facebook group, the Bromwyn
Speaker 1: Podcast Official Discussion Group, has become a lively exercise in crowdsolving,
Speaker 1: with listeners constructively putting together maps and timelines to try
Speaker 1: to work out what might have happened. I've been helped
Speaker 1: by some of their very relevant questions and analysis of
Speaker 1: the evidence. As a result, the narrative arc of the
Speaker 1: Bromwyn series has changed fununda mentally. In the beginning, I
Speaker 1: believe that episode six and seven would have been dedicated
Speaker 1: to reconstructing the evidence from the two thousand and two inquest,
Speaker 1: which was held in the courthouse in the town of Lismore.
Speaker 1: And we've been to the courthouse, but we haven't yet
Speaker 1: touched on the evidence at that inquest. That's because of
Speaker 1: all the other material coming in that needs to come
Speaker 1: before the inquest. As a result, it is going to
Speaker 1: feature in season two of Bromwin. After this the tenth episode,
Speaker 1: we are going to pause production for several weeks. Everyone
Speaker 1: can catch up while we have a rest and look
Speaker 1: at some of the leads we haven't had time to pursue.
Speaker 1: We'll come back with more episodes. One of the key
Speaker 1: reasons this investigative podcast began was because I believe Bromwin's
Speaker 1: disappearance and alleged murder could still be sold. This belief
Speaker 1: has only grown stronger as the series has unfolded. You
Speaker 1: can still stay abreast of the latest developments by joining
Speaker 1: the Australian subscribers at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's where all
Speaker 1: our stories, graphics, maps, timelines, reconstructions and videos sit, and
Speaker 1: our daily news podcast, The Front, will bring any significant
Speaker 1: updates as soon as they happen. You can find The
Speaker 1: Front wherever you listen. And if you know something, no
Speaker 1: matter how small it seems, please still contact me by
Speaker 1: email at Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 11: That'll be fine now, a little break for a few
Speaker 11: weeks and everyone will see the old May look Out.
Speaker 1: You heard this hopeful line in the first episode featuring
Speaker 1: some of Bromwin's writing from the weeks before she disappeared,
Speaker 1: And it is very likely that Bromwin's reference to a
Speaker 1: little break lent credence to John's story that she had
Speaker 1: indeed gone away for a break. Bromwin's brother Andy, his
Speaker 1: wife Michelle, and Bromwin's cousin Megan Reid say that John
Speaker 1: was insistent Bromwyn had said she was going away for
Speaker 1: a break of a few days, not a few weeks.
Speaker 1: Here's Meghan recalling John having shown her a piece of
Speaker 1: paper when he dropped by in Sydney, and it was
Speaker 1: during the visit in May. John was showing Megan some
Speaker 1: of Bromwin's writings. Remind me, what was the point of
Speaker 1: the piece of paper?
Speaker 5: Well, I didn't know. This is the whole thing. I
Speaker 5: had no idea. Why show me this piece of paper?
Speaker 12: It had members of the family and sort of stuff
Speaker 12: going back to our childhood. But that same piece of
Speaker 12: paper I've now found out he showed to a whole
Speaker 12: lot of other people, claiming that she left that as
Speaker 12: a note that she was leaving.
Speaker 13: But to me, I didn't say that at all.
Speaker 1: Kim Marshall has always had concerns about this too. Kim
Speaker 1: was a young woman living at home in Tasmania when
Speaker 1: Bromwyn disappeared. Kim remembered a lot of telephone contact with
Speaker 1: Bromwin and Kim and their mother Barbara in Tasmania in
Speaker 1: the weeks leading up to and during Broman's separation from John.
Speaker 1: Here's Kim from the very first episode in this podcast series.
Speaker 4: The story that she was writing.
Speaker 14: They've got the wrong idea about what's actually happened. Bromwn
Speaker 14: wrote a beautiful story of her history, okay, and then
Speaker 14: she says, when I come back, the real Bromwen will
Speaker 14: be back, so watch out. And John has used that
Speaker 14: paragraph to say that Bromwin has lost her marbles and
Speaker 14: has actually decided to act on what she was writing.
Speaker 14: And he goes, she's unstable, she's like a mother, blah
Speaker 14: blah blah.
Speaker 1: Now Bromwin and Kim's Auntie Jan can shed light for
Speaker 1: the first time on what Bromwin was talking about when
Speaker 1: she wrote a little break for a few weeks and
Speaker 1: everyone will see the old me. You are Barbara's younger sister.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 15: Yeah, Mab was born in thirty nine and I was
Speaker 15: born in forty two.
Speaker 1: I telephoned to ask her about your recollections of something
Speaker 1: Bromin might have been planning to do around the time
Speaker 1: she disappeared. Is that right?
Speaker 15: She had rung a couple of times feeling distressed, and
Speaker 15: then she rang Mum and asked her for some money.
Speaker 15: And it wasn't long after that that she disappeared.
Speaker 1: Do you have any letters from your mom or your
Speaker 1: sister which talk about Bromwin.
Speaker 2: No, we used to ring all the time.
Speaker 1: I want to just focus on whether you heard from
Speaker 1: either your mother or from your sister Barb of any
Speaker 1: plans by Bromwin to have a break in Tasmania for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: That was a plan.
Speaker 15: She didn't eventually come because that's when she disappeared, right,
Speaker 15: Mum was waiting for her to ring and tell her
Speaker 15: when she was coming over, and we didn't hear from her.
Speaker 1: And how do you remember that?
Speaker 15: Because Mum rang and told me she said, ron Wan's
Speaker 15: in a spot of trouble and what was going on
Speaker 15: and everything was Brd lived with Mum most of her life.
Speaker 15: She wanted some money, but Mum said to come over
Speaker 15: to her first before she did anything, but then we
Speaker 15: never heard from her after that. It was only weeks
Speaker 15: after that phone call to mum, my mum.
Speaker 1: And is that a fairly clear memory for you?
Speaker 16: Yes?
Speaker 1: Have you talked to the police before.
Speaker 15: No, Nobody's contacted me at all regarding ron Win's disappearance
Speaker 15: except you.
Speaker 1: One of the things that is written down by Bromwan
Speaker 1: in these papers that she wrote before she disappeared was
Speaker 1: that she was going to make a break and that
Speaker 1: she'd be coming back and should be fine.
Speaker 15: Well, that's probably when she was going to Mums to Hobart.
Speaker 15: Before she rang mum, she'd spoken to barb a couple
Speaker 15: of times regarding what was going on, and Barbara was
Speaker 15: quite distressed about it, and.
Speaker 4: Then she rang mum and then asked her for some money.
Speaker 15: That the plan was, according to my mum, that she
Speaker 15: was coming over to Hobart.
Speaker 1: Jan told me that Barbara had been visited by Bromwin
Speaker 1: and her brother Andy in Tasmania before.
Speaker 15: And I know Bronwin and Andrew used to go over
Speaker 15: to Hobart because I've got pictures of them here. I
Speaker 15: can send them to you if you like. They went
Speaker 15: over a few times to visit Barb. I think they
Speaker 15: flew over.
Speaker 1: How have you become aware of this renewed interest?
Speaker 15: Well, Kim contacted me.
Speaker 2: She said she's never going to give up. I don't
Speaker 2: really know.
Speaker 15: Whether it was investigated enough whatever. John said, they seemed
Speaker 15: to have taken to heart and said that's it.
Speaker 2: A lot more could have been done. Soon after that,
Speaker 2: it just died down.
Speaker 1: I spoke to Bromwan's half sister Kim about it.
Speaker 17: I actually have been going on about a trip to
Speaker 17: Tasmania and no one's ever listened to me.
Speaker 1: For people who don't know the potential significance, what do
Speaker 1: you believe it could be?
Speaker 4: John stole her trip?
Speaker 18: So the last paragraph in Bronnie's writing on the notepad
Speaker 18: is I will be going away for a while for
Speaker 18: a break, and when I come back, watch out the
Speaker 18: real broblem.
Speaker 4: We're back.
Speaker 18: So then I'm thinking nan Ant set airlines, nan making
Speaker 18: the phone calls, getting everything in order. Nan is my grandmother.
Speaker 18: My grandmother raised me. So I lived with my nan
Speaker 18: and my mum Barbara and then Annie. Jan lived in
Speaker 18: New South Wales because we traveled every holidays to the mainland,
Speaker 18: and nan Stone sat next to her chair and that's
Speaker 18: where she did her business.
Speaker 4: And I remember Nan offering airfares.
Speaker 17: Let's do airfares, Let's get you down here, will work
Speaker 17: out everything legally that you've got in place, will do it,
Speaker 17: but you need to get safe.
Speaker 4: And my mom's not alive to tell you, and no
Speaker 4: one was interested in listening to her when she tried.
Speaker 1: But your Auntie Jan remembers this.
Speaker 18: My mom spent years talking and crying and writing letters
Speaker 18: and debriefing and reflecting about the fact that Bronwin never
Speaker 18: got to Tasmania.
Speaker 4: And that's why I.
Speaker 17: Have so many troubles with my brother, because my brother
Speaker 17: never listens to me scream about Bronwin was actually coming
Speaker 17: for a holiday. That's what I was trying to explain
Speaker 17: to him and the police way back in June.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 18: And that's why I'm so emotional about everything, because no one.
Speaker 19: Ever listened to me, and I was there in the
Speaker 19: rooms listening to all these phone calls, and then no
Speaker 19: one ever was interested in mums and my phone bill,
Speaker 19: which had all the phone calls that we were making
Speaker 19: to bron When every day and of the night, because
Speaker 19: we're the ones that hurt John banging on the door.
Speaker 19: We're the ones that heard him saying open the door
Speaker 19: and let me in.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry heavily, but that's the truth.
Speaker 13: And I've probably got nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 19: But I've got Brown's voice being heard now.
Speaker 1: The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy's famous book from eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, Anna karen Ina, starts with this sentence, happy
Speaker 1: families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in
Speaker 1: its own way. In Tolstoy's view, a pathway to family
Speaker 1: happiness depends on important pillars, stability, respect, health, and unconditional
Speaker 1: love being some of the main ones. In this series,
Speaker 1: you have heard about a myriad of tensions, hurts, and
Speaker 1: grievances in the Reed family. Given everything that they've been
Speaker 1: through before and since Bromwin's disappearance, it is unsurprising. Remember,
Speaker 1: Bromwin and Andrew did not know until they were twelve
Speaker 1: and ten, respectively, that they even had a biological mother
Speaker 1: called Barbara. Andy and Bronwyn's father, Philip is not around
Speaker 1: to say why he didn't tell his children about the
Speaker 1: existence of Barbara when they were little. Andy still calls
Speaker 1: his father's second wife Jennifer Mum, because, as he says,
Speaker 1: she raised him. He refers to his biological mother as
Speaker 1: Barbara and sometimes as Mum. After dozens of hours talking
Speaker 1: to Barbara's two surviving children, Andy and Kim, I believe
Speaker 1: that Kim has sought to honor two people in this podcast.
Speaker 1: Kim has honored her half sister Bromwin, and Kim has
Speaker 1: also honored her mother, Barbara. Kim tells me that she
Speaker 1: has often felt like the sibling who didn't quite belong
Speaker 1: and that despite Andy having been kind and loving towards
Speaker 1: his mother Barbara and having included her and Kim in
Speaker 1: family events and visits, there's still been a distance, a
Speaker 1: bridge that hasn't been properly built with the foundations. Leo
Speaker 1: Tolstoy was thinking.
Speaker 20: About as far as I knew, if it was Mum,
Speaker 20: and it was only once that Mum was sort of
Speaker 20: allowed or going to agreed to allow.
Speaker 1: Mom back to our lives at me. You actually didn't
Speaker 1: know you had a mum other than Jennifer exactly.
Speaker 20: Yeah, Yeah, I was never told anything really about it.
Speaker 1: You reconnected with your mum when you were still a boy,
Speaker 1: What do you remember being told?
Speaker 21: Well, she wants to get back in touch, and Dad
Speaker 21: thought we were old enough to allow that to happen.
Speaker 21: She was always sort of up and down a bit,
Speaker 21: so you weren't sure which Barbie were going to get.
Speaker 21: In a way, it probably was the start of a
Speaker 21: bit of a downturn in family life as.
Speaker 1: We knew it later on.
Speaker 22: I think it did play a troll, you know, in
Speaker 22: showering of relationships and a bit of presentment.
Speaker 1: I suppose did you and.
Speaker 23: Bronwin from the time you then learned that you had
Speaker 23: a natural mother called Barbara, become close to her and
Speaker 23: try to develop the rapport that you'd missed out on
Speaker 23: for the previous ten years.
Speaker 20: Not really know on the only days you know, I'm
Speaker 20: sure maybe one digue or every couple of years.
Speaker 1: She wrote often.
Speaker 20: That was the start of Brian letters and correspondents, but
Speaker 20: not necessarily seeing each other like at every store, holidays
Speaker 20: or anything like that. Once I was short out at
Speaker 20: home and I had my places about a couple of times,
Speaker 20: but come up and.
Speaker 1: Stay for a week or so with me. Things like that.
Speaker 1: Barbara did become more involved in the lives of her
Speaker 1: only son and her first daughter, Bronwan, but it was
Speaker 1: impossible to make up for everything that had been missed
Speaker 1: in their formative years. In one of my many conversations
Speaker 1: with Kim, she also described having been made to feel
Speaker 1: most voiceless at times in the three decades since Bromlin vanished.
Speaker 1: Kim blames some of the police for this, and Kim
Speaker 1: recognizes that there was much less understanding of mental health
Speaker 1: challenges more than twenty years ago. She tells me that,
Speaker 1: in her view, Andy and Michelle should have insisted that
Speaker 1: she be involved more in the evidence. Kim says she
Speaker 1: and her mother wanted to be heard at the inquest
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, but they were, in Kim's view,
Speaker 1: deliberately excluded.
Speaker 18: Mum and I were asked not to come to the inquiry.
Speaker 18: We were asked not to testify as witnesses. Mum and
Speaker 18: I always been kicked out because of the mental health
Speaker 18: card and to stay out of it because we would
Speaker 18: actually hurt Bromlin's case, and very politely just told to
Speaker 18: go away and keep quiet.
Speaker 4: Am I being ignored because I was young? Am I
Speaker 4: being ignored because of the mental health? Am I being
Speaker 4: ignored because I'm a female? And they're the questions that
Speaker 4: I live with every day.
Speaker 18: For many, many years, and they're destroying you know, it's
Speaker 18: really hard being the little girl.
Speaker 17: That grew up always wanting to get more attention over here.
Speaker 1: Brother, Well, Kim, I think you've done an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of work to put this story and this case and
Speaker 1: all of the facts into the public arena, and you're
Speaker 1: pushing to produce all the evidence has made a powerful difference.
Speaker 24: It's something my psychologist and I decided that I had
Speaker 24: to get done, and I'm glad I'm doing it because
Speaker 24: now I feel like I've been heard, even if nothing happens,
Speaker 24: even if something comes of it.
Speaker 4: So it's really good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's helping. But sadly, Kim and her brother
Speaker 1: Andy were not on speaking terms as this episode went
Speaker 1: to air. When the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor took a
Speaker 1: statement from John Winfield's first wife, Jennifer Mason in December
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, she was living in the Queensland seaside
Speaker 1: town of Caloundra. Earlier in this podcast series, you heard
Speaker 1: a voice actor for Jennifer talk about her unexpected contact
Speaker 1: with John when he suddenly turned up on Monday May seventeenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, in the Shire. John had driven from
Speaker 1: Lennox through the night with the two girls and he
Speaker 1: needed somewhere for them to stay. Jennifer was out shopping.
Speaker 1: She was separating from her second husband, Brad at that time,
Speaker 1: but Brad's mother met John at the front door and
Speaker 1: he asked her to mind his girls. What you haven't
Speaker 1: heard about yet was Jennifer's poignant description of her relationship
Speaker 1: with John. Here's what she told the detective Glen Taylor.
Speaker 1: And remember these aren't Jennifer's words from that late nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight statement. It's not her voice.
Speaker 25: In approximately December nineteen seventy two, when I was sixteen
Speaker 25: years of age, I met a young man named John
Speaker 25: Winfield and we formed a relationship. We'd only been going
Speaker 25: out for about three months when I fell pregnant. John
Speaker 25: Winfield and I married when I was about three months pregnant.
Speaker 25: We married at Engerdeine and moved back in together at
Speaker 25: my parents' house at Sutherland. At that time, John was
Speaker 25: working at an oyster farm in Kernel, and my relationship
Speaker 25: with John was very happy. My dad got John a
Speaker 25: job as a bricklayer, and John earned fairly good money.
Speaker 25: I've been asked by Detective Sergeant Taylor if there were
Speaker 25: any incidents of domestic violence in my relationship with John Winfield.
Speaker 25: I recalled John like to have everything in the house organized.
Speaker 25: He wanted things done on time in his way. He
Speaker 25: never allowed me to argue back with him or question
Speaker 25: what he had to say.
Speaker 2: If I did.
Speaker 25: Question him over some issue, he'd get aggressive and angry
Speaker 25: with me.
Speaker 2: He'd yell at me, and he made him scared of him.
Speaker 25: I recall on one occasion when he pushed me back
Speaker 25: onto the bed because I answered back to him.
Speaker 2: On that time. He scared me a great deal.
Speaker 25: He said to me, I'll kill you if you say
Speaker 25: that again, and at the time he had his hands
Speaker 25: around my throat and was squeezing. I remember I managed
Speaker 25: to say go ahead, and to my surprise, he kept
Speaker 25: squeezing me around the throat. I managed to kick him
Speaker 25: in the groin and I got away from him and
Speaker 25: hid in the outside laundry. I sat there for ages
Speaker 25: in the laundry, and I remember I came back inside
Speaker 25: later that night and John had cooled down and nothing
Speaker 25: more was said. I also recall this night that John
Speaker 25: kicked a hole in the lounge with his knee This
Speaker 25: was just before he pushed me down on the bed.
Speaker 25: It was after this night I didn't back answer John,
Speaker 25: and I let him run things the way he wanted.
Speaker 25: John was particular over having things clean, in particular my
Speaker 25: daughter Jody. We always had to look our best as
Speaker 25: if we were on show, especially if his mother came
Speaker 25: over to visit. I tried to have the marriage work out,
Speaker 25: and I stayed with John for four years, but after
Speaker 25: the fourth year I decided to leave. I couldn't communicate
Speaker 25: with John anymore. I had to be quiet and be
Speaker 25: a wife the way he wanted a wife to be.
Speaker 25: I couldn't have opinions of my own, and if I tried,
Speaker 25: he'd build up this anger. I'd then become scared and
Speaker 25: back off. One morning, after John went to work, I
Speaker 25: grabbed some clothes for Jody and myself, and I ran
Speaker 25: off to Coffs Harbor. I stayed at my cousin's house
Speaker 25: for about a week. At that time, I hadn't made
Speaker 25: up my mind to permanently separate from John, but I
Speaker 25: needed some time to just think things out. I rang
Speaker 25: John up on the telephone to tell him where I was,
Speaker 25: and he turned it all around and said that if
Speaker 25: I wanted to leave, I should I panicked, thinking that
Speaker 25: my marriage was over, so I drove all night back
Speaker 25: to Sydney to see him the next day, but he'd
Speaker 25: already gone off to work. John's mother was in the house.
Speaker 25: I remember John's mother saying something like no woman walks
Speaker 25: out on my son. I wanted things to work out
Speaker 25: with John, but it seemed like his mother was encouraging
Speaker 25: him to end the relationship.
Speaker 1: In my eyes, the relationship was finished. Jennifer knew that
Speaker 1: John's mother would not forgive her. She had significant influence
Speaker 1: over her son. This statement by Jennifer cannot have been
Speaker 1: easy for her to make, and she would have known
Speaker 1: that it would become available to John, as it did
Speaker 1: in the lead up to the two thousand and two
Speaker 1: inquest in Lismore. When the police brief of evidence was
Speaker 1: turned over to John and his lawyer, Jennifer's statement became
Speaker 1: known to her daughter Jody. I've been told that it
Speaker 1: put a great deal of strain on the mother daughter relationship,
Speaker 1: which was already troubled. Remained fiercely loyal to her father John.
Speaker 25: John ended up setting me up in a flat at Cronulla.
Speaker 25: I was well provided for and Jody had the best
Speaker 25: of everything. John, however, didn't approve of the way I'd
Speaker 25: started to live my single life.
Speaker 1: In her statement, she described becoming lonely and depressed and
Speaker 1: spending time at the club to try to meet people,
Speaker 1: and although she arranged a babysitter, Jennifer said she felt
Speaker 1: hassled and judged over her mothering of her daughter. Jennifer
Speaker 1: and Jody moved into a granny flat. Although the flat
Speaker 1: was well maintained, Jennifer said that John's mother and father
Speaker 1: did not look kindly on the situation.
Speaker 25: I recall John's parents turned up one day with John
Speaker 25: and they picked.
Speaker 2: Up Jody and walked out the door.
Speaker 25: Grandma Winfield said, when you get your act together, you
Speaker 25: can have her back. At that time, I decided not
Speaker 25: to try to get Jody back from John. I blame
Speaker 25: myself now, but at the time I didn't understand the
Speaker 25: laws properly, and I was depressed and having problems with
Speaker 25: my life. And after this John and myself initiated divorce proceedings.
Speaker 25: John offered me twenty thousand dollars so he could keep
Speaker 25: custody of Jody. I told him to stick his twenty
Speaker 25: thousand dollars and take good care of Jody, and that's
Speaker 25: how John ended up having custody of her. The way
Speaker 25: I was at the time, I was mentally depressed and
Speaker 25: I'd become suicidal. It took some time to get over
Speaker 25: my problems at that time. From that time, Jody lived
Speaker 25: with John and John's parents, and I'd see Jody at
Speaker 25: different stages during the year. John wouldn't allow me to
Speaker 25: visit Jody at school and they constantly pushed me away
Speaker 25: from her.
Speaker 2: I used to sit outside the school.
Speaker 25: Watching Jody play at lunchtime in the school grounds.
Speaker 1: Bridgeta was Romwin's good friend. They went to school together
Speaker 1: and they went dancing at the local club and they
Speaker 1: were offered at the beach. Family helped Bromman with accommodation
Speaker 1: when things were tough at home with her stepmother. Bridgeta
Speaker 1: went to Bromwin's first wedding to Gary Beard. She made
Speaker 1: the wedding dress for Bromwin. When Broman's first marriage failed
Speaker 1: and Bromin was a single mother of Crystal, John came
Speaker 1: on the scene, and Bridgeton noted John's possessiveness. Back then,
Speaker 1: before John and Bromwin had moved to Lennox Head, a
Speaker 1: ten hour drive from the Shire, but Bridgeta told me
Speaker 1: something else when I spoke to her. It was something
Speaker 1: she remembered Brown telling Bridgeta she mentioned.
Speaker 16: To me something that Jodie's mother, which was his partner
Speaker 16: before that, she told he had choked her. And I went,
Speaker 16: what you're joking? And I said, why would anyone put
Speaker 16: up with.
Speaker 26: Bro?
Speaker 4: Sometimes you've got a up with something and oh, it's
Speaker 4: not too good.
Speaker 1: In a previous episode, you heard that Jennifer confirmed she
Speaker 1: was fond of Bronwin and they became friends. They shared
Speaker 1: some confidences, They stayed in touch because they had Jody's
Speaker 1: best interest at heart, and they were able to connect
Speaker 1: well despite Jennifer having once been married to John, John's
Speaker 1: first wife told bron yes, and she had choked her
Speaker 1: and this is what Broman told you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, told me that this What can you say when
Speaker 4: you hear things like that? So it sounds like he
Speaker 4: did have a bit of great history of it. Then choked.
Speaker 4: You can't scream, can you? These things go through my
Speaker 4: head only because of what she said about Jody's nun.
Speaker 1: Michelle and her husband Andy been aware since the inquest
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two that Bromwin had confided to
Speaker 1: friends in Lenox, including Denise Barnard, that John had put
Speaker 1: his hands around her throat and squeezed.
Speaker 27: She was scared how much went on and physical abuse.
Speaker 27: All that we know is since the statements have come out,
Speaker 27: been manhandled his hands around their throat in a choking
Speaker 27: one of the things that we've thought about it might
Speaker 27: have happened to Bromwin.
Speaker 1: I've talked to somebody who said that Jenny would not
Speaker 1: be comfortable speaking to me about John or Bromwin. In
Speaker 1: the podcast, one of Jenny's very good friends in Caloundra
Speaker 1: from the nineteen nineties, Dona Cioleppis, spoke.
Speaker 28: To me she came into the church as a single
Speaker 28: mum and she had not had much stability.
Speaker 1: Really, do you recall anything that she spoke to you
Speaker 1: about in relation to her marriage to John.
Speaker 28: She could never do anything right, She was never good enough,
Speaker 28: and she could not live.
Speaker 29: Up to his expectations of worldwife should be.
Speaker 28: She was very vulnerable and very young, and she said
Speaker 28: that she was terrified of his mother.
Speaker 4: I mainly recall her telling me about the bullying.
Speaker 28: Tactics to p Jody and that they tricked her and
Speaker 28: they pretty much.
Speaker 6: Stole Jody from her.
Speaker 2: This is what she has told me.
Speaker 1: It direcked her.
Speaker 2: I took her round to muggling immediately.
Speaker 1: Donna described Jenny's concerns about Robin's fate and about the
Speaker 1: repercussions that Jenny might face two as a result of
Speaker 1: giving her statement to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor. I've
Speaker 1: read Jennifer's statement. She gave that statement to the police
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: I remember when she did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh really, okay, So were you around her then?
Speaker 4: Yes, she was back in touch with Jodie.
Speaker 28: She was terrified of losing her relationship with Jodie.
Speaker 1: Jodie was definitely Dad's girl. It is interesting that John
Speaker 1: goes to her house in Sydney now despite them having
Speaker 1: divorced years earlier. In all of that ill Will.
Speaker 10: Yeah, she couldn't believe that he came to her house.
Speaker 1: She was stunned by that.
Speaker 28: She was very intimidated by him because she just knew
Speaker 28: that Bromin would not leave.
Speaker 1: I know she'd loved Broman.
Speaker 2: When I saw that you were doing.
Speaker 28: Bromman, I was just elated. I've been waiting to hear
Speaker 28: something about Jenny. She was the most beautiful, gorgeous girl.
Speaker 28: If anyone deserves happiness, it's that girl.
Speaker 1: Don hasn't caught up with Jenny for years. She's looking
Speaker 1: forward to resuming contact with her.
Speaker 4: I would love to see her.
Speaker 1: In episode five, you heard a voice actor read from
Speaker 1: an internal police document dated September nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 30: It is known the missing person was suffering from a
Speaker 30: mental state of confusion. Documents in the handwriting of the
Speaker 30: missing person, located at the family home, indicate that she
Speaker 30: may have been suffering from mild depression. It would also
Speaker 30: appear that she carries some form of grudge against certain
Speaker 30: members of her family over property dealings and her father
Speaker 30: over minor things.
Speaker 1: This puts a misleading and derogatory slant on what Bromwan
Speaker 1: actually wrote. In my view, it depicts Bromwan as mentally
Speaker 1: unbalanced and angry at her lot in life. Broman's writing
Speaker 1: was reflective. It was positive in the way she was
Speaker 1: looking forward to a new chapter in her life and
Speaker 1: the lives of her children. Another jotting noted Bromwin's intention
Speaker 1: to do a self improvement course over two days in
Speaker 1: June at the Lismore Workers Club. The police report, signed
Speaker 1: by an officer who has since died, also stated.
Speaker 30: Copies of letters forwarded to friends and relatives indicate she
Speaker 30: may have been trying to write the wrongs of the
Speaker 30: past and reunite with the grandparents of one of her children,
Speaker 30: who she has had no contact with for about five years.
Speaker 1: Here's what Bromwin wrote to Cristel's father, Mark Davis, and
Speaker 1: to his parents Cristel's grandparents. Bromin's handwritten letter is dated
Speaker 1: early May nineteen ninety three. She did a couple of
Speaker 1: versions on May three and on May five. It's not
Speaker 1: long before her disappearance, and she wrote it from the
Speaker 1: rented place in Byron Street.
Speaker 11: Dear Eda Awen markan family. I thought i'd drop you
Speaker 11: a note since it costs so much for phone calls,
Speaker 11: and with the girls at school, I have the time.
Speaker 11: It's so long since we had some form of contact
Speaker 11: that I don't know where to start. I've been carrying
Speaker 11: around the guilt of not staying in contact for so long.
Speaker 11: It's almost overwhelming me as I'm writing. I believe no
Speaker 11: child should be deprived of the right to know its
Speaker 11: family or its family and have the security of knowing
Speaker 11: there is always someone to listen to them throughout their lives.
Speaker 11: I more than anyone, should understand this, as I've always
Speaker 11: felt alone and this isn't something that I would wish
Speaker 11: upon anyone, especially my own daughter. We have been living
Speaker 11: in a lovely small town called Lennox Head for the
Speaker 11: past four years, and the people seem to be some
Speaker 11: of the nicest people I've met in my life. My husband,
Speaker 11: whom I have separated from, was a very quiet and
Speaker 11: obsessive man. He was burnt along periods of depression and
Speaker 11: sometimes anger. I have a bad habit of picking up
Speaker 11: lame duckson trying to make things better, and now realize
Speaker 11: that you must accept people for what they are, and
Speaker 11: if you are unable to, then you don't get involved.
Speaker 11: John always tried to be a good father, although most
Speaker 11: of his methods I've regard as too extreme, and most
Speaker 11: of his methods to make me into the perfect homebody
Speaker 11: were unrealistic expectations, so we drifted along in limbo until
Speaker 11: I couldn't take it any more. He had little or
Speaker 11: no faith in my ability to be a person in
Speaker 11: my own right. The constant character assassination that plagued our
Speaker 11: arguments every time I would express an idea or an
Speaker 11: independent opinion, had me believing I was a rational and
Speaker 11: unrealistic His concept on family and marriage were too rigid
Speaker 11: for me and the children to grow up in a
Speaker 11: stable environment. My only regret is that I'd had no
Speaker 11: one to talk to, although I will never regret having
Speaker 11: loen in the companionship and love I shared with Jody
Speaker 11: John's daughter from a previous marriage.
Speaker 1: Bronwyn has crossed out a few sentences in her letter.
Speaker 1: One of those says that she has been betrayed once
Speaker 1: too often. Another sentence praises her good friends in Lenox,
Speaker 1: people she says she has trusted, and although Bromwyn doesn't
Speaker 1: name them, I'm going to mention a handful now. It's
Speaker 1: not an exhaustive list. Deb Hall, Denise Barnard, the woman
Speaker 1: we referred to as Joan although that's not her real name,
Speaker 1: and Maria Glewis Scruffy's wife, and Virginia Bevers. Bromwin wrote
Speaker 1: that she needed to learn to trust more people like
Speaker 1: the friends she had made in Lenox, and as a
Speaker 1: reminder to herself, she wrote that she needed to find
Speaker 1: photographs of Crystal to send to Edda Alwyn and Mark.
Speaker 11: Crystal has grown up into a lovely child, and I
Speaker 11: know you would be proud to be her grandparents, and
Speaker 11: Mark would love her as well, but I'm not going
Speaker 11: to relinquish my custody. All your family will be welcome
Speaker 11: to see her and keep regular contact with her. I
Speaker 11: will always be open to your suggestions on schooling and
Speaker 11: any other ideas you may have, and would welcome Mark
Speaker 11: as a friend to confide in with any issues that
Speaker 11: may arise, although the final decision will be mine, because
Speaker 11: if there's one thing I am good at, it as
Speaker 11: being a mother. I'm sure there is room for improvement,
Speaker 11: but it's what I love best in life, something sadly
Speaker 11: lacking in my teenage years.
Speaker 1: Bromwin's good friend Bridgeta remembered Crystal's father and his sometimes
Speaker 1: stormy relationship with Bromwin. Did you know Mark Davis?
Speaker 13: Yes?
Speaker 4: I did know Mark Davis.
Speaker 1: He's the father of Crystal.
Speaker 4: Yes she is. She tried to kick me out of
Speaker 4: his house once and Bromwin jumped in front of me
Speaker 4: to save me before he grubt me Because I ricked
Speaker 4: a dirty coaster of the wall. I couldn't stand looking
Speaker 4: at all these naked women on the wall. He lived
Speaker 4: with other guys in a place called the farm. Oh,
Speaker 4: pretty much what the Crinola blokes were like in those days?
Speaker 1: And what was that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: You know, they used to do a bit of the
Speaker 4: marijuana and stuff. It wasn't the kind of guy I
Speaker 4: would really want to be, which ectould put.
Speaker 7: It that way.
Speaker 1: Here's Bromwin's cousin, Megan Reid.
Speaker 12: When she was with Mark Davis. She was only sixteen
Speaker 12: and we used to double date with my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I asked Andy about his sister Bromwin's letter an olive
Speaker 1: branch to Crystal's father and his family. When Bromwin reached
Speaker 1: out to Mark Davis's family after she'd separated from John,
Speaker 1: what do you believe she was seeking to do there?
Speaker 31: She went trying to ensure Crystal's well being if anything
Speaker 31: ever went wrong. She already asked and comments to Michelle
Speaker 31: and made that if anything ever happens to me, he
Speaker 31: promised me you look after Crystal. I'm not sure whether
Speaker 31: she was one hundred percent beautiful, but she was just
Speaker 31: putting steps in place to ensure Crystal's Willpoom.
Speaker 1: Madison Walsh and her auntie Megan Reid, explained that there
Speaker 1: was another very delicate issue revolving around Crystal. Bromwin had
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, Mark Guthrie around the time of her first pregnancy.
Speaker 1: For some time, Mark Guthrie and his family believed that
Speaker 1: he was Crystal's father.
Speaker 3: After Bromwin goes missing, there's a dispute for custody for Crystal.
Speaker 3: Mark Guthrie or he was Crystal's father. Brumwan always was like, no,
Speaker 3: you're not, You're not, but he.
Speaker 2: Thought he was.
Speaker 1: But just weeks after Bromwin vanished, Mark Guthrie and his
Speaker 1: family pressed on Winfield. The Guthrie family wanted to form
Speaker 1: a relationship with Crystal. John wrote to the family and
Speaker 1: to their solicitor. I have a copy of the letter.
Speaker 1: These are John's words, but it's not John's voice.
Speaker 29: One Mark has never personally or in writing approached us
Speaker 29: in regard to access to Crystal. Two. We have always
Speaker 29: been locatable. We have always been in the telephone book.
Speaker 29: Had he really wanted to, Mark could have found us
Speaker 29: at any time. Could you emphasize to your clients the
Speaker 29: necessity and advantage of getting the facts right. Not only
Speaker 29: have you failed to mention the possibility of child support,
Speaker 29: something that has been my responsibility for almost eleven years.
Speaker 29: But you have failed to consider Crystal's feelings and what
Speaker 29: she wants to do about this delicate situation. Mark is
Speaker 29: a total stranger to Crystal, and with the possibility of
Speaker 29: fatherhood not yet really established, you are asking me to
Speaker 29: introduce Crystal to a possible impostor. I ask you, is
Speaker 29: that really in the best interests of Crystal?
Speaker 1: Surely not.
Speaker 29: I am not positive that mister Guthrie is Crystal's natural father.
Speaker 29: If fatherhood is established, as I have emphasized previously, access
Speaker 29: would be no problem as she suffers car sickness. Do
Speaker 29: they expect me to pay for airline tickets each school holidays?
Speaker 29: I must say that this event has developed into a
Speaker 29: horror show. As we all know, there is always a
Speaker 29: third corner to any triangle, and his name is Mark Davis.
Speaker 29: I am in receipt of Crystal's christening papers and it
Speaker 29: shows that she was christened under the name of Davis
Speaker 29: at nine months of age. Mark Davis has consented to
Speaker 29: have a DNA test to verify the relationship. The gynecologist's
Speaker 29: report shows that Christal was born five weeks prematurely, and
Speaker 29: also shows Bromwin's date of conception. Mark's naval records show
Speaker 29: exactly where he was at the time of conception. I
Speaker 29: have a responsibility to Crystal to introduce her to her
Speaker 29: real biological father, and I will. The lack of any
Speaker 29: offers of financial support in almost eleven years also tells
Speaker 29: me that mister Guthrie is not sure of fatherhood. I
Speaker 29: hope you have advised your clients that I could quite
Speaker 29: easily make a quick exit and go with your requests. Consequently,
Speaker 29: that would lead us to the child support agency, and
Speaker 29: a deduction from Mark's wages to the tune of one
Speaker 29: hundred and forty five dollars per month backdated maintenance to
Speaker 29: December nineteen eighty two with an interest adjustment would be
Speaker 29: the best part of ten thousand dollars. It is a
Speaker 29: gamble I can afford to take, but I am not
Speaker 29: so sure about mister Guthrie. Maintenance, if I am correct,
Speaker 29: is payable up to the age of sixteen years, so
Speaker 29: we could develop into a nice little nest egg for
Speaker 29: Crystal in her later years. The truth here is that
Speaker 29: I have been Crystal's father for eight years and in ten,
Speaker 29: continuing in that role. She also has a very close
Speaker 29: relationship with Lauren and Jody, and for that matter, the
Speaker 29: rest of my family and Bronwin's family. She loves the
Speaker 29: school she attends and does very well there, played the
Speaker 29: guitar for quite a number of years now and is
Speaker 29: classed as an advanced student. She knows that I am
Speaker 29: not her real father and has been told by Bronwan
Speaker 29: of the existence of a person named Mark Davis. Mister
Speaker 29: Guthrie personally has never made any contact with us in
Speaker 29: the eight years that I have been involved. Only he
Speaker 29: knows why. My advice to him, for what it's worth,
Speaker 29: is to agree, like Mark Davis, to a DNA test
Speaker 29: to establish.
Speaker 1: The validity of his claim.
Speaker 29: In his position, I would not enjoy paying maintenance for
Speaker 29: a child which was not really mine. Yours, sincerely, John Winfield.
Speaker 1: PS.
Speaker 29: I hope you have noticed how Crystal's name is really spelt.
Speaker 29: Surely an assumed father would know something so basic about
Speaker 29: his own daughter.
Speaker 1: Here's Mattie Walsh with Megan again, and.
Speaker 3: Then he did a DNA paternal test, so that basically
Speaker 3: ended there. He didn't get custody because he wasn't her father.
Speaker 3: So that proved that Mark Davis, the other Mark was
Speaker 3: her father, Marcus Christal's actual father, and Crystal found out
Speaker 3: about that before Bromin died.
Speaker 4: It's written in.
Speaker 32: My diary entry that she told her that her real
Speaker 32: father was Mark Davis, and in the phone records you
Speaker 32: can see she called the.
Speaker 13: Davises the whole family.
Speaker 4: She wanted them to have contact with Cristel.
Speaker 1: Patricia Peterson spoke to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight about her longtime connection to Bromwyn and
Speaker 1: her family. As a grief counselor, Patricia saw a lot
Speaker 1: of family trouble and she tried to help vulnerable people.
Speaker 1: These are her words, but not her voice.
Speaker 13: I've known Bromwyn Winfield since she was a small child.
Speaker 13: I knew Bromwyn's parents, Jennifer and Philip Bred. Bromwyn had
Speaker 13: a daughter named Cristal, who at that time was about
Speaker 13: eighteen months old. I remember Bromwin coming to see me
Speaker 13: in my role as a grief counselor. Bromwyn told me
Speaker 13: the circumstances of her pregnancy with Cristel.
Speaker 1: Bromwyn told Patricia that on her birthday she was turning twenty, she.
Speaker 13: Got very drunk and in the morning she woke up
Speaker 13: in bed with a man.
Speaker 1: Bromwyn married Gary Beer, but it was a relatively brief union.
Speaker 1: Patricia counseled Bromwin when her connection to John was new.
Speaker 13: I also remember Bromwyn telling me during this counseling session
Speaker 13: that she had met another man named John. At that stage,
Speaker 13: Bromin and John were in a relationship, but they were
Speaker 13: not living together. Bromwyn told me that John was making
Speaker 13: her life a misery. Although she told me that she
Speaker 13: loved John. Bromwin told me that John was hounding her
Speaker 13: and was very jealous over the fact that she had
Speaker 13: previously been involved with the other men. I advised broman
Speaker 13: to think strongly about terminating her relationship with John. Bromwn
Speaker 13: told me that John would go over and over the
Speaker 13: fact that she had been involved in other relationships with
Speaker 13: other men and would have preferred her to be a
Speaker 13: virgin when he met her. I formed the opinion, based
Speaker 13: on my previous experience as a counselor and through my
Speaker 13: life experiences, that John could become violent towards Bromwyn if
Speaker 13: she married him. I assessed Bromwin as being a person
Speaker 13: who had a desperate need to love and to be loved,
Speaker 13: and she was seeking this type of relationship from John.
Speaker 13: Even at that stage, I feared for Bromwin's safety and happiness.
Speaker 13: Andrew told me that after John had returned to the
Speaker 13: marital home, Bromwyn had gone missing, leaving the children with him.
Speaker 13: There is no way that I will ever believe that
Speaker 13: Bromwyn left those children with John of her own accord.
Speaker 13: And my immediate reaction I expressed to Andrew was that
Speaker 13: I felt that John had killed Bromwin and that is
Speaker 13: why she's missing.
Speaker 1: In episode seven, you heard parts of Crystal's statement to
Speaker 1: the police officer Glenn Taylor. Cristel was sixteen and describing
Speaker 1: how her father would not ever talk about Bromwin. Cristel
Speaker 1: told police in nineteen ninety eight that over the previous
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 26: My mother has gradually been built out of our lives.
Speaker 26: My dad never talks about Mum or his past relationship
Speaker 26: with her. I have never tried to bring up Mom
Speaker 26: in conversation with my father.
Speaker 1: Now let's go back again to Megan Reid, Bromin's good
Speaker 1: friend and cousin, and you wrote this, John got rid
Speaker 1: of all of Bromlin's personal possessions the week after she
Speaker 1: allegedly disappeared, including all photos. There wasn't a trace of
Speaker 1: her existence left, so the kids were told to forget
Speaker 1: her as she had run off with another man and
Speaker 1: didn't love them.
Speaker 12: Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1: How did you know that? That's what John did?
Speaker 12: And also Andrew dropped in there and he saw that
Speaker 12: all the picture face had photos of a different woman
Speaker 12: in them from what stuff was gone, and no.
Speaker 1: Faith, John's not there, but Lauren let you in.
Speaker 2: Yes, the kids, that's right.
Speaker 1: And it's five years after Bromin's disappeared. Your mind's made up?
Speaker 1: Would you have been able to talk to him knowing
Speaker 1: as you did, or suspecting as you did then that
Speaker 1: he had killed your sister?
Speaker 33: Even though we were suspicious and always had been suspicious,
Speaker 33: we just wanted to see the kids, and we.
Speaker 27: Just thought, let's just do it, Let's just go for it,
Speaker 27: let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: How was it possible for you at that time to
Speaker 1: be visiting him socially with that suspicion or did you
Speaker 1: see there's some kind of intelligence gathering.
Speaker 2: I think we were being pretty daring.
Speaker 33: Actually, I couldn't believe it. I just thought, why are
Speaker 33: two kids being raised in the manner that they're being
Speaker 33: forced to forget their mother?
Speaker 2: Roman was white.
Speaker 34: There was not one photo of their mother. There were
Speaker 34: photos of the kids and other family photos, but there
Speaker 34: was not one picture of their mom.
Speaker 2: Gotten gone.
Speaker 33: It was quite daunting just to think that not one
Speaker 33: thing was left in the house that had any full
Speaker 33: memory of their mum.
Speaker 1: Cristel's father, Mark, passed away in his sleep in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: and Cristel has clung to a belief, a kind of fantasy,
Speaker 1: that a woman who came to her father's funeral took
Speaker 1: a fond interest in Cristel, who was in her late
Speaker 1: twenties when her dad died. In Cristel's mind, this mystery
Speaker 1: woman handed the younger woman some photographs. They were images
Speaker 1: of her father and her mother. Cristel has asked whether
Speaker 1: this woman at her father's funeral was Bronwyin, but nobody
Speaker 1: else who went to the service agrees. There is consensus
Speaker 1: that it's a story born from grief and wishful thinking,
Speaker 1: with no basis in fact. Bronwyn did not attend Cristel's
Speaker 1: father's funeral. As this podcast series was unfolding. Mark's brother,
Speaker 1: Greg Davis got in touch with me. Greg told me
Speaker 1: that Mark and Roman's relationship was complicated. The Davis family
Speaker 1: did not have any contact with Bronwan or with Crystal
Speaker 1: from when she was two until she turned ten. Here's
Speaker 1: what Greg wrote to me. These are his words and
Speaker 1: Greg has kindly agreed to read them. This is Greg's voice.
Speaker 35: My mother Edda Davis received a phone call from Bronwin
Speaker 35: in early nineteen ninety three saying she wanted Cristel to
Speaker 35: know her grandparents and promptly put Crystal on the phone
Speaker 35: to chat with mum. You can imagine this was very
Speaker 35: confusing for a ten year old. Bronwin mentioned to Mum
Speaker 35: that she had left her husband I know. She also
Speaker 35: wrote a letter to mum which detailed more about her
Speaker 35: issues with John. I can't remember the exact order of
Speaker 35: when everything happened, but Bronwen disappeared soon after. My recollection
Speaker 35: is that after Bronwyn disappeared, John encouraged a relationship between
Speaker 35: Crystal and my late parents and they were asked to
Speaker 35: help support Crystal financially. My parents were living in Guymy
Speaker 35: Bay in the Southern Shire of the time, and John
Speaker 35: would put Crystal on a bus to Sydney, traveling solo
Speaker 35: from the age of ten for visits. My impression is
Speaker 35: that John had semi disowned Crystal, and within a couple
Speaker 35: of years Christel was living with other families that Lennox had.
Speaker 35: My parents paid for her education at school and tave
Speaker 35: and when she was older, bought her a car and
Speaker 35: assisted her in her move to Sydney. My brother and
Speaker 35: my parents had a very close relationship with Crystal. My
Speaker 35: wife and I and our children continue to involve Crystal
Speaker 35: as part of our family. As you've mentioned, she's reluctant
Speaker 35: to get involved publicly, but she's taken an interest behind
Speaker 35: the scenes. We all hope for justice to prevail.
Speaker 1: Greg also shared a photograph from Crystal's Christling showing Mark
Speaker 1: and Bronwyn together. It's one of many photographs at the
Speaker 1: Bronwyn podcast dot com site. When Cristel was a teenager
Speaker 1: and yet to finish her high school education, she went
Speaker 1: to live in Kerry McLean's house in Ballina. You'll recall
Speaker 1: Kerry from episode seven and eight. In one of life's
Speaker 1: great ironies, Crystel's stepfather, John Winfield, had selected Kerry mclan
Speaker 1: to be Cristel's paid career. In John's absence, John and
Speaker 1: his daughter Lauren were moving to Sydney, as John had
Speaker 1: bricklaying workdown there. It was nineteen ninety eight. Kerry recalled
Speaker 1: meeting him.
Speaker 5: Then he was in a hurry to leave town. She
Speaker 5: didn't speak unkindly about him. He was all she had here.
Speaker 1: But it was a remarkable and perhaps fateful coincidence. John
Speaker 1: did not know that Kerry was good friends at that
Speaker 1: time with Judy's singh who had witnessed John driving along
Speaker 1: Granite Street with what appeared to be a body in
Speaker 1: the back seat of the Ford Falcon sedan. Kerry McLean's
Speaker 1: efforts to lert me to what Judy saw have led
Speaker 1: to police obtaining fresh and what we believe is compelling
Speaker 1: evidence in this case for the first time in years.
Speaker 1: When John left Crystal at the home of a woman
Speaker 1: whom John had never met until his stepdaughter needed somewhere
Speaker 1: to live, he had no idea of the coincidence nor
Speaker 1: how it might pan out. While Cristel was living at
Speaker 1: her very welcoming new home in Ballina, Kerry McLain witnessed
Speaker 1: the teenager's blossoming connection with her grandmother, her biological father
Speaker 1: Mark's mother Edda.
Speaker 5: But I encouraged the contact with her grandmother when she
Speaker 5: was here. I'm sure the Grannie that used to call
Speaker 5: her was her biological dad's mum. I remember there was
Speaker 5: an uncle, Yeah, so that would have been her dad's brother.
Speaker 5: So she did have those family connections with the extended family.
Speaker 5: I don't know about Bronwan's mum.
Speaker 1: Did KRISTI want to talk to you about her mother?
Speaker 5: She talked a little bit. Some kids have disclosed dreadful
Speaker 5: things to me when they're staying here, and I never
Speaker 5: quiz them. But I'm here to listen. She was baffled too.
Speaker 5: She had no answers.
Speaker 1: Had you met Bromwin?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: No, no?
Speaker 1: And what about Judy? Did she say whether she knew Bromin.
Speaker 5: I don't think so. But everyone in the street would
Speaker 5: have known, Oh this person has gone missing. She would
Speaker 5: have known of her.
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Judy Singh, she told me something you
Speaker 1: haven't heard before. It was about a brief contact Judy
Speaker 1: had with Broman shortly before the mother of two disappeared.
Speaker 36: And in fact a few weeks before all that she
Speaker 36: was on my front gutter, and I was concerned about
Speaker 36: her because there was a colvet there where the water
Speaker 36: ran down. She was there with her little girl, and
Speaker 36: I came out and I said, oh, I'm wrong with you,
Speaker 36: all right? She said, no, my husband's changed the locks.
Speaker 36: I can't get into the house. Do you think you
Speaker 36: could give me a glass of water? So I went
Speaker 36: back in the house and I got there in a
Speaker 36: little girl's glass of water, and I came out and
Speaker 36: I just thought, I said, please, don't sit there. I've
Speaker 36: seen a snake go down that colt there in the
Speaker 36: front of the house. And she got up and she
Speaker 36: just sort of stood up that she was a little
Speaker 36: bit wonky on her legs. I think she was doing
Speaker 36: it really tough. I said, do you want to come
Speaker 36: inside for a while, and she said no. She was
Speaker 36: going to try and get into the house somehow. She
Speaker 36: said that they changed all the locks and there was
Speaker 36: no way she could get some things out that she wanted.
Speaker 1: Two days after that interview with Jude, I met her
Speaker 1: in person near Tweedthead with my colleague Sean Callanan. That
Speaker 1: was when she looked at a photograph of her old
Speaker 1: house in Granite Street. She peered at the image to
Speaker 1: see if the drain was still where she remembered it,
Speaker 1: where she recalled seeing Bronwyn.
Speaker 37: Yes, she was sitting on these drains here the day
Speaker 37: she came to me and was winning a glass of water.
Speaker 2: She was sitting there because that was very shrubby.
Speaker 37: In there, and I said, oh, look I've seen a
Speaker 37: snape go down there.
Speaker 2: Please don't sit there.
Speaker 1: The fence wasn't there then.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our new friend, the scuba diver and former Australian Navy
Speaker 1: Captain Ash McDonald and his wife Allison, drove more than
Speaker 1: seven hours from the city of Newcastle. They arrived into
Speaker 1: Lennox very late on a Friday night. More volunteers came
Speaker 1: from Western Sydney. Chris Darcy from Search Dog Sydney, his
Speaker 1: wife Adele, and a volunteer, Jodi, drove in two vehicles
Speaker 1: with trailers, one for the bow and the sonar equipment,
Speaker 1: the other towing a mobile kennel for the remarkable dogs,
Speaker 1: which are trained to smell human remains, even after decades
Speaker 1: of concealment. I picked up the indefatigable Madison Walsh at
Speaker 1: Brisbane Airport on Friday afternoon and we went to Murray
Speaker 1: Nolan and Deb Hall's house in Sandstone Crescent, Lennox, the
Speaker 1: house where they've lived for about thirty five years. We
Speaker 1: drove slowly down the adjoining Granite Street and looked up
Speaker 1: at what was once the balcony where Judy sing sat,
Speaker 1: where she is adamant that she saw John driving his
Speaker 1: Ford Falcon with what appeared to be a body wrapped
Speaker 1: in a sheet in the back seat, and where detectives
Speaker 1: from the Unsolved homicide unit in Sydney have already been
Speaker 1: with Judy since you heard her revelations. In episode seven,
Speaker 1: Deb put the kettle on as Murray shared a theory
Speaker 1: about what he now believes happened when the falcon rolled
Speaker 1: down the hill from John and Roman's house about ten
Speaker 1: forty pm on Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three. When
Speaker 1: I met Murray and Deb for the first time in
Speaker 1: their home way back in February twenty twenty four, for
Speaker 1: one of my very early interviews for this podcast investigation,
Speaker 1: we had an exchange that you are about to hear.
Speaker 1: Remember back then, Judy Singh had not come forward at
Speaker 1: the time that I met Murray and Deb. We would
Speaker 1: not hear from Judy for another four months.
Speaker 38: Okay, would have got enough roll up to go down
Speaker 38: the driveway because it's quite a steep, and then be
Speaker 38: able to swing and then roll down this hill without
Speaker 38: the car being on definitely until he got down around
Speaker 38: the bottom.
Speaker 2: Then you'd have to turn it on because it's on
Speaker 2: the flat.
Speaker 7: My fear is that the kids were still asleep in
Speaker 7: the house and he didn't want to waken.
Speaker 1: What's that in the car?
Speaker 2: It's looking very very perplextyle this at So.
Speaker 1: You think he's there? Come back? Yes?
Speaker 7: Yes, so he's left here twenty to eleven. He's gone
Speaker 7: to the all night service station in Valen Which is
Speaker 7: there anymore?
Speaker 1: Come back?
Speaker 7: I needver heard him come back?
Speaker 1: And why do you think that the children would have
Speaker 1: remained in the house of sleep? Why wouldn't the children
Speaker 1: have gone with him at twenty to eleven. That's just
Speaker 1: my theory. A lot of water has gone under the
Speaker 1: bridge in this podcast series since that first interview with
Speaker 1: Murray and Dare back in February twenty twenty four, on
Speaker 1: the eve of our lake search. In July, five months later,
Speaker 1: Murray told me that he had been thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about the Sunday night in May nineteen ninety three. Murray
Speaker 1: has been considering the possibilities and the timings, including what
Speaker 1: Judy Singh has revealed she saw closer to midnight. Murray
Speaker 1: now reckons that the Ford Falcon ran out of fuel
Speaker 1: and woul start on the slope of the driveway outside
Speaker 1: the house at Sandstone Crescent when John got into the
Speaker 1: car about ten forty pm that Sunday night. Murray's theory
Speaker 1: is that John grabbed a can of mower fuel from
Speaker 1: the garage, reversed the car out and rolled down the
Speaker 1: hill without lights and power until he got to the
Speaker 1: flat part at the bottom of Sandstone Crescent. Then, Murray's
Speaker 1: surmises John emptied the can of fuel and went straight
Speaker 1: to the Ampole service station in Ballina. Murray's theory could
Speaker 1: explain the car bottoming out. It might have had weights
Speaker 1: in the boot bags of cement, for example, or weights
Speaker 1: from his bench press set. But it might have bottomed
Speaker 1: out because if John did not have fuel and couldn't
Speaker 1: start the engine, the brakes would have been impaired, in
Speaker 1: which case did the car roll back down the driveway
Speaker 1: faster than usual, contributing to the scrape and bottoming out
Speaker 1: of the towbar on the road. Did the speed of
Speaker 1: the car in reverse help John clear the driveway and
Speaker 1: get a little way into Sandstone Crescent so that he
Speaker 1: could then wrench the steering wheel to the left to
Speaker 1: point the car downhill. The actual receipt for the eleven
Speaker 1: o six pm purchase has been sent to me by
Speaker 1: the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor, and it shows that John
Speaker 1: spent fifty one dollars that night. If it all went
Speaker 1: on petrol, it would have been about the right amount
Speaker 1: of money to fill the petrol tank up from empty.
Speaker 1: We're not calculating something else here. It is not known
Speaker 1: whether the liquefied petroleum gas pack in the car was
Speaker 1: operational at the time, so we are not factoring LPG
Speaker 1: into the purchase. But the LPG tank was still in
Speaker 1: the boot. The boot is big in Murray's theory. John
Speaker 1: then comes back from the Ampole service station with a
Speaker 1: Ford Falcon which has had its petrol tank filled up,
Speaker 1: and then at home he's done what he's needed to do,
Speaker 1: perhaps with Bromwyn and the sheets, leaving the children alone
Speaker 1: again asleep. The car has gone out again and crept
Speaker 1: slowly along Granite street, its driver, possibly a gas that
Speaker 1: the interior light was on. We can only speculate about
Speaker 1: why the light was left on, allowing Judy to see
Speaker 1: what she insists she saw. Murray's idea is sound, but
Speaker 1: we're all speculating with others involved in the search. Arriving
Speaker 1: into Lennox, Maddie and I left Murray and Deb's house
Speaker 1: and we went into town, pulling up opposite what used
Speaker 1: to be Eden's Takeaway where Bromwin worked on the Friday
Speaker 1: night Chris Darcy, his partner Adele, and their friend in Volune. Here,
Speaker 1: Jodi joined myself, Maddie, Andy Reid, his daughter Caitlin, Deb
Speaker 1: and Murray for an impromptu dinner of takeaway pizzas. Chris
Speaker 1: shared some of his search planned.
Speaker 10: So I went out a look this afternoon, looked at
Speaker 10: all the silent, did everything around the lake, and I
Speaker 10: don't think we go in low priority.
Speaker 1: We'll put the market up.
Speaker 10: We'll have the laptop, we'll have the boat trailer there,
Speaker 10: we have the dog trailer there. It's just that I
Speaker 10: was doing a few extra bodies to help us carry
Speaker 10: the boat pretty much from there to the waterline.
Speaker 1: Andy mentioned something he'd read on the official Bromwin Facebook
Speaker 1: discussion group page.
Speaker 39: They used to dive down the fifteen meters or so
Speaker 39: at the bottom and said it was quite sheltery and
Speaker 39: if you tried to stand up on the bottom he
Speaker 39: had seen nearly up.
Speaker 10: So this is apparently is in the deepest hole here.
Speaker 1: Murray pointed to the laptop and the grid search drawn
Speaker 1: by Chris.
Speaker 7: There's the old four wheel drive track go back in
Speaker 7: those they're fishing and going up and down this beach
Speaker 7: all else.
Speaker 10: If it was a surfboard bag, then that shouldn't decompose
Speaker 10: too much. And an example of that is over in
Speaker 10: the Mediterranean they're still finding shipwrecks that are three hundred
Speaker 10: years old in the fresher water parts of it that's
Speaker 10: not even actually rotting the wood with the sona. It
Speaker 10: comes down directly below the boat and it really picks
Speaker 10: up this part there right. But then you've got the
Speaker 10: side view and it then covers that I've got a
Speaker 10: monitor that you guys can sit there and watch it
Speaker 10: on vack at base and then we've.
Speaker 37: Got radio comments between the stress amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, so the check is incredible. Yeah, yeah, from Blake
Speaker 1: who's still figuring out Blue too. You're the search leader,
Speaker 1: and we'll just do what you think.
Speaker 10: So that's the soda of what a body will look
Speaker 10: like in the water, because the potential is there that
Speaker 10: we could locate, But what.
Speaker 17: Are the os that realistically, after thirty one years we'd
Speaker 17: get the visual.
Speaker 1: Like that, No, non oliver. Yeah, what we're looking for
Speaker 1: now is.
Speaker 10: Something that is unnatural. If anybody is having any mental
Speaker 10: health issues after this weekend or at any time, just
Speaker 10: reach out to us.
Speaker 1: The next morning we headed for the water, the dark
Speaker 1: water of Lake Ainsworth. We'll do our search pattern.
Speaker 10: If we locate something, I'll drop the shot.
Speaker 1: The shot is simply a weight attached to a line.
Speaker 1: At the other end of the line, there's a boy
Speaker 1: designed to float on top of the lake as a marker.
Speaker 1: The shot is dropped overboard when the sonar detects an
Speaker 1: item on the lake bed, giving Ash McDonald something to
Speaker 1: dive on. The shot weight. If it's a nice heavy weight,
Speaker 1: it's only three and a half helus.
Speaker 6: It's not enough because on the bottom that's six meters down.
Speaker 1: It doesn't wait that much.
Speaker 6: If I'm searching around it, I'll drag it along the bottom.
Speaker 1: Well, tie all three together that'll be Tinklos should do it.
Speaker 1: Chris explained that his cadaver dog is specially trained primarily
Speaker 1: for bones because he does the long underwater for thirty
Speaker 1: one years. Yeah, thank you off for Sam. If you
Speaker 1: have that disturbance coming to the surface, then you expect
Speaker 1: that the dogs will react to it. We behavior, yes
Speaker 1: in the boat. Yes, Ash brought scuba tanks and other
Speaker 1: diving equipment from Newcastle. How much air is in there? Ash?
Speaker 34: Well?
Speaker 1: How long will that last? Forty minutes to an hour?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 6: Pen's how nervous I am, how much breeding I do?
Speaker 1: Andy Reid looked hopeful on the shore of the lake
Speaker 1: that first morning. There's going to be expectation and then
Speaker 1: possible age your disappointment. I don't know how you reconcile
Speaker 1: those things.
Speaker 22: I know we've always thought that this was a major
Speaker 22: possibility the late before Judy seeing before any of that,
Speaker 22: and just trying to stay positive.
Speaker 1: Maddie Walsh didn't look ready to get into the cold,
Speaker 1: dark water. You did say you'd died.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I did bring my swimmers.
Speaker 3: I've only really snorkeled in my life, but it seems
Speaker 3: like Ash is the more qualified diver.
Speaker 1: There. Was apprehension, but also good humor. Kind people were
Speaker 1: helping us, people from the community. They came down to
Speaker 1: watch and lend their support. Murray's laugh is contagious. Chris
Speaker 1: returned from the far northwest corner of the lake with
Speaker 1: an indication from his sonar of something unusual.
Speaker 10: He presents us a larger structure and there's no other
Speaker 10: structure within the lake so far that we've seen that
Speaker 10: this side of.
Speaker 1: This would relate.
Speaker 10: It's about twenty meters off the shore.
Speaker 22: If we find her, that's what we're ideally here for.
Speaker 22: You fantastic if we're binding behind her and get some closure.
Speaker 22: It's very very calm, very peaceful place.
Speaker 1: It's an airing place too. How do you feel about
Speaker 1: the possible recrimination that some might have, which is this
Speaker 1: is a job best left to police, the media, group
Speaker 1: and private citizens. Volunteers should stayed right away. After thirty
Speaker 1: one years.
Speaker 22: We've had no closure, we've had no movement in the case.
Speaker 1: The police just move so slow. It's just so frustrated,
Speaker 1: very frustrating.
Speaker 22: You just can't thank everyone's involvedment enough to give their time.
Speaker 22: And every weekend un below ash increase and everyone's just
Speaker 22: amazing amazing effort.
Speaker 1: Fingers Cross.
Speaker 10: We need to recover brom create or cause any dammage
Speaker 10: or to be disrespectful to traditional oness.
Speaker 1: Hold that up, Ash, it was half a house brick.
Speaker 16: Is it?
Speaker 1: Did you feel the brick or did you see it first?
Speaker 40: Now?
Speaker 1: I felt it. Imaginations raced anything seemed possible. But Murray
Speaker 1: was of the view that the half brick was possibly
Speaker 1: part of a homemade net trap, that it was used
Speaker 1: as a weight to help catch the abbeys in the lake.
Speaker 41: The abby traps out and then wave down the bricks
Speaker 41: and then put.
Speaker 7: Them in right.
Speaker 1: That's that's the while I'm thinking of the moment. We
Speaker 1: took encouragement from the fact that something that small was
Speaker 1: visible on the sona back on the water. Ash had
Speaker 1: something else about.
Speaker 15: Where you meet us from Sean was.
Speaker 1: Just pieces different. James fell apart in my hands.
Speaker 6: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: Is the profile consistent with what might be human remains potentially?
Speaker 10: Yes, Yes, it's spread out over a small area. It's
Speaker 10: not giving out because of the user. It's been on
Speaker 10: the bottom of not giving out of her installed profile.
Speaker 1: Ashley found an aluminum ore on the lake bed well
Speaker 1: at least you're cleaning up the lake as well, and
Speaker 1: you get yourself off amazing. Murray talked about the attention
Speaker 1: that the town has been getting. It's in the news
Speaker 1: a lot now because of the Bronwin podcast and John
Speaker 1: and you're going to see him around town. Inevitable. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a sport.
Speaker 7: I'm sure community doesn't quite the focus.
Speaker 1: And what's happened.
Speaker 7: We're a pretty poor the sort of town.
Speaker 41: Everyone who's conscipes themselves and we'll look after one and
Speaker 41: we're good, look down the good little community and I
Speaker 41: think we'd rather this didn't happen. We'll come up and say, Murray,
Speaker 41: you know this podcast is doing a good thing, and
Speaker 41: the people also saying this isn't a good thing.
Speaker 7: So yeah, so where do you go? We're stuck in
Speaker 7: the middle.
Speaker 1: The hopes of Andy and his daughter Caitlin were raised again.
Speaker 39: We found a few holes over there and we've dropped
Speaker 39: the marker in a hole. It's about seven point one.
Speaker 39: We just do it quite quickly, twenty five meters off
Speaker 39: the bank. There's something lying on the bottom over there,
Speaker 39: something to mention. Yeah, that was the quickest, most successible
Speaker 39: place to get someone out of car and into the water.
Speaker 1: Although we were there for a job that was at
Speaker 1: its heart macabre, the vibe through the weekend was positive
Speaker 1: and happy. Well have you got there? Everything deb Hall
Speaker 1: organized and impromptu lunch and the day just didn't seem
Speaker 1: right without Ian Gluis, otherwise known as Scruffy. I might
Speaker 1: actually ring Scuffy, So if he wants to come down.
Speaker 1: He got in his car and arrived soon after. I'm
Speaker 1: getting people saying, can we have Scruffy with his own podcast.
Speaker 1: I've got this on record now, so the f bombs
Speaker 1: careful those.
Speaker 42: I understand you've got a fairly good recording studio up
Speaker 42: there sorting this out right. Yeah, editing, and it's not
Speaker 42: that hard to edit out all those expletives deleted.
Speaker 1: I remember you telling me how you came to the
Speaker 1: lake one day for the picnic or a day out.
Speaker 40: Yeah, and you were with Bromwin And there's a photograph
Speaker 40: was taken there and it's a photograph of Bromwin's sitting
Speaker 40: down on.
Speaker 42: A run with my vehicle part behind her there where
Speaker 42: we were barbecued.
Speaker 1: And did you get along well with her? Of course?
Speaker 16: Yeah.
Speaker 42: I got along well with John.
Speaker 1: That was until they fell out with each other. After
Speaker 1: Bromwin disappeared and Scruffy decided that John had killed her.
Speaker 42: The house was his and his solely place, and then
Speaker 42: it became her prison. She's the sort of a person
Speaker 42: who loved being out and with other families.
Speaker 1: With the kids.
Speaker 42: The same agent went to the school, knew the teachers.
Speaker 42: It gradually seeped into the community that Bromwin was not
Speaker 42: returning and was not on a two week or whatever
Speaker 42: holiday anywhere with no communication. She wouldn't have left her
Speaker 42: kids for two days. This is a big external focus
Speaker 42: on the community. What feedback are you getting as a
Speaker 42: result of the podcast. It's a good thing for everyone
Speaker 42: that knew and loved her, and it's not justice when
Speaker 42: you've got a cold blooded person, which he is cold
Speaker 42: blooded and getting away with murder.
Speaker 1: John has always emphatically denied wrongdoing, and Scruffy's opinion is
Speaker 1: only one of many in this town. On the second
Speaker 1: day of the search, hopes remained high. Chris records we've
Speaker 1: done about the lake in terms of scanning on it.
Speaker 1: Maddie was hopeful and sassy. Can you please hold that
Speaker 1: beaver one?
Speaker 2: Am I your assistants?
Speaker 41: Yes?
Speaker 5: Literally, yes, I was hoping.
Speaker 1: Denise Barnard remembered Bromman's birthday party when she turned thirty one,
Speaker 1: just a few weeks before she disappeared.
Speaker 12: She talked about Pendragon and how she had the tape
Speaker 12: and she wanted us to listen to it.
Speaker 1: Deb told us about having gone to one of the
Speaker 1: tarot sessions with Bromwin earlier in this episode, you heard
Speaker 1: about Pendragon, the tarot card reader whose real name was
Speaker 1: David Addenbrook, that.
Speaker 38: Was part of the fifty dollars and he charged you'd
Speaker 38: get a tape call yeah, question, but we.
Speaker 37: Never got to listen to it that day.
Speaker 5: Oh, you should listen to it.
Speaker 37: It'll be really great.
Speaker 6: This is going to happen.
Speaker 1: Bronwin believed that there were very good things ahead, and
Speaker 1: the tarot card reader Pendragon had confirmed this for her.
Speaker 1: She was excited about a future away from her estranged
Speaker 1: husband John. Bromwin had no plans to do anything except
Speaker 1: look after her girls and make more friends in the remarkable,
Speaker 1: beautiful town, Lennox said, where she is still remembered fondly.
Speaker 1: We are going to take a break in production now
Speaker 1: and we'll be back with the rest of Bromwin at
Speaker 1: least half a dozen more episodes after a pause of
Speaker 1: some weeks. Thank you for listening to this the tenth
Speaker 1: episode and all the ones that came before it, and
Speaker 1: for supporting this investigation of Bronwin's suspected murder. Bronwyn is
Speaker 1: written and investigated by me Headley Thomas as a podcast
Speaker 1: production for The Australian. If anyone has information which may
Speaker 1: help solve this cold case, please contact me confidentially by
Speaker 1: emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au. You
Speaker 1: can read more about this case and see a range
Speaker 1: of photographs and other artwork at the website bronwynpodcast dot com.
Speaker 43: Our subscribers and registered users here episodes. First production and
Speaker 43: editorial team for Bromwan includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget,
Speaker 43: Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen,
Speaker 43: Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio production for this podcast
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