Speaker 1: Listeners are advised that this podcast series Broman contains coarse
Speaker 1: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. There is
Speaker 1: a smoking garden in this case, one piece of the
Speaker 1: puzzle which could change everything. The piece is black and
Speaker 1: white and it's always been blindingly obvious. It is data
Speaker 1: for local telephone calls. John's consistent story since he first
Speaker 1: arted it to stunned Michelle and Andy Reid in the
Speaker 1: Shire on a Monday afternoon, May seventeen, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: is that Bronwin went into the bedroom at Sandstone Crescent
Speaker 1: and made a couple of telephone calls the night before.
Speaker 1: A car soon arrived, John says, and he heard that
Speaker 1: car come to the house, but he didn't look at it. Bronwin,
Speaker 1: he says, then walked out of the house. The car
Speaker 1: drove away. John says he heard that happen too, and
Speaker 1: Bromwin was never seen again. Near the start of episode fifteen,
Speaker 1: you heard a part of John Winfield's nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: interview in which he disclosed some things about local phone
Speaker 1: calls to Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor, but all.
Speaker 2: I know is that she went in the bedroom and
Speaker 2: that it was Graham. That was Graham told me that
Speaker 2: where the phone calls were going, because I was surprised
Speaker 2: when he told me, because I didn't know you could
Speaker 2: trace local phone calls, and I had no idea you
Speaker 2: could do it, and then he told me you could,
Speaker 2: and he did it.
Speaker 1: You know. According to what John told detective Glen Taylor
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, Bromman's purported calls were actually traced
Speaker 1: by a detective Discan back in nineteen ninety three, and Discan,
Speaker 1: according to John, had even confirmed this to John. John
Speaker 1: claimed in nineteen ninety eight, while sitting opposite Glen Taylor,
Speaker 1: that detective Discn had also told.
Speaker 2: Him where the phone calls were going.
Speaker 1: Prior to this, all we knew about telephone calls from
Speaker 1: the house were that two long distance ones were made,
Speaker 1: one at six point fifty three pm and one at
Speaker 1: seven h six pm, and they showed up because they
Speaker 1: were listed on the telephone bill when it was issued
Speaker 1: by the phone company, but local calls were not listed
Speaker 1: on the bill. Now right at this moment in the interview,
Speaker 1: the recording equipment began to beep an alert to police
Speaker 1: to put new cassette tapes in.
Speaker 3: So what I'll do is just get a new set
Speaker 3: of audio tapes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll study it again. If Bromwin did not
Speaker 1: make any telephone calls on the night of May sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, John was lying about this. A relevant
Speaker 1: question when the interview restarted would have been John, what
Speaker 1: do you say, Detective disk and discovered when he apparently
Speaker 1: traced those local calls. When the interview tapes in the
Speaker 1: police station were changed and the interview restarted, the conversation
Speaker 1: returned briefly to the telephone calls.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think where we got up to was talking
Speaker 3: about what was Drongwen doing. That's right, I know you
Speaker 3: mentioned that qweening and made a couple or at least
Speaker 3: one phane call, possibly her solicitor.
Speaker 2: John replied, Yeah, that's what Graham told me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Glenn Taylor has perhaps misunderstood the sequence or timing
Speaker 1: of the calls. He has a running sheet from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three stating that Bromman had telephoned solicitor Chrismicdbitt in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. For John, it possibly felt like he was
Speaker 1: being thrown a lifeline. The water was muddied about when
Speaker 1: Bromman had called her solicitor, and it meant John didn't
Speaker 1: have to fill in the blanks. Do you know what
Speaker 1: time that was?
Speaker 2: It was only after my phone course to my brother
Speaker 2: and my daughter sometime after that, right, so it could
Speaker 2: have been any time to tell you the truth, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: We know that Bromman had telephoned Chrismic Debitt in the
Speaker 1: afternoon because her solicitor told police about that conversation. Romwin
Speaker 1: disclosed to Chrismic Debitt in that conversation that she was
Speaker 1: really worried about John coming back to the house. According
Speaker 1: to the solicitor, the call was in the late afternoon
Speaker 1: on Sunday, and that usually means around four pm to
Speaker 1: five pm. Mobile phones were not in widespread use. People
Speaker 1: were much less urgent about contacting each other, particularly on
Speaker 1: a Sunday. Anyone making a telephone call after seven to
Speaker 1: ten pm in Lennox Head was making that call in
Speaker 1: the evening or nighttime, and in my view, Chrispiic Debit
Speaker 1: would have remembered an evening call and he would have
Speaker 1: disclosed that two Detective Graham discin if in fact Bromin
Speaker 1: had called him in the evening, but the imprecise wording
Speaker 1: in the detective's entry in the running sheet has sewed confusion.
Speaker 1: When Graham Discin made a note of his conversation with
Speaker 1: Bromwyn solicitor Chris mcdebitt in the police running sheet, the
Speaker 1: detective wrote this on June three, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4: On Sunday, May sixteen, in the late afternoon, the missing
Speaker 4: person contacted him and stated that her husband had returned
Speaker 4: from Sydney and she was concerned about him being in
Speaker 4: the house.
Speaker 1: And that line has been interpreted by some, including Glenn Taylor,
Speaker 1: to mean that John was already in the house.
Speaker 4: Mcdebittt advised the missing person that she might contact the
Speaker 4: police and inform them of the situation, and, if need be,
Speaker 4: have them called by as a precaution in order to
Speaker 4: prevent a breach of the peace. The missing person seemed
Speaker 4: happy with that and made an appointment to see mcdebitt
Speaker 4: at nine am on May seventeen, nineteen ninety three, an
Speaker 4: appointment she never kept.
Speaker 1: In relation to Chris mcdebitt, the solicitor who was called
Speaker 1: by Bromwin on Sunday, the running sheet says that Browin
Speaker 1: called him in the late afternoon, and I reckon, that's
Speaker 1: between all thirty and five point thirty. You assumed that
Speaker 1: bronwin must have made that telephone call from the house
Speaker 1: when John was in the house.
Speaker 5: Because I think it seems to mention that in a
Speaker 5: running sheet distance running sheet. Yes, I think we had
Speaker 5: assumed that she had rang and said johns in the house.
Speaker 6: What should I do?
Speaker 1: The running sheet it's not written very precisely by Graham
Speaker 1: Diskin or whoever wrote that line. Glenn Taylor agreed with
Speaker 1: me that he did make the assumption, starting with his
Speaker 1: interview of John Winfield in nineteen ninety eight, that bronwin
Speaker 1: was making the telephone call to her solicitor while John
Speaker 1: was in the house on the night of Sunday, May sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. The late afternoon angle kind of knocks
Speaker 1: that out, and Glenn also agreed with me that in fact,
Speaker 1: John could not have been back at the house in
Speaker 1: the late afternoon, considering all the evidence around the timing
Speaker 1: of John's ANSID Australia flight from Sydney. John's drive from
Speaker 1: Ballina Airport to the Balloner Police station on the Sunday evening,
Speaker 1: and then John's detour to Lennox Head to pick up
Speaker 1: Becky McGuire. With all of this, it was not possible
Speaker 1: for John to be in the house in the late afternoon,
Speaker 1: which is when Chris mcdefitt says Bromwin called him at
Speaker 1: his home because of her concerns. At an early stage,
Speaker 1: it appears that Glenn Taylor's new investigation in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight was misled by a person of interest about the
Speaker 1: making and the timing of purported local telephone calls that
Speaker 1: John says were made by Bromwin. I have asked Glenn
Speaker 1: about whether his investigation from nineteen ninety eight tried to
Speaker 1: obtain what we believe is the smoking gun local call
Speaker 1: data from the phone company. It was known as Telecom
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three. The company changed its name to
Speaker 1: Telstra in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure about local calls, dramink local calls or
Speaker 5: rooted in most other I think you could check to
Speaker 5: say which you made local care.
Speaker 1: There are no signed statements from Telstra officials in the
Speaker 1: police brief of evidence which Glenn took to the coroner
Speaker 1: for the two thousand and two inquest, nor is there
Speaker 1: mention in Glenn's formal police statement of any investigation by
Speaker 1: Glenn or Detective Wayne Tembe into the purported local calls.
Speaker 1: There is, however, a snippet of evidence from the two
Speaker 1: thousand and two inquest that shows Glenn asked the police
Speaker 1: officer while the inquest was unfolding with public hearings, to
Speaker 1: make an urgent request to Telstra about whether local calls
Speaker 1: from nine years earlier, that is, nineteen ninety three could
Speaker 1: be traced. Glenn has told me that he can't remember
Speaker 1: having asked for this information during the investigation in the
Speaker 1: four years prior to the inquest, and because he does
Speaker 1: not have access to his own running sheets anymore, he
Speaker 1: couldn't be sure whether he had. He told me that
Speaker 1: he was of the view that local call data could
Speaker 1: not be generated by telecom in nineteen ninety three anyway,
Speaker 1: due to the limitations of the technology. Karina Berger and
Speaker 1: I have been investigating this crucial angle because it is
Speaker 1: now and it has always been one of the most
Speaker 1: important features of this case. If the local call data
Speaker 1: had been available in nineteen ninety three, or if it's
Speaker 1: available now in twenty twenty four, what potential impact would
Speaker 1: that have on this unsolved case.
Speaker 7: If local called ARTA was available, it would be of
Speaker 7: pivotal importance to this case. It could either support John's
Speaker 7: version of events, namely that Bronwyn went into the bedroom
Speaker 7: and made some telephone calls on the night in question,
Speaker 7: and was collected a short time later, presumably by somebody
Speaker 7: that she might have phoned. Local call data might lead
Speaker 7: police to be able to make inquiries of persons that
Speaker 7: she reached out to on that night. Conversely, if no
Speaker 7: local calls were made on that evening, then that would
Speaker 7: disprove a crucial part of John's version of events. And
Speaker 7: I think more broadly, local called arta would be very
Speaker 7: helpful because it would assist in showing who Bronwin was
Speaker 7: communicating with and who her associates were in the leadup
Speaker 7: to this night in question, which might also assist the
Speaker 7: police to consider other theories, such as her starting a
Speaker 7: new life with a boyfriend.
Speaker 8: For example, if.
Speaker 1: No local calls were made from the telephone at Sandstone
Speaker 1: Creator on the night of May sixteen, ninety ninety three,
Speaker 1: then that's a game changer.
Speaker 7: I think so, because that does seem to be a
Speaker 7: really crucial part of John's version of events. He's told
Speaker 7: multiple people that that's exactly what happened. Bronwan went and
Speaker 7: made some telephone calls. You would infer that if she
Speaker 7: went and made some telephone calls and was collected a
Speaker 7: short time later, then those calls were most likely to
Speaker 7: have been local ones.
Speaker 1: And again, hypothetically, if local call data was indeed available
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three, then it's possible, if someone knows
Speaker 1: where to look where it might be stored, that it's
Speaker 1: still available in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 8: It's possible.
Speaker 7: I don't feel particularly hopeful that it would still be available,
Speaker 7: but it would certainly be worse looking. Maybe there's a
Speaker 7: saint hope that it's out there somewhere.
Speaker 1: The idea that Bromwin would wait for John to arrive
Speaker 1: and enter the house and then make her call to
Speaker 1: the solicitor to express her concerns doesn't sit right with me.
Speaker 1: I believe that the call to Chris mcdebit was Bromwin's
Speaker 1: last minute effort to raise her worries about John's looming arrival.
Speaker 1: Bromwin perhaps hoped that her solicitor could act quickly with
Speaker 1: a legal action to stop John from coming near the house.
Speaker 1: A woman who has been worried that her husband might
Speaker 1: hurt her is more likely to take preemptive action and
Speaker 1: not wait until he is in the house and can
Speaker 1: potentially overhear a telephone call. But five years later, John's
Speaker 1: police interview was the last time he was asked anything
Speaker 1: on the record about Bromwin's purported telephone calls from the
Speaker 1: house that night. John was able to lay a false trail,
Speaker 1: including that Detective Graham Discott had used technology to trace
Speaker 1: a local call from Bromwin to her solicitor. Here's Glenn
Speaker 1: Taylor again.
Speaker 5: Jade would have alerted Brolin that he's going to come
Speaker 5: back up. Dad's going to hit the roof when he
Speaker 5: finds that you've gone back into the house. But why
Speaker 5: would Bromlin then just hand possession back over to the
Speaker 5: house after doing that.
Speaker 1: John's story is not subtle. It invites police and prosecutors,
Speaker 1: as well as Bromwin's family and friends, and now hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of listeners to this podcast series to look
Speaker 1: not at him, but at a purported driver of a
Speaker 1: mystery car which nobody has cited or described. Bromwyn got
Speaker 1: into that car, according to John, because he says she
Speaker 1: had told him she wanted to have a break from
Speaker 1: the kids and took only her handbag. Plainly on John's version,
Speaker 1: if you work out who Bromwyn possibly telephoned that night,
Speaker 1: you close in on her probable killer, obtain the data
Speaker 1: in the local calls which Bromwin supposedly made, and cracked
Speaker 1: the case. But on the other hand, if local call
Speaker 1: data shows that, in fact no local calls were made
Speaker 1: from the house at Sandstone Crescent, then John has been
Speaker 1: lying all along. His story collapses like a house of cards.
Speaker 1: In this narrative, I am specifically talking about local calls
Speaker 1: because we know from the actual telephone bill for the
Speaker 1: house that only two long distance calls were made on
Speaker 1: the night of May sixteen, one at six fifty three
Speaker 1: pm to John's daughter Jody in Sydney, and the other
Speaker 1: at seven oh six pm to the landline in the house,
Speaker 1: which belonged to John's brother Peter Winfield. John's story revolves
Speaker 1: around Bromwin's purported calls being local. He does not suggest
Speaker 1: anything else. It's locked inn and that's why this is
Speaker 1: so infuriating. Since episode fifteen, I've been holding on to
Speaker 1: another small part of John's interview. I wanted to check
Speaker 1: it as thoroughly as possible and then bundle it up
Speaker 1: with other information you'll hear in this episode. For context,
Speaker 1: Karina Berger and I have been researching and talking to
Speaker 1: people who used to work for Telecom as it was
Speaker 1: called before the name changed to Telstra. A few episodesades back.
Speaker 1: Karina found the anset Australia Airline May nineteen ninety three timetable,
Speaker 1: which showed that John's flight would have landed about seven
Speaker 1: twenty five pm, making it impossible for him to have
Speaker 1: made those long distance calls at six fifty three pm
Speaker 1: and seven h six pm. It is very probable in
Speaker 1: my view that Bromwin made those long distance calls, possibly
Speaker 1: because she was panicking about John's imminent return and she
Speaker 1: wanted Jody and John's brother or sister in law to
Speaker 1: do something that would mean John lied to police when
Speaker 1: he claimed that he made those long distance calls. He
Speaker 1: couldn't have got to the house in time to do this,
Speaker 1: But what about local calls sometime after eight pm? Karina
Speaker 1: and others have been helping me behind the scenes as
Speaker 1: we try to determine whether data about local calls was
Speaker 1: actually available in nineteen ninety three. I have previously talked
Speaker 1: to former detectives, ding retired detective Sergeant Damian Loon, who
Speaker 1: helped crack the case against wife killer Chris Dawson. These
Speaker 1: former detectives tell me that, yes, from their memory, local
Speaker 1: call data could be obtained thirty one years ago four
Speaker 1: landline telephones. On the other hand, Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor,
Speaker 1: who investigated Bromin's disappearance from August nineteen ninety eight, was
Speaker 1: skeptical about the availability of local call data in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. In all of the documents from the original
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three investigation by detectives, there is no evidence
Speaker 1: that detectives Graham Discan and Wayne Tembe actually got local
Speaker 1: call data from Telecom. There is evidence, however, that Detective
Speaker 1: Discan requested data from Telecom. Detective Sergeant Graham Discan did
Speaker 1: contact Telecom seeking information about the telephone service at Soundstone Crescent.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's right, he did. I don't think we know
Speaker 9: exactly what he asked for, and the response he seems
Speaker 9: to have received appears to just include the two STD
Speaker 9: calls that we've spoken about before, made on the night
Speaker 9: of the sixteenth of May, and then the double five
Speaker 9: call that was made on the afternoon of the sixteenth
Speaker 9: of May, just after two pm.
Speaker 1: This is the number which has been misread by detectives
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three. They've assumed wrongly that Bromwin went
Speaker 1: back to the house at two thirteen am on Monday
Speaker 1: to make that call. It begs the question, now, might
Speaker 1: this local call data still exist in storage somewhere? The
Speaker 1: smoking gun you are going to hear now from Linda Horsefield.
Speaker 1: Linda emailed me to share some intel from her time
Speaker 1: working at Telecom and we had a zoom call with
Speaker 1: Karina Berger. Can you tell me why you wrote to me?
Speaker 1: After listening to part of the Bromwin podcast.
Speaker 9: I was sitting there listening to it, and I'm thinking
Speaker 9: to myself, now, he's claiming his wife called a friend,
Speaker 9: and I would assume it would be somebody locally. Why
Speaker 9: didn't the police check to make sure that call was made,
Speaker 9: to see if he's actually telling the truth or not.
Speaker 8: It's just so simple. I was sitting there and I
Speaker 8: was pondering about it for a while, and I thought
Speaker 8: police may not be aware that they could check local calls.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I suppose if you don't know something exists, you might
Speaker 9: not follow up on it. If I was a coperand
Speaker 9: somebody's making a claim that something happened, you would make
Speaker 9: sure what they're saying is right.
Speaker 8: It's just common sense.
Speaker 1: When Linda first got in touch with me, she said
Speaker 1: she felt a bit weird emailing, like, as she put it,
Speaker 1: an armchair detective. But she said she felt agitated because
Speaker 1: it seemed to her that invests litigators had done what
Speaker 1: she called a half asked job. I'm glad Linda went
Speaker 1: to the trouble of sharing her knowledge. She explained in
Speaker 1: writing and then in our interview that she previously worked
Speaker 1: for Telecom and then Telstra when it was rebranded. Linda
Speaker 1: worked there from nineteen ninety four in a role dealing
Speaker 1: directly with customer complaints. It meant that she regularly needed
Speaker 1: to check on the data for customers' local calls. Back then,
Speaker 1: the routine telephone bills for customers simply stated the number
Speaker 1: of local calls made from their landline service. The printed
Speaker 1: telephone bills, which everybody got in the mail, did not
Speaker 1: display details about when the local calls were made and
Speaker 1: to whom. That kind of information was only provided for
Speaker 1: the long distance calls, say from lenox Head to Sydney,
Speaker 1: and calls for special information like Lotto resolves, and of
Speaker 1: course reverse charge calls and international calls. Linda insists, however,
Speaker 1: that the local call data was available upon request from
Speaker 1: any complaining customer. She says she saw that data all
Speaker 1: the time. Because many customers believe that they were being overcharged,
Speaker 1: they wanted proof of the calls, and Telecom had to
Speaker 1: provide it. Hypothetical Linda, I'm a customer in May nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three in lenox Head, New South Wales. I want
Speaker 1: to know all of the local calls that have been
Speaker 1: made by the telephone that's in my name. I can
Speaker 1: contact Telstrea or Telecom and say I've got a dispute.
Speaker 1: I doubt these calls that you're charging me were made,
Speaker 1: or I want to know what's going on here, And
Speaker 1: you could provide a list of all those calls with
Speaker 1: the actual numbers and the time the call were made,
Speaker 1: even though they're local calls. Yep, And what's your level
Speaker 1: of confidence about that?
Speaker 8: One hundred?
Speaker 9: Legally, you've always got to show what people are being
Speaker 9: charged for. There were so many issues that people had
Speaker 9: to be reimbursed.
Speaker 8: We had to be able to.
Speaker 9: See how much they were entitled to, so we could
Speaker 9: really get into the nitty gritty of things. So if
Speaker 9: I've got a complaint from a person and they would
Speaker 9: say I've got sixty seven calls here on my bill
Speaker 9: and I'm sure I didn't make them, then you would say, well,
Speaker 9: we can go through that for you, and.
Speaker 7: Then would you have pulled up the local call data yourself.
Speaker 9: I had access to pretty much all the systems. What
Speaker 9: we used to do, especially when there was billing disputes,
Speaker 9: we had to go through the whole bill. If a
Speaker 9: person was complaining about dropouts and I wanted to get reimbursed,
Speaker 9: we would pull the local call data. We could actually
Speaker 9: see all the calls that people used to make. Sometimes
Speaker 9: people had line foulds, for example, and they used to say, look,
Speaker 9: I want to get reimbursed for all those multiple calls
Speaker 9: I had to redial. We could then see which number
Speaker 9: was dialed multiple times in a row, or I was
Speaker 9: on holidays via Thatt calls on here, or then you
Speaker 9: can narrow down if calls were made at the time
Speaker 9: and the customer said that there was nobody in the house.
Speaker 9: We would then add them up and then reimburse them. Definitely,
Speaker 9: local calls were itemized, but it wouldn't come up on
Speaker 9: the bills because people's bills would just be huge if
Speaker 9: they make a lot of phone calls. And if people
Speaker 9: wanted to get it itemized, if they were disputing it,
Speaker 9: we could send that information to them. They might have
Speaker 9: sixty four calls made, and if they used to turn
Speaker 9: around and say, look, I didn't make that many calls,
Speaker 9: or I had a fold with my line, we could
Speaker 9: retrieve that information for them.
Speaker 8: It was the time that numbers were dialed. They could
Speaker 8: see that when it the call finished and the number that.
Speaker 1: At the time you were aware that the local call
Speaker 1: data was available, it might have been ninety five, it
Speaker 1: might have been ninety four. Is it possible that that
Speaker 1: was a more recent development and that in May ninety
Speaker 1: three it wasn't available.
Speaker 9: No, in all the exchanges, it would have been available
Speaker 9: around that time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Do you know whether the data was stored indefinitely or
Speaker 1: for a limited period for how long could you get it?
Speaker 8: I really don't know.
Speaker 9: I did go through historical data at times, and that
Speaker 9: was generally subpoenas and for things like that as well.
Speaker 9: One of the staff members one day said, oh, no,
Speaker 9: we can retreat for archives data way back, but it
Speaker 9: was more than the seven years. But I don't know
Speaker 9: exactly how long. Everything was computerized and a lot of
Speaker 9: it was backed up. You could go on line and
Speaker 9: bring up a phone number as a staff member. Once
Speaker 9: you had that approved access, you could just go in
Speaker 9: whenever and retrieve it.
Speaker 7: If the police found themselves in the circumstances that headly
Speaker 7: described in the episode that you listen to, and they
Speaker 7: wanted to check the local call records, do you know
Speaker 7: what they would have asked for from Telstrap?
Speaker 9: They would have had to ask for itemised call records, okay,
Speaker 9: and that would show up every call that was made.
Speaker 9: You put a dating see what calls were exactly made
Speaker 9: at what time.
Speaker 8: If you could also pull.
Speaker 9: Incoming call that as well, which is every item is
Speaker 9: showing up on the bill for that particular time.
Speaker 1: The police have asked for some information about this telephone
Speaker 1: service and the calls that were made, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: itemize the individual local calls. I think they might have
Speaker 1: asked for the wrong information or they didn't realize they
Speaker 1: could drill down more deeply into the local call data.
Speaker 8: I would have just printed it out and sent it
Speaker 8: to them at.
Speaker 1: Your terminal at your workplace. Then you could actually print
Speaker 1: out all of the individual local call data.
Speaker 9: Yeah, your problem is going to be the age now.
Speaker 9: Even with intels, it wasn't that widely known that they
Speaker 9: had the archived data. You might not have anybody there
Speaker 9: that's still aware that that happened in those days.
Speaker 1: You sound very definite about your memory of the availability
Speaker 1: of local call data.
Speaker 9: That's the one thing I'm one hundred percent sure about
Speaker 9: because I used to do that with my job all
Speaker 9: the time. It's just the matter of how far back
Speaker 9: can they go, And it gets me frustrated when people
Speaker 9: have just swept it under the carpet.
Speaker 8: So I hope you're going to get where it is.
Speaker 8: I really don't.
Speaker 1: I spoke to another former Telstra staff member who did
Speaker 1: similar work dealing with customer complaints about the charges for
Speaker 1: local telephone calls, and she backed Linda up. Although both
Speaker 1: women were not working there in nineteen ninety three, they
Speaker 1: are adamant that the data they were obtaining in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties was readily available in nineteen ninety three until recently.
Speaker 1: I was unaware that the solicitor Chrismic Debitt had provided
Speaker 1: a statement to police in nineteen ninety eight, five years
Speaker 1: after he spoke to the detective Sergeant Graham Discan. You'll
Speaker 1: recall that it was Discan who reproduced some of the
Speaker 1: details from that conversation. In early June nineteen ninety three
Speaker 1: in a running sheet. Glenn Taylor found the November nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight police statement from Chrismicdbitt and shared a copy
Speaker 1: with me. Most of the two page statement is unsurprising
Speaker 1: in light of the detail in the formal legal letter
Speaker 1: which chrismcdebits sent to John on May fourteen, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: with a copy to Bromwin, But there are some newer
Speaker 1: lines of interest. For completeness, a voice actor will read
Speaker 1: those lines from Chris mcdebitts's police statement.
Speaker 10: Missus Winfield instructed me to write a letter to her
Speaker 10: husband in regard to the family motor vehicle said to
Speaker 10: be a Ford. Missus Winfield told me that she wanted
Speaker 10: to register the Ford so that she could keep driving it.
Speaker 10: The registration was due, and she didn't want to pay
Speaker 10: the registration if her husband was not going to allow
Speaker 10: her to keep the car. I have a vague recollection
Speaker 10: of missus Winfield being quite distressed and agitated when I
Speaker 10: just saw her prior to sending the letter on the
Speaker 10: fourteenth of May nineteen ninety three. My notes indicate that
Speaker 10: she was going to obtain some further information in relation
Speaker 10: to their financial situation and then come back and see
Speaker 10: me so that we can put together a proposal for
Speaker 10: the property settlement to send to Jonathan Winfield.
Speaker 1: After reading he's recently found statement, I emailed chrismkdebit. He
Speaker 1: replied with more information.
Speaker 10: I confirm my recollection that when I last saw Bronwyn,
Speaker 10: she did appear to be anxious and agitated. I have
Speaker 10: always had this recollection, and it is my only recollection.
Speaker 10: Having refreshed my memory from reading my statement given to
Speaker 10: the police in nineteen ninety eight, it is pretty clear
Speaker 10: that I discussed with Bronwyn the option of her moving
Speaker 10: back into the vacant home. I have discussed this option
Speaker 10: with many clients in similar circumstances over the years. It
Speaker 10: often presents as a practical option, even if it may
Speaker 10: be only temporary pending the finalization of a settlement. I
Speaker 10: do not know for sure, but it may have been
Speaker 10: this discussion that caused Bronwyn to become anxious. In similar circumstances,
Speaker 10: my advice to clients has been for them to let
Speaker 10: me know if they decide to move back into the home,
Speaker 10: so that I could send a letter to the other
Speaker 10: party and inform them of this and seek appropriate undertakings
Speaker 10: from them, not to come to the home without my
Speaker 10: client's consent, not to interfere with my client's occupation of
Speaker 10: the home, etc. Pending the finalization of a settlement. It
Speaker 10: would appear that when Bronwyn left our meeting she was
Speaker 10: going to consider this option, and her calm to me
Speaker 10: on the fourteenth of May nineteen ninety three confirms this,
Speaker 10: and further that she had decided to move back into
Speaker 10: the home after your initial contact with me. I did
Speaker 10: contact a former partner at my old firm of Stone
Speaker 10: and Partners and asked him if archived files from nineteen
Speaker 10: ninety three had been retained. His reply was that they
Speaker 10: were not, and the files were destroyed after seven years.
Speaker 10: I left Stone and Partners in two thousand. Sorry that
Speaker 10: I can't be more helpful. I don't recall having a
Speaker 10: telephone call from Bronwyn on Sunday sixteenth and May nineteen
Speaker 10: ninety three. However, thirty years ago, it was not unusual
Speaker 10: for my clients to call me after hours and on weekends.
Speaker 1: It seems highly probable that Bromin did call her solicitor
Speaker 1: on the afternoon of Sunday May sixteen, because that's what
Speaker 1: Chris mcdebitt recalled when he was asked a fortnight later.
Speaker 1: It's not surprising that he doesn't recall it now thirty
Speaker 1: one years later. But more importantly, did broman really make
Speaker 1: any other local calls just before? According to John's version,
Speaker 1: she was picked up at the house on Sunday night.
Speaker 1: Might such crucial evidence of the presence or absence of
Speaker 1: local calls still be available? Now? You've looked really hard
Speaker 1: for documents. You've looked in places that I would never
Speaker 1: have thought of.
Speaker 7: I've done some pretty extensive searches, and I've looked through
Speaker 7: a lot of contemporaneous documents, things like annual reports for
Speaker 7: telecom as it was at the time, and your reports
Speaker 7: for the telecommunications industry Onbunsman.
Speaker 1: Karina Berger has been Terry alike in an effort to
Speaker 1: discover whether police or customers for that matter in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three could receive local call data.
Speaker 7: I've looked at inquiry papers into the telecommunications industry and billing,
Speaker 7: including Telecom submissions to those types of inquiries. I've reviewed
Speaker 7: case law to see if I can find any references
Speaker 7: to local call data being used in court cases at
Speaker 7: about this time.
Speaker 8: I have looked at historical.
Speaker 7: Legislation to try to work out what obligations Telecom had
Speaker 7: at the time to retain or keep this type of data.
Speaker 7: And then I also just did know a lot of
Speaker 7: general Google searches which led to things like academic papers
Speaker 7: and other documents that of customer service agreements, those sorts
Speaker 7: of things which I reviewed, but they just don't give
Speaker 7: a clear cut answer. Unfortunately. I think it's possible that
Speaker 7: Linda's recollection is right. She was so adamant that the
Speaker 7: data existed in nineteen ninety four when she started with Telecom,
Speaker 7: and that it would have also been available in nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety three. At the time, Telecom wanted to resolve billing
Speaker 7: complaints by having consumers contact Telecom directly and reaching out
Speaker 7: to customer service offices or complaints officers like Linda, who
Speaker 7: were then able to interrogate call charges and call data.
Speaker 7: We do know that local call data wasn't made widely
Speaker 7: available to consumers until nineteen ninety seven, and we also
Speaker 7: do know that Telecom or Telstra had to make some
Speaker 7: technological advancements to its network to enable that to occur.
Speaker 7: But what we don't know is whether the data was
Speaker 7: already available before that time to a smaller group of
Speaker 7: people like the customer service officers or perhaps to law
Speaker 7: enforcement officers.
Speaker 1: From everything we've heard now from Linda, your own research,
Speaker 1: as well as the information that I was given by
Speaker 1: a couple of long retired detectives who said they could
Speaker 1: obtain local call data. What would you put your money
Speaker 1: on as to whether or not it was available back then?
Speaker 7: I think it's still uncertain. It does sound like the
Speaker 7: local call data was available. Linda was in a customer
Speaker 7: service role at the time, dealing with complaints, and she
Speaker 7: was very clear that from about nineteen ninety four when
Speaker 7: she started with Telstra Telecom that she could access local
Speaker 7: call data herself by drilling into the relevant Telstra data bases.
Speaker 7: Linda could do it in a complaints management's role at
Speaker 7: that time. Then, hopefully another part of Telstra that might
Speaker 7: have been responding to requests from law enforcement would also
Speaker 7: have been able to access that data. She was very
Speaker 7: confident in her recollection that the data was available in
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety four at least when she started her employment
Speaker 7: with Telstra, and she did come across as being an
Speaker 7: honest and reliable person. She sounded sensible and sincere. The
Speaker 7: availability of the data might have been a little bit
Speaker 7: patchy depending on where the addressing question was located. It
Speaker 7: would have been crazy if the complaints part of Telstra
Speaker 7: could have accessed the local data but the law enforcement
Speaker 7: part of Telstra couldn't access that set in order to
Speaker 7: respond to requests from police. Telster actually had an obligation
Speaker 7: at the time under the Telecommunications Act to assist to
Speaker 7: law enforcement officers.
Speaker 1: Well, there must have been numerous police investigations much earlier
Speaker 1: than this one and as serious where local call data
Speaker 1: would be very valuable.
Speaker 8: We don't know.
Speaker 7: Why the police seem to have been told that the
Speaker 7: local call data wasn't available for Sandstone present, and whether
Speaker 7: that's because of a mistake that the Telstra employee has
Speaker 7: made because they may not have known that the data
Speaker 7: was in fact available, or there was some other reason
Speaker 7: behind that advice.
Speaker 8: That's the missing piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 7: So there's so much interest in local calls in listeners,
Speaker 7: and rightly so it's a big ticket item. It would
Speaker 7: be great to have a final answer.
Speaker 1: If we get helpful information from Telstra, I will include
Speaker 1: it in a future episode. Almost three weeks before the
Speaker 1: release of this episode, I asked Telstra in writing about
Speaker 1: its policy and practice in relation to local call data
Speaker 1: and its availability in nineteen ninety three, a Telstra media
Speaker 1: advisor said that she was trying to find out and
Speaker 1: that was the last we heard. Disappointing. Now it is
Speaker 1: obvious that in his one and only police interview in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, John Winfield repeatedly drops the name Graham
Speaker 1: as in Graham Discin. I asked Glenn Taylor about this.
Speaker 1: Do you read anything at all into the apparent familiarity
Speaker 1: of John Winfield with Detective Sergeant Graham Discan where he
Speaker 1: says Graham and Graham that.
Speaker 5: Well, he certainly come across in the interview I had
Speaker 5: with Ringfield that Grim Diskin and him were like friends.
Speaker 5: Gryan this Ryan that I mean, it's not professional at all,
Speaker 5: No evidence to say that they were friends outside of
Speaker 5: the investigation. It seems very odd that they have this
Speaker 5: report in.
Speaker 1: A regional town like Balana, where I suppose there's less
Speaker 1: formality than in the city of Sydney. Would there be
Speaker 1: a more casual connection between detectives in the police force
Speaker 1: and citizens.
Speaker 5: Not If you're potential suspect from murder, you certainly wouldn't
Speaker 5: they associate with them or treat them as a friend
Speaker 5: during a likely murder investigation.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, however, the case never did rise
Speaker 1: to the grave import of a likely murder investigation because
Speaker 1: it appears that John Winfield was not looked at back
Speaker 1: then as a potential suspect in his wife's murder. He
Speaker 1: was treated more like the unfortunate bloke left behind to
Speaker 1: raise the kids as a result of an erratic woman
Speaker 1: doing a runner.
Speaker 5: Even if you're treatment like did a disappearance, you still
Speaker 5: wouldn't come across friendly. I mean, you've got to have
Speaker 5: that distance there.
Speaker 1: This is all coming from John, though, isn't it. He's
Speaker 1: the one saying Graham, Graham, Graham. Check with Graham. He
Speaker 1: could be potentially attempting to mislead you to think that
Speaker 1: he's got this relationship with Graham Diskin, and because of
Speaker 1: that relationship he can be trusted as a person of interest.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have done anything wrong. I mean, he could
Speaker 1: be exaggerating the connection. I have previously tried to interview
Speaker 1: the former detective Graham Diskin. The offer is still open.
Speaker 1: Glenn Taylor has been candid about the fact that he
Speaker 1: didn't see eye to eye with the police officer who
Speaker 1: had first started investigating Brohman's disappearance in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 5: I have very little time for disc and when I
Speaker 5: first came up from a homicide Newcastle to Bowliner, the
Speaker 5: first time my meeting, he came in and introduced himself
Speaker 5: on Brian Diskin, and I was said to the despert,
Speaker 5: I'd just taken up. And this might have been only
Speaker 5: within the first week or two of me arriving. He'd
Speaker 5: previously been to sept me sergeing in that position. But
Speaker 5: he said to me, don't think you're going to get
Speaker 5: that seat to wall, but I'll be coming back for it.
Speaker 5: And I thought, there is this fellow, what a thing
Speaker 5: to say, just welcoming you to the town. You're going
Speaker 5: to take the position back that I've just won on promotion.
Speaker 5: I had very little time for him. He don't feel
Speaker 5: like you want to rubbish another police officer that you
Speaker 5: just start looking at least running sheds are thinking how.
Speaker 1: Bad is this?
Speaker 5: So many red flags here? And the ultimate responsibility for
Speaker 5: Bromin's investigation nineteen ninety three was solely distance. He's to
Speaker 5: detect his sergeant. He could say to his people, I
Speaker 5: want this done, I want formal statements, okay, and then
Speaker 5: we've got to get Winfield in for an interview, which
Speaker 5: what should have been done be's one of the same
Speaker 5: detective training that I would have done. This is the
Speaker 5: potential crime scene. You've got to get it thoroughly inspected,
Speaker 5: forensically examined.
Speaker 1: Back when it happened, Maddie and I have been talking
Speaker 1: about a trip and some field work. I'd like to
Speaker 1: follow up a few leads in the shire next week,
Speaker 1: maybe even go to Illowong. You'll recall that Illawong, a
Speaker 1: suburb on the western fringes of the shire, is where
Speaker 1: John was working laying bricks before his sudden flight from
Speaker 1: Sydney to Ballina on Sunday May sixteenth. John was helping
Speaker 1: build a two story family home for Glen Webster, a
Speaker 1: respected local builder. You know the property I'm talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. Can we meet up?
Speaker 11: Yeah, for sure. I want to see the house in person.
Speaker 11: Not only that, I'd be very intrigued to know if
Speaker 11: the owners of this house follow the podcast and have
Speaker 11: heard of Bromwyn. Obviously it's awful, so think that that
Speaker 11: place could be her resting place and they've been living
Speaker 11: there for however long.
Speaker 8: You can't really sugarcoat it.
Speaker 11: It's shitty regardless whether she's in some body of water,
Speaker 11: whether she's on the side of the road, or whether
Speaker 11: she's under a souther concrete. It's terrible. We can only
Speaker 11: hope that maybe we'll find her remains.
Speaker 1: John has always emphatically denied wrongdoing, but since nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight police have strongly suspected that he murdered his estranged wife, Bromwan.
Speaker 1: If the police case is correct, Broman's body must have
Speaker 1: been transported at some stage and for some distance in
Speaker 1: the Ford Falcon sedan. In earlier episodes, you have heard
Speaker 1: duty sing and audio from our unsuccessful search of Lake Ainsworth,
Speaker 1: and you have also heard a theory that Bromwan's body
Speaker 1: went into the boot of the Ford Falcon Sedan for
Speaker 1: the sudden road trip to Sydney, and that John's unusual
Speaker 1: urgency and action in leaving the two girls, Crystal and Lauren,
Speaker 1: with John's ex wife's mother in law in the Shire
Speaker 1: late on the morning of Monday May seventeen, gave him
Speaker 1: time and opportunity to dispose of Broman's body. One location
Speaker 1: repeatedly raised in relation to this theory is the building
Speaker 1: site where John worked alone and where a concrete paw
Speaker 1: was imminent. Now the Ford Falcon Sedan which belonged to
Speaker 1: John and Broman was a former taxi. It was powered
Speaker 1: by petrol and in a separate tank liquefied petroleum gas
Speaker 1: or LPG. The tank and the piping for the LPG
Speaker 1: sat in the boot. There was still a lot of
Speaker 1: space for luggage, but there is a legitimate question about
Speaker 1: whether the LPG tank would have made it difficult, perhaps
Speaker 1: even impossible, to also put a body in the boot.
Speaker 1: I have been talking with Karna and a crop dusting
Speaker 1: pilot in the West Australian town of Bunbury. Terry Freeman
Speaker 1: is an owner and longtime fan of the Ford Falcon Sedan.
Speaker 1: He has been driving and playing with them for a
Speaker 1: few decades, and for months Terry has been listening carefully
Speaker 1: to the Bromwin podcast series. He is providing valuable advice
Speaker 1: and help to Broman's brother Andy Reid, Madison Walsh, and
Speaker 1: to Karina and me. Oh, and he's pretty grateful.
Speaker 12: I've got time Headley. Everybody I mentioned to what I'm doing,
Speaker 12: they pick there.
Speaker 6: He is up there, right behind it.
Speaker 1: It's the crucial question, isn't it when we theorize about
Speaker 1: this trip possibly to Willowong, and then you always think, well,
Speaker 1: would that have even been possible? This idea that the
Speaker 1: boot could have been used.
Speaker 12: I've owned five of these EXF and other related series
Speaker 12: of that model, which was built in that shape between
Speaker 12: nineteen seventy nine and nine and eighty eight. Very spacious
Speaker 12: vehicle and great family tour. I had a good general
Speaker 12: knowledge of the xfon fairly. Andy on the Spanners, one
Speaker 12: of those boys that grew up in the eighties and
Speaker 12: we fixed everything we had back then.
Speaker 6: I've owned fourteen aeroplanes. I still owned four.
Speaker 12: You sort of get to learn every night and bold
Speaker 12: in the machine if you want to be successful of
Speaker 12: what you do.
Speaker 1: Really, Terry's wife, Heather is very keen to help too.
Speaker 1: To demonstrate the capacity of the Ford Falcon's boot or trunk,
Speaker 1: Terry did some calling around and then Heather climbed into
Speaker 1: a Ford Falcon with a standard LPG tank in the boot.
Speaker 6: I rang the Bumbree autorecords.
Speaker 12: When I told them what I was about, they were
Speaker 12: super keen to get on board, and they said, well,
Speaker 12: one of our employees has an ex Default, which is
Speaker 12: the first of those three models jack same body shape,
Speaker 12: and they made it available to me, but I had
Speaker 12: to go around to their place that night to do it.
Speaker 12: Heather and I grabbed a sheet from home they were
Speaker 12: waiting for us. Let's took some photos of it as
Speaker 12: it was. I went and borrowed a sixty letter gas
Speaker 12: tank from a guy that's a tank setter, stuck that
Speaker 12: tank in there, and then Heather jumped in the boot.
Speaker 6: There's probably enough room for two Heathers in that boot.
Speaker 12: Built slightly like bronin was, she easily fitted in to
Speaker 12: that boot space.
Speaker 1: But the standard LPG tank of sixty liters is smaller
Speaker 1: than the one hundred liter LPG tank which the Ford
Speaker 1: Falcons had as taxis.
Speaker 6: It's a little bit more bolder, so it does protrude
Speaker 6: out into the boot space, but in my mind it
Speaker 6: could still fit easily a Bronze Warn or a Heather
Speaker 6: into that boots space with no trouble whatsoever, but not much.
Speaker 1: I just double checked with the missing person report. Now
Speaker 1: this is assuming that that is accurate. But her height
Speaker 1: was put down then as five foot eight, which is
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy two point seven centimeters. Now, I
Speaker 1: think you said Heather's one hundred and sixty five centimeters.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 7: Five?
Speaker 1: Five five five, there's only a seven point seven centimeter difference,
Speaker 1: let's call it eight centimeters. And looking at that photograph
Speaker 1: of Heather that you took in the boot, there's plenty
Speaker 1: of space from either her feet to the side wall
Speaker 1: of the boot or from her head to account for
Speaker 1: at least another three or four more inches exactly right.
Speaker 6: Her knees were hardly bented all headily.
Speaker 1: But Terry is a stubbornly determined man. He and I
Speaker 1: wanted to run the exercise again with the larger tank
Speaker 1: and ideally with an Zeff Falcon sedan. We just had
Speaker 1: to find a Ford Falcon with those unique characteristics. Carina
Speaker 1: and Terry went looking.
Speaker 12: We don't know if the Windfields car did have that tank,
Speaker 12: but one what a Shamet probably did.
Speaker 1: Was it our tank that could potentially hold one hundred leaders,
Speaker 1: but generally you only put in ninety leaders.
Speaker 12: It's actually got an auto shot off valve that stops
Speaker 12: you putting in any more than ninety leaders. You probably
Speaker 12: only get eighty eight leaders in it before the auto
Speaker 12: shutoff valve would plunk and stop the gas from going in.
Speaker 1: And the tank that you've photographed is a seventy leter
Speaker 1: tank that can hold sixty leaders.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 7: I thought it might be helpful if Terry could describe
Speaker 7: where the tank is actually located in the boot of
Speaker 7: the car.
Speaker 12: The tank is situated right in the forward part of
Speaker 12: the boot space, which is under the sill, and the
Speaker 12: gas fitter toil that you would have to with the
Speaker 12: big tanks. You would have to get your foot and
Speaker 12: shove it riding with your foot to get it in hard.
Speaker 6: Up against the back seats of the vehicle.
Speaker 7: Did it always have to be located in that exact
Speaker 7: spot to work or could you move it around potentially?
Speaker 6: No, No, it would be hard bolted into that position.
Speaker 7: And you think that the body of the car and
Speaker 7: particularly the boots would have been very similar, if not
Speaker 7: the same dimensions.
Speaker 12: The difference in the burt is that the XD which
Speaker 12: I took the photo of heather In had a shallow
Speaker 12: burt because the spare wheel would sit underneath flat in
Speaker 12: the burt in a wheel well. It looks like they've
Speaker 12: changed from the XE and the XF to the wheel
Speaker 12: being mounted on the right hand side in a well
Speaker 12: up against the side body of the car.
Speaker 1: Romwin's brother Andy Reid, has been answering some of Terry's
Speaker 1: questions over recent weeks. You'll recall that Andy looked inside
Speaker 1: the boot of the Ford Falcon x F sedan in
Speaker 1: the late afternoon of Monday, May seventeen. John had arrived
Speaker 1: a short time earlier with the two girls. Strangely, their
Speaker 1: clothes were not in suitcases, they were in pillowcases. Andy
Speaker 1: recalled in a conversation with Terry that the spare wheel
Speaker 1: was sitting flat in the boot. Andy had previously told
Speaker 1: me that the boot space was missing its trim. Here's
Speaker 1: a reminder from episode nine.
Speaker 13: Once I got home, I asked him and we went
Speaker 13: up to the back at the car and he opened
Speaker 13: the boot. That's where he got out the two small
Speaker 13: pillow cases that had three or four items of clothing
Speaker 13: chucked in each pillow case, but nothing was added touate
Speaker 13: for Sydney weather. That just struck me how clean the
Speaker 13: boot was and there was only the metal lighting. I
Speaker 13: could see the spare tire by line.
Speaker 1: You mean no upholstery, do carpet, none of the usual stuff.
Speaker 8: Well in the.
Speaker 13: Old days, old cast like that. Yeah, they just had
Speaker 13: like an old vinyl type lining.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 12: Andy said that the spare wheel was most likely just
Speaker 12: sitting flat in the boot and there was no trim
Speaker 12: in the boot. There's usually either a vinyl trim or
Speaker 12: in all the ones I've seen, there's like a felt trim.
Speaker 12: I asked him pecifically, now, was that will center bolted
Speaker 12: flat in the boot or was it just sitting there?
Speaker 12: And he said he did not recall it being center
Speaker 12: bolted to the flat part of the boot.
Speaker 1: Let's assume that the wheel was in the boot and
Speaker 1: it was off to the right, as was the case
Speaker 1: with that model. What do you reckon about someone three
Speaker 1: to four inches taller than the heather being able to
Speaker 1: fit into that space within one hundred liters tank holding
Speaker 1: ninety leaders of gas.
Speaker 12: One hundred percent would fit in there, no trouble at all.
Speaker 12: There's plenty of round for all your suitcases and luggage
Speaker 12: in a taxi with an one hundred laud a tank.
Speaker 1: Very good of you to take this amount of interest, Terry.
Speaker 1: Do you do this with other cases that you listen to?
Speaker 12: Well, I don't, Headley, but this is the second podcast
Speaker 12: I've ever listened to a mull over things a lot.
Speaker 12: I sort of come up with these sort of timelines
Speaker 12: in my brain. Well, if he did this, what would
Speaker 12: happen and follow it right through to the end. I
Speaker 12: suppose It's part of what I do with my job. Really,
Speaker 12: You've got to think ahead all the time. But I'm
Speaker 12: still open to everything else because we only know what
Speaker 12: we've been told and what we keep finding out.
Speaker 6: It's just experienced headily.
Speaker 1: What struck you from that interview about John's makeup?
Speaker 12: He can think on the run, he thinks, clearly doesn't
Speaker 12: share much of his thoughts with anyone at all.
Speaker 1: Very shortly before the release of this episode, Terry found
Speaker 1: a Ford Falcon identical in almost every way to John
Speaker 1: and Bronwan's old excef Ford Falcon model and the one
Speaker 1: that Terry found had the larger LPG tank in the boot.
Speaker 1: Heather and Terry went to work. Terry, could you, just
Speaker 1: for the record describe the year, make, and model of
Speaker 1: that vehicle that Heather got into.
Speaker 12: That's a nineteen eighty six Ford EXF Falcon, the same
Speaker 12: as that Winfield's had as even white.
Speaker 1: You believe that that gas tank that's in that vehicle
Speaker 1: is the size of the gas tanks that were commonplace
Speaker 1: for the taxis correct, Heather, I was wondering whether you
Speaker 1: could tell me how you got into that space.
Speaker 8: I easily, easiley just climbed in and climbed out. I
Speaker 8: had a lot of rooming there.
Speaker 1: When I was looking close at the photo, it looked
Speaker 1: like your knees were slightly bent. If a woman a
Speaker 1: bit taller than you, yeap needed to fit into that space.
Speaker 1: What do you say about whether it's possible?
Speaker 8: Oh, easily.
Speaker 1: There's an eight centimeter difference then, between Heather and Bromwin.
Speaker 1: What do you say either about there still being enough.
Speaker 6: Room or not easily?
Speaker 9: And I had a lot of space around my knees
Speaker 9: and my body, and.
Speaker 7: It looked like too there was a bit of a
Speaker 7: cavity behind the wheel next to the gas tape there.
Speaker 1: Is right, okay, well done, lady.
Speaker 12: Luck it didn't slip through everything as I could have,
Speaker 12: but we managed to get it.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, I went to Sydney. Maddie collected me at the
Speaker 1: airport for the drive to Andy and Michelle's house in
Speaker 1: the Shire. We had a lot to do. I fell
Speaker 1: asleep on the plane. That's good. I got an email
Speaker 1: from someone and he was talking about dogs. How amazing
Speaker 1: these dogs are that they picked up a scent?
Speaker 11: Would they be able to step through concrete?
Speaker 8: I'll go cold. Just got a cold copy.
Speaker 1: That'd be great, Michelle.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: These documents from the building application file. This is for
Speaker 1: the house a little long, yep.
Speaker 5: And these are the ones that you and Maddie got
Speaker 5: from the council.
Speaker 1: They're the ones we managed to track down. That's the
Speaker 1: cover shoot of the file.
Speaker 14: And then it's just got the dates and times of
Speaker 14: when various inspections were done, when the plants were approved,
Speaker 14: when approvals came through and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just during the building phase of the house.
Speaker 6: Slab which also incorporated the front porch.
Speaker 14: They're the only three of slabs that were on ground
Speaker 14: level at the early stage of the job and the
Speaker 14: garage slam inspection was signed off on Thursday, thirteenth of May.
Speaker 1: That means that it.
Speaker 14: Was signed off and I got the tick on here
Speaker 14: and it was.
Speaker 1: Approved to be able to pull.
Speaker 14: The garage and front porch slabs were given the tick
Speaker 14: of approval to be able to pull, which we believed
Speaker 14: from conversations with Glenn was poured on the Tuesday on
Speaker 14: Wednesday the following.
Speaker 1: Week, So that paw is for the garage slab, the
Speaker 1: garage slab and the front porch. Does that then indicate
Speaker 1: to you if Bromhan's there, it's under the garard slab
Speaker 1: all that porch.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was told that John said he needed to be
Speaker 1: there for a concrete paw and he was agitated and
Speaker 1: anxious about that pour. And that was on the Monday
Speaker 1: that he was saying that there's a concrete pour it's coming.
Speaker 1: Drawing on your knowledge as a builder, thinking about the
Speaker 1: slab in the garage first, what would someone need to
Speaker 1: do if they'd come with a body on a Monday
Speaker 1: afternoon to a slab that's been ready for pouring of concrete.
Speaker 14: What would they need to change the garage slab would
Speaker 14: have been back filled with dirt. You would have needed
Speaker 14: to detach the top layer of mesh in a section
Speaker 14: the reinforcement, and there was no need for footage or
Speaker 14: anything because the footage are already poured. They would need
Speaker 14: to lift up the messh in some way, lift back.
Speaker 1: The plastic, dick down dim down into the dirt that's
Speaker 1: below the plastic.
Speaker 14: Yes, dig a trend swrong enough that you need to
Speaker 14: put someone in there and roll the body in underneath
Speaker 14: there at the dirt back down, spread the dirt around,
Speaker 14: put the plastic down back down neatly, rather than the
Speaker 14: mesh back down. Put the dirt back over the top,
Speaker 14: put the plastic back down, plastic over the top.
Speaker 8: And then you pull the concrete.
Speaker 1: You've got certainty.
Speaker 7: But the thing is how much dirt was that below
Speaker 7: the plastic and.
Speaker 14: The mess we bring loose sweetbers him. It wasn't as
Speaker 14: if you were digging in the virgin ground. The block
Speaker 14: of land slapes backwards could have been six hundred mil
Speaker 14: or seven hundred mil or three foot of loose fill.
Speaker 14: So that's the garage option. What about the front brot
Speaker 14: Pauch Just beside that, the same scenario that.
Speaker 1: Porch all was part of the same Paul, are you
Speaker 1: waiting for a call down from Glenn or should we
Speaker 1: we can? I can just call him. Britt's available. Now
Speaker 1: let's go and see said He's got three jobs going
Speaker 1: at once at the moment. We start at intercuts the
Speaker 1: hair seal on there. We go from there to Jenny
Speaker 1: Mason's old house where John went where he asked Jenny's
Speaker 1: mother in law to look after the kids. And then
Speaker 1: I want to go directly to the house of el
Speaker 1: Along that John was helping Glenn Webster build, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we can also see Glenn Webster.
Speaker 6: Any at a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're right to lave my place when mate?
Speaker 13: All right, okay, so ensure it's okay.
Speaker 1: Bron has written and investigated by me Headley Thomas, a
Speaker 1: podcast production for The Australian. If anyone has information which
Speaker 1: may help solve this cold case, please contact me confidentially
Speaker 1: by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: You can read more about this case and see a
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