Speaker 1: Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromman contains coarse
Speaker 1: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by me Hedley Thomas and The Australian Listen Photos.
Speaker 2: Oh here we go. This is why I kept this.
Speaker 2: What you can see there? That car, I think and
Speaker 2: Murray'll be able to tell you for sure was the
Speaker 2: car that he used to go to Sydney the night
Speaker 2: she disappeared.
Speaker 1: I see on the evening of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: Bromwin was at home with her two daughters, next door
Speaker 1: to Murray and Devin Sandstone Crescent. John has been away
Speaker 1: in Sydney for work. He and Bromwin had formerly separated
Speaker 1: seven weeks earlier. The Winfield family car, a white Ford
Speaker 1: Falcon Sedan, was in the driveway. Murray always knew when
Speaker 1: John or Broman left the house in that car because
Speaker 1: of a distinctive noise.
Speaker 3: It made it ad litally squeaking brakes. And so that's
Speaker 3: why I was sitting here. I thought, I'll get to
Speaker 3: your Bromin's car. It's like I heard it before I
Speaker 3: saw it. So I'm sitting on the unge here two
Speaker 3: Viel's there I'm actually watching Wore the Roses.
Speaker 1: The black satirical comedy from the late eighties stars Michael
Speaker 1: Douglas and Kathleen Turner. A married couple heading towards a
Speaker 1: bitter divorce, The Roses fight to the death for the
Speaker 1: family home and its contents. I want a divorce.
Speaker 4: No, you don't.
Speaker 5: You can't have one.
Speaker 6: I've thought about this a lot. I really don't want
Speaker 6: to be married to you anymore. I may have let
Speaker 6: you have the house, but now you'll never get it.
Speaker 1: You will never get that house.
Speaker 7: Do you understand?
Speaker 8: You will never get that house.
Speaker 1: The movement and noise of the white Ford Falcon owned
Speaker 1: by his neighbors grabbed Murray's attention, and he stopped watching
Speaker 1: War of the Roses.
Speaker 7: When I heard the squeaky brakes, someone's stealing Broblem's car.
Speaker 1: Can you show me what you saw? Yes?
Speaker 9: What?
Speaker 7: The lounges used to be there, and the two v
Speaker 7: used to be there. So I've got up off that
Speaker 7: lounge when I heard the car break squeak, and I
Speaker 7: come up here and stood here. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 7: all open. I'll see the cargo out there.
Speaker 1: Let's walk outside onto the front.
Speaker 10: Law.
Speaker 1: So Jodn Broman's house.
Speaker 7: That's it there.
Speaker 1: Has the house changed much?
Speaker 7: Hasn't changed at all? Not one thing that exactly.
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear them arguing? No, so if they
Speaker 1: squabbled or fought, they were fairly quiet. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you shouldna live far apart.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but I never heard it.
Speaker 1: Why did you think that it was a car theft
Speaker 1: rather than Bromin or John Travil car?
Speaker 7: Well, because it's no John was back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah. The car backed out with no lights.
Speaker 3: On, bottomed down on the road, does a big groove
Speaker 3: in the road and rolled down the hill down the
Speaker 3: bottom of he down here with no lights on.
Speaker 7: It's on, the lights on, start the engine and ran
Speaker 7: out of the way.
Speaker 1: When Murray describes the car bottoming out and leaving a
Speaker 1: groove in the road, he's describing what he believes must
Speaker 1: have happened. He distinctly heard the noise of what he
Speaker 1: says must have been the chassis or underside of the
Speaker 1: back of the car beneath the boot or trunk scraping
Speaker 1: on Bitchamen. As the car reversed from the sloping driveway
Speaker 1: and onto the road of Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 7: The car bottomed out and strap from the road out
Speaker 7: the front. But it dug a pretty deep hole in
Speaker 7: the road. Have it occasionally spraped before?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, At this time when it scraped, it actually dug
Speaker 3: it with probably twenty five milad.
Speaker 1: And did you infer anything at the time that was
Speaker 1: suspicious from that scrape and that noise?
Speaker 7: And yeah? Oh for see the boots fitevy.
Speaker 1: You remember seeing the car rolling down hill headlights off
Speaker 1: and jed off. Had you seen John or Bromin driving
Speaker 1: the car down the hill like that?
Speaker 7: Pool? Nah?
Speaker 1: No, Have you ever driven down this hill without your
Speaker 1: engine and lights hill?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: No, it's pretty unusual.
Speaker 7: It's very unusual. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And normally they would always come out of.
Speaker 7: The driveway and go up the hill. Yeah, it was
Speaker 7: an odd thing to do.
Speaker 1: Is that what made you suspicious?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 7: Definitely.
Speaker 3: At the time, I was concerned about someone steel in
Speaker 3: my car and it was Brom's car, so I got
Speaker 3: up in this twenty to eleven.
Speaker 7: That's strange for a car leaving a strong night.
Speaker 1: Murray's account of seeing and hearing the Winfield vehicle leaving
Speaker 1: the house in Sandstone Crescent on the night of Sunday,
Speaker 1: May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, must be solid. But Bronwan
Speaker 1: wasn't driving that car. Her husband John was behind the wheel,
Speaker 1: and the reason for the car bottoming out scraping on
Speaker 1: the bitchmen. Five years after Bromwin disappeared, the detective sergeant
Speaker 1: from Ballina Police, Glenn Taylor, who led a comprehensive investigation
Speaker 1: and prepared a significant brief of evidence for an inquest,
Speaker 1: was of the view that the car bottomed out because
Speaker 1: Broman's body was in the boot or the back seat.
Speaker 1: It's a very serious allegation and John Winfield emphatically denies this.
Speaker 1: But John certainly does not deny that he was driving
Speaker 1: the car about that time. In fact, he says it
Speaker 1: was him, and we're going to deal with this in
Speaker 1: detail in this episode and in the next one. First,
Speaker 1: it's important to establish the chronology of events over the
Speaker 1: Saturday and Sunday leading up to the time of about
Speaker 1: ten forty pm on Sunday when the family car left
Speaker 1: and Bromwin was never again. Will go first to the
Speaker 1: evidence of Jody, John's daughter from his first marriage. In
Speaker 1: a previous episode, you heard how Bromman had written a
Speaker 1: heartfelt letter to Jody pledging love and support for her stepdaughter,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding the breakdown of the marriage. In Jody's statement to
Speaker 1: police five years later in September nineteen ninety eight, she
Speaker 1: discloses a telephone conversation with broman on the Friday, two
Speaker 1: days before her stepmother's disappearance.
Speaker 11: I can't recall how it happened, but I rang the
Speaker 11: house at Sandstone Crescent and Bronwin answered the telephone. She
Speaker 11: told me that she'd moved back into the house with
Speaker 11: the kids and that she was staying there. She also
Speaker 11: told me that Dad was not welcome there and that
Speaker 11: he can stay in Sydney with me. She told me
Speaker 11: that she was going to get a restraining order so
Speaker 11: that he couldn't come near the house. She also told
Speaker 11: me that the house belonged to her, and I really
Speaker 11: noticed that she changed from the person who wanted us
Speaker 11: all to say close. We both started to argue because
Speaker 11: I told her that it was not her house and
Speaker 11: that it belonged to Dad, Crystal, Lauren and me as well.
Speaker 11: I also told her that it belonged to us, more
Speaker 11: so because she was the one that chose to leave.
Speaker 1: It is an interesting point. Jody is suggesting that because
Speaker 1: Bromin had decided to leave John and had moved out
Speaker 1: of the house for about seven weeks. Her entitlement to
Speaker 1: the property was diminished. John's daughter, Jody, was living in
Speaker 1: Sydney at the time of these conversations with Bromwin. She
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old and close to her dad. Jody
Speaker 1: was twenty three when she gave her statement to police
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight. These are her words, it's not
Speaker 1: her voice.
Speaker 11: I asked her what had made her change her attitude
Speaker 11: so much, and she told me that the clairvoyant had
Speaker 11: told her to move back in and do all this.
Speaker 11: It developed into a very heated argument and we were
Speaker 11: yelling at each other, and she hung up on me.
Speaker 11: I immediately rang her back and the phone was engaged.
Speaker 11: I kept trying, but she must have left the phone
Speaker 11: off the hook. The following day, which would have been Saturday,
Speaker 11: fifteenth of May nineteen ninety three, I rang the Lennox
Speaker 11: head house before I went to work. It would have
Speaker 11: been before nine am when I spoke to Cristel and
Speaker 11: she told me that Bronwin had gone out for the
Speaker 11: day and would not be returning until four o'clock that afternoon.
Speaker 11: At that stage, Cristel was about ten years of age
Speaker 11: and Lauren was five. I asked Cristel who was minding them,
Speaker 11: and she told me that she was minding Lauren and
Speaker 11: that it was great because she had never been left
Speaker 11: alone before. I told Christel that I wanted to talk
Speaker 11: to her mother when she got home. When I terminated
Speaker 11: the phone call and told Dad, he appeared to be
Speaker 11: very stressed out about it because they had never been
Speaker 11: left alone before and he was so far away.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know what to make of this claim
Speaker 1: by Jody that Bronwin was going to leave her two
Speaker 1: children alone in the house through Saturday. Everybody who has
Speaker 1: to to me and to the police has stressed how
Speaker 1: responsible Bromwin was. If anything, Bromwin was overly protective. That's
Speaker 1: the message I took from all of these conversations with witnesses,
Speaker 1: and they ranged from those who were close to her
Speaker 1: to others who didn't know her well but just saw
Speaker 1: her attentiveness. You heard from Virginia Bevis in the previous
Speaker 1: episode when she mentioned that her daughter had babysat on
Speaker 1: the Saturday night when broman went to the birthday party
Speaker 1: in Lennox. Virginia remembers Bromwin disclosing that her stepdaughter Jody
Speaker 1: had telephoned the house after broman and the girls had
Speaker 1: moved back into Sandstone Crescent, and.
Speaker 12: Jodi rang it when she moved back in and said,
Speaker 12: how do you move back in Dad's house?
Speaker 6: Because she told me that too.
Speaker 1: Why would that be?
Speaker 6: How do you She was furious.
Speaker 12: Yeah, John had said something to Jody, and Jody rang
Speaker 12: Bromwin in the abused and.
Speaker 6: I remember.
Speaker 1: Virginia told me something else, which underlines how careful Bromwin
Speaker 1: was with her daughters, Crystal and Lauren. Just before Bromwin
Speaker 1: left for the birthday party on the Saturday evening, she
Speaker 1: walked with her daughters to the nearby home of Virginia
Speaker 1: and her husband Lee.
Speaker 12: She was really nervous, and my husband kept on telling
Speaker 12: her how great she looked, and it'd be great.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that.
Speaker 6: Late that night that we saw.
Speaker 1: The reason for the brief meeting was simple. Bromwin had
Speaker 1: already made an arrangement for her girls to be babysat
Speaker 1: by Virginia and Lee's daughter Celeste.
Speaker 6: It was probably Mant sevenish that we saw that she
Speaker 6: come over.
Speaker 1: Haw'd she see excited?
Speaker 12: She was only coming over to pick up our daughter
Speaker 12: to take her back there across the road to babysit.
Speaker 6: That's why I said she'd never leave those kids.
Speaker 7: And she carried the kids in too.
Speaker 1: It was about her wanting to look after your daughter
Speaker 1: and hers. Yeah at the same time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no, she brought him in.
Speaker 1: You just found that was reinforcement with or view that
Speaker 1: she was a very dating mother.
Speaker 12: Oh god, Ja, even at work at Eden's, it's a
Speaker 12: nursing Lauren on her breaks.
Speaker 6: And then she wouldn't leave those kids for the world.
Speaker 1: You saw her being fairly devoted with her kids.
Speaker 5: Just knock on the door. She carried Lauren in and
Speaker 5: they were all round way in the world.
Speaker 7: She would lead it.
Speaker 6: But I never saw her again.
Speaker 1: Several hours before Virginia saw her for the last time,
Speaker 1: Bronwyn telephoned the home of Richard and Jane Johnston in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Richard Johnston is a cousin of John Winfield, and Richard's
Speaker 1: wife Jane had become Bromwin's friend. They lived close by
Speaker 1: in the shire and even shared a home there for
Speaker 1: a month and a half while John was building the
Speaker 1: house in Sandstone Crescent, Lennox Head. These are the words
Speaker 1: of Richard and Jane Johnston. These are not their voices.
Speaker 13: I became a bit of a confidant to Bronwyn and
Speaker 13: I got to know her extremely well. We would often
Speaker 13: talk on the telephone, and it was mostly for an
Speaker 13: hour at a time. When Bronwyn moved to Lennox Head,
Speaker 13: we still kept in constant contact. In fact, no longer
Speaker 13: than a month would go by without a phone call.
Speaker 13: I noticed that the telephone calls from Bronwyn during the
Speaker 13: latter part of nineteen ninety two and the early part
Speaker 13: of nineteen ninety three contained more specific complaints. These complaints
Speaker 13: concerned the possibility of violence. She would often state to
Speaker 13: me that she was scared of John and worried that
Speaker 13: he would hit her, Although she never ever told me
Speaker 13: that he did, and I'm sure she would have if
Speaker 13: it had occurred. She did inform me after Christmas that
Speaker 13: year he had backed her up against the kitchen cabinets
Speaker 13: and raised his hand as if to hit her, but
Speaker 13: then just walked away. She would always tell me during
Speaker 13: these conversations that she felt like leaving John, and at
Speaker 13: one point I told her to leave if it was
Speaker 13: really as bad as she said. She would also tell
Speaker 13: me that John would keep her short of money and
Speaker 13: wouldn't let her have any more than about thirty dollars
Speaker 13: in her purse. She would have to account for every
Speaker 13: cent that he had given her, and she had to
Speaker 13: ask for everything she needed. She couldn't just go and
Speaker 13: draw money from the bank. She did say on one
Speaker 13: occasion that John would not give her any money because
Speaker 13: he wanted to make sure she couldn't leave.
Speaker 1: When Richard Johnston spoke to police, he explained that when
Speaker 1: he and Jane had last visited Bromwin and John in
Speaker 1: the Lennox in October the previous year.
Speaker 14: There was some fiction between them. I recall that it
Speaker 14: was a very uncomfortable evening. I did not see any
Speaker 14: physical contact between them, but there seemed to have been
Speaker 14: some verbal confrontation between them.
Speaker 1: Earlier, Richard told police about the call that he received
Speaker 1: the day before Bronwyn vanished.
Speaker 14: The next time I had any contact was on Saturday,
Speaker 14: May fifteen, nineteen ninety three. I was at home when
Speaker 14: Bronwyn rang on the telephone and asked for Jane. This
Speaker 14: would have been somewhere between two thirty and three pm
Speaker 14: in the afternoon. I told Bronwyn that Jane was overseas
Speaker 14: but would be back in a few weeks. Bronwyn seemed
Speaker 14: very upset on the telephone, and I asked her, could
Speaker 14: I have Jane ring her. Bronwyn said for me not
Speaker 14: to worry and she would ring her later. I did
Speaker 14: not know why Bronwyn was upset, but I could tell
Speaker 14: something was bothering her by the tone of her voice.
Speaker 1: Richard and Jane had emigrated from the United Kingdom several
Speaker 1: years earlier, and coincidentally, Richard flew to the UK on
Speaker 1: May sixteen, and he and Jane returned to Australia in
Speaker 1: June of that year, nineteen ninety three. By then, Bronwyn
Speaker 1: had been missing for a month.
Speaker 14: I have never had any contact with Bronwyn since what's
Speaker 14: the last phone call on May fifteen, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 14: John has told me that he has had no contact
Speaker 14: with Bronwyn either.
Speaker 13: I feel certain that if she was still alive, she
Speaker 13: would have made contact with her children if nobody else.
Speaker 13: She was a very devoted mother, and I am certain
Speaker 13: that she would not have left the children willingly.
Speaker 1: Shortly before the release of this episode, for Cristel assured
Speaker 1: friends and family of her hopes for a result from
Speaker 1: the podcast investigation into the disappearance of her mother, Bronwyn.
Speaker 1: Cristel does not know what happened to her mother. She
Speaker 1: likes to post photographs of her. More photos, including some
Speaker 1: Crystal has never seen, are being sent in now by
Speaker 1: people who knew Bronwyn. Some of the images include Crystal
Speaker 1: from when she was a little girl. I doubt Cristel
Speaker 1: will talk on the record in this podcast, and I
Speaker 1: haven't asked her to be a participant. It's well understood
Speaker 1: on Bromwyn's side of the family that Crystal doesn't want
Speaker 1: to upset her sister Lauren or her stepfather, John Winfield.
Speaker 1: Lauren hasn't had contact with her mom's side of the
Speaker 1: family for three decades, but Cristel is close to the
Speaker 1: read relations. In Cristel's recent message to her friends and
Speaker 1: family via Facebook, she posted some happy photographs of herself.
Speaker 1: She wrote, I just want.
Speaker 15: To thank everyone that has reached out to me this
Speaker 15: week to see how I'm doing. In conjunction with the
Speaker 15: recent Headley Thomas podcast release of my mother's disappearance. It
Speaker 15: has not been easy all these years. I chose not
Speaker 15: to be involved in it for various reasons. However, I
Speaker 15: do have a few theories on her disappearance based on
Speaker 15: my own life experiences, and maybe someone out there knows
Speaker 15: the truth. Maybe we can finally solve this mystery and
Speaker 15: put it all behind us. It's been so nice to
Speaker 15: reconnect with so many of you, and.
Speaker 1: Now weekends with Peter Vegan on four VC.
Speaker 16: Good Morning, Brisbane, Happy Saturday. It is the first of
Speaker 16: June and the first day of whinther It's the case
Speaker 16: of Bronwyn Winfield, who went missing from her home in
Speaker 16: Lennox Head thirty one years ago, leaving behind her two
Speaker 16: children and never to be heard from again. I listened
Speaker 16: to that Bronwen podcast yesterday and for people on the
Speaker 16: outside that don't understand how we work. If we're trying
Speaker 16: to get a family to speak about, whether it's a
Speaker 16: cold case an accident, at times you have to offer
Speaker 16: them a guarantee or a result, and families expect that
Speaker 16: if they do speak to you, that something is going
Speaker 16: to happen. How difficult is it for you Headley, to
Speaker 16: sit down with a family and not be able to
Speaker 16: guarantee that there's going to be an outcome if they
Speaker 16: tell their story.
Speaker 1: I have a general rule.
Speaker 10: I don't want to raise expectations to such a level
Speaker 10: that they believe they're definitely going to get justice that
Speaker 10: they believe has been denied for sometimes decades. I assure
Speaker 10: them that I'll give it absolute total commitment. It will
Speaker 10: bring mistiness who knows something, who have never talked before
Speaker 10: out of the woodwork. It causes people who have been
Speaker 10: keeping secrets a long time to think, I don't want
Speaker 10: to do this anymore. I actually want to tell Headley
Speaker 10: or the cops something that I saw or heard, something.
Speaker 7: That might be relevant.
Speaker 10: And that's why it's never too late with these cases.
Speaker 10: There's always a possibility of more and fresh, better information
Speaker 10: being produced. Unfortunately, a lot of cold cases that they
Speaker 10: can just age and go stale in an unsolved homicide
Speaker 10: squad's filing cabinet where there are so many of these.
Speaker 10: What the podcast investigations can do is all of the
Speaker 10: information in a coherent way over multiple episodes and attract
Speaker 10: witnesses who have never talked.
Speaker 16: Before for people that may not be aware of Bromwin Winfield.
Speaker 16: She was a young mother that lived in the town
Speaker 16: of lenox Head in New South Wales, a very small town.
Speaker 16: Head Lee a lot of people would find it difficult
Speaker 16: to keep secrets in a town like Lenox Head. But
Speaker 16: once again we have this, Oh the mother just took
Speaker 16: off mentality.
Speaker 10: How deeply stupid is that proposition? Then somebody could just
Speaker 10: sort of start again without the children that they've always
Speaker 10: dosed on, without leaving any trace, any evidence of life.
Speaker 10: And in Bromin's case, she's a very dedicated mother of two.
Speaker 1: Why would she take off?
Speaker 16: For someone to think that the mother would just leave
Speaker 16: their children a devoted mother. We hope that some good
Speaker 16: and I'm sure it will will come out of this
Speaker 16: podcast series.
Speaker 10: I really appreciate pir Thank you.
Speaker 1: This podcast series may be the last chance to solve
Speaker 1: a mystery spanning three decades, the last opportunity for Bromwin's
Speaker 1: family and loved ones and friends to know the truth.
Speaker 1: If you know something about Bromwin, about her marriage, about
Speaker 1: her fate that you believe could make some difference, even
Speaker 1: a small difference, then send me an email confidentially. The
Speaker 1: address is Bromwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the police statement of John's daughter Jody,
Speaker 1: describing the events of the Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 11: I started ringing at four pm, and from memory, I
Speaker 11: think she answered and hung up when she heard my
Speaker 11: voice because she knew what was going to happen. I
Speaker 11: tried ringing her straight after, but she must have left
Speaker 11: the phone off the hook again. It was off the
Speaker 11: hook all night. I told Dad and he made arrangements
Speaker 11: to fly to Balaner the following day. I felt that
Speaker 11: I was out of the situation then when Dad was
Speaker 11: going back home to sort it out, so I left
Speaker 11: it to him. I can't recall whether I tried ringing
Speaker 11: the following day. The following afternoon, Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen
Speaker 11: ninety three, I drove Dad to the Sydney Airport so
Speaker 11: that he could catch the plane to Balliner.
Speaker 1: The last time I spoke to bron was on the Saturday.
Speaker 17: We then later found out that she had a shift
Speaker 17: at the takeaway shop on the Sunday afternoon, and the
Speaker 17: girls were at home playing with the next door neighbor
Speaker 17: on the life side, Debbie's kids, and Debbie was looking
Speaker 17: after him and the kids were sort of playing him
Speaker 17: in the tree.
Speaker 1: Holmes, John's older brother by two years, Peter Winfield, was
Speaker 1: interviewed by the police. Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. Peter said he hadn't been aware of trouble
Speaker 1: in the marriage until he heard that Bromwin had moved
Speaker 1: out of the house. It was during this separation period
Speaker 1: that John moved to Sydney for work, and for a
Speaker 1: while he stayed at his brother Peter's house.
Speaker 4: I can't recall how long John stayed with us, or
Speaker 4: if he confided with me in what was happening in
Speaker 4: his private life. I do remember that all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: John had heard that Bronwin had returned or was going
Speaker 4: to return to the family home at Lennox Head. I
Speaker 4: think John was worried that if he didn't go back,
Speaker 4: he would find out that he would be locked out
Speaker 4: and it wouldn't be his home anymore.
Speaker 1: It's the same view expressed by his niece, John's daughter Jody,
Speaker 1: that the partner living in the house could make the
Speaker 1: stronger claim to ownership of the house.
Speaker 4: I remember leaving our home to go to Bowena. I
Speaker 4: don't recall whether he said anything about Bronwyn or what
Speaker 4: was happening at that stage.
Speaker 1: Peter's wife, Louise, however, had a better memory.
Speaker 18: John came and saw us and told us that Bronwyn
Speaker 18: and the kids had left the house in Lennox Head
Speaker 18: and moved into a townhouse. John was very upset and
Speaker 18: very emotional at that time. He considered that it was
Speaker 18: very unfair that someone could take the children away from
Speaker 18: him so easily. John also said that he was worried
Speaker 18: that if Bronwin moved back into the house and he
Speaker 18: wasn't living there, that he would then be unable to
Speaker 18: return to the house himself. As far as I recall,
Speaker 18: he told us that he was going back to Lenox
Speaker 18: Head to prevent this happening.
Speaker 1: John had been bricklaying at a house in Sydney owned
Speaker 1: by a contact he had made in the building industry,
Speaker 1: Glenn Webster. When John wasn't on the job, he stayed
Speaker 1: in a house Glenn and his wife were renting while
Speaker 1: their own home was being built with John's help. This
Speaker 1: is what Glenn webs did old police during the investigation
Speaker 1: by Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 19: I recall while the work was going on, John suddenly left.
Speaker 19: John didn't tell me where he was going. I don't
Speaker 19: remember how I found out, but I later established that
Speaker 19: John had gone up to Lennox Head. During the time
Speaker 19: that John stayed at our home in Dixon Clothes. He
Speaker 19: never mentioned Broman, and at no stage did he ever
Speaker 19: tell me that Broman had moved out of his family
Speaker 19: home in Lennox Head. On occasions he used our phone
Speaker 19: to call home, but I didn't take any notice of
Speaker 19: his conversations.
Speaker 1: Glenn's wife, Jane Webster added.
Speaker 20: I recall that on one occasion, John Winfield phoned his
Speaker 20: home when he was staying with us. I remember that
Speaker 20: he seemed concerned following this telephone call. I remember asking
Speaker 20: John if everything was all right, and he said yes.
Speaker 20: John was not the type of person to disclose anything
Speaker 20: of his personal life.
Speaker 1: I went with Madison Walsh to meet Mel Taylor in
Speaker 1: a Brisbane public library after Mel had finished work. Mel
Speaker 1: grew up in the home next to John and Bromwin's home.
Speaker 1: Mel's parents are Murray and deb and Mel's childhood best
Speaker 1: friend back then was Crystal Bronwin's daughter.
Speaker 5: How do I know you?
Speaker 21: I know it looks really familiar.
Speaker 22: I am Bromwin's second cousin, so I'm quite close to Crystal.
Speaker 1: Now let's go back to Lennox's Head, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: What do you remember about Sunday May sixteen?
Speaker 21: I know I was at the park with Crystal and
Speaker 21: Lauren that afternoon around five point thirty ish, sixish. I
Speaker 21: came home before the girls came home. Bromin came to
Speaker 21: that door and she's like, oh, hey, is Lauren and
Speaker 21: Crystal here? And like, no, they're at the park. And
Speaker 21: she said to me, can you go get them because
Speaker 21: her father's coming home.
Speaker 7: Is it a strong memory, Yeah, it's a strong memory, yep.
Speaker 1: But your confident that was the day she read.
Speaker 21: Yeah, because it was a Sunday night.
Speaker 1: It was clear to her then that johnthan was coming back.
Speaker 21: Yeah, because she had just come home from work. We
Speaker 21: were looking after Lauren and Crystal. I had gone with
Speaker 21: Crystal and a mum to the house to take boxes
Speaker 21: back to Sandstone Present. I wouldn't know how she'd found
Speaker 21: out that he was coming home. I think she did
Speaker 21: say to me that he was coming on a flight.
Speaker 1: As a twelve year old girl in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: Mel tried to stay out of John's way.
Speaker 21: Us to frighten me the way he used to treat
Speaker 21: the girls, his demeanor and he mess whatsoever, he would
Speaker 21: just go crazy, very strict.
Speaker 1: Are you're going to be strict and not scary?
Speaker 21: I think it was this because of the strength of him,
Speaker 21: just my memory of the person he was seeing him
Speaker 21: working out with his branch press and yeah, that wasn't
Speaker 21: the garage.
Speaker 1: Did he get cross with you or angry with him?
Speaker 21: Not to me.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 21: If the girls had eaten any food and they made
Speaker 21: a mess on the floor with the food, he had
Speaker 21: seen it, he would be very angry. Said, well, that's
Speaker 21: to play over something that was spilt on the floor.
Speaker 21: I went talking like minimal like crumbs. And then the
Speaker 21: girl's wan allowed to come out and play after that.
Speaker 1: What about with Bromwin? How did you observe her?
Speaker 21: I love Bromwin. I found out she was such a
Speaker 21: beautiful person.
Speaker 1: What was it about Bromwen you liked?
Speaker 21: She would have done anything for those kids, And that's
Speaker 21: what's sad about the whole situation, Like she was, I
Speaker 21: was trying to prepare for a better life with the kids.
Speaker 9: Giving and taking is equally important, for without the taking,
Speaker 9: you lose all feelings of self worth and self esteem.
Speaker 9: It can be extremely dangerous and have disastrous repercussions on
Speaker 9: those around you, especially with children.
Speaker 1: In Bowna, a man called John Watson received a tell
Speaker 1: lephone call at his home. He knew John Winfield because
Speaker 1: their respective daughters were friends.
Speaker 23: John was ringing me from Sydney and he asked me
Speaker 23: if I could pick him up from the Balliner Airport
Speaker 23: and give him a lift home. That night, about six
Speaker 23: thirty pm, I went to the airport and I met John.
Speaker 23: He asked me if I could take him to the
Speaker 23: Balloner police station prior to taking him home. I drove
Speaker 23: him to the police station and I waited in the
Speaker 23: car while he went in. He was in the police
Speaker 23: station for about five minutes.
Speaker 1: After passing the same police station on the drive north
Speaker 1: back to Brisbane, I spoke to Madison Walsh about Bromwin
Speaker 1: and the probable reason for John's visit on the evening
Speaker 1: of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 24: I think she was trying to get an apprehended violence order.
Speaker 24: I reckon she was trying to get that through with
Speaker 24: one of the solicitors she was consulting, and that's why
Speaker 24: he went to the police station after he landed.
Speaker 5: Definitely like that's not normal behavior.
Speaker 1: But it hadn't actually been implemented before John came back
Speaker 1: from Sydney.
Speaker 25: Yeah, that was my thought, because why else would you
Speaker 25: go to the police station before going to your house. Yeah,
Speaker 25: so he definitely would have assumed that she would have
Speaker 25: filed something, but it just hadn't been put through.
Speaker 24: Well, it's quite possible that they'd had a conversation when
Speaker 24: he rang and spoke to him before he left Sydney, and.
Speaker 1: She might have said something like I've got an order
Speaker 1: or I'm getting an order or something, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to check that.
Speaker 5: Because I remember learning in legal studies.
Speaker 22: That sometimes you actually have to go into the court
Speaker 22: to get the ABO signed for it to be official.
Speaker 22: So I don't know if that was like the next
Speaker 22: process or anything like that to get it confirmed.
Speaker 1: But I can have a look into it and see.
Speaker 1: Obviously this area has evolved a lot in recent years,
Speaker 1: but thirty one years ago, I don't know what was there.
Speaker 25: I don't know, but I can definitely look being there somewhere.
Speaker 26: There's an online resource where you can actually look at
Speaker 26: the legislation as it existed, say ninety three or ninety eight,
Speaker 26: whenever you can see what it allowed for what it
Speaker 26: looked like at that time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 26: There's also evidence that Ronlin rang her solicitor on Sunday
Speaker 26: while John was in the house.
Speaker 1: I think that's in the statement of the solicitor.
Speaker 5: I'll have a look.
Speaker 1: John Watson recalled that John Winfield then asked him to
Speaker 1: go to the home of Becky McGuire, another of Jodie's
Speaker 1: school friends.
Speaker 23: He told me that he wanted Becky to go with
Speaker 23: him when he.
Speaker 1: Went to the house.
Speaker 23: I drove him to her house, and from memory, Becky
Speaker 23: was either waiting outside or came out when we pulled up,
Speaker 23: and she got into the car. I drove them to
Speaker 23: John's house in Sandstone Crescent at Lennoxhead and they got
Speaker 23: out of the car and went to the front door,
Speaker 23: and I drove home. John told me when he got
Speaker 23: out of the car that he would drive Becky home.
Speaker 1: Becky McGuire confirmed being collected at her house by John
Speaker 1: Winfield and John Watson to go to Sandstone Crescent. Becky
Speaker 1: was pregnant with her son at the time. She knew
Speaker 1: Bromwin and her husband. John threw her friendship with Jody.
Speaker 27: He told me that he needed someone there just in
Speaker 27: case something happened as he just wanted to pick up
Speaker 27: some clothes and needed a witness there Whilst he did this,
Speaker 27: John Watson dropped us on the other side of the road,
Speaker 27: about two doors up from the Winfield's house. John Watson
Speaker 27: drove away. We walked up to the front of the
Speaker 27: house and John knocked on the door. The door opened
Speaker 27: and Bronwyn and the children were standing at the door.
Speaker 27: I wasn't really paying much attention at the time, but
Speaker 27: I recall Bronwyn babbling on about something, but they weren't arguing.
Speaker 1: It does seem an oddly pejoritied way for Becky to
Speaker 1: describe whatever Bronwyn said when John arrived.
Speaker 27: I can't recall what she was going on about.
Speaker 21: She used to babble on all the time.
Speaker 27: Bronwin walked back into the house towards the kitchen and
Speaker 27: John gave the girls a cuddle, and I saw that
Speaker 27: Lauren was crying. I saw two suitcases inside the doorway,
Speaker 27: and John picked them up and put them in the car.
Speaker 1: Clearly, Bromwyn had packed John's things and put them near
Speaker 1: the front door, ready to go, with the intention of
Speaker 1: him taking those two suitcases away the car, which Becky
Speaker 1: is referring to is the white Ford Falcon Sedan, the
Speaker 1: one with the squeaky brakes.
Speaker 27: John must have had a set of keys to the car,
Speaker 27: because we then got into the car and he drove
Speaker 27: me home. I remember who both Crystal and Lauren were
Speaker 27: standing at the window inside the house watching as we
Speaker 27: reversed out of the driveway. John didn't go inside the
Speaker 27: house at all while I was in the house with him.
Speaker 27: While we were driving back to my house, John thanked
Speaker 27: me for coming with him and told me he was
Speaker 27: sorry for getting me involved. I haven't seen Bronwin since
Speaker 27: that night I went to her place with John.
Speaker 1: You are going to hear how Becky, who was twenty
Speaker 1: two at the time of her statement, perceived Bromwyn.
Speaker 27: During the time that I knew Bronwyn, she had terrible
Speaker 27: mood swings, and Jody and her would fight a lot
Speaker 27: while I was there, and we would go into Jody's
Speaker 27: bedroom to get away from her. I was positive that
Speaker 27: Bronwin had a split personality, because one minute she was
Speaker 27: fine and friendly, and the next minute she was cranky
Speaker 27: and yelling and generally going off the deep end about
Speaker 27: nothing at all.
Speaker 1: Telephone records show that at seven oh six pm a
Speaker 1: call was made from the home phone at Sandstone Crescent
Speaker 1: to Peter and Louise Winfield's house in Sydney. John was
Speaker 1: calling his brother to let him know he had arrived safely.
Speaker 1: It's a call made just thirty six minutes after John
Speaker 1: Watson estimated that he had picked John up from the
Speaker 1: airport at Ballina. At the house, what happened next, only
Speaker 1: two people really knew for sure, bronwin and John.
Speaker 9: Whoever said that love makes the world go round was correct.
Speaker 9: I have felt it all around me recently, some hate
Speaker 9: as well, but mainly the compassion for another person in pain.
Speaker 1: John insists that his estranged wife told him in the
Speaker 1: house that evening that she wanted to have a break
Speaker 1: for a few days, and he said she had gone
Speaker 1: into their bedroom and made a telephone call, resulting in
Speaker 1: a car he didn't see, driven by an unknown person
Speaker 1: stopping outside and Bromin getting in, and John says that's
Speaker 1: the last time he saw his wife. In the episode
Speaker 1: after this one, you are going to hear a lot
Speaker 1: more detail about John's version of events. He explained it
Speaker 1: to the local police in Ballina in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: and again five years later when Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
Speaker 1: became involved and recorded a formal interview. I've obtained the
Speaker 1: documentation and I've been comparing it with the versions which
Speaker 1: are remembered by Bromman's family and friends. For now, I
Speaker 1: want to consider the proposition which is implicit in so
Speaker 1: much of what has been said by Bromman's friends and family,
Speaker 1: and that is that Bromwin was a very loving mother
Speaker 1: who would never have left her two girls. On one
Speaker 1: of my drives from Brisbane to Lennox Head, I telephoned
Speaker 1: my friend Brian Jordan, a retired family court judge. Brian
Speaker 1: knew nothing about Bromman's disappearance when we spoke, but he
Speaker 1: had closely found though the first podcast series I did
Speaker 1: about Lynn Dawson's nineteen eighty two disappearance from the Northern
Speaker 1: Beaches and the suspicion which fell eventually onto her husband Chris.
Speaker 1: Listeners of The Teacher's Pet might recall Brian, who was
Speaker 1: featured in several episodes as the investigation unfolded in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Here's a brief snippet from one of those episodes. In
Speaker 1: June nineteen eighty three, with Lynn a fading memory for
Speaker 1: her very young children. Chris and Lynn were divorced. I
Speaker 1: asked Brian Jordan, a friend and a retired senior judge,
Speaker 1: to review some of the documents from the coronial proceedings.
Speaker 1: What's the minimum period that two married people must be
Speaker 1: separated before they can apply for a divorce?
Speaker 28: A minimum of twelve months, and a mere separation itself
Speaker 28: may not qualify it. The relationship must be ended. There
Speaker 28: must be an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Now, I
Speaker 28: don't know, and you'd know more whether mister Dawson acknowledges
Speaker 28: that the relationship was over the day his wife walked
Speaker 28: out of the.
Speaker 1: Home, well legedly walked out in Bronwin's case, another mother
Speaker 1: in a failing marriage, another deeply suspicious disappearance. Six years
Speaker 1: after Brian spoke about the legalities of separation and divorce
Speaker 1: for an episode in The Teacher's Pet about Chris and Lynn,
Speaker 1: we talked about Bronwyn her disappearance and John, let's go
Speaker 1: back to late twenty seventeen and early twenty eighteen. You
Speaker 1: were interested in podcast investigation I was doing at that
Speaker 1: time into the disappearance of Lynn and that was for
Speaker 1: the teacher's pets. What stood out for you most in
Speaker 1: that case when I first described it to you.
Speaker 29: As soon as you mention that she left her four
Speaker 29: year old and two year old daughter, so she had
Speaker 29: difficulty with conceiving those two children and was a convoted,
Speaker 29: dedicated mother, my ears picked up and I started paying
Speaker 29: attention and our.
Speaker 5: End of saying, just she didn't leave those children. It
Speaker 5: was that dark that It was that moment that comstallized,
Speaker 5: and it gave me the interest in the story.
Speaker 29: And it's not a conclusive because of study.
Speaker 5: It's a compelling piece.
Speaker 29: Of circumstantial evidence her wife family, without any prior indication
Speaker 29: of intentions do so people walk out of their lives
Speaker 29: for her two children to never see them again, never
Speaker 29: inquire about them again.
Speaker 5: It's just inherently improbable.
Speaker 29: Session is so improbable as to cause one in one
Speaker 29: to look for other reasons for children being abandoned other
Speaker 29: than the car and walking out on their lives.
Speaker 1: I know you, Brian, as a very dedicated father and husband,
Speaker 1: and Pauline, your wife, as a very dedicated mother, But
Speaker 1: what else are you facing that view on, apart from
Speaker 1: your own observations of Pauline and perhaps other brothers.
Speaker 30: You know, a culmination of factors, including twenty years just
Speaker 30: a family called joke, carrying children's cases on an almost
Speaker 30: daily base, and seeing the extent to which parents we
Speaker 30: go to the brink to retain a relationship with contact
Speaker 30: with their children.
Speaker 5: Stinkive thing.
Speaker 29: There's bonding with their children that they find impossible to
Speaker 29: let go.
Speaker 5: Also, in the course of.
Speaker 29: Hearing cases for twenty years, I did hear in olog
Speaker 29: experience getting evidence about the bonding between parents and their children,
Speaker 29: and in particular the bond between mother, biological mother and
Speaker 29: young children is extremely strong. It's what enables parents and
Speaker 29: in this case mothers so almost invaribly.
Speaker 5: Took their own lives.
Speaker 31: I had those and their children if it comes to
Speaker 31: those sorts of terrible choice. So it's my personal experience,
Speaker 31: my experience as a family lawyer.
Speaker 29: And visiting new experts that I can't remember a case
Speaker 29: where a mother had abandoned her John cares fewer question.
Speaker 29: What did the investigation, the inevitable investigation of the table
Speaker 29: one suspect to the husband, what did that reveal?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: The original investigation by police in nineteen ninety three was
Speaker 1: very peacemeal. I gave Brian a summary of the separation
Speaker 1: and then the last days of Bromwin in Lennox Head.
Speaker 1: How she had moved back into the house at Sandstone
Speaker 1: Crescent with her two girls on a Friday afternoon in
Speaker 1: May nineteen ninety three while John was away working in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and she was there through the Saturday. On the Sunday
Speaker 1: early evening, John turned up. He flew from Sydney to Ballana.
Speaker 1: It wasn't schedule. He left his work job suddenly because
Speaker 1: he must have become aware that Bromin was back in
Speaker 1: the home.
Speaker 5: And how then have they been separated.
Speaker 1: A couple of months. He went to the home. Now
Speaker 1: we don't know what happened next apart from what he says.
Speaker 1: The children, they were very young. It was close to bedtimes.
Speaker 1: Believed that they were put to bed.
Speaker 26: John says that there was a disagreement, but not he did.
Speaker 1: He says that Bromin said she needed some time away
Speaker 1: from the kitchen, needed a break. That she made a
Speaker 1: telephone call and somebody came to pick her up and
Speaker 1: she left. I told Brian that the next thing that
Speaker 1: happened close to eleven PM after Bromman had purportedly left
Speaker 1: in an unknown person's car. Was the sighting of the
Speaker 1: Winfield car the white Ford Falcon leaving the house rolling
Speaker 1: down the driveway, but the headlights weren't turned on and the.
Speaker 32: Engine wasn't on either, so it rolled silently down the hill,
Speaker 32: and then at the bottom of the hill the lights
Speaker 32: came on and the engine was turned on.
Speaker 1: The other observation by that witness was that as the
Speaker 1: car left the driveway to turn onto the road and
Speaker 1: rolled down hill, there was a scraping noise. He resumed
Speaker 1: it was from the back of the vehicle, and John
Speaker 1: drove through the night. It wasn't planned. He took the
Speaker 1: girls to Sidney. The marriage had been under quite a
Speaker 1: lot of strain. She, according to the statements by some
Speaker 1: of her.
Speaker 33: Friends, was concerned about John, somewhat fearful. Her uncle observed
Speaker 33: bruising on her arm.
Speaker 1: Roberts said that John had assaulted her in his usual
Speaker 1: measured way. Brian injected a note of caution. He referenced
Speaker 1: the Teacher's Pet podcast and the eventual case against Chris Dawson,
Speaker 1: who was found guilty of Lynd's murder in August twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two.
Speaker 5: You've got to be mindful of the trump. Your instincts
Speaker 5: were right.
Speaker 29: Your investigations were central to the eventual successful prosecution.
Speaker 5: Of that man.
Speaker 29: Doesn't guarantee that you're infallible on another matter that you're pursuing,
Speaker 29: Does it say?
Speaker 5: Cause is always required? In the sense of matter.
Speaker 1: You're going to hear again now from Michelle Reid, Bronwin's
Speaker 1: sister in law, the wife of Andy Reid. She's describing
Speaker 1: an unexpected event at their Sydney home on the afternoon
Speaker 1: of Monday, May seventeenth, nineteen ninety three. Andy had not
Speaker 1: yet arrived home from work. What do you learn on Monday?
Speaker 34: I was just in the kitchen and there was a
Speaker 34: knock on the door.
Speaker 5: I didn't have my glasses on.
Speaker 34: I couldn't work out who it was because I looked
Speaker 34: down the hallway to the front door. When I got
Speaker 34: down there, I was really shocked to see John and
Speaker 34: the two girls.
Speaker 5: Wow, what's going on?
Speaker 34: I thought they were in Lennox.
Speaker 21: At that point.
Speaker 34: We didn't know that John had taken himself up there
Speaker 34: because we hadn't.
Speaker 6: Heard any of that.
Speaker 34: That all happened, and then John was all the was
Speaker 34: sung with the kids. So I said, what are you
Speaker 34: doing here? John was nervous talking, he was mumbly. He
Speaker 34: actually ushered the kids inside because he didn't.
Speaker 6: Want to talk in front of them.
Speaker 34: And we were standing on our little front veranda, just
Speaker 34: cheir and I. He said, oh, Bromwin's left me, and
Speaker 34: I went, oh, okay. He was like jittery and all
Speaker 34: of that, and then he said, well, actually she needed
Speaker 34: a break. She's going on a holiday. And I thought
Speaker 34: to myself, oh, is she on a holiday or she
Speaker 34: left him?
Speaker 21: Like, in my head, I'm thinking that's weird.
Speaker 34: It's just my nature to be a little bit suspicious
Speaker 34: and stuff.
Speaker 1: But to your knowledge, she had already left it.
Speaker 34: And then he switched it to she needed a break,
Speaker 34: she needs a break, and she going to get her
Speaker 34: head together.
Speaker 21: For her and so he brought the kids to Sydney.
Speaker 1: You'd heard from Romwin previously that there was no going back. Yep,
Speaker 1: the marriage was finished.
Speaker 21: Yep.
Speaker 34: When he first spoke, he was going down the lines
Speaker 34: of she's walked out and left, and she's left me
Speaker 34: with the kids, and then it switched to she needed
Speaker 34: a break for a few days, She's gone away for
Speaker 34: a few days to get her head together. I said
Speaker 34: to him where he's staying, and they decided they'd stay
Speaker 34: with us, So I said, come on, we'll go and
Speaker 34: get have you got stuff. Went up to the back
Speaker 34: of the car he was packed in our cul de
Speaker 34: sac on the road, and he opened the boot. He
Speaker 34: was picking up pillowcases, and inside pillowcases were just kids clothes,
Speaker 34: stuff like stuffed in a pillowcase, pillowcase here and a
Speaker 34: pillowcase there, and there might have been a smallish bag
Speaker 34: of some sort. I kind of thought, oh, why are
Speaker 34: you so who disheveled? Why isn't anything organized? And I
Speaker 34: said to him, what I come you down here like this?
Speaker 34: Like what don't you wait sort of thing until tomorrow?
Speaker 34: Because he said we always drove overnight because the kids
Speaker 34: slept better. He brought in some stuff out of the
Speaker 34: back of the car. At the boot he said three
Speaker 34: significant things on the front veranda. She's got the kids,
Speaker 34: she's got the car, and she's not having the house too.
Speaker 34: And they were the three things that John said on
Speaker 34: the front veranda before Andrew got home. If she's only
Speaker 34: going way for a couple of days, what has that
Speaker 34: got to do with anything.
Speaker 1: I've read in your evidence that you say to him,
Speaker 1: why are you in such a hurry? And then he
Speaker 1: shows you something.
Speaker 34: Yeah, he gets out of his wallet and he's got
Speaker 34: like a little receipt that you get from the cashier,
Speaker 34: and he got petrol eleven o six at.
Speaker 1: A service station near Lennox.
Speaker 21: Yeah, yep, yep. And then he put it back in
Speaker 21: his wallet.
Speaker 1: What did he say when he showed that to you?
Speaker 34: Just proving to me that he left eleven o six
Speaker 34: and got petrol. And I kind of thought to himself,
Speaker 34: why you showed me that. I don't care if you
Speaker 34: got petrol, Like, because at that point on the front Verandah,
Speaker 34: I suppose never put it into our heads that something
Speaker 34: sinister may have happened. It was very confusing as to
Speaker 34: why he was there.
Speaker 21: And I just thought, why did you show me.
Speaker 1: Eleven o six? You remembered the receipt for eleven oh
Speaker 1: six pm. Ye, the night before yep. But doesn't really
Speaker 1: show what time he left, does it?
Speaker 34: Because he could have got fuel or he could have
Speaker 34: done anything.
Speaker 1: What time he got fuel. But he could have gone
Speaker 1: back to.
Speaker 34: The house of the house that he could have gone anywhere,
Speaker 34: could have gone anywhere, kids could have been asleep in
Speaker 34: the house. He could have done lots of things in
Speaker 34: that time.
Speaker 1: Do you still find at baffling or do you have
Speaker 1: some ideas about why he showed it to you.
Speaker 34: I think it was his evidence to prove that he
Speaker 34: had got petrol, to show that he had left and
Speaker 34: gone to Sydney.
Speaker 21: But I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Had he told you that he had arrived in Sydney
Speaker 1: that morning.
Speaker 34: Help and then he would drive through the night and
Speaker 34: see At that point in time, I assumed he comes
Speaker 34: straight to us, like where the family.
Speaker 1: On the Monday morning, a sixty year old woman called
Speaker 1: Joan Mason was visiting at her son Brad's house in
Speaker 1: the Sydney suburb of caring Bar. Brad lived there with
Speaker 1: his wife, Jennifer. These are Jones' words. It's not her voice.
Speaker 1: It's from her police statement in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 35: I remember on that day I heard a knock at
Speaker 35: the front door. My daughter in law, Jenny, was out
Speaker 35: and I was not sure where Brad was. I answered
Speaker 35: the door and I saw a man who introduced himself
Speaker 35: as Winfield. I don't remember his first name, but I
Speaker 35: recall he told me that he had been Jenny's first husband.
Speaker 35: I saw that he had two young girls with him.
Speaker 35: I remember both these young girls were dressed in pajamas.
Speaker 35: I remember this man Winfield asked me could he leave
Speaker 35: the two girls as he was in Sydney to do
Speaker 35: a big job. He said something about being in the
Speaker 35: building game and he had to go and see someone
Speaker 35: about a job. He said that he had been driving
Speaker 35: all night. He said he needed to leave the children
Speaker 35: with someone. I recalled telling him that he could leave
Speaker 35: the kids there and I would tell Jenny when she
Speaker 35: came home. He left the children with me and I
Speaker 35: looked after them until Jenny arrived back home. I remember
Speaker 35: this man Winfield arrived back at the house at Carrying
Speaker 35: Bar later that afternoon. He went out in the backyard
Speaker 35: and they spoke for some time. After that, he took
Speaker 35: the children and left the house.
Speaker 1: It sounds highly unusual. John has gone to the home
Speaker 1: of his first wife, Jenny, but she was out in
Speaker 1: her absence, John has persuaded a woman he has never met,
Speaker 1: the mother in law of Jenny, to look after his
Speaker 1: children for the day. The timing is interesting too. Joan
Speaker 1: Mason recalled that John arrived at the house some time
Speaker 1: in the morning, he left the house in his car
Speaker 1: without his children. A short time later, he returned again
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, collected the children and drove to the
Speaker 1: home of Michelle and Andy Reid. But Michelle and Andy
Speaker 1: didn't know about those movements until the detective Sergeant Glenn
Speaker 1: Taylor got to the bottom of it five years later.
Speaker 34: That blew me away, blom me away.
Speaker 1: But he didn't tell you that.
Speaker 34: No, these kids, they would never have met Jenny, let
Speaker 34: alone Jenny's.
Speaker 6: Mother in law.
Speaker 34: He made out that he come to Sydney and he'd
Speaker 34: come to us bombshell that was to us.
Speaker 1: The natural thing to do would have been to go
Speaker 1: to Bromwin's brother and sister in law, of course, but
Speaker 1: he went to his ex wife's home.
Speaker 34: Her mother in law was down visiting. She had no
Speaker 34: idea who this random bloke was.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that he did that because he thought
Speaker 1: you'd already taken sides Bromwin's side, and it was all
Speaker 1: a bit sticky in the separation.
Speaker 34: Who knows what goes on in John's head. If you're
Speaker 34: going to bring some two little girls and a little
Speaker 34: dog down to Sydney for two weeks, you wouldn't take them.
Speaker 21: Anywhere and leave them.
Speaker 34: With anyone except people who they know and trust, their.
Speaker 1: Uncle and Nardi like.
Speaker 34: And to find that out later, what was he doing?
Speaker 21: Well? Why did he need to do that?
Speaker 34: Why would you do that?
Speaker 1: But before John went to his ex wife's house, he
Speaker 1: stopped in at a Sydney hair salon where his daughter
Speaker 1: Jody worked. Jody remembers that her father arrived there about
Speaker 1: mid morning.
Speaker 11: I rushed out the front and hugged and kissed both
Speaker 11: the girls. I asked Ad what was happening, and he
Speaker 11: told me that Bronwin had had enough and she'd gone
Speaker 11: away for a holiday for two weeks. He said that
Speaker 11: she went to the bedroom and made a telephone call
Speaker 11: and that she took a small amount of clothes. He
Speaker 11: then told me that he heard a car pull up
Speaker 11: and leave, and that he was sitting on the lounge
Speaker 11: and didn't get.
Speaker 35: Up to see who'd picked her up. Dad appeared to
Speaker 35: be happy.
Speaker 11: Because he had the kids and he hadn't seen them
Speaker 11: for so long. He is definite that one day she
Speaker 11: will turn up on the front doorstep and attempt to
Speaker 11: take Crystal and Lauren. He's positive that she's still alive
Speaker 11: somewhere and will suddenly reappear.
Speaker 1: All these years later. We do not know exactly what
Speaker 1: John was doing. Over a crucial period of about five hours,
Speaker 1: he went to the marital home of his first wife, Jenny.
Speaker 1: She had married a man called Brad Mason. As you've
Speaker 1: already heard, John left the children. Let's say it was
Speaker 1: around ten thirty am in nineteen ninety eight. The Ballona
Speaker 1: detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor found Jenny and he took a
Speaker 1: detailed statement from her. The statement discloses that John's first wife, Jenny,
Speaker 1: and John's third wife Bromwyn became friendly acquaintances. These are
Speaker 1: Jenny's words, it's not her voice.
Speaker 36: I brom When after John started going out with her.
Speaker 36: As my daughter Jodi was leaving with them, I then
Speaker 36: became friendly with Bromwin. Bromwhin and I made a pack
Speaker 36: that we wouldn't discuss personal things about John.
Speaker 1: We didn't think it was appropriate to talk about it.
Speaker 36: Bromwhen and John seemed quite happy, and by that time
Speaker 36: I was married to my second husband.
Speaker 6: I've got a photograph.
Speaker 36: At home when me and my husband Brad visited Bromwin
Speaker 36: and John at their new home at Lennox head. The
Speaker 36: photograph's been marked on the back March nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 36: I'd say that we only stayed at the house for
Speaker 36: about half an hour. I remember having a joke with
Speaker 36: Bromwin saying something like, so, this is the house that
Speaker 36: I could have had, Ain't you a lucky girl? Bromwin
Speaker 36: just looked at me with a sad look and shook
Speaker 36: her head and said no. Then John and Brad walked
Speaker 36: into the room, and that was the end of the conversation.
Speaker 36: I think Bromwin would have liked to talk about something
Speaker 36: that was troubling her, but she never had the opportunity
Speaker 36: to speak. The next thing I remember about Bromwin was
Speaker 36: I came home one day from shopping in nineteen ninety
Speaker 36: three and my mother in law, Brad's mother, said, you've
Speaker 36: got two visitors out in the backyard. I looked out
Speaker 36: the back and I saw it was Crystal and Lauren
Speaker 36: Bromwin's children. Both of the children were dressed in pajamas.
Speaker 36: I said to my mother in law, Joan Mason, what
Speaker 36: are they doing here? Joan told me that John Winfield
Speaker 36: had turned up about an hour earlier and asked if
Speaker 36: he could leave the kids at my house. I asked
Speaker 36: Jane if he'd said how long he wanted me to
Speaker 36: look after the kids for, but she said he didn't say.
Speaker 36: There were no clothes for the children that John brought.
Speaker 36: It was about an hour after that when John arrived.
Speaker 36: I said to him something like, what's going on? John said,
Speaker 36: I've got a big job on and nobody to look
Speaker 36: after the kids. Can you look after them for about
Speaker 36: two weeks? I'll pay you. I said, where's Bromwin. John said,
Speaker 36: she's gone off with a boyfriend. I said, I can't
Speaker 36: look after them, You'll have to find someone else. I'm
Speaker 36: in the process of packing and moving at that stage.
Speaker 36: I was splitting up from my second husband and moving
Speaker 36: to Queensland. John said, oh no, I didn't think that
Speaker 36: would happen to you. I'm sorry to hear the news.
Speaker 36: And then after that, John just took the kids and
Speaker 36: left the house. He didn't say what he intended to
Speaker 36: do with the kids.
Speaker 1: Jenny recalled that her ex husband John asked her if
Speaker 1: she had any spare clothes for the girls, but Jenny
Speaker 1: couldn't remember whether she gave him any.
Speaker 36: I remember thinking at the time it was strange he
Speaker 36: hadn't brought any clothing for the children. It wasn't his
Speaker 36: normal character. He usually liked to be organized. I found
Speaker 36: out later through Jody that Bromwin had gone missing from
Speaker 36: Lennox Head. I found out later that she'd gone missing
Speaker 36: the night before John had turned up at my house
Speaker 36: with the two children. I don't feel that Bromin would
Speaker 36: ever have left those children permanently. He was a very
Speaker 36: dedicated mum and loved her children very much. I think
Speaker 36: something might have happened on the night before John turned
Speaker 36: up with the kids at my house in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 36: I think John's the type who could lose his cool.
Speaker 36: He was under a great deal of stress at that time.
Speaker 36: I feel Bromin may be dead and somehow met with
Speaker 36: foul play.
Speaker 1: Jenny's full statement to police in nineteen ninety eight is poignant.
Speaker 1: It recalls some sad parts of her own life with John.
Speaker 1: In a later episode, you'll hear more of Jenny's evidence.
Speaker 1: She paints a sad picture of a deeply troubled marriage.
Speaker 1: And you came home about an hour later at five pm.
Speaker 8: Yes, seeing the old white falcon at the end of
Speaker 8: the street, I thought, wow, the kids and Ron might
Speaker 8: be a day.
Speaker 5: And then I saw John sitting on the front veranda
Speaker 5: talking to Michelle.
Speaker 17: Walk down to the front for Andrew and said what's
Speaker 17: going on? And he said, oh, Roman had a chance
Speaker 17: to go.
Speaker 1: Away and clear her head for a few days. So
Speaker 1: I brought the kids down to Sydney.
Speaker 8: I thought it was strange straight away.
Speaker 1: You've described yourself as just a naturally suspicious person. Romwin's
Speaker 1: told you if anything happens to me, look after Crystal please.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he's turned up in the vehicle she had been
Speaker 1: driving with the kids, and they've packed hastily. What were
Speaker 1: you thinking then about where Romwin was?
Speaker 34: Well, I suppose to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 34: I do recall thinking, well, she'd been out of the
Speaker 34: house on her own with the kids for about six weeks.
Speaker 34: I was thinking, that's twenty four with the kids, trying
Speaker 34: to work get a bit of money. Possibly she did
Speaker 34: need a break.
Speaker 35: Possibly.
Speaker 1: Michelle Reid says that on Monday afternoon she asked John, well, what.
Speaker 6: Have you been doing?
Speaker 21: Where have you been?
Speaker 34: He said, I had to go and get a green
Speaker 34: slip and a pink slip and register the car and
Speaker 34: do all that, which accounted for the time during the day,
Speaker 34: which is why he turned up here at four o'clock,
Speaker 34: because he'd been doing.
Speaker 1: Things reregistering the family car that he had driven from
Speaker 1: Lennox Head the night before with two girls and a puppy.
Speaker 1: Back in Lenox. The neighbors, Murray and Debbie, were wondering
Speaker 1: what was going on. At what point do you believe
Speaker 1: you became suspicious?
Speaker 2: I said something really weird. I said, Larrens cars missinging.
Speaker 2: You know, where would she be this summer? The day
Speaker 2: she would park there all the time. They wouldn't park
Speaker 2: in the garage, and I just thought it was odd
Speaker 2: that the car wasn't there.
Speaker 3: Dead come and saw me six o'clock on Monday morning.
Speaker 3: It said the car has gone next door. And then
Speaker 3: I said to Dead, yeah, I heard the cargo last night.
Speaker 3: Did you see it or yeah?
Speaker 7: I saw it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I thought, oh, this is sus. So I
Speaker 3: waited until about eight o'clock. There was no kids, no nothing,
Speaker 3: and no Roman, no car. I thought, this is too.
Speaker 1: Sus And when you say sas you mean it was
Speaker 1: really suspicious. It was strange.
Speaker 7: That was a bit suspicious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as early as Monday.
Speaker 7: As as Monday yes.
Speaker 3: Well, when I saw the car go in the nighttime
Speaker 3: eleven or twenty eleven at night, I thought that was
Speaker 3: sus So then I past seven.
Speaker 7: Eight o'clock, this is in the morning. Yes, on the
Speaker 7: Monday morning, Monday morning, I walked up.
Speaker 37: To the neighbor on top of John's place, Lloyd and
Speaker 37: Chris Harday, Yeah, And I went to Lloyd and locked
Speaker 37: his door and said, book, I think John's come back
Speaker 37: last night and done something to Bromwin.
Speaker 7: Do you mind coming down to the house and having
Speaker 7: them look at the house with me? But he didn't
Speaker 7: break in there, and did you no? Okay?
Speaker 3: Me and Lloyd just walked around the house and then
Speaker 3: we said, oh, yes, it's us, and then Lloyd went
Speaker 3: in and I came back here.
Speaker 2: When I came home on the Monday afternoon, I said
Speaker 2: to my children, was Lauren and Crystal at the school today?
Speaker 7: And they said no, Monday weren't.
Speaker 2: And then on the Tuesday I went to work and
Speaker 2: I do recall ringing the unit because she had a
Speaker 2: phone down there, and I think I might have rung
Speaker 2: the house to see if I could find.
Speaker 1: It deb telephone a mutual friend, probably Denise Barnard.
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly who it was, but I rang
Speaker 2: them instead of you. Anyone's seen everyone know where Bromin
Speaker 2: might be.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, Yet by about seven thirty at night,
Speaker 8: I'd forced John to ring Murray and Devi next door
Speaker 8: to break into the house to.
Speaker 1: Look into the house to see.
Speaker 5: What was going on and whether Brahman was there.
Speaker 1: Did you suspect foul play that night?
Speaker 38: That came later because further into that conversation between five
Speaker 38: o'clock and seven o'clock, when we sort of forced him
Speaker 38: to get someone to break into the house to check
Speaker 38: it out, he was saying, now I should be back
Speaker 38: by Wednesday, Chris, she's got a shift at the takeaway shop.
Speaker 2: On the Tuesday, I came home after work. John had
Speaker 2: rung Murray, so.
Speaker 7: I've got the court.
Speaker 3: He said, would you mind going up the house? Would
Speaker 3: you mind going up the house and breaking in for me?
Speaker 3: This was a class panel next to the back door.
Speaker 3: He said, put your handy open the door and get in.
Speaker 3: And I said that's fair enough, and I'll do that.
Speaker 3: He said, oh yeah, because I've been trying to ring
Speaker 3: Braman and now I want you to have to look
Speaker 3: to see the probins there. Because I've been ringing I'm
Speaker 3: getting no answer. John said to me, I'll ring you
Speaker 3: back in twenty minutes, so I'm suss again.
Speaker 1: Murray went back to see the retired neighbor, Lloyd Hargrave.
Speaker 3: And I said, mate, I said, he's rung me up.
Speaker 3: He wants to be a break into the house. I'm
Speaker 3: not too sure why he wants be a break into
Speaker 3: the house. He's only read me back. We broke into
Speaker 3: the house and we walked around the house and had
Speaker 3: a look, and then John rang back in twenty minutes
Speaker 3: and he said it was probleman in the house. I said, no,
Speaker 3: she wasn't, John, No, she's not there, and no one said.
Speaker 3: He said, well, can you go up and put the
Speaker 3: phone back on the hook please? So I went back
Speaker 3: up there and put the phone back on the hook,
Speaker 3: and they'd come up with me after that.
Speaker 22: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I got home from work, Murray told me what
Speaker 2: had happened, and I've gone, well, I want to go
Speaker 2: up and have a look.
Speaker 7: Something not right here.
Speaker 2: My normal brain's thinking, no, he wouldn't do anything to her,
Speaker 2: But my other half of my brain's going, yes, he would.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the sort of thing I was a bit conflicted with,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to go and have a look
Speaker 2: and just.
Speaker 1: See all I could see.
Speaker 2: The house was disheveled because she was still moving back in,
Speaker 2: so she had boxes and everything still unpacking boxes. She'd
Speaker 2: had dinner on a Sunday night. There was plates in
Speaker 2: the sink with scraps on them. I looked in the
Speaker 2: washing machine. There was wet washing in the washing machine,
Speaker 2: like clothes. I hung the washing out.
Speaker 1: Do you recall what was in the washing machine? What
Speaker 1: you hung out?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Kids?
Speaker 7: All the kids stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well kids closed.
Speaker 2: So then we went into the bedroom and it was
Speaker 2: at the front of the house, and I'm looking to
Speaker 2: see what she talk. She didn't take twelve trees, she
Speaker 2: didn't take a makeup. I'm looking around. She hasn't taken
Speaker 2: any of this. Why would she do on a holiday
Speaker 2: with that all this stuff? I'm thinking, this is weird.
Speaker 2: The bed was unmade, she took nothing. Appadly, the only
Speaker 2: thing that I could see that was missing was her handbag.
Speaker 7: I couldn't find a handbag.
Speaker 39: I'm a woman, and if I'm going on a maybe
Speaker 39: even if it was an impromptu holiday, I would still
Speaker 39: pack some essential items, but there was nothing.
Speaker 2: It was all still there, her makeup was there, everything.
Speaker 2: I thought, I'm not buying.
Speaker 1: This is her daughter?
Speaker 21: Mail again and I answered the phone and he asked
Speaker 21: to speak with Dad. I said, I'll put him on
Speaker 21: And then night's when I went to the house with
Speaker 21: Lloyd and my dad through the laundry. I remember thinking, Oh,
Speaker 21: I'm coming up to see this house.
Speaker 1: Why, I don't know.
Speaker 21: I think it was strange.
Speaker 1: Was it strange because you were so rarely in the house.
Speaker 21: No, I think it was strange because I had a
Speaker 21: feeling why I be going in there? Why Why did
Speaker 21: he come up and then leave and then us going
Speaker 21: to the house to see whether she's been back. What
Speaker 21: I find is strange about the whole thing is jand
Speaker 21: to come all the way up here, to have the
Speaker 21: argument with Brown and then to leave that same night
Speaker 21: in a hurry. Why don't you say next morning then
Speaker 21: go back to Sydney. Why do we leave in such
Speaker 21: a hurry?
Speaker 1: And is that because you suspect flight urgent panic?
Speaker 21: Yeah? I noticed the house, what it looked like, the
Speaker 21: state that was left in.
Speaker 1: What do you remember about that?
Speaker 6: There was the.
Speaker 21: Washing in the laundry, the dishes. The girl's beds were stripped.
Speaker 1: The girl's beds were stripped, There.
Speaker 21: Was no sheets in the bed they were gone.
Speaker 1: Mel's disclosure about the sheets being stripped from the children's
Speaker 1: beds was a surprise to me. I did not recall
Speaker 1: that anyone else had raised it before, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember reading it in any of the hundreds of pages
Speaker 1: of evidence and witness statements and other documents. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: reason Murray and deb did not raise it with police
Speaker 1: was because they had not looked at the children's beds.
Speaker 21: I mean, I had been in the house and it
Speaker 21: was very neat, like oct needs. So to leave the
Speaker 21: house in the state that was that was what was
Speaker 21: so strange about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And is it your view that John, under normal circumstances
Speaker 1: couldn't have walked out of his house if it was
Speaker 1: in that state.
Speaker 21: No way, he wouldn't have. No, no, not the way
Speaker 21: he was as a person.
Speaker 1: Dear Van Murray walked back to their house, shaking their
Speaker 1: heads at the turn of events. They spoke on the
Speaker 1: telephone soon afterwards to Bromman's brother Andy, who had called
Speaker 1: from Sydney.
Speaker 2: That's when he said John's down here in Sydney with
Speaker 2: the girls. And he tells me Bromin's gone on some
Speaker 2: holiday And I said, what when did he?
Speaker 7: How did the girls get to Sydney.
Speaker 2: That was the first we knew that they were with
Speaker 2: him in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Did Andrew sound incredulous to you?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was concerned for sure, and so was I.
Speaker 2: That John's starting to hyperventilated, be thinking this couldn't happen.
Speaker 2: This is not happening, you know that sort of disbelieved
Speaker 2: that this is going on, And in my quiet mind
Speaker 2: I'm thinking he's not.
Speaker 7: Well, no, he hasn't, No, surely not.
Speaker 1: Bronwyn is written and investigated by me Headley Thomas as
Speaker 1: a podcast production for The Australian. If anyone has information
Speaker 1: which may help solve this cold case, please contact me
Speaker 1: confidentially by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: You can read more about this case and see a
Speaker 1: range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
Speaker 1: The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Speaker 1: Kristin Amiot, Josh Bridget, Ryan Bianca far Marcus, Katie Burns,
Speaker 1: Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, and Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Speaker 1: Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
Speaker 1: and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
Speaker 1: assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We
Speaker 1: can only do this kind of journalism with the support
Speaker 1: of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
Speaker 1: For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
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Speaker 1: The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy,
Speaker 1: and The Night Driver, go to the Australian dot Com
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