Speaker 1: Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course
Speaker 1: language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
Speaker 1: you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. It's time
Speaker 1: now to explain broadly where the rest of this series
Speaker 1: is going.
Speaker 2: You are going to hear.
Speaker 1: More about John's actions in relation to money and five
Speaker 1: remarkable days of public hearings at the inquest in Lismore
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two into the presumed death Boman Joy.
Speaker 2: Winfield will be reconstructed.
Speaker 1: With the reconstruction, it will seem to listeners as if
Speaker 1: they are inside the courtroom where key witnesses were questioned under.
Speaker 2: Oath while John looked on.
Speaker 1: You'll hear how the then Deputy State Coroner, Karl Milavanovitch
Speaker 1: viewed the case along with the police officer who presented
Speaker 1: the evidence, Matt Fordham. Karl Milavanovitch's recommendation to the Office
Speaker 1: of the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute John Winfield
Speaker 1: for murder was rejected by the DPP, and we're going
Speaker 1: to look at that decision too. After the DPP had
Speaker 1: confirmed its position in two thousand and three, not much
Speaker 1: happened in Roman's case until the investigation from two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, led by the then Detective.
Speaker 2: Inspector George Radmore.
Speaker 1: With more detectives and resources at his disposal than Glenn
Speaker 1: Taylor was afforded. George Radmore ran a signalant and serious
Speaker 1: inquiry and it looked at some important new angles.
Speaker 2: Finally we'll draw.
Speaker 1: To a conclusion that is the plan at this early
Speaker 1: stage of the third season of Bromwin.
Speaker 2: When I spoke to Maddie a.
Speaker 1: Year ago at a cafe in Circular Key in Sydney,
Speaker 1: I volunteered to her that this case might span a
Speaker 1: total of just eight episodes. Have you had to think
Speaker 1: about the kinds of aspects of this that you feel that.
Speaker 3: You're equipped to subject to truth here, I'm happy.
Speaker 4: To do anything, really and yeah, I'm open to it all.
Speaker 1: But something we have discovered while having the privilege of
Speaker 1: investigating Broman's disappearance is that things change quickly. Unforeseen events
Speaker 1: like new evidence and new witnesses can turn even a
Speaker 1: well laid plan on its head a new development. For example,
Speaker 1: in the Reignited investigation by police from the New South
Speaker 1: Wales Unsolved Homicide Unit, they told Andy Reid back in
Speaker 1: May twenty twenty four that they were essentially done, that
Speaker 1: there was nothing more they could do without fresh leads
Speaker 1: into Broman's disappearance. As a result of what then started
Speaker 1: to emerge in the early episodes of Bromwin, they decided
Speaker 1: that they were not done after all, and they've been
Speaker 1: taking statements from key people. Now for the first time
Speaker 1: in this series, let's go to the longest and the
Speaker 1: most compelling statement in the bundle of statements organized by
Speaker 1: the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor during his investigation. It's the
Speaker 1: statement of Glenn himself and it runs to one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty pages. Glenn signed it on October thirteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine. It is a summary of the evidence of
Speaker 1: every witness. It also just scribes a lot of information
Speaker 1: which Glenn discovered along the way.
Speaker 2: Glenn had made a.
Speaker 1: Simple inquiry with the Road Transport Authority in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight about Bromwin's driver's license. The records revealed that her
Speaker 1: license had expired on July twenty nine, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: And that it was not renewed.
Speaker 1: A known fact like that should have been uncovered by
Speaker 1: the initial investigation in nineteen ninety three, but there's no
Speaker 1: record from then that any such inquiry was made. Glenn
Speaker 1: also checked with Medicare and their staff confirmed that there
Speaker 1: had been no claim by Bromwin. After her disappearance, he
Speaker 1: obtained records from the Commonwealth Bank. The last transaction on
Speaker 1: the account that Bromen used for her day to day
Speaker 1: expenses was a withdrawal of seventy dollars on May fourteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. This account also received the single parent
Speaker 1: pension from Centilink. Back then it was known as the
Speaker 1: Department of Social Security, but we are going to call
Speaker 1: it Centerlink because that's how everybody knows it now. Bromman
Speaker 1: had been entitled to it since her separation from John
Speaker 1: in late March. She also received a smaller family payment
Speaker 1: for the children. After Broman's disappearance, there were five automatic
Speaker 1: weekly payments, but then nothing further. After June twenty four,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. The balance of her account was one thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred and eight dollars and this wasn't touched. Another
Speaker 1: account in her maiden name of Bromwin Reid held three
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three dollars. Glenn Taylor made inquiries with Centilink,
Speaker 1: and he spoke to an employee there, Francis McNamara, who
Speaker 1: went through Broman's files. Mister McNamara told the detective that
Speaker 1: Broman had applied for child old support assessment on Monday
Speaker 1: May tenth. This application was forwarded to the child support
Speaker 1: agency on the same day, six days before Bromwin vanished.
Speaker 1: I've asked Glenn Taylor to read paragraph one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty one from page ninety of his police statement of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 5: Inquiries with the child support agency in Sydney confirmed that
Speaker 5: a claim had been made by Bromwin Winfield for payments
Speaker 5: to be made by her husband for.
Speaker 2: The support of the children.
Speaker 5: A document was located which sets out the proposed arrangement.
Speaker 5: This order was apparently never acted upon, as Bromwin had
Speaker 5: gone missing. On sixteenth May nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: At the federal government's Child Support Agency, Bromwin had been
Speaker 1: allocated a case number three two three eight two six.
Speaker 1: A child support registrar wrote to Bromwin advising.
Speaker 6: We have accepted your application for an assessment of how
Speaker 6: much child support mister Jonathan Winfield should pay you. Set
Speaker 6: out below are the amounts we expect to collect for you.
Speaker 6: Please note that we cannot guarantee payment. We can only
Speaker 6: pay you what we collect from the paying parent.
Speaker 1: John was up for an initial payment of six hundred
Speaker 1: and seven dollars because it was determined that he had
Speaker 1: owed Bromwyn money since April twelve, nineteen ninety three, He
Speaker 1: would need to find two hundred and thirty one dollars
Speaker 1: a month for his regular payment to her. To be clear,
Speaker 1: I want to stress that this payment, which was to
Speaker 1: come out of John's pocket and go to Bromwin to
Speaker 1: help feed and clothe the children, was separate from the
Speaker 1: sole parent pension. The sole parent pension came from Centerlink,
Speaker 1: not from John. Are of course eligible for the sole
Speaker 1: parent pension too if the female parent.
Speaker 2: Is not around.
Speaker 1: Glen Taylor discovered that the weekly sole parent pension payments
Speaker 1: BI center Link to Broman's bank were cut off, and
Speaker 1: this had happened just sixteen days after Broman's disappearance. Here's
Speaker 1: Glen Taylor again reading from his nineteen ninety nine statement.
Speaker 2: Missus Bromwin.
Speaker 5: Winfield's husband Jonathan attended the Bawonous Social Security Office on
Speaker 5: second of Gen nineteen ninety three to advise that Missus
Speaker 5: bromwin Winfield had disappeared, and the sole parent pension was
Speaker 5: suspended on that day.
Speaker 2: Records revealed that there.
Speaker 5: Has not been a further claim or any payment since
Speaker 5: the payments were suspended. The pension was canceled on twenty
Speaker 5: fifth to Gen nineteen ninety three, when it was determined
Speaker 5: there were no children in brom and Winfield's care as
Speaker 5: another person had applied for a sole parent pension, Jonathan Winfield,
Speaker 5: claiming the children to be in his care. Brom and
Speaker 5: Winfield's family Allowance payment was also canceled from that date.
Speaker 1: Let's rehash the timeline again. There's a lot of key
Speaker 1: dates and they can be confusing. John reported Broman missing
Speaker 1: on May twenty seven. That was eleven days after he
Speaker 1: says she walked out of the house on Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 1: John told Detective Sergeant Graham Diskin back then that Broman
Speaker 1: was aware that he would take the girls to Sydney
Speaker 1: for eight to ten days while she enjoyed what he
Speaker 1: called her break from the kids. But just sixteen days
Speaker 1: after Broman had purportedly left and with the possibility, according
Speaker 1: to John's version, that she should return any day, John
Speaker 1: went to the Centerlink office in Ballina to suspend Bromin's
Speaker 1: single parent pension and have it diverted to his bank
Speaker 1: account instead. It took just six days from when John
Speaker 1: reported his wife missing for him to get the payments
Speaker 1: to her cut and channel to him. Here's Andy Reid
Speaker 1: talking to me via zoom from a building site.
Speaker 7: If your story was that your wife walked down the
Speaker 7: door and had a change to go away for a while,
Speaker 7: why within about three weeks of her doing that, did
Speaker 7: you go and change all monastery payments for the kids
Speaker 7: and get your name so they came in hers.
Speaker 1: Now Here is Michelle with Andy revisiting the same issue
Speaker 1: with me in the lounge room of their home in
Speaker 1: the Shire.
Speaker 8: That's what worries me.
Speaker 4: How quickly he went and changed the shell a Link payments.
Speaker 5: Oh, she told me she's only going on a break.
Speaker 9: Why would you go there and change everything to get
Speaker 9: money for the kid.
Speaker 3: For someone that's supposedly just gone off for a few
Speaker 3: days to get a head clear, right, Why have you
Speaker 3: then gone and demanded that she'd be taken off the
Speaker 3: single pension And how can someone else do that? She
Speaker 3: hasn't got the kids, so you can't let her get
Speaker 3: any money from now on. I've got the kids, so
Speaker 3: you've got to give me the money.
Speaker 2: Well sort of proof, did you're going to tell me?
Speaker 9: He walked into a Social Security place and said, my
Speaker 9: life's getting a Social Security and she's.
Speaker 2: Not here anymore. Oh okay, sir, you.
Speaker 8: Know how do you do that?
Speaker 1: Something else became evident from the files. Even though the
Speaker 1: Center Link payments to Broman were canceled but not by Bromman,
Speaker 1: it appeared that on April twenty four, nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: three years after Broman's disappearance, her address four Centerlink records,
Speaker 1: was changed from Lennox Head to her old address in
Speaker 1: the Shire and then we'd leave.
Speaker 3: Another few years later, on Bromman's birthday, someone's gone to
Speaker 3: the Department of Social Services and tried to change Broman's
Speaker 3: address back to where they lived in eighty eight behind
Speaker 3: the takeaway shop.
Speaker 2: In the flat. What would the motive be for that
Speaker 2: he's done it.
Speaker 10: Someone's turned around and they're trying to make out that
Speaker 10: Bromin's still around by asking for a request to change
Speaker 10: of address and tried to put it in the old
Speaker 10: address back down here where she used to live.
Speaker 2: Who's done that.
Speaker 8: It's not Bromlin or was it someone trying to make.
Speaker 11: Out Someone's trying to make out it was Bromwin? Why
Speaker 11: changing her address. Glen Taylor's plan as his investigation unfolded
Speaker 11: through the second half of nineteen ninety eight and into
Speaker 11: nineteen ninety nine was to put all the evidence in
Speaker 11: front of a coroner. Glenn believed then that an experienced
Speaker 11: coroner would recommend a prosecution, but it would take time
Speaker 11: for the inquest to be scheduled. Before that happened, John
Speaker 11: was growing increasingly unhappy. Glenn Taylor and Wayne Tembe were
Speaker 11: talking to so many people, family members, friends, neighbors, workmates.
Speaker 11: John telephone to complain about it. That phone call, do
Speaker 11: you remember.
Speaker 5: He was upset that we were interviewing people that he knew,
Speaker 5: his daughter Jodie, his brother Peter, various people that he knew,
Speaker 5: everyone we thought relevant to the investigation. And I think
Speaker 5: he was believing the word was getting out that the
Speaker 5: police were looking at going to try to charge him
Speaker 5: with murder.
Speaker 2: All we were doing at.
Speaker 5: That stage we had reported her suspected death to the coroner.
Speaker 5: He was quite upset that people were being interviewed He
Speaker 5: wanted basically just to keep it all everything quiet. He
Speaker 5: was saying, Okay, the problem went away in about mid
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety three, nothing had been again looked at now
Speaker 5: five years, things had all gone quiet, and he was
Speaker 5: probably hoping that would remain that way and stay quite
Speaker 5: Suddenly we're out there. He had contacted me and he
Speaker 5: said he was agitated and said, you're going to find
Speaker 5: out she's running around with some rich sugar daddy somewhere
Speaker 5: and she's living elsewhere. And he was just upset that
Speaker 5: he was just going along along like it's just a
Speaker 5: missing person. No one's looking at it him, or it's
Speaker 5: all going quiet. We knew bought at that stage. He
Speaker 5: went down to the Senate link and got Broman's pension
Speaker 5: cut off. He's then applied for the pension himself to
Speaker 5: look after the kids. He's gone in and now he's
Speaker 5: getting a government pension payment as a single parent.
Speaker 2: And she's only been missing two or three weeks.
Speaker 5: At this stage, it's like he's saying, oh, she's going
Speaker 5: away for two weeks, and here it is shortly after
Speaker 5: two weeks. He's already made it just decision that she's
Speaker 5: permanently disappeared, not coming back to the kids, and got
Speaker 5: her pension cut off. And then he's applied and got
Speaker 5: the pension himself, so she had then come back to
Speaker 5: the house and he's applied for sole custody of the
Speaker 5: kids and now and receipt of the single parent pension
Speaker 5: that Broban was receiving. Michelle said, they questioned him about this.
Speaker 5: I did that to flush her out.
Speaker 12: That was the words he told them.
Speaker 1: This investigative podcast series was not meant to grow this big.
Speaker 1: It has taken many moreses than I had anticipated to
Speaker 1: do justice to the sheer volume of material and evidence
Speaker 1: to convey the accounts of new witnesses who have come forward,
Speaker 1: people like Judy Singh.
Speaker 9: And he kind of looked up this night and I
Speaker 9: saw this what looked to be like a mummy in
Speaker 9: the back of the car, and I thought, well, even
Speaker 9: if he was taking out belongings, you wouldn't make it
Speaker 9: look like a body.
Speaker 1: To detour into unexpected places to talk to people like
Speaker 1: Sonya Lee.
Speaker 13: She would have been fourteen when their relationship started.
Speaker 8: Fifteen.
Speaker 13: As it progressed, if the girls need to question anyone's truths,
Speaker 13: his truths, start questioning them poor crystal as a human
Speaker 13: How can you put somebody through.
Speaker 1: That and to expel law in minute detail. Some discrepancies
Speaker 1: and omissions in John's versions, particularly from his nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight interview with Glenn Taylor, which was recorded in the
Speaker 1: Ballana Police Station.
Speaker 14: All I know is it was dark, you know, it
Speaker 14: was probably at least an hour or maybe an hour
Speaker 14: and a half after the plane landed, whatever time that was,
Speaker 14: and that was dark, because I remember I got off
Speaker 14: the plane in the dark.
Speaker 5: It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at
Speaker 5: six point fifty three pm and one at seven oh
Speaker 5: six pm.
Speaker 1: This in turn led to a more accurate understanding of
Speaker 1: the likely timeline, as well as who made key telephone
Speaker 1: calls on the last night Bromen was seen. May sixteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. There's our discovery of documents going back
Speaker 1: thirty one years showing in black and white the timing
Speaker 1: of approvals by council and spaces for two concrete paws
Speaker 1: at a building site where John Winfield was helping build
Speaker 1: a house before and after Bromin disappeared.
Speaker 3: That's the cup of shoot of the file, and then
Speaker 3: it's just got the dates and times of when various
Speaker 3: inspections were done Thursday, thirteenth of May. The Garash and.
Speaker 15: Front Porch slabs were given the tick of approval to
Speaker 15: be able at the poll, which we believe from compensations
Speaker 15: with Glenn was fought on the Tuesday of the Wednesday
Speaker 15: the following week.
Speaker 1: When aligned with John's unusual actions in driving back to
Speaker 1: the Shire on Monday May seventeen, Those newly discovered documents
Speaker 1: have aroused suspicions over whether Bromin's grave was made at
Speaker 1: that property in the shire shortly before the paws of Concrete.
Speaker 1: We do not know what else the police might be doing,
Speaker 1: nor do we need to know, but are properly and
Speaker 1: professionally organized search of the property at Illawong is necessary
Speaker 1: in our view, which brings us to what you're about
Speaker 1: to hear in this episode and how the lawyer Karina
Speaker 1: Berger came up with a sensible pathway over a couple
Speaker 1: of days of brainstorming and filming at my house in
Speaker 1: Brisbane with the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Maddie Walsh,
Speaker 1: Annie Reid, his wife Michelle, and my friends and colleagues
Speaker 1: Claire Harvey and Matt Condon.
Speaker 8: Can I just interrupt quickly?
Speaker 1: You were behind the scenes as we mark the start
Speaker 1: of season three of Bromwin. We've been filming three videos
Speaker 1: for subscribers, more than an hour and a half of
Speaker 1: content to deep die of Bromwin's case with some of
Speaker 1: the most knowledgeable and helpful people I know.
Speaker 6: We're rolling now.
Speaker 1: That's Bianca far Marcus. In earlier episodes you heard her
Speaker 1: as a voice actor reading some of Bromwin's letters.
Speaker 8: When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
Speaker 8: The house that was built became John's castle in my prison.
Speaker 1: Our colleague and friend has also consented to being wrapped
Speaker 1: in sheets and bundled into the back seat, as well
Speaker 1: as the boot of an exf Ford Falcon as we've
Speaker 1: reconstructed what witness Judy Singh says she saw late one
Speaker 1: night in May nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 8: Are you happy with the place one of these marcro books.
Speaker 1: There's Claire Harvey, the Australian's editorial director. We talk a
Speaker 1: lot about Bromwin and other cold cases from the earlier
Speaker 1: stage when I'm trying to work out whether there's potential
Speaker 1: for one to be solved, and then during the investigation
Speaker 1: and storytelling as the podcast gathers momentum. Claire is like
Speaker 1: a firm but pretty cool school teacher who keeps us
Speaker 1: focused in class.
Speaker 8: We'll get it in the works.
Speaker 1: Kristin Amiot is a guru behind the scenes of these productions.
Speaker 1: Organization and logistics, even dreaded spreadsheets are her specialty. How well, there,
Speaker 1: that's Sean Callanan, who creates many of the brilliant graphics
Speaker 1: you've seen at our Bronwyn podcast dot com website. He
Speaker 1: flies drones and shoots award winning photographs and video too.
Speaker 8: Another thing just to be careful of, Glenn is tapping
Speaker 8: the table.
Speaker 1: Claire is giving the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor a
Speaker 1: friendly lesson about what happens when he unwittingly lets his
Speaker 1: hand with its wristwatch make contact with the timber table
Speaker 1: during an interview. The noise is distracting, the microphones are sensitive.
Speaker 8: You're welcome to have your hand up there, but just that.
Speaker 2: What we'll be able to hear it.
Speaker 5: Okay, sorry to blink o, poor good.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 1: And here's the mild mannered, eagle eyed professional film producer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Barjome, who leads a video team.
Speaker 5: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nineteen.
Speaker 1: The interviews are usually much smaller events, featuring only me,
Speaker 1: the interviewee, and a low key microphone with no cameras.
Speaker 1: Most people are a lot more candid when the only
Speaker 1: thing being recorded is their voice for audio. But for
Speaker 1: a short time, this team of behind the scenes professionals
Speaker 1: is standing around a dining table. The first podcast episode
Speaker 1: of season three wasn't going to start like this, but
Speaker 1: a special thing happened during the shoot in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: It was a light bulb moment.
Speaker 1: Karina is a lawyer who left an important job for
Speaker 1: the Australian Government Solicitor in Canberra to spend more time
Speaker 1: at home with her young children, and with some spare
Speaker 1: time on her hands, she got in touch to offer
Speaker 1: to help in the Bromwin podcast series.
Speaker 2: She's come to Brisbane.
Speaker 1: To meet my colleagues as well as Andy and Michelle Reid,
Speaker 1: Mattie Walsh, Glenn Taylor and others, and it led to
Speaker 1: asticated strategy to try to find Bromwin's remains if they
Speaker 1: are indeed beneath the slab of house in a place
Speaker 1: called Illawong, near where Bromwin grew up in the shire.
Speaker 1: Now here is the formidable Claire again Green.
Speaker 8: I'm going to start with you and talk about the
Speaker 8: house at Illawall. This is where we ended season two.
Speaker 1: In that episode the twentieth in the Bromwin investigation, I
Speaker 1: sat in the passenger seat of Andy's near new car
Speaker 1: which was briefly parked outside the house at Illawong. Andy
Speaker 1: was driving and Maddie was in the back. Let's go
Speaker 1: forward and do you too, Annie, as you look at
Speaker 1: it again, now, what's your view about the logistics and
Speaker 1: the feasibility of the plausibility of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: John could have very easily backed the car up over
Speaker 3: there that true wouldn't have been there, hardly anyone would
Speaker 3: have been around, and then you would have just taken
Speaker 3: around of the roller straight across the ground there and
Speaker 3: then pulled the slab on top. So it's backfield color right,
Speaker 3: See the land falls away.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine if someone came up to your door
Speaker 4: and told you this may be.
Speaker 16: A person underneath your proud geor how would you even
Speaker 16: approach that.
Speaker 8: Illawong is, of course in the Sutherland Shire, in Sydney South.
Speaker 8: It's a long way from Lennox Head, but it's where
Speaker 8: our focus has come at the end of season two.
Speaker 8: As we start the work on season three, can you
Speaker 8: talk to me about why this particular house in il
Speaker 8: Along is something that you and heavily have come to
Speaker 8: focus so closely on.
Speaker 17: Well, Claire, I think when we step back and look
Speaker 17: at all of the evidence that's been gathered by the
Speaker 17: police and in the coronial investigation, and combine that with
Speaker 17: the information that's come out during the podcast, there are
Speaker 17: factors that may tend to suggest that Bronmin's remains maybe
Speaker 17: at that location.
Speaker 1: Karina has been a great help to me and to
Speaker 1: this investigation since she volunteered her time and expertise. She
Speaker 1: is eternally curious about Roman's case, and.
Speaker 17: We can start to put together a bit of a
Speaker 17: possible theory about what might have happened here. And if
Speaker 17: we start with John's very sudden departure from Lennox Head
Speaker 17: on the evening of the sixteenth of May, or the
Speaker 17: very early morning of the seventeenth of May, in which
Speaker 17: he seemed to leave in a great hurry, packed up
Speaker 17: the girls in the middle of the night, seemed to
Speaker 17: have hardly taken any clothes for them, drove through the
Speaker 17: night to get to Sydney allegedly for submergent work, which
Speaker 17: is what he told certain members of the family. If
Speaker 17: we step out his movements a little bit further, he
Speaker 17: delivered the girls to his ex wife's house and left
Speaker 17: them with a person that they didn't know for a
Speaker 17: significant period of time because he had to attend the
Speaker 17: urgent work on the day. And that's really quite odd
Speaker 17: behavior to me anyway, because he had a number of
Speaker 17: child minding options available to him.
Speaker 8: He had Andy and Michelle at their place.
Speaker 17: He also had his own brother and his own sister
Speaker 17: in law, so one has to wonder why he chose
Speaker 17: to arrive on the doorstep of his ex wife's house unannounced.
Speaker 17: It's just an odd thing to do in my opinion.
Speaker 17: He then disappears four hours and his time during that
Speaker 17: period seems to be completely unaccounted for. Nobody knows what
Speaker 17: he was doing. He did not inform the police what
Speaker 17: he was doing to my knowledge, during those hours. He
Speaker 17: also didn't inform the police of the fact that he
Speaker 17: left the girls with his ex wife on the morning,
Speaker 17: which again raises questions in my mind as to why
Speaker 17: he has potentially withheld that information from police and also
Speaker 17: withheld it from some members of the family too. We
Speaker 17: also from work that's been done during the podcast that
Speaker 17: it was possible to fit a person of about Bronwyn's
Speaker 17: stature in the boot of the family car, even with
Speaker 17: a large gas tank installed, So we know it was
Speaker 17: physically possible to get Bronwyn to Sydney in that way,
Speaker 17: despite the risks that John faced doing that, and particularly
Speaker 17: driving an unregistered car on a very long journey.
Speaker 1: Karina accurately described how we were seeing things at the
Speaker 1: end of episode twenty and the culmination of season two.
Speaker 17: And then, of course we have discovered that a concrete
Speaker 17: pore was approved on the Thursday, the thirteenth of May,
Speaker 17: only a few days before John set off for Sydney,
Speaker 17: and one has to wonder whether a concrete coll over
Speaker 17: several locations that address might have provided the perfect opportunity
Speaker 17: to bury a body with very little chance of that
Speaker 17: body being found unless someone joined all of these dots
Speaker 17: together and made some inquiries about that site.
Speaker 8: What's your level of confidence or suspicion that Bronwin's body
Speaker 8: might be at that site at Illawong. Now, well, we
Speaker 8: just don't know, Clara.
Speaker 17: We don't know until we conduct some further investigations and
Speaker 17: approach the owners and see if we can make some
Speaker 17: inquiries there.
Speaker 8: And I am mindful that.
Speaker 17: Bronman could be really anywhere from Ballina to Sydney and
Speaker 17: in between, but I do feel that thinking about all
Speaker 17: of the evidence as a total sum, there is at
Speaker 17: least a reasonable possibility that she is there, and I
Speaker 17: think it's a really good place to start by making
Speaker 17: some further inquiries.
Speaker 1: As you heard in the twentieth episode, I spoke to
Speaker 1: the respected builder Glenn Webster about that house in n Illawong.
Speaker 1: He had employed John Winfield as a bricklayer for its construction.
Speaker 1: John was working there and mostly on his own in
Speaker 1: the days immediately before, for and after Broman's disappearance. But
Speaker 1: for the entire course of the investigation by the then
Speaker 1: Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor from nineteen ninety eight until the
Speaker 1: two thousand and two inquest, the concrete paus were not
Speaker 1: known to police and the building site in Illuwong went overlooked. Similarly,
Speaker 1: the subsequent cold case review team, led by the then
Speaker 1: Inspector George Radmore from around two thousand and nine did
Speaker 1: not know of the concrete pause and did not focus
Speaker 1: on the building site in Illawong. Detectives, Taylor, Radmore and
Speaker 1: others were suspicious of John's movements on the night he
Speaker 1: suddenly left Lennox Head with his two girls and the
Speaker 1: family dog, but they didn't have a few key pieces
Speaker 1: of evidence, the documents showing the timing of the pause,
Speaker 1: and the disclosure by a confidential source to me that
Speaker 1: John had divulged that he had to rush back to
Speaker 1: Ilowong for a concrete pause. John said not a word
Speaker 1: about concrete pause to Glenn Taylor during the interview that
Speaker 1: Glenn did with John in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: We now believe that.
Speaker 1: The documents which the Council provided to and in showing
Speaker 1: the approximate timing of the concrete pause are potentially very relevant.
Speaker 8: Glenn. Listeners to Browlin have become very familiar with your
Speaker 8: distinctive voice. We've heard you re enacting your quite remarkable
Speaker 8: interview with John Winfield. The house at Illawong was not
Speaker 8: one of the areas that your suspicion lighted on at
Speaker 8: that time, as far as I can tell.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 5: See sudden viewers I've noticed in comments ask why I
Speaker 5: wasn't more questions asked of John Winfield, but we made
Speaker 5: an early decision to interview him first before we interviewed
Speaker 5: anyone else, So we were on an evidence gathering mission
Speaker 5: to start off with. We certainly were not aware at
Speaker 5: that point that he had dropped the kids off in
Speaker 5: their pajamas at his ex wife's house. We didn't know
Speaker 5: of that, so we certainly couldn't ask him about it,
Speaker 5: and he chose not to reveal that information. He had
Speaker 5: left late night, He had no sleep that we know of,
Speaker 5: and he drove overnight to Sydney, so that in his
Speaker 5: mind there must have been some urgency for him to
Speaker 5: get back to Sydney and some reason for that. We
Speaker 5: had not interviewed his employer, who owned the Yellow Worn
Speaker 5: house and built a Glenn Webster. At that time, we
Speaker 5: didn't have information as to what work he was doing
Speaker 5: down there. Listeners would note that John was extremely amazing
Speaker 5: in his interview and we didn't really push him that
Speaker 5: hard and be course, if we started to give him
Speaker 5: more questions that he could possibly trip up on at
Speaker 5: any given time, he could have just said, look here,
Speaker 5: of my own free will. He was not under arrest
Speaker 5: and he could have just walked out the door. He
Speaker 5: was there as a voluntary witness, so we elected not
Speaker 5: to really pushing. We wanted to see how the evidence
Speaker 5: as we took statements was going to unfold, and then
Speaker 5: we could possibly come back to him later.
Speaker 8: What are your thoughts now, having listened to Henley and
Speaker 8: Karina's work in the podcast about that house.
Speaker 5: In it war, Well, it's got to be a reasonable hypothesis.
Speaker 5: He's felt the need, he's got to leave the kids
Speaker 5: with someone, but he chose not to leave them with
Speaker 5: direct family, which is a red flag in itself. Evidence
Speaker 5: has come out through the podcast that certainly a body
Speaker 5: could fit in the boot, even with a gas tank
Speaker 5: in there. And then he's got a number of hours
Speaker 5: before he eventually turns up at Andy and Michelle's house.
Speaker 2: He's got a problem.
Speaker 5: On his end and he needs to work out how
Speaker 5: he's going to solve this problem. It is a reasonable
Speaker 5: possibility that problem was put in under the slab before
Speaker 5: the concrete.
Speaker 8: Pol You're a very experienced cop. You've had thirty one
Speaker 8: years to reflect on this and so many other cases
Speaker 8: that you've worked on. Of course, is it just one
Speaker 8: of many? How do you feel looking back and hearing
Speaker 8: yourself in that interview as a much younger investigator talking
Speaker 8: to John.
Speaker 5: Look, I'm first to admit I've learned things from the
Speaker 5: podcast that we've missed.
Speaker 2: Mistakes can happen.
Speaker 1: A hypothetical question, if in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, after you've heard from Jenny Mason and her
Speaker 1: then mother in law Joan Mason about this very impromptu,
Speaker 1: surprising visit by John to the house, and if you've
Speaker 1: also discovered at that time, and I know this doesn't
Speaker 1: come until the podcast investigation, but if you had known
Speaker 1: back then that a concrete poor had been approved for
Speaker 1: the property at Illawong that John had been working on,
Speaker 1: what do you think might have changed in the investigation
Speaker 1: that you were conducting in so far as.
Speaker 2: A possible search is concerned.
Speaker 1: I don't think it.
Speaker 5: Was sort of raised because we knew that Glenn Webster
Speaker 5: was building his own house and years in John Winfield
Speaker 5: to do the brick lane, but we didn't discuss what
Speaker 5: stages slabs were poured, but it'd certainly become a relevant topic.
Speaker 2: Now, what are.
Speaker 1: The requirements for you as a detective sergeant to seek
Speaker 1: a search?
Speaker 5: Well, if we had very strong, circumstantial evidence that there
Speaker 5: had been a poor of concrete within a day or two,
Speaker 5: we could have then put that evidence before a coroner,
Speaker 5: and there's special powers a coroner has to order an
Speaker 5: examination of underneath the slab, as possibly that could have
Speaker 5: been done. But we certainly didn't have that information about
Speaker 5: when concrete was poured at that time. We didn't have
Speaker 5: any strong evidence that he had gone out to the
Speaker 5: site when he got to Sydney, and his answers we
Speaker 5: were extremely vague in the interview.
Speaker 2: What did he do? Where did he go?
Speaker 1: It's hypothetical, Glenn, if you are the detective in charge
Speaker 1: today and you know all of the information that we've
Speaker 1: been discussing in the podcast, as well as the information
Speaker 1: you had back then, so you have all this new
Speaker 1: fresh information, what do you say should be done at
Speaker 1: Ilawong you're the officer in charge now?
Speaker 2: Hypothetically right, Okay.
Speaker 5: Well, I'd be putting in a written request to the
Speaker 5: coroner seeking a coroner's order that the site be examined
Speaker 5: by way of imaging or however they would do it,
Speaker 5: because there's certainly some modern techniques now that are available
Speaker 5: without completely pulling up the whole slab that should be
Speaker 5: looked at.
Speaker 2: As Glenn made.
Speaker 1: Those key points about the coroner, Karina Berger made a
Speaker 1: mental note. She intuitively knew at that moment that Glenn
Speaker 1: was right. The state coroner did have those powers, and
Speaker 1: the state Coroner could also reopen the two thousand and
Speaker 1: two in quest if need be to exercise the powers
Speaker 1: to perform a search for something as sensitive as a
Speaker 1: search for a body on private land beneath an existing,
Speaker 1: established family home. My preference would always be to let
Speaker 1: the authorities do their job first, well ahead of journalists
Speaker 1: and the victim's family. It just made more sense on
Speaker 1: a number of levels. But if the authorities failed to act,
Speaker 1: then journalism is there as a backstop and we can
Speaker 1: then try to do our best. But while we were
Speaker 1: all still being recorded and filmed at my dining table
Speaker 1: talking about Illawong, I had not clocked the obvious option
Speaker 1: of simply explaining to the state coroner in a formal
Speaker 1: submission why it would be such a good idea.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, Karina was.
Speaker 1: Mulling it over, and later in the day she shared
Speaker 1: what she was thinking.
Speaker 2: We'll come to that soon.
Speaker 5: That's what I'd be looking at myself to get an
Speaker 5: order from the coroner, and you could set out your
Speaker 5: reasons why you have some suspicions that Romin could have
Speaker 5: been disposed of.
Speaker 1: And in your view, to the suspicions or the reasons
Speaker 1: that you would be able to put down in writing
Speaker 1: rise to the level where that kind of request would
Speaker 1: be consented to.
Speaker 5: I believe that they certainly should be looking at that
Speaker 5: right now. We can't completely rule out like Ainsworth or
Speaker 5: anywhere else that next said, But there's still all this
Speaker 5: unanswered questions. Why was it such a need urgently to
Speaker 5: get to Sydney drop those kids off somebody that didn't
Speaker 5: even know them, and then you've got a number of
Speaker 5: hours unexplain what you're doing. And then I think there
Speaker 5: was some evidence that he'd supposedly told somebody that he
Speaker 5: had to get out to the job site. And now
Speaker 5: your interview of Glenn Webster, who clearly says he was
Speaker 5: not really needed, he didn't need to be there for
Speaker 5: the poor, but for some reason John believed that he
Speaker 5: was needed out there, or he had something significant to
Speaker 5: do out there. You've got to move forward in an investigation.
Speaker 5: I think that is the way to move forward now.
Speaker 5: To try to eliminate the possibility of that prob when
Speaker 5: he is in fact under that slab.
Speaker 1: I asked Andy Reid whether he could recall why the
Speaker 1: building site at Illawong did not appear suspicious during police
Speaker 1: investigations through the nineties and the two thousands, given the
Speaker 1: knowledge then of John's hasty trip to Sydney and some
Speaker 1: of the strange circumstances surrounding that, it's hard to.
Speaker 3: Say that when you join the Dodds and when you
Speaker 3: follow the info, I like Glenn did his best and
Speaker 3: the best of his ability. We still talk to Glenn,
Speaker 3: still chat regularly, and he's always been there to help
Speaker 3: and always said if I can never do anything, this
Speaker 3: has always been a case that's bugged me.
Speaker 8: He's always told us that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we'll be looking at when
Speaker 1: we develop episodes around the evidence from the inquest is
Speaker 1: the suspicion that fell on a building site near Lennox
Speaker 1: Head that John had access to, and evidence that was
Speaker 1: part of those in quest proceedings about the possibility that
Speaker 1: Robin was in that building site. So it was occurring
Speaker 1: to people at an early stage that a builder with
Speaker 1: access to a building site could potentially conceal a body,
Speaker 1: but just things that they were looking in the wrong
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 2: He didn't have the time up there.
Speaker 3: There's no way he had hours to travel halfway to Boren.
Speaker 3: So he's got half an hour away to get.
Speaker 8: Up there, so another half hour to gown home.
Speaker 3: The time frame wouldn't have had you to go up there,
Speaker 3: do what possibly could have been done there, and then
Speaker 3: get back and.
Speaker 8: Be able to get to the shire in the timeframe
Speaker 8: that he did. If Bromwin is found at the house
Speaker 8: in Illawong, we know that John Winfield killed her. This
Speaker 8: is the site completely unconnected to her life or anyone
Speaker 8: else she knew. He is the only connection. Correct Do
Speaker 8: you have to try and control your feelings when you're
Speaker 8: trying to make assessments like that one there that you've
Speaker 8: made Andy that you might want that to be true,
Speaker 8: Yet you're applying your rigorous knowledge as an expert to
Speaker 8: this situation. How do you balance that?
Speaker 1: I wish and then we just walt closure.
Speaker 3: We want to be able to find or want to
Speaker 3: be able to find her. So you just got to
Speaker 3: do what you've got to do, whatever that takes.
Speaker 2: Just keep pushing on.
Speaker 4: I hope we do find her and maybe if she
Speaker 4: is an Illawong and that's where she's been all this time,
Speaker 4: we can get closure from that and from there well,
Speaker 4: I guess that would be justice because there's only one
Speaker 4: person that could have done that.
Speaker 18: I think the inexplicable conduct of John and the unexplained
Speaker 18: actions that he took leaving so suddenly, leaving a messy
Speaker 18: house that he would have found very difficult to do
Speaker 18: with his obsessive compulsive disorder, driving an unregistered car through
Speaker 18: the night, putting the children's clothes only in pillowcases in
Speaker 18: the car, the very weird behavior in the shire, trying
Speaker 18: to leave his daughters with a stranger and then not
Speaker 18: knowing his movements for a few hours, and the comment
Speaker 18: that he made about having to be a this property
Speaker 18: and that there's a concrete poor coming. We know that
Speaker 18: a concrete poor was scheduled, We know that the Council
Speaker 18: inspectors had signed off for a concrete pool to occur there.
Speaker 18: For me, there are more red flags and a much
Speaker 18: more compelling argument about Illawong being a burial site than
Speaker 18: anywhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to agree. I have to agree.
Speaker 1: It's a tough decision now because we have to work
Speaker 1: out how best to approach the people who own this
Speaker 1: house of Illawong. They've possibly raised a family there, They've
Speaker 1: got a large investment in this house, and they're going
Speaker 1: to have complete strangers approaching them to say we have
Speaker 1: suspicions about a corpse in the ground of your home.
Speaker 1: We're going to need to approach these people with complete
Speaker 1: candor and honesty and integrity and a lot of care.
Speaker 1: They'll have many questions, why our place, What makes you
Speaker 1: think it's possible, Where do you think this might go
Speaker 1: if it's true, What do you need.
Speaker 2: Us to do? What if we say no?
Speaker 19: They're all very legitimate questions, and we need to know
Speaker 19: the answers to most of those before we even go there.
Speaker 19: We're not going to be disturbing a crime scene yet
Speaker 19: because we don't know whether it is a crime scene,
Speaker 19: but it is something we have to work out. We
Speaker 19: tried up at Lake Ainsworth. In my view, there's much
Speaker 19: much more circumstantial evidence pointing to this former building site
Speaker 19: where John Winfield was working in nineteen ninety three, a
Speaker 19: site that he had access to, that he potentially had
Speaker 19: control of. There are powerful reasons to suspect this place
Speaker 19: doesn't mean Robin's there, but it needs to be ruled out.
Speaker 19: As you've heard, our intention was to make a low
Speaker 19: key visit to the owners of the house that Glenn
Speaker 19: Webster built and then lived in with his young family
Speaker 19: for several years before selling. Telling the current owners of
Speaker 19: our suspicions and then asking them if they would let
Speaker 19: us bring in equipment to search would be the hard part.
Speaker 19: In September twenty eighteen, journalists and TV news crewise rushed
Speaker 19: to a house in Bayview, in Sydney's.
Speaker 2: Northern Beaches area.
Speaker 1: The proactive police commissioner at the time, Mick Fuller, agreed
Speaker 1: that a specialist team needed to conduct a thorough search
Speaker 1: and dig in the ground and around a swimming pool.
Speaker 1: Here's the Ten Network Sandra Sully.
Speaker 20: Stunning developments in Sydney's most notorious cold case murder. Police
Speaker 20: have started digging for the remains of missing mum Lynette Dawson.
Speaker 20: Two coroners had pointed the finger at her husband, Chris Dawson,
Speaker 20: but he has.
Speaker 8: Never been charged.
Speaker 20: Lynn was a doting mum to two little girls and
Speaker 20: a devoted wife who vanished into thin air just after Christmas.
Speaker 8: In nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 20: Ursula Hagen joins us now from the house. Ursula getting
Speaker 20: to this point has been agonizing and long for Lynn's family,
Speaker 20: but answers may finally be close.
Speaker 21: Well, that's right. Santra police officially reopened this case three
Speaker 21: years ago, but it took a podcast, of all things,
Speaker 21: to propel it to national and international attention. A desperate
Speaker 21: search for answers. Digging in the dirt for the smallest
Speaker 21: trace of Lynnette thirty six years after she disappeared. A
Speaker 21: concrete extension near the clothesline is being ripped up and
Speaker 21: every pile of dirt painstakingly sifted through by hand. Polis
Speaker 21: say over five days they'll sift through four areas at
Speaker 21: the home where anomalies have previously been found.
Speaker 1: The then head of the homicide squad, Scott Cook, was
Speaker 1: at the scene to brief reporters.
Speaker 2: What's different about this dig is it'll be more extensive.
Speaker 15: We're using new technologies as part of this examination.
Speaker 21: Any trace of Lynnette, a tooth, a piece of clothing
Speaker 21: could be the breakthrough that they need. One thing that
Speaker 21: is clear the attention she never got when she disappeared,
Speaker 21: or she's getting it now.
Speaker 1: Sandra that search was performed with the considerable resources and
Speaker 1: budget of the New South Wales Police. It involves specialist
Speaker 1: planning and teams of people and modern equipment, and it
Speaker 1: was costly. The owners of the house in Bayview were cooperative.
Speaker 1: They wanted to know whether linz remains possibly lay beneath.
Speaker 1: They lived there happily before and after that search, and
Speaker 1: it didn't recover Lin's remains or anything probative. If the
Speaker 1: owners had said no to the police, the search would
Speaker 1: have gone ahead anyway. Coroners and police have powers to
Speaker 1: order and undertake a search despite the objections of property owners.
Speaker 1: Karina Berger understood this and that's what led to her
Speaker 1: light bulb moment. Soon after Glenn Taylor had explained that
Speaker 1: if he still had the case now as a police detective,
Speaker 1: he would go back to the coroner. Karina concluded that
Speaker 1: Broman's brother, Andy Reid, would be the best person to
Speaker 1: write to the coroner to press for action, but Andy
Speaker 1: would need to make a powerful argument. After the filming
Speaker 1: in Brisbane had ended, we put our heads together for
Speaker 1: the letter, parts of which you are about to hear.
Speaker 1: Andy signed it and sent it to the State Coroner.
Speaker 1: Theresa O'Sullivan. Magistrate O'Sullivan ran an inquest into the suspected
Speaker 1: death of Marian Barter after extraordinary revelations in the podcast
Speaker 1: The Lady Vanishes and a relentless pursuit for justice by
Speaker 1: Marian's daughter Sally Laden, who lives in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: Here is the state.
Speaker 1: Coroner reading some of her findings in February twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: She identified another cavalier approach by police. The lack of
Speaker 1: police effort pervaded the first two decades in which Marian
Speaker 1: was a missing woman.
Speaker 22: I find that the nature and adequacy of the police
Speaker 22: investigation into the disappearance of Marian by New South Wales
Speaker 22: Police between her disappearance in nineteen ninety seven up until
Speaker 22: twenty nineteen was not adequate. It is clear from the
Speaker 22: evidences that following the initial report made by Sally to
Speaker 22: Byron Bay Police Station on the twenty second of October
Speaker 22: nineteen ninety seven, that very little was done to investigate
Speaker 22: Marion's whereabouts until approximately ten years later in two thousand
Speaker 22: and seven. The resistance in this inquest by New South
Speaker 22: Wales Police to accept the inadequacies of the initial police
Speaker 22: investigation in nineteen ninety seven is difficult to understand in
Speaker 22: circumstances where a senior police officer has given what is
Speaker 22: essentially expert evidence on what should have happened.
Speaker 1: Byron Bay and Lenox Head are neighboring towns. It's only
Speaker 1: a short drive from Byron to Lennox. Ten months after
Speaker 1: the state Coroner's findings in the Marion Barter case, Andy
Speaker 1: Reid began his letter by outlining the background to his
Speaker 1: sister's disappearance. On May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. Andy is
Speaker 1: Bromwin's senior next of kim.
Speaker 3: Dear Magistrate O'Sullivan, I am writing to you to respectfully
Speaker 3: request that you issue a coronial investigation scene order in
Speaker 3: respect of a property in Ilowong, New South Wales, where
Speaker 3: I believe Bromwin's remains or other potentially incriminating evidence may
Speaker 3: well be located. Police may not appreciate the potential significance
Speaker 3: of the property in.
Speaker 1: Ilowng Andy's letter cited a particular piece of legislation from
Speaker 1: Section forty of the Coroners Act, which says that.
Speaker 16: If a coroner considers that an investigation should for the
Speaker 16: purposes of an inquest or inquiry be carried out at
Speaker 16: a particular place. A coroner may issue an order in
Speaker 16: writing or by telephone to a police officer or other
Speaker 16: person to establish a coronial investigation scene at a specified
Speaker 16: place and be exercise coronal investigation seene powers in accordance
Speaker 16: with this chapter and see enter and stay at the
Speaker 16: place for those purposes.
Speaker 1: Andy explained that in two thousand and two, the then
Speaker 1: Deputy State Coroner Karl Milvanovitch, held an inquest in Lismore
Speaker 1: to hear evidence about Bromin's presumed death. Karl has been
Speaker 1: retired for some years.
Speaker 3: The inquest was terminated because the Deputy state coroner was
Speaker 3: quote satisfied that the evidence is capable of satisfying a
Speaker 3: jury beyond reasonable doubt that a known person has committed
Speaker 3: an indicable offense, and there is a reasonable prospect that
Speaker 3: a jury would convict the known person of an indictable
Speaker 3: offense end quote. That known person was Bromman's estranged husband,
Speaker 3: John Winfield.
Speaker 1: Andy then quoted from the letter which he received in
Speaker 1: February two, two thousand and three, from the then Director
Speaker 1: of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery. These are the former DPP's
Speaker 1: words from his letter to Andy. It is not Nicholas
Speaker 1: Cowdery's voice.
Speaker 23: There is nobody and no known cause of death. While
Speaker 23: Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have seen
Speaker 23: her alive, there is no evidence that he killed her
Speaker 23: or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot be
Speaker 23: substitution for evidence. My advice to police in the coroner,
Speaker 23: after very careful consideration of all the evidence presently available,
Speaker 23: is that there is not sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan
Speaker 23: Winfield or any other person.
Speaker 1: Andy made another point in his letter to the state Coroner,
Speaker 1: Theresa O'Sullivan.
Speaker 3: I note, however, that mister Cowdrey QC reached the same
Speaker 3: view in relation to the murder of Lynette Dawson. Nie
Speaker 3: Simms and Chris Dawson was prosecuted by a subsequent DPP
Speaker 3: and convicted of her murder.
Speaker 1: And his letter summarized some of the evidence which had
Speaker 1: come to light in the first two seasons of the
Speaker 1: Bromwin podcast series. The letter described Judy Singh's citing of
Speaker 1: what she believed was a body wrapped in sheets in
Speaker 1: the Winfield family's Ford Falcon while it was being driven
Speaker 1: by John late at night.
Speaker 3: Judy says she reported what she saw to local ballin
Speaker 3: of police within weeks of the sixteenth of May nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three and to byron By police about ten years later,
Speaker 3: but the police were disinterested. It is unclear what, if anything,
Speaker 3: the investigating police previously knew about Judy's sighting of John
Speaker 3: on the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three, before the
Speaker 3: police took a formal statement from Judy in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: after the relevant podcast episode dropped on the twenty eighth
Speaker 3: of June twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Four, and his letter described John's urgent overnight drive to
Speaker 1: Sydney with the two girls and some of the unusual
Speaker 1: circumstances surrounding his movements back in the Shire.
Speaker 3: At an unknown time in the morning of the seventeenth
Speaker 3: of May nineteen ninety three, John arrived with the two
Speaker 3: girls at his first wife's, Jennifer Mason's house in Carrybah,
Speaker 3: New South Wales, in the family Ford Falcon. He asked
Speaker 3: a woman he and the girls had never met, his
Speaker 3: first wife's, Jennifer Mason's mother in law, Joan Mason, to
Speaker 3: look after the girls. The girls were dressed in pajamas.
Speaker 3: John asked Joan Mason if he could leave the two
Speaker 3: girls with her as he was in Sydney to do
Speaker 3: a big job. Joan agreed to mind the girls and
Speaker 3: John left them with her at Jennifer's home. I and
Speaker 3: others in the podcast team consider this was extremely strong
Speaker 3: behavior on John's part. Despite being asked by police about
Speaker 3: his movements on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: John never disclosed to police in his interview or otherwise
Speaker 3: to my knowledge, that he had left the girls with
Speaker 3: Joan Mason, a stranger, for several hours. John also did
Speaker 3: not disclose this to me or my wife. I consider
Speaker 3: that leaving your daughters with a stranger in an unfamiliar
Speaker 3: environment for several hours is likely to be something one
Speaker 3: would remember. I therefore consider this to be a very
Speaker 3: significant and likely deliberate failure to disclose relevant information on
Speaker 3: John's part, possibly so as not to arouse suspicion about
Speaker 3: his movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three. To my knowledge, has never accounted for his
Speaker 3: movements over several hours during the morning and early afternoon
Speaker 3: of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely for
Speaker 3: the period after he left the girls at Jennifer Mason's
Speaker 3: house with Jane Mason until he registered the family car
Speaker 3: at Miranda at three oh seven pm, after which he
Speaker 3: collected the girls from Jennifer Mason's house and arrived at
Speaker 3: my home at about four pm. This means John had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to dispose of Bromwin's remains during this period
Speaker 3: of time. John has only been interviewed once by police,
Speaker 3: on the fifth of August nineteen ninety eight. The interviewing
Speaker 3: police officers chose to interview John before taking statements from
Speaker 3: other witnesses in their investigation. For this reason, they were
Speaker 3: not aware at the time of John's interview of many
Speaker 3: of the gaps and inconsistencies in John's version of events.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, there is a strong basis for inferring
Speaker 3: John Winfield left the girls with a stranger, Joan Mason,
Speaker 3: on the morning and early afternoon of the seventeenth of
Speaker 3: May nineteen ninety three, so he could dispose of Broman's
Speaker 3: body in Sydney. John had brought the girls to my
Speaker 3: home or his brother's home on the morning of the
Speaker 3: seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, questions would undoubtedly have
Speaker 3: been asked about Bromin's whereabouts and the particular circumstances of
Speaker 3: and reasons for John's overnight traveled to Sydney with the
Speaker 3: girls immediately after his return to Lenox Head from Sydney
Speaker 3: only a few hours earlier, on the evening of the
Speaker 3: sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: If Brombin's body was in the car's boot on that
Speaker 1: Monday morning, the last place which John would want to
Speaker 1: be driving to at that time with his two girls
Speaker 1: would be Andy and Michelle's house.
Speaker 2: Andy was at.
Speaker 1: Work in the morning, Michelle was home with a new baby.
Speaker 1: She would be likely to say to John words to
Speaker 1: the effect Okay, you're here, now, let's get your things
Speaker 1: out of the boot and you can come inside. The
Speaker 1: risks of the boot lid being opened were excessive, As
Speaker 1: Andy pointed out in his letter to the state coroner,
Speaker 1: he and Michelle did in fact seek to access the
Speaker 1: boot to help when John did eventually turn up late
Speaker 1: on the Monday afternoon. Andy's letter described the car John
Speaker 1: drove and the potential carrying capacity of the boot.
Speaker 3: The car was never forensically examined after Brohman's disappearance. It
Speaker 3: was later soul by John Winfield. A podcast listener, Terry
Speaker 3: Freeman his own and worked worked on multiple Ford Falcons
Speaker 3: over the years and is familiar with their operation. In
Speaker 3: November twenty twenty four, Terry located a nineteen eighty six
Speaker 3: Ford Falcon ex F Sedan. He placed a one hundred
Speaker 3: liter LPG tank in the boot of the vehicle, and
Speaker 3: his wife, who was of slightly smaller stature than Bromwin,
Speaker 3: easily climbed into and lay down in the boot. This
Speaker 3: establishes it was theoretically possible for John to replace Broman's
Speaker 3: body in the boots of the family car and transported
Speaker 3: her to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three. I recall that when I saw the Winfield
Speaker 3: family car boot on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: it was incredibly clean and did not have any vinyl
Speaker 3: type lining in it. I could see the metal lining
Speaker 3: of the boot. I also recall John had not brought
Speaker 3: much luggage with him for a stay of several weeks
Speaker 3: in Sydney in winter. He had brought very limited claving
Speaker 3: for the girls, packed in pillow cases.
Speaker 1: But the most important part of Andy Reid's letter to
Speaker 1: State Coroner Theresa O'Sullivan revolves around the house at Illawong,
Speaker 1: the house which was due to receive two significant concrete pause,
Speaker 1: which John Winfield knew about because he was the bricklayer
Speaker 1: there before and after Broman's disappearance.
Speaker 3: To my knowledge, this property has never been searched by police.
Speaker 3: In May nineteen ninety three, it was a vacant block
Speaker 3: of land in a new housing estate that was being
Speaker 3: readied for construction of a two story brick home. The
Speaker 3: land was owned by a sutherlan Shire builder, Glen Webster.
Speaker 3: Glen Webster asked John Winfield, a bricklayer with whom he
Speaker 3: had worked previously, to help build the home. John commenced
Speaker 3: work on the property in April nineteen ninety three. When
Speaker 3: the Websters were interviewed in September nineteen ninety eight, investigating
Speaker 3: police were not necessarily aware of the unusual circumstances of
Speaker 3: John's travel to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three, and were definitely not aware of his
Speaker 3: unusual movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three. I am a builder and I am familiar
Speaker 3: with the construction process in the Southern Shire Council. Headley
Speaker 3: asked me whether there might be documents relating to the
Speaker 3: stages of construction of Glenn Webster's house, and.
Speaker 2: He confirmed that.
Speaker 1: He then obtained inspection documents from the archives of the
Speaker 1: Shire Council.
Speaker 3: These show that a Garadh slab inspection was conducted on Thursday,
Speaker 3: thirteenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely three days before
Speaker 3: Bromin's disappearance. I understand this was a pre concrete poor
Speaker 3: slab inspection. The date on which the concrete paul took
Speaker 3: place is not evident from the documents. Glenn Webster cannot
Speaker 3: recall when the concrete poor took place and has not
Speaker 3: been able to locate any relevant documents.
Speaker 1: And his letter then set out the observations of an informant,
Speaker 1: a person who has been in regular contact with me.
Speaker 1: The informant is prepared to make a statement to police
Speaker 1: about the following things.
Speaker 3: They saw John Winfield on the afternoon of the seventeenth
Speaker 3: of May nineteen ninety three and questioned him about what
Speaker 3: seemed to be unusual movements by him. They considered John
Speaker 3: was agitated and quote not himself. They asked John where
Speaker 3: Bromwin was, and why he had rushed down from Lennox
Speaker 3: Head overnight with the girls who were supposed to be
Speaker 3: in school, and why he was busy. On the seventeenth
Speaker 3: of May nineteen ninety three, John became angry and quote
Speaker 3: blurted out and snapped that he had to be back
Speaker 3: in Sydney four quote, a concrete poor in Sutherlanshire. They
Speaker 3: considered John's behavior level of agitation and anger over these
Speaker 3: matters unusual. They considered John appeared to regret having disclosed
Speaker 3: the concrete pour to them.
Speaker 1: They had been.
Speaker 3: Suspicious of the concrete poor for some time in connection
Speaker 3: with Broman's disappearance.
Speaker 2: And his letter.
Speaker 3: Then drew these different pieces of information together, noting John's
Speaker 3: previous work at Illawong during April and May nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: the garage slab inspection on the thirteenth of May nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three, and John's comment to the informant on the
Speaker 3: afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three that
Speaker 3: he had to be back in Sydney for a concrete
Speaker 3: poor in sutherland Shire. It can be inferred that John
Speaker 3: was referring to an imminent concrete poor at Illowong. Hedley
Speaker 3: conducted a recorded face to face interview with Glenn Webster
Speaker 3: on the twelfth of November twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: As I understand that that building site was kind of
Speaker 1: empty unless John was there with you helping it.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 16: I used to go there in the mornings and back
Speaker 16: in the announce the news.
Speaker 1: So who would have been there if John were not there?
Speaker 2: Just John, nobody else? And what sort of activity human activity.
Speaker 1: Was around that site around that time?
Speaker 9: Quite a big block alan that was subdivided into about
Speaker 9: three or four blocks, and I think I was the
Speaker 9: first time.
Speaker 2: To get built there, so it would have been quiet.
Speaker 21: Eh.
Speaker 2: What if was that?
Speaker 3: He confirmed that as a bricklayer, John Winfield would not
Speaker 3: have been needed to help with any concrete pour. Glenn
Speaker 3: Webster told Headley he was not asked by detectives in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight about the possibility of Broman's body being
Speaker 3: concealed in the ground at Ellowong property, which he still
Speaker 3: owned and lived in at that time, nor was he
Speaker 3: asked about the possibility when he spoke to detectives from
Speaker 3: the Unsolved Thomicide Unit during a cold case review of
Speaker 3: Bromin's case. In about two thousand and nine. Glenn Webster
Speaker 3: told Hedley he last spoke to police in two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine. Bromwin's family and friends remain very distressed about
Speaker 3: her disappearance and the apparent repeated failures by police to
Speaker 3: conduct proper investigations over the years. After leaving New South
Speaker 3: Wales Police Glenn Taylor described the initial nineteen ninety three
Speaker 3: police investigation as quote disgraceful, with no statements taken from
Speaker 3: any witness, including no statement or interview of John Winfield
Speaker 3: until nineteen ninety eight, and no crime scene investigation of
Speaker 3: sixty Sandstone Crescent, Lenoxhead or the family car ever conducted.
Speaker 3: There is a strong public interest in confirming whether Bromwin's
Speaker 3: remains or other potentially incriminating evidence have been concealed. I
Speaker 3: consider the other potentially incriminating evidence could possibly include clothing,
Speaker 3: bed sheets, the car bootliner and Broman's handbag. Given the
Speaker 3: matters outlined above, I consider that an investigation should be
Speaker 3: carried out at Iliwong. I imagine that what might be
Speaker 3: required could include conducting scans of some of the concrete
Speaker 3: at the property, drilling into the concrete and using a
Speaker 3: cadava dog in certain areas before any more fulsome investigation
Speaker 3: was undertaken. I am acutely aware this would be an
Speaker 3: intrusion for the occupants of the property. However, I do
Speaker 3: not consider this would be a significant intrusion, and I
Speaker 3: consider public interests favors the investigations being conducted in the circumstances.
Speaker 3: I respectfully request that you issue a coronial investigation scene
Speaker 3: order a podcast listener. Corona Berger has assisted me to
Speaker 3: prepare this letter. Carona previously worked as a lawyer with
Speaker 3: the Australian Government Solicitor and has significant experience in coronial
Speaker 3: investigation and inquest work.
Speaker 1: In the first week of December, the letter of some
Speaker 1: eleven pages was emailed by Andy Reid. Then, of course
Speaker 1: we all went into the summer break and Christmas and
Speaker 1: the slowdown which coincides with the cricket and tennis and
Speaker 1: all the traditional rights of that time of year. This
Speaker 1: episode twenty one of Bromwin was released as subscribers on
Speaker 1: February seven. As of that date, Andy was still awaiting
Speaker 1: a reply from State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan or a staffer
Speaker 1: in her office. Bronwyn is written and investigated by me
Speaker 1: Headley Thomas as a podcast production for The Australian. If
Speaker 1: anyone has information which may help solve this cold case,
Speaker 1: please contact me confidentially by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au.
Speaker 2: You can read more.
Speaker 1: About this case and see a range of photographs and
Speaker 1: other artwork at the website Bronwyn podcast dot com. Our
Speaker 1: subscribers and registered users here episodes first. The production and
Speaker 1: editorial team for Bromwyn includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget,
Speaker 1: Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen
Speaker 1: and Matthew Condon and David Murray, with assistance from Isaac Iron's.
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 2: For all of our exclusive stories.
Speaker 1: Videos, maps, timelines and documents about this podcast and other podcasts,
Speaker 1: including The Teacher's Pet, The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser,
Speaker 1: Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy and The Night Driver. Go to
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