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. You heard
Speaker 1: John Winfield's voice actor say in the previous episode.
Speaker 2: I mean she wasn't hostile or anything like that.
Speaker 1: John was responding to a question from Detective Sergeant Glenn
Speaker 1: Taylor about Bromwin's attitude towards John when he turned up
Speaker 1: at Sandstone Crescent. That's set out on page thirty six
Speaker 1: of the official interview transcript from that morning in early
Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety eight, as John sat in the police
Speaker 1: station in Ballina with detectives Taylor and Wayne Temby asking questions.
Speaker 1: There are forty pages of transcript from that interview left
Speaker 1: to analyze. Some of the most important references are coming
Speaker 1: up now. Back in episode five of the Bromwin podcast series,
Speaker 1: Maddie Walsh and I talked about the importance of timelines.
Speaker 1: Timelines are so important, definitely in cases like this. They
Speaker 1: help us understand what's going on. YEA, who said, what when,
Speaker 1: what happened? As you go through it, it'll become more
Speaker 1: and more detail. I remember talking to us to a
Speaker 1: great criminal lawyer, and he said, timelines win cases. But
Speaker 1: until I had time to look more closely at the
Speaker 1: transfer script of the police interview for the previous episode
Speaker 1: and this one, neither Maddie nor I realized that there
Speaker 1: was something very wrong in a particular part of John's story.
Speaker 1: Let's start unpacking this. Here's John's next response on page
Speaker 1: thirty six of the transcript. Remember he's describing being at
Speaker 1: the house in Sandstone Crescent on Sunday night.
Speaker 2: And then that was when sometime I'm trying to think
Speaker 2: that was probably it was after seven o'clock. It might
Speaker 2: have been even after eight o'clock by that time. I
Speaker 2: can't remember, honestly. All I know is it was dark.
Speaker 2: You know, it was probably at least an hour or
Speaker 2: maybe an hour and a half after the plane landed,
Speaker 2: whatever time that was. And that was dark, because I
Speaker 2: remember I got off the plane in the dark.
Speaker 3: It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at
Speaker 3: six fifty three pm and one at seven oh six.
Speaker 1: Pm, six fifty three seven. Yeah. Do you know did
Speaker 1: you make any phone Cooks?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't make Apparently she made a couple of
Speaker 2: calls to Graham told me she had a solicitor, Yes,
Speaker 2: another solicitor she had in Lismore, the guy that used
Speaker 2: to be on the radio all the time, you know,
Speaker 2: legal advice on a Thursday.
Speaker 1: John is referring here to Chris mcdebitt. Christopher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's him. Yeah, yeah, she had him actually, and
Speaker 2: she had his home phone number. And this is what
Speaker 2: Graham said, apparently because Graham looked on her telephone accounts
Speaker 2: afterwards and he told me the phone calls were made
Speaker 2: to his place, his house.
Speaker 3: Detective Tempi, can you just assist in relation to the identity.
Speaker 1: Of those chief phone numbers? First one was I think
Speaker 1: that's Jody's Is it? Five? Two one, three to one?
Speaker 1: Wayne Temby read out a seven digit telephone number, which
Speaker 1: we will not repeat in full in the episode. John
Speaker 1: Winfield replied to the detective Senior Constable's question like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It is interesting that in his first response to Glen
Speaker 1: Taylor's question, John says that he did not make any calls,
Speaker 1: but then Glen Taylor asked Detective Temb during the interview
Speaker 1: with John to help in relation to the two calls
Speaker 1: in question, as these two calls were long distance or
Speaker 1: STD the abbreviation for subscriber trunk dialing. They were noted
Speaker 1: in detail on the paper telephone bill for Sandstone Crescent
Speaker 1: for the month of May nineteen ninety three. The time
Speaker 1: the phone calls were made, the duration of the calls,
Speaker 1: and the numbers dialed are printed on that telephone bill,
Speaker 1: which the detectives had in the interview room when they
Speaker 1: were questioning John. This itemized telephone bill and copies of
Speaker 1: it are still in existence. We've got a copy of
Speaker 1: it in our files on the case.
Speaker 2: Oh I see, yeah, I rang that one, yeah, to
Speaker 2: tell Jody I was at home. Yeah, that's right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember that's six fifty three. Okay, that's seven o'clock. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that was Jody.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I rang Jody and said, okay, I'm back home now,
Speaker 2: you know, because I sort of come up now. I
Speaker 2: remember that's Jody and my brother the one at seven
Speaker 2: oh six. Yes, my brother, yep, I rang my brother too. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's my brother's number. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there was no no SHD calls, which Bromwin
Speaker 3: may Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that's Jadie and my brother. Well, I
Speaker 2: rang them to say I'd arrived home safely, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Your brother's name's Peter, is it, Yeah, Peter Winfield.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is Peter still living in Sydney?
Speaker 2: Yeah, anger Den.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you've made they've TIFA calls and then you're
Speaker 3: still sitting around the dining room with the children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I can't remember what was bronwin doing.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: I made the phone calls from the telephone in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: There's another telephone in the main bedroom, and she went
Speaker 2: into the main bedroom and made these ones apparently too. Apparently,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I wasn't in the bedroom with her.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I didn't know, But all I know
Speaker 2: is that she went in the bedroom and that it
Speaker 2: was Graham. That was Graham told me that where the
Speaker 2: phone calls were going. Because I was surprised when he
Speaker 2: told me, because I didn't know you could trace local
Speaker 2: phone calls and I had no idea you could do it.
Speaker 2: And then he told me you could, and he did it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: But there are some loocians and concerning discrepancies in all
Speaker 1: of this, and they cry out for further investigation. They
Speaker 1: could be really important in this case. For reasons that
Speaker 1: will soon become obvious. These loose eians became obvious to
Speaker 1: me while I was reading documents during the drafting of
Speaker 1: this episode. As a result, I've been emailing and calling
Speaker 1: former and current airline pilots, aviation regulators, even collectors of
Speaker 1: old airline timetables. I have been helped enormously by some
Speaker 1: very clever listeners who went into full private detective mode
Speaker 1: to help me find the answers. We have been trying
Speaker 1: to confirm the arrival time in Balliner on May sixteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three of the flight which John Winfield bordered
Speaker 1: in Sydney earlier that day. It was a seventy to
Speaker 1: eighty minute flight. The airline Anset Australia, which collapsed several
Speaker 1: years later, flew the route for several days. I was
Speaker 1: tantalizingly close because of the discovery of an ANSET timetable
Speaker 1: for the months of September nineteen ninety two to March
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety three. That timetable sets out all the
Speaker 1: ANSET flights and their departure times for the hop from
Speaker 1: Sydney to Balliner. But I didn't have the May nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three timetable. We were close no cigar. Here's why
Speaker 1: it might be crucial in this podcast series. You have
Speaker 1: heard me say that John Winfield called his daughter Jody
Speaker 1: and his brother Peter at six point fifty three pm
Speaker 1: and seven h six pm respectively, from the house at
Speaker 1: Sandstone Crescent on May sixteen when he arrived at the house,
Speaker 1: and it seemed uncontroversial. John Winfield confirmed this as you've
Speaker 1: just heard in his interview with Glenn Taylor in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. There just didn't appear to be anything unusual
Speaker 1: about it. But while going through John's interview transcript, it
Speaker 1: struck me that the timing appeared to make it very difficult,
Speaker 1: if not impossible, for John to have made those calls.
Speaker 1: Here's what his friend John Watson stated in his police
Speaker 1: statement in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5: John was wringing me from Sydney and he asked me
Speaker 5: if I could pick him up from the Ballina Airport
Speaker 5: and give him a lift home. That night, about six
Speaker 5: thirty pm, I went to the airport and I met John.
Speaker 5: He asked me if I could take him to the
Speaker 5: Ballener Police station prior.
Speaker 1: To taking him home.
Speaker 5: I drove him to the police station, and I waited
Speaker 5: in the car while he went in. He was in
Speaker 5: the police station for about five minutes.
Speaker 1: We do not know the time at which John Watson
Speaker 1: drove away from Balliner Airport with John Winfield, but if
Speaker 1: the pickup went smoothly despite all of John's gear and
Speaker 1: his surfboard, and if the flight landed around six twenty
Speaker 1: five pm, let's say they got away at six forty pm.
Speaker 1: It takes a good ten minutes or so to get
Speaker 1: from the airport to Balloner Police station, but let's say
Speaker 1: they do it very quickly, in just seven minutes. Glenn
Speaker 1: Taylor was told by John Winfield that he was in
Speaker 1: the police station for about fifteen minutes. John Watson, in
Speaker 1: his police statement estimated that he was waiting in his
Speaker 1: car outside the police station for about five minutes. Let's
Speaker 1: be generous and go with the five minute estimate. That
Speaker 1: means it would have been after six point fifty pm
Speaker 1: when John Winfield is the passenger in John Watson's car
Speaker 1: driving away from Barner Police Station to pick up Becky
Speaker 1: McGuire from her home in Lenox Head. John Watson said
Speaker 1: they drove to either Gibbons Street or Stuart Street in
Speaker 1: lenox Head to collect Becky. It doesn't make much difference
Speaker 1: because both of those streets, just a few blocks northwest
Speaker 1: of the retail strip in Lenox Head are about the
Speaker 1: same distance from Barner Police Station. I've done the trip
Speaker 1: many times now. It's a good fifteen minutes. The two
Speaker 1: men and the young woman say they then drove to
Speaker 1: Sandstone Crescent together and that's going to take seven minutes minimum.
Speaker 1: The upshot is this, if the Ansett Australia jet landed
Speaker 1: just before six thirty pm, and John then wore off
Speaker 1: and very quickly collected his luggage and surfboard, then went
Speaker 1: directly to the police station and then to lennox Head
Speaker 1: to get Becky. The earliest that they could have arrived
Speaker 1: at his house in Sandstone Crescent would have been about
Speaker 1: seven point fifteen pm, the house which bronwin had moved
Speaker 1: back into with the two girls on the Friday night
Speaker 1: after asking a locksmith to come out to remove the
Speaker 1: locks which John had put on to try to prevent
Speaker 1: his estranged wife from getting back inside the house. But
Speaker 1: that's not all, because the evidence of Becky is that
Speaker 1: John Winfield then drove her in the family Ford Falcon
Speaker 1: back to Becky's home in Lennox Head John Watson had left.
Speaker 6: John Watson drove away. We walked up to the front
Speaker 6: of the house and John knocked on the door. The
Speaker 6: door opened and Bronwin and the children were standing at
Speaker 6: the door. I wasn't really paying much attention at the time,
Speaker 6: but I recall Bronwyn babbling on about something, but they
Speaker 6: weren't arguing. Bronwin walked back into the house towards the kitchen,
Speaker 6: and John gave the girls a cuddle, and I saw
Speaker 6: that Lauren was crying. I saw two suitcases inside the doorway,
Speaker 6: and John picked them up and put them in the car.
Speaker 6: John must have had a set of keys to the car,
Speaker 6: because we then got into the car and he drove
Speaker 6: me home. I remember both Crystal and Lauren were standing
Speaker 6: at the window inside the house, watching as we reversed
Speaker 6: out of the driveway. John didn't go inside the house
Speaker 6: at all while I was in the house with him.
Speaker 6: While we were driving back to my house, John thanked
Speaker 6: me for coming with him and told me he was
Speaker 6: sorry for getting me involved. I haven't seen Bronwin since
Speaker 6: that night I went to her place with John.
Speaker 1: John Winfield then must have returned on his own to
Speaker 1: go to the home in Sandstone Crescent. It's got to
Speaker 1: be about seven thirty pm before he gets there, and
Speaker 1: that's if the plane landed at about six thirty pm.
Speaker 7: My name is Karina Berger.
Speaker 1: Three months before the release of this episode, a listener
Speaker 1: emailed we were in Ireland on leave at the time.
Speaker 7: I'm contacting you to offer my assistance with legal research, analysis, etc.
Speaker 7: For Bronwan or any other podcasts you might have in
Speaker 7: the pipeline. I love true crime and working to solve
Speaker 7: a problem or mystery. I also find undertaking work that
Speaker 7: is in the public interest very rewarding. Some of my
Speaker 7: particular strengths are my attention to detail, communication and organization
Speaker 7: and project management SKI and my ability to recall information
Speaker 7: and facts. If you ever require another pair of hands
Speaker 7: and think my skill set might be beneficial, I would
Speaker 7: be very happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Karina is an experienced lawyer with a particular interest in
Speaker 1: coronial inquest work, and she has worked on many coronial
Speaker 1: investigations and inquests over the years. She was following the
Speaker 1: Bromwin podcast very closely. We started exchanging emails around the
Speaker 1: same time offers of help from other women with proven
Speaker 1: experience in investigations in the criminal justice system were coming in.
Speaker 1: Some have preferred anonymity. They're all amazing and very generous
Speaker 1: with their time. Three days after I first became suspicious
Speaker 1: about those calls from the house, I raised it with
Speaker 1: Karna over a Greek salad in Brisbane. The timing was good.
Speaker 1: She was visiting from interstate with her husband for his work.
Speaker 1: Karina flew home late that afternoon and she resolved to
Speaker 1: start looking for a thirty one year old timetable which
Speaker 1: might show when a long defunct airline used to fly
Speaker 1: to the airport of a regional town in New South
Speaker 1: Wales on Sundays in May nineteen ninety three. My other
Speaker 1: contacts from the podcast listenership were also on the job
Speaker 1: trying to locate this key information. In northern New South Wales,
Speaker 1: my friend and colleague Matt Condon called. We spoke about
Speaker 1: the driving that he would do while retracing where John
Speaker 1: would have gone thirty one years ago. After the anset
Speaker 1: jet landed. Then Matt rang off, turned on his voice
Speaker 1: recorder and got ready to roll.
Speaker 5: This is the side of obviously the old Byron Ballina
Speaker 5: Regional airport. I remember getting.
Speaker 8: Flights to and from Sydney into here.
Speaker 5: It hasn't changed that much that we're here now to
Speaker 5: follow John Winfield's timeline and we'll.
Speaker 8: Just see how the templates marry up.
Speaker 5: Okay, just leaving the airport and out, traffic conditions are
Speaker 5: pretty light. Simple direct route from the airport down to
Speaker 5: the police station, past the Ballona Bayside and Ballon Affair
Speaker 5: shopping centers, straight down to River Street and hang a left.
Speaker 1: We're at over.
Speaker 5: Five minutes at the moment, so I've arrived at the
Speaker 5: Ballina Police station on River Street at twelve minutes and
Speaker 5: eleven seconds. Winfield claims that he was brought here by
Speaker 5: mister Watson and went into the station to check if
Speaker 5: there were any legal restraints against him as in Bronwyn,
Speaker 5: placing possibly domestic violence restrictions on his proximity to her. Okay,
Speaker 5: that's exactly five minutes. I'm now leaving the police station
Speaker 5: and heading towards the Ocean Road, which will head up
Speaker 5: to Lenox.
Speaker 1: Seventeen minutes eleven seconds.
Speaker 5: There's a sort of little backway here to get onto
Speaker 5: that which the locals would know, and it would be
Speaker 5: a logical way through Ballinatown to get onto that coastal road.
Speaker 1: I'm just coming through the main drag of Lenox.
Speaker 5: There was a little bit of traffic, not a lot,
Speaker 5: but it might have accounted for twenty or thirty seconds
Speaker 5: over and above a clean run through that street. I've
Speaker 5: just arrived where he picks up Jody's friend. We'll wait
Speaker 5: for ninety seconds. It's thirty four minutes and fifteen seconds.
Speaker 5: Just arrived outside the house at Sandstone Crescent. It was
Speaker 5: forty one minutes and thirty nine seconds.
Speaker 2: I'll wait now.
Speaker 5: For another ninety seconds before we head back to drop
Speaker 5: the young woman off and then come back to Sandstone. Right,
Speaker 5: we're back at Gibbon forty nine minutes and one second.
Speaker 5: We'll wait for fifteen seconds to Sandstone for the final leg. Okay,
Speaker 5: just pulled up back at Sandstone Crescent in front of
Speaker 5: the house. That journey from the airport took precisely fifty
Speaker 5: six minutes and thirty five seconds.
Speaker 1: Hey Matt, how'd you go?
Speaker 5: I went from Ballino Airport, did all the stops, and
Speaker 5: finally I've returned here back at Sandstone Crescent and giving
Speaker 5: Winfield sort of two minutes at the end of the
Speaker 5: journey to meet and greet his kids, etc. At the
Speaker 5: door of the property which I'm parked out the front.
Speaker 5: The final time came in at fifty eight minutes and
Speaker 5: thirty five seconds, right.
Speaker 1: Well, that's consistent with what John Winfield himself says in
Speaker 1: the record of interview that he's done with Glenn Taylor
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight. So he says something like it
Speaker 1: was about an hour to an hour and a half
Speaker 1: after he'd arrived in Ballener that he got into the house.
Speaker 1: So that makes sense exactly if we round it up
Speaker 1: to one hour. He would have had to have arrived
Speaker 1: in Ballaner and be getting into John Watson's car at
Speaker 1: Banner Airport by five fifty pm on Sunday May sixteen
Speaker 1: for him to have been able to make that first
Speaker 1: phone call at six fifty three pm to his daughter
Speaker 1: Jody on that same day.
Speaker 8: What time did the plane land?
Speaker 1: This is still the missing piece in this puzzle. We
Speaker 1: know from John Watson's statement that John Watson says he
Speaker 1: got to the airport at six thirty pm to collect
Speaker 1: John Winfield. What we don't have for certain yet is
Speaker 1: the arrival time of the aircraft from Sydney. We've got
Speaker 1: a timetable that shows that in the months of October
Speaker 1: to March, and said Australia had aircraft leaving at six
Speaker 1: ten pm in Sydney and arriving into Ballana at seven
Speaker 1: thirty But we don't yet have the timetable for the
Speaker 1: months following the end of March, whether the timetable changed
Speaker 1: for those subsequent months. You know Matt from previous episodes
Speaker 1: in this series, as well as from his work in
Speaker 1: other podcast investigations I've done into the murders of Australian women.
Speaker 1: In a coincidental piece of voice acting symmetry. You know
Speaker 1: Matt's voice from this episode too, because he read the
Speaker 1: lines from the police statement of John Watson. Matt suggested
Speaker 1: that the aircraft possibly landed in May nineteen ninety three
Speaker 1: at around six thirty pm, not seven thirty pm. Matt
Speaker 1: suggested that that might have happened because of daylight saving.
Speaker 5: If you're a boat is in New South Wales in
Speaker 5: the beginning of October of any given year, I think
Speaker 5: since the early nineteen seventies, so you actually on a
Speaker 5: Sunday you turn your clock forward one hour at the
Speaker 5: beginning of daylight saving, so in essence you're losing an hour,
Speaker 5: but by going forward it gives you an extra hour
Speaker 5: or so of daylight at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: which is the point of daylight saving, and that is
Speaker 5: for people to be able to finish work and enjoy
Speaker 5: the daylight in the summer months. Come April the following year,
Speaker 5: six months later, daylight saving ends in New South Wales,
Speaker 5: so you have to claw back that hour and it
Speaker 5: goes back to normal Eastern Standard time. The flight, as
Speaker 5: we know, was in May, so daylight saving was well
Speaker 5: and truly over by at least six seven weeks by then,
Speaker 5: so the clocks would have gone back an hour to
Speaker 5: parity with the East Coast. So if a flight in March,
Speaker 5: for example, landed in Ballina at seven point thirty pm
Speaker 5: during daylight saving hours beyond April outside of daylight saving hours,
Speaker 5: that flight would have landed at around six thirty pm,
Speaker 5: so you claw back the hour. If he'd landed at
Speaker 5: six thirty, it was picked up at six thirty pm
Speaker 5: and then went to the bell on the police station,
Speaker 5: so seven eleven pm is the first revisit to Sandstone
Speaker 5: then to go back to be able to pick up Becky.
Speaker 5: He would have arrived there at seven nineteen pm. Give
Speaker 5: them ninety seconds for that, and then to swing back
Speaker 5: to Sandstone, and to give him credit for a couple
Speaker 5: of minutes of meeting and greeting at the door and
Speaker 5: getting back into the house. He would have been in
Speaker 5: Sandstone Crescent after all of that journey at around about
Speaker 5: seven twenty eight pm.
Speaker 1: Well, how does he make these telephone calls that he
Speaker 1: said he made to Jody and to Peter at six
Speaker 1: fifty three pm and then seven ozh six pm from
Speaker 1: Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 5: Well, he couldn't have, because going by these specific times,
Speaker 5: he wasn't in the house to make the calls.
Speaker 1: Let's go with a hypothetical, allow for perhaps a mistaken memory.
Speaker 1: They didn't get Becky, or he decided to go to
Speaker 1: the house at Sandstone Crescent ahead of getting Becky, something
Speaker 1: like that. It seems from those time stamps, Matt, that
Speaker 1: he still can't make it in time to make a
Speaker 1: call at six fifty three pm, twenty three minutes after
Speaker 1: the John Watson six thirty pm pick up at Balner Airport. No,
Speaker 1: there's no way you know these roads, Matt. You've driven
Speaker 1: them a lot before the Bromwin podcast, and more so
Speaker 1: since we've been working on it together. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: being able to drive from the Ballina Police station to
Speaker 1: Bromwin's old house in Sandstone Crescent, Lenox Head in six
Speaker 1: to seven minutes. It's impossible.
Speaker 5: I've done the journey from Ballina Town Center along the
Speaker 5: Coast Road for innumerable reasons, kids soccer, shopping at Woolies
Speaker 5: at the back of Lennox invariably in the back of
Speaker 5: your head. You know, it takes on average at least
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes. There's no way around that. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: even with a clear run. That's just the time it takes.
Speaker 5: It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: I don't want us to count o chickens before they've hatched.
Speaker 1: But this is a really big loose end because John
Speaker 1: was adamant in his police interview that he made those
Speaker 1: telephone calls. He was initially saying he didn't make any calls,
Speaker 1: and then when propped it, he goes, oh, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: I remember now I did make those calls.
Speaker 5: Neither of them correspond on the timeline to Jonathan Winfield
Speaker 5: being in the house and physically able to make those calls.
Speaker 1: If he didn't make those phone calls because he couldn't
Speaker 1: have been in the house. Then I'm suggesting the only
Speaker 1: person who could have made those calls was Bromwin, and
Speaker 1: I think that's consistent with Bromwin having telephoned her solicitor,
Speaker 1: Chris mcdebott in the late afternoon because of her concern
Speaker 1: about John's imminent return. John says that he made those
Speaker 1: calls basically to tell his daughter and his brother that
Speaker 1: he had arrived safely and was in the house.
Speaker 5: I'm just thinking of myself and my own family, saying
Speaker 5: I flew from Sydney to Ballina, which is a relatively
Speaker 5: short flight within the same state. I fail to see
Speaker 5: why there would be any reason or urgency to ring
Speaker 5: not one family member but two to alert them that
Speaker 5: they had arrived safely an hour and twenty minute flight maximum.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure what sort of peril could one could
Speaker 5: encounter in a humble domestic flight from Sydney de Ballena.
Speaker 5: If you're flying into Delhi, or if you're flying into
Speaker 5: Barcelona or London and you'd had a long haul, I
Speaker 5: would totally understand that, but I simply cannot comprehend why
Speaker 5: someone would have to alert close family members to their
Speaker 5: safety after a very short domestic flight.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense.
Speaker 5: It's just simply illogical and something most certainly that I
Speaker 5: wouldn't do, and I think most people wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: My supposition on.
Speaker 5: Your theory is that I think you've nailed it, even
Speaker 5: if the timeline's out by a few minutes either side.
Speaker 8: I reckon she's made those.
Speaker 1: Calls six point fifty three pm. Is the first one.
Speaker 8: Six fifty three pm?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 8: And when's the next one?
Speaker 1: Seven six pm?
Speaker 5: Something has prompted her to make the first call and
Speaker 5: then another call twelve thirty minutes later.
Speaker 1: If this theory is right, she brings Jody because it
Speaker 1: was to Jody that she had her earlier conversation in
Speaker 1: which she said, your dad had better not approach me,
Speaker 1: or worse to that effect. If Jody and Peter have
Speaker 1: no way of contacting John, what's the utility of Bromin
Speaker 1: contacting them when John's on the way.
Speaker 5: Well, she's tried the solicitor, right, Yeah, and somehow she's
Speaker 5: learned he's on the way, made the call at six
Speaker 5: point fifty three in a panic.
Speaker 8: It's impossible he can't have made those calls. It's impossible.
Speaker 1: And the only other explanation is that John Watson's claim
Speaker 1: that he arrived to pick up John at six thirty
Speaker 1: pm is wrong, and that in fact it was five
Speaker 1: thirty pm.
Speaker 5: If it was five thirty, then that may work in
Speaker 5: terms of him being in the house.
Speaker 1: He gets to the house then by six thirty bit
Speaker 1: of meeting and greeting and he has a cup of
Speaker 1: tea and then he makes those calls. But that's the
Speaker 1: only way.
Speaker 8: That's the only way. Yes, where did you come up
Speaker 8: with the five thirty time?
Speaker 1: I've just plucked it out of the air, taken two
Speaker 1: hours off the arrival time of seven thirty. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: says it was dark when he landed. Now, sunset at
Speaker 1: that time was after five shortly after five pm. Yes,
Speaker 1: it would have had to have left Sydney at fourteen pm,
Speaker 1: two hours earlier than the schedule. In the month of
Speaker 1: March yeap. What would be John's potential motive to claim
Speaker 1: that he made those two phone calls if in fact
Speaker 1: Broman had made them.
Speaker 5: We know she's on alert because she's phoned her solicitor,
Speaker 5: so she's in that heightened state. If she's phoned Jody
Speaker 5: and Peter Winfield. One can only imagine logically it would
Speaker 5: be out of concern for her safety.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want the police to know.
Speaker 5: Now, with the benefit of hindsight, would John Winfield have
Speaker 5: worried about two things? Firstly, he's worried that there are
Speaker 5: two people in the world, Jody and Peter, who know
Speaker 5: that she is fearful at that moment. And secondly, his
Speaker 5: consideration would be to keep them out.
Speaker 1: Of the narrative.
Speaker 5: So is this woman who's already been warned that John's
Speaker 5: not going to like it that she's back at the house.
Speaker 5: She's worked up enough to ring the solicitor and seek advice.
Speaker 5: She anticipating his arrival and not knowing whether he might
Speaker 5: be in a mood or how he might react, it
Speaker 5: would be very logical for her to reach out to
Speaker 5: two of the closest people to him to try and
Speaker 5: work out what do I do. I'm in trouble here, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that makes sense. I'll just ride out the timestamp timeline
Speaker 5: for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Matt, and I'll keep trying to
Speaker 1: find the timing of that flight. Some listeners may not
Speaker 1: have heard of the once massive answered Australia Airline and
Speaker 1: its founder, Sir reginald Anset. Here's a promotional clip from
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 9: It's no wonder the Answered group of Airlines flies the
Speaker 9: largest domestic fleet in Australasia. Our constant aim is to
Speaker 9: provide you with excellence in products and service.
Speaker 1: When this much loved airline folded in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: it was Australia's largest corporate collapse, with more than sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand jobs lost. Back in Canberra, two days after I
Speaker 1: had first met her, Karina Berger had a breakthrough. Karina.
Speaker 1: When I met you at lunch in Brisbane and told
Speaker 1: you how I was looking for timetables for Anset in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three and they were proving really elusive. You
Speaker 1: probably didn't expect that you'd be on the chase for
Speaker 1: them within a day or so.
Speaker 7: I love a challenge, heed Ley, so I was happy
Speaker 7: to help.
Speaker 1: How did you find it?
Speaker 7: I started off with a basic Google search. It made
Speaker 7: me realize that timetables for planes and other modes of
Speaker 7: transport are actually really collectible items, and there's quite a
Speaker 7: lot of private collectors who tend to catalog them and
Speaker 7: post blogs about them and take pictures of their covers
Speaker 7: and things like that and pop them online. And that
Speaker 7: was really helpful because I could have a look at
Speaker 7: what people had put up on the Internet, and I
Speaker 7: realized that there were a couple of timetables from Anset
Speaker 7: that existed in nineteen ninety three. The problem was, though,
Speaker 7: that these people only had pictures of the covers, and
Speaker 7: they didn't seem to have photographs of the actual timetables
Speaker 7: themselves or PDF copies. I reached out to Air Services
Speaker 7: Australia in the hope that they might have actual flight
Speaker 7: records for the Ballina Airport on the sixteenth of May
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety three, and I contacted the National Library of
Speaker 7: Australia and did some searches of their online catalog. So
Speaker 7: I then turned to the National Archives of Australia catalog
Speaker 7: and the New South Wales State Archives catalogs and had
Speaker 7: to look there, But those searches also weren't very fruitful,
Speaker 7: and so then I just went back to Google and
Speaker 7: started to work my way through all of the hits,
Speaker 7: and I came across the Sir reginald Anset Transport Museum,
Speaker 7: and then I stumbled across a hit that didn't appear
Speaker 7: particularly relevant. At first blush something to do with anset buses,
Speaker 7: not planes, But it was in the journal of the
Speaker 7: Australian Timetable Association. It turns out that that's an organization
Speaker 7: that describes itself as being for anyone interested in the
Speaker 7: study of transport timetables, schedules, maps and associated literature. So
Speaker 7: I decided to email the secretary of that organization and
Speaker 7: then lo and behold. In less than an hour I
Speaker 7: heard back from the association and they'd found what I
Speaker 7: was after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was great. I'd tried to get a timetable
Speaker 1: through a website for airline pilots and contacted a collector
Speaker 1: in North America and he had lots of timetables, but
Speaker 1: not that one. There was another really diligent listener who
Speaker 1: had offered to help, and she knows who she is.
Speaker 1: She wants to preserve her anonymity. Around the same time
Speaker 1: as you were making those inquiries, she was also talking
Speaker 1: to the museum and she was hopeful and then she
Speaker 1: also got a positive hit. Just shows how when we
Speaker 1: all collaborate, just people from home doing these searches, you
Speaker 1: know what's possible. What we can see from that is
Speaker 1: that there were two flights from Sydney with Anseid Airlines
Speaker 1: on Sunday May sixteen, and the second of those flights
Speaker 1: left Sydney shortly after six pm.
Speaker 7: That's right, Headley. The timetable shows that a jet was
Speaker 7: due to depart Sydney at six fifteen pm and arrive
Speaker 7: in Ballina at seven twenty five pm on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: And we're not aware of any other operator flying aircraft
Speaker 1: from Sydney to Ballaner at that time.
Speaker 7: No, not at this stage. And it's actually a query
Speaker 7: that I did put to the Australian Timetable Association and
Speaker 7: they indicated that they checked the Quantus timetable from the
Speaker 7: time and had found that Ballaner wasn't a part of
Speaker 7: the Quantus network and that they didn't think that smaller
Speaker 7: airlines like East West or Hazleton had flown to Ballaner
Speaker 7: from Sydney either.
Speaker 1: You've done work with Coronial inquiries over a number of years, haven't.
Speaker 7: You, Yes, I have, Hedley.
Speaker 1: Is it easy to see how this would fall through
Speaker 1: the cracks the actual time that a person of interest
Speaker 1: traveled to the regional town.
Speaker 7: I think it's probably dependent upon the nature of the
Speaker 7: case and the police lines of inquiry. At the time,
Speaker 7: it would be prudent for an investigator officer to seek
Speaker 7: facts to support things like in our port arrival time.
Speaker 7: If a suspect or someone who may very well become
Speaker 7: a suspect is claiming that they arrived in a location
Speaker 7: at a particular time, doing something like that at the
Speaker 7: time would be much easier than doing it many years later.
Speaker 1: We've done some on the ground checking of how long
Speaker 1: it would take to travel from the airport. It's in
Speaker 1: the fifty five to sixty minute range. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that in John's police interview he says that he was
Speaker 1: in the ball and a police station for about fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: whereas we allowed for just five minutes when we did
Speaker 1: that exercise. It seems to us that it was physically
Speaker 1: impossible for John to have made those telephone calls that
Speaker 1: at times six fifty three pm and seven h six
Speaker 1: pm on the night of Sunday, May sixteenth. Your finding
Speaker 1: of that timetable now really helps to demonstrate that. Can
Speaker 1: you think of any other explanation that would have permitted
Speaker 1: John to have got back in time to make those calls?
Speaker 7: I suppose the only explanations that seem open would be
Speaker 7: either John catching the earlier Ancet flight that was due
Speaker 7: to land in Ballino at about ten past three in
Speaker 7: the afternoon, but that seems unlikely. As I understand he
Speaker 7: says that he arrived in the dark, and I think
Speaker 7: the sun probably set in Ballino at around about five pm.
Speaker 7: And the only other explanation that I can think of
Speaker 7: is that he traveled with a different airline carrier, and
Speaker 7: we haven't been able to identify such a carrier at
Speaker 7: this point in time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, the passenger manifest would be amazing have
Speaker 1: Whether that's available after thirty one years, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you'd probably need a warrant for that. It's
Speaker 1: probably something only the police could get, I.
Speaker 7: Think so, and there'd be privacy considerations as well. Another
Speaker 7: explanation that does occur to me that might allow John
Speaker 7: to have made the phone calls would be if the
Speaker 7: n set timetable had changed for some reason, such that
Speaker 7: he did arrive in the dark in Ballina in time
Speaker 7: to get home and make the calls. But we don't
Speaker 7: at the moment have any information suggesting that that was
Speaker 7: the case. We can't really take that any further.
Speaker 1: In terms of the timings that other people have talked about,
Speaker 1: there really aren't that many. There's nothing written down to
Speaker 1: our knowledge at the police station. But you've made the
Speaker 1: point for to me that the duty books of the
Speaker 1: officers could show when John came in to talk to
Speaker 1: Sergeant Hart, who's now deceased, about whether John can approach
Speaker 1: the home. Despite the conflict with Bromwin.
Speaker 7: I think John to say himself that he saw a
Speaker 7: police officer write some things down whilst he was at
Speaker 7: the station.
Speaker 1: At one stage in his police interview he says that
Speaker 1: it could have been around seven or eight pm that
Speaker 1: he got to the house. Unfortunately, Becky Maguire doesn't nominate
Speaker 1: a time as to when she gets picked up. Have
Speaker 1: you read in the police interview where John's asked about
Speaker 1: phone calls?
Speaker 7: Yes, I have read that part.
Speaker 1: He originally says I didn't make any.
Speaker 7: That's right, and then he was more or less sort
Speaker 7: of prompted about the phone calls and changed his story
Speaker 7: and said, oh, that's right, I forgot I did make
Speaker 7: those calls. Yeah, after the phone numbers were read out
Speaker 7: to him and the persons that those numbers were allocated
Speaker 7: to were confirmed.
Speaker 1: Even if John hadn't driven Becky home, he still couldn't
Speaker 1: have made those two phone calls. The evidence does show
Speaker 1: that Bronwin knew John was coming back to Lennox Head
Speaker 1: on that Sunday evening. Karina suggested that John had phoned
Speaker 1: the house at Sandstone Crescent before he departed Sydney.
Speaker 7: What about the idea that he could have phoned from
Speaker 7: the Sydney airport, like he said before the flight took off,
Speaker 7: figured out that they were home, said that he was coming,
Speaker 7: and then that led to the panicked phone calls from Bronwan,
Speaker 7: potentially to Jody and his relatives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. We also have Mel Taylor, who
Speaker 1: was twelve years old at the time, and she'd been
Speaker 1: playing with Lauren and Still on that Sunday afternoon. She
Speaker 1: says that when Bromwin returned from work at Eden's takeaway,
Speaker 1: she said, oh, where are the girls? Can you tell
Speaker 1: them they've got to come home. Their father's arriving, Their
Speaker 1: father's coming. Here's how Mel described it in episode four.
Speaker 10: I know I was at the park with Crystal and
Speaker 10: Lauren that afternoon around five point thirty ish six ish.
Speaker 10: I came home before the girls came home. Bromin came
Speaker 10: to that door and she's like, oh, hey, is Lauren
Speaker 10: and Crystal here, and like, no, they're at the park,
Speaker 10: and she said to me, can you go get them
Speaker 10: because her father's coming home.
Speaker 1: Is it a strong memory? Yeh, it's a strong memory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Speaking generally, what is the significance in lies that are
Speaker 1: told during a police investigation by a person of interest, Well.
Speaker 7: It tends to suggest that their evidence is unreliable and
Speaker 7: can't necessarily be trusted, and that they might be looking
Speaker 7: to deflect focus on them onto somebody else, probably because
Speaker 7: there's a potential element of guilt there.
Speaker 1: I called Andy and Michelle Reid Broman's brother and sister
Speaker 1: in law, and explain the flight time issue with the
Speaker 1: telephone calls. What time did you say the plane actually landed, Well,
Speaker 1: we can't know for certain when it landed, but what
Speaker 1: it was scheduled to do was land at about seven
Speaker 1: point thirty pm.
Speaker 11: Planes don't take off ahead of schedule, no, unless they've
Speaker 11: got every passenger on board. But it still would not
Speaker 11: be an hour because no.
Speaker 1: One, it seems when got a record of that aircraft
Speaker 1: when it actually there's been this assumption that those phone
Speaker 1: calls would have just been made by John, as he asserted,
Speaker 1: and that everything around the flight was not that important
Speaker 1: and it just fell between the cracks under the radar,
Speaker 1: so to speak.
Speaker 4: She was concerned, and she already rung mcdebitt to express
Speaker 4: concern that she'd found out he was on his way
Speaker 4: up there.
Speaker 1: Do you have a view about how Bromwin would have
Speaker 1: been responding and feeling when she knew that John's arrival
Speaker 1: was imminent. He was in the air.
Speaker 12: Well the whole time in that lead up to her
Speaker 12: going missing, The biggest worry was him trying to take
Speaker 12: the kids.
Speaker 1: She'd have been.
Speaker 12: Worried about him turning up for sure, for sure, Hence
Speaker 12: the reason she called Chris mcdebitt to get his advice advice.
Speaker 4: Another thing that's quite evident in the lead up to this,
Speaker 4: as she was obviously speaking of David getting legal advice,
Speaker 4: advised to go back to the home, advised by us
Speaker 4: to go back to the home, get yourself set in,
Speaker 4: get away from all the financial stress. He knew exactly
Speaker 4: what was going on.
Speaker 1: He's flown for an hour from Sydney to Ballina and
Speaker 1: then gone back into his own home. Is that the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that John would do. Bring someone and
Speaker 1: say I've got off the flight and I'm at home
Speaker 1: now and I've arrived sakand sound.
Speaker 12: Look it doesn't sound like him to me. The Jody
Speaker 12: one possibly makes sense.
Speaker 4: We need to know if Bromwin made them. What was
Speaker 4: conversed about to Jody and to Peter or was it
Speaker 4: Louise on the other end of the line.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Could either at the second call.
Speaker 11: Those two people Jodie's John's daughter and the Winfield is
Speaker 11: his brother and sister in law.
Speaker 1: Why there and not her brother? I wonder what she
Speaker 1: was doing.
Speaker 12: Was she pleading with them to try and talk to John.
Speaker 11: Maybe it was in the hope that his brother and
Speaker 11: his daughter might be able to talk to him.
Speaker 1: She didn't ring us. Was she trying to get some
Speaker 1: help from his family.
Speaker 12: Maybe she thought they might have had more clout with him.
Speaker 12: If she was worried about what he was doing, I
Speaker 12: don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose she was worried.
Speaker 11: She knew he was going to try and take the
Speaker 11: house back, because that was always being said.
Speaker 4: We need to find out We told that many different people,
Speaker 4: that many different stories. If you went through everyone's statement
Speaker 4: everyone's memory and all the rest of it. You wind
Speaker 4: up with a one hundred points of facts that he's
Speaker 4: got wrong. I've started to do that. That's incredible. To
Speaker 4: be honest. The more you go through this now with
Speaker 4: such a fine truth can absolutely my numbing. You're a
Speaker 4: one man band, You've got your public help, and the
Speaker 4: people have come forward out there in the real world.
Speaker 1: There's Maddie, there's us, there's all us reviewing it.
Speaker 4: And here they are a complete homicide unsolved unit and
Speaker 4: a statewide police force, and we just hear nothing.
Speaker 1: We just here not one thing that they're moving forward with.
Speaker 1: To be fair, they may be aware of this, you
Speaker 1: don't you. The public help has been incredible, with the
Speaker 1: Facebook discussion group and people emailing me directly emailing Maddie.
Speaker 1: Karina Berger she found the timetable along with another woman
Speaker 1: who has requested an anonymity, and she's a gun investigator. Lazy. Now.
Speaker 1: Early in this episode, you heard detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
Speaker 1: questioning John Winfield. The second half of the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight interview began with a question which has been on
Speaker 1: the minds of.
Speaker 3: Many, was the conversation between you and browin quite on
Speaker 3: good terms.
Speaker 2: Amicable, Yeah, because the kids were still up and they
Speaker 2: the kids went to bed at about sort of eight
Speaker 2: point thirty.
Speaker 1: Or suppose it's a leading question and John has embraced it.
Speaker 1: A characterization of peace and harmony between a divorcing couple
Speaker 1: must be better than the alternative, particularly when the wife
Speaker 1: has been missing for five years. We can only speculate
Speaker 1: now whether the answer from John would have been different
Speaker 1: if he had been taken to an entry in the
Speaker 1: Police Running Sheets from nineteen ninety three, the entry where
Speaker 1: Deb Hall reports to police what she says John had
Speaker 1: told Deb that John and Bromlan had an altercation on
Speaker 1: the Sunday evening May sixteenth, when John arrived at the house.
Speaker 1: The Dictionary definition for altercation is noisy disagreement. It's the
Speaker 1: opposite of a conversation on good terms, a conversation that
Speaker 1: is purportedly amicable. If Deb was the only person who
Speaker 1: recalled John saying that he and Bromin had an altercation,
Speaker 1: it might be one of those he said, she said
Speaker 1: claims that makes sense but can't be given a huge
Speaker 1: amount of weight. But Louise Winfield, the wife of John's
Speaker 1: brother Peter Winfield, made a similar observation in her witness statement,
Speaker 1: which is dated August fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight. That's just
Speaker 1: nine days after John was questioned by Glenn.
Speaker 13: Taylor, I became aware that John did go to Lennox Head.
Speaker 13: My memory of the following events are very vague, but
Speaker 13: I recall John telling us that he and Bronwyn had
Speaker 13: a fight and that Bronwyn had walked out.
Speaker 1: There were many important recollections and observations which came out
Speaker 1: in the dozens of interviews Glenn did with witnesses during
Speaker 1: his investigation, but he couldn't put any of those to
Speaker 1: John because John gave the detective one shot at an interview.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at this in the next episode
Speaker 1: because Glenn Taylor, who is always trying to help this
Speaker 1: podcast investigation and the Reed family, has offered his perspective
Speaker 1: as an insider on all of it. The situation at
Speaker 1: Sandstone Crescent on the night of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three was something akin to a powder keg with an
Speaker 1: unlit fuse. In my view, I have wondered whether it
Speaker 1: was triggered by John realizing that Broman was determined to
Speaker 1: proceed to divorce did John see in the house that
Speaker 1: night Bromlin's copy of a legal letter which her solicitor,
Speaker 1: Chrismic Debitt, had sent to John in Sydney two days earlier,
Speaker 1: a letter which John would not have received in Sydney
Speaker 1: before he flew to Ballina on Sunday afternoon. But John
Speaker 1: was going to get that letter anyway, and it would
Speaker 1: have been logical for Bronwyn to tell John what her
Speaker 1: instructions were, or to tell him what the legal letter conveyed.
Speaker 1: It would have been normal for her to say something
Speaker 1: like John, I don't want an argument, but as you're
Speaker 1: here now, you might as well read what's in the
Speaker 1: letter that was sent to you on Friday. This is
Speaker 1: what Chrismic Debits legal letter to John stated in part.
Speaker 14: Bronwyin is hopeful that you will both be able to
Speaker 14: reach an agreement in relation to financial matters, and we
Speaker 14: will be writing to you further with a proposal in
Speaker 14: this regard in the near future. We are instructed by
Speaker 14: Bronwyn that in her view, your marriage is out an
Speaker 14: and that there is no prospect of a reconciliation. In
Speaker 14: the meantime, we require your immediate agreement for Bronwin to
Speaker 14: retain the use and possession of the Ford motor vehicle
Speaker 14: depending finalization of your financial matters.
Speaker 1: The last paragraph of the legal letter urged John to
Speaker 1: get his own lawyer and to disclose his intentions around
Speaker 1: the Ford Falcon within the next seven days, and it
Speaker 1: warned John that Bromwin would go to court to get
Speaker 1: an interim order giving her possession of the car if
Speaker 1: John failed to respond. Now, let's go back to the
Speaker 1: questioning of John by Glenn Taylor in that nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight interview in the Ballana police station. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us what was talked about?
Speaker 2: I got no idea. I can't remember what we talked
Speaker 2: about at the moment. We may not even have had
Speaker 2: too much discussion. I really can't remember, to tell you
Speaker 2: the truth. She didn't ask me anything about Sydney. I
Speaker 2: didn't really ask her anything about Lettox or probably about
Speaker 2: the kids, you know, just probably about the kids.
Speaker 1: These answers from John where he says they didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about anything, are hard to fathom. John is suggesting
Speaker 1: two detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor that it was pretty much
Speaker 1: like any other evening at the family home. Nothing out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary, probably didn't discuss much about anything, but
Speaker 1: this was an extraordinary evening. Tensions must have been very high.
Speaker 1: John had gone to the expense and trouble of having
Speaker 1: new locks installed at the family home. He did that
Speaker 1: to ensure that his estranged wife would not get into
Speaker 1: that home. But she had. Bronwyn had got herself a locksmith,
Speaker 1: and she was living in the house. She had beaten
Speaker 1: and discarded the physical barriers that John had organized, and
Speaker 1: John could see that she now had possession of the house.
Speaker 1: Whatever John believed that possession meant in terms of a
Speaker 1: legal right. Bromwyn had already told John's daughter Jody that
Speaker 1: the property was Bromwin's too, and that John needed to
Speaker 1: be careful about approaching. Here's how Jody described it. You
Speaker 1: heard this in episode four.
Speaker 15: I can't recall how it happened, but I rang the
Speaker 15: house at Sandstone Crescent and Bronwin answered the telephone. She
Speaker 15: told me that she'd moved back into the house with
Speaker 15: the kids and that she was staying there. She also
Speaker 15: told me that Dad was not welcome there and that
Speaker 15: he can stay in Sydney with me. She told me
Speaker 15: that she was going to get a restraining order, so
Speaker 15: that he couldn't come near the house. She also told
Speaker 15: me that the house belonged to her, and I really
Speaker 15: know that she changed from the person who wanted us
Speaker 15: all to stay close. We both started to argue because
Speaker 15: I told her that it was not her house and
Speaker 15: that it belonged to Dad, Crystal, Lauren, and me as well.
Speaker 15: I also told her that it belonged to us, more
Speaker 15: so because she was the one that chose to leave.
Speaker 15: It developed into a very heated argument and we were
Speaker 15: yelling at each other, and she hung up on me.
Speaker 1: Jody told her father about her difficult Friday, May fourteen
Speaker 1: conversation with Bromwan. Jody had tried to talk to Bromin
Speaker 1: again on the Saturday morning, but she couldn't reach her stepmother.
Speaker 1: Jody spoke instead to ten year old Crystal, and from
Speaker 1: whatever the child said, Jody concluded that Bromwin was leaving
Speaker 1: the two girls on their own in the house. This
Speaker 1: is how Jody described it in her nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: police statement.
Speaker 15: When I terminated the phone call and told Dad, he
Speaker 15: appeared to be very stressed out about it because they
Speaker 15: had never been left alone before and he was so
Speaker 15: far away. I started ringing at four pm, and from memory,
Speaker 15: I think she answered and hung up when she heard
Speaker 15: my voice because she knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 15: I tried bringing her straight after, but she must have
Speaker 15: left the phone off the hook again. It was off
Speaker 15: the hook all night. I told Dad and he made
Speaker 15: arrangements to fly to Baliner the following day. I felt
Speaker 15: that I was out of the situation then when Dad
Speaker 15: was going back home to sort it out, so I
Speaker 15: left it to him.
Speaker 1: And soon after, a man obsessive about the home he
Speaker 1: had built with his bare hands, who carefully watched every dollar,
Speaker 1: suddenly packed up his things in Sydney, stopped work on
Speaker 1: the building job he was doing in the Shire, and
Speaker 1: spent money he would have preferred to keep in his
Speaker 1: bank account on a costly fair to fly north to Ballina.
Speaker 1: But according to his interview with Detective Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what we talked about at the moment.
Speaker 2: We may not even have had too much discussion.
Speaker 1: Now, while Jodie's voice is fresh in your mind, let's
Speaker 1: hear what she said in her police statement in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight about a phone call from Sandstone Crescent on Sunday,
Speaker 1: May sixteenth. This is that six point fifty three pm
Speaker 1: call which John told the detectives that he had made
Speaker 1: to his daughter. It's the call which we believe John
Speaker 1: could not have made because the flight timetables suggests he
Speaker 1: was still in the air on an Anset jet to bowner.
Speaker 1: Jodi referred to the call in the last paragraph of
Speaker 1: her twenty one paragraph statement, which was dated August twelve,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight. That's a week after John was interviewed
Speaker 1: by the detectives.
Speaker 15: Today, Detective Tenby showed me an STD telephone record. I
Speaker 15: can recall that my father rang me at that time
Speaker 15: from the home at Lenox Head to tell me that
Speaker 15: he'd arrived there safely. I don't recall much of the conversation,
Speaker 15: but I believe that Bromwin must have been in the
Speaker 15: house at the time. I did not speak to Bronwin,
Speaker 15: and as I said before, the phone call was very short.
Speaker 15: My father told me that he would ring me later,
Speaker 15: and that was about it.
Speaker 1: Jody confirmed in her statement that the telephone number which
Speaker 1: made the call was known to her as having come
Speaker 1: from the home phone at Sandstone Crescent, and Jody confirmed
Speaker 1: that the number it called was Jody's number at the
Speaker 1: time in her flat in Sydney. John's brother Peter Winfield,
Speaker 1: in his statement to police in mid August nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: was also shown the telephone bill and the reference to
Speaker 1: the telephone call being made to Louise and Peter Winfield's
Speaker 1: home at seven oh six pm on sixteen May nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. Peter Winfield told the detective Glen Taylor that
Speaker 1: it would have been the call that John made to
Speaker 1: Peter from Lennox Head. He said he didn't remember much
Speaker 1: about that phone call and that John made it in
Speaker 1: the evening. The next thing he says he recalled was
Speaker 1: John and the children arriving in Sydney. Peter said that
Speaker 1: he had tried to remember, but he couldn't recall what
Speaker 1: John said about coming to Sydney with the children. In
Speaker 1: episode five, you heard what John had told police five
Speaker 1: years earlier in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 16: He stated that his wife met him at the door
Speaker 16: and they sat and talked for some time in the
Speaker 16: dining room. The children were then put to bed and
Speaker 16: both he and his wife had an evening meal.
Speaker 1: In this version, the one weeks after Bronwin's disappearance John
Speaker 1: and Bronwin had quite a bit to talk about. After
Speaker 1: the children went to bed, they had an evening meal
Speaker 1: together they talked for some time. Five years later, Crystal
Speaker 1: described it this way in the statement that she made
Speaker 1: two Detective Sergeant Taylor at Ballina Police Station.
Speaker 17: I remember being at home in the early evening when
Speaker 17: I received a telephone call, and from my recollection, it
Speaker 17: was from my father. I don't remember what it was
Speaker 17: that I spoke about, but it was not long after
Speaker 17: this that my father arrived at the house.
Speaker 8: I remember my.
Speaker 17: Mother saying something like, what are you doing here? My
Speaker 17: father says something about having caught a plane back to Bleana.
Speaker 17: I remember Dad coming into the kitchen and I was
Speaker 17: sitting watching television. My Dad and Mom started talking, but
Speaker 17: I don't know what was being said. The next thing
Speaker 17: that I remember was Mum telling myself and my sister
Speaker 17: Lauren to clean our teeth and go to bed. After
Speaker 17: I went to bed, I heard Mom and Dad arguing
Speaker 17: in the kitchen. I could hear Mom crying at the
Speaker 17: same time. I don't recall what was being said between
Speaker 17: Mom and Dad, but I could tell that they were arguing.
Speaker 17: I could hear them arguing until I must have fell asleep.
Speaker 17: My next recollection that night was being woken by my father.
Speaker 17: Dad told me that he was taking Lauren a iight
Speaker 17: to Sydney.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the nineteen ninety eight interview. Did
Speaker 1: you communicate to her that you were going to leave
Speaker 1: that same night to go back to Sydney?
Speaker 2: No, no, no way, no.
Speaker 1: How did that all come about?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't say, but like it, I mean, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden after the phone calls that she apparently made,
Speaker 2: you know, I heard a car pull up. I was
Speaker 2: sitting there at the dining room table, and she was
Speaker 2: in the bedroom and a car pulled up, and I
Speaker 2: mean she opened the front door and she was off.
Speaker 2: That was it. What time was that PNA About quarters
Speaker 2: to midnight? I think eleven o'clock. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: it's probably down there somewhere. This is a mistake by
Speaker 2: John in terms of the timing. He had previously said
Speaker 2: that Boman left about nine thirty pm. What were you
Speaker 2: doing at that point? I was still sitting at the table.
Speaker 2: I was still sitting at the table, and I stayed
Speaker 2: at the table.
Speaker 1: What time did the kids go to bed?
Speaker 2: I think the kids were in bed by that time.
Speaker 2: I'm quite sure they were. I you know, I they
Speaker 2: would have been in bed by that time, would have
Speaker 2: been in bed by that time.
Speaker 3: Well up until that point, hag, you communicated to Braunway
Speaker 3: what you intended to do, whether you stay in the
Speaker 3: family home or no.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I just maybe there was, oh, I can't remember. Maybe
Speaker 2: there was a discussion about sleeping arrangements. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I might have said I'll sleep on the lounge. I
Speaker 2: don't know what I said. I really can't remember, but
Speaker 2: that was it. You know, I had a couple of
Speaker 2: cups of tea. I wasn't really sort of tired. I
Speaker 2: wasn't in a sleeping sort of mood. And then like
Speaker 2: we heard a carpool up and she opened the front door,
Speaker 2: and she was off and she left. The front door
Speaker 2: were open, and I heard the car go off up
Speaker 2: the hill.
Speaker 1: Glenn Taylor might have been holding or looking at some
Speaker 1: of the running sheets and other documents from Graham Diskin's
Speaker 1: investigation five years earlier. Referring to that time, Glenn said
Speaker 1: to John, you mention that you stayed at the dining
Speaker 1: room table for some time with Bromlin discussing family matters.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, probably, I don't know. I can't remember, I mean,
Speaker 2: five years ago. I can't remember where we sat. You know,
Speaker 2: I know I was sitting at the table because I
Speaker 2: always have this one seat I always sit in, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just sort of where I used to always sit,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Here, Glenn Taylor has highlighted John's nineteen ninety three claims
Speaker 1: about having talked about family matters with Bromwin for some
Speaker 1: time that night. Perhaps four tactical reasons, the detective has
Speaker 1: not challenged John about why he claimed they didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about anything. But it begs the question, what is
Speaker 1: the correct answer? John? Both answers can't be right.
Speaker 3: You mentioned this too, that there was some discussion between
Speaker 3: you and your wipe about her having a break from
Speaker 3: the children.
Speaker 2: Well, see she left a letter in the car too,
Speaker 2: I mean I go to pick her up. She left
Speaker 2: a letter in the back of the car, and in
Speaker 2: that letter she said that she needed a break.
Speaker 1: And notice that John actually avoided answering the question here
Speaker 1: by raising the existence of a letter written by Bromwin.
Speaker 1: John doesn't deal with whatever he claims Bromman had told
Speaker 1: him that night about wanting to have a bit of
Speaker 1: a break. It's a deflection, and perhaps it was just
Speaker 1: an accident. Part of the response from John, though, is baffling.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know what he was talking about when
Speaker 1: he said, I go to pick her up. She left
Speaker 1: a letter in the back of the car. The known
Speaker 1: timeline has John having no physical contact with Bromwan for
Speaker 1: weeks until his return to the house in Lennox Head.
Speaker 1: He hadn't picked her up, as in driven somewhere to
Speaker 1: get her. Broman was in the house with the children
Speaker 1: when he turned up there on the Sunday night, and
Speaker 1: she left, according to him, in a mystery car driven
Speaker 1: by an unknown individual, before John left with the children
Speaker 1: to drive to Sydney overnight. We know about the letter
Speaker 1: you heard excerpts from Broman's writing in earlier episodes.
Speaker 18: When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
Speaker 18: The house that was Bill became John's castle and my prison.
Speaker 18: Eventually I switched off and became cold inside. He had
Speaker 18: a heart of ice and always criticized me no matter
Speaker 18: what I did. The man was cold and heartless and
Speaker 18: gave nothing but expected everything. That'll be fine now, A
Speaker 18: little break for a few weeks and everyone will see
Speaker 18: the old me look out.
Speaker 1: John was vague about the contents of the letter when
Speaker 1: Glenn Taylor raised it.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what was in the letter. It was
Speaker 2: a long letter. I mean, I know I gave it
Speaker 2: to Graham anyway. You know, I'd be lying if I
Speaker 2: told you I can remember what was said, because I
Speaker 2: can't remember what I said, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: that long ago and I've put it out of my mind,
Speaker 2: I really have.
Speaker 3: You know, was it anything that you can retral about
Speaker 3: whether you and her to say that you were going
Speaker 3: to take the children down to Sydney?
Speaker 2: No, no, never, never. It's just that when she bolted
Speaker 2: out that door and drove up the street, you know,
Speaker 2: and left the car, well, you know, I thought, oh well,
Speaker 2: I'll just take the kids to city with me. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's just a spontaneous thing. But I
Speaker 2: just did it, you know, So I did it.
Speaker 3: Were you not concerned that she go to the police
Speaker 3: and say that you've taken the kids?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But see, in the eyes of the family court, everyone's
Speaker 2: got a right to access until the court determines, you know. So,
Speaker 2: I mean I hadn't seen the kids for weeks, so
Speaker 2: I sort of decided to take them. I may have
Speaker 2: discussed it with her. I can't honestly remember, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you the truth. I can't remember whether I said, listen,
Speaker 2: how about leaving the kids with me, because like it's
Speaker 2: five years I really don't think about it that much.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't school holidays at that time, was it?
Speaker 2: You can check that. I can't remember, but it may have.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was in May, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was not school holidays at the time.
Speaker 1: Children were meant to be at school on Monday, May seventeenth.
Speaker 1: It's still a mystery why John took off so suddenly,
Speaker 1: particularly as he said that he had brought his surfboard
Speaker 1: and his gear back to Banana on the aircraft, and
Speaker 1: his story was that Bromin had announced to him that
Speaker 1: night that she was going away for a few days.
Speaker 1: On his version, he would have had the house and
Speaker 1: the children to himself. He didn't need to drive anywhere.
Speaker 1: This car that you heard pull up, it just pulled
Speaker 1: up out the street, out the front.
Speaker 2: Did you say, yeah, I was thinking about the school holidays.
Speaker 2: It could have been school holidays. I don't know.
Speaker 1: What did it sound like? Did it sound just a car?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, if you're trying, was it a
Speaker 2: four cylinder or a V eight? I don't know, see
Speaker 2: what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, you're not sure?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, how do you know that it stopped at the
Speaker 3: front of your place because I heard it? You know
Speaker 3: what the engine I was stopped there with the engine ray.
Speaker 2: The engine running. Yeah, and you didn't go to investigate. No, No,
Speaker 2: at next stage you thought, I mean, once she'd gone
Speaker 2: and the car gone up the hill, I walked up
Speaker 2: and she was gone. The car was gone. So I
Speaker 2: just shut the front door and the front door was
Speaker 2: still open. The front door was still open. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you go and check whether she'd taken anything close
Speaker 1: or I didn't?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think I did. I mean I think
Speaker 2: I noticed her handbag was gone or something like that.
Speaker 1: So there was no communication with to her that she
Speaker 1: was even leaving in the house.
Speaker 2: No. No, she didn't say I'm going or anything like that.
Speaker 1: No, So these phone calls happened. I'm not long after
Speaker 1: the phone call was car pulls up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I said to Graham at the time, well,
Speaker 2: maybe one of these phone calls that she made might
Speaker 2: have been to a bloke to come and pick her up,
Speaker 2: you know, or a friend. So like Graham has suggested
Speaker 2: to me, maybe that was her boyfriend, just come round
Speaker 2: a pay or a visit. I don't know that was
Speaker 2: his suggestion, you know.
Speaker 1: Bronwin 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 bronwynpodcast
Speaker 1: 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 Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
Speaker 1: Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio
Speaker 1: production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and
Speaker 1: original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been assisted
Speaker 1: by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can
Speaker 1: only do this kind of journalism with the support of
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