Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mother Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was
Speaker 1: recorded on It's Sunday, the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three in Lennox Head in New South Wales, a laid
Speaker 1: back coastal town full of families and people in search
Speaker 1: of the quiet life away from the hustle and bustle.
Speaker 1: Ron Win Winfield is getting her daughter's ten year old
Speaker 1: Crystal and five year old Lauren ready for bed. It's
Speaker 1: been a big weekend. Her Rex's husband has been in
Speaker 1: Sydney on a construction job, so she has moved her
Speaker 1: girls back into the family home. They've been staying in
Speaker 1: a townhouse on the road out of town for seven
Speaker 1: weeks since she filed for divorce, but as winter approaches,
Speaker 1: it's been getting cold within their new walls. So here
Speaker 1: she is taking a stand and reclaiming the Sandstone Crescent
Speaker 1: property she once shared with John while he's away on business. Tonight,
Speaker 1: John is on his way back to Lennox. His flight
Speaker 1: touches down at six thirty pm. Bronwin has his belongings packed.
Speaker 1: She has every intention of staying in their marital home
Speaker 1: of fighting for the home she's raised her girls in.
Speaker 1: But after John returns home, it's Bronwyn who leaves alone.
Speaker 1: According to him, she needed a break and left into
Speaker 1: an unknown person's car that very same night. That Sunday
Speaker 1: is the last time the thirty one year old mother
Speaker 1: of two is ever seen again. I'm Jemma Bath and
Speaker 1: this is True Crime Conversations a Mama mea podcast exploring
Speaker 1: the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people
Speaker 1: who know the most about them. The disappearance of Bronwyn
Speaker 1: Winfield was barely covered by the media in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: It took eleven days for John to actually report her
Speaker 1: as missing after that Sunday night. Very little was done
Speaker 1: in the way of a police investigation in those early days.
Speaker 1: In fact, it would be years until her case was
Speaker 1: actually taken seriously. A coronial inquest nearly a decade later
Speaker 1: determined that Bronwin had likely been murdered. It went as
Speaker 1: far as recommending John be prosecuted, but that never happened.
Speaker 1: Bronwin's case is the focus of Headley Thomas's new podcast investigation.
Speaker 1: You'll remember him from The Teacher's Pet. The investigation into
Speaker 1: missing mother of two Lynette Simms, formerly known as Lynett
Speaker 1: Dawson in Sydney. She vanished from her Bayview home in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and her former husband, Chris Dawson, was
Speaker 1: convicted of murder in twenty twenty two after Headley went
Speaker 1: digging and brought the case back into the light. Now
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, he's hopeful of getting some answers
Speaker 1: for Bromwin's family. He's speaking to her friend, her family,
Speaker 1: the police, and the last people who saw Bromwin before
Speaker 1: she disappeared. He's currently in the midst of his investigation,
Speaker 1: but Hedley joins us now to tell us about what
Speaker 1: he's uncovered so far. So, you've spoken to lots of
Speaker 1: people who know Bronwin Winfield by now, how would you
Speaker 1: describe her? Who was she?
Speaker 2: Bromwin was a young woman who was seeking from a
Speaker 2: very early age the stability of family. She had grown
Speaker 2: up in a family that became very dislocated. Her own
Speaker 2: mother had serious mental health challenges when Bromwin was very
Speaker 2: very young. She had postatal depression and she also had
Speaker 2: what was described at the time as a schizo effective disorder.
Speaker 2: It wasn't well understood in the nineteen sixties, and Barbara,
Speaker 2: who is Bromlin's mum, ended up really just trying to
Speaker 2: find her own way, no longer being the mother of
Speaker 2: Bromwin and Andrew, so she went overseas and stayed overseas
Speaker 2: with her own mother for some years while Bromlin was
Speaker 2: being raised with her brother by their father and their
Speaker 2: father's second wife, Jennifer. As a result, when Barbara came
Speaker 2: back into their lives, Bromin was already about eleven years old,
Speaker 2: Andy Andrew was nine, and Andy didn't know that he
Speaker 2: had a biological mother who had been away all those years.
Speaker 2: It's unclear whether Bromwin knew, but the recollection of other
Speaker 2: people is that Bromwin did know in any event, when
Speaker 2: Barbara returned from overseas and really wanted to play a
Speaker 2: significant and important role in the lives of her children,
Speaker 2: you know, she had been replaced by another woman who
Speaker 2: had effectively been their mother, and we must have been
Speaker 2: incredibly destabilizing for both children, and on the one hand,
Speaker 2: natural surprise at realizing that they had not known of
Speaker 2: their own mother for so long and then wanting to
Speaker 2: understand how that happens, and their natural mother becoming part
Speaker 2: of their lives, and their stepmother, who they had called mother,
Speaker 2: perhaps feeling herself somewhat replaced. So I think these must
Speaker 2: have contributed to Bromin's desires when she reached adulthood to
Speaker 2: forego career, to forego travel, to really just focus on
Speaker 2: trying to have the perfect family. She just wanted the
Speaker 2: white picket fence, the perfect little home, happy marriage, and
Speaker 2: healthy children. And she loved children. She adored kids. She
Speaker 2: was by all accounts, a wonderful young mum and certainly
Speaker 2: showed no evidence of having any mental health challenges, apart
Speaker 2: from it has to be said she did have some
Speaker 2: depression postnatal depression after the birth of her own first child.
Speaker 1: That really sets the scene of her being a real
Speaker 1: family woman mother. And she did have a bit of
Speaker 1: an unusual setup there because she had two children. But
Speaker 1: then she also brought in John, her husband's third daughter.
Speaker 1: Didn't she can you help us understand the family unit?
Speaker 2: In the nineties, so Bromwin had her first child, Crystal,
Speaker 2: with her long term boyfriend, guy called Mark, and she
Speaker 2: didn't marry Mark. She married a guy called Gary Bear
Speaker 2: and that marriage was short lived. Then when she met John.
Speaker 2: She had a child with John, Lauren, who was Bromin's
Speaker 2: second child, but John also had a child from his
Speaker 2: first marriage. John had been married twice before he met Bromin,
Speaker 2: and he had Jody from his first wife, and John
Speaker 2: and John's parents had been looking after Jody. Jody didn't
Speaker 2: grow up with her own natural mother, and that was
Speaker 2: a source of great regret for that woman, and we
Speaker 2: will deal with that in the podcast. But Bromlin was
Speaker 2: of the view when she and John got together that
Speaker 2: Jody should become part of their family unit, that she
Speaker 2: should no longer be living with her grandparents and being
Speaker 2: raised with them. So she brought Jody into the family
Speaker 2: home that she and John were trying to create in
Speaker 2: the Shire in south of Sydney.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the first time you heard about Bromwyn
Speaker 1: and her story.
Speaker 2: I was sitting in the living room of a former
Speaker 2: deputy state corner called Karl Milavanovitch, and Karl was someone
Speaker 2: I was meeting for the first time a week before
Speaker 2: Christmas twenty seventeen, and I had just been doing some
Speaker 2: really exhausting, emotionally but also very affecting interviews with people
Speaker 2: who knew Lynn. Lynn Dawson, who we now refer to
Speaker 2: as LYNL. Sims. And we were rushing around because I
Speaker 2: was doing these interviews for The Teacher's Pet in December
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. We were still six months out from releasing
Speaker 2: the first episode of that series, but I was trying
Speaker 2: to do as many interviews as possible in a shorter
Speaker 2: time as possible, And so we drove out there and
Speaker 2: Carl welcomed us very warmly, and he was happy to
Speaker 2: talk to us about the that he had run back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three into Lynette's presumed death, and
Speaker 2: as a result of that inquest, Carl recommended that Chris
Speaker 2: Awso be prosecuted for murder. He also made a ruling
Speaker 2: that Lynnette was dead and had been dead since nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, when she supposedly, according to Chris, went off
Speaker 2: to start a new life or do whatever Chris said
Speaker 2: it she was doing. He was peddling all sorts of
Speaker 2: lies at that time. And Carl, in the course of
Speaker 2: talking about Lynnette, he talked to me about his concerns
Speaker 2: about a number of other missing women cases. And this
Speaker 2: was in the context of Carl explaining that the police
Speaker 2: investigation in Lynn's case was so poor. She was treated
Speaker 2: just quite appallingly as a mother who didn't care about
Speaker 2: her children, who didn't care about her home, her friend, family,
Speaker 2: a job, and just took off run away mum. And
Speaker 2: it was stupid. It was a reckless response by police,
Speaker 2: possibly even corrupt at that time. But Karl made the
Speaker 2: point that it wasn't that case alone that concerned him.
Speaker 2: He had dealt with other missing mother, missing women cases
Speaker 2: where the police response had been very, very shabby. And
Speaker 2: he mentioned this case that he had done in lenox Head,
Speaker 2: his mother from Sandstone Crescent, lenox Head, and he said
Speaker 2: her name bronwin Winfield. He gave me a little summary
Speaker 2: of it, and you know, I just made a mental
Speaker 2: note then, and I think I googled it soon afterwards
Speaker 2: and realized it was very little on the public record
Speaker 2: about her. I was intrigued. I opened a folder on
Speaker 2: my laptop wanting to revisit this case because I had
Speaker 2: so much respect for Carl and his judgment. I thought
Speaker 2: there must be so much much more to this. And
Speaker 2: I couldn't do much at that time because I was
Speaker 2: so busy trying to do more interviews and investigate leads
Speaker 2: and so on for the Teacher's Pet. But as the
Speaker 2: episodes from the Teacher's Pet began coming out, people who
Speaker 2: were following Lynn's story and all the evidence of Crisp
Speaker 2: having groom schoolgirls and having then murdered his wife in
Speaker 2: cold blood. A number of people who knew Bronwin contacted
Speaker 2: me out of the blue, just emailing me and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, this is one that you may have time
Speaker 2: to investigate one day as well. This story was very concerning.
Speaker 2: This case was very concerning, and one of those people
Speaker 2: was Matt Fordham, who was the senior police officer with
Speaker 2: the legal degree who handled the inquest when Karl ran
Speaker 2: the inquest in two thousand and two. So you know
Speaker 2: that's the history of this. A year before Karl had
Speaker 2: run Lin's in quest, had done Bromlin's and it was
Speaker 2: one of a number of cases that concerned him because
Speaker 2: there was no rational explanation for the disappearance of both
Speaker 2: these women, these dedicated mothers.
Speaker 1: All these years later, you've been able to actually dedicate
Speaker 1: time to this case, to Bronwin's story. I think, knowing
Speaker 1: so much about Linn's story and the Teacher's Pet, it
Speaker 1: is very eerie how similar these cases are. Have you
Speaker 1: found that while investigating them?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I really have, And it's almost like parts of
Speaker 2: them are a mirror image. One key difference is that
Speaker 2: Bromlin had separated from her husband John. She wanted to
Speaker 2: go her own way. She could no longer tolerate aspects
Speaker 2: of his behavior. She felt like she was living almost
Speaker 2: in a prison. The things that she would describe, which
Speaker 2: we now know as very extreme coercive control, are set
Speaker 2: out in her own writings. She was in longhand penning
Speaker 2: so many points and recollections and aspects of her relationship,
Speaker 2: a failing relationship with her husband that when we go
Speaker 2: back now and read those and think about those, you
Speaker 2: know it is a very powerful demonstration of a marriage
Speaker 2: that is doomed because of the possessiveness and control of
Speaker 2: one partner. That's how it's represented. Of course, there's always
Speaker 2: two sides of the story, but we've not heard John's.
Speaker 2: He's preferred to keep that to himself. But the similarities
Speaker 2: in other ways are very clear. Let's think about the
Speaker 2: fundamental similarities. The most obvious ones a young mother with
Speaker 2: no addictions, with no other potential catastrophe in her life,
Speaker 2: The sorts of things that could cause a young mother
Speaker 2: to just lose her bearings suddenly disappears on the eve
Speaker 2: of her going to see her lawyer about property settlement
Speaker 2: matters relating to the fact that she separated from her
Speaker 2: husband and she wants to get a divorce as soon
Speaker 2: as lawfully possible, so she's got an appointment on a
Speaker 2: Monday morning to see her lawyer. She's already had several
Speaker 2: appointments with lawyers about the marriage that she wants to end,
Speaker 2: and on a Sunday evening, the night before she sees
Speaker 2: her husband for the first time in several weeks, he
Speaker 2: comes up to the family home from Sydney, where he's
Speaker 2: been working building a house. He goes to the house
Speaker 2: that Bromwin has been living in with her children, the
Speaker 2: house that John himself literally built with his bare hands,
Speaker 2: and he agrees that they have an altercation that evening,
Speaker 2: and he's the last person to ever see her, and
Speaker 2: she doesn't touch her bank account. Ever, she doesn't have
Speaker 2: any further contact with anybody. She certainly doesn't catch up
Speaker 2: with any of the milestones or significant events in her
Speaker 2: children's lives, their age ten and five at that time.
Speaker 2: She doesn't turn up for work, doesn't reach out to
Speaker 2: her mother, her brother, her other loved ones, and she's
Speaker 2: just again written off as the mum who decided to
Speaker 2: take off, leaving behind her children, not to mention leaving
Speaker 2: behind the means by which she could support herself equity
Speaker 2: in a house that was going to be sold, she
Speaker 2: would have been entitled to perhaps half, maybe even more
Speaker 2: because of her care for the children of this house.
Speaker 2: It was worth a quarter of a million dollars in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. And I think that such a proposition
Speaker 2: that a woman would just up and leave all of
Speaker 2: that without warning, without anyone knowing of any such plan
Speaker 2: to do so, is just so ridiculous. Anyone who thinks
Speaker 2: that it should be taken seriously deserves to be checked
Speaker 2: into an embarrassment clinic. I mean, it's just so stupid.
Speaker 2: And yet that was the theory that the police adopted,
Speaker 2: and they made some absolutely appalling errors early on when
Speaker 2: they were being asked to investigatein as a missing person,
Speaker 2: some errors that you could not fathom would be capable
Speaker 2: of detectives with some seniority, And yet they did, and
Speaker 2: they persuaded themselves that she'd just gone off.
Speaker 1: Let's delve into some of those details. I want to
Speaker 1: start with the marriage because Lennox is a small coastal town.
Speaker 1: People talk, and by all accounts, it seems that Bronwin
Speaker 1: was quite open with a lot of people about her
Speaker 1: unhappiness in her marriage and what was going on and
Speaker 1: sharing details. You mentioned a bit of coercive control, but
Speaker 1: what else was happening in that marriage.
Speaker 2: People who visited Bromwin at the house in Sandstone Crescent
Speaker 2: were aware that she walked around as if on eggshells
Speaker 2: while they were there, and that was because, in their opinion,
Speaker 2: John didn't really want visitors at the house. Ever, He
Speaker 2: didn't like seeing other people in his house, and he
Speaker 2: was incredibly particular about any mess, so literally crumbs that
Speaker 2: were spilled on the floor would have the potential of
Speaker 2: setting him off. According to some of these people, Bromwin
Speaker 2: used to cover the taps at the sink with a
Speaker 2: tee tar when she was peeling potatoes so that the
Speaker 2: starch and water and so on from the peeled potatoes
Speaker 2: wouldn't actually jump onto the taps and potentially show up
Speaker 2: as a little blemish. Now, that sounds like a personality
Speaker 2: tray or disorder that you know lots of people have.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make you a violent person. It doesn't make
Speaker 2: you some unlikely or possibly capable of murdering your wife
Speaker 2: and concealing for body for thirty one years. However, it
Speaker 2: did produce a huge amount of tension in the relationship.
Speaker 2: It meant that Bromwin couldn't actually have people over without
Speaker 2: being very stressed. Her friend Deb Hall, who lived next door,
Speaker 2: said that Bromwin would have friends who she would ask
Speaker 2: Deb to host at her house. Dev didn't actually have
Speaker 2: the same bonds with these people, and Deb was only
Speaker 2: too happy to help, but Bromwin was terrified that she'd
Speaker 2: upset John that could trigger him if he saw these friends.
Speaker 2: Another good friend of Bromwin's was a woman called Bridgeta
Speaker 2: in the Shire, and she described Vibed in the early
Speaker 2: years of the relationship. When Bromin first started seeing John.
Speaker 2: She described the sort of the light and the happiness
Speaker 2: that she used to see in Bromen just diminishing and
Speaker 2: being replaced by a sense of unease in Bromman and
Speaker 2: Bromwin once told Brigida that she was reluctant to go
Speaker 2: out driving and visiting Bridgeta, even though they had been
Speaker 2: friends for so many years since high school, because John
Speaker 2: would check how much fuel she'd used and try to
Speaker 2: work out where she had gone. John's second wife, who
Speaker 2: we referred to as d in the podcast, She told
Speaker 2: me that John was not violent towards her, but their
Speaker 2: marriage lasted just eighteen months, and she told me that
Speaker 2: was because he was just extraordinarily possessive. They'd be walking
Speaker 2: down the street together and she would be feeling the
Speaker 2: same unshine and thinking how nice is this. They're probably
Speaker 2: walking hand in hand, and she said that he would
Speaker 2: then ask her why she was looking at a guy
Speaker 2: a certain way, Why are you looking him? Why are
Speaker 2: you staring at him? Do you like him? This kind
Speaker 2: of obviously very jealous insecurity that would lead to disagreements
Speaker 2: because she wasn't looking at anybody.
Speaker 1: The early nineties was a very different time in terms
Speaker 1: of what we thought domestic violence. Look like, we've come
Speaker 1: a long way in the last twenty thirty years in
Speaker 1: terms of knowing that it's not just physical, it's emotional,
Speaker 1: it's financial, it's coercive, it's isolation. Do you think that
Speaker 1: that contributed to everything going on that perhaps Bronwin and
Speaker 1: her community didn't have a word for it. They didn't
Speaker 1: understand what was going on or think it was as
Speaker 1: bad as it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really interesting question because it's very hard
Speaker 2: to put yourself in that place at that time. You know,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the early nineteen nineties, and I think
Speaker 2: we did have a lot of awareness about domestic violence. Certainly,
Speaker 2: things like apprehended violence orders were part of the legal
Speaker 2: system's response to concerns of women. So we should have
Speaker 2: been becoming much better educated about these things. You know,
Speaker 2: John emphatically denies wrongdoing, and no doubt he denies that
Speaker 2: he ever lifted a finger against Bromlin, but she also
Speaker 2: did confide to friends like Denise Barnard that he really
Speaker 2: scared her. Bromman told Denise, and Denise told police, and
Speaker 2: has told me that Bromwin said one day he had
Speaker 2: put his hands around her throat and was acting in
Speaker 2: a really threatening way. She was worried about choking, and
Speaker 2: I think we know from the literature that this is
Speaker 2: a very serious precursor to much worse events.
Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime conversations with me, Jemma Bath.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with Hedley Thomas about the disappearance of Bronwyn Winfield.
Speaker 1: Up next, we find out why the DPP declined a
Speaker 1: recommendation to charge the missing mother's ex husband with murder.
Speaker 1: When Bronwyn decided to divorce John, she was starting to
Speaker 1: try and create a new life for herself, wasn't she.
Speaker 2: Yeah, In late March, Bromwin wanted to make that break
Speaker 2: and she had very little in the way of money,
Speaker 2: so it was always going to be difficult for her
Speaker 2: to do this. She didn't have much in the way
Speaker 2: of her own savings. She has told friends and she
Speaker 2: has written down that she never believed that John would
Speaker 2: allow her to take this house. I know from other
Speaker 2: people who spoke to John at the time of the
Speaker 2: separation between John and Broman that John told these people,
Speaker 2: including a guy called Ian Lewis or Scruffy the concrete
Speaker 2: He worked with johnn He employed John on a number
Speaker 2: of jobs, and he told me that John had said
Speaker 2: to Scruffy, I'm not going to lose another house. Scruffy.
Speaker 2: I've had two previous marriages and I've lost out both times,
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to lose this house. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to lose this one. He loved Lennox Head. He
Speaker 2: was a very committed surfer. Bromwin was prepared to make
Speaker 2: the break, and she understood her rights, particularly after she'd
Speaker 2: been to Sea lawyers in Ballina and in nearby Lisbon.
Speaker 2: She knew that as the care for their children, and
Speaker 2: Crystal was calling John dad, even though he was at
Speaker 2: legally her stepfather, but John had wanted to have a
Speaker 2: relationship with Crystal whereby she called him dad. Broman understood
Speaker 2: that when the property settlement occurred, she would have certain
Speaker 2: rights to the assets of the marriage, as she should,
Speaker 2: remembering that Broman had Crystal before she met John, then
Speaker 2: she had Lauren with John, and of course she effectively
Speaker 2: moved Jody into the family home. So Bromin had been
Speaker 2: a carer for those three girls. So she moved into
Speaker 2: a rented flat in Lennox Head. It was not far
Speaker 2: away from the family home, and you have to wonder
Speaker 2: why did she have to move out? Usually in situations
Speaker 2: where you know there's a family home and a marriage
Speaker 2: breakdown and the mother is clearly going to be looking
Speaker 2: after the children. Bearing in mind, Jody had moved to
Speaker 2: Sydney and was working in a hair salon. By then
Speaker 2: she was eighteen years old. The mother would usually stay
Speaker 2: in the family home as the primary carer. It's almost
Speaker 2: always the case that the father who unless he is
Speaker 2: going to be the care of the children, would move about.
Speaker 2: That didn't happen in this case, and it's unclear to
Speaker 2: me why. Andy, who is Broman's brother, is adamant that
Speaker 2: Bromlin was effectively forced out when she said she wanted
Speaker 2: to separate. His view is that she was effectively kicked out,
Speaker 2: and certainly the locks were changed soon afterwards by John.
Speaker 2: So while Bromin was living in rented accommodation, no doubt
Speaker 2: she was getting good legal advice weighing her options. She
Speaker 2: was working part time in a little takeaway place down
Speaker 2: near the beach front, trying to stay out of John's way.
Speaker 2: He had moved to Sydney after some weeks and was
Speaker 2: working on the house building it in the Shire, and
Speaker 2: that's when Bromin decided that rather than paying all this
Speaker 2: money in rent, she should move back into the family
Speaker 2: home because it was vacant and.
Speaker 1: It's hers as well.
Speaker 2: And it's hers yeah, so nobody was living in it.
Speaker 2: She had been paying rent downtown. She could not afford
Speaker 2: to pay that rent, so we'll save that money and
Speaker 2: move back in, and her brother was urging her to
Speaker 2: do that. She got legal advice from her solicitor who
Speaker 2: said that would be fine. You're entitled to it, and
Speaker 2: so she did. On a Friday evening, a trailer came
Speaker 2: up and she brought many of her belongings from the
Speaker 2: townhouse back to her own house. She hadn't finished the
Speaker 2: move and I think that's really interesting too. She had
Speaker 2: a plan, a plan to empty the townhouse, to give
Speaker 2: it back to little land Lady Shirley Taylor, and have
Speaker 2: all of her things back in the family house, settle
Speaker 2: her children and get them off to school on the Monday.
Speaker 2: When she disappeared, the townhouse still had many boxes of
Speaker 2: her contents, of her belongings, her personal goods. They were
Speaker 2: just left there. She didn't go back for those after
Speaker 2: she disappeared. She didn't ever go back to her own house.
Speaker 2: It's just another, I think, powerful indicator that something else
Speaker 2: happened to Bromwain that she didn't, as her husband has said,
Speaker 2: leave of her own volition.
Speaker 1: What does he say happened that evening when he arrived
Speaker 1: back at Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 2: He says that he went from the airport at Ballina
Speaker 2: to the police station, and at the police station on
Speaker 2: the Sunday evening, he wanted to check whether there were
Speaker 2: any orders that would have prevented him from approaching the house.
Speaker 2: And we believe that's because Roman had had a conversation
Speaker 2: with John's daughter Jody a couple of nights earlier, and
Speaker 2: Jody has said in a police statement that Bromin said, look,
Speaker 2: you know, your dad needs to be careful about coming
Speaker 2: near me. I'm getting an order so that he can't
Speaker 2: and they must have been related to John. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm speculating a little bit here and paraphrasing, but that
Speaker 2: gives you the gist of it. So John certainly has
Speaker 2: gone to the police station and they've said no, there's
Speaker 2: no order here, and there was, and we don't know
Speaker 2: whether it was in the process, whether it had been
Speaker 2: held up. We're still trying to work that out. But
Speaker 2: he went then from the police station to the home
Speaker 2: of one of his daughter's friends and picked her up.
Speaker 2: He wanted her to go with him to the house
Speaker 2: when he knocked on the door. He knocked on the
Speaker 2: door and this woman called Becky Maguire, she witnessed that
Speaker 2: and Broman opened the front door and then John went in.
Speaker 2: Broman had his two suitcases at the front door. Becky
Speaker 2: Maguire then was driven home by John, and she says
Speaker 2: that he apologized for disrupting her Sunday evening and then
Speaker 2: he went back to the house. He then says that
Speaker 2: the children were having their dinner and they were put
Speaker 2: to bed. Crystal says that they usually went to bed
Speaker 2: at about eight thirty pm. John says to some people
Speaker 2: that they had a bit of a disagreement, but not
Speaker 2: too heated. To someone else, he described it as an altercation. Crystal,
Speaker 2: in her statement when she was sixteen years old, says
Speaker 2: that she could hear them arguing when she was in bed,
Speaker 2: and that her mother was crying, and that her mother
Speaker 2: said that she would see her girls in the morning,
Speaker 2: and according to John, Bromlin decided that she needed to
Speaker 2: have a bit of a break and that she told
Speaker 2: him she wanted to go away for a few days
Speaker 2: just to have some time because according to John, she'd
Speaker 2: been with the kids all this time and so on.
Speaker 2: So he says that she went into the bedroom and
Speaker 2: she made a phone call or two, and that at
Speaker 2: about nine to thirty pm, a car drew up and
Speaker 2: Bromlin went outside and got into the car, and the
Speaker 2: car drove away, and he didn't see the car, so
Speaker 2: he doesn't know what kind of car it was, and
Speaker 2: he certainly doesn't know who was driving it or who
Speaker 2: she called. And that's the last time John says he
Speaker 2: saw his wife.
Speaker 1: And then later that evening he says he drove the
Speaker 1: girls to Sydney.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he says that he decided that he should
Speaker 2: go to Sydney, but he'd flown from Sydney to Balana,
Speaker 2: so at that time of night there were no flights.
Speaker 2: He packed up the car, but he didn't put much
Speaker 2: in the car because when they got to Sydney, Bromwin's
Speaker 2: brother and sister in law on the Monday afternoon saw John.
Speaker 2: He came to their house and the kid's clothes were
Speaker 2: sort of thrown into pillowcases. But the clothes that were
Speaker 2: packed were not really clothes you would pack for the
Speaker 2: onset of winter burying in mind the kids would you
Speaker 2: to be in school on the Monday, not in Sydney.
Speaker 2: He says that he got fueled at eleven oh six
Speaker 2: pm and he kept the receipt for that fuel for
Speaker 2: years and years in his wallet, and when people would
Speaker 2: ask him about what happened to Bromwin, he would often
Speaker 2: flourish this receipt, as he did when he got to Sydney,
Speaker 2: as he did five years later when he met the
Speaker 2: detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor, who i'd take this case very
Speaker 2: seriously in nineteen ninety eight when he heard about it.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's always been puzzling for people why
Speaker 2: John has been so wedded to this receipt showing his
Speaker 2: purchase of fuel at eleven oh six pm in Ballina
Speaker 2: on the Sunday night. But he says he drove through
Speaker 2: the night and arrived the next morning in Sydney. And
Speaker 2: he was in Sydney for about eleven days until Roman's
Speaker 2: brother very strongly insisted to him that he had to
Speaker 2: go back up to Lennex, put the kids back into
Speaker 2: school and report Bromwn missing. And he was becoming very
Speaker 2: concerned about what had happened to his sister.
Speaker 1: Hearing that story, it sounds very bizarre, But the police
Speaker 1: didn't really question it in nineteen ninety three, did they not.
Speaker 2: In the way that you would have expected, given the
Speaker 2: fact that, as Glenn Taylor said, there were red flags
Speaker 2: flapping everywhere. I mean, broman had even telephone her solicitor
Speaker 2: on a Sunday at home because she was concerned that
Speaker 2: her husband was returning to the family home that day.
Speaker 2: She had told people she was very scared of him.
Speaker 2: One of her friends in lewis the man we referred
Speaker 2: to as Scruffy because everybody else does in Lennox. He
Speaker 2: spoke to Bromlin about Bromin's decision to move back into
Speaker 2: the family home and he said to her, Bromlin, I
Speaker 2: don't think that's such a good idea. John's going to
Speaker 2: lose it. He's not going to like that. They knew
Speaker 2: his temperament. Scruffy describes him in this way. He says,
Speaker 2: still waters run deep. John doesn't show much, but there's
Speaker 2: a lot going on beneath the surface. And Scruffy was
Speaker 2: concerned for Bromin when she told him days before that
Speaker 2: she was going to move back into the family home
Speaker 2: because John was away. So you're right, Why would such
Speaker 2: a case have been treated with such naive disdain as
Speaker 2: a woman just taking off to do her own thing
Speaker 2: for a while, when it was very obvious to police
Speaker 2: over the ensuing weeks that she wasn't touching her bank accounts,
Speaker 2: she hadn't been in contact with anybody, she hadn't been
Speaker 2: back to the house. But then they then misled themselves,
Speaker 2: the police. They determined on the most ridiculous piece of
Speaker 2: evidence imaginable, that she had actually gone back into the
Speaker 2: house after John had left the house with the children.
Speaker 2: And once they'd satisfied themselves of this, notwithstanding that it
Speaker 2: was completely ludicrous, they i think believed that Brombin was
Speaker 2: alive and was just playing cat and mouse.
Speaker 1: So what was that piece of evidence which cemented that
Speaker 1: belief for police?
Speaker 2: The police got the phone bills, the phone account and
Speaker 2: back then it was Telecom and we used to get
Speaker 2: these printed bills and they would print out STD calls
Speaker 2: and it's a weird name, I know, stands for subscriber
Speaker 2: trunk dialing, and that's the long distance telephone call that
Speaker 2: you could make from your landline. Back in the day.
Speaker 2: Most people wouldn't have had mobile phones in ninety three.
Speaker 2: They were probably just darting to come out, but it
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been very widely used. On the phone bill.
Speaker 2: There was also evidence of a number of calls being
Speaker 2: made to a number that started with zero zero five five,
Speaker 2: and back in the day those zero zero five five
Speaker 2: numbers were information related telephone calls. They were services, so
Speaker 2: if you wanted to check football results, for example, you
Speaker 2: could bring that number. People weren't just going to the
Speaker 2: internet just to check stuff out there. The zero zero
Speaker 2: five to five number appeared on the telephone bill as
Speaker 2: having been called at two thirteen pm on Sunday, sixteen January,
Speaker 2: and that makes sense because Bromwin was in the house
Speaker 2: on that day. John was still in Sydney, he would
Speaker 2: soon be boarding a flight to Ballona and the zero
Speaker 2: zero five to five corps, this particular one was checking
Speaker 2: a lot of results. Bromwin didn't have much money, she
Speaker 2: was trying to make ends meet and no doubt had
Speaker 2: taken a lot of ticket and was checking to see
Speaker 2: whether she'd got lucky. However, when the police got that
Speaker 2: bill all the details from it from Telecom now Telstra,
Speaker 2: for some bizarre reason, they mixed up PM and AM
Speaker 2: and determined that Bromwin was checking a lot of results
Speaker 2: at two thirteen am on Monday morning, and the police
Speaker 2: had evidence from John that he was on the road
Speaker 2: to Sydney and had a received for fuel having been
Speaker 2: purchased at eleven oh six pm that night before. So
Speaker 2: the conclusion that the police drew from this, which they
Speaker 2: put in writing in their own internal reports and running
Speaker 2: sheets and so on, was that the MP or missing
Speaker 2: person Bromwin Winfield, had become aware that her husband had
Speaker 2: left the house with the children, and so had returned
Speaker 2: to the house at two thirteen in the morning to
Speaker 2: ring a number to check her a lot of results,
Speaker 2: and then left again.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't laugh, but it just feels a bit ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Like you said earlier, it's preposterous, just unbelievable that you
Speaker 2: could screw up something so fundamental so badly, and that
Speaker 2: leads the police down the wrong path because in their minds,
Speaker 2: Bromwin is returning to her home when her husband's not there,
Speaker 2: so she must be alive.
Speaker 1: I want to skip through a bit of the police
Speaker 1: investigation side of things, because we know the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three investigation didn't really go anywhere, but it was picked
Speaker 1: up again in nineteen ninety eight, and it did go
Speaker 1: somewhere into an inquest in two thousand and two that
Speaker 1: determined that Bronwin died at the time of her disappearance.
Speaker 1: But the DPP never picked that up. They never decided
Speaker 1: to prosecute anyone after hearing those inquest findings. And then
Speaker 1: you pick up the case in twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 1: we still don't have answers. When you did come into
Speaker 1: this story at that point, what did you surmise that
Speaker 1: the case had been forgotten all these years, that it
Speaker 1: was just put into a too hard basket? Why are
Speaker 1: we in this position?
Speaker 2: Well, as a result of me hearing about it from
Speaker 2: Carl in twenty seventeen and then over the last seven
Speaker 2: years making progress getting to know Bronwin's brother and others involved,
Speaker 2: including the detective Glenn Taylor, who was on the case
Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety eight and helped prepare a brief of
Speaker 2: evidence that went to the coroner. I became aware that
Speaker 2: after the appalling nineteen ninety three investigation, a febit of
Speaker 2: work was done and Glenn Taylor ran a comprehensive investigation
Speaker 2: and then detectives from the Unsold Homicide Unit of the
Speaker 2: New South Wales Police had another look in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine twenty ten, they picked it up again and
Speaker 2: they made a further submission to the office of the
Speaker 2: New South Wales DPP seeking to have John Winfield prosecuted
Speaker 2: for murder because there's no point police charging anybody if
Speaker 2: the DPP is not prepared to run a case. So
Speaker 2: you had in two thousand and three, after Karl Milavanovitch's finding,
Speaker 2: the DPP in New South Wales saying no, there's no
Speaker 2: evidence of any crime and we're not going to prosecute.
Speaker 2: And when Roman's brother followed up with the DPP's office,
Speaker 2: he received a less the written by Nicholas Cowdery the DPP,
Speaker 2: and mister Cawtery said that innuendo rumor can't be a
Speaker 2: substitute for hard evidence and he was unable to authorize
Speaker 2: the prosecution of this case because of the lack of evidence.
Speaker 2: So that was the two thousand and three ruling by
Speaker 2: the office of the DPP. We know that the police
Speaker 2: made a further submission as a result of the Unsolved
Speaker 2: Homicide Humans efforts, and that was also declined by the DPP,
Speaker 2: But I don't believe that we should see that as
Speaker 2: the final word. The same office of the DPP, indeed
Speaker 2: the same DPP himself, Nicholas Cowdery, repeatedly refused to prosecute
Speaker 2: wife killer Chris Dawson. Now, the first time that Chris
Speaker 2: Dawson was prosecuted after the podcast and a renewed investigation
Speaker 2: by New South Wales Police, a judge, acting alone said,
Speaker 2: I have no doubt about his guilt. So I think
Speaker 2: there's a lesson here for journalists, for citizens, for society.
Speaker 2: DPPs don't get everything right, and we shouldn't just accept
Speaker 2: the view. Given that the view is reached often in secrecy,
Speaker 2: we don't understand what thought process, what reasoning has gone
Speaker 2: into the consideration of a brief of evidence. We only
Speaker 2: know that we get a very brief explanation, such as
Speaker 2: there was insufficient evidence, there's no body, And I think
Speaker 2: it's incumbent on journalists, particularly in cases that are as
Speaker 2: deeply suspicious as this one, to challenge and see if
Speaker 2: there's more that can be gathered that could lead to
Speaker 2: a sensible review of the evidence.
Speaker 1: Well, that leads us into your investigation, because that's what
Speaker 1: you've been doing, uncovering more evidence. And I guess the
Speaker 1: biggest bombshell in your investigation was dropped only recently. A
Speaker 1: few days ago. You had an incredible person come forward
Speaker 1: and give you quite mind blowing evidence. Can you talk
Speaker 1: us through what the former Lenox resident and former nurse
Speaker 1: told you that she saw on the night Bronwyn disappeared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can. Her name is Judy and she lived
Speaker 2: very close to Bromwin and John Winfield in Lenox Head
Speaker 2: at the time of Bromwin's disappearance. And as you say,
Speaker 2: she's a nurse. She's living in a house with her
Speaker 2: two teenage children. She was also pregnant and she was
Speaker 2: worrying about a miscarriage. And because of her concerns, she says,
Speaker 2: she was up late at night sitting on a balcony
Speaker 2: that overlooked the street. This is Granite Street that runs
Speaker 2: at right angles to Sandstone Crescent where John Bromwin lived,
Speaker 2: and from her vantage points she could see down onto
Speaker 2: the road and she could see in daylight hours into
Speaker 2: the passing cars. She could actually see inside the cars.
Speaker 2: And her friend Kerry McClain, who would visit her, confirmed this.
Speaker 2: Told me that they would often sit out there and
Speaker 2: would be able to see inside as they're having a
Speaker 2: cup of tea and a catch up. They would just
Speaker 2: be looking down. The cars would get past and you
Speaker 2: can see inside them. So that bit we know. But
Speaker 2: at night around midnight. Judy says that the Windfield family
Speaker 2: sedan the Ford Falcon, grow very slowly along Grounde Street
Speaker 2: and she saw the headlights approaching, and unusually, the car
Speaker 2: interior was bathed in light because the interior light had
Speaker 2: been left on for some reason. It was on, and
Speaker 2: Judy says that the driver was John Winfield, and that
Speaker 2: in the back seat there was what looked like a
Speaker 2: body wrapped in a sheet. She's described it as looking
Speaker 2: like a mummy, like an ancient Egyptian mummy, because was
Speaker 2: wrapped tightly. The body, if that's what it was, was
Speaker 2: in a seated position with the head which she couldn't
Speaker 2: see because it was wrapped. And again I'm surmising that
Speaker 2: it's a head based on her description, kind of pushed
Speaker 2: into the corner of the back seat where it meets
Speaker 2: the back door behind the front passenger seat, and the
Speaker 2: feet are going through to the center console. And Judy
Speaker 2: has been haunted by this image that she says she
Speaker 2: saw about two weeks after her birthday. Her birthday is
Speaker 2: May one, and John Winfield returned to Lenox Head on
Speaker 2: May sixteen. He hadn't been living in Lenox Head for
Speaker 2: several weeks. Prior to May sixteen, and his evidence is
Speaker 2: that he left Lennox Head on the evening of May sixteen,
Speaker 2: so it has to be May sixteen if she's positively
Speaker 2: identified that she has seen this. And Judy had a
Speaker 2: lantern on the balustrade thing that was on the balcony there,
Speaker 2: and she said that this light must have attracted John's
Speaker 2: attention because she says he looked up, and whether or
Speaker 2: not he saw her up there, it's unclear, but he
Speaker 2: looked up, and she says he was driving so slowly,
Speaker 2: and she was so sure of what she saw, so
Speaker 2: concerned that what she saw, and she's very adamant about it,
Speaker 2: and she gets quite teary talking about it, because it's
Speaker 2: clear she didn't want to see this. So this image
Speaker 2: from thirty one years ago, you know, is edged in
Speaker 2: her mind. She had a lot on she'd recently had
Speaker 2: to give up her job, she was worried about how
Speaker 2: she was going to support her children, she didn't know
Speaker 2: whether she was going to miscarry the one on the way,
Speaker 2: she was going through breakdown of her marriage, and had
Speaker 2: her own health challenges in her life at that time.
Speaker 2: She says that when she was told by neighbors in
Speaker 2: the street that Bromwin had been reported missing because it
Speaker 2: was obviously there was a bit of a police presence.
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks later, detectives turning up at the
Speaker 2: neighbor's house, Devin Murray Nolan, and also at John's house
Speaker 2: to chat to him. She asked the neighbor what's going
Speaker 2: on and they said, oh, Bromin's been reted missing and
Speaker 2: that's when she thought, oh my god, and she went
Speaker 2: to baal on a police to report it. She says
Speaker 2: she was taken behind the counter of the police station
Speaker 2: and they didn't take a statement from her. She says,
Speaker 2: they couldn't have been less interested. And you know, this
Speaker 2: is just speculation, Jemmy, but I wonder whether it's because
Speaker 2: the police thought, yeah, you know, as she's pregnant and
Speaker 2: she got all her marbles. We already know that Bromwin's
Speaker 2: come back to the house because we've got evidence of
Speaker 2: her making a phone call and checking her lot owe numbers,
Speaker 2: and John has shown us evidence that he's on the road.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it can't be right, I mean, is that
Speaker 2: possible that they've just discounted her version because they preferred his.
Speaker 2: We don't know it's probably going to be impossible to
Speaker 2: find out. I do know, though, that Judy confided what
Speaker 2: she saw to some friends, some people who were close
Speaker 2: to her. She confided it to a woman called Kerry McLain,
Speaker 2: and that's how I knew about Judy and her account
Speaker 2: before Judy contacted me. Kerry McClain her friend from Ballina
Speaker 2: who hadn't seen Judy for years, they'd lost touch. Judy
Speaker 2: had contacted me eighteen months ago to tell me about
Speaker 2: her friend who had witnessed this and had been really
Speaker 2: concerned about it. And when I telephoned Kerry earlier this year,
Speaker 2: when I started properly investigating Bromin's case for the first
Speaker 2: time and trying to do interviews and following up all
Speaker 2: the emails and leads that I've been keeping over the
Speaker 2: previous six and a half years, Kerry agreed to do
Speaker 2: an interview with me, and she talked in the interview
Speaker 2: about what Judy had told Carry over the years about this,
Speaker 2: and Carry said I was so concerned about it that
Speaker 2: I Kerrie also contacted the police and said, you need
Speaker 2: to talk to my friend Judy Willer brands. Her name
Speaker 2: now is Judy Singing. She had a lot going on
Speaker 2: in her life. I think she reported it to police,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't there. I don't know. Please follow up
Speaker 2: with her because this case is unsolved, and Carrie says
Speaker 2: she never heard back from the police herself, and it
Speaker 2: seems Judy wasn't contacted either by police. Judy probably didn't
Speaker 2: know Kerry had even done that. But when Judy contacted
Speaker 2: me on June nine by email, as soon as her
Speaker 2: email arrived in my inbox, I had an understanding about
Speaker 2: what it would be about, even though she didn't say
Speaker 2: in the email. She just said I saw him leaving
Speaker 2: on the night prob and disappeared the interior light was on.
Speaker 2: But I, because of the background I had from having
Speaker 2: talked to Carrie's six months earlier, you know, I appreciated
Speaker 2: the significance of this, and I had been trying to
Speaker 2: find Judy, but because of the moves and changing her name,
Speaker 2: she was living with her doeler, she was a bit
Speaker 2: hard to track down, and I didn't tell her for
Speaker 2: some time that I already knew all about her from Kerrie.
Speaker 2: She was quite surprised, but then she wasn't because she
Speaker 2: said she confided this to a number of people, and
Speaker 2: I spoke to Kerry about her veracity, her credibility. Kerrie
Speaker 2: told me that Judy was a very reliable person. She
Speaker 2: would not tell tall stories. She was highly credible. She
Speaker 2: was a career nurse, a very dedicated mother herself. And
Speaker 2: I found that too when I spoke to her at length,
Speaker 2: initially over the telephone in recorded interviews and then I
Speaker 2: met her in northern New South Wales. She's, I believe,
Speaker 2: a woman who's sincerely sure of what she says she saw.
Speaker 1: What's the reaction been so far to the podcast? Police
Speaker 1: taking your evidence seriously?
Speaker 2: I believe that they are. They wasted no time in
Speaker 2: wanting to reach Judy sing So within a couple of
Speaker 2: hours of the episode seven dropping, I got an email
Speaker 2: from an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mick Fitzgerald, seeking duty's
Speaker 2: contact details. I handed those over immediately. I'm sure that
Speaker 2: they're going to get a very detailed statement from her.
Speaker 1: Obviously, with the Teacher's pet with Lynette Simms's case, there
Speaker 1: was an ending, there was justice. We've got someone behind bars.
Speaker 1: Are you putting pressure on yourself this time to see
Speaker 1: a similar outcome?
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I'm putting pressure on myself. But
Speaker 2: I hope that if the evidence puts pressure on those
Speaker 2: who should be reviewing a case that was always deeply suspicious.
Speaker 2: But that's a good thing. I can't force an outcome.
Speaker 2: I can only be the messenger in showing things that
Speaker 2: have happened, evidence that perhaps was not properly considered, facts
Speaker 2: and d guitars that make no sense. I don't believe
Speaker 2: that mothers just willfully, without any extreme events in their lives,
Speaker 2: walk out without any warning on their young children. I
Speaker 2: don't believe that that happens unless there's some intervening event.
Speaker 2: Of course, there will be cases of women with very
Speaker 2: serious personal issues, perhaps addictions or other external events that
Speaker 2: have distorted their judgment and cause them to do something extreme,
Speaker 2: but they're very, very rare, and they're different to what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here. Bromwin didn't have any of those issues.
Speaker 2: She had appointments and plans, and I just think we
Speaker 2: have to go back to our common sense and our
Speaker 2: understanding of the incredible bond that young mothers have with
Speaker 2: their children and ask ourselves, does this past the smell test?
Speaker 2: Does this seemed plausible?
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you in the midst of this investigation,
Speaker 1: You're still uncoveringly, You're still talking to people, You're still
Speaker 1: putting out episodes. I spoke to you after the Teacher's Pet,
Speaker 1: after everything had died down, and you, in retrospect, spoke
Speaker 1: about how hard it was, the strains on your marriage,
Speaker 1: the strains on your time, the lack of sleep. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like that's happening again or are you able
Speaker 1: to put a bit more boundary around your investigation this time?
Speaker 2: Well, where's my wife? You're still here, you know, you
Speaker 2: know the marriage is solid. Other strains certainly are always present,
Speaker 2: and you can't do this without making very heavy commitment.
Speaker 2: But you know there's an end point and if you
Speaker 2: just put your head down and sold your on, you know,
Speaker 2: you reach it and then you can step back and
Speaker 2: leave it to others. I think that this is a
Speaker 2: really important case, and these cases, as they become better
Speaker 2: understood by the general public and as listeners delve into
Speaker 2: the details and appreciate what's gone on and the dynamics
Speaker 2: of relationships and also how the criminal justice system works
Speaker 2: and sometimes sadly doesn't work. There's an impact on many
Speaker 2: other cases that are potentially just waiting to be properly understood.
Speaker 2: There's an awareness that leads to those cases hopefully being renewed,
Speaker 2: hopefully getting the attention of people other than myself, people
Speaker 2: who will look at those cases with fresh eyes and
Speaker 2: maybe give some justice to the victims and their families.
Speaker 1: Well, you're only one man, one journalist, one team. You're
Speaker 1: obviously looking into Bronwin's story. You've looked into Lynn's story
Speaker 1: and quite a few other women's stories. But I can't
Speaker 1: help but think how many other cases there are out
Speaker 1: there that are similar, where it's women that have gone
Speaker 1: missing and something potentially more has happened and it hasn't
Speaker 1: been investigated. Do you think about that a lot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, Jemma, And what I hope is that
Speaker 2: many many more media organizations and journalists will dedicate resources
Speaker 2: to investigating those I get now dozens of emails a
Speaker 2: week from people asking me to address a range of
Speaker 2: terrible crimes. They're not all missing women, but a number
Speaker 2: of them are. But I can't find enough time to
Speaker 2: dedicate to Romlin's investigation, let alone picking up so many others.
Speaker 2: You can only really do one, maybe one and a
Speaker 2: half a year, and do them well. So it would
Speaker 2: be good if many more journalists were doing these, because
Speaker 2: I'm sure we would see more outcomes that have been
Speaker 2: denied the families.
Speaker 1: And lastly, I just wanted to check. Obviously, you're getting
Speaker 1: to know Bromwyn's family, You've gotten to know them very well,
Speaker 1: and what are they hoping to see from this investigation.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on which part of Bromin's family you're from.
Speaker 2: Bromwin's eldest daughter, Crystal, is I think in a very
Speaker 2: difficult place where she wants to maintain a relationship with
Speaker 2: her sister, and her sister has a very strong belief
Speaker 2: in the innocence of her father. And then you have
Speaker 2: Bromlin's brother Andy and his wife Michelle, and Bromlin's cousins
Speaker 2: who have been very very sure for a long time
Speaker 2: that the coroner, Karl Millavanovitch got it right and that
Speaker 2: John should have been prosecuted for murder. And of course
Speaker 2: John's eldest daughter, Jodie, who wasn't related to Bromin, she
Speaker 2: believes emphatically and her father too, so you know, there
Speaker 2: is quite a bit of division there. I don't have
Speaker 2: direct contact with John's youngest daughter, nor with his oldest
Speaker 2: daughter but I have had contact with Crystal and I've
Speaker 2: completely respected her wish to remain detached from the podcast.
Speaker 2: There's been no pressure at all from me on her
Speaker 2: to be part of it. Her family, her uncle Andy
Speaker 2: is keeping her briefed, and her Auntie Kim, who is
Speaker 2: Bromin's half sister, is also keeping her up to speed
Speaker 2: with everything. I hope. I don't know exactly what they're
Speaker 2: briefing her on, but these podcasts and the very rawness
Speaker 2: of the detail that comes out, it must be incredibly
Speaker 2: disruptive for families, you know, and I feel for those
Speaker 2: who are affected by it from all sides of the family.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it seems you need a disruption like this
Speaker 1: to be able to push for just us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, I think that if Bromwin did
Speaker 2: meet with foul play, then it is a terrible thing,
Speaker 2: and it's made worse by the characterization of Bromwin as
Speaker 2: a reckless, uncaring mother. She was anything but everybody. Everybody
Speaker 2: who I've talked to tells me how committed she was.
Speaker 2: She was, like Lynn, lived for her kids, would do
Speaker 2: anything for them.
Speaker 1: Now we've just got to find out what happened to her.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Headley Thomas for assisting us to tell this story.
Speaker 1: You can find the Bronwin podcast linked in our show notes.
Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations is a Muma Meer podcast hosted and
Speaker 1: produced by me Jemma Bass, with audio design by Scott Stronik.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Lift Proud