Episode 10: Mothers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains coarse
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. The Dark

(00:42):
Lake Lake Ainsworth, with its eerie looking water stained dark
by tammins from the leaves of the tea trees ringing
the shoreline. It lies just north of Lennox Head's caravan
park and a short walk from the perfect waves crashing
onto the beach. I've seen a photograph of Bromman sitting
on the grass near here. It was a family outing

(01:05):
with friends. The lake is now an even more popular
place for a picnic and a barbecue. It's a great
swimming hole and for hundreds, probably thousands of years, Indigenous
tribes revered this place for its therapeutic qualities. After childbirth,
Indigenous women bathed here. They believed that the unique qualities

(01:28):
of the fresh water helped prevent infection and helped recover
from it. In the ninth episode, Maddie Walsh talked about
the possibilities of a search here.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
And the police aren't doing anything, so might just have
to be asked.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
I don't have a sonar thingy we won't be able
to see anything.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
Scooba diving wise, we can do it.

Speaker 5 (01:53):
It's entirely possible.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Mary's offered to help. Oh amazing, and listeners with expertise
in underwater search emailed me and contacted Maddie to volunteer
their help and their equipment. Chris Darcy, who is an
experienced operator of side scan SONA and regularly undertakes on

(02:16):
water searches, offered to come from Sydney with three other volunteers.
Then former Australian Navy Captain Ashley McDonald, a highly trained diver,
got in touch to volunteer to dive on any items
of interest that might be identified by SONA. With Murray Nolan,
we held a hastily organized zoom call to talk about

(02:38):
what might be possible, at least for starters. Murray, can you.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Explain the area that you reckon needs to be targeted,
how we'd get access to it, and why you want
to focus on that above everything else.

Speaker 7 (02:54):
The life was pretty accessible back in the day, and
I've got the opinion that he would have dropped her
off on the western side of the lake. A lot
of people say the eastern side was more accessible. I
doubt where we went down the eastern side of the lake.
He could have because it was more accessible, but of
the opinion he went down the western side of the lake.
It meant he would have had to carry her and

(03:17):
whatever he had, probably for about twenty meters, maybe a
bit less. In the last thirty one years, I've planned
it out. They're still planning it out. There's a lot
of more trees on and vegetation there now.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
And would you mind just briefly telling Murray about your
expertise and then we can get started.

Speaker 8 (03:38):
In that experience, we did lots of searchers, so different
types of searches on the bottom projects, but also searches
in zero visibility on the hulls of ships and so forward.
So a lot of experience and trying to find stuff
when you can't see anything. In more recent times, working
in the maritime industry more generally in Australia, following podcast

(03:59):
with interests and I thought if there was anything I
could do to help with this latest turn of events,
I put my name forward.

Speaker 7 (04:05):
That's great thinking back in the eighties and nineties, it's
a windsurf across the lake, go back and forth, back
and forth. There were days when it was preferable to
take off from the western side of the lake. So
I'm saying that he wouldn't have much of a problem
to carry everything he had to carry down on that
western side of the lake.

Speaker 9 (04:23):
Does it drop off or is it still reasonably show
it drops off? Yeah, okay, so it changes in different places.
It's undulating, so it goes up and down, up and down.
For some strange reason, I could stand up in different
places in the middle of the lake.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Here is Chris. He's president of Search Dog Sydney, the
name of his group. Before the core, Chris and Ash
had been reading a scientific study of the lake from
nineteen ninety six. That study looked into the lake's physical, hydraulic,
and sedimentary processes, among other things. Maddie found it on line.

Speaker 10 (05:01):
It did show on the hydrology report that there was
a sandbar from one of another word, yes, exactly cut
across it. I'll work it on that deep area.

Speaker 7 (05:11):
And I was at the opinion that John's dragged her out,
and I'm sort of thinking that he's actually grabbed the
nose of the board or the leg rape of the
board and dragged her out so far. And then when
he hasn't had footing, he would have just give him
her a shove and tipped her house on. Well, the
opinion she's not that far off the shore.

Speaker 10 (05:29):
I'll get the mapping and all of that done and
then we can go from there. You can tell me
if it's covering the area that you've got in mind.

Speaker 7 (05:35):
Beautiful, Yes, If she's not there, she could be anywhere
really in that lake somewhere.

Speaker 8 (05:41):
I don't only have a picture of how many branches
or logs would have fallen into the water and sunk
to the bottom.

Speaker 7 (05:47):
The vegetation around it is only just tea tree like
paper back trees, so they ain't growing real high. They
hang in there. So I've never hit any card in
the lake. It's, you know, like a big tree bread.
There's heaps of little branches.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And in your memory, has the lake ever try it
out significantly so that the areas that we might serve
a bit have been exposed.

Speaker 7 (06:11):
The level of the lake doesn't bury that much in
dry times. It seems to be fed from underground water.
There's all these little two tree lakes and they all
feed into Lake Ainsworth, and so the level of the
water stays the same. Most of the time, unless it's
really raining.

Speaker 8 (06:28):
It's very very helpful if we want to interrogate items
of interest as we go. How to diver and stand
by and go right over. We just found something, let's
go back over it, drop a shot and go down
and have a look, come back up and then go again.

Speaker 7 (06:42):
As soon as we spot an object. I think we
should have all of it straight away.

Speaker 10 (06:47):
Yeah, what is your recollection of the bag that was
utilized back in the day that you believe was utilized.
Did you ever see that bag? Did you ever see
other bags on different days?

Speaker 7 (07:01):
Well, they had multiple bags, but was that that transition
period where people going into polypant bags or zippers on them.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Maury's view about the lake is not just based on
the fact that Judy Singh witnessed the surfboard in the
car late at night. It's also that he was driving
north along Granite Street from his house and that was
a bit of a tell, along with the fact that
the lake is secluded. It's easy to access if you

(07:29):
know your way around.

Speaker 7 (07:31):
He used to go to the lake only you take
the kids down the lake someday afternoons. We're all getting
our above due down the lake. It's like a bit
of a ritual sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
In nineteen ninety three, when Bromwin disappeared, the beach facing
caravan park of Lennox Head was mostly for permanent van
owners who lived there. John and his second wife we've
called her D were caravan park residents for a short
time while they were building in Sandstone Crescent. But that
was the first house, the one that came before the

(08:02):
one John built higher up the street, the one in
which Bronwan was last seen by John.

Speaker 7 (08:09):
Back in those days, there wasn't that many tourists at
that end of the park.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
There was a lot of residents there.

Speaker 7 (08:16):
We would have been pretty isolated there.

Speaker 10 (08:18):
Well, that allows me a good search area.

Speaker 8 (08:21):
That's Murray's sailings. You be good to interrogate things as
we find them if it's a fairly clean butter.

Speaker 10 (08:28):
So actually mark the spots as we're going. I'll be
try and get there early on Friday afternoon so I
can have a look at the place and.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
And get a feel for it.

Speaker 10 (08:38):
Just finalize any mapping that needs to be done prior
to the Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Okay, I'll come down Friday afternoon as well with a
colleague called Sean who probably put a drone up. He's
already checked open skies and it should be fine for
drone flying. Maddie Walsh will come into Brisbane and drive
down with us too, and food beverages are on me
for the weekend.

Speaker 7 (09:03):
So I'm looking forward to seeing how all you guys
on the weekend.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
It'll be good Rave.

Speaker 10 (09:06):
Yeah, it's always nice to have local knowledge. It makes
a hell of a difference when you're doing something, so
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Later in this episode, you'll hear more about the Dark
Lake and our visit to Lennox Head to comb some
of the lake bed with the help of Sona and
some brilliant volunteers Chris Darcy, his wife Adele, their assistant Jody,
Captain Ash McDonald, Murray Nolan, Maddie Walsh, Deb Hall and others,

(09:35):
even Scruffy who came to help. But first I want
to bring everyone up to speed. As you know, this
is episode ten of Bromwin and when the podcast investigation started,
I believe that it would be a total of six
to eight episodes. Something remarkable has happened during the eight
weeks we've been releasing weekly episodes. We've been deluged with

(09:59):
him from from members of the public. We've discovered more
from our own investigations. Friends and acquaintances of Bronwyn and
John have been sharing a lot too, and of course
remarkable witnesses such as Judy Singh have come forward with
what we believe is a crucial observation. Hundreds of listeners

(10:21):
have contacted me, mostly via Bronwyn at the Australian dot
com dot au, with information, and some of it is
we believe very significant. Our Facebook group, the Bromwyn Podcast
Official Discussion Group, has become a lively exercise in crowdsolving,
with listeners constructively putting together maps and timelines to try

(10:45):
to work out what might have happened. I've been helped
by some of their very relevant questions and analysis of
the evidence. As a result, the narrative arc of the
Bromwyn series has changed fununda mentally. In the beginning, I
believe that episode six and seven would have been dedicated

(11:06):
to reconstructing the evidence from the two thousand and two inquest,
which was held in the courthouse in the town of Lismore.
And we've been to the courthouse, but we haven't yet
touched on the evidence at that inquest. That's because of
all the other material coming in that needs to come
before the inquest. As a result, it is going to

(11:29):
feature in season two of Bromwin. After this the tenth episode,
we are going to pause production for several weeks. Everyone
can catch up while we have a rest and look
at some of the leads we haven't had time to pursue.
We'll come back with more episodes. One of the key

(11:51):
reasons this investigative podcast began was because I believe Bromwin's
disappearance and alleged murder could still be sold. This belief
has only grown stronger as the series has unfolded. You
can still stay abreast of the latest developments by joining
the Australian subscribers at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's where all

(12:15):
our stories, graphics, maps, timelines, reconstructions and videos sit, and
our daily news podcast, The Front, will bring any significant
updates as soon as they happen. You can find The
Front wherever you listen, and if you know something, no
matter how small it seems, please still contact me by

(12:37):
email at Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot AU.

Speaker 11 (13:06):
That'll be fine Now a little break for a few
weeks and everyone will see the old may look out.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
You heard this hopeful line in the first episode featuring
some of Bromwin's writing from the weeks before she disappeared,
And it is very likely that Bromwin's reference to a
little break lent credence to John's story that she had
indeed gone away for a break. Bromwin's brother Andy, his
wife Michelle, and Bromwin's cousin Megan Reid say that John

(13:38):
was insistent Bromwyn had said she was going away for
a break of a few days, not a few weeks.
Here's Meghan recalling John having shown her a piece of
paper when he dropped by in Sydney, and it was
during the visit in May. John was showing Megan some
of Bromwin's writings. Remind me, what was the point of

(14:01):
the piece of paper?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Well, I didn't know.

Speaker 12 (14:05):
This is the whole thing.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
I had no idea. Why show me this piece of paper?

Speaker 12 (14:10):
It had members of the family and sort of stuff
going back to our childhood. But that same piece of paper,
I've now found out he showed to a whole lot
of other people, claiming that she left that as a
note that she was leaving.

Speaker 13 (14:23):
But to me. I didn't say that at all.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Kim Marshall has always had concerns about this too. Kim
was a young woman living at home in Tasmania when
Bromwyn disappeared. Kim remembered a lot of telephone contact with
Bromwin and Kim and their mother Barbara in Tasmania in
the weeks leading up to and during Bromwan's separation from John.

(14:48):
Here's Kim from the very first episode in this podcast series.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
The story that she was writing.

Speaker 14 (14:55):
They've got the wrong idea about what's actually happened. Bromwn
wrote a beautiful story of her history, okay, and then
she says, when I come back, the real Bromwin will
be back, so watch out. And John has used that
paragraph to say that Bromwin has lost her marbles and

(15:18):
has actually decided to act on what she was writing.
And he goes, she's unstable, she's like a mother, blah
blah blah.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Now Bromwin and Kim's Auntie Jan can shed light for
the first time on what Bromwin was talking about when
she wrote A little break for a few weeks and
everyone will see the old me. You are Barbara's younger sister,
is that right? Yes?

Speaker 15 (15:47):
Yeah, Mab was born in thirty nine and I was
born in forty two.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
I telephoned to ask her about your recollections of something
Bromin might have been planning to do around the time
she disappeared. Is that right?

Speaker 15 (16:03):
She had rung a couple of times feeling distressed, and
then she rang Mum and asked her for some money.
And it wasn't long after that that she disappeared.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Do you have any letters from your mom or your
sister which talk about Bromwin?

Speaker 2 (16:25):
No, we used to ring all the time.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
I want to just focus on whether you heard from
either your mother or from your sister Barb of any
plans by Bromwin to have a break in Tasmania for.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
A while, that was a plan.

Speaker 15 (16:47):
She didn't eventually come because that's when she disappeared, right,
Mum was waiting for her to ring and tell her
when she was coming over, and we didn't hear from her.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
And how do you remember that?

Speaker 15 (17:06):
Because Mum rang and told me she said, ron Wan's
in a spot of trouble and what was going on
and everything was Bard lived with Mum most of her life.
She wanted some money, but Mum said to come over
to her first before she did anything, But then we
never heard from her after that. It was only weeks

(17:28):
after that phone call to mum, My mum.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
And is that a fairly clear memory for you?

Speaker 16 (17:37):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Have you talked to the police before?

Speaker 15 (17:41):
No, Nobody's contacted me at all regarding ron Win's disappearance
except you.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
One of the things that is written down by Bromwan
in these papers that she wrote before she disappeared was
that she was going to take a break and that
she'd be coming back and should be fine.

Speaker 15 (18:05):
Well, that's probably when she was going to Mums to Hobart.
Before she rang mum, she'd spoken to barb a couple
of times regarding what was going on, and Barbara was
quite distressed about it, and.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Then she rang mum and then asked her for some money.

Speaker 15 (18:25):
That the plan was, according to my mum, that she
was coming over to Hobart.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Jan told me that Barbara had been visited by Bromwin
and her brother Andy in Tasmania before.

Speaker 15 (18:39):
And I know Bronwin and Andrew used to go over
to Hobart because I've got pictures of them here. I
can send them to you if you like. They went
over a few times to visit Barb. I think they
flew over.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
How have you become aware of this renewed interest?

Speaker 15 (18:56):
Well, Kim contacted me.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
She said she's never going to give up. I don't
really know.

Speaker 15 (19:03):
Whether it was investigated enough whatever. John said they seemed
to have taken to heart and said that's it.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
A lot more could have been done. Soon after that,
it just died down.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
I spoke to Bromwan's half sister Kim about it.

Speaker 17 (19:24):
I actually have been going on about a trip to
Tasmania and no one's ever listened to me.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
For people who don't know the potential significance, what do
you believe it could be?

Speaker 4 (19:36):
John stole her trip?

Speaker 18 (19:38):
So the last paragraph in Bronnie's writing on the notepad
is I will be going away for a while for
a break, and when I come back, watch out the
real broblem.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
We're back.

Speaker 18 (19:48):
So then I'm thinking nan Ant set airlines, nan making
the phone calls, getting everything in order. Nan is my grandmother.
My grandmother raised me. So I lived with my Nan
and my mum Barbara and then Annie. Jan lived in
New South Wales because we traveled every holidays to the mainland,

(20:10):
and nan Stone sat next to her chair and that's
where she did her business.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
And I remember Nan offering airfares.

Speaker 17 (20:18):
Let's do airfares, Let's get you down here, will work
out everything legally that you've got in place, will do it,
but you need to get safe.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
And my mom's not alive to tell you, and no
one was interested in listening to her when she tried.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
But your Auntie Jan remembers this.

Speaker 18 (20:36):
My mom spent years talking and crying and writing letters
and debriefing and reflecting about the fact that Bronwin never
got to Tasmania.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
And that's why I.

Speaker 17 (20:48):
Have so many troubles with my brother, because my brother
never listens to me scream about Bronwin was actually coming
for a holiday. That's what I was trying to explain
to him and the police way back in June.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
Nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 18 (21:05):
And that's why I'm so emotional about everything, because no one.

Speaker 19 (21:10):
Ever listened to me, and I was there in the
rooms listening to all these phone calls, and then no
one ever was interested in mums and my phone bill,
which had all the phone calls that we were making
to bron When every.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Day and of the night.

Speaker 19 (21:27):
Because we're the ones that hurt John banging on the door.
We're the ones that heard him saying, open the door
and let me in.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
So I'm sorry heavily, but that's the truth.

Speaker 13 (21:43):
And I've probably got nothing to do with anything.

Speaker 19 (21:46):
But I've got Brown's voice being heard now.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy's famous book from eighteen
seventy seven, Anna karen Ina, starts with this sentence, happy
families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in
its own way. In Tolstoy's view, a pathway to family

(22:11):
happiness depends on important pillars, stability, respect, health, and unconditional
love being some of the main ones. In this series,
you have heard about a myriad of tensions, hurts, and
grievances in the Reed family. Given everything that they've been
through before and since Bromwin's disappearance, it is unsurprising. Remember,

(22:37):
Bromwin and Andrew did not know until they were twelve
and ten, respectively, that they even had a biological mother
called Barbara Andy and Bronwyn's father, Philip is not around
to say why he didn't tell his children about the
existence of Barbara when they were little. Andy still calls

(22:59):
his father's second wife Jennifer Mum, because, as he says,
she raised him. He refers to his biological mother as
Barbara and sometimes as Mum. After dozens of hours talking
to Barbara's two surviving children, Andy and Kim, I believe

(23:19):
that Kim has sought to honor two people in this podcast.
Kim has honored her half sister Bromwin, and Kim has
also honored her mother, Barbara. Kim tells me that she
has often felt like the sibling who didn't quite belong
and that despite Andy having been kind and loving towards

(23:42):
his mother Barbara and having included her and Kim in
family events and visits, there's still been a distance, a
bridge that hasn't been properly built with the foundations. Leo
Tolstoy was thinking.

Speaker 20 (23:57):
About as far as I knew, if it was Mum,
and it was only once that Mum was sort of
allowed or going to agreed to allow.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Mom back to our lives at me, You actually didn't
know you had a mum other than Jennifer exactly.

Speaker 20 (24:14):
Yeah, Yeah, I was never told anything really about it.

Speaker 21 (24:20):
You reconnected with your mum when you were still a boy.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
What do you remember being told?

Speaker 22 (24:29):
Well, she wants to get back in time, and Dad
thought we were old enough to allow that to happen.
She was always sort of up and down a bit,
so you weren't sure which Barbie were going to get.
In a way, it probably was the start of a
bit of a downturn in family life as.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
We knew it later on.

Speaker 20 (24:49):
I think it did play a troll, you know, in
showering of relationships and a bit of presentment.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I suppose did you and.

Speaker 21 (24:58):
Bronwin from the time you then learned that you had
a natural mother called Barbara, become close to her and
try to develop the rapport that you'd missed out on
for the previous ten years.

Speaker 20 (25:13):
Not really know on the only days you know, I'm
sure maybe one digue or every couple of years.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
She wrote often. That was the start of Brian.

Speaker 20 (25:22):
Letters and correspondents, but not necessarily seeing each other like
at every store, holidays or anything like that. Once I
was short out at home and I had my places
about a couple of times, but come up and stay
for a week or so with me. Things like that.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Barbara did become more involved in the lives of her
only son and her first daughter, Bronwan, but it was
impossible to make up for everything that had been missed
in their formative years. In one of my many conversations
with Kim, she also described having been made to feel
most voiceless at times in the three decades since Bromlin vanished.

(26:05):
Kim blames some of the police for this, and Kim
recognizes that there was much less understanding of mental health
challenges more than twenty years ago. She tells me that
in her view, Andy and Michelle should have insisted that
she be involved more in the evidence. Kim says she

(26:26):
and her mother wanted to be heard at the inquest
in two thousand and two, but they were, in Kim's view,
deliberately excluded.

Speaker 18 (26:35):
Mum and I were asked not to come to the inquiry.
We were asked not to testify as witnesses. Mum and
I always been kicked out because of the mental health
card and to stay out of it because we would
actually hurt Bromin's case, and very politely just told to
go away and keep quiet. Am I being ignored because

(26:56):
I was young? Am I being ignored because of the
mental health? Am I being ignored because I'm a female?
And they're the questions that I live with every day
for many, many years, and they're destroying you know, it's
really hard being the little girl.

Speaker 19 (27:12):
That grew up always wanting to get more attention over here.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Brother, Well, Kim, I think you've done an enormous amount
of work to put this story and this case and
all of the facts into the public arena, and you're
pushing to produce all the evidence has made a powerful difference.

Speaker 18 (27:37):
It's something my psychologist and I decided that I had
to get done, and I'm glad I'm doing it because
now I feel like I've been heard, even if nothing happens,
even if nothing comes of it.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
So it's really good.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
I'm glad it's helping. But sadly, Kim and her brother
Andy were not on speaking terms as this episode went
to air. When the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor took a
statement from John Winfield's first wife, Jennifer Mason in December
nineteen ninety eight, she was living in the Queensland seaside

(28:13):
town of Caloundra. Earlier in this podcast series, you heard
a voice actor for Jennifer talk about her unexpected contact
with John when he suddenly turned up on Monday, May seventeenth,
nineteen ninety three in the Shire. John had driven from
Lennox through the night with the two girls and he

(28:34):
needed somewhere for them to stay. Jennifer was out shopping.
She was separating from her second husband, Brad at that time,
but Brad's mother met John at the front door and
he asked her to mind his girls. What you haven't
heard about yet was Jennifer's poignant description of her relationship

(28:55):
with John. Here's what she told the detective Glen Taylor.
And remember these aren't Jennifer's words from that late nineteen
ninety eight statement. It's not her voice.

Speaker 23 (29:08):
In approximately December nineteen seventy two, when I was sixteen
years of age, I met a young man named John
Winfield and we formed a relationship. We'd only been going
out for about three months when I fell pregnant. John
Winfield and I married when I was about three months pregnant.
We married at Engerdeine and moved back in together at
my parents' house at Sutherland. At that time, John was

(29:32):
working at an oyster farm in Kernel, and my relationship
with John was very happy. My dad got John a
job as a bricklayer, and John earned fairly good money.
I've been asked by Detective Sergeant Taylor if there were
any incidents of domestic violence in my relationship with John Winfield.
I recalled John like to have everything in the house organized.

(29:54):
He wanted things done on time in his way. He
never allowed me to argue back with him or question
what he had to say. If I did question him
over some issue, he'd get aggressive and angry with me.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
He'd yell at me, and he made me scared of him.

Speaker 23 (30:10):
I recall on one occasion when he pushed me back
onto the bed because I answered back to him.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
On that time. He scared me a great deal.

Speaker 23 (30:18):
He said to me, I'll kill you if you say
that again, and at the time he had his hands
around my throat and was squeezing. I remember I managed
to say go ahead, and to my surprise, he kept
squeezing me around the throat. I managed to kick him
in the groin and I got away from him and
hid in the outside laundry. I sat there for ages
in the laundry, and I remember I came back inside

(30:41):
later that night and John had cooled down and nothing
more was said. I also recall this night that John
kicked a hole in the lounge with his knee. This
was just before he pushed me down on the bed.
It was after this night. I didn't back answer John,
and I let him run things the way he wanted.
John was particular over having things clean, in particular my

(31:02):
daughter Jody. We always had to look our best as
if we were on show, especially if his mother came
over to visit. I tried to have the marriage work out,
and I stayed with John for four years, but after
the fourth year I decided to leave. I couldn't communicate
with John anymore. I had to be quiet and be
a wife the way he wanted a wife to be.

(31:24):
I couldn't have opinions of my own, and if I tried,
he'd build up this anger. I'd then become scared and
back off. One morning, after John went to work, I
grabbed some clothes for Jody and myself, and I ran
off to Coffs Harbor. I stayed at my cousin's house
for about a week. At that time, I hadn't made
up my mind to permanently separate from John, but I

(31:45):
needed some time to just think things out. I rang
John up on the telephone to tell him where I was,
and he turned it all around and said that if
I wanted to leave, I should I panicked, thinking that
my marriage was over, so I drove all night back
to Sydney to see him the next day, but he'd
already gone off to work. John's mother was in the house.
I remember John's mother saying something like no woman walks

(32:09):
out on my son. I wanted things to work out
with John, but it seemed like his mother was encouraging
him to end the relationship.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
In my eyes, the relationship was finished. Jennifer knew that
John's mother would not forgive her. She had significant influence
over her son. This statement by Jennifer cannot have been
easy for her to make, and she would have known
that it would become available to John, as it did

(32:37):
in the lead up to the two thousand and two
inquest in Lismore. When the police brief of evidence was
turned over to John and his lawyer, Jennifer's statement became
known to her daughter Jody. I've been told that it
put a great deal of strain on the mother daughter relationship,
which was already troubled. Remained fiercely loyal to her father John.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
John ended up setting me up in a flat at Cronulla.

Speaker 23 (33:06):
I was well provided for and Jody had the best
of everything. John, however, didn't approve of the way I'd
started to live my single life.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
In her statement, she described becoming lonely and depressed and
spending time at the club to try to meet people,
and although she arranged a babysitter, Jennifer said she felt
hassled and judged over her mothering of her daughter. Jennifer
and Jody moved into a granny flat. Although the flat

(33:37):
was well maintained, Jennifer said that John's mother and father
did not look kindly on the situation.

Speaker 23 (33:45):
I recall John's parents turned up one day with John
and they picked.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Up Jody and walked out the door.

Speaker 23 (33:51):
Grandma Winfield said, when you get your act together, you
can have her back. At that time, I decided not
to try to get Jody back from John. I blame
myself now, but at the time I didn't understand the
laws properly, and I was depressed and having problems with
my life. And after this John and myself initiated divorce proceedings.

(34:12):
John offered me twenty thousand dollars so he could keep
custody of Jody. I told him to stick his twenty
thousand dollars and take good care of Jody, and that's
how John ended up having custody of her. The way
I was at the time, I was mentally depressed and
I'd become suicidal. It took some time to get over
my problems at that time. From that time, Jody lived

(34:34):
with John and John's parents, and I'd see Jody at
different stages during the year. John wouldn't allow me to
visit Jody at school and they constantly pushed me away
from her.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
I used to sit outside the school.

Speaker 23 (34:45):
Watching Jody play at lunchtime in the school grounds.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Bridgeta was Romwin's good friend. They went to school together
and they went dancing at the local club and they
were offered at the beach. Family helped Bromman with accommodation
when things were tough at home with her stepmother. Bridgeta
went to Bromwin's first wedding to Gary Beard. She made

(35:10):
the wedding dress for Bromwin. When Broman's first marriage failed
and Bromin was a single mother of Crystal, John came
on the scene, and Bridgeton noted John's possessiveness back then.
Before John and Bromwin had moved to Lennox Head, a
ten hour drive from the Shire, but Bridgeta told me
something else when I spoke to her. It was something

(35:33):
she remembered Brown telling Bridgeta she mentioned.

Speaker 24 (35:37):
To me something that Jodie's mother, which was his partner
before that, she.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
Told he had choked her. And I went, what you're joking?

Speaker 24 (35:54):
And I said, why would anyone put up bro?

Speaker 4 (35:58):
Sometimes you've got up with something and oh, it's not
too good.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
In a previous episode, you heard that, Jennifer confirmed she
was fond of Bronwin, and they became friends. They shared
some confidences, They stayed in touch because they had Jody's
best interest at heart, and they were able to connect
well despite Jennifer having once been married to John, John's

(36:27):
first wife.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Told bron yes, and she had choked her.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
And this is what Broman told you.

Speaker 24 (36:37):
Yeah, told me that this What can you say when
you hear things like that?

Speaker 4 (36:45):
So it sounds like he did have a bit of
great history of it. Then choked. You can't scream, can you?
These things go through my head only because of what
she said about Jody's nun.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Michelle and her husband Andy been aware since the Inquest
in two thousand and two that Bromwin had confided to
friends in Lenox, including Denise Barnard, that John had put
his hands around her throat and squeezed.

Speaker 25 (37:13):
She was scared how much went on and physical abuse.
All that we know is since the statements have come out,
been manhandled his hands around their throat in a choking
one of the things that we've thought about it might
have happened to Bromwin.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
I've talked to somebody who said that Jenny would not
be comfortable speaking to me about John or Bromwin. In
the podcast, one of Jenny's very good friends in Caloundra
from the nineteen nineties, Dona Cioleppis, spoke.

Speaker 26 (37:50):
To me she came into the church as a single
mum and she had not had much stability.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Really, do you recall anything that she spoke to you
about in relation to her marriage to John.

Speaker 26 (38:05):
She could never do anything right, She was never good enough,
and she could not live up to his expectations of
worldwife should be.

Speaker 27 (38:15):
She was very vulnerable and very young, and she said
that she was terrified of his mother.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
I mainly recall her telling me about the bullying.

Speaker 27 (38:26):
Tactics to p Jody and that they tricked her and
they pretty much.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
Stole Jody from her.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
This is what she has told me.

Speaker 28 (38:36):
It direcked her.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
I took her round to muggling immediately.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Donna described Jenny's concerns about Robin's fate and about the
repercussions that Jenny might face two as a result of
giving her statement to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor. I've
read Jennifer's statement. She gave that statement to the police
in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I remember when she did that.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, oh really, okay, So were you around her then?

Speaker 29 (39:06):
Yes, she was back in touch with Jodie. She was
terrified of losing her relationship with Jodie. Jodi was definitely
Dad's girl.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
It is interesting that John goes to her house in
Sydney now despite them having divorced years earlier. In all
of that ill will.

Speaker 26 (39:27):
Yeah, she couldn't believe that he came to her house.
She was stunned by that. She was very intimidated by
him because she just knew that Bromin would not leave.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
I know she'd loved Broman.

Speaker 30 (39:43):
When I saw that you were doing.

Speaker 26 (39:45):
Bromman, I was just elated I've been waiting to hear
something about Jenny. She was the most beautiful, gorgeous girl.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
If anyone deserves happiness, it's that girl. Hasn't caught up
with Jenny for years. She's looking forward to resuming contact
with her.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
I would love to see her.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
In episode five, you heard a voice actor read from
an internal police document dated September nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 31 (40:18):
It is known the missing person was suffering from a
mental state of confusion. Documents in the handwriting of the
missing person, located at the family home, indicate that she
may have been suffering from mild depression. It would also
appear that she carries some form of grudge against certain
members of her family over property dealings and her father
over minor things.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
This puts a misleading and derogatory slant on what Bromwan
actually wrote. In my view, it depicts Bromwan as mentally
unbalanced and angry at her lot in life. Broman's writing
was reflective. It was positive in the way she was
looking forward to a new chapter in her life and
the lives of her children. Another jotting noted Bromwin's intention

(41:05):
to do a self improvement course over two days in
June at the Lismore Workers Club. The police report, signed
by an officer who has since died, also stated.

Speaker 31 (41:16):
Copies of letters forwarded to friends and relatives indicate she
may have been trying to write the wrongs of the
past and reunite with the grandparents of one of her children,
who she has had no contact with for about five years.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Here's what Bromwin wrote to Cristel's father, Mark Davis, and
to his parents Cristel's grandparents. Bromin's handwritten letter is dated
early May nineteen ninety three. She did a couple of
versions on May three and on May five. It's not
long before her disappearance, and she wrote it from the

(41:51):
rented place in Byron Street.

Speaker 11 (41:54):
Dear Eda Awen markan family. I thought i'd drop you
a note since it costs so much for phone calls,
and with the girls at school, I have the time.
It's so long since we had some form of contact
that I don't know where to start. I've been carrying
around the guilt of not staying in contact for so long.
It's almost overwhelming me as I'm writing. I believe no

(42:16):
child should be deprived of the right to know its
family or its family and have the security of knowing
there is always someone to listen to them throughout their lives.
I more than anyone, should understand this, as I've always
felt alone and this isn't something that I would wish
upon anyone, especially my own daughter. We have been living
in a lovely small town called Lennox Head for the

(42:38):
past four years, and the people seem to be some
of the nicest people I've met in my life. My husband,
whom I have separated from, was a very quiet and
obsessive man. He was burnt along periods of depression and
sometimes anger. I have a bad habit of picking up
lame duckson trying to make things better, and now realize

(43:01):
that you must accept people for what they are, and
if you are unable to, then you don't get involved.
John always tried to be a good father, although most
of his methods I've regard as too extreme, and most
of his methods to make me into the perfect homebody
were unrealistic expectations, so we drifted along in limbo until

(43:23):
I couldn't take it any more. He had little or
no faith in my ability to be a person in
my own right. The constant character assassination that plagued our
arguments every time I would express an idea or an
independent opinion, had me believing I was a rational and
unrealistic His concept on family and marriage were too rigid

(43:46):
for me and the children to grow up in a
stable environment. My only regret is that I'd had no
one to talk to, although I will never regret having
loened in the companionship and love I shared with Jody
John's daughter from a previous marriage.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Bronwyn has crossed out a few sentences in her letter.
One of those says that she has been betrayed once
too often. Another sentence praises her good friends in Lenox,
people she says she has trusted, and although Bromwyn doesn't
name them, I'm going to mention a handful now. It's

(44:21):
not an exhaustive list. Deb Hall, Denise Barnard, the woman
we referred to as Joan although that's not her real name,
and Maria Glewis Scruffy's wife, and Virginia Bevers. Bromwin wrote
that she needed to learn to trust more people like
the friends she had made in Lenox, and as a

(44:42):
reminder to herself, she wrote that she needed to find
photographs of Crystal to send to Edda Alwyn and Mark.

Speaker 11 (44:50):
Crystal has grown up into a lovely child, and I
know you would be proud to be her grandparents, and
Mark would love her as well, but I'm not going
to relinquish my custody. All your family will be welcome
to see her and keep regular contact with her. I
will always be open to your suggestions on schooling and
any other ideas you may have, and would welcome Mark
as a friend to confide in with any issues that

(45:12):
may arise, although the final decision will be mine, because
if there's one thing I am good at, it as
being a mother. I'm sure there is room for improvement,
but it's what I love best in life, something sadly
lacking in my teenage years.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Bromwin's good friend Bridgeta remembered Crystal's father and his sometimes
stormy relationship with Bromwin. Did you know Mark Davis?

Speaker 4 (45:39):
Yes, I did know Mark Davis.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
He's the father of Crystal. Yes she is.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
She tried to kick me out of his house once
and Bromwin jumped in front of me to save me
before he grubt me because I ricked a dirty coaster
of the wall. I couldn't stand looking at all these
naked women on the wall. He lived with other guys
in a place called the farm. Oh, pretty much what
the Crinola blokes were like in those days?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
And what was that?

Speaker 32 (46:08):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (46:09):
You know, they used to do a bit of the
marijuana and stuff.

Speaker 30 (46:12):
It wasn't the kind of.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
Guy I would really want to be, which actually put.

Speaker 7 (46:15):
It that way.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Here's Bromwin's cousin, Megan Reid.

Speaker 12 (46:21):
When she was with Mark Davis. She was only sixteen
and we used to double date with my boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
I asked Andy about his sister Bromwin's letter an olive
branch to Crystal's father and his family. When Bromwin reached
out to Mark Davis's family after she'd separated from John,
what do you believe she was seeking to do there?

Speaker 20 (46:49):
She was trying to ensure Crystal's well being if anything
ever went wrong. She already asked and comments to Michelle
and made that if anything ever happens to me, he
promised from me, you look after Crystal.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I'm not sure whether.

Speaker 20 (47:08):
She was one hundred percent beautiful, but she was just
putting steps in place to ensure Crystal's Willpoom.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Madison Walsh and her auntie Megan Reid, explained that there
was another very delicate issue revolving around Crystal. Bromwin had
a boyfriend, Mark Guthrie around the time of her first pregnancy.
For some time, Mark Guthrie and his family believed that
he was Crystal's father.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
After Bromwin goes missing, there's a dispute for custody for Crystal.
Mark Guthrie or he was Crystal's father. Brumwan always was like, no,
you're not, You're not, but he.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Thought he was.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
But just weeks after Bromwin vanished, Mark Guthrie and his
family pressed on Winfield. The Guthrie family wanted to form
a relationship with Crystal. John wrote to the family and
to their solicitor. I have a copy of the letter.
These are John's words, but it's not John's voice.

Speaker 33 (48:17):
One, Mark has never personally or in writing approached us
in regard to access to Crystal. Two. We have always
been locatable. We have always been in the telephone book.
Had he really wanted to, Mark could have found us
at any time. Could you emphasize to your clients the

(48:38):
necessity and advantage of getting the facts right. Not only
have you failed to mention the possibility of child support,
something that has been my responsibility for almost eleven years.
But you have failed to consider Crystal's feelings and what
she wants to do about this delicate situation. Mark is

(49:01):
a total stranger to Crystal, and with the possibility of
fatherhood not yet really established, you are asking me to
introduce Crystal to a possible impostor. I ask you, is
that really in the best interests of Crystal?

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Surely not.

Speaker 33 (49:19):
I am not positive that mister Guthrie is Crystal's natural father.
If fatherhood is established, as I have emphasized previously, access
would be no problem as she suffers car sickness. Do
they expect me to pay for airline tickets each school holidays?

(49:41):
I must say that this event has developed into a
horror show. As we all know, there is always a
third corner to any triangle, and his name is Mark Davis.
I am in receipt of Crystal's christening papers and it
shows that she was christened under the name of Davis

(50:02):
at nine months of age. Mark Davis has consented to
have a DNA test to verify the relationship. The gynecologist's
report shows that Christal was born five weeks prematurely, and
also shows Bromwin's date of conception. Mark's naval records show

(50:24):
exactly where he was at the time of conception. I
have a responsibility to Crystal to introduce her to her
real biological father, and I will. The lack of any
offers of financial support in almost eleven years also tells
me that mister Guthrie is not sure of fatherhood. I

(50:46):
hope you have advised your clients that I could quite
easily make a quick exit and go with your requests. Consequently,
that would lead us to the child support agency, and
a deduction from Mark's wages to the tune of one
hundred and forty five dollars per month backdated maintenance to

(51:07):
December nineteen eighty two with an interest adjustment would be
the best part of ten thousand dollars. It is a
gamble I can afford to take, but I am not
so sure about mister Guthrie. Maintenance, if I am correct,
is payable up to the age of sixteen years, so

(51:30):
we could develop into a nice little nest egg for
Crystal in her later years. The truth here is that
I have been Crystal's father for eight years and in
ten continuing in that role. She also has a very
close relationship with Lauren and Jody, and for that matter,

(51:50):
the rest of my family and Bronwin's family. She loves
the school she attends and does very well there, played
the guitar for quite a number of years now and
is classed as an advanced student. She knows that I
am not her real father and has been told by

(52:10):
Bronwin of the existence of a person named Mark Davis.
Mister Guthrie personally has never made any contact with us
in the eight years that I have been involved. Only
he knows why. My advice to him, for what it's worth,
is to agree, like Mark Davis, to a DNA test

(52:34):
to establish.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
The validity of his claim.

Speaker 33 (52:37):
In his position, I would not enjoy paying maintenance for
a child which was not really mine. Yours, sincerely, John Winfield.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
PS.

Speaker 33 (52:51):
I hope you have noticed how Crystal's name is really spelt.
Surely an assumed father would know something so basic about
his own daughter.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Here's Mattie Walsh with Megan again, and.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Then he did a DNA paternal test, so that basically
ended there. He didn't get custody because he wasn't her father,
so that proved that Mark Davis, the other Mark was
her father, Marcus Christal's actual father, and Crystal found out
about that before Bromin died.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
It's written in.

Speaker 34 (53:27):
My diary entry that she told her that her real
father was Mark Davis, and in the phone records you
can see she called the.

Speaker 12 (53:38):
Davises the whole family. She wanted them to have contact
with Cristel.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Patricia Peterson spoke to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in
nineteen ninety eight about her longtime connection to Bromwyn and
her family. As a grief counselor, Patricia saw a lot
of family trouble and she tried to help vulnerable people.
These are her words, but not her voice.

Speaker 13 (54:29):
I've known Bromwyn Winfield since she was a small child.
I knew Bromwyn's parents, Jennifer and Philip Bred. Bromwyn had
a daughter named Cristal, who at that time was about
eighteen months old. I remember Bromwin coming to see me
in my role as a grief counselor. Bromwyn told me
the circumstances of her pregnancy with Cristel.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Bromwyn told Patricia that on her birthday, she was turning twenty, she.

Speaker 13 (54:54):
Got very drunk and in the morning she woke up
in bed with a man.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Bromwyn married Gary Beer, but it was a relatively brief union.
Patricia counseled Bromwin when her connection to John was new.

Speaker 13 (55:08):
I also remember Bromwyn telling me during this counseling session
that she had met another man named John. At that stage,
Bromin and John were in a relationship, but they were
not living together. Bromwyn told me that John was making
her life a misery. Although she told me that she
loved John. Bromwin told me that John was hounding her
and was very jealous over the fact that she had

(55:28):
previously been involved with the other men. I advised broman
to think strongly about terminating her relationship with John. Bromwn
told me that John would go over and over the
fact that she had been involved in other relationships with
other men and would have preferred her to be a
virgin when he met her. I formed the opinion, based
on my previous experience as a counselor and through my

(55:49):
life experiences, that John could become violent towards Bromwyn if
she married him. I assessed Bromwin as being a person
who had a desperate need to love and to be loved,
and she was seeking this type of relationship from John.
Even at that stage, I feared for Bromwin's safety and happiness.
Andrew told me that after John had returned to the

(56:10):
marital home, Bromwyn had gone missing, leaving the children with him.
There is no way that I will ever believe that
Bromwyn left those children with John of her own accord.
And my immediate reaction I expressed to Andrew was that
I felt that John had killed Bromwin and that is
why she's missing.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
In episode seven, you heard parts of Crystal's statement to
the police officer Glenn Taylor. Cristel was sixteen and describing
how her father would not ever talk about Bromwin. Cristel
told police in nineteen ninety eight that over the previous
five years.

Speaker 16 (56:48):
My mother has gradually been built out of our lives.
My dad never talks about Mum or his past relationship
with her. I have never tried to bring up Mom
in conversation with my father.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Now let's go back again to Megan Reid, Bromin's good
friend and cousin, and you wrote this, John got rid
of all of Bromlin's personal possessions the week after she
allegedly disappeared, including all photos. There wasn't a trace of
her existence left, so the kids were told to forget
her as she had run off with another man and

(57:20):
didn't love them.

Speaker 12 (57:21):
Yes, that's true.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
How did you know that? That's what John did?

Speaker 15 (57:26):
Tom?

Speaker 12 (57:28):
And also Andrew dropped in there and he saw that
all the picture fas had photos of a different woman
in them from what stuff was gone, and no.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Faith, John's not there, but Lauren let you in.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yes, the kids, that's right.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
And it's five years after Bromin's disappeared. Your mind's made up?
Would you have been able to talk to him knowing
as you did, or suspecting as you did then that
he had killed your sister?

Speaker 20 (58:02):
Even though we were suspicious and always had been suspicious,
we just wanted to see the kids, and we.

Speaker 25 (58:07):
Just thought, let's just do it, let's just go for it,
let's see what happens.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
How was it possible for you at that time to
be visiting him socially with that suspicion or did you
see there's some kind of intelligence gathering.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
I think we were being pretty daring, actually.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 20 (58:25):
I just thought, why are two kids being raised in
the manner that they're being forced to forget their mother?

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Roman was white.

Speaker 35 (58:36):
There was not one photo of their mother. There were
photos of the kids and other family photos, but there
was not one picture of their mom gotten gone.

Speaker 20 (58:51):
It was quite daunting just to think that not one
thing was left in the house that had any full
memory of their mum.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Cristel's father, Mark, passed away in his sleep in twenty eleven,
and Cristel has clung to a belief, a kind of fantasy,
that a woman who came to her father's funeral took
a fond interest in Cristel, who was in her late
twenties when her dad died. In Cristel's mind, this mystery
woman handed the younger woman some photographs. They were images

(59:25):
of her father and her mother. Cristel has asked whether
this woman at her father's funeral was Bronwyin, but nobody
else who went to the service agrees. There is consensus
that it's a story born from grief and wishful thinking,
with no basis in fact. Bronwyn did not attend Cristel's

(59:47):
father's funeral. As this podcast series was unfolding. Mark's brother
Greg Davis got in touch with me. Greg told me
that Mark and Roman's relationship was complicated. The Davis family
did not have any contact with Bronwan or with Crystal
from when she was two until she turned ten. Here's

(01:00:09):
what Greg wrote to me. These are his words and
Greg has kindly agreed to read them. This is Greg's voice.

Speaker 30 (01:00:17):
My mother Edda Davis received a phone call from Bronwin
in early nineteen ninety three saying she wanted Cristel to
know her grandparents and promptly put Crystal on the phone
to chat with mum. You can imagine this was very
confusing for a ten year old. Bronwin mentioned to Mum
that she had left her husband I know. She also
wrote a letter to mum which detailed more about her

(01:00:38):
issues with John. I can't remember the exact order of
when everything happened, but Bronwen disappeared soon after. My recollection
is that after Bronwyn disappeared, John encouraged a relationship between
Crystal and my late parents and they were asked to
help support Crystal financially. My parents were living in Guymy

(01:00:58):
Bay in the southern Shire of the time, and John
would put Crystal on a bus to Sydney, traveling solo
from the age of ten for visits. My impression is
that John had semi disowned Crystal, and within a couple
of years Christel was living with other families that Lennox had.
My parents paid for her education at school and tave
and when she was older, bought her a car and

(01:01:19):
assisted her in her move to Sydney. My brother and
my parents had a very close relationship with Crystal. My
wife and I and our children continue to involve Crystal
as part of our family. As you've mentioned, she's reluctant
to get involved publicly, but she's taken an interest behind
the scenes. We all hope for justice to prevail.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Greg also shared a photograph from Crystal's Christling showing Mark
and Bronwyn together. It's one of many photographs at the
Bronwyn podcast dot com site. When Cristel was a teenager
and yet to finish her high school education, she went
to live in Kerry McLean's house in Ballina. You'll recall

(01:02:04):
Kerry from episode seven and eight. In one of life's
great ironies, Crystel's stepfather, John Winfield, had selected Kerry mclan
to be Cristel's paid career in John's absence, John and
his daughter Lauren were moving to Sydney, as John had
bricklaying work down there. It was nineteen ninety eight. Kerry

(01:02:27):
recalled meeting him.

Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
Then he was in a hurry to leave town. She
didn't speak unkindly about him. He was all she had here.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
But it was a remarkable and perhaps fateful coincidence. John
did not know that Kerry was good friends at that
time with Judy's singh who had witnessed John driving along
Granite Street with what appeared to be a body in
the back seat of the Ford Falcon sedan. Terry McLean's

(01:02:59):
efforts to lert me to what Judy saw have led
to police obtaining fresh and what we believe is compelling
evidence in this case for the first time in years.
When John left Crystal at the home of a woman
whom John had never met until his stepdaughter needed somewhere
to live, he had no idea of the coincidence nor

(01:03:20):
how it might pan out. While Cristel was living at
her very welcoming new home in Ballina, Kerry McLain witnessed
the teenager's blossoming connection with her grandmother, her biological father
Mark's mother Edda.

Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
But I encouraged the contact with her grandmother when she
was here. I'm sure the Grannie that used to call
her was her biological dad's mum. I remember there was
an uncle, Yeah, so that would have been her dad's brother.

(01:03:59):
So she did have those family connections with the extended family.
I don't know about Bronwan's mum.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Did KRISTI want to talk to you about her mother?

Speaker 5 (01:04:13):
She talked a little bit. Some kids have disclosed dreadful
things to me when they're staying here, and I never
quiz them. But I'm here to listen. She was baffled too.
She had no answers.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Had you met Bromwin?

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:04:32):
No, no?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
And what about Judy? Did she say whether she knew Bromin.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
I don't think so. But everyone in the street would
have known, oh this person has gone missing. She would
have known of her.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
When I interviewed Judy Singh, she told me something you
haven't heard before. It was about a brief contact Judy
had with Broman shortly before the mother of two disappeared.

Speaker 28 (01:04:58):
And in fact, a few weeks before all that She
was on my front gutter, and I was concerned about
her because there was a colvet there where the water
ran down. She was there with her little girl, and
I came out and I said, oh, I'm wrong with you,
all right? She said, no, my husband's changed the locks.
I can't get into the house. Do you think you

(01:05:18):
could give me a glass of water? So I went
back in the house and I got there in a
little girl's glass of water, and I came out and
I just thought, I said, please, don't sit there. I've
seen a snake go down that colt there in the
front of the house. And she got up and she
just sort of stood up that she was a little
bit wonky on her legs. I think she was doing

(01:05:39):
it really tough. I said, do you want to come
inside for a while, and she said no. She was
going to try and get into the house somehow. She
said that they changed all the locks and there was
no way she could get some things out that she wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Two days after that interview with Jude, I met her
in person near Tweedthead with my colleague Sean Callanan. That
was when she looked at a photograph of her old
house in Granite Street. She peered at the image to
see if the drain was still where she remembered it,
where she recalled seeing Bronwyn.

Speaker 28 (01:06:13):
Yes, she was sitting on these drains here the day
she came to me and was winning a glass of water.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
She was sitting there because that was very shrubby.

Speaker 28 (01:06:24):
In there, and I said, oh, look, I've seen a
snape go down there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Please don't sit there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
The fence wasn't there then.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Our new friend, the scuba diver and former Australian Navy
Captain Ash McDonald and his wife Allison, drove more than
seven hours from the city of Newcastle. They arrived into
Lennox very late on a Friday night. More volunteers came
from Western Sydney. Chris Darcy from Search Dog Sydney, his

(01:06:54):
wife Adele, and a volunteer, Jodi, drove in two vehicles
with trailers, one for the bow and the sonar equipment,
the other towing a mobile kennel for the remarkable dogs,
which are trained to smell human remains, even after decades
of concealment. I picked up the indefatigable Madison Walsh at

(01:07:14):
Brisbane Airport on Friday afternoon and we went to Murray
Nolan and Deb Hall's house in Sandstone Crescent, Lennox, the
house where they've lived for about thirty five years. We
drove slowly down the adjoining Granite Street and looked up
at what was once the balcony where Judy sing sat,
where she is adamant that she saw John driving his

(01:07:37):
Ford Falcon with what appeared to be a body wrapped
in a sheet in the back seat, and where detectives
from the Unsolved homicide unit in Sydney have already been
with Judy since you heard her revelations. In episode seven,
Deb put the kettle on as Murray shared a theory
about what he now believes happened when the falcon rolled

(01:08:00):
down the hill from John and Roman's house about ten
forty pm on Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three. When
I met Murray and Deb for the first time in
their home way back in February twenty twenty four, for
one of my very early interviews for this podcast investigation,

(01:08:21):
we had an exchange that you are about to hear.
Remember back then, Judy Singh had not come forward. At
the time that I met Murray and Deb. We would
not hear from Judy for another four months.

Speaker 36 (01:08:36):
Okay, would have got enough roll up to go down
the driveway because it's quite a steep, and then be
able to swing and then roll down this hill without
the car being on definitely until he got down around
the bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Then you'd have to turn it on because it's on
the flat.

Speaker 7 (01:08:49):
My fear is that the kids were still asleep in
the house and he didn't want to waken.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
What's that in the car?

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
It's looking very very perplex Fyle, just at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
So you think he's there come back?

Speaker 7 (01:09:02):
Yes, yes, so he's left here twenty to eleven. He's
gone to the all night service station in Valen Which
is there anymore come back? I needver heard him come back?

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
And why do you think that the children would have
remained in the house of sleep?

Speaker 6 (01:09:17):
Why wouldn't the children have gone with him at twenty
to eleven.

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
That's just my theory.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
A lot of water has gone under the bridge in
this podcast series since that first interview with Murray and
Dare back in February twenty twenty four, on the eve
of our lake search. In July, five months later, Murray
told me that he had been thinking a lot about
the Sunday night in May nineteen ninety three, Murray has

(01:09:46):
been considering the possibilities and the timings, including what Judy
Singh has revealed she saw closer to midnight. Murray now
reckons that the Ford Falcon ran out of fuel and
woul start on the slope of the driveway outside the
house at Sandstone Crescent when John got into the car

(01:10:06):
about ten forty pm that Sunday night. Murray's theory is
that John grabbed a can of mower fuel from the garage,
reversed the car out and rolled down the hill without
lights and power until he got to the flat part
at the bottom of Sandstone Crescent. Then, Murray's surmises John
emptied the can of fuel and went straight to the

(01:10:28):
Ampole service station in Ballina. Murray's theory could explain the
car bottoming out. It might have had weights in the
boot bags of cement, for example, or weights from his
bench press set. But it might have bottomed out because
if John did not have fuel and couldn't start the engine,

(01:10:50):
the brakes would have been impaired, in which case did
the car roll back down the driveway faster than usual
contributing to the scrape and bottoming out of the towbar
on the road. Did the speed of the car in
reverse help John clear the driveway and get a little
way into Sandstone Crescent so that he could then wrench

(01:11:12):
the steering wheel to the left to point the car downhill.
The actual receipt for the eleven o six pm purchase
has been sent to me by the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor,
and it shows that John spent fifty one dollars that night.
If it all went on petrol, it would have been
about the right amount of money to fill the petrol

(01:11:34):
tank up from empty. We're not calculating something else here.
It is not known whether the liquefied petroleum gas pack
in the car was operational at the time, so we
are not factoring LPG into the purchase. But the LPG
tank was still in the boot. The boot is big

(01:11:59):
in Murray's theory. John then comes back from the Ampole
service station with a Ford Falcon which has had its
petrol tank filled up, and then at home he's done
what he's needed to do, perhaps with Bromwyn and the sheets,
leaving the children alone again asleep. The car has gone

(01:12:19):
out again and crept slowly along Granite Street. Its driver
possibly a gas that the interior light was on. We
can only speculate about why the light was left on,
allowing Judy to see what she insists she saw. Murray's
idea is sound, but we're all speculating with others involved

(01:12:43):
in the search. Arriving into Lennox, Maddie and I left
Murray and Deb's house and we went into town, pulling
up opposite what used to be Eden's Takeaway where Bromwin
worked on the Friday night Chris Darcy, his partner Adele,
and their friend in Volune. Here, Jodi joined myself, Maddie,
Andy Reid, his daughter Caitlin, Deb and Murray for an

(01:13:07):
impromptu dinner of takeaway pizzas. Chris shared some of his
search planned.

Speaker 10 (01:13:14):
So I went out a look this afternoon, looked at
all the silent and everything around the lake, and I
don't think we go in low priority. We'll put the
market up, We'll have the laptop, we'll have the boat
trailer there, we have the dog trailer there. It's just
that I was doing a few extra bodies to help
us carry the boat pretty much from there to the waterline.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Andy mentioned something he'd read on the official Bromwin Facebook
discussion group page.

Speaker 20 (01:13:39):
They used to dive down the fifteen meters or so
at the bottom and said it was quite sheltery and
if you tried to stand up on the bottom he
had seen nearly up.

Speaker 10 (01:13:48):
So this is aparently's in the deepest hole here.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Murray pointed to the laptop and the grid search drawn
by Chris.

Speaker 7 (01:13:57):
There's the old four wheel drive track go back in
those they're fishing and going up and down this beach
all else.

Speaker 10 (01:14:04):
If it was a surfboard bag, then that shouldn't decompose
too much. And an example of that is over in
the Mediterranean they're still finding shipwrecks that are three hundred
years old in the fresher water parts of it. That's
not even actually rotting the wood with the sona. It
comes down directly below the boat and it really picks

(01:14:25):
up this part there right. But then you've got the
side view and it then covers that. I've got a
monitor that you guys can sit there and watch it
on vack at base and then we've.

Speaker 20 (01:14:38):
Got radio comments between the stress amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Well, so the check is incredible. Yeah, yeah, from Blake,
who's still figuring out Blue too. You're the search leader
and we'll just do what you think.

Speaker 10 (01:14:53):
So that's the soda of what a body will look
like in the water, because the potential is there that
we could locate, but what.

Speaker 17 (01:15:03):
Are the os that realistically, after thirty one years we'd
get the visual.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Like that, no, non deliver. Yeah, what we're looking for
now is.

Speaker 10 (01:15:13):
Something that is unnatural. If anybody is having any mental
health issues after this weekend or at any time, just
reach out to us.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
The next morning we headed for the water, the dark
water of Lake Ainsworth.

Speaker 10 (01:15:32):
We'll do our search pattern. If we locate something, I'll
drop the shot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
The shot is simply a weight attached to a line.
At the other end of the line, there's a boy
designed to float on top of the lake as a marker.
The shot is dropped overboard when the sonar detects an
item on the lake bed, giving ash McDonald something to
dive on. The shot weight. If it's a nice heavy weight,

(01:15:57):
it's only three and a half helus.

Speaker 8 (01:15:59):
It's not enough because on the bottom that's six meters down.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
It doesn't wait that much.

Speaker 8 (01:16:03):
If I'm searching around it, I'll drag it along the bottom.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Well, tie all three together, that'll be Tinklos should do it.
Chris explained that his cadaver dog is specially trained primarily
for bones because he does the long underwater for thirty
one years. Yeah, thank you off for Sam. If you
have that disturbance coming to the surface, then you expect
that the dogs will react to it. We behavior, yes

(01:16:30):
in the boat. Yes, Ash brought scuba tanks and other
diving equipment from Newcastle. How much air is in there? Ash?

Speaker 35 (01:16:38):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
How long will that last? Forty minutes to an hour?
Thank you? Pen's how nervous I am. How much breeding
I do? Andy Reid looked hopeful on the shore of
the lake that first morning. There's going to be expectation
and then possible age your disappointment. I don't know how
you reconcile those things.

Speaker 20 (01:16:58):
I know we've always thought that this was a major
possibility the late before Judy seeing before any of that,
and just trying to stay positive.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Maddie Walsh didn't look ready to get into the cold,
dark water. You did say you'd died.

Speaker 5 (01:17:15):
Yeah, I did.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Bring my swimmers.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
I've only really snorkeled in my life, but it seems
like ash Is the more qualified diver.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
There was apprehension, but also good humor. Kind people were
helping us, people from the community. They came down to
watch and lend their support. Murray's laugh is contagious. Chris
returned from the far northwest corner of the lake with

(01:17:47):
an indication from his sonar of something unusual.

Speaker 10 (01:17:51):
He presents us a larger structure and there's no other
structure within the lake so far that we've seen that
this side of.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
This would relate.

Speaker 10 (01:18:00):
It's about twenty meters off the shore.

Speaker 20 (01:18:03):
If we find her, that's what we're ideally here for.
You fantastic if we're binding behind her and get some closure.
It's very very calm, very peaceful place.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
It's an airing place too. How do you feel about
the possible recrimination that some might have, which is this
is a job best left to police, the media, group
and private citizens. Volunteers should stayed right away. After thirty
one years.

Speaker 20 (01:18:34):
We've had no closure, We've had no movement in the case.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
The police just move so slow. It's just so frustrated,
very frustrating.

Speaker 20 (01:18:43):
You just can't thank everyone's involvedent enough to give their
time and every weekend un below ash increase and everyone's
just amazing, amazing effort.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Fingers cross.

Speaker 10 (01:18:58):
We need to recover brom create or cause any dammage
or to be disrespectful to traditional oness.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Hold that up, Ash, it was half a house brick,
is it? Did you feel the brick or did you
see it first?

Speaker 35 (01:19:16):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
I felt it. Imaginations raced anything seemed possible. But Murray
was of the view that the half brick was possibly
part of a homemade net trap, that it was used
as a weight to help catch the abbeys in the lake.
The abby traps out and then wave down the bricks

(01:19:38):
and then put them in right. That's that's the while
I'm thinking of the moment. We took encouragement from the
fact that something that small was visible on the sona
back on the water. Ash had something else about.

Speaker 15 (01:19:53):
Where you meet us from Sean was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Just pieces different. James fell apart in my hands.

Speaker 8 (01:20:04):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
Is the profile consistent with what might be human remains potentially?

Speaker 10 (01:20:09):
Yes, Yes, it's spread out over a small area. It's
not giving out because of the user. It's been on
the bottom of not giving out of her installed profile.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Ashley found an aluminum ore on the lake bed.

Speaker 10 (01:20:25):
Well, at least you're cleaning up the lake as well,
and you get yourself better off.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Amazing. Murray talked about the attention that the town has
been getting. It's in the news a lot now because
of the Bronwin podcast and John and you're going to
see him around town. Inevitable. Oh yeah, it's a sport.

Speaker 7 (01:20:51):
I'm sure community doesn't quite the focus.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
And what's happened. We're a pretty poor.

Speaker 7 (01:20:56):
The sort of town.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
Everyone who's conscipes themselves and.

Speaker 7 (01:20:59):
We'll look after one and we're good, look down the
good little community and I think we'd rather this didn't happen.
We'll come up and say, Murray, you know this podcast
is doing a good thing, and the people also saying
this isn't a good thing. So yeah, so where do
you go? We're stuck in the middle.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
The hopes of Andy and his daughter Caitlin were raised again.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
We found a.

Speaker 20 (01:21:25):
Few holes over there and we've dropped the marker in
a hole. It's about seven point one. We just do
it quite quickly, twenty five meters off the bank. There's
something lying on the bottom over there, something to mention. Yeah,
that was the quickest, most successible place to get someone
out of car and into the water.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
Although we were there for a job that was at
its heart macabre, the vibe through the weekend was positive
and happy, well have you got there? Everything deb Hall
organized and impromptu lunch, and the day just didn't seem
right without Ian Gluis, otherwise known as Scruffy. I might

(01:22:09):
actually ring Scuffy, So if he wants to come down.
He got in his car and arrived soon after. I'm
getting people saying can we have Scruffy with his own podcast.
I've got this on record now, so the f bombs
careful those.

Speaker 32 (01:22:25):
I understand you've got a fairly good recording studio up
there sorting this out right. Yeah, editing, and it's not
that hard to edit out all those expletives deleted.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
I remember you telling me how you came to the
lake one day for the picnic or a day out, yeare,
and you were with Bromwin And there's a photograph was
taken there and it's a photograph of Bromwin's sitting down.

Speaker 32 (01:22:56):
On a run with my vehicle part behind her there where.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
We were barbecued. And did you get along well with her?
Of course? Yeah, I got along well with John. That
was until they fell out with each other. After Bromwin
disappeared and Scruffy decided that John had killed her.

Speaker 32 (01:23:17):
The house was his and his solely place, and then
it became her prison. She's the sort of a person
who loved being out and with other families, with the kids.
The same agent went to the school, knew the teachers.
It gradually seeped into the community that Bromwin was not
returning and was not on a two week or whatever

(01:23:39):
holiday anywhere with no communication. She wouldn't have left her
kids for two days.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
This is a big external focus on the community. What
feedback are you getting as a result of the podcast.

Speaker 32 (01:23:52):
It's a good thing for everyone that knew and loved her,
and it's not justice when you've got a cold blooded person,
which he is cold blooded and getting away with murder.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
John has always emphatically denied wrongdoing, and Scruffy's opinion is
only one of many in this town. On the second
day of the search, hopes remained high. Chris records we've
done about the lake in terms of scanning on it.
Maddie was hopeful and sassy. Can you please hold that

(01:24:32):
beaver one?

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Am I your assistants.

Speaker 20 (01:24:35):
Yes, literally, yes, I was hoping.

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
Denise Barnard remembered Bromman's birthday party when she turned thirty one,
just a few weeks before she disappeared.

Speaker 12 (01:24:48):
She talked about Pendragon and how she had the tape
and she wanted us to listen to it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Deb told us about having gone to one of the
tarot sessions with Bromwin earlier in this episode, you heard
about Pendragon, the tarot card reader whose real name was
David Addenbrook, that was part of.

Speaker 36 (01:25:08):
The fifty dollars and he charged you'd get a tape
call yeah, question, but.

Speaker 13 (01:25:13):
We never got to listen to it that day. Oh,
you should listen to it.

Speaker 5 (01:25:16):
It'll be really great.

Speaker 36 (01:25:18):
This is going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
Bronwin believed that there were very good things ahead, and
the tarot card reader Pendragon, had confirmed this for her.
She was excited about a future away from her estranged
husband John. Bromwin had no plans to do anything except
look after her girls and make more friends in the remarkable,

(01:25:42):
beautiful town, Lennox said, where she is still remembered fondly.
We are going to take a break in production now
and we'll be back with the rest of Bromwin at
least half a dozen more episodes after a pause of
some weeks. Thank you for listening to this, the tenth

(01:26:04):
episode and all the ones that came before it, and
for supporting this investigation of Bronwin's suspected murder. Bronwyn is

(01:26:26):
written and investigated by me Headley Thomas as a podcast
production for The Australian. If anyone has information which may
help solve this cold case, please contact me confidentially by
emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au. You
can read more about this case and see a range

(01:26:49):
of photographs and other artwork at the website bronwynpodcast dot com.
Our subscribers and registered users here episodes. First production and
editorial team for Bromwan includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget,
Bryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen,

(01:27:13):
Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio production for this podcast
series is by Wasabi Audio and original theme music by
Slade Gibson. We have been assisted by Madison Walsh, a
relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can only do this kind
of journalism with the support of our subscribers and our

(01:27:33):
major sponsors like Harvey Norman. For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps,
timelines and documents about this podcast and other podcasts including
The Teacher's Pet, The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story,
Shandy's Legacy, and The Night Driver. Go to the Australian
dot com dot au and subscribe.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The Breakfast Club

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 10: Mothers

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The Breakfast Club

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Episode 10: Mothers

On Purpose with Jay Shetty