November 8, 2024 • 73 mins
For 31 years, key parts of Jon’s story have been taken for granted.
Even while he has been a longtime murder suspect, nobody challenged Jon’s claims that he made two long-distance telephone calls from the house at Sandstone Crescent on the night Bronwyn was last seen alive. The first call, he claimed, was made to his daughter Jodie. The second one to his brother Peter.
Hedley Thomas and Matt Condon delve deeply into Jon’s own words from his recorded interview with police in 1998, and they test the veracity of these claims by retracing his steps on the fateful night. They conclude that Bronwyn, not Jon, made those calls when she was fearful about his return.
Pro sleuthing by avid listener and experienced lawyer Karina Berger as she searches for an airline’s flights timetable from 1993 leads to a breakthrough. But Jon says Bronwyn has just started a new life with a mystery boyfriend.
Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.
If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
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 course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian. You heard
(00:42):
John Winfield's voice actor say in the previous episode.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I mean she wasn't hostile or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
John was responding to a question from Detective Sergeant Glenn
Taylor about Bromwin's attitude towards John when he turned up
at Sandstone Crescent. That's set out on page thirty six
of the official interview transcript from that morning in early
August nineteen ninety eight, as John sat in the police
station in Ballina with detectives Taylor and Wayne Temby asking questions.
(01:16):
There are forty pages of transcript from that interview left
to analyze. Some of the most important references are coming
up now. Back in episode five of the Bromwin podcast series,
Maddie Walsh and I talked about the importance of timelines.
Timelines are so important, definitely in cases like this. They
(01:40):
help us understand what's going on. YEA, who said, what when,
what happened? As you go through it, it'll become more
and more detail. I remember talking to us to a
great criminal lawyer, and he said, timelines win cases. But
until I had time to look more closely at the
transfer script of the police interview for the previous episode
(02:03):
and this one, neither Maddie nor I realized that there
was something very wrong in a particular part of John's story.
Let's start unpacking this. Here's John's next response on page
thirty six of the transcript. Remember he's describing being at
the house in Sandstone Crescent on Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And then that was when sometime I'm trying to think
that was probably it was after seven o'clock. It might
have been even after eight o'clock by that time. I
can't remember, honestly. All I know is it was dark.
You know, it was probably at least an hour or
(02:47):
maybe an hour and a half after the plane landed,
whatever time that was. And that was dark, because I
remember I got off the plane in the dark.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at
six fifty three pm and one at seven oh six.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Pm, six fifty three seven. Yeah. Do you know did
you make any phone Cooks?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No, I didn't make Apparently she made a couple of
calls to Graham told me she had a solicitor, Yes,
another solicitor she had in Lismore, the guy that used
to be on the radio all the time, you know,
legal advice on a Thursday.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
John is referring here to Chris mcdebitt. Christopher.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, that's him. Yeah, yeah, she had him actually, and
she had his home phone number. And this is what
Graham said, apparently because Graham looked on her telephone accounts
afterwards and he told me the phone calls were made
to his place, his house.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Detective Tempi, can you just assist in relation to the identity.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Of those chief phone numbers? First one was I think
that's Jody's Is it? Five? Two one, three to one?
Wayne Temby read out a seven digit telephone number, which
we will not repeat in full in the episode. John
Winfield replied to the detective Senior Constable's question like this.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It is interesting that in his first response to Glen
Taylor's question, John says that he did not make any calls,
but then Glen Taylor asked Detective Temb during the interview
with John to help in relation to the two calls
in question, as these two calls were long distance or
STD the abbreviation for subscriber trunk dialing. They were noted
(04:49):
in detail on the paper telephone bill for Sandstone Crescent
for the month of May nineteen ninety three. The time
the phone calls were made, the duration of the calls,
and the numbers dialed are printed on that telephone bill,
which the detectives had in the interview room when they
were questioning John. This itemized telephone bill and copies of
(05:12):
it are still in existence. We've got a copy of
it in our files on the case.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh I see, yeah, I rang that one, yeah, to
tell Jody I was at home. Yeah, that's right, Yeah, yeah,
I remember that's six fifty three. Okay, that's seven o'clock. Yeah,
so that was Jody.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I rang Jody and said, okay, I'm back home now,
you know, because I sort of come up now. I
remember that's Jody and my brother the one at seven
oh six. Yes, my brother, yep, I rang my brother too. Yes,
that's my brother's number. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, So there was no no SHD calls, which Bromwin
may Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, I remember that's Jadie and my brother. Well, I
rang them to say I'd arrived home safely, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Your brother's name's Peter, is it, Yeah, Peter Winfield.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Is Peter still living in Sydney?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, anger Den.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Okay, so you've made they've TIFA calls and then you're
still sitting around the dining room with the children.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I think so. I can't remember what was bronwin doing.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I made the phone calls from the telephone in the kitchen.
There's another telephone in the main bedroom, and she went
into the main bedroom and made these ones apparently too. Apparently,
I don't know. I wasn't in the bedroom with her.
I don't know. I didn't know, But all I know
is that she went in the bedroom and that it
(06:55):
was Graham. That was Graham told me that where the
phone calls were going. Because I was surprised when he
told me, because I didn't know you could trace local
phone calls and I had no idea you could do it.
And then he told me you could, and he did it.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But there are some loocians and concerning discrepancies in all
of this, and they cry out for further investigation. They
could be really important in this case. For reasons that
will soon become obvious. These loose eians became obvious to
me while I was reading documents during the drafting of
(07:37):
this episode. As a result, I've been emailing and calling
former and current airline pilots, aviation regulators, even collectors of
old airline timetables. I have been helped enormously by some
very clever listeners who went into full private detective mode
(07:58):
to help me find the answers. We have been trying
to confirm the arrival time in Balliner on May sixteen,
nineteen ninety three of the flight which John Winfield bordered
in Sydney earlier that day. It was a seventy to
eighty minute flight. The airline Anset Australia, which collapsed several
(08:21):
years later, flew the route for several days. I was
tantalizingly close because of the discovery of an ANSET timetable
for the months of September nineteen ninety two to March
of nineteen ninety three. That timetable sets out all the
ANSET flights and their departure times for the hop from
(08:41):
Sydney to Balliner. But I didn't have the May nineteen
ninety three timetable. We were close no cigar. Here's why
it might be crucial in this podcast series. You have
heard me say that John Winfield called his daughter Jody
and his brother Peter at six point fifty three pm
(09:05):
and seven h six pm respectively, from the house at
Sandstone Crescent on May sixteen when he arrived at the house,
and it seemed uncontroversial. John Winfield confirmed this as you've
just heard in his interview with Glenn Taylor in nineteen
ninety eight. There just didn't appear to be anything unusual
(09:26):
about it. But while going through John's interview transcript, it
struck me that the timing appeared to make it very difficult,
if not impossible, for John to have made those calls.
Here's what his friend John Watson stated in his police
statement in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
John was wringing me from Sydney and he asked me
if I could pick him up from the Ballina Airport
and give him a lift home. That night, about six
thirty pm, I went to the airport and I met John.
He asked me if I could take him to the
Ballener Police station prior.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
To taking him home.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
I drove him to the police station, and I waited
in the car while he went in. He was in
the police station for about five minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
We do not know the time at which John Watson
drove away from Balliner Airport with John Winfield, but if
the pickup went smoothly despite all of John's gear and
his surfboard, and if the flight landed around six twenty
five pm, let's say they got away at six forty pm.
(10:34):
It takes a good ten minutes or so to get
from the airport to Balloner Police station, but let's say
they do it very quickly, in just seven minutes. Glenn
Taylor was told by John Winfield that he was in
the police station for about fifteen minutes. John Watson, in
his police statement estimated that he was waiting in his
(10:56):
car outside the police station for about five minutes. Let's
be generous and go with the five minute estimate. That
means it would have been after six point fifty pm
when John Winfield is the passenger in John Watson's car
driving away from Barner Police Station to pick up Becky
McGuire from her home in Lenox Head. John Watson said
(11:20):
they drove to either Gibbons Street or Stuart Street in
lenox Head to collect Becky. It doesn't make much difference
because both of those streets, just a few blocks northwest
of the retail strip in Lenox Head are about the
same distance from Barner Police Station. I've done the trip
many times now. It's a good fifteen minutes. The two
(11:44):
men and the young woman say they then drove to
Sandstone Crescent together and that's going to take seven minutes minimum.
The upshot is this, if the Ansett Australia jet landed
just before six thirty pm, and John then wore off
and very quickly collected his luggage and surfboard, then went
(12:04):
directly to the police station and then to lennox Head
to get Becky. The earliest that they could have arrived
at his house in Sandstone Crescent would have been about
seven point fifteen pm, the house which bronwin had moved
back into with the two girls on the Friday night
after asking a locksmith to come out to remove the
(12:25):
locks which John had put on to try to prevent
his estranged wife from getting back inside the house. But
that's not all, because the evidence of Becky is that
John Winfield then drove her in the family Ford Falcon
back to Becky's home in Lennox Head John Watson had left.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
John Watson drove away. We walked up to the front
of the house and John knocked on the door. The
door opened and Bronwin and the children were standing at
the door. I wasn't really paying much attention at the time,
but I recall Bronwyn babbling on about something, but they
weren't arguing. Bronwin walked back into the house towards the kitchen,
and John gave the girls a cuddle, and I saw
(13:09):
that Lauren was crying. I saw two suitcases inside the doorway,
and John picked them up and put them in the car.
John must have had a set of keys to the car,
because we then got into the car and he drove
me home. I remember both Crystal and Lauren were standing
at the window inside the house, watching as we reversed
out of the driveway. John didn't go inside the house
(13:31):
at all while I was in the house with him.
While we were driving back to my house, John thanked
me for coming with him and told me he was
sorry for getting me involved. I haven't seen Bronwin since
that night I went to her place with John.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
John Winfield then must have returned on his own to
go to the home in Sandstone Crescent. It's got to
be about seven thirty pm before he gets there, and
that's if the plane landed at about six thirty pm.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
My name is Karina Berger.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Three months before the release of this episode, a listener
emailed we were in Ireland on leave at the time.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
I'm contacting you to offer my assistance with legal research, analysis, etc.
For Bronwan or any other podcasts you might have in
the pipeline. I love true crime and working to solve
a problem or mystery. I also find undertaking work that
is in the public interest very rewarding. Some of my
particular strengths are my attention to detail, communication and organization
(14:58):
and project management SKI and my ability to recall information
and facts. If you ever require another pair of hands
and think my skill set might be beneficial, I would
be very happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Karina is an experienced lawyer with a particular interest in
coronial inquest work, and she has worked on many coronial
investigations and inquests over the years. She was following the
Bromwin podcast very closely. We started exchanging emails around the
same time offers of help from other women with proven
(15:33):
experience in investigations in the criminal justice system were coming in.
Some have preferred anonymity. They're all amazing and very generous
with their time. Three days after I first became suspicious
about those calls from the house, I raised it with
Karna over a Greek salad in Brisbane. The timing was good.
(15:55):
She was visiting from interstate with her husband for his work.
Karina flew home late that afternoon and she resolved to
start looking for a thirty one year old timetable which
might show when a long defunct airline used to fly
to the airport of a regional town in New South
Wales on Sundays in May nineteen ninety three. My other
(16:17):
contacts from the podcast listenership were also on the job
trying to locate this key information. In northern New South Wales,
my friend and colleague Matt Condon called. We spoke about
the driving that he would do while retracing where John
would have gone thirty one years ago. After the anset
(16:37):
jet landed. Then Matt rang off, turned on his voice
recorder and got ready to roll.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
This is the side of obviously the old Byron Ballina
Regional airport. I remember getting.
Speaker 8 (17:01):
Flights to and from Sydney into here.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
It hasn't changed that much that we're here now to
follow John Winfield's timeline and we'll.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
Just see how the templates marry up.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Okay, just leaving the airport and out, traffic conditions are
pretty light. Simple direct route from the airport down to
the police station, past the Ballona Bayside and Ballon Affair
shopping centers, straight down to River Street and hang a left.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We're at over.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Five minutes at the moment, so I've arrived at the
Ballina Police station on River Street at twelve minutes and
eleven seconds. Winfield claims that he was brought here by
mister Watson and went into the station to check if
there were any legal restraints against him as in Bronwyn,
(18:01):
placing possibly domestic violence restrictions on his proximity to her. Okay,
that's exactly five minutes. I'm now leaving the police station
and heading towards the Ocean Road, which will head up
to Lenox.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Seventeen minutes eleven seconds.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
There's a sort of little backway here to get onto
that which the locals would know, and it would be
a logical way through Ballinatown to get onto that coastal road.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm just coming through the main drag of Lenox.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
There was a little bit of traffic, not a lot,
but it might have accounted for twenty or thirty seconds
over and above a clean run through that street. I've
just arrived where he picks up Jody's friend. We'll wait
for ninety seconds. It's thirty four minutes and fifteen seconds.
(19:02):
Just arrived outside the house at Sandstone Crescent. It was
forty one minutes and thirty nine seconds.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I'll wait now.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
For another ninety seconds before we head back to drop
the young woman off and then come back to Sandstone. Right,
we're back at Gibbon forty nine minutes and one second.
We'll wait for fifteen seconds to Sandstone for the final leg. Okay,
(19:38):
just pulled up back at Sandstone Crescent in front of
the house. That journey from the airport took precisely fifty
six minutes and thirty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Hey Matt, how'd you go?
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I went from Ballino Airport, did all the stops, and
finally I've returned here back at Sandstone Crescent and giving
Winfield sort of two minutes at the end of the
journey to meet and greet his kids, etc. At the
door of the property which I'm parked out the front.
The final time came in at fifty eight minutes and
(20:16):
thirty five seconds, right.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Well, that's consistent with what John Winfield himself says in
the record of interview that he's done with Glenn Taylor
in nineteen ninety eight. So he says something like it
was about an hour to an hour and a half
after he'd arrived in Ballener that he got into the house.
(20:39):
So that makes sense exactly if we round it up
to one hour. He would have had to have arrived
in Ballaner and be getting into John Watson's car at
Banner Airport by five fifty pm on Sunday May sixteen
(21:01):
for him to have been able to make that first
phone call at six fifty three pm to his daughter
Jody on that same day.
Speaker 8 (21:14):
What time did the plane land?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
This is still the missing piece in this puzzle. We
know from John Watson's statement that John Watson says he
got to the airport at six thirty pm to collect
John Winfield. What we don't have for certain yet is
the arrival time of the aircraft from Sydney. We've got
(21:41):
a timetable that shows that in the months of October
to March, and said Australia had aircraft leaving at six
ten pm in Sydney and arriving into Ballana at seven
thirty But we don't yet have the timetable for the
(22:05):
months following the end of March, whether the timetable changed
for those subsequent months. You know Matt from previous episodes
in this series, as well as from his work in
other podcast investigations I've done into the murders of Australian women.
In a coincidental piece of voice acting symmetry. You know
(22:28):
Matt's voice from this episode too, because he read the
lines from the police statement of John Watson. Matt suggested
that the aircraft possibly landed in May nineteen ninety three
at around six thirty pm, not seven thirty pm. Matt
suggested that that might have happened because of daylight saving.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
If you're a boat is in New South Wales in
the beginning of October of any given year, I think
since the early nineteen seventies, so you actually on a
Sunday you turn your clock forward one hour at the
beginning of daylight saving, so in essence you're losing an hour,
but by going forward it gives you an extra hour
(23:11):
or so of daylight at the end of the day,
which is the point of daylight saving, and that is
for people to be able to finish work and enjoy
the daylight in the summer months. Come April the following year,
six months later, daylight saving ends in New South Wales,
so you have to claw back that hour and it
(23:32):
goes back to normal Eastern Standard time. The flight, as
we know, was in May, so daylight saving was well
and truly over by at least six seven weeks by then,
so the clocks would have gone back an hour to
parity with the East Coast. So if a flight in March,
(23:53):
for example, landed in Ballina at seven point thirty pm
during daylight saving hours beyond April outside of daylight saving hours,
that flight would have landed at around six thirty pm,
so you claw back the hour. If he'd landed at
six thirty, it was picked up at six thirty pm
(24:14):
and then went to the bell on the police station,
so seven eleven pm is the first revisit to Sandstone
then to go back to be able to pick up Becky.
He would have arrived there at seven nineteen pm. Give
them ninety seconds for that, and then to swing back
(24:37):
to Sandstone, and to give him credit for a couple
of minutes of meeting and greeting at the door and
getting back into the house. He would have been in
Sandstone Crescent after all of that journey at around about
seven twenty eight pm.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well, how does he make these telephone calls that he
said he made to Jody and to Peter at six
fifty three pm and then seven ozh six pm from
Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Well, he couldn't have, because going by these specific times,
he wasn't in the house to make the calls.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Let's go with a hypothetical, allow for perhaps a mistaken memory.
They didn't get Becky, or he decided to go to
the house at Sandstone Crescent ahead of getting Becky, something
like that. It seems from those time stamps, Matt, that
he still can't make it in time to make a
call at six fifty three pm, twenty three minutes after
(25:39):
the John Watson six thirty pm pick up at Balner Airport. No,
there's no way you know these roads, Matt. You've driven
them a lot before the Bromwin podcast, and more so
since we've been working on it together. Can you imagine
being able to drive from the Ballina Police station to
(26:01):
Bromwin's old house in Sandstone Crescent, Lenox Head in six
to seven minutes. It's impossible.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I've done the journey from Ballina Town Center along the
Coast Road for innumerable reasons, kids soccer, shopping at Woolies
at the back of Lennox invariably in the back of
your head. You know, it takes on average at least
fifteen minutes. There's no way around that. I mean, that's
even with a clear run. That's just the time it takes.
(26:33):
It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I don't want us to count o chickens before they've hatched.
But this is a really big loose end because John
was adamant in his police interview that he made those
telephone calls. He was initially saying he didn't make any calls,
and then when propped it, he goes, oh, yeah, that's right,
I remember now I did make those calls.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
Neither of them correspond on the timeline to Jonathan Winfield
being in the house and physically able to make those calls.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
If he didn't make those phone calls because he couldn't
have been in the house. Then I'm suggesting the only
person who could have made those calls was Bromwin, and
I think that's consistent with Bromwin having telephoned her solicitor,
Chris mcdebott in the late afternoon because of her concern
(27:29):
about John's imminent return. John says that he made those
calls basically to tell his daughter and his brother that
he had arrived safely and was in the house.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
I'm just thinking of myself and my own family, saying
I flew from Sydney to Ballina, which is a relatively
short flight within the same state. I fail to see
why there would be any reason or urgency to ring
(28:07):
not one family member but two to alert them that
they had arrived safely an hour and twenty minute flight maximum.
I'm not sure what sort of peril could one could
encounter in a humble domestic flight from Sydney de Ballena.
If you're flying into Delhi, or if you're flying into
Barcelona or London and you'd had a long haul, I
(28:30):
would totally understand that, but I simply cannot comprehend why
someone would have to alert close family members to their
safety after a very short domestic flight.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It makes no sense.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
It's just simply illogical and something most certainly that I
wouldn't do, and I think most people wouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
My supposition on.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Your theory is that I think you've nailed it, even
if the timeline's out by a few minutes either side.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
I reckon she's made those.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Calls six point fifty three pm. Is the first one.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Six fifty three pm?
Speaker 9 (29:10):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (29:10):
And when's the next one?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Seven six pm?
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Something has prompted her to make the first call and
then another call twelve thirty minutes later.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If this theory is right, she brings Jody because it
was to Jody that she had her earlier conversation in
which she said, your dad had better not approach me,
or worse to that effect. If Jody and Peter have
no way of contacting John, what's the utility of Bromin
contacting them when John's on the way.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Well, she's tried the solicitor, right, Yeah, and somehow she's
learned he's on the way, made the call at six
point fifty three in a panic.
Speaker 8 (29:54):
It's impossible he can't have made those calls. It's impossible.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
And the only other explanation is that John Watson's claim
that he arrived to pick up John at six thirty
pm is wrong, and that in fact it was five
thirty pm.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
If it was five thirty, then that may work in
terms of him being in the house.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
He gets to the house then by six thirty bit
of meeting and greeting and he has a cup of
tea and then he makes those calls. But that's the
only way.
Speaker 8 (30:28):
That's the only way. Yes, where did you come up
with the five thirty time?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I've just plucked it out of the air, taken two
hours off the arrival time of seven thirty. Yeah, he
says it was dark when he landed. Now, sunset at
that time was after five shortly after five pm. Yes,
it would have had to have left Sydney at fourteen pm,
(30:55):
two hours earlier than the schedule. In the month of
March yeap. What would be John's potential motive to claim
that he made those two phone calls if in fact
Broman had made them.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
We know she's on alert because she's phoned her solicitor,
so she's in that heightened state. If she's phoned Jody
and Peter Winfield. One can only imagine logically it would
be out of concern for her safety.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
He doesn't want the police to know.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, would John Winfield have
worried about two things? Firstly, he's worried that there are
two people in the world, Jody and Peter, who know
that she is fearful at that moment. And secondly, his
consideration would be to keep them out.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of the narrative.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
So is this woman who's already been warned that John's
not going to like it that she's back at the house.
She's worked up enough to ring the solicitor and seek advice.
She anticipating his arrival and not knowing whether he might
be in a mood or how he might react, it
would be very logical for her to reach out to
(32:16):
two of the closest people to him to try and
work out what do I do. I'm in trouble here, Yeah,
that makes sense. I'll just ride out the timestamp timeline
for you.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Thank you so much, Matt, and I'll keep trying to
find the timing of that flight. Some listeners may not
have heard of the once massive answered Australia Airline and
its founder, Sir reginald Anset. Here's a promotional clip from
the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
It's no wonder the Answered group of Airlines flies the
largest domestic fleet in Australasia. Our constant aim is to
provide you with excellence in products and service.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
When this much loved airline folded in two thousand and one,
it was Australia's largest corporate collapse, with more than sixteen
thousand jobs lost. Back in Canberra, two days after I
had first met her, Karina Berger had a breakthrough. Karina.
When I met you at lunch in Brisbane and told
(33:20):
you how I was looking for timetables for Anset in
nineteen ninety three and they were proving really elusive. You
probably didn't expect that you'd be on the chase for
them within a day or so.
Speaker 7 (33:33):
I love a challenge, heed Ley, so I was happy
to help.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
How did you find it?
Speaker 7 (33:37):
I started off with a basic Google search. It made
me realize that timetables for planes and other modes of
transport are actually really collectible items, and there's quite a
lot of private collectors who tend to catalog them and
post blogs about them and take pictures of their covers
and things like that and pop them online. And that
(33:58):
was really helpful because I could have a look at
what people had put up on the Internet, and I
realized that there were a couple of timetables from Anset
that existed in nineteen ninety three. The problem was, though,
that these people only had pictures of the covers, and
they didn't seem to have photographs of the actual timetables
(34:19):
themselves or PDF copies. I reached out to Air Services
Australia in the hope that they might have actual flight
records for the Ballina Airport on the sixteenth of May
nineteen ninety three, and I contacted the National Library of
Australia and did some searches of their online catalog. So
(34:41):
I then turned to the National Archives of Australia catalog
and the New South Wales State Archives catalogs and had
to look there, But those searches also weren't very fruitful,
and so then I just went back to Google and
started to work my way through all of the hits,
and I came across the Sir reginald Anset Transport Museum,
(35:04):
and then I stumbled across a hit that didn't appear
particularly relevant. At first blush something to do with anset buses,
not planes, But it was in the journal of the
Australian Timetable Association. It turns out that that's an organization
that describes itself as being for anyone interested in the
(35:25):
study of transport timetables, schedules, maps and associated literature. So
I decided to email the secretary of that organization and
then lo and behold. In less than an hour I
heard back from the association and they'd found what I
was after.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, that was great. I'd tried to get a timetable
through a website for airline pilots and contacted a collector
in North America and he had lots of timetables, but
not that one. There was another really diligent listener who
had offered to help, and she knows who she is.
(36:05):
She wants to preserve her anonymity. Around the same time
as you were making those inquiries, she was also talking
to the museum and she was hopeful and then she
also got a positive hit. Just shows how when we
all collaborate, just people from home doing these searches, you
know what's possible. What we can see from that is
(36:28):
that there were two flights from Sydney with Anseid Airlines
on Sunday May sixteen, and the second of those flights
left Sydney shortly after six pm.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
That's right, Headley. The timetable shows that a jet was
due to depart Sydney at six fifteen pm and arrive
in Ballina at seven twenty five pm on a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
And we're not aware of any other operator flying aircraft
from Sydney to Ballaner at that time.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
No, not at this stage. And it's actually a query
that I did put to the Australian Timetable Association and
they indicated that they checked the Quantus timetable from the
time and had found that Ballaner wasn't a part of
the Quantus network and that they didn't think that smaller
(37:23):
airlines like East West or Hazleton had flown to Ballaner
from Sydney either.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You've done work with Coronial inquiries over a number of years, haven't.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
You, Yes, I have, Hedley.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Is it easy to see how this would fall through
the cracks the actual time that a person of interest
traveled to the regional town.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
I think it's probably dependent upon the nature of the
case and the police lines of inquiry. At the time,
it would be prudent for an investigator officer to seek
facts to support things like in our port arrival time.
If a suspect or someone who may very well become
(38:10):
a suspect is claiming that they arrived in a location
at a particular time, doing something like that at the
time would be much easier than doing it many years later.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
We've done some on the ground checking of how long
it would take to travel from the airport. It's in
the fifty five to sixty minute range. And it's interesting
that in John's police interview he says that he was
in the ball and a police station for about fifteen minutes,
(38:44):
whereas we allowed for just five minutes when we did
that exercise. It seems to us that it was physically
impossible for John to have made those telephone calls that
at times six fifty three pm and seven h six
pm on the night of Sunday, May sixteenth. Your finding
of that timetable now really helps to demonstrate that. Can
(39:10):
you think of any other explanation that would have permitted
John to have got back in time to make those calls?
Speaker 7 (39:18):
I suppose the only explanations that seem open would be
either John catching the earlier Ancet flight that was due
to land in Ballino at about ten past three in
the afternoon, but that seems unlikely. As I understand he
says that he arrived in the dark, and I think
(39:39):
the sun probably set in Ballino at around about five pm.
And the only other explanation that I can think of
is that he traveled with a different airline carrier, and
we haven't been able to identify such a carrier at
this point in time.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, I agree, the passenger manifest would be amazing have
Whether that's available after thirty one years, I don't know.
I think you'd probably need a warrant for that. It's
probably something only the police could get, I.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
Think so, and there'd be privacy considerations as well. Another
explanation that does occur to me that might allow John
to have made the phone calls would be if the
n set timetable had changed for some reason, such that
he did arrive in the dark in Ballina in time
(40:30):
to get home and make the calls. But we don't
at the moment have any information suggesting that that was
the case. We can't really take that any further.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
In terms of the timings that other people have talked about,
there really aren't that many. There's nothing written down to
our knowledge at the police station. But you've made the
point for to me that the duty books of the
officers could show when John came in to talk to
(41:04):
Sergeant Hart, who's now deceased, about whether John can approach
the home. Despite the conflict with Bromwin.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
I think John to say himself that he saw a
police officer write some things down whilst he was at
the station.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
At one stage in his police interview he says that
it could have been around seven or eight pm that
he got to the house. Unfortunately, Becky Maguire doesn't nominate
a time as to when she gets picked up. Have
you read in the police interview where John's asked about
phone calls?
Speaker 7 (41:42):
Yes, I have read that part.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
He originally says I didn't make any.
Speaker 7 (41:48):
That's right, and then he was more or less sort
of prompted about the phone calls and changed his story
and said, oh, that's right, I forgot I did make
those calls. Yeah, after the phone numbers were read out
to him and the persons that those numbers were allocated
to were confirmed.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Even if John hadn't driven Becky home, he still couldn't
have made those two phone calls. The evidence does show
that Bronwin knew John was coming back to Lennox Head
on that Sunday evening. Karina suggested that John had phoned
the house at Sandstone Crescent before he departed Sydney.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
What about the idea that he could have phoned from
the Sydney airport, like he said before the flight took off,
figured out that they were home, said that he was coming,
and then that led to the panicked phone calls from Bronwan,
potentially to Jody and his relatives.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, that makes sense. We also have Mel Taylor, who
was twelve years old at the time, and she'd been
playing with Lauren and Still on that Sunday afternoon. She
says that when Bromwin returned from work at Eden's takeaway,
she said, oh, where are the girls? Can you tell
them they've got to come home. Their father's arriving, Their
(43:14):
father's coming. Here's how Mel described it in episode four.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
I know I was at the park with Crystal and
Lauren that afternoon around five point thirty ish six ish.
I came home before the girls came home. Bromin came
to that door and she's like, oh, hey, is Lauren
and Crystal here, and like, no, they're at the park,
and she said to me, can you go get them
(43:42):
because her father's coming home.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Is it a strong memory? Yeh, it's a strong memory. Yeah.
Speaking generally, what is the significance in lies that are
told during a police investigation by a person of interest, Well.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
It tends to suggest that their evidence is unreliable and
can't necessarily be trusted, and that they might be looking
to deflect focus on them onto somebody else, probably because
there's a potential element of guilt there.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I called Andy and Michelle Reid Broman's brother and sister
in law, and explain the flight time issue with the
telephone calls. What time did you say the plane actually landed, Well,
we can't know for certain when it landed, but what
it was scheduled to do was land at about seven
point thirty pm.
Speaker 11 (44:42):
Planes don't take off ahead of schedule, no, unless they've
got every passenger on board. But it still would not
be an hour because no.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
One, it seems when got a record of that aircraft
when it actually there's been this assumption that those phone
calls would have just been made by John, as he asserted,
and that everything around the flight was not that important
and it just fell between the cracks under the radar,
(45:15):
so to speak.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
She was concerned, and she already rung mcdebitt to express
concern that she'd found out he was on his way
up there.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Do you have a view about how Bromwin would have
been responding and feeling when she knew that John's arrival
was imminent. He was in the air.
Speaker 12 (45:40):
Well the whole time in that lead up to her
going missing, The biggest worry was him trying to take
the kids.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
She'd have been.
Speaker 12 (45:52):
Worried about him turning up for sure, for sure, Hence
the reason she called Chris mcdebitt to get his advice advice.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Another thing that's quite evident in the lead up to this,
as she was obviously speaking of David getting legal advice,
advised to go back to the home, advised by us
to go back to the home, get yourself set in,
get away from all the financial stress. He knew exactly
what was going on.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
He's flown for an hour from Sydney to Ballina and
then gone back into his own home. Is that the
sort of thing that John would do. Bring someone and
say I've got off the flight and I'm at home
now and I've arrived sakand sound.
Speaker 12 (46:40):
Look it doesn't sound like him to me. The Jody
one possibly makes sense.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
We need to know if Bromwin made them. What was
conversed about to Jody and to Peter or was it
Louise on the other end of the line.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
We don't know. Could either at the second call.
Speaker 11 (47:02):
Those two people Jodie's John's daughter and the Winfield is
his brother and sister in law.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Why there and not her brother? I wonder what she
was doing.
Speaker 12 (47:16):
Was she pleading with them to try and talk to John.
Speaker 11 (47:21):
Maybe it was in the hope that his brother and
his daughter might be able to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
She didn't ring us. Was she trying to get some
help from his family.
Speaker 12 (47:35):
Maybe she thought they might have had more clout with him.
If she was worried about what he was doing, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, I suppose she was worried.
Speaker 11 (47:46):
She knew he was going to try and take the
house back, because that was always being said.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
We need to find out We told that many different people,
that many different stories. If you went through everyone's statement
everyone's memory and all the rest of it. You wind
up with a one hundred points of facts that he's
got wrong. I've started to do that. That's incredible. To
be honest. The more you go through this now with
(48:14):
such a fine truth can absolutely my numbing. You're a
one man band, You've got your public help, and the
people have come forward out there in the real world.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
There's Maddie, there's us, there's all us reviewing it.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
And here they are a complete homicide unsolved unit and
a statewide police force, and we just hear nothing.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
We just here not one thing that they're moving forward with.
To be fair, they may be aware of this, you
don't you. The public help has been incredible, with the
Facebook discussion group and people emailing me directly emailing Maddie.
Karina Berger she found the timetable along with another woman
(49:03):
who has requested an anonymity, and she's a gun investigator. Lazy. Now.
Early in this episode, you heard detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
questioning John Winfield. The second half of the nineteen ninety
eight interview began with a question which has been on
the minds of.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Many, was the conversation between you and browin quite on
good terms.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Amicable, Yeah, because the kids were still up and they
the kids went to bed at about sort of eight
point thirty.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Or suppose it's a leading question and John has embraced it.
A characterization of peace and harmony between a divorcing couple
must be better than the alternative, particularly when the wife
has been missing for five years. We can only speculate
now whether the answer from John would have been different
if he had been taken to an entry in the
(50:00):
Police Running Sheets from nineteen ninety three, the entry where
Deb Hall reports to police what she says John had
told Deb that John and Bromlan had an altercation on
the Sunday evening May sixteenth, when John arrived at the house.
The Dictionary definition for altercation is noisy disagreement. It's the
(50:23):
opposite of a conversation on good terms, a conversation that
is purportedly amicable. If Deb was the only person who
recalled John saying that he and Bromin had an altercation,
it might be one of those he said, she said
claims that makes sense but can't be given a huge
amount of weight. But Louise Winfield, the wife of John's
(50:46):
brother Peter Winfield, made a similar observation in her witness statement,
which is dated August fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight. That's just
nine days after John was questioned by Glenn.
Speaker 13 (50:59):
Taylor, I became aware that John did go to Lennox Head.
My memory of the following events are very vague, but
I recall John telling us that he and Bronwyn had
a fight and that Bronwyn had walked out.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
There were many important recollections and observations which came out
in the dozens of interviews Glenn did with witnesses during
his investigation, but he couldn't put any of those to
John because John gave the detective one shot at an interview.
We're going to look at this in the next episode
because Glenn Taylor, who is always trying to help this
(51:35):
podcast investigation and the Reed family, has offered his perspective
as an insider on all of it. The situation at
Sandstone Crescent on the night of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety
three was something akin to a powder keg with an
unlit fuse. In my view, I have wondered whether it
was triggered by John realizing that Broman was determined to
(51:59):
proceed to divorce did John see in the house that
night Bromlin's copy of a legal letter which her solicitor,
Chrismic Debitt, had sent to John in Sydney two days earlier,
a letter which John would not have received in Sydney
before he flew to Ballina on Sunday afternoon. But John
was going to get that letter anyway, and it would
(52:21):
have been logical for Bronwyn to tell John what her
instructions were, or to tell him what the legal letter conveyed.
It would have been normal for her to say something
like John, I don't want an argument, but as you're
here now, you might as well read what's in the
letter that was sent to you on Friday. This is
what Chrismic Debits legal letter to John stated in part.
Speaker 14 (52:46):
Bronwyin is hopeful that you will both be able to
reach an agreement in relation to financial matters, and we
will be writing to you further with a proposal in
this regard in the near future. We are instructed by
Bronwyn that in her view, your marriage is out an
and that there is no prospect of a reconciliation. In
the meantime, we require your immediate agreement for Bronwin to
(53:06):
retain the use and possession of the Ford motor vehicle
depending finalization of your financial matters.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
The last paragraph of the legal letter urged John to
get his own lawyer and to disclose his intentions around
the Ford Falcon within the next seven days, and it
warned John that Bromwin would go to court to get
an interim order giving her possession of the car if
John failed to respond. Now, let's go back to the
(53:56):
questioning of John by Glenn Taylor in that nineteen ninety
eight interview in the Ballana police station. Can you tell
us what was talked about?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
I got no idea. I can't remember what we talked
about at the moment. We may not even have had
too much discussion. I really can't remember, to tell you
the truth. She didn't ask me anything about Sydney. I
didn't really ask her anything about Lettox or probably about
the kids, you know, just probably about the kids.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
These answers from John where he says they didn't really
talk about anything, are hard to fathom. John is suggesting
two detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor that it was pretty much
like any other evening at the family home. Nothing out
of the ordinary, probably didn't discuss much about anything, but
this was an extraordinary evening. Tensions must have been very high.
(54:52):
John had gone to the expense and trouble of having
new locks installed at the family home. He did that
to ensure that his estranged wife would not get into
that home. But she had. Bronwyn had got herself a locksmith,
and she was living in the house. She had beaten
and discarded the physical barriers that John had organized, and
(55:14):
John could see that she now had possession of the house.
Whatever John believed that possession meant in terms of a
legal right. Bromwyn had already told John's daughter Jody that
the property was Bromwin's too, and that John needed to
be careful about approaching. Here's how Jody described it. You
(55:34):
heard this in episode four.
Speaker 15 (55:37):
I can't recall how it happened, but I rang the
house at Sandstone Crescent and Bronwin answered the telephone. She
told me that she'd moved back into the house with
the kids and that she was staying there. She also
told me that Dad was not welcome there and that
he can stay in Sydney with me. She told me
that she was going to get a restraining order, so
that he couldn't come near the house. She also told
me that the house belonged to her, and I really
(55:59):
know that she changed from the person who wanted us
all to stay close. We both started to argue because
I told her that it was not her house and
that it belonged to Dad, Crystal, Lauren, and me as well.
I also told her that it belonged to us, more
so because she was the one that chose to leave.
It developed into a very heated argument and we were
(56:19):
yelling at each other, and she hung up on me.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
Jody told her father about her difficult Friday, May fourteen
conversation with Bromwan. Jody had tried to talk to Bromin
again on the Saturday morning, but she couldn't reach her stepmother.
Jody spoke instead to ten year old Crystal, and from
whatever the child said, Jody concluded that Bromwin was leaving
(56:44):
the two girls on their own in the house. This
is how Jody described it in her nineteen ninety eight
police statement.
Speaker 15 (56:52):
When I terminated the phone call and told Dad, he
appeared to be very stressed out about it because they
had never been left alone before and he was so
far away. I started ringing at four pm, and from memory,
I think she answered and hung up when she heard
my voice because she knew what was going to happen.
I tried bringing her straight after, but she must have
left the phone off the hook again. It was off
(57:13):
the hook all night. I told Dad and he made
arrangements to fly to Baliner the following day. I felt
that I was out of the situation then when Dad
was going back home to sort it out, so I
left it to him.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
And soon after, a man obsessive about the home he
had built with his bare hands, who carefully watched every dollar,
suddenly packed up his things in Sydney, stopped work on
the building job he was doing in the Shire, and
spent money he would have preferred to keep in his
bank account on a costly fair to fly north to Ballina.
(57:47):
But according to his interview with Detective Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
I can't remember what we talked about at the moment.
We may not even have had too much discussion.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Now, while Jodie's voice is fresh in your mind, let's
hear what she said in her police statement in nineteen
ninety eight about a phone call from Sandstone Crescent on Sunday,
May sixteenth. This is that six point fifty three pm
call which John told the detectives that he had made
to his daughter. It's the call which we believe John
(58:20):
could not have made because the flight timetables suggests he
was still in the air on an Anset jet to bowner.
Jodi referred to the call in the last paragraph of
her twenty one paragraph statement, which was dated August twelve,
nineteen ninety eight. That's a week after John was interviewed
by the detectives.
Speaker 15 (58:41):
Today, Detective Tenby showed me an STD telephone record. I
can recall that my father rang me at that time
from the home at Lenox Head to tell me that
he'd arrived there safely. I don't recall much of the conversation,
but I believe that Bromwin must have been in the
house at the time. I did not speak to Bronwin,
and as I said before, the phone call was very short.
(59:01):
My father told me that he would ring me later,
and that was about it.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Jody confirmed in her statement that the telephone number which
made the call was known to her as having come
from the home phone at Sandstone Crescent, and Jody confirmed
that the number it called was Jody's number at the
time in her flat in Sydney. John's brother Peter Winfield,
in his statement to police in mid August nineteen ninety eight,
(59:28):
was also shown the telephone bill and the reference to
the telephone call being made to Louise and Peter Winfield's
home at seven oh six pm on sixteen May nineteen
ninety three. Peter Winfield told the detective Glen Taylor that
it would have been the call that John made to
Peter from Lennox Head. He said he didn't remember much
(59:51):
about that phone call and that John made it in
the evening. The next thing he says he recalled was
John and the children arriving in Sydney. Peter said that
he had tried to remember, but he couldn't recall what
John said about coming to Sydney with the children. In
episode five, you heard what John had told police five
(01:00:13):
years earlier in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 16 (01:00:17):
He stated that his wife met him at the door
and they sat and talked for some time in the
dining room. The children were then put to bed and
both he and his wife had an evening meal.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
In this version, the one weeks after Bronwin's disappearance John
and Bronwin had quite a bit to talk about. After
the children went to bed, they had an evening meal
together they talked for some time. Five years later, Crystal
described it this way in the statement that she made
two Detective Sergeant Taylor at Ballina Police Station.
Speaker 17 (01:00:52):
I remember being at home in the early evening when
I received a telephone call, and from my recollection, it
was from my father. I don't remember what it was
that I spoke about, but it was not long after
this that my father arrived at the house.
Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
I remember my.
Speaker 17 (01:01:07):
Mother saying something like, what are you doing here? My
father says something about having caught a plane back to Bleana.
I remember Dad coming into the kitchen and I was
sitting watching television. My Dad and Mom started talking, but
I don't know what was being said. The next thing
that I remember was Mum telling myself and my sister
(01:01:27):
Lauren to clean our teeth and go to bed. After
I went to bed, I heard Mom and Dad arguing
in the kitchen. I could hear Mom crying at the
same time. I don't recall what was being said between
Mom and Dad, but I could tell that they were arguing.
I could hear them arguing until I must have fell asleep.
My next recollection that night was being woken by my father.
(01:01:51):
Dad told me that he was taking Lauren a iight
to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Let's go back to the nineteen ninety eight interview. Did
you communicate to her that you were going to leave
that same night to go back to Sydney?
Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
No, no, no way, no.
Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
How did that all come about?
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Well, I didn't say, but like it, I mean, all
of a sudden after the phone calls that she apparently made,
you know, I heard a car pull up. I was
sitting there at the dining room table, and she was
in the bedroom and a car pulled up, and I
mean she opened the front door and she was off.
(01:02:32):
That was it. What time was that PNA About quarters
to midnight? I think eleven o'clock. I don't know, you know,
it's probably down there somewhere. This is a mistake by
John in terms of the timing. He had previously said
that Boman left about nine thirty pm. What were you
(01:02:54):
doing at that point? I was still sitting at the table.
I was still sitting at the table, and I stayed
at the table.
Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
What time did the kids go to bed?
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I think the kids were in bed by that time.
I'm quite sure they were. I you know, I they
would have been in bed by that time, would have
been in bed by that time.
Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Well up until that point, hag, you communicated to Braunway
what you intended to do, whether you stay in the
family home or no.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
No.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
I just maybe there was, oh, I can't remember. Maybe
there was a discussion about sleeping arrangements. I don't know.
I might have said I'll sleep on the lounge. I
don't know what I said. I really can't remember, but
that was it. You know, I had a couple of
cups of tea. I wasn't really sort of tired. I
(01:03:47):
wasn't in a sleeping sort of mood. And then like
we heard a carpool up and she opened the front door,
and she was off and she left. The front door
were open, and I heard the car go off up
the hill.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
Glenn Taylor might have been holding or looking at some
of the running sheets and other documents from Graham Diskin's
investigation five years earlier. Referring to that time, Glenn said
to John, you mention that you stayed at the dining
room table for some time with Bromlin discussing family matters.
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Oh yeah, probably, I don't know. I can't remember, I mean,
five years ago. I can't remember where we sat. You know,
I know I was sitting at the table because I
always have this one seat I always sit in, you know,
it's just sort of where I used to always sit,
(01:04:45):
you know.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Here, Glenn Taylor has highlighted John's nineteen ninety three claims
about having talked about family matters with Bromwin for some
time that night. Perhaps four tactical reasons, the detective has
not challenged John about why he claimed they didn't really
talk about anything. But it begs the question, what is
the correct answer? John? Both answers can't be right.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
You mentioned this too, that there was some discussion between
you and your wipe about her having a break from
the children.
Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Well, see she left a letter in the car too,
I mean I go to pick her up. She left
a letter in the back of the car, and in
that letter she said that she needed a break.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
And notice that John actually avoided answering the question here
by raising the existence of a letter written by Bromwin.
John doesn't deal with whatever he claims Bromman had told
him that night about wanting to have a bit of
a break. It's a deflection, and perhaps it was just
an accident. Part of the response from John, though, is baffling.
(01:05:56):
It's hard to know what he was talking about when
he said, I go to pick her up. She left
a letter in the back of the car. The known
timeline has John having no physical contact with Bromwan for
weeks until his return to the house in Lennox Head.
He hadn't picked her up, as in driven somewhere to
(01:06:17):
get her. Broman was in the house with the children
when he turned up there on the Sunday night, and
she left, according to him, in a mystery car driven
by an unknown individual, before John left with the children
to drive to Sydney overnight. We know about the letter
you heard excerpts from Broman's writing in earlier episodes.
Speaker 18 (01:06:41):
When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
The house that was Bill became John's castle and my prison.
Eventually I switched off and became cold inside. He had
a heart of ice and always criticized me no matter
what I did. The man was cold and heartless and
gave nothing but expected everything. That'll be fine now, A
(01:07:07):
little break for a few weeks and everyone will see
the old me look out.
Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
John was vague about the contents of the letter when
Glenn Taylor raised it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
I can't remember what was in the letter. It was
a long letter. I mean, I know I gave it
to Graham anyway. You know, I'd be lying if I
told you I can remember what was said, because I
can't remember what I said, you know. I mean, it's
that long ago and I've put it out of my mind,
I really have.
Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
You know, was it anything that you can retral about
whether you and her to say that you were going
to take the children down to Sydney?
Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
No, no, never, never. It's just that when she bolted
out that door and drove up the street, you know,
and left the car, well, you know, I thought, oh well,
I'll just take the kids to city with me. You know,
I don't know. It's just a spontaneous thing. But I
just did it, you know, So I did it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Were you not concerned that she go to the police
and say that you've taken the kids?
Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
But see, in the eyes of the family court, everyone's
got a right to access until the court determines, you know. So,
I mean I hadn't seen the kids for weeks, so
I sort of decided to take them. I may have
discussed it with her. I can't honestly remember, I'll tell
you the truth. I can't remember whether I said, listen,
(01:08:38):
how about leaving the kids with me, because like it's
five years I really don't think about it that much.
You know, it wasn't school holidays at that time, was it?
You can check that. I can't remember, but it may have.
I don't know. It was in May, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
In fact, it was not school holidays at the time.
Children were meant to be at school on Monday, May seventeenth.
It's still a mystery why John took off so suddenly,
particularly as he said that he had brought his surfboard
and his gear back to Banana on the aircraft, and
his story was that Bromin had announced to him that
(01:09:18):
night that she was going away for a few days.
On his version, he would have had the house and
the children to himself. He didn't need to drive anywhere.
This car that you heard pull up, it just pulled
up out the street, out the front.
Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Did you say, yeah, I was thinking about the school holidays.
It could have been school holidays. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
What did it sound like? Did it sound just a car?
Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
You know, I mean, if you're trying, was it a
four cylinder or a V eight? I don't know, see
what I.
Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Mean, you're not sure?
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
No, how do you know that it stopped at the
front of your place because I heard it? You know
what the engine I was stopped there with the engine ray.
Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
The engine running. Yeah, and you didn't go to investigate. No, No,
at next stage you thought, I mean, once she'd gone
and the car gone up the hill, I walked up
and she was gone. The car was gone. So I
just shut the front door and the front door was
still open. The front door was still open. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Do you go and check whether she'd taken anything close
or I didn't?
Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
No, I don't think I did. I mean I think
I noticed her handbag was gone or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
So there was no communication with to her that she
was even leaving in the house.
Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
No. No, she didn't say I'm going or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
No, So these phone calls happened. I'm not long after
the phone call was car pulls up?
Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Yeah, Like I said to Graham at the time, well,
maybe one of these phone calls that she made might
have been to a bloke to come and pick her up,
you know, or a friend. So like Graham has suggested
to me, maybe that was her boyfriend, just come round
a pay or a visit. I don't know that was
his suggestion, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Bronwin is 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.
(01:11:43):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website bronwynpodcast
dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
(01:12:08):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, 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
(01:12:29):
our subscribers and our 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
(01:12:52):
dot au and subscribe
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian. You heard
(00:42):
John Winfield's voice actor say in the previous episode.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I mean she wasn't hostile or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
John was responding to a question from Detective Sergeant Glenn
Taylor about Bromwin's attitude towards John when he turned up
at Sandstone Crescent. That's set out on page thirty six
of the official interview transcript from that morning in early
August nineteen ninety eight, as John sat in the police
station in Ballina with detectives Taylor and Wayne Temby asking questions.
(01:16):
There are forty pages of transcript from that interview left
to analyze. Some of the most important references are coming
up now. Back in episode five of the Bromwin podcast series,
Maddie Walsh and I talked about the importance of timelines.
Timelines are so important, definitely in cases like this. They
(01:40):
help us understand what's going on. YEA, who said, what when,
what happened? As you go through it, it'll become more
and more detail. I remember talking to us to a
great criminal lawyer, and he said, timelines win cases. But
until I had time to look more closely at the
transfer script of the police interview for the previous episode
(02:03):
and this one, neither Maddie nor I realized that there
was something very wrong in a particular part of John's story.
Let's start unpacking this. Here's John's next response on page
thirty six of the transcript. Remember he's describing being at
the house in Sandstone Crescent on Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And then that was when sometime I'm trying to think
that was probably it was after seven o'clock. It might
have been even after eight o'clock by that time. I
can't remember, honestly. All I know is it was dark.
You know, it was probably at least an hour or
(02:47):
maybe an hour and a half after the plane landed,
whatever time that was. And that was dark, because I
remember I got off the plane in the dark.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at
six fifty three pm and one at seven oh six.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Pm, six fifty three seven. Yeah. Do you know did
you make any phone Cooks?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No, I didn't make Apparently she made a couple of
calls to Graham told me she had a solicitor, Yes,
another solicitor she had in Lismore, the guy that used
to be on the radio all the time, you know,
legal advice on a Thursday.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
John is referring here to Chris mcdebitt. Christopher.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, that's him. Yeah, yeah, she had him actually, and
she had his home phone number. And this is what
Graham said, apparently because Graham looked on her telephone accounts
afterwards and he told me the phone calls were made
to his place, his house.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Detective Tempi, can you just assist in relation to the identity.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Of those chief phone numbers? First one was I think
that's Jody's Is it? Five? Two one, three to one?
Wayne Temby read out a seven digit telephone number, which
we will not repeat in full in the episode. John
Winfield replied to the detective Senior Constable's question like this.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It is interesting that in his first response to Glen
Taylor's question, John says that he did not make any calls,
but then Glen Taylor asked Detective Temb during the interview
with John to help in relation to the two calls
in question, as these two calls were long distance or
STD the abbreviation for subscriber trunk dialing. They were noted
(04:49):
in detail on the paper telephone bill for Sandstone Crescent
for the month of May nineteen ninety three. The time
the phone calls were made, the duration of the calls,
and the numbers dialed are printed on that telephone bill,
which the detectives had in the interview room when they
were questioning John. This itemized telephone bill and copies of
(05:12):
it are still in existence. We've got a copy of
it in our files on the case.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh I see, yeah, I rang that one, yeah, to
tell Jody I was at home. Yeah, that's right, Yeah, yeah,
I remember that's six fifty three. Okay, that's seven o'clock. Yeah,
so that was Jody.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I rang Jody and said, okay, I'm back home now,
you know, because I sort of come up now. I
remember that's Jody and my brother the one at seven
oh six. Yes, my brother, yep, I rang my brother too. Yes,
that's my brother's number. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, So there was no no SHD calls, which Bromwin
may Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, I remember that's Jadie and my brother. Well, I
rang them to say I'd arrived home safely, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Your brother's name's Peter, is it, Yeah, Peter Winfield.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Is Peter still living in Sydney?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, anger Den.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Okay, so you've made they've TIFA calls and then you're
still sitting around the dining room with the children.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I think so. I can't remember what was bronwin doing.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I made the phone calls from the telephone in the kitchen.
There's another telephone in the main bedroom, and she went
into the main bedroom and made these ones apparently too. Apparently,
I don't know. I wasn't in the bedroom with her.
I don't know. I didn't know, But all I know
is that she went in the bedroom and that it
(06:55):
was Graham. That was Graham told me that where the
phone calls were going. Because I was surprised when he
told me, because I didn't know you could trace local
phone calls and I had no idea you could do it.
And then he told me you could, and he did it.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But there are some loocians and concerning discrepancies in all
of this, and they cry out for further investigation. They
could be really important in this case. For reasons that
will soon become obvious. These loose eians became obvious to
me while I was reading documents during the drafting of
(07:37):
this episode. As a result, I've been emailing and calling
former and current airline pilots, aviation regulators, even collectors of
old airline timetables. I have been helped enormously by some
very clever listeners who went into full private detective mode
(07:58):
to help me find the answers. We have been trying
to confirm the arrival time in Balliner on May sixteen,
nineteen ninety three of the flight which John Winfield bordered
in Sydney earlier that day. It was a seventy to
eighty minute flight. The airline Anset Australia, which collapsed several
(08:21):
years later, flew the route for several days. I was
tantalizingly close because of the discovery of an ANSET timetable
for the months of September nineteen ninety two to March
of nineteen ninety three. That timetable sets out all the
ANSET flights and their departure times for the hop from
(08:41):
Sydney to Balliner. But I didn't have the May nineteen
ninety three timetable. We were close no cigar. Here's why
it might be crucial in this podcast series. You have
heard me say that John Winfield called his daughter Jody
and his brother Peter at six point fifty three pm
(09:05):
and seven h six pm respectively, from the house at
Sandstone Crescent on May sixteen when he arrived at the house,
and it seemed uncontroversial. John Winfield confirmed this as you've
just heard in his interview with Glenn Taylor in nineteen
ninety eight. There just didn't appear to be anything unusual
(09:26):
about it. But while going through John's interview transcript, it
struck me that the timing appeared to make it very difficult,
if not impossible, for John to have made those calls.
Here's what his friend John Watson stated in his police
statement in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
John was wringing me from Sydney and he asked me
if I could pick him up from the Ballina Airport
and give him a lift home. That night, about six
thirty pm, I went to the airport and I met John.
He asked me if I could take him to the
Ballener Police station prior.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
To taking him home.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
I drove him to the police station, and I waited
in the car while he went in. He was in
the police station for about five minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
We do not know the time at which John Watson
drove away from Balliner Airport with John Winfield, but if
the pickup went smoothly despite all of John's gear and
his surfboard, and if the flight landed around six twenty
five pm, let's say they got away at six forty pm.
(10:34):
It takes a good ten minutes or so to get
from the airport to Balloner Police station, but let's say
they do it very quickly, in just seven minutes. Glenn
Taylor was told by John Winfield that he was in
the police station for about fifteen minutes. John Watson, in
his police statement estimated that he was waiting in his
(10:56):
car outside the police station for about five minutes. Let's
be generous and go with the five minute estimate. That
means it would have been after six point fifty pm
when John Winfield is the passenger in John Watson's car
driving away from Barner Police Station to pick up Becky
McGuire from her home in Lenox Head. John Watson said
(11:20):
they drove to either Gibbons Street or Stuart Street in
lenox Head to collect Becky. It doesn't make much difference
because both of those streets, just a few blocks northwest
of the retail strip in Lenox Head are about the
same distance from Barner Police Station. I've done the trip
many times now. It's a good fifteen minutes. The two
(11:44):
men and the young woman say they then drove to
Sandstone Crescent together and that's going to take seven minutes minimum.
The upshot is this, if the Ansett Australia jet landed
just before six thirty pm, and John then wore off
and very quickly collected his luggage and surfboard, then went
(12:04):
directly to the police station and then to lennox Head
to get Becky. The earliest that they could have arrived
at his house in Sandstone Crescent would have been about
seven point fifteen pm, the house which bronwin had moved
back into with the two girls on the Friday night
after asking a locksmith to come out to remove the
(12:25):
locks which John had put on to try to prevent
his estranged wife from getting back inside the house. But
that's not all, because the evidence of Becky is that
John Winfield then drove her in the family Ford Falcon
back to Becky's home in Lennox Head John Watson had left.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
John Watson drove away. We walked up to the front
of the house and John knocked on the door. The
door opened and Bronwin and the children were standing at
the door. I wasn't really paying much attention at the time,
but I recall Bronwyn babbling on about something, but they
weren't arguing. Bronwin walked back into the house towards the kitchen,
and John gave the girls a cuddle, and I saw
(13:09):
that Lauren was crying. I saw two suitcases inside the doorway,
and John picked them up and put them in the car.
John must have had a set of keys to the car,
because we then got into the car and he drove
me home. I remember both Crystal and Lauren were standing
at the window inside the house, watching as we reversed
out of the driveway. John didn't go inside the house
(13:31):
at all while I was in the house with him.
While we were driving back to my house, John thanked
me for coming with him and told me he was
sorry for getting me involved. I haven't seen Bronwin since
that night I went to her place with John.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
John Winfield then must have returned on his own to
go to the home in Sandstone Crescent. It's got to
be about seven thirty pm before he gets there, and
that's if the plane landed at about six thirty pm.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
My name is Karina Berger.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Three months before the release of this episode, a listener
emailed we were in Ireland on leave at the time.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
I'm contacting you to offer my assistance with legal research, analysis, etc.
For Bronwan or any other podcasts you might have in
the pipeline. I love true crime and working to solve
a problem or mystery. I also find undertaking work that
is in the public interest very rewarding. Some of my
particular strengths are my attention to detail, communication and organization
(14:58):
and project management SKI and my ability to recall information
and facts. If you ever require another pair of hands
and think my skill set might be beneficial, I would
be very happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Karina is an experienced lawyer with a particular interest in
coronial inquest work, and she has worked on many coronial
investigations and inquests over the years. She was following the
Bromwin podcast very closely. We started exchanging emails around the
same time offers of help from other women with proven
(15:33):
experience in investigations in the criminal justice system were coming in.
Some have preferred anonymity. They're all amazing and very generous
with their time. Three days after I first became suspicious
about those calls from the house, I raised it with
Karna over a Greek salad in Brisbane. The timing was good.
(15:55):
She was visiting from interstate with her husband for his work.
Karina flew home late that afternoon and she resolved to
start looking for a thirty one year old timetable which
might show when a long defunct airline used to fly
to the airport of a regional town in New South
Wales on Sundays in May nineteen ninety three. My other
(16:17):
contacts from the podcast listenership were also on the job
trying to locate this key information. In northern New South Wales,
my friend and colleague Matt Condon called. We spoke about
the driving that he would do while retracing where John
would have gone thirty one years ago. After the anset
(16:37):
jet landed. Then Matt rang off, turned on his voice
recorder and got ready to roll.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
This is the side of obviously the old Byron Ballina
Regional airport. I remember getting.
Speaker 8 (17:01):
Flights to and from Sydney into here.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
It hasn't changed that much that we're here now to
follow John Winfield's timeline and we'll.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
Just see how the templates marry up.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Okay, just leaving the airport and out, traffic conditions are
pretty light. Simple direct route from the airport down to
the police station, past the Ballona Bayside and Ballon Affair
shopping centers, straight down to River Street and hang a left.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We're at over.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Five minutes at the moment, so I've arrived at the
Ballina Police station on River Street at twelve minutes and
eleven seconds. Winfield claims that he was brought here by
mister Watson and went into the station to check if
there were any legal restraints against him as in Bronwyn,
(18:01):
placing possibly domestic violence restrictions on his proximity to her. Okay,
that's exactly five minutes. I'm now leaving the police station
and heading towards the Ocean Road, which will head up
to Lenox.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Seventeen minutes eleven seconds.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
There's a sort of little backway here to get onto
that which the locals would know, and it would be
a logical way through Ballinatown to get onto that coastal road.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm just coming through the main drag of Lenox.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
There was a little bit of traffic, not a lot,
but it might have accounted for twenty or thirty seconds
over and above a clean run through that street. I've
just arrived where he picks up Jody's friend. We'll wait
for ninety seconds. It's thirty four minutes and fifteen seconds.
(19:02):
Just arrived outside the house at Sandstone Crescent. It was
forty one minutes and thirty nine seconds.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I'll wait now.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
For another ninety seconds before we head back to drop
the young woman off and then come back to Sandstone. Right,
we're back at Gibbon forty nine minutes and one second.
We'll wait for fifteen seconds to Sandstone for the final leg. Okay,
(19:38):
just pulled up back at Sandstone Crescent in front of
the house. That journey from the airport took precisely fifty
six minutes and thirty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Hey Matt, how'd you go?
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I went from Ballino Airport, did all the stops, and
finally I've returned here back at Sandstone Crescent and giving
Winfield sort of two minutes at the end of the
journey to meet and greet his kids, etc. At the
door of the property which I'm parked out the front.
The final time came in at fifty eight minutes and
(20:16):
thirty five seconds, right.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Well, that's consistent with what John Winfield himself says in
the record of interview that he's done with Glenn Taylor
in nineteen ninety eight. So he says something like it
was about an hour to an hour and a half
after he'd arrived in Ballener that he got into the house.
(20:39):
So that makes sense exactly if we round it up
to one hour. He would have had to have arrived
in Ballaner and be getting into John Watson's car at
Banner Airport by five fifty pm on Sunday May sixteen
(21:01):
for him to have been able to make that first
phone call at six fifty three pm to his daughter
Jody on that same day.
Speaker 8 (21:14):
What time did the plane land?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
This is still the missing piece in this puzzle. We
know from John Watson's statement that John Watson says he
got to the airport at six thirty pm to collect
John Winfield. What we don't have for certain yet is
the arrival time of the aircraft from Sydney. We've got
(21:41):
a timetable that shows that in the months of October
to March, and said Australia had aircraft leaving at six
ten pm in Sydney and arriving into Ballana at seven
thirty But we don't yet have the timetable for the
(22:05):
months following the end of March, whether the timetable changed
for those subsequent months. You know Matt from previous episodes
in this series, as well as from his work in
other podcast investigations I've done into the murders of Australian women.
In a coincidental piece of voice acting symmetry. You know
(22:28):
Matt's voice from this episode too, because he read the
lines from the police statement of John Watson. Matt suggested
that the aircraft possibly landed in May nineteen ninety three
at around six thirty pm, not seven thirty pm. Matt
suggested that that might have happened because of daylight saving.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
If you're a boat is in New South Wales in
the beginning of October of any given year, I think
since the early nineteen seventies, so you actually on a
Sunday you turn your clock forward one hour at the
beginning of daylight saving, so in essence you're losing an hour,
but by going forward it gives you an extra hour
(23:11):
or so of daylight at the end of the day,
which is the point of daylight saving, and that is
for people to be able to finish work and enjoy
the daylight in the summer months. Come April the following year,
six months later, daylight saving ends in New South Wales,
so you have to claw back that hour and it
(23:32):
goes back to normal Eastern Standard time. The flight, as
we know, was in May, so daylight saving was well
and truly over by at least six seven weeks by then,
so the clocks would have gone back an hour to
parity with the East Coast. So if a flight in March,
(23:53):
for example, landed in Ballina at seven point thirty pm
during daylight saving hours beyond April outside of daylight saving hours,
that flight would have landed at around six thirty pm,
so you claw back the hour. If he'd landed at
six thirty, it was picked up at six thirty pm
(24:14):
and then went to the bell on the police station,
so seven eleven pm is the first revisit to Sandstone
then to go back to be able to pick up Becky.
He would have arrived there at seven nineteen pm. Give
them ninety seconds for that, and then to swing back
(24:37):
to Sandstone, and to give him credit for a couple
of minutes of meeting and greeting at the door and
getting back into the house. He would have been in
Sandstone Crescent after all of that journey at around about
seven twenty eight pm.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well, how does he make these telephone calls that he
said he made to Jody and to Peter at six
fifty three pm and then seven ozh six pm from
Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Well, he couldn't have, because going by these specific times,
he wasn't in the house to make the calls.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Let's go with a hypothetical, allow for perhaps a mistaken memory.
They didn't get Becky, or he decided to go to
the house at Sandstone Crescent ahead of getting Becky, something
like that. It seems from those time stamps, Matt, that
he still can't make it in time to make a
call at six fifty three pm, twenty three minutes after
(25:39):
the John Watson six thirty pm pick up at Balner Airport. No,
there's no way you know these roads, Matt. You've driven
them a lot before the Bromwin podcast, and more so
since we've been working on it together. Can you imagine
being able to drive from the Ballina Police station to
(26:01):
Bromwin's old house in Sandstone Crescent, Lenox Head in six
to seven minutes. It's impossible.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I've done the journey from Ballina Town Center along the
Coast Road for innumerable reasons, kids soccer, shopping at Woolies
at the back of Lennox invariably in the back of
your head. You know, it takes on average at least
fifteen minutes. There's no way around that. I mean, that's
even with a clear run. That's just the time it takes.
(26:33):
It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I don't want us to count o chickens before they've hatched.
But this is a really big loose end because John
was adamant in his police interview that he made those
telephone calls. He was initially saying he didn't make any calls,
and then when propped it, he goes, oh, yeah, that's right,
I remember now I did make those calls.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
Neither of them correspond on the timeline to Jonathan Winfield
being in the house and physically able to make those calls.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
If he didn't make those phone calls because he couldn't
have been in the house. Then I'm suggesting the only
person who could have made those calls was Bromwin, and
I think that's consistent with Bromwin having telephoned her solicitor,
Chris mcdebott in the late afternoon because of her concern
(27:29):
about John's imminent return. John says that he made those
calls basically to tell his daughter and his brother that
he had arrived safely and was in the house.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
I'm just thinking of myself and my own family, saying
I flew from Sydney to Ballina, which is a relatively
short flight within the same state. I fail to see
why there would be any reason or urgency to ring
(28:07):
not one family member but two to alert them that
they had arrived safely an hour and twenty minute flight maximum.
I'm not sure what sort of peril could one could
encounter in a humble domestic flight from Sydney de Ballena.
If you're flying into Delhi, or if you're flying into
Barcelona or London and you'd had a long haul, I
(28:30):
would totally understand that, but I simply cannot comprehend why
someone would have to alert close family members to their
safety after a very short domestic flight.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It makes no sense.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
It's just simply illogical and something most certainly that I
wouldn't do, and I think most people wouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
My supposition on.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Your theory is that I think you've nailed it, even
if the timeline's out by a few minutes either side.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
I reckon she's made those.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Calls six point fifty three pm. Is the first one.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Six fifty three pm?
Speaker 9 (29:10):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (29:10):
And when's the next one?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Seven six pm?
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Something has prompted her to make the first call and
then another call twelve thirty minutes later.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If this theory is right, she brings Jody because it
was to Jody that she had her earlier conversation in
which she said, your dad had better not approach me,
or worse to that effect. If Jody and Peter have
no way of contacting John, what's the utility of Bromin
contacting them when John's on the way.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Well, she's tried the solicitor, right, Yeah, and somehow she's
learned he's on the way, made the call at six
point fifty three in a panic.
Speaker 8 (29:54):
It's impossible he can't have made those calls. It's impossible.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
And the only other explanation is that John Watson's claim
that he arrived to pick up John at six thirty
pm is wrong, and that in fact it was five
thirty pm.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
If it was five thirty, then that may work in
terms of him being in the house.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
He gets to the house then by six thirty bit
of meeting and greeting and he has a cup of
tea and then he makes those calls. But that's the
only way.
Speaker 8 (30:28):
That's the only way. Yes, where did you come up
with the five thirty time?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I've just plucked it out of the air, taken two
hours off the arrival time of seven thirty. Yeah, he
says it was dark when he landed. Now, sunset at
that time was after five shortly after five pm. Yes,
it would have had to have left Sydney at fourteen pm,
(30:55):
two hours earlier than the schedule. In the month of
March yeap. What would be John's potential motive to claim
that he made those two phone calls if in fact
Broman had made them.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
We know she's on alert because she's phoned her solicitor,
so she's in that heightened state. If she's phoned Jody
and Peter Winfield. One can only imagine logically it would
be out of concern for her safety.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
He doesn't want the police to know.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, would John Winfield have
worried about two things? Firstly, he's worried that there are
two people in the world, Jody and Peter, who know
that she is fearful at that moment. And secondly, his
consideration would be to keep them out.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of the narrative.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
So is this woman who's already been warned that John's
not going to like it that she's back at the house.
She's worked up enough to ring the solicitor and seek advice.
She anticipating his arrival and not knowing whether he might
be in a mood or how he might react, it
would be very logical for her to reach out to
(32:16):
two of the closest people to him to try and
work out what do I do. I'm in trouble here, Yeah,
that makes sense. I'll just ride out the timestamp timeline
for you.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Thank you so much, Matt, and I'll keep trying to
find the timing of that flight. Some listeners may not
have heard of the once massive answered Australia Airline and
its founder, Sir reginald Anset. Here's a promotional clip from
the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
It's no wonder the Answered group of Airlines flies the
largest domestic fleet in Australasia. Our constant aim is to
provide you with excellence in products and service.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
When this much loved airline folded in two thousand and one,
it was Australia's largest corporate collapse, with more than sixteen
thousand jobs lost. Back in Canberra, two days after I
had first met her, Karina Berger had a breakthrough. Karina.
When I met you at lunch in Brisbane and told
(33:20):
you how I was looking for timetables for Anset in
nineteen ninety three and they were proving really elusive. You
probably didn't expect that you'd be on the chase for
them within a day or so.
Speaker 7 (33:33):
I love a challenge, heed Ley, so I was happy
to help.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
How did you find it?
Speaker 7 (33:37):
I started off with a basic Google search. It made
me realize that timetables for planes and other modes of
transport are actually really collectible items, and there's quite a
lot of private collectors who tend to catalog them and
post blogs about them and take pictures of their covers
and things like that and pop them online. And that
(33:58):
was really helpful because I could have a look at
what people had put up on the Internet, and I
realized that there were a couple of timetables from Anset
that existed in nineteen ninety three. The problem was, though,
that these people only had pictures of the covers, and
they didn't seem to have photographs of the actual timetables
(34:19):
themselves or PDF copies. I reached out to Air Services
Australia in the hope that they might have actual flight
records for the Ballina Airport on the sixteenth of May
nineteen ninety three, and I contacted the National Library of
Australia and did some searches of their online catalog. So
(34:41):
I then turned to the National Archives of Australia catalog
and the New South Wales State Archives catalogs and had
to look there, But those searches also weren't very fruitful,
and so then I just went back to Google and
started to work my way through all of the hits,
and I came across the Sir reginald Anset Transport Museum,
(35:04):
and then I stumbled across a hit that didn't appear
particularly relevant. At first blush something to do with anset buses,
not planes, But it was in the journal of the
Australian Timetable Association. It turns out that that's an organization
that describes itself as being for anyone interested in the
(35:25):
study of transport timetables, schedules, maps and associated literature. So
I decided to email the secretary of that organization and
then lo and behold. In less than an hour I
heard back from the association and they'd found what I
was after.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, that was great. I'd tried to get a timetable
through a website for airline pilots and contacted a collector
in North America and he had lots of timetables, but
not that one. There was another really diligent listener who
had offered to help, and she knows who she is.
(36:05):
She wants to preserve her anonymity. Around the same time
as you were making those inquiries, she was also talking
to the museum and she was hopeful and then she
also got a positive hit. Just shows how when we
all collaborate, just people from home doing these searches, you
know what's possible. What we can see from that is
(36:28):
that there were two flights from Sydney with Anseid Airlines
on Sunday May sixteen, and the second of those flights
left Sydney shortly after six pm.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
That's right, Headley. The timetable shows that a jet was
due to depart Sydney at six fifteen pm and arrive
in Ballina at seven twenty five pm on a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
And we're not aware of any other operator flying aircraft
from Sydney to Ballaner at that time.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
No, not at this stage. And it's actually a query
that I did put to the Australian Timetable Association and
they indicated that they checked the Quantus timetable from the
time and had found that Ballaner wasn't a part of
the Quantus network and that they didn't think that smaller
(37:23):
airlines like East West or Hazleton had flown to Ballaner
from Sydney either.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You've done work with Coronial inquiries over a number of years, haven't.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
You, Yes, I have, Hedley.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Is it easy to see how this would fall through
the cracks the actual time that a person of interest
traveled to the regional town.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
I think it's probably dependent upon the nature of the
case and the police lines of inquiry. At the time,
it would be prudent for an investigator officer to seek
facts to support things like in our port arrival time.
If a suspect or someone who may very well become
(38:10):
a suspect is claiming that they arrived in a location
at a particular time, doing something like that at the
time would be much easier than doing it many years later.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
We've done some on the ground checking of how long
it would take to travel from the airport. It's in
the fifty five to sixty minute range. And it's interesting
that in John's police interview he says that he was
in the ball and a police station for about fifteen minutes,
(38:44):
whereas we allowed for just five minutes when we did
that exercise. It seems to us that it was physically
impossible for John to have made those telephone calls that
at times six fifty three pm and seven h six
pm on the night of Sunday, May sixteenth. Your finding
of that timetable now really helps to demonstrate that. Can
(39:10):
you think of any other explanation that would have permitted
John to have got back in time to make those calls?
Speaker 7 (39:18):
I suppose the only explanations that seem open would be
either John catching the earlier Ancet flight that was due
to land in Ballino at about ten past three in
the afternoon, but that seems unlikely. As I understand he
says that he arrived in the dark, and I think
(39:39):
the sun probably set in Ballino at around about five pm.
And the only other explanation that I can think of
is that he traveled with a different airline carrier, and
we haven't been able to identify such a carrier at
this point in time.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, I agree, the passenger manifest would be amazing have
Whether that's available after thirty one years, I don't know.
I think you'd probably need a warrant for that. It's
probably something only the police could get, I.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
Think so, and there'd be privacy considerations as well. Another
explanation that does occur to me that might allow John
to have made the phone calls would be if the
n set timetable had changed for some reason, such that
he did arrive in the dark in Ballina in time
(40:30):
to get home and make the calls. But we don't
at the moment have any information suggesting that that was
the case. We can't really take that any further.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
In terms of the timings that other people have talked about,
there really aren't that many. There's nothing written down to
our knowledge at the police station. But you've made the
point for to me that the duty books of the
officers could show when John came in to talk to
(41:04):
Sergeant Hart, who's now deceased, about whether John can approach
the home. Despite the conflict with Bromwin.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
I think John to say himself that he saw a
police officer write some things down whilst he was at
the station.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
At one stage in his police interview he says that
it could have been around seven or eight pm that
he got to the house. Unfortunately, Becky Maguire doesn't nominate
a time as to when she gets picked up. Have
you read in the police interview where John's asked about
phone calls?
Speaker 7 (41:42):
Yes, I have read that part.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
He originally says I didn't make any.
Speaker 7 (41:48):
That's right, and then he was more or less sort
of prompted about the phone calls and changed his story
and said, oh, that's right, I forgot I did make
those calls. Yeah, after the phone numbers were read out
to him and the persons that those numbers were allocated
to were confirmed.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Even if John hadn't driven Becky home, he still couldn't
have made those two phone calls. The evidence does show
that Bronwin knew John was coming back to Lennox Head
on that Sunday evening. Karina suggested that John had phoned
the house at Sandstone Crescent before he departed Sydney.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
What about the idea that he could have phoned from
the Sydney airport, like he said before the flight took off,
figured out that they were home, said that he was coming,
and then that led to the panicked phone calls from Bronwan,
potentially to Jody and his relatives.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, that makes sense. We also have Mel Taylor, who
was twelve years old at the time, and she'd been
playing with Lauren and Still on that Sunday afternoon. She
says that when Bromwin returned from work at Eden's takeaway,
she said, oh, where are the girls? Can you tell
them they've got to come home. Their father's arriving, Their
(43:14):
father's coming. Here's how Mel described it in episode four.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
I know I was at the park with Crystal and
Lauren that afternoon around five point thirty ish six ish.
I came home before the girls came home. Bromin came
to that door and she's like, oh, hey, is Lauren
and Crystal here, and like, no, they're at the park,
and she said to me, can you go get them
(43:42):
because her father's coming home.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Is it a strong memory? Yeh, it's a strong memory. Yeah.
Speaking generally, what is the significance in lies that are
told during a police investigation by a person of interest, Well.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
It tends to suggest that their evidence is unreliable and
can't necessarily be trusted, and that they might be looking
to deflect focus on them onto somebody else, probably because
there's a potential element of guilt there.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I called Andy and Michelle Reid Broman's brother and sister
in law, and explain the flight time issue with the
telephone calls. What time did you say the plane actually landed, Well,
we can't know for certain when it landed, but what
it was scheduled to do was land at about seven
point thirty pm.
Speaker 11 (44:42):
Planes don't take off ahead of schedule, no, unless they've
got every passenger on board. But it still would not
be an hour because no.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
One, it seems when got a record of that aircraft
when it actually there's been this assumption that those phone
calls would have just been made by John, as he asserted,
and that everything around the flight was not that important
and it just fell between the cracks under the radar,
(45:15):
so to speak.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
She was concerned, and she already rung mcdebitt to express
concern that she'd found out he was on his way
up there.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Do you have a view about how Bromwin would have
been responding and feeling when she knew that John's arrival
was imminent. He was in the air.
Speaker 12 (45:40):
Well the whole time in that lead up to her
going missing, The biggest worry was him trying to take
the kids.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
She'd have been.
Speaker 12 (45:52):
Worried about him turning up for sure, for sure, Hence
the reason she called Chris mcdebitt to get his advice advice.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Another thing that's quite evident in the lead up to this,
as she was obviously speaking of David getting legal advice,
advised to go back to the home, advised by us
to go back to the home, get yourself set in,
get away from all the financial stress. He knew exactly
what was going on.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
He's flown for an hour from Sydney to Ballina and
then gone back into his own home. Is that the
sort of thing that John would do. Bring someone and
say I've got off the flight and I'm at home
now and I've arrived sakand sound.
Speaker 12 (46:40):
Look it doesn't sound like him to me. The Jody
one possibly makes sense.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
We need to know if Bromwin made them. What was
conversed about to Jody and to Peter or was it
Louise on the other end of the line.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
We don't know. Could either at the second call.
Speaker 11 (47:02):
Those two people Jodie's John's daughter and the Winfield is
his brother and sister in law.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Why there and not her brother? I wonder what she
was doing.
Speaker 12 (47:16):
Was she pleading with them to try and talk to John.
Speaker 11 (47:21):
Maybe it was in the hope that his brother and
his daughter might be able to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
She didn't ring us. Was she trying to get some
help from his family.
Speaker 12 (47:35):
Maybe she thought they might have had more clout with him.
If she was worried about what he was doing, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, I suppose she was worried.
Speaker 11 (47:46):
She knew he was going to try and take the
house back, because that was always being said.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
We need to find out We told that many different people,
that many different stories. If you went through everyone's statement
everyone's memory and all the rest of it. You wind
up with a one hundred points of facts that he's
got wrong. I've started to do that. That's incredible. To
be honest. The more you go through this now with
(48:14):
such a fine truth can absolutely my numbing. You're a
one man band, You've got your public help, and the
people have come forward out there in the real world.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
There's Maddie, there's us, there's all us reviewing it.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
And here they are a complete homicide unsolved unit and
a statewide police force, and we just hear nothing.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
We just here not one thing that they're moving forward with.
To be fair, they may be aware of this, you
don't you. The public help has been incredible, with the
Facebook discussion group and people emailing me directly emailing Maddie.
Karina Berger she found the timetable along with another woman
(49:03):
who has requested an anonymity, and she's a gun investigator. Lazy. Now.
Early in this episode, you heard detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
questioning John Winfield. The second half of the nineteen ninety
eight interview began with a question which has been on
the minds of.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Many, was the conversation between you and browin quite on
good terms.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Amicable, Yeah, because the kids were still up and they
the kids went to bed at about sort of eight
point thirty.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Or suppose it's a leading question and John has embraced it.
A characterization of peace and harmony between a divorcing couple
must be better than the alternative, particularly when the wife
has been missing for five years. We can only speculate
now whether the answer from John would have been different
if he had been taken to an entry in the
(50:00):
Police Running Sheets from nineteen ninety three, the entry where
Deb Hall reports to police what she says John had
told Deb that John and Bromlan had an altercation on
the Sunday evening May sixteenth, when John arrived at the house.
The Dictionary definition for altercation is noisy disagreement. It's the
(50:23):
opposite of a conversation on good terms, a conversation that
is purportedly amicable. If Deb was the only person who
recalled John saying that he and Bromin had an altercation,
it might be one of those he said, she said
claims that makes sense but can't be given a huge
amount of weight. But Louise Winfield, the wife of John's
(50:46):
brother Peter Winfield, made a similar observation in her witness statement,
which is dated August fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight. That's just
nine days after John was questioned by Glenn.
Speaker 13 (50:59):
Taylor, I became aware that John did go to Lennox Head.
My memory of the following events are very vague, but
I recall John telling us that he and Bronwyn had
a fight and that Bronwyn had walked out.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
There were many important recollections and observations which came out
in the dozens of interviews Glenn did with witnesses during
his investigation, but he couldn't put any of those to
John because John gave the detective one shot at an interview.
We're going to look at this in the next episode
because Glenn Taylor, who is always trying to help this
(51:35):
podcast investigation and the Reed family, has offered his perspective
as an insider on all of it. The situation at
Sandstone Crescent on the night of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety
three was something akin to a powder keg with an
unlit fuse. In my view, I have wondered whether it
was triggered by John realizing that Broman was determined to
(51:59):
proceed to divorce did John see in the house that
night Bromlin's copy of a legal letter which her solicitor,
Chrismic Debitt, had sent to John in Sydney two days earlier,
a letter which John would not have received in Sydney
before he flew to Ballina on Sunday afternoon. But John
was going to get that letter anyway, and it would
(52:21):
have been logical for Bronwyn to tell John what her
instructions were, or to tell him what the legal letter conveyed.
It would have been normal for her to say something
like John, I don't want an argument, but as you're
here now, you might as well read what's in the
letter that was sent to you on Friday. This is
what Chrismic Debits legal letter to John stated in part.
Speaker 14 (52:46):
Bronwyin is hopeful that you will both be able to
reach an agreement in relation to financial matters, and we
will be writing to you further with a proposal in
this regard in the near future. We are instructed by
Bronwyn that in her view, your marriage is out an
and that there is no prospect of a reconciliation. In
the meantime, we require your immediate agreement for Bronwin to
(53:06):
retain the use and possession of the Ford motor vehicle
depending finalization of your financial matters.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
The last paragraph of the legal letter urged John to
get his own lawyer and to disclose his intentions around
the Ford Falcon within the next seven days, and it
warned John that Bromwin would go to court to get
an interim order giving her possession of the car if
John failed to respond. Now, let's go back to the
(53:56):
questioning of John by Glenn Taylor in that nineteen ninety
eight interview in the Ballana police station. Can you tell
us what was talked about?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
I got no idea. I can't remember what we talked
about at the moment. We may not even have had
too much discussion. I really can't remember, to tell you
the truth. She didn't ask me anything about Sydney. I
didn't really ask her anything about Lettox or probably about
the kids, you know, just probably about the kids.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
These answers from John where he says they didn't really
talk about anything, are hard to fathom. John is suggesting
two detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor that it was pretty much
like any other evening at the family home. Nothing out
of the ordinary, probably didn't discuss much about anything, but
this was an extraordinary evening. Tensions must have been very high.
(54:52):
John had gone to the expense and trouble of having
new locks installed at the family home. He did that
to ensure that his estranged wife would not get into
that home. But she had. Bronwyn had got herself a locksmith,
and she was living in the house. She had beaten
and discarded the physical barriers that John had organized, and
(55:14):
John could see that she now had possession of the house.
Whatever John believed that possession meant in terms of a
legal right. Bromwyn had already told John's daughter Jody that
the property was Bromwin's too, and that John needed to
be careful about approaching. Here's how Jody described it. You
(55:34):
heard this in episode four.
Speaker 15 (55:37):
I can't recall how it happened, but I rang the
house at Sandstone Crescent and Bronwin answered the telephone. She
told me that she'd moved back into the house with
the kids and that she was staying there. She also
told me that Dad was not welcome there and that
he can stay in Sydney with me. She told me
that she was going to get a restraining order, so
that he couldn't come near the house. She also told
me that the house belonged to her, and I really
(55:59):
know that she changed from the person who wanted us
all to stay close. We both started to argue because
I told her that it was not her house and
that it belonged to Dad, Crystal, Lauren, and me as well.
I also told her that it belonged to us, more
so because she was the one that chose to leave.
It developed into a very heated argument and we were
(56:19):
yelling at each other, and she hung up on me.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
Jody told her father about her difficult Friday, May fourteen
conversation with Bromwan. Jody had tried to talk to Bromin
again on the Saturday morning, but she couldn't reach her stepmother.
Jody spoke instead to ten year old Crystal, and from
whatever the child said, Jody concluded that Bromwin was leaving
(56:44):
the two girls on their own in the house. This
is how Jody described it in her nineteen ninety eight
police statement.
Speaker 15 (56:52):
When I terminated the phone call and told Dad, he
appeared to be very stressed out about it because they
had never been left alone before and he was so
far away. I started ringing at four pm, and from memory,
I think she answered and hung up when she heard
my voice because she knew what was going to happen.
I tried bringing her straight after, but she must have
left the phone off the hook again. It was off
(57:13):
the hook all night. I told Dad and he made
arrangements to fly to Baliner the following day. I felt
that I was out of the situation then when Dad
was going back home to sort it out, so I
left it to him.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
And soon after, a man obsessive about the home he
had built with his bare hands, who carefully watched every dollar,
suddenly packed up his things in Sydney, stopped work on
the building job he was doing in the Shire, and
spent money he would have preferred to keep in his
bank account on a costly fair to fly north to Ballina.
(57:47):
But according to his interview with Detective Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
I can't remember what we talked about at the moment.
We may not even have had too much discussion.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Now, while Jodie's voice is fresh in your mind, let's
hear what she said in her police statement in nineteen
ninety eight about a phone call from Sandstone Crescent on Sunday,
May sixteenth. This is that six point fifty three pm
call which John told the detectives that he had made
to his daughter. It's the call which we believe John
(58:20):
could not have made because the flight timetables suggests he
was still in the air on an Anset jet to bowner.
Jodi referred to the call in the last paragraph of
her twenty one paragraph statement, which was dated August twelve,
nineteen ninety eight. That's a week after John was interviewed
by the detectives.
Speaker 15 (58:41):
Today, Detective Tenby showed me an STD telephone record. I
can recall that my father rang me at that time
from the home at Lenox Head to tell me that
he'd arrived there safely. I don't recall much of the conversation,
but I believe that Bromwin must have been in the
house at the time. I did not speak to Bronwin,
and as I said before, the phone call was very short.
(59:01):
My father told me that he would ring me later,
and that was about it.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Jody confirmed in her statement that the telephone number which
made the call was known to her as having come
from the home phone at Sandstone Crescent, and Jody confirmed
that the number it called was Jody's number at the
time in her flat in Sydney. John's brother Peter Winfield,
in his statement to police in mid August nineteen ninety eight,
(59:28):
was also shown the telephone bill and the reference to
the telephone call being made to Louise and Peter Winfield's
home at seven oh six pm on sixteen May nineteen
ninety three. Peter Winfield told the detective Glen Taylor that
it would have been the call that John made to
Peter from Lennox Head. He said he didn't remember much
(59:51):
about that phone call and that John made it in
the evening. The next thing he says he recalled was
John and the children arriving in Sydney. Peter said that
he had tried to remember, but he couldn't recall what
John said about coming to Sydney with the children. In
episode five, you heard what John had told police five
(01:00:13):
years earlier in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 16 (01:00:17):
He stated that his wife met him at the door
and they sat and talked for some time in the
dining room. The children were then put to bed and
both he and his wife had an evening meal.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
In this version, the one weeks after Bronwin's disappearance John
and Bronwin had quite a bit to talk about. After
the children went to bed, they had an evening meal
together they talked for some time. Five years later, Crystal
described it this way in the statement that she made
two Detective Sergeant Taylor at Ballina Police Station.
Speaker 17 (01:00:52):
I remember being at home in the early evening when
I received a telephone call, and from my recollection, it
was from my father. I don't remember what it was
that I spoke about, but it was not long after
this that my father arrived at the house.
Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
I remember my.
Speaker 17 (01:01:07):
Mother saying something like, what are you doing here? My
father says something about having caught a plane back to Bleana.
I remember Dad coming into the kitchen and I was
sitting watching television. My Dad and Mom started talking, but
I don't know what was being said. The next thing
that I remember was Mum telling myself and my sister
(01:01:27):
Lauren to clean our teeth and go to bed. After
I went to bed, I heard Mom and Dad arguing
in the kitchen. I could hear Mom crying at the
same time. I don't recall what was being said between
Mom and Dad, but I could tell that they were arguing.
I could hear them arguing until I must have fell asleep.
My next recollection that night was being woken by my father.
(01:01:51):
Dad told me that he was taking Lauren a iight
to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Let's go back to the nineteen ninety eight interview. Did
you communicate to her that you were going to leave
that same night to go back to Sydney?
Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
No, no, no way, no.
Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
How did that all come about?
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Well, I didn't say, but like it, I mean, all
of a sudden after the phone calls that she apparently made,
you know, I heard a car pull up. I was
sitting there at the dining room table, and she was
in the bedroom and a car pulled up, and I
mean she opened the front door and she was off.
(01:02:32):
That was it. What time was that PNA About quarters
to midnight? I think eleven o'clock. I don't know, you know,
it's probably down there somewhere. This is a mistake by
John in terms of the timing. He had previously said
that Boman left about nine thirty pm. What were you
(01:02:54):
doing at that point? I was still sitting at the table.
I was still sitting at the table, and I stayed
at the table.
Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
What time did the kids go to bed?
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I think the kids were in bed by that time.
I'm quite sure they were. I you know, I they
would have been in bed by that time, would have
been in bed by that time.
Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Well up until that point, hag, you communicated to Braunway
what you intended to do, whether you stay in the
family home or no.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
No.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
I just maybe there was, oh, I can't remember. Maybe
there was a discussion about sleeping arrangements. I don't know.
I might have said I'll sleep on the lounge. I
don't know what I said. I really can't remember, but
that was it. You know, I had a couple of
cups of tea. I wasn't really sort of tired. I
(01:03:47):
wasn't in a sleeping sort of mood. And then like
we heard a carpool up and she opened the front door,
and she was off and she left. The front door
were open, and I heard the car go off up
the hill.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
Glenn Taylor might have been holding or looking at some
of the running sheets and other documents from Graham Diskin's
investigation five years earlier. Referring to that time, Glenn said
to John, you mention that you stayed at the dining
room table for some time with Bromlin discussing family matters.
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Oh yeah, probably, I don't know. I can't remember, I mean,
five years ago. I can't remember where we sat. You know,
I know I was sitting at the table because I
always have this one seat I always sit in, you know,
it's just sort of where I used to always sit,
(01:04:45):
you know.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Here, Glenn Taylor has highlighted John's nineteen ninety three claims
about having talked about family matters with Bromwin for some
time that night. Perhaps four tactical reasons, the detective has
not challenged John about why he claimed they didn't really
talk about anything. But it begs the question, what is
the correct answer? John? Both answers can't be right.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
You mentioned this too, that there was some discussion between
you and your wipe about her having a break from
the children.
Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Well, see she left a letter in the car too,
I mean I go to pick her up. She left
a letter in the back of the car, and in
that letter she said that she needed a break.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
And notice that John actually avoided answering the question here
by raising the existence of a letter written by Bromwin.
John doesn't deal with whatever he claims Bromman had told
him that night about wanting to have a bit of
a break. It's a deflection, and perhaps it was just
an accident. Part of the response from John, though, is baffling.
(01:05:56):
It's hard to know what he was talking about when
he said, I go to pick her up. She left
a letter in the back of the car. The known
timeline has John having no physical contact with Bromwan for
weeks until his return to the house in Lennox Head.
He hadn't picked her up, as in driven somewhere to
(01:06:17):
get her. Broman was in the house with the children
when he turned up there on the Sunday night, and
she left, according to him, in a mystery car driven
by an unknown individual, before John left with the children
to drive to Sydney overnight. We know about the letter
you heard excerpts from Broman's writing in earlier episodes.
Speaker 18 (01:06:41):
When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
The house that was Bill became John's castle and my prison.
Eventually I switched off and became cold inside. He had
a heart of ice and always criticized me no matter
what I did. The man was cold and heartless and
gave nothing but expected everything. That'll be fine now, A
(01:07:07):
little break for a few weeks and everyone will see
the old me look out.
Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
John was vague about the contents of the letter when
Glenn Taylor raised it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
I can't remember what was in the letter. It was
a long letter. I mean, I know I gave it
to Graham anyway. You know, I'd be lying if I
told you I can remember what was said, because I
can't remember what I said, you know. I mean, it's
that long ago and I've put it out of my mind,
I really have.
Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
You know, was it anything that you can retral about
whether you and her to say that you were going
to take the children down to Sydney?
Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
No, no, never, never. It's just that when she bolted
out that door and drove up the street, you know,
and left the car, well, you know, I thought, oh well,
I'll just take the kids to city with me. You know,
I don't know. It's just a spontaneous thing. But I
just did it, you know, So I did it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Were you not concerned that she go to the police
and say that you've taken the kids?
Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
But see, in the eyes of the family court, everyone's
got a right to access until the court determines, you know. So,
I mean I hadn't seen the kids for weeks, so
I sort of decided to take them. I may have
discussed it with her. I can't honestly remember, I'll tell
you the truth. I can't remember whether I said, listen,
(01:08:38):
how about leaving the kids with me, because like it's
five years I really don't think about it that much.
You know, it wasn't school holidays at that time, was it?
You can check that. I can't remember, but it may have.
I don't know. It was in May, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
In fact, it was not school holidays at the time.
Children were meant to be at school on Monday, May seventeenth.
It's still a mystery why John took off so suddenly,
particularly as he said that he had brought his surfboard
and his gear back to Banana on the aircraft, and
his story was that Bromin had announced to him that
(01:09:18):
night that she was going away for a few days.
On his version, he would have had the house and
the children to himself. He didn't need to drive anywhere.
This car that you heard pull up, it just pulled
up out the street, out the front.
Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Did you say, yeah, I was thinking about the school holidays.
It could have been school holidays. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
What did it sound like? Did it sound just a car?
Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
You know, I mean, if you're trying, was it a
four cylinder or a V eight? I don't know, see
what I.
Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Mean, you're not sure?
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
No, how do you know that it stopped at the
front of your place because I heard it? You know
what the engine I was stopped there with the engine ray.
Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
The engine running. Yeah, and you didn't go to investigate. No, No,
at next stage you thought, I mean, once she'd gone
and the car gone up the hill, I walked up
and she was gone. The car was gone. So I
just shut the front door and the front door was
still open. The front door was still open. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Do you go and check whether she'd taken anything close
or I didn't?
Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
No, I don't think I did. I mean I think
I noticed her handbag was gone or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
So there was no communication with to her that she
was even leaving in the house.
Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
No. No, she didn't say I'm going or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
No, So these phone calls happened. I'm not long after
the phone call was car pulls up?
Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Yeah, Like I said to Graham at the time, well,
maybe one of these phone calls that she made might
have been to a bloke to come and pick her up,
you know, or a friend. So like Graham has suggested
to me, maybe that was her boyfriend, just come round
a pay or a visit. I don't know that was
his suggestion, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Bronwin is 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.
(01:11:43):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website bronwynpodcast
dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
(01:12:08):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, 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
(01:12:29):
our subscribers and our 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
(01:12:52):
dot au and subscribe
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