November 14, 2024 • 61 mins
A politician and a leading newspaper speculate that a serial killer could have murdered Bronwyn and 66 other women on the New South Wales north coast over the past three decades.
Bronwyn’s daughter Chrystal – who still supports Jon Winfield – welcomes news of a possible serial killer instead of her step-father being responsible for Bronwyn’s presumed slaying.
In stark contrast, other members of the Read family point the finger at Jon. The powerful emotions and different views fuel family tensions and lead to Chrystal icing cousin Madi Walsh. Bronwyn’s youngest daughter, Lauren, who also backs her Dad, hits out at podcast listeners, calling some "gutless keyboard bullies who think they're detective heroes".
Analysis of Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor’s 1998 interview with Jon raises more mystery because of Jon’s omission of key information about what he did for a few hours in the Shire, the day after Bronwyn disappeared on the night of May 16, 1993.
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 brow contains course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Andy Reid sounded.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Agitated when he called a few days before the release
of this episode to talk about breaking news of a
spate of murders and a purported serial killer. The banner
headline on page one of the Sydney Daly Telegraph put
it simply gone girl. The newspaper reported that a local
(01:03):
politician was raising fears of a serial killer as sixty
women had disappeared or met grisly ends in the state's
north coast areas in the past thirty two years. A
photograph of Bromwyn Winfield was included in a gallery of
female victims. The report presented no evidence that Bromwyn had
(01:23):
been abducted and murdered by a serial killer. Soon afterwards,
Maddie Walsh, who has been a great help to me
this past year, spoke to Sydney drivetime radio hosts Joel
Kine and Brian Fletcher, avid listeners of the Bromwin series.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We discussed dissect and dalve into crimes of the past.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Season two of Bronwyn has over four million downloads and
Jordi Us once again is bromwin Winfield's second cousin, the
very talented young Maddi Walsh. What you've been doing is
unbelievable them Maddie. What's been happening in your world?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
There is just still so much information to dive into
and dig through, just working towards getting justice for Bromwell.
Everyone in Lennox Head is talking about it. Every week
more information comes out.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Have most people in and around that area, to your knowledge,
we've heard this podcast.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Is that you're understanding.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
It's been the talk of the town.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I think there is only one conclusion that they are
all standing by, and that is her husband may have
something to do with it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
You would imagine that the police are listening closely to
this because after the Teacher's pet we know what happened.
Chris Dawson was down guilty.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Casseroted. Is there any contact with the police.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Do you keep them updated, do they contact you or
are they just sort of standing from afar.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
At the moment.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Sometimes they ask for information and they come and ask
for interviews. With Judy Singh, who came forward in the
last season about witnessing a body in the back of
the car, so it is looking promising from the police perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I don't know if you've seen the front pages of
Daily Telegraph today, have you read that story saying that
sixty women who were brutally murder or disappeared on the
New South Wales North Coast Wow in cases where the
perpetrators were never caught, can be revealed for the first time,
it fears some of the women were victims of serial killers.
This has just come to light today.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Maddie started to hoset the serial killer theory down.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Is there something you could investigate now?
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Knowing Bromwin's case and her circumstances, the chances that a
serial killer was involved in her disappearance very very minuscule
and just based on all the evidence I have seen
and what we know to be what happened to bromwhen
the night she went missing and her husband being the
last person to see her alive, I don't think there
(03:55):
is a serial killer involved in her disappearance. I'm not
saying it's not possible, however, I just don't think it's
really in the cars for Bronwin's.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Gross John Winfield's still up there. Isn't he a bit
of a recluse. I just can't fathom why he would
still be there.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
And he stays there, he knows people talk about him.
She's still surfing and still living his life.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Obviously, the loss of Bromwin, that's the first and foremost thing.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Has he something to do with it?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
That's a tragedy that he would be still ramming around
in the event that he has nothing to do with it.
That's a tragedy that he will be tired with that
sort of things. We may never know the truth of
his story. So the whole thing, Mattie, is just a
complete travesty and tragedy.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The fallout from the podcast and the separate linking of
Bronwin's disappearance to a supposed serial killer are taking a toll.
Bronwin's eldest daughter, Crystal responded by posting on Facebook.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
Interesting read in today's paper? Did a serial killer kill
my mom? She's one of the women listed.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
In this article as possible victims, and it's good to
see other possibilities being explored.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Sentiments like these from Crystal are difficult for Brohman's brother
Andy and his wife Michelle to read and hear In
the two subscriber episodes of eleven and twelve, you heard
Crystal's perspective on the case and how Crystal lost her
life savings to a self proclaimed soul doctor.
Speaker 9 (05:28):
She was asked to purchase a large number of gold bullion,
and that gold bullion is no longer gold bullion. It
is now actually a container full of cement.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, how does that happen?
Speaker 9 (05:44):
Whilst they were actually sitting with her in a park,
they have actually shown her a magic trick, and whilst
she's been blown away by the magic trick and she's
not paying attention, they have switched the container that had
the gold in it and have actually replaced it with
a container of the same exact likeness and it has
(06:06):
ce mention.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It is that sort of money, three hundred to three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars very important and significant for Crystal. Yes,
relationships are under strained. There is an elderly woman called
Vapu who knew Bromman when she was a girl and
Andy was just a little fella. Vapoo and the Reed
(06:29):
family were neighbors and Vapo has strongly suspected for a
long time that John killed Broman In May nineteen ninety three, John,
of course, emphatically denies wrongdoing. When Crystal posted on Facebook
about a purported serial killer being responsible. Instead, Vapo replied
(06:50):
with three emojis. They were laughing emojis. Crystel's younger sister,
Lauren was appalled, and as with Crystal voice, actor will
read how she responded. These are Lauren's words. It's not
her voice.
Speaker 8 (07:07):
It's all just entertainment for people like you, isn't it?
Three laughing emojis? Is that one for each of Bromwin's daughters,
who you know will see this. Too many gutless keyboard
bullies who think they're detective heroes, and too many gullible idiots. Also,
Us daughters have had enough of people like you not
(07:28):
only disrespecting us, but you're disrespecting every single one of
these sixty women and their families.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Crystal recently unfriended me, having sent me a Facebook request
some months.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Ago, but I'm not family.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Maddie has always got along well with Crystal, and now
they're not on speaking terms. Maddie's auntie Meghan, has been
unhappy too, because her twenty one year old forensic science
graduate niece spoke her mind about evidence which suggested that
Megan had said things about Bromin to Detective Graham Discin
in the original police investigation. You heard this in the
(08:07):
subscriber episodes eleven and twelve. Are you comfortable describing the
impact on your own friendship with Crystal as a result
of the work you've been doing trying to find out
who possibly murdered her mother Bromwin.
Speaker 7 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Look, coming into this, I knew that it would be
difficult with my situation. In my position, I wasn't alive
when Bromwin was alive, so I'm able to kind of
separate myself from the emotional impacts that Andy Michelle have
and Crystal have and other family members have.
Speaker 7 (08:43):
Showing my opinion on what I.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Think is the case and my opinion based on the
evidence I'm seeing. With Crystal especially, I knew it would
create distance. I'm trying to stay biased and stay true
to myself and stay true to the evidence, and if
that means that our relationship is a little bit skewed
at the moment, then that's a sacrifice unwilling to make
(09:06):
if it results in something worthwhile, and I know it
won't be forever. I know that relationships can be mended,
and this is just right now.
Speaker 10 (09:17):
I got a telephone call from Andy about this and
he was a bit disappointed that this prospect had even
been raised in relation to Bromin Well.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
I've spoken to Andy as well and Michelle, and they
both expressed the disbelief that a serial killer could have
been involved in Brownwin's disappearance. From what they were saying
in this article, there are so many missing and murdered
women from Newcastle all the way up to the border.
(09:50):
They've come to this conclusion that it's a possibility that
there could be a serial killer. A lot of these
women were eighteen, nineteen up to twenty years old, and
there were hitch hiking, which we know is not the
case for Bromwyn. It was a bit of a reach.
I don't think it has any connection to Bromwin's case.
Everyone's got their viewpoint, everyone's got their opinion, and Crystal
(10:11):
has hers.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's as if she is really embracing this proposition that
a serial killer was responsible.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I did see on Facebook that Crystal posted about this article,
and she seemed very open to this idea that a
serial killer could be responsible.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Instead of her step Fowler.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
She has always been looking for other possibilities.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
It's hard to come to that kind of conclusion that
someone so close to her could have possibly done something
so terrible, Like she's kind of glad that this has
come out and grouped with all these other missing and
murdered women.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Do you feel like you could talk to her about
this and try to express the country.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
I mean, probably not.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
She's so against the possibility of John being possibly involved
in Bromwin's disappearance. I don't think she wants to hear
anything else about it. I mean, she says she is
disconnected from the podcast. Her and sisters don't want anything
to do with it. They don't have any part in it.
(11:26):
So for her family members to outright say to her, look,
the possibility of a serial killer being involved in your
mum's disappearance is very, very far fetched.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
It probably wouldn't go over well.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
She doesn't want her dad to be the only suspect
in this case.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
That's what she believes, and that maybe brings her a
bit more peace.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
That's where it becomes a really difficult situation, because you
have most of the families really sitting by this one
possibility of what happened when we have only ever had
one suspect this entire time, we have really reviewed this
entire case.
Speaker 7 (12:08):
No one else has popped up.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
But then you have Bromwin's kids who think completely differently
and really just don't think that their father was involved
in her disappearance, and bringing another factor like a serial
killer with no real facts surrounding this serial killer.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
There's nothing, it's just a figment.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
So for the Telegraph to just group bromwent into this,
it kind of creates this weird situation where it's, in
my opinion, creating false hope. But what they're not considering
other circumstances around her disappearance. It's just very far fetched,
especially if we consider John's story of Bromwin said she
(12:53):
needed a break and she walked out the door and
got into a car.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
I doubt you get into a car with a serial killer.
I just think that's.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
A bit far fetch that the same night that John
was in Lennox Head was the same night that a
serial killer happened to be in Lennox Head and picked
from went up and she was never seen again. It
doesn't correlate with any of the stories that John has shared,
but at the end of the day, that is not
going to stop this investigation, and that is not going
to change what the truth is. The truth will probably
(13:25):
still come out, but.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
The tensions in the family are still there.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I think closure will heal a lot of wounds with
the family, and I think it will.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
Bring a lot of us back together, but unfortunately people
will be caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
We know that Robin's case was very poorly investigated, and
we know that only one person was found by the
former deputy state coroner to have been possibly responsible. It
actually reminds me of one part of the inquest that
was held and Lynn Dawson, as she was then known,
(14:03):
was missing. She'd been missing by them for just over
twenty years.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I recall it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Chris Dawson's brother, who was also his solicitor, was suggesting
that the serial killer Ivan Malatt may have been responsible
for Lynn's disappearance. I dealt with some of this in
the Teacher's Pet podcast series when we reconstructed evidence from
the two thousand and three inquest. The detective Damian Leone
(14:33):
was in the witness box.
Speaker 11 (14:37):
Ivan Mullatt's monstrous appetite for sex and death marks him
out as one of the country's most notorious serial killers.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Did you investigate any of the suggestions that Ivan Malatt
was in that area at the time.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's like saying, how long is a piece of string?
Mister Dawson.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Damien and the coroner believed that Peter Dawson was clutching
at straws.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Here.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Malat's victims were raised nineteen to twenty two, and his
killing spree occurred between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety three.
He hunted in Sydney's west, far from Sydney's northern beaches
and the central coast farther north.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I have nothing to lead me in that area, and
I have to discount it. There is nothing to suggest
that mister Malatt was in Bayview on nine or ten January.
He may be. I don't know that. No one knows
that the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Lawyer tried to paint Damien as a cop suffering from
tunnel vision, of being fixated on Chris Dawson as the
probable killer without asking him for more facts. Why hadn't
he made Ivan Mulatter suspect. Now let's go back to
(16:07):
Glen Taylor's interview with John Winfield in the Ballona police station.
It's early August nineteen ninety eight. What about keys to
the house. Do you know whether she took any keys?
Speaker 12 (16:20):
Has she still got them now? Whether she took the
keys on that night, I look, they would have.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Been in her handbag. I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But you've never since that, Tom, you've never located anything.
Speaker 13 (16:32):
No.
Speaker 12 (16:32):
Yeah, well she's been back to the house since then,
because she brought she came back to the house sometime later,
I can't remember when, and she picked up clothes, and
she picked up Medicare. She dropped off a Medicare check,
and she would have and she didn't break into the house,
(16:53):
so she would have had keys to get into it.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Glenn Taylor circled back to John's decision to drive the
kids to Sydney.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
What time did I decide to go?
Speaker 14 (17:03):
Yes?
Speaker 12 (17:04):
So Graham asked me this and I sort of said
to him, I bought petrol in Balliner.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Would that have been long after she left?
Speaker 12 (17:14):
Maybe half an hour? I don't know, maybe half an hour.
But the reason why is because I think I gave
my bank card stuff to Graham to show him I
bought petrol in Balaner on the way through at the
endpole there and it showed the date on it. I
think it was the next day on the date of
the bank card, like the seventeenth, you know what I mean,
(17:38):
Like the Saturday night was the sixteenth, and so obviously
I bought the petrol after midnight sometime.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know, it appears that John has momentarily forgotten that
he purchased fuel at eleven oh six pm something he
was at pains to highlight to Andy and Michelle back
in nineteen ninety three when he arrived at the house
in the Shire in Sydney on the afternoon of Monday
May seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I think there was a docket here.
Speaker 12 (18:06):
Yeah, there's a bank card docket. I remember he asked
me about it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
John volunteered that he bought petrol again at a town
called Kempsey, about a four hour drive south of Ballina.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
See that car ran on petrol and gas. I used
to I can't remember if I had it this, but
I used to fill it up with petrol and gas
at once. Yes, I used to only have to stop
once between here and Sydney, whenever I used to go
to Sydney.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
You know when you left with the children, did you
obviously had to carry them out to the car and
put them in the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:43):
Yeah, Did you take some clothes for them?
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, pack clothes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Here's Michelle's recollection about that, and her account is backed
up by Bromwin's half sister Melissa.
Speaker 13 (18:57):
It was just really, really strange that he packed up
and through clothes that weren't even appropriate for Sydney weather.
And inside pillowcases were just kids clothes. Pillow case here,
in a pillowcase there, And there might have been a
smallish bag of some sort. Melissa and I went shopping
(19:20):
so they could have something to wear, because nothing in
it was appropriate to wear.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Did you leave any nate or anything to say that
you'd taken the children? No is here any reason you didn't.
Didn't think of it. I was sort of I don't know,
I just didn't think of it. Just took the kids,
you know. So you drove right through night?
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Do you know what time you would have arrived at Sydney.
Speaker 10 (19:47):
Ah?
Speaker 6 (19:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
I was going through Sydney at peak hour traffic, so
usually takes me nine or ten hours, So I was
probably going through Sydney, I don't know, eight in the morning,
something like that.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Eight or nine.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Can you tell me.
Speaker 12 (20:00):
I know the car was unregistered too, because I once
I got to Sydney, I had to go straight and
get a pink slip straight away and get it registered.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
We know that John was very careful with money. He
kept a tight grip on the family finances. While he
was away working in Sydney. The registration on the Ford
Falcon expired. John had bought the car on May seven,
the year before.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It is probable that the.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Annual registration ran out exactly a year later, so on
Friday May seven, nine days before Bromin's disappearance. It is
also likely that the subject of the expired registration came
up when John went to the house on the evening
of Sunday May sixteen. Perhaps John expected Bromin to pay
(20:49):
for the registration out of her own funds as she
was using the car while he was away in Sydney. Crystal,
as a sixteen year old, said something in her police
statement to Glenn Taylor, and it could have been directly
related to the expired regio.
Speaker 15 (21:05):
I think at one stage they went into the bedroom
and they were talking in there. I remember mom and
Dad were talking about on paid bills and Mum saying
something along the lines about not talking about it in
front of Lauren and myself. The next thing that I
remember was Mum telling myself and my sister Lauren to
clean our teeth and go to bed.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I think we normally went to.
Speaker 15 (21:26):
Bed about eight thirty pm each night. After I went
to bed, I heard Mum and Dad arguing in the kitchen.
I could hear Mom crying at the same time. I
don't recall what was being said between Mum and Dad,
but I could tell that they were arguing. I could
hear them arguing until I must have fell asleep. My
(21:46):
next recollection that night was being woken by my father.
Dad told me that he was taking Lauren a night
to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Crystal was recalling the events surrounding John's arrival at the
house and the last time she saw her mother was
one of the unpaid bills the registration for the Ford Falcon.
John knew on Monday May seventeen, when he arrived in
Sydney after his drive through the night, that the registration
had expired because he made arrangements to pay it that day.
(22:19):
For me, this event reinforces Glenn's suspicion about John having
gone into flight mode or a panic state on the
Sunday night. Driving an unregistered car for some ten hours
on Australia's major highway and then on roads in the
nation's biggest city is risky. If there is an accident,
(22:40):
there are serious legal consequences, but just a traffic stop
would result in a hefty fine, And in nineteen ninety three,
the expiry of a car's registration was obvious to the
trained eye. Back then, the registration sticker was stuck to
the windscreen, the expiry date was printed on the sticker.
(23:02):
The color of the sticker would signal whether a vehicle
was on the road illegally. If Bromwin had gone as
John claims, he could have stayed in the house on
Sandstone Crescent, allowing his two daughters to keep sleeping, and
then on Monday morning he could have gone to Baliner
and had the car registered. Why did he decide to
(23:24):
up and leave so suddenly, to drive through the night
with all the attendant risks. He must have been shattered
from having had no sleep when he set out.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Can you tell me where you went to? First of all?
First of all, did you go to a relative's house
or friend's house.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Just trying to think. I went to.
Speaker 12 (23:47):
I don't know whether this is in order, but I
know A called into my daughter at her work.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
I had the kids with me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Or think is that the hairdressing salon?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (23:58):
Yeah, I called into Michelle's place. I think I think
it was Michelle or that afternoon I called into Michelle
and Andrew. That's Bronwin's sister in law and brother. I
called into their place that afternoon.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
But the first point, first person you think might have
been Judy. Did you say it at the hairdressing salon?
Speaker 12 (24:20):
I can't remember. Probably, yeah, probably, I don't know. I
can't remember where I first. And then I mean we
had breakfast somewhere, and then I had to go. I
went straight and got a pink well not straight, but
sometime that day I got a pink slip from the
service station in Crinulla, and then I went to the
(24:41):
motor registry at and then no, I got a pink
slip and a green slip from the same guy. And
I went to Miranda Registry and registered the car all
on that day the first day I got there, because
the car had no REGI on it.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
John has failed to mention a very important stop that
he made after his purported visit to the salon it
which Jodie worked on that Monday morning. He has failed
to disclose to the detectives in the ball and A
police station that in fact, he went to the home
of his former wife, Jenny Mason, but she was out
shopping and John implored her mother in law, a woman
(25:19):
whom he had never met before, to take the two
girls for several hours so that he could go and
do something. Michelle and Andy Reid were shocked when they
discovered this stopover as a result of good detective work
by Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 13 (25:34):
That blew me away, loom me away.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
But he didn't tell you that.
Speaker 13 (25:39):
No, these kids, they would never have met Jenny, let
alone Jenny's.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
Mother in law.
Speaker 13 (25:48):
He made out that he come to Sydney, and he
come to us bombshell.
Speaker 7 (25:55):
That was to us.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
The natural thing to do would have been to go
to Bromwin's brother and law, of course, but he went
to his ex wife's home.
Speaker 13 (26:05):
Her mother in law was down visiting. He had no
idea who this random bloke was.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Here's the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor talking to me
during the production of this episode sixteen.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
There was certainly a lot of things we didn't know
in a lot of things he didn't reveal during the interview,
the things like his movements when he first got down
to Sydney, or he was extremely vague in the interview. Yes,
there had been five years, but some things, I mean
you just think, well, how could you forget that? No
(26:41):
mention of going to the ex wife's home and two
kids in pajamas, I mean you think that would have
to be still fresh in your mind even after five years.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was such an unusual thing for him to do,
to turn up at his ex wife's place.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
When the interview, we weren't aware of that. Would you
never know that? These people alone? We had to get
more information about here we'd been previously married to you,
and then we had to work out how we're going
to contact these people shift they'd be willing to be interviewed.
And yes, I mean, why would you do that? Why
would you go there?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Why would you go the ex wif's place?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Why wouldn't you go to the immediate family members, go
to Michelle and Andrews and give them a ring and say, look,
I'm in a dilama Bromin's taken off for a couple
of weeks. Let me with the kids, can't your gob out.
But the woman that was there, he'd never met her before.
The kids point for me with her. I think it
(27:39):
was the mother in law of the ex wife from
the new partner. Lady had never let the keys or him.
They're in pajamas and hardy clothes with them to change
them into, and he'd not come back for quite a
few hours, so we said quite a few hours in Sydney,
And again we didn't want to be aggressive with in
(28:02):
the interview. And of course he's there voluntarily as a witness,
but he's not really disclosing a great deal at all
that where he went to and what he did.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I think he'd already been to see Jodi at that state.
He said he went to see JD but we don't
have any proof. So he sad several hours on his own. Someday.
Have you wondered or questioned since discovering his movements why
he would have omitted such an unforgettable thing as to
(28:36):
the visit to his ex wife's house. I think he
wanted to hopefully we don't discover what he did, which
movements and all that day.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I agree, But.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Why that's probably only an answer that John Winfield knows.
Why Why is he trying to distance the police from
his movements on that Monday in Sydney when he's driving
(29:08):
and he gets rid of the children at his ex
wife's mother in law's place. Why does he not want
you to discover this? That's what I'm curious and auspicious about.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I'm curious. I think I've thought about that since nineteen
ninety eight. Why did he do that?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
There's so many things. And you've seen him around Lennox
in recent days and weeks, seending a number of times.
His green station wagon he's getting in.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
He's good friends with a concrete He just lives around
the corner from us. He's a regular visitor, both myself
and my wife in her own cars, within five minutes
of each other, both your one and home of the day.
And he was seated in his car with his cap
on and outside the concrete his house. He happened to
(29:54):
stare at me, and then he stared at my wife.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
As coming to the street, Glenn Taylor arrived seeing John
out driving on another very recent day, we.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Just happened to come up behind his car and I said, oh,
what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I'll just be interested to see where he's going.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
And he went left and then he just went left, left, left,
and then he came right back. Commander, Well, at first scene,
I mean town a couple of weeks ago, his tunne
of a trailer, and I think he's sort of watching
his back all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Do you think he was deploying samanti surveillance?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
For sure? It was classic Andy surbilance and then after
one surbilance on suspects numerous times in my career, both
as a police officer and also a private investigator, and
it might be just an innocent person behind him to
go in the same direction, but he'd probably pull over
and think someone's falling in a registry office.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Four vehicles in the Southern Shire was in Miranda, and
John was asked by the detectives when he went there.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
It was in the afternoon. I suppose did you.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Try ringing the family home at Lenox Head during the
course off of state.
Speaker 12 (31:08):
I don't know if I did personally, but I probably
when we went and visited Andrew and Michelle that afternoon,
probably we tried to ring.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
Then I suppose and the phone was off the hook.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Right, Okay, when you go to that night to stay,
who were you staying.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
With with my daughter Jodie her place?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Jady was living in Sydney at that stage.
Speaker 12 (31:31):
Yeah, I stayed in that She was at a place
called I think it.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
Was Marlowe Road, a unit in Marlowe Road.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Where did the children sleep?
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Yeah, they were sleeping on the floor.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The strong recollection of Michelle and Andy Reid, however, is
that the children and John stayed at their house. John
didn't stay the whole time, though.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So you think you tried to ring the family home
at Lenox Head from Michelle Rhid's plug.
Speaker 12 (32:00):
Yeah, they'll be able to verify that because I know
Andrew well, it was their phone. I think that Andrew
was the one that rang first and the phone was engaged.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know when you took the children to Sydney. Yeah,
how long was it your intention for them to stay
in Sydney for?
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Oh?
Speaker 12 (32:19):
They I can't remember having any intention, really, any intention
at all.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
That recall about the conversation with Bromwin about her having
a break from the children.
Speaker 12 (32:30):
I know someone said that about that in the letter.
I think she might have said she wanted a break.
She was, Oh, I really can't remember. Honestly, I can't.
I really can't remember. I can't remember what we talked about.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Here John distanced himself again from what he had previously
told a number of people about what Bromwin purportedly told him.
Speaker 13 (32:54):
We were standing on our little front Feranda just to here,
you know, he said, oh, Brolin left me, and I went, oh, okay.
Speaker 7 (33:05):
He was like jittery and all of that.
Speaker 13 (33:07):
And then he said, well, actually she needed a break.
She's going on a holiday. And I thought to myself,
is she on a holiday or.
Speaker 7 (33:14):
Has she left him?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Like, in my head, I'm thinking that's weird.
Speaker 13 (33:18):
It's just my nature to be a little bit suspicious
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
But to your knowledge, she had already left it.
Speaker 13 (33:26):
And then he switched it to she needed a break,
she needs a break, and she's going to get her
head together for her and so he brought the kids
to sitting.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
It is as if John no longer wants to own
responsibility for these things. Instead, I think that he wants
the detective to focus on Bromwin's own written words about
a break. You heard in episode ten that the break
Bromwin had briefly written about was her plan to visit
her mother, Barbara and her grandmother. Here's Bromwin's mother's sister,
(34:00):
Auntie Jan talking about that. One of the things that
is written down by Bromman in these papers that she
wrote before she disappeared was that she was going to
take a break and that she'd be coming back and
should be fine.
Speaker 7 (34:18):
That's probably when she was going to mums to Hobart.
Speaker 13 (34:23):
Before she rang mum, she'd spoken to Barb a couple
of times regarding what was going on, and bab was
quite distressed about it.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And then she rang Mum and then asked her first
some money.
Speaker 7 (34:36):
That the plan was, according to my mum, that she
was coming over to Hobart.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
So you didn't have any sect thing in your mind
that you were going to be sitting for a week
or two weeks.
Speaker 12 (34:51):
Or not really, no, No, I just sort of went,
you know, sort of like I said, it may have
been school holidays.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
I can't remember. I really can't remember that time.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
What did you do in you know, over that ten days.
Speaker 12 (35:05):
Or so, probably just hang about just sort of sightseeing
and everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Now, according to the builder Glenn Webster, who had employed
John as a bricklayer. John was back on the job
doing work for Glenn at what was then a relatively
isolated building site in Illawong during this period when John
was back in Sydney with the girls. Here's what Glenn
Webster put in his statement in September nineteen ninety eight
(35:34):
when Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor spoke to him.
Speaker 16 (35:38):
It didn't take long before John was back in Sydney.
It may have only been two or three days that
he'd been absent. I recall that he came to my
home driving a white Falcon Sedan. He had with him
his two girls, Crystal and Lauren. From memory, John and
the girls stayed with us at our home for one
or two days. I don't recall the reasons John gave
(36:00):
the girls with him. I probably would have asked him
why he brought the children to Sydney, but at this
point I don't remember what he told me. I don't
have any recollection of John mentioning anything about Bronwyn After
he came with the girls. I think he organized some
other people to look after the girls whilst he did
a bit more work on my house. I vaguely recall
(36:21):
him telling me that he wasn't able to finish the job.
I don't recall what reasons, if any, he gave for
not being able to finish the job.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
John's failure to mention the work that he did at
Glenn's house might be a coincidence. He might have forgotten
in the same way that he might have forgotten the
very unusual decision he made to visit his former wife's house. Alternatively,
those two omissions could be deliberate avoidance, evidence of John
(36:50):
having deliberately edited part of the reality of that day
to minimize scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Why was it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Because he did not want to draw attention to his
movements that day and to the house that he had
been building in Illawan in the Shire where a concrete
pol was imminent.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Did you try to ring Bromley on occasions?
Speaker 12 (37:13):
Well, we found out like the phone was engaged for
some reason. He was engaged for probably a couple of days, right,
So I rang my next door neighbor and got him
to get into the house. He broke a back window
and just had to look inside the house, you know,
And that's when he found out the phone was off
the hook. And he was the one he told us
(37:36):
who was that Murray Nolan.
Speaker 11 (37:39):
So I've got the court. He said, would you mind
going up the house. Would you mind going up to
the house and breaking in for me. There's a class
panel next to the back door. He said, put your
hand open the door and get in. And I said
that's fine. I think I'll do that. He said, yeah,
because I've been trying to ring Bromlin and I want
you to have to little see the robins there. Because
I've been ringing, I'm getting all answer. John said to me,
(38:01):
I'll ring you back in twenty minutes. So I'm Sussagan.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
You never left the phone off the hook after you
left the house, did you.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 12 (38:12):
I only made those two calls earlier, like what Graham said,
after I had left with the kids at what eleven o'clockish.
Apparently she had come back to the house and made
that zero zero five five number. That's what that's where
Graham had established anyway, because it was the same number
(38:32):
as she'd been ringing on her phone bill at forty
two Byron Street, and that from my memory, that zero
zero five five number was made in the early hours
of the next morning. But that's only what Graham told me,
I don't know, okay, I never even saw the phone bill.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
At a certain point in time, did you decide to
come back to Lennox Head with the kids.
Speaker 6 (38:54):
Yeah, we came back and tell me.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
When that gate was.
Speaker 12 (39:00):
Ge well, it would be in there and whatever it was,
that's the day.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think it was around about approximately two weeks.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Okay, well that's what it was. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Did you drive direct reach here the family?
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Yeah? Yeah, I think so. No one was there.
Speaker 12 (39:19):
The back window had a piece of ply over it,
you know, because it had been broken. There's glass all
through the house because Murray he broke the window, but
he had a bad back of the time, so he
didn't bother cleaning up. There was a medicare check on
the front, not the front, the kitchen bench, on the
island bench right a medicare check sitting there, signed and
(39:43):
it was a check.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Signed by who her? And you believe that chick was
definitely not at the house at time when you left.
Speaker 12 (39:51):
Definitely not. I know it wasn't there when I left.
No way, have you any idea when it was dated?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
The check?
Speaker 12 (39:59):
Well, it's in it's in Graham stuff. There are you
willing to give us that check? Again, Sure, I'll give
it back to you. Well, I don't know if I'll
give it back to you, but I'll give you a
photostat copy, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
John then described dealing with the furniture and the other
contents of the house. He estimated that ninety percent of
what Bromin had taken away when she left Sandstone Crescent
had been brought back when she returned to the house
and started moving back in on Friday, May fourteen.
Speaker 12 (40:33):
And she left the rest down there, you know, and
the landlord put it in the storage place in one
of her garages out the back, you know, and eventually
she gave it back to me. Right, So I got
it all. There was a few pots and pans, There
was bags of clothes. There was just a lot of
crap that she left there, you know. So over a
(40:56):
period of time, I carted that stuff up and just
put it in a pile inside the garage, right, And
then I took the kids to Sydney.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Right.
Speaker 12 (41:05):
So I went to Sydney twice, you know. I took
the kids to Sydney and we came back, right, and
then we went again.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
The first time you come back, did you report her
missing to the police?
Speaker 12 (41:17):
I took the kids to Sydney, Yes, came back with
by was it two weeks later, Yes, and then reported
her missing downstairs to the lady policewoman.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Devan Murray Nolan have told me how they recalled the
lead up to this.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
There are certain things I do remember exactly what I
said and what it was said. And he stood on
the back brander here and we're chatting, and I said, John,
I am really concerned about Bromin. We need to report
her missing. No no, no, no, no, I'm not going
to do that sip for John. No one's hurt from us.
I'm really concerned about it. You need to report her missing.
(41:55):
Him being the next akin, I thought, well, he asked
to door anyway, so no, he was not going to
do it.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
He was just artamently no no no, no.
Speaker 8 (42:02):
No no, no, it's all good, it's all lood Y
should come back and all this, And I'm like thinking
he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Want her report. Did this scene composed?
Speaker 8 (42:10):
Yeah, not at all concerned. And I thought, I'm free
to hear about this woman because as I said, no
mobile phone's back then, so you couldn't find anybody.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
I thought, where is she?
Speaker 8 (42:21):
I thought, maybe she's done something to herself. I said,
all right, John, it's like this. If you don't report
the missing, I will, and he's gone, no, No, if
anyone's going to do it, it'll be me. I said, right,
And we were at home here and you can correct
me if I'm wrong here. But he either came down
or irraineused he came now. He came downhall. He said,
(42:44):
I'm going into report problem missing, and why do you
come up and watch the kids? And I said, yeah, sure, yeah,
all right, okay, and I think you went up because
I say here with our kids, and you ended up
going up there watching the two girls.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
They were in a bit, weren't they.
Speaker 8 (42:59):
He did say something like I want to report this
well as fresh in my mind.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I'm thinking he's had time.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
To contrupt some story. So he went in and he
reported and missing that night.
Speaker 8 (43:08):
And I think you said him, why don't you go
in the morning, John, And that's when he said, now,
I want to do it now, wants fresh in my mind,
which was odd in himself, but he'd probably been near
full well as our detective Sarah, and I don't know
it would have been just the constable on the desk
which was Julie Donovan at the time.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
In episode six, you heard about some of the details
which were written down by the then Constable Julie Donovan
in the missing person report which she filled in that
night with information coming from John Winfield. I've been studying
a one page document typed in Ballener police station at
the time John Winfield reported his wife as missing. It
(44:11):
is an account of the purported facts and circumstances as
John explained them to the police officer who was on duty,
Julie Donovan. Officer Donovan's name and badge number are on
this document. Each relevant section has been filled with black type,
as you would expect. It's dated May twenty seven.
Speaker 17 (44:33):
Person of interest was last seen at nine thirty pm
on sixteen May nineteen ninety three, after making several phone
calls from the above address after husband Jonathan was in Sydney.
Apparently the jew had been officially separated since twenty two
March nineteen ninety three. On the night of sixteen May,
(44:54):
the person of interest had a conversation with her ex
husband and informed him that she was leaving. She stated
that she was leaving and going for a couple of
weeks holiday.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
In the first notification to police. John has asserted that
bromwin had said she was having a break of a fortnight,
whereas he told Broman's brother Andy and sister in law Michelle,
as well as Debbie and Murray that she was going
for a break of a few days.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
I got a phone call from Julie Donovan asking me
to come in and have a chat because John give
him my name as somebody to talk to Janise Barnard
and I winning on the Saturday the following Saturday and
met with Julie Donovan, who was just a death constable.
And then when we started to give our version of
what we've been told from him, she went on says
(45:47):
nothing what is told me.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
This is going to have to go upstairs.
Speaker 7 (45:51):
So it went up to the deteitis.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Julie Donovan's name is featured in a number of the
entries in the police running sheets in nineteen ninety three
because of some of the early inquiries she made with
detectives Discan and Wayne Temby. Then, now let's return to
the police interview between Glen Taylor and John Winfield, all.
Speaker 12 (46:14):
Right, and then I ran up all her stuff that
she left down at forty two Byron Street, and I
put it all in the garage and then maybe maybe
that was the next school holidays or something, or so
we went to Sydney again for two weeks and it
was during that two weeks that she came back, took
clothes and left a Medicare check.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
This is the second occasion. Yeah, it wasn't the first
time you come back that you saw the Medicare chip.
Speaker 12 (46:43):
No, No, it's the second time. It's all in. It's
all in the report there.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Well, I'll certainly have a look at that.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
It's hard to know now what report John Winfield is
referring to. If it is a reference to a comprehensive
report by the detective Graham Diskin in nineteen ninety three,
we have not seen it. Glenn Taylor doesn't recall such
a document, but you have heard several references to a
Medicare check. Andy and Michelle Reid and Andy's sister Kim
(47:15):
Marshall are confident that the evidence around this Medicare check
is very important. John relies on this check to claim
that Bromman has come back to the house. It's another
claim of proof of life. Like the purported call to
the hairdressing Salon, We're going to look at this as
well as accusations that someone has forged Bromwin's signature on
(47:38):
that check. You'll hear about it in the next episode.
John told the detective in nineteen ninety eight that after
putting the girls back into school, on his return to
Lenox in late May nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 6 (47:52):
He.
Speaker 12 (47:54):
Went around to a few of her girlfriends, spoke to
them to find out as much as I could find out,
reported her missing down here to the lady policewoman.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
At that time when you reported her missing, Yeah, was
there any clothes of hers missing at that stage that
you noticed?
Speaker 6 (48:14):
Not that I noticed, Not that I noticed.
Speaker 12 (48:17):
And during that time, I don't know what period of time,
it might have been three or four weeks, I don't know,
but this Shirley Taylor eventually gave me back everything that
was left down in the wrenched premises, right, you know,
there was you know, there was bags of clothes, and
(48:37):
there was pots and pans everything. She eventually gave them
to me, you know, and I put them all in
the garage, put them in a big pile. And then
shortly after, probably a couple of weeks later, I don't know,
I went to Sydney again for two weeks and it
was during that time that she came back. Left the
check on the kitchen island. It took a couple of
(49:01):
bags of clothes.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
How did you know it was her?
Speaker 6 (49:05):
Well, I don't, That's what I said to Graham. I said, I.
Speaker 12 (49:08):
Don't know it's her, But I mean, no one knows
it's her because no one saw her. All I know
is that the house wasn't broken into.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
But the indication is the check was dated after the
sixteenth to May.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
John didn't confirm the date of the check. He said
that the check was originally posted to Bromwin's temporary address
at the flat in Byron Street. That flat had lockable
mailboxes or the tenants before she disappeared, Bromwin hadn't returned
her keys to Shirley Taylor. John's suggestion to Detective Glenn
(49:45):
Taylor and They're no relation was that after disappearing, Bromwin
had gone back to her old flat, opened the mailbox,
seen the check, signed it, and brought it to the
house on Sandstone Crescent and left it on the table there.
According to John's version, she did all of this without
being seen by anyone and without leaving any note to
(50:08):
explain what was going on.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Did you feel it's strange that she hadn't made any
attempt to contact the children?
Speaker 6 (50:17):
Oh? Sure, you know, I mean it doesn't.
Speaker 12 (50:21):
I mean I used to think about it all the time,
but I mean it's sort of like I said, I've
sort of moved on in life and I don't think
about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
To tell you the truth, you mea just some photo
aggress that might have been wishing.
Speaker 12 (50:37):
Yeah, family photos. Were they in frames or well? See,
we've got in the Loundes room. There's a big buffet right,
drawers on one side and three doors on the other
and four drawers, and that's where all the photos are kept,
you know.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
And some of those were missing.
Speaker 6 (50:57):
Yeah, I couldn't tell you which photos.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Are you aware of a phone call allegedly made by
Bronwin to Jerdy's hairdressing seller.
Speaker 6 (51:07):
Yeah, I heard about that.
Speaker 12 (51:08):
What did Jeredy have to say about that? Well, Jodi
didn't take the call. Some other girl took it. Oh
I can't. I can't remember her name. I never spoke
to the girl personally. Jody told me. I told Andrew.
And Andrew drove down to the hairdressing shop and spoke
to this girl personally, that's Andrew her brother Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Asked whether any other things from the house had gone missing.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
No, you have never had any contact with your wife.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
No.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
No, to your knowledge about it. Count that's your operator
to the bank where there was about one thousand or
two thousand of the bank has never been operated.
Speaker 12 (51:49):
Well, last time I spoke to Graham, which was quite
a number of years ago, he said it hadn't been so,
but I haven't checked up. I've got authority to check
up on that, so they wouldn't tell me anyway, you know.
But well I spoke to Graham probably, I don't know
when it was. It was a few years ago now,
(52:11):
and he said it hadn't been touched.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
John was then asked about something he had raised with
the detectives before the police interview had started. Before the
tape was rolling about a woman called Diane in Sydney.
Speaker 6 (52:25):
Well, she rang me.
Speaker 12 (52:28):
I remember when it was because I just got ross
River fever, That's how I remember. And it was January
of ninety six and it was in the mid afternoon
and she rang me and I was just she took
me by surprise. You know, and virtually said that she
reckons that she saw her in Cronulla, but she ignored
(52:48):
her this.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Diane has alleged that she saw Brawman in Cronella in
around early nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 12 (52:56):
Well, that's why I rang, like when you rang me,
yes today, I rang Diane to sort of clarify it,
you know. I said, listen, there's probably going to be
a guy called Glen Taylor give you a ring. And
I said to her, do you remember when it was?
And she said she thought it was in the winter.
(53:16):
And I said, why do you say that? And she said,
because I remember she was wearing warm sort of clothes.
I said, I'll tell Glen Taylor and you can sort
it out with him, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Okay, to your knowledge, besides this possible signing by Diane,
has it ever been any other?
Speaker 12 (53:37):
No, not that, not that I can remember. I mean
there's been sort of Oh, I can't remember. Every time
I heard a story. I used to ring Graham up
and tell him. But you know, there's story is going
around everywhere, left, right and center.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
You know, have you fallen an opinion of what's happened
to your boy?
Speaker 13 (53:58):
No?
Speaker 12 (53:58):
I don't think about it I think about it. I
just say that one day I hope she'll pop up
because her mother did the same thing and her mother.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Can you tell us about that? I know you mentioned
that her mother suffered from schizophrenia.
Speaker 6 (54:13):
Still does. Yeah, apparently there.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Was a circumstance many years ago when Bromwin's mother went
missing as well.
Speaker 12 (54:21):
Yeah, we're missing at now. This is from Bromwin, and
I have clarified it with her brother. She's my mother
in law really, but I only met the woman once
in my life. You know, Bronwin and her didn't really
have a very close relationship. You know, they sort of
because I think of her mother's illness, you know, they
(54:44):
sort of didn't have much to do with each other.
So consequently, I've only met this woman once in my life,
and my two daughters, Crystal and Lauren, have never met
their grandmother, you know, because of that reason. I think
she sort of tried to sort of keep her away
(55:04):
from the kids, you know. But yeah, apparently when Andrew
Andrew was two and Brown was seven, she just left
the family home and ended up going to England. Came
back twelve years later with another child.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Do you know any information about a clearvoyant.
Speaker 12 (55:22):
Yeah, that's you know. Apparently she was seeing a clairvoyant Kriikey.
I can't remember the name, some guy that lives at
Sunrise Place at Lennox Head. She'd been seeing him for
quite a while, apparently, and at one stage she said
to one of her girlfriends that she thought this clairvoyan
was her father, you know, sort of like I said,
(55:45):
her father's already passed away years ago.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Were you aware she was seeing a clear voyant at
the time? What did you find out?
Speaker 6 (55:55):
Sorry? No, I only found out later on from her girlfriends.
You know.
Speaker 12 (56:00):
Apparently she used to pay this bloke thirty dollars a pop.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
The detective asked about the whereabouts of Jacko too. You
will recall that after Bromwin and John separated, she told
Gary Jackson that she was interested in him. He spoke
in episode five.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
We kiss and that's all we did.
Speaker 15 (56:21):
We did.
Speaker 14 (56:22):
I loved her and it was awesome sexual because we
didn't have sex.
Speaker 6 (56:28):
Who was bore them?
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Friendship? You know?
Speaker 14 (56:31):
But John was always ran Bush. We couldn't gold anywhere.
John was out there sitting in his shirt watching us.
John Kilga.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
But they can't pour in the body. The police didn't
do their job.
Speaker 12 (56:49):
No, never saw him again, never heard from him again.
And the clairvoyant I went around it his place. I
don't think I ever met him actually, and then I
know Graham saw him a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
I think, if necessary, would you give the police authority
to examine your bank accounts in relation to your bank cards,
just in relation to transaction reports?
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Have you got any other information that you can provide
us with at this point in time?
Speaker 6 (57:22):
No, no, okay.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
You mentioned earlier in the interview that you were very
concerned about the police approaching the media.
Speaker 12 (57:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very concerned. Yeah, okay, it's an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Now. You said that you don't want the police to
provide details to the media about the disappearance of your
war Yeah. Can you tell us now again about that?
Speaker 12 (57:46):
Well, like I said before, from my recollection, there's been
probably five or six media attempts and they range from
newspaper and photo and the Brisbane paper, radio casts in Sydney,
newspaper article here locally, television here locally, and radio here locally.
(58:08):
And when all that was going on, my kids went
through a bad time at school, and I mean over
the past five years, they've adjusted quite well, and I
just want.
Speaker 6 (58:19):
To keep it that way.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
You understand that the media is available too in trying
to locate missing people.
Speaker 12 (58:26):
I realized that, but I mean, I guess after all
avenues were exhausted and all of the investigations, I might
reconsider it. But at this stage, Okay, do you agree
I told you that I gave you a verbal assurance
that there won't be be a new decision media outlets
(58:46):
until we exhaust our current inquiries, and that entails speaking
to all family members and anyone else. Yeah, and then
before I'm making you further decision, I would consult you
your legal advisor. Yeah, you did say that, Yes, But
like I said, it's I'm really dead dead against any
(59:09):
more media because of what the kids, you know, because
the fact that there's been plenty of media I feel,
and there's been no it hasn't been successful. That I mean,
maybe she doesn't want to maybe she doesn't want to
come back.
Speaker 2 (59:25):
You know, do you think your wife might be deceased?
Speaker 12 (59:29):
No, No, no reason for me to think that way.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
So you think she's somewhere in this country under another identity.
Speaker 12 (59:37):
Well, well, I mean I'll tell you the truth. I
reckon I could go anywhere I like and assume another identity.
I don't see why anyone else can. I mean, it
wouldn't be hard.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Bronwyn 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.
(01:00:25):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn
podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
(01:00:51):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio
production for this podcast series is by Wasabi w 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
(01:01:12):
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
(01:01:34):
dot au and subscribe
Listeners are advised that this podcast series brow contains course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Andy Reid sounded.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Agitated when he called a few days before the release
of this episode to talk about breaking news of a
spate of murders and a purported serial killer. The banner
headline on page one of the Sydney Daly Telegraph put
it simply gone girl. The newspaper reported that a local
(01:03):
politician was raising fears of a serial killer as sixty
women had disappeared or met grisly ends in the state's
north coast areas in the past thirty two years. A
photograph of Bromwyn Winfield was included in a gallery of
female victims. The report presented no evidence that Bromwyn had
(01:23):
been abducted and murdered by a serial killer. Soon afterwards,
Maddie Walsh, who has been a great help to me
this past year, spoke to Sydney drivetime radio hosts Joel
Kine and Brian Fletcher, avid listeners of the Bromwin series.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We discussed dissect and dalve into crimes of the past.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Season two of Bronwyn has over four million downloads and
Jordi Us once again is bromwin Winfield's second cousin, the
very talented young Maddi Walsh. What you've been doing is
unbelievable them Maddie. What's been happening in your world?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
There is just still so much information to dive into
and dig through, just working towards getting justice for Bromwell.
Everyone in Lennox Head is talking about it. Every week
more information comes out.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Have most people in and around that area, to your knowledge,
we've heard this podcast.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Is that you're understanding.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
It's been the talk of the town.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I think there is only one conclusion that they are
all standing by, and that is her husband may have
something to do with it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
You would imagine that the police are listening closely to
this because after the Teacher's pet we know what happened.
Chris Dawson was down guilty.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Casseroted. Is there any contact with the police.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Do you keep them updated, do they contact you or
are they just sort of standing from afar.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
At the moment.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Sometimes they ask for information and they come and ask
for interviews. With Judy Singh, who came forward in the
last season about witnessing a body in the back of
the car, so it is looking promising from the police perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I don't know if you've seen the front pages of
Daily Telegraph today, have you read that story saying that
sixty women who were brutally murder or disappeared on the
New South Wales North Coast Wow in cases where the
perpetrators were never caught, can be revealed for the first time,
it fears some of the women were victims of serial killers.
This has just come to light today.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Maddie started to hoset the serial killer theory down.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Is there something you could investigate now?
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Knowing Bromwin's case and her circumstances, the chances that a
serial killer was involved in her disappearance very very minuscule
and just based on all the evidence I have seen
and what we know to be what happened to bromwhen
the night she went missing and her husband being the
last person to see her alive, I don't think there
(03:55):
is a serial killer involved in her disappearance. I'm not
saying it's not possible, however, I just don't think it's
really in the cars for Bronwin's.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Gross John Winfield's still up there. Isn't he a bit
of a recluse. I just can't fathom why he would
still be there.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
And he stays there, he knows people talk about him.
She's still surfing and still living his life.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Obviously, the loss of Bromwin, that's the first and foremost thing.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Has he something to do with it?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
That's a tragedy that he would be still ramming around
in the event that he has nothing to do with it.
That's a tragedy that he will be tired with that
sort of things. We may never know the truth of
his story. So the whole thing, Mattie, is just a
complete travesty and tragedy.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The fallout from the podcast and the separate linking of
Bronwin's disappearance to a supposed serial killer are taking a toll.
Bronwin's eldest daughter, Crystal responded by posting on Facebook.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
Interesting read in today's paper? Did a serial killer kill
my mom? She's one of the women listed.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
In this article as possible victims, and it's good to
see other possibilities being explored.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Sentiments like these from Crystal are difficult for Brohman's brother
Andy and his wife Michelle to read and hear In
the two subscriber episodes of eleven and twelve, you heard
Crystal's perspective on the case and how Crystal lost her
life savings to a self proclaimed soul doctor.
Speaker 9 (05:28):
She was asked to purchase a large number of gold bullion,
and that gold bullion is no longer gold bullion. It
is now actually a container full of cement.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, how does that happen?
Speaker 9 (05:44):
Whilst they were actually sitting with her in a park,
they have actually shown her a magic trick, and whilst
she's been blown away by the magic trick and she's
not paying attention, they have switched the container that had
the gold in it and have actually replaced it with
a container of the same exact likeness and it has
(06:06):
ce mention.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It is that sort of money, three hundred to three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars very important and significant for Crystal. Yes,
relationships are under strained. There is an elderly woman called
Vapu who knew Bromman when she was a girl and
Andy was just a little fella. Vapoo and the Reed
(06:29):
family were neighbors and Vapo has strongly suspected for a
long time that John killed Broman In May nineteen ninety three, John,
of course, emphatically denies wrongdoing. When Crystal posted on Facebook
about a purported serial killer being responsible. Instead, Vapo replied
(06:50):
with three emojis. They were laughing emojis. Crystel's younger sister,
Lauren was appalled, and as with Crystal voice, actor will
read how she responded. These are Lauren's words. It's not
her voice.
Speaker 8 (07:07):
It's all just entertainment for people like you, isn't it?
Three laughing emojis? Is that one for each of Bromwin's daughters,
who you know will see this. Too many gutless keyboard
bullies who think they're detective heroes, and too many gullible idiots. Also,
Us daughters have had enough of people like you not
(07:28):
only disrespecting us, but you're disrespecting every single one of
these sixty women and their families.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Crystal recently unfriended me, having sent me a Facebook request
some months.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Ago, but I'm not family.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Maddie has always got along well with Crystal, and now
they're not on speaking terms. Maddie's auntie Meghan, has been
unhappy too, because her twenty one year old forensic science
graduate niece spoke her mind about evidence which suggested that
Megan had said things about Bromin to Detective Graham Discin
in the original police investigation. You heard this in the
(08:07):
subscriber episodes eleven and twelve. Are you comfortable describing the
impact on your own friendship with Crystal as a result
of the work you've been doing trying to find out
who possibly murdered her mother Bromwin.
Speaker 7 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Look, coming into this, I knew that it would be
difficult with my situation. In my position, I wasn't alive
when Bromwin was alive, so I'm able to kind of
separate myself from the emotional impacts that Andy Michelle have
and Crystal have and other family members have.
Speaker 7 (08:43):
Showing my opinion on what I.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Think is the case and my opinion based on the
evidence I'm seeing. With Crystal especially, I knew it would
create distance. I'm trying to stay biased and stay true
to myself and stay true to the evidence, and if
that means that our relationship is a little bit skewed
at the moment, then that's a sacrifice unwilling to make
(09:06):
if it results in something worthwhile, and I know it
won't be forever. I know that relationships can be mended,
and this is just right now.
Speaker 10 (09:17):
I got a telephone call from Andy about this and
he was a bit disappointed that this prospect had even
been raised in relation to Bromin Well.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
I've spoken to Andy as well and Michelle, and they
both expressed the disbelief that a serial killer could have
been involved in Brownwin's disappearance. From what they were saying
in this article, there are so many missing and murdered
women from Newcastle all the way up to the border.
(09:50):
They've come to this conclusion that it's a possibility that
there could be a serial killer. A lot of these
women were eighteen, nineteen up to twenty years old, and
there were hitch hiking, which we know is not the
case for Bromwyn. It was a bit of a reach.
I don't think it has any connection to Bromwin's case.
Everyone's got their viewpoint, everyone's got their opinion, and Crystal
(10:11):
has hers.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's as if she is really embracing this proposition that
a serial killer was responsible.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I did see on Facebook that Crystal posted about this article,
and she seemed very open to this idea that a
serial killer could be responsible.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Instead of her step Fowler.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
She has always been looking for other possibilities.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
It's hard to come to that kind of conclusion that
someone so close to her could have possibly done something
so terrible, Like she's kind of glad that this has
come out and grouped with all these other missing and
murdered women.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Do you feel like you could talk to her about
this and try to express the country.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
I mean, probably not.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
She's so against the possibility of John being possibly involved
in Bromwin's disappearance. I don't think she wants to hear
anything else about it. I mean, she says she is
disconnected from the podcast. Her and sisters don't want anything
to do with it. They don't have any part in it.
(11:26):
So for her family members to outright say to her, look,
the possibility of a serial killer being involved in your
mum's disappearance is very, very far fetched.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
It probably wouldn't go over well.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
She doesn't want her dad to be the only suspect
in this case.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
That's what she believes, and that maybe brings her a
bit more peace.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
That's where it becomes a really difficult situation, because you
have most of the families really sitting by this one
possibility of what happened when we have only ever had
one suspect this entire time, we have really reviewed this
entire case.
Speaker 7 (12:08):
No one else has popped up.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
But then you have Bromwin's kids who think completely differently
and really just don't think that their father was involved
in her disappearance, and bringing another factor like a serial
killer with no real facts surrounding this serial killer.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
There's nothing, it's just a figment.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
So for the Telegraph to just group bromwent into this,
it kind of creates this weird situation where it's, in
my opinion, creating false hope. But what they're not considering
other circumstances around her disappearance. It's just very far fetched,
especially if we consider John's story of Bromwin said she
(12:53):
needed a break and she walked out the door and
got into a car.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
I doubt you get into a car with a serial killer.
I just think that's.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
A bit far fetch that the same night that John
was in Lennox Head was the same night that a
serial killer happened to be in Lennox Head and picked
from went up and she was never seen again. It
doesn't correlate with any of the stories that John has shared,
but at the end of the day, that is not
going to stop this investigation, and that is not going
to change what the truth is. The truth will probably
(13:25):
still come out, but.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
The tensions in the family are still there.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I think closure will heal a lot of wounds with
the family, and I think it will.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
Bring a lot of us back together, but unfortunately people
will be caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
We know that Robin's case was very poorly investigated, and
we know that only one person was found by the
former deputy state coroner to have been possibly responsible. It
actually reminds me of one part of the inquest that
was held and Lynn Dawson, as she was then known,
(14:03):
was missing. She'd been missing by them for just over
twenty years.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I recall it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Chris Dawson's brother, who was also his solicitor, was suggesting
that the serial killer Ivan Malatt may have been responsible
for Lynn's disappearance. I dealt with some of this in
the Teacher's Pet podcast series when we reconstructed evidence from
the two thousand and three inquest. The detective Damian Leone
(14:33):
was in the witness box.
Speaker 11 (14:37):
Ivan Mullatt's monstrous appetite for sex and death marks him
out as one of the country's most notorious serial killers.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Did you investigate any of the suggestions that Ivan Malatt
was in that area at the time.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's like saying, how long is a piece of string?
Mister Dawson.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Damien and the coroner believed that Peter Dawson was clutching
at straws.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Here.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Malat's victims were raised nineteen to twenty two, and his
killing spree occurred between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety three.
He hunted in Sydney's west, far from Sydney's northern beaches
and the central coast farther north.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I have nothing to lead me in that area, and
I have to discount it. There is nothing to suggest
that mister Malatt was in Bayview on nine or ten January.
He may be. I don't know that. No one knows
that the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Lawyer tried to paint Damien as a cop suffering from
tunnel vision, of being fixated on Chris Dawson as the
probable killer without asking him for more facts. Why hadn't
he made Ivan Mulatter suspect. Now let's go back to
(16:07):
Glen Taylor's interview with John Winfield in the Ballona police station.
It's early August nineteen ninety eight. What about keys to
the house. Do you know whether she took any keys?
Speaker 12 (16:20):
Has she still got them now? Whether she took the
keys on that night, I look, they would have.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Been in her handbag. I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But you've never since that, Tom, you've never located anything.
Speaker 13 (16:32):
No.
Speaker 12 (16:32):
Yeah, well she's been back to the house since then,
because she brought she came back to the house sometime later,
I can't remember when, and she picked up clothes, and
she picked up Medicare. She dropped off a Medicare check,
and she would have and she didn't break into the house,
(16:53):
so she would have had keys to get into it.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Glenn Taylor circled back to John's decision to drive the
kids to Sydney.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
What time did I decide to go?
Speaker 14 (17:03):
Yes?
Speaker 12 (17:04):
So Graham asked me this and I sort of said
to him, I bought petrol in Balliner.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Would that have been long after she left?
Speaker 12 (17:14):
Maybe half an hour? I don't know, maybe half an hour.
But the reason why is because I think I gave
my bank card stuff to Graham to show him I
bought petrol in Balaner on the way through at the
endpole there and it showed the date on it. I
think it was the next day on the date of
the bank card, like the seventeenth, you know what I mean,
(17:38):
Like the Saturday night was the sixteenth, and so obviously
I bought the petrol after midnight sometime.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know, it appears that John has momentarily forgotten that
he purchased fuel at eleven oh six pm something he
was at pains to highlight to Andy and Michelle back
in nineteen ninety three when he arrived at the house
in the Shire in Sydney on the afternoon of Monday
May seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I think there was a docket here.
Speaker 12 (18:06):
Yeah, there's a bank card docket. I remember he asked
me about it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
John volunteered that he bought petrol again at a town
called Kempsey, about a four hour drive south of Ballina.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
See that car ran on petrol and gas. I used
to I can't remember if I had it this, but
I used to fill it up with petrol and gas
at once. Yes, I used to only have to stop
once between here and Sydney, whenever I used to go
to Sydney.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
You know when you left with the children, did you
obviously had to carry them out to the car and
put them in the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:43):
Yeah, Did you take some clothes for them?
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, pack clothes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Here's Michelle's recollection about that, and her account is backed
up by Bromwin's half sister Melissa.
Speaker 13 (18:57):
It was just really, really strange that he packed up
and through clothes that weren't even appropriate for Sydney weather.
And inside pillowcases were just kids clothes. Pillow case here,
in a pillowcase there, And there might have been a
smallish bag of some sort. Melissa and I went shopping
(19:20):
so they could have something to wear, because nothing in
it was appropriate to wear.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Did you leave any nate or anything to say that
you'd taken the children? No is here any reason you didn't.
Didn't think of it. I was sort of I don't know,
I just didn't think of it. Just took the kids,
you know. So you drove right through night?
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Do you know what time you would have arrived at Sydney.
Speaker 10 (19:47):
Ah?
Speaker 6 (19:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
I was going through Sydney at peak hour traffic, so
usually takes me nine or ten hours, So I was
probably going through Sydney, I don't know, eight in the morning,
something like that.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Eight or nine.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Can you tell me.
Speaker 12 (20:00):
I know the car was unregistered too, because I once
I got to Sydney, I had to go straight and
get a pink slip straight away and get it registered.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
We know that John was very careful with money. He
kept a tight grip on the family finances. While he
was away working in Sydney. The registration on the Ford
Falcon expired. John had bought the car on May seven,
the year before.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It is probable that the.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Annual registration ran out exactly a year later, so on
Friday May seven, nine days before Bromin's disappearance. It is
also likely that the subject of the expired registration came
up when John went to the house on the evening
of Sunday May sixteen. Perhaps John expected Bromin to pay
(20:49):
for the registration out of her own funds as she
was using the car while he was away in Sydney. Crystal,
as a sixteen year old, said something in her police
statement to Glenn Taylor, and it could have been directly
related to the expired regio.
Speaker 15 (21:05):
I think at one stage they went into the bedroom
and they were talking in there. I remember mom and
Dad were talking about on paid bills and Mum saying
something along the lines about not talking about it in
front of Lauren and myself. The next thing that I
remember was Mum telling myself and my sister Lauren to
clean our teeth and go to bed.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I think we normally went to.
Speaker 15 (21:26):
Bed about eight thirty pm each night. After I went
to bed, I heard Mum and Dad arguing in the kitchen.
I could hear Mom crying at the same time. I
don't recall what was being said between Mum and Dad,
but I could tell that they were arguing. I could
hear them arguing until I must have fell asleep. My
(21:46):
next recollection that night was being woken by my father.
Dad told me that he was taking Lauren a night
to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Crystal was recalling the events surrounding John's arrival at the
house and the last time she saw her mother was
one of the unpaid bills the registration for the Ford Falcon.
John knew on Monday May seventeen, when he arrived in
Sydney after his drive through the night, that the registration
had expired because he made arrangements to pay it that day.
(22:19):
For me, this event reinforces Glenn's suspicion about John having
gone into flight mode or a panic state on the
Sunday night. Driving an unregistered car for some ten hours
on Australia's major highway and then on roads in the
nation's biggest city is risky. If there is an accident,
(22:40):
there are serious legal consequences, but just a traffic stop
would result in a hefty fine, And in nineteen ninety three,
the expiry of a car's registration was obvious to the
trained eye. Back then, the registration sticker was stuck to
the windscreen, the expiry date was printed on the sticker.
(23:02):
The color of the sticker would signal whether a vehicle
was on the road illegally. If Bromwin had gone as
John claims, he could have stayed in the house on
Sandstone Crescent, allowing his two daughters to keep sleeping, and
then on Monday morning he could have gone to Baliner
and had the car registered. Why did he decide to
(23:24):
up and leave so suddenly, to drive through the night
with all the attendant risks. He must have been shattered
from having had no sleep when he set out.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Can you tell me where you went to? First of all?
First of all, did you go to a relative's house
or friend's house.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Just trying to think. I went to.
Speaker 12 (23:47):
I don't know whether this is in order, but I
know A called into my daughter at her work.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
I had the kids with me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Or think is that the hairdressing salon?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (23:58):
Yeah, I called into Michelle's place. I think I think
it was Michelle or that afternoon I called into Michelle
and Andrew. That's Bronwin's sister in law and brother. I
called into their place that afternoon.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
But the first point, first person you think might have
been Judy. Did you say it at the hairdressing salon?
Speaker 12 (24:20):
I can't remember. Probably, yeah, probably, I don't know. I
can't remember where I first. And then I mean we
had breakfast somewhere, and then I had to go. I
went straight and got a pink well not straight, but
sometime that day I got a pink slip from the
service station in Crinulla, and then I went to the
(24:41):
motor registry at and then no, I got a pink
slip and a green slip from the same guy. And
I went to Miranda Registry and registered the car all
on that day the first day I got there, because
the car had no REGI on it.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
John has failed to mention a very important stop that
he made after his purported visit to the salon it
which Jodie worked on that Monday morning. He has failed
to disclose to the detectives in the ball and A
police station that in fact, he went to the home
of his former wife, Jenny Mason, but she was out
shopping and John implored her mother in law, a woman
(25:19):
whom he had never met before, to take the two
girls for several hours so that he could go and
do something. Michelle and Andy Reid were shocked when they
discovered this stopover as a result of good detective work
by Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 13 (25:34):
That blew me away, loom me away.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
But he didn't tell you that.
Speaker 13 (25:39):
No, these kids, they would never have met Jenny, let
alone Jenny's.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
Mother in law.
Speaker 13 (25:48):
He made out that he come to Sydney, and he
come to us bombshell.
Speaker 7 (25:55):
That was to us.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
The natural thing to do would have been to go
to Bromwin's brother and law, of course, but he went
to his ex wife's home.
Speaker 13 (26:05):
Her mother in law was down visiting. He had no
idea who this random bloke was.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Here's the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor talking to me
during the production of this episode sixteen.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
There was certainly a lot of things we didn't know
in a lot of things he didn't reveal during the interview,
the things like his movements when he first got down
to Sydney, or he was extremely vague in the interview. Yes,
there had been five years, but some things, I mean
you just think, well, how could you forget that? No
(26:41):
mention of going to the ex wife's home and two
kids in pajamas, I mean you think that would have
to be still fresh in your mind even after five years.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was such an unusual thing for him to do,
to turn up at his ex wife's place.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
When the interview, we weren't aware of that. Would you
never know that? These people alone? We had to get
more information about here we'd been previously married to you,
and then we had to work out how we're going
to contact these people shift they'd be willing to be interviewed.
And yes, I mean, why would you do that? Why
would you go there?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Why would you go the ex wif's place?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Why wouldn't you go to the immediate family members, go
to Michelle and Andrews and give them a ring and say, look,
I'm in a dilama Bromin's taken off for a couple
of weeks. Let me with the kids, can't your gob out.
But the woman that was there, he'd never met her before.
The kids point for me with her. I think it
(27:39):
was the mother in law of the ex wife from
the new partner. Lady had never let the keys or him.
They're in pajamas and hardy clothes with them to change
them into, and he'd not come back for quite a
few hours, so we said quite a few hours in Sydney,
And again we didn't want to be aggressive with in
(28:02):
the interview. And of course he's there voluntarily as a witness,
but he's not really disclosing a great deal at all
that where he went to and what he did.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I think he'd already been to see Jodi at that state.
He said he went to see JD but we don't
have any proof. So he sad several hours on his own. Someday.
Have you wondered or questioned since discovering his movements why
he would have omitted such an unforgettable thing as to
(28:36):
the visit to his ex wife's house. I think he
wanted to hopefully we don't discover what he did, which
movements and all that day.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I agree, But.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Why that's probably only an answer that John Winfield knows.
Why Why is he trying to distance the police from
his movements on that Monday in Sydney when he's driving
(29:08):
and he gets rid of the children at his ex
wife's mother in law's place. Why does he not want
you to discover this? That's what I'm curious and auspicious about.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I'm curious. I think I've thought about that since nineteen
ninety eight. Why did he do that?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
There's so many things. And you've seen him around Lennox
in recent days and weeks, seending a number of times.
His green station wagon he's getting in.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
He's good friends with a concrete He just lives around
the corner from us. He's a regular visitor, both myself
and my wife in her own cars, within five minutes
of each other, both your one and home of the day.
And he was seated in his car with his cap
on and outside the concrete his house. He happened to
(29:54):
stare at me, and then he stared at my wife.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
As coming to the street, Glenn Taylor arrived seeing John
out driving on another very recent day, we.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Just happened to come up behind his car and I said, oh,
what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I'll just be interested to see where he's going.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
And he went left and then he just went left, left, left,
and then he came right back. Commander, Well, at first scene,
I mean town a couple of weeks ago, his tunne
of a trailer, and I think he's sort of watching
his back all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Do you think he was deploying samanti surveillance?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
For sure? It was classic Andy surbilance and then after
one surbilance on suspects numerous times in my career, both
as a police officer and also a private investigator, and
it might be just an innocent person behind him to
go in the same direction, but he'd probably pull over
and think someone's falling in a registry office.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Four vehicles in the Southern Shire was in Miranda, and
John was asked by the detectives when he went there.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
It was in the afternoon. I suppose did you.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Try ringing the family home at Lenox Head during the
course off of state.
Speaker 12 (31:08):
I don't know if I did personally, but I probably
when we went and visited Andrew and Michelle that afternoon,
probably we tried to ring.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
Then I suppose and the phone was off the hook.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Right, Okay, when you go to that night to stay,
who were you staying.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
With with my daughter Jodie her place?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Jady was living in Sydney at that stage.
Speaker 12 (31:31):
Yeah, I stayed in that She was at a place
called I think it.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
Was Marlowe Road, a unit in Marlowe Road.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Where did the children sleep?
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Yeah, they were sleeping on the floor.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The strong recollection of Michelle and Andy Reid, however, is
that the children and John stayed at their house. John
didn't stay the whole time, though.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So you think you tried to ring the family home
at Lenox Head from Michelle Rhid's plug.
Speaker 12 (32:00):
Yeah, they'll be able to verify that because I know
Andrew well, it was their phone. I think that Andrew
was the one that rang first and the phone was engaged.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know when you took the children to Sydney. Yeah,
how long was it your intention for them to stay
in Sydney for?
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Oh?
Speaker 12 (32:19):
They I can't remember having any intention, really, any intention
at all.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
That recall about the conversation with Bromwin about her having
a break from the children.
Speaker 12 (32:30):
I know someone said that about that in the letter.
I think she might have said she wanted a break.
She was, Oh, I really can't remember. Honestly, I can't.
I really can't remember. I can't remember what we talked about.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Here John distanced himself again from what he had previously
told a number of people about what Bromwin purportedly told him.
Speaker 13 (32:54):
We were standing on our little front Feranda just to here,
you know, he said, oh, Brolin left me, and I went, oh, okay.
Speaker 7 (33:05):
He was like jittery and all of that.
Speaker 13 (33:07):
And then he said, well, actually she needed a break.
She's going on a holiday. And I thought to myself,
is she on a holiday or.
Speaker 7 (33:14):
Has she left him?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Like, in my head, I'm thinking that's weird.
Speaker 13 (33:18):
It's just my nature to be a little bit suspicious
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
But to your knowledge, she had already left it.
Speaker 13 (33:26):
And then he switched it to she needed a break,
she needs a break, and she's going to get her
head together for her and so he brought the kids
to sitting.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
It is as if John no longer wants to own
responsibility for these things. Instead, I think that he wants
the detective to focus on Bromwin's own written words about
a break. You heard in episode ten that the break
Bromwin had briefly written about was her plan to visit
her mother, Barbara and her grandmother. Here's Bromwin's mother's sister,
(34:00):
Auntie Jan talking about that. One of the things that
is written down by Bromman in these papers that she
wrote before she disappeared was that she was going to
take a break and that she'd be coming back and
should be fine.
Speaker 7 (34:18):
That's probably when she was going to mums to Hobart.
Speaker 13 (34:23):
Before she rang mum, she'd spoken to Barb a couple
of times regarding what was going on, and bab was
quite distressed about it.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And then she rang Mum and then asked her first
some money.
Speaker 7 (34:36):
That the plan was, according to my mum, that she
was coming over to Hobart.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
So you didn't have any sect thing in your mind
that you were going to be sitting for a week
or two weeks.
Speaker 12 (34:51):
Or not really, no, No, I just sort of went,
you know, sort of like I said, it may have
been school holidays.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
I can't remember. I really can't remember that time.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
What did you do in you know, over that ten days.
Speaker 12 (35:05):
Or so, probably just hang about just sort of sightseeing
and everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Now, according to the builder Glenn Webster, who had employed
John as a bricklayer. John was back on the job
doing work for Glenn at what was then a relatively
isolated building site in Illawong during this period when John
was back in Sydney with the girls. Here's what Glenn
Webster put in his statement in September nineteen ninety eight
(35:34):
when Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor spoke to him.
Speaker 16 (35:38):
It didn't take long before John was back in Sydney.
It may have only been two or three days that
he'd been absent. I recall that he came to my
home driving a white Falcon Sedan. He had with him
his two girls, Crystal and Lauren. From memory, John and
the girls stayed with us at our home for one
or two days. I don't recall the reasons John gave
(36:00):
the girls with him. I probably would have asked him
why he brought the children to Sydney, but at this
point I don't remember what he told me. I don't
have any recollection of John mentioning anything about Bronwyn After
he came with the girls. I think he organized some
other people to look after the girls whilst he did
a bit more work on my house. I vaguely recall
(36:21):
him telling me that he wasn't able to finish the job.
I don't recall what reasons, if any, he gave for
not being able to finish the job.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
John's failure to mention the work that he did at
Glenn's house might be a coincidence. He might have forgotten
in the same way that he might have forgotten the
very unusual decision he made to visit his former wife's house. Alternatively,
those two omissions could be deliberate avoidance, evidence of John
(36:50):
having deliberately edited part of the reality of that day
to minimize scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Why was it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Because he did not want to draw attention to his
movements that day and to the house that he had
been building in Illawan in the Shire where a concrete
pol was imminent.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Did you try to ring Bromley on occasions?
Speaker 12 (37:13):
Well, we found out like the phone was engaged for
some reason. He was engaged for probably a couple of days, right,
So I rang my next door neighbor and got him
to get into the house. He broke a back window
and just had to look inside the house, you know,
And that's when he found out the phone was off
the hook. And he was the one he told us
(37:36):
who was that Murray Nolan.
Speaker 11 (37:39):
So I've got the court. He said, would you mind
going up the house. Would you mind going up to
the house and breaking in for me. There's a class
panel next to the back door. He said, put your
hand open the door and get in. And I said
that's fine. I think I'll do that. He said, yeah,
because I've been trying to ring Bromlin and I want
you to have to little see the robins there. Because
I've been ringing, I'm getting all answer. John said to me,
(38:01):
I'll ring you back in twenty minutes. So I'm Sussagan.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
You never left the phone off the hook after you
left the house, did you.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 12 (38:12):
I only made those two calls earlier, like what Graham said,
after I had left with the kids at what eleven o'clockish.
Apparently she had come back to the house and made
that zero zero five five number. That's what that's where
Graham had established anyway, because it was the same number
(38:32):
as she'd been ringing on her phone bill at forty
two Byron Street, and that from my memory, that zero
zero five five number was made in the early hours
of the next morning. But that's only what Graham told me,
I don't know, okay, I never even saw the phone bill.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
At a certain point in time, did you decide to
come back to Lennox Head with the kids.
Speaker 6 (38:54):
Yeah, we came back and tell me.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
When that gate was.
Speaker 12 (39:00):
Ge well, it would be in there and whatever it was,
that's the day.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think it was around about approximately two weeks.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Okay, well that's what it was. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Did you drive direct reach here the family?
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Yeah? Yeah, I think so. No one was there.
Speaker 12 (39:19):
The back window had a piece of ply over it,
you know, because it had been broken. There's glass all
through the house because Murray he broke the window, but
he had a bad back of the time, so he
didn't bother cleaning up. There was a medicare check on
the front, not the front, the kitchen bench, on the
island bench right a medicare check sitting there, signed and
(39:43):
it was a check.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Signed by who her? And you believe that chick was
definitely not at the house at time when you left.
Speaker 12 (39:51):
Definitely not. I know it wasn't there when I left.
No way, have you any idea when it was dated?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
The check?
Speaker 12 (39:59):
Well, it's in it's in Graham stuff. There are you
willing to give us that check? Again, Sure, I'll give
it back to you. Well, I don't know if I'll
give it back to you, but I'll give you a
photostat copy, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
John then described dealing with the furniture and the other
contents of the house. He estimated that ninety percent of
what Bromin had taken away when she left Sandstone Crescent
had been brought back when she returned to the house
and started moving back in on Friday, May fourteen.
Speaker 12 (40:33):
And she left the rest down there, you know, and
the landlord put it in the storage place in one
of her garages out the back, you know, and eventually
she gave it back to me. Right, So I got
it all. There was a few pots and pans, There
was bags of clothes. There was just a lot of
crap that she left there, you know. So over a
(40:56):
period of time, I carted that stuff up and just
put it in a pile inside the garage, right, And
then I took the kids to Sydney.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Right.
Speaker 12 (41:05):
So I went to Sydney twice, you know. I took
the kids to Sydney and we came back, right, and
then we went again.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
The first time you come back, did you report her
missing to the police?
Speaker 12 (41:17):
I took the kids to Sydney, Yes, came back with
by was it two weeks later, Yes, and then reported
her missing downstairs to the lady policewoman.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Devan Murray Nolan have told me how they recalled the
lead up to this.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
There are certain things I do remember exactly what I
said and what it was said. And he stood on
the back brander here and we're chatting, and I said, John,
I am really concerned about Bromin. We need to report
her missing. No no, no, no, no, I'm not going
to do that sip for John. No one's hurt from us.
I'm really concerned about it. You need to report her missing.
(41:55):
Him being the next akin, I thought, well, he asked
to door anyway, so no, he was not going to
do it.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
He was just artamently no no no, no.
Speaker 8 (42:02):
No no, no, it's all good, it's all lood Y
should come back and all this, And I'm like thinking
he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Want her report. Did this scene composed?
Speaker 8 (42:10):
Yeah, not at all concerned. And I thought, I'm free
to hear about this woman because as I said, no
mobile phone's back then, so you couldn't find anybody.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
I thought, where is she?
Speaker 8 (42:21):
I thought, maybe she's done something to herself. I said,
all right, John, it's like this. If you don't report
the missing, I will, and he's gone, no, No, if
anyone's going to do it, it'll be me. I said, right,
And we were at home here and you can correct
me if I'm wrong here. But he either came down
or irraineused he came now. He came downhall. He said,
(42:44):
I'm going into report problem missing, and why do you
come up and watch the kids? And I said, yeah, sure, yeah,
all right, okay, and I think you went up because
I say here with our kids, and you ended up
going up there watching the two girls.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
They were in a bit, weren't they.
Speaker 8 (42:59):
He did say something like I want to report this
well as fresh in my mind.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I'm thinking he's had time.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
To contrupt some story. So he went in and he
reported and missing that night.
Speaker 8 (43:08):
And I think you said him, why don't you go
in the morning, John, And that's when he said, now,
I want to do it now, wants fresh in my mind,
which was odd in himself, but he'd probably been near
full well as our detective Sarah, and I don't know
it would have been just the constable on the desk
which was Julie Donovan at the time.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
In episode six, you heard about some of the details
which were written down by the then Constable Julie Donovan
in the missing person report which she filled in that
night with information coming from John Winfield. I've been studying
a one page document typed in Ballener police station at
the time John Winfield reported his wife as missing. It
(44:11):
is an account of the purported facts and circumstances as
John explained them to the police officer who was on duty,
Julie Donovan. Officer Donovan's name and badge number are on
this document. Each relevant section has been filled with black type,
as you would expect. It's dated May twenty seven.
Speaker 17 (44:33):
Person of interest was last seen at nine thirty pm
on sixteen May nineteen ninety three, after making several phone
calls from the above address after husband Jonathan was in Sydney.
Apparently the jew had been officially separated since twenty two
March nineteen ninety three. On the night of sixteen May,
(44:54):
the person of interest had a conversation with her ex
husband and informed him that she was leaving. She stated
that she was leaving and going for a couple of
weeks holiday.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
In the first notification to police. John has asserted that
bromwin had said she was having a break of a fortnight,
whereas he told Broman's brother Andy and sister in law Michelle,
as well as Debbie and Murray that she was going
for a break of a few days.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
I got a phone call from Julie Donovan asking me
to come in and have a chat because John give
him my name as somebody to talk to Janise Barnard
and I winning on the Saturday the following Saturday and
met with Julie Donovan, who was just a death constable.
And then when we started to give our version of
what we've been told from him, she went on says
(45:47):
nothing what is told me.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
This is going to have to go upstairs.
Speaker 7 (45:51):
So it went up to the deteitis.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Julie Donovan's name is featured in a number of the
entries in the police running sheets in nineteen ninety three
because of some of the early inquiries she made with
detectives Discan and Wayne Temby. Then, now let's return to
the police interview between Glen Taylor and John Winfield, all.
Speaker 12 (46:14):
Right, and then I ran up all her stuff that
she left down at forty two Byron Street, and I
put it all in the garage and then maybe maybe
that was the next school holidays or something, or so
we went to Sydney again for two weeks and it
was during that two weeks that she came back, took
clothes and left a Medicare check.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
This is the second occasion. Yeah, it wasn't the first
time you come back that you saw the Medicare chip.
Speaker 12 (46:43):
No, No, it's the second time. It's all in. It's
all in the report there.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Well, I'll certainly have a look at that.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
It's hard to know now what report John Winfield is
referring to. If it is a reference to a comprehensive
report by the detective Graham Diskin in nineteen ninety three,
we have not seen it. Glenn Taylor doesn't recall such
a document, but you have heard several references to a
Medicare check. Andy and Michelle Reid and Andy's sister Kim
(47:15):
Marshall are confident that the evidence around this Medicare check
is very important. John relies on this check to claim
that Bromman has come back to the house. It's another
claim of proof of life. Like the purported call to
the hairdressing Salon, We're going to look at this as
well as accusations that someone has forged Bromwin's signature on
(47:38):
that check. You'll hear about it in the next episode.
John told the detective in nineteen ninety eight that after
putting the girls back into school, on his return to
Lenox in late May nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 6 (47:52):
He.
Speaker 12 (47:54):
Went around to a few of her girlfriends, spoke to
them to find out as much as I could find out,
reported her missing down here to the lady policewoman.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
At that time when you reported her missing, Yeah, was
there any clothes of hers missing at that stage that
you noticed?
Speaker 6 (48:14):
Not that I noticed, Not that I noticed.
Speaker 12 (48:17):
And during that time, I don't know what period of time,
it might have been three or four weeks, I don't know,
but this Shirley Taylor eventually gave me back everything that
was left down in the wrenched premises, right, you know,
there was you know, there was bags of clothes, and
(48:37):
there was pots and pans everything. She eventually gave them
to me, you know, and I put them all in
the garage, put them in a big pile. And then
shortly after, probably a couple of weeks later, I don't know,
I went to Sydney again for two weeks and it
was during that time that she came back. Left the
check on the kitchen island. It took a couple of
(49:01):
bags of clothes.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
How did you know it was her?
Speaker 6 (49:05):
Well, I don't, That's what I said to Graham. I said, I.
Speaker 12 (49:08):
Don't know it's her, But I mean, no one knows
it's her because no one saw her. All I know
is that the house wasn't broken into.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
But the indication is the check was dated after the
sixteenth to May.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
John didn't confirm the date of the check. He said
that the check was originally posted to Bromwin's temporary address
at the flat in Byron Street. That flat had lockable
mailboxes or the tenants before she disappeared, Bromwin hadn't returned
her keys to Shirley Taylor. John's suggestion to Detective Glenn
(49:45):
Taylor and They're no relation was that after disappearing, Bromwin
had gone back to her old flat, opened the mailbox,
seen the check, signed it, and brought it to the
house on Sandstone Crescent and left it on the table there.
According to John's version, she did all of this without
being seen by anyone and without leaving any note to
(50:08):
explain what was going on.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Did you feel it's strange that she hadn't made any
attempt to contact the children?
Speaker 6 (50:17):
Oh? Sure, you know, I mean it doesn't.
Speaker 12 (50:21):
I mean I used to think about it all the time,
but I mean it's sort of like I said, I've
sort of moved on in life and I don't think
about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
To tell you the truth, you mea just some photo
aggress that might have been wishing.
Speaker 12 (50:37):
Yeah, family photos. Were they in frames or well? See,
we've got in the Loundes room. There's a big buffet right,
drawers on one side and three doors on the other
and four drawers, and that's where all the photos are kept,
you know.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
And some of those were missing.
Speaker 6 (50:57):
Yeah, I couldn't tell you which photos.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Are you aware of a phone call allegedly made by
Bronwin to Jerdy's hairdressing seller.
Speaker 6 (51:07):
Yeah, I heard about that.
Speaker 12 (51:08):
What did Jeredy have to say about that? Well, Jodi
didn't take the call. Some other girl took it. Oh
I can't. I can't remember her name. I never spoke
to the girl personally. Jody told me. I told Andrew.
And Andrew drove down to the hairdressing shop and spoke
to this girl personally, that's Andrew her brother Glenn Taylor.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Asked whether any other things from the house had gone missing.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
No, you have never had any contact with your wife.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
No.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
No, to your knowledge about it. Count that's your operator
to the bank where there was about one thousand or
two thousand of the bank has never been operated.
Speaker 12 (51:49):
Well, last time I spoke to Graham, which was quite
a number of years ago, he said it hadn't been so,
but I haven't checked up. I've got authority to check
up on that, so they wouldn't tell me anyway, you know.
But well I spoke to Graham probably, I don't know
when it was. It was a few years ago now,
(52:11):
and he said it hadn't been touched.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
John was then asked about something he had raised with
the detectives before the police interview had started. Before the
tape was rolling about a woman called Diane in Sydney.
Speaker 6 (52:25):
Well, she rang me.
Speaker 12 (52:28):
I remember when it was because I just got ross
River fever, That's how I remember. And it was January
of ninety six and it was in the mid afternoon
and she rang me and I was just she took
me by surprise. You know, and virtually said that she
reckons that she saw her in Cronulla, but she ignored
(52:48):
her this.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Diane has alleged that she saw Brawman in Cronella in
around early nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 12 (52:56):
Well, that's why I rang, like when you rang me,
yes today, I rang Diane to sort of clarify it,
you know. I said, listen, there's probably going to be
a guy called Glen Taylor give you a ring. And
I said to her, do you remember when it was?
And she said she thought it was in the winter.
(53:16):
And I said, why do you say that? And she said,
because I remember she was wearing warm sort of clothes.
I said, I'll tell Glen Taylor and you can sort
it out with him, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Okay, to your knowledge, besides this possible signing by Diane,
has it ever been any other?
Speaker 12 (53:37):
No, not that, not that I can remember. I mean
there's been sort of Oh, I can't remember. Every time
I heard a story. I used to ring Graham up
and tell him. But you know, there's story is going
around everywhere, left, right and center.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
You know, have you fallen an opinion of what's happened
to your boy?
Speaker 13 (53:58):
No?
Speaker 12 (53:58):
I don't think about it I think about it. I
just say that one day I hope she'll pop up
because her mother did the same thing and her mother.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Can you tell us about that? I know you mentioned
that her mother suffered from schizophrenia.
Speaker 6 (54:13):
Still does. Yeah, apparently there.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Was a circumstance many years ago when Bromwin's mother went
missing as well.
Speaker 12 (54:21):
Yeah, we're missing at now. This is from Bromwin, and
I have clarified it with her brother. She's my mother
in law really, but I only met the woman once
in my life. You know, Bronwin and her didn't really
have a very close relationship. You know, they sort of
because I think of her mother's illness, you know, they
(54:44):
sort of didn't have much to do with each other.
So consequently, I've only met this woman once in my life,
and my two daughters, Crystal and Lauren, have never met
their grandmother, you know, because of that reason. I think
she sort of tried to sort of keep her away
(55:04):
from the kids, you know. But yeah, apparently when Andrew
Andrew was two and Brown was seven, she just left
the family home and ended up going to England. Came
back twelve years later with another child.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Do you know any information about a clearvoyant.
Speaker 12 (55:22):
Yeah, that's you know. Apparently she was seeing a clairvoyant Kriikey.
I can't remember the name, some guy that lives at
Sunrise Place at Lennox Head. She'd been seeing him for
quite a while, apparently, and at one stage she said
to one of her girlfriends that she thought this clairvoyan
was her father, you know, sort of like I said,
(55:45):
her father's already passed away years ago.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Were you aware she was seeing a clear voyant at
the time? What did you find out?
Speaker 6 (55:55):
Sorry? No, I only found out later on from her girlfriends.
You know.
Speaker 12 (56:00):
Apparently she used to pay this bloke thirty dollars a pop.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
The detective asked about the whereabouts of Jacko too. You
will recall that after Bromwin and John separated, she told
Gary Jackson that she was interested in him. He spoke
in episode five.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
We kiss and that's all we did.
Speaker 15 (56:21):
We did.
Speaker 14 (56:22):
I loved her and it was awesome sexual because we
didn't have sex.
Speaker 6 (56:28):
Who was bore them?
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Friendship? You know?
Speaker 14 (56:31):
But John was always ran Bush. We couldn't gold anywhere.
John was out there sitting in his shirt watching us.
John Kilga.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
But they can't pour in the body. The police didn't
do their job.
Speaker 12 (56:49):
No, never saw him again, never heard from him again.
And the clairvoyant I went around it his place. I
don't think I ever met him actually, and then I
know Graham saw him a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
I think, if necessary, would you give the police authority
to examine your bank accounts in relation to your bank cards,
just in relation to transaction reports?
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Have you got any other information that you can provide
us with at this point in time?
Speaker 6 (57:22):
No, no, okay.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
You mentioned earlier in the interview that you were very
concerned about the police approaching the media.
Speaker 12 (57:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very concerned. Yeah, okay, it's an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Now. You said that you don't want the police to
provide details to the media about the disappearance of your
war Yeah. Can you tell us now again about that?
Speaker 12 (57:46):
Well, like I said before, from my recollection, there's been
probably five or six media attempts and they range from
newspaper and photo and the Brisbane paper, radio casts in Sydney,
newspaper article here locally, television here locally, and radio here locally.
(58:08):
And when all that was going on, my kids went
through a bad time at school, and I mean over
the past five years, they've adjusted quite well, and I
just want.
Speaker 6 (58:19):
To keep it that way.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
You understand that the media is available too in trying
to locate missing people.
Speaker 12 (58:26):
I realized that, but I mean, I guess after all
avenues were exhausted and all of the investigations, I might
reconsider it. But at this stage, Okay, do you agree
I told you that I gave you a verbal assurance
that there won't be be a new decision media outlets
(58:46):
until we exhaust our current inquiries, and that entails speaking
to all family members and anyone else. Yeah, and then
before I'm making you further decision, I would consult you
your legal advisor. Yeah, you did say that, Yes, But
like I said, it's I'm really dead dead against any
(59:09):
more media because of what the kids, you know, because
the fact that there's been plenty of media I feel,
and there's been no it hasn't been successful. That I mean,
maybe she doesn't want to maybe she doesn't want to
come back.
Speaker 2 (59:25):
You know, do you think your wife might be deceased?
Speaker 12 (59:29):
No, No, no reason for me to think that way.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
So you think she's somewhere in this country under another identity.
Speaker 12 (59:37):
Well, well, I mean I'll tell you the truth. I
reckon I could go anywhere I like and assume another identity.
I don't see why anyone else can. I mean, it
wouldn't be hard.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Bronwyn 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.
(01:00:25):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn
podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,
(01:00:51):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio
production for this podcast series is by Wasabi w 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
(01:01:12):
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
(01:01:34):
dot au and subscribe
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