Episode 2: War of the Winfields

It’s a toxic relationship. Friends and family recall Bronwyn’s sadness and frustrations over what appears to be coercive control and emotional violence.

Bronwyn’s efforts to keep the family home ‘immaculate’ while raising children take a toll. Crumbs or soft drink spills on the floor anger Jon, who doesn’t want visitors and directs the children to play in the garage to avoid making a mess.

Neighbours, friends, and their children see a woman living in fear. Bronwyn tells a friend that Jon threatens her and put his hands around her throat as if to strangle her.

She is desperate for money to pay for the solicitor giving her legal advice in the marriage breakdown. Bronwyn struggles to pay the bills in a rented townhouse with her two girls while Jon stays in the house.

Jon says Bronwyn’s side of the family has a history of mental illness.

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 [e-mail]

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwan contains coarse
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I met Jody and she was adorable and needed a
mother who loved her, so everything was going to work
out well. I would look after Jody in Crystal and
he would be the perfect husband.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
At the beginning of their relationship, it must have seemed
an ideal match. John sir, fit handsome single dad aged thirty,
Bromwin a strikingly attractive, slender and deeply committed single mum
of twenty three. They had shared interest from having grown
up in the same area of Sydney. Many rusted on

(01:16):
residents say that it's God's country. They insist Kronella's beaches
are better and the lifestyle slower, easier than in Sydney's
eastern suburbs. John's daughter Jodi, was twelve and being raised
largely by her grandparents in the Shire when Bromwyn and
John got together in nineteen eighty five. At that time,

(01:37):
Bronwyn was a full time mum to Crystal, age two.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
We moved to South Crenella behind a milkbar. John moved in.
I found out I was pregnant and we married a
few months before Lauren was born in Ballina.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Broman's brother Andy Reid, has taken a day off work
as a construction manager to meet me for several hours
of recorded interviews. In his his wife Michelle is by
his side. Andy and Michelle met on the Famed Hill
near the old Doug Walters Stand at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Andy has kept some history about his older sister Bottled Up.

(02:15):
He confides that he has felt guilty for many years
over things he had done and not done for Bromwin
when she needed help. Has she been the big sister
who's been more inclined to look after you or vice versa.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Oh, she was always there for me and always there
for me. I moved out of home at a reason
early age New Year Zoo.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
When I was nineteen. I got blown up by bonfire.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Someone had doused the buddy thinking petrol and not told
me and asked for someone to light the bonfire, and
I lit it and woke up. She went and up
I went with it. I stayed with Braun for a
couple of weeks. She was nursing me back to health
and changing bandages. And she was very nurturing, always part
of my life, and she need a hand to. Dad

(03:03):
used to call her concert pitch. A highly strung needed support.
Loved someone to be there for her as well. But
she was also there for you.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Had you heard Roman in the past saying, I can't
handle this, the kids are just driving me crazy and
I've got to get away.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Never.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Never, Roman was just so dating. Those kids were her life.
Did she ever take a break away from a children?

Speaker 5 (03:28):
No.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Never.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
To give you a little bit of insight into Bromwin's
motherly nature, Jodie was actually raised by John Winfield's parents,
so Bromwin brought and asked John to bring Jodie out
of that environment into their environment to be part of
the family. The first time she lived in a family

(03:51):
or environment was at the little house down at South
Kronola where Jadie had actually moved in with John and
Bromwin and moved into the house down there.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
That's the type of person Bromin was.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Michelle recalls meeting Bromwin at the time of the birth
of Lauren, her second daughter.

Speaker 6 (04:09):
We got on will Yeah, she was great. She was
a lovely person, a beautiful mum, spoke kindly to the kids,
was caring, looked after them. They were always beautifully presented.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
And how would you describe the relationship between her and
John at that time?

Speaker 6 (04:30):
From what you saw, John was the type of person
who was always he was doing his own thing. He
often went surfing, did that a lot. If we were there,
he'd come in, he'd say the hi, how are you
kind of thing? Nothing in depth. I don't remember anything
in depth with John, and they need zay on going

(04:54):
for a surf. He was always one of those in
and out, Hi, here are you going? Yeah? In and out,
in and out. He wasn't always around.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I often begged him to spend more time with us,
as I had postnatal depression after having Lauren and didn't
have anyone around to help. Never ever met very many
of the people he worked with, or any of the
people he went down the coast with. His mother hated
the fact that I had heard John so never looked
after Lauren or any of the girls. I was dreadfully lonely,

(05:28):
but never complained too much as he was always tired
from working. In the end, I threw myself into looking
after the children.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
I know when we would visit there, like we'd go
to have a cup of tea or something, and she'd
open up the cupboards and she'd make comments like, oh, yeah,
I can only afford to buy generic food and tins
and stuff like that. He only gives me sixty dollars

(05:57):
a week. I knew that John was a person who
ran the house.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I found it harder to cope with Lauren's sleepless nights
and John never being around, but I slowly became friends
with a few people, and I then joined playgroup and
met heaps of great people. Unfortunately, John didn't want to
socialize at all, so I started to go out and
do things for myself. Playgroup and the people I met
there kept me amused and gave me time for myself.

(06:28):
I also had enough time for the children.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
I went to see Bromwin's friend from the nineteen nineties,
Denise Barnard, at her home in Lenox, his years recalling
that time of their lives.

Speaker 7 (06:42):
Well.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
I was in the playgroup as a secretary. She was
the president, and she would often come to my home
because I couldn't go to hers. John was quite antisocial,
didn't like having people there because they might make a mess.
He had a very i'd say, like an OCD almost
about the us.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
She told you that, didn't she?

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah, yeah, but I did witness it as well. Crystal
had spilt the lemonade and the floor, and Browin had
got down and was cleaning it up with a toothbrush.
And John came in to say what to be spilled
on the floor, and Broman said she'd done it. She
didn't want him going off a crystal. She told me
this very particular with the house. He'd done some work

(07:24):
for us at our house.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Was there any problem with John's work?

Speaker 5 (07:30):
He's an amazing bricklayer, is he? Yeah? Yeah, he's a
very very talented tradesman. My husband's very particular and John
had that skill.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
You'll hear more from Denise later in this episode.

Speaker 6 (07:45):
If there was anything out of place in the house,
it would be a big argument. If anyone spilt anything
on the floor, she would have to get down and
scrub it up, because if John felt a sticky bit
on the floor, he'd go off his brain. A very
volatile type of person.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Those things you're talking about in relation to spills and
so on, are they what you witnessed or heard her.

Speaker 6 (08:11):
Talking about Honey, what she'd told us?

Speaker 1 (08:14):
When did you become aware that there were serious tensions
in their relationship? Michelle is the first to acknowledge that
even close relatives never really know for sure what is
going on in another couple's marriage.

Speaker 6 (08:29):
What you see on the outside isn't always what's happening
on the inside. Is it what happens behind closed doors
in someone's house. The only people who can really tell
you about that is Broman, and she can't and John,
and he.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Wrote perhaps the relationship was always doomed. Michelle believes she
can put her finger on one of the most distressing
and serious catalysts for it to go irretrievably bad. Roman
was living with John in Sandstone Present when she told
Michelle and Andy that she had wanted to have a

(09:04):
third child.

Speaker 6 (09:06):
She'd become pregnant. She'd wanted to keep the child, and
John didn't want to. John had just lost his mum
and he was particularly close to his mother and he
wasn't coping with that. He insisted she have an abortion.
He didn't want any more kids.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Bromwin told other friends about this. They have shared their recollections,
and the accounts are consistent is Deb Hall from next door.

Speaker 8 (09:38):
She fell pregnant and she was really torn. He did
not want another child. She wanted another baby, she loved kids.
She didn't go ahead with it, but I know she
struggled big time over that, as you would. That kind
of like to me was the catalyst of their marriage.
And I thought, you know what, you've got to get

(09:58):
away from this guy if you're that miserable when he's controlling.
And I did used to say to her when you know,
when she'd had her crying sessions about him down here,
and I say, Rowin, you can't.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Live like this.

Speaker 8 (10:10):
You've got to get away from him.

Speaker 9 (10:12):
Oh but I've got nowhere to go, and I'll have
no money. And that went on for a while.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Romman's medical records show that she became pregnant in the
second half of November nineteen ninety.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
Bromin, being the type of person that she is, well,
she loved kids. Having the abortion was probably heartbreaking for her,
and for him to have insisted on it then that
would have been another nail in the coffin, so to speak,
on their marriage.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
How would you describe her level of distress over that?

Speaker 6 (10:50):
It was a hard time that was stressful for everybody.
And that's when in that conversation she had said to
me again, if anything ever happened to her, would I
would we make sure that Crystal was looked after? Would
we look after Crystal?

Speaker 1 (11:12):
You never saw any signs of physical assault or bruising
on Romwin.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
No, I can't say that we did, but we weren't
living nearby anymore. They'd moved to lennex Head. One day
Jody came around to visit. Mitchell was little and he
was just born. I was asking Jody how everyone was.

(11:45):
I instigated a bit of talk about Romwin and John
and she had been living up there and then I
know she went up and down fairly regularly, so she
saw them a lot more than we did. I said
to the ever argue, like, was there ever any arguments
and stuff like that? And she said, oh, I remember

(12:08):
one day Brumbell was sitting in a chair and he
picked her up in the chair and dropped it with
her in it. That was an argument they were having.
And I was quite really surprised, like I hadn't heard
stuff like that before. And I had written that down,
of course. And that was in nineteen ninety three and

(12:32):
when that was brought up at the inquest, she couldn't
recall having said that or denied it one or the other.
Crystal used to say that there was lots of yelling
and arguing. I know Bromwan wasn't allowed to look sideways
at anybody. He was a jealous person.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
In her writing in nineteen ninety three, Bromwin refers to
a platonic friendship she forged with a single dad and
his child. They were housemates for a time shortly before
John and Bromwin started seeing each other.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
A genuinely nice man, but he was a friend. Wonder
how they're going, as John would have had a fit
if I'd rung to see how they were going. He
would have thought there was something going on, paranoia.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Here's deb Hall.

Speaker 8 (13:44):
When I first met from them, they were building the
house next door and I was at the front here
on my veranda, and she came down to introduce them. Yeah,
we got chatting them, hime and welcome to the neighborhood.
We were chatting. We had things in common, we had
kids and the same age. She was about the same
age as me. But whilst I was talking to her,

(14:06):
she kind of broke down and I hadn't met her before,
and she started to cry. She said, I've just got
some things going on with my husband. And I thought, no,
I don't even know you.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
And that struck me and I went, oh.

Speaker 8 (14:22):
There's anything I can do.

Speaker 7 (14:24):
Let me know.

Speaker 8 (14:25):
She didn't sort of elaborate, and I didn't kind of
push the agenda, and.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Then she went.

Speaker 8 (14:29):
When they moved into the house, we got to know
each other very well. She would be here a lot.
The reason she would be at my house was because
John would not allow anyone to come to their house.
John was an absolute neat freak. I mean you could
eat off the floor, nothing was out of place, and
Rowan was neat. But she wanted a house we lived in.

(14:50):
They had kids, so I had four kids, but they
were never allowed in the house. If they went up
there to play, they had to play in the garage.
But quite often she would offload to me about him.
How you know, he wouldn't let her have this and
wouldn't let.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Her do that.

Speaker 8 (15:04):
When I ever I spoke to him, it would always
just be polite conversation. I think they came down here
once or twice and had a dream. But Roman would
come down here all the time we sit and have
coffee for hours.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
In early nineteen ninety Michelle and Andy were newly weird
and holidaying in Queensland for their honeymoon. They decided to
stop in at Lennox Head on the drive back to
Sydney to see Andy's.

Speaker 6 (15:29):
Sister and Roman and the kids weren't there. Only John was,
and we kind of thought, oh, that's crazy, where are they?
And he said, ah, they're in Sydney having a holiday.
I think was he said. We found out later that
heat up and left Uncle John's house, which is Andrew's uncle,

(15:54):
and left them there and taken himself back to Lenox Head.
There'd been some sort of ish and that was probably
I don't know, I suppose when I first started to think, oh,
let's be crazy, like who does that.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
There was another incident remembered by the Reed family and
cited as evidence of John having a callous disregard for Bromwin.
Bromin's uncle John and Auntie Leah were hosting Bromwin and
John Winfield with their young children overnight in the Reed
home in Sydney. It was Christmas nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 10 (16:29):
And he said he was going to Newcastle to look
at a car, and I said, you're going to be
back for dinner, and oh, yes, yes. We cooked dinner
and waited and waited and he hadn't turned up. And
I said to bromin about half us nine ten, do
you think he's coming back? And she did, no, I
don't think he is. And she was left here and

(16:51):
we were going overseas within a couple of days. We
gave him money and we had nobody around here could
help him. That time when he didn't come back, she
indicated that they were having problems.

Speaker 11 (17:06):
It was really strong, and it.

Speaker 10 (17:08):
Was his father that came and picked her up and
drove her back up to home. Obviously John had taken
off and had no intention of coming back and picking
her up.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Ronman's cousin Megan Reid, says she was there and that
the occasion was a lunch on Boxing Day, December twenty six,
not at dinner, as remembered by her mother, Leah Bosting.

Speaker 10 (17:35):
Day was to read Christmas poets, the whole turkey and
all the rest.

Speaker 11 (17:39):
Of it, and so Bonn went and the family were
all there.

Speaker 10 (17:43):
He never would have thought anything was wrong, no fight
for whatever, and he said he'd be back by one day,
two o'clock for lunch. Well, he never showed up and
it wasn't sure. About nine hours later that we found
it out he was back at lenach Shad, but he
just choldn't back.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
But what was his explanation for just taking off?

Speaker 11 (18:00):
Oh, there wasn't one. We never got an explanation.

Speaker 10 (18:03):
Where were gobsmacked, perfectly honest. Mom and dad didn't know
what to do, and John refused point blank to.

Speaker 11 (18:10):
Pay for them to be flown home.

Speaker 10 (18:12):
This is the second occurrence, very very strange.

Speaker 5 (18:15):
At the end, I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 10 (18:17):
The first time was when Andrew got married January nineteen ninety.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
Woman came down.

Speaker 11 (18:23):
In fact, the.

Speaker 10 (18:23):
Photo is the police used were the ones I took
for her in the purple dress. But he went back
to learn i'd set again. So that was the first
time he did it Roman. It ended up staying for
quite some time.

Speaker 11 (18:34):
Both times.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Here's Michelle again.

Speaker 6 (18:38):
She would bring up. She would be saying that things like, oh,
I'm not very happy, I'm not happy with John and
stuff like that. I'm thinking about moving out and we
had a baby. I said to her, well, do you
want to move back to Sydney? Like, I can help
you try and find somewhere to live, and she'd say,

(19:01):
I can't afford to do that.

Speaker 11 (19:02):
I've got no money.

Speaker 6 (19:04):
And then she'd say, you know, if anything ever happens
to me, will you promise me you'll look after Crystal,
particularly Crystal, because Crystal was not John's genetic child whereas
Lauren was. She kind of felt that John would look
after his own more than he would look after Crystal,

(19:24):
which rang through in the end. We would discuss what
was happening, and we even thought, oh, we can't even
really put them up here. We're in a little three
bedroom home. We had hardly any room to fit another
person and two kids. Another time she rang up and

(19:46):
she was unhappy and was talking about leaving him again
and said again the next time about looking after the
kids if anything ever happened to me. She never ever
said straight out, oh, I think John's going to do
something to me. That never got said. It just got implied.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
When she was saying, where's the effect if something happens
to me? I guess there's a couple of different ways
you can interpret that. She may self harm.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
For example, she might have a health.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Issue, or she may be fearful of a partner. Do
you recall what you took from it at that time?

Speaker 6 (20:31):
Oh, definitely fearful. We knew she wasn't unwill she would
never leave her kids. She loved those kids wholeheartedly, like
everything for her. It was fear. It was fear of John.
I just knew that.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Why do you think she didn't actually express that bluntly?

Speaker 6 (20:57):
Maybe her fear of him find out out she'd said that.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Michelle recalls Broman telling her about John's volatility and his
intolerance for visitors in his house, his castle.

Speaker 6 (21:12):
He didn't want anyone there. He didn't want her having friends.
A really strange bloat.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Andy. Around this time, when Robin was telling you.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
About her troubles in the marriage, you were counseling her
to try to work things through and keep a marriage intact.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Do you remember that I was doing my best to
sort of advise Brin to do her best to see
if she could work through it.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
She had a previous marriage.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
I knew John was very controlling, you know, with money
and all the rest of it. She was on that
tide of budget that she used to hand. So all
the kids little dressed, little summer dresses and things like that.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
But I was just sort of doing my best to
see if.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
She tried everything before she threw the town in Tremerally,
people have probably got this very talle You're going to
meet someone and you have your first kiss and lost
a better roses for the rest of your life, like
a good marriage, you're a long lasting marriage or something
that's worked at and you just need to be good
mates and good friends and support each other and that

(22:23):
sort of thing. So I was sort of adamant that
after witnessing sort of the upbringing I had, I thought
it's a good idea for Bronda, maybe at least try.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
As much as she could.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
But Debhall knew that a reconciliation was pointless, if not impossible.

Speaker 8 (22:43):
To my astonishment, one day, she and I can't remember
exactly when it was, but she told me she was
going to leave him. And I said, oh, okay, well
where are you going to go? And she said, I've
organized the place down in Lennox. I said, well that's good.
I said, well, you know what is John thing. Well,
he's agreeable to it, and I'm.

Speaker 9 (23:03):
Going to move down there, And so she did.

Speaker 8 (23:06):
I did visit her there. She got a dog the
kids always wanted a puppy, and then she thought, well,
I'm going to get him a puppy.

Speaker 9 (23:11):
And I used to think, oh, she's really branching out,
you know, she's really And she had a job at
the cafe down there, and she was sort of getting
on with it. And you'd go down there and the
house has lived in, the kids had their stuff, and
that my kids would go and play, and you know,
it was just a normal environment, albeit a little bit
difficult for her.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Why did she even move out?

Speaker 1 (23:34):
She didn't have a choice. It's a jointly owned house,
not in Don's ice. But would it have been a
legally jointly owned house to your knowledge?

Speaker 4 (23:44):
Of course it should have been. Of course it would
have been.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
And in a situation like that, where there's a mother,
a father and two girls being raised ostensibly by Bromwin,
it's normal for the male to leave the family, not
the moment of the kids to be up ready.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
She was forced out, basically. I remember having the conversation
that she just said, she doesn't have a choice. She's
going to have to find somewhere to go. And that's
when I believe that she'd found that little townhouse down
in Byron Street.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
Turn left onto Byron Street.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
At that time, Michelle and Andy were having their second child, Mitchell.
Andy wonders how things would have turned out if their
lives had been less hectic.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
Then we were trying to tell her we'd had a
boy and she was happy, but all then channeled back
to her leaving John. She was leaving. She was going
to find somewhere to live. Mitchell was born on the
thirty first of March. Bromwin was very preoccupied. That was
all happening in her life right then and there.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
When Bromwin had called about the advertisement for the townhouse
on March twenty two in the Northern Star newspaper, the
property's owner and landlady cut her some slack. Shirley Taylor
knew it must have been a financial struggle for the
newly single young mum. These are Shirley's words to police
in September nineteen ninety eight. It's not her voice.

Speaker 12 (25:20):
She informed me that she had separated from her husband
and was looking for a place to rent. At the time,
she had two young girls with her. After inspecting the flat,
she informed me that she wished to rent it, but
told me that she would have trouble paying the one
hundred and fifty dollars a week rent. I told her
that she could move in and we would see how
things go.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Shirley also asked for a bond of seven hundred dollars.
A check for the amount was signed by John Winfield
Bronwin handed it over the same day.

Speaker 12 (25:52):
Whilst bron was moving in. On that day, her husband,
John came over to my place and asked for the
bond money to be given.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
Back to him.

Speaker 12 (26:00):
I told him that Bromin had given me the money
for the bond, and he was very angry and demanded
the money because of the way he was acting in
his aggressive manner. I gave him back the check and
he left. A couple of days later, Broman came over
to my place and gave me another check for seven
hundred dollars. I think it was the same check that
her husband had taken from me.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Shirley grew fond of the young woman.

Speaker 12 (26:24):
I came to know Bromwin fairly well, and I would
mind her children if she had to go down the street.

Speaker 6 (26:29):
I found her to be a.

Speaker 12 (26:30):
Most devoted mother who was very attached to her children.
I didn't really have any conversations with her about her
private life. I do recall, though, that she told me
that she hated her husband.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Bromwin spoke to a solicitor, Tony Mannering, at his office
in the nearby town of Ballino. It was a fortnight
after she and her daughters had moved out of the
house in Sandstone Crescent. John promptly changed the locks up
there put a deadlock on the front door. It was
a powerful signal to Bronwin that she would not be

(27:06):
welcomed back. The solicitor must have taken careful notes during
their first meeting. He and his new client covered a
lot of ground for a pending divorce and a possible
battle over custody and property. It was important to have
as much information as possible. Mannering summarized the facts and

(27:28):
circumstances in a letter that he wrote to Bromwin on
April sixth, nineteen ninety three. His letter was sent to
her at the townhouse in Byron Street. These are Tony
Mannering's words, it's not his voice.

Speaker 13 (27:43):
Dear madam. We advise your instructions as follows. You married
your husband on fourteen December nineteen eighty seven at Ballina.
Although you did not live with your husband as man
and wife prior to your marriage, you did look after
your husband's daughter, Jodi Line Winfield, on a full time
basis sometime prior to your marriage. You separated from your

(28:05):
husband on twenty one March nineteen ninety three. Your husband
has been married twice before, and you have been married
once before. You and your husband have a child together,
Lauren Mary Winfield born nineteen eighty eight. Lauren now lives
with you. You have a child from a previous relationship,
Crystal Joy Winfield born nineteen eighty two. Cristel was five

(28:30):
years old when you married your husband. Your husband treated
Cristel as his daughter and insisted that Cristel called him Dad.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
The solicitor noted the respective assets of Bromwin and John
at the time they became a couple and when they separated.
Bromwin owned furniture and a car with the value of
about five thousand dollars. When she and John got together,
John had a car worth one thousand dollars.

Speaker 13 (28:56):
And some fifty thousand dollars being his share of the
proceeds of the sale of a former home owned by
him and a previous wife.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Tony Mannering described what he.

Speaker 13 (29:08):
Called the present asset of both you and your husband,
a home at Sandstone Crescent, Lennox Head. The former matrimonial home,
which you value between two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
and three hundred thousand dollars. The former matrimonial home is
not encumbered by mortgage or debt. Your understanding is that

(29:28):
the former matrimonial home is in your husband's name alone.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
The solicitor listed a white Ford Falcon worth about five
thousand dollars. There was the household furniture, a bank account
in the name of her youngest daughter, Lauren with a
balance of about seven hundred dollars, and an account in
John's name, but Bromin didn't know how much John had saved.

Speaker 13 (29:53):
Throughout the marriage, you and your husband adopted traditional family
roles in that you were the homemaker and mother and
your husband and worked as a bricklayer.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Bromwin had been doing some casual work in her friend
Robin Shanahan's hamburger and sandwich joint called Eden's Takeaway on
Pacific Parade facing the beach. It gave her some pocket
money without affecting her availability for school drop offs and pickups.

Speaker 13 (30:20):
You wish to continue your role as a mother at
least until Lauren is a bit older. Your husband is
a qualified bricklayer, although he has had some neck and
shoulder injuries which he says have prevented him from working.
We confirm our advice to you as follows. The Family
Law Act provides that you are entitled to make a
claim upon the assets that we have listed above.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
He described some of the things that would be taken
into account in a fair property settlement. Their respective financial
contributions to the marriage and the work of Bromwin as
homemaker and parent were part of this.

Speaker 13 (30:57):
In this regard, we note your instructions that you have
been the parent to perform the majority of the parental
duties for the three children, including your husband's daughter. Further,
you have been the party to the marriage who undertook
the majority of the household tasks and duties.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
It was too soon to provide Roman with a percentage, however,
Tony Mannering wrote.

Speaker 13 (31:20):
You can be assured that you are entitled to a
significant percentage of the assets. We note our suggestion that
you do not leave property matters for too long, but
contact us again in say one month's time to assess
when you will make your claim on your husband for
the finalization of property matters in respect of dissolving your marriage.

(31:41):
You can make an application for dissolution after twelve months
has expired from the date of your separation.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Roman was doing the legal rounds. She had asked for
advice from a solicitor called Graham Holland in Byron Bay,
north of Lennox. The third solicitor she would go and see,
Chris mcdebitt, was based in the inland town of Lismore.
On April twenty fourth, nineteen ninety three, Bromin had a birthday.

(32:08):
She turned thirty one. Her friend Deniece remembered it was
a happy occasion for her and the other playgroup mums.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
She'd moved into a unit with the girls and they
had got a puppy because John had never wanted to
have a dog, so they've got a puppy. We went down,
we surprised her and we had her birthday morning there,
which was lovely.

Speaker 6 (32:32):
She loved it.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
What did you think of Romin's state of mind?

Speaker 5 (32:36):
She always seemed to have it together. You would never
imagine them as a couple. Here was the surfy sort
of very good looking, piercing blue eyes. Alona doesn't have
any mates, as far as I know, didn't have any.
Den don't think he has a knee now. Bromwan was
the almost prum and proper tall slender. She was very intelligent,

(33:00):
uckly groomed, as were the children always they were very
chalk and cheese.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
You're certain about Bromwen confiding to you that John was
threatening towards her.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
I still recollect when she told me that he had
had her by the throat up against the wall, and
that she was frightened.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
That he physically held her, that she was scared of him.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yep. It's not something that.

Speaker 5 (33:27):
He had a by a throat, yep. I remember the conversation.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Presumably John would say that he was never threatening towards
Bromman and that she made up these stories or she
grossly exaggerated and you didn't see any actual violence. What
do you think about the proposition that Bromwin, for example,

(33:53):
could embellish or fabricate stories about John.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
I don't know that she would need to.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Did she ever say to you, I just need to
go away for a long long time.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
No. I think she was committed to leaving him and
taking the girls and starting a new life for herself.
Probably the bottom line, she would never have left those
children never. They were her life, and knowing that Chrystaw
wasn't John's, she wouldn't have gone anywhere without them. She

(34:27):
just wouldn't have done it. And afterwards, after she disappeared,
John contacted me because he didn't want the dog, So
my parents ended up with that lovely little dog for
like eighteen years.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
What was the name, Muffy?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
How do you feel about Bromin's case becoming part of
this podcast investigation?

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Fantastic?

Speaker 1 (34:52):
You're not worried about bringing up painful memories and no
difficult situation.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
No, I think we need to We need to do it.
It's been too long. I think anybody that had anything
to impart any more information that to try and get
this resolved one way or the other, would be interested
in talking to you. Whatever happened that night, on that

(35:22):
Sunday night, that was the last of Bromwin, that's tonight
those girls lost their mum.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
I drove to a park in a rural town near
Lennox to meet one of Bromwin's friends. She has been
anxious about meeting me and speaking publicly. I'm not going
to identify you by your name in this podcast, but
your voice will be heard.

Speaker 7 (35:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Are you okay with that? And I understand that you've
got personal reasons. Where would you like to start and
talking about your friend brom.

Speaker 7 (36:03):
She loved kids, so there was no way she would
willingly fell off and leave her kids.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
At the time, she and Bromwan were good friends. In
this place. Joan had recently left a violent relationship. She
still looked over her shoulder. Had you been through a
tough time?

Speaker 5 (36:26):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Broman supported her until her disappearance. She understood, and you
knew about the termination.

Speaker 6 (36:36):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (36:37):
She told me that he had made her have an
abush That would have been really hard for her because.

Speaker 6 (36:45):
She loved kids.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Broman told her friend that she had wanted to leave
John for some time, but that he had warned her
she would get next to nothing. He was not going
to vacate or sell the house on Sandstone. Isn't the
title deeds show that he had put the property in
his name, And.

Speaker 7 (37:06):
He said he would give her And I can't remember
the exact amount, I have ten dollars something like that.
There was no mortgage on house, and she said no,
I won't. I'll get a real estate to value it.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Joan recalled Roman, disclosing that she had organized a valuer
to put a potential price on the property. It came
in around two hundred and forty five thousand dollars in
nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 7 (37:38):
She couldn't get a certain one because he was friends
with them, and.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
She wanted the house valued so she could work out
what her equity in it potentially would be in a
property settlement.

Speaker 7 (37:49):
Yes, and she'd told me she'd one time he was
taken to his father. He didn't want to lose that house,
Like she said, she overheard him talking to his father,
it'd be better if he had the kids more chance

(38:10):
of having the house.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Had you been in the house?

Speaker 6 (38:15):
Yeah, not often.

Speaker 7 (38:19):
And then she moved into the un.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Do you remember the townhouse that she moved into, trying
to cast your mind back to that period nineteen ninety
three when she was living there. You visited her there?

Speaker 7 (38:37):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (38:38):
How did she see?

Speaker 4 (38:41):
It's finely?

Speaker 7 (38:45):
Probably more relaxed. I think she could feel like she
could do what she wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
I met Joan again a few weeks later in a
riverside park. Do you recall Broum whenever saying things to
you that made you concern for her safety.

Speaker 14 (39:04):
Yes, she had told me that John had said to
her she bad mouth killer around the hound.

Speaker 7 (39:11):
He would killing.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
She said that to you.

Speaker 14 (39:16):
I got the impression she felt like he would. I
had no ideat about believing anything she told me.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
You took that seriously at the time, Well.

Speaker 9 (39:29):
She certainly did.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
So.

Speaker 14 (39:32):
Somebody that loved kids like she did wasn't going to
go off and leave her own kids.

Speaker 7 (39:38):
I was so.

Speaker 14 (39:40):
Wanting to get answers right because I felt like, but
for the grace of God go I.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
I know from talking to Brohman's family and friends that
she was finding it difficult to support herself and the
girls while also trying to find rent of one hundred
and fifty dollars a week for the townhouse. Here's her
Auntie Leah again.

Speaker 6 (40:03):
Well, she was on the phone.

Speaker 10 (40:04):
She wanted me to give us two thousand dollars, and
we didn't have two thousand dollars without taking it out
of our business. Our business was new, we weren't in
that sort of position. Particularly, she wouldn't tell me what
it was for. At that time, she had moved out
of the house, and she told me she was living
in an apartment.

Speaker 11 (40:26):
She called me constantly.

Speaker 10 (40:29):
I'd get these long phone calls and she'd talk about
clair voyance and all this sort of thing, and that's
what I thought she wanted the money for.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
What did you understand about her interest in the clear words.

Speaker 10 (40:47):
I think she was trying to find out, you know,
what was going to happen with a marriage that sort
of couldn't get her off the phone.

Speaker 11 (40:54):
Must have been the last I would say.

Speaker 10 (40:57):
Months, But she didn't really tell me she was moving.
I remember being surprised when I found that she had gone,
and she said, I'm in an apartment, but I'm going
back to my house because John has got to go
down to Sydney for a job, and I'll go back
while he's gone.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
Did you detect any fear or urgency in the conversations.

Speaker 10 (41:24):
Because I would have lent him money if I'd thought
that she needed it for something important.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
From my recollection. As you said at the time, she
wouldn't tell you what she wandered for.

Speaker 10 (41:35):
Yeah, Broman wanted money, but she wouldn't tell us what
it was for. And she said to me, and you'll
all be sorry that's right. She said you'll all be sorry.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
And that comment that she made you'll be sorry, was
that connected to her being unable to get alone?

Speaker 9 (41:57):
I think so.

Speaker 10 (41:58):
We discussed it at the time whether we should give
her the money, don't you remember, And our own kids
were all wanting money too at the time.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
Do you recall whether you or John had lent money
to Bromwin before.

Speaker 10 (42:13):
No, No, it was quite a lot of money, and
we thought.

Speaker 6 (42:17):
If we give her money, we're going to have to
give our.

Speaker 11 (42:19):
Own kids money.

Speaker 10 (42:20):
Perhaps she wanted to get a lawyer or.

Speaker 11 (42:23):
Something like that.

Speaker 10 (42:25):
But if she'd said that to us, if she'd said
I need a lawyer, and there'd been no reason not
to tell us, were there that she wanted a lawyer,
I certainly wouldn't have thought, from what I knew of
John that she was in any danger from him.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
What was it about John's personality and demeanor that made
you feel she would be in no danger from him
even though they were going through marital issues.

Speaker 11 (42:52):
Well, it just seemed like a normal everyday father of
the time. My man name didn't do anything terribly terrific
or bad.

Speaker 10 (43:01):
Did They just had an unhappy marriage.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Do you recall Broman's showing you her arm and a
bruise and saying that she had been.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Assaulted by John. That's in your statement. Yeah, I don't
recall it now, Hedley, but.

Speaker 7 (43:17):
If I said that would have been what what happened?

Speaker 4 (43:21):
You recall it now.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
John Reid is an elderly man. It is unsurprising that
he cannot remember what he told police twenty six years
ago when he signed a formal statement. I'm going to
read some key sentences from John Reid's police statement. It's
dated August eleventh, nineteen ninety eight. He is describing a

(43:45):
visit by Bronwan to the Read home in Sydney, about
five months before his niece's disappearance. Bromwin's uncle says in
this statement, quote, whilst Broman was at our house, she
informed me that John had been assaulting her and she
showed me a significant bruise on her forearm. I cannot

(44:07):
remember which arm it was. Unquote. He then raised the
stream of telephone calls from Bromwin when she was seeking
money in the weeks before her disappearance, and he says
in his statement from nineteen ninety eight, quote, I was
aware that Broman was causing Leah some anguish about these

(44:29):
regular telephone calls, so I asked my daughter Megan, who
was very friendly with Broman, to ask her to stop ringing.
I can't really remember what happened after this, but I
am aware that Bromwin disappeared a very short time later. Unquote,
Broman worked when she could at Eden's Takeaway, but it

(44:51):
was not enough to pay all the bills. I spoke
to Robin Shanahan, who owned the fast food place with
her husband and two friends, doing a.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Couple of ships a week for you.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (45:02):
Can you recall?

Speaker 15 (45:03):
Yeah, she was always keen to get to work.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
She liked a job, just go worker.

Speaker 15 (45:08):
And I think she needed the money to make milkshakes,
I think, and make sandwiches and stuff. Yeah, that's a
little takeaway. We just all paid our staff cash. She
obviously needed finance some money to keep going. If she
wasn't living at home and she wasn't getting any money off.
John and her were toxic. I had thought I knew her,

(45:31):
and we got to know her very well. And I'll
tell you this because I don't I ever told anybody
she was so nervous. I think with John.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Robin told me that in the kitchen of Bromman's home
at Lennox Head, there was a teatawel draped over the
back of the taps at the kitchen sink. When Robin asked,
why do you have a teatawel there, Robin replied that
when peeling potato, starch sometimes sprayed onto the taps it

(46:04):
would set John off. The tetail minimized the risk of
an argument.

Speaker 5 (46:10):
In my opin should have infere.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
John had taken his tools and gone to Sydney to work.
The family home in Sandstone Crescent was sitting empty, but
John did not want Bromwyn and the two girls, Crystal
and Lauren, living there now that he had separated from
his wife, John's daughter from his first marriage, Jody, was

(46:35):
in Sydney and working in a hair salon when the
breakup occurred. Bromwin was fond of her stepdaughter. They had
formed an affectionate bond over the previous six years. On
May sixth, nineteen ninety three, that's ten days before Bromwin disappeared,
she wrote to Jody from the townhouse in Byron Street.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Dear Jody, since I didn't want to run up your
phone bills, saying what things needed to be said. I
thought I would write you a letter. It's always easier
to write these things down than it is to say them.
When I spoke to you last and said that I
will always be there for you, I meant every word
of it. A young girl always needs someone to talk

(47:18):
to and hopefully guide them until they can make the
right decisions. I know you have your own mother, but
she doesn't always think of what's best for you. Even
though your mother let you down, you must always love
her because she is your mother despite any faults, and
because you can't change the past. I think I could
have been a better step mother to you by making

(47:39):
your family see that they should have been more supportive
of you over the past few years since you left me.
I am hoping to make amends for letting you down
by telling you that I will always be here for
you to talk to and be your best friend, and
that if you ever need me, I will be there
for you. You are more than welcome to visit me

(47:59):
in the your sisters, and if you ever get into
any trouble financially, emotionally, or in any way, you can
come to me and we will sort them out together.
I may not have much money at the moment, but
there will always be a solution. You are the best
daughter that anyone could have had, even if we had
our disagreements, and if you ever need a home, you

(48:21):
will always be welcome in mine.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Throughout this time, as Bromin did her best to make
ends meet in the rented townhouse, she and her brother
Andy were talking regularly.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
You know, that's something I've always lived with since the
day I was the one that's in that week when
she found out that John had actually left Lennox and
the house was vacant, and here she is on absolute
struggle street. I said, well, Ron possessions, no intense at
the law. She's just struggling for money, not getting any

(48:56):
support from him. Really, I said, don't get back in
the head, get back in the house, and then it's
going to force the issue.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
It's going to force everything to be resolved. She'd boomed
to see a solicitor and started the process. Go and
so if you can get back in the house.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
In Lismore, Bromwin's new solicitor, Chris McDevitt, offered the same
advice she was getting from Andy. Chris acted promptly on
Broman's instructions to write a formal legal letter to John.

Speaker 16 (49:28):
Dear mister Winfield, Bronwyin is hopeful that you will both
be able to reach an agreement in relation to financial matters,
and we will be writing to you further with a
proposal in this regard in the near future.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Bromwin must have told her solicitor to leave John in
no doubt about her intentions to proceed to a divorce.
The letter is dated Friday May fourteenth, that's two days
before Bromwan disappeared, and the letter was sent to John's brother,
Peter Winfield's address in Sydney. John was working in Sydney

(50:01):
and staying at Peter's house, but it is unlikely John
saw it before Bromin disappeared. The letter, if posted in
the usual way, would not have arrived there until early
the following week. Bromwin's sister in law Michelle and brother
Andy are adamant that John knew the gist of what
was in the letter.

Speaker 6 (50:23):
But Brown told him so he was aware that it
was in the process.

Speaker 16 (50:28):
We are instructed by Bronwyn that in her view, your
marriage is at an end and that there is no
prospect of a reconciliation. In the meantime, we require your
immediate agreement for Bronwin to retain the use and possession
of the Ford motor vehicle pending finalization of your financial matters.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
The letter doesn't disclose to John that Bromwin was about
to move back into Sandstone Crescent, but Bromwn and Chris
mcdebitt had talked about this in his office in Lismore.
He told her she had every legal right to do so.
Broman made up her mind that she would move back
in on Friday May fourteenth. In a separate note to her,

(51:08):
Chris mcdebitt wrote that he would let her know of
any reply from John in the meantime. Chris mcdebitt added.

Speaker 16 (51:17):
We look forward to seeing you at your appointment next Monday.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
But Broman didn't show up for that appointment at the
law firm in Molesworth Street, Lismore on Monday May seventeenth,
nineteen ninety three. Meaghan Reid has invited me to her

(51:53):
house on Sydney's Northern Beaches to look at some of
the newly recovered police files. Meghan also has a lot
to say about John Winfield.

Speaker 10 (52:03):
I've been on the phone talking to her at her
flat when she moved into Byron Stead and in here
screaming outside let me let me in.

Speaker 11 (52:13):
And she actually tore.

Speaker 10 (52:14):
The phone off the wall at one point to stop
me ringing out.

Speaker 6 (52:19):
A hassling out.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
These are bills for missus B. J.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Winfield Byron Street Lennox head phone bills from Telecom Australia.

Speaker 11 (52:27):
Yes there were more than a police have got.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Them and the date of issue this one was the
seventeenth of the fifth ninety three. God phone calls expensive
then four hundred and thirty dollars and sixty six cents.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
Back then, usually.

Speaker 10 (52:42):
Bromwin would call me and I would call her back.
My husband was very wealthy, so I could afford to
doing her so I did.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Was Bromwin materialistic, No, not at all.

Speaker 11 (52:55):
She had dreadful up friends.

Speaker 10 (52:57):
She was left it too and she had to go
and live with my grandmother, my father's mother, who then
had a nurse breakdown.

Speaker 11 (53:06):
Ever since she was a little girl who wanted the.

Speaker 10 (53:08):
Fairy tale when she was sort of most loving gentle person.

Speaker 11 (53:14):
Because I was always saying to her come over scenes
with me, she did want that.

Speaker 10 (53:18):
She wanted to have more children, desperately and just have
a house of her own, to be a mother. That's
all she wanted to be, and a homemaker and a wife.
All I want is the white picket fence. That was
her whole thing, and she threw herself into it head first.
She was a brilliant mother. She just loved those kids.
They were always immaculate, They were happy, even when obviously

(53:42):
there were problems in the marriage. She never showed it
in front of those children. She never wanted to move
to Lane Upset. All her friends were in Sydney. Her
whole support circle was in Sydney. But John bought that
book of Land with his ex wife the one before.

Speaker 11 (54:00):
He made her go up there.

Speaker 10 (54:02):
Took her a while to meet people, but she did
because she's very friendly. The last time I actually laid
eyes on her was just before she moved into Byron
Street in March. And I know that because I was
with my dean husband on a business trip and she
looked dreadful. And she's sitting there, she's chainsmoking and drip
cuts coffee.

Speaker 11 (54:21):
The house looked like a showroom.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
What do you mean the house look like a showroom.

Speaker 10 (54:26):
They looked like a display home. All the time sold
where they used to live. Cristoll actually went up there
for Christmas last year. She calls him dad.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Still And what is Lauren's position?

Speaker 10 (54:39):
Lauren believes her mother has taken off and left her father.
She doesn't believe for a minute that he would hurt her.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
And does Lauren have contact with you?

Speaker 11 (54:48):
I've met her once.

Speaker 10 (54:49):
John built her a house next door to his house,
another house for his other daughter on the other side.

Speaker 4 (54:56):
Do you think that he would be interviewed by the
by you, I don't know.

Speaker 11 (55:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 10 (55:06):
He'll be very upset because he is such a private,
private individual.

Speaker 11 (55:12):
Maybe he would feel that he needs to put his
side forth. I'd give it a go.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
I have written to John Winfield and left messages for
him explaining who I am. I wrote to John that
this podcast series Bronwin is an investigation into the disappearance
in May nineteen ninety three of his missing wife. John
has always denied foul play. He has also always tried

(55:40):
to minimize media interest. John has insisted that Bronwin got
into somebody's car one Sunday night at the house in
Lennox Head and that was the last time he saw
her so far. He has declined to be interviewed for
this podcast investigation. I am hope that he or someone

(56:01):
close to him speaking on his behalf, will agree to
talk to me In a later episode. In a telephone
interview with me, Meghan expanded on something from that morning
catch up in nineteen ninety three at Sandstone Crescent, the
last time she saw her cousin and good friend, and
Meghan recalled that Broman looked very worried.

Speaker 11 (56:24):
She looked really really irishy, and she said he's.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
Going to be back any minute.

Speaker 10 (56:29):
Other words, she was trying to chell us when should go.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Madison Walsh has been sorting through the piles of paper
in front of her while we've been talking at the
dining table.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
How deeply have you read into these files?

Speaker 11 (56:43):
Yeah, I've gotten quite deep.

Speaker 17 (56:45):
I just havn't gotten that far into the criminal inquest
by for a lot of the statements and nary entries.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
She has come to her Auntie Meghan's home to help
organize more files of evidence about the case.

Speaker 11 (57:00):
Grew up with a whole thing. She's heard about it
all her life.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
I was told about.

Speaker 17 (57:04):
It from a previous I can remember.

Speaker 10 (57:07):
She's got done a bachelor in a forensic science and
specializing in crime scene investigation.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Brommin's fate has intrigued Maddie for years. She's been bringing
order and structure to a very large number of documents.
Most of these are important evidence at the heart of
the disappearance and the suspected murder of the woman Maddie
grew up hearing about her mother's cousin. Great that you're

(57:34):
going through the detail of it and reading it and
that you've got that expertise.

Speaker 17 (57:39):
Here we have witness statements from nineteen ninety eight. Some
of them are from neighbors, and that's from Judy.

Speaker 10 (57:50):
Nineteen ninety eight. It is the first time Eddie statements Bedegen.

Speaker 17 (57:53):
That's what got me. Why was nothing done? So we
have these statements by there five years later. The police
didn't search for her, the house wasn't investigated, wasn't a
crime scene. Usually in this day when there's a missing person,
there at least like a search of surrounding areas, even
if it's just volunteers. But that didn't happen. It was

(58:17):
like no one cared. It was like, oh, she just
ran off, that's it. Never met another phone call, never
reshot to her. Kids again, never traveled, didn't take a passport.
The only thing that John claims that she took was
her herme bag. Never used many care nothing, and.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
Didn't have any money or not much money at.

Speaker 11 (58:36):
The time, but there was money at her bank accounts.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Never been touched, so money not touched, and equity in
the house that she owned with John, yes for this,
but she didn't touch the equity which she couldn't.

Speaker 10 (58:49):
Barbara, who was Bromwin and Andrew's mother, she had personaltal
depression after having Bromwin, and she got even worse when
she had Andrew.

Speaker 11 (58:59):
What John was trying.

Speaker 10 (59:00):
To say is that because Barbara was a paranoid schizophrenic,
and she was, and she ran away and disappeared out
of their lives when Andrew was six months old and
broman was two, and then she came back about ten
years later.

Speaker 11 (59:17):
That that's what she did. So that's what he's saying now.

Speaker 10 (59:21):
I distinctly remember Bromwin saying, if anything happens to me,
that's what he's going to say. With Bromwan's mother, it
was brought on by post natal depression after having children.

Speaker 6 (59:33):
Both mother.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
Tree while I went, oh, good girl, this is really helpful, Maddie,
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Numerous printouts of emails over the years may also hold
clues and fresh leads.

Speaker 11 (59:48):
So many she kind of sought them into dates of what's.

Speaker 6 (59:51):
Kind of going on.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
How do you feel about being part of this investigation
with me? I love to ge So do you think
you can be objective about it? Though your knowledge of
the family your expertise.

Speaker 6 (01:00:06):
Definitely she never met her.

Speaker 17 (01:00:09):
I did hear about it all the time, but I
never knew her. That was what I was talking to
Megan and Kim about. Obviously, for them, a lot of
emotions would drive it, and it can blur the evidence.
I am disconnected from it because it happened before I
was born.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
What if we found some evidence that suggested that the
person your family believes killed your auntie didn't.

Speaker 11 (01:00:38):
Do that, then that would be okay.

Speaker 17 (01:00:40):
I would understand that, And there is a possibility that
it wasn't who my family thinks.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Thanks to the family tree drawn by Maddie, I realized
that Bromwin, if she were alive, would be Maddie's second cousin,
not an auntie.

Speaker 17 (01:00:57):
So if it turns out she did run away, I'd
be like, okay, we have evidence of that. We know
that I do have no open mind, and I have
questioned everything that Megan has told me. I'm like, how
do you know? How do you know this didn't happen?
How do you know she shouldn't run off? Why are

(01:01:19):
you blaming this one guy?

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
This record of interview with Winfield is obviously a crucial.

Speaker 11 (01:01:25):
Document, seventy six pages.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
We haven't seen a tape of this anyway. Do you
have some photographs of it?

Speaker 7 (01:01:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 11 (01:01:31):
I do, I got it.

Speaker 10 (01:01:34):
That's when the day she booked John over to me,
I was living in Double Bow.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Open a folder just for selected plans. Thanks Manny.

Speaker 11 (01:01:43):
That's brain Baby.

Speaker 10 (01:01:47):
That is John the first time I'm eating, And that's
Crystal to the left hand side.

Speaker 11 (01:01:56):
That's Brawn and I.

Speaker 10 (01:01:59):
That's Jodie to step to her, Michelle, mum, Bromwin and myself.

Speaker 11 (01:02:06):
She's such a good mother.

Speaker 7 (01:02:08):
Thought.

Speaker 10 (01:02:08):
But that's Crystal starther Mark Davis, who's deceased. That's Ronnie
on the track. She's gone there, she's gone there to
thest family photos. She's gone.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
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.

(01:03:01):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bromwyn
podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiert, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,

(01:03:26):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwan Winfield. We
can only do this kind of journalism with the support

(01:03:47):
of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
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and The Night Driver, go to the Australian dot com

(01:04:10):
dot Au and subscribe