Episode 20: The Shire

Andy seeks expert advice about the x-raying of a concrete slab at a house in Illawong in The Shire – the place he refers to as God’s Country, where he and Bronwyn grew up.

After getting more intel about a concrete pour in May 1993, Andy and Madi visit and are more suspicious about what went on at the former building site in Illawong where Jon had been bricklaying.

Jon’s friend at the time, builder Glenn Webster, discloses knowledge of his former family home and an area which would have been easiest to dig to conceal a body.

A neighbour reveals something Chrystal told her about the boot of the Ford Falcon. It alarmed her at the time and has troubled her since 1993.

Season 2 of Bronwyn winds down with Season 3 returning early 2025. A video being shot behind-the-scenes with Madi, retired detective Glenn Taylor, Hedley, Andy, Michelle, Deb and Murray's daughter Mel, Karina and others will come first.

If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can – contact our team confidentially by emailing [e-mail]

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Good Day head Week. Okay, right, hello are we buddy?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'll take you idewn the border have been quieted out there.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
It has been thirty one and a half years since
Glen Webster built his own home in a place called Illiwong.
Glenn and his wife had a young family. Back then,
Illiwong was a new estate. It had started to see
solid family homes rising out of the bushland. The nearby
Georges River and Warnora River provided easy access for boaties,

(01:24):
but it is a fair drive west from the beaches
of Cronulla in the Shire to get there. We met
Glen Webster at a newer, much larger house a short
distance from Shelley Beach south of Crenulla. Glenn and his
team of tradees have been doing a major renovation of
an impressive pile perched high above gunner Matta Bay and

(01:46):
Port Hacking a property app estimated that you wouldn't get
much change out of twenty million dollars for this place,
and that's before the costly Reno building, residential and kimmercial
properties in the Shire has been Glenn's passion for more
than forty years. It's how he met John.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Still don't block been on the tools, Yeah, I must have.
It's this point things then just coordinate it all.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Before visiting Glenn on the job, I read his police
statement again. It dated September twenty one, nineteen ninety eight.
He was still living at that time in the house
in Illawang which John had helped build back in nineteen
ninety three. Glenn's statement from twenty six years ago disclosed

(02:34):
that he was working as a carpenter in nineteen eighty
seven when he and John met. They had a mutual
friend called John mcmonagall, who was also mates with John
Winfield's brother Peter. Before John Winfield did the brick laying
at Glenn's house at Illawong, he helped build Glenn's first
family home at Menai. In Glenn's police statement, he recalled

(02:59):
that he had met on three or four occasions, but
he had never been to their home and he said
John lived a very private life.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Have you had any contact with police recently? They haven't
contacted you when you're your last spoke to.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Him, last time was that call at police station.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
So your original statement was ninety eight. But then that
must have been during the review by George Radmill. What
ye was that two thousand and eight nine ten.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
That you probably about?

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Ye can't be about right?

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Then?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I thought they might have reached out in the recent review.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Glenn led us down many steps to some outdoors seating
beside the water. Over the decades he has built dozens
and dozens of houses, including several for his own family.
He cast his mind back to the home at Illawong
and John Winfield's connection to it.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
John started the brick work there.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
What we were looking at were some documents from the
council showing the timing of inspections and the sign off
of some of the details around the garage slab and
the patio slab.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah, okay. What it showed is that on.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
The Thursday, the thirteenth of May, the council had approved
for pouring, but it was still awaiting that poor I've
heard from somebody who spoke to John on the Monday
the seventeenth of May, and this person said to John,
what are you doing back here? Like, what's going on?

(04:39):
Why are you in such a rush? Blah blah blah.
He'd just come back from balance and he said, oh,
I've got to go. There's a concrete Paul. So you
get the inspection document giving you the green tick to
do something on the Thursday the thirteenth, this person was saying.
On the Monday the seventeenth of May, John tells someone,

(05:00):
I'm back becaus.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
There's a concrete polm going to be here for a poor.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, so that's indicating that the poor hasn't occurred on
the weekend, just gone, it's still ahead of you.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Does that work for you?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Said?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
You know, I would have thought personally, I would have
probably done it on the weekend because I was working. Yeah,
I could have done it.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Would they have come out and poured it on a
weekend on a Saturday.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
I'm trying to think she did my concreting back then.
Contractors probably could have came out and done it.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, yeah, Okay, just all that out.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
We don't have a document. I remember you saying you
might be able to find one, but there was no.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
He went for some photos and stuff, and I didn't
really have that much. I did find something, but there's
no dates on the fat.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah, thanks for looking. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
I had a look prye over it, then a bit
of a dig last night.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's amazing that there are documents still around after three decades.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Correct.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
There is the lady that's worked at the council for
twenty five years and she runs the Scout facility or
the old Scout hall that's now the men She and
I know her through my involvement Lily Pilly Clubhouse when
I rang the council and rang her and explained to
who I.

Speaker 5 (06:13):
Was, and then she said yeaheah.

Speaker 6 (06:14):
Yeah, she was able to track down the records because
she'd been.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
There for so long. She could even just rattle straight
off the top of her.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Head the four inspectors from.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Back then, Glen with that darage slab poor.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Andy and I were talking about that with Maddie, just
thinking about the logistics of that, and obviously we're looking
out whether it's possible that Bromin's body was put under
the rio on the Monday and then the poor possibly
occurred the next day. If what John told the source
who spoke to me is accurate. As I understand that

(06:50):
building site was kind of empty unless John was there
with you helping him.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Correct. I used to go there in the mornings and
go back in there, and now it's theirs.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
So who would have been there if John were not there?
Just John, nobody else.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
So he su said our in cup for the day
and he would work and just labor for himself. Yeah. Yeah,
then I'd go back in the afternoon start again.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
And what sort of activity human activity was around that
site around that time?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Quite big block of lane. It was subdivided into about
three or four blocks, and I think I was the
first home to be built there, so it would have
been quiet. Yeah, I have thought so.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, just thinking about the logistics of that, with the
sort of theory that we've been discussing, is it possible?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Probably unlikely the nature of the material out there. It's
not like it's semed.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Dealing with the slab first, Because if that's what John's
rushed back for, and that's what he's talked about someone
that's what's on his mind. Why is it unlikely in
your mind for the slab for the gap.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
It's sandstone and rock and it's a hard material.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
When I was talking to Andy about this before, the
way he explained it was you would take the steel
mesh off, take the plastic offt dig a hole, and
he thought it was probably easy to dig, as it
would have been phil.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
No, it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, it wasn't easy to dig. So you're saying the
ground was tough grounded dig in every building site is different.
Achieving a perfectly even level for a concrete slab often
means the introduction of phil, dirt that has been brought
in to complement the natural ground. The natural ground is

(08:44):
always harder to dig, but the phil is another story.
It's relatively easy to put your pick and shovel into.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
There was a front.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Patio as well that also took a concrete pour. Same problem.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
In your mind, that one was probably a lot deeper,
So that one was a billy that would have been
like fill in there right.

Speaker 6 (09:09):
The porch was backfoot towards the left hand side.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
In your memory, did the poor for.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
That patio occur at the same time as the garage.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yes, that would have happened at the same time.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, that was signed at the time. Why would John
have been needed for the poor I.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Would have thought he would be just down there carrying
on bricklaye.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
So you didn't necessarily need him for the poor.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
He is purely there to lay bricks.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
So I wonder why he's saying to someone, I've got
to be back. There's a paw, there's a concrete, Paul.
Why is John making such an effort and using the
poor as the explanation. But the other option that you've raised, Glenn,
is this raised area and that's at the back of
the house.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Is that right correct?

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Can you just explain that what's in that debris pile?

Speaker 3 (10:00):
What's there timidus, bricks, dirt, and then it's.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
At the top and the documents that Andy got from
the council with Maddie's help, shows that the concrete was
poured there sometime in August there would have been The
last one thing we were wondering is well, doesn't it
introduce a lot more risk if you're trying to conceal

(10:24):
a body on a building site and.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
You come back the day before a poor, but you
don't put the body where the poor is going to be.
You put it out the back where there's a debris pile.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
You don't know when there's going to be a poor there,
and it ends up being another three months away because
you were talking Maddie.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
About the risk of animal activity.

Speaker 7 (10:44):
Yeah, and the smell of decomposition animals would be.

Speaker 8 (10:47):
Very very prevalent in the area.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
In sects. Maybe your answers under the fun for ender.

Speaker 6 (10:54):
We've got the cover shoot at the file. It shows
all the dates and all the information.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Question regarding the raised patio.

Speaker 9 (11:02):
How easy would it be to get a body into
that kind of area?

Speaker 5 (11:07):
Like was it easily accessible? John put it back the
car up right to the corner.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
It must be a bit of a headspin for you, Glenn,
this whole saga, knowing John as you did.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Back in the day, it is a bit. I never
had a problem with John Pattell. He played his cards
very close to his chest. We always got on just
his mates.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
And he was a very good tradesman, wasn't He was
a tradesmen, Yeah, very neat and tidy.

Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (11:34):
Three my houses, the last one in two thousand and two.
Have you heard from him recently? Probably two and ten.
Last time I've ever talked to him. Do you remember
talking to him about Bromlin or what happened? No, I
never ever brought it down. I've got another place to
mate that he's pretty close to. Only bumped into him

(11:55):
last week or so.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
He's known him a lot longer than me, and is
Aly just finding out stuff that he Evan knew about.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Do you remember when John was leaving the rush back
to Banana and we know he flew up on the Sunday,
Do you recall what he said to you or the
conversation before.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
He left or yeah, nothing sort of. There was no
red flag for me.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
He actually turned back up on a Monday. Michelle was
looking after the girls and he went to work that
first week.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
John comes back on the Monday, the seventeenth of May,
and who was brick laying for Glenn until John leaves again?

Speaker 6 (12:37):
I believe it was still John because he was leading
my place and going to work and then coming back
and having dinner with the kids.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
And us, and John was down in person there.

Speaker 6 (12:45):
So he probably was working at Glenn's for just that
week he was at our place. And then finally when
I pressured him to get the girls back home and
get him in school and don't report from and missing
is when he's told Glenn, saw, I can't finish the house,
but I've got to go and going you.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Said right off you went, So that it makes sense
he would have been there during the concrete that first
week still work.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
He goes back, he's looking after the girls. The girls
have been put back into school.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's when Glenn is getting another team.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
To finish the brick clans the house good house to
live in?

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Mate, Yeah, was yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
I mean it's not a nice thought. How do you
feel about that?

Speaker 3 (13:26):
You planned the seed and you start thinking about possibilities.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
I guess yeah. Do you think it's possible.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
I think anything's possible.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Do you know who lives there now? No that.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
I asked Glenn whether he was asked by detectives to
describe or comment on the Illowong building site when he
spoke to the police some fifteen years ago during the
cold case review by the then Detective Inspector George Radmore.
Not at all, Glenn Webster replied. He said that the
angle was not mentioned. Andy confirmed something that was bugging

(14:04):
him for reverse charge long distance telephone calls from a
home in the Shire to Bromin's flat in Byron Street
in the four weeks before her disappearance, and the total
duration was forty eight minutes. We established that those calls
were made from a property which Glenn and his wife
were renting at the time. John would stay over there

(14:27):
while he was bricklaying for the Websters. One call on
April eighteen went for almost half an hour. The last
reverse charge call was May eighth at eight fifteen pm
and it went for nine minutes. Before we left Glenn
to his work, he and Andy stood together for photographs.

(14:48):
Just take your classes off, mate, thanks.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Back up at street level.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
I tried to put the known events of Monday May
seventeen into a chronological order. These are the events about
which I'm confident from documents and police statements. Sometime that
Monday morning, John arrived with the two girls in the
Shire south of Sydney in the family Ford Falcon, its

(15:18):
registration had lapsed. He went to a house in the shire,
knocked on the door and asked a woman he had
never met, the mother in law of John's first wife, Jenny,
and he asked that older woman to look after Lauren
and Crystal for the day. Joan Mason said the girls
were in pajamas. In nineteen ninety eight, Joan Mason told

(15:42):
police that John had said to her he needed some
temporary child minding help as he had to do a
very big job. It was extremely strange behavior on John's part.
In my view, the two girls did not know Joan
Mason from a bar of soap. They had probably met
Brad's new wife, Jenny, because she'd become friends with Bromwin,

(16:06):
but there would have been a very limited connection and
Jenny was out shopping. John and Jenny had not been
together for years. As you have heard from previous episodes,
theirs was a very sad and at times toxic relationship.
It produced their daughter, Jody, who was raised by John's
parents until Bromwin and John got together. Michelle and Andy Reid,

(16:31):
the aunt and uncle of Lauren and Cristel, also lived
near by in the Shire. The Reed's house should have
been the first stop for John when he needed somewhere
to leave the girls for a few hours. That's the
first red flag indicating something else was possibly going on
with John on that Monday. But what happened next? Where

(16:53):
did John go after leaving the girls at Jenny Mason's
house with her mother in law Joan. Jenny was very
surprised when she got home from shopping to see Bromwin's
daughters playing in the backyard. What was John doing prior
to his return in the afternoon to pick up the
girls to then go to Michelle and Andy's house for

(17:16):
the first time that day. As you have heard, John
had woken the girls up in Lennox's head, put some
clothes into pillowcases, and driven away from a messy house
on Sandstone Crescent very late the night before, then driven
an unregistered car through the night and most of the
morning to the Shire. The evidence of what lawyers call

(17:39):
flight is compelling. John offered no real explanation for his
unusual urgency when interviewed by the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor
in August nineteen ninety eight, but John did tell Glen
Taylor in that interview that John had registered the Ford
Falcon on the afternoon of Monday May at a place

(18:02):
called Miranda in the Shire. Miranda is where the premises
of RTA for the registration of cars was situated. But
when the detective checked John's credit card statement in the
late nineteen nineties, it did not show a credit card
charge for registration on Monday May seventeen. The May nineteen

(18:24):
ninety three Commonwealth Bank credit card statement for John Winfield
shows a charge on May twenty four of two hundred
and twenty two dollars, and that's one week after John's
arrival in the Shire. As a result of this, Glen
Taylor told me that he strongly suspected John had lied

(18:44):
about registering the car at Miranda on May seventeen. The
detective's formal signed police statement in nineteen ninety nine makes
this point about the date discrepancy, but dates on credit
card statement in the nineteen nineties did not necessarily match
the dates of the actual purchases. There was a lag

(19:07):
sometimes of several days. The old fashioned machines which were
used when we bought things on our credit cards were
operated manually. They were not electronically connected to bank accounts
like they are today. I'm grateful to Glenn for letting
me know that he was innocently mistaken about the date
on which John had registered the vehicle. From further checks

(19:31):
done with the RTA, Glenn subsequently discovered that the registration
of John's Ford Falcon did occur on Monday, May seventeen. However,
this doesn't change much. There was ample time for John
to drive from Jenny Mason's house to the house at Illawan,
do whatever he needed to do, then drive to the

(19:53):
RTA at Miranda in the afternoon, pay to register the car,
and then turn to get the children from Jenny Mason's
house to go to Michelle and Andy's house. John did
not disclose to Andy and Michelle that he had taken
the children to his ex wife's house, where they had
been for several hours. John did tell Michelle that he

(20:16):
had got the car registered that day. Glenn Taylor told
me that in the nineteen ninety eight recorded interview that
he did with John Winfield, the person of interest was
very vague about his movements on that Monday, John failed
to mention dropping the kids off at his ex wife's house.

(20:36):
Glenn said that probably because of that vagueness, Glenn didn't
press John hard in the interview about everything that he
did that Monday. Glenn told me, however, that he accepts
John was telling the truth about the Ford Falcons registration
that day. Glenn is now deeply suspicious about the property

(20:58):
at Illawong. Just before driving away from the remarkable house
overlooking gunner Matter Bay being renovated by Glenn Webster in
the Shire, the builder answered a further question about John
being left at Illowong to work alone.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I would set it any up, see him in the morning,
make sure he's right.

Speaker 11 (21:19):
Go, And so he'd work a line and after he'd
set it.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Up, Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, and that's pretty much off his inning job.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Probably soon he's temper round third.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
Yeah, he liked glen By himself.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, thanks for clarifying that.

Speaker 11 (21:32):
The you guys to describe.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
It made me wonder why if John needed to go
to Illowong to just lay some bricks before stopping by
in Miranda to register the car, did he need to
make an unusual detour to his ex wife's house to
leave his two girls there for several hours. Why couldn't
he have grabbed the girls some takeaway food and drink

(21:58):
and then driven them with him to ill aw On
whether they could have read or slept in the car
or played outside if he was determined to lay a
few rows of bricks before going on to Miranda. Back
in Andy's car, we talked about some of the angles
arising from the conversation with Glenn Webster.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
What did you take from all.

Speaker 6 (22:20):
That just shown in the garage is pretty much hard
on deck, So he thinks any possibility of quickly stashing
a body, he thinks it to be on the west
side of the porch and towards the back because he's elevated.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
What do you think of that theory?

Speaker 6 (22:35):
If she was going to be put under a slab
boy and then that sounds like the place.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
But I'm also thinking by that stage.

Speaker 12 (22:44):
By the time he would have got there, she would
have ful well been in riga mortis, depending on how
he put it into the car. I am quite confident
she would be stuck.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
In that position.

Speaker 6 (22:55):
Someone can't physically lowry completely across a boot. She would
have been like that with possibly her legs tucked up
a bit right, you say, rigga mortis set in, and
you're rather the person on their back. You're picking them
up like you carry a small child, your arms tucked
under the legs. You've got your hand under their back
and under their armpit type thing, and you lift them
up and where you go. The porch might be two

(23:20):
meters step or two point four meters streep, maybe front
to back, and it's probably six meters wide.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
There's plenty of room, plenty of room, plenty.

Speaker 6 (23:28):
Of room, two point two meter five five point eight
meters void underneath that slate.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Andy and his sister Kim Rushall are very different. Andy
speaks clinically and without apparent emotion or effect about a
possible crude burial place for his older sister Bronwin. It
is as if he is on a mission and must
keep a brave face, not let the mask slip, lest

(24:18):
his true feelings slow his bid to achieve justice for Bromwin.
Sometimes it is confronting when Andy is a matter of
factly talking about how his sister's body might have been handled.
But while Andy is resolute, he is not without feeling.
I have seen and heard him choke back tears. On

(24:38):
those occasions, Andy has been talking about his two mothers, Jennifer,
who raised him and Barbara, who gave birth to him.
Barbara and her legacy hover over this case. Her plight,
her mental illness almost certainly influenced early investigations into Bromwin's disappearance.

(24:59):
Kim mar She'll, on the other hand, is a lot
more open about herself and her feelings and emotions. Perhaps
that's another key factor in their disagreements, but Andy and
Kim have been incredibly helpful in different ways. They haven't
always agreed with what the other has told me, but
they have put their differences aside to support the podcast

(25:21):
series and me, they have respected my independence and need
to reflect the recollections and views of a range of people.
When this investigation was in its infancy, Kim told me
something interesting about John Winfield's recent behavior on the telephone.

Speaker 13 (25:40):
You told me last night about what Crystal has told
you she must do. Is that something that you can
talk about.

Speaker 14 (25:51):
My answer to that question is that I have an
obligation to actually stay focused on what I have always
said out to do, and I've made it very clear upfront,
very early on to every person, family or other. So
I will actually talk about that, Okay, all right. Crystal

(26:16):
was reiterating again John stand on how he would always
stick to his story and that story hasn't changed. Crystal
informed me that Jonathan had given her a set of
instructions as to how she was to continue having any

(26:37):
communications with him, and that caused alarm bells for me,
being that he said that she was not to use
her phone that she uses on a daily basis, that
she was only to call him from a separate external phone,

(26:58):
and he suggested that she purchase a separate phone, and
that he had then given her a new private number
that he had obtained and that was the only way
she was to ever contact him in the future. He
said the reason was because then the scammers wouldn't have

(27:18):
an ability to hack his personal details.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Kim made a prediction back.

Speaker 14 (27:24):
Then, Crystal's heart will always continue to ache because she's
putting Lauren's relationship as a priority over actually finding out
the true answers of what happened to their mother. So
she just really doesn't want to have anything to do.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
In relation to.

Speaker 14 (27:50):
Hearing about what happened to her mother. There's been several
periods of time where she changes that opinion, and that's
what's confusing for me. I get the indications that she
wants to actually go forward with finding out what happened,
and then suddenly she reflects and she withdraws from her

(28:12):
desire to do that and shifts back to staying in
a world where things will never be worked out, never
be solved, and it's such a struggle, and she writes
about it, we talk about it.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
After twenty episodes, Crystal's position has become more fixed. Her
contacts with her uncle Andy and her auntie Michelle have
become more strained and fewer. Their catch ups have stopped,
and it's partly because of what Crystal sees as an
unfair targeting of John, her stepfather.

Speaker 14 (28:48):
I always encourage her that she needs to have some
really good therapy to try and have an independent person
that she can work through with that there's always going
to be a degree bias whoever she talks to in
the family, right. I really feel for her. I am
going to see this through and unfortunately, if I end

(29:11):
up having a fragmented family once again, which is what
I started with, so be it. I don't actually know
right at this moment whether I will ever be able
to restore bonds with Andrew that I thought I had built,
but now look like they're gone again. Sorry about that,

(29:32):
and that's the thing for Crystal.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Crystal's statement to the police in nineteen ninety eight is
a powerful and distressing document. She was fifteen at the
time and had walked into the Ballina police station after
school one day to try to help police find her mum.
Crystal's strength that day rings loudly through the paragraphs of
the statement, taken by the detective Glenn Taylor. Shortly before

(29:59):
the release of this episode, one of Cristel's friends in
nineteen ninety three, who lived near the house at Sandstone Crescent,
reached out. She was prompted to contact me by episode
nineteen and the analysis of the Winfield family's Ford Falcon
sed Ann, a former taxi which probably had a large
tank for liquefied petroleum gas in the boot. We wanted

(30:23):
to test hypothetically whether the car's boot would have had
room for Bromwin too, given that there probably would have
been an LPG tank of up to one hundred liters
capacity the taxi standard. I have talked at length to
the woman who has so recently come forward, Cristel's former friend.
She has, however, requested anonymity, and she asked me to

(30:47):
omit some of the detailed information which she has provided,
as she does not want her identity to become widely known.
Here's what she told me. These are her words, it's
not her voice.

Speaker 15 (31:00):
I grew up near the Winfield's house. Crystel is younger
than me, but we were friends and went to the
same schools. We would hang out sometimes and played together.
Cristel had told me that herself and Lauren were not
allowed to look in the boot of the car. The
morning John rushed them to Sydney. I clearly remember her
telling me she had heard her parents arguing that night

(31:20):
when she went to bed, and remembers John waking her
up early morning and telling her they were going to
Sydney and throwing some clothes and things into pillowcases or
garbage bags. John was angry, and they were not allowed
to look in the boot of the car. This was
always alarming to me. Whether or not Bron's body was
in the boot, her handbag or both, or something else

(31:42):
possibly incriminating. I do not know this information, and whatever
else I remembered was told to the police in two
thousand and nine. When they called me one day, Cristel
told me John had been very angry with her when
the case reopened in nineteen ninety eight for going to
the police without her sister Jody, and she felt too
uncomfortable to stay with him.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
I found this.

Speaker 15 (32:03):
Pressure from John also to be quite alarming. When I
visited the Winfield's house, Crystal and Lauren were not allowed
to play inside the house, only in the garage. The
garage was always tidy, not like a usual garage. The
car was never parked inside, only on the driveway. No
oil stains etc. John was intense and insistent about everything

(32:26):
being neat, clean, and in its place. I recall one
day he got aggravated at Crystal and Lauren eating ice
blocks in the garage and one had dripped onto the
concrete floor. I remember his enraged reaction making them eat
outside on the grass instead. One day, John let Crystal
inside the door connecting the garage to the house to

(32:47):
retrieve something. On this rare occasion, John told me I
was allowed inside too. I was startled. What I'm allowed inside? Yes,
of course, I found this very odd, as I had
never been inside before. From memory, the door seemed to
always have been locked from inside the house, or at
least it was always closed. The girls had to knock

(33:09):
to get John's attention if they needed anything. I was
nervous entering the house and immediately taken her back. At
how neat it was. The tiled floor sparkled, everything was
in its place, a polished statue, possibly of a black panther.
Everything white and black, spotless, not a speck of dust.
John sat on the leather couch two seats up from

(33:30):
his new girlfriend. As I followed Crystal to her room,
I could not remember seeing any toys, maybe a Teddy
Bear on the bed, a large chest and cupboard. I
was too scared to step on the carpet. It was
by far too neat. I always tried to remain open,
mostly for the sake of supporting Crystal. Surely the police

(33:51):
would have found evidence if he had murdered Bronwin. But
as time went on it was very clear the police
work was incompetent and we all knew something.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
So it happened.

Speaker 15 (34:01):
Crystal was always in a difficult position, and she didn't
want to lose her sisters as well, particularly Lauren.

Speaker 16 (34:08):
You'd never been to the house at Illawa until we
talked about it during the podcast in an earlier episode.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:16):
Correct. Once I'd known the address, I went and had
at the Snakes to drive by.

Speaker 11 (34:23):
And you didn't have contact with Glenn Webster either until recently.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
Never ever really had any conversations or anything.

Speaker 11 (34:31):
Have you found him in terms of cooperation?

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 11 (34:34):
Great.

Speaker 6 (34:34):
He's been very open and very very helpful, very happy
to contribute in any way you can.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Any We've just left Cronella's Street. Where's the beach straight
behind us? Do you want to say it was Roman
keen on the beach oh, she took the keyds down.

Speaker 5 (34:58):
You remember that phot.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Of my wedding.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
This is the church where Michelle and myself got married.

Speaker 17 (35:05):
Then Gospford Streets in that photo in the photo with everyone. Yeah,
that block there's where my son had his first unit
and I did it all up, renovated and put himself
a house out of the Indiannet.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
From South cren right around the boat harbor. I think
it's yea Coloma beach, God's country, mate.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I reckons the beach.

Speaker 5 (35:32):
I'll tell you that I know, but.

Speaker 6 (35:35):
They're still struggling to get sure. And Curt mc gutters
up there. Can you notice all the Curt mc gutters Maney, what.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Beach is this?

Speaker 6 (35:42):
That's all one stretch of seeing that starts as South
Cronella and then you have North Cronella and the wall.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
We call that the wall because there's a big sea
wall there.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
This is Alura. Glenn Webster's name came up on the
phone display on the dashboard of Andy's car. Left Glenn
just fifteen minutes earlier.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Glenn Webstuff.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Great, hey mate, I just asked if they did have
any records going back to that time. I just thought,
you know, you don't have any records. As we were
driving Glenn back on the building site had telephoned one
of the longtime concrete reps on the off chance there
was still paperwork to show when exactly the concrete poor

(36:30):
occurred at Illawong in nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 6 (36:33):
Okay, so I wouldn't have any records of that far back. Yeah, okay, okay,
thanks for trying, mate, thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Thank you. God. That was good of him.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, that's nice, and he proudly pointed out some of
the local landmarks that he had built with his employer
in Trech.

Speaker 5 (36:56):
This is one of my jobs years ago, a shitty
little clubhouse.

Speaker 6 (37:02):
I've demoed that whole building across to here where it
says club entry.

Speaker 5 (37:06):
Does that mean demolished? But mate, I just looked at
that's crooked, straight as to die in trick building. Mate,
this weekend there'll be packed. You won't get a park.
If it's warm, it'll be chockers.

Speaker 6 (37:23):
This is where you grew up, Andy, Yeah, coming down
the crown, I got a surfing and kids are on.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
Then you electric bogs, mate. We have to do it hard.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
Bake round the pedal. You want to go past the takeaway,
you want to see Bron's little flat.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, okay, but are you hungry?

Speaker 5 (37:45):
That's Oak Park there.

Speaker 6 (37:47):
That used to be an old takeaway shop and that
was the flat, the flats on the back of the shopping.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
That's where Browin lived.

Speaker 6 (37:53):
That's where Brian, John and Lauren and Crystal live. That's
the flat on the back of the ship goes right
across the back of the shop.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
There had single level places there. It looks really small.

Speaker 5 (38:07):
It's not very big at all, mate.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
No, did you see them there?

Speaker 6 (38:12):
That's where Lauren came home to from hospital and she
was a baby because he used that type from and
used to have to do the bottles on the stove
and everything. And so I finally got the shits for
that after coming in sooner struggling away. So I bought
her on microwave so she could make Laurence bottles.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I remembered something that Andy and Michelle told me when
we first started recording in their house at the start
of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 18 (38:37):
He was so proud of himself that he'd let her
have the car, which was a shipbox of taxi that
was worth probably four hundred dollars five hundred dollars back then,
if John spent one thousand dollars on a vehicle.

Speaker 5 (38:49):
That was over the top, he was very frugal.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
We looked from the street at the dilapidated extension to
a shop. Andy's mind went back to the nineteen eighties
when John and Bromin were in what looked like a
blossoming relationship. Roman's family and friends, however, look back now
and say John was too controlling from the start. Some
say they worried that it would not end well.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
It's a small flat, small little joined to be living
in in it. That's where Jody first moved in with him.
Jody had her own room, three little bedrooms.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
In that joint. God, it doesn't look like it.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
No, that used to be a takeaway shop in the
front of aren't doing.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
When Andy was out of ear shot at his house
earlier that day, Michelle told me he had cried when
he heard his system Melyssa's voice in episode eighteen. They
haven't been in contact for twenty years.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
I think it's wonderful what Andrew has done.

Speaker 5 (39:52):
He has been relentless.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
I admire everything that he's done in his efforts to
find our sister.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
So much of that episode must have been difficult for
Andy to hear. It focused heavily on the police statement
of his mother, Barbara and her mental health struggles. The
episode featured Andy's youngest sister, Kim, talking about Barbara's life
and Barbara's separation from her children, Bronwin and Andy for

(40:22):
a decade.

Speaker 19 (40:24):
Do you think it might be easier to preconnect with Melissa?
Hopefully you maybe get some stage. I'd like to think
that she opened up and possibly reach an egg. It
would be fantastic. She knows where I am. I'm going

(40:46):
to say, spot where we last sat down and she
was on our back for anger and we were chatting
away and.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
How long ago was that?

Speaker 11 (40:55):
Oh five, so almost twenty years. We don't need to
do this, or we can do this.

Speaker 16 (41:05):
If you want to say anything about your father to
defend his reputation, your call.

Speaker 11 (41:12):
I just wanted to give you the opportunity if you
wanted to.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
It does just.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Bug me that.

Speaker 6 (41:22):
You know they're trying to or Kim's attempts to portray
my father, you know, in the wrong light around what
happened and how it unfolt. I don't think it's very
fair at all that he portrayed in the manner that
any locked Barb out of anywhere or anything like that happened,

(41:45):
because that just wasn't the way it went down.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
It wasn't the way it happened.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
You've heard Kim honoring her mum, Barbara, Your mum, Barbara.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
What do you say about Philip as a dad?

Speaker 6 (42:05):
Dad was always there, especially for Brin, you know, like
Melissa says, you know, hearing her brought back a lot
in that episode, but Dad was her rock, he was
her go too, and he was always there for us.
He was there for all of us, all for of us.

(42:25):
He's a good man, and it's just a shame that
Kim wants to try and portray him in some sort
of bad light. She didn't really know the man, so
I'm not sure what the motive he's there. I don't
understand she's defensive for a mother, but definitely what she's

(42:46):
portrayed isn't the way the whole thing fell apart.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
You know, Dad was very upset. He was devastated that
Bob got that ill and was that sick and couldn't
teens to the children.

Speaker 6 (42:58):
And I'm sure it was a terribly, terribly hard decision
to finally say after.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Months of separation and Mom trying.

Speaker 6 (43:10):
To get health back and to get into some sort
of normal shape. But a terribly hard situation to make
the decision that we weren't going to keep on seeing Barb.

Speaker 5 (43:23):
I know from being a parent, it be a terrible.

Speaker 6 (43:25):
Decision to make that decision that your children weren't going
to be involved with their mum. But from all knowledge
and conversations that I've had with anyone about it, Dad
only made that decision that we weren't going to go
on and keep seeing Barb once she'd had the massive

(43:46):
over days and was in any sort of state to.

Speaker 5 (43:49):
Be around us, I suppose.

Speaker 6 (43:52):
And then she obviously went overseas for that period of time,
and I think it might have been up to four
years before she returned stage Dad and met Jenny, who
I sort of refer to mum because she's the person
that sort of raised me. I knew nothing different until
I was ten years of age or so.

Speaker 20 (44:12):
What was the catalyst for your father to contact Barbara
when it was time and his view for you to
know that you had a mother called Barbara? She was
your biological mum.

Speaker 6 (44:27):
It was actually Barbara reaching out and talking to Dad
and telling him that she wasn't some sort of state
to be okay. That's from discussions I had had with Dad. Yeah,
she'd breached out sort of convinced Dad that she was
well enough.

Speaker 21 (44:48):
About ten PM one evening in nineteen seventy five, I
received a phone call at home from my ex husband, Philip.
He told me that my children wished to see me.
I was thrilled because I had not I've seen them
since nineteen sixty four. Kim was four years old at
the time, and I've organized to fly both of us
to Sydney and we booked into the Wentworth Hotel. Philip

(45:10):
told me that the children could stay over the weekend
and he would pay for the room alongside mine. We
had a wonderful reunion and we've kept in constant contact
ever since. I've been to Bronwin's first wedding, and Andrew's wedding,
and all the grandchildren's christenings. Ever since. I go to
Sydney and stay with Andrew and his wife Michelle on
a regular basis.

Speaker 6 (45:33):
Kim was just about four years of age. I suppose
she was reaching out. She would have thought it was
nice for her children to meet Kim. I believe that
was the catalyst for allowing us to see it must
have been hard for you to get your head arount.

(45:54):
You've suddenly got two months suddenly. Yes, that's right, that's right,
She's I tried to do my best to include Mom,
to include Barb in things we did. I always tried
to have Barb involved in my life in some sort
of way. I must admit there was never that true

(46:17):
feeling of a sort of maternal bond, you know, like
I'd never had that because all my formerty feyears had
been you know, Mom had raised Sorry Jenny, but you
know who I refer to as the lady. That's the
lady that raised me.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
That's the person that sort of bestowed the morals and
the way I am today.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
She's your mum.

Speaker 5 (46:42):
She's mom.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, how are you and Kim?

Speaker 22 (46:47):
Now?

Speaker 6 (46:50):
She contacted me after episode seventeen and we had a conversation,
but I was just straight out asked her.

Speaker 5 (46:59):
I said, I'm not sure why you had the nerve
to try and portray or basically say.

Speaker 6 (47:09):
Something that you knew was in fact and wasn't true,
that I'd sent you up there on a fact finding mission.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Here's a reminder of what Tim said in episode seventeen,
and why did Andrew.

Speaker 6 (47:25):
Put me in that house?

Speaker 15 (47:26):
He put me in that house.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
He made me go up there so I could have
eyes on Jonathan.

Speaker 7 (47:32):
So now I understand, and this has nothing to.

Speaker 8 (47:34):
Do with everything, but I understand that he knew that
Jonathan had done something bad and he'd still set me
up to live in that house.

Speaker 6 (47:44):
Why would you put that out there to hundreds of
thousands of people that are listening to a podcast to
know something that's not true.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
Our answer to me was, oh.

Speaker 6 (47:54):
That's just the trauma talking. I don't know why I
said it, but it's the trauma. We got into a
bit of a tiff about, so what you own the
trauma on this whole thing?

Speaker 23 (48:06):
Do you?

Speaker 6 (48:06):
You're the only one that's been traumatized by this. She'd
been involved in it recently, but she was only your
kid back then when she went up twenty when the
whole thing unfolded. Didn't send her up there at all.
We only found out, I think after the fact, or
when she was there. And I remember having a conversation,

(48:27):
and I think it's once I knew she was there,
I mentioned to her, said to her that you need
to be careful, but possibly you might actually find something out.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
I don't know, but you need to keep your wits
about you.

Speaker 20 (48:47):
You previously told me that you found out very late
that she was going there, that you didn't know about
the plan.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
I didn't actually ask her to go to any Chad.
I found out about it very very late. I remember
saying to her, or maybe you could possibly find out something.

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Don't push the wrong buttons, don't go too far.

Speaker 11 (49:15):
And it was perhaps a couple of days very soon
before she went in that you heard about it.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Does that seem right? Or do you reckon you found
out later than that?

Speaker 5 (49:25):
Oh, I think we actually found out later that.

Speaker 6 (49:28):
Throughout this process, I've tried to keep the moral high ground,
not run around trying to improve any form of memory
or anything like that with grandiose statements and fabricate anything.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
Tree everyone with a bit of respect.

Speaker 6 (49:49):
So it is just frustrating when there's some people that
are trying to drag you down and.

Speaker 5 (49:55):
Make accusations. Don't know why. That's up to them explain,
but it is hard.

Speaker 6 (50:02):
It's hard on shell people that want to hide behind
people just say some pretty scathing things that they don't
know anything really about it, so they don't know the
depths that we've gone to to get as far as
we have. There's a lot of good people were found,
young Maddy.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yeah, we won't.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
No, I'm not sucking at the ship. These people that
have been helping us have been fantastic.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Here's a small sample of voices of some of the
people who have helped me and this podcast investigation.

Speaker 24 (50:39):
And we're squeaking brakes. And so that's why I was
sitting here. I thought, I'll give your bronze car. It's
I heard it before I saw it. So I'm sitting
on them shre and two people's there. I'm actually watching
War the Roses.

Speaker 25 (50:54):
I was listening to podcasts and you said, if there's
anything that you should be investigating or any ideas, email me,
and I thought, right, that's all I need. So I've
got online found your email address. My friend lived in
that street down the road, a little bit double story
place up high.

Speaker 8 (51:14):
And I thought, what'd it be going late at night
with something that looked like I just called it a mummy.

Speaker 4 (51:21):
And I've said this to my son so many times
about this, and.

Speaker 8 (51:26):
I thought, well, if he was taking out belongings, you
wouldn't make it look like a body. I know that
he had something in that car that resembled a body,
just a body shape in the back seat.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
She was a friend and a good friend at the time.
We'd still be friends today, I know we would.

Speaker 25 (51:49):
I did feel so sorry for her though, she was
gone through so much heartache with him, which is why
I kept n't trying to encourage her to.

Speaker 26 (51:56):
Go Circumstanceally, I believe it's extremely likely that foul play
occurred in the house that night. John was obviously in
a bit of a panic that his wife, Rolin, had
moved back into the home.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Today's answered a lot about how the lake works.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
It's slowly giving out some of their secrets.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
That water is bloody cold, even when you're only standing
into it after your knees.

Speaker 20 (52:25):
Then I'm just trying to work out the most efficient
and fail safe way to actually identify the objects.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I'll drag it along the bottom.

Speaker 7 (52:34):
I'm contacting you to offer my assistance with legal research
analysis for Bronwan. I love true crime and working to
solve a problem or mystery. I also find undertaking work
that is in the public interest very rewarding.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
I've got time Hadley. Everybody I mentioned to what I'm doing,
they picked there is up, there are right behind it.

Speaker 21 (52:56):
I easily easily just climbed in and climbed out.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
I had a lot of dreaming there.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
You sound very definite about your memory of the availability
of local call data.

Speaker 7 (53:08):
That's one thing I'm one hundred percent sure about because
I used to.

Speaker 5 (53:11):
Do that with my job all the time.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Multi talented Maddie, Yep.

Speaker 27 (53:21):
He's just a guy I saw on the front page
of the newspaper for the first time four months ago,
who happened to get my mother pregnant.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
That's all he is to me. He'll never be my dad.

Speaker 27 (53:32):
He'll never be my father, will never be mates.

Speaker 5 (53:35):
We'll never sit down and have a copper together.

Speaker 27 (53:38):
I will never break bread with him, purely because my
grandmother would be disgusted in me if I did.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
We pulled up in a side street outside a small business.
The name painted on the glass was immediately familiar.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
It's the salon there the.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Hair salon intercuts where John's daughter Jody worked at the
time of Bromwin's disappearance. There are phone records from the
bill of Bromwin's rented flat at Byron Street, showing the
calls she had made to Jody weeks earlier, but in
a subsequent telephone call they had a row. Jody discovered

(54:40):
that Bromwin had moved back into the house on Sandstone Crescent.
Soon after Bromwin disappeared, someone purporting to be her telephone
the salon intercuts. The female caller asked that her message
be passed on to Jody, who was on a day off.
It was a message that Bromwin had called, and this

(55:01):
person purporting to be Bromwin said that she had gone
and that she was never coming back. When Andy heard
about it from Jody and John, he headed straight down there.

Speaker 6 (55:13):
I got here on that night and I parked with
that girl was sitting in that white car. I watched
and waited for the last client to walk out of
that shop, and then I walked over there, knocked on
the door, introduced myself, told Tanya Robinson who I was,
and asked her about the phone call. I spoke to

(55:33):
her and I said, John and Jody, you told me
that there was a phone call to the salon.

Speaker 5 (55:38):
And she says to me, yes, that's correct.

Speaker 6 (55:42):
There was a phone call around lunchtime, well just after
lunch and it was a female voice. I can't one
hundred percent tell you whether it was Bromwin, but it
was a female voice saying and stating that I'm in
Queensland and tell Jody I'm not coming back. I left
with that information, went back home Michelle and told her

(56:02):
what I'd found out, and she took haend notes and
write it down. But all this time it's still called
exactly the same salent.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
In early July, as we were putting together Episode ten,
and his hopes of a discovery were raised at Lake
Ainsworth at Lennox Head. With the help of volunteers led
by Ashley McDonald, an expert scuba diver and retired captain
in the Royal Australian Navy, and Chris Darcy, a qualified
searcher and cadaver dog handler, we scanned the lake bed

(56:33):
for clues.

Speaker 6 (56:36):
I sort of always thought she's up there, that she
was dumped up in the lake or whatever.

Speaker 5 (56:42):
You know, That's what I'd always sort of thought.

Speaker 6 (56:44):
But knowing our suspicions and how I had said to you,
the other possibility is this place because you came forward
and told me about the information you received. Now knowing
what Glenn has said this is the easier option. The

(57:08):
garash lab would have been figer and possibly could have
been three layers of mesh, so it would have been
more work to lift up the reinforcement. You possibly would
have had a top and bottom layer a mesh. The
eastern back corner of the porch was where it was backfilled.
That's easier because that's just pedestrian traffic, no vehicle traffic.
It would have only been one hundred mili concrete or

(57:30):
one twenty max and one layer of mesh.

Speaker 5 (57:34):
That's all much required structurally.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
If that's where she is, I'm trying to visualize it
is she entombed in concrete.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
No should be under concrete in dirt, so the dirt
goes first.

Speaker 12 (57:52):
John would have dug into the dirt to put her
in and then covered her with dirt, and then she
would have been then covered with that layer of plus
sick and then covered with the mesh, and then the concrete.

Speaker 28 (58:06):
Animal activity wouldn't bother it locked in because it would
have complete brickwork all the whire around it, with the
slab sitting on the brickwork as a capping as a
complete lead.

Speaker 5 (58:20):
If she was there, she sealed a wie in.

Speaker 6 (58:23):
The back corner of a perfectly seal cavity of brickwork
with a concrete lead.

Speaker 12 (58:31):
She'll still decompose, but there's no way any animals can
to move her bones and things like that.

Speaker 11 (58:41):
Would there be any external smell?

Speaker 5 (58:43):
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
How would you go about testing that side to see
if there's anything there?

Speaker 11 (58:49):
Wouldn't that be a difficult process.

Speaker 6 (58:52):
You could nearly just drill a hole through the ground,
gap through the slab and down into the ground to
disturb So you can drill a series of holes and
get a checked by a dog. The place is unharmed.
All you've got to do is just regrout the hole
and fill it up. If it's a smaller type tile,
then you might have to break some tiles to be

(59:13):
able to drill the miles through it. That would mean
you'd have a little bit of remediation to do. It's
a relatively easy search to happen.

Speaker 12 (59:26):
You will know it pretty quickly if she's not there,
If the dogs don't sense anything, she's not there because
she kind of moved.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
Is there a scan that can be used.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Andy telephone to contact in the building industry, as we
drove west towards Illawong. The guy is a concrete scanning
specialist with whom Andy has worked on sites across the shire.

Speaker 5 (59:52):
Andy, here you go, mate, cool my good. Just got
a quick question.

Speaker 6 (59:57):
Yeah, does any of your equipment through, say a tile
one hundred, one hundred and twenty mil slab, What would
that detect underneath the slab? If there was something in
the ground with any of your gear, would it pick
up bones?

Speaker 21 (01:00:15):
Bones? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
The trouble is they might be deep. Wouldn't be any
more than four hundred maybe four hundred below, So you
found something of you.

Speaker 6 (01:00:25):
We're trying to work out if there was a body
lying under the slab, would it show up?

Speaker 23 (01:00:30):
If what you're asking me is what I think you're
asking me, you're really looking for a disturbance in the
ground where there's been something dug and you're not going
to see bones. You're really looking for a disturbance in
the ground, changes in what's happening below the slab.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
I guess this thing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:46):
It was about six hundred millifil we'd only be looking
into the six hundred because we know it wouldn't be
any deeper than that because.

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
The ground had been fairly hard, and it'd be too
hard at job.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
It sounds possible in principle. Yes, where of us is
this toof killow?

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
The call ended, and I wondered what Andy's friend with
the concrete scanning equipment and expertise was thinking. His mind
must have been racing with possibilities.

Speaker 6 (01:01:17):
If she was ever put there, then the ground will
show up to be very loose because she's decomposed. It'd
be a dark shadow underneath the slab, because the ground
is subsided away from hard up under the concrete and
the plastic. As she decomposed, the sand and the dirt
would sink down and there'd be a void space underneath
the slab.

Speaker 5 (01:01:38):
I've had him do jobs for me. The slab will
show up and you'll see the reinforcement. They can tell
you exactly how deep it is.

Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
If the ground had stuck away from that slab and
there's nothing underneath the slab, the radar goes dark in color.

Speaker 12 (01:01:53):
I remember researching it, and I do recall that in
some cases it wasn't successful. Went to dig there were
no romains, so they thought there were.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
It's quite a drive, that's the one.

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
Yeah, I noticed how we crossed the bridge. We always
say that if we haven't needed to, we can book
gates on those bridges. Keep the riff raff out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
I thought the riff raff was in.

Speaker 5 (01:02:17):
No, it's all. That's all on the far side. But
this wasn't originally part of the show until it started
opening up and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
He turned into the street. He slowed to a crawl
outside a double story brick house.

Speaker 5 (01:02:33):
So see the veranda. It's the garage on ground.

Speaker 6 (01:02:38):
There's the front door with the bay window, and then
that front area of the slab over there, because the
ground starts sloping away on that far.

Speaker 29 (01:02:46):
Side, looks like a neat and tidy house. Yeah, it's
aged well, so just slow down here on the e.

Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
Flat front window.

Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
In that back corner in front of that window is
where he's mentioning that he possibly thinks when's that point, Yeah,
it was backfields.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Just go forward and do it too, and he.

Speaker 20 (01:03:15):
As you look at it again, Now, what's your view
about the logistics and the feasibility the plausibility of what
we're talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
Like Glenn was saying, he only came in the morning,
and in the afternoon he'd come. He'd set things up
so he'd probably lay bricks out, make sure there was sand,
make sure there was cement, make sure everything was there,
and then John would just come and work away on that.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
House on his own.

Speaker 6 (01:03:41):
So John could have very easily backed the car up
over there. That tree wouldn't have been there. You would
have backed the car up over there, disturbed the back
of that porch or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
Hardly anyone would have burned around.

Speaker 6 (01:03:51):
And then you would have just taken around of the boot,
rolled straight across the ground there under the back of
that porch. They've added soil into that back area to
level it, to level it and then pull the.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
Slab on top. So it's backfield okay, in that back
east corner, got it all right? See the land falls away.

Speaker 6 (01:04:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
At the start of the day I spoke to Andy
and Maddie about possibly trying to explain things to the owners,
about trying to talk to them about John and Bromwin
and events of three decades ago and how those events
are being brought into sharp focus by a suspected murder
and a podcast investigation which is now circling their beautiful

(01:04:34):
family home in the suburban street near two rivers and
parks and schools.

Speaker 12 (01:04:40):
Can you imagine if someone came up to your door
and Tody, this may be a person underneath your approach, GEORGI.

Speaker 11 (01:04:50):
Yes, I don't know if i'd like to hear that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:54):
How would you even approach that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
I just feel like I'd like to take a bit
more time. I don't think we should approach today.

Speaker 11 (01:05:04):
So maybe this episode is going to be the last
one of this season two.

Speaker 30 (01:05:11):
Yeah, there'll be a whole lot more coming, but I
feel like with the amount of material that we've developed
and so much more that is still to come, we're
just going to have to take some time and a
break and come back with the third season of this

(01:05:33):
and it could be another eight, ten or more episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Earlier in the new year.

Speaker 6 (01:05:40):
Who would have thought that we'd have to do what
nineteen episodes and still hear nothing from the police about getting.

Speaker 5 (01:05:52):
Active and mobilizing and actually doing something.

Speaker 16 (01:05:57):
You'd had no further word from anybody. Did you listen
to that episode of The Front?

Speaker 29 (01:06:03):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I did.

Speaker 21 (01:06:06):
From the Australian Here's what's on the Front.

Speaker 9 (01:06:08):
I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, November five, What if anything
is going on with the New South Wales Police's investigation
into missing woman Bromwin Winfield. This is Andy Reid, whose
sister Bromwyn Winfield, vanished from her Lennox Head home more
than thirty years ago.

Speaker 5 (01:06:28):
I just can't believe that they can be so slow
on this matter.

Speaker 9 (01:06:32):
He's venting his frustrations to The Australian's National Chief correspondent
Hedley Thomas about the conduct of New South Wales Police.
Our reporter Alexi Demitriati hit up Commissioner Karen Webb and
homicide Commander Danny Dougherty at a press conference in recent days.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
In terms of for that.

Speaker 22 (01:06:51):
Matter, that's on investigation as a coal asstivigation and it's
world documented. There's a podcast in Israel and following that story.
But in terms of the un have that investigations current
when that's.

Speaker 9 (01:07:03):
Oncoming, Helly, I've heard senior police saying over the years,
very frankly, that the conviction of Chris Dawson would not
have happened without the teacher's pet. Do you think there
are remnants of a bit of a cultural cringe or
a bit of humiliation in the police that they were
shown up in that instance and that they don't really

(01:07:23):
want this to be true? They don't really want it
to be the case that there is more to be
done here and that a journalist is doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
It's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
I think there's also a high degree of caution because
these cases can inevitably end up before a judge, and
in the Teacher's Pet case, parts of my work were
criticized by a senior judge and parts of the police
response with the Teacher's Pet podcast were also criticized by

(01:07:53):
a judge. So there may be a bit of an
over correction by a new South Wales Police currently as
a result of that. But I think that they've just
gone too far. They've gone from being really cooperative and
in a very constructive way in the Teacher's Pet and
owning the issue in the public arena to looking like

(01:08:16):
they're trying to curl up and be the smallest possible target,
almost to the point of appearing to be disinterested in
Bromin's case. And if you're the family of a woman
who has been missing thirty one years, a woman who
was separating from her husband when she suddenly disappeared from
their two daughters, their home, all of her possessions, family

(01:08:39):
and friends, you're looking at these two cases and saying well,
is Bromwin's life to the New South Wales Police worth
less than Lin's.

Speaker 6 (01:08:49):
It's very frustrating that I haven't wanted to come forward.
I've made the first representation to Parliament. I was a
parliament House last week. Have it a meeting with Mark Speakman,
my local member, who is actually the Inship Weals opposition
leader as well. He said he's more than happy to
make representations on my behalf to the police, Minister, Attorney General,

(01:09:12):
to the Commissioner, with the cat amongst the pigeons, so
to speak.

Speaker 11 (01:09:17):
I don't know what's taken him so long.

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):
He's a busy fella. We know there's further things that
need investigating. We got to do it. That's what we've
got to do.

Speaker 6 (01:09:30):
Something somewhere along the line's got to get the police
into action.

Speaker 5 (01:09:34):
Dody gets up there and makes a broad ranging statement.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
And he is referring to a media conference at which
the police Commissioner said nothing, and the most senior homicide
detective in New South Wales, Danny Doherty, said.

Speaker 22 (01:09:49):
You've probably read about an Australia or listener on the podcast. However,
we can't comment on white investigations. To current discussions.

Speaker 6 (01:09:56):
FLVE investigation happening, and they haven't spoken to anyone light
investigation happening.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
I was thinking, also, Anie, about the impact on you
and your family. You've become public property in this investigation.
Has it been worth it for you?

Speaker 5 (01:10:18):
It takes its tile, I must say.

Speaker 6 (01:10:20):
Went to the doctors the other day and he made
me stay there and do a bloody a zero or
five minute and ten minute blood pressure test because it's
not open with blood pressure. And I had to tell
him and I had confide in doing what I've been
going for, and he just went shit. He said, Andy,
I've been treating you since two thousand and eight. He
couldn't believe. He said, Christ, you've burned through a lot, mate,

(01:10:42):
me fall over in Italy and having to get flown
home and spinal surgery and crushing your foot and breaking
your tailbone, and said Christ stage four cancy. He said,
you put through everything. But I said, I think we're
going to handle a bit of blood pressure. Will stay
in trouble that for you and take a bucket full
of brown snakes to get rid of me. Mate, I

(01:11:03):
got to see this through. We just keep plowing on,
knowing I suppose that's all we can do. Keep pushing
for justice for Braun.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
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.

(01:11:47):
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 Amiert, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns,

(01:12:12):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio
production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and
original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been assisted
by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can
only do this kind of journalism with the support of

(01:12:33):
our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman. For
all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and documents
about this podcast and other podcasts, including the Teacher's pet,
the teachers Trial, the teacher's accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy
and the Night Driver. Go to the Australian dot com

(01:12:56):
dot au and subscribe.