Episode 21: Concrete Evidence

Investigations reveal Jon’s fast work to get federal government welfare payments diverted from Bronwyn’s bank account to his account when she went missing. The single parent pension and other payments to Bronwyn to help her raise the children were cut off quickly after Jon said it should be going to him. Andy Read says Jon’s actions were not those of someone expecting Bronwyn to come back.

A ‘lightbulb moment’ during filming with the podcast team at Hedley’s house results in Andy making a formal approach to the State Coroner, asking her to order a proper search under the slab of the house at Illawong.

The retired detective sergeant Glenn Taylor has become highly suspicious of the slab as a result of fresh information. He says police should be looking there as a priority.

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]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. It's time

(00:42):
now to explain broadly where the rest of this series
is going.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
You are going to hear.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
More about John's actions in relation to money and five
remarkable days of public hearings at the inquest in Lismore
in two thousand and two into the presumed death Boman Joy.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Winfield will be reconstructed.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
With the reconstruction, it will seem to listeners as if
they are inside the courtroom where key witnesses were questioned under.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oath while John looked on.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You'll hear how the then Deputy State Coroner, Karl Milavanovitch
viewed the case along with the police officer who presented
the evidence, Matt Fordham. Karl Milavanovitch's recommendation to the Office
of the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute John Winfield
for murder was rejected by the DPP, and we're going

(01:36):
to look at that decision too. After the DPP had
confirmed its position in two thousand and three, not much
happened in Roman's case until the investigation from two thousand
and nine, led by the then Detective.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Inspector George Radmore.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
With more detectives and resources at his disposal than Glenn
Taylor was afforded. George Radmore ran a signalant and serious
inquiry and it looked at some important new angles.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Finally we'll draw.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
To a conclusion that is the plan at this early
stage of the third season of Bromwin.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
When I spoke to Maddie a.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Year ago at a cafe in Circular Key in Sydney,
I volunteered to her that this case might span a
total of just eight episodes. Have you had to think
about the kinds of aspects of this that you feel that.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
You're equipped to subject to truth here, I'm happy.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
To do anything, really and yeah, I'm open to it all.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
But something we have discovered while having the privilege of
investigating Broman's disappearance is that things change quickly. Unforeseen events
like new evidence and new witnesses can turn even a
well laid plan on its head a new development. For example,
in the Reignited investigation by police from the New South

(03:03):
Wales Unsolved Homicide Unit, they told Andy Reid back in
May twenty twenty four that they were essentially done, that
there was nothing more they could do without fresh leads
into Broman's disappearance. As a result of what then started
to emerge in the early episodes of Bromwin, they decided

(03:24):
that they were not done after all, and they've been
taking statements from key people. Now for the first time
in this series, let's go to the longest and the
most compelling statement in the bundle of statements organized by
the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor during his investigation. It's the

(03:44):
statement of Glenn himself and it runs to one hundred
and twenty pages. Glenn signed it on October thirteenth, nineteen
ninety nine. It is a summary of the evidence of
every witness. It also just scribes a lot of information
which Glenn discovered along the way.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Glenn had made a.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Simple inquiry with the Road Transport Authority in nineteen ninety
eight about Bromwin's driver's license. The records revealed that her
license had expired on July twenty nine, nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
And that it was not renewed.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
A known fact like that should have been uncovered by
the initial investigation in nineteen ninety three, but there's no
record from then that any such inquiry was made. Glenn
also checked with Medicare and their staff confirmed that there
had been no claim by Bromwin. After her disappearance, he

(04:43):
obtained records from the Commonwealth Bank. The last transaction on
the account that Bromen used for her day to day
expenses was a withdrawal of seventy dollars on May fourteen,
nineteen ninety three. This account also received the single parent
pension from Centilink. Back then it was known as the

(05:04):
Department of Social Security, but we are going to call
it Centerlink because that's how everybody knows it now. Bromman
had been entitled to it since her separation from John
in late March. She also received a smaller family payment
for the children. After Broman's disappearance, there were five automatic

(05:25):
weekly payments, but then nothing further. After June twenty four,
nineteen ninety three. The balance of her account was one thousand,
five hundred and eight dollars and this wasn't touched. Another
account in her maiden name of Bromwin Reid held three
hundred and eighty three dollars. Glenn Taylor made inquiries with Centilink,

(05:49):
and he spoke to an employee there, Francis McNamara, who
went through Broman's files. Mister McNamara told the detective that
Broman had applied for child old support assessment on Monday
May tenth. This application was forwarded to the child support
agency on the same day, six days before Bromwin vanished.

(06:13):
I've asked Glenn Taylor to read paragraph one hundred and
eighty one from page ninety of his police statement of
nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
Inquiries with the child support agency in Sydney confirmed that
a claim had been made by Bromwin Winfield for payments
to be made by her husband for.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
The support of the children.

Speaker 5 (06:38):
A document was located which sets out the proposed arrangement.
This order was apparently never acted upon, as Bromwin had
gone missing. On sixteenth May nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
At the federal government's Child Support Agency, Bromwin had been
allocated a case number three two three eight two six.
A child support registrar wrote to Bromwin advising.

Speaker 6 (07:07):
We have accepted your application for an assessment of how
much child support mister Jonathan Winfield should pay you. Set
out below are the amounts we expect to collect for you.
Please note that we cannot guarantee payment. We can only
pay you what we collect from the paying parent.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
John was up for an initial payment of six hundred
and seven dollars because it was determined that he had
owed Bromwyn money since April twelve, nineteen ninety three, He
would need to find two hundred and thirty one dollars
a month for his regular payment to her. To be clear,
I want to stress that this payment, which was to

(07:46):
come out of John's pocket and go to Bromwin to
help feed and clothe the children, was separate from the
sole parent pension. The sole parent pension came from Centerlink,
not from John. Are of course eligible for the sole
parent pension too if the female parent.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Is not around.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Glen Taylor discovered that the weekly sole parent pension payments
BI center Link to Broman's bank were cut off, and
this had happened just sixteen days after Broman's disappearance. Here's
Glen Taylor again reading from his nineteen ninety nine statement.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Missus Bromwin.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
Winfield's husband Jonathan attended the Bawonous Social Security Office on
second of Gen nineteen ninety three to advise that Missus
bromwin Winfield had disappeared, and the sole parent pension was
suspended on that day.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Records revealed that there.

Speaker 5 (08:46):
Has not been a further claim or any payment since
the payments were suspended. The pension was canceled on twenty
fifth to Gen nineteen ninety three, when it was determined
there were no children in brom and Winfield's care as
another person had applied for a sole parent pension, Jonathan Winfield,

(09:10):
claiming the children to be in his care. Brom and
Winfield's family Allowance payment was also canceled from that date.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Let's rehash the timeline again. There's a lot of key
dates and they can be confusing. John reported Broman missing
on May twenty seven. That was eleven days after he
says she walked out of the house on Sandstone Crescent.
John told Detective Sergeant Graham Diskin back then that Broman

(09:42):
was aware that he would take the girls to Sydney
for eight to ten days while she enjoyed what he
called her break from the kids. But just sixteen days
after Broman had purportedly left and with the possibility, according
to John's version, that she should return any day, John
went to the Centerlink office in Ballina to suspend Bromin's

(10:05):
single parent pension and have it diverted to his bank
account instead. It took just six days from when John
reported his wife missing for him to get the payments
to her cut and channel to him. Here's Andy Reid
talking to me via zoom from a building site.

Speaker 7 (10:24):
If your story was that your wife walked down the
door and had a change to go away for a while,
why within about three weeks of her doing that, did
you go and change all monastery payments for the kids
and get your name so they came in hers.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Now Here is Michelle with Andy revisiting the same issue
with me in the lounge room of their home in
the Shire.

Speaker 8 (10:46):
That's what worries me.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
How quickly he went and changed the shell a Link payments.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Oh, she told me she's only going on a break.

Speaker 9 (10:55):
Why would you go there and change everything to get
money for the kid.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
For someone that's supposedly just gone off for a few
days to get a head clear, right, Why have you
then gone and demanded that she'd be taken off the
single pension And how can someone else do that? She
hasn't got the kids, so you can't let her get
any money from now on. I've got the kids, so
you've got to give me the money.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well sort of proof, did you're going to tell me?

Speaker 9 (11:20):
He walked into a Social Security place and said, my
life's getting a Social Security and she's.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Not here anymore. Oh okay, sir, you.

Speaker 8 (11:30):
Know how do you do that?

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Something else became evident from the files. Even though the
Center Link payments to Broman were canceled but not by Bromman,
it appeared that on April twenty four, nineteen ninety six,
three years after Broman's disappearance, her address four Centerlink records,
was changed from Lennox Head to her old address in

(11:55):
the Shire and then we'd leave.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Another few years later, on Bromman's birthday, someone's gone to
the Department of Social Services and tried to change Broman's
address back to where they lived in eighty eight behind
the takeaway shop.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
In the flat. What would the motive be for that
he's done it.

Speaker 10 (12:14):
Someone's turned around and they're trying to make out that
Bromin's still around by asking for a request to change
of address and tried to put it in the old
address back down here where she used to live.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Who's done that.

Speaker 8 (12:26):
It's not Bromlin or was it someone trying to make.

Speaker 11 (12:28):
Out Someone's trying to make out it was Bromwin? Why
changing her address. Glen Taylor's plan as his investigation unfolded
through the second half of nineteen ninety eight and into
nineteen ninety nine was to put all the evidence in
front of a coroner. Glenn believed then that an experienced

(12:49):
coroner would recommend a prosecution, but it would take time
for the inquest to be scheduled. Before that happened, John
was growing increasingly unhappy. Glenn Taylor and Wayne Tembe were
talking to so many people, family members, friends, neighbors, workmates.

(13:09):
John telephone to complain about it. That phone call, do
you remember.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
He was upset that we were interviewing people that he knew,
his daughter Jodie, his brother Peter, various people that he knew,
everyone we thought relevant to the investigation. And I think
he was believing the word was getting out that the
police were looking at going to try to charge him

(13:35):
with murder.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
All we were doing at.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
That stage we had reported her suspected death to the coroner.
He was quite upset that people were being interviewed He
wanted basically just to keep it all everything quiet. He
was saying, Okay, the problem went away in about mid
nineteen ninety three, nothing had been again looked at now
five years, things had all gone quiet, and he was

(13:59):
probably hoping that would remain that way and stay quite
Suddenly we're out there. He had contacted me and he
said he was agitated and said, you're going to find
out she's running around with some rich sugar daddy somewhere
and she's living elsewhere. And he was just upset that
he was just going along along like it's just a

(14:23):
missing person. No one's looking at it him, or it's
all going quiet. We knew bought at that stage. He
went down to the Senate link and got Broman's pension
cut off. He's then applied for the pension himself to
look after the kids. He's gone in and now he's

(14:43):
getting a government pension payment as a single parent.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
And she's only been missing two or three weeks.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
At this stage, it's like he's saying, oh, she's going
away for two weeks, and here it is shortly after
two weeks. He's already made it just decision that she's
permanently disappeared, not coming back to the kids, and got
her pension cut off. And then he's applied and got
the pension himself, so she had then come back to

(15:11):
the house and he's applied for sole custody of the
kids and now and receipt of the single parent pension
that Broban was receiving. Michelle said, they questioned him about this.
I did that to flush her out.

Speaker 12 (15:28):
That was the words he told them.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
This investigative podcast series was not meant to grow this big.
It has taken many moreses than I had anticipated to
do justice to the sheer volume of material and evidence
to convey the accounts of new witnesses who have come forward,
people like Judy Singh.

Speaker 9 (16:13):
And he kind of looked up this night and I
saw this what looked to be like a mummy in
the back of the car, and I thought, well, even
if he was taking out belongings, you wouldn't make it
look like a body.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
To detour into unexpected places to talk to people like
Sonya Lee.

Speaker 13 (16:36):
She would have been fourteen when their relationship started.

Speaker 8 (16:40):
Fifteen.

Speaker 13 (16:42):
As it progressed, if the girls need to question anyone's truths,
his truths, start questioning them poor crystal as a human
How can you put somebody through.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
That and to expel law in minute detail. Some discrepancies
and omissions in John's versions, particularly from his nineteen ninety
eight interview with Glenn Taylor, which was recorded in the
Ballana Police Station.

Speaker 14 (17:14):
All I know is it was dark, you know, it
was probably at least an hour or maybe an hour
and a half after the plane landed, whatever time that was,
and that was dark, because I remember I got off
the plane in the dark.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at
six point fifty three pm and one at seven oh
six pm.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
This in turn led to a more accurate understanding of
the likely timeline, as well as who made key telephone
calls on the last night Bromen was seen. May sixteen,
nineteen ninety three. There's our discovery of documents going back
thirty one years showing in black and white the timing
of approvals by council and spaces for two concrete paws

(18:02):
at a building site where John Winfield was helping build
a house before and after Bromin disappeared.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's the cup of shoot of the file, and then
it's just got the dates and times of when various
inspections were done Thursday, thirteenth of May. The Garash and.

Speaker 15 (18:22):
Front Porch slabs were given the tick of approval to
be able at the poll, which we believe from compensations
with Glenn was fought on the Tuesday of the Wednesday
the following week.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
When aligned with John's unusual actions in driving back to
the Shire on Monday May seventeen, Those newly discovered documents
have aroused suspicions over whether Bromin's grave was made at
that property in the shire shortly before the paws of Concrete.
We do not know what else the police might be doing,

(18:56):
nor do we need to know, but are properly and
professionally organized search of the property at Illawong is necessary
in our view, which brings us to what you're about
to hear in this episode and how the lawyer Karina
Berger came up with a sensible pathway over a couple
of days of brainstorming and filming at my house in

(19:18):
Brisbane with the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Maddie Walsh,
Annie Reid, his wife Michelle, and my friends and colleagues
Claire Harvey and Matt Condon.

Speaker 8 (19:29):
Can I just interrupt quickly?

Speaker 1 (19:32):
You were behind the scenes as we mark the start
of season three of Bromwin. We've been filming three videos
for subscribers, more than an hour and a half of
content to deep die of Bromwin's case with some of
the most knowledgeable and helpful people I know.

Speaker 6 (19:49):
We're rolling now.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
That's Bianca far Marcus. In earlier episodes you heard her
as a voice actor reading some of Bromwin's letters.

Speaker 8 (20:00):
When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
The house that was built became John's castle in my prison.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Our colleague and friend has also consented to being wrapped
in sheets and bundled into the back seat, as well
as the boot of an exf Ford Falcon as we've
reconstructed what witness Judy Singh says she saw late one
night in May nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 8 (20:26):
Are you happy with the place one of these marcro books.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
There's Claire Harvey, the Australian's editorial director. We talk a
lot about Bromwin and other cold cases from the earlier
stage when I'm trying to work out whether there's potential
for one to be solved, and then during the investigation
and storytelling as the podcast gathers momentum. Claire is like
a firm but pretty cool school teacher who keeps us

(20:51):
focused in class.

Speaker 8 (20:53):
We'll get it in the works.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Kristin Amiot is a guru behind the scenes of these productions.
Organization and logistics, even dreaded spreadsheets are her specialty. How well, there,
that's Sean Callanan, who creates many of the brilliant graphics
you've seen at our Bronwyn podcast dot com website. He
flies drones and shoots award winning photographs and video too.

Speaker 8 (21:19):
Another thing just to be careful of, Glenn is tapping
the table.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Claire is giving the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor a
friendly lesson about what happens when he unwittingly lets his
hand with its wristwatch make contact with the timber table
during an interview. The noise is distracting, the microphones are sensitive.

Speaker 8 (21:40):
You're welcome to have your hand up there, but just that.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
What we'll be able to hear it.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
Okay, sorry to blink o, poor good.

Speaker 8 (21:49):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
And here's the mild mannered, eagle eyed professional film producer
Jonathan Barjome, who leads a video team.

Speaker 5 (21:59):
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nineteen.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
The interviews are usually much smaller events, featuring only me,
the interviewee, and a low key microphone with no cameras.
Most people are a lot more candid when the only
thing being recorded is their voice for audio. But for
a short time, this team of behind the scenes professionals
is standing around a dining table. The first podcast episode

(22:27):
of season three wasn't going to start like this, but
a special thing happened during the shoot in Brisbane.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
It was a light bulb moment.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Karina is a lawyer who left an important job for
the Australian Government Solicitor in Canberra to spend more time
at home with her young children, and with some spare
time on her hands, she got in touch to offer
to help in the Bromwin podcast series.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
She's come to Brisbane.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
To meet my colleagues as well as Andy and Michelle Reid,
Mattie Walsh, Glenn Taylor and others, and it led to
asticated strategy to try to find Bromwin's remains if they
are indeed beneath the slab of house in a place
called Illawong, near where Bromwin grew up in the shire.
Now here is the formidable Claire again Green.

Speaker 8 (23:15):
I'm going to start with you and talk about the
house at Illawall. This is where we ended season two.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
In that episode the twentieth in the Bromwin investigation, I
sat in the passenger seat of Andy's near new car
which was briefly parked outside the house at Illawong. Andy
was driving and Maddie was in the back. Let's go
forward and do you too, Annie, as you look at

(23:42):
it again, now, what's your view about the logistics and
the feasibility of the plausibility of what we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
John could have very easily backed the car up over
there that true wouldn't have been there, hardly anyone would
have been around, and then you would have just taken
around of the roller straight across the ground there and
then pulled the slab on top. So it's backfield color right,
See the land falls away.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Can you imagine if someone came up to your door
and told you this may be.

Speaker 16 (24:14):
A person underneath your proud geor how would you even
approach that.

Speaker 8 (24:23):
Illawong is, of course in the Sutherland Shire, in Sydney South.
It's a long way from Lennox Head, but it's where
our focus has come at the end of season two.
As we start the work on season three, can you
talk to me about why this particular house in il
Along is something that you and heavily have come to
focus so closely on.

Speaker 17 (24:41):
Well, Claire, I think when we step back and look
at all of the evidence that's been gathered by the
police and in the coronial investigation, and combine that with
the information that's come out during the podcast, there are
factors that may tend to suggest that Bronmin's remains maybe
at that location.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Karina has been a great help to me and to
this investigation since she volunteered her time and expertise. She
is eternally curious about Roman's case, and.

Speaker 17 (25:09):
We can start to put together a bit of a
possible theory about what might have happened here. And if
we start with John's very sudden departure from Lennox Head
on the evening of the sixteenth of May, or the
very early morning of the seventeenth of May, in which
he seemed to leave in a great hurry, packed up

(25:30):
the girls in the middle of the night, seemed to
have hardly taken any clothes for them, drove through the
night to get to Sydney allegedly for submergent work, which
is what he told certain members of the family. If
we step out his movements a little bit further, he
delivered the girls to his ex wife's house and left

(25:52):
them with a person that they didn't know for a
significant period of time because he had to attend the
urgent work on the day. And that's really quite odd
behavior to me anyway, because he had a number of
child minding options available to him.

Speaker 8 (26:08):
He had Andy and Michelle at their place.

Speaker 17 (26:10):
He also had his own brother and his own sister
in law, so one has to wonder why he chose
to arrive on the doorstep of his ex wife's house unannounced.
It's just an odd thing to do in my opinion.
He then disappears four hours and his time during that
period seems to be completely unaccounted for. Nobody knows what

(26:32):
he was doing. He did not inform the police what
he was doing to my knowledge, during those hours. He
also didn't inform the police of the fact that he
left the girls with his ex wife on the morning,
which again raises questions in my mind as to why
he has potentially withheld that information from police and also

(26:54):
withheld it from some members of the family too. We
also from work that's been done during the podcast that
it was possible to fit a person of about Bronwyn's
stature in the boot of the family car, even with
a large gas tank installed, So we know it was
physically possible to get Bronwyn to Sydney in that way,

(27:16):
despite the risks that John faced doing that, and particularly
driving an unregistered car on a very long journey.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Karina accurately described how we were seeing things at the
end of episode twenty and the culmination of season two.

Speaker 17 (27:32):
And then, of course we have discovered that a concrete
pore was approved on the Thursday, the thirteenth of May,
only a few days before John set off for Sydney,
and one has to wonder whether a concrete coll over
several locations that address might have provided the perfect opportunity

(27:54):
to bury a body with very little chance of that
body being found unless someone joined all of these dots
together and made some inquiries about that site.

Speaker 8 (28:06):
What's your level of confidence or suspicion that Bronwin's body
might be at that site at Illawong. Now, well, we
just don't know, Clara.

Speaker 17 (28:14):
We don't know until we conduct some further investigations and
approach the owners and see if we can make some
inquiries there.

Speaker 8 (28:21):
And I am mindful that.

Speaker 17 (28:23):
Bronman could be really anywhere from Ballina to Sydney and
in between, but I do feel that thinking about all
of the evidence as a total sum, there is at
least a reasonable possibility that she is there, and I
think it's a really good place to start by making
some further inquiries.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
As you heard in the twentieth episode, I spoke to
the respected builder Glenn Webster about that house in n Illawong.
He had employed John Winfield as a bricklayer for its construction.
John was working there and mostly on his own in
the days immediately before, for and after Broman's disappearance. But

(29:03):
for the entire course of the investigation by the then
Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor from nineteen ninety eight until the
two thousand and two inquest, the concrete paus were not
known to police and the building site in Illuwong went overlooked. Similarly,
the subsequent cold case review team, led by the then

(29:24):
Inspector George Radmore from around two thousand and nine did
not know of the concrete pause and did not focus
on the building site in Illawong. Detectives, Taylor, Radmore and
others were suspicious of John's movements on the night he
suddenly left Lennox Head with his two girls and the
family dog, but they didn't have a few key pieces

(29:48):
of evidence, the documents showing the timing of the pause,
and the disclosure by a confidential source to me that
John had divulged that he had to rush back to
Ilowong for a concrete pause. John said not a word
about concrete pause to Glenn Taylor during the interview that
Glenn did with John in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
We now believe that.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
The documents which the Council provided to and in showing
the approximate timing of the concrete pause are potentially very relevant.

Speaker 8 (30:20):
Glenn. Listeners to Browlin have become very familiar with your
distinctive voice. We've heard you re enacting your quite remarkable
interview with John Winfield. The house at Illawong was not
one of the areas that your suspicion lighted on at
that time, as far as I can tell.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's great.

Speaker 5 (30:37):
See sudden viewers I've noticed in comments ask why I
wasn't more questions asked of John Winfield, but we made
an early decision to interview him first before we interviewed
anyone else, So we were on an evidence gathering mission
to start off with. We certainly were not aware at

(30:59):
that point that he had dropped the kids off in
their pajamas at his ex wife's house. We didn't know
of that, so we certainly couldn't ask him about it,
and he chose not to reveal that information. He had
left late night, He had no sleep that we know of,
and he drove overnight to Sydney, so that in his

(31:20):
mind there must have been some urgency for him to
get back to Sydney and some reason for that. We
had not interviewed his employer, who owned the Yellow Worn
house and built a Glenn Webster. At that time, we
didn't have information as to what work he was doing
down there. Listeners would note that John was extremely amazing

(31:40):
in his interview and we didn't really push him that
hard and be course, if we started to give him
more questions that he could possibly trip up on at
any given time, he could have just said, look here,
of my own free will. He was not under arrest
and he could have just walked out the door. He
was there as a voluntary witness, so we elected not

(32:05):
to really pushing. We wanted to see how the evidence
as we took statements was going to unfold, and then
we could possibly come back to him later.

Speaker 8 (32:15):
What are your thoughts now, having listened to Henley and
Karina's work in the podcast about that house.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
In it war, Well, it's got to be a reasonable hypothesis.
He's felt the need, he's got to leave the kids
with someone, but he chose not to leave them with
direct family, which is a red flag in itself. Evidence
has come out through the podcast that certainly a body
could fit in the boot, even with a gas tank
in there. And then he's got a number of hours

(32:44):
before he eventually turns up at Andy and Michelle's house.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
He's got a problem.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
On his end and he needs to work out how
he's going to solve this problem. It is a reasonable
possibility that problem was put in under the slab before
the concrete.

Speaker 8 (33:00):
Pol You're a very experienced cop. You've had thirty one
years to reflect on this and so many other cases
that you've worked on. Of course, is it just one
of many? How do you feel looking back and hearing
yourself in that interview as a much younger investigator talking
to John.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Look, I'm first to admit I've learned things from the
podcast that we've missed.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Mistakes can happen.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
A hypothetical question, if in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen
ninety nine, after you've heard from Jenny Mason and her
then mother in law Joan Mason about this very impromptu,
surprising visit by John to the house, and if you've
also discovered at that time, and I know this doesn't

(33:46):
come until the podcast investigation, but if you had known
back then that a concrete poor had been approved for
the property at Illawong that John had been working on,
what do you think might have changed in the investigation
that you were conducting in so far as.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
A possible search is concerned.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
I don't think it.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
Was sort of raised because we knew that Glenn Webster
was building his own house and years in John Winfield
to do the brick lane, but we didn't discuss what
stages slabs were poured, but it'd certainly become a relevant topic.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Now, what are.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
The requirements for you as a detective sergeant to seek
a search?

Speaker 5 (34:26):
Well, if we had very strong, circumstantial evidence that there
had been a poor of concrete within a day or two,
we could have then put that evidence before a coroner,
and there's special powers a coroner has to order an
examination of underneath the slab, as possibly that could have

(34:47):
been done. But we certainly didn't have that information about
when concrete was poured at that time. We didn't have
any strong evidence that he had gone out to the
site when he got to Sydney, and his answers we
were extremely vague in the interview.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
What did he do? Where did he go?

Speaker 1 (35:05):
It's hypothetical, Glenn, if you are the detective in charge
today and you know all of the information that we've
been discussing in the podcast, as well as the information
you had back then, so you have all this new
fresh information, what do you say should be done at
Ilawong you're the officer in charge now?

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Hypothetically right, Okay.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Well, I'd be putting in a written request to the
coroner seeking a coroner's order that the site be examined
by way of imaging or however they would do it,
because there's certainly some modern techniques now that are available
without completely pulling up the whole slab that should be

(35:48):
looked at.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
As Glenn made.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Those key points about the coroner, Karina Berger made a
mental note. She intuitively knew at that moment that Glenn
was right. The state coroner did have those powers, and
the state Coroner could also reopen the two thousand and
two in quest if need be to exercise the powers

(36:11):
to perform a search for something as sensitive as a
search for a body on private land beneath an existing,
established family home. My preference would always be to let
the authorities do their job first, well ahead of journalists
and the victim's family. It just made more sense on

(36:32):
a number of levels. But if the authorities failed to act,
then journalism is there as a backstop and we can
then try to do our best. But while we were
all still being recorded and filmed at my dining table
talking about Illawong, I had not clocked the obvious option
of simply explaining to the state coroner in a formal

(36:53):
submission why it would be such a good idea.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Fortunately, Karina was.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Mulling it over, and later in the day she shared
what she was thinking.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
We'll come to that soon.

Speaker 5 (37:06):
That's what I'd be looking at myself to get an
order from the coroner, and you could set out your
reasons why you have some suspicions that Romin could have
been disposed of.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
And in your view, to the suspicions or the reasons
that you would be able to put down in writing
rise to the level where that kind of request would
be consented to.

Speaker 5 (37:26):
I believe that they certainly should be looking at that
right now. We can't completely rule out like Ainsworth or
anywhere else that next said, But there's still all this
unanswered questions. Why was it such a need urgently to
get to Sydney drop those kids off somebody that didn't
even know them, and then you've got a number of

(37:49):
hours unexplain what you're doing. And then I think there
was some evidence that he'd supposedly told somebody that he
had to get out to the job site. And now
your interview of Glenn Webster, who clearly says he was
not really needed, he didn't need to be there for

(38:10):
the poor, but for some reason John believed that he
was needed out there, or he had something significant to
do out there. You've got to move forward in an investigation.
I think that is the way to move forward now.
To try to eliminate the possibility of that prob when
he is in fact under that slab.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I asked Andy Reid whether he could recall why the
building site at Illawong did not appear suspicious during police
investigations through the nineties and the two thousands, given the
knowledge then of John's hasty trip to Sydney and some
of the strange circumstances surrounding that, it's hard to.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Say that when you join the Dodds and when you
follow the info, I like Glenn did his best and
the best of his ability. We still talk to Glenn,
still chat regularly, and he's always been there to help
and always said if I can never do anything, this
has always been a case that's bugged me.

Speaker 8 (39:07):
He's always told us that.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
One of the things that we'll be looking at when
we develop episodes around the evidence from the inquest is
the suspicion that fell on a building site near Lennox
Head that John had access to, and evidence that was
part of those in quest proceedings about the possibility that

(39:30):
Robin was in that building site. So it was occurring
to people at an early stage that a builder with
access to a building site could potentially conceal a body,
but just things that they were looking in the wrong
part of.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
He didn't have the time up there.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
There's no way he had hours to travel halfway to Boren.
So he's got half an hour away to get.

Speaker 8 (39:55):
Up there, so another half hour to gown home.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
The time frame wouldn't have had you to go up there,
do what possibly could have been done there, and then
get back and.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
Be able to get to the shire in the timeframe
that he did. If Bromwin is found at the house
in Illawong, we know that John Winfield killed her. This
is the site completely unconnected to her life or anyone
else she knew. He is the only connection. Correct Do
you have to try and control your feelings when you're

(40:28):
trying to make assessments like that one there that you've
made Andy that you might want that to be true,
Yet you're applying your rigorous knowledge as an expert to
this situation. How do you balance that?

Speaker 1 (40:41):
I wish and then we just walt closure.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
We want to be able to find or want to
be able to find her. So you just got to
do what you've got to do, whatever that takes.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Just keep pushing on.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
I hope we do find her and maybe if she
is an Illawong and that's where she's been all this time,
we can get closure from that and from there well,
I guess that would be justice because there's only one
person that could have done that.

Speaker 18 (41:17):
I think the inexplicable conduct of John and the unexplained
actions that he took leaving so suddenly, leaving a messy
house that he would have found very difficult to do
with his obsessive compulsive disorder, driving an unregistered car through
the night, putting the children's clothes only in pillowcases in

(41:42):
the car, the very weird behavior in the shire, trying
to leave his daughters with a stranger and then not
knowing his movements for a few hours, and the comment
that he made about having to be a this property
and that there's a concrete poor coming. We know that

(42:05):
a concrete poor was scheduled, We know that the Council
inspectors had signed off for a concrete pool to occur there.
For me, there are more red flags and a much
more compelling argument about Illawong being a burial site than
anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, I have to agree. I have to agree.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
It's a tough decision now because we have to work
out how best to approach the people who own this
house of Illawong. They've possibly raised a family there, They've
got a large investment in this house, and they're going
to have complete strangers approaching them to say we have
suspicions about a corpse in the ground of your home.

(42:55):
We're going to need to approach these people with complete
candor and honesty and integrity and a lot of care.
They'll have many questions, why our place, What makes you
think it's possible, Where do you think this might go
if it's true, What do you need.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Us to do? What if we say no?

Speaker 19 (43:15):
They're all very legitimate questions, and we need to know
the answers to most of those before we even go there.
We're not going to be disturbing a crime scene yet
because we don't know whether it is a crime scene,
but it is something we have to work out. We
tried up at Lake Ainsworth. In my view, there's much

(43:37):
much more circumstantial evidence pointing to this former building site
where John Winfield was working in nineteen ninety three, a
site that he had access to, that he potentially had
control of. There are powerful reasons to suspect this place
doesn't mean Robin's there, but it needs to be ruled out.

(44:21):
As you've heard, our intention was to make a low
key visit to the owners of the house that Glenn
Webster built and then lived in with his young family
for several years before selling. Telling the current owners of
our suspicions and then asking them if they would let
us bring in equipment to search would be the hard part.

(44:42):
In September twenty eighteen, journalists and TV news crewise rushed
to a house in Bayview, in Sydney's.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Northern Beaches area.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
The proactive police commissioner at the time, Mick Fuller, agreed
that a specialist team needed to conduct a thorough search
and dig in the ground and around a swimming pool.
Here's the Ten Network Sandra Sully.

Speaker 20 (45:05):
Stunning developments in Sydney's most notorious cold case murder. Police
have started digging for the remains of missing mum Lynette Dawson.
Two coroners had pointed the finger at her husband, Chris Dawson,
but he has.

Speaker 8 (45:18):
Never been charged.

Speaker 20 (45:19):
Lynn was a doting mum to two little girls and
a devoted wife who vanished into thin air just after Christmas.

Speaker 8 (45:26):
In nineteen eighty two.

Speaker 20 (45:28):
Ursula Hagen joins us now from the house. Ursula getting
to this point has been agonizing and long for Lynn's family,
but answers may finally be close.

Speaker 21 (45:38):
Well, that's right. Santra police officially reopened this case three
years ago, but it took a podcast, of all things,
to propel it to national and international attention. A desperate
search for answers. Digging in the dirt for the smallest
trace of Lynnette thirty six years after she disappeared. A

(45:59):
concrete extension near the clothesline is being ripped up and
every pile of dirt painstakingly sifted through by hand. Polis
say over five days they'll sift through four areas at
the home where anomalies have previously been found.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
The then head of the homicide squad, Scott Cook, was
at the scene to brief reporters.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
What's different about this dig is it'll be more extensive.

Speaker 15 (46:31):
We're using new technologies as part of this examination.

Speaker 21 (46:34):
Any trace of Lynnette, a tooth, a piece of clothing
could be the breakthrough that they need. One thing that
is clear the attention she never got when she disappeared,
or she's getting it now.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Sandra that search was performed with the considerable resources and
budget of the New South Wales Police. It involves specialist
planning and teams of people and modern equipment, and it
was costly. The owners of the house in Bayview were cooperative.
They wanted to know whether linz remains possibly lay beneath.

(47:09):
They lived there happily before and after that search, and
it didn't recover Lin's remains or anything probative. If the
owners had said no to the police, the search would
have gone ahead anyway. Coroners and police have powers to
order and undertake a search despite the objections of property owners.

(47:31):
Karina Berger understood this and that's what led to her
light bulb moment. Soon after Glenn Taylor had explained that
if he still had the case now as a police detective,
he would go back to the coroner. Karina concluded that
Broman's brother, Andy Reid, would be the best person to
write to the coroner to press for action, but Andy

(47:53):
would need to make a powerful argument. After the filming
in Brisbane had ended, we put our heads together for
the letter, parts of which you are about to hear.
Andy signed it and sent it to the State Coroner.
Theresa O'Sullivan. Magistrate O'Sullivan ran an inquest into the suspected
death of Marian Barter after extraordinary revelations in the podcast

(48:17):
The Lady Vanishes and a relentless pursuit for justice by
Marian's daughter Sally Laden, who lives in Brisbane.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Here is the state.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Coroner reading some of her findings in February twenty twenty four.
She identified another cavalier approach by police. The lack of
police effort pervaded the first two decades in which Marian
was a missing woman.

Speaker 22 (48:42):
I find that the nature and adequacy of the police
investigation into the disappearance of Marian by New South Wales
Police between her disappearance in nineteen ninety seven up until
twenty nineteen was not adequate. It is clear from the
evidences that following the initial report made by Sally to

(49:03):
Byron Bay Police Station on the twenty second of October
nineteen ninety seven, that very little was done to investigate
Marion's whereabouts until approximately ten years later in two thousand
and seven. The resistance in this inquest by New South
Wales Police to accept the inadequacies of the initial police

(49:23):
investigation in nineteen ninety seven is difficult to understand in
circumstances where a senior police officer has given what is
essentially expert evidence on what should have happened.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Byron Bay and Lenox Head are neighboring towns. It's only
a short drive from Byron to Lennox. Ten months after
the state Coroner's findings in the Marion Barter case, Andy
Reid began his letter by outlining the background to his
sister's disappearance. On May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. Andy is

(50:00):
Bromwin's senior next of kim.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Dear Magistrate O'Sullivan, I am writing to you to respectfully
request that you issue a coronial investigation scene order in
respect of a property in Ilowong, New South Wales, where
I believe Bromwin's remains or other potentially incriminating evidence may
well be located. Police may not appreciate the potential significance

(50:27):
of the property in.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Ilowng Andy's letter cited a particular piece of legislation from
Section forty of the Coroners Act, which says that.

Speaker 16 (50:37):
If a coroner considers that an investigation should for the
purposes of an inquest or inquiry be carried out at
a particular place. A coroner may issue an order in
writing or by telephone to a police officer or other
person to establish a coronial investigation scene at a specified

(50:57):
place and be exercise coronal investigation seene powers in accordance
with this chapter and see enter and stay at the
place for those purposes.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Andy explained that in two thousand and two, the then
Deputy State Coroner Karl Milvanovitch, held an inquest in Lismore
to hear evidence about Bromin's presumed death. Karl has been
retired for some years.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
The inquest was terminated because the Deputy state coroner was
quote satisfied that the evidence is capable of satisfying a
jury beyond reasonable doubt that a known person has committed
an indicable offense, and there is a reasonable prospect that
a jury would convict the known person of an indictable

(51:46):
offense end quote. That known person was Bromman's estranged husband,
John Winfield.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Andy then quoted from the letter which he received in
February two, two thousand and three, from the then Director
of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery. These are the former DPP's
words from his letter to Andy. It is not Nicholas
Cowdery's voice.

Speaker 23 (52:13):
There is nobody and no known cause of death. While
Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have seen
her alive, there is no evidence that he killed her
or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot be
substitution for evidence. My advice to police in the coroner,
after very careful consideration of all the evidence presently available,

(52:33):
is that there is not sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan
Winfield or any other person.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Andy made another point in his letter to the state Coroner,
Theresa O'Sullivan.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
I note, however, that mister Cowdrey QC reached the same
view in relation to the murder of Lynette Dawson. Nie
Simms and Chris Dawson was prosecuted by a subsequent DPP
and convicted of her murder.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
And his letter summarized some of the evidence which had
come to light in the first two seasons of the
Bromwin podcast series. The letter described Judy Singh's citing of
what she believed was a body wrapped in sheets in
the Winfield family's Ford Falcon while it was being driven
by John late at night.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Judy says she reported what she saw to local ballin
of police within weeks of the sixteenth of May nineteen
ninety three and to byron By police about ten years later,
but the police were disinterested. It is unclear what, if anything,
the investigating police previously knew about Judy's sighting of John

(53:45):
on the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three, before the
police took a formal statement from Judy in twenty twenty four,
after the relevant podcast episode dropped on the twenty eighth
of June twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Four, and his letter described John's urgent overnight drive to
Sydney with the two girls and some of the unusual
circumstances surrounding his movements back in the Shire.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
At an unknown time in the morning of the seventeenth
of May nineteen ninety three, John arrived with the two
girls at his first wife's, Jennifer Mason's house in Carrybah,
New South Wales, in the family Ford Falcon. He asked
a woman he and the girls had never met, his

(54:30):
first wife's, Jennifer Mason's mother in law, Joan Mason, to
look after the girls. The girls were dressed in pajamas.
John asked Joan Mason if he could leave the two
girls with her as he was in Sydney to do
a big job. Joan agreed to mind the girls and

(54:51):
John left them with her at Jennifer's home. I and
others in the podcast team consider this was extremely strong
behavior on John's part. Despite being asked by police about
his movements on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three,
John never disclosed to police in his interview or otherwise

(55:14):
to my knowledge, that he had left the girls with
Joan Mason, a stranger, for several hours. John also did
not disclose this to me or my wife. I consider
that leaving your daughters with a stranger in an unfamiliar
environment for several hours is likely to be something one

(55:37):
would remember. I therefore consider this to be a very
significant and likely deliberate failure to disclose relevant information on
John's part, possibly so as not to arouse suspicion about
his movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen
ninety three. To my knowledge, has never accounted for his

(56:02):
movements over several hours during the morning and early afternoon
of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely for
the period after he left the girls at Jennifer Mason's
house with Jane Mason until he registered the family car
at Miranda at three oh seven pm, after which he

(56:23):
collected the girls from Jennifer Mason's house and arrived at
my home at about four pm. This means John had
the opportunity to dispose of Bromwin's remains during this period
of time. John has only been interviewed once by police,
on the fifth of August nineteen ninety eight. The interviewing

(56:45):
police officers chose to interview John before taking statements from
other witnesses in their investigation. For this reason, they were
not aware at the time of John's interview of many
of the gaps and inconsistencies in John's version of events.
In my opinion, there is a strong basis for inferring

(57:10):
John Winfield left the girls with a stranger, Joan Mason,
on the morning and early afternoon of the seventeenth of
May nineteen ninety three, so he could dispose of Broman's
body in Sydney. John had brought the girls to my
home or his brother's home on the morning of the
seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, questions would undoubtedly have

(57:34):
been asked about Bromin's whereabouts and the particular circumstances of
and reasons for John's overnight traveled to Sydney with the
girls immediately after his return to Lenox Head from Sydney
only a few hours earlier, on the evening of the
sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
If Brombin's body was in the car's boot on that
Monday morning, the last place which John would want to
be driving to at that time with his two girls
would be Andy and Michelle's house.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Andy was at.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Work in the morning, Michelle was home with a new baby.
She would be likely to say to John words to
the effect Okay, you're here, now, let's get your things
out of the boot and you can come inside. The
risks of the boot lid being opened were excessive, As
Andy pointed out in his letter to the state coroner,

(58:30):
he and Michelle did in fact seek to access the
boot to help when John did eventually turn up late
on the Monday afternoon. Andy's letter described the car John
drove and the potential carrying capacity of the boot.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
The car was never forensically examined after Brohman's disappearance. It
was later soul by John Winfield. A podcast listener, Terry
Freeman his own and worked worked on multiple Ford Falcons
over the years and is familiar with their operation. In

(59:06):
November twenty twenty four, Terry located a nineteen eighty six
Ford Falcon ex F Sedan. He placed a one hundred
liter LPG tank in the boot of the vehicle, and
his wife, who was of slightly smaller stature than Bromwin,
easily climbed into and lay down in the boot. This

(59:30):
establishes it was theoretically possible for John to replace Broman's
body in the boots of the family car and transported
her to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May nineteen
ninety three. I recall that when I saw the Winfield
family car boot on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three,

(59:52):
it was incredibly clean and did not have any vinyl
type lining in it. I could see the metal lining
of the boot. I also recall John had not brought
much luggage with him for a stay of several weeks
in Sydney in winter. He had brought very limited claving

(01:00:13):
for the girls, packed in pillow cases.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
But the most important part of Andy Reid's letter to
State Coroner Theresa O'Sullivan revolves around the house at Illawong,
the house which was due to receive two significant concrete pause,
which John Winfield knew about because he was the bricklayer
there before and after Broman's disappearance.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
To my knowledge, this property has never been searched by police.
In May nineteen ninety three, it was a vacant block
of land in a new housing estate that was being
readied for construction of a two story brick home. The
land was owned by a sutherlan Shire builder, Glen Webster.

(01:00:58):
Glen Webster asked John Winfield, a bricklayer with whom he
had worked previously, to help build the home. John commenced
work on the property in April nineteen ninety three. When
the Websters were interviewed in September nineteen ninety eight, investigating
police were not necessarily aware of the unusual circumstances of

(01:01:22):
John's travel to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May
nineteen ninety three, and were definitely not aware of his
unusual movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen
ninety three. I am a builder and I am familiar
with the construction process in the Southern Shire Council. Headley

(01:01:44):
asked me whether there might be documents relating to the
stages of construction of Glenn Webster's house, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
He confirmed that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
He then obtained inspection documents from the archives of the
Shire Council.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
These show that a Garadh slab inspection was conducted on Thursday,
thirteenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely three days before
Bromin's disappearance. I understand this was a pre concrete poor
slab inspection. The date on which the concrete paul took

(01:02:19):
place is not evident from the documents. Glenn Webster cannot
recall when the concrete poor took place and has not
been able to locate any relevant documents.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
And his letter then set out the observations of an informant,
a person who has been in regular contact with me.
The informant is prepared to make a statement to police
about the following things.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
They saw John Winfield on the afternoon of the seventeenth
of May nineteen ninety three and questioned him about what
seemed to be unusual movements by him. They considered John
was agitated and quote not himself. They asked John where

(01:03:06):
Bromwin was, and why he had rushed down from Lennox
Head overnight with the girls who were supposed to be
in school, and why he was busy. On the seventeenth
of May nineteen ninety three, John became angry and quote
blurted out and snapped that he had to be back

(01:03:28):
in Sydney four quote, a concrete poor in Sutherlanshire. They
considered John's behavior level of agitation and anger over these
matters unusual. They considered John appeared to regret having disclosed
the concrete pour to them.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
They had been.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Suspicious of the concrete poor for some time in connection
with Broman's disappearance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
And his letter.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Then drew these different pieces of information together, noting John's
previous work at Illawong during April and May nineteen ninety three,
the garage slab inspection on the thirteenth of May nineteen
ninety three, and John's comment to the informant on the
afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three that

(01:04:20):
he had to be back in Sydney for a concrete
poor in sutherland Shire. It can be inferred that John
was referring to an imminent concrete poor at Illowong. Hedley
conducted a recorded face to face interview with Glenn Webster
on the twelfth of November twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
As I understand that that building site was kind of
empty unless John was there with you helping it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Correct.

Speaker 16 (01:04:49):
I used to go there in the mornings and back
in the announce the news.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
So who would have been there if John were not there?

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Just John, nobody else? And what sort of activity human activity.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Was around that site around that time?

Speaker 9 (01:05:06):
Quite a big block alan that was subdivided into about
three or four blocks, and I think I was the
first time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
To get built there, so it would have been quiet.

Speaker 21 (01:05:13):
Eh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
What if was that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
He confirmed that as a bricklayer, John Winfield would not
have been needed to help with any concrete pour. Glenn
Webster told Headley he was not asked by detectives in
nineteen ninety eight about the possibility of Broman's body being
concealed in the ground at Ellowong property, which he still

(01:05:37):
owned and lived in at that time, nor was he
asked about the possibility when he spoke to detectives from
the Unsolved Thomicide Unit during a cold case review of
Bromin's case. In about two thousand and nine. Glenn Webster
told Hedley he last spoke to police in two thousand

(01:05:59):
and nine. Bromwin's family and friends remain very distressed about
her disappearance and the apparent repeated failures by police to
conduct proper investigations over the years. After leaving New South
Wales Police Glenn Taylor described the initial nineteen ninety three

(01:06:19):
police investigation as quote disgraceful, with no statements taken from
any witness, including no statement or interview of John Winfield
until nineteen ninety eight, and no crime scene investigation of
sixty Sandstone Crescent, Lenoxhead or the family car ever conducted.

(01:06:46):
There is a strong public interest in confirming whether Bromwin's
remains or other potentially incriminating evidence have been concealed. I
consider the other potentially incriminating evidence could possibly include clothing,
bed sheets, the car bootliner and Broman's handbag. Given the

(01:07:09):
matters outlined above, I consider that an investigation should be
carried out at Iliwong. I imagine that what might be
required could include conducting scans of some of the concrete
at the property, drilling into the concrete and using a
cadava dog in certain areas before any more fulsome investigation

(01:07:34):
was undertaken. I am acutely aware this would be an
intrusion for the occupants of the property. However, I do
not consider this would be a significant intrusion, and I
consider public interests favors the investigations being conducted in the circumstances.

(01:07:56):
I respectfully request that you issue a coronial investigation scene
order a podcast listener. Corona Berger has assisted me to
prepare this letter. Carona previously worked as a lawyer with
the Australian Government Solicitor and has significant experience in coronial

(01:08:20):
investigation and inquest work.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
In the first week of December, the letter of some
eleven pages was emailed by Andy Reid. Then, of course
we all went into the summer break and Christmas and
the slowdown which coincides with the cricket and tennis and
all the traditional rights of that time of year. This
episode twenty one of Bromwin was released as subscribers on

(01:08:46):
February seven. As of that date, Andy was still awaiting
a reply from State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan or a staffer
in her office. Bronwyn is written and investigated by me

(01:09:12):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
You can read more.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
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 Bromwyn includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget,

(01:09:50):
Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen
and Matthew Condon and David Murray, with assistance from Isaac Iron's.
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

(01:10:14):
can only do this kind of journalism with the support
of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
For all of our exclusive stories.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Videos, maps, timelines and documents about this podcast and other podcasts,
including The Teacher's Pet, The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser,
Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy and The Night Driver. Go to
the Australian dot com dot au and subscribe.