Episode 4: A Strange Getaway

Bronwyn's estranged husband, Jon, hastily packs the family car for an unplanned drive through the night to Sydney with the two girls. His neighbour, Murray Nolan, hears the car's distinctive brakes and is surprised to see the Ford sedan quietly rolling down Sandstone Crescent with lights off and engine off at 10:40pm on Sunday, May 16, 1993.

When Jon arrives in Sydney he says Bronwyn has gone away for a break, leaving him to look after the girls. Bronwyn is never seen again and friends say she had no plans to go away.

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]

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 coarse
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Hedley Thomas and The Australian Listen Photos.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh here we go. This is why I kept this.
What you can see there? That car, I think and
Murray'll be able to tell you for sure was the
car that he used to go to Sydney the night
she disappeared.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I see on the evening of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
Bromwin was at home with her two daughters, next door
to Murray and Devin Sandstone Crescent. John has been away
in Sydney for work. He and Bromwin had formerly separated
seven weeks earlier. The Winfield family car, a white Ford

(01:22):
Falcon Sedan, was in the driveway. Murray always knew when
John or Broman left the house in that car because
of a distinctive noise.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
It made it ad litally squeaking brakes. And so that's
why I was sitting here. I thought, I'll get to
your Bromin's car. It's like I heard it before I
saw it. So I'm sitting on the unge here two
Viel's there I'm actually watching Wore the Roses.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
The black satirical comedy from the late eighties stars Michael
Douglas and Kathleen Turner. A married couple heading towards a
bitter divorce, The Roses fight to the death for the
family home and its contents. I want a divorce.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
No, you don't.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
You can't have one.

Speaker 6 (02:12):
I've thought about this a lot. I really don't want
to be married to you anymore. I may have let
you have the house, but now you'll never get it.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
You will never get that house.

Speaker 7 (02:27):
Do you understand?

Speaker 8 (02:30):
You will never get that house.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
The movement and noise of the white Ford Falcon owned
by his neighbors grabbed Murray's attention, and he stopped watching
War of the Roses.

Speaker 7 (02:45):
When I heard the squeaky brakes, someone's stealing Broblem's car.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Can you show me what you saw? Yes?

Speaker 9 (02:54):
What?

Speaker 7 (02:54):
The lounges used to be there, and the two v
used to be there. So I've got up off that
lounge when I heard the car break squeak, and I
come up here and stood here. Yeah, and it was
all open. I'll see the cargo out there.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Let's walk outside onto the front.

Speaker 10 (03:09):
Law.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
So Jodn Broman's house.

Speaker 7 (03:18):
That's it there.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Has the house changed much?

Speaker 7 (03:20):
Hasn't changed at all? Not one thing that exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Did you ever hear them arguing? No, so if they
squabbled or fought, they were fairly quiet. Yeah, yeah, but
you shouldna live far apart.

Speaker 7 (03:38):
Yeah, but I never heard it.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Why did you think that it was a car theft
rather than Bromin or John Travil car?

Speaker 7 (03:44):
Well, because it's no John was back.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (03:49):
Yeah. The car backed out with no lights.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
On, bottomed down on the road, does a big groove
in the road and rolled down the hill down the
bottom of he down here with no lights on.

Speaker 7 (04:01):
It's on, the lights on, start the engine and ran
out of the way.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
When Murray describes the car bottoming out and leaving a
groove in the road, he's describing what he believes must
have happened. He distinctly heard the noise of what he
says must have been the chassis or underside of the
back of the car beneath the boot or trunk scraping
on Bitchamen. As the car reversed from the sloping driveway

(04:27):
and onto the road of Sandstone Crescent.

Speaker 7 (04:31):
The car bottomed out and strap from the road out
the front. But it dug a pretty deep hole in
the road. Have it occasionally spraped before?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yes, At this time when it scraped, it actually dug
it with probably twenty five milad.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And did you infer anything at the time that was
suspicious from that scrape and that noise?

Speaker 7 (04:54):
And yeah? Oh for see the boots fitevy.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
You remember seeing the car rolling down hill headlights off
and jed off. Had you seen John or Bromin driving
the car down the hill like that?

Speaker 7 (05:09):
Pool? Nah?

Speaker 1 (05:10):
No, Have you ever driven down this hill without your
engine and lights hill?

Speaker 7 (05:15):
No?

Speaker 1 (05:15):
No, it's pretty unusual.

Speaker 7 (05:17):
It's very unusual. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, And normally they would always come out of.

Speaker 7 (05:22):
The driveway and go up the hill. Yeah, it was
an odd thing to do.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Is that what made you suspicious?

Speaker 10 (05:29):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (05:29):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
At the time, I was concerned about someone steel in
my car and it was Brom's car, so I got
up in this twenty to eleven.

Speaker 7 (05:39):
That's strange for a car leaving a strong night.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Murray's account of seeing and hearing the Winfield vehicle leaving
the house in Sandstone Crescent on the night of Sunday,
May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, must be solid. But Bronwan
wasn't driving that car. Her husband John was behind the wheel,
and the reason for the car bottoming out scraping on

(06:05):
the bitchmen. Five years after Bromwin disappeared, the detective sergeant
from Ballina Police, Glenn Taylor, who led a comprehensive investigation
and prepared a significant brief of evidence for an inquest,
was of the view that the car bottomed out because
Broman's body was in the boot or the back seat.

(06:25):
It's a very serious allegation and John Winfield emphatically denies this.
But John certainly does not deny that he was driving
the car about that time. In fact, he says it
was him, and we're going to deal with this in
detail in this episode and in the next one. First,

(06:47):
it's important to establish the chronology of events over the
Saturday and Sunday leading up to the time of about
ten forty pm on Sunday when the family car left
and Bromwin was never again. Will go first to the
evidence of Jody, John's daughter from his first marriage. In

(07:08):
a previous episode, you heard how Bromman had written a
heartfelt letter to Jody pledging love and support for her stepdaughter,
notwithstanding the breakdown of the marriage. In Jody's statement to
police five years later in September nineteen ninety eight, she
discloses a telephone conversation with broman on the Friday, two

(07:31):
days before her stepmother's disappearance.

Speaker 11 (07:35):
I can't recall how it happened, but I rang the
house at Sandstone Crescent and Bronwin answered the telephone. She
told me that she'd moved back into the house with
the kids and that she was staying there. She also
told me that Dad was not welcome there and that
he can stay in Sydney with me. She told me
that she was going to get a restraining order so
that he couldn't come near the house. She also told
me that the house belonged to her, and I really

(07:57):
noticed that she changed from the person who wanted us
all to say close. We both started to argue because
I told her that it was not her house and
that it belonged to Dad, Crystal, Lauren and me as well.
I also told her that it belonged to us, more
so because she was the one that chose to leave.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
It is an interesting point. Jody is suggesting that because
Bromin had decided to leave John and had moved out
of the house for about seven weeks. Her entitlement to
the property was diminished. John's daughter, Jody, was living in
Sydney at the time of these conversations with Bromwin. She

(08:35):
was eighteen years old and close to her dad. Jody
was twenty three when she gave her statement to police
in nineteen ninety eight. These are her words, it's not
her voice.

Speaker 11 (08:48):
I asked her what had made her change her attitude
so much, and she told me that the clairvoyant had
told her to move back in and do all this.
It developed into a very heated argument and we were
yelling at each other, and she hung up on me.
I immediately rang her back and the phone was engaged.
I kept trying, but she must have left the phone
off the hook. The following day, which would have been Saturday,

(09:09):
fifteenth of May nineteen ninety three, I rang the Lennox
head house before I went to work. It would have
been before nine am when I spoke to Cristel and
she told me that Bronwin had gone out for the
day and would not be returning until four o'clock that afternoon.
At that stage, Cristel was about ten years of age
and Lauren was five. I asked Cristel who was minding them,

(09:29):
and she told me that she was minding Lauren and
that it was great because she had never been left
alone before. I told Christel that I wanted to talk
to her mother when she got home. When I terminated
the phone call and told Dad, he appeared to be
very stressed out about it because they had never been
left alone before and he was so far away.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
It's hard to know what to make of this claim
by Jody that Bronwin was going to leave her two
children alone in the house through Saturday. Everybody who has
to to me and to the police has stressed how
responsible Bromwin was. If anything, Bromwin was overly protective. That's

(10:09):
the message I took from all of these conversations with witnesses,
and they ranged from those who were close to her
to others who didn't know her well but just saw
her attentiveness. You heard from Virginia Bevis in the previous
episode when she mentioned that her daughter had babysat on
the Saturday night when broman went to the birthday party

(10:31):
in Lennox. Virginia remembers Bromwin disclosing that her stepdaughter Jody
had telephoned the house after broman and the girls had
moved back into Sandstone Crescent, and.

Speaker 12 (10:44):
Jodi rang it when she moved back in and said,
how do you move back in Dad's house?

Speaker 6 (10:48):
Because she told me that too.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Why would that be?

Speaker 6 (10:52):
How do you She was furious.

Speaker 12 (10:54):
Yeah, John had said something to Jody, and Jody rang
Bromwin in the abused and.

Speaker 6 (11:01):
I remember.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Virginia told me something else, which underlines how careful Bromwin
was with her daughters, Crystal and Lauren. Just before Bromwin
left for the birthday party on the Saturday evening, she
walked with her daughters to the nearby home of Virginia
and her husband Lee.

Speaker 12 (11:21):
She was really nervous, and my husband kept on telling
her how great she looked, and it'd be great.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
And it wasn't that.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Late that night that we saw.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
The reason for the brief meeting was simple. Bromwin had
already made an arrangement for her girls to be babysat
by Virginia and Lee's daughter Celeste.

Speaker 6 (11:43):
It was probably Mant sevenish that we saw that she
come over.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Haw'd she see excited?

Speaker 12 (11:51):
She was only coming over to pick up our daughter
to take her back there across the road to babysit.

Speaker 6 (11:57):
That's why I said she'd never leave those kids.

Speaker 7 (12:00):
And she carried the kids in too.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
It was about her wanting to look after your daughter
and hers. Yeah at the same time.

Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah, yeah, no, she brought him in.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
You just found that was reinforcement with or view that
she was a very dating mother.

Speaker 12 (12:16):
Oh god, Ja, even at work at Eden's, it's a
nursing Lauren on her breaks.

Speaker 6 (12:22):
And then she wouldn't leave those kids for the world.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
You saw her being fairly devoted with her kids.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
Just knock on the door. She carried Lauren in and
they were all round way in the world.

Speaker 7 (12:37):
She would lead it.

Speaker 6 (12:39):
But I never saw her again.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Several hours before Virginia saw her for the last time,
Bronwyn telephoned the home of Richard and Jane Johnston in Sydney.
Richard Johnston is a cousin of John Winfield, and Richard's
wife Jane had become Bromwin's friend. They lived close by
in the shire and even shared a home there for

(13:02):
a month and a half while John was building the
house in Sandstone Crescent, Lennox Head. These are the words
of Richard and Jane Johnston. These are not their voices.

Speaker 13 (13:14):
I became a bit of a confidant to Bronwyn and
I got to know her extremely well. We would often
talk on the telephone, and it was mostly for an
hour at a time. When Bronwyn moved to Lennox Head,
we still kept in constant contact. In fact, no longer
than a month would go by without a phone call.
I noticed that the telephone calls from Bronwyn during the
latter part of nineteen ninety two and the early part

(13:36):
of nineteen ninety three contained more specific complaints. These complaints
concerned the possibility of violence. She would often state to
me that she was scared of John and worried that
he would hit her, Although she never ever told me
that he did, and I'm sure she would have if
it had occurred. She did inform me after Christmas that
year he had backed her up against the kitchen cabinets

(13:58):
and raised his hand as if to hit her, but
then just walked away. She would always tell me during
these conversations that she felt like leaving John, and at
one point I told her to leave if it was
really as bad as she said. She would also tell
me that John would keep her short of money and
wouldn't let her have any more than about thirty dollars
in her purse. She would have to account for every

(14:20):
cent that he had given her, and she had to
ask for everything she needed. She couldn't just go and
draw money from the bank. She did say on one
occasion that John would not give her any money because
he wanted to make sure she couldn't leave.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
When Richard Johnston spoke to police, he explained that when
he and Jane had last visited Bromwin and John in
the Lennox in October the previous year.

Speaker 14 (14:44):
There was some fiction between them. I recall that it
was a very uncomfortable evening. I did not see any
physical contact between them, but there seemed to have been
some verbal confrontation between them.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Earlier, Richard told police about the call that he received
the day before Bronwyn vanished.

Speaker 14 (15:03):
The next time I had any contact was on Saturday,
May fifteen, nineteen ninety three. I was at home when
Bronwyn rang on the telephone and asked for Jane. This
would have been somewhere between two thirty and three pm
in the afternoon. I told Bronwyn that Jane was overseas
but would be back in a few weeks. Bronwyn seemed
very upset on the telephone, and I asked her, could

(15:25):
I have Jane ring her. Bronwyn said for me not
to worry and she would ring her later. I did
not know why Bronwyn was upset, but I could tell
something was bothering her by the tone of her voice.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Richard and Jane had emigrated from the United Kingdom several
years earlier, and coincidentally, Richard flew to the UK on
May sixteen, and he and Jane returned to Australia in
June of that year, nineteen ninety three. By then, Bronwyn
had been missing for a month.

Speaker 14 (15:57):
I have never had any contact with Bronwyn since what's
the last phone call on May fifteen, nineteen ninety three.
John has told me that he has had no contact
with Bronwyn either.

Speaker 13 (16:09):
I feel certain that if she was still alive, she
would have made contact with her children if nobody else.
She was a very devoted mother, and I am certain
that she would not have left the children willingly.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Shortly before the release of this episode, for Cristel assured
friends and family of her hopes for a result from
the podcast investigation into the disappearance of her mother, Bronwyn.
Cristel does not know what happened to her mother. She
likes to post photographs of her. More photos, including some

(16:40):
Crystal has never seen, are being sent in now by
people who knew Bronwyn. Some of the images include Crystal
from when she was a little girl. I doubt Cristel
will talk on the record in this podcast, and I
haven't asked her to be a participant. It's well understood
on Bromwyn's side of the family that Crystal doesn't want

(17:01):
to upset her sister Lauren or her stepfather, John Winfield.
Lauren hasn't had contact with her mom's side of the
family for three decades, but Cristel is close to the
read relations. In Cristel's recent message to her friends and
family via Facebook, she posted some happy photographs of herself.

(17:24):
She wrote, I just want.

Speaker 15 (17:26):
To thank everyone that has reached out to me this
week to see how I'm doing. In conjunction with the
recent Headley Thomas podcast release of my mother's disappearance. It
has not been easy all these years. I chose not
to be involved in it for various reasons. However, I
do have a few theories on her disappearance based on

(17:49):
my own life experiences, and maybe someone out there knows
the truth. Maybe we can finally solve this mystery and
put it all behind us. It's been so nice to
reconnect with so many of you, and.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Now weekends with Peter Vegan on four VC.

Speaker 16 (18:11):
Good Morning, Brisbane, Happy Saturday. It is the first of
June and the first day of whinther It's the case
of Bronwyn Winfield, who went missing from her home in
Lennox Head thirty one years ago, leaving behind her two
children and never to be heard from again. I listened
to that Bronwen podcast yesterday and for people on the
outside that don't understand how we work. If we're trying

(18:34):
to get a family to speak about, whether it's a
cold case an accident, at times you have to offer
them a guarantee or a result, and families expect that
if they do speak to you, that something is going
to happen. How difficult is it for you Headley, to
sit down with a family and not be able to
guarantee that there's going to be an outcome if they
tell their story.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
I have a general rule.

Speaker 10 (18:54):
I don't want to raise expectations to such a level
that they believe they're definitely going to get justice that
they believe has been denied for sometimes decades. I assure
them that I'll give it absolute total commitment. It will
bring mistiness who knows something, who have never talked before

(19:16):
out of the woodwork. It causes people who have been
keeping secrets a long time to think, I don't want
to do this anymore. I actually want to tell Headley
or the cops something that I saw or heard, something.

Speaker 7 (19:30):
That might be relevant.

Speaker 10 (19:32):
And that's why it's never too late with these cases.
There's always a possibility of more and fresh, better information
being produced. Unfortunately, a lot of cold cases that they
can just age and go stale in an unsolved homicide
squad's filing cabinet where there are so many of these.

(19:56):
What the podcast investigations can do is all of the
information in a coherent way over multiple episodes and attract
witnesses who have never talked.

Speaker 16 (20:08):
Before for people that may not be aware of Bromwin Winfield.
She was a young mother that lived in the town
of lenox Head in New South Wales, a very small town.
Head Lee a lot of people would find it difficult
to keep secrets in a town like Lenox Head. But
once again we have this, Oh the mother just took
off mentality.

Speaker 10 (20:27):
How deeply stupid is that proposition? Then somebody could just
sort of start again without the children that they've always
dosed on, without leaving any trace, any evidence of life.
And in Bromin's case, she's a very dedicated mother of two.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Why would she take off?

Speaker 16 (20:50):
For someone to think that the mother would just leave
their children a devoted mother. We hope that some good
and I'm sure it will will come out of this
podcast series.

Speaker 10 (20:58):
I really appreciate pir Thank you.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
This podcast series may be the last chance to solve
a mystery spanning three decades, the last opportunity for Bromwin's
family and loved ones and friends to know the truth.
If you know something about Bromwin, about her marriage, about
her fate that you believe could make some difference, even

(21:22):
a small difference, then send me an email confidentially. The
address is Bromwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.

(21:56):
Let's go back to the police statement of John's daughter Jody,
describing the events of the Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 11 (22:03):
I started ringing at four pm, and from memory, I
think she answered and hung up when she heard my
voice because she knew what was going to happen. I
tried ringing her straight after, but she must have left
the phone off the hook again. It was off the
hook all night. I told Dad and he made arrangements
to fly to Balaner the following day. I felt that
I was out of the situation then when Dad was
going back home to sort it out, so I left

(22:26):
it to him. I can't recall whether I tried ringing
the following day. The following afternoon, Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen
ninety three, I drove Dad to the Sydney Airport so
that he could catch the plane to Balliner.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
The last time I spoke to bron was on the Saturday.

Speaker 17 (22:42):
We then later found out that she had a shift
at the takeaway shop on the Sunday afternoon, and the
girls were at home playing with the next door neighbor
on the life side, Debbie's kids, and Debbie was looking
after him and the kids were sort of playing him
in the tree.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Holmes, John's older brother by two years, Peter Winfield, was
interviewed by the police. Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen
ninety eight. Peter said he hadn't been aware of trouble
in the marriage until he heard that Bromwin had moved
out of the house. It was during this separation period

(23:20):
that John moved to Sydney for work, and for a
while he stayed at his brother Peter's house.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
I can't recall how long John stayed with us, or
if he confided with me in what was happening in
his private life. I do remember that all of a sudden,
John had heard that Bronwin had returned or was going
to return to the family home at Lennox Head. I
think John was worried that if he didn't go back,
he would find out that he would be locked out
and it wouldn't be his home anymore.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's the same view expressed by his niece, John's daughter Jody,
that the partner living in the house could make the
stronger claim to ownership of the house.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
I remember leaving our home to go to Bowena. I
don't recall whether he said anything about Bronwyn or what
was happening at that stage.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Peter's wife, Louise, however, had a better memory.

Speaker 18 (24:11):
John came and saw us and told us that Bronwyn
and the kids had left the house in Lennox Head
and moved into a townhouse. John was very upset and
very emotional at that time. He considered that it was
very unfair that someone could take the children away from
him so easily. John also said that he was worried
that if Bronwin moved back into the house and he

(24:31):
wasn't living there, that he would then be unable to
return to the house himself. As far as I recall,
he told us that he was going back to Lenox
Head to prevent this happening.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
John had been bricklaying at a house in Sydney owned
by a contact he had made in the building industry,
Glenn Webster. When John wasn't on the job, he stayed
in a house Glenn and his wife were renting while
their own home was being built with John's help. This
is what Glenn webs did old police during the investigation
by Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 19 (25:06):
I recall while the work was going on, John suddenly left.
John didn't tell me where he was going. I don't
remember how I found out, but I later established that
John had gone up to Lennox Head. During the time
that John stayed at our home in Dixon Clothes. He
never mentioned Broman, and at no stage did he ever
tell me that Broman had moved out of his family
home in Lennox Head. On occasions he used our phone

(25:27):
to call home, but I didn't take any notice of
his conversations.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Glenn's wife, Jane Webster added.

Speaker 20 (25:34):
I recall that on one occasion, John Winfield phoned his
home when he was staying with us. I remember that
he seemed concerned following this telephone call. I remember asking
John if everything was all right, and he said yes.
John was not the type of person to disclose anything
of his personal life.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
I went with Madison Walsh to meet Mel Taylor in
a Brisbane public library after Mel had finished work. Mel
grew up in the home next to John and Bromwin's home.
Mel's parents are Murray and deb and Mel's childhood best
friend back then was Crystal Bronwin's daughter.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
How do I know you?

Speaker 21 (26:13):
I know it looks really familiar.

Speaker 22 (26:15):
I am Bromwin's second cousin, so I'm quite close to Crystal.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Now let's go back to Lennox's Head, nineteen ninety three.
What do you remember about Sunday May sixteen?

Speaker 21 (26:29):
I know I was at the park with Crystal and
Lauren that afternoon around five point thirty ish, sixish. I
came home before the girls came home. Bromin came to
that door and she's like, oh, hey, is Lauren and
Crystal here? And like, no, they're at the park. And
she said to me, can you go get them because

(26:50):
her father's coming home.

Speaker 7 (26:52):
Is it a strong memory, Yeah, it's a strong memory, yep.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
But your confident that was the day she read.

Speaker 21 (26:56):
Yeah, because it was a Sunday night.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
It was clear to her then that johnthan was coming back.

Speaker 21 (27:01):
Yeah, because she had just come home from work. We
were looking after Lauren and Crystal. I had gone with
Crystal and a mum to the house to take boxes
back to Sandstone Present. I wouldn't know how she'd found
out that he was coming home. I think she did
say to me that he was coming on a flight.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
As a twelve year old girl in nineteen ninety three,
Mel tried to stay out of John's way.

Speaker 21 (27:31):
Us to frighten me the way he used to treat
the girls, his demeanor and he mess whatsoever, he would
just go crazy, very strict.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Are you're going to be strict and not scary?

Speaker 21 (27:48):
I think it was this because of the strength of him,
just my memory of the person he was seeing him
working out with his branch press and yeah, that wasn't
the garage.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Did he get cross with you or angry with him?

Speaker 21 (28:01):
Not to me.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
No.

Speaker 21 (28:03):
If the girls had eaten any food and they made
a mess on the floor with the food, he had
seen it, he would be very angry. Said, well, that's
to play over something that was spilt on the floor.
I went talking like minimal like crumbs. And then the
girl's wan allowed to come out and play after that.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
What about with Bromwin? How did you observe her?

Speaker 21 (28:25):
I love Bromwin. I found out she was such a
beautiful person.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
What was it about Bromwen you liked?

Speaker 21 (28:31):
She would have done anything for those kids, And that's
what's sad about the whole situation, Like she was, I
was trying to prepare for a better life with the kids.

Speaker 9 (28:42):
Giving and taking is equally important, for without the taking,
you lose all feelings of self worth and self esteem.
It can be extremely dangerous and have disastrous repercussions on
those around you, especially with children.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
In Bowna, a man called John Watson received a tell
lephone call at his home. He knew John Winfield because
their respective daughters were friends.

Speaker 23 (29:07):
John was ringing me from Sydney and he asked me
if I could pick him up from the Balliner Airport
and give him a lift home. That night, about six
thirty pm, I went to the airport and I met John.
He asked me if I could take him to the
Balloner police station prior to taking him home. I drove
him to the police station and I waited in the
car while he went in. He was in the police

(29:28):
station for about five minutes.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
After passing the same police station on the drive north
back to Brisbane, I spoke to Madison Walsh about Bromwin
and the probable reason for John's visit on the evening
of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 24 (29:46):
I think she was trying to get an apprehended violence order.
I reckon she was trying to get that through with
one of the solicitors she was consulting, and that's why
he went to the police station after he landed.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
Definitely like that's not normal behavior.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
But it hadn't actually been implemented before John came back
from Sydney.

Speaker 25 (30:14):
Yeah, that was my thought, because why else would you
go to the police station before going to your house. Yeah,
so he definitely would have assumed that she would have
filed something, but it just hadn't been put through.

Speaker 24 (30:26):
Well, it's quite possible that they'd had a conversation when
he rang and spoke to him before he left Sydney, and.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
She might have said something like I've got an order
or I'm getting an order or something, and he wanted
to check that.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
Because I remember learning in legal studies.

Speaker 22 (30:43):
That sometimes you actually have to go into the court
to get the ABO signed for it to be official.
So I don't know if that was like the next
process or anything like that to get it confirmed.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
But I can have a look into it and see.
Obviously this area has evolved a lot in recent years,
but thirty one years ago, I don't know what was there.

Speaker 25 (31:09):
I don't know, but I can definitely look being there somewhere.

Speaker 26 (31:13):
There's an online resource where you can actually look at
the legislation as it existed, say ninety three or ninety eight,
whenever you can see what it allowed for what it
looked like at that time.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 26 (31:31):
There's also evidence that Ronlin rang her solicitor on Sunday
while John was in the house.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
I think that's in the statement of the solicitor.

Speaker 5 (31:42):
I'll have a look.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
John Watson recalled that John Winfield then asked him to
go to the home of Becky McGuire, another of Jodie's
school friends.

Speaker 23 (31:55):
He told me that he wanted Becky to go with
him when he.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Went to the house.

Speaker 23 (31:59):
I drove him to her house, and from memory, Becky
was either waiting outside or came out when we pulled up,
and she got into the car. I drove them to
John's house in Sandstone Crescent at Lennoxhead and they got
out of the car and went to the front door,
and I drove home. John told me when he got
out of the car that he would drive Becky home.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Becky McGuire confirmed being collected at her house by John
Winfield and John Watson to go to Sandstone Crescent. Becky
was pregnant with her son at the time. She knew
Bromwin and her husband. John threw her friendship with Jody.

Speaker 27 (32:40):
He told me that he needed someone there just in
case something happened as he just wanted to pick up
some clothes and needed a witness there Whilst he did this,
John Watson dropped us on the other side of the road,
about two doors up from the Winfield's house. John Watson
drove away. We walked up to the front of the
house and John knocked on the door. The door opened
and Bronwyn and the children were standing at the door.

(33:03):
I wasn't really paying much attention at the time, but
I recall Bronwyn babbling on about something, but they weren't arguing.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
It does seem an oddly pejoritied way for Becky to
describe whatever Bronwyn said when John arrived.

Speaker 27 (33:18):
I can't recall what she was going on about.

Speaker 21 (33:21):
She used to babble on all the time.

Speaker 27 (33:24):
Bronwin walked back into the house towards the kitchen and
John gave the girls a cuddle, and I saw that
Lauren was crying. I saw two suitcases inside the doorway,
and John picked them up and put them in the car.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Clearly, Bromwyn had packed John's things and put them near
the front door, ready to go, with the intention of
him taking those two suitcases away the car, which Becky
is referring to is the white Ford Falcon Sedan, the
one with the squeaky brakes.

Speaker 27 (33:54):
John must have had a set of keys to the car,
because we then got into the car and he drove
me home. I remember who both Crystal and Lauren were
standing at the window inside the house watching as we
reversed out of the driveway. John didn't go inside the
house at all while I was in the house with him.
While we were driving back to my house, John thanked
me for coming with him and told me he was

(34:15):
sorry for getting me involved. I haven't seen Bronwin since
that night I went to her place with John.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
You are going to hear how Becky, who was twenty
two at the time of her statement, perceived Bromwyn.

Speaker 27 (34:29):
During the time that I knew Bronwyn, she had terrible
mood swings, and Jody and her would fight a lot
while I was there, and we would go into Jody's
bedroom to get away from her. I was positive that
Bronwin had a split personality, because one minute she was
fine and friendly, and the next minute she was cranky
and yelling and generally going off the deep end about
nothing at all.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Telephone records show that at seven oh six pm a
call was made from the home phone at Sandstone Crescent
to Peter and Louise Winfield's house in Sydney. John was
calling his brother to let him know he had arrived safely.
It's a call made just thirty six minutes after John

(35:10):
Watson estimated that he had picked John up from the
airport at Ballina. At the house, what happened next, only
two people really knew for sure, bronwin and John.

Speaker 9 (35:25):
Whoever said that love makes the world go round was correct.
I have felt it all around me recently, some hate
as well, but mainly the compassion for another person in pain.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
John insists that his estranged wife told him in the
house that evening that she wanted to have a break
for a few days, and he said she had gone
into their bedroom and made a telephone call, resulting in
a car he didn't see, driven by an unknown person
stopping outside and Bromin getting in, and John says that's

(35:59):
the last time he saw his wife. In the episode
after this one, you are going to hear a lot
more detail about John's version of events. He explained it
to the local police in Ballina in nineteen ninety three,
and again five years later when Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
became involved and recorded a formal interview. I've obtained the

(36:23):
documentation and I've been comparing it with the versions which
are remembered by Bromman's family and friends. For now, I
want to consider the proposition which is implicit in so
much of what has been said by Bromman's friends and family,
and that is that Bromwin was a very loving mother
who would never have left her two girls. On one

(36:45):
of my drives from Brisbane to Lennox Head, I telephoned
my friend Brian Jordan, a retired family court judge. Brian
knew nothing about Bromman's disappearance when we spoke, but he
had closely found though the first podcast series I did
about Lynn Dawson's nineteen eighty two disappearance from the Northern

(37:06):
Beaches and the suspicion which fell eventually onto her husband Chris.
Listeners of The Teacher's Pet might recall Brian, who was
featured in several episodes as the investigation unfolded in twenty eighteen.
Here's a brief snippet from one of those episodes. In

(37:26):
June nineteen eighty three, with Lynn a fading memory for
her very young children. Chris and Lynn were divorced. I
asked Brian Jordan, a friend and a retired senior judge,
to review some of the documents from the coronial proceedings.
What's the minimum period that two married people must be

(37:46):
separated before they can apply for a divorce?

Speaker 28 (37:50):
A minimum of twelve months, and a mere separation itself
may not qualify it. The relationship must be ended. There
must be an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Now, I
don't know, and you'd know more whether mister Dawson acknowledges
that the relationship was over the day his wife walked

(38:13):
out of the.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Home, well legedly walked out in Bronwin's case, another mother
in a failing marriage, another deeply suspicious disappearance. Six years
after Brian spoke about the legalities of separation and divorce
for an episode in The Teacher's Pet about Chris and Lynn,
we talked about Bronwyn her disappearance and John, let's go

(38:39):
back to late twenty seventeen and early twenty eighteen. You
were interested in podcast investigation I was doing at that
time into the disappearance of Lynn and that was for
the teacher's pets. What stood out for you most in

(39:00):
that case when I first described it to you.

Speaker 29 (39:04):
As soon as you mention that she left her four
year old and two year old daughter, so she had
difficulty with conceiving those two children and was a convoted,
dedicated mother, my ears picked up and I started paying
attention and our.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
End of saying, just she didn't leave those children. It
was that dark that It was that moment that comstallized,
and it gave me the interest in the story.

Speaker 29 (39:32):
And it's not a conclusive because of study.

Speaker 5 (39:36):
It's a compelling piece.

Speaker 29 (39:37):
Of circumstantial evidence her wife family, without any prior indication
of intentions do so people walk out of their lives
for her two children to never see them again, never
inquire about them again.

Speaker 5 (39:56):
It's just inherently improbable.

Speaker 29 (40:00):
Session is so improbable as to cause one in one
to look for other reasons for children being abandoned other
than the car and walking out on their lives.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
I know you, Brian, as a very dedicated father and husband,
and Pauline, your wife, as a very dedicated mother, But
what else are you facing that view on, apart from
your own observations of Pauline and perhaps other brothers.

Speaker 30 (40:37):
You know, a culmination of factors, including twenty years just
a family called joke, carrying children's cases on an almost
daily base, and seeing the extent to which parents we
go to the brink to retain a relationship with contact

(40:58):
with their children.

Speaker 5 (41:00):
Stinkive thing.

Speaker 29 (41:01):
There's bonding with their children that they find impossible to
let go.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
Also, in the course of.

Speaker 29 (41:09):
Hearing cases for twenty years, I did hear in olog
experience getting evidence about the bonding between parents and their children,
and in particular the bond between mother, biological mother and
young children is extremely strong. It's what enables parents and

(41:35):
in this case mothers so almost invaribly.

Speaker 5 (41:39):
Took their own lives.

Speaker 31 (41:40):
I had those and their children if it comes to
those sorts of terrible choice. So it's my personal experience,
my experience as a family lawyer.

Speaker 29 (41:51):
And visiting new experts that I can't remember a case
where a mother had abandoned her John cares fewer question.
What did the investigation, the inevitable investigation of the table
one suspect to the husband, what did that reveal?

Speaker 5 (42:13):
Well?

Speaker 1 (42:14):
The original investigation by police in nineteen ninety three was
very peacemeal. I gave Brian a summary of the separation
and then the last days of Bromwin in Lennox Head.
How she had moved back into the house at Sandstone

(42:37):
Crescent with her two girls on a Friday afternoon in
May nineteen ninety three while John was away working in Sydney,
and she was there through the Saturday. On the Sunday
early evening, John turned up. He flew from Sydney to Ballana.

(42:58):
It wasn't schedule. He left his work job suddenly because
he must have become aware that Bromin was back in
the home.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
And how then have they been separated.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
A couple of months. He went to the home. Now
we don't know what happened next apart from what he says.
The children, they were very young. It was close to bedtimes.
Believed that they were put to bed.

Speaker 26 (43:26):
John says that there was a disagreement, but not he did.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
He says that Bromin said she needed some time away
from the kitchen, needed a break. That she made a
telephone call and somebody came to pick her up and
she left. I told Brian that the next thing that
happened close to eleven PM after Bromman had purportedly left
in an unknown person's car. Was the sighting of the

(43:54):
Winfield car the white Ford Falcon leaving the house rolling
down the driveway, but the headlights weren't turned on and the.

Speaker 32 (44:05):
Engine wasn't on either, so it rolled silently down the hill,
and then at the bottom of the hill the lights
came on and the engine was turned on.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
The other observation by that witness was that as the
car left the driveway to turn onto the road and
rolled down hill, there was a scraping noise. He resumed
it was from the back of the vehicle, and John
drove through the night. It wasn't planned. He took the

(44:40):
girls to Sidney. The marriage had been under quite a
lot of strain. She, according to the statements by some
of her.

Speaker 33 (44:49):
Friends, was concerned about John, somewhat fearful. Her uncle observed
bruising on her arm.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Roberts said that John had assaulted her in his usual
measured way. Brian injected a note of caution. He referenced
the Teacher's Pet podcast and the eventual case against Chris Dawson,
who was found guilty of Lynd's murder in August twenty
twenty two.

Speaker 5 (45:18):
You've got to be mindful of the trump. Your instincts
were right.

Speaker 29 (45:24):
Your investigations were central to the eventual successful prosecution.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
Of that man.

Speaker 29 (45:31):
Doesn't guarantee that you're infallible on another matter that you're pursuing,
Does it say?

Speaker 5 (45:37):
Cause is always required? In the sense of matter.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
You're going to hear again now from Michelle Reid, Bronwin's
sister in law, the wife of Andy Reid. She's describing
an unexpected event at their Sydney home on the afternoon
of Monday, May seventeenth, nineteen ninety three. Andy had not
yet arrived home from work. What do you learn on Monday?

Speaker 34 (46:29):
I was just in the kitchen and there was a
knock on the door.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
I didn't have my glasses on.

Speaker 34 (46:35):
I couldn't work out who it was because I looked
down the hallway to the front door. When I got
down there, I was really shocked to see John and
the two girls.

Speaker 5 (46:46):
Wow, what's going on?

Speaker 34 (46:49):
I thought they were in Lennox.

Speaker 21 (46:52):
At that point.

Speaker 34 (46:53):
We didn't know that John had taken himself up there
because we hadn't.

Speaker 6 (46:59):
Heard any of that.

Speaker 34 (47:00):
That all happened, and then John was all the was
sung with the kids. So I said, what are you
doing here? John was nervous talking, he was mumbly. He
actually ushered the kids inside because he didn't.

Speaker 6 (47:20):
Want to talk in front of them.

Speaker 34 (47:21):
And we were standing on our little front veranda, just
cheir and I. He said, oh, Bromwin's left me, and
I went, oh, okay. He was like jittery and all
of that, and then he said, well, actually she needed
a break. She's going on a holiday. And I thought
to myself, oh, is she on a holiday or she

(47:42):
left him?

Speaker 21 (47:43):
Like, in my head, I'm thinking that's weird.

Speaker 34 (47:46):
It's just my nature to be a little bit suspicious
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
But to your knowledge, she had already left it.

Speaker 34 (47:54):
And then he switched it to she needed a break,
she needs a break, and she going to get her
head together.

Speaker 21 (48:01):
For her and so he brought the kids to Sydney.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
You'd heard from Romwin previously that there was no going back. Yep,
the marriage was finished.

Speaker 21 (48:09):
Yep.

Speaker 34 (48:10):
When he first spoke, he was going down the lines
of she's walked out and left, and she's left me
with the kids, and then it switched to she needed
a break for a few days, She's gone away for
a few days to get her head together. I said
to him where he's staying, and they decided they'd stay
with us, So I said, come on, we'll go and

(48:32):
get have you got stuff. Went up to the back
of the car he was packed in our cul de
sac on the road, and he opened the boot. He
was picking up pillowcases, and inside pillowcases were just kids clothes,
stuff like stuffed in a pillowcase, pillowcase here and a
pillowcase there, and there might have been a smallish bag

(48:55):
of some sort. I kind of thought, oh, why are
you so who disheveled? Why isn't anything organized? And I
said to him, what I come you down here like this?
Like what don't you wait sort of thing until tomorrow?
Because he said we always drove overnight because the kids

(49:16):
slept better. He brought in some stuff out of the
back of the car. At the boot he said three
significant things on the front veranda. She's got the kids,
she's got the car, and she's not having the house too.
And they were the three things that John said on

(49:38):
the front veranda before Andrew got home. If she's only
going way for a couple of days, what has that
got to do with anything.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I've read in your evidence that you say to him,
why are you in such a hurry? And then he
shows you something.

Speaker 34 (49:55):
Yeah, he gets out of his wallet and he's got
like a little receipt that you get from the cashier,
and he got petrol eleven o six at.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
A service station near Lennox.

Speaker 21 (50:06):
Yeah, yep, yep. And then he put it back in
his wallet.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
What did he say when he showed that to you?

Speaker 34 (50:14):
Just proving to me that he left eleven o six
and got petrol. And I kind of thought to himself,
why you showed me that. I don't care if you
got petrol, Like, because at that point on the front Verandah,
I suppose never put it into our heads that something

(50:37):
sinister may have happened. It was very confusing as to
why he was there.

Speaker 21 (50:43):
And I just thought, why did you show me.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Eleven o six? You remembered the receipt for eleven oh
six pm. Ye, the night before yep. But doesn't really
show what time he left, does it?

Speaker 34 (50:55):
Because he could have got fuel or he could have
done anything.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
What time he got fuel. But he could have gone
back to.

Speaker 34 (51:02):
The house of the house that he could have gone anywhere,
could have gone anywhere, kids could have been asleep in
the house. He could have done lots of things in
that time.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Do you still find at baffling or do you have
some ideas about why he showed it to you.

Speaker 34 (51:18):
I think it was his evidence to prove that he
had got petrol, to show that he had left and
gone to Sydney.

Speaker 21 (51:33):
But I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Had he told you that he had arrived in Sydney
that morning.

Speaker 34 (51:38):
Help and then he would drive through the night and
see At that point in time, I assumed he comes
straight to us, like where the family.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
On the Monday morning, a sixty year old woman called
Joan Mason was visiting at her son Brad's house in
the Sydney suburb of caring Bar. Brad lived there with
his wife, Jennifer. These are Jones' words. It's not her voice.
It's from her police statement in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 35 (52:14):
I remember on that day I heard a knock at
the front door. My daughter in law, Jenny, was out
and I was not sure where Brad was. I answered
the door and I saw a man who introduced himself
as Winfield. I don't remember his first name, but I
recall he told me that he had been Jenny's first husband.
I saw that he had two young girls with him.

(52:36):
I remember both these young girls were dressed in pajamas.
I remember this man Winfield asked me could he leave
the two girls as he was in Sydney to do
a big job. He said something about being in the
building game and he had to go and see someone
about a job. He said that he had been driving
all night. He said he needed to leave the children
with someone. I recalled telling him that he could leave

(52:59):
the kids there and I would tell Jenny when she
came home. He left the children with me and I
looked after them until Jenny arrived back home. I remember
this man Winfield arrived back at the house at Carrying
Bar later that afternoon. He went out in the backyard
and they spoke for some time. After that, he took
the children and left the house.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
It sounds highly unusual. John has gone to the home
of his first wife, Jenny, but she was out in
her absence, John has persuaded a woman he has never met,
the mother in law of Jenny, to look after his
children for the day. The timing is interesting too. Joan
Mason recalled that John arrived at the house some time

(53:44):
in the morning, he left the house in his car
without his children. A short time later, he returned again
in the afternoon, collected the children and drove to the
home of Michelle and Andy Reid. But Michelle and Andy
didn't know about those movements until the detective Sergeant Glenn
Taylor got to the bottom of it five years later.

Speaker 34 (54:07):
That blew me away, blom me away.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
But he didn't tell you that.

Speaker 34 (54:12):
No, these kids, they would never have met Jenny, let
alone Jenny's.

Speaker 6 (54:19):
Mother in law.

Speaker 34 (54:20):
He made out that he come to Sydney and he'd
come to us bombshell that was to us.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
The natural thing to do would have been to go
to Bromwin's brother and sister in law, of course, but
he went to his ex wife's home.

Speaker 34 (54:38):
Her mother in law was down visiting. She had no
idea who this random bloke was.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Is it possible that he did that because he thought
you'd already taken sides Bromwin's side, and it was all
a bit sticky in the separation.

Speaker 34 (54:52):
Who knows what goes on in John's head. If you're
going to bring some two little girls and a little
dog down to Sydney for two weeks, you wouldn't take them.

Speaker 21 (55:03):
Anywhere and leave them.

Speaker 34 (55:04):
With anyone except people who they know and trust, their.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Uncle and Nardi like.

Speaker 34 (55:14):
And to find that out later, what was he doing?

Speaker 21 (55:18):
Well? Why did he need to do that?

Speaker 34 (55:20):
Why would you do that?

Speaker 1 (55:23):
But before John went to his ex wife's house, he
stopped in at a Sydney hair salon where his daughter
Jody worked. Jody remembers that her father arrived there about
mid morning.

Speaker 11 (55:37):
I rushed out the front and hugged and kissed both
the girls. I asked Ad what was happening, and he
told me that Bronwin had had enough and she'd gone
away for a holiday for two weeks. He said that
she went to the bedroom and made a telephone call
and that she took a small amount of clothes. He
then told me that he heard a car pull up
and leave, and that he was sitting on the lounge
and didn't get.

Speaker 35 (55:57):
Up to see who'd picked her up. Dad appeared to
be happy.

Speaker 11 (56:00):
Because he had the kids and he hadn't seen them
for so long. He is definite that one day she
will turn up on the front doorstep and attempt to
take Crystal and Lauren. He's positive that she's still alive
somewhere and will suddenly reappear.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
All these years later. We do not know exactly what
John was doing. Over a crucial period of about five hours,
he went to the marital home of his first wife, Jenny.
She had married a man called Brad Mason. As you've
already heard, John left the children. Let's say it was

(56:35):
around ten thirty am in nineteen ninety eight. The Ballona
detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor found Jenny and he took a
detailed statement from her. The statement discloses that John's first wife, Jenny,
and John's third wife Bromwyn became friendly acquaintances. These are

(56:56):
Jenny's words, it's not her voice.

Speaker 36 (57:00):
I brom When after John started going out with her.
As my daughter Jodi was leaving with them, I then
became friendly with Bromwin. Bromwhin and I made a pack
that we wouldn't discuss personal things about John.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
We didn't think it was appropriate to talk about it.

Speaker 36 (57:14):
Bromwhen and John seemed quite happy, and by that time
I was married to my second husband.

Speaker 6 (57:19):
I've got a photograph.

Speaker 36 (57:21):
At home when me and my husband Brad visited Bromwin
and John at their new home at Lennox head. The
photograph's been marked on the back March nineteen ninety one.
I'd say that we only stayed at the house for
about half an hour. I remember having a joke with
Bromwin saying something like, so, this is the house that
I could have had, Ain't you a lucky girl? Bromwin

(57:43):
just looked at me with a sad look and shook
her head and said no. Then John and Brad walked
into the room, and that was the end of the conversation.
I think Bromwin would have liked to talk about something
that was troubling her, but she never had the opportunity
to speak. The next thing I remember about Bromwin was
I came home one day from shopping in nineteen ninety

(58:04):
three and my mother in law, Brad's mother, said, you've
got two visitors out in the backyard. I looked out
the back and I saw it was Crystal and Lauren
Bromwin's children. Both of the children were dressed in pajamas.
I said to my mother in law, Joan Mason, what
are they doing here? Joan told me that John Winfield

(58:25):
had turned up about an hour earlier and asked if
he could leave the kids at my house. I asked
Jane if he'd said how long he wanted me to
look after the kids for, but she said he didn't say.
There were no clothes for the children that John brought.
It was about an hour after that when John arrived.
I said to him something like, what's going on? John said,

(58:47):
I've got a big job on and nobody to look
after the kids. Can you look after them for about
two weeks? I'll pay you. I said, where's Bromwin. John said,
she's gone off with a boyfriend. I said, I can't
look after them, You'll have to find someone else. I'm
in the process of packing and moving at that stage.

(59:08):
I was splitting up from my second husband and moving
to Queensland. John said, oh no, I didn't think that
would happen to you. I'm sorry to hear the news.
And then after that, John just took the kids and
left the house. He didn't say what he intended to
do with the kids.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Jenny recalled that her ex husband John asked her if
she had any spare clothes for the girls, but Jenny
couldn't remember whether she gave him any.

Speaker 36 (59:34):
I remember thinking at the time it was strange he
hadn't brought any clothing for the children. It wasn't his
normal character. He usually liked to be organized. I found
out later through Jody that Bromwin had gone missing from
Lennox Head. I found out later that she'd gone missing
the night before John had turned up at my house
with the two children. I don't feel that Bromin would

(59:56):
ever have left those children permanently. He was a very
dedicated mum and loved her children very much. I think
something might have happened on the night before John turned
up with the kids at my house in nineteen ninety three.
I think John's the type who could lose his cool.
He was under a great deal of stress at that time.

(01:00:17):
I feel Bromin may be dead and somehow met with
foul play.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Jenny's full statement to police in nineteen ninety eight is poignant.
It recalls some sad parts of her own life with John.
In a later episode, you'll hear more of Jenny's evidence.
She paints a sad picture of a deeply troubled marriage.
And you came home about an hour later at five pm.

Speaker 8 (01:00:46):
Yes, seeing the old white falcon at the end of
the street, I thought, wow, the kids and Ron might
be a day.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
And then I saw John sitting on the front veranda
talking to Michelle.

Speaker 17 (01:00:58):
Walk down to the front for Andrew and said what's
going on? And he said, oh, Roman had a chance
to go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Away and clear her head for a few days. So
I brought the kids down to Sydney.

Speaker 8 (01:01:10):
I thought it was strange straight away.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
You've described yourself as just a naturally suspicious person. Romwin's
told you if anything happens to me, look after Crystal please.
Suddenly he's turned up in the vehicle she had been
driving with the kids, and they've packed hastily. What were
you thinking then about where Romwin was?

Speaker 34 (01:01:41):
Well, I suppose to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I do recall thinking, well, she'd been out of the
house on her own with the kids for about six weeks.
I was thinking, that's twenty four with the kids, trying

(01:02:02):
to work get a bit of money. Possibly she did
need a break.

Speaker 35 (01:02:10):
Possibly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Michelle Reid says that on Monday afternoon she asked John, well, what.

Speaker 6 (01:02:17):
Have you been doing?

Speaker 21 (01:02:19):
Where have you been?

Speaker 34 (01:02:20):
He said, I had to go and get a green
slip and a pink slip and register the car and
do all that, which accounted for the time during the day,
which is why he turned up here at four o'clock,
because he'd been doing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Things reregistering the family car that he had driven from
Lennox Head the night before with two girls and a puppy.
Back in Lenox. The neighbors, Murray and Debbie, were wondering
what was going on. At what point do you believe
you became suspicious?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
I said something really weird. I said, Larrens cars missinging.
You know, where would she be this summer? The day
she would park there all the time. They wouldn't park
in the garage, and I just thought it was odd
that the car wasn't there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Dead come and saw me six o'clock on Monday morning.
It said the car has gone next door. And then
I said to Dead, yeah, I heard the cargo last night.
Did you see it or yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:03:15):
I saw it?

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Yeah, And I thought, oh, this is sus. So I
waited until about eight o'clock. There was no kids, no nothing,
and no Roman, no car. I thought, this is too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Sus And when you say sas you mean it was
really suspicious. It was strange.

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
That was a bit suspicious.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Yeah, as early as Monday.

Speaker 7 (01:03:37):
As as Monday yes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Well, when I saw the car go in the nighttime
eleven or twenty eleven at night, I thought that was
sus So then I past seven.

Speaker 7 (01:03:49):
Eight o'clock, this is in the morning. Yes, on the
Monday morning, Monday morning, I walked up.

Speaker 37 (01:03:53):
To the neighbor on top of John's place, Lloyd and
Chris Harday, Yeah, And I went to Lloyd and locked
his door and said, book, I think John's come back
last night and done something to Bromwin.

Speaker 7 (01:04:07):
Do you mind coming down to the house and having
them look at the house with me? But he didn't
break in there, and did you no? Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
Me and Lloyd just walked around the house and then
we said, oh, yes, it's us, and then Lloyd went
in and I came back here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
When I came home on the Monday afternoon, I said
to my children, was Lauren and Crystal at the school today?

Speaker 7 (01:04:30):
And they said no, Monday weren't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
And then on the Tuesday I went to work and
I do recall ringing the unit because she had a
phone down there, and I think I might have rung
the house to see if I could find.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
It deb telephone a mutual friend, probably Denise Barnard.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
I can't remember exactly who it was, but I rang
them instead of you. Anyone's seen everyone know where Bromin
might be.

Speaker 8 (01:04:56):
No, no, no, Yet by about seven thirty at night,
I'd forced John to ring Murray and Devi next door
to break into the house to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Look into the house to see.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
What was going on and whether Brahman was there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Did you suspect foul play that night?

Speaker 38 (01:05:15):
That came later because further into that conversation between five
o'clock and seven o'clock, when we sort of forced him
to get someone to break into the house to check
it out, he was saying, now I should be back
by Wednesday, Chris, she's got a shift at the takeaway shop.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
On the Tuesday, I came home after work. John had
rung Murray, so.

Speaker 7 (01:05:35):
I've got the court.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
He said, would you mind going up the house? Would
you mind going up the house and breaking in for me?
This was a class panel next to the back door.
He said, put your handy open the door and get in.
And I said that's fair enough, and I'll do that.
He said, oh yeah, because I've been trying to ring
Braman and now I want you to have to look
to see the probins there. Because I've been ringing I'm
getting no answer. John said to me, I'll ring you

(01:05:58):
back in twenty minutes, so I'm suss again.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Murray went back to see the retired neighbor, Lloyd Hargrave.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
And I said, mate, I said, he's rung me up.
He wants to be a break into the house. I'm
not too sure why he wants be a break into
the house. He's only read me back. We broke into
the house and we walked around the house and had
a look, and then John rang back in twenty minutes
and he said it was probleman in the house. I said, no,
she wasn't, John, No, she's not there, and no one said.

(01:06:28):
He said, well, can you go up and put the
phone back on the hook please? So I went back
up there and put the phone back on the hook,
and they'd come up with me after that.

Speaker 22 (01:06:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
When I got home from work, Murray told me what
had happened, and I've gone, well, I want to go
up and have a look.

Speaker 7 (01:06:46):
Something not right here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
My normal brain's thinking, no, he wouldn't do anything to her,
But my other half of my brain's going, yes, he would.

Speaker 6 (01:06:54):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
That's the sort of thing I was a bit conflicted with,
and I just wanted to go and have a look
and just.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
See all I could see.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
The house was disheveled because she was still moving back in,
so she had boxes and everything still unpacking boxes. She'd
had dinner on a Sunday night. There was plates in
the sink with scraps on them. I looked in the
washing machine. There was wet washing in the washing machine,
like clothes. I hung the washing out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Do you recall what was in the washing machine? What
you hung out?

Speaker 7 (01:07:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
Kids?

Speaker 7 (01:07:22):
All the kids stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Yeah, well kids closed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
So then we went into the bedroom and it was
at the front of the house, and I'm looking to
see what she talk. She didn't take twelve trees, she
didn't take a makeup. I'm looking around. She hasn't taken
any of this. Why would she do on a holiday
with that all this stuff? I'm thinking, this is weird.
The bed was unmade, she took nothing. Appadly, the only
thing that I could see that was missing was her handbag.

Speaker 7 (01:07:49):
I couldn't find a handbag.

Speaker 39 (01:07:51):
I'm a woman, and if I'm going on a maybe
even if it was an impromptu holiday, I would still
pack some essential items, but there was nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
It was all still there, her makeup was there, everything.
I thought, I'm not buying.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
This is her daughter?

Speaker 21 (01:08:09):
Mail again and I answered the phone and he asked
to speak with Dad. I said, I'll put him on
And then night's when I went to the house with
Lloyd and my dad through the laundry. I remember thinking, Oh,
I'm coming up to see this house.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Why, I don't know.

Speaker 21 (01:08:27):
I think it was strange.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Was it strange because you were so rarely in the house.

Speaker 21 (01:08:33):
No, I think it was strange because I had a
feeling why I be going in there? Why Why did
he come up and then leave and then us going
to the house to see whether she's been back. What
I find is strange about the whole thing is jand
to come all the way up here, to have the
argument with Brown and then to leave that same night

(01:08:57):
in a hurry. Why don't you say next morning then
go back to Sydney. Why do we leave in such
a hurry?

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
And is that because you suspect flight urgent panic?

Speaker 21 (01:09:10):
Yeah? I noticed the house, what it looked like, the
state that was left in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
What do you remember about that?

Speaker 6 (01:09:17):
There was the.

Speaker 21 (01:09:17):
Washing in the laundry, the dishes. The girl's beds were stripped.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
The girl's beds were stripped, There.

Speaker 21 (01:09:23):
Was no sheets in the bed they were gone.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Mel's disclosure about the sheets being stripped from the children's
beds was a surprise to me. I did not recall
that anyone else had raised it before, and I couldn't
remember reading it in any of the hundreds of pages
of evidence and witness statements and other documents. Perhaps the
reason Murray and deb did not raise it with police

(01:09:49):
was because they had not looked at the children's beds.

Speaker 21 (01:09:53):
I mean, I had been in the house and it
was very neat, like oct needs. So to leave the
house in the state that was that was what was
so strange about the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
And is it your view that John, under normal circumstances
couldn't have walked out of his house if it was
in that state.

Speaker 21 (01:10:11):
No way, he wouldn't have. No, no, not the way
he was as a person.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Dear Van Murray walked back to their house, shaking their
heads at the turn of events. They spoke on the
telephone soon afterwards to Bromman's brother Andy, who had called
from Sydney.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
That's when he said John's down here in Sydney with
the girls. And he tells me Bromin's gone on some
holiday And I said, what when did he?

Speaker 7 (01:10:40):
How did the girls get to Sydney.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
That was the first we knew that they were with
him in Sydney.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Did Andrew sound incredulous to you?

Speaker 15 (01:10:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
Yeah, he was concerned for sure, and so was I.
That John's starting to hyperventilated, be thinking this couldn't happen.
This is not happening, you know that sort of disbelieved
that this is going on, And in my quiet mind
I'm thinking he's not.

Speaker 7 (01:11:03):
Well, no, he hasn't, No, surely not.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
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.

(01:11:39):
You can read more about this case and see a
range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn
podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey,
Kristin Amiot, Josh Bridget, Ryan Bianca far Marcus, Katie Burns,

(01:12:04):
Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, and Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We
can only do this kind of journalism with the support

(01:12:25):
of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
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The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy,
and The Night Driver, go to the Australian dot Com

(01:12:48):
dot au and the subscribe