July 11, 2024 • 56 mins
A short walk from the sandy northern beaches of Lennox Head is a lake loved by locals and visitors alike.
It is deep only in a few places, but nobody can see the bottom - the waters of eerie Lake Ainsworth are always dark because of staining from the leaves of the Tea Trees which flourish on the foreshore.
As a result of Judy Singh’s disclosures, Andy Read and locals including Murray and Scruffy fear Bronwyn’s body has been at the bottom of the lake since May 1993.
Madi has been doing her homework on the possibilities and she wants to start searching. But a house block near bushland in the ‘Shire’ south of Sydney, where Jon was bricklaying immediately before, and after, Bronwyn’s disappearance, is also under a cloud of suspicion.
Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.
If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course
language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to
you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. After several
(00:42):
days of replaying and considering everything that Judy Singh had
described in episode seven, and he sounded like a man
ready to make a citizens arrest over his sister's disappearance.
There was anger below the surface. He was apprehensive about
what would happen next with police. He was impatient for action,
(01:05):
but he was also relieved about something. Andy has suspected
John infoul play since a couple of months after Bromwin vanished.
But Andy is confident now that a puzzling thing which
had been nagging him for thirty one years has been answered.
I'm interested in hearing your idea about this eleven oh
(01:26):
six pm receipt for fuel that was purchased on the
Sunday night, May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. Yep, You've been
giving that a bit of thought since Judy Singh came
forward in the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Why did he have to prove to Michelle and produce
a receipt for petrol and then again when I got home?
Maybe whatever it was half an hour or say, forty
minutes later, and then he gets the receipt out and
wants to show it to me, and then we all
I through to ninety eight and Glen Taylor, and one
(02:08):
of the first things that he wants to do with
Glen Taylor is showing a receipt for petrol in Ballina
for eleven oh six.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Evidence and the vivid recollections from people about John's reliance
on the petrol receipt way back in May nineteen ninety
three and over subsequent years has featured in a number
of the recorded interviews I've done over the past several years.
Clearly it's been on our minds well before we heard
Judy Singh's revelations. Here's the retired detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
(02:44):
talking to me in March twenty twenty one when I
went to his house in Ballina during that interview that
you did with Jonathan Winfield, can you describe the circumstances
surrounding him retrieving a receipt.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I said, look, we want to go over again your
movements on that night, and then he said, well, look.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I sat there for a while thinking what to do.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I had worked to finish off down there, and then
he said, well, look, I've actually even got a receipt.
I can show you I've purchased fuel for the car,
and he took his wallet out. For years later, he
still had this receipt in his wallet showing that he
purchased fuel at eleven a six pm.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That night in Ballina.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
He felt the need to retain.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That receipt all those years and still had it in
his wallet. These were things that he believed that were
prime things in his defense.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And what was the significance in your mind in that
interview of him pulling out that piece of paper, the receipt, Well,
look here I am.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I'm definitely in Balaner at eleven a six pm that
night getting fuel.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
How does that help him?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I don't know, but he seemed to think it was
a fund significance that night to say I've given down servitation.
I made a decision to go to Sydney. I needed
to get fuel and this is where I filled up
just before I started driving to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
He's not attempted to disguise the fact that he was
at the house and that he was talking to his
wife in the evening at the house. So it's a
bit of a puzzle as to why that has been
so important for him.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
It is a puzzle and it still remains a puzzle.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Is there something that is missing in terms of understanding
his latching onto that receipt as something significant? There's something
that everyone's miss well.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I don't know why he wanted to show this, not
only to the police but also to Roman's family members
that here I am in Bow and look I've got
this receipt.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It's still puzzling.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And were you able to verify the authenticity of the receipt.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
There's nothing to suggest that the receipt was a forgery.
In so it didn't appear that he did get fuel
at eleven o six pm. But it's obviously going to
take a number of hours to get to Sydney, and
we've got evidence he had arrived down in Sydney to
his ex wash home the next morning with the children,
but we've got no other evidence to suggest where he
(05:21):
may have gone during the course that night or after
we dropped the children off.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
This is Andy talking to me in September twenty twenty three,
that's eight months before the first episode in the Bromin
podcast series. I think we've got a lot of ground
to cover, but let's resume this.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
See the Blake Tarriday petrol receipt around in his's wallet
for years and years, and all of a sudden could
pull out this petrol receipt from a service station to say,
you got petrol.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Here's Andy's wife, Michelle. When we talked in the Shire
in late February twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Four, he gets out his wallet and he's got like
a little receipt that you get from the cashier, and
to show me that he left at eleven o six
pm from a service station, and then he put it
back in his wallet. And I kind of thought to myself,
(06:17):
why you show me that I don't care if you've
got petrol, but.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Doesn't really show what time he left? Does it?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
No?
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Because he could have got fuel, or he could have
done anything.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Madison Walsh and I puzzled over it in early February
twenty twenty four when we met in a cafe in
the Museum of Contemporary Art overlooking Sydney's Circular Key.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
I can't imagine after changing the loots on the house
that she would willingly leave him with the house and
the kids and just sleeps.
Speaker 7 (06:53):
Also, why did John felt the need to keep for
a seat from the petrol station for all those.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Years carrying around in his wallet.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Yeah, that's not normal behavior unless you feel like you
have to have a defense in some way.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And here's how the detective Graham Diskins summarized that in
one of the internal police running sheets from early June
nineteen ninety three. If it sounds familiar, that's because you
heard this in episode five.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Had a long conversation with John Winfield about missing person
and reason for taking children to Sydney on Sunday night.
Stated that they travel better at night and that his
wife was aware that he would have them for eight
to ten days in Sydney whilst she had a break.
Produced a document where he purchased petrol in Ballina at
six minutes past eleven on May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
(07:50):
This is consistent with next door neighbor hearing him leave
the premises unable to assist with phone call being made
from his premises at two thirteen am on the Monday morning.
Indications are that the missing person has returned to the
family home after he and the children had left and
made the call whilst obtaining her property. He still states
(08:11):
that after she made the call early in the evening,
she walked out the front door about nine pm carrying
no property. We still can't find her handbag or a
small blue suitcase.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Throughout this episode, you are going to hear a number
of theories about why John seemed so attached to the
petrol receipt and where Broman's remains might be. These theories
are based on circumstantial evidence. While John vehemently denies wrongdoing
or any involvement in Broman's disappearance, these theories give Bromwan's
(08:47):
family hope that her remains may be found and that
she can one day be properly laid to rest. Now
here's Andy's theory about John's strange relationship with the seat
for petrol.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I think it's because he knows he was seen
after eleven ih six in Ballina by Judy, So therefore
he's trying to prove that he was gone, he wasn't there,
and anything Judy has to say as the relevant.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Is that, based in part on Jude Singh's disclosure that
she had a lantern on and he looked up, she
saw him look up at.
Speaker 9 (09:31):
The balcony one.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It all makes sense, now, why was everything based around
that receipt?
Speaker 9 (09:42):
Why are you showing people that receipt?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Debbie would be able to tell you the same story
that he's showing her and Murray this petrol receipt that
he was eleven o six.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
He also produced that receipt to the detective Graham Diskin
in nineteen ninety three. It's mentioned in the rolling sheets.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well there you gon't, but then it's also mentioned in Taylor's, which.
Speaker 9 (10:06):
Are five and a half years later.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It just struck us that, wow, there's the reason why
so much emphasis is brought on that petrol receipt.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Andy and Michelle told me that Broman had complained she
was so strapped for cash she could afford to put
only small serves of fuel in the Ford Falcon sedan.
The tank was never filled up.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
Particularly after she moved out and went to Byron Street.
Speaker 11 (10:39):
If he realized there was no petrol.
Speaker 10 (10:41):
And then.
Speaker 7 (10:43):
Things have happened at home.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Allegedly, the first thing he's going to have to do
is go get petrol, because you're not going to risk
having the car break down run out of petrol. So
he's gone and got petrol which is where Murray's seen
in quietly leaving the house because he doesn't want anyone
(11:07):
to know.
Speaker 11 (11:08):
That he's leaving.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
He goes down the hill and around, gets the petrol,
and comes back and heads down Granite Street.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Whatever time that is.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
June's recollection is that it's very late that night, just
before midnight, and.
Speaker 10 (11:28):
He's gone down Granite Street to do whatever he's got
to do, realizes he's been seen, probably goes somewhere and
I'm not going.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
To say anymore.
Speaker 10 (11:39):
It makes it stick thinking about it, and then shoots
back and gets the girls, which then coincides with what
Crystal always said.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
To us, Oh I saw the clock. It was one o'clock.
That timeline kind of fits.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We're the shortest route you're looking for. A body of
water is Lake Ainsworth. It's completely filled with cannon from
the tree trees.
Speaker 9 (12:09):
It's a dark lake.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
By the time you got your arm in the water
and you go to the length of your arm, the
chances are you can't even see your hand.
Speaker 9 (12:20):
It was a lovely safe place to take the kids.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And swim without worrying about rips and things like that.
But everyone was always mindful to keep an eye on
the kids, because if they went off the sand.
Speaker 9 (12:34):
Bank into the deeper water, you got buckets of finding
them they went under.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's a dark lake. Tanning in the water is unbelievable.
Speaker 12 (12:44):
The sound of the car backing out and scraping the
bottom is perhaps he was already getting things organized to
help weigh things down and we something was in the boot.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And there's no way that there was enough time to
dig somewhere to hide.
Speaker 10 (13:08):
Bromwin the street on the right hand side of the lake,
and if you go up there you can nearly at
some point back your car or park right beside the.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Edge of the road and the water is right next
to you.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Back then there was a road in and out, but
now it's actually a pedestrian path after the first few
hundred motors.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What's the function of the surfboard.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
To be able to take her out to the center
of the lake where it's quite deep way down, drop
her off the board, paddle back in, come on, pick
up the girls by all out to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
In your opinion, the ten forty pm trip that Murray witnesses,
where the car bottoms out and then rolls down the hill,
lights off, an engine off is the first trip, and
that's to get fuel.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I believe, so he would have known that the lights
were still on in Murray's house.
Speaker 10 (14:11):
If you're going to leave children in the house because
you've got to go and do something, you don't want
them to wake up.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
You don't want them to hear you leaving.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So he's stealth away, gets the petrol, comes back packs
the car, match down the drive. Possible that the door
didn't latch securely, and when he's backed out because of
the angle of the hill, what Judy identifies as the
money could have weighed or slightly bumped the door and
(14:44):
that's turned the interior light on.
Speaker 9 (14:47):
So he's gone very very slowly down Granite Street.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He wasn't banking on the poor lady that's worried about
miscarrying and and all sorts of things drama's going on,
couldn't sleep and was sitting on a veranda. She actually
states that he glanced up. She knew exactly who it was,
and she remembers the car. There's plenty of locals that
(15:14):
will tell you that car at squeaky brakes. Judy has
seen the car and there was no children in the
backseat of that car with a surfboard and a mummy.
Why is someone carrying at receeet around for so long to.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
Prove and they left town at eleven oh six.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
That eleven oh six pm receipt only shows that he
bought fuel at eleven oh six pm. It doesn't show
what time he left anywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
But it now brings relevance to the fact of why
are you putting so much emphasis on it?
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I believe he knows that he was seen.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Mel Taylor, Marian Deb's daughter. She has a very vivid
memory on Tuesday May eighteen of going into the house
and seeing the children's bed stripped of their sheets. Correat, Well,
we know that Broman had tucked the children in correct,
(16:14):
How would Lauren and Crystal have coped with being woken
up and had their bedstripped and dad goes missing.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
No, I don't believe that happened. I believe that they
were put in the main bedroom. It's just my theory
because Bristol when she was about eighteen or so and
first came down to Sydney. She came and spend a
little bit of time with us, and it's probably the
first time that we had what I'd refer to as
(16:47):
an adult conversation about the whole thing. She had this
recollection that she saw one o'clock. She thought it was
one o'clock when she got woken. Dad woke say we're
going in the car. Ian Michelle vividly, totally, totally remember
(17:09):
that conversation at our place that she thought it was
one o'class.
Speaker 10 (17:12):
She went, no, no, it'sn't a lap, and it was one,
like she corrected us.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, And bearing in mind it's a theory and it's
pure speculation. But you have in your mind John going
into the children's bedrooms, waking each of them up, directing
them to go into mum and Dad's room.
Speaker 9 (17:33):
How many times have you picked your kids up and
relocated them asleep and they wouldn't even be aware of it. Yep,
we've done it multiple times.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, of course, you come home your kids.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Have fallen asleep in the car. Whether they're ten and
five or eight and three, doesn't matter. You pick your
kids up. They probably stir, they wake up, They cut
off back into your shoulder, You carry them, and you
put down into the bed.
Speaker 9 (17:59):
They wake up with them and they've got no idea
how they got there.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
I believe that they were.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Possibly moved into the bedroom, put in the main bed
sheets obtained hence by melt has that vivid memory, and
they were used to discard Bromwin.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
In nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You could walk down the middle of Lenny's head on
a Sunday night's dark naked mate no one and see you.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
No one was around. It was very quiet on a
Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It's not like the Cosmopolitan, the sort of place it
is today.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
It's possibly some concrete blocks or something around.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I don't recall john't ever really leaving the place that untidy.
But if you have weights and a bench pressing everything
in the garage, bar bells and things like that, wap
down around a body with a piece of rope and
tie them on. You're going to drive straight down there,
straight down the hill, straight through the main drag, go down.
Speaker 9 (19:03):
To Lake Gainsworth. It's not lit up.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I believe that everything would have been floated out on
the surfboard. Swim out with your arm over the top
of the board, using your legs and your other arm,
swim all the way out out to the middle.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Chip it.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
She's not gonna flat very well, jump back on, paddle
back in job done ten minutes flat. It's a terrible
thing to be thinking of. That makes sense back aim
makes sense to us now bugged us for so long.
Why he had to put so much emphasis on that
(19:44):
petrol receipt.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
It's the time stamp he's after.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, it's always bugged me. I couldn't fathom it, and
you and I talked about it, and I asked Scruffy
about it. I did wonder what was the motive for
him to be showing people that were seen to prove
that he didn't have time to take her body and
bury her anywhere between A and B. The way he
(20:13):
saw it was John wanted to prove that he didn't
have time for foul play.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (20:21):
Well, scrappies on the money, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I've just missed a call from Mardie. She's been doing
a bit of research too. I'll catch up with her
and maybe we'll talk tomorrow. Hey, Okay, goes By, you've
(20:57):
been doing some homework.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
I have been doing some work.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Since meeting Mattie Walsh in September twenty twenty three in Sydney.
I have asked her to do many tasks for this
podcast series about the disappearance of her second cousin Bromwin.
Maddie has done research into laws that were in existence
in nineteen ninety three to protect women from domestic violence,
(21:23):
and Maddie's done timelines around key events in the case.
She's discovered anomalies in the evidence. She has read and
summarized hundreds of pages of transcript from the five days
of public hearings of the inquest from two thousand and two,
and that's for a later episode. We will reconstruct the
(21:43):
evidence of key witnesses who were part of that inquest,
overseen by the then Deputy State Coroner Karl Milavanovitch. Although
Mattie was not born until two thousand and three, a
decade after Bromwin vanished in Lennox Head, Maddie has met
several of the key witnesses in this place. People liked
(22:04):
the retired detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Bromwin's neighbors Debbie
Hall and Murray Nolan. Surfer's incredible. There's a lot of
guys out and girls.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
What do you think of I love it here.
Speaker 7 (22:22):
I've been here a lot before. What's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
We drove the coast road and envied the lucky surfers
who were out riding endlessly peeling perfect waves.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
In my teenage years, we used to go on drives
and things around here.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Did you associate it with Bromin when you visited here?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
I you should appeared in Lennox Heath, But I did
not know that they actually lived here. I was not
aware of that because I had always known Crystal to
live in Sydney. It took me a while to realize
that that wasn't a normal thing with other families.
Speaker 7 (23:01):
Don't just casually have family members that I've been murdered allegedly,
Let's not forget the allegedly.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
On one of my visits to Lennox, I drove Maddie
where deb Hall had taken me, right past John's house,
not the one he used to live in in Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
So did he build this next house or did you
just buy it?
Speaker 12 (23:26):
Do you know.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
He built it?
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Interesting? It does look like a fortress.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
I feel like a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Maddie knew from me about a woman called Judy Singh
long before I disclosed it to anyone else. Maddie's good
at keeping secrets. She's been a vault at twenty one,
Maddie hasn't yet joined the workforce. She's doing all of
this work for the podcast on a voluntary basis. Perhaps
that's why we call the tasks that she does her homework.
(24:06):
Since Judy Singh's revelations were aired in episode seven with
graphics and video reconstructions on the website of The Australian
and the Bronwyn podcast dot com site, Maddie has been busy.
What have you found?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
I was researching into how fabric decomposes in freshwater and
also saltwater, and I found that polyester does not decompose
because it's mainly made out of plastics. And then I
searched up what surfboard covers are made out of because
that's the going theory that he put her in a
(24:42):
surfbook cover, and surfboard bags are most commonly made out
of polyester, which means that there's entirely a possibility that
she is still in a surfbook cover at the bottom
of a body of water. But I found more things. Okay,
I was looking at how much weight you would need
(25:04):
for a body to be submerged in water and not
float back up, and for a fit person like Bromwyn,
who was very tall and lean, so a fit person
they displace one hundred five percent of their body weight
in water. Eight to ten percent of their weight is
needed in order to submerge them. For instance, if you
(25:26):
fill a surfboard bag with what could be loose concrete,
which is the easiest to source the cheapest, you only
need ten percent of per body weight, which I don't
really know maths, but what is that maybe, which is
not a lot. It's not as much as you think.
The bigger you are and the more fat you hold,
(25:46):
the easier it is for you to float to the top.
The thinner you are, you're likely, just based on how
you're built, not likely to float up to the top.
There's also a running theory that it could be Lake Ainsworth. Now,
the thing about this lake is it's a freshwater tea
tree lake with a dark color to it. This is
(26:10):
because of certain trees which have permanently colored the water brown.
People love to go swithing there and all the rest
of it, which is a little bit morbid now that
I think about it. Basically, one girl said that she
loves being there when she was little, but as she
got further out, the deep the water got, the darker
it got and when she would dive down, she wouldn't
(26:33):
be able to see anything.
Speaker 7 (26:34):
She compared it to a dark abyss.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
So if you were to be up above looking down,
you couldn't see anything in there. It's a dark body
of water, even when you're going under the water.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I try to picture a man pulling a surfboard with
Bromin's body in a surfboard bag on top of that board,
and then toppling over the side, sinking to these really dark,
murky depths. But you're saying that because the surfboard bag
(27:11):
is almost certainly made out of polyester, it's probably intact.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
Yes, that is what I'm saying. Everything inside probably has decomposed.
The body will just naturally release gases and bacteria that
will eat away at the body over time. But the
body will still be together because of this surfboard bag. Now,
if it was just in a sheet, and he just
(27:38):
disposed of the body in the sheet that Jude saw
a body wrapped in, then it would be a different
story because that sheet would decompose quite quickly due to
its videgradable nature, and due to currents, debris, or the
rest of it. It caused the body to DeepThroat, especially limbs.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I remember Mel telling us when we met her in
that public library that John used to intimidate her because
she'd see him in the garage.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
I think it was this because of the strength of him.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's just my memory of the person he was seeing
him working out with his Brench press and yeah, that
wasn't the garage. So if he's got heavy weights, which
would allow you to say thread rope or a chain
through those, so then wrap around a surfboard bag, or alternatively,
(28:40):
because they're quite flat, you could slide those into a
surfboard bag which is already enclosing a body. You raise
concrete as a possibility, and that could be right, but
so much easier if you've got flat and really heavy
(29:01):
actual weights.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
If it is ways, there's a chance those weights are
still intact.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And you confirm that the material for surfboard bags in
nineteen ninety three was polyester.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Yeah, it's made out of plastic.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
It's slightly waterproof, it's light, it's durable.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
It makes a lot of sense that it wouldn't break down.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
It'd be much easier to transfer a body in a
polyester bag because it'd be more sturdy. I found an
article on the people that recover bodies for free. They
have found so many bodies, like over one hundred bodies.
Speaker 13 (29:48):
Authorities credit Gene and Cindy Rouston of CUNA with helping
them find the body of a missing man, but they've
been helping families and law enforcement agencies for over two
decades now. The couple started back in nineteen ninety nine
and since then they say they've assisted in at least
one hundred and seventeen body recoveries. It's a lot of
bodies if you ask me, and they're really nice people.
Geene Ralston says what him and his wife do gives
(30:09):
them a good feeling.
Speaker 14 (30:11):
You don't really know what it means to have someone
lost in the water, and they'll be able to find them.
Side scan sonar uses sound to create images of things,
much like medical ultrasound in that it doesn't require light,
but you can think of sound as light. That it
transmits a beam of sound and then it reflects off
(30:33):
the bottom and images objects on the bottom. Anything on
the bottom will typically have a distinct shadow behind it.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
And they found a man who had been missing for
twenty nine years using SONA and the oldest body they
recovered was someone who had been lying at the bottom
of a lake for as long as one hundred years.
Oh my gosh, through sona and they found bodies that
have been bound with jim waite and they have been
found using cable ties.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
They linked the cable ties back to the.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Person who murdered this person because they found that at
their house. So they also said murder victims look different
under sonar because they're usually tied up and weighed down.
Speaker 7 (31:17):
So this is actually very common occurrence.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
You like Lake Ainsworth as a possibility, it's too risky
in the ocean.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Yeah, it's too risky. He wouldn't have done that. And also,
imagine trying to get through the waves in the middle
of the night in a lake of water. You know
that not much is you going to change, except for
maybe a bit of wind and a bit of current.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Andy and Michelle are of the same view that Lay
Ainsworth is the target zone.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
If she was in a sand dune, the wind would
have recovered her. He didn't have enough time to bury
her six feet under. And also digging a hole in
sand is very difficult, especially at night. It would be
so much easier to drop her in the middle of
a lake.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That Maddie at the start of this podcast, In fact,
months before the first episode was released, I remember talking
to you at Megan's house.
Speaker 15 (32:17):
You were really.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Determined to keep an open mind and not have too
many preconceptions about things. Is it the way of evidence
now that has caused you to now look at John
as her probable killer or is there something else going on?
Speaker 7 (32:39):
Well, it's definitely based on the evidence.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
I mean when I first started this, I didn't really
know any of the evidence. But once you take into
perspective every single fact and everyone's recollections, and now with
Jew's recollection, the possibility or the hypothesis that something else
happened is really so impossible. There's really no other explanation.
(33:06):
So he knows the lake well, and the lake is.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
Better than the ocean. He's very familiar with water.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
He had a surfboard in the cup, used the surfboard
as a floatation device of sorts.
Speaker 7 (33:18):
Now that I've looked more into the lake, it seems
to all line up.
Speaker 12 (33:21):
Now.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
He knew the water. He was a water person. He's
in the water every day. He knew the lake, he
knew the color of the lake, he knew that it
was dark due to the terrain surrounding it, so the
chances of her being seen from bird's eye view impossible.
If the lake has never been searched before, it just
(33:43):
shows you how untouched it is really, and the police
aren't doing anything, so might just have to be us.
I don't have a sonar thingy, we won't be able
to see anything Scooba diving wise. I'll actually look around
and see who owns one up there. I'm sure someone does.
(34:05):
We can do it. It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Mary's often to help.
Speaker 7 (34:11):
Oh amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
He has in his mind the area where he believes
if she's there, she would be.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Well, that's exactly who we need then, because it's a
big lake and you have to go so slow and
whatever boat you're on, because you have to do a
grid search. And there's also a chance there's a lot
of debris because there's a lot of trees, the tea
tree leaves. He'll be in layers, probably close to the
shore where the trees are, and then probably be less
(34:45):
and less as we get deeper. But you know what
else exists. It's like mini submarines. But it's going to
be hard to see that swimny thing. You can't see
anything in the lake.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Steal weights, dumb bells or whatever. They may show up
with metal detection equipment.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
True, a lot of people on the internet have like
discussed this, and it's kind of creepy, just like weighing
bodies down. So when I said concrete, I'm in concrete
in the bag. Concrete is heavy already on its own.
Water into that that's really heavy. If it was like
(35:32):
a six foot bag with the dumb bells, you could
cable tie the dumb bells to like the handles and
all the rest of it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The thing that surprises me, Mattie, is the relatively small
amount of weight that would submerge a lean body.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
But then it's backed up by scuba divers. Obviously, if
you want to scuba dive, you have to wear weights
so you can actually go under. Because we have this
thing called it like a mutual boy and see, because
our lungs fill with air. When they fill with air,
we float. No matter whether you're dead or alive. You
need weight to get you down, to actually get you
(36:11):
deep into the water. So freshwater you're likely to sink
easier because saltwater makes you more buoyant, and then obviously
the depth of the water. If you are really deep,
it's going to be harder for you to float back
up just based on the pressure of the water.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Was it a bit disconcerting doing all this research?
Speaker 7 (36:34):
This is my favorite thing to do. I was a student.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Now I'm a graduate, so technically a forensic scientist, and
this is the type of research.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
That I love.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Scruffy texted me today, Oh gosh, what did he say?
Lake Ainsworth?
Speaker 7 (36:53):
Really?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Mary Nolan is also of that view.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
I think we need to get a a sona, a
side scan sona because they have found so many people.
I will happily die if we find something.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
You won't be able to see anything.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
Well, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
It's like braille. You just feel around. That's what someone
described it as. You have to touch, you can't see.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I just wanted to check in Andy, because those text
messages could be important. Could you please just tell me
the background to those?
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I was contacted by a friend.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
This case is filled with what ifs. There are several
compelling theories about where Bromwin's body might be. Lake Ainsworth,
for example, has sounded plausible since Judy Singh came forward
and described having seen a surfboard in the Ford Falcon
late at night, besides something that looked like a body
(38:25):
wrapped in sheets. But until Judy revealed those remarkable things
in episode seven, Blake Ainsworth had scarcely been mentioned to
me by anyone. Madison, Walsh, Andy Reid, Michelle and I
were suspicious instead about a building site in the Southerland
Shire south of Sydney, the shire where John Winfield grew
(38:48):
up and where he lived with and then divorced his
first two wives before meeting Bromman and moving with her
to Lennox Head. The truth is we don't know where
broman is, but there are good reasons to keep an
open mind and to remain suspicious of that building site
in the shire. You'll recall that John Winfield left Sydney
(39:10):
suddenly on the late afternoon of Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen
ninety three to fly to Ballina, and then he went
to his home in Sandstone Crescent because bromwin had moved
back in there with her two daughters. John had been
in Sydney for several weeks because he was helping the
builder Glenn Webster, construct a house for Glenn in a
(39:30):
place called Illawong in the Shire. Andy's friend, we'll just
call him Mike, was familiar with it because right next
to Glenn Webster's house block was another block of land.
A new house would in time be built there too,
by the respected builder Glenn Webster. This other house was
(39:51):
for Mike's brother. Andy has shown me a photograph and
it's dated July nineteen ninety three. It shows that construction
has not begun on Mike's brother's house, but the house
next to it was underway. The brick walls were up.
Andy is a qualified builder who works on house builds
(40:13):
every day. The photograph from July nineteen ninety three of
the building site at which John was working shows an
early stage of construction. Now we know John denies wrongdoing,
and there is no suggestion whatsoever of any wrongdoing by
Glenn Webster, a highly regarded builder noted for his professionalism.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I believe over the years that John has done a
fair bit of work for Glenn Webster.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Do you know the area?
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I know the area, yes, correct.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
We know that John was working there in ninety three.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
What was it like?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Was it densely populated thirty years ago?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
It wouldn't have been No, Illawong was a suburb that
might have had sporadic housing around it.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
How far away is it from your house now?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Twenty minute run.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
When I read your text message and saw the reference
to the volume of excavation and concrete and so on,
and just in the context of what the coroner believes
has happened and what the police believe happened, it just
made a whole lot of sense. What was he doing
(41:32):
after he dropped the girls at his ex wife's place.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Jane was looking after him. Correct, It's amazing what you
followed out.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Have you previously considered, just as a theory, the idea
that Romin's remains may have been concreted or breakeed in
at that property in Illawong where John was working.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
There's been plenty of theory like and we tossed up
the idea that possibly he could have driven all the
way down here.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
We prombined in the boot of that car.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
And it makes some sort of sense for the fact
that he brought no luggage, no suitcases, no clothes, nothing
for the girls to wear.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
But when he arrived at your house and Michelle saw him,
he opened the boot.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Didn't he once I got home, I asked him, and
we went up to the back at the car and
he opened the boot. That's where he got out the
two small pillow cases that had you know, like three
or four items of clothing chucked in each pillow case,
but nothing was adequate for Sydney weather. That just struck
me how clean the boot was and there was only
(42:48):
the metal lighting. I could see the spare.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Tire by lightning.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
You mean no upholstery, do carpet, none of the usual stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well in the old days, old cars like that, they
just had like an old vinyl type lighting.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Do you remember questioning why he didn't bring any stuff,
why they had no clothes?
Speaker 10 (43:12):
I said, why has everything shoved into a pillowcase? Like what?
And I had a quick look inside and I said, like,
there's not that much in here.
Speaker 11 (43:23):
That was there was a couple of t shirts and
singlets and bits and pieces, but there was nothing substantial
in it. And I said, John, why didn't you Why
didn't you pack properly, Like where's the kids clothes?
Speaker 8 (43:35):
And he said, oh, no, you know the.
Speaker 10 (43:38):
Kids I had to drive in the nighttime because it's
better for them.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
If I drive at night.
Speaker 7 (43:44):
So I just quickly got stuff together and took off.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah, that was his excuse.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
The building site in the shire where John was working
as a place where perhaps if John killed bromwinin she
may have been disposed of. How do you rate that
theory amongst all the others you've heard, when you consider
the different circumstances.
Speaker 15 (44:12):
Having seen the boot and knowing that really there wasn't
that much in there, that thought crossed our minds, and
then we thought, oh my god, please don't tell me
he's traveled all the way to Sydney with that poor
lady in the back like that really bothered us. And
(44:33):
then of course the fact that he went to a stranger,
you know, he was prepared to ask somebody else to
mind the kids, and he even asked them for clothes.
Speaker 7 (44:45):
It's kind of like crazy.
Speaker 11 (44:47):
And the fact that he wanted them to stay there
for a couple of weeks, like.
Speaker 15 (44:51):
He wasn't even entertaining coming to us, as they had said.
Speaker 6 (44:55):
Yes, it is telling though the fact that he did
go to is first wife's place and trusted her mother
in law who he had never met, who she had
never met him to look after the kids instead of
going to family. That was what so close ten minutes away.
He didn't want people to start questioning Bromwin's disappearance so
(45:17):
early on, because no one knew until he rocked up
at your place.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
For this theory to have force, any plan to conceal
Broman's body somewhere in Lennox Head, such as Lake Ainsworth
late on the Sunday night had to have been abandoned
in favor of a sudden drive south to Sydney. Would
a fear that a neighbor, Judy Singh, sitting near a
(45:44):
lantern on her balcony in Granite Street, had seen John
with what appeared to be a body in the back
seat of the Ford falcon have brought about an abrupt
change of planned That's the question Andy and Michelle ask
themselves now, particularly in light of their confidence about why
John has gripped onto his petrol receipt since that fateful
(46:06):
Sunday night thirty one years ago. He's driven through the night.
He's got to be really tired because he had traveled
up from Sydney on the Sunday, arrives Sunday evening, goes
to the house, leaves the house, and he drives through
(46:27):
the night. Then he turns up at the hair salon
to see Jodie. Then he goes to his ex wife's
house where he speaks to the mother in law and
when he talks to her, he doesn't want to put
his head down for a sleep. He says, can you
please look after my children. I've got some important work
(46:50):
to do. I've got a big job to do. That's
what she says in her statement. And was he actually
intending when he flew to Balloner on the Sunday night
to be back in Sydney the next day for work.
Speaker 11 (47:07):
Well, from everything that I've read from mister Webster's statement,
he didn't even tell him.
Speaker 7 (47:15):
He was going.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
He just left. He just left. Shit.
Speaker 10 (47:18):
He told me in the afternoon when he rocked up
and knocked on the door, and I walked down and
I got the shock of my life to see them there.
Speaker 7 (47:27):
He eventually told me that he had to get the
car registered.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
That's what he'd been doing.
Speaker 11 (47:33):
So that was what he told me he'd been doing.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
And he you're a builder, yep, this is a really
difficult question for you to consider. Is the construction of
a house when it's at an early stage a place
where you could conceal a body without much trouble.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Without a doubt, quite as you do something underneath any
part of the slab. There was a lot of excavation
that was at that stage of coming short of what
we call out of the ground. You would hide it
underneath in the preparation or in the soil or the sand.
You got footings all the way around the edge. It's
(48:18):
seriously not a hard issue to possibly hide someone like that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
And he told me that his friend had been concerned
for years about the illulung possibility.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, I had a phone conversation, not only the text messages,
and he actually confided in me. Couldn't give me the
exact date, but he actually called this information through to
christ Stoppers.
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Never heard another thing.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
He rang it through from that day forth, you never
heard anything. I know that they also checked a house
up that way that John had burned linked to building,
and they evidly scanned a slab. The slab was very
thick for the SyES of the room it was, but
they found nothing.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
I've talked to Scruffy, you know, Ian Lewis about that. Yeah,
he had suspicions about that. In the previous episode, you
heard Scruffy's reference to the thickness of the concrete in
a house that John had been working on in the
Lenox area. But it is very hard to fit this
theory given the limited amount of time that was available
(49:29):
to John. However, the other house construction site in the
Shire south of Sydney was in a suburb called Illawong
that at the time was relatively isolated and surrounded by bushland,
and as John was already working there, his presence would
not have aroused suspicion. It would be broad daylight. That's
(49:50):
what we're surmising, that it's on the Monday in broad daylight.
We don't really know whether there would have been a
big crew, whether John would have been one of three
or four brickies.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
I always knew John to work one out. He wasn't
part of a team.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
I'd never seen John on a job where he allowed
someone else to be laying bricks on a job that
he was going to put his name to. He had
a good reputation of being a very tidy, very good
brick layer.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
So you saying that at that stage of the construction
of a house, there's probably only John working there.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
John and whoever was laboring, So is there a chance
that John could have been there by himself.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Could have if he disappeared and went out there on
that day.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
He could have easily been there on his own.
Speaker 11 (50:41):
Illowom is still and was quite bushy. It's in National
Park kindar surrounds, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
And is it Mike's theory or concern or suspicion, however
you want to call it? That in the foundation, that's
where Bromwin might be. Yes, have you ever driven past
the house Andy, the house that John was working on
over the years, just because you might have been suspicious?
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I have never known till this date the exact street.
All I knew was that John was working on a
house at Illowong. I've never known what actual house it was.
That Webster's statement says that John was helping him build
a house at Illowan.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I'm just going back to Glenn's statement now.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
And I was looking home still to this date, looks
looks lovely and it's all brick, all brick.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Until today, did you rate this idea of being a
possible resting place for Bromwin as a low probability or
was it up there?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It was discussed, but at that stay they were thinking Wow,
how much front must she have to drive with apart
two kids in a car with the body in the
boot all the way to Sydney and the car wasn't
even registered.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
What if he got caught or pulled over?
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Because back in those days, remember it's not like now,
your color of your Reggie stick or I genified whether
the car was out of date or not.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
Then that's how they knew and they pulled over.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
And how would you describe Mike in terms of his balance?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
And it's an outstanding fella, intelligent fella. And there wasn't
a single person that gave any credence whatsoever that bron
would would ever separate from those girls, Not one person.
There's only one person on the planet that thinks she
was going to walk away from.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Maddie and I talked about this possibility after finishing our
call with Andy and Michelle.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
As a builder, your life is on the job site.
Where is there a big hole? And where is there
a lot of dirt? And where is soon going to
be concreted? And where is somewhere no one else will
frequent except for really me and whoever is working on
the site. I want to know who else was working
(53:21):
on the site at that time.
Speaker 16 (53:23):
If it's true that it was just him and Glenn
Webster working on that side, then it's quite possible that
nobody was at the site on the Monday and John's
able to turn up and he's got the side to himself.
Speaker 6 (53:40):
There's not a chance he would try and bury a
body or dispose of a body if there are other
people also working there or in the vicinity. We've been
told that it was a relatively quiet area thirty or
so years ago. There must have been somewhere he could
drive his car up and an off time to know that,
(54:02):
Oh Glenn isn't available today, he's not coming to the site,
or I told Glenn I didn't need his help today.
I was just going to be there for a few hours,
or even Glenn might have had an appointment of sorts
couldn't get to the site. John didn't work in the team.
He just works solely. To be fair, it's quite smart.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
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.
(54:57):
You can read more about this case and we see
a range of photographs and other artwork at the website
Bromwyn Podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here
episodes first. The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes
Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiert, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Bryan Bianca, far Marcus,
(55:21):
Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We
can only do this kind of journalism with the support
(55:43):
of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
documents about this podcast and other podcasts including The Teacher's Pet,
The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy Story, Shandy's Legacy,
and The Night Drive, go to the Australian dot com
(56:06):
dot Au and subscribe
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. After several
(00:42):
days of replaying and considering everything that Judy Singh had
described in episode seven, and he sounded like a man
ready to make a citizens arrest over his sister's disappearance.
There was anger below the surface. He was apprehensive about
what would happen next with police. He was impatient for action,
(01:05):
but he was also relieved about something. Andy has suspected
John infoul play since a couple of months after Bromwin vanished.
But Andy is confident now that a puzzling thing which
had been nagging him for thirty one years has been answered.
I'm interested in hearing your idea about this eleven oh
(01:26):
six pm receipt for fuel that was purchased on the
Sunday night, May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. Yep, You've been
giving that a bit of thought since Judy Singh came
forward in the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Why did he have to prove to Michelle and produce
a receipt for petrol and then again when I got home?
Maybe whatever it was half an hour or say, forty
minutes later, and then he gets the receipt out and
wants to show it to me, and then we all
I through to ninety eight and Glen Taylor, and one
(02:08):
of the first things that he wants to do with
Glen Taylor is showing a receipt for petrol in Ballina
for eleven oh six.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Evidence and the vivid recollections from people about John's reliance
on the petrol receipt way back in May nineteen ninety
three and over subsequent years has featured in a number
of the recorded interviews I've done over the past several years.
Clearly it's been on our minds well before we heard
Judy Singh's revelations. Here's the retired detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
(02:44):
talking to me in March twenty twenty one when I
went to his house in Ballina during that interview that
you did with Jonathan Winfield, can you describe the circumstances
surrounding him retrieving a receipt.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I said, look, we want to go over again your
movements on that night, and then he said, well, look.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I sat there for a while thinking what to do.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I had worked to finish off down there, and then
he said, well, look, I've actually even got a receipt.
I can show you I've purchased fuel for the car,
and he took his wallet out. For years later, he
still had this receipt in his wallet showing that he
purchased fuel at eleven a six pm.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That night in Ballina.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
He felt the need to retain.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That receipt all those years and still had it in
his wallet. These were things that he believed that were
prime things in his defense.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And what was the significance in your mind in that
interview of him pulling out that piece of paper, the receipt, Well,
look here I am.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I'm definitely in Balaner at eleven a six pm that
night getting fuel.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
How does that help him?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I don't know, but he seemed to think it was
a fund significance that night to say I've given down servitation.
I made a decision to go to Sydney. I needed
to get fuel and this is where I filled up
just before I started driving to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
He's not attempted to disguise the fact that he was
at the house and that he was talking to his
wife in the evening at the house. So it's a
bit of a puzzle as to why that has been
so important for him.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
It is a puzzle and it still remains a puzzle.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Is there something that is missing in terms of understanding
his latching onto that receipt as something significant? There's something
that everyone's miss well.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I don't know why he wanted to show this, not
only to the police but also to Roman's family members
that here I am in Bow and look I've got
this receipt.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It's still puzzling.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And were you able to verify the authenticity of the receipt.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
There's nothing to suggest that the receipt was a forgery.
In so it didn't appear that he did get fuel
at eleven o six pm. But it's obviously going to
take a number of hours to get to Sydney, and
we've got evidence he had arrived down in Sydney to
his ex wash home the next morning with the children,
but we've got no other evidence to suggest where he
(05:21):
may have gone during the course that night or after
we dropped the children off.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
This is Andy talking to me in September twenty twenty three,
that's eight months before the first episode in the Bromin
podcast series. I think we've got a lot of ground
to cover, but let's resume this.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
See the Blake Tarriday petrol receipt around in his's wallet
for years and years, and all of a sudden could
pull out this petrol receipt from a service station to say,
you got petrol.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Here's Andy's wife, Michelle. When we talked in the Shire
in late February twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Four, he gets out his wallet and he's got like
a little receipt that you get from the cashier, and
to show me that he left at eleven o six
pm from a service station, and then he put it
back in his wallet. And I kind of thought to myself,
(06:17):
why you show me that I don't care if you've
got petrol, but.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Doesn't really show what time he left? Does it?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
No?
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Because he could have got fuel, or he could have
done anything.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Madison Walsh and I puzzled over it in early February
twenty twenty four when we met in a cafe in
the Museum of Contemporary Art overlooking Sydney's Circular Key.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
I can't imagine after changing the loots on the house
that she would willingly leave him with the house and
the kids and just sleeps.
Speaker 7 (06:53):
Also, why did John felt the need to keep for
a seat from the petrol station for all those.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Years carrying around in his wallet.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Yeah, that's not normal behavior unless you feel like you
have to have a defense in some way.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And here's how the detective Graham Diskins summarized that in
one of the internal police running sheets from early June
nineteen ninety three. If it sounds familiar, that's because you
heard this in episode five.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Had a long conversation with John Winfield about missing person
and reason for taking children to Sydney on Sunday night.
Stated that they travel better at night and that his
wife was aware that he would have them for eight
to ten days in Sydney whilst she had a break.
Produced a document where he purchased petrol in Ballina at
six minutes past eleven on May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
(07:50):
This is consistent with next door neighbor hearing him leave
the premises unable to assist with phone call being made
from his premises at two thirteen am on the Monday morning.
Indications are that the missing person has returned to the
family home after he and the children had left and
made the call whilst obtaining her property. He still states
(08:11):
that after she made the call early in the evening,
she walked out the front door about nine pm carrying
no property. We still can't find her handbag or a
small blue suitcase.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Throughout this episode, you are going to hear a number
of theories about why John seemed so attached to the
petrol receipt and where Broman's remains might be. These theories
are based on circumstantial evidence. While John vehemently denies wrongdoing
or any involvement in Broman's disappearance, these theories give Bromwan's
(08:47):
family hope that her remains may be found and that
she can one day be properly laid to rest. Now
here's Andy's theory about John's strange relationship with the seat
for petrol.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I think it's because he knows he was seen
after eleven ih six in Ballina by Judy, So therefore
he's trying to prove that he was gone, he wasn't there,
and anything Judy has to say as the relevant.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Is that, based in part on Jude Singh's disclosure that
she had a lantern on and he looked up, she
saw him look up at.
Speaker 9 (09:31):
The balcony one.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It all makes sense, now, why was everything based around
that receipt?
Speaker 9 (09:42):
Why are you showing people that receipt?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Debbie would be able to tell you the same story
that he's showing her and Murray this petrol receipt that
he was eleven o six.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
He also produced that receipt to the detective Graham Diskin
in nineteen ninety three. It's mentioned in the rolling sheets.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well there you gon't, but then it's also mentioned in Taylor's, which.
Speaker 9 (10:06):
Are five and a half years later.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It just struck us that, wow, there's the reason why
so much emphasis is brought on that petrol receipt.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Andy and Michelle told me that Broman had complained she
was so strapped for cash she could afford to put
only small serves of fuel in the Ford Falcon sedan.
The tank was never filled up.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
Particularly after she moved out and went to Byron Street.
Speaker 11 (10:39):
If he realized there was no petrol.
Speaker 10 (10:41):
And then.
Speaker 7 (10:43):
Things have happened at home.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Allegedly, the first thing he's going to have to do
is go get petrol, because you're not going to risk
having the car break down run out of petrol. So
he's gone and got petrol which is where Murray's seen
in quietly leaving the house because he doesn't want anyone
(11:07):
to know.
Speaker 11 (11:08):
That he's leaving.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
He goes down the hill and around, gets the petrol,
and comes back and heads down Granite Street.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Whatever time that is.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
June's recollection is that it's very late that night, just
before midnight, and.
Speaker 10 (11:28):
He's gone down Granite Street to do whatever he's got
to do, realizes he's been seen, probably goes somewhere and
I'm not going.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
To say anymore.
Speaker 10 (11:39):
It makes it stick thinking about it, and then shoots
back and gets the girls, which then coincides with what
Crystal always said.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
To us, Oh I saw the clock. It was one o'clock.
That timeline kind of fits.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We're the shortest route you're looking for. A body of
water is Lake Ainsworth. It's completely filled with cannon from
the tree trees.
Speaker 9 (12:09):
It's a dark lake.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
By the time you got your arm in the water
and you go to the length of your arm, the
chances are you can't even see your hand.
Speaker 9 (12:20):
It was a lovely safe place to take the kids.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And swim without worrying about rips and things like that.
But everyone was always mindful to keep an eye on
the kids, because if they went off the sand.
Speaker 9 (12:34):
Bank into the deeper water, you got buckets of finding
them they went under.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's a dark lake. Tanning in the water is unbelievable.
Speaker 12 (12:44):
The sound of the car backing out and scraping the
bottom is perhaps he was already getting things organized to
help weigh things down and we something was in the boot.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And there's no way that there was enough time to
dig somewhere to hide.
Speaker 10 (13:08):
Bromwin the street on the right hand side of the lake,
and if you go up there you can nearly at
some point back your car or park right beside the.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Edge of the road and the water is right next
to you.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Back then there was a road in and out, but
now it's actually a pedestrian path after the first few
hundred motors.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What's the function of the surfboard.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
To be able to take her out to the center
of the lake where it's quite deep way down, drop
her off the board, paddle back in, come on, pick
up the girls by all out to Sydney.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
In your opinion, the ten forty pm trip that Murray witnesses,
where the car bottoms out and then rolls down the hill,
lights off, an engine off is the first trip, and
that's to get fuel.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I believe, so he would have known that the lights
were still on in Murray's house.
Speaker 10 (14:11):
If you're going to leave children in the house because
you've got to go and do something, you don't want
them to wake up.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
You don't want them to hear you leaving.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So he's stealth away, gets the petrol, comes back packs
the car, match down the drive. Possible that the door
didn't latch securely, and when he's backed out because of
the angle of the hill, what Judy identifies as the
money could have weighed or slightly bumped the door and
(14:44):
that's turned the interior light on.
Speaker 9 (14:47):
So he's gone very very slowly down Granite Street.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He wasn't banking on the poor lady that's worried about
miscarrying and and all sorts of things drama's going on,
couldn't sleep and was sitting on a veranda. She actually
states that he glanced up. She knew exactly who it was,
and she remembers the car. There's plenty of locals that
(15:14):
will tell you that car at squeaky brakes. Judy has
seen the car and there was no children in the
backseat of that car with a surfboard and a mummy.
Why is someone carrying at receeet around for so long to.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
Prove and they left town at eleven oh six.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
That eleven oh six pm receipt only shows that he
bought fuel at eleven oh six pm. It doesn't show
what time he left anywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
But it now brings relevance to the fact of why
are you putting so much emphasis on it?
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I believe he knows that he was seen.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Mel Taylor, Marian Deb's daughter. She has a very vivid
memory on Tuesday May eighteen of going into the house
and seeing the children's bed stripped of their sheets. Correat, Well,
we know that Broman had tucked the children in correct,
(16:14):
How would Lauren and Crystal have coped with being woken
up and had their bedstripped and dad goes missing.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
No, I don't believe that happened. I believe that they
were put in the main bedroom. It's just my theory
because Bristol when she was about eighteen or so and
first came down to Sydney. She came and spend a
little bit of time with us, and it's probably the
first time that we had what I'd refer to as
(16:47):
an adult conversation about the whole thing. She had this
recollection that she saw one o'clock. She thought it was
one o'clock when she got woken. Dad woke say we're
going in the car. Ian Michelle vividly, totally, totally remember
(17:09):
that conversation at our place that she thought it was
one o'class.
Speaker 10 (17:12):
She went, no, no, it'sn't a lap, and it was one,
like she corrected us.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, And bearing in mind it's a theory and it's
pure speculation. But you have in your mind John going
into the children's bedrooms, waking each of them up, directing
them to go into mum and Dad's room.
Speaker 9 (17:33):
How many times have you picked your kids up and
relocated them asleep and they wouldn't even be aware of it. Yep,
we've done it multiple times.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, of course, you come home your kids.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Have fallen asleep in the car. Whether they're ten and
five or eight and three, doesn't matter. You pick your
kids up. They probably stir, they wake up, They cut
off back into your shoulder, You carry them, and you
put down into the bed.
Speaker 9 (17:59):
They wake up with them and they've got no idea
how they got there.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
I believe that they were.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Possibly moved into the bedroom, put in the main bed
sheets obtained hence by melt has that vivid memory, and
they were used to discard Bromwin.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
In nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You could walk down the middle of Lenny's head on
a Sunday night's dark naked mate no one and see you.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
No one was around. It was very quiet on a
Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It's not like the Cosmopolitan, the sort of place it
is today.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
It's possibly some concrete blocks or something around.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I don't recall john't ever really leaving the place that untidy.
But if you have weights and a bench pressing everything
in the garage, bar bells and things like that, wap
down around a body with a piece of rope and
tie them on. You're going to drive straight down there,
straight down the hill, straight through the main drag, go down.
Speaker 9 (19:03):
To Lake Gainsworth. It's not lit up.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I believe that everything would have been floated out on
the surfboard. Swim out with your arm over the top
of the board, using your legs and your other arm,
swim all the way out out to the middle.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Chip it.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
She's not gonna flat very well, jump back on, paddle
back in job done ten minutes flat. It's a terrible
thing to be thinking of. That makes sense back aim
makes sense to us now bugged us for so long.
Why he had to put so much emphasis on that
(19:44):
petrol receipt.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
It's the time stamp he's after.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, it's always bugged me. I couldn't fathom it, and
you and I talked about it, and I asked Scruffy
about it. I did wonder what was the motive for
him to be showing people that were seen to prove
that he didn't have time to take her body and
bury her anywhere between A and B. The way he
(20:13):
saw it was John wanted to prove that he didn't
have time for foul play.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (20:21):
Well, scrappies on the money, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I've just missed a call from Mardie. She's been doing
a bit of research too. I'll catch up with her
and maybe we'll talk tomorrow. Hey, Okay, goes By, you've
(20:57):
been doing some homework.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
I have been doing some work.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Since meeting Mattie Walsh in September twenty twenty three in Sydney.
I have asked her to do many tasks for this
podcast series about the disappearance of her second cousin Bromwin.
Maddie has done research into laws that were in existence
in nineteen ninety three to protect women from domestic violence,
(21:23):
and Maddie's done timelines around key events in the case.
She's discovered anomalies in the evidence. She has read and
summarized hundreds of pages of transcript from the five days
of public hearings of the inquest from two thousand and two,
and that's for a later episode. We will reconstruct the
(21:43):
evidence of key witnesses who were part of that inquest,
overseen by the then Deputy State Coroner Karl Milavanovitch. Although
Mattie was not born until two thousand and three, a
decade after Bromwin vanished in Lennox Head, Maddie has met
several of the key witnesses in this place. People liked
(22:04):
the retired detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Bromwin's neighbors Debbie
Hall and Murray Nolan. Surfer's incredible. There's a lot of
guys out and girls.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
What do you think of I love it here.
Speaker 7 (22:22):
I've been here a lot before. What's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
We drove the coast road and envied the lucky surfers
who were out riding endlessly peeling perfect waves.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
In my teenage years, we used to go on drives
and things around here.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Did you associate it with Bromin when you visited here?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
I you should appeared in Lennox Heath, But I did
not know that they actually lived here. I was not
aware of that because I had always known Crystal to
live in Sydney. It took me a while to realize
that that wasn't a normal thing with other families.
Speaker 7 (23:01):
Don't just casually have family members that I've been murdered allegedly,
Let's not forget the allegedly.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
On one of my visits to Lennox, I drove Maddie
where deb Hall had taken me, right past John's house,
not the one he used to live in in Sandstone Crescent.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
So did he build this next house or did you
just buy it?
Speaker 12 (23:26):
Do you know.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
He built it?
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Interesting? It does look like a fortress.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
I feel like a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Maddie knew from me about a woman called Judy Singh
long before I disclosed it to anyone else. Maddie's good
at keeping secrets. She's been a vault at twenty one,
Maddie hasn't yet joined the workforce. She's doing all of
this work for the podcast on a voluntary basis. Perhaps
that's why we call the tasks that she does her homework.
(24:06):
Since Judy Singh's revelations were aired in episode seven with
graphics and video reconstructions on the website of The Australian
and the Bronwyn podcast dot com site, Maddie has been busy.
What have you found?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
I was researching into how fabric decomposes in freshwater and
also saltwater, and I found that polyester does not decompose
because it's mainly made out of plastics. And then I
searched up what surfboard covers are made out of because
that's the going theory that he put her in a
(24:42):
surfbook cover, and surfboard bags are most commonly made out
of polyester, which means that there's entirely a possibility that
she is still in a surfbook cover at the bottom
of a body of water. But I found more things. Okay,
I was looking at how much weight you would need
(25:04):
for a body to be submerged in water and not
float back up, and for a fit person like Bromwyn,
who was very tall and lean, so a fit person
they displace one hundred five percent of their body weight
in water. Eight to ten percent of their weight is
needed in order to submerge them. For instance, if you
(25:26):
fill a surfboard bag with what could be loose concrete,
which is the easiest to source the cheapest, you only
need ten percent of per body weight, which I don't
really know maths, but what is that maybe, which is
not a lot. It's not as much as you think.
The bigger you are and the more fat you hold,
(25:46):
the easier it is for you to float to the top.
The thinner you are, you're likely, just based on how
you're built, not likely to float up to the top.
There's also a running theory that it could be Lake Ainsworth. Now,
the thing about this lake is it's a freshwater tea
tree lake with a dark color to it. This is
(26:10):
because of certain trees which have permanently colored the water brown.
People love to go swithing there and all the rest
of it, which is a little bit morbid now that
I think about it. Basically, one girl said that she
loves being there when she was little, but as she
got further out, the deep the water got, the darker
it got and when she would dive down, she wouldn't
(26:33):
be able to see anything.
Speaker 7 (26:34):
She compared it to a dark abyss.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
So if you were to be up above looking down,
you couldn't see anything in there. It's a dark body
of water, even when you're going under the water.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I try to picture a man pulling a surfboard with
Bromin's body in a surfboard bag on top of that board,
and then toppling over the side, sinking to these really dark,
murky depths. But you're saying that because the surfboard bag
(27:11):
is almost certainly made out of polyester, it's probably intact.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
Yes, that is what I'm saying. Everything inside probably has decomposed.
The body will just naturally release gases and bacteria that
will eat away at the body over time. But the
body will still be together because of this surfboard bag. Now,
if it was just in a sheet, and he just
(27:38):
disposed of the body in the sheet that Jude saw
a body wrapped in, then it would be a different
story because that sheet would decompose quite quickly due to
its videgradable nature, and due to currents, debris, or the
rest of it. It caused the body to DeepThroat, especially limbs.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I remember Mel telling us when we met her in
that public library that John used to intimidate her because
she'd see him in the garage.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
I think it was this because of the strength of him.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's just my memory of the person he was seeing
him working out with his Brench press and yeah, that
wasn't the garage. So if he's got heavy weights, which
would allow you to say thread rope or a chain
through those, so then wrap around a surfboard bag, or alternatively,
(28:40):
because they're quite flat, you could slide those into a
surfboard bag which is already enclosing a body. You raise
concrete as a possibility, and that could be right, but
so much easier if you've got flat and really heavy
(29:01):
actual weights.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
If it is ways, there's a chance those weights are
still intact.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And you confirm that the material for surfboard bags in
nineteen ninety three was polyester.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Yeah, it's made out of plastic.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
It's slightly waterproof, it's light, it's durable.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
It makes a lot of sense that it wouldn't break down.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
It'd be much easier to transfer a body in a
polyester bag because it'd be more sturdy. I found an
article on the people that recover bodies for free. They
have found so many bodies, like over one hundred bodies.
Speaker 13 (29:48):
Authorities credit Gene and Cindy Rouston of CUNA with helping
them find the body of a missing man, but they've
been helping families and law enforcement agencies for over two
decades now. The couple started back in nineteen ninety nine
and since then they say they've assisted in at least
one hundred and seventeen body recoveries. It's a lot of
bodies if you ask me, and they're really nice people.
Geene Ralston says what him and his wife do gives
(30:09):
them a good feeling.
Speaker 14 (30:11):
You don't really know what it means to have someone
lost in the water, and they'll be able to find them.
Side scan sonar uses sound to create images of things,
much like medical ultrasound in that it doesn't require light,
but you can think of sound as light. That it
transmits a beam of sound and then it reflects off
(30:33):
the bottom and images objects on the bottom. Anything on
the bottom will typically have a distinct shadow behind it.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
And they found a man who had been missing for
twenty nine years using SONA and the oldest body they
recovered was someone who had been lying at the bottom
of a lake for as long as one hundred years.
Oh my gosh, through sona and they found bodies that
have been bound with jim waite and they have been
found using cable ties.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
They linked the cable ties back to the.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Person who murdered this person because they found that at
their house. So they also said murder victims look different
under sonar because they're usually tied up and weighed down.
Speaker 7 (31:17):
So this is actually very common occurrence.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
You like Lake Ainsworth as a possibility, it's too risky
in the ocean.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Yeah, it's too risky. He wouldn't have done that. And also,
imagine trying to get through the waves in the middle
of the night in a lake of water. You know
that not much is you going to change, except for
maybe a bit of wind and a bit of current.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Andy and Michelle are of the same view that Lay
Ainsworth is the target zone.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
If she was in a sand dune, the wind would
have recovered her. He didn't have enough time to bury
her six feet under. And also digging a hole in
sand is very difficult, especially at night. It would be
so much easier to drop her in the middle of
a lake.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That Maddie at the start of this podcast, In fact,
months before the first episode was released, I remember talking
to you at Megan's house.
Speaker 15 (32:17):
You were really.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Determined to keep an open mind and not have too
many preconceptions about things. Is it the way of evidence
now that has caused you to now look at John
as her probable killer or is there something else going on?
Speaker 7 (32:39):
Well, it's definitely based on the evidence.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
I mean when I first started this, I didn't really
know any of the evidence. But once you take into
perspective every single fact and everyone's recollections, and now with
Jew's recollection, the possibility or the hypothesis that something else
happened is really so impossible. There's really no other explanation.
(33:06):
So he knows the lake well, and the lake is.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
Better than the ocean. He's very familiar with water.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
He had a surfboard in the cup, used the surfboard
as a floatation device of sorts.
Speaker 7 (33:18):
Now that I've looked more into the lake, it seems
to all line up.
Speaker 12 (33:21):
Now.
Speaker 6 (33:23):
He knew the water. He was a water person. He's
in the water every day. He knew the lake, he
knew the color of the lake, he knew that it
was dark due to the terrain surrounding it, so the
chances of her being seen from bird's eye view impossible.
If the lake has never been searched before, it just
(33:43):
shows you how untouched it is really, and the police
aren't doing anything, so might just have to be us.
I don't have a sonar thingy, we won't be able
to see anything Scooba diving wise. I'll actually look around
and see who owns one up there. I'm sure someone does.
(34:05):
We can do it. It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Mary's often to help.
Speaker 7 (34:11):
Oh amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
He has in his mind the area where he believes
if she's there, she would be.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Well, that's exactly who we need then, because it's a
big lake and you have to go so slow and
whatever boat you're on, because you have to do a
grid search. And there's also a chance there's a lot
of debris because there's a lot of trees, the tea
tree leaves. He'll be in layers, probably close to the
shore where the trees are, and then probably be less
(34:45):
and less as we get deeper. But you know what
else exists. It's like mini submarines. But it's going to
be hard to see that swimny thing. You can't see
anything in the lake.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Steal weights, dumb bells or whatever. They may show up
with metal detection equipment.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
True, a lot of people on the internet have like
discussed this, and it's kind of creepy, just like weighing
bodies down. So when I said concrete, I'm in concrete
in the bag. Concrete is heavy already on its own.
Water into that that's really heavy. If it was like
(35:32):
a six foot bag with the dumb bells, you could
cable tie the dumb bells to like the handles and
all the rest of it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The thing that surprises me, Mattie, is the relatively small
amount of weight that would submerge a lean body.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
But then it's backed up by scuba divers. Obviously, if
you want to scuba dive, you have to wear weights
so you can actually go under. Because we have this
thing called it like a mutual boy and see, because
our lungs fill with air. When they fill with air,
we float. No matter whether you're dead or alive. You
need weight to get you down, to actually get you
(36:11):
deep into the water. So freshwater you're likely to sink
easier because saltwater makes you more buoyant, and then obviously
the depth of the water. If you are really deep,
it's going to be harder for you to float back
up just based on the pressure of the water.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Was it a bit disconcerting doing all this research?
Speaker 7 (36:34):
This is my favorite thing to do. I was a student.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Now I'm a graduate, so technically a forensic scientist, and
this is the type of research.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
That I love.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Scruffy texted me today, Oh gosh, what did he say?
Lake Ainsworth?
Speaker 7 (36:53):
Really?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Mary Nolan is also of that view.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
I think we need to get a a sona, a
side scan sona because they have found so many people.
I will happily die if we find something.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
You won't be able to see anything.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
Well, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
It's like braille. You just feel around. That's what someone
described it as. You have to touch, you can't see.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I just wanted to check in Andy, because those text
messages could be important. Could you please just tell me
the background to those?
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I was contacted by a friend.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
This case is filled with what ifs. There are several
compelling theories about where Bromwin's body might be. Lake Ainsworth,
for example, has sounded plausible since Judy Singh came forward
and described having seen a surfboard in the Ford Falcon
late at night, besides something that looked like a body
(38:25):
wrapped in sheets. But until Judy revealed those remarkable things
in episode seven, Blake Ainsworth had scarcely been mentioned to
me by anyone. Madison, Walsh, Andy Reid, Michelle and I
were suspicious instead about a building site in the Southerland
Shire south of Sydney, the shire where John Winfield grew
(38:48):
up and where he lived with and then divorced his
first two wives before meeting Bromman and moving with her
to Lennox Head. The truth is we don't know where
broman is, but there are good reasons to keep an
open mind and to remain suspicious of that building site
in the shire. You'll recall that John Winfield left Sydney
(39:10):
suddenly on the late afternoon of Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen
ninety three to fly to Ballina, and then he went
to his home in Sandstone Crescent because bromwin had moved
back in there with her two daughters. John had been
in Sydney for several weeks because he was helping the
builder Glenn Webster, construct a house for Glenn in a
(39:30):
place called Illawong in the Shire. Andy's friend, we'll just
call him Mike, was familiar with it because right next
to Glenn Webster's house block was another block of land.
A new house would in time be built there too,
by the respected builder Glenn Webster. This other house was
(39:51):
for Mike's brother. Andy has shown me a photograph and
it's dated July nineteen ninety three. It shows that construction
has not begun on Mike's brother's house, but the house
next to it was underway. The brick walls were up.
Andy is a qualified builder who works on house builds
(40:13):
every day. The photograph from July nineteen ninety three of
the building site at which John was working shows an
early stage of construction. Now we know John denies wrongdoing,
and there is no suggestion whatsoever of any wrongdoing by
Glenn Webster, a highly regarded builder noted for his professionalism.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I believe over the years that John has done a
fair bit of work for Glenn Webster.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Do you know the area?
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I know the area, yes, correct.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
We know that John was working there in ninety three.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
What was it like?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Was it densely populated thirty years ago?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
It wouldn't have been No, Illawong was a suburb that
might have had sporadic housing around it.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
How far away is it from your house now?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Twenty minute run.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
When I read your text message and saw the reference
to the volume of excavation and concrete and so on,
and just in the context of what the coroner believes
has happened and what the police believe happened, it just
made a whole lot of sense. What was he doing
(41:32):
after he dropped the girls at his ex wife's place.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Jane was looking after him. Correct, It's amazing what you
followed out.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Have you previously considered, just as a theory, the idea
that Romin's remains may have been concreted or breakeed in
at that property in Illawong where John was working.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
There's been plenty of theory like and we tossed up
the idea that possibly he could have driven all the
way down here.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
We prombined in the boot of that car.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
And it makes some sort of sense for the fact
that he brought no luggage, no suitcases, no clothes, nothing
for the girls to wear.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
But when he arrived at your house and Michelle saw him,
he opened the boot.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Didn't he once I got home, I asked him, and
we went up to the back at the car and
he opened the boot. That's where he got out the
two small pillow cases that had you know, like three
or four items of clothing chucked in each pillow case,
but nothing was adequate for Sydney weather. That just struck
me how clean the boot was and there was only
(42:48):
the metal lighting. I could see the spare.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Tire by lightning.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
You mean no upholstery, do carpet, none of the usual stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well in the old days, old cars like that, they
just had like an old vinyl type lighting.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Do you remember questioning why he didn't bring any stuff,
why they had no clothes?
Speaker 10 (43:12):
I said, why has everything shoved into a pillowcase? Like what?
And I had a quick look inside and I said, like,
there's not that much in here.
Speaker 11 (43:23):
That was there was a couple of t shirts and
singlets and bits and pieces, but there was nothing substantial
in it. And I said, John, why didn't you Why
didn't you pack properly, Like where's the kids clothes?
Speaker 8 (43:35):
And he said, oh, no, you know the.
Speaker 10 (43:38):
Kids I had to drive in the nighttime because it's
better for them.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
If I drive at night.
Speaker 7 (43:44):
So I just quickly got stuff together and took off.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah, that was his excuse.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
The building site in the shire where John was working
as a place where perhaps if John killed bromwinin she
may have been disposed of. How do you rate that
theory amongst all the others you've heard, when you consider
the different circumstances.
Speaker 15 (44:12):
Having seen the boot and knowing that really there wasn't
that much in there, that thought crossed our minds, and
then we thought, oh my god, please don't tell me
he's traveled all the way to Sydney with that poor
lady in the back like that really bothered us. And
(44:33):
then of course the fact that he went to a stranger,
you know, he was prepared to ask somebody else to
mind the kids, and he even asked them for clothes.
Speaker 7 (44:45):
It's kind of like crazy.
Speaker 11 (44:47):
And the fact that he wanted them to stay there
for a couple of weeks, like.
Speaker 15 (44:51):
He wasn't even entertaining coming to us, as they had said.
Speaker 6 (44:55):
Yes, it is telling though the fact that he did
go to is first wife's place and trusted her mother
in law who he had never met, who she had
never met him to look after the kids instead of
going to family. That was what so close ten minutes away.
He didn't want people to start questioning Bromwin's disappearance so
(45:17):
early on, because no one knew until he rocked up
at your place.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
For this theory to have force, any plan to conceal
Broman's body somewhere in Lennox Head, such as Lake Ainsworth
late on the Sunday night had to have been abandoned
in favor of a sudden drive south to Sydney. Would
a fear that a neighbor, Judy Singh, sitting near a
(45:44):
lantern on her balcony in Granite Street, had seen John
with what appeared to be a body in the back
seat of the Ford falcon have brought about an abrupt
change of planned That's the question Andy and Michelle ask
themselves now, particularly in light of their confidence about why
John has gripped onto his petrol receipt since that fateful
(46:06):
Sunday night thirty one years ago. He's driven through the night.
He's got to be really tired because he had traveled
up from Sydney on the Sunday, arrives Sunday evening, goes
to the house, leaves the house, and he drives through
(46:27):
the night. Then he turns up at the hair salon
to see Jodie. Then he goes to his ex wife's
house where he speaks to the mother in law and
when he talks to her, he doesn't want to put
his head down for a sleep. He says, can you
please look after my children. I've got some important work
(46:50):
to do. I've got a big job to do. That's
what she says in her statement. And was he actually
intending when he flew to Balloner on the Sunday night
to be back in Sydney the next day for work.
Speaker 11 (47:07):
Well, from everything that I've read from mister Webster's statement,
he didn't even tell him.
Speaker 7 (47:15):
He was going.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
He just left. He just left. Shit.
Speaker 10 (47:18):
He told me in the afternoon when he rocked up
and knocked on the door, and I walked down and
I got the shock of my life to see them there.
Speaker 7 (47:27):
He eventually told me that he had to get the
car registered.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
That's what he'd been doing.
Speaker 11 (47:33):
So that was what he told me he'd been doing.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
And he you're a builder, yep, this is a really
difficult question for you to consider. Is the construction of
a house when it's at an early stage a place
where you could conceal a body without much trouble.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Without a doubt, quite as you do something underneath any
part of the slab. There was a lot of excavation
that was at that stage of coming short of what
we call out of the ground. You would hide it
underneath in the preparation or in the soil or the sand.
You got footings all the way around the edge. It's
(48:18):
seriously not a hard issue to possibly hide someone like that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
And he told me that his friend had been concerned
for years about the illulung possibility.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, I had a phone conversation, not only the text messages,
and he actually confided in me. Couldn't give me the
exact date, but he actually called this information through to
christ Stoppers.
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Never heard another thing.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
He rang it through from that day forth, you never
heard anything. I know that they also checked a house
up that way that John had burned linked to building,
and they evidly scanned a slab. The slab was very
thick for the SyES of the room it was, but
they found nothing.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
I've talked to Scruffy, you know, Ian Lewis about that. Yeah,
he had suspicions about that. In the previous episode, you
heard Scruffy's reference to the thickness of the concrete in
a house that John had been working on in the
Lenox area. But it is very hard to fit this
theory given the limited amount of time that was available
(49:29):
to John. However, the other house construction site in the
Shire south of Sydney was in a suburb called Illawong
that at the time was relatively isolated and surrounded by bushland,
and as John was already working there, his presence would
not have aroused suspicion. It would be broad daylight. That's
(49:50):
what we're surmising, that it's on the Monday in broad daylight.
We don't really know whether there would have been a
big crew, whether John would have been one of three
or four brickies.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
I always knew John to work one out. He wasn't
part of a team.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
I'd never seen John on a job where he allowed
someone else to be laying bricks on a job that
he was going to put his name to. He had
a good reputation of being a very tidy, very good
brick layer.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
So you saying that at that stage of the construction
of a house, there's probably only John working there.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
John and whoever was laboring, So is there a chance
that John could have been there by himself.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Could have if he disappeared and went out there on
that day.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
He could have easily been there on his own.
Speaker 11 (50:41):
Illowom is still and was quite bushy. It's in National
Park kindar surrounds, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
And is it Mike's theory or concern or suspicion, however
you want to call it? That in the foundation, that's
where Bromwin might be. Yes, have you ever driven past
the house Andy, the house that John was working on
over the years, just because you might have been suspicious?
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I have never known till this date the exact street.
All I knew was that John was working on a
house at Illowong. I've never known what actual house it was.
That Webster's statement says that John was helping him build
a house at Illowan.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I'm just going back to Glenn's statement now.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
And I was looking home still to this date, looks
looks lovely and it's all brick, all brick.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Until today, did you rate this idea of being a
possible resting place for Bromwin as a low probability or
was it up there?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It was discussed, but at that stay they were thinking Wow,
how much front must she have to drive with apart
two kids in a car with the body in the
boot all the way to Sydney and the car wasn't
even registered.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
What if he got caught or pulled over?
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Because back in those days, remember it's not like now,
your color of your Reggie stick or I genified whether
the car was out of date or not.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
Then that's how they knew and they pulled over.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
And how would you describe Mike in terms of his balance?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
And it's an outstanding fella, intelligent fella. And there wasn't
a single person that gave any credence whatsoever that bron
would would ever separate from those girls, Not one person.
There's only one person on the planet that thinks she
was going to walk away from.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Maddie and I talked about this possibility after finishing our
call with Andy and Michelle.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
As a builder, your life is on the job site.
Where is there a big hole? And where is there
a lot of dirt? And where is soon going to
be concreted? And where is somewhere no one else will
frequent except for really me and whoever is working on
the site. I want to know who else was working
(53:21):
on the site at that time.
Speaker 16 (53:23):
If it's true that it was just him and Glenn
Webster working on that side, then it's quite possible that
nobody was at the site on the Monday and John's
able to turn up and he's got the side to himself.
Speaker 6 (53:40):
There's not a chance he would try and bury a
body or dispose of a body if there are other
people also working there or in the vicinity. We've been
told that it was a relatively quiet area thirty or
so years ago. There must have been somewhere he could
drive his car up and an off time to know that,
(54:02):
Oh Glenn isn't available today, he's not coming to the site,
or I told Glenn I didn't need his help today.
I was just going to be there for a few hours,
or even Glenn might have had an appointment of sorts
couldn't get to the site. John didn't work in the team.
He just works solely. To be fair, it's quite smart.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
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.
(54:57):
You can read more about this case and we see
a range of photographs and other artwork at the website
Bromwyn Podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here
episodes first. The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes
Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiert, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Bryan Bianca, far Marcus,
(55:21):
Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray.
Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio
and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been
assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We
can only do this kind of journalism with the support
(55:43):
of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and
documents about this podcast and other podcasts including The Teacher's Pet,
The Teachers Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy Story, Shandy's Legacy,
and The Night Drive, go to the Australian dot com
(56:06):
dot Au and subscribe
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