From The Front: Pain and hope for Bronwyn’s family

In this episode of The Australian's daily news podcast, a family ‘curse’, an audacious scam, and a remarkable young woman helping to solve the mystery of Bronwyn Winfield’s likely murder. 

Find out more about The Front podcast here. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian’s app.

This episode of The Front is presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet, and edited by Lia Tsamoglou. Original music is composed by Jasper Leak.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play
the news from the Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's
on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, September five.

(00:27):
Jim Chalmer says the government is keeping Australia out of
recession after the economy recorded its weakest growth since nineteen
ninety one. The Treasurer says the Reserve Bank is wrong
to say the economy is running hot. It's all part
of a barney between the Bank and the government about
who's to blame for the rising cost of living. Talk

(00:52):
of a family curse and an audacious scam. Those are
the new twists in our blockbuster podcast investigation Bronwyn, led
by Hedley Thomas. Journalism can help solve crime, but it
can also expose the pain and grief buried within families.
Today we meet a remarkable young woman walking both sides

(01:14):
of this story. How does the stack of gold bullion
become a box of cement? That's not a joke or
a riddle, it's the reality. For Crystal Winfield Neil, a

(01:34):
single mum living in Sydney, Crystal is the eldest daughter
of Bronwyn Winfield, who disappeared from Lennox Head on the
New South Wales North Coast just over three decades ago.
The bungled initial police investigation and Bromwyn's suspected murder of
the subject of The Australian's investigative podcast series Bronwyn, created

(01:55):
by our national Chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. Growing up without
her mum has been hard on Crystal. Recently, she turned
to a spiritual teacher, a self described soul doctor for guidance.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Crystal has been searching for a way to bring permanent
positivity into her thinking and into her daily life.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
That's Crystal's aunt and Bromwin's half sister, Kim Marshall.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
She was approached by a strange person unknown to her
in the street a number of months ago, and she
has this understanding that this person who sat down with
her understored and knew what she was going through.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Kim's talking in one of two special new episodes of Bromwyn,
which are available now exclusively for the Australian subscribers at
bromwynpodcast dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
And she thought meeting these people which were in numbers
and different types of people that they would help her
on a spiritual path to actually no longer having this
weighted burden.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
At first, Crystal's financial contribution to the Soul Doctor's cause
was modest, just a couple of hundred dollars. They told
her they provided charitable assistance to people in India. But
fast forward a couple of months and Crystal has been
scammed out of more than three hundred thousand dollars, her
entire life savings.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
She believes that by her giving them the seventy thousand dollars,
they were going to take it away and bless it
and then they would return it to her, But apparently
that is no longer the case. But then there's the
other act of kindness that she did is where she
was asked to purchase a large number of gold and

(04:02):
that gold bullion is no longer gold bullion. It is
now actually a container full of cement.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
At some point, the gold bullion Crystal purchase to be
blessed by the Soul Doctors was switched with an identical
container full of cement. Crystal recently opened up about being
scammed in the podcast's official discussion group. A voice actor
is reading her posts.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Honestly, our family has been through a lot. Both Mum
and I were very trusting people and as a result,
I was recently scammed my entire life savings by strangers.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
It's the first time we've heard directly from Crystal in
this podcast series. She declined to be interviewed when Headley
first started investigating, but she's recently found her voice in
our lively Facebook group, where nearly twenty thousand listeners are
chatting and crowdsolving as the investigation unfolds.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Prised me as she trusted the wrong person, someone she
has just met, and they were responsible for her disappearance.
I also have other theories, but this seems likely to
me as I know she never would have left us
for long.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
In episode eleven, which is live now exclusively for Ours subscribers,
Headley Thomas and Cristel's cousin Mattie Walsh, who's been working
with heavily on the podcast, discuss these developments. In episode twelve,
also live now for subscribers, Headly answers some of our
listeners burning questions. Crystal Winfield Neil trusted the Soul Doctors

(05:42):
because of an old bit of family law.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
I heard about this curse when I actually went to
Sydney last year, and I may not be fully accurate
on it, but apparently there is what is known as
a read curse.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Members of Crystal's extended family, like her Auntie Kim and
uncle Andy Bromwin, Winfield's brother, say the curse is just
a bit of a joke, but the told Bromwin's unsolved
disappearance has taken on her extended family is no laughing matter.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
Well, it's been like opening up old wounds. Before the podcast,
I didn't really understand the depths of a lot of
these family issues and what Bromwin's disappearance did.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Madison Walsh is Bromwin's cousin on the Reed side. She
was born a decade after Bromwyn disappeared and has been
working with Headley on the podcast investigation.

Speaker 5 (06:41):
And it's also a really tough subject because someone so
close to them has gone missing. Watching it unfold, you
have to keep in mind that this is the furthest
we've ever gone with Bronwin's case. This is the furthest
of the investigation has ever gone. So you, in a
way have to sacrifice a little bit of your personal

(07:04):
information and let it out there so that people can
feel something towards the case, so they feel more connected
to it, so they know that we're not always a
joint family unit, and we all have good days and
bad days, and not everyone agrees with each other's opinions,
and there's moments where family members aren't communicating because it's

(07:28):
just too hard, and it causes more arguments and it
does good discussions. It's tough. It is tough to be
in the middle of that, and things like the curse
come up, and most family members think, oh, it's just
tongue in cheek, it's just a funny thing that we
like to bring up every now and then as a joke.
But then other family members take it a bit more

(07:49):
seriously and maybe do think, hang on, is there a curse?
But at the end of the day, it's all based
on opinion. It's all based on how you feel, and
everyone has a right to have their own opinions and
feel how they want, and at the end of the day,
not everyone's going to agree with you. And that's basically
been the biggest lesson to learn.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Mattie's connection to bromwin Winfield inspired her to pursue a
career in forensic science when she graduated in May. She
never expected her first gig out of UNI to be
a true crime podcast investigation.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
It was about a year ago and my aunt was
being interviewed by Hedley at her home not far from mine,
and she said that Hedley was coming over to interview
her and asked if I wanted to come and join,
because she knew of my forensics background and knew of
my interest, and I went. I just sat there, and

(08:41):
at certain points he asked for my import and he
discovered that I at that point was still studying forensic science,
and he asked me if I wanted to help him
out and work with him on the podcast. And I
was quite shocked that he was asking me because I
was twenty And it's been going well ever since.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Maddie had heard of Headley. Of course, he's the creator
of the global Juggernaut podcast The Teacher's Pet, which resulted
in the arrest of Christopher Michael Dawson over the nineteen
eighty two disappearance of his wife Lynn Simms. Dawson has
now been convicted of murder and child sex offending, and
he's in prison. Thanks to Headley's work One of the

(09:25):
interesting developments in true crime of journalism is the advent
of audio. These big long form podcast investigations and they
really are form of entertainment journalism packaged up in this
very easy to consume form. Has been the subject of
a podcast like this changed your perspective on how serious

(09:46):
all of this is.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Yeah, definitely seeing the inner workings of a podcast and
seeing how much work goes into it and how many
conversations and how many interviews don't make it to the
final cut is in insane because there's so much work
that goes into creating a condensed episode that everyone will
find entertaining and want to listen to. It's definitely interesting

(10:10):
to witness. And now when I listen to podcasts and
I hear family members speaking and hearing certain opinions and
certain ideas, you have to also keep the perspective that
that's not everything. That's just one opinion and one thought,
but there's still more to the.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Story coming up. What it's like when highly invested true
crime fans start obsessing about your family. Bromwin is an
investigation that's only possible thanks to the subscribers of The
Australian who get to hear episodes first, and to read
all our amazing stories about this cold case. Join us

(10:51):
at Romwan podcast dot com. We have a very lively
Facebook group with nearly twenty thousand people in it who
are discussing this podcast every day. They're very frank with

(11:14):
their opinions and they can be posh. How have you
felt watching them discuss this very real life story in
that way?

Speaker 5 (11:23):
Look as a family member, It's interesting to witness because
with a Facebook group, everyone is sitting behind a screen.
They can say what they want, and some opinions are
harsh and some are just the truth, and you can't
really delete every comment you don't like and criticize people
for saying what they think. They are so invested in

(11:44):
this podcast, it's almost like I feel some people are
searching for the perfect murder in a way. So often
they ask questions or they have opinions that really will
never know the answers to. So it's often hard to
look at that and go, why are we being criticized

(12:04):
when we will never know that? Why are we being
criticized when in hindsight everything is twenty twenty vision, In
hindsight everything is different. You have to look at it
and take it with a grain of salt, and they
can share their opinion and it's a discussion group. It's
open to people to say what they think and give
their perspectives on the episodes and give their perspectives on

(12:26):
what they think of certain characters within the podcasts. At first,
it was very like I was like, Oh my gosh,
they're very honest. They don't care that you're sitting there
also looking at this Facebook group and you read everything
that they say. It's been challenging to step back a
little bit and understand that they're not as connected as

(12:47):
I am. They really are just looking for entertainment.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
You can hear episodes eleven and twelve of from One
Now by subscribing at bromwe podcast dot com.