Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains coarse language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. The Dark Lake Lake Ainsworth, with its eerie looking water stained dark by tammins from the leaves of the tea trees ringing the shoreline. It lies just north of Lennox Head's caravan park and a short walk from the perfect waves crashing onto the beach. I've seen a photograph of Bromman sitting
on the grass near here. It was a family outing with friends. The lake is now an even more popular place or a picnic and a barbecue. It's a great swimming hole and for hundreds, probably thousands of years, Indigenous tribes revered this place for its therapeutic qualities. After childbirth, Indigenous women bathed here. They believed that the unique qualities of the fresh water helped prevent infection and helped recover
from it. In the ninth episode, Maddie Walsh talked about the possibilities of a search here.
And the police aren't doing anything, so might just have to be asked.
I don't have a sonar thingy we won't be able to see anything.
Scooba diving wise, we can do it.
It's entirely possible.
Mary's offered to help. Oh amazing, and listeners with expertise in underwater search emailed me and contacted Maddie to volunteer their help and their equipment. Chris Darcy, who is an experienced operator of side scan SONA and regularly undertakes on water searches, offered to come from Sydney with three other volunteers. Then former Australian Navy Captain Ashley McDonald, a highly trained diver, got in touch to volunteer to dive on any items
of interest that might be identified by SONA. With Murray Nolan, we held a hastily organized zoom call to talk about what might be possible, at least for starters.
Murray, can you.
Explain the area that you reckon needs to be targeted, how we'd get access to it, and why you want to focus on that above everything else.
The life was pretty accessible back in the day, and I've got the opinion that he would have dropped her off on the western side of the lake. A lot of people say the eastern side was more accessible. I doubt where we went down the eastern side of the lake. He could have because it was more accessible, but of the opinion he went down the western side of the lake. It meant he would have had to carry her and whatever he had, probably for about twenty meters, maybe a
bit less. In the last thirty one years, I've planned it out. They're still planning it out. There's a lot of more trees on and vegetation there now.
And would you mind just briefly telling Murray about your expertise and then we can get started.
In that experience, we did lots of searchers, so different types of searches on the bottom projects, but also searches in zero visibility on the hulls of ships and so forward. So a lot of experience and trying to find stuff when you can't see anything. In more recent times, working in the maritime industry more generally in Australia, following podcast with interests and I thought if there was anything I could do to help with this latest turn of events, I put my name forward.
That's great thinking back in the eighties and nineties, it's a windsurf across the lake, go back and forth, back and forth. There were days when it was pressable to take off from the western side of the lake. So I'm saying that he wouldn't have much of a problem.
To carry everything he had to carry down on that western side of the lake.
Does it drop off or is it still reasonably show it drops off? Yeah, okay, so it changes in different places. It's undulating, so it goes up and down, up and down. For some strange reason, I could stand up in different places in the middle of the lake.
Here is Chris. He's president of Search Dog Sydney, the name of his group. Before the core, Chris and Ash had been reading a scientific study of the lake from nineteen ninety six. That study looked into the lake's physical, hydraulic, and sedimentary processes, among other things. Maddie found it on line.
It did show on the hydrology report that there was a sandbar from one of another word, yes, exactly cut across it. I'll work it on that deep area.
And I was at the opinion that John's dragged her out, And I'm sort of thinking that he's actually grabbed the nose of the board or the leg rape of the board and dragged her out so far. And then when he hasn't had footing, he would have just give him her a shove and tipped her house on. Well, the opinion, she's not that far off the shore.
I'll get the mapping and all of that done and then we can go from there. You can tell me if it's covering the area that you've got in mind.
Beautiful, Yes, If she's not there, she could be anywhere really in that lake somewhere.
I don't only have a picture of how many branches or logs would have fallen into the water and sunk to the bottom.
The vegetation around it is only just tea tree like paper back trees, so they ain't growing real high. They hang in there. So I've never hit any card in the lake. It's, you know, like a big tree bread. There's seats of little branches.
And in your memory, has the lake ever try it out significantly so that the areas that we might serve a bit have been exposed.
The level of the lake doesn't bury that much in dry times. It seems to be fed from underground water. There's all these little two tree lakes and they all feed into Lake Ainsworth, and so the level of the water stays the same most of the time, unless it's really raining.
It's very very helpful if we want to interrogate items of interest as we go, how to diver and stand by and go right over. We just found something, let's go back over it, drop a shot and go down and have a look, come back up and then go again.
As soon as we spot an object. I think we should have all of it straight away.
Yeah, what is your recollection of the bag that was utilized back in the day that you believe was utilized. Did you ever see that bag? Did you ever see other bags on different days?
Well, they had multiple bags, but was that that transition period where people going into polypant bags or zippers on them.
Maury's view about the lake is not just based on the fact that Judy Singh witnessed the surfboard in the car late at night. It's also that he was driving north along Granite Street from his house and that was a bit of a tell, along with the fact that the lake is secluded. It's easy to access if you know your way around.
He used to go to the lake only you take the kids down the lake someday afternoons, we're all getting above due down the lake. It's like a bit of a ritual sort of thing.
In nineteen ninety three, when Bromwin disappeared, the beach facing caravan park of Lennox Head was mostly for permanent van owners who lived there. John and his second wife we've called her D were caravan park residents for a short time while they were building in Sandstone Crescent. But that was the first house, the one that came before the one John built higher up the street, the one in which Bronwan was last seen by John.
Back in those days, there wasn't that many tourists at that end of the park. There was a lot of residents there. We would have been pretty isolated there.
Well, that allows me a good search area.
That's Murray's sailings. You're good to interrogate things as we find them if it's a fairly clean butter.
So actually mark the spots as we're going. I'll be try and get there early on Friday afternoon so I can have a look at the place and.
And get a feel for it.
Just finalize any mapping that needs to be done prior to the Saturday morning.
Okay, I'll come down Friday afternoon as well with a colleague called Sean, who probably put a drone up. He's already checked open skies and it should be fine for drone flying. Maddie Walsh will come into Brisbane and drive down with us too, and food beverages are on me for the weekend.
So I'm looking forward to seeing how all you guys on the weekend.
It'll be good Rave.
Yeah, it's always nice to have local knowledge. It makes a hell of a difference when you're doing something, so appreciate it.
Later in this episode, you'll hear more about the Dark Lake and our visit to Lennox Head to comb some of the lake bed with the help of Sona and some brilliant volunteers Chris Darcy, his wife Adele, their assistant Jody, Captain Ash McDonald, Murray Nolan, Maddie Walsh, Deb Hall and others, even Scruffy who came to help. But first I want to bring everyone up to speed. As you know, this is episode ten of Bromwin and when the podcast investigation started I believe that it would be a total of
six to eight episodes. Something remarkable has happened during the eight weeks we've been releasing weekly episodes. We've been deluged with him from from members of the public. We've discovered more from our own investigations. Friends and acquaintances of Bronwyn and John have been sharing a lot too, and of course remarkable witnesses such as Judy Singh have come forward
with what we believe is a crucial observation. Hundreds of listeners have contacted me, mostly via Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au, with information, and some of it is we believe very significant. Our Facebook group, the Bromwyn Podcast Official Discussion Group, has become a lively exercise in crowdsolving, with listeners constructively putting together maps and timelines to try
to work out what might have happened. I've been helped by some of their very relevant questions and analysis of the evidence. As a result, the narrative arc of the Bromwyn series has changed fununda mentally. In the beginning, I believe that episode six and seven would have been dedicated to reconstructing the evidence from the two thousand and two inquest, which was held in the courthouse in the town of Lismore. And we've been to the courthouse, but we haven't yet
touched on the evidence at that inquest. That's because of all the other material coming in that needs to come before the inquest. As a result, it is going to feature in season two of Bromwin. After this the tenth episode, we are going to pause production for several weeks. Everyone can catch up while we have a rest and look at some of the leads we haven't had time to pursue.
We'll come back with more episodes. One of the key reasons this investigative podcast began was because I believe Bromwin's disappearance and alleged murder could still be sold. This belief has only grown stronger as the series has unfolded. You can still stay abreast of the latest developments by joining
the Australian subscribers at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's where all our stories, graphics, maps, timelines, reconstructions and videos sit, and our daily news podcast, The Front, will bring any significant updates as soon as they happen. You can find The Front wherever you listen. And if you know something, no matter how small it seems, please still contact me by email at Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au.
That'll be fine now, a little break for a few weeks and everyone will see the old May look Out.
You heard this hopeful line in the first episode featuring some of Bromwin's writing from the weeks before she disappeared, And it is very likely that Bromwin's reference to a little break lent credence to John's story that she had indeed gone away for a break. Bromwin's brother Andy, his wife Michelle, and Bromwin's cousin Megan Reid say that John was insistent Bromwyn had said she was going away for a break of a few days, not a few weeks.
Here's Meghan recalling John having shown her a piece of paper when he dropped by in Sydney, and it was during the visit in May. John was showing Megan some of Bromwin's writings. Remind me, what was the point of the piece of paper?
Well, I didn't know. This is the whole thing. I had no idea. Why show me this piece of paper?
It had members of the family and sort of stuff going back to our childhood. But that same piece of paper I've now found out he showed to a whole lot of other people, claiming that she left that as a note that she was leaving.
But to me, I didn't say that at all.
Kim Marshall has always had concerns about this too. Kim was a young woman living at home in Tasmania when Bromwyn disappeared. Kim remembered a lot of telephone contact with Bromwin and Kim and their mother Barbara in Tasmania in the weeks leading up to and during Broman's separation from John. Here's Kim from the very first episode in this podcast series.
The story that she was writing.
They've got the wrong idea about what's actually happened. Bromwn wrote a beautiful story of her history, okay, and then she says, when I come back, the real Bromwen will be back, so watch out. And John has used that paragraph to say that Bromwin has lost her marbles and has actually decided to act on what she was writing. And he goes, she's unstable, she's like a mother, blah blah blah.
Now Bromwin and Kim's Auntie Jan can shed light for the first time on what Bromwin was talking about when she wrote a little break for a few weeks and everyone will see the old me. You are Barbara's younger sister. Is that right? Yes?
Yeah, Mab was born in thirty nine and I was born in forty two.
I telephoned to ask her about your recollections of something Bromin might have been planning to do around the time she disappeared. Is that right?
She had rung a couple of times feeling distressed, and then she rang Mum and asked her for some money. And it wasn't long after that that she disappeared.
Do you have any letters from your mom or your sister which talk about Bromwin.
No, we used to ring all the time.
I want to just focus on whether you heard from either your mother or from your sister Barb of any plans by Bromwin to have a break in Tasmania for a while.
That was a plan.
She didn't eventually come because that's when she disappeared, right, Mum was waiting for her to ring and tell her when she was coming over, and we didn't hear from her.
And how do you remember that?
Because Mum rang and told me she said, ron Wan's in a spot of trouble and what was going on and everything was Brd lived with Mum most of her life. She wanted some money, but Mum said to come over to her first before she did anything, but then we never heard from her after that. It was only weeks after that phone call to mum, my mum.
And is that a fairly clear memory for you?
Yes?
Have you talked to the police before.
No, Nobody's contacted me at all regarding ron Win's disappearance except you.
One of the things that is written down by Bromwan in these papers that she wrote before she disappeared was that she was going to make a break and that she'd be coming back and should be fine.
Well, that's probably when she was going to Mums to Hobart. Before she rang mum, she'd spoken to barb a couple of times regarding what was going on, and Barbara was quite distressed about it, and.
Then she rang mum and then asked her for some money.
That the plan was, according to my mum, that she was coming over to Hobart.
Jan told me that Barbara had been visited by Bromwin and her brother Andy in Tasmania before.
And I know Bronwin and Andrew used to go over to Hobart because I've got pictures of them here. I can send them to you if you like. They went over a few times to visit Barb. I think they flew over.
How have you become aware of this renewed interest?
Well, Kim contacted me.
She said she's never going to give up. I don't really know.
Whether it was investigated enough whatever. John said, they seemed to have taken to heart and said that's it.
A lot more could have been done. Soon after that, it just died down.
I spoke to Bromwan's half sister Kim about it.
I actually have been going on about a trip to Tasmania and no one's ever listened to me.
For people who don't know the potential significance, what do you believe it could be?
John stole her trip?
So the last paragraph in Bronnie's writing on the notepad is I will be going away for a while for a break, and when I come back, watch out the real broblem.
We're back.
So then I'm thinking nan Ant set airlines, nan making the phone calls, getting everything in order. Nan is my grandmother. My grandmother raised me. So I lived with my nan and my mum Barbara and then Annie. Jan lived in New South Wales because we traveled every holidays to the mainland, and nan Stone sat next to her chair and that's where she did her business.
And I remember Nan offering airfares.
Let's do airfares, Let's get you down here, will work out everything legally that you've got in place, will do it, but you need to get safe.
And my mom's not alive to tell you, and no one was interested in listening to her when she tried.
But your Auntie Jan remembers this.
My mom spent years talking and crying and writing letters and debriefing and reflecting about the fact that Bronwin never got to Tasmania.
And that's why I.
Have so many troubles with my brother, because my brother never listens to me scream about Bronwin was actually coming for a holiday. That's what I was trying to explain to him and the police way back in June.
Nineteen ninety three.
And that's why I'm so emotional about everything, because no one.
Ever listened to me, and I was there in the rooms listening to all these phone calls, and then no one ever was interested in mums and my phone bill, which had all the phone calls that we were making to bron When every day and of the night, because we're the ones that hurt John banging on the door. We're the ones that heard him saying open the door and let me in.
So I'm sorry heavily, but that's the truth.
And I've probably got nothing to do with anything.
But I've got Brown's voice being heard now.
The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy's famous book from eighteen seventy seven, Anna karen Ina, starts with this sentence, happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In Tolstoy's view, a pathway to family happiness depends on important pillars, stability, respect, health, and unconditional love being some of the main ones. In this series, you have heard about a myriad of tensions, hurts, and grievances in the Reed family. Given everything that they've been
through before and since Bromwin's disappearance, it is unsurprising. Remember, Bromwin and Andrew did not know until they were twelve and ten, respectively, that they even had a biological mother called Barbara. Andy and Bronwyn's father, Philip is not around to say why he didn't tell his children about the existence of Barbara when they were little. Andy still calls his father's second wife Jennifer Mum, because, as he says, she raised him. He refers to his biological mother as
Barbara and sometimes as Mum. After dozens of hours talking to Barbara's two surviving children, Andy and Kim, I believe that Kim has sought to honor two people in this podcast. Kim has honored her half sister Bromwin, and Kim has
also honored her mother, Barbara. Kim tells me that she has often felt like the sibling who didn't quite belong and that despite Andy having been kind and loving towards his mother Barbara and having included her and Kim in family events and visits, there's still been a distance, a bridge that hasn't been properly built with the foundations. Leo Tolstoy was thinking.
About as far as I knew, if it was Mum, and it was only once that Mum was sort of allowed or going to agreed to allow.
Mom back to our lives at me. You actually didn't know you had a mum other than Jennifer exactly.
Yeah, Yeah, I was never told anything really about it.
You reconnected with your mum when you were still a boy, What do you remember being told?
Well, she wants to get back in touch, and Dad thought we were old enough to allow that to happen. She was always sort of up and down a bit, so you weren't sure which Barbie were going to get. In a way, it probably was the start of a bit of a downturn in family life as.
We knew it later on.
I think it did play a troll, you know, in showering of relationships and a bit of presentment.
I suppose did you and.
Bronwin from the time you then learned that you had a natural mother called Barbara, become close to her and try to develop the rapport that you'd missed out on for the previous ten years.
Not really know on the only days you know, I'm sure maybe one digue or every couple of years.
She wrote often.
That was the start of Brian letters and correspondents, but not necessarily seeing each other like at every store, holidays or anything like that. Once I was short out at home and I had my places about a couple of times, but come up and.
Stay for a week or so with me. Things like that. Barbara did become more involved in the lives of her only son and her first daughter, Bronwan, but it was impossible to make up for everything that had been missed in their formative years. In one of my many conversations with Kim, she also described having been made to feel most voiceless at times in the three decades since Bromlin vanished.
Kim blames some of the police for this, and Kim recognizes that there was much less understanding of mental health challenges more than twenty years ago. She tells me that, in her view, Andy and Michelle should have insisted that she be involved more in the evidence. Kim says she and her mother wanted to be heard at the inquest in two thousand and two, but they were, in Kim's view, deliberately excluded.
Mum and I were asked not to come to the inquiry. We were asked not to testify as witnesses. Mum and I always been kicked out because of the mental health card and to stay out of it because we would actually hurt Bromlin's case, and very politely just told to go away and keep quiet.
Am I being ignored because I was young? Am I being ignored because of the mental health? Am I being ignored because I'm a female? And they're the questions that I live with every day.
For many, many years, and they're destroying you know, it's really hard being the little girl.
That grew up always wanting to get more attention over here.
Brother, Well, Kim, I think you've done an enormous amount of work to put this story and this case and all of the facts into the public arena, and you're pushing to produce all the evidence has made a powerful difference.
It's something my psychologist and I decided that I had to get done, and I'm glad I'm doing it because now I feel like I've been heard, even if nothing happens, even if something comes of it.
So it's really good.
I'm glad it's helping. But sadly, Kim and her brother Andy were not on speaking terms as this episode went to air. When the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor took a statement from John Winfield's first wife, Jennifer Mason in December nineteen ninety eight, she was living in the Queensland seaside town of Caloundra. Earlier in this podcast series, you heard a voice actor for Jennifer talk about her unexpected contact with John when he suddenly turned up on Monday May seventeenth,
nineteen ninety three, in the Shire. John had driven from Lennox through the night with the two girls and he needed somewhere for them to stay. Jennifer was out shopping. She was separating from her second husband, Brad at that time, but Brad's mother met John at the front door and he asked her to mind his girls. What you haven't heard about yet was Jennifer's poignant description of her relationship with John. Here's what she told the detective Glen Taylor.
And remember these aren't Jennifer's words from that late nineteen ninety eight statement. It's not her voice.
In approximately December nineteen seventy two, when I was sixteen years of age, I met a young man named John Winfield and we formed a relationship. We'd only been going out for about three months when I fell pregnant. John Winfield and I married when I was about three months pregnant. We married at Engerdeine and moved back in together at my parents' house at Sutherland. At that time, John was working at an oyster farm in Kernel, and my relationship
with John was very happy. My dad got John a job as a bricklayer, and John earned fairly good money. I've been asked by Detective Sergeant Taylor if there were any incidents of domestic violence in my relationship with John Winfield. I recalled John like to have everything in the house organized. He wanted things done on time in his way. He never allowed me to argue back with him or question what he had to say.
If I did.
Question him over some issue, he'd get aggressive and angry with me.
He'd yell at me, and he made him scared of him.
I recall on one occasion when he pushed me back onto the bed because I answered back to him.
On that time. He scared me a great deal.
He said to me, I'll kill you if you say that again, and at the time he had his hands around my throat and was squeezing. I remember I managed to say go ahead, and to my surprise, he kept squeezing me around the throat. I managed to kick him in the groin and I got away from him and hid in the outside laundry. I sat there for ages in the laundry, and I remember I came back inside later that night and John had cooled down and nothing
more was said. I also recall this night that John kicked a hole in the lounge with his knee This was just before he pushed me down on the bed. It was after this night I didn't back answer John, and I let him run things the way he wanted. John was particular over having things clean, in particular my daughter Jody. We always had to look our best as if we were on show, especially if his mother came
over to visit. I tried to have the marriage work out, and I stayed with John for four years, but after the fourth year I decided to leave. I couldn't communicate with John anymore. I had to be quiet and be a wife the way he wanted a wife to be. I couldn't have opinions of my own, and if I tried, he'd build up this anger. I'd then become scared and back off. One morning, after John went to work, I grabbed some clothes for Jody and myself, and I ran
off to Coffs Harbor. I stayed at my cousin's house for about a week. At that time, I hadn't made up my mind to permanently separate from John, but I needed some time to just think things out. I rang John up on the telephone to tell him where I was, and he turned it all around and said that if I wanted to leave, I should I panicked, thinking that my marriage was over, so I drove all night back to Sydney to see him the next day, but he'd already gone off to work. John's mother was in the house.
I remember John's mother saying something like no woman walks out on my son. I wanted things to work out with John, but it seemed like his mother was encouraging him to end the relationship.
In my eyes, the relationship was finished. Jennifer knew that John's mother would not forgive her. She had significant influence over her son. This statement by Jennifer cannot have been easy for her to make, and she would have known that it would become available to John, as it did in the lead up to the two thousand and two inquest in Lismore. When the police brief of evidence was turned over to John and his lawyer, Jennifer's statement became
known to her daughter Jody. I've been told that it put a great deal of strain on the mother daughter relationship, which was already troubled. Remained fiercely loyal to her father John.
John ended up setting me up in a flat at Cronulla. I was well provided for and Jody had the best of everything. John, however, didn't approve of the way I'd started to live my single life.
In her statement, she described becoming lonely and depressed and spending time at the club to try to meet people, and although she arranged a babysitter, Jennifer said she felt hassled and judged over her mothering of her daughter. Jennifer and Jody moved into a granny flat. Although the flat was well maintained, Jennifer said that John's mother and father did not look kindly on the situation.
I recall John's parents turned up one day with John and they picked.
Up Jody and walked out the door.
Grandma Winfield said, when you get your act together, you can have her back. At that time, I decided not to try to get Jody back from John. I blame myself now, but at the time I didn't understand the laws properly, and I was depressed and having problems with my life. And after this John and myself initiated divorce proceedings. John offered me twenty thousand dollars so he could keep custody of Jody. I told him to stick his twenty thousand dollars and take good care of Jody, and that's
how John ended up having custody of her. The way I was at the time, I was mentally depressed and I'd become suicidal. It took some time to get over my problems at that time. From that time, Jody lived with John and John's parents, and I'd see Jody at different stages during the year. John wouldn't allow me to visit Jody at school and they constantly pushed me away from her.
I used to sit outside the school.
Watching Jody play at lunchtime in the school grounds.
Bridgeta was Romwin's good friend. They went to school together and they went dancing at the local club and they were offered at the beach. Family helped Bromman with accommodation when things were tough at home with her stepmother. Bridgeta went to Bromwin's first wedding to Gary Beard. She made the wedding dress for Bromwin. When Broman's first marriage failed and Bromin was a single mother of Crystal, John came
on the scene, and Bridgeton noted John's possessiveness. Back then, before John and Bromwin had moved to Lennox Head, a ten hour drive from the Shire, but Bridgeta told me something else when I spoke to her. It was something she remembered Brown telling Bridgeta she mentioned.
To me something that Jodie's mother, which was his partner before that, she told he had choked her. And I went, what you're joking? And I said, why would anyone put up with.
Bro?
Sometimes you've got a up with something and oh, it's not too good.
In a previous episode, you heard that Jennifer confirmed she was fond of Bronwin and they became friends. They shared some confidences, They stayed in touch because they had Jody's best interest at heart, and they were able to connect well despite Jennifer having once been married to John, John's first wife told bron yes, and she had choked her and this is what Broman told you.
Yeah, told me that this What can you say when you hear things like that? So it sounds like he did have a bit of great history of it. Then choked. You can't scream, can you? These things go through my head only because of what she said about Jody's nun.
Michelle and her husband Andy been aware since the inquest in two thousand and two that Bromwin had confided to friends in Lenox, including Denise Barnard, that John had put his hands around her throat and squeezed.
She was scared how much went on and physical abuse. All that we know is since the statements have come out, been manhandled his hands around their throat in a choking one of the things that we've thought about it might have happened to Bromwin.
I've talked to somebody who said that Jenny would not be comfortable speaking to me about John or Bromwin. In the podcast, one of Jenny's very good friends in Caloundra from the nineteen nineties, Dona Cioleppis, spoke.
To me she came into the church as a single mum and she had not had much stability.
Really, do you recall anything that she spoke to you about in relation to her marriage to John.
She could never do anything right, She was never good enough, and she could not live.
Up to his expectations of worldwife should be.
She was very vulnerable and very young, and she said that she was terrified of his mother.
I mainly recall her telling me about the bullying.
Tactics to p Jody and that they tricked her and they pretty much.
Stole Jody from her.
This is what she has told me.
It direcked her.
I took her round to muggling immediately.
Donna described Jenny's concerns about Robin's fate and about the repercussions that Jenny might face two as a result of giving her statement to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor. I've read Jennifer's statement. She gave that statement to the police in nineteen ninety eight.
I remember when she did that.
Yeah, oh really, okay, So were you around her then?
Yes, she was back in touch with Jodie.
She was terrified of losing her relationship with Jodie.
Jodie was definitely Dad's girl. It is interesting that John goes to her house in Sydney now despite them having divorced years earlier. In all of that ill Will.
Yeah, she couldn't believe that he came to her house.
She was stunned by that.
She was very intimidated by him because she just knew that Bromin would not leave.
I know she'd loved Broman.
When I saw that you were doing.
Bromman, I was just elated. I've been waiting to hear something about Jenny. She was the most beautiful, gorgeous girl. If anyone deserves happiness, it's that girl.
Don hasn't caught up with Jenny for years. She's looking forward to resuming contact with her.
I would love to see her.
In episode five, you heard a voice actor read from an internal police document dated September nineteen ninety three.
It is known the missing person was suffering from a mental state of confusion. Documents in the handwriting of the missing person, located at the family home, indicate that she may have been suffering from mild depression. It would also appear that she carries some form of grudge against certain members of her family over property dealings and her father over minor things.
This puts a misleading and derogatory slant on what Bromwan actually wrote. In my view, it depicts Bromwan as mentally unbalanced and angry at her lot in life. Broman's writing was reflective. It was positive in the way she was looking forward to a new chapter in her life and the lives of her children. Another jotting noted Bromwin's intention to do a self improvement course over two days in
June at the Lismore Workers Club. The police report, signed by an officer who has since died, also stated.
Copies of letters forwarded to friends and relatives indicate she may have been trying to write the wrongs of the past and reunite with the grandparents of one of her children, who she has had no contact with for about five years.
Here's what Bromwin wrote to Cristel's father, Mark Davis, and to his parents Cristel's grandparents. Bromin's handwritten letter is dated early May nineteen ninety three. She did a couple of versions on May three and on May five. It's not long before her disappearance, and she wrote it from the rented place in Byron Street.
Dear Eda Awen markan family. I thought i'd drop you a note since it costs so much for phone calls, and with the girls at school, I have the time. It's so long since we had some form of contact that I don't know where to start. I've been carrying around the guilt of not staying in contact for so long.
It's almost overwhelming me as I'm writing. I believe no child should be deprived of the right to know its family or its family and have the security of knowing there is always someone to listen to them throughout their lives. I more than anyone, should understand this, as I've always felt alone and this isn't something that I would wish upon anyone, especially my own daughter. We have been living in a lovely small town called Lennox Head for the past four years, and the people seem to be some
of the nicest people I've met in my life. My husband, whom I have separated from, was a very quiet and obsessive man. He was burnt along periods of depression and sometimes anger. I have a bad habit of picking up lame duckson trying to make things better, and now realize that you must accept people for what they are, and if you are unable to, then you don't get involved.
John always tried to be a good father, although most of his methods I've regard as too extreme, and most of his methods to make me into the perfect homebody were unrealistic expectations, so we drifted along in limbo until I couldn't take it any more. He had little or no faith in my ability to be a person in
my own right. The constant character assassination that plagued our arguments every time I would express an idea or an independent opinion, had me believing I was a rational and unrealistic His concept on family and marriage were too rigid for me and the children to grow up in a stable environment. My only regret is that I'd had no one to talk to, although I will never regret having loen in the companionship and love I shared with Jody John's daughter from a previous marriage.
Bronwyn has crossed out a few sentences in her letter. One of those says that she has been betrayed once too often. Another sentence praises her good friends in Lenox, people she says she has trusted, and although Bromwyn doesn't name them, I'm going to mention a handful now. It's not an exhaustive list. Deb Hall, Denise Barnard, the woman we referred to as Joan although that's not her real name,
and Maria Glewis Scruffy's wife, and Virginia Bevers. Bromwin wrote that she needed to learn to trust more people like the friends she had made in Lenox, and as a reminder to herself, she wrote that she needed to find photographs of Crystal to send to Edda Alwyn and Mark.
Crystal has grown up into a lovely child, and I know you would be proud to be her grandparents, and Mark would love her as well, but I'm not going to relinquish my custody. All your family will be welcome
to see her and keep regular contact with her. I will always be open to your suggestions on schooling and any other ideas you may have, and would welcome Mark as a friend to confide in with any issues that may arise, although the final decision will be mine, because if there's one thing I am good at, it as being a mother. I'm sure there is room for improvement, but it's what I love best in life, something sadly lacking in my teenage years.
Bromwin's good friend Bridgeta remembered Crystal's father and his sometimes stormy relationship with Bromwin. Did you know Mark Davis?
Yes?
I did know Mark Davis.
He's the father of Crystal.
Yes she is. She tried to kick me out of his house once and Bromwin jumped in front of me to save me before he grubt me Because I ricked a dirty coaster of the wall. I couldn't stand looking at all these naked women on the wall. He lived with other guys in a place called the farm. Oh, pretty much what the Crinola blokes were like in those days?
And what was that?
Oh?
You know, they used to do a bit of the marijuana and stuff. It wasn't the kind of guy I would really want to be, which ectould put.
It that way.
Here's Bromwin's cousin, Megan Reid.
When she was with Mark Davis. She was only sixteen and we used to double date with my boyfriend.
I asked Andy about his sister Bromwin's letter an olive branch to Crystal's father and his family. When Bromwin reached out to Mark Davis's family after she'd separated from John, what do you believe she was seeking to do there?
She went trying to ensure Crystal's well being if anything ever went wrong. She already asked and comments to Michelle and made that if anything ever happens to me, he promised me you look after Crystal. I'm not sure whether she was one hundred percent beautiful, but she was just putting steps in place to ensure Crystal's Willpoom.
Madison Walsh and her auntie Megan Reid, explained that there was another very delicate issue revolving around Crystal. Bromwin had a boyfriend, Mark Guthrie around the time of her first pregnancy. For some time, Mark Guthrie and his family believed that he was Crystal's father.
After Bromwin goes missing, there's a dispute for custody for Crystal. Mark Guthrie or he was Crystal's father. Brumwan always was like, no, you're not, You're not, but he.
Thought he was.
But just weeks after Bromwin vanished, Mark Guthrie and his family pressed on Winfield. The Guthrie family wanted to form a relationship with Crystal. John wrote to the family and to their solicitor. I have a copy of the letter. These are John's words, but it's not John's voice.
One Mark has never personally or in writing approached us in regard to access to Crystal. Two. We have always been locatable. We have always been in the telephone book. Had he really wanted to, Mark could have found us at any time. Could you emphasize to your clients the necessity and advantage of getting the facts right. Not only have you failed to mention the possibility of child support, something that has been my responsibility for almost eleven years.
But you have failed to consider Crystal's feelings and what she wants to do about this delicate situation. Mark is a total stranger to Crystal, and with the possibility of fatherhood not yet really established, you are asking me to introduce Crystal to a possible impostor. I ask you, is that really in the best interests of Crystal?
Surely not.
I am not positive that mister Guthrie is Crystal's natural father. If fatherhood is established, as I have emphasized previously, access would be no problem as she suffers car sickness. Do they expect me to pay for airline tickets each school holidays? I must say that this event has developed into a horror show. As we all know, there is always a third corner to any triangle, and his name is Mark Davis.
I am in receipt of Crystal's christening papers and it shows that she was christened under the name of Davis at nine months of age. Mark Davis has consented to have a DNA test to verify the relationship. The gynecologist's report shows that Christal was born five weeks prematurely, and also shows Bromwin's date of conception. Mark's naval records show exactly where he was at the time of conception. I have a responsibility to Crystal to introduce her to her
real biological father, and I will. The lack of any offers of financial support in almost eleven years also tells me that mister Guthrie is not sure of fatherhood. I hope you have advised your clients that I could quite
easily make a quick exit and go with your requests. Consequently, that would lead us to the child support agency, and a deduction from Mark's wages to the tune of one hundred and forty five dollars per month backdated maintenance to December nineteen eighty two with an interest adjustment would be the best part of ten thousand dollars. It is a gamble I can afford to take, but I am not
so sure about mister Guthrie. Maintenance, if I am correct, is payable up to the age of sixteen years, so we could develop into a nice little nest egg for Crystal in her later years. The truth here is that I have been Crystal's father for eight years and in ten, continuing in that role. She also has a very close relationship with Lauren and Jody, and for that matter, the
rest of my family and Bronwin's family. She loves the school she attends and does very well there, played the guitar for quite a number of years now and is classed as an advanced student. She knows that I am not her real father and has been told by Bronwan of the existence of a person named Mark Davis. Mister Guthrie personally has never made any contact with us in the eight years that I have been involved. Only he
knows why. My advice to him, for what it's worth, is to agree, like Mark Davis, to a DNA test to establish.
The validity of his claim.
In his position, I would not enjoy paying maintenance for a child which was not really mine. Yours, sincerely, John Winfield.
PS.
I hope you have noticed how Crystal's name is really spelt. Surely an assumed father would know something so basic about his own daughter.
Here's Mattie Walsh with Megan again, and.
Then he did a DNA paternal test, so that basically ended there. He didn't get custody because he wasn't her father. So that proved that Mark Davis, the other Mark was her father, Marcus Christal's actual father, and Crystal found out about that before Bromin died.
It's written in.
My diary entry that she told her that her real father was Mark Davis, and in the phone records you can see she called the.
Davises the whole family.
She wanted them to have contact with Cristel.
Patricia Peterson spoke to the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight about her longtime connection to Bromwyn and her family. As a grief counselor, Patricia saw a lot of family trouble and she tried to help vulnerable people. These are her words, but not her voice.
I've known Bromwyn Winfield since she was a small child. I knew Bromwyn's parents, Jennifer and Philip Bred. Bromwyn had a daughter named Cristal, who at that time was about eighteen months old. I remember Bromwin coming to see me in my role as a grief counselor. Bromwyn told me the circumstances of her pregnancy with Cristel.
Bromwyn told Patricia that on her birthday she was turning twenty, she.
Got very drunk and in the morning she woke up in bed with a man.
Bromwyn married Gary Beer, but it was a relatively brief union. Patricia counseled Bromwin when her connection to John was new.
I also remember Bromwyn telling me during this counseling session that she had met another man named John. At that stage, Bromin and John were in a relationship, but they were not living together. Bromwyn told me that John was making her life a misery. Although she told me that she loved John. Bromwin told me that John was hounding her and was very jealous over the fact that she had previously been involved with the other men. I advised broman
to think strongly about terminating her relationship with John. Bromwn told me that John would go over and over the fact that she had been involved in other relationships with other men and would have preferred her to be a virgin when he met her. I formed the opinion, based on my previous experience as a counselor and through my life experiences, that John could become violent towards Bromwyn if
she married him. I assessed Bromwin as being a person who had a desperate need to love and to be loved, and she was seeking this type of relationship from John. Even at that stage, I feared for Bromwin's safety and happiness. Andrew told me that after John had returned to the marital home, Bromwyn had gone missing, leaving the children with him. There is no way that I will ever believe that Bromwyn left those children with John of her own accord.
And my immediate reaction I expressed to Andrew was that I felt that John had killed Bromwin and that is why she's missing.
In episode seven, you heard parts of Crystal's statement to the police officer Glenn Taylor. Cristel was sixteen and describing how her father would not ever talk about Bromwin. Cristel told police in nineteen ninety eight that over the previous five years.
My mother has gradually been built out of our lives. My dad never talks about Mum or his past relationship with her. I have never tried to bring up Mom in conversation with my father.
Now let's go back again to Megan Reid, Bromin's good friend and cousin, and you wrote this, John got rid of all of Bromlin's personal possessions the week after she allegedly disappeared, including all photos. There wasn't a trace of her existence left, so the kids were told to forget her as she had run off with another man and didn't love them.
Yes, that's true.
How did you know that? That's what John did?
And also Andrew dropped in there and he saw that all the picture face had photos of a different woman in them from what stuff was gone, and no.
Faith, John's not there, but Lauren let you in.
Yes, the kids, that's right.
And it's five years after Bromin's disappeared. Your mind's made up? Would you have been able to talk to him knowing as you did, or suspecting as you did then that he had killed your sister?
Even though we were suspicious and always had been suspicious, we just wanted to see the kids, and we.
Just thought, let's just do it, Let's just go for it, let's see what happens.
How was it possible for you at that time to be visiting him socially with that suspicion or did you see there's some kind of intelligence gathering.
I think we were being pretty daring.
Actually, I couldn't believe it. I just thought, why are two kids being raised in the manner that they're being forced to forget their mother?
Roman was white.
There was not one photo of their mother. There were photos of the kids and other family photos, but there was not one picture of their mom.
Gotten gone.
It was quite daunting just to think that not one thing was left in the house that had any full memory of their mum.
Cristel's father, Mark, passed away in his sleep in twenty eleven, and Cristel has clung to a belief, a kind of fantasy, that a woman who came to her father's funeral took a fond interest in Cristel, who was in her late twenties when her dad died. In Cristel's mind, this mystery woman handed the younger woman some photographs. They were images of her father and her mother. Cristel has asked whether this woman at her father's funeral was Bronwyin, but nobody
else who went to the service agrees. There is consensus that it's a story born from grief and wishful thinking, with no basis in fact. Bronwyn did not attend Cristel's father's funeral. As this podcast series was unfolding. Mark's brother, Greg Davis got in touch with me. Greg told me that Mark and Roman's relationship was complicated. The Davis family did not have any contact with Bronwan or with Crystal from when she was two until she turned ten. Here's
what Greg wrote to me. These are his words and Greg has kindly agreed to read them. This is Greg's voice.
My mother Edda Davis received a phone call from Bronwin in early nineteen ninety three saying she wanted Cristel to know her grandparents and promptly put Crystal on the phone to chat with mum. You can imagine this was very confusing for a ten year old. Bronwin mentioned to Mum that she had left her husband I know. She also wrote a letter to mum which detailed more about her issues with John. I can't remember the exact order of
when everything happened, but Bronwen disappeared soon after. My recollection is that after Bronwyn disappeared, John encouraged a relationship between Crystal and my late parents and they were asked to help support Crystal financially. My parents were living in Guymy Bay in the Southern Shire of the time, and John would put Crystal on a bus to Sydney, traveling solo
from the age of ten for visits. My impression is that John had semi disowned Crystal, and within a couple of years Christel was living with other families that Lennox had. My parents paid for her education at school and tave and when she was older, bought her a car and assisted her in her move to Sydney. My brother and my parents had a very close relationship with Crystal. My wife and I and our children continue to involve Crystal
as part of our family. As you've mentioned, she's reluctant to get involved publicly, but she's taken an interest behind the scenes. We all hope for justice to prevail.
Greg also shared a photograph from Crystal's Christling showing Mark and Bronwyn together. It's one of many photographs at the Bronwyn podcast dot com site. When Cristel was a teenager and yet to finish her high school education, she went to live in Kerry McLean's house in Ballina. You'll recall Kerry from episode seven and eight. In one of life's great ironies, Crystel's stepfather, John Winfield, had selected Kerry mclan
to be Cristel's paid career. In John's absence, John and his daughter Lauren were moving to Sydney, as John had bricklaying workdown there. It was nineteen ninety eight. Kerry recalled meeting him.
Then he was in a hurry to leave town. She didn't speak unkindly about him. He was all she had here.
But it was a remarkable and perhaps fateful coincidence. John did not know that Kerry was good friends at that time with Judy's singh who had witnessed John driving along Granite Street with what appeared to be a body in the back seat of the Ford Falcon sedan. Kerry McLean's efforts to lert me to what Judy saw have led to police obtaining fresh and what we believe is compelling evidence in this case for the first time in years.
When John left Crystal at the home of a woman whom John had never met until his stepdaughter needed somewhere to live, he had no idea of the coincidence nor how it might pan out. While Cristel was living at her very welcoming new home in Ballina, Kerry McLain witnessed the teenager's blossoming connection with her grandmother, her biological father Mark's mother Edda.
But I encouraged the contact with her grandmother when she was here. I'm sure the Grannie that used to call her was her biological dad's mum. I remember there was an uncle, Yeah, so that would have been her dad's brother. So she did have those family connections with the extended family. I don't know about Bronwan's mum.
Did KRISTI want to talk to you about her mother?
She talked a little bit. Some kids have disclosed dreadful things to me when they're staying here, and I never quiz them. But I'm here to listen. She was baffled too. She had no answers.
Had you met Bromwin?
No?
No, no?
And what about Judy? Did she say whether she knew Bromin.
I don't think so. But everyone in the street would have known, Oh this person has gone missing. She would have known of her.
When I interviewed Judy Singh, she told me something you haven't heard before. It was about a brief contact Judy had with Broman shortly before the mother of two disappeared.
And in fact a few weeks before all that she was on my front gutter, and I was concerned about her because there was a colvet there where the water ran down. She was there with her little girl, and I came out and I said, oh, I'm wrong with you, all right? She said, no, my husband's changed the locks. I can't get into the house. Do you think you could give me a glass of water? So I went back in the house and I got there in a little girl's glass of water, and I came out and
I just thought, I said, please, don't sit there. I've seen a snake go down that colt there in the front of the house. And she got up and she just sort of stood up that she was a little bit wonky on her legs. I think she was doing it really tough. I said, do you want to come inside for a while, and she said no. She was going to try and get into the house somehow. She said that they changed all the locks and there was no way she could get some things out that she wanted.
Two days after that interview with Jude, I met her in person near Tweedthead with my colleague Sean Callanan. That was when she looked at a photograph of her old house in Granite Street. She peered at the image to see if the drain was still where she remembered it, where she recalled seeing Bronwyn.
Yes, she was sitting on these drains here the day she came to me and was winning a glass of water.
She was sitting there because that was very shrubby.
In there, and I said, oh, look I've seen a snape go down there.
Please don't sit there.
The fence wasn't there then.
Yeah.
Our new friend, the scuba diver and former Australian Navy Captain Ash McDonald and his wife Allison, drove more than seven hours from the city of Newcastle. They arrived into Lennox very late on a Friday night. More volunteers came
from Western Sydney. Chris Darcy from Search Dog Sydney, his wife Adele, and a volunteer, Jodi, drove in two vehicles with trailers, one for the bow and the sonar equipment, the other towing a mobile kennel for the remarkable dogs, which are trained to smell human remains, even after decades of concealment. I picked up the indefatigable Madison Walsh at Brisbane Airport on Friday afternoon and we went to Murray Nolan and Deb Hall's house in Sandstone Crescent, Lennox, the
house where they've lived for about thirty five years. We drove slowly down the adjoining Granite Street and looked up at what was once the balcony where Judy sing sat, where she is adamant that she saw John driving his Ford Falcon with what appeared to be a body wrapped in a sheet in the back seat, and where detectives from the Unsolved homicide unit in Sydney have already been
with Judy since you heard her revelations. In episode seven, Deb put the kettle on as Murray shared a theory about what he now believes happened when the falcon rolled down the hill from John and Roman's house about ten forty pm on Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three. When I met Murray and Deb for the first time in their home way back in February twenty twenty four, for one of my very early interviews for this podcast investigation, we had an exchange that you are about to hear.
Remember back then, Judy Singh had not come forward at the time that I met Murray and Deb. We would not hear from Judy for another four months.
Okay, would have got enough roll up to go down the driveway because it's quite a steep, and then be able to swing and then roll down this hill without the car being on definitely until he got down around the bottom.
Then you'd have to turn it on because it's on the flat.
My fear is that the kids were still asleep in the house and he didn't want to waken.
What's that in the car?
It's looking very very perplextyle this at So.
You think he's there? Come back? Yes?
Yes, so he's left here twenty to eleven. He's gone to the all night service station in Valen Which is there anymore?
Come back?
I needver heard him come back?
And why do you think that the children would have remained in the house of sleep? Why wouldn't the children have gone with him at twenty to eleven. That's just my theory. A lot of water has gone under the bridge in this podcast series since that first interview with Murray and Dare back in February twenty twenty four, on the eve of our lake search. In July, five months later, Murray told me that he had been thinking a lot
about the Sunday night in May nineteen ninety three. Murray has been considering the possibilities and the timings, including what Judy Singh has revealed she saw closer to midnight. Murray now reckons that the Ford Falcon ran out of fuel and woul start on the slope of the driveway outside the house at Sandstone Crescent when John got into the
car about ten forty pm that Sunday night. Murray's theory is that John grabbed a can of mower fuel from the garage, reversed the car out and rolled down the hill without lights and power until he got to the flat part at the bottom of Sandstone Crescent. Then, Murray's surmises John emptied the can of fuel and went straight to the Ampole service station in Ballina. Murray's theory could explain the car bottoming out. It might have had weights in the boot bags of cement, for example, or weights
from his bench press set. But it might have bottomed out because if John did not have fuel and couldn't start the engine, the brakes would have been impaired, in which case did the car roll back down the driveway faster than usual, contributing to the scrape and bottoming out of the towbar on the road. Did the speed of the car in reverse help John clear the driveway and get a little way into Sandstone Crescent so that he could then wrench the steering wheel to the left to
point the car downhill. The actual receipt for the eleven o six pm purchase has been sent to me by the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor, and it shows that John spent fifty one dollars that night. If it all went on petrol, it would have been about the right amount of money to fill the petrol tank up from empty. We're not calculating something else here. It is not known whether the liquefied petroleum gas pack in the car was operational at the time, so we are not factoring LPG
into the purchase. But the LPG tank was still in the boot. The boot is big in Murray's theory. John then comes back from the Ampole service station with a Ford Falcon which has had its petrol tank filled up, and then at home he's done what he's needed to do, perhaps with Bromwyn and the sheets, leaving the children alone again asleep. The car has gone out again and crept slowly along Granite street, its driver, possibly a gas that
the interior light was on. We can only speculate about why the light was left on, allowing Judy to see what she insists she saw. Murray's idea is sound, but we're all speculating with others involved in the search. Arriving into Lennox, Maddie and I left Murray and Deb's house and we went into town, pulling up opposite what used to be Eden's Takeaway where Bromwin worked on the Friday
night Chris Darcy, his partner Adele, and their friend in Volune. Here, Jodi joined myself, Maddie, Andy Reid, his daughter Caitlin, Deb and Murray for an impromptu dinner of takeaway pizzas. Chris shared some of his search planned.
So I went out a look this afternoon, looked at all the silent, did everything around the lake, and I don't think we go in low priority.
We'll put the market up.
We'll have the laptop, we'll have the boat trailer there, we have the dog trailer there. It's just that I was doing a few extra bodies to help us carry the boat pretty much from there to the waterline.
Andy mentioned something he'd read on the official Bromwin Facebook discussion group page.
They used to dive down the fifteen meters or so at the bottom and said it was quite sheltery and if you tried to stand up on the bottom he had seen nearly up.
So this is apparently is in the deepest hole here.
Murray pointed to the laptop and the grid search drawn by Chris.
There's the old four wheel drive track go back in those they're fishing and going up and down this beach all else.
If it was a surfboard bag, then that shouldn't decompose too much. And an example of that is over in the Mediterranean they're still finding shipwrecks that are three hundred years old in the fresher water parts of it that's not even actually rotting the wood with the sona. It comes down directly below the boat and it really picks
up this part there right. But then you've got the side view and it then covers that I've got a monitor that you guys can sit there and watch it on vack at base and then we've.
Got radio comments between the stress amazing.
Well, so the check is incredible. Yeah, yeah, from Blake who's still figuring out Blue too. You're the search leader, and we'll just do what you think.
So that's the soda of what a body will look like in the water, because the potential is there that we could locate, But what.
Are the os that realistically, after thirty one years we'd get the visual.
Like that, No, non oliver. Yeah, what we're looking for now is.
Something that is unnatural. If anybody is having any mental health issues after this weekend or at any time, just reach out to us.
The next morning we headed for the water, the dark water of Lake Ainsworth. We'll do our search pattern.
If we locate something, I'll drop the shot.
The shot is simply a weight attached to a line. At the other end of the line, there's a boy designed to float on top of the lake as a marker. The shot is dropped overboard when the sonar detects an item on the lake bed, giving Ash McDonald something to dive on. The shot weight. If it's a nice heavy weight, it's only three and a half helus.
It's not enough because on the bottom that's six meters down.
It doesn't wait that much.
If I'm searching around it, I'll drag it along the bottom.
Well, tie all three together that'll be Tinklos should do it. Chris explained that his cadaver dog is specially trained primarily for bones because he does the long underwater for thirty one years. Yeah, thank you off for Sam. If you have that disturbance coming to the surface, then you expect that the dogs will react to it. We behavior, yes in the boat. Yes, Ash brought scuba tanks and other diving equipment from Newcastle. How much air is in there? Ash?
Well?
How long will that last? Forty minutes to an hour? Thank you?
Pen's how nervous I am, how much breeding I do?
Andy Reid looked hopeful on the shore of the lake that first morning. There's going to be expectation and then possible age your disappointment. I don't know how you reconcile those things.
I know we've always thought that this was a major possibility the late before Judy seeing before any of that, and just trying to stay positive.
Maddie Walsh didn't look ready to get into the cold, dark water. You did say you'd died.
Yeah, I did bring my swimmers.
I've only really snorkeled in my life, but it seems like Ash is the more qualified diver.
There. Was apprehension, but also good humor. Kind people were helping us, people from the community. They came down to watch and lend their support. Murray's laugh is contagious. Chris returned from the far northwest corner of the lake with an indication from his sonar of something unusual.
He presents us a larger structure and there's no other structure within the lake so far that we've seen that this side of.
This would relate.
It's about twenty meters off the shore.
If we find her, that's what we're ideally here for. You fantastic if we're binding behind her and get some closure. It's very very calm, very peaceful place.
It's an airing place too. How do you feel about the possible recrimination that some might have, which is this is a job best left to police, the media, group and private citizens. Volunteers should stayed right away. After thirty one years.
We've had no closure, we've had no movement in the case.
The police just move so slow. It's just so frustrated, very frustrating.
You just can't thank everyone's involvedment enough to give their time. And every weekend un below ash increase and everyone's just amazing amazing effort.
Fingers Cross.
We need to recover brom create or cause any dammage or to be disrespectful to traditional oness.
Hold that up, Ash, it was half a house brick.
Is it?
Did you feel the brick or did you see it first?
Now?
I felt it. Imaginations raced anything seemed possible. But Murray was of the view that the half brick was possibly part of a homemade net trap, that it was used as a weight to help catch the abbeys in the lake.
The abby traps out and then wave down the bricks and then put.
Them in right.
That's that's the while I'm thinking of the moment. We took encouragement from the fact that something that small was visible on the sona back on the water. Ash had something else about.
Where you meet us from Sean was.
Just pieces different. James fell apart in my hands.
I don't know what it is.
Is the profile consistent with what might be human remains potentially?
Yes, Yes, it's spread out over a small area. It's not giving out because of the user. It's been on the bottom of not giving out of her installed profile.
Ashley found an aluminum ore on the lake bed well at least you're cleaning up the lake as well, and you get yourself off amazing. Murray talked about the attention that the town has been getting. It's in the news a lot now because of the Bronwin podcast and John and you're going to see him around town. Inevitable. Oh yeah, it's a sport.
I'm sure community doesn't quite the focus.
And what's happened.
We're a pretty poor the sort of town.
Everyone who's conscipes themselves and we'll look after one and we're good, look down the good little community and I think we'd rather this didn't happen. We'll come up and say, Murray, you know this podcast is doing a good thing, and the people also saying this isn't a good thing.
So yeah, so where do you go? We're stuck in the middle.
The hopes of Andy and his daughter Caitlin were raised again.
We found a few holes over there and we've dropped the marker in a hole. It's about seven point one. We just do it quite quickly, twenty five meters off the bank. There's something lying on the bottom over there, something to mention. Yeah, that was the quickest, most successible place to get someone out of car and into the water.
Although we were there for a job that was at its heart macabre, the vibe through the weekend was positive and happy. Well have you got there? Everything deb Hall organized and impromptu lunch and the day just didn't seem right without Ian Gluis, otherwise known as Scruffy. I might actually ring Scuffy, So if he wants to come down. He got in his car and arrived soon after. I'm getting people saying, can we have Scruffy with his own podcast.
I've got this on record now, so the f bombs careful those.
I understand you've got a fairly good recording studio up there sorting this out right. Yeah, editing, and it's not that hard to edit out all those expletives deleted.
I remember you telling me how you came to the lake one day for the picnic or a day out.
Yeah, and you were with Bromwin And there's a photograph was taken there and it's a photograph of Bromwin's sitting down on.
A run with my vehicle part behind her there where we were barbecued.
And did you get along well with her? Of course?
Yeah.
I got along well with John.
That was until they fell out with each other. After Bromwin disappeared and Scruffy decided that John had killed her.
The house was his and his solely place, and then it became her prison. She's the sort of a person who loved being out and with other families.
With the kids.
The same agent went to the school, knew the teachers. It gradually seeped into the community that Bromwin was not returning and was not on a two week or whatever holiday anywhere with no communication. She wouldn't have left her kids for two days. This is a big external focus on the community. What feedback are you getting as a
result of the podcast. It's a good thing for everyone that knew and loved her, and it's not justice when you've got a cold blooded person, which he is cold blooded and getting away with murder.
John has always emphatically denied wrongdoing, and Scruffy's opinion is only one of many in this town. On the second day of the search, hopes remained high. Chris records we've done about the lake in terms of scanning on it. Maddie was hopeful and sassy. Can you please hold that beaver one?
Am I your assistants?
Yes?
Literally, yes, I was hoping.
Denise Barnard remembered Bromman's birthday party when she turned thirty one, just a few weeks before she disappeared.
She talked about Pendragon and how she had the tape and she wanted us to listen to it.
Deb told us about having gone to one of the tarot sessions with Bromwin earlier in this episode, you heard about Pendragon, the tarot card reader whose real name was David Addenbrook, that.
Was part of the fifty dollars and he charged you'd get a tape call yeah, question, but we.
Never got to listen to it that day.
Oh, you should listen to it.
It'll be really great.
This is going to happen.
Bronwin believed that there were very good things ahead, and the tarot card reader Pendragon had confirmed this for her. She was excited about a future away from her estranged husband John. Bromwin had no plans to do anything except look after her girls and make more friends in the remarkable, beautiful town, Lennox said, where she is still remembered fondly.
We are going to take a break in production now and we'll be back with the rest of Bromwin at least half a dozen more episodes after a pause of some weeks. Thank you for listening to this the tenth episode and all the ones that came before it, and for supporting this investigation of Bronwin's suspected murder. 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. You can read more about this case and see a range of photographs and other artwork at the website bronwynpodcast dot com.
Our subscribers and registered users here episodes. First production and editorial team for Bromwan includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, 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 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 Teachers Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy, and The Night Driver. Go to the Australian dot com dot au and subscribe