Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwan contains course language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. We are close to the end of John's evidence now. The transcript from that videotaped record of interview is just about concluded.
Since episode fourteen, you have been hearing a reconstruction of John's side of the story from August nineteen ninety eight, because that was the only time John has been questioned on the record by police tasked with investigating Bromlin's disappearance. Our diversions into aspects of the evidence which have cried out for closer scrutiny, like the medicare check, have a little further to go. Soon you'll hear John's characterization of
Bronlin's mother, Barbara, the grandmother of Crystal and Lauren. This isn't an easy listen. I'm grateful to Barbara's daughter, Kim Marshall, and to Maddie Walsh for their help in balancing this. Now, let's go back to Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor's interview with John Winfield in the ballon of Police station. In the previous episode. You heard John tell the detective that John believed he would be able to start a new life
without much trouble at all. Therefore, John reasoned, Bronlin could too.
I mean, I know her mother when she went to England and disappears be twel years. I know for a fact that she worked as a prostitute. And she will tell you that too. She readily admits it. And that's where this other child came from. Was your wife close to your children?
Oh?
I think so? Yeah?
Yeah, well, I mean as close as any mother would be. I mean, you know, i'd be lying to say that I didn't think she probably was close.
Yeah. Detective Wayne Tembi asked a question, what's the other child's name that she had in England? Oh?
The one that's Ilegitimate Kim. She used to live with their mother in Tasmania. It's all in there. Graham's actually spoken to her. Actually, I brought her in here. I brought her in here to see Graham.
One day.
She's been here, Kim, she's been interviewed here with Graham. Yeah, because she came up to stay with me for a couple of weeks to help me look after the kids. She came up by bus and she stayed a couple of weeks and then I brought her in. Ran Graham up and I brought her in.
Glenn Taylor asked John if there was anything else he wanted to raise in the interview.
No, just I'd like to reiterate about the media.
That's all.
I'll preclude the interview now at ten sixteen am, and we will then seal the tapes in your presence and you'll be provided with a copy of the tape.
Do you own this format? Yeah? And that's where the interview ended. On one of our drives to Lennox Head, Mattie Walsh and I lost our way while sharing ideas about the case, I've ended up yelling up.
The h the scenic group.
Yeah. Did you notice that.
I have no navigational skills?
Right?
Slack?
Something called natural splashaw, this is.
Quote pretty, It's good, Glinn. I'm driving down at the moment.
I'm not too far out actually, and I'm with you, Maddie.
Did you try and interview him again after that first one in ninety eight? Do you remember again?
Think we did?
I don't think we had any more approaches, but we would have had a couple of phone calls, like if I made a phone call and say John Winfield was a computer generated running shoet was called Eagle Eye at the time, and it was a new system for major incidents, and I had it on the computer. So everything was transferred onto that major incident system.
But whatever happed to it, nail like I got.
We held off for quite some time and his insistence he didn't want anything going in the media, and then.
He didn't want eating in the papers. He didn't want any in the media about her disappearance. We told him and said, look, it's going in the lead here. So he was unhappy about it. He was very much against the medium being involved.
I'm drawing close to the Lennox. Are you around today or are you out of town?
Oh?
I'm numbering around. So I've just entered the ballot of shy now and they rode for Byron.
All right, Yeah, there was one thing I wanted to check though. Do you recall whether John ever filed for divorce from Broadwind after she went on.
I didn't know that answer.
I certainly don't thinking had or I was not aware of.
It, certainly up to the inquest stage.
I discharged from the police after that, but that inquest declined her then officially perceased.
Yeah, I suppose he could then go ahead with it, or he could be still legally married. He's just a widow, and that's right.
I did some title deed searches as well of the property, of saying so crazy, all right, Yeah, it looks like he sold that in ninety nine, which was interesting timing, But just your investigations well underway by then.
The property was only in his day. I think you knew that as well.
He would have gone about saying that she's vacated her It's just so strong circumstantial case. There's no other reasonable hypothesis that she's gone out the door that night, leaving those two kids there, never to return again. Such a good mother, you just wouldn't leave those kids. Everything tells you there's been an incident in the home that night, she's met with foul play.
Just every single thing points to it.
I da't believe for one moment that she made a phone call and then somebody mysteriously just turns up and he doesn't even look out the front to investigate who it is or what cars she's getting him.
You I've wondered whether when you can't discover that Bromwin's mother had disappeared, whether that had an impact on his thinking. Shouldn't have, but whether it did. You just have to do your normal things.
You would do an investigation even if they do turn up a week.
Later or two weeks later. You should still do these things.
Zam and the scene, zam and the guard document document, get a version of the person.
Like formerly, any of your statement. None of these things were done now.
It's just not good police work at all and certainly doesn't follow good investigative practices.
Neglect for laziness, however you want to put it before going further. It is important to deal with the spearing of a woman who is not around to defend her reputation. Barbara Read, the mother of Bromwin, Kim and Andy. Barbara would have turned eighty five this year. She died in two thousand and six, four years after the then Deputy State Coroner terminated an inquest and recommended that a murder charge be leveled against Barbara's son in law, John Winfield.
Among the documents which have survived since the initial police investigation in nineteen ninety three is a copy of Bromwin's monthly telephone bill from Byron Street with itemized calls for Sunday, May nine, it was Mother's Day. Bromwyn called Barbara at her home in Tasmania, where she was living with Kim Marshall, Barbara's youngest daughter. There is evidence of a number of calls between Barbara and Bromwin. It appears they had a
fond relationship despite the separation. In Bromwin's formative years. Bromwyn and Andy were unaware for much of their childhood of their mother's existence. They were led to believe that Jennifer, her father's second wife, was their mother. Kim told me that her mother, Barbara, became unwell suddenly in two thousand and six. She had pancreatic cancer and it must have
spread quickly. Kim wrote to me about Barbara's efforts to see her grandchildren Crystal and Lauren before the cancer claimed her. I asked Kim to read some of her note. It describes Barbara's last days in two thousand and six. That was thirteen years after her daughter vanished. By then, Christel was twenty three, Lauren was eighteen.
Mum had wanted to travel up several times to Bronnie. However, it never occurred. On the twenty fourth, we celebrated Ronnie's birthday on the ward, and after prompting her, Barbie agreed to phone Jonathan, hoping to speak to Lauren and if it would be possible for Lauren to come down to see her. Unfortunately, Barbie's requests were denied. I recall her
holding herself with dignity, and she did weep. I know she shed tears that afternoon as I stayed behind that day and kept an eye over my beautiful mum until her cares had got her ready for sleep. Her weeping was silent, and as always, she did not complain nor let her sadness overtake her. My mother was the most graceful woman this day. Earlier, we had all cried from our disappointments, and Barbie consoled us and guided.
Us to move onwards. She expressed that too much.
Time had passed and that it was probably best to just let things be.
Kim Marshall has been an unstintingly loyal daughter. At the same time, she is candid about her and her mother, Barbara's mental health challenges. You'll recall that Kim was born several years after Barbara's marriage to Philip had collapsed. Barbara lost their two small children, Bromwin and Andy. At that time, she must have been inconsolable. She was also mentally fragile. She stayed out of their lives and left the mother
in to Philip's new wife, Jennifer. You heard Kim describe her mother's version of some of the events in episode five.
As Brown moved from being a baby to a chiddler, Philip was not at home as much, and then she became pregnant with Andrew, and then Mums felt she had developed postnatal depression.
After having Andrew.
Mum had multiple crisis situations going on in her life. That's when her mental health became compromised and she probably had what they described as a breakdown. The lawyer advised that Mum would most likely be judged as an unfit mother due to the opinions of the Reed family, and that she perhaps should actually not worry about contesting custody because it would be a horrible case to have to go and attend court to go through, and it might be better if she just looks after her mother and
perhaps go is suggested. On an overseas traveling trip, for a period of time to recover and recuperate and then return to Australia and then look at maybe perhaps making connections with her children and building a new life. So much pressure in a woman's life, and she thought she was making a sound decision based on the advice that she had been given, and the you'd probably say the lack of support.
Andy and Kim have read the same transcript of interview which I've been reproducing in this episode and the previous ones, the transcript of John Winfield's interview in which certain things stripped of their context were said about Barbara, their mother. I can't avoid it, but and you know what he says.
Anything he's actually asked about that night or anything about Bromwin is very very deflective about. But all of a sudden his memory is just raise or sharp on all sorts of other major issues, including coming up with this opinion the mum. And here he is just absolutely slandering someone recorded interview with the police, a bit of the plot call and the kettle black.
Isn't it?
My mum didn't constitute herself. She was joining what I would probably say was a feminist women's movement. She even made a speech before she got unwell, and she also spoke about my conception at that introductory night that she had to stand up in front of everyone, and everyone stood up and af Florida her.
Unfortunately, Kim does not have the speech. Now, perhaps Barbara spoke freely without notes, but Barbara's statement to Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor has survived. It tells a remarkable story. Before publishing it, Maddie and I decided to check to see whether Kim would be okay about that. We were less apprehensive about Andy, who usually refers to his biological mother as Barbara and his stepmother as Mum.
I've had the most brilliant childhood with my mother. We didn't have a car, we caught fusses, We've got lifts.
She took me to.
Every single athletic event, probably for twenty years, and she has hit so afit gp disorder.
Your mother as an account in her statement, and she also talks about your own conception.
My mother being the incredible person that she was, she told me from the youngest age, I knew where I came from, why I came about, and I knew the reason that I was conceived. And I think I wore that with a badge of honors.
I was what kept her alive. I'd love to have it heard, because Maddie, I know you're impartial.
The Reed family actually uses the word abandonment. Really, I said to Headley in the podcast, I wore that because I have an objective.
I actually have been made to be so quiet and missy for so long. I just want the truth out so I can actually let it all go.
It's not my place to get hysterical and upset about people's past opinions or people's recollections. I want all the truth. My mum's bought is going to be absolutely amazing. It's going to help other women. She wanted to publish her life and her story, and she had started her.
Writing what do you want going forward? For this case?
With what I know now? Pushing the police and staying in constant contact with the police, my obligation is to find Roman's body.
Six weeks after sitting down with John in the Ballana Police station, Detective Wayne Temby flew to Tasmania. This is what Barbara Read, the mother of Rom, Kim and Andy, told him in nineteen ninety eight.
My age is fifty nine. I am a single woman. After Bronwyn was born, I suffered severe postnatal depression. My husband Philip found out that I was sleeping in until ten am of a morning, and he and the other reads did not like the fact that I was doing that, so they arranged for me to see a psychiatrist. He did various tests and it was discovered that I was
suffering from loneliness in which led to depression. Philip was a real man's man, and he would go to work through the week and on weekends either play sport or go to the hotel with his mates, while I stayed at home and watched bronwyin. I did exactly what doctor Lehmann told me to and I became well again. A short time later, I gave birth to a son named Andrew Philip. After Andrew's birth, I was still feeling very well, although I was feeling a little bit run down and tired.
In November nineteen sixty four, my father passed away, and I was very devastated because I came to lean on my father whilst I was ill. Philip was never violent, but drank alcohol very heavily. At the end of the holidays, I returned to Wollongong with my mother and went to our house and there was no one home. I tried to get in and all the locks were changed. I then went to his parents' house at Ferry Meadow and
Philip and Bronwyn and Andrew were there. At this time, Bronwyn was three years old and Andrew was five months old. I spoke to Philip and he told me that he wasn't letting me into the home and that our marriage was over. His father told me that he would ring up a motel for me to stay in the night, and that I couldn't stay at their house or at my own home either. Mum and I stayed at the motel that night and headed for Sydney the next day.
The legal proceedings then commenced in relation to custody of the children and the divorce. They told me that I would not stand a chance in a court because of my illness, and they were claiming that I was an unfit mother. My solicitor told me that I may get custody, but I knew what my mental state of mind was at the time, because it had deteriorated very quickly over
the four weeks since Philip left me. I was well aware that I was in no condition to look after the children by myself, and my mother, who was sixty four at the time, was too old to look after two small children. My mother decided that we should go overseas in an attempt to brighten me up and get me out of this deep depression I was in. Just prior to leaving to go overseas, I took an overdose of nembutale and nearly died, ending up in the intensive
care unit of Monaval Hospital. Shortly afterwards, Philip sold our house and forwarded me some money from the sale. He wanted to give me two thousand pound, but Iony asked for a thousand pound and requested that the other thousand pound be given to the children. In February nineteen sixty five, my mother and I went overseas to the United Kingdom.
We traveled through Europe and then back to the United Kingdom, where I lived on the money that Philip had forwarded me from the sale of the house, and I remained working as a nanny in London for a further two years. During this period, my illness improved rapidly because of the assistance I was given from the family who employed me. I returned to Australia to my mother, who had moved to Tasmania. I stayed in Tasmania for a little while
and attempted to take up nursing again. I saw numerous doctors during this period, and I was discharged after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I then went to Sydney and.
I decided that I wanted to have another child because I was unable to see my other two children. I went to King's Cross and walked the street, and over a period of three nights and four days, during the middle of my menstrual cycle, I had intercourse with eight different men who were all of European blood. I wanted a child with European blood, so I picked three Italians, one Yugoslavian, one Hungarian, one Englishman, an Australian, and one
American from the streets around King's Cross. Shortly afterwards, I discovered I was pregnant, but I do not know which one was the father. I later returned to my mother's place in Tasmania, and my mother, who was old fashioned, was a little bit of shamed that I had decided to have an illegitimate child. I then went to a friend's house at Melbourne and my daughter, Kim Marie, was born in the nineteenth of November nineteen seventy one. After Kim was born, my mother had forgiven me.
One PM.
One evening in nineteen seventy five, I received a phone call at home from my ex husband Philip. He told me that my children wished to see me. I was thrilled because I had not seen them since nineteen sixty four. Kim was four years old at the time, and I've organized to fly both of us to Sydney and we booked into the Wentworth Hotel. Philip told me that the children could stay over the weekend and he would pay for the room alongside mine. We had a wonderful reunion
and we've kept in constant contact ever since. I've been to Bronwyn's first wedding, and Andrew's wedding, and all the grandchildren's christenings. Ever since, I go to Sydney and stay with Andrew and his wife Michelle on a regular basis. Bronwyn married a man by the name of John Winfield in a quiet ceremony in either Sydney or Ballina. I didn't even know that they got married.
I was aware that.
In nineteen ninety they'd moved to Lennox Head on the north coast of New South Wales. In January nineteen ninety Andrew married Michelle in Sydney and I went over for the wedding and I saw Bronwyn there. I hadn't spoken to Bromwin for a long time, and my mother told Bromwin that she was wrong for not contacting me. Brown told my mother that she would keep in contact in
the future, and she did from then on. At the beginning of nineteen ninety three, I received a telephone call from Bronwyn and she told me that she was very unhappy living with John and that she was of the opinion that John was having an affair. I asked her if she wanted me to fly over and help her, and she told me that things would be all right and that she could cope. She told me not to
worry and said that she would battle on. A couple of weeks later, I received a telephone call from Bronwyn and she asked me if I could see my mother and ask her for a loan of one thousand dollars. She told me that she wanted to move into a unit with the two children so that they could be away from John. I begged my mother, but she declined. I got another phone call shortly afterwards, and she told me that John was going to give her the thousand
dollars and that she was moving. She told me not to worry, and that she would keep in touch and let me know how she was going and where she was living. On Mother's Day in nineteen ninety three, Bronwin rang me and told me that she was living in a flat and she had the two girls, Cristel and Lauren, with her. She supplied the address and telephone number, and she appeared to be in reasonably good spirits. She did
sound happy and very confident. About one week later, Bromwin again rang me and told me that she was returning to the house and that John was going to move out. She told me that she would finally be rid of him, that he had been pestering her. She told me that he wanted to move into the garage, but Bromwin was not in agreement to that, and they had then decided
that he move out altogether. This was the last time that I heard from Bronwyn, and a couple of weeks later I was informed by the police that Bromwn was missing. I have rung John on a number of occasions and he told me that on the night she disappeared, she went into the bedroom and made a phone call, put her purse under her arm, and walked out of the house. She then got into a car which had pulled up outside, and the car drove off, and that was the last
he had seen of her. He also told me during another telephone conversation that Bronwyn or someone had returned to the home and taken Bronwyn's clothes and a jumper and a pair of jenes of his. He also told me that a Medicare check had been left on the kitchen table, which was signed by Bronwyn. I telephoned John Winfield when I moved into my flat in Arthur Street two years ago and told him my new address and telephone number so that I could keep in contact with my grandchildren.
I have not heard from him since that time. I've written numerous letters to him and the children, and none of them have been answered. I know that Bronwin was a devoted mother to the children, and I find it extremely hard.
To believe that she would go off and leave.
Them both Crystal and Lauren were her whole life. I can understand her not contacting me because she's done it in the past, but she would most definitely contact the children. I am of the belief that Bronwyn has met with some form of foul play.
Among Barbara's letters and keepsakes was one written to her by Bromwin's cousin Megan, and Meghan agreed to read some of it for this episode.
I hope that this letter finds you, Kim, and your mum all in the best of health, all as well with Andrew Michelle. They told me they are hoping to start a family, sir, which I think is wonderful. I don't think that Robin really knows what she has in you. I think that she's also very astraighted becoming too close to you after all the pain of losing her dad. Deep down inside, she's crying out for your love, and I know that if she saw more of you, she would greatly benefit from it.
Barbara's poignant story is a lot to take in her mental health challenges starting in the nineteen sixties, when depression was not well understood, the end of her marriage soon after the loss of her home and her two very small children, Bronwin and Andy, who didn't know about her for years. All of it is very sad, but I think that it helps explain some of Kim's motivations. In addition to trying to get justice for her sister Bronwyn,
Kim is still honoring their mum, Barbara. On the outskirts of Brisbane the morning of the release of this episode, Maddie and I walked to the top of a hill and we talked about Barbara's lot in life, her children, and her legacy. Maddie, when I think of Barbara in the context of being Bromwin's mother, it's hard to avoid some similarities and patterns.
Yeah, definitely, Barbara disappeared from her kids' lives when they were very young, and it was due to Barbara's mental health issues. There's this pattern that kind of emerges here where we see two young mums being pushed out of their kids' lives. John created a bit of this pattern because he created this idea that Bromwyn was going through what her mother went through, these mental health challenges, and that's why she left. We know with multiple witness recounts
and witness statements. Later on that Bromwin wasn't going through what her mother went through. John created that and led with that, and the police listen to that and believe that. We can see how what happened to Barbara does tie into the pattern of what happened to Bromwyn. We can see even in the early nineties, it was just accepted that Bromwyn wasn't doing well mentally and decided to leave her kids.
By the police.
It wasn't accepted by the family.
No, it wasn't accepted by the family. It wasn't accepted by her friends. But the police just listened to John. They just listened to her estranged husband.
And in that way, Barbara's known mental illness has been recycled and exploited and transferred falsely to Bromwin as an explanation for what's happened.
We know in the long run, Barbara did return and she did reconnect with her kids when they were older, and we know Bromwyn never came back. These are two very different situations. She was fine, She loved her kids, and she would never leave them. She was the one that was with them every single day.
You've been a great help to me in helping navigate some of the family tensions. But I look at it in the context now of Barbara's life and of Kim growing up in Tasmania with her mother. Her children didn't even know of her existence until they were quite a bit older. Kim's grown up with that. Kim must have heard her mother describing this terrible time she had, her perception of being completely sidelined because of her mental health.
It's a very difficult situation because there are so many different sides to this story. You have Kim, who knew Barbara as a mother, and then you have Andy and Bromwyn, who didn't know of Barbara until they were nine eleven years old. Her growing up with Barbara and hearing Barbara being pushed out of the kids' lives is it essentially does look like abandonment. Barbara was going through some really difficult things after she had from woman Andy. It wasn't
well understood back then. The way the reads would have understood it would have been Barbara's not doing her motherly duties and Barbara's not looking after her kids the way she's supposed to. Pushing Barbara out of the kids' lives, they would have felt was best for the kids. In this situation, we kind of have to accept all sides and know that everyone experienced a very tricky situation.
It wouldn't happen today where a woman, a mother of two children who had depression was effectively written out of their children's lives. Andy and Broman's dad, Philip, for whom they had enormous regard, is not around anymore. We don't know why he maintained this fiction to them that they only had Jennifer as their mother, Jennifer being Philip's second wife.
These days, postparton depression and depression itself are very openly accepted and very openly supported by families and doctors.
Many people would not want to talk so openly about these kinds of family problems and even secrets. Kim, however, has just been so candid and open about it. It helps bring about understanding. But it's also important for Kim for a range of reasons.
It's really important to Kim that she shares this and she gets it out there to the wider community. A lot of families go through all kinds of situations that they feel may not be accepted by everyone. For Kim to be so courageous and open about It could possibly make people feel less alone in their situations, because we know families have all kinds of skeletons and all kinds of history that they could be ashamed of, and they could be hard to accept.
Now that we're in a day and age.
Where this can be shared and accepted, I feel this is what Kim needs.
Without the remarkable help of volunteers, this podcast investigation would miss so much. The sharp intellect and common sense of so many curious listeners is revealed time and again in their emails to me and in their posts to the Bromwin Facebook discussion group. The listeners who are doing their own research to try to help are far too many to list. I'll mention just a few now. Karina Berger, from whom you've been hearing in recent episodes, and Susie
Newman in the subscriber only episodes eleven and twelve. And there's a former police detective who would prefer that I did not name her. She's been helping in all these revelations. Most recently, there's Ella Bryant. After seeing one of Ella's cut through posts, we spoke on the phone. It was shortly before the release of this episode, and she confided that Bromwin's case had kept her awake, it's compelled her
to consider all of the detail with great care. Ella writes pages of notes at home after listening to the episodes. I asked her to record some of her notes to share them here. Too.
Admitted that the powers of an ADHD hyperfixation are at play here for me, But I've lived in the Norman River since the nineties, and I've recently self represented in a relatively complex court case. So my interest in Bronwin's story and justice as a whole, I guess, have met
at a few unexpected intersections here. One thing that stood out to me with the contradictions of memory, or the selective nature of John's memory, specifically an interviewed by investigating police when it comes to the hours, days, weeks, and years surrounding Bronwin's disappearance, John can't recall anything of importance when interviewed.
Well up until that point, hag you communicated to braun One what you intended to do, whether you stay in the family home.
Or Oh no, no, I just maybe there was, Oh, I can't remember. Maybe there was a discussion about sleeping arrangements. I don't know. I might have said I'll sleep on the lounge. I don't know what I said. I really can't remember.
But that was it.
You know, I had a couple of cups of tea. I wasn't really sort of tired. I wasn't in a sleeping sort of mood. And then like we heard a car pull up, and she opened the front door, and she was off, and she left the front door open, and I heard the car go off up the hill.
No conversations, no arguments, very few detailed timelines that might help the investigation. It's all sort of portrayed as a blurred memory, especially the night she went missing.
Can you tell us what was talked about? I got no idea. I can't remember what we talked about at the moment. We may not even have had too much discussion. I really can't remember, to tell you the truth, she didn't ask me anything about Sydney. I didn't really ask her anything about Lennox or probably about the kids, you know, just probably about the kids.
But he can recall, often years later, very specific things like the amount of money that the bond cost for the unit at Byron Street, which was six hundred dollars, and the full name of the landlord being Shirley Taylor, the balance of Bronwin's private bank account, which he couldn't access, being one thousand dollars.
So I gave her money for the bond, and I made it out to the lady the the landlord down there, Shirley Taylor. But later on I found out that she did have money because Graham told me she had a grand.
In the bank.
The amount of money and child support that Bronwin had asked John to transfer into Lauren's account monthly.
At that stage, she was after me to put some sort of one hundred and twenty five bucks or something a month into Lauren's account, which I was sort of negotiating with her to do like a child support sort of thing.
The amount of money each clairvoyant session with Pendragon had cost Bronwin being thirty dollars, and Pendragon's home street address in Lenox.
Some guy that lives at Sunrise Place at Lenox Head. She'd been seeing him for quite a while apparently, and at one stage she said to one of her girlfriends that she thought this clairvoyant was her father, you know, sort of like I said, her father's already passed away years ago. Apparently she used to pay this bloke thirty dollars a pop.
The month and year that Bronwin allegedly had a nervous breakdown, including the names of two doctors who he suggested had treated her for depression.
She reckons.
She told me just before we separated that she had a nervous breakdown in the January of nineteen ninety three, all right, and I said to her, you know, what's a nervous breakdown? And she went to see the doctor in Lennox. I don't know if it was doctor Watson or doctor Hughes.
The full name of the solicitor that he knew Bronwyn had seen in Balana.
Graham told me that she'd spoken to a guy in Ballina, Tony Mannering, the.
Suburb where Jacko's mother lived in Sydney, and.
Apparently from what her girlfriends had told me, that she'd sort of sort of fallen for this Jacko bloke, you know. And I think Graham contacted him at Brera. I'm not one hundred percent, but I know someone told me his mother lives at Barrow in Sydney, the.
Time of day being two pm. That Bronwin had organized removalists to collect her things from Sandstone Crescent when she moved out, Bronwin's mother's mental health diagnosis, the country she fled to, which was England, and the number of years she was gone. I am trying to make sense of these things. I wonder how John can claim that both things are true, that he does remember, and also that
he doesn't. The things that John does recollect seem to serve only his version of events, rather than being of much use to the investigating police or family. We know that humans more often than not remember their traumas we store it. We often relive it. Even if we assume that John's version of events is true, your wife living in the middle of the night and never being seen again would be a pivotal moment in your adult life.
At the very least, it's an unforgettable event. John is able to recall full names, bank account balances, street addresses of people, some time relative strangers, as well as phone calls made from the house, conversations that he had with the police, including the contents of those conversations. It seems plausible that he could remember more about, perhaps the conversations that we had the night that Bronwin went missing.
He is Andy's wife, Michelle.
And I thought, yeah, you've got the memory when you wanted, haven't you.
Karina Berger, who has experienced as a lawyer in coronial investigations, summarized John's interview this way.
It was very.
Difficult to understand and really unpleasant to read, because it's just all over the shop and sort of quite nonsensical in places. And he seemed to have a very poor recollection and be a very poor historian. But then all of a sudden he pinpoints with quite a bit of accuracy this time or Bronwin left it about accorded to midnight.
Because I came back on the Sunday and she left on the Sunday night about midnight, is that right? I mean, all of a sudden, after the phone calls that she apparently made, you know, I heard a car pull up. I was sitting there at the dining room table and she was in the bedroom and a car pulled up, and I mean she opened the front door and she was off.
That was it. What time was that, Vina?
About quarters to midnight? I think eleven o'clock. I don't know, you know, it's probably down there somewhere, which I.
Just found really owed, and then I started to think about it, and I thought, well, hang on, Jude's up in the night on the balcony says that he and her more or less locked eyes as he went past. So whether knowing that and having had that visual contact with her, he's then trying to put in their minds that any reference to that car at that time is actually Bronwin leaving rather than him going.
Himself with her.
Jude does say it was about midnight, but I just wonder why would he hone in on that time? How would he know that time when he otherwise says, oh, I was just sitting around drinking cups of tea, and I don't know what we spoke about or what we did or who did what, or it's so vague. But for that detail, your.
Theory is that possibly John's aware or suspects that Judy Singh has gone to the police told them what she's seen around midnight, and he knows that someone was up around midnight and he saw that person, and so he's trying to work out how to deal with that, and therefore he thinks he'll offer the idea that Bromin was leaving around midnight so that the police will think, oh, okay, there's the explanation for what this witness who's come forward
has said. John had previously told the police that Bromin left around nine nine point thirty. He told the police in the earlier investigation in ninety three that how would he be able to reconcile those two really different times.
These investigators didn't pick him up on that and say, well, five years ago he said it was at nine o'clock. Why have you now adjusted the timeframe.
We don't know now whether detectives Taylor and Temby were silent about the discrepancy for tactical reasons, or whether they were just unaware of it at that stage.
And then, of course the other problem is, well, Judy's evidence, presumably, if she'd been spoken to at that time, would have been well, I saw John, it was John. It would have just been his word against hers.
He offers that time, and then he asks them the question is that right? It's almost like he's seeking information from them.
Strike me that he was giving truthful answers to those questions. When you're trying to reconstruct and you've already reconstructed five years earlier, it sort of gets harder as you go along in your memory fades because you don't have an actual memory of the events, you have your earlier story.
Throughout this series, the woman formerly known as Melissa Reid has hovered in and around the evidence in Broman's case without appearing in person. Melissa was a big part of Broman's life and Brommin was a big part of hers. They lived together in the Shire as children. They stayed close through adulthood. I've read Melissa's police statement from nineteen ninety eight, and I've read multiple references to her in
the statements of others. But for many years since the two thousand and two inquest in Lizmore, Melissa has lived her life separately. Andy Kim, Meghan, and other members of the Reed family have not been a part of that life. Before any episodes were aired, I questioned Meghan, what about Melissa? Why isn't she involved?
She's got a strong will, should always come over, very smart, always immaculate, quick wishes. I think Melissa would read more than happy to talk to you through the fire.
Three months before the release of the first episode of Bromwin, Maddie was perplexed too, has your mom or anyone said me. More about Melissa.
No, nothing. We still don't know where she is. I think she just kind of cut herself off. I don't know who has contact with her, If anyone has contact with her, does Andrew know?
When I found and then telephoned Melissa near the start of season two to ask her about being a part of this series. She was surprised, moved, but wanting very much to do her bit to try to help by painting her own picture of what she saw and heard. You told me that you needed to explain to your son that you had a sister. That must have been difficult. Has it gone okay?
It's come as a surprise, but it's done now. It's a conversation I've been thinking about having since returning to Australia because I didn't want somebody else to say something to him without me, as in his mother explaining the background, he always had a feeling that there was something.
Well, I'm really glad that you've agreed to this, and I know I called you out of the blue a few days ago, and I must have been the surprise it did. But it sounds like you had been weighing coming forward yourself anyway.
I'd listened to the podcast. I wasn't sure whether I could contribute, and I thought I would just leave it and see how things unfolded. And here we are.
Can you describe Bromman as your sibling? What she was like growing up?
There was never any reference to step brother or half sister. She's my sister. It was always quite a strong family unit. We had a holiday house. We would all go to the beach and Bromwin would make friends. When Barbara decided to re emerge, I think that put strain on the family unit. I was young, but I remember when she suddenly appeared, and certainly for me, it was a big shock, and I can only imagine it was for Andrew and for Broman.
I haven't heard anyone in the Read family say a bad word about Melissa in my conversations with her. She has expressed only respectful and supportive statements about her Read relations. But families are baffling sometimes for whatever reason, there has been a long term distancing, and who knows, maybe that might change with Melissa stepping forward. Now you've had time now to read your police statement from all those years ago. Yes,
what do you think? Having read that and having reflected on everything over the decades since.
To listen to the podcast brings up a lot of emotions and frustrations, anger, probably even a little bit of guilt.
When John and Brommin first started seeing each other and you met John, what do you recall observing and telling Bromen.
I was very close with Brohmen. We spent a lot of time together, and when John arrived it did put pressure on our friendship. From the get go, there was always an element of control. I think it might have been a little bit of jealousy for any sort of friendships that broman may have had, which I learned to work with because I wanted to continue to have a relationship with Bromwn and Crystal. At the time, I said to Bromwyn, he seems a little bit, a little bit
possessive probably is the word. She sort of glossed over it. I suppose to some extent she'd met somebody she was in this new relationship she was polar opposite to certainly the relationship she had with John, where John was a lot more closed. I had to learn to work hard at creating a rapport friendship. Whatever you wish to call up with John, we talked about it, and I had to work hard at getting along with John. If I wanted to have a friendship relationship with my sister, I
had to get along with John. He was my sister's husband. I had to make it work, so I did. That's why I went to Lennox Head. I stayed in the house. I stayed there six weeks after she disappeared.
In the previous episode, you heard Kim Marshall describing having stayed in the house in Sandstone Crescent as a twenty year old single woman in June nineteen ninety three and Melissa's concern about that. In Kim's nineteen ninety eight police statement, she disclosed that John was emotional when Bromwin's name came up. Over those ten days that Kim was there.
I rang Bromwin and told her of my plans, and she was very excited that I was coming over to visit. She told me what she had planned for us to do. When I arrived, she appeared to be in good spirits and seemed to be very happy that she had finally left John. She also told me about a man named Adam Brook who she was getting advice from, and she told me that she wasn't involved with him at that stage, but she was thinking about it.
Kim is talking here about the tarot card reader David Adenbrook.
She told me that he had been so kind and nice to her and was assisting.
Her with all her problems.
She also told me that she was getting advice from a solicitor about custody and settlement matters. Whilst I stayed at John's house, I had numerous conversations with him about Broman's disappearance. He told me that they didn't have a fight on that night, and that she got picked up by someone and left of her own accord, taking only her handbag. As soon as we started talking about Bromwin, he would become very distant and would often cry while
talking about her. I recall him telling me that she had been running around town on the back of a motorbike and was flirting with all the men around town. He also told me that she had been talking to herself and mumbling, and I recalled John asking what symptoms my mother had when she initially suffered from schizophrenia. He also told me that Bromwin thought that he was having an affair with someone else.
Melissa was aged twenty four and she turned up in June with her then boyfriend Craig. She had a protector and Melissa, like Kim, had lots of questions about what had unfolded on the night of May sixteen. Do you recall feeling apprehensive or concerned about staying in the house so soon after she had disappeared.
I can stay in the house with John alone. I was also curious. Rereading the police report drogged my memory, and yes, I had been up in Lennox Head about six weeks after Bromin had disappeared, which was always being planned to go and visit her and the girls, and
being there even then was difficult. There was a piece of me that wanted to suppose snoop is probably the wrong word, but certainly the response and the behavior of John even after six weeks was quite typically John in that he just didn't want to talk about it or discuss it, certain not in front of the children, which was always the excuse. Not in front of the children, but even when the children were not there, he didn't
want to engage about it. After the initial shock of how she apparently left and disappeared, lots of questions came up, A lot of questions about how she left, who she left with, why John didn't even look out the window. It didn't make any sense. Of course, he would have John been John. He would have wanted to know exactly where she was going, and who she was going with, and what she was doing, because that was who he was by nature.
Did Roman tell you in any particularized detail why she had finally decided that's it. I'm definitely leaving him over. I can't deal with this anymore.
Headley, This had been coming for a period of time. She just needed to have that financial and emotion or strengths. Was that the part time job at the takeaway shop. I think that started to get her feeling a little little bit more financially independent, but also making those connections with people that worked at the store with her and also potential customers. That job was the catalyst for her to start thinking, Okay, I'm starting to get a little
bit more independence here. I think I can do this. A situation that I think had become over the years just too controlled. It was too hard.
In the final months and weeks and days before she disappeared, you were having contact with her.
Regular conversations, but I can only from the conversations we had understand that things had escalated and she just couldn't cope with the way she was living in that home any longer and she had to get out. And he wouldn't have liked that she had moved out of the marital home. She finally made that decision to leave, which was very hard. I mean, she didn't have a lot
of income. She had managed to create some friendships in Lennox Head, which were obviously a wonderful support to her, but she was certainly sounding very positive in terms of taking that next step away from John and everything that that included.
You also observed his very tight grip on the finances.
Oh, he'd always been like that since the day ago. He was very very conscious of spend and what she received in terms of money. It was always just enough. But again that was probably all part of the control. But as a consequence, naturally she didn't have a lot to step away from that home and that marriage and go into the townhouse that she did move into. She would have been struggling to make it work and make
ends meet. The excitement soon wore off, I think in terms of the financial obligations that go with rent and supporting two young children.
And when she was planning to move back into the house on Sandstone Crescent from the Byron Street flat. Were you aware of that intention?
Do you recall John was in Sydney. I don't find his response at all surprising in terms of leaving Sydney immediate and going straight back up to the home, because the home was always such a priority for John in terms of financially and building it. I was not surprised that he went straight back. I think she knew that there was going to be a level of risk that
his response would be quite extreme. Andrew was quite adamant that yes, it was within her rights to move back into the home, which he was correct in making that sort of summation.
Part of his guilt is around persuading Roman that she was within her rights to go back to the house. Why do you feel some guilt?
But we didn't do more. He didn't go to the police because she was coming back. He kept saying she's coming back. She never came back. Was it buying time? I don't know. Was he getting his thoughts together? Yes, I remember with the Petro Street which was just left field.
He arrived at Andy and Michelle's on the Monday afternoon.
I remember being in their lounge room. I can recall John and the girls being there. It was within the first day or two, because I got the call from Michelle to say John's here with the girls and Bromin's gone away for a week. What things are bad up there? But she's gone away, not without the kids. It's very hard to know how you respond when somebody one day isn't there anymore. I wish that I had gone straight up there. I wish that we'd pushed the police to
do more. It begs believes that they didn't once go and look at the car. Absolutely, if I had my time again, I would have gone straight up there, one hundred percent, without a doubt. I would have literally gone straight away. John took a long time to report this, Andrew was pushing him to do it again. I think distance, the tyranny of distance. We were in Sydney. It all happened in Lennox Head and it had already been quite separate. John had taken everybody up there and started a new life.
And yes we'd talked, but no we didn't see them as often. No excuses. I mean, I feel guilty now you live with the guilt. You live with the guilt guilt around not spending more time with those girls. He certainly didn't go out of his way to allow them to have time with us. His response to the gradual discussion and innuendo that there was more to it than John was suggesting. So, of course that drover a wedge.
I probably took the easy road. I decided to leave Australia and I moved to the other side of the world where nobody knew about it. And in fact, there'll be a lot of people that are in my life now who will be very, very surprised if I ever share this with them. It's something you never get over. It's there with you every day you look for faces in a crowd, slowly hope faiths. It leaves a big hole. Just to hear her voice was a real trigger for me.
Melissa is recalling episode three. It featured Bromwan in a documentary talking about her father Phillip's fight to survive after a liver transplant.
Bronwin, forever optimistic, looks for signs of progress and tries to reinforce her father's own will to live, but his system is tiring and breaking down.
And some days if better than others. You know, if I think he's responding, sometimes you have link or wink or made his head. If I think he's responding, it makes me feel a lot better. But all I ever telling him is that he's going to get better. This sort of thing said, he'd want to hear you know that he's leaves functioning kidneys so fine, you know, and that his heart's still it's and that he's can kill.
Two weeks now since the second transplant, and Philip continues to hang on to life with the frailess thread.
He's a good work, isn't he.
Here's the best best when you haven't heard a voice for so long and you hear the voice that almost brings it to life again. I think it was really hard for Bromin because we lost our father. She was very close to our father. He was almost hid you north her support. He supported her a lot, and for the first time Brobin started to step out alone.
In Melissa's nineteen ninety eight police statement, she emphasized John's possessiveness and what she described back then as his jealousy and controlling nature. In the same statement, she recalled that Bromwin pleaded with her to come to Lennox, and Melissa formed the view that her sister was on a high
because of her new found freedom. Bromwan told Melissa about meeting a man at Eden's Takeaway and of a bottle of champagne being left on her doorstep because she had been so down, but at the same time, Bromwin appeared
frightened about being alone. Melissa told Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor that Bromwin had always had what Melissa called a male dependability, and sometimes in their telephone chats, Melissa concluded that her older sister had been drinking wine, which was very unusual for Bromwin, another indication to Melissa of the difficulties being experienced.
I think it's wonderful what Andrew has done. He has been relentless. I admire everything that he's done in his efforts to find our sister. When I read a couple of messages from members of the family that had tried to reach out to encourage me to step forward and become involved, it was very hard because the emotions come up immediately. So certainly the podcast has been a trigger to reflect and think about what could have been what could have happened.
Did it seem to you that when she was living in those Byron Street flats and you were talking to her during that separation period, that she was wavering or do you believe she had made her mind up and she was moving on. She definitely wanted to remain separated and old Lee to divorce John because.
She was already talking about somebody else. I'm sure that would have been very hard for John to understand there was somebody at a party and she'd been talking to this person. That would have driven John absolutely perserve to think that Bromin was going to move on with somebody new. I would say that his world was already rocked by the fact that he was being replaced. Yeah, she was. She was done with John.
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 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 Bromwyn podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can only do this kind of journalism with the support of our subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman.
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