Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. It's time now to explain broadly where the rest of this series is going.
You are going to hear.
More about John's actions in relation to money and five remarkable days of public hearings at the inquest in Lismore in two thousand and two into the presumed death Boman Joy.
Winfield will be reconstructed.
With the reconstruction, it will seem to listeners as if they are inside the courtroom where key witnesses were questioned under.
Oath while John looked on.
You'll hear how the then Deputy State Coroner, Karl Milavanovitch viewed the case along with the police officer who presented the evidence, Matt Fordham. Karl Milavanovitch's recommendation to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute John Winfield for murder was rejected by the DPP, and we're going
to look at that decision too. After the DPP had confirmed its position in two thousand and three, not much happened in Roman's case until the investigation from two thousand and nine, led by the then Detective.
Inspector George Radmore.
With more detectives and resources at his disposal than Glenn Taylor was afforded. George Radmore ran a signalant and serious inquiry and it looked at some important new angles.
Finally we'll draw.
To a conclusion that is the plan at this early stage of the third season of Bromwin.
When I spoke to Maddie a.
Year ago at a cafe in Circular Key in Sydney, I volunteered to her that this case might span a total of just eight episodes. Have you had to think about the kinds of aspects of this that you feel that.
You're equipped to subject to truth here, I'm happy.
To do anything, really and yeah, I'm open to it all.
But something we have discovered while having the privilege of investigating Broman's disappearance is that things change quickly. Unforeseen events like new evidence and new witnesses can turn even a well laid plan on its head a new development. For example, in the Reignited investigation by police from the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Unit, they told Andy Reid back in May twenty twenty four that they were essentially done, that there was nothing more they could do without fresh leads
into Broman's disappearance. As a result of what then started to emerge in the early episodes of Bromwin, they decided that they were not done after all, and they've been taking statements from key people. Now for the first time in this series, let's go to the longest and the most compelling statement in the bundle of statements organized by the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor during his investigation. It's the statement of Glenn himself and it runs to one hundred
and twenty pages. Glenn signed it on October thirteenth, nineteen ninety nine. It is a summary of the evidence of every witness. It also just scribes a lot of information which Glenn discovered along the way.
Glenn had made a.
Simple inquiry with the Road Transport Authority in nineteen ninety eight about Bromwin's driver's license. The records revealed that her license had expired on July twenty nine, nineteen ninety three.
And that it was not renewed.
A known fact like that should have been uncovered by the initial investigation in nineteen ninety three, but there's no record from then that any such inquiry was made. Glenn also checked with Medicare and their staff confirmed that there had been no claim by Bromwin. After her disappearance, he obtained records from the Commonwealth Bank. The last transaction on the account that Bromen used for her day to day expenses was a withdrawal of seventy dollars on May fourteen,
nineteen ninety three. This account also received the single parent pension from Centilink. Back then it was known as the Department of Social Security, but we are going to call it Centerlink because that's how everybody knows it now. Bromman had been entitled to it since her separation from John in late March. She also received a smaller family payment for the children. After Broman's disappearance, there were five automatic weekly payments, but then nothing further. After June twenty four,
nineteen ninety three. The balance of her account was one thousand, five hundred and eight dollars and this wasn't touched. Another account in her maiden name of Bromwin Reid held three hundred and eighty three dollars. Glenn Taylor made inquiries with Centilink, and he spoke to an employee there, Francis McNamara, who went through Broman's files. Mister McNamara told the detective that Broman had applied for child old support assessment on Monday
May tenth. This application was forwarded to the child support agency on the same day, six days before Bromwin vanished. I've asked Glenn Taylor to read paragraph one hundred and eighty one from page ninety of his police statement of nineteen ninety nine.
Inquiries with the child support agency in Sydney confirmed that a claim had been made by Bromwin Winfield for payments to be made by her husband for.
The support of the children.
A document was located which sets out the proposed arrangement. This order was apparently never acted upon, as Bromwin had gone missing. On sixteenth May nineteen ninety three.
At the federal government's Child Support Agency, Bromwin had been allocated a case number three two three eight two six. A child support registrar wrote to Bromwin advising.
We have accepted your application for an assessment of how much child support mister Jonathan Winfield should pay you. Set out below are the amounts we expect to collect for you. Please note that we cannot guarantee payment. We can only pay you what we collect from the paying parent.
John was up for an initial payment of six hundred and seven dollars because it was determined that he had owed Bromwyn money since April twelve, nineteen ninety three, He would need to find two hundred and thirty one dollars a month for his regular payment to her. To be clear, I want to stress that this payment, which was to come out of John's pocket and go to Bromwin to help feed and clothe the children, was separate from the sole parent pension. The sole parent pension came from Centerlink,
not from John. Are of course eligible for the sole parent pension too if the female parent.
Is not around.
Glen Taylor discovered that the weekly sole parent pension payments BI center Link to Broman's bank were cut off, and this had happened just sixteen days after Broman's disappearance. Here's Glen Taylor again reading from his nineteen ninety nine statement.
Missus Bromwin.
Winfield's husband Jonathan attended the Bawonous Social Security Office on second of Gen nineteen ninety three to advise that Missus bromwin Winfield had disappeared, and the sole parent pension was suspended on that day.
Records revealed that there.
Has not been a further claim or any payment since the payments were suspended. The pension was canceled on twenty fifth to Gen nineteen ninety three, when it was determined there were no children in brom and Winfield's care as another person had applied for a sole parent pension, Jonathan Winfield, claiming the children to be in his care. Brom and Winfield's family Allowance payment was also canceled from that date.
Let's rehash the timeline again. There's a lot of key dates and they can be confusing. John reported Broman missing on May twenty seven. That was eleven days after he says she walked out of the house on Sandstone Crescent. John told Detective Sergeant Graham Diskin back then that Broman was aware that he would take the girls to Sydney for eight to ten days while she enjoyed what he
called her break from the kids. But just sixteen days after Broman had purportedly left and with the possibility, according to John's version, that she should return any day, John went to the Centerlink office in Ballina to suspend Bromin's single parent pension and have it diverted to his bank account instead. It took just six days from when John reported his wife missing for him to get the payments to her cut and channel to him. Here's Andy Reid talking to me via zoom from a building site.
If your story was that your wife walked down the door and had a change to go away for a while, why within about three weeks of her doing that, did you go and change all monastery payments for the kids and get your name so they came in hers.
Now Here is Michelle with Andy revisiting the same issue with me in the lounge room of their home in the Shire.
That's what worries me.
How quickly he went and changed the shell a Link payments.
Oh, she told me she's only going on a break.
Why would you go there and change everything to get money for the kid.
For someone that's supposedly just gone off for a few days to get a head clear, right, Why have you then gone and demanded that she'd be taken off the single pension And how can someone else do that? She hasn't got the kids, so you can't let her get any money from now on. I've got the kids, so you've got to give me the money.
Well sort of proof, did you're going to tell me?
He walked into a Social Security place and said, my life's getting a Social Security and she's.
Not here anymore. Oh okay, sir, you.
Know how do you do that?
Something else became evident from the files. Even though the Center Link payments to Broman were canceled but not by Bromman, it appeared that on April twenty four, nineteen ninety six, three years after Broman's disappearance, her address four Centerlink records, was changed from Lennox Head to her old address in the Shire and then we'd leave.
Another few years later, on Bromman's birthday, someone's gone to the Department of Social Services and tried to change Broman's address back to where they lived in eighty eight behind the takeaway shop.
In the flat. What would the motive be for that he's done it.
Someone's turned around and they're trying to make out that Bromin's still around by asking for a request to change of address and tried to put it in the old address back down here where she used to live.
Who's done that.
It's not Bromlin or was it someone trying to make.
Out Someone's trying to make out it was Bromwin? Why changing her address. Glen Taylor's plan as his investigation unfolded through the second half of nineteen ninety eight and into nineteen ninety nine was to put all the evidence in front of a coroner. Glenn believed then that an experienced coroner would recommend a prosecution, but it would take time for the inquest to be scheduled. Before that happened, John
was growing increasingly unhappy. Glenn Taylor and Wayne Tembe were talking to so many people, family members, friends, neighbors, workmates. John telephone to complain about it. That phone call, do you remember.
He was upset that we were interviewing people that he knew, his daughter Jodie, his brother Peter, various people that he knew, everyone we thought relevant to the investigation. And I think he was believing the word was getting out that the police were looking at going to try to charge him with murder.
All we were doing at.
That stage we had reported her suspected death to the coroner. He was quite upset that people were being interviewed He wanted basically just to keep it all everything quiet. He was saying, Okay, the problem went away in about mid nineteen ninety three, nothing had been again looked at now five years, things had all gone quiet, and he was probably hoping that would remain that way and stay quite
Suddenly we're out there. He had contacted me and he said he was agitated and said, you're going to find out she's running around with some rich sugar daddy somewhere and she's living elsewhere. And he was just upset that he was just going along along like it's just a missing person. No one's looking at it him, or it's all going quiet. We knew bought at that stage. He went down to the Senate link and got Broman's pension cut off. He's then applied for the pension himself to
look after the kids. He's gone in and now he's getting a government pension payment as a single parent.
And she's only been missing two or three weeks.
At this stage, it's like he's saying, oh, she's going away for two weeks, and here it is shortly after two weeks. He's already made it just decision that she's permanently disappeared, not coming back to the kids, and got her pension cut off. And then he's applied and got the pension himself, so she had then come back to the house and he's applied for sole custody of the kids and now and receipt of the single parent pension
that Broban was receiving. Michelle said, they questioned him about this. I did that to flush her out.
That was the words he told them.
This investigative podcast series was not meant to grow this big. It has taken many moreses than I had anticipated to do justice to the sheer volume of material and evidence to convey the accounts of new witnesses who have come forward, people like Judy Singh.
And he kind of looked up this night and I saw this what looked to be like a mummy in the back of the car, and I thought, well, even if he was taking out belongings, you wouldn't make it look like a body.
To detour into unexpected places to talk to people like Sonya Lee.
She would have been fourteen when their relationship started.
Fifteen.
As it progressed, if the girls need to question anyone's truths, his truths, start questioning them poor crystal as a human How can you put somebody through.
That and to expel law in minute detail. Some discrepancies and omissions in John's versions, particularly from his nineteen ninety eight interview with Glenn Taylor, which was recorded in the Ballana Police Station.
All I know is it was dark, you know, it was probably at least an hour or maybe an hour and a half after the plane landed, whatever time that was, and that was dark, because I remember I got off the plane in the dark.
It was two phone calls, mate, Yeah, apparently one at six point fifty three pm and one at seven oh six pm.
This in turn led to a more accurate understanding of the likely timeline, as well as who made key telephone calls on the last night Bromen was seen. May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. There's our discovery of documents going back thirty one years showing in black and white the timing of approvals by council and spaces for two concrete paws at a building site where John Winfield was helping build a house before and after Bromin disappeared.
That's the cup of shoot of the file, and then it's just got the dates and times of when various inspections were done Thursday, thirteenth of May. The Garash and.
Front Porch slabs were given the tick of approval to be able at the poll, which we believe from compensations with Glenn was fought on the Tuesday of the Wednesday the following week.
When aligned with John's unusual actions in driving back to the Shire on Monday May seventeen, Those newly discovered documents have aroused suspicions over whether Bromin's grave was made at that property in the shire shortly before the paws of Concrete.
We do not know what else the police might be doing, nor do we need to know, but are properly and professionally organized search of the property at Illawong is necessary in our view, which brings us to what you're about to hear in this episode and how the lawyer Karina Berger came up with a sensible pathway over a couple of days of brainstorming and filming at my house in Brisbane with the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Maddie Walsh,
Annie Reid, his wife Michelle, and my friends and colleagues Claire Harvey and Matt Condon.
Can I just interrupt quickly?
You were behind the scenes as we mark the start of season three of Bromwin. We've been filming three videos for subscribers, more than an hour and a half of content to deep die of Bromwin's case with some of the most knowledgeable and helpful people I know.
We're rolling now.
That's Bianca far Marcus. In earlier episodes you heard her as a voice actor reading some of Bromwin's letters.
When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely. The house that was built became John's castle in my prison.
Our colleague and friend has also consented to being wrapped in sheets and bundled into the back seat, as well as the boot of an exf Ford Falcon as we've reconstructed what witness Judy Singh says she saw late one night in May nineteen ninety three.
Are you happy with the place one of these marcro books.
There's Claire Harvey, the Australian's editorial director. We talk a lot about Bromwin and other cold cases from the earlier stage when I'm trying to work out whether there's potential for one to be solved, and then during the investigation and storytelling as the podcast gathers momentum. Claire is like a firm but pretty cool school teacher who keeps us focused in class.
We'll get it in the works.
Kristin Amiot is a guru behind the scenes of these productions. Organization and logistics, even dreaded spreadsheets are her specialty. How well, there, that's Sean Callanan, who creates many of the brilliant graphics you've seen at our Bronwyn podcast dot com website. He flies drones and shoots award winning photographs and video too.
Another thing just to be careful of, Glenn is tapping the table.
Claire is giving the former detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor a friendly lesson about what happens when he unwittingly lets his hand with its wristwatch make contact with the timber table during an interview. The noise is distracting, the microphones are sensitive.
You're welcome to have your hand up there, but just that.
What we'll be able to hear it.
Okay, sorry to blink o, poor good.
Okay.
And here's the mild mannered, eagle eyed professional film producer Jonathan Barjome, who leads a video team.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nineteen.
The interviews are usually much smaller events, featuring only me, the interviewee, and a low key microphone with no cameras. Most people are a lot more candid when the only thing being recorded is their voice for audio. But for a short time, this team of behind the scenes professionals is standing around a dining table. The first podcast episode of season three wasn't going to start like this, but a special thing happened during the shoot in Brisbane.
It was a light bulb moment.
Karina is a lawyer who left an important job for the Australian Government Solicitor in Canberra to spend more time at home with her young children, and with some spare time on her hands, she got in touch to offer to help in the Bromwin podcast series.
She's come to Brisbane.
To meet my colleagues as well as Andy and Michelle Reid, Mattie Walsh, Glenn Taylor and others, and it led to asticated strategy to try to find Bromwin's remains if they are indeed beneath the slab of house in a place called Illawong, near where Bromwin grew up in the shire. Now here is the formidable Claire again Green.
I'm going to start with you and talk about the house at Illawall. This is where we ended season two.
In that episode the twentieth in the Bromwin investigation, I sat in the passenger seat of Andy's near new car which was briefly parked outside the house at Illawong. Andy was driving and Maddie was in the back. Let's go forward and do you too, Annie, as you look at it again, now, what's your view about the logistics and the feasibility of the plausibility of what we're talking about.
John could have very easily backed the car up over there that true wouldn't have been there, hardly anyone would have been around, and then you would have just taken around of the roller straight across the ground there and then pulled the slab on top. So it's backfield color right, See the land falls away.
Can you imagine if someone came up to your door and told you this may be.
A person underneath your proud geor how would you even approach that.
Illawong is, of course in the Sutherland Shire, in Sydney South. It's a long way from Lennox Head, but it's where our focus has come at the end of season two. As we start the work on season three, can you talk to me about why this particular house in il Along is something that you and heavily have come to focus so closely on.
Well, Claire, I think when we step back and look at all of the evidence that's been gathered by the police and in the coronial investigation, and combine that with the information that's come out during the podcast, there are factors that may tend to suggest that Bronmin's remains maybe at that location.
Karina has been a great help to me and to this investigation since she volunteered her time and expertise. She is eternally curious about Roman's case, and.
We can start to put together a bit of a possible theory about what might have happened here. And if we start with John's very sudden departure from Lennox Head on the evening of the sixteenth of May, or the very early morning of the seventeenth of May, in which he seemed to leave in a great hurry, packed up the girls in the middle of the night, seemed to have hardly taken any clothes for them, drove through the night to get to Sydney allegedly for submergent work, which
is what he told certain members of the family. If we step out his movements a little bit further, he delivered the girls to his ex wife's house and left them with a person that they didn't know for a significant period of time because he had to attend the urgent work on the day. And that's really quite odd behavior to me anyway, because he had a number of child minding options available to him.
He had Andy and Michelle at their place.
He also had his own brother and his own sister in law, so one has to wonder why he chose to arrive on the doorstep of his ex wife's house unannounced. It's just an odd thing to do in my opinion. He then disappears four hours and his time during that period seems to be completely unaccounted for. Nobody knows what he was doing. He did not inform the police what
he was doing to my knowledge, during those hours. He also didn't inform the police of the fact that he left the girls with his ex wife on the morning, which again raises questions in my mind as to why he has potentially withheld that information from police and also
withheld it from some members of the family too. We also from work that's been done during the podcast that it was possible to fit a person of about Bronwyn's stature in the boot of the family car, even with a large gas tank installed, So we know it was physically possible to get Bronwyn to Sydney in that way, despite the risks that John faced doing that, and particularly driving an unregistered car on a very long journey.
Karina accurately described how we were seeing things at the end of episode twenty and the culmination of season two.
And then, of course we have discovered that a concrete pore was approved on the Thursday, the thirteenth of May, only a few days before John set off for Sydney, and one has to wonder whether a concrete coll over several locations that address might have provided the perfect opportunity to bury a body with very little chance of that body being found unless someone joined all of these dots together and made some inquiries about that site.
What's your level of confidence or suspicion that Bronwin's body might be at that site at Illawong. Now, well, we just don't know, Clara.
We don't know until we conduct some further investigations and approach the owners and see if we can make some inquiries there.
And I am mindful that.
Bronman could be really anywhere from Ballina to Sydney and in between, but I do feel that thinking about all of the evidence as a total sum, there is at least a reasonable possibility that she is there, and I think it's a really good place to start by making some further inquiries.
As you heard in the twentieth episode, I spoke to the respected builder Glenn Webster about that house in n Illawong. He had employed John Winfield as a bricklayer for its construction. John was working there and mostly on his own in the days immediately before, for and after Broman's disappearance. But for the entire course of the investigation by the then Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor from nineteen ninety eight until the two thousand and two inquest, the concrete paus were not
known to police and the building site in Illuwong went overlooked. Similarly, the subsequent cold case review team, led by the then Inspector George Radmore from around two thousand and nine did not know of the concrete pause and did not focus
on the building site in Illawong. Detectives, Taylor, Radmore and others were suspicious of John's movements on the night he suddenly left Lennox Head with his two girls and the family dog, but they didn't have a few key pieces of evidence, the documents showing the timing of the pause, and the disclosure by a confidential source to me that John had divulged that he had to rush back to
Ilowong for a concrete pause. John said not a word about concrete pause to Glenn Taylor during the interview that Glenn did with John in nineteen ninety eight.
We now believe that.
The documents which the Council provided to and in showing the approximate timing of the concrete pause are potentially very relevant.
Glenn. Listeners to Browlin have become very familiar with your distinctive voice. We've heard you re enacting your quite remarkable interview with John Winfield. The house at Illawong was not one of the areas that your suspicion lighted on at that time, as far as I can tell.
That's great.
See sudden viewers I've noticed in comments ask why I wasn't more questions asked of John Winfield, but we made an early decision to interview him first before we interviewed anyone else, So we were on an evidence gathering mission to start off with. We certainly were not aware at that point that he had dropped the kids off in their pajamas at his ex wife's house. We didn't know of that, so we certainly couldn't ask him about it,
and he chose not to reveal that information. He had left late night, He had no sleep that we know of, and he drove overnight to Sydney, so that in his mind there must have been some urgency for him to get back to Sydney and some reason for that. We had not interviewed his employer, who owned the Yellow Worn house and built a Glenn Webster. At that time, we didn't have information as to what work he was doing
down there. Listeners would note that John was extremely amazing in his interview and we didn't really push him that hard and be course, if we started to give him more questions that he could possibly trip up on at any given time, he could have just said, look here, of my own free will. He was not under arrest and he could have just walked out the door. He was there as a voluntary witness, so we elected not
to really pushing. We wanted to see how the evidence as we took statements was going to unfold, and then we could possibly come back to him later.
What are your thoughts now, having listened to Henley and Karina's work in the podcast about that house.
In it war, Well, it's got to be a reasonable hypothesis. He's felt the need, he's got to leave the kids with someone, but he chose not to leave them with direct family, which is a red flag in itself. Evidence has come out through the podcast that certainly a body could fit in the boot, even with a gas tank in there. And then he's got a number of hours before he eventually turns up at Andy and Michelle's house.
He's got a problem.
On his end and he needs to work out how he's going to solve this problem. It is a reasonable possibility that problem was put in under the slab before the concrete.
Pol You're a very experienced cop. You've had thirty one years to reflect on this and so many other cases that you've worked on. Of course, is it just one of many? How do you feel looking back and hearing yourself in that interview as a much younger investigator talking to John.
Look, I'm first to admit I've learned things from the podcast that we've missed.
Mistakes can happen.
A hypothetical question, if in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen ninety nine, after you've heard from Jenny Mason and her then mother in law Joan Mason about this very impromptu, surprising visit by John to the house, and if you've also discovered at that time, and I know this doesn't come until the podcast investigation, but if you had known back then that a concrete poor had been approved for the property at Illawong that John had been working on,
what do you think might have changed in the investigation that you were conducting in so far as.
A possible search is concerned.
I don't think it.
Was sort of raised because we knew that Glenn Webster was building his own house and years in John Winfield to do the brick lane, but we didn't discuss what stages slabs were poured, but it'd certainly become a relevant topic.
Now, what are.
The requirements for you as a detective sergeant to seek a search?
Well, if we had very strong, circumstantial evidence that there had been a poor of concrete within a day or two, we could have then put that evidence before a coroner, and there's special powers a coroner has to order an examination of underneath the slab, as possibly that could have been done. But we certainly didn't have that information about
when concrete was poured at that time. We didn't have any strong evidence that he had gone out to the site when he got to Sydney, and his answers we were extremely vague in the interview.
What did he do? Where did he go?
It's hypothetical, Glenn, if you are the detective in charge today and you know all of the information that we've been discussing in the podcast, as well as the information you had back then, so you have all this new fresh information, what do you say should be done at Ilawong you're the officer in charge now?
Hypothetically right, Okay.
Well, I'd be putting in a written request to the coroner seeking a coroner's order that the site be examined by way of imaging or however they would do it, because there's certainly some modern techniques now that are available without completely pulling up the whole slab that should be looked at.
As Glenn made.
Those key points about the coroner, Karina Berger made a mental note. She intuitively knew at that moment that Glenn was right. The state coroner did have those powers, and the state Coroner could also reopen the two thousand and two in quest if need be to exercise the powers to perform a search for something as sensitive as a search for a body on private land beneath an existing,
established family home. My preference would always be to let the authorities do their job first, well ahead of journalists and the victim's family. It just made more sense on a number of levels. But if the authorities failed to act, then journalism is there as a backstop and we can
then try to do our best. But while we were all still being recorded and filmed at my dining table talking about Illawong, I had not clocked the obvious option of simply explaining to the state coroner in a formal submission why it would be such a good idea.
Fortunately, Karina was.
Mulling it over, and later in the day she shared what she was thinking.
We'll come to that soon.
That's what I'd be looking at myself to get an order from the coroner, and you could set out your reasons why you have some suspicions that Romin could have been disposed of.
And in your view, to the suspicions or the reasons that you would be able to put down in writing rise to the level where that kind of request would be consented to.
I believe that they certainly should be looking at that right now. We can't completely rule out like Ainsworth or anywhere else that next said, But there's still all this unanswered questions. Why was it such a need urgently to get to Sydney drop those kids off somebody that didn't even know them, and then you've got a number of hours unexplain what you're doing. And then I think there was some evidence that he'd supposedly told somebody that he
had to get out to the job site. And now your interview of Glenn Webster, who clearly says he was not really needed, he didn't need to be there for the poor, but for some reason John believed that he was needed out there, or he had something significant to do out there. You've got to move forward in an investigation. I think that is the way to move forward now. To try to eliminate the possibility of that prob when he is in fact under that slab.
I asked Andy Reid whether he could recall why the building site at Illawong did not appear suspicious during police investigations through the nineties and the two thousands, given the knowledge then of John's hasty trip to Sydney and some of the strange circumstances surrounding that, it's hard to.
Say that when you join the Dodds and when you follow the info, I like Glenn did his best and the best of his ability. We still talk to Glenn, still chat regularly, and he's always been there to help and always said if I can never do anything, this has always been a case that's bugged me.
He's always told us that.
One of the things that we'll be looking at when we develop episodes around the evidence from the inquest is the suspicion that fell on a building site near Lennox Head that John had access to, and evidence that was part of those in quest proceedings about the possibility that Robin was in that building site. So it was occurring to people at an early stage that a builder with access to a building site could potentially conceal a body, but just things that they were looking in the wrong part of.
He didn't have the time up there.
There's no way he had hours to travel halfway to Boren. So he's got half an hour away to get.
Up there, so another half hour to gown home.
The time frame wouldn't have had you to go up there, do what possibly could have been done there, and then get back and.
Be able to get to the shire in the timeframe that he did. If Bromwin is found at the house in Illawong, we know that John Winfield killed her. This is the site completely unconnected to her life or anyone else she knew. He is the only connection. Correct Do you have to try and control your feelings when you're trying to make assessments like that one there that you've made Andy that you might want that to be true, Yet you're applying your rigorous knowledge as an expert to
this situation. How do you balance that?
I wish and then we just walt closure.
We want to be able to find or want to be able to find her. So you just got to do what you've got to do, whatever that takes.
Just keep pushing on.
I hope we do find her and maybe if she is an Illawong and that's where she's been all this time, we can get closure from that and from there well, I guess that would be justice because there's only one person that could have done that.
I think the inexplicable conduct of John and the unexplained actions that he took leaving so suddenly, leaving a messy house that he would have found very difficult to do with his obsessive compulsive disorder, driving an unregistered car through the night, putting the children's clothes only in pillowcases in the car, the very weird behavior in the shire, trying to leave his daughters with a stranger and then not knowing his movements for a few hours, and the comment
that he made about having to be a this property and that there's a concrete poor coming. We know that a concrete poor was scheduled, We know that the Council inspectors had signed off for a concrete pool to occur there. For me, there are more red flags and a much more compelling argument about Illawong being a burial site than anywhere else.
Yeah, I have to agree. I have to agree.
It's a tough decision now because we have to work out how best to approach the people who own this house of Illawong. They've possibly raised a family there, They've got a large investment in this house, and they're going to have complete strangers approaching them to say we have suspicions about a corpse in the ground of your home. We're going to need to approach these people with complete candor and honesty and integrity and a lot of care.
They'll have many questions, why our place, What makes you think it's possible, Where do you think this might go if it's true, What do you need.
Us to do? What if we say no?
They're all very legitimate questions, and we need to know the answers to most of those before we even go there. We're not going to be disturbing a crime scene yet because we don't know whether it is a crime scene, but it is something we have to work out. We tried up at Lake Ainsworth. In my view, there's much much more circumstantial evidence pointing to this former building site where John Winfield was working in nineteen ninety three, a site that he had access to, that he potentially had
control of. There are powerful reasons to suspect this place doesn't mean Robin's there, but it needs to be ruled out. As you've heard, our intention was to make a low key visit to the owners of the house that Glenn Webster built and then lived in with his young family for several years before selling. Telling the current owners of our suspicions and then asking them if they would let us bring in equipment to search would be the hard part.
In September twenty eighteen, journalists and TV news crewise rushed to a house in Bayview, in Sydney's.
Northern Beaches area.
The proactive police commissioner at the time, Mick Fuller, agreed that a specialist team needed to conduct a thorough search and dig in the ground and around a swimming pool. Here's the Ten Network Sandra Sully.
Stunning developments in Sydney's most notorious cold case murder. Police have started digging for the remains of missing mum Lynette Dawson. Two coroners had pointed the finger at her husband, Chris Dawson, but he has.
Never been charged.
Lynn was a doting mum to two little girls and a devoted wife who vanished into thin air just after Christmas.
In nineteen eighty two.
Ursula Hagen joins us now from the house. Ursula getting to this point has been agonizing and long for Lynn's family, but answers may finally be close.
Well, that's right. Santra police officially reopened this case three years ago, but it took a podcast, of all things, to propel it to national and international attention. A desperate search for answers. Digging in the dirt for the smallest trace of Lynnette thirty six years after she disappeared. A concrete extension near the clothesline is being ripped up and
every pile of dirt painstakingly sifted through by hand. Polis say over five days they'll sift through four areas at the home where anomalies have previously been found.
The then head of the homicide squad, Scott Cook, was at the scene to brief reporters.
What's different about this dig is it'll be more extensive.
We're using new technologies as part of this examination.
Any trace of Lynnette, a tooth, a piece of clothing could be the breakthrough that they need. One thing that is clear the attention she never got when she disappeared, or she's getting it now.
Sandra that search was performed with the considerable resources and budget of the New South Wales Police. It involves specialist planning and teams of people and modern equipment, and it was costly. The owners of the house in Bayview were cooperative. They wanted to know whether linz remains possibly lay beneath. They lived there happily before and after that search, and it didn't recover Lin's remains or anything probative. If the owners had said no to the police, the search would
have gone ahead anyway. Coroners and police have powers to order and undertake a search despite the objections of property owners. Karina Berger understood this and that's what led to her light bulb moment. Soon after Glenn Taylor had explained that if he still had the case now as a police detective, he would go back to the coroner. Karina concluded that Broman's brother, Andy Reid, would be the best person to write to the coroner to press for action, but Andy
would need to make a powerful argument. After the filming in Brisbane had ended, we put our heads together for the letter, parts of which you are about to hear. Andy signed it and sent it to the State Coroner. Theresa O'Sullivan. Magistrate O'Sullivan ran an inquest into the suspected death of Marian Barter after extraordinary revelations in the podcast The Lady Vanishes and a relentless pursuit for justice by Marian's daughter Sally Laden, who lives in Brisbane.
Here is the state.
Coroner reading some of her findings in February twenty twenty four. She identified another cavalier approach by police. The lack of police effort pervaded the first two decades in which Marian was a missing woman.
I find that the nature and adequacy of the police investigation into the disappearance of Marian by New South Wales Police between her disappearance in nineteen ninety seven up until twenty nineteen was not adequate. It is clear from the evidences that following the initial report made by Sally to Byron Bay Police Station on the twenty second of October nineteen ninety seven, that very little was done to investigate Marion's whereabouts until approximately ten years later in two thousand
and seven. The resistance in this inquest by New South Wales Police to accept the inadequacies of the initial police investigation in nineteen ninety seven is difficult to understand in circumstances where a senior police officer has given what is essentially expert evidence on what should have happened.
Byron Bay and Lenox Head are neighboring towns. It's only a short drive from Byron to Lennox. Ten months after the state Coroner's findings in the Marion Barter case, Andy Reid began his letter by outlining the background to his sister's disappearance. On May sixteen, nineteen ninety three. Andy is Bromwin's senior next of kim.
Dear Magistrate O'Sullivan, I am writing to you to respectfully request that you issue a coronial investigation scene order in respect of a property in Ilowong, New South Wales, where I believe Bromwin's remains or other potentially incriminating evidence may well be located. Police may not appreciate the potential significance of the property in.
Ilowng Andy's letter cited a particular piece of legislation from Section forty of the Coroners Act, which says that.
If a coroner considers that an investigation should for the purposes of an inquest or inquiry be carried out at a particular place. A coroner may issue an order in writing or by telephone to a police officer or other person to establish a coronial investigation scene at a specified place and be exercise coronal investigation seene powers in accordance with this chapter and see enter and stay at the place for those purposes.
Andy explained that in two thousand and two, the then Deputy State Coroner Karl Milvanovitch, held an inquest in Lismore to hear evidence about Bromin's presumed death. Karl has been retired for some years.
The inquest was terminated because the Deputy state coroner was quote satisfied that the evidence is capable of satisfying a jury beyond reasonable doubt that a known person has committed an indicable offense, and there is a reasonable prospect that a jury would convict the known person of an indictable offense end quote. That known person was Bromman's estranged husband, John Winfield.
Andy then quoted from the letter which he received in February two, two thousand and three, from the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery. These are the former DPP's words from his letter to Andy. It is not Nicholas Cowdery's voice.
There is nobody and no known cause of death. While Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have seen her alive, there is no evidence that he killed her or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot be substitution for evidence. My advice to police in the coroner, after very careful consideration of all the evidence presently available, is that there is not sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan Winfield or any other person.
Andy made another point in his letter to the state Coroner, Theresa O'Sullivan.
I note, however, that mister Cowdrey QC reached the same view in relation to the murder of Lynette Dawson. Nie Simms and Chris Dawson was prosecuted by a subsequent DPP and convicted of her murder.
And his letter summarized some of the evidence which had come to light in the first two seasons of the Bromwin podcast series. The letter described Judy Singh's citing of what she believed was a body wrapped in sheets in the Winfield family's Ford Falcon while it was being driven by John late at night.
Judy says she reported what she saw to local ballin of police within weeks of the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three and to byron By police about ten years later,
but the police were disinterested. It is unclear what, if anything, the investigating police previously knew about Judy's sighting of John on the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three, before the police took a formal statement from Judy in twenty twenty four, after the relevant podcast episode dropped on the twenty eighth of June twenty twenty.
Four, and his letter described John's urgent overnight drive to Sydney with the two girls and some of the unusual circumstances surrounding his movements back in the Shire.
At an unknown time in the morning of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, John arrived with the two girls at his first wife's, Jennifer Mason's house in Carrybah, New South Wales, in the family Ford Falcon. He asked a woman he and the girls had never met, his first wife's, Jennifer Mason's mother in law, Joan Mason, to look after the girls. The girls were dressed in pajamas. John asked Joan Mason if he could leave the two girls with her as he was in Sydney to do
a big job. Joan agreed to mind the girls and John left them with her at Jennifer's home. I and others in the podcast team consider this was extremely strong behavior on John's part. Despite being asked by police about his movements on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, John never disclosed to police in his interview or otherwise to my knowledge, that he had left the girls with Joan Mason, a stranger, for several hours. John also did
not disclose this to me or my wife. I consider that leaving your daughters with a stranger in an unfamiliar environment for several hours is likely to be something one would remember. I therefore consider this to be a very significant and likely deliberate failure to disclose relevant information on John's part, possibly so as not to arouse suspicion about his movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen
ninety three. To my knowledge, has never accounted for his movements over several hours during the morning and early afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely for the period after he left the girls at Jennifer Mason's house with Jane Mason until he registered the family car at Miranda at three oh seven pm, after which he collected the girls from Jennifer Mason's house and arrived at
my home at about four pm. This means John had the opportunity to dispose of Bromwin's remains during this period of time. John has only been interviewed once by police, on the fifth of August nineteen ninety eight. The interviewing police officers chose to interview John before taking statements from other witnesses in their investigation. For this reason, they were not aware at the time of John's interview of many of the gaps and inconsistencies in John's version of events.
In my opinion, there is a strong basis for inferring John Winfield left the girls with a stranger, Joan Mason, on the morning and early afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, so he could dispose of Broman's
body in Sydney. John had brought the girls to my home or his brother's home on the morning of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, questions would undoubtedly have been asked about Bromin's whereabouts and the particular circumstances of and reasons for John's overnight traveled to Sydney with the girls immediately after his return to Lenox Head from Sydney only a few hours earlier, on the evening of the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three.
If Brombin's body was in the car's boot on that Monday morning, the last place which John would want to be driving to at that time with his two girls would be Andy and Michelle's house.
Andy was at.
Work in the morning, Michelle was home with a new baby. She would be likely to say to John words to the effect Okay, you're here, now, let's get your things out of the boot and you can come inside. The risks of the boot lid being opened were excessive, As Andy pointed out in his letter to the state coroner, he and Michelle did in fact seek to access the boot to help when John did eventually turn up late
on the Monday afternoon. Andy's letter described the car John drove and the potential carrying capacity of the boot.
The car was never forensically examined after Brohman's disappearance. It was later soul by John Winfield. A podcast listener, Terry Freeman his own and worked worked on multiple Ford Falcons over the years and is familiar with their operation. In November twenty twenty four, Terry located a nineteen eighty six Ford Falcon ex F Sedan. He placed a one hundred liter LPG tank in the boot of the vehicle, and his wife, who was of slightly smaller stature than Bromwin,
easily climbed into and lay down in the boot. This establishes it was theoretically possible for John to replace Broman's body in the boots of the family car and transported her to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three. I recall that when I saw the Winfield family car boot on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, it was incredibly clean and did not have any vinyl type lining in it. I could see the metal lining
of the boot. I also recall John had not brought much luggage with him for a stay of several weeks in Sydney in winter. He had brought very limited claving for the girls, packed in pillow cases.
But the most important part of Andy Reid's letter to State Coroner Theresa O'Sullivan revolves around the house at Illawong, the house which was due to receive two significant concrete pause, which John Winfield knew about because he was the bricklayer there before and after Broman's disappearance.
To my knowledge, this property has never been searched by police. In May nineteen ninety three, it was a vacant block of land in a new housing estate that was being readied for construction of a two story brick home. The land was owned by a sutherlan Shire builder, Glen Webster. Glen Webster asked John Winfield, a bricklayer with whom he had worked previously, to help build the home. John commenced
work on the property in April nineteen ninety three. When the Websters were interviewed in September nineteen ninety eight, investigating police were not necessarily aware of the unusual circumstances of John's travel to Sydney on the sixteenth seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, and were definitely not aware of his unusual movements and actions on the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three. I am a builder and I am familiar
with the construction process in the Southern Shire Council. Headley asked me whether there might be documents relating to the stages of construction of Glenn Webster's house, and.
He confirmed that.
He then obtained inspection documents from the archives of the Shire Council.
These show that a Garadh slab inspection was conducted on Thursday, thirteenth of May nineteen ninety three, namely three days before Bromin's disappearance. I understand this was a pre concrete poor slab inspection. The date on which the concrete paul took place is not evident from the documents. Glenn Webster cannot recall when the concrete poor took place and has not been able to locate any relevant documents.
And his letter then set out the observations of an informant, a person who has been in regular contact with me. The informant is prepared to make a statement to police about the following things.
They saw John Winfield on the afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three and questioned him about what seemed to be unusual movements by him. They considered John was agitated and quote not himself. They asked John where Bromwin was, and why he had rushed down from Lennox Head overnight with the girls who were supposed to be in school, and why he was busy. On the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three, John became angry and quote blurted out and snapped that he had to be back
in Sydney four quote, a concrete poor in Sutherlanshire. They considered John's behavior level of agitation and anger over these matters unusual. They considered John appeared to regret having disclosed the concrete pour to them.
They had been.
Suspicious of the concrete poor for some time in connection with Broman's disappearance.
And his letter.
Then drew these different pieces of information together, noting John's previous work at Illawong during April and May nineteen ninety three, the garage slab inspection on the thirteenth of May nineteen ninety three, and John's comment to the informant on the afternoon of the seventeenth of May nineteen ninety three that he had to be back in Sydney for a concrete poor in sutherland Shire. It can be inferred that John
was referring to an imminent concrete poor at Illowong. Hedley conducted a recorded face to face interview with Glenn Webster on the twelfth of November twenty twenty four.
As I understand that that building site was kind of empty unless John was there with you helping it.
Correct.
I used to go there in the mornings and back in the announce the news.
So who would have been there if John were not there?
Just John, nobody else? And what sort of activity human activity.
Was around that site around that time?
Quite a big block alan that was subdivided into about three or four blocks, and I think I was the first time.
To get built there, so it would have been quiet.
Eh.
What if was that?
He confirmed that as a bricklayer, John Winfield would not have been needed to help with any concrete pour. Glenn Webster told Headley he was not asked by detectives in nineteen ninety eight about the possibility of Broman's body being concealed in the ground at Ellowong property, which he still owned and lived in at that time, nor was he asked about the possibility when he spoke to detectives from the Unsolved Thomicide Unit during a cold case review of
Bromin's case. In about two thousand and nine. Glenn Webster told Hedley he last spoke to police in two thousand and nine. Bromwin's family and friends remain very distressed about her disappearance and the apparent repeated failures by police to
conduct proper investigations over the years. After leaving New South Wales Police Glenn Taylor described the initial nineteen ninety three police investigation as quote disgraceful, with no statements taken from any witness, including no statement or interview of John Winfield until nineteen ninety eight, and no crime scene investigation of sixty Sandstone Crescent, Lenoxhead or the family car ever conducted. There is a strong public interest in confirming whether Bromwin's
remains or other potentially incriminating evidence have been concealed. I consider the other potentially incriminating evidence could possibly include clothing, bed sheets, the car bootliner and Broman's handbag. Given the matters outlined above, I consider that an investigation should be
carried out at Iliwong. I imagine that what might be required could include conducting scans of some of the concrete at the property, drilling into the concrete and using a cadava dog in certain areas before any more fulsome investigation was undertaken. I am acutely aware this would be an intrusion for the occupants of the property. However, I do not consider this would be a significant intrusion, and I consider public interests favors the investigations being conducted in the circumstances.
I respectfully request that you issue a coronial investigation scene order a podcast listener. Corona Berger has assisted me to prepare this letter. Carona previously worked as a lawyer with the Australian Government Solicitor and has significant experience in coronial investigation and inquest work.
In the first week of December, the letter of some eleven pages was emailed by Andy Reid. Then, of course we all went into the summer break and Christmas and the slowdown which coincides with the cricket and tennis and all the traditional rights of that time of year. This episode twenty one of Bromwin was released as subscribers on February seven. As of that date, Andy was still awaiting a reply from State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan or a staffer
in her office. 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 Bronwyn podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first. The production and editorial team for Bromwyn includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and Matthew Condon and David Murray, with assistance from Isaac Iron's. 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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