Listeners are advised that this podcast series brow contains coarse language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian.
This Morning, you said on Earth that Bronwan told you on a number of occasions that John would kill her if she made a claim on the house. Nowhere in your written statement have you said that. Why?
Well, I don't know.
I sat down with the police and I told them what I thought at the time.
It can be an excruciating experience for a witness under pressure, giving evidence under oath in a crowded courtroom, knowing that a skillful lawyer opposite has rehearsed a list of pointed questions and is determined to challenge not just your memory, but your credibility and perhaps your integrity. And it's not personal.
It's not the lawyer's fault. He or she is simply acting on instructions retained for a fee to represent a client, someone such as John Winfield, a man who was effectively fighting for his freedom for the rest of his life during the two thousand and two inquest in Lismore. John must have known that the police detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor wanted to level a murder charge at the earliest opportunity. The coronial proceeding was simply a legal stepping stone to
this objective. John and his lawyer, Craig Leggett also knew from the exchanges in court on day one that the Deputy State Coroner, Karl Milavanovitch was deeply suspicious about what had happened to broman So as early as day two of the inquest, the chances that the coroner would get to the end of the proceeding and then recommend to the DPP that it prosecute a known person for murder were high.
But in the evidence of.
Bromwin's cousin, Megan Reid, John and his lawyer believed there was a lot to explore. Ambiguity and inconsistency, differences between who said what and when. These are the gems that lawyers seek to mind and then explore carefully in court in an effort to not just discredit a witness, but discredit a broader police case and perhaps pave a pathway from potential doom for John Winfield.
What we know for sure and certain is that John's.
Lawyer, Craig Leggett, focused intently on Megan's evidence. Shortly before this episode of the Bromwin series was released, I spoke to Megan about some of that evidence and the attacks on her credibility. You'll hear her take on these things too, but first, here's the rest of her time in the witness box on day two of.
The inquest I mean, when you've had time to think about things, I suppose everything comes out. I've had so many conversations with Bromwin over the years. I've known all my life.
There's nothing in your diary.
Is that it does there have to be.
We say, well, it is, if it's true.
That it's true?
Man, please, sorry, sorry.
We'll get through this a lot easier if you just listen to the questions, don't speak over the top of each other. This is a fact finding mission, and you do your best to try and recall your memory and try and focus on the questions that mister Leggatt is asking. Think about them before your answer.
If Bromwood had used the words to you that included he's threatening to kill me, you would have put those words in your diary, wouldn't you?
Threatening to kill me is not what she said. She did not ever say he was threatening to kill me.
Your allegation is that he said to Bromin, I'm going.
To kill you.
No, he did not say that. She did not say that, and I did not say that.
I said that she told me he would kill her if she ever tried to get the house.
And he would kill her. Nothing like that is found in your diary, is there.
Well, no, I wouldn't have written that down, I suppose because she wasn't missing. I written my diary after she was missing.
And you're seriously saying on oath that something is absolutely as critical as that somehow just flipped your mind.
It never slipped my mind.
I mean, she always maintained that right from carnladays And I don't know why it's not in my statement, but it's true.
Well, it's not in your statement. It's not in your diary. And the first time you said that to the police is in the witness box this morning, isn't it.
Well, in my diary are the entries of things that happened after she was gone. So obviously it's not there. And in a statement, I mean, I don't know why it's not there. I had a lot of information coming at once, like I don't know.
I don't know, but it's true that she said that.
In paragraph seven of her police statement, a document dated August eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, so four years before the inquest and her appearance as a witness, Megan stated this.
What I do remember is that Bromwin told me when she was living in Cronulla that John had written her if she ever made a claim on his house. Apparently John had lost two houses before to previous wife and was very bitter about it.
Meghan's police statement does not include the words threatened to kill. It doesn't mean that Meghan didn't intend to say this when she made her statement in nineteen ninety eight, but those words were added by Meghan at the inquest.
Well, let's look at some of the things that the police record you as having told the police.
Craig Leggett took Meghan right back to nineteen ninety three again and Graham Diskin's running sheet.
Meghan stated that she had twice spoken to the missing person only days before her disappearance. Now was that right? Had you spoken, yes, and only that she was able to recognize her voice, she would not have believed that.
In fact, it was Bronwin she was angry.
Meghan stated, the missing person was talking a lot of rubbish, but she did not seem to be affected by drugs or alcohol.
No, she didn't. She was very coherent, so it was coherent rubbish. She was very no.
Well, when I say rubbish, I didn't realize until later what she was talking about. It was rubbish to me because I didn't comprehend what she meant.
Statements were made like you will all pay You can remember.
That meaning the family the family, Well.
Leaving aside what it means or what you understood it to mean. You seemed to be acknowledging that what was said or words to that effect was said in the phone conversation.
Yes, that's right.
And this statement none of you will know what is happening, that's right.
I think she believed she was going to cut us off because we had cut her off.
None of you will know what is happening, and other statements that meant nothing to Meghan. Next sentence, Meghan stated that she has no fears about John Field being involved in anything underward so far as his wife's disappearance is concerned. You said words to that effect to Detective Discan, didn't you.
No, I don't remember saying that at all.
Next sentence. In the past, she that's you, has questioned bron When over her attitude and lies about John and broun Won admitted she was seeking attention. Did you deal with that topic with Detective Discan.
I've never believed that ever.
No, No, just answer my question.
No, I don't believe so. No. No, I don't know what's happened there.
But no, no, let's try it again. Okay, No, just listen carefully to the question.
The deputy state coroner, Karl Milavanovitch was listening patiently, and he had a firm message for Megan.
Could I just interrupt there for a moment, Man, it's very important that you understand that what you're being questioned on is what you purportedly told sergeant.
Yes, I understand that, not the state.
Of your mind. Now, do you understand the difference.
Yes, I don't remember saying that at all.
Focus on that you're being asked questions about what you told Sergeant Discan back in nineteen ninety three.
Yes, let me try that again. In the past, she questioned Bronwin over her attitude and lies about John and Bromwan admitted she was seeking attention. Now, my question is, can you remember that topic being discussed with Sergeant discm No, I cannot know if it had been discussed. We were aware in nineteen ninety three that Bronwin had told lies about John in the past.
No, I'm not aware of anything like that.
No, did you at any stage say to Sergeant Discan words to the effect Bronwyn has admitted to me that she's only seeking attention.
No.
Now you go on and you say this she this is you please that John is a great father and career of the two children involved in the marriage. Now, was that your opinion in September of nineteen ninety three.
It was not my opinion in May of nineteen ninety.
Three, So I don't recall that it would have been in September of nineteen ninety three.
Despite that being what you now say is your opinion in nineteen ninety three. Do you say you did not tell Sergeant Discin that John was a great father.
I don't recollect saying that. But I also didn't believe he would ever harm the children. He looked after the children.
I do believe Sergeant Diskin records this. Megan believes that in the past, Bronwan was a user of cannabis. Now, just pausing there, do you have knowledge one way or the other as to whether Bronwan has ever used cannabis?
No, I do not.
You're seriously saying that.
I know that.
I mean, was it your opinion that Bronwin could properly be described as a flower child?
She was far from a flower. She was more of a glam.
Let me put this to you, Sergeant Discin records it this. She may well be living on a commune somewhere. Now, did Sergeant Discan ever ask you about where you thought Bronwin might be? Was that topic ever discussed?
I don't recollect that.
No, but it may have been.
Well, it may have been, but I don't know.
And I know that I would have never have thought of Bromin on a commune.
Never, never, never, ever, She wouldn't go to a commune.
Are you denying that you said to Sergeant Discan words to the effect she may well be living on a commune somewhere.
I don't recollect saying that whatsoever. I can't imagine myself saying that.
You say, you don't recollect You're not going so far as to deny it.
Well, I am denying that I said that because I don't believe I said that.
It goes against everything I've ever thought.
And no, now, let me take you to this. Sergeant Discin records this. Megan also reiterated the fact that her mother did exactly the same thing some years ago and believes that one day she will walk back into the family home as if nothing happened due to her state of mind at the time of her disappearance. Was that topic, that is the topic like mother, like daughter discussed with Sergeant Discin.
I have always maintained no, no, just answer the question.
No, Well, if it was, I've always maintained that she was nothing like her.
Mother, nothing like her mother's well, just step by step.
So you seem to be acknowledging that.
The topic I'm not just wait, okay.
You seem to be acknowledging that the topic of Bronwan's mother's behavior was discussed with Sergeant Discin.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I don't remember talking to him about.
It at all.
But you're not denying I am.
Not denying it.
The topic I don't know, I don't know, I don't remember. It was a long, long, time ago.
Now, Bronwyn ripping the phone off the wall. You can remember that event being described to.
You, remember Crystal telling me about the event?
Yeah.
Had Bromwin ever ripped the phone off the wall prior to that, as far as you're.
Aware, prior to her disappearance or.
To her ripping the phone off the wall on.
That occasion, No, not that I know of.
No, so it would be fair to describe that event as being something out of the ordinary.
I'd say so.
Yes.
John's lawyer had two final questions for Megan. They related again to Centrelink and Bronwyn's sole parent pension. He took Megan further back in time to when Bromwyn had just moved into a flash in Cronala in the Shire with John and her daughter Crystal.
It was nineteen eighty five. You spoke about friction between John and Bronwin in the Cronula days. Are you aware that when John and Bronwin were first living together, Bronwin was still claiming a sole parent pension from Centerlink.
No, I wasn't aware of that.
Did Bromwin ever say to you that that was the cause of the disharmony between Bronwin and John? And by that I mean that John wanted Bromwin to disclose tossentdling that she was no longer entitled to a sole parent pension and she was not prepared to.
No.
I've never heard of that before.
No.
As you heard in episode twenty one, John told the detective Graham Diskin that Bromwin agreed with John on the night of her disappearance that she would take her break from the children for eight to ten days while he took the children to Sydney. Sixteen days after that purported conversation with Bromwin, on the night she disappeared, John went and canceled her single parent government support payments and diverted
those to himself. Craig Leggett's question to Megan suggested that in nineteen eighty five, when Bromwin had just met John, Bromwin was claiming a single parent pench for the care of Crystal, and that after moving in with John in Quanulla, she kept receiving the government payment, creating disharmony between her and John because John believed she should no longer have been entitled to it. These were the lawyer's suggestions. John was simply correcting the record. Putting his name down as
the children's single parent, according to Craig Legot. Finally, Megan Reid was excused. I'll just ask you a few brief questions if you're ready for here. You've been hearing your own evidence again, Megan, and the questions that you were asked by John's lawyer Craig Leggatt some very pointed questions at times, and challenges to your own memory and even credibility. What's it been like to go through that.
I'm reliving the whole thing all over again.
One of the.
More striking parts of the cross examination related to your assertion that John had told you that he had seen Bromman, presumably in Brisbane, and that he had told broman don't come back. You're not welcome back. Do you remember the original conversation with John.
John used to regularly come up with sightings from the commune and blah blah blah. But this time I remember that I was very wary of him. He was very, very strange at that time, and I told him I was leaving and he had to go.
Meghan said that the disclosure from John occurred when she was holidaying with her children at her parents' apartment in the Focus Building in Surface Paradise. It was nineteen ninety four. John came to visit with Lauren and Crystal. He stayed for several days. Meghan has previously told me that John outstayed his welcome.
I sat down on the bed where I had my suitcase as I was packing it.
I can remember this so distinctly.
And he told me that he knew where Bromin was, and he said that she had been found by the police at Brisbane Showground.
My response was great.
Because we're in Stuffy's paradise, Let's get in the car and go straight away and see her. And he said, no, he'd already done that, he'd seen her, and he had told her that after what she had done to him and the children by leaving him and leaving her children and not ever bothering to be in contact, that he didn't want her back.
She could stay with the Sugar Daddy.
After that, I never ever spoke to John or saw him again.
Apart from the inquest, there is.
Also timing inconsistency. In the previous episode, you heard a reference to me and John about these matters in nineteen ninety seven, as that is what is in Meghan's nineteen ninety eight statement, but Meghan is adamant that that's a mistake. In her statement, she is sure that she stopped talking to John in nineteen ninety four, around the time that she says John claimed he saw Bromwin alive and well in Brisbane.
On any thing it happened in nineteen ninety seven, was my divorce came thrue?
Were you skeptical about what John had told you?
I thought it was a lie. It was an absolute lie.
I don't believe for heartbeat that he's been up to Brisbane and seen her.
John's lawyer did put to you that this must have been falsehood, an eer, something you've exaggerated or made up. Why is this extraordinary revelation from John, whether false or true, not in your statement that was taken four years prior to you giving evidence at the inquest. Why is it missing from that? Wouldn't it have been some of you wanted Glen tale to know. John told me this as well, He's actually seen romin well.
I have called the police so many times to tell them what John had told me many times, and nobody.
Will talk to me.
We're not talking about that period.
We're talking now about the nineteen ninety eight written statement.
As far as I was concerned, it was no different apart from the fact that he said he saw then the other times had he told me that she had definitely been found, I definitely broughted it to the police.
Megan also recalled that when her nineteen ninety eight statement was taken, she was sitting with her mother Leah and her father John Reid at their house in Sydney where they met Glen Taylor.
There was myself and my parents sitting at a table with Glen Taylor and Timby with a manual typewriter.
It wasn't a recorded interview.
It wasn't structured.
I didn't say much because Dad did most of the talking, because that's my dad.
I don't believe that in any of Andy's evidence or in his statement, there's any suggestion that he heard from you that John had told you that he had seen Bromwin and told her stay away, don't come back.
Everything I've ever said to Andrew seems to have gone in one ear and out the other.
I don't think she's taken me seriously.
At all, and she's sure that she told Andy at the time.
And The only reason that I know that I did definitely called him is that I have the phone record, but.
Me all that shows as you called him.
Yeah, but that's so unusual, especially back then, because he didn't seem to want to hear from me at all.
He formed a view that you were being milked by John for information, information that Andy had shared with you, and he was suggesting in his evidence that John was cunningly milking you for police information about what police were trying to follow up and wor suspecting and so on.
What do you say to that?
Oh, I find that ludicrous.
What could he milk me for? I didn't know anything.
I know what he's saying, but I don't understand why he would think that.
Is it possible that in your conversations with John you have unintentionally imparted information provided to you by Andy, which Andy had gleaned from Discon's investigation.
Absolutely out of the question. We never spoke about Bromwin ever. It was only about the children, what to cook for dinner, stuff like that. My discussions for John were not about Bromwin unless he specifically brought her up. Now, I don't understand Andrew, we thought that.
Why didn't he talk to me about it?
I know he told the police not to speak to me.
I could not get on too discin.
He wouldn't take my calls, I left messages and he would not bring me back. I think Andrew's got it completely wrong. He thought that I was the only one in contact with John, but no, Mom and Dad were in regular contact.
In fact, they thought more of John than I did.
After Bromin disappeared.
Yes, we will probably never know whether the inconsistencies and differences in evidence were down to Megan. You'll recall that John's lawyer described her as a drama queen. Were police at fault for not taking a more exhaustive and accurate statement from Megan?
Again, it is.
Unlikely that we can get to the bottom of whether Megan was impersonated by someone else for the infamous disclosures attributed to her in September nineteen ninety three in that purported telephone conversation with the detective Graham Diskin, So, could you.
Please tell us your full name?
Ian Russell Lewis the man listeners know as Scruffy, had evidence about a property in Neuri Bar near Lennox Head where he and John worked and where Scruffy suspected Bromwin could be buried under an unusually thick concrete slab. Here's what Scruffy told me in episode eight about the building site and why he had speculated that it could be Bromwin's bury all place.
We went to do a sort of laundry bathroom.
Area, said, when you fucked the levels up here because it was thick laundry and darthrom areas don't have to be their thick and concrete deer.
He was working there as a briglayer.
In early twenty twenty five. At his home in Lenox, Scruffy agreed to go back in time and read his lines from the inquest. The semi retired concretor was on his best behavior in the courtroom and there were no f bombs. Matt Fordham began by asking Scruffy about disclosures made by Bromwyn and John in nineteen ninety three. Scruffy and his wife Maria were friendly with Bromwin. There were regular visits and outings. Scruffy knew John too from their
work around the Lenox area. They worked together at times on jobs, and John had made disclosures to Scruffy, which he later shared with police. Matt Fordham asked about a conversation where Bromwin told Scruffy she would never let John get custody of the children.
Do you remember, sir, did she say that on more than one occasion or just on one occasion.
Well, it was said on more than one occasion, as she was seeing the female solicitors, I think in Lismore, and she used to drop in after picking up her daughter from school and dropped into our place on her way home, and she used to walk home.
And sir, are you able to remember how long before Bromwin disappeared that she said that.
Well, it was in the preceding couple of weeks.
So also in your statement, you described some conversations that you had with Jonathan Winfield, and you say that you recall John telling you words of the effects, there is no way she's getting the house. I've already been through this twice before.
Well, basically what was said was we were passing a previous house that he had built for a previous relationship, and I think we were working on his current house the time, and he just intimated that he didn't want him go through having to sell it to realize the assets of that relationship.
Did Jonathan tell you that it was to do with proper settlement from a previous failed marriage.
Or well, it was said that it was for a previous wife or relationship that he'd had.
Matt Fordham asked about a paragraph in Scruffy's nineteen ninety eight statement to police in which he said that he had challenged John about the whereabouts of Broman's body. This is how Scruffy described that conversation to me. When I met him at his home in Lennox Head. John was returning some building equipment which he had borrowed from.
Scruffy and I've just brought you a year back.
What do I owe you for it? I said, I'd just like to find out about Roman.
And he said, I know what everyone's saying about me. And he said, the first person that says it public, I'm going to sue for defamation. I said, well, you're going to have to consume me, because fucking I know you're responsible for a death. I said, all I want to know is where you buried her. That's what I was into him, standing on the step looking at him.
Was there any conversations around that issue?
Will know.
Well, it's common knowledge in a place like Lennox Head that there was talking, and I'm not the sorid of person that talks much behind people's backs.
Did John respond in any other way than to say, well, that's what everyone else is saying around the town.
Yeah, words to that effect.
Yes.
What was his demeanor at the time?
He was cool?
Was he shocked by that at all?
No?
Was he upset about that rumor being spread about him?
Well, personally, I don't know what he was, you know, but he didn't give off any sign of being upset or whatever. But it's quite obvious that it was going around lennox Head, and it still is.
Matt Fordham turned to the Newibar property. There was a high degree of interest in the possibility that Bromwin was buried there under a slab of concrete.
Have you since learnt the address of that house? No?
And the thing with the house was that it was pure conjecture. I can't recall whether that was before, during, or after Romwin meant missing. But the thing was at the time when it was finally sort of a knowledge that she was missing, and I started thinking about, well, where when you possibly you put her and I couldn't recall where the house was because we only went there and concreted for the day, never saw the finished product, so I wouldn't know what it looked like when it
was finished. And there's been a lot of places built around Uribar and it's a long time ago.
Matt Fordham confirmed with Scruffy that he was present when the slab was laid.
Yeah, I bought it.
And before the concrete was poured you could see into the area where it was to be poured. Yeah, and underneath where the concrete slab was, it was just the bare earth. Is that correct?
No, it was plastic and it's all prepared and it would have been inspected by the council because it's part of the house and the steel and everything.
It would have had inspections.
In our view, Nurie Bar was a bit of a red herring, but illewom in the Southerland shire where John went the day after Brohman's disappearance should have been taken a lot more seriously.
Do you have an opinion as to whether it would be possible for a body to be buried underneath that plastic.
It's possible for a body to be buried anywhere.
He asks Gruffy if he had noticed any disturbance to the form work.
I couldn't see any.
You know, if there had been some sign at the time that something was amiss, I would have noticed it right apart from the thickness of that area, you know.
And you've since had no contact with anybody who has indicated to you the location of that unusually thick slab. Is that correct?
Scruffy replied that he didn't know where the specific job site was. With the unusually thick concrete slab. He said he had driven out to Newibar to look for it, but he couldn't identify it from many jobs he'd worked on years earlier. He had told Glen Taylor he believed it was around the time of Bromin's disappearance, and this didn't rule out the possibility that the poor in fact
occurred after Broman's disappearance. We know that John was in Sydney for about ten days after Bromin disappeared before returning to Lennox Head with Crystal and Lauren. But in two thousand and two, the new Rebar property was the only lead the inquest had to follow, and Matt Fordham persisted, he asked Scruffy more details about the concrete slab. Scruffy described the thick concrete slab in the laundry of the property as being three meters by three meters in side.
When Matt Fordham had finished, John's lawyer stood up. He had new information that he had presented to the inquest the day before. The potential location of the Neuribar property to which Scruffy was referring was no longer a mystery.
Mister Glewis, Can I suggest to you that the house that you were working on with John Winfield at Newybar was in fact Ernie Kisser's house in Martin's Lane Nurubar.
It could be.
Does that jog your memory?
No, it doesn't jog my memory.
The name of the place, don't really care whose place it is and whatever. But I would have had to get the direction from John to appear to concrete it.
But in the course of that answer you said, didn't.
You It could be that one it most from mears.
Now working on that site. Along with you and mister Winfield, there were at least a half a dozen other blokes doing the form working, and the levels weren't there.
When we went to concrete it. I think there was three of us and Genres there.
Three, so yourself, John and a couple.
Of other offsiders with us. I think it was only a couple of us.
Yeah. Now, can I suggest to you that this particular house was being built as a pole house? Does that jog your memory?
There might have been poles attached to one side of them.
Yeah, And that the way the pole house is built is that because of the relationship between the ceiling height and the RLS, an excavation is done, which is often deeper than where the floors are actually going to end up.
Yes, if they suffer the job up. Yes.
An RL means reduced level. It's a reference point used throughout a bill to achieve the correct distance between the ceiling and floor height.
And where there has been an over excavation, particularly in that Martin's Lane at Uruba, it is cheaper because of the way the soil is to just lay the concrete a bit thicker rather than to bring in earth.
Scruffy replied that anything is cheaper than concrete.
If the concrete is already ordered and it's going to be coming on site, then one way of bringing the floor height to the right. RL is simply by thickening up the concrete. That happens all the time on jobs, to your experience, doesn't.
It unless in there has been made.
No, but this was not the first time you've ever laid a slab that's been thicker than four inches? Is it? Oh?
No?
No, But the thing is to depending on where the slab was, and I'm just saying that it was unusual and the concrete was that thick through that area.
Your worship just on that. I'm instructed that mister Kiss still lives in the house and his phone number is actually in the phone book, so it shouldn't be a particularly difficult exercise to get out there and conduct the investigation.
Ultimately, the Newibar property, the one that was owned by Ernie Kiss with the concerns which Scruffy had raised, were not investigated further.
By police at the time.
It does seem improbable that Bromin's body could have been put there. In my view, the Illiwong property in the sutherland Shire holds the most promise and it has never been searched. Illiwog was not considered by police or Andy back in two thousand and two. When the inquest was being held in two thousand and two, they did not know about information which has come to light during this podcast investigation.
There is something else though.
Scruffy has raised with me his suspicions about a retaining wall in Sandstone Crescent. But again the timing makes it improbable in my view.
Why has he gone all the trouble of laying a course of blocks and bricks along the wall to hide whatever the original concrete war was and the biquork goes up a fair bit higher.
There would have been a lot of mixes of concrete to do it. Then it was the turn of Scruffy's wife, Maria Glewis. Matt Fordham asked brief questions of Maria. He began by asking Maria about a conversation which she had set out in her police statement of nineteen ninety eight.
Do you remember how long it was before she disappeared, that you had that conversation.
Quite a long time, a long time.
And did you were you able to determine anything from her demeanor about her attitude towards Jonathan's behavior.
Well, I think they lived a little bit on eggshells regarding the neatness and tidiness of the house where John was concerned.
And did you get any impressions about whether that concerned Bromin.
I think it made her uncomfortable.
Yes.
In episode three, you heard about Bromin's disclosures to Maria about phone calls John was making to Bromman at the Byron Street townhouse while John was working in Sydney.
Bromnin would often tell me that John was wringing her nightly from Sydney, and she thought that he was checking up on her. She was extremely concerned by his phone calls, and she was very worried that he was trying to take the children from her. She got to the stage where she would not go out at night because of John's phone calls, and she would stay at home dreading
the calls. Bronwin also told me that John had told her that he would do anything he had to do to keep the house, and that he'd already lost two houses to other women and was not about to lose this one.
Matt Fordham brought Maria to this paragraph in her statement, and he asked.
Did she indicate to you whether she'd, for example, wanted to move back into the house or wanted to take the kids or wanted to leave completely.
Well, she was concerned that she would have custody of the children. She did not want John to have custody of the children. She was very concerned that she should keep control of the children. She would have liked to have moved back into the house, and she took construction from a solicitor that since John was in Sydney, that she should move back into the vacant house, and that's what she did.
Yes. Did you get the impression, ma'am, that Browin was totally concerned with keeping her children and that the reacquisition of the house was a secondary thing to Bronwin.
Oh, definitely yes.
The police officer asked Maria how she came to hear that Bromwin had supposedly gone away for a break, leaving the children with John.
I think perhaps the people in the shop that she'd worked in at the time. She was working in a takeaway shop in Lennox Head, and when I went in there, they said, you know that she had gone supposedly on a holiday for a couple of weeks and left the children with John. And as I said, it was unbelievable because she was extremely concerned that she have custody of the children.
Did the people in the takeaway shop indicate to you where they had that information from?
No?
No, And do you remember what sparked this conversation? Did you ask John what had happened to Bronwin No?
Never.
Did it appear to you that John was volunteering this information to you?
Yes he did, he was. Yes, I think John had said he didn't know what had happened to Bronwyne gone and he had no idea where she was.
And ma'am, do you.
Believe that it's possible that Bromwin could have changed her mind and simply walked out on the children.
No, I have no questions. Thank you, your worship.
There is something else which stands out to me after rereading the evidence and being reminded of when Bromwin did certain things in her final weeks, like her writing to Crystal's biological father, Mark Davis and his family encouraging them to have a greater role in Crystal's life, and Bromin's disclosure to Crystal that her father was not John Winfield, the man whom she called dad. Bromwin told Cristel that her biological father was in fact a man called Mark Davis.
John must have suspected that there was a powerful chance that, as a result, Mark Davis and his family would seek to be involved in Crystal's life. John's chances of defeating Bromwin in any contest for custody. And you'll recall Broman's friend Joan telling me right back near the start of the Bromwin series that Bromwin had over her John and his father talking about custody and how custody was a pathway to financial control of the house.
She was worried because she had heard John.
Talking to his father failed to be better if he had the kids. Peoples, he had better chance of having the house if he had the kids.
It seemed that she was worried he had a strategy to see custody of the children.
She was worried about it.
He said, you'll have to teach me how to load the grass. Then it was the last time you spoke to her, so she had no intentions of just up and leaving.
Bromwin would always be Crystal's mother, but John's role would be weakened if Bromwin's eldest daughter forged a new relationship with her biological father, Mark Davis did this contribute to what police believe was a suspected boil over in the house. On Sunday May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, Bromlan's brother, Andy Reid, walked to the front of the court, the witness who had done more than anybody else to get a new
investigation underway. Culminating in this inquest, matt Fordham raised an obvious point. He began by clap arrifying Andy's long term address in Carring Bar in Sydney's Sutherlandshire.
And that's close to the Kronella shopping center. It's close to that area. Is that correct?
Yeah?
Not even five minutes in the car, three minutes down the road.
The likelihood that Bromwin had been walking around Kernella living a second secret life while her brother was living nearby with no idea seemed far fetched. Matt Fordham pressed the point for the coroner by asking Andy to list his active involvement in the community.
Andy was no hermit.
Currently, I'm the president of the Sharks Little Athletics Club with over three hundred children accessing parents galore. I've been involved with the Lily Pilly Soccer Club for the past four years before being involved in my children's sport. I ran Miranda Hotel cricket club in the sutherland Shire and played a gra cricket for ten or eleven ue years straight.
Sir, through those associations, is it the case that you would have come into contact with a large number of people from the Cronulla area.
I know a sqwillion people around the Cronulla area, So.
Sir, do you believe that a large number of people in the Cronulla area would also recognize Bronwin?
A large number of people in the Cronulla area would recognize Bronwyn.
Yes, and Sir, nobody has apart from the witnesses that have been identified by the police, nobody has approached you and indicated that they've seen Bronwin at any time in the Cronulla area. Is that correct?
No, no one has ever stated that.
And certainly, sir, you haven't heard from Bronwyn since May nineteen ninety three, is that correct?
That's correct.
The police officer asked Andy about Bromwin's decision to leave the Sandstone Crescent house in early nineteen ninety three with the children. Bromwyn had been asking relatives for financial help.
From your knowledge of the family, at the time, Sir was getting the bond money. Was that a problem for Bronwin.
Yes, that was a big problem for Bromwin. John would not give her the bond money to actually go down and get the unit. Hence phone calls to me, to her mother, to John Reid to try and get the bond and the necessary first up funds she needed to get out of the relationship.
The police officer asked whether Andy ever heard Bromwin become angry about not being able to get money that easily.
I wouldn't use the term angry. She was concerned, possibly distressed, that she couldn't get the funds to be able to do what she needed to do, and that was to pay the bond and get herself set up in the townhouse.
Andy confirmed that he had encouraged his sister to return to the house in Sandstone Crescent. Bromin was having money troubles and she was struggling to support herself and the children on her own. Matt Fordham reminded Andy of a phone call he'd had with Bromin on the night of May fourteen.
And Sir, was that the last time you ever spoke with your sister? Is that correct?
That's the last conversation I've ever had with my sister.
Yes, Matt Fordham then took Andy to the day after Bromman disappeared, John had arrived at Andy and Michelle's house in the sutherland Shire late on the Monday afternoon May seventeen. When Andy arrived home from work, he saw his wife Michelle talking to John on the front porch.
Sir.
Also in your statement, you say, I remember John telling me that he hadn't looked to see if she'd taken a bag or anything with her.
But Andy's statement from nineteen ninety eight had omitted something a handbag. A handbag for makeup and keys and things like that woon't have been relatively small, unlike a bag into which you could pack clothes for a few days break from the children.
It is still missing.
You mentioned a moment ago that she was alleged to have taken a handbag with her. Is that correct?
I believe that is so. Yes.
Can you tell us where you got that information from? Was it something that John told you on seventeen May or was it some other source that.
Well, that information came from the fact that he was never able to tell us whether she took a suitcase, a bag or anything, but he has always claimed to me that her handbag.
Was not at the house. Next, the police officer turned to an issue that had shocked and angered Andy and Michelle when they learned about it from Glenn Taylor.
So, what's your understanding of the movements of Jonathan Winfield and the children when they came to Sydney, Because I understand your house was not their first port of call, was it.
For the first five years or so of Broman's disappearance, we were led to believe that he had come to us.
John did not tell Andy and Michelle on his visit to them on the Monday that he had already been to the house of his former wife, Jenny Mason, upon arriving in Sydney, and he did not know that John had left Crystal and Lauren that day with Jenny Mason's mother in law, Joan Mason.
He had attempted to get Crystal and Lauren looked after at another residence in Sydney.
And he had a lot to say at the inquest. He had been carrying the weight and some guilt over his sister's disappearance for nine years. After answering Matt Fordham's question, he continued with his own recollections.
There were conversations there and even at one stage I had to ask John to stop contacting my wife because he was wringing her constantly with questions and me with all sorts of things like do you think if in talk around for me, do you think this could happen? So there were lots of conversations before bromwin even went back to the house.
But just taking you back to seventeen May, when John had arrived at your doorstep at that time on that date, your understanding was that your house was the very first port of call that John had made in Sydney that day. Is that correct?
Yes?
And it wasn't until much much later that you learned that he'd gone to Jenny and Joan Mason's house first. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Yes.
The police officer turned to an issue he found puzzling.
Now, Sir, John Winfield produced to you a receipt for petrol he bought at eleven o six pm. Is that correct?
That's correct. He showed me that receipt on my front veranda.
And sir, do you remember the context of him producing that receipt? To you.
He basically brought the receipt out of his pocket for some reason, to prove the exact time he left Ballina. For what reason, I didn't know at the time.
And so when John and the children arrived, did you notice anything about the clothing that the children were wearing.
Yeah, he'd arrived down in Sydney and had very limited clothing for the children, and they were in very light clothes because they had obtained a couple of things from wherever he was out and about on the day. Where those clothes came from, I don't know.
It is possible that some items of clothing were provided by John's first wife, Jenny Mason, at her house in the Shire. In her nineteen ninety eight statement, she says that she could not remember whether she gave John clothes for.
The girls or not.
The girls arrived there wearing pajamas.
I remember thinking at the time it was strange he hadn't brought any clothing for the children.
It wasn't his normal character. He usually liked to be organized.
I saw the kids in the afternoon, they weren't in pajamas.
Did you speak to the children at all about what had happened that day?
No, it was John's insistence from the absolute word go that nothing was ever ever spoken about in front of the two children.
Do you know what the topic was that John did not want discussed in front of the children.
Just anything that had anything to do with their mother. Do not discuss Broman in front of the children was basically you know.
So that was made clear to you right from seventeen May ninety three. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Andy recalled the attempts that he made after Broman's disappearance to call the Lennox head house, but the phone was engaged. Andy and Michelle persuaded John to ask his neighbor Murray Nolan to go to the house to see what was going on.
Matt Fordam asked.
Do you recall John's attitude to that proposal.
He wasn't against it. I couldn't say that he was against it, but like I say, it was our insistence that something should be done now and at this point in time to determine why we could not raise, why the phone was engaged, and to at least obtain whether she was in the house.
Do you remember what John's attitude towards reporting the disappearance to the police was.
Well at first.
John had always stated to myself and my wife that she was only gone for a couple of days and that she should be back at work, So besides instigating checking the house and getting the phone back on the hook, at this stage there was no need to think that anything had happened.
The police officer asked if Andy was aware of a time when Bromwin had disappeared from the lives of her children for anything more than a few days.
No. The only time that I could even think that Bromwin was without her children was in a couple of trips that she took to Brisbane during the duration of my father's illness.
When asked if he believed it was possible Bromwin could have walked out on the children, and he had a one word response no. The police officer asked Andy about his contact with John Winfield and Crystal and Lauren after Bromwin's disappearance.
John had never raised children before on his own, so there was a lot of contact at first, but the more and more inquisitive that the questions became from myself and my wife, then the contact became less and less, to the point of absolutely nothing. Over the first few years.
There was numerous and numerous times and requests can the kids come to Sydney, let them come down and see their uncle and Arnie and their cousins and all the rest, and every single attempt to access the children or see the children was denied.
For a brief.
Period, matt Fordham took Andy back again to John's arrival at the house in Sydney on the Monday evening. He asked Andy if he had seen any bags of clothing or toys, the sorts of things that would normally be taken with children on holiday.
They had the dog with them, and I remember a pillow case, a pillow slip with just a few things shoved in it. They wouldn't even have had been a matching top and right pants to go with it. It was just a couple of odd bits of clothing.
Did you see any suitcases being taken out of the car and placed in our house while the kids were staying with.
You or no?
Like I say, they turned up with absolutely nothing.
Did you see any heavy objects being removed from the car?
No?
He said that in the initial stages, mister Winfield was contacting you quite often about the children. What sort of things would he ask you about the children.
Well, a lot of the conversations were more to my wife, like he was ringing up with simple cooking questions, cleaning questions, just normal run of the mill. I suppose things that a fellow would ask.
Did it strike you as strange that John would take them on a holiday or take them on a trip without learning about those things before he left with them.
Of course that would strike anyone as pretty strange.
And he told the inquest that John had told him on the Monday evening that John had learned Bromin was back at the house because he had called on Saturday
afternoon and Crystal had picked up the phone. But as we know, Jody had talked to Bromin the night before, and he also said that John told him that John had caught a taxi from the airport to the sands Own Crescent house on the Sunday evening, And of course that's different to the version we know of John Watson picking John up at the airport and taking him.
Via the ballon a police station.
Then Matt Fordham turned to John's decision to cut Romwin's single parent pension off just sixteen days after her disappearance.
That change was instigated by John Winfield. I recollect John ringing me and actually saying now that if I go and stop her family payments, that's a means and a ways to flush her out, because she will have no funds and her funds will dry up. And I can state that on the record with confidence.
Andy Reid shared a theory about what had happened to Roman's.
Body, and so are you aware whether the property has a septic tank?
Yes, I am. It had just been a theory of mine that, Being in the building game myself, I know that there's great things you can do with acid and hydrated lime, and it was just a bit of a theory I had that possibly maybe she might have been tipped into the septic tank and whack a bag of lime in and the hydrochloric Mate, nothing's going to exist very long.
The name that you are about to hear is new in this podcast investigation.
So is it the case that you have also learned about some conversations that mister Winfield is alleged to have had with a lady named Lena.
Mister Winfield struck up a relationship with Lena and it lasted for maybe approximately a couple of years or eighteen months or so.
And this is after your sister has gone missing.
Maybe twelve months later. Could have been a shorter period, but I estimate probably twelve months.
Yes, And have you ever spoken with Lena about what happened between her and John.
In nineteen ninety nine? If we want an exact date, we'd have to check my phone records. I obtained Lena's phone number off Glenn Taylor. I would estimate this phone call was probably three hours long. In that phone call, she confided in me that she did not want to be seen or even be in the same room as Jonathan Winfield ever again in her life. She said to me, she labeled him a doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde. She portrayed to me the story about when they went on
a trip down through Melbourne. They did the Great Ocean road trip, and she was quite distressed by the end of that trip. She portrayed to me that that's when she chose to actually move out of living with Jonathan Winfield. And during that conversation that night, I asked her what was she told about Bromwin. Lena stated that Jonathan Winfield has always told her that Bromwin disappeared from the party she was at on the night of the fifteenth.
Did she indicate to you whether she left the party with somebody or on her own.
She didn't indicate.
No.
The only thing she indicated was that she knew, obviously through gossip and whatnot, that Bromwin was a missing person. And that is her belief, and that is what she stated to me that night on the phone that Jonathan Winfield has always stated to Lena that Bromwin disappeared and disappeared from the party on the Saturday night and never from the family home.
The deputy state coroner jumped in with a question that was on everyone's lips.
Where does this Lena live now, Sergeant your worship, I understand that the officer in charge had made some inquiries in relation to her, and I prefer to confirm the details before I indicate it to you, sir.
In the Bromlin podcast series, this is the first time you have heard about Lena, and that's partly because Lena has tried.
To keep a low profile.
Many people knew and liked Lena, and some of these people were concerned for her.
Here's Melanie Taylor.
The daughter of deb and Murray, both of whom still live in Sandstone Crescent Full of Energy.
It is very out there, very different from when she moved into the Sarsna present house after do you Know what happened.
Now?
In an upcoming episode, you will hear more about Lena, including from the detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor.
Matt Fordham asked.
Andy about the reliability of Meghan's evidence, including the conversations that she said she'd had with several people.
I would say, if I had debaut it in simple terms, that it could be possible exaggerations, but nothing with intent to lie or do anything like that may be exaggerated or maybe too much emphasis on it.
Early in this podcast series, Andy disclosed his concerns during the Detective Graham Diskin's nineteen ninety three investigation that John had effectively milked information from Megan Reid about angles and lines of police inquiry.
Did you at any stage think that Meghan was a friend of John Winfield's.
Well, yes, as in when Diskin was attempting to do something, the conversations I'd had with Jonathan Winfield and asking questions, he would know things that I had portrayed over the phone calls, and phone discussions with Megan. So basically I can only assume that Megan was in contact with John Winfield as well as me during conversations, and that I think John basically was clever enough to get information out of her during conversations.
I spoke to Andy about some of Meghan's evidence just before this episode was finalized, since Bromin disappeared. One of the most remarkable claims was the one that Megan attributes to John, which is John purportedly saying to Megan.
I have seen Bromwin in Brisbane and I.
Told her to stay away, don't come back. And what I was just trying to understand is whether when Megan told you about it, you thought this is huge or whether you just missed it because she thought this is bullshit.
I don't recall being told that John's the person that made the SERGI.
Are you very sure that Megan didn't say to you John told me that he saw broman and he told her to stay away.
She didn't know she's family, But I'm not a dick, so I didn't tell Diskin to stop talking to Mergan for no reason. She's never known that it was me that told Discan and She only found that out through the start of the podcash. I actually instructed the police not to talk to her anymore. Meghan's always wanted to know who that person was. What did the police stop talking driven?
And he told me that he made this decision after he and Michelle were given some feedback by the detective Sergeant Graham Diskin in nineteen ninety three, and.
He said to me, and every time I asked this fellow a question, he has an answer.
It's as if he's prepared.
Yeah, we thought there's.
Going to be a way.
How's he know or how is he so prepared to answer things all the time, which led to me to make some phone calls and start chasing up what was
going on. And then that's when I found out that John had been in constant contact with Megan, so I would come two together and thought, well, this guy's clever enough to be picking her brain for whatever the family's thinking, which Megan sort of now to this day describes as oh, yes, but you've got to keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer type.
So Hi, I'm the only one that remained in contract with him after Romine's disappearance, and my reasoning being was that it keeps your enemies closer than your friends, kind of thing to find out. So I could find out what was going on, and I continue to be in contact with him virtually daily up into October ninety four. I had an argument Andrew just recently about this whole thinge Andrew was the point of contract for the lenge, and I never listened to it.
She thought that she was doing the right thing, but in the end I perceived that she was just being led for every bit of information or any thought that the family you're thinking, and that gave him a means and a way to be able to explain things away constantly. I think that was quite detrimental to the early investigation.
And he also had some breaking news in this most recent conversation I had with him.
Got an email response from the coroner saying, what acknowledging correctly, that's actually addressed to mister Andrew Reid and not nobody, and just acknowledging the receipt of the letter on the fifth acknowledgement of the request and then just goes on to say it or be considered in Duke calls upon the completion of the current investigation.
Andy's detailed letter to the State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan, was written in the first week of December twenty twenty four. That's the letter in which Andy described the new evidence about Illawong and why he and we believe that the state coroner should use her powers to order a search beneath the concrete of the existing house there.
Now Andy has got a proper reply.
He would have preferred a decision, but Andy has become conditioned to what seems like inertia and even indifference in the agencies and departments funded to investigate unsolved murders. He is grateful now for the smallest wins.
It's got me correctly named. It's just been sent from the Coroner's office, correctly signed off by a corannial level employee, not to resure Solomon.
How do you feel about that?
At least it's something formal which I'm plays with.
We're heading in the right direction.
They're taking it seriously, but we know how slight some of these worlds train.
You're very patient, man, Andy. I don't think I could be as patient.
No, I'm not really, but anyway, it just plays on your mind so much.
Sleep poorly, always.
Trussing a turn and thinking things through.
We do not know what is going on behind the scenes in the restarted investigation by the Police Unsolved Homicide Unit, but Andy is hopeful that as far as actions by the coroner and police are concerned, he will see things start moving.
A little bit quicker than the Star's Place that seems to be so fun.
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 Bromwin includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amier, 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 w 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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