Episode 3: The Lawyer's Advice

Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains coarse language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian. Of course, I know about your former marriage to John Winfield, all right, I've actually read your police statement and I was wondering if I could have a chat to you, an interview with you about John and whether you've got anything that might be helpful in this investigation of an alleged murder.

He was just if you walk down the street, he accuse you of looking at other blokes and just all that sort of stuff.

In the days after the release of episode two in this podcast series, John Winfield's second wife agreed to speak to me about her brief marriage to the man suspected by police of having murdered his third wife, Bromwin. John emphatically denies any involvement in foul play, and he has never been charged over Bronwan's disappearance. In nineteen ninety three, he told me in an email that Bromman's family has

What they accuse him of having done to Bromwin. Now.

John's second wife has been closely following what is coming out in this podcast series. When I spoke to her for the first time, she said, I.

Just actually was babysitting my grandson today and I was listening to the two episodes that you did. We had a happy relationship, but from what I've heard today, it sounded like they didn't have very happy relationship at all for.

A long time.

Why did you split up? Then?

Because he was possessive, Like if I was walked down the street, he would say, why are you looking at that guy? I felt like it couldn't look sideways like what Bromin's obviously said too.

So it was just accusing you of looking at other men.

And I think that's what sort of greats on you after a while, because you're so devoted. So who was telling you that you're looking at other people?

And you're not.

If anyone does that, they must be insecure.

And there'd been no issues in your relationship and shit that could have caused him to believe that you would be looking at other guds.

No, I loved him so much.

Have you stayed in touch with him?

No? No, definitely not.

I'm giving John's second wife a name which is not her real name, but this is her voice.

Because I don't want my name anywhere in there.

What about I just say that when you were married to John, you're a much younger woman, and I'm going to call you D as in DA. Back then you were d Winfield. And now you've remarried, and we won't say what your new married name is.

Okay, yep.

I got three girls and they didn't even know I was married until little while ago to John.

They were together as husband and wife for just eighteen months, and d wants to stress a few important things. John did not harm her physically. He did not raise a fist to strike her, nor put his hands around her throat and squeeze, he told me, and he didn't threaten her with violence.

He was never violent to me. I know, I wasn't fearful of him. He was still possessive. But that's about all.

Because I didn't know anything about them until today when I was listening to that those two.

What are they called episodes?

Yeah, I do remember I tore all my photos up with my old boyfriends.

When I looked back on it, like I tore all my.

Photos up that had other boyfriends in it kept me and then I had to tew away the other ones with the ex boyfriends in it. Obviously I didn't do that on my own back, sharing the ex boyfriend outfit and throwing them away.

And when you said you couldn't have done that off your own bat, what do you mean.

I must have felt that I did it for him. I mean, all of a sudden I realized I hadn't gone out with the girls with girlfriends or anything. It's not the news that we were together.

And then I suppose you just realize then you think, God, don't think this is that healthiest.

But we were young.

De grew up in the shire around Cranala, south of Sydney too, and although d didn't serve, she was often at the beach.

John being a good surfer, we even had like a little surf shop down at Kraa that we started with John and I.

And then we saw that we moved up the coast and you moved.

To Lennox Head with him.

Yes, we had a good time up there that we actually built a house up at Sandstone Present, and then when we separated, he went back up there and built.

A house a couple of hours up. Last night, I tried to google it to see because I know what it looks like.

Did you do some laboring there yourself, D?

Yeah, I used to help, used to help build some hours of bricks in. I was there every day with you, and then we moved the car ran up to the block of land.

How do you feel about what you're hearing and reading now?

Just brings back memories and plus I feel sorry for someone and their children not having each other.

Nobody's heard from her for thirty one years.

Yeah, that's so sad.

I know the family would be really'll be devastating for them just not knowing where she is or what happened.

Yeah, you can't imagine it, can You? No guarantee that for all those years.

I have D's brief written statement to police. She made it in nineteen ninety eight during Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor's investigation. And then you say John was quite bitter about the settlement following our.

Separation because he had to sell the house.

What did he want to see happen?

Well?

No, we separated, so then I had to go for settlement. And I've always been a saver and I had money. And what I put into the house is only what I took out. I wasn't taking more than what I actually put in.

You say John didn't want to give me anything? No, well, how would that have worked out?

No?

Well that's why I had to go. I went to court to get a settlement.

I had to get a solicitor and go to court to get my share of the property.

Yeah, we went to court and it was sort of out in court.

When did you last see John at court?

When we got our settlement.

It took me like a little while to try and get a divorce from him. I try and save him the papers and he wouldn't take them. Eventually happened, and then I moved on.

And do you one thing I can't quite grasp yet is why does a marriage fail if really just one partner seems a bit possessive?

Can't you work through that?

I don't know. I can't remember.

You've kept it quiet from your own daughters. Why is that.

Just because it was in the past and it was nothing to do with my life anymore.

After the separation, John met Bromwin and John's future third wife, Bronwin met John's estranged second wife de at a mutual friend's barbecue in a coastal town.

I was down at a barbecue in Aladallah with my girlfriend and it was at one of her friend's houses, and Bronman was actually there, and I got introduced to her that night, and she was asking me all questions about why I just spreit up with my husband. I just remember telling her that he was possessive and just I felt like you didn't trust you, and that wears on you after a while, and you know you're not going to do anything to creap that trust.

I didn't know who she was and I'd never seen her again.

When the police contacted you, were you surprised, Yeah, yes I was. Had you heard about Broman having been missing for several years by then?

Yes? I did.

Did you have any views about her disappearance before the police spoke to you.

I thought, well, he won't be happy about losing another house. I thought if something actually had.

Happened to her, that maybe he had pushed her maybe had been killed accidentally, Like some people can push somewhere and then they hit their head and they didn't mean to do it, but they've done it.

That was the thought that went through my mind.

Most people in Lenox who know Ian Gluis call him something else.

If you're scruffy, Yeah, supposedly. Yeah.

He hasn't had anything to do with John for three decades, but in the early nineteen nineties, when Scruffy was managing large concreting jobs.

He got to know John Well.

They worked together, clean work, clean for organized site and a trade fman you could respect and recommend to other people.

It's a hard worker, yeah, hard worker.

They shared rides to and from job sites because Scruffy would come by the house in Sandstone Crescent to pick John up and drive him home again, and Scruffy's wife, Maria had become friendly with Bromwin. When I visited at his home in Lennox, he told me he's still concreting, helping his daughter with her nearby house. As we sat on his patio, a vast concrete structure with a gurgling water feature off to the side, he remembered John Well, although he hasn't seen him for years.

Good looking rooster served yet met him a playgroup. Nice family, didn't drink much or at all, and I was on good speaking terms of John. Did you become good mate? Well, a small town and I was never in his pocket.

We did a few barbecues.

Down the lake together and the.

Kids got on well.

And then the more I got to know him and started to see some parts of his character that I thought was a bit strange, I sort of found there was another sign to him. I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but God picked up on the vibe very quickly, very quickly, and he didn't.

He just thought I was scrapping the concrete.

I noticed a side where which I didn't think it was too good, where he's very aimble about his house. Maybe was disordered when someone's got to OCD ordered his when he spoke at home. The kids weren't like a normal family, you know what I mean. They were too, very scared because he was very sort of controlling most of the time.

You went to the house and saw that I was.

One of the few people that actually ever went to the house. Not many people went inside the house.

I actually started.

Taking him to work, and then because of the nature of the crew.

That I had working for me.

I actually went to the trouble of warning them one day when John wasn't about, and I said, be very careful about John steel Waters run deep. I said, he actually hates people that spoke drugs, which they all preparably did. I was about the only one that didn't. But I said, he'll pretend to be.

One of you lot.

But I said, he's down on the whole head of things that's parted drinking drugs. He's very prutish, very controlling with his missus. Further down the track, when things were starting to get a little bit rocky, they were still living as a family unit, but they were not a happy couple, and he said, this is my last house Ruby. He said he had to sell the other two when the relationships broke down. He had to settle the relationship.

That's not happening. It's not on.

How confident are you that that's what he said.

I'm very confident that I'm not inventing the story. He just said that he'd had to was forced to sell the previous too, and there was no way in the world that this one, no matter what went down, that he was selling this one.

Gruffy recalled seeing Bromwyn after she had separated from John. The Byron Street townhouse she had moved into with her girls was just a few doors down from Scruffy and Maria's family home. The children played together after school when Bromwyn would stop by on the way back to the townhouse.

We lived directly partently opposite the school, and she had to walk past our place to get down to the service station.

She lived at the Ennis, So there.

In those days of town wasn't anywhere near gentrified it is now, with all the professional buggers worming their way in the place and millions of dollars to old houses. She would drop in and have a coffee ordered with Marie at the kitchen table on.

Her way home, and still let her hearten.

She said to Marie at the time, people have no idea of the depth of his anger when he gets angry, and I'd already sort of picked the vibe up warning the blokes.

In Maria's statement to Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight, she said she would see Bromwin on a daily basis, and they became a lot closer after the move to Byron Street.

These are Maria's words, it's not her voice.

While they were living in the flat, they all appeared to be much happier, and Bronwin didn't appear to be suffering from the stress like when she was living with John. 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

One of Bromwinn's townhouse neighbors was Alan Fisher, and like Bromwin, he rented his place from the owner and landlady, Shirley Taylor. When he gave a statement to the police detective Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight, Alan remembered Bromwin's care for her children. These are his words from his sigence statement. It's not his voice.

Bromwin appeared to be a very devoted mother. I did notice that she kept a very watchful eye on her two children. Bromwin was not the type to leave her kids for even five minutes. I remember on one occasion, which was a number of weeks after Bromin had moved into the flat, when Bromwin came to the back of my unit. At that time, I was in the backyard. I remember this was on the third day before she went missing. I recall Bromin saying to me, I hope

The following day, Alan returned to Biown Street about three pm and he saw a vehicle with a trailer in the driveway. He saw Bromwin and he asked her what was happening.

Bromwin then told me that she was moving out. I said, how did you go with your husband? Broman said it was better than I thought. He's agreed to let us move back into the family home.

Bromwan and Allan spoke for a short time about how she would be saving her money rather than spending it on rent, and he offered to help her lift heavy items onto the trailer.

Bromwin said that she was only taking what she could with the ute and the trailight and was going to come back and get the rest of it at a later time.

Another witness, Desiree Flood lived in the adjoining townhouse next to Bromwin's. She recalled talking to Bromman about four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and she believed that it was on the fateful day of Sunday, May sixteenth, just hours before the last known sighting of Bromwin. Desiree was tracked down by Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor five years later in nineteen ninety eight, and this is what she put in her signed statement, again her words, but not her voice.

The reason I believe it was on the Sunday was because we usually spent Sundays at home. On the Saturdays, I used to visit my parents and stayed for dinner. So I do not believe it was on the Saturday. I remember I was at home and my husband and I were doing some gardening and I saw Bronwyn come out of her unit with a cup of coffee in her hand. Bronwyn came out to where we were standing. I started talking to Bronwyn, and I remember her saying something like I'm moving back to my home and my

Alan Fisher and Desiree Flood both recall being told by Bromwin that her husband was coming back. It seems likely that Bromwin and John talked about it on the phone before he flew from Sydney.

To Ballina on Sunday afternoon.

If they had an initial plan to meet at the townhouse on Byron Street, it probably changed to a meeting instead at the family home on Sandstone Crescent. In the next episode, we're going to deal with some of John's trip back to Lennox and to the house that Sunday evening.

From my observations of her, she was very close to the children and protective of them. I even noticed that she wouldn't allow the children to play outside the fence of the unit unless she was there with them. I find it extraordinary that Bronwin would leave her kids and have no further contact with them.

She had a male friend called Gary Jackson, and it seems Bromman was hopeful they might be suited to each other. He's known as Jacko, and he's been in indirect contact for this podcast because he remains close to Robin Shanahan. In nineteen ninety eight, he was interviewed by the detective Sergeant Glen Taylor, who took a written statement from Jacko. Gary Jackson explained that he had met John Winfield in nineteen ninety two when John was building a house for

I decided to help, so I labored for John and was his brickies laborer.

Gary went to New Zealand for nine months after completing the house. He returned in March nineteen ninety three, the same month Broman separated from John.

Within a day or two of arriving in Lennox Head, I went to Eden's Takeaway and I saw Bronwin Winfield there. Bronwin asked me to meet her after work, and she asked me to meet her at the surf club.

Broman arrived in her car the white Ford Falcon.

She told me that she had seen a tarot reader and he told her that some tall guy who was a Sagittarius would return to her life. She had obviously formed the opinion that this person was me. She told me that she had left John not long before and had taken a flat on her own. We sat on the beach and spoke for about half an hour, and then I went home.

Over the next couple of days, he recalled Broman telephoned Robin and Peter's house several times because that's where Jacko was staying. He went to her flat and he saw Broman and her two girls. A couple of days after they spoke on the sand at the beach. He said that while he was there, Bromwyn told.

Him John had been constantly harassing her on the phone and wanted her to go back to the house. She said that he would ring her up and when she terminated the call, he wouldn't hang his phone up, and this would leave the line open. She told me he did this on purpose, so that she could not.

Use her phone.

She also told me that he would often sit out the front of her house in his car and sit there for lengthy periods, watching the flat. She also said that whenever she walked down the street to go to the shops, he would follow her and was generally stalking her.

I only saw her on.

About three or four occasions, and during those times she told me that she was concerned and that John was continually harassing her on the phone, sitting near her flat and following her.

There is, in my view, a strong Ring of Truth and what Bromwin is said to have told Gary Jackson did appear to be keenly interested in Jacko. Other friends have confirmed that she liked him. Telling him about an apparently obsessive husband was probably not going to help her prospects in forming any relationship with Jacko, yet she told him anyway. Her need to disclose John's behavior was important. Perhaps she wanted a partner and a protector, but Jacko understood that things might get messy.

I would only visit Bromin during daylight hours because I didn't want to be implicated in their problems, and I didn't want to be used as a pawn in any divorce proceedings.

He went back to New Zealand in late April, and that's a couple of weeks before Bromwin vanished. He didn't see or hear from her again. Here's Broman's brother, Andy Reid and his wife Michelle, recounting conversations John.

Was in contact with us, because I remember he rang one time and had this cry conversation with me, which turned out to be the fellow that ended up going across to New Zealand.

And Jacko was a friend of the people that a'm the takeaway shop that Broman used to work there and he gave her a left home.

So because he'd given her a left.

Home on a motorbike, all of a sudden, John's ringing me, Oh, she's galla there and around ten and she's in another relationship with some blake. She's on the back of a motorbike.

He was very flustered about that.

He didn't handle that well because Brom would a ring me and say, oh, John's up parked up the road Byron Street after the spotting, after John had rung and obviously there must have been some confrontation because Brin had rung me to say I was accusing me of have a relationship and.

Didn't she also say something about him turning up at the Byron Street unit and banging on the door.

I hope to talk to Gary Jackson directly for this podcast. Here's Robin Shanahan again.

We catch up for lunch once a month or so because he's the father of my fourth child.

Did you know that?

Oh?

No, I didn't know that.

Jack has always been a very very very close friend and he's godfather to my three daughters.

When Peter left, JACKO sort.

Of stepped in to support me and the girls when my marriage Pasha. A couple of years later, I had Abby, but Jack and we only last a couple of years, but we still talk to each other sorow.

I've read his evidence as well, and I know he was just a friend to Broman and giving her a bit of support.

That's the impression I got. Anyway, he was he.

Still is a nice man, and I think Roman did find that with Jacko.

He is Megan Reid Roman's cousin.

I'm your bet, Jacko.

He was just a mate.

After she'd left John. He used to come around and just chat to her. He liked as a friend only. And you hear John talking about how she was seen riding around Lennox said, in the back of a motorbike, and he claimed it was probably him that she went off with.

Well, no, Gary Jackson was quickly and sensibly ruled out by police as a person of interest in Broman's disappearance. Kelly O'Brien is well known in the Lenox community as a surfer and a leader of healthy pursuits for children. She worked at Eden's Takeaway. She spoke to the detective Glenn Taylor in nineteen ninety eight, Kelly remembered Bromman as bright and friendly. Kelly suggested in her signed statement back

He was a very homely person and was not at all sociable. I often saw him with his children, and I got the opinion that he was a good father.

But Kelly noted a change in Bromwin about a fortnight before she disappeared.

She would often cry over very small things and would always be talking about herself and wrapped up in her own little world. She would often waffle on about things, and she appeared to be stressing out over her marriage breakdown. I was aware that she went to see a clairvoyant who goes by the name pen Dragon. After believing everything the clairvoyant had told her, Bronwin thought that Jacko was her night in Shining Armor.

Kelly recalled the newly single mother appearing to be under a great deal of stress.

She wanted to do the best thing for herself and the children, but more so for the children She was advised that it was important that she lived in the house because she and the children needed the space and it would have been better in respect of a property settlement.

When Kelly went to a birthday party on Saturday night, May fifteen, about twenty four hours before Bromwyn disappeared, she saw Bromwyn there.

She was flitting from one group of people to another and sort of laughing and giggling to herself for no reason. She had only a couple of drinks, so it wasn't the alcohol that made her act strangely. Bronwin was attempting to seek everyone's attention at the party, but most people avoided being too involved with her because everyone was sort of fed up with hearing about her life and marriage problems.

However, Kelly did not for a moment believe that Bromwyn would have left voluntarily.

I fear that she has met with some form of foul play. She was a very dedicated mother to her children and there is no way in this world that she would leave without them. She also had a vested interest in the house and was very entrenched in legal proceedings to obtain a future for her and her children.

Good morning, Hey, Kelly, how are you going?

I'm well, how are you?

Yeah?

Not bad. Kelly O'Brien is still in Linux.

In the three decad since Brahmin disappeared, Kelly has come to know John's daughter Jodi, and she sees John around Lenox every now and then. I think it was Robin who described you as a bit of a heart of the community in terms of all the programs you run for children and helping their physical and mental health and so on.

That's very generous.

So he used to take her ex husband serving in the mornings that I got him into the surf.

I guess I didn't learn to seve as a youngster. I learned sef here.

So I just loved it. It still do.

I moved to Lenox with my partner Max in nineteen ninety. Goods grow and expanded. I think it's a much busier place. It's less tight knit as a community. It's reframing its identity.

It's become incredibly affluent now, whereas before it was a lot more sleepy.

Yeah.

I have a mate and we were having a yat the other day and he said, when I first came to Lenox, it used to be this town where you can't someone you go what do you do?

Do you fish or do you serve?

Where do you see John.

On the beaches?

We've done a lot of things in Lennox, my partner and I surfing related things, events and community and quite public things.

I've got a sense of the way you perceive things at that time from your statement.

Oh look, it was really such a strange thing that it's so accurate, and I'd forgotten about a couple of things that I'd mentioned.

My reflection is as a person I am now.

I look at the statement and I think how terribly non compassionate I was for Bronwyn, And I think, oh goodness, where was the supports for her and some kindness around what very challenging situations she was going through?

Where was the network for Bronwyn emotionally upset and crying here and there. We're not the nicest people because we're very needy. And I look back and I think, oh, really, where were we all? She was very committed to provide the stability for the.

Children and herself.

It's unfathomable to me that it's a runoff and leave the children. She just really adored the children. It's just not something people do in my experience.

I remember when we spoke briefly the other day you said, was the fact that it was a bit awkward or you weren't sure whether you could speak freely about it, just because of the community ties and you're closest to the community and the relationships with others, you felt unsure about whether you could talk to me.

How did you reconcile things?

People go through journeys, and for me, I'm a person in this very strong sense of justice. I work in the field of child protection. There is such a massive loss for the children of Bronwyn, and I would prefer to know that they have some sense of closure about what did happen to their mum. Things settled here, but they don't actually heal for the people where it matters

Do you have a sense of how John Winfield would feel about you talking.

I don't know.

He's really closed.

Given the knowledge that people have had and the suspicions that some of those people have had for so many years.

Why do you think John has stayed in the community.

Some people aren't runners. You know they've made a commitment and you just keep going. Here's a stayer. If you're an isolated person, you don't really care about other people or what they think, then could.

Just create your life and you're quite happy.

I suppose what if someone is accused of things that they didn't do, why should they have to run away? And did you speak with Crystal and Jody and little Lauren or not little Laurence?

Oh?

Could she be?

Goodness? Man?

Yeah, I've talked to and met Crystal. It's complicated, Kelly.

She's concerned about straining her relationship with Lauren, and I think Lauren has been loyally backing her father. I'm not putting any pressure on her, and I haven't even asked her for a formal interview. If Jodie wants to talk to me, I would welcome that, of course, hopefully John. I mean I don't think John will want to talk, but I hope that he'll consider it.

I'm going to hedge bets that no one's going to want to upset Dad. It's all been too hard. Past is the past, and let it sit.

There what most people would want to know. Do you think your dad did it or not?

All?

That's quite untenable to think of something so horrific.

I suspect it's.

Been thirty one years since Brahmin disappeared, and I get sense you still feel uncomfortable raising or talking about it with John, to ask him, Hey, has anyone seen Bromwin?

Like where is she? Do you know you've got the ideas.

I've never spoken to John about it. I never feel very comfortable to bring that up. I probably still wouldn't. I'm a curious person. I work in social services and I love stories.

I never wanted to have a mystery in my life like that.

I guess I'm more thinking about the truth that comes from transparency and openness and talking about things, because in my experience, it's the secrecy and the concealment.

Yeah.

No, I agree, And I actually just said to my partner, it's exactly like a sexual abuse scenario when people they turn a blind eye or they just they don't believe.

That it may have happened.

And I think for other people in John's family or community don't want to believe that something so iboric could have happened, and we also, I don't want to believe that Bronlin could have cut and brown and left the children.

And if there's no evidence, then.

People sort of go, well, I don't know, hands up in the air, what do you do?

It then just enters this kind of twilight zone and then one decade, two decades, three decades past.

Love is caring, sharing, knowing someone, perhaps not every intimate detail, liking, affection, making love and being each other's best friend, tolerance and patience for each other's bad habits, as well as praise and credit for the good.

Peter Shannon and the husband of Robin from whom you heard earlier, recalled seeing Bromwin at the birthday party.

I remember that Bronwin looked a bit lonely that night. Bromwan didn't have a partner with her, and she was by herself. At no stage on the Saturday night of May fifteen, nineteen ninety three did Bromwin mention to me that she was going to be absent from work on the Tuesday, Nor did she mention anything about leaving the Lennox Head area.

Peter had a rapport with Bromman. It came from them working together at Eden's Takeaway.

Broman would always talk about her girls at work, and I know that she really loved them. During my conversations with Bronwin, she would tell me about her husband, John. Bromwin said that John was a bit of an old woman. She said that he was very meticulous in the house. He hated any mess anywhere in the house. Bromwan would tell me that John had insisted that everything in the house had to be kept spotlessly clean.

Tracy Brown, another co owner of Eden's Takeaway, was scornful of the idea that Bromwin would have gone off to start a new life without her children. On one occasion, Tracy and her daughter had been to see Bromwan at the house at Sandstone Crescent.

Bronwyn told me a couple of days later that John went right off about some biscuit crumbs being dropped on the tiles.

Tracy recalled that at some time in March or April of nineteen ninety three.

Bronwyn told me John had told her that there was no way that she was going to get his house. I vaguely recall Bromwyn mentioning something about custody for the youngest child, Lauren. I think John was going to put in for custody of this child. I do remember at a later time, Bromwyn told me that she moved back into the family home. Bromwn told me that she was scared John would come back to the house and try to get her out. I recall her saying that she had to get a locksmith to get back into the

You heard Tracy recalling Bromwin's concern that John would try to win custody of the children, or at least Lauren. In an earlier episode. You heard Joan and that's not her real name, recalling her talks with her friend Bromwin at that time in nineteen ninety three, and Joan told police about this. Here's Joan again.

She was worried because she had overheard John talking to his father saying it to be better if he had the kids, because he had better chance of having the house if he had the kids.

It seemed that she was worried he had a strategy to seek custody of the children, and the children were as strategy as part of keeping the house.

And they could call it quits.

She was worried about it.

It's pretty bold. Crystal was another father's child. Yeah.

Now let's go back to Ian Glewis, or Scruffy as everyone in Lenox calls him. He told me that on one of her visits in May nineteen ninety three, on when shared the legal advice she had received about her right to return to the family home in Sandstone Crescent, she said said, the solicitor's great in Lismore's there's such a thing of being forced to leave, you know, when it's actually the marital home.

And he was still lord of the manor even when he wasn't there. You know, he was going down to Sydney and working. She'd been forced to vacate the premises and move down because of he behaved, whatever's gone down, and because of the atomic situation and controlling in the violence he's by his actions has forced you to he's the one that should be gone with you look out for the girls. And she gave her the advice to change the locks and move in place.

While he was missing. She told Maria about that.

It was brom when he was inside of our kitchen table talking to Maria and having coffee and stuff. She told that I was there at the time when I heard her say this, and I said, I don't think that's such a good idea.

I said, because he's going to lose it. He's going to peek out, and he was.

Going to not be happy.

And that's what happened.

And when she said that the solicitor has said the property is yours, he's the one that has to get out and go there with the locks, has change the locks and take possession of it. And you know, within the law, it might be what's right legally to you, and you're pull or right in the world to go in and take possession of it, right because he's forced you into this position that might be perfectly right to

Bromwin.

Scruffy believed Bromwin should have remained a rent paying tenant in the townhouse on Byron Street keep the peace with John. You see him in the surf from time to time, No, never his favorite beach's Bowlders.

He never shops downtown or comes to the service station to fulfill or anything. He was like an exile from the town, not to be seen. Never seen him with a friend. I was the closest thing to what he had as a friend.

Here's the landlady, Shirley Taylor again. These are her words from a police statement. A quarter centgo. It's not her voice.

During the afternoon of the fourteenth of May, Bromwin came around to my place and told me that she was moving out of the townhouse and moving back into her house because John had moved back to Sydney. She was extremely happy about moving back into her house. She moved some of her things out that day and left other things such as clothing, crockery, and kitchen items in the townhouse. I didn't see bromin again, and when she didn't come back to get her things, I moved them into our shed.

He is deb Bromwin's good friend and closest neighbor.

Again.

I was working and she was busy downtown, and we weren't probably on each other stall steps as much as she would have been if she was living here. But I did go visit her down there, re caught up, so it wasn't that long that she had been living down there for now, either six or eight weeks later.

I was here one.

Friday night and Murray had broken his back. Then he'd fallen and hit his back in the surf, and so he was actually in the hospital. And I knew she wasn't there, and I knew John wasn't there because he'd left to go to Sydney. But I looked out the window because I could hear commotion next door late at night, and there was a trailer and a car, and I thought someone's moving in up there, you know, I was seeing them.

Maybe he's rented the house.

And then lo and behold about nine o'clock that night and knock on the front door here and opened It was from him, and she said, oh hi, And I said, oh.

What are you doing?

She goes, let's back into the house. I went, oh, are you why I'm paying all this rent downtown?

I'm entitled to be in the house, so I've been told by solicia, I'm entitled to be in the house. I went, what's he going to do when he finds out you're in the house, because I just thought John's gonna flow. I guess if he finds out she's in the house, because that's how he was. She said, no, no, no, She said, I've got people up and call. And I said, well, Murray's in hospital, so you know, I haven't got any backup if anything happens.

You know.

She came in and we were chatting, and I do remember we had a glass of wine. We just had a general chit chat talking about getting locks changed on the house, or having the locks change.

She hadn't talked to at least Flight, our neighbor. Yeah, they had a spare key because she couldn't get in. She couldn't get in. That's right. Roman's brother Andy Reid has something to say about this. She got to the house and she wrung me in. She's gone.

The bastards changed the locks. It's changed the locks. I can't get him. My key doesn't work. I said to her, we'll get a locksmith, get into the house, get the locks changed, get your own key, and you're in.

She made a phone call on my phone, and I remember the phone used to be on the wall in the kitchen back then we had the difference set up. It might have been a locksmith because it was quite late, but unless it was a twenty four hour one which had it for a bit long.

As she left.

Romman's other neighbor, Heather Hardgrave, and her husband Lloyd, remembered seeing Bromwin. It must have been on the friday. They gave written statements to police in September nineteen ninety eight. Heather and Lloyd have died. These are their words, it's not their voices. Lloyd refers to his wife by her preferred name, Chris.

She called out to me from our yard on her side of the house. I went downstairs to her and she was looking along the windows of her place. When I approached Bromwin, she asked me if I had a key, and I told her I didn't. She said that she couldn't get into the house because John had changed all the locks.

Bromwin had very little cash.

She confided to her neighbor that John had closed her credit card.

She was very upset and crying, and said that John had threatened to take the children from her, the same as he had done to his first wife and taken Jody from her.

After my wife and Bronwyn had been speaking for a short time, came over to join them. Bronman inquired from Chris and I if we had a key to her home. Bronman said that she was unable to get into the house and she appeared to be very upset at the time. It was at this time that Bronman told Chris and I that Jonathan Winfield had threatened that he was going to take the children from her.

Bronwin then left and went back around the other side of the house, and I didn't see her again.

It was not long after this that the locksmith arrived, and I'm aware that Bronman moved back into the house.

Later that night, I noticed lights on inside the house and I assumed that she had gained entry into the house.

Bromwin's half sister, Kim Marshall, remembers speaking to her just two days before she disappeared. Hi, Kim, how right We were talking about the Friday evening, the fourteenth of May.

She was moving back into Sandstone Crescent.

In my last phone call with Bromwin, I was actually very surprised to hear her report to me of her excitement that she had actually gained entry. Oh, you're back in the house, and Roman goes, yes, yes, I'm so excited.

I'm so pleased. I've had been speaking to Andrew. I've been to the lawyer.

Andrew explained to me that I needed to get the locksmith and gain inter to the house and do that nine tenths of the law thing. And so I've done this because Jonathan's away working in Sydney, and I thought it was the right moment for me to actually get back into the house where I can resettle the girls and myself and get things back to normal. I've got the trailer here, I'm unloading everything. I've got to work tomorrow.

And I'll talk to you soon.

When did your next talk to her?

Never got to talk to her again.

That was it.

That was the last time I actually spoke to her.

Here's some further detail from Bromwin's friend Joan and how did you learn that she had moved back into the family house at Sandstone Crescent.

She rang me on the Sunday morning asked if I could mind her kids and I said I couldn't because one of mine was sick. And she said that she was back in the house And I said when did you move back in? And she said Friday, But Saturday night was the first night I spent that And I said, how does John feel about that? She said he wasn't happy to start with buddies all right now? She had no plans to move away, and she never mentioned going anywhere she was going to go to work. It's almost

That was the Sunday.

You say in your statement in nineteen ninety eight. She also told me that John had said to her that if she bad mouthed him around Lennox Head that.

He would kill her. And it's a pretty powerful allegation.

And you put that statement in five years after Bromin's disappearance.

And it was not somethingly forgetting. Is that if someone tells you that, I guess that's why she had disappeared. I stride by felt something had happened to her. She said, you'd have to teach me how to made the grass. And it's the last time I spoke to her. So she had no intentions of just up and leaving.

Is deb again.

I didn't see a lot of her on the Saturday because she was moving from down there to hear I was actually Murray was coming out of hospital that day, so I'd probably gone into the hospital and pick him up, and you know I had little kids.

You said that you asked her, what're you going to do when he finds out? Or was that effect you were a bit concerned about what his reaction would be.

Is that right?

Well, I was worried for her because I thought, well, if John finds out she's in the house, he's going to basically lose his you know what, because his house was his shrine. She had to move out, but it was her house too, Yes, exactly. And that's what she got legal advice, you see. And I think it was about what she was entitled to, and that's where I think she got the advice from to move back in. And then when I had that conversation, I said, what are you doing. I've got every right to be here.

But in your mind you saw it possible, violets, Hello, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you agree with that?

He would not have let her come back to that house. No, that's right. He wouldn't have been happy about it. No, I have no evidence solvingim being violent. His house was his shrine. He loved that house. That was him.

In conversations I'd had with Bromwin prior to her moving out, when I used to say to her, look, you know you should just leave him and you're entitled to anything, and I remember her saying this. She said, I'll never be able to move out because he won't let me have anything and I'll be left destitute. I said, no, but you've got rights, you know. No, no, no, you don't know what he's like, is what she said. This

You know, he's such an ahole.

Why don't you just leave him?

And she said, I can't, He'll leave me with nothing.

Now he'd been married three times too, so he had his first wife, then a second one, and then was the third. And then when she did leave unless what, I was surprised. I thought, oh well, and then I thought, no, good on your girl. You need to be happy, and you know you're only young.

The chronology is really interesting because you see Roman Friday evening. Yes, she says, I'm moving back in and I'm just going to assert my rights. Yes, because this is possibly half my Yes, yes, she moves back in. You've got things to do on Saturday.

Yep.

Did you see her Sunday? I did.

The last conversation I had with her was on that Sunday.

In Sydney.

That same afternoon, John abruptly changed his own plans to continue working on a house in the Shire. He went to Sydney Airport on Sunday and checked in for a one way flight to Ballina. It's a twenty minute drive from the regional airport to the house at Sandstone Crescent, and the.

Sunday she came down to see me and asked me could I look after the kids for a few hours because she had to work.

I said yeah, sure, you know.

So the kids basically played between my place and her place, and then she got home at about I reckon it was either beef between five and her past that afternoon Sunday afternoon, and I was standing out the front and she came. She said, thanks for having the kids.

Were they okay?

Finally just been playing. We were chatting and I remember saying, so, what's on this week for you? And she said, oh, well, I'm still moving Because she was still between moving. I'll still be moving in tomorrow and the kids will be going to school. I've got to get them home and get them bathed and fed and ready for school tomorrow. And I said, okay, well I'm doing the same, you know, because my kids will be going to school as well.

And I said, I'll catch you later.

And that was the last time I spoke to her, and you never saw her again, never after that.

A neighbor friend, Virginia Bevis, still feels uncomfortable about her small part in Bromwin's sudden return to live in the house at Sandstone Crescent.

Magnificent stretch of coastline. It is gorgeous.

We made the decision we didn't want to go Nearbyron and not just like Lennox.

Do you might want to talk to Lee?

He's just inside. Do you want me to call him out?

Yeah?

Any daughter? He thought she was lovely.

Virginia and Lee and their children lived very close to Bromin and John's house on Sandstone Crescent. They talked to her regularly. One of their daughters used to babysit Bromwin's girls. The children would worry about making any mess in the house and upsetting John. A lot of people have talked to me about his obsession with house.

Does that ring a bell?

Well, he locked the kids in the carriage while he was going surfing.

How did we know that?

Because that's what happened when my daughter and her friend went down to Just a Crystal. They walked down I'll tell you wanted to drink of water and Crystal said I we're not allowed in the house while he's not here. And she says, I'm getting a drink or order and walked in. The next thing I heard screaming, I've looked out the window upstairs and they're running back. He'd come

To go surfing.

And I thought they were too young.

What do you think would be different if someone with Roman circumstances disappeared like that Today, it'll.

Be able to social media instantly. I think the police did have better investigative skills.

Did you form an impression about how determined or not she was to remain separated from him?

Oh?

Yeah, she was stone separated. You could see the trouble. Oh god, how did you distinguish it? What did you say? Now? Just a voice?

And when she started confiding and things like that, she was definitely troubled. It was a bad relationship.

Did you still see them around them?

If I did, i'd cross the road. Oh yeah, definitely. But he booted her out the house and then pissed off the Sydney.

Yeah.

I was wondering, why did she end up leaving the house because they kicked her out? And is that something you remember or something she said to me? In their weeks in the townhouse.

According to Virginia, Ronwin and her two girls had struggled to stay warm.

I remember telling me how cold it was down there, and the two kids in her were alway just huddled.

She was struggling.

It was just certain things. She said, something about that's all they could afford and off freezing, and he was abusive and she was scared of him. Just when I said, smooth back in the house. He's in Sydney. It was my buddy idea.

You won't like it.

Oh, you built it together. It's half hers. Yeah, not how he saw.

If it makes you feel any less responsible. Her solicitor also gave her that advice, and so did her brother, so you shouldn't have to bear that burden. For many years, neither Virginia nor Lee had any contact with police investigating Bronwin's disappearance, but in two thousand and nine a statement was taken. I scrolled through it on my laptop while we sit at the front of her house and Lee remains inside. So you don't become a witness until you

Do you know why that is?

No?

I actually asked him. They said, we have the diary, and I said, well, why didn't it It had my address in it.

Why didn't you ever come and see me?

I saw her the night before she went missing. My phone numbers written there. It actually said Saturday night Virginia phone number, etc. And you never contacted me. I just think there's a lot of incompetence. The place need to pick the game up the detectives.

That's embarrassing.

Yeah, that was hard to find anyway. We never changed phone numbers or anything, and it took them twenty years to find me.

Incredible, You say Robin told me about Jonathan being abusive towards her.

Yes, I interpreted from that that Jonathan had been physically violent to her. Yes, had hit her and been very abusive feeling at her.

She said to me words the effect of, you don't know him, he's been abusive before, and he scares me.

Yeah.

That was at Eden's, at in front of Aiden's. I was sitting down talking.

I think I haven't told her to get a locksmith, which she did.

She couldn't get in because he changed the locks. I can remember even saying the locksmith parked out the front of their place. Because I'd walk from Sandstone around the corner at the Granite Street every day. I was on a builder.

So it's their lost. Shortly before meeting Virginia, one of Bromwin's relatives tracked down some video of her. Hello, Hello, is that Megan? Do you have any video or audio of Bromwin.

There was a film shown at the Colonial Inquest that belonged to the neighbor and the early other one, Channel ten made a documentary called Sometimes I Get Frightened, and that was a story of my uncle Phillip with a transplant. That Bromwin was there and she is interviewed and it shows her with her father's heartbreaking you. And John's actually in that too. My brother had it transferred onto GISK for Crystal.

Maybe I just want to say the video with Bronwin in it, that.

Was the first time I watched it was yesterday when my grandfather sent it to me, and I was like, oh, my goodness, like I've never seen a video of her before or heard her voice.

It was filmed in nineteen eighty six when Bronwyn and John were visiting her father Philip, he had just received a liver transplant. Bronwyn tenderly comforts her dad at his bedside, while John stands close.

She really cared for him, and she really cared for those she loved.

She whispers something in his ear.

Later, she responds to a question from the documentary's reporter Des McWilliam.

On the third day, Philip Reid still hasn't regained full consciousness.

He remains critical.

Bronwin, forever optimistic, looks for signs of progress, and tries to reinforce her father's own will to live.

But his system is tiring and breaking down, and some days are.

Better than others.

You know, if I think he's responding, sometimes you'll blink or wink or move his head. If I think he's responding, it makes me.

Feel a lot better.

But all I ever telling him is that he's going to get better, the sort of things that he'd wanted. You know that he's leaves functioning, his kidneys are fine, and you know, and that his heart's still it's strong, and that he's.

Going to be your eye.

Two weeks now since the second transplant, and Philip continues to hang on to life with the frailess thread.

He's a good bloke, isn't he.

Here's the best, the best, Oh that came in sits same hair everything.

Yeah, her dad, he died soon after that. She had a pretty tough life. I think I think she did.

She still wondered what she'd be doing now if the separation and divorce had gone smoothly.

Yeah, greedy bastard. He didn't give that damn house up. She was genuinely scared. How could she have an accident not be reported? And if she left him, why didn't she take the kids? At the very loose crystal, I'll get her close.

Yeah, it would be great to meet your husband. Yeah welcome, Yeah, okay, good to see her.

It's a bad prong when I just saw a video of her.

Ah, is this what this is about?

Oh?

I did not know what you're here.

Yeah, our oldest daughter was a babysitter for her the night before she went missing. She was a lovely lady. She'd loved it kids.

Did you know him? Well, no, not really.

I made him a few times and I was sort of downing, slightly aloof and arrogant.

That's it.

What do you think about the proposition that she left and started the new life with not a chance, not a chance?

The cicadas start up?

Are they?

What were the cicadas?

Those bugs, those insects?

And how old is he now?

Well, he would be about seventy.

Seventy thirty one years ago, yesterday, thirty one years ago. Incredible, It was just so obvious. When did you form that view years ago when it first happened. She completely disappear and she left the kids? Come on, don't conslp more intelligence?

Do you can, right, old man, not leave the kids doing?

What do you think the chances are? It's hard to say.

The police wanted to charge him with murder, but the lawyers working for the DPP.

They said, well, we don't think there's enough evidence to get a conviction and what if enough the current a said he should have been charged with murder. So if you can find some more evidence, or if a new.

DPP says, you know what, a jury listening to all this evidence, even though it's circumstantial, might well convict him. I drove out of Lennox and cuested the hill between en Clave and the busy M one Highway. It's a three hour drive back across the border into Queensland and up to Brisbane.

Calling hello.

It was pretty interesting talking to Virginia and housband Lee this afternoon.

What they told me was they didn't talk to police or give a statement to police until two thousand and nine, even though they spoke to Broman the night before she disappeared, right.

Which is insane that they weren't talk to that would have been so feltful, so much.

Earlier on.

Roman confided that she was very fearful of John. That's so vital.

The coroner didn't have that evidence and therefore the DPV didn't have that evidence when the case was rejected.

Yeah, have changed things, but.

MinC Bronwyn is written and investigated by me Headley Thomas.

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