Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwan contains coarse language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian. The acclaimed actor Simon Baker, a crime solving EmPATH in The Mentalist, grew up in this place. Lennox Head, Oh.
Yeah, you're the one they were telling me about the psychic.
He's not here.
He's here, and there's no such thing as psychics.
The Hollywood star played the role of a troubled dad doing his best in the Netflix series Boys Swallows Universe, based on my friend Trent Dalton's remarkable novel of the same name. Simon Baker drove down the Coast Road and Memory Lane with sixty Minutes reporter Alison Langdon when he returned to his dark brick childhood home. Here it's going to somehow have an impact on you and affect you in a way when you're living here.
The power of what this landscape is, it's got this intensity in it.
Just a little farther north, the actor Chris Hemsworth often favors the famed Seven Mile Beach near his home off Broken Head. Celebrities live something close to a normal life in these parts. They're not hassled or ogled by the locals.
Mary Nolan holds the stop go sign outside one of the schools from time to time as a part time job, and he used to see Chris Hemsworth come to collect his children, Maurray and Deb's son Dale sees Chris in the water when he's back from making movies and TV action series.
Yea, Dale's often said to me, surf with Chris emsoft today.
Yeah, he's just a normal every day go Really, he seems very down to earth.
Good on him.
It's probably good that he's living out him, not in the la buscle and bustle.
The surfing culture is very strong in Lenox and while many in the community have strong views about him, surfers do respect John. He is knowledgeable about conditions and weather. He's neither aggressive nor greedy when it comes to competing for waves. But they've also got a nickname for him. Bromwin's friend from the early nineteen nineties, Denise Barnard, shared it with me as we sat at a table in her Lennox Head courtyard overlooking a plunge pool.
John's very well known out in the surf.
How is he well known?
They call him JTM, JTM John the Murderer JTM.
That's what he's known as.
Does he know that?
I don't know.
I think a lot of people have the idea that she's done something sinister with Bromwin way back then, and he's got away with it and he's store outliving the life, and that's what.
They call him.
Shortly before this podcast series began, one surfer asked John a brutally blunt question. Murray heard about the exchange and shared it with me. Did you kill your wife, mate, the surfer asked John, No way. John replied she was crazy. She ran off his story that Bromwin, in his words, was not right in the head, that she was like her mother. Barbara has endured three decades. Here's Bromwin's good friend deb again, recalling conversations with John in May and June nineteen ninety three.
He kept trying to paint the picture that she was schizophrenic. You know a mother schizophrenic. You know your sister sitzophrenic. He kept saying this to me, right, and.
I said, no, this is why she was alive.
After she gone.
Yeah.
He tried to paint this picture of Bromwyn to me she'd lost the marbles, and I thought, no, she was stressed, but I didn't see any evidence of being schizophrenic and living with him. She was obviously very nervous, like if she was having someone over for coffee, she would actually ask me could they come down here in case John come home and she had people there.
I've been studying a one page document typed in Ballener police station at the time John Winfield reported his wife as missing. It is an account of the purported facts and circumstances as John explained them to the police officer who was on duty, Julie Donovan. Officer Donovan's name and badge number are on this document. Each relevant section has been filled with black type, as you would expect. It's
dated May twenty seven. It includes Bromwin's date of birth in late April, her height of five foot eight which is one hundred and seventy three centimeters, her fair complexion, her green or hazel eye color, and what was described as her racial appearance of Caucasian white in the checkbox for hair color. The option of colored or dyed is noted in another checkbox asking whether there are fears for
the safety of the missing person. It states no. The name of Bromwin's GP, doctor Christopher Mitchell, and his medical practice are also noted on the form. Then there's a narrative of a few hundred words at the foot of the page. I've talked to police contacts about this section and they say that it is based almost entirely on the initial account provided by the person who went into the station to make the report to in this case,
John Winfield. In the narrative, Bromwin is referred to as a POI, and that's an abbreviation for person of interest. You are going to hear a voice actor who will say the words.
Person of interest was last seen at nine thirty pm on sixteen May nineteen ninety three, after making several phone calls from the above address after husband Jonathan was in Sydney. Apparently the two had been officially separated since twenty two March nineteen ninety three. On the night of sixteen May, the person of interest had a conversation with her ex husband and informed him that she was leaving. She stated that she was leaving and going for a couple of weeks holiday.
In the first notification to police. John has asserted that Bromwyn had said she was having a break of a fortnight, whereas he told Broman's brother Andy and sister in law Michelle, as as well as Debbie and Murray, that she was going for a break of a few days. Here's how Michelle described it in episode four.
When he first spoke, he was going down the lines of she's walked out and left, and she's left me with the kids, and then it switched to she needed a break for a few days. She's gone away for a few days to get ahead together.
There's something else that's off about the dates and timings. According to the account being given by John to police, Bromwan was going away for a couple of weeks, which would have meant that by the end of the month May thirty, he would have expected her to return to the house and to her children. On his account, the one he gave to the police, which was different to the one he gave to her family and friends, Bronwin was not even missing when he made the May twenty
seven missing person report. Did it occur to the police to question what was really going on, to dig into whether Broman's family, particularly her brother Andy and Broman's friends had pushed John to make the report in the first place because they understood this was very unusual behavior. The next line in the missing person report, based on John Winfield's information to Ballina Police officer Julie Donovan, is remarkable.
On eighteen May nineteen ninety three, the person of interest telephoned her ex husband's daughter, Jodi Lynn Winfield at her salon at fifty seven Flinders Road, Woolaware, and informed her that she was in Queensland and that she was not coming back.
If accurate, this line would be a powerful indication to police that Bromin was alive and well, and that although Broman had not made any contact with her brother, or her mother, or her daughter's or her half sister, or her friends and neighbors, or her employer, she had, according to John, telephoned her stepdaughter, Jody, the eighteen year old
with whom Bromwin had argued on the telephone. Because of the fact that Broman and her girls had moved back into the house at Sandstone Crescent, Jody's work telephone number at the hair salon in the Shire in Sydney where she was working was typed on the form I spoke to Broman's brother Andy about the purported telephone call to
the hair salon. I only want to know what you clearly remember the missing person report that the police filled out after John visited Ballana police says that a phone call was received in Sydney.
It's really significant.
It's staying effectively that Bromwin was alive after John has left the house. What do you know about this purported phone call by to Jody at the hair salon in Sydney.
We received word through John about a phone call that came to the salon on the Tuesday. Michelle had rung me to say supposedly Bromwin had rung Jody salon. And I got home and I thought, wow, how wei was at and tadd Michelle. I then left and drove down to the salon at all aware and parked across the road and waited for my last client to walk out. And I went and knocked on the jaw and introduced myself and I said, what's this about Bromwin Winfield supposedly
ringing the salon today? And the lady at the salon said, I don't know whether it was Bromwin or not, but am rang the salon and said, tell Jody, I'm okay, I'm in Queensland and I'm not coming back.
Who was that woman?
I believed that person to be Tanya Robertson.
You thought it was really weird that this telephone call had purportedly been made by Bromman. Why did you believe then that that was really weird?
Michelle had already said to me. Why would Bromwin ring the salon knowing that Tuesday was the day that Jody went to tape. Jody wasn't even at the salon that day, But how would Broman know that she used to talk to Jody all the time. Bromwin knew what day she was able to contact Jody or not.
You said that Tanya Robertson told you that she wasn't sure whether or not it was Bromin's voice.
Why would she volunteer that to you.
To tell you the truth? I don't know. She just said it was a female voice and didn't want to confirm that it was Bromwin. Did she know Bromin's voice? I would believe so. Roman could have rung there numerous times. It just seems an odd thing for her to mention. I'm not sure whether or not it was Bromwin.
If the person whose calling says I'm Bromwin, why would she ring Jodie.
And not ring an immediate member of her family to say that she was okay? That just doesn't make any sense to us, and it never did at the time, and it still doesn't to this day.
But here's the thing, Andy, you've gone in on Tuesday, May eighteen.
You've spoken to Tanya.
She can't confirm whether or not the person who called was Bromin. You don't hear any more about it. Then on May twenty seven, so another nine days later, the missing person report is made by John and in that report it stated as a matter of fact that it was Bromin who made the call. Did you walk away from that salon believing that a call had been made by someone representing herself as Brommin.
Yes, correct, Yes, one hundred percent. Told me that a phone call was made to the salon and it was a female voice. For words to me were I could not verify whether it was Bromwin. Tell Jody, I'm in Queensland and I'm not coming home straight away. I thought none of that makes sense.
Do you know now why you didn't yourself go to the homicide squad and say, I think something really serious has gone down here.
These were just slow culminating facts that made absolutely no sense.
When you see that missing person report and read it, now, what do you believe it's trying to do?
I believe it's trying to falsify a proof of life. After the Sunday night at the house.
Glenn Taylor, the detective sergeant who picked up the case and started a thorough investigation in nineteen ninety eight, asked Jody Winfield about this purported call from Bromwin to the salon. These are Jody's words from the police statement Jody made in nineteen ninety eight, but it's not her voice.
The following Tuesday, eighteenth of May nineteen ninety three, was my rostered day off work. About lunchtime, Michelle, my boss, told me that Bronwin had rung and spoken to Tenurerobertson at the salon and said to her, can I speak to Jody. Tanya said she's not here, it's her day off. She said that Bronwin then said tell her I'm never coming back and for her to watch over the kids.
She then hung up. I would have thought that Bronwin would have rung me at home because she knew that Tuesday was my day off, although she could have rung and left a message at the salon because we'd been arguing and maybe she didn't want to speak to me. I told Dad about the phone call, and he thought that it was just her blowing off hot air. He thought that when he went home she would just turn up. Dad doesn't talk about Bronwyn much. He doesn't bring it
up at all. The only way he'll talk about it is if I bring it up. He's definite that one day she'll turn up on the front doorstep and attempt to take Crystal and Lauren. He's positive that she's still alive somewhere and will suddenly reappear.
When Tanya Robertson was questioned by police in nineteen ninety eight, she had no recollection of receiving a telephone call in the salon from anyone calling herself Bromwin Winfield, and Tanya said that she believed she would have remembered such a call if it had been made. Let's go back to the words in the missing person report in the Ballina Police Station dated May twenty seven, nineteen ninety three.
Up to date, Jonathan has made several inquiries with the person who interests girlfriend and associated friends, and it appears that the person of interest has not been heard of or seen since, except for a brief interlude with the clairvoyant David.
This claim of Bromwin catching up with the tarot card reader after May sixteen is the second assertion by John that Bromwin was alive. After he left the house and drove to Sydney that Sunday.
Night, Jonathan approached the clairvoyant and he said that he did not keep diaries and vaguely could remember the person of interest. Up to date, only very few of the person of interests clothing had been taken from the house.
The next sentence in the police missing person report indicates that no withdrawals have been made from Bromwin's account with the Commonwealth Bank while she has been on her supposed break. The report, which is based almost entirely on information from John, concludes with damaging inferences about Bromwyn's stability.
It appears that the person of interest has come from a very deranged family and her mother has been treated for psychiatric problems for the last twenty.
Years there it is bromwn Joy Winfield was labeled by association right from the start at Balener Police Station. Nobody else in Bromwin's life had the slightest indication that Bromwyn was mentally unwell in some kind of carbon copy of her mother Barbara.
Apparently, when the person of interest was eleven years old, she had a nervous breakdown. However, it is not known whether she is suffering from any disorder at this stage and has not been treated for associated problems known to the husband.
You've previously heard that Broman's GP doctor Mitchell, saw Bromman at his surgery on Friday, May fourteenth because she had sprained her left hand, and doctor Mitchell had treated broman by applying a splint. He did not notice anything unusual about her manner. The reference from John Winfield to a purported mental health event two decades earlier, when Bromwan was eleven years old was something I had not read or heard about before in all the files and interviews for
this podcast investigation. Bromman's brother Andy Reid told me there was no nervous breakdown when Bromin was aged eleven or any time after, and there are also references to Bromwin's mental health or your family's mental health. There's a claim there that Bromwin's also had a mental breakdown or a nervous breakdown when she's aged eleven.
What's that about?
At no time can I ever remember through our childhood that Bromwin was treated for any form of mental illness, And.
What about through her adulthood?
Again the same No, no psychologists, no psychiatrists. I do not recall Bromwin ever been treated in any form or mental illness.
But Bromwin did have some unhappy experiences through her childhood and teens. Andy tells me that things became particularly complicated when their mother, Barbara returned to Australia and re entered their lives.
That's when we first found out that our stepmother actually wasn't our real mother.
Bronwin's stepmother Jenny clashed with Bromwin.
It was strained at times, but that was only in her later teen years. We had a perfectly normal childhood, as old family photos and that can prove of. We used to be always holidaying down in Sussex and let I have vivid memories of Mum taking us into We used to always go into jays to the carols.
By candle light.
Mum had a daughter in Melissa, had a son in me, and therefore I think we received the better treatment in the latter days.
And you've made a reference a couple of times to Mum.
But you're talking there about your legal stepmother, aren't you correct?
Correct, because that's the person.
That raisings and you believe that she was your mother.
Yeah, yeah, until you were about nine, Andy.
Oh, I remember, Yeah, I was, would have been about ten or so you.
Yeah, I'm sorry, So to remind you this. Friends of the family and relatives confirmed that Broman was excluded at times. She went to live with relatives, including her grandmother Nana Reid, instead of living in the family home.
It was always in my memory after the fact of a bit of strine coming into the marriage. Once my real mom, Barbara was introduced into our lives.
In the weeks before Broman disappeared, she wrote in those A four pages about some events in her childhood.
Jenny couldn't stand me, went to stay with Nana Reid for a while after Pa Reed died. Nana read and I were okay for a while, but she had a full and had to be hospitalized. She went into a nursing home. I met my real mother in the middle of all of this. Also met Kim, spent holidays in Tasmania with her, and also spent weekends in town with her. It went with hotel, left school year ten, wanted to leave home, hated it.
Nowhere in the missing person report does it say that Bromwin was an exceptionally dedicated mother and that it was completely out of character for her to leave her children. She had never left her children before. The report does not say that she had commitments. A solicitor's appointment on Monday May seventeen to talk about her separation from John and her plans to get the ball rolling on a
property settlement. There was her work at Eden's Takeaway during the week the school pickups and drop offs for the children, Lauren and Crystal. Bromwin had not finished moving her things back from the rented townhouse in Byron Street to the home that John had built at Sandstone Crescent when she disappeared. She wanted to stop paying rent. There was a perfectly good home to live in. It was empty because John
had taken work in Sydney. It defeated Bromwan's purpose to leave her things in the rental because it meant she would have had to keep paying for it. But the missing person report had none of those details. I've been talking to one of Bromwan's friends, Bridgeter. They bonded in high school and for years afterwards. Bridgeta made the wedding dress for Bromwin's marriage to John Winfield, but nobody was invited.
John wanted a quiet ceremony in Lennox Head. Bridgeta has sent me photographs of them as young women, including with Cristel as a small child. I asked Bridgetter whether she had ever seen anything that made her one day, whether Bromwin had any mental health issues.
She was a very good friend of mine. We went to high school together. After high school, we spent a lot of time together. I was with her when her babies were born. I was the person she reached out to, and she had a lot of trouble at home. My family put her in her home when she had nowhere to go, rent free for many months, just to get her on her feet again, just give her a place for a while till she could sort out what she wanted to do, and that she wanted a solid family.
This trouble in the household was before John. She needed to move out of there. The stepmother didn't really like her.
And do you know why, do you know what that was about?
Well, she had another daughter to Bromwin's father, and I think she really loved that one because that was hers and Bromwin was from a previous marriage. I think she just didn't like Bromwin. Bromwin was pretty, he was nice looking. The father doated on her. I was there for her first wedding, second wedding. No one was allowed to go to that because John whisked her away and only had two elderly people as witnesses, so none of her friends
could be there for that wedding. I was concerned because while I was with her, she always a happy, go lucky girl. You know, we used to go out dancing together and parties and she was a lovely person. And then when John came into the picture, she seemed to be a little bit more careful of what she spoke about, and she just looked a little bit uneasy, not like
the normal happy boman I used to always witness. And she said to me that she didn't really go out very much, because he used to check how much petrol she'd used to try and work out where she's been. I found that very disturbing. She so wanted to have a family unit, She wanted her children to have father, She wanted a happy life.
So I guess that's why she put up with her.
But I didn't spend a lot of time because he didn't like her to be around her old friends. I didn't want to make any trouble. I was reading in the paper that John was trying to say that she had a mental issue. Now that is by farst really really wrong. I never saw her with a mental problem. I never seen her act like she had a mental problem.
What do you think of the suggestion that romwin wanted to take a break and then just decided to stay away from her kids and home and family.
Never, never, never, never, She loved her kids.
After July, the Ballana police file for the nineteen ninety three investigation into the fate of missing mother of two Bromin Winfield goes eerily quiet for a couple of months. It seems there was no investigative activity until September two, nineteen ninety three, when a two page police internal report was.
Filed, and there's also that terrible one from discoun I'll show you that.
This is how it starts.
This date spoke to the cousin of the missing person, Megan Reid. We talked about it in one of my first meetings with Meghan at her home in Sydney.
Meg, I'm just going to ask you to clearly and slowly read that statement.
Okay.
So as New South Wales Police State Intelligence Network Information report named GJ. Diskan Ranked Detector Sergeant Location Ballaner.
This is not a signed statement by Megan Reid. No sign statements were taken by police in nineteen ninety three. It is a document based on a telephone conversation between Detective Graham Diskin and a woman who must have given him a name Meghan Read. But Meghan insists that it was not her on the telephone to the police officer in Balliner.
This date spoke to the cousin of the missing person, Meghan Read. Meghan stated that she had twice spoken to the MP Missing Personal Belief only days before her disappearance, and only that she was able to recognize her voice, She would not have believed that, in fact it was Bromwin Meghan stated that the missing person was talking a lot of rubbish but did not seem to be affected by drugs or alcohol. Statements were made like you will all pay none of you will know what is happening,
and other statements that meant nothing to Megan. Meghan stated that she has no fears about John Winfield being involved in anything untoward so far as his wife's disappearance is concerned. In the past, she has questioned Browin over her attitude and lies about John, and bromwin.
Admitted that she was seeking attention.
She believes that John is a great father and care of the two children involved in the marriage, and would do nothing to upset the children. Meghan also believes that in the past Bromwan was a user of cannabis and described her as a flower child, believing that she may well be living.
On a commune somewhere.
She also had a passion for money and was on the lookout for a rich male to care for her if the opportunity arose. Meighan stated that broman has always been upset over the death of her father some years ago and by the fact that she was luckless in his estate because he was a bankrupt at the time of his death, and all moneies went to paying outstanding debts. Bromwin, until just prior to her disappearance, has been supported for
money from Meaghan's father, Bromwan's uncle. However, he has declined to continue in that vein and Bromwin was somewhat.
Upset about that.
Meghan also reiterated the fact act 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 the disappearance.
Okay, and what do you say about this statement?
Absolutely bullshit. I never ever would say that. I mean, my father never gave her a cent for starters, never did. You wouldn't never wouldn't give anyone money. Dad and John came up with her, told me that she was at the age of Aquarius commune.
This is John's words.
Megan believes that another unknown woman who knew that Detective Sergeant Graham Diskin was investigating Brohman's disappearance, has.
Rung up and said that she's me I really do. That's the only way it is.
Word for word.
Stuff that John said to me and to my parents. So that's what he's saying. Now, it's just so far from true. I mean, I don't understand this at all. I didn't even know it existed until recently, and I'm very upset about it, which I didn't do it now. The coroner at the coronal inquest tried to subpoena Sergeant Discan, but unfortunately he went off on medical stress leave or something and he had medical exemption from being subpoened in court.
Okay, let's try and step through parts of this statement just to work out whether that theory that someone misrepresenting themselves as you.
Has actually been behind this.
The thing is about her father being a bankrupt Well that's true, but you know, how would he know that?
It has to come from an informed member of the family.
Yes, I agree with you. Well, they're just so far from the truth. Though Robin was a very glamorous woman. She would never go to a commune. It's just ridiculous. As if I say that she had a mensa IQ. I mean, the girl was as shark as outtack.
Why do you say she had a mensa IQ.
Because my mother told me that she had her IQ.
Taken Maddie can you go back to that intelligence report please and just tell me the phone number that he lists.
Okay, Sarah too four four known.
Maddie Walsh read the rest of the phone number as it existed in nineteen ninety three.
It's noted here in handwriting it says Megan cousin.
I did have that number. Yeah, just we change providers and moved.
Yeah.
So whoever has contacted disc and has given your phone number, Yes, that's correct, but you are not the informant for that.
Absolutely not.
I mean I'd have to have completely gone start raving mad.
If you spoke to any single person that I.
Know, they would be gobsmacked, because I mean, it's the opposite to what I've always maintained. I mean, I never even spoke to him. I tried to talk to Disband and he wouldn't take my calls. And he said to me that that was because Michelle and Andrew were the only ones that they were the representative of the Reed family that he would talk to.
So do you believe that you spoke to him just on one or two occasions.
I don't even know if I ever spoke to him.
But didn't he tell you that he couldn't talk to you because.
Andrew, well, somebody told me that. I don't know if it was actually him. I just rang up asking to speak to him, right, I don't know who it was who answered the phone?
And when was the first time a statement was taken from you?
Ninety eight?
All right, so five years after that intelligence.
Report nineteen ninety eight is the first time Eddie statements for Dagon.
Whoever it was on the telephone two detective disc and she influenced investigations by police in nineteen ninety three, A purported family member declaring that John would not have done anything wrong and that Bromman was strangely emulating the disappearing act of her own mother, Barbara, aligned neatly with the path the police were already on. It's impossible to discover now the true origin of the information noted in the internal police document. And it's also complicated because some family
members have fallen out with each other. Madison Walsh is aware of these difficulties and she helps me navigate through them. In your extended family, there are some well intentioned people.
Yeah, one hundred percent, and it's really frustrating because sometimes it gets the better of them and it's hard to mellow it out. It's a lot of strong opinions, a lot of confident people, and it's it's hard.
It's really hard.
So I'm trying to take a.
Kind of unbiased step back and just kind of observe what's in front of me.
Megan Reid hasn't seen eye to eye with her cousin Andy Reid's wife Michelle for a long time.
We used to see them.
We'd have the Reed family Christmas on Boxing Day every year she married him. That was it too becau Xandra and I had not been on speaking terms for years because of his wife's getting interfering and doing the police not to talk to me and all the rest of it. But now he and I, I'm really good.
Megan and Kim Marshall, Bromwin's half sister, haven't known each other long. Kim came to stay at Meghan's place.
Kim is off on this clairvoyant route. She went on and on about it, But now we're getting along like a.
House on fire.
Andy Reid is candid about ups and downs. Andy also points out important differences between his mother, Barbara's mental health and her absence from his life and his sister Bromwin's nineteen ninety three disappearance. Barbara went overseas with her mother, leaving Andy and Bromwin with their father for almost a decade, so.
It was never as if Barbara ever disappeared and no one knew where she was. That's when she went to Europe, went to London and started in London and traveled around through while that, yeah, and then came back and then obviously settled in Hobart.
I take your point that the context is very different. Why then, would people talking to the police in nineteen ninety three when broman disappears even raise your mother's leaving. Why was it even raised and became part of police evidence if it was irrelevant.
John had all the first contact with police. John had all direction of how the case was handled when information went to the police.
Originally I didn't have any jurisdiction.
John had jurisdiction over to the case, which is hence Wright it took me so long to get control and then the case did properly reviewed and investigated correctly without.
All the stumbling blocks constantly being put in front of it.
So your sense of it is that Discan hears from the husband who should have been a person of interest that his wife's mother did a disappearing act, and that puts the idea into Discan's mind. And then he follows up with you and Michelle and Megan and others asking questions about your mum's disappearance.
Is that how you see it?
That's the way I answer it.
Yes, Yes, it was never ever Michelle's belief the problem would walk away from those two girls.
And Megan, I mean, she wouldn't have done anything deliberately detrimental.
She probably thought she was helping.
Yeah, correct.
I actually instructed the police not to talk to her anymore. Megan's always wanted to know who that person was. What did the police stop talking to?
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, every time I asked this fellow a question, he has an answer.
It's as if he's prepared.
Yeah, we thought it's got to be a way.
How does 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 put two and 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 here's Megan again.
I'm the only one that remained in contact with him after Roman's disappearance, and my reasoning being was that it keeps your enemies closer than your fringe 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 until October ninety four.
I had an argument with Andrew just recently about this whole thing. Was Michelle in particular doesn't like us, and she has nothing to do with us, and she told the police not to have.
Anything to do with myself.
Andrew was the point of contact for the police, and they never listened to me. And Andrew apparently told them that I have ADHD it was a mental case not to listen to me, which is absolutely rubbish because I am quite the opposite. I'm very intelligent, I know what I'm saying. I am hyperactive, and I haven't had.
My medication yet, so probably joining a million miles an. Now, the thing is, I have a photographic.
Memory, of a brilliant memory.
I can remember things like yesterday.
She thought that she was doing the right thing, but in the end I perceived that she was just being bled for every bit of information or any thought that the family was 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.
Tim Marshall spent a lot of time with her mother, Barbara kim Well, I wanted to talk to you about Barbara, your mother's mental health issues. Are you okay talking to me about that?
It all starts with mum being a nurse. She was a very talented nurse. Mum very much supported Philip becoming a teacher and heading towards becoming a principal, and so she paid for a lot of the setup costs for their marriage and their home life, and she naturally then went on to have Bromwin. The culture back in those days was that men naturally went to the pub or they had a few drinks after work.
As Bromwin moved.
From being a baby to a toddler, Philip was not at home as much, and then she became pregnant with Andrew. Philip used to be absent from the home a lot, and so Mum would often catch him coming home late at night watering the levices in the garden and she'd have to say come inside, Philip, and then other nights she'd have to go and getting down from the pub. So Mum was feeling astraining her marriage. Andrew was then birthed, and then Mum felt she had developed postnatal depression after
having Andrew. Whether she was also feeling depressed and unsupported being the mother of two small children, Mum had multiple crisis situations going on in her life. The birth of her second child, a husband that was estranging himself from the marriage, and then her father died and later on in life it's been explained to her that because she had so many competing crisis is going on, that's when her mental health became compromised and she probably had what
they described as a breakdown. But Philip, in consultation with his parents, it had been expressed that no, you must have your wife back with you, you must get your family house in order, and so Philip actually said, no, you can only have a short time away, and Mum disagreed with that. He actually entered the house and he collected Andrew from the crib left the property with Andrew against Mum's permission. He already had Bromwin staying with him.
And the words that have always remained in my head from the stories that were explained was that the lawyer advised that Mum would most likely be judged as an unfit mother due to the opinion ends of the Reed family, and that she perhaps should actually not worry about contesting custody because it would be a horrible case to have to go and attend court to go through and it might be better if she just looks after her mother and perhaps go is suggested on an overseas traveling trip
for a period of time to recover and recuperate, and then return to Australia and then look at maybe perhaps making connections with her children and building a new life. So much pressure in a woman's life, and she thought she was making a sound decision based on the advice that she had been given and the you'd probably say the lack of support.
And the diagnosis in nineen seventy one was that your mother had postnatal depression and something else.
And the occurrences of schizophren more specifically categorized as schizoaffective disorder. I can cite a statement from her long life psychiatrist, mum had actually burnt out.
Headley.
Yeah.
I don't know if you heard.
We paused for a minute because someone's caught there a blender. Oh dear, it's not major, but I will have to go and deal with that.
Yes, let's talk later. By In nineteen ninety three, in her writings in the A four notepad, Romwin reflected on falling in love with John in the mid nineteen eighties, when they lived in Crinulla in the Shire and she was raising Crystal on her own. Bromwin had divorced her husband, Gary Beard, and Roman was no longer in a relationship with Crystal's father, Mark Davis. John Winfield had divorced two wives and he had one daughter, Jody. There's a sentence
in Bromman's notepad which perhaps speaks volumes. When John came on the scene, Bromwin wrote, he was a good listener, and they clicked.
He was or so it seemed honest, trustworthy, and didn't mind the fact that I had Chrystal, and he was wonderful to both of us. I was in love with him and would have done anything for him. We talked and I felt I had made a friend, although for some reason I never really trusted him, so never felt able to disclose my full family history to him.
When I telephoned Kim Marshall back, she sounded much happier.
Kim, Hi, I can hear the bird.
Oh okay, that's good. Firstuall has your child with the blended finger.
It wasn't not a major drama, just a little bit of blood.
But it hurts.
Thank you, there's a relation.
I did my job.
We picked up where we had left off. Kim was loyally determined to defend her mother, Barbara, the woman broman was said to have imitated with a disappearance. In an earlier episode, you heard Bromwin's uncle John and auntie Leah describing their recollections of Barbara. Kim has also talked to John and Leah about Kim and Bromman's mother and the major challenges that she faced in the nineteen sixties. Things were very different back then.
When I spoke to John and Leah, they had a full belief that mum abandoned Andrew and Bromwin, and they said that to me when I was there in Sydney last year. I wore that because I actually was very familiar with that labeling. That is definitely not what my mother did, because my mother did try to go for custody.
Totally understand this. This is why I'm talking to you and Andy. In an earlier telephone conversation with Kim, she talked about Bromwin having written the letters in which she described her concerns about her safety.
Because she wrote some pretty intensive information in those letters to my mum.
What a shame that you don't have copies of them.
Bromwin was scared for her life. She wrote that in a sentence in the letter. In one of the letters, that's the distinct memory. But see that can only be now said, as he say.
The one thing that I find a little confusing, if Roman had written that to your mom, you and your mom would have been suspicious from the day that Broman disappeared.
One thing that I'm finding a bit contradictory is that people like Megan, for example, say that they were vicious immediately right in the police notes from ninety three and in the statements of some of these people and in their actions in having ongoing contact with John, It's not really obvious that they would have been suspecting John of foul play at that time. Otherwise why would they have
maintained the connection to him and stayed with him. I'm just trying to work out whether people now say I was suspicious from the beginning, but were they really suspicious from the beginning and saying to the police this guy we suspect has murdered Bronwin.
That's very relevant. We were telling the police that we were frightened and suspicious that something was going on, and there was a roadblock at every point because somehow it was always dismissed and kept as that Bromwin had gone away, the narrative of Bromwin being crazy like her mother, John's version of that, and that ran from the beginning, and
it just kept a hole on everything. So we were always saying, but you're not writing down what we're actually thinking, or saying a phone call that I made that is totally out of context and it's incorrect.
So kim back in ninety three, the detective disco according to one of his memo is one of his police intelligence notes, he spoke to.
Your mom Broman's mom in.
June of ninety ninety three, and according to this note, Barbara says to him, she's probably just run off.
I'm not worried about her.
She'll come back.
She'll just turn up.
Yeah, yeah, And I've read those.
Do you think that could have been your mom's state of mind at that time?
Now?
I believe that that's Andrew and Michelle giving Mum the only lead for Mum to actually go on. And my mum was a very what would you say, non interfering woman and wanted to do anything to appease Andrew. And if Andrew said we won't panic at this time, or we won't do this, or we won't do that, Mum followed that lead because that was the only link that mum had. Mum was also made aware that her diagnosis and myself being the daughter, were going to be always
looked upon as unreliable people. We were told that early on, and we were to be kept out of everything.
Do you believe that your mother probably did say that in June nineteen ninety three.
Yep, correct, yep. Because we were following Andrew's lead. I think Andrew was getting misled, and because he had pushed John so hard to go to the police. I think everything was really fragile. He was bewildered, what will I do? What part will I take? Will I keep John onside? Everyone was trying to be on side with John to get as much information. So, as Megan always likes to say, keep your enemies close play the game.
It's obvious that in the early stages the police are not deeply suspicious.
They're coming to a view that Bromwin has left voluntarily.
Yes, and as a missing person, not a murder victim.
Correct.
Who was promoting with you?
Bambi did promote it. They came in line with Timby and Diskan and kept running with it. I believe because none of us had had any experience, as is quite common with the police or anything like this, we were all in what you call a fawning mode. You know how you can flight, fight or faun I believe everybody was fawning, so we didn't know how hard to push. We didn't know how to offend the police. We didn't know how to go against.
John, nobody in the family.
Then, from what you're saying, felt comfortable getting on the front foot and saying it looks like foul play. Do your jobs treat this as a murder investigation, not missing person?
Kim raised with me the internal police report which attributes to Megan Reid some disparaging information. You heard about it earlier in the episode when Megan denied being the informant.
Robin's off her head, Roman's crazy like her mother, and it sets the tone again.
Do you believe that somebody falsely misrepresenting herself as Megan my word correct.
I don't think Megan's mind is that confusing, and she would never ever say that.
You heard that Megan was in regular telephone contact with John for months following Broman's disappearance in May nineteen ninety three. Megan has strong views about attempts to link what happened then and the circumstances surrounding what had happened to Broman's mother, Barbara. When Broman was just a two year old.
I knew that Bromin wasn't anything like her mom. Okay, when Rowin actually did meet Barbara. She went down to Tasmania and moved in with him for a little while.
Very short while, she ring.
Me up and she said, mum's talking to the pop plant. She thinks it's dad. She said, I'm not kidding.
Barbara disappearance.
Yes, John used that. He told all of us just like a mother.
He tried to convince my ex husband and I for the get go that she'd lost some.
Mind, but he thought everyone would buy that.
Do you think that it was a persuasive story at the time, No, not.
To me, it wasn't.
And also when he went back to Lenox, he went in her flat and he told me he found empty bottles of alcohol and empty packets of allium hidden behind a cupboard, which I find it very hard to believe. But also, how the hell did you get into that apartment without her key? His words to me were that she was only gone for a few days. He was not going to report her as a missing person until Andrew said he would, otherwise I.
Would ring them up to the police.
And they said that there's nothing illegal about being a missing person.
That's what they said. That's what they told her. And we pushed and pushed. I know Andrew did too. I knew something was wrong.
I can see from the police brief of evidence produced by the then detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor that dozens of statements were obtained by him and fellow detective Wayne Temby. But these statements are all dated from the second half of nineteen ninety eight, a full five years after Broman disappeared. It is remarkable that when a mother of two vanishers,
no statements are taken from anyone. When Detective's Graham Discott and he's then junior understudy Wayne Temby get the missing person and report from John Winfield in late May nineteen ninety three, some of the nineteen ninety eight statements are illuminating. In episode four, You Heard a Voice actor read extracts from the statements by John's brother Peter Winfield and his
wife Louise. They were recalling John's decision to fly back to Ballina on a Sunday evening, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, because John had become aware that Bromwin and the girls were back in the house. Now you are going to hear what Peter and Louise Winfield were called from the events soon after that visit, when John was the last person to see Bromwin.
I've tried to remember, but I just don't recall what John said about coming to Sydney with the children. He must have offered some explanation of why Bronwin wasn't with him, but what that was I don't know.
I became aware that John did go to Lennox Head. My memory of the following events are very vague, but I recalled John telling us that he and Bronwyn had a fight and that Bronwyn had walked out.
The next thing I recall was John going back to Lennox Head after he rang to say that he had gone to police to report Bromwyn missing. I recall during a later telephone conversation, John mentioned that he thought Bronwyn had been back to the house after he had reported her missing. I don't recall the reasons why he came to that belief. The only other thing that I remember around that time was when I spoke to John on the telephone and he mentioned that the police were investigating
Bromwin's disappearance, and there was mention of a clairvoyant. I'm not sure when this phone call was, but it was within the early time after Bronwyn had gone missing. Over the last five years, I have had no contact with Bromwyn and have not received any information about her.
In the June July school holidays in nineteen ninety three, John and the children had returned to Sydney and stayed at our house for a couple of weeks. John informed us that he had not seen Bromwin and that she had not returned to Lennox Head. We immediately started to worry about Bromwin's well being and when any she would return. While John was working I minded Cristel and Lauren for him. I noticed that Kristal was fairly unaffected by her mother's disappearance,
although I knew she was feeling pain. Lauren was showing signs that she was affected by what had happened.
Glenn Webster's name will be familiar. You heard a voice actor for Glenn in episode four, describing how John had been helping build a house for Glenn and his wife in the Shire in Sydney until John left without warning to fly to Ballaner on Sunday, May sixteenth. That's what Glenn put in his nineteen ninety eight statement. Now here's a little more from that same statement.
I don't recall John being any different when he came back with the girls. It's just too long to remember.
Now.
I found out through are made of mine named David Baxter, who lives near Ballina, that John his wife Bronwin, had gone missing. I don't recall John Winfield ever mentioning that his wife had gone missing. Since nineteen ninety three, I have been in contact with John Winfield about.
Every three to six months.
I don't recollect.
John ever mentioning anything about Bronwyn to me on the telephone. Since ninety ninety three, John has done some other work for me in Sydney. Again, there was no mention of Bronwyn, but he did tell me that Crystal was staying with some friends in the Ballina area.
Ian Gluis, otherwise known as Gruffy the Concrete spoke in an earlier episode. You heard Scruffy recalling his observations of John, and Ian shared his concerns for Bromwin after she had disclosed her plans to move back into the house at Sandstone Crescent. Here's Scruffy again.
The scuttle butt was going around town and you've seen bronman name, haven't Seena? You could knock me down with a feather when he appeared at the back door.
Scruffy said that after John had returned to Lena Head and the two girls, Crystal and Lauren, were back in their local school, John dropped around to Scruffy's house. John was returning some building equipment which he had borrowed from Scruffy.
He's gone, I've just brought your 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 publicly, 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're buried her. That's what I said to him, standing on the step
looking at him. Jee was standing there in gobsmack.
Did he see you for difference?
Last time we had a civil word, everyone was sort of going, well, where Roman.
Goes when you made that comment to John, or where's her body? Yeah, you had to be pretty confident about what had happened to her, Right, Why do you think you didn't go to the police yourself.
Because basically I know what he say right when I faking heard that he'd hadn't started the car when he took the kids away. He'd glided down the hill past marriage place and then started when it got down around the bottom. This is the story that was going around town that he'd said that some car pulled up out
the front. She's gone out and gone into the car, leaving her if I caing makeup bag at home or wherever, and then he got the kids into the car, she wouldn't answer the door unless she had makeup on, and she wouldn't go down the street unless she had the cosmetic bag with her, because she had to make up bag from hell had everything.
Why was it so obvious to you?
Is it not obvious to the local police.
Well, she wouldn't leave the kids.
Ever, she would die before she left the kids.
Scruffy recalled another occasion when John and Bromman were still living together some months before her disappearance. It alerted him to John's attitude about men around John's wife. Scruffy had driven to the house in Sandstone Crescent to pick John up on their way to a building site. One early morning.
I knocked on the.
Door to get him, and she opened the door about this far and I was quite friendly with her, and she was quite friendly with my missus. She said someone else has picked him up.
When Scruffy arrived at the job site, he mentioned his wasted trip to John.
I was annoyed because I've had to drive up to his place to pick him up. To say him to Byron, I said, yeah, Bromman told me that you've been picked up or whoever. And he said what was she wearing? And I said, could have been a Hitsien bag for all I saw of her. I only saw this much of her face through the crack in the door. And that's not the sort of question you'd ask someone when
you just said you winty house to pick up. And Roman told me that even someone else had picked you up, Immediately go what was she wearing?
What was she supposed to be fucking wearing?
So from you go, well, that's a strange fucking you know where you're coming from.
So what did you take from that? That he was suspicious you were staring at her, or that she seeing someone else.
No, No, it was the fact that I might have seen her with a ninety on.
I asked Scruffy about the notoriety of Bromwin's disappearance in nineteen ninety three.
And now everyone that was here and around the place that they all know about it and their disappearance, Robin, there was anybody who was not hibernating somewhere there weren't got out that the whole town knew about it. And then we heard stories that Rommin's mother was also We heard stories stating that Roman had issues as far as the mental issues and stuff which could come filtered down from John. Then John was accusing her of having an affair.
Although Scruffy has scarcely seen John since nineteen ninety three, he knows where John has lived since the house which Bromwin part owned was sold by John in nineteen ninety nine.
I wonder how he was able to liquidate Romman's equity. Let's say, hypothetically she started new life. Yeah, that's his story, right.
Oh, you mean after the disappearance, she's gone to start a new life.
You and the cops the kind have disagreed that. So I'm not expressing a view, right, but I'm just saying, let's just go with that for the time then she still has equity or had equity, And.
How did he manage to sell that? Well, depends on whose names.
It was in. It wouldn't even matter whose name was it. She had rights as the partner in that house.
Well, that's one avenue to track down, now, how he pulled that?
Not a bad alert.
See, I'm fairly intelligent, and so I put everything in my wife's name from before they were even bought or built, so there is no dispute on the settlement. I just choose what pairs of broadshorts I need, and then I'm off.
He has avoided publicity.
Oh well, you can't blame him. He's living with a sword of damicles. I'm sure he'd be interested enough to hear it.
In a previous episode, you heard some evidence from a nineteen ninety eight police statement by Bromwin's townhouse neighbor Alan Fisher. Here is more of what Alan recalled the events. Shortly after May sixteen, nineteen ninety three, about a.
Week after Bromwin went missing, I came home and noticed a ladder leaning up onto the roof of the flat that Bromham used to live at. I went over to the landlady Shirley Taylor and told her about the ladder. Shirley came running over with her son and I saw there was two more people in the unit. It turned out that these people were friends of Bromwin who had got into Bromin's unit to make sure she wasn't there.
They weren't there to steal anything. It was some time later I was told by the landlady Shirley Taylor that Bromwin's husband had been at the unit trying to get the rest of Brown's belongings. Shirley told me that the husband had said there were things missing and that he thought that Bromwin must have come back to the unit and taken them. As I mentioned earlier, Bromin was very close to her children, and I find it strange that Bromwin would leave and not have any further contact with
her children. I remember that Bromwin would not even go down to the local garage unless she had someone to watch the kids while she was gone.
Here's how the owner of the townhouses, Shirley Taylor, described it, and you heard her in an earlier episode.
About two weeks later, John came to my place and wanted to take the things that Broman had left behind. I had also spoken to the police about her disappearance, and they told me to keep Bromin's belongings in case she returned. John came around a couple of times a week and always requested Brohman's property, but I kept refusing him. After a period of about six weeks, I returned Bromin's belongings to John and he took them home. At a later time, I was cleaning the townhouse and I located
a cane jewelry box on top of a wardrobe. Inside the jewelry box was a brown ring case which contained a gold chain with a tourist medallion, a further gold chain, a heart shaped pennant with a diamond in the center, one nine carried gold wedding band, one gold engagement ring with eight diamonds surrounding a larger diamond in the center, and a gold pendant containing an opal and surrounded by
fourteen diamonds. Also contained in the jewelry box was a thick chained gold bracelet, a pink heart shaped soap, and a red and white dice. I was not aware whether these items belonged to Broman, so I put them in a cupboard in my house and they've been there ever since. I did not know what to do with them and eventually forgot about them. I haven't seen Bromin since May fourteen, nineteen ninety three, when she came and told me that
she was returning to her house. I do recall that she was extremely happy about moving back into the house. I recall seeing something in the Northern Star newspaper about her disappearance, and I can say that I find it extremely hard to believe that Bromin would leave the children behind if she were to go anywhere now.
He is more from Peter Shanahan's police statement. Peter was one of the owners with his then wife Robin, of d takeaway, where Bromwyn had a part time job.
I recall that I spoke to a detective in nineteen ninety three and told him about Bromin not turning up for work on the Tuesday. Bromwin needed the money from the casual work and would most definitely rang me to tell me she couldn't come in. Bronwin never turned up for any future work and I found out later that she had disappeared. I have observed Bronwyn with her two girls Crystal and Lauren, and I would describe Bronwyn as
a very good mother. For her to leave her girls and not make contact is not the Bronwin that I knew. In my opinion, there is no way that Bronwin would have left her girls. Over the last few years, I have often wondered what happened to Bronwyn, and there's more evidence from the nineteen ninety eight police statement of Maria Lewis, Scruffy's wife.
Later, I found out that Bronwyn had supposedly gone away for a holiday for two weeks and left the children with John.
I heard heard this.
I found it unbelievable, considering everything I'd heard from Bronwyn whilst she was living in the flat. A couple of weeks after Bronwyn had supposedly gone on holidays, John came over to our house and we talked. He told us that he and Bronwyn had had a long discussion and that the stress with the kids had taken its toll with her and she had to get away. During this conversation, he said, I've already lost two houses to two other women, and I'll do whatever it takes to see that it
doesn't happen again. This is not the exact statement that John made, but it is to the best of my recollection. He also made comment about rumors which were circling Lennox's head about him having buried her, and stated that if he heard it again he would sue whoever said it. I would describe Bronwyn as a very caring mother, and her children's interests always came first. I do not believe that she would just get up and leave her children,
particularly with no further contact. I spent a lot of time with her just prior to her disappearance, and I formed the opinion that she would do anything to stop John getting custody of the children. And I find it extremely hard to believe that she would go on a holiday, not come back and leave the children with John as he has purported. I'm very definite about this.
Jane Johnston, the wife of John's cousin Richard who's better known as Andrew, had more to say in her statement to police in nineteen ninety eight too, And as with Alan Fisher, Shirley Taylor, Peter Shanahand and Maria Glewis, these are the words from the police statement. They're being voiced by an actor.
I didn't hear anything whilst I was overseas, other than when Andrew met me. He told me that he had received a strange phone call from Bronwyn. Shortly after returning home from overseas, Andrew and I went on a picnic at Stanwell Park with Peter and Louise Winfield.
Peter is John's brother.
While we were on the picnic, Peter told us that Bronwyn had disappeared about a month prior. We didn't have much contact with John after that, and I didn't discuss her disappearance with him because he obviously didn't want to.
One day in nineteen ninety four, while shopping in the Shire, Jane saw a woman in profile about thirty meters away. She thought the woman looked like Bromwin. Jane yelled Bromwin's name loudly, but there was no response. Jane said she ran after the shopper but lost her in the crowd. 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 Bromwyn Podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for Bromwin includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiet, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Bryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen, Matthew Condon and David Murray. Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and original theme music by Slade Gibson. We have been assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Bromwin Winfield. We can only do this kind of journalism with the support of
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