Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bromwin contains course language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian. This is the most important episode in the Bromwan podcast series so far. It is going to disclose a major new development in
this investigation into Bromwin's disappearance. It is so serious it should prompt Senior Detective Nigel Warren or an another member of the Unsolved Homicide unit in Sydney to beat a path to the door of a woman from whom you'll hear shortly. Her name is Judy Singh. She is sixty nine years old, a Korean nurse who retired a few years ago and she now lives with her daughter's family in northern New South Wales. Our first conversation was a
recorded interview over the telephone on Tuesday, June eleven. Here is some of what Jude told me then.
And this night I was sitting up and I saw the car pool out at the end of the street
when the light was on in the car. There's very squeaky brakes on that car, and he drove very slowly along the street, but he had left the car light on and I could see directly into the car, and I had a small lantern on the balcony rail and he kind of looked up this night and I saw this what looked to be like a mummy in the back of the car, and I thought, gott it be going late at night with you know, something that looked
like I just called it a mummy. And I've said this to my son so many times about this, and I thought, well, even if he was taking out belongings, you wouldn't make it look like a body, do you know what I mean?
So when you say a mummy, it was wrapped in something.
Yes, it was either very pale green or cream, not white, but maybe like a bed sheet or something like that. And I wanted the police to know that because I thought the pressure of that, the weight of that on the door might have been what was keeping the light on. I don't know if that happens in an old falcon. It was a square falcon, and I remember it well. It always had squeaky brakes.
Are you clear on the date that you saw what you believe?
There's a couple of weeks after my birthday.
Jude's birthday is May one. Bromwin disappeared two weeks and one day later, May sixteen.
I know that he had something in that car that resembled a body, just a body shape in the back seat. Oh, it was late. It was late at night. The kids were in bed, two older children, and this being in my head kept saying it looked like a mummy, and I thought, oh shit, that when I heard that, you know, she had been reported missing, that that might have ben there mummy. You know, That's what sticks in my mind about the shape of what I saw.
God, I mean, I know what I visualize when I think of a mummy, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Can you describe it?
Well? Aroundish around his head with this light green or beige covering on it. It was long. Wasn't a surfboard because the surfboard would have sharp edges. I've been through that in my head as well. It had to be something round, like a head or a ball. But then it was long and you know covered. That's what I remember. Where was the head of the mummy riding the corner on the back behind the passinger seat in the back. The head of the mummy was in the corner, pressing
up against the door. She was quite.
Upright, almost like in a seated fashion. In the back.
Yes, she probably would have had a bend in it somehow. The roundness of the head was very visible. This was a light green or or sort of creamy colored sheet. I don't know what color sheets John had, but it was like a shroud, you know, like a body. I've dealt with a lot of dead bodies in my life as an earth I can't be mistaken because the light was on in the car.
Was it possible for you to actually identify him as John Winfield when you looked in?
Oh?
Yeah it was.
It definitely him, without a doubt in my mind. It was hidden. That's it. That's the story. God, dude, you wonder why the police wouldn't be interested in that. Even now, I start getting quite turned up inside when I'm thinking about it. You know, it's just one of those things and I've had to with and my son Bo and I talk about it a lot. I said to him the other day, I said, you know, this is podcast
came on, you know, the Australian newspaper. And I said to my son, oh, there's this podcast about about brom and I haven't actually seen it. I said, oh, crikey, what what should I do? You know? And he said, oh it's crazy, Mom, You've been thinking about that forever. And I said, oh, I ready, and he said, oh, great, great good. I need get off your conscience. He said, Mum, you've always, you know, angst over this. What ain't you in here? So that's what I did.
After we had been talking for about an hour and fifteen minutes, in which time Jude had disclosed so much more, including her two visits to police stations in Balana in nineteen ninety three and a decade or so later in Byron to tell officers what she saw that night. I asked, did you feel better for having disclosed these things? Now?
Nell? He died, recently, Well, I'm taking this to the great Always some relief when you can get something out, you know, and what the sake of those girls?
You were going to hear more from Jude later in this episode. You were also going to hear from others about what she witnessed in mid May nineteen ninety three, when she lived in Granite Street, just a few doors away from John and Bromwin's house in Sandstone Crescent I first heard about Jude in early January twenty twenty three about and a woman called Kerry McLain sent me a brief email. Then There were no explanatory notes, just the words Bromwin, Winfield, Lennox Head and a date May sixteenth,
nineteen ninety three. I replied to Kerry, I wrote, it's an intriguing case. Do you know anything about it? Kerry emailed back with some very specific information. She told me that Cristel lived with Carrie in Kerrie's home in Ballina as a border when Cristel was finishing her last year of high school there. Her stepfather John was leaving to go to Sydney for a building project. But Carrie added
something else. She wrote that she had a friend who lived in the same street as the Winfields, and Kerry had been told by her friend that she had seen something. Carrie added that she urged her friend to pass the information onto police, but she said that her friend had a sick baby at the time and carry wasn't sure how her friend had handled the information to get it off her own chest. Carrie passed the information onto a
detective some years later. Kerry didn't mention the name of her friend in her email to me, and I didn't want to press things at that stage. Early January twenty twenty three, I had started writing my book The Teacher's Pet, which took up much of that year, and there was still unfinished business with the newly convicted wife killer Chris Dawson.
His trial for unlawful sex with an underage schoolgirl became a series called The Teacher's Accuser, and I worked on this each week with my journalist colleagues and friends David Murray, Claire Harvey, Matthew Condon, and Kristin Amiot. It would be another year before I could properly commit to a thorough investigation and podcast series revolving around Broman's disappearance, but it is important to keep every email contact and tip off.
The Bromin Winfield folder on my laptop grew. After thanking Kerry McLain in January twenty twenty, I assured her that I would be back in touch when there was time to revive Broman's case, and so in February twenty twenty four, about three months before the release of the first episode in this podcast series, I recorded an interview with Kerry in the nineteen nineties. Her surname was Ensby, and she started telling me about her connection to Bromwin's daughter Crystal.
How she came here was there must have been a little ad in the paper board wanted for a student. So I just rang that number and she moved in. She must have been about sixteen.
It's pretty unusual a girl in a family situation at that stage of a high school needing to move in with a stranger. What's going on there?
Well, he was going to Sydney to work. The house is very welcoming. I'm very welcoming. She was safe, while she was dear. She settled in quite good, went off to school. She was quiet, she wasn't over talkative, very tall girl. All teenage girls need their mum. She was really keen on doing school. I mean she was a nice girl, not wild or anything like a lot of the kids that I've had here.
Did she tell you then that her mother had disappeared? Or Oh?
Yes, he talked a little bit about it, No doubt it was on her mind all the time.
Do you know what happened to Lauren while you were looking after her?
She went with her dad to Sydney, So.
I reckon she was living with you when she made a police statement in Balinat in July nineteen ninety nine.
Oh, I think I can remember.
Yeah.
In fact, she definitely was, yeah, because she says in paragraph three, I'm presently residing at and I won't say you address with three ensby and three young children.
That's right. Yeah, my name was Zensby.
Yep. Maddie Walsh, Bromwin's twenty one year old second cousin, who has been doing her own homework for me in this podcast series and being an enormous help, asked her teenager sister Tianna to read Crystal's police statement.
I have attended the Balliner police station today again of my own free will. I've been very concerned about what has happened to my mother and I would like the police to conduct a thorough investigation to try and find out what has happened to her.
Tiana is sixteen, the same age Crystal was when she was living with Kerry McLain and went with a school teacher to make her statement to police in Ballina in nineteen ninety nine.
I had been requested by a detective Sergeant Taylor to make a statement concerning my knowledge of my mother's disappearance. I am prepared to do that, and I understand that the statement may be given to the coroner to assist in any further inquiry. I had been asked what recollection I have back in May nineteen ninety three, when my father arrived at the family home in Sanson Crescent, this
apparently being the day my mother disappeared. I remember being at home in the early evening when I received a telephone call, and from my recollection, it was from my father. I don't remember what it was that I spoke about, but it was not long after this that my father arrived at the house. I remember my mother saying something like, what are you doing here? My father says something about having caught a plane back to Ballina. When I first saw my father, another lady was with him at the
front door, but she virtually left straight away. I remember Dad coming into the kitchen and I was sitting watching telephone. My dad and Mom started talking, but I don't know what was being said. I think at one stage they went into the bedroom and they were talking in there. I remember Mom and Dad were talking about on paid bills, and Mum saying something along the lines about not talking
about it in front of Lauren and myself. The next thing that I remember was Mum telling myself and my sister Lauren to clean our teeth and go to bed. I think we normally went to bed about eight thirty pm each night. After I went to bed, I heard Mum and Dad arguing in the kitchen. I could hear Mom crying at the same time. I don't recall what was being said between Mum and Dad, but I could
tell that they were arguing. I could hear them arguing until I must have fell asleeph My next recollection that night was being woken by my father. Dad told me that he was taking Lauren and I to Sydney. I recall that we packed a small bag of clothes and got into Pekar. My dog, whose name was Mopsie, was also put into the car with us. At that time, we had an old white Falcon. After we got in the car and Dad started driving, Lauren asked Dad where
Mum was. I remember Dad saying something about Mum going away on a holiday and he was taking us to Sydney. Dad says something about that he had a job to do and that we would have to go with him to Sydney. I recalled that we stopped at a petro station somewhere, but I don't remember where it was. I don't remember much about the rest of the trip to Sydney. I remember we stayed in Sydney for a couple of weeks before returning to Lennox Head. Dad never mentioned anything
to me about Mum while I was in Sydney. I recalled that Lauren was asking Dad all the time about Mum and he just said that she'd be back soon. I became aware after a couple of weeks that Mum had been reported missing to the police, but Dad never spoke to me about it.
A month.
I just presume that Mom just wasn't coming back. I was only ten years of age at that time, so I just thought she had left. I have not had any contact with my mother since her disappearance in nineteen ninety three. Over the years, I have often thought about what has.
Happened to her.
Dad has never brought up my mother in conversation. Basically, over the years, my mother has gradually been built out of our lives. My Dad never talks about Mum or his past relationship with her. I have never tried to bring up mom in conversation with my father. I am aware that he does not like to talk about her. I am very concerned about what has happened to my mother, and that is why I've attended the police station today
to speak to the police. I have been asked by Detective Sergeant Taylor if I have any knowledge of any domestic disputes between my mother and father. I remember that Mom and Dad used to argue on occasions. Dad sometimes has a bad temper and equal goose control. I've seen my father hit my mother on rare occasions. I remember that he was smack Lauren on myself, and on one occasion he picked me up and threw me against the wall.
Dad always liked the house to be kept spotlessly clean, and he would get upset if we made any mess in the house.
You are going to hear more from Crystal's nineteen ninety nine statement later in this episode. Here's Kerry McLain again, And just a reminder, this conversation I'm having with Kerry occurred on February twenty two of this year, twenty twenty four, about three and a half months before I had any contact with Jude. You contacted me a year ago yeah, was that part of your frustration that nothing had happened.
I was listening to podcasts and you said, if there's anything that you should be investigating or any ideas, email me, and I thought, right, that's all I need. So I've got online found your email address because it's always bothered
me that nothing's happening. And something did happen there. And then there was news reports they were opening the case, they were going to be looking at it, and I made phone calls and told the detectives what I knew about the friend living in the street, and I thought that they should speak to her.
So what did you know?
Well, my friend lived in that street down the road, a little bit double story place up high I visited her there quite a few times. My friend Judy was her name. She had a little baby with all these health issues, and she was standing out on the balcony early one morning and she saw I don't even know his name, is it John? He drove past, and she could see down into the car and she said there
was something whitish in the back seat. I said to her that you should report that, but she had her own issues at the time, and I don't think she ever did. But years later, when I spoke to the detective, I give him her name and said you need to speak to her.
And did he.
I've got no idea.
Have you stayed in touch with her?
No? No, she moved away. No, I don't know where she is. She had her own health problems.
And as best you can carry because it could be pretty important, I haven't heard this before. Can you relate precisely or as closely as you can? Remember what she told you?
What I just said to you, that she saw him driving down the street and she could see down into the car and it looked like he had something on the back seat. She said, it looked like a white sheet, something wrapped in a white sheet, which I thought was jeez.
And you're certain that she described in those terms something wrapped in a white sheet.
Yes, yes, So.
Those are two big coincidences, Kerry. One that Crystal is staying with you while police are investigating her mother's suspected yep. And two that your friend who lives in the street witnesses someddenly.
Yeah, I know.
It's been on my mind forever.
And what I'm wondering is, well, Crystal was calling your place home. You have known what your friend knew.
Oh, so I would have.
Are you if I try to find Judy?
Yeah, she was divorced and then she married, so she went by Judy Singh for a long time.
When your friend told you about this, did you believe that she could be relied upon that she.
Was a Yeah?
I did, I did.
Yeah.
She wasn't one for telling tall stories. I think at the time we both sort of made the comment, Well, if that was her, she'd be in the dune somewhere.
Can you describe to me, then, how from her house she would see into a car.
It's a p hie. It's double story, double garage at the bottom, and up the top there's a glass sliding door with a little falcony, not a very big one. We used to stand out on that balcony and have a cup of tea and you could see right down into the cars as they drove past. And if you see the house, you'll understand how that's possible.
Kerry's memory of what Jude disclosed was that she had made the sighting in the early hours of the morning. However, Jude has told me it was closer to midnight. What sort of relevance do you know or think that she attached to it.
Well, I think she thought that Bronwin was deceased in the back seat, wrapped in a sheet, and he was going to dispose of her in the sand dunes.
Why the sand dunes, Well, because he's.
A surfer, he'd know all the isolated places.
When do you think you first raised with police what your friend Judy told you.
When they opened it up again and they were investigating.
Was that about two thousand and nine, so around fifteen years ago.
Possibly, yeah, if that was when it was two thousand and nine, yeah.
In two thousand and nine there was a brief burst of publicity and the Northern Star newspaper reported that the Senior Detective George Radmore of the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Squad was reinvestigating Roman's disappearance.
I was living with this information and I don't know whether Judy ever spoke to them, and I just wanted to let them know that they need to speak to this lady.
Right, So you were covering off, you were making sure.
I guess, like with these things, you sit back and you think I'll someone will say something, and I just wasn't sure because I knew what her life was like. She had a lot going on and her own health battles.
Did they take a statement from you, Well, I.
Didn't sign anything. It was just over the phone.
Did anybody follow you up?
No, I've almost thought about this. Mothers just don't disappear. They just don't leave their children.
And you've been a foster mum.
Yes, and I have seen mothers their addictions have taken over them so much that they can't care for their own children.
Of those one hundred and fifty children for whom you've cared, how many mothers have abandoned those children, and to your knowledge, have never wanted to connect with their kids. Kerry could recall only one such case.
I just can't see it ever happening without extreme circumstances. I've seen it all, But I believe in my heart that mothers do not walk out on their children. I had to ring them to get it off my chest because I didn't want to live with this little piece of information that I haven't passed on. I didn't want to add to her stress, but I wanted to make sure that someone would speak to her.
Absolutely, But you did the right thing.
Well, I felt better after doing it. But I don't know that it went anywhere.
But you gave them the full name of Judy, and yeah, it's interesting and I think disappointing that nobody got back to you after you rang that information through the police.
Well, I was hoping they'd get in contact with Jude. She's the one that should be speaking to, not me.
Was she still living there at the time.
No, her life was a little bit complicated, but a lovely, honest person.
Well you've really been fantastic help, Carrie.
I hope, so, I hope it gets solved. I feel like I have to speak up because I have that little connection with Crystal being here. It's never too late, is it.
No, it's not too late. Here's Maddie's sister Tiana again reading the nineteen ninety nine statement of her relation Crystal.
I don't know what has happened to my mother, and I'm unsure if Dad has any involvement in her disappearance. I would rather the police not tell my father that I have been into the police session or I've made this statement. I understand the making of this statement is of my own choosing. I've spoken to my sister Lauren about her recollection of the night when my mother disappeared. Lauren has told me that after she went to bed, she got back up and went into my mother's bedroom.
Lauren said that Mum was in the bedroom crying and Mum told her to go back to bed. Lauren said that Mum took her back into her room and talked her into bed. Laurence said to me that Mum told her that she would see her in the morning. I've often thought about it over the last six years. I feel it strange that Mum would leave Lauren on myself and not have any further contact. I was very close to Mum and she always treated Lauren on myself very well.
Mum was always close to us.
She would often hug and cut a loss, and she would always come in give us a kiss good night and tell us that she loved us. To me, it would be out of character for Mum to leave and not say goodbye to us if she was going on a holiday without us. I don't ever recall Mom leaving myself or Lauren for any length of time. Mom never went on a holiday without us, and for my recollection, she was quite protective of us. I feel sure that if Mum intended to go on a holiday without us.
She would have let us know.
About twelve thirty pm. On Sunday June nine, a few days after the release of episode four of this podcast series, I opened an email. It was from Jude Singh. We had been trying to find her without success. I was hopeful that she would hear about the podcast and contact me, but there were no guarantees. Until I read Jude's email, I couldn't understand how in darkness a neighbor could see
inside an unlit car as it passed by. By another coincidence, on Sunday, June nine, Mattie Walsh, her mum and dad, her sister Tiana, her brother Jai, and his girlfriend Chloe visited my wife Ruth and I at our home in Brisbane, four hours after Jude's email had landed in my inbox. I quietly took Mattie aside and out to the driveway, leaving our visitors on the deck. I showed her Jude's email on my laptop, as well as my reply to Jude, in which I had shared my mobile number, and I
asked Jude to please call me on it. Can I have you just for five years? Nice to meet your family. Yeah, I got this email. Just read that there, read it.
Out loud at home. The night John drove past my house. I could see inside his car the light inside it was still on. I lived in Granite Street, Linux Judy singh.
Wow.
So she contacted the website.
She's gone my personal website Headley Thomas dot com and there's an option where you can send an email.
So the light inside the car was on, yeah, which makes it sound that yeah, because if it was dark, you wouldn't be up to see inside the car.
But the light was on.
So that's But she hasn't said anything else.
It's it'd be interesting to see what else she has to say.
Yeah, So I've emailed her back. Thanks for getting in touch. Can you send me your number please, I'll call you for a chat. And she hasn't got back to it yet, but she obviously wants to talk.
Yeah.
Well, she wouldn't have reached out unless she had something. And the fact that Karen mentioned it way back.
Maybe he'd left the interior light on by mistake.
Maybe was this do you reckon?
So if she's seen she could see inside the car, is that to say that ron women's in the backseat and the girls are still at the house, and he may.
Have Well, if what we believe her theory is is right, then the girls must have still been at the house.
Yea, it makes sense he would have put Broumwin in the back seat.
It's easier, probably compared with the boot.
Compare with the boot.
If she's right about what she fears she saw, then Bromin's buried locally.
Yes, which is one possible, just as possible that she's in Sydney or anywhere from Lennox Head to Sydney.
Yeah, like I didn't consider the obvious thing that.
A light no't I've never thought of that because I.
Was thinking, how could she see in the car?
If she's just contacted us without any previous recent contact with Terry, it just makes it look a whole lot more credible.
It does.
And the fact that she's not saying more than she needs to she knows what we would know she's talking about.
I don't know. Does she know we've talked to Cherry? I doubt it. So why hasn't she said more?
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Yeah, she just giveing us on a toe. Gosh.
Now let's return to the interview with Jude. Her surname was Willa Brands when she and her children lived in a rented home very close to the Winfield House in Lennox Head. Why do you believe that on the night you saw the object in the car, the thing you've described as the mummy, Why do you place it in the late evening before midnight? Because I was having trouble with my pregnancy.
Yeah, I was worried about miscarriage actually, and just sitting up my children had gone to bed. I just couldn't sleep, worrying about it all, yeah, and is that give up my job? But worrying about how it's going to pay rent. In those days it was two hundred and twenty dollars to live in that house a week up, having to go on a pension and an absolute struggle. Lots of things happened at that stage, you know, when things of marriage breakdown and they went through defors.
Jude told me that she went to the police station in Ballina in nineteen ninety three to report what she saw. Her visit to the station came after a neighbor, Virginia Bevers, told Jude that Bromwin had disappeared. You heard from Virginia. In a previous episode, John had been two police to report Bromwyn missing in late May. The missing person report triggered visits to Sandstone Crescent by detectives Graham Diskin and Wayne Tembe. The neighbors were talking among themselves about Broman's
disappearance and the police visits. I just wanted to understand that when you think you first went to the police, or when?
Was it very close to when I saw that. I talked to the Bin police first, and they took me behind the counter. They gave me a card. Now my things are in storage. I'm about to build a little grainny flat in my daughter's backyard. And I kept that card for a long long time in case somebody named me and I could give them the particulars that were written on the card.
Are you saying that they gave you a card, but that you weren't actually spoken to by a detective about what you saw at that time?
Yeah, I was spoken to by somebody. I went behind the counter in the Ballina police station, spake to a man on the desk. He said, we'll come around take a statement. I had a different name then to my name.
Now, what was your name then wille Brands. And he didn't take a statement though, but you told him the story.
I believe they wrote something thing down, Yeah, and then they gave me the card.
Did you form an impression then of how seriously or not they were taking it?
Hardly? Interested? Hardly?
I can't understand why that would be.
Almost had to beg them to let me say something. Those early early weeks. Was when I went there, I actually just wanted to get it off my conscience, in my mind, even though I had stuff going on. Yeah, I went away feeling so despondent and thinking about those dear little girls. I don't know. It was a strange sort of a dude. He wasn't very friendly. As the year progressed and my daughter was born and he had to have an iliostomy put in place and really touch and go, and I just got tied up. I had
a lot of shit going on, especially money. Was this You could not work out how I was going to so iinantually exist when I had to suddenly give up anyway, do you get through them?
Jude described a second occasion years later, when she tried again to alert local police to what she had seen.
I ran into a doctor right, and I told her the story in a little cafe called the Being Seen in ballin Er. Many years later, she came back to the hospital and I was actually working in that little hospital in McLean and she said to me, did you go back to the police after you had that interview? And I said no, I didn't, And she said, well, we're going today.
Jude and the doctor, who was from New Zealand, drove to the nearby Byron Bay Police station. Anyway, she taught me into going to the Byron Bay Police station this time, thinking somebody there might listen to us.
I spoke to a gentleman there and I said, you know, like, I'm just always haunted by this story about this woman at the end of the street. They didn't do an official interview. I said, like, is there anyone here that wants to write something down? It's hardly interested in any of it.
When do you think it was that you went to the Byron police with the doctor?
Oh this is years later?
Yeah, Is there anything anyway you can roughly time frame it by reference to what you were doing in Balner at Bean's cafe or just an approximate.
What I was doing.
Well, I'm just trying to work out roughly what decade we were in when you went to Byron to see the police.
I moved to McClain when I was after fifty. Are you going back so many years now, I'd say between two thousand and two thousand and five, maybe middle of the two thousand.
Okay, that's a big help, thank you. And do you recall the name of the police officer or anyone else in Byron?
I only know that he came from Tamworth. I told him who I was when I lived in Tamworth and I said, my sister used to work at the Tamworth police station. She was some superintendent's private secretary. He said you're not dirty and I said yes. He said that is amazing. So bought Jackson Memories for him. He knew my sister Diane. He was around my age, maybe a bit older, probably retired. Now.
Are they the two occasions that you remember and there were no others or was there another occasion?
No?
I don't think so, Okay.
I think they are the only two occasions that I remember.
Okay. And just in relation to that doctor who you remembered seeing again, what would be really important is if I could talk to her as well, because she might remember, might remember going with you. Yeah, do you have any idea where I might be able to find her? Jude told me the doctor from New Zealand would have returned to her home country as she was visiting as a locom when Jude last saw her in Australia. She told me the doctor had a very pretty.
Name, since she went up to Gallana on that day to have something to eat and have a look around, and we just met over just having a meal and a chat. And it must have been at that stage I was talking to her about it when she came back to McClean. He said, I did you do something about that?
Do you know why you started talking to I guess someone who's a bit of a stranger about this event from years earlier. You know what the catalyst was.
I can't even tell you why. Maybe it was it was on my mind, or maybe something had happened and it bought that story to mind to a good listener. These things staying ahead, I can visually you just see that car delight on him looking up. I don't think he made an attempt to turn the light off or anything. It was on right up to the end of the street. I looked at the car going all the way. I wasn't going fast in five k's something like that.
And Jude, can you describe your level of suspicion about what it was that was in the car when you were told that dra had disappeared.
Well, I was very concerned. When I start talking about it with my son, he said, Mum, I can see how I worked up to get about this. I was almost just so surprised how uninterested people were, especially at the police station, about this.
Jud I have to tell you something that you might be a little bit surprised about. I heard a long time ago. I can't remember exactly when. It could have been months, certainly before this podcast. Investigation started about you from someone you knew, someone who said that you were really concerned about it, that you had seen something that really troubled you. Someone has said that someone told me about it. Yeah, and I was hoping that I would be able to talk to you again.
Is it Virginia because Virginia lived across the road.
No, it's of Virginia, And I don't think the personal mind. She was your friend and she was urging me to try to find you because she's lost contact with you and I have been trying to find you.
Well, so I said, I changed my name. Yeah, I married an Indian man and six months into the marriage he said, oh, I can get my residency now. That's all he wanted. So I went back to my house. It was very short lived, and I've kept the name only because I was a nurse and at McLean. I went through a divorce and I went through breast cancer. During that stressful period, chemotherapy, lost hair, I had to give up work again. It was just one bloody shit
struggle after another that stage. Who is that friend? Can you tell me?
Her name's Kerry carry Ensby. I think that's it, Kerry mclauch. I remember that she had Crystal, the daughter.
Yes, when I went through breast cancer, I actually stayed with Carrie because I came out of hospital with all the drains and what have you, and she said you'll stay here, of course. And then I was sitting at the table the next morning she said, I have a girl here. Her name's Crystal, and her mum is missing or presumed dead or whatever. I don't know what the exact word. She said. Well she's here, I said, gosh,
that just leaves her. Shever over they Oh gosh, you know like the fact that there was such a coincidence that she.
Was there, Well, you must have disclosed it to Carrie, and oh yeah, many times she really believed what you had to say and was wanting to try to help by putting me in touch with you somehow because she'd lost touch with you.
That's amazing.
That's another extraordinary coincidence, right.
Yeah, it is. That's good. That's another witness, yes to what I've been saying of this. You think about that thing on the back, see that look like a mummy, and you just think to yourself, if anyone was moving people's stuff around, they wouldn't make it look like a mummy. They wouldn't go to that trouble.
There was nobody else in the car.
No, there's nobody else in the car. Their board, the mummy and John. The years, there's been opportunities where I've thought so strongly about doing something more about it. And yeah, just brought it all back when I saw it on the TV. You take that image and you live with it and it's still there. Not something I imagined.
A couple of hours after my first interview with Jude. On the morning of Tuesday, June eleven, he texted me the name of a doctor from New Zealand, the woman whom Jude says accompanied her to the Byron Bay Police station, and three days after getting the text, I spoke to the doctor. She is a general practitioner on the South Island of New Zealand. I sat in my car in Brisbane with doctor Kirsty Wright, a forensic biologist and expert witness with whom I have worked on the Shandy Story
podcast series. Kirsty is a scientist of unimpeachable integrity and I wanted her to witness the conversation. It was agreed with the Kiwi doctor and the communications manager of the organization which she worked for that I would not publish their names in the podcast. The doctor confirmed key points she had worked in the two thousands in the region
in northern New South Wales. She recalled Jude and she volunteered that Jude had been gravely concerned that she had witnessed something in relation to an alleged murder years earlier.
At first, the doctor from New Zealand told us that she had a vague recollection that Jude might have, in her words, chickened out of going to police about it with her, But later in the conversation she said that in fact they had gone together two police in Byron Bay about it, and the doctor said she had a memory that the alleged murder concerned a man who was she thought a concretor or someone who worked with blocks,
like a builder or bricklayer. She said, the doctor volunteered to me that having observed Jude and heard what Jude had to say, she believed the nurse. The doctor said she regarded her as someone with sincere and honest concerns about what she saw.
Sir sad to think that somebody's life like Miss Samantha Murphy that's gone missing, for goodness, say, you know there doing everything possible, aren't they? And yet I didn't feel anything was done to bollowin or very little.
Yeah, at the time, I spoke to Jude in a second phone conversation and she told me this.
But when I saw it on the thing, I thought, I said to my son this, it's an opportunity to tell somebody again before you leave this earth. You don't want to regret or something kind of plaguing you that wasn't right near your gut instincts always you think if you follow it, it's pretty much right. And I text you the information about the thought of the doctor's name.
Yes, I saw that.
Yeah, she's a very lovely lady, very compassionate lady. He said, why would you tell a stranger something like that? And that's what I found it to be. Very compassionate. Yes, and she obviously cares about people. We were both the ethical people and we struck up this conversation. She just told me to go to the police and see if I could do something again. It must be eating at you, and I said, and she said, well you should do that, so she came. That's why she came with me.
When you left that Byron Bay police station with her, or did you leave it with it? Yeah? Yeah, when you left the station having spoken about it, did you think then that they were or had taken it seriously? Oh?
Not really. He said, well, we've got your name and we've got your number and we'll get back to you.
But did he take you into an office and interview you or no?
No, no, just spoke to me at the desk. My son lived a couple of doors away and I was then going to go visit him, So it was sort of.
So you described the incident properly, do you think over the counter.
Yeah, yeah, I certainly did. They said, this is incredible that you your dire sister and you know there we are meeting in another town.
Yeah. I'm just wondering why you didn't think what was really incredible was what you were disclosing.
Yeah, mean blase about what I would call an important thing somebody's life, and you felt like you could shake somebody to say, look, you know, help me here. It's thoughtful to say, isn't it.
It's remarkable, dude, Just remarkable. These clearly are very serious allegations, and John Winfield has always emphatically denied wrongdoing. He has told police that he saw Bromwin for the last time about nine to thirty pm on Sunday, May sixteen, nineteen ninety three, when he says that she told him she needed to go away for a few days. On a break in episode one of Bromman, we summarized John's position. I have approached John Winfield and asked him for an interview.
John's side of the story is very important. So far, John has declined to speak to me on the record or on background. In an email to me on May twenty one, twenty twenty four, John stated.
I have previously made a sworn statement in nineteen ninety eight in which I answered four hundred and fifteen questions, and as I said to George Radmore in twenty ten, I stand by these answers I gave.
Those are John's words from his email. It's not his voice. He answered questions in a nineteen ninety eight interview he agreed to do in Ballina Police station. Soon after the then detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor had started to investigate Bromlan's case properly for the first time. Twelve years later in twenty ten, another experienced detective, George Radmore, who was with the Homicide Squad of New South Wales, led a reinvestigation.
In John Winfield's email to me, he said he might bring legal action depending on the content of this podcast series, and John added there.
Is a generational history of mental illness, both male and female, in the Reed family.
Before publishing anything in this podcast series, I wanted to meet Jude and ask further questions. She raised no objection, and I drove to a suburb near tweedtheads on the Queensland New South Wales border. Maybe a lovely spot.
We can siderable table or sit in these chairs.
What do you think?
Sean?
Sean Callanan has come from the Brisbane office to film Jude and help develop an animated sequence of the car and everything Jude has described. You can see this at bromwynpodcast dot com, along with many other stories, photographs and graphics. Who did you become a nurse when I was seventeen?
For a long time?
So Sean's here to help us picture what's been in your memory all this time? Just for accuracy, It's been in my head for a lot of years. Jude produced a cream colored old photo album with happy snaps of her and her children at the beach, at home, and other family occasions. Going back to Lennox Head, she went to several photographs of their old house there and she showed me a second level deck which overlooks Granite Street and can go to a map at the website Bromwyn
podcast dot com. Try to picture Granite Street joining up with Sandstone Crescent at a right angle. On one side of the road. There's Debon Murray's house that's on the lower side. John and Bromwyn, their neighbors were next door, but just a little higher in the street. To save time on the way in or out of the U shaped Sandstone Crescent, you can take a shortcut along Granite Street,
and that's where Jude lived. What you'll pointing to there is the deck at five Granite Street at the front, and you would have been sitting up here, so.
Right around this corner and in front of the dining area next to May I had John and Dorothy. Okay, they moved to Barbie Island.
Nice part of the world. Jude pointed to another photograph that's.
Looking right up into the corner of where I said I was just along here. If you walk a little bit more, that's exactly.
Where I was right and the streets down here, there's a.
Great strengthening in front of me. Do you could see over the railing without having to stand up?
For you? At that time that balcony late at night, was it a place where you fell well what you could collect your thoughts or have some serriity.
And yeah, well, as I said, I was losing that child. And yeah, I couldn't sleep. I'm not a good sleeper. I'm still a bit went insomnia years and years of night duty.
Sean brought up Sandstone Crescent on his laptop. We're just going to have a look at it as a street view, just to confirm that that's it. So that's marin Deb's house now, see with the second level there.
And over here there's a whole stack of wattlebrush. So I saw him come into view just as he got past the trees.
Were you also looking at the front of the car as it approached or from that balcony? Was that not something you could do?
Yes, I could see the lights coming up the street. Okay, yeah, And I thought, well, dude, that's that's late.
Right.
You were saying that Murray saw him pull out without lights and without any motor. That must have been earlier. I'm thinking this was later because there was nothing going on in that street.
In episode four, you'll recall hearing Murray Nolan describing John's car with its squeaky brakes reversing down the driveway of the house at ten forty pm.
The car backed out with no lights on bottom.
Down on the road, do a big room in the road, and rolled down the hill.
Down the bottom of the hill, You're down here with no lights on, turn the lights on starting and go around alleyway.
But Jude is describing a different trip, and if her recollection is correct, it must be on the same night May sixteen. That's because all the evidence, including John's evidence to police, puts him on an aircraft from Sydney to Ballina late in the day and then at the house at Sandstone Crescent, and then after a disagreement or altercation with Bromwin, John's driving away from the house and through the night to go to Sydney with the two girls, Crystal and Lauren. John had not been in Lennox. He
had forced several weeks prior to May sixteen. John was working in Sydney in the Shire at Glenn Webster's job site, and John didn't stay overnight when he returned to Lenox. Because John turned up in Sydney on the morning of Monday, May seventeen.
My birthday was the first of May. Had not kept dates on this it. All I know is it was about two weeks after my birthday.
That's why if Jude saw John driving the car about two weeks after her birthday, it had to be the night of May sixteen. The only night John was in Lennox for some time, and the one night on which John was the last person to see Roman alive when they had a disagreement in the house just fifty meters or so from Jude's place.
It was the dark street at night, so you couldn't miss lights coming up. He looked up when he saw them, and I could see this mummy light thing. And I hate saying mummy because it is somebody's mummy. That It was a long white with a rounded head right in the very corner of the back of the car as it went past. Closest to you, closest to men.
Has brought up images of a Ford Falcon sedan on his laptop, and the three of us looked intently at the screen. Sean, could you just zoom into the interior? Yeah, that's good. Can you describe the positioning of the object you refer to as a mummy in terms of where if it is a mummy, the feet would be.
Well, her head was almost in a seated position, but then heading.
That way, and then you're saying the head was in this corner. Yes, Sean sketched a rough draft on paper like that. Yeah.
Yeah, So you say to yourself. Was that what was keeping a light on the pressure of that against the door? It wasn't her. Why would somebody make something look like that?
Whatever was wrapping the object?
Can you describe that like a very soft, pale green or cream of what? Like a sheet?
Like me?
Yeah? You could see the form.
And you still haven't listened to any of the podcasts, have you, Jared? No, you haven't been influenced by anything you've heard in the Bromin podcast series.
As I said to you, I can't get at some things on my phone. And this is just what I saw.
Because if it hadn't been for illumination, presumably you wouldn't see much inside a passing car.
That's why I'm quite clear on what I saw. Remembering looking up, you said, are you sure it was him? Yes? I'm sure it was him I saw.
Do you remember whether you disclosed to Virginia or anyone else in the street what you're describing to us now?
I don't think so.
In episode four, you heard mel Taylor, the daughter of Devon Murray, who was aged twelve when she went into John and Roman's house on Tuesday May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three. Here's a reminder of something Mel disclosed while we were talking in the nursery section of a public library in Brisbane.
What I find is strange about the whole thing is johnd to come all the way up here to have the argument with Bromwin, then to leave that same night in a hurry. Why don't you say till the next morning then go back to Sydney. Why do we leave in such a hurry?
And is that because you suspect flight urgent panic?
Yeah?
I noticed the house, what it looked like, the state that was left in.
What do you remember about that?
There was the washing in the laundry, the dishes, the.
Girl's bed were stripped, The girl's beds were stripped.
Those sheets in the bed.
That were gone.
Mel's disclosure about the sheets was extremely interesting for me at that time. Police did not take a statement from Melanie Taylor when she was twelve, nor at any time in the subsequent thirty one years, and perhaps that's why there is no mention in any of the hundreds of pages of evidence around funding Broman's case of the beds
in the girl's rooms having been stripped of sheets. Maddie Walsh and I agreed in May after we met Melanie that when we spoke to members of Broman's family, we would not disclose what Kerry McLain had told me back in February. The absence of the sheets was potentially deeply suspicious. Three months before we met mel Kerry McLain had told me what she recalled that her friend Jude had told her.
Well, I think she thought that Bronwin was deceased in the back seat wrapped in a sheet.
But in May we were yet to find Judy Singh, the purported first hand witness to something wrapped in a sheet in the Winfield family car on the night Bromwin disappeared. Maddie and I did try to confirm something while talking to Andy and Michelle Reid, Broman's brother and sister in law, respectively, on May thirty one, I asked Andy and Michelle some specific further questions about the afternoon of John's unexpected arrival at their home in the Shire south of Sydney on
the afternoon of Monday, May seventeen, nineteen ninety three. Do you recall seeing any sheets?
No, No, there was nothing in the boot.
Michelle. I just want to ask you to think about the next question and just really search your memory. Andy's referred to there being some pillowcases, and Mady asked you what color they were. Do you recall the pillowcases?
I do.
They were light I'll agree with Andrew. They weren't navy or brown.
They were just light colored pillowcases, just ordinary pillowcases.
Do you recall seeing any sheets in the car?
No. I was surprised because there was no thing really in it, no other betting. Now, it was just like it was like the pillow case was used as the suitcase.
Ye for the kids while his children were staying at your house. Did he bring sheets or betting for them?
No?
Nothing. Minutes after the completion of that call, Maddie and I recorded a separate chat. She was in her bedroom in Sydney and I was driving my car to the Brisbane Writers Festival for talk about true crime and podcasting. We debriefed on parts of the conversation that we just had with Andy and Michelle.
What struck me as particularly interesting was that we know that beds were stripped, as mel told us, where the sheets?
It took the sheets and they were with my car.
No, So where else could they possibly be.
They have said that there were just kids things in the why she missed? She yes, kids, she wouldn't say anything about she.
It's not like he chucked them in the wash.
And he didn't go into the red house with bedding apart from the pillowcases. If he even took those.
Here, Yeah, and where are they?
Where are they?
Well exactly and at that age, I'm sure the girls would have had single beds, which makes sense for there to be two pillowcases, both the same color.
So I am leaning.
Towards the idea that she was wrapped in the kid's sheets. Who was that lady that recalled the car driving bike?
But that was in the back seat.
At that stage, we had still not found Jude. She had not found us, and Maddie and I were skeptical about a purported sighting of something that looked like a body wrapped in a seat in the car. We were skeptical because we could not get our heads around how in the dark at nighttime a witness would see something in an unlit car. But we didn't know back then what Jude would tell me when she reached out just days later, that the interior light of the car was on and that as a result, Jude had a clear
and haunting view inside the car. Let's go back to Thursday, June thirteen. I'm with Jude at her daughter's house near Tweed, heeads. I asked Jude about her visit to the Ballona Police station in nineteen ninety three to report what she had seen. Do you think that when you described what you saw there was any room for misunderstanding at that time what I saw in the car? Yeah, like when you were telling them in the Ballona police station what you've told us,
presumably what you've told us. Is it possible that somehow what you conveyed wasn't properly understood by them.
Well, I can only tell them what I'm telling you, and that's all I had to say on it. I wasn't in there for that long.
It hasn't changed.
No, the story doesn't change. Why would it.
It's just extratly.
I've told people along the way. My son, my daughter Trey knows about it, caring you about it.
And if the police do want to take a proper statement from you this time, yep, that's okay. When I drove away from Dude's daughter's house after Sean and a photographer, Russell Shakespeare had got everything they needed. A decision was due in about half an hour. In the case of Lynn Simms, her husband who murdered her in nineteen eighty two, Chris Dawson had lodged in a and his lawyers had put up a determined legal case to try to reverse
the conviction and free him from prison. Israe An came for SBS World News.
In the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal, a bid to overturn a high profile murder conviction. Lawyers for Chris Dawson, who is now seventy five, arguing there was a miscourage of justice at his trial in twenty twenty two.
But I couldn't bear to watch the media's live streamlink as the decision of three judges was handed down. It was too unnerving. Instead, I pulled into a nearby MacDonald's and worked on episode six of Bromman to ensure it could be released later in the day. Dave Murray sent me a text just after two pm. It said, simply appeal dismissed. On the Australians podcast The Front, Claire Harvey had more to say.
The judge swept into the room and took their seats for what turned out to be a lightning quick sitting of the Court of Criminal Appeal, New South Wales's highest court. The judges accepted Chris Dawson could appeal to The court, heard the appeal and rejected it. His conviction for Lynn's murder stands. The judges published reasons made it crystal clear. First Justice Anthony Payne, I.
Have no doubt about the applicant skilt.
Justice Julie Ward.
The circumstantial case against the applicant was compelling and there is no reasonable doubt as to the applicants skilt.
Justice Christine Adamson.
None of the arguments advanced on behalf of the applicant causes me to doubt the applicants guilt of murdered. Greg and Marilyn had liked and trusted Chris, Lynn's handsome, football playing teacher husband. They were deeply confused and upset when he told Lynn's family in nineteen eighty two that Lynn had gone away from for a break and that Lynn had told him not to worry about her.
Here's Lynn's brother, Greg Simms and his very supportive wife Marilyn. We've been in touch for many years leading up to the teacher's past, and for the six years since that podcast launched, we've become close friends through many ups and downs.
Well waiting for the judges to come out, they're verdict if you want to call it that, very tense and it's the longest minute I've had in my life waiting and listeningly. We are extremely happy and the law has done the right thing in our minds.
And what do you hope Chris Dawson does now?
I hope he sits back in his cell and enjoy us the next twenty years.
We're very grateful that justice has been done as far as were concerned twice over.
Now right, and yes.
We must be thinking what has come on? Over a Saturday and Sunday in mid June, Dave Murray, Claire Harvey and I tried to locate someone with a nineteen eighty seven Ford Falcon XF sa'dan someone who wouldn't mind it being featured in a true crime podcast and in accompanying videos. The car needed to have automatic transmission, but we were not going to be fussy about the color. John and
Bromwyn Winfield's Ford Falcon XF SADAN of that vintage was white. Finally, Dave found a blue one in the city of Ipswich, about a thirty minute drive from my house closer to Brisbane. Bianca Farmachus from the Sydney office of The Australian flew to Brisbane on Monday morning. Bianca is the voice of Bromwan in this podcast series.
When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
The house that was Bill became John's castle.
In my prison, Bianca reads Bromwyn's letters and notes the ones Bromwin wrote back in nineteen ninety three. And Bianca is the same height as Bromwan one hundred and seventy three centimeters. She has the same slender build as Bromwin. Biancha did not bat an eyelid when she was told we would be wrapping her up in a sheet, wrapping her to look something like an Egyptian mummy, and then picking her up and putting her in the back of an old Ford Falcon along with a surfboard. Sean picked
bianchor up at Brisbane Airport. Dave and I went separately to the Ipswich home of Ash and Kate, the friendly Ford Falcon owners. We told Ash and Kate that we needed their car for a couple of hours, and they were only too happy to help. Thanks, guys, you've been watching us recreating some things here.
Today we're going right into the true crime sort of stuff and all the unsolved stuff, and that's cool seeing it first.
And Will were very grateful to you and your wife for letting us use your car. Problem, So, how are you feeling about doing this?
Perplexed, a little off put? It is definitely a confronting kind of thing to recreate. Us being able to do it will prove a bigger point and paint a broader picture of something we haven't seen yet.
Dave's just helping take the plates off for Forward Fathton because we don't want the personalized plates to show up. You weren't even born in nine eighty seven when this car was made, were you not at all?
No, about ten years before my prime.
We got Sean's six foot long surfboard in very easily, and we placed it the way Jude had described it. There's plenty of room in here, nose first, with fins towards the back door. And yeah, once again, that's got it very easily.
So you could potentially fit in a board up to close to seven foot.
Yeah, you could even go longer because you could turn it over and put the nose on the dash and the back of it on the back bench.
Looks like there's plenty of room there to put the board in over the top and have somebody stretched out across.
The back and the board actually in that position, it gives a bit of cover for someone looking in from the other direction. The next bit was the most challenging. Three middle aged white nails needed to literally wrap the anchor up in a sheet and then pick her up and place her in the back of the car. We needed then to cover her head, and we needed to see if she would fit with the surfboard in the way Jude had described it. I wanted to wrap your
head as well, but I worried about your breathing. We'll put it in low case over your feet. How do you think it pill that case for her head? Look? Probably it's not really read plays, is it?
Why do you like and roll me?
Right?
Okay?
Do you.
Actually sean? Would you be able to help Dave At the torso end? You went straight in like a club. It's like she's seated, but with the legs stretched out through towards the seat belt holders of the front seat. Definitely works and you're not even pushed up. Can you describe how you are sitting.
I'm in the left hand backseat, feed up on the console. I'm sitting like you would sit on a long drive down the coast.
You're wrapped in this bedsheet from home that now is covered into the grass because we had to roll you in it. I think what we're not properly representing. Here's the head. We could just do a try for a second. It's going to we should photograph it with the doors closed. It's going to shut these doors. Are you still okay?
Yeah.
Sean is great with the technology and Dizmo's. He flew the drone to film down into the car.
I'm just panning around the car with the drone so you could get several different angles. You can see quite clearly into the cabin from this height, which we're trying to replicate the angle of Jude's deck down onto the street. We're covering these different angles shows us probably the car as it came into view all the way around to you, as it faded out of you going down the street.
You could be EVAs. It's important because Jude describes sitting on the deck upstairs, you know, a little balcony and a lamp that was on, and she's looking down and she said previously, during daylight hours she could see into pretty much a big car that went past. And her friend Carrie told me that when she would sit up there, she also saw into cars. And at night you wouldn't usually be to sce into the car, but the interior
light is on. As described by Jude, this exercise is really just to see if we can fit a six foot plus surfboard into the car, to see if we can fit a woman in the same height and very similar build to Bromo in the car at the same time. That's Bianca. We've done that, We've reproduced both those things. She says she saw a vehicle, John's vehicle and John driving that, and what she describes as a money that
looked like a wrapped body in the backseat. The exercise went smoothly, and it was eerie seeing the shape of a body in a car our friend, Bianca wrapped in a light colored sheet and positions similarly to how Jude was sure she had seen it. After Sean and Dave had finished taking photographs in film. It was time to rescue the brilliant bianchor. We're going to free you from
the pillowcase. I think we can get you out of the back seat now and unwrap you from the sheet that I'll need to give a good wash when I get home. Thank you, it's okay.
How are you feeling a very intense experience.
I was expecting this to take hours, you know, of repositioning, of moving around, but it just slotted right in.
Yeah, you're fit in easily and there's plenty of space. The surfboards over your lower courser, your legs, you're wrapped up. I mean, we've done as much as we can to try to reproduce what Jude has described to me.
One swift motion and I was here.
Bronwyn is written and investigated by me Headley Thomas as a podcast production for The Australian. If anyone has information which may help solve this cold case, please contact me confidentially by emailing Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au. You can read more about this case and see a range of photographs and other artwork at the website Bronwyn podcast dot com. Our subscribers and registered users here episodes first.
The production and editorial team for bronwin includes Claire Harvey, Kristin Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget Ryan 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 have been assisted by Madison Walsh, a relation of Roman Winfield. We can only do this kind of journalism with the support of our
subscribers and our major sponsors like Harvey Norman. For all of our exclusive stories, videos, maps, timelines and documents about this podcast and other podcasts, including The Teacher's Pet, The Teacher's Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy and The Night Driver. Go to the Australian dot com dot au and subscribe,