You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, June twenty one. Renewables will have to make up the majority of Australia's future electricity generation, even under Peter Dutton's nuclear plan. That's according to energy experts who are chiming in as debate rages about Australia's energy future amid fears we're already running
out of gas generation. There's a new fight ahead of TV star Lisa Wilkinson, who's going to pay for her new bid to contest the Federal Court's findings. The TV presenter has already racked up legal fees of one point eight million dollars defending herself from a defamation suit by Bruce Lahman, whom the court found had, on the balance
of probabilities, raped fellow Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins. Lamman is appealing those stories alive right now at The Australian dot com dot a U a stunning new witness account in the disappearance of thirty one year old mum Bronwyn Winfield has emerged and it's turned the investigation on a gripping new path.
Today.
What Bronwyn Winfield's neighbor saw late one night in May nineteen ninety three, thirty one years ago, Judy Singh stood in the living area of her two story home on Granite Street in Lennox, head up well after dark. She was a mum, a nurse, worried about how her new pregnancy was progressing, and stressing about her job and money. Down the road in the darkness, a car started up.
And this night I was sitting up and I saw the car pull out at the end of the street when the light was on in the car. There fairly 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 that you're listening.
Judy told this story to The Australian's National Chief correspondent Headley Thomas for a new episode of the Alien's investigative podcast series Bronwyn.
Yeah, I'm transfixed.
Yeah, that's Hedley interviewing Dudy. In recent days, listening to her remarkable account of what she remembers from May nineteen ninety three. Hedley is investigating the disappearance of thirty one year old mother of two Bronwyn Winfield from Sandstone Crescent on May sixteenth in nineteen ninety three. That night, Bronwyn tucked her two little girls into bed and vanished. Police investigations conducted over the past three decades have so far
failed to shed any light on Bronwyn's fate. Her husband, John Winfield, has always maintained Bronwyn left the family home voluntarily. The initial police investigation failed to consider the possibility she'd met with foul play.
Yeah, 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, what ad it be going late that 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 thing.
And I thought, well, if he'd pulled out and that was a body in that car, it would be pressing up against the surfboard and maybe what was causing the light to be on in the car. 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 some like that.
Judy is quite certain it was John Winfield driving the family's white Ford Falcon that night. She says she could see into the car because the interior light was on. Something that's always troubled her. Why would the light be on? What was that shape she'd seen in the backseat. John Winfield denies any wrongdoing in this matter. He's never been charged. This isn't the first time Judy Seingh has told her story.
She relayed what she'd seen to her friend and neighbor Kerry McLain, shortly after Bromwin disappeared in nineteen ninety three. Not long after, Judy reported it at Ballinor police station on the New South Wales North Coast. A decade later, she tried again, this time with the cops in Byron Bay. Police heard her claims, but Judy says they didn't take
any interest. It wasn't until January twenty twenty three when Headley got an email from Kerry McLain, Jude's old friend from Lennox head that the pieces began to fit together. Kerry reached out to Headley because she knew of his track record in investigating cold cases. She told him she knew something about the disappearance of Bromwyn Winfield, including Judy's story. Headley tried to track Judy down, but she's moved and remarried,
so her name has changed. Then, out of the blue, just over a week ago, Judy contacted Headley by email, saying she had heard about the podcast, although she hadn't listened to it, and wanted to let him know what she knew.
You wonder why the police wouldn't be interested in that.
Even now, I start getting quite churned up inside when I'm thinking about it.
It's just one of those things that I've had to live with. 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 Bronwen.
I haven't actually seen it.
I said, oh, crikey, what why should I do it? 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, ANNGSD over this.
Why can't you in here? So that's what I.
Did coming up how this mystery sent our team on the hunt for a vintage Ford Falcon. Subscribers to The Australian here episodes of Bromwin first. This explosive new installment is live right now at bromwanpodcast dot com. A subscription also includes all the australians world class journalism and commentary, as well as breaking news alerts, newsletters and special events. Join us at the Australian dot com dot au and
we'll be back after this break. Judy Singh's account of what she saw in the early hours of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three is chilling, But investigative journalism involves really digging into any new piece of info, testing every story, every bit of evidence. That's how our team wound up searching for a White nineteen eighty seven Ford Falcon XF Sedan. It had to be automatic because of the way the
car's interior was configured. It had to be the exact make and model of John Winfield's car, so we could establish for ourselves whether what Judy says she saw was really possible. We called old colleagues, texted friends, dived into the car fanatics subculture on social media, rang every petrol head we knew trying to find the exact make and model. It was the Australian's National Crime correspondent David Murray who
came up with the goods. He located an excess Sudan in Ipswich in Queensland, only this one was blue.
There's plenty of roomen here.
That's our visual storytelling expert Sean Callanan, who also happens to be a surfer and brought a bunch of his boards along to Ipswich with Dave and Headley. Their aim was to test out Judy's account of a board and a body in the backseat of this car? Was that possible? Would a human body and a surfboard both fit in
the back of this kind of sedan? Joining me'em in ipswich was Bianca far Marcus, who's actually The Australian's hugely talented video editor and has been voicing Bromwyn in this podcast. When we moved to Lennox Head, I was even more lonely.
The house that was Bill became John's castle and 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. Bianca 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.
So you could potentially fit in a board up to close to seven foot.
Yeah, you could even go longer, be as you could turn it over and put the nose on the dash and the back of it on the back bench. The next bit was the most challenging. Three middle aged white males needed to literally wrap Bianchor 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.
To hear how the boys fit Bianca and the board in the back seat. You can listen to the episode and watch the startling video footage right now at brominpodcast dot com. We also sent our visual storytelling expert Sean Callanan to go with Heavily to Judy Singh's house in order to capture in a visual sense what Judy remembers.
Sean is one of those digital experts who can do anything, and when I described to him the challenge of bringing Judy's memories to life, he came up with the idea of collaborating with another of our digital design experts, Stephen Grice, to first sketch what Judy described, then create a computer image of the driver and what Judy described as a
mummy in the back of the car. We bought detailed three dimensional images of the nineteen eighties forward xf the very same model, and together Stephen and Sean place the elements in the car, a driver, a surfboard, and a body wrapped in a sheet slumped on the back seat. The effect of the digital graphic they've created is chilling.
On bromwynpodcast dot com and the Australian dot com dot au right now, you can see an animation of the car driving along the street in the darkness, with its interior light illuminating the body, the board and the driver. The next question will be how New South Wales police react to this development a fresh eyewitness account in this thirty one year old mystery. To find out, go to Bromwin podcast dot com right now and join our subscribers.
Episode seven of Bromwin is out for subscribers now and you can see how we brought this stunning witness account to life through three D renderings and recreations at our website. Thanks for joining us on the front. Our team is Kristin amiot Leat Sammaglu, Joshua Burton, Jasper League, Tiffany Dimack and name Claire Harvey.