From The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey. This is an episode of our daily news podcast The Front. Six years after The Teacher's Pet made waves around the world, The Australian's National Chief Correspondent Hedley Thomas is back with a brand new podcast investigation. This time, Headley's delving into the cold case of Bronwyn Winfield, a young mum who disappeared from an idyllic surf town on the New South Wales North
Coast more than three decades ago. In today's episode, Hedley explains how this story found him and if he thinks it can be solved. In twenty eighteen, Australian journalism blew up with a huge story told in a grouping new way, an investigative podcast by The Australian's National Chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. The Teacher's Pet has had more than eighty million downloads around the world and it resulted in the arrest, charge and murder conviction of its subject, Christopher Michael Dawson. He
is now appealing. What almost no one knows is that at that time another big story was brewing in the background.
Family members and friends of another missing woman, Bronwyn Winfield was struck by the similarities between her case and that of Lynnette Simms, whose disappearance headly investigated in the Teacher's pet In those early days, years before Lynn's husband Chris Dawson would be brought to justice, Bromwin's loved one reached out to Hedley, urging him to look into her nineteen ninety one disappearance from Lennox Head in the New South Wales Northern Rivers region, but Bromwin's name was already on
Hedley's radar.
It was late twenty seventeen Claire I was interviewing the former Deputy State Coroner for New South Wales, Karl Milavanovitch, about the case of Chris Dawson and the allegations that he'd murdered his wife Lynn all those years ago in nineteen eighty two. And while I was talking to Karl, he expressed his grave concerns about a number of cases involving missing women, women who had suddenly disappeared. They had
ties to the community, they had small children. Lynn was one of those, and he mentioned the case of Bromwin Winfield. He told me that he had run an inquest into that case in two thousand and two, and he'd made a recommendation about it.
Here's the moment first heard Bromwyn Winfield's name from Karl Milvanovich.
I did an inquest of a lady called Bromwyn Windfield, and she had two kids as well, and she went to bed one night, and she disappeared next day. And there was some suggestion from a neighbor that.
And I didn't have time then to deal with it, but I wanted to revisit it at some point, and I guess for the last six and a half years, I've been collecting bits and pieces and talking to people
connected to the case, reaching out to Bromwin's family. What also happened was that as the episodes of the Teacher's Pet began unfolding from May twenty eighteen, people who were listening they were reminded of something that had just eaten away at them for some time, that there hadn't been a proper resolution of Bromwin's disappearance, the deeply suspicious circumstances surrounding it, and they urged me to get involved in it.
Today, all the information and evidence headly collected over the years has made it out of the folder. He created on that day in twenty seventeen and into a new podcast investigation for The Australian. It's called Bronwyn and it is hauntingly similar to the disappearance of Lynn Dawson. Loving young moms, sudden disappearances, families left in the grief and shock of ambiguous loss.
Sadly, it's the case that across Australia police forces through the eighties and nineties, and no doubt earlier, were unwilling to look at foul play as the probable reason for the sudden disappearances of loving, dedicated young mums, particularly those going through a marital breakdown, So when they disappeared, the paperwork was just filed in the bottom drawer mark missing person,
not given a high priority as a possible homicide. And this is what Karl Milivanovitch identified in a number of these missing women cases that he dealt with as a senior coroner before his retirement. When he flagged that to me when I met him at his home in late twenty seventeen, it was a bit of a light bulb moment because you think, gosh, how many other cases are there? This was a systemic problem. It's no longer the case today.
If a young mum like Bromwin suddenly disappeared at the same time as she's newly separated from her husband, there would almost certainly be a very committed police investigation, looking at all of the unusual circumstances and making sure that witnesses were soon interviewed. But unbelievably, for the first five years after Bromwin's disappearance, the police did not even take a statement from anybody. They spoke to just a couple of neighbors. They didn't bring anyone down to the police
station to take a formal statement. They didn't properly search the house or the car. It's hard to believe how poor the original investigation was.
Bromwn Winfield was just thirty one years old when she disappeared from the home built by her husband John.
Bromwyn was to everybody who knew her, an incredibly caring and devoted young mum. She had two daughters. They were Lauren, who was five, and Crystal ten. Bromwan was close to her brother her cousins. She'd had a difficult childhood because her own mother, when Bromwin was two, had postnatal depression and she disappeared from her own young children, and very sadly, when Bromwin herself disappeared, some twenty nine years after her own mother had disappeared, there was for the police a link.
They thought, well, is she doing what her own mother had done. The circumstances were very, very different. Bromwyn was of very sound mind. She had plans, She was making plans, She had appointments the next day. The kids were going back to school on the Monday.
John was Bromwin's second husband and the relationship had been strained for some time.
She wanted to leave her husband John, and indeed she did. She moved into a townhouse that she couldn't really afford, but she knew she had to get away, only a short drive from the family home, the home that John had built. He's a very skilled bricklayer. He could build houses from scratch and this house was his pride and joy. She disappeared on the Sunday evening. She had very little money, She didn't have means to support herself, but she and her husband were going to be having an argument over
who got the spoils from the marriage. How would that property settlement unfold? And on the evening she disappeared. Her husband had left Sydney to fly back. He'd been working in Sydney building a house, and he became aware that Bromwin had moved from the rented townhouse with the girls back into the family home, the home that she had
had to leave when they separated. She was there for two nights and then on the Sunday, John arrived and that's the last time anybody ever saw or heard from Bromwin.
Yeah, she tucked to her children into bed that night, Headley, how do we know that were the children interviewed by police.
Bromwin's eldest daughter did talk to police several years later, but the children were also in touch with their auntie and uncle. They spoke to their neighbors and friends. And it's not disputed by John that the children were in bed that Sunday night. In fact, John readily acknowledges that he was at the house too, and according to some accounts, he acknowledged that he actually had a disagreement with Bromin
on the Sunday night. But his story is that she got into a car after she had made one or two phone calls from the bedroom, a car turned up. He doesn't know what sort of car it was. He said he couldn't see the driver, doesn't know who was driving it. She got into that vehicle and left. Now, it was a very unusual thing for her to do, to go away for a break. She hadn't told her friend she was going away for any sort of break. She left behind pretty much everything, and she had very
little in the way of money. That's why her family was very concerned immediately. But local police did a very poor job in the early stages. They really just treated Bromwin as if she was doing what her mother had done, that she was a runaway mom, abandoning her family, her
husband and her kids. Crystal has described having heard raised voices her parents arguing, and then she must have fallen asleep because she was woken up along with Lauren, late at night, probably around ten thirty pm, maybe a little bit earlier. John left the house with his daughters and drove through the night to Sydney, arriving the next morning. The children were duet school on the Monday. It was in school holidays, and they ended up staying in Sydney
for ten or eleven days. And then John, at the urging of Bromwan's brother drove back up to Lennox and did report Bromwyn missing to police.
Coming up, why it's taken so long for Bromwyn Winfield's case to be taken seriously? The podcast Bronwyn is available now at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's b ro Nwyn podcast dot com. Subscribers to The Australian are the first to hear episodes of Headly Thomas's brand new investigative podcast series. Plus they get breaking news alerts direct to their phones. All are lively commentary and access to special events. Check us out at The Australian dot com dot au and
we'll be back after this break. There were eleven days between Bronwyn Winfield was last seen and the time her husband John reported her missing to police. On his account, Bronwyn had said she was going away for a few days to take some time for herself. So why the delay?
I think that's a very good question, Claire, And as best I can understand from talking to Bromwin's family and friends, they were waiting for John to make that move and they were urging him to do so for some time. Andy, who is Broman's brother, he had told John that if he didn't report Broman missing to the police. Andy would. A woman called Deb Hall, who was Bromin's very good friend and nearest neighbor. She told me that she said words the same effect. She was very, very concerned about
Bromwin and what had happened. She knew how devoted Bromin was as a mum, the plans that Bromwin had made. She was happy to be back in her house. She had flagged no plan or intention to leave the house, and Deb couldn't see when Deb went through the house that Broman had actually anything with her except for her handbag, which wasn't there.
In two thousand and two, the former Deputy State Coroner Karl Milvanovitch, who you heard about at the top of his episode, found Bronwyn Winfield was dead. He recommended to the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions that John Winfield be charged with her murder. Nicholas Cowdery, who was the DPP, then didn't pursue it. He said there was no evidence John had killed Bronwyn or played any role in her death. It's a decision that's baffled Bronwin's loved
ones for decades. This is a feature of the justice system that I think some people might not know so much about. Can you explain Headley, how it can be that a coroner can make a recommendation about a case like this that doesn't turn into a prosecution.
I think that there's such a mismatch between what happens when a coroner runs an inquest involving sometimes many days, sometimes a week of public hearings with witnesses appearing and giving evidence under oath, and then the coroner, who's often an experienced senior magistrate, makes certain findings and recommendations, and then there's this behind closed door paperwork review by unknown lawyers in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
They review the recommendation, and presumably they go through the evidence. Often the police brief is very extensive. But how much of the evidence do they go through? Do they read all the transcripts and witness statements. Are they at a sufficiently senior level to really appreciate what the senior coroner has appreciated. We don't know, because that process is very opaque.
You reached out to John Winfield. What did he say?
John Winfield got back to me and he acknowledged the letter that I had written to him seeking his side of the story. He said that he had previously answered something like four hundred and fifteen questions from a homicide squad detective and he stood by all the answers he gave to those, and we'll unpack those in several episodes of the podcast series. He said also, and I think this is very interesting because it's a reflection of some of the things that have been said over the years
by him about Bromwin. That her side of the family has a long generational history of mental illness, on the male and female side. That's how he put it. Now, I've talked to Bromwyn's good friends in Lennox Head, I've
talked to family members. The police have obviously talked to many people because when the police did do a very thorough investigation starting in nineteen ninety eight, many dozens of statements were taken by a detective side Glenn Taylor, and in none of those interviews or statements does anyone say Bromwin was showing signs of mental illness. It just doesn't register. Bromen was a very capable, intelligent, motivated young mum. It seems that having separated from John she knew what she
wanted to do. She just wanted to start again with her two girls, but without John, and the next stage in that process was working out what she would walk away with, what portion of the house and all the assets that they had jointly strived to achieve together she would be able to have to start again.
What's your instinct, Headley, Is this case solvable?
Well?
I think all these cases are potentially solvable. It would only take some fresh new information that is really probative that somebody has not disclosed, has for whatever reason, decided to keep to themselves for many years. If somebody comes forward with that to the police, directly to me, then if it's corroborated and checked out, that can make a difference. It could show that somebody else, somebody other than John Winfield, was responsible. For example, I mean, we don't know what
happened on that Sunday night. John's story is she got into a car driven by a stranger, and that's that. Who knows. Maybe somebody has some information about that, Maybe they have information about something else that John hasn't told us, But of course they can be solved. Bromwyn disappeared nine years after Lynn disappeared. People believe that Lynn's case could never be solved, and it was.
There is an important difference in the stories of Lynn Sims and Bromwyn Winfield. John Winfield has never been charged and there's no suggestion that he's anything like Chris Dawson. But the similarities between Lynn and Bromwin are inescapable, loving, coctive mothers whose children were robbed of their right to a safe, secure maternal bond.
I think we need to be very careful to not conflate them or see them as being cut from the same cloth. John Winfield has always emphatically denied any involvement in foul play. He certainly has never been charged with anything. The coroner recommended to the then DPP Nicholas Cowdery that he should be charged and considered for prosecution over Bromwin's suspected murder, but in the DPP's assessment back in two
thousand and three, there was insufficient evidence. Of course, there's nobody and some might argue that Bronwin has been living a life somehow incognito, having never been seen. In my opinion, that is just completely implausible. Bromwin's almost certainly dead. What we don't know is when she died and how she died.
But the idea that a very committed mum of thirty one years old could spend the next thirty one years somehow eking out a life, remaining unnoticed, being able to support herself, and never contact two little girls with whom she had a very beautiful and loving relationship is just ridiculous in my view.
Bete Thomas is The Australian's national Chief correspondent and the creator of our new investigative podcast series, Bronwyn. Subscribers to The Australian are the first to hear it. You can register to listen to the first two episodes now at Bromwyn podcast dot com. We've also got exclusive stories, maps, timelines, graphics and video and for all Australia's best journalism twenty four seven go to The Australian dot com dot AU.
Thanks for joining us on the front this week. Our team is Kristin Amiot, Leat Sammaglu, Josh Burton, Jasper Leigue, Tiffany Dimack, Matthew Condon and me Claire Harvey.