Thanks for listening to episode one of Bronwen. We dropped this in your feed because we thought you might like it. To hear the rest, search Bronwen that's b r n w y N wherever you listen, and to be the first to know about all our investigations, subscribe at the Australian dot com dot au.
Listeners are advised that this podcast series Bronwen contains course language and adult themes. This podcast series is brought to you by Me Headley Thomas and The Australian.
When we moved to Lennox head I was even more lonely. The house that was built became John's Castle in my prison.
Bromwin Winfield wrote these words shortly before she disappeared one Sunday night in May nineteen ninety three. She had been to see her GP a couple of days earlier and was in good physical health. Apart from having strained her hand. She was of sound mind and had no known mental illness. A brief period of postnatal depression after the birth five years earlier of her second daughter was well behind.
Bromwin Where do you want to go.
Today? Thirty one years since the sudden disappearance of a mother of two little girls. I'm driving on a winding road south of Byron Bay to the house that Bromwin had called her prison. Past former dairy and sugar cane farms, subdivided for residential housing estates and the Great Australian family Dream. A three or four bedroom, two bathroom ricantile close to the.
Beach, getting directions to Sandstone Crescent, Lenox Head.
The Pacific Ocean is tantalizingly close. You can hear it, smell it. Its saltiness lingers on an easterly zephyr of a breeze. In luxury homes with views over smoothly curving coastline, binoculars are at the ready for the first sightings of humpback whales on their annual migratory journey from Antarctica. They perform in the warm waters of an aquatic backyard off the most easterly part of Australia's mainland and the lighthouse at Byron Bay. It's a quieter, gentler lifestyle in this
place everyone calls Lenox. It's less crowded here, more chilled than the nearby more famous Byron Roman left in dollible imprints on those who loved her, yet her thirty one years disappeared with barely a ripple in the wider world. Her life, her suspicious disappearance, and her highly probable death have barely been reported, except from time to time by
regional TV and The Northern Star. The newspaper ceased publication in print in twenty twenty, but Bromin left behind her writings, her reflections on her life, her marriage and loved ones, with the occasional underlining and crossed out word on sheets of a four paper. They are poignant and compelling. All these years later, I picture Bromwin writing in quiet moments between getting her two girls ready for school and working part time in a local takeaway store called Eden's down near the Waves.
My idea of a lasting love is being able to tell your partner anything and it doesn't make it difference to your relationship. Trust, being kind to one another when you're down, supportive, having time for each other always, as well as time for other people.
Her family, friends, and neighbors tell me she was determined to remain separated from her husband of six years, John Winfield. Bromwin wanted to go her own way. She was pursuing a divorce Her good friends in this idyllic beachside town in northern New South Wales supported her. They were all school mums with small children who played together. They shared instant coffees, morning walks, birthday parties, turns at babysitting, and random catchups for a glass of wine and easy conversation.
Bromwin had confided troubling things about her marriage. She was close to her brother Andy and his wife Michelle, who lived in Sydney, a one hour flight away. It was where Bromwyn had grown up. She had close cousins there, including Megan Reid. She had her auntie Leah and uncle John and her half sister Melissa. Her mother Barbara and her half sister Kim Marshall lived another hour away in Tasmania.
All of these family members talked regularly to Bromwin. Kim was about to travel north to Lenox because Bromwin had invited her to come and stay for a while. Nobody had heard of any plans by Bromwin to suddenly go away to disappear. Writing about the unhappiness of the marriage, Bromin had decided was bad for her and her girls, perhaps felt cathartic. Liberating the house in Lenox was a heavy burden.
I drifted away from John as he became more and more depressed about the house being less than immaculate and the death of his mother, the only woman he thought was perfect. I couldn't leave him at the time, as he was so unhappy and depressed and hated life and probably me. I tried to plead and talk to him to open up and get things off his chest, but nothing would help him.
Friends and neighbors tell me John would obsess and see over the smallest things. No matter how hard Brommin tried. The house could never be clean enough for John. A tiny spot on a tile, a crumb on the carpet, these could set him off. John was an introvert and a perfectionist. He had built the house with his bare hands. He was often unhappy when visitors dropped by. Sometimes he would appear hostile. Bromwin, on the other hand, was naturally
sociable and welcoming. She needed the company and support of her friends, but the children would play with their friends in the garage to ensure no mess in the house, and all the while Brommin walked around on a big shells. She worried about how John would react when people were over all of it took a toll. The tensions must have been unbearable at times. Their marriage was clearly doomed. On March twenty one, nineteen ninety three, Bromwin and John formally separated.
Eventually, I switched off and became cold inside. He had a heart of ice and always criticized me no matter what I did. The man was cold and heartless and gave nothing but expected everything.
Bromwyn shared recollections and sorrows, hurts, and philosophical musings with her notepad. But for whom was she writing all of this in nineteen ninety three? Why had she begun to put it all down? Bromwin hadn't kept a journal before. Bromwin's family and friends tell me she lived for her two daughters, Crystal, aged ten, and Lauren five. She loved those girls to bits. Her devotion every day was obvious to all who knew her. The three were inseparable, and
Romin was a caring, nurturing mother. Nobody has suggested otherwise.
My children have suffered from the environment that surrounded them. It is equally important to be honest with them and to tell them about their past, as you not only suffer from denying the truth, but so did they as.
I read all of it. Some big questions are inescapable? Are Brombin's writings the artifacts of a woman looking back on the thirty one years of her life to that moment, a woman looking forward with her two girls to a happier, brighter future as a newly single mum finally freed of the shackles and sadness she felt in an intolerable marriage to John.
I was surrounded by hate and abuse in various ways as a child, and am determined not to allow this to happen to my girls or myself ever again. No one will ever intimidate me again, nor will I allow anyone to force their opinions onto me, as this can cause damage to myself as well as my children. If love means not being trusted to be yourself, or thinking that everyone is out to own you paranoia, then it is not my idea of happiness.
Or are they the nuanced words of a woman who is writing with a plan to leave something personal and heartfelt behind for her loved ones. When Romin wrote in her notepad in nineteen ninety three, was she intending to imminently and dramatically change everything by leaving everyone who loved her, including her daughters. Was she intending to vanish without explanation and never see or speak to them or anyone else? She knew again.
Everyone has both good and bad, and I've confronted the bad in myself and realized I am human. We all make mistakes. I can forgive myself and will now live with my memories in peace. I will always remember the people I meet. I'll be fine now. A little break for a few weeks and everyone will see the old may look out.
Over months of visits to Lennox, nearby towns and villages, and the city in which she grew up, Sydney, I'm talking to people who knew Bromwan and seeking answers to these questions and more, talking to anyone who might shed light on what happened to Broman on the night of May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, when John was the last person to see her at the home in Sandstone Crescent.
In this enclave worshiped by dedicated surfers and made affluent by sea change property owners, people who know more than they've let on before about Broman's fate are coming forward. Former police detectives are sharing information with me. Many hundreds of pages of evidence are being scrutinized for clues. Here's
one example. On April two, nineteen ninety three, Doreen Strong from the Ballena Byron Family Support Service made a handwritten diary note about the first of several contacts with the newly singled Bromwin from Lennox Head.
Bronwyn Winfield left husband ten days ago emotional violence, custody threats being to solicitor. Received advice regarding custody. Feels better but needs support. We are to call Monday regarding availability of appointment.
Bromwyn saw three different solicitors after her separation from John. On March twenty one, nineteen ninety three, she sought advice about her rights in a planned property settlement with John, an intended division of their assets. The solicitor she had decided to stay with, Chris McDevitt, was based in the nearby ten of Lismore. Broman's next appointment in his office
there was scheduled for Monday, May seventeen. I have a copy of a page from her notepad with the time Bromwin jotted down for the Monday meeting with Chris mcdebitt eleven am. But Bromwin disappeared the night before Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, and as she didn't meet her solicitor or contact him ever again to make another appointment, the plans that had been made for divorce and a sale of the house were quietly shelved. John kept his castle on Sandstone Crescent.
Heads south on Dalana Street in seven hundred meters at the roundabout take this second exit onto North Creek Road.
A good wave is peeling this sunny afternoon. Board riders are carving across the face of swollen waves at a beach known as Boulders. Boulders Beach is still John Winfield's favorite location when he paddles out for a wave. Bromwan's husband didn't leave Lennox Head after she vanished, but why
would he? John has always emphatically denied wrongdoing. In two thousand and two, a senior coroner made a formal finding that Bromwin was dead, and he ended an inquest which had traversed a large amount of evidence over five days
of hearings in a courtroom in Lismore. More importantly, the Senior Coroner recommended to the Director of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales that a known person, Bromwin's husband, John Winfield, should be prosecuted over her alleged murder, but the DPP firmly refused to prosecute.
I wish to advise that, after careful consideration of the matter referred to him by the Coroner, and following further investigation, the Director of Public Prosecutions is not satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to lay any charge against Jonathan Winfield at this time.
The prosecuting agency confirmed its decision in a letter of just one sentence. The letter went to the police who had reinvestigated Bromwin's case for the inquest. Romman's brother Andy Reid and his wife Michelle were astonished. They wrote to the office of the DPP in early two thousand than three.
We are writing to you on behalf of ourselves and the Reed family to formally request a full explanation as to why the Crown Prosecutor in Lismore and the Director of Public Prosecutions in Sydney have decided there is not sufficient evidence to lay charge against mister Jonathan Winfield.
We feel that at the very least, we deserve better than a line or two informing us of this decision. It has taken ten long years to get the case to this point, and we would appreciate a full written response to this matter at your earliest convenience.
No doubt you are aware that we are completely dissatisfied at the decision and have already taken steps to investigate the matter further through political and departmental channels.
The Director of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales at that time, Nicholas Cowdery, replied to Andy Reid.
The disappears of your sister Bronwin Winfield in May nineteen ninety three has no doubt caused much grief to you and your family, and I offer my sympathies. My advice to police in the coroner, after very careful consideration of all the evidence presently available, is that there is not sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan Winfield or any other person. Bronwin's disappearance was not reported to the police for two weeks and was initially treated as a missing person inquiry.
By the time it was dealt with as a possible homicide, years had passed and any potential scientific evidence was long gone. There is nobody and no known cause of death. While Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have seen her alive, there is no evidence that he killed her or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot be substitution for evidence.
John has never been charged with any offense in relation to his missing wife. John suggested two police that ronwin had left to start a new life with a new identity, probably money from, in John's words, a wealthy sugar daddy. But nobody has ever reported having seen her, and in the two decades since Nicholas Cowdery wrote that letter in two thousand and three, there's still nobody behind his back. Lennox. Locals who know the story of Bromwyn Winfield scoff at
John's version. I was on assignment and rushing from one interview to the next in Sydney when I heard her name for the first time. It was December twenty seventeen. Bromwin Joy Winfield had been missing for twenty four years. By then. She became real for me. During my podcast investigation into the nineteen eighty two disappearance of another missing woman, Lynette Joy Dawson at the request of Lynn's family, we now refer to her by her maiden name. She's Lynette Simms.
It was a hot and humid afternoon, just a week before Christmas twenty seventeen, and I had spent several hours talking to Lynn's friend Julie Andrew in her home near the heart of Sydney. Julie made a powerful impression that day. Six months later, when the podcast had a name, The Teacher's Pet, and episode started to come out, listeners heard Julie's commitment to justice for Limb. They heard her unwavering certainty about Lynn's fate at the hands of her husband, Chris Dawson.
The best way to dispose of a body when you live in the bush is to put it in the bush, and that's what I think he did on the Friday night. I'm sorrowful. I lost a tear friend and I've carried these and I miss her every day. I just want justice, and I'd love her little girls to know she didn't leave them, she was taken away from them now the person who was supposed to protect her.
I drove away from the interview in Julie's terrace house with my friend Rebecca Hazel. We headed west to meet Karl Milavanovitch, a retired deputy State Coroner of New South Wales.
Yeah, come in, get you out of the heat.
We're very sorry.
We just realized we pulled up it and we didn't bring the bottle of why a cake anything. We've got that organized.
Come upstairs, please, straight up the stairs.
Karl had agreed to talk to me for my podcast investigation back then about Lynn's case. He remembered the evidence well because back in two thousand and three, fourteen years before Karl met me at his home, he had led an exhaustive coronial investigation. Karl watched and heard numerous witnesses give evidence under oath in a courtroom in Sydney. These witnesses recalled Lynn and Chris, the Northern Beaches home, the
marriage and a schoolgirl will call JYC. There were many who were adamant that Linn would never have voluntarily left her two girls, who were just four and two at the time. Among the witnesses were Lynn's friends and family who knew her as an utterly devoted mother and wife, and sister and daughter. All were questioned under oath in the inquest by a police officer with expertise as a lawyer, Matt Fordham. He had done a lot of work to
ensure the police brief of evidence was very solid. A highly committed Northern Beach's detective called Damian Lone was sure that Chris Dawson had killed Lynn. Damien had been investigating the case off and on for several years, and his work comprised most of the police brief of evidence. Chris Dawson, a high school teacher and former first grade rugby league player with the Newtown Jets, had become in fat scituated in nineteen eighty with the babysitter, his former student at
Cromer High School. Chris would move Jc into Lynd's bed within a couple of days of Lynn's disappearance in January nineteen eighty two, but Chris didn't give any evidence. In the courtroom of the then Deputy State coroner Karl Milavanovitch in two thousand and three, Chris exercised his right to silence. A key witness was the former teenage babysitter, JC, who had gone on to marry Chris Dawson, then flee him, obtain a divorce and raise her concerns with police about
foul play. At the end of the coronial proceedings, Karl Milavanovitch found that Lynn was dead and he recommended to the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time, Nicholas Cowtery, that Christopher Michael Dawson be prosecuted for murder, but the DPP refused. Nicholas Cartery it was adamant that there was not enough evidence, and nobody from that time on Carl believed that Chris Dawson had evaded justice despite a compelling, circumstantial case against him for the murder of his wife.
This is some of what Carl told me as I sat in his lunder room in December twenty seventeen.
All the circumstances, when you put them together, are just so remarkable that I just could not accept that Lyn Dawson would just disappear off the face of the earth without there being some human intervention. It just defies all logic that a mother would leave a four year old, a two year old, a family, a job, and friends and just disappear. It's just not normal human behavior for a woman with her intelligence, her community ties, the fact that she was employed, two kids, had a lovely home.
It just doesn't add up. And I was very disappointed that the police investigation was so poor initially, that Lynnette Dawson was just treated as another missing person and it wasn't prioritized. They never looked at the issues of domestic violence. They never looked at the reality or the possibility that this was a homicide.
Karl Milavanovitch has been a powerful advocate for murdered women like Lynn, But he told me something else of great importance. On that afternoon in December twenty seventeen, Karl spoke about the case of another missing woman, Bromwn Joy Windfield. I had not heard her name, nor anything about her nineteen ninety three disappearance until Karl raised it with me. There was very little publicity about Bromwin over the years. Her
case seemed to have fallen between the cracks. This is some of what Carl matter of factly told me about Bromwin.
I did an inquest of her. 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 they heard the car reversing down the driveway and scraping on the ground, like some suggestion there might have been something in the boot, but she was never found. The same thing happened there. He was in Sydney, the husband was in Sydney.
She was up there.
She went to see a solicitor about organizing a separation, got the locks changed to the house. He found out about it, drove up there next day she disappeared.
I did the.
Inquest at Lismore. I had a very competent counsel assisting. It was a strong case. I thought circumstantial evidence. Referred it to the DPP. They didn't run with it.
And when the DPP decides that they're not going to run, do they send to you or to the Coroner's.
Office a letter explaining what No.
There's no explanation the DPP in terms of detailed reasons for not proceeding. How do we know that they have just misunderstood the.
Cats Well, I suppose that's always a possibility. At that stage of my career as deputy State coroner, I was probably just starting to do a number of missing person's cases that were historical ones. And it wasn't long after the inquest into Lynette Dawson's disappearance from and Winfield at a number of others that I was getting very concerned about historical missing person cases where clearly it was evident that they were probably homicides, and the attitude that the
police had to the investigation of them. I think there was a systemic problem in the police department in how they prioritized and trianged missing person's cases. So that was a systemic attitude the police had. You don't worry about investigating until you've got a smoking gun or some evidence of foul play. They'll turn up, or they've gone off with a boyfriend or something like that.
I asked Carl whether this men that a significant number of women who had been classified by police as simply missing were more likely to have been murdered.
No doubt, no doubt. I've got no doubt about that. Absolutely. If you'd asked me this question nine years ago, before I retired, I would have given you a list of all their names. And I think the majority of the long term missing person's cases that are still outstanding even to this day involve the young women who have disappeared, and inevitably they are victims.
Upon the side, it was chilling to hear this conclusion because it was also completely logical. I had a name, Bromwyn Winfield. I made a mental note to revisit her case properly. One day, I opened a folder to collect information about this other missing woman. In the second half of twenty eighteen, as weekly episodes of The Teacher's Pet were being released, I began hearing about Bromwyn Winfield from her family and friends and others. Each person who contacted
me didn't know about the others. Everyone reached out independently. None of them knew that I had already heard about Bromwin from Karl. In July twenty eighteen, I got an email about Bromin's case from Matt Fordham, the former police officer who had done a huge amount of work with Karl Milavanovitch for his two thousand and two inquest. The same Matt Fordham who had handled Linn's case for Karl in two thousand and three. Matt sent me his formal
written submissions which had been presented at Bromwin's inquest. These were a matter of public record, however, they were only lightly reported in the media. Here's a small part of the evidence Matt Fordham presented to the then deputy state coroner Karl Milavanovitch in two thousand and two. These are his words, it's not his voice.
Bronwin had expressed concern to her friend Alan Fisher about what would occur when Jonathan Winfield returned to Lenox from Sydney shortly before her disappearance. She stated that she was terrified about what he might do. A large number of witnesses described her as being a devoted mother who would not have left her kids. There is absolutely no evidence that anyone other than Jonathan Winfield had any motivation or opportunity to kill Bronwin.
In August twenty eighteen, a woman called Deborah Hall reached out. She was Bromwin's neighbor and friend at Sandstone Crescent, Lennox Head for several years until May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three. In her email, she wrote.
I have watched and listened with great interest to the podcast and the recent media reports on Lyn Dawson. I really felt compelled to write to you and inform you of another missing person case that I was very heavily involved in back in the early nineteen nineties of my neighbor and good friend, missus Bronwyn Winfield of Sandstone Crescent, Linix Head. This case was also investigated by police in a minor way. In the initial days of her disappearing.
She explained what Karl had disclosed some months earlier, that his coronial inquiry had found that Bromwin was dead.
Debra added this inquiry deemed that a known person was responsible for her disappearance. It was recommended to the Director of Public Prosecutions to pursue it to trial. However, this never has eventuated, even though the coroner deemed there was enough evidence to convict this man. The reason stated by DPP was that as there was never a body found, they were not prepared to waste taxpayers dollars for a
non conviction. This man, John Winfield, continues, as does Chris Dawson, to proclaim his wife just ran off and joined a old or went with another man. There is so much more I could inform you of in this case, but it would take me hours. I just felt I needed to highlight the extreme similarities of my best friend's case. I really hope that justice is done for both these poor women. Regards Deborah.
The following month, a woman living in Tasmania, Kim Marshall emailed to tell me that her half sister bromwyin Winfield, had been missing since May nineteen ninety three. When we spoke on the telephone, Kim told me that it was a homicide squad cold case, but it had gone very cold. Kim told me back then in late twenty eighteen.
I carry this load each week and have an obligation to try harder to find her body. I truly believe her body can be found.
At the time, Chris Dawson remained a free man, enjoying his retirement near the each on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, but he and the criminal justice system were under enormous pressure from the teacher's pet and listeners who had heard damning evidence of the system's failure. Failure not just for the absence of justice fa Lynn, but for never even investigating a culture of grooming and sexual exploitation of Northern Beaches
high school girls by teachers, including Chris Dawson. At that time, new witnesses were coming forward to talk to me in the podcast. In twenty eighteen, some new witnesses were going straight to police with evidence about Chris and Lynn. Her nineteen eighty two disappearance and a ring of teachers who had pursued high school girls. There had been a lot of damage caused. It finally culminated in homicide Squad detectives arresting Chris and extraditing him to Sydney to be charged
with Lynn's murder on December five, twenty eighteen. Over the years since my folder of Bromwyn Winfield files grew steadily, Bromwin's half sister, Kim Marshall, and others who knew the Lenox mother of two girls stayed in touch. I heard from a woman called Fiona Housner, who as a child lived next door to Bromwin for years near Cronulla in the Shire south of Sydney. We met in Brisbane in early twenty nineteen at a bar called Felons to talk
about the case. Fiona, who was very fond of her neighbor and babysitter, described what she called secrets and mystery in relation to Bromwin's unexplained disappearance. I sent a note to Broman's brother Andy Reid, using Facebook Messenger. I wrote, I've been interested in possibly investigating the disappearance and suspected murder of your sister Bromwin. A number of people who knew Bromwin have urged me to do a podcast investigation similar to the ten Each's pet into the probable murder
of Lynd Dawson. I understand that you have extensive files and reasonable suspicions about what happened. It's not something I could start without full cooperation from you and other members of the family. Andy and his wife Michelle were immediately interested. We met in a cafe in Sydney and talked about a future podcast investigation. A woman from Barner called Kerry McLain got in touch to talk to me about her conversations with Brombin's daughter Crystal, who had lived in Kerry's
home for some time. You'll hear more about it later in this podcast series. At my request, Andy Reid and his wife Michelle, and Andy's half sister Kim Marshall started to track down relevant paperwork. Transcripts from the original inquest notes that they had taken at the time, and police statements. Old articles about Roman's case whenever it featured in the
local newspaper, The Northern Star of Lismore were collated. In twenty twenty one, I drove to Ballaner and the home of Glen Taylor, a former Newcastle Homicide Squad detective sergeant. Is a little of what Glenn told me back then, as extreme rain flooded the northern rivers and low lying areas of New South Wales. He told me that his connection to Roman's case began in nineteen ninety eight when she had been missing for five years.
Andrew Reed and Michelle Reid came to see myself in another detective in Ballina and said, look, can we have some fresh eyes look at this. We're just not happy that this is again the elector is a missing person. We think there's more to it, and then when we start looking into the matter, I mean as a homicide investigator, it was abundantly clear, very early in the initially reinvestigation that it needed a lot more work done and then a lot of formal statements.
Glenn had transferred north from Newcastle's major crime unit to be a detective in the coastal town of Ballina. When he heard about Bromwin, he was intrigued and then suspicious. Like Damian Loon in Lynn's case, Glenn said he smelled a rat, but the trail had gone cold. The odds were stacked against the seasoned former homicide squad cop when so little had been done by other police in the five years immediately following Bromwin's disappearance.
I still believe that it was in the senior officer's mind that this woman had in fact just voluntarily decided to leave. It was fairly haphazard the investigation. There was very very little done. There was no statements ever taken from any particular person, like neighbors, I mean absolute critical areas like there was no forensic investigation of the home. There was no forensic investigation of the motor vehicle that Jonathan Winfield had taken within hours of arriving back from
Sydney at the marital house. And over the years I think there was only initially a few inquiries done and then it just fell back to a missing person and nothing further was done. Under many years later, I treated as a major investigation and strongly suspected that.
Bromin be murdered.
Yeah, your statement's very detail.
They they need to be thorough.
We're talking about the likely murder of a person, so they.
Need to be thorough.
Did you believe that Bromwin would leave her children?
And stay away at any stage.
All the people we took statements from in the reinvestigation, all Bromin's friends and close assationates, she absolutely adored her children. There is just no way that she would have left those children that night and not come back to the house. She was just so attached to them. She was seeking sole custodys of both the children. She was a very very good mother according to everyone that.
We spoke to.
It was just absolutely totally out of her character to just walk out and leave those children not have any further contact. It just wouldn't happen unless she just couldn't prevent it. That's why it was extremely suspicious.
And why was that not of you that existed in.
The police in nineteen ninety three when she disappeared.
It's really difficult to say. Police did get extremely busy with other matters. Unfortunately, there's still other things happening with robberies and breaknanners and sexual assaults and so forth. But being highlighted to a commander to say, look, we believe there's something more sinistry in this. We need more resources put into this. But for one verse or another, that wasn't.
Done when we first met at his home. Glenn urged a podcast investigation and he pledged his full support, but I didn't have time. Then Chris Dawson was waging a legal battle against the teacher's pet me and police. When Glenn Taylor and Bromwin's family and friends were quietly talking to me. Chris Dawson made a high stakes bid to avoid a murder trial altogether. He said the publicity from the podcast series meant that he couldn't get a fair trial.
He was also arguing that a shoddy original police investigation after lim first disappeared had prejudiced his prospects in any trial, but his bid to evade justice again was ultimately futile. At the end of his murder trial, the Supreme Court's Justice Ian Harrison delivered a verdict in late August twenty twenty two.
Christopher Michael Dawson on the charts that on about eight January nineteen eighty two, it gave you or elsewhere in the state of New South Wales, you did murder Lynett Dawson.
I find you guilty.
I met Matt Fordham for the first time that day in the Supreme Court in Sydney. Matt came to watch justice unfold Better late than never. Investigating Lynn's nineteen eighty two disappearance had led me to Karl Milavanovitch in December twenty seventeen, and Karl would open the door to the
nineteen ninety three disappearance of Bromwin Winfield. And that's why I'm driving in northern New South Wales in twenty twenty four, thirty one years after Bromwin kissed her two girls good night and put them to bear in an unremarkable house on Sandstone Crescent, the house that John built his castle, Bromman's prison.
Turn left on the Sandstone Present. Then arrive at your destination.
This is where's last set in life.
Arrive and there's the house. You can't help me wonder what happened inside that night?
What led to a woman disappearing more thirty years ago? Pleased to meet you too, Sorry it's taken almost six years.
Well that didn't about thirty plus time.
Deborah Hall has welcomed me inside her house at Sandstone Crescent. This is where she and her partner Murray raised their children and where their friend Bromwin Winfield lived next door until her May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three disappearance.
Can I get you anything?
It'd be great, thank you. I've been up at Kingscliffe. I didn't really be there, okay. Dear Van Murray were important witnesses because they heard and saw things at key moments. Bromwin was very unhappy, and she had confided this and much more to Deb as their friendship deepened. Murray, the son of a police detective, became highly suspicious and concerned for Bromwin at a very early stage. Their children, who used to play with Broman's two girls, have grown up,
moved away, married, and had children of their own. They all returned to Sandstone Crescent for family occasions. Broman's fate is often talked about at these catchups. Bromwan and the House cast a long shadow. John has a newer, grander house in Lennox. He sold up on Sandstone Crescent. His place is closer to his favorite beach, Boulders. It is a lot more valuable than the house in which John and Bromwan lived with the two girls, Crystal and Lauren.
Do you mind if I have run a recorder over this?
So?
Yeah, thank you.
I don't have any problem with that.
Do you have any other commitments this afternoon.
Actually, Broman's good friend told me her reaction while listening to Linz's case unfold in The Teacher's Pet in twenty eighteen.
Driving up the coast, Mary and I and the current has put you on. Put the podcast on. He goes, I listen to this. I'm like, what is It's a teacher's pet. I had no idea, So I started listening, and I'm like looking at him, going, are you hearing this?
This is this is almost our case.
I'm like going, this is like, this is Bromplin, this is Bromlin.
That was what prompted me to email you, and I hope you didn't mind me doing that because it was.
So similar, and I thought I got to just.
Put it out there, not expecting that because I know his man getting back to me. You know when you're a finer. I thought, oh, okay, so obviously we're a little bit aware of this situation.
Dev An Bromwin had an easy rapport. They helped each other all the time. Bromin received comfort and support from deb and other friends from whom you'll hear they knew she was determined to walk from the ruins of her relatively brief marriage with John Winfield.
Watching Chris Dawson on TV is almost like watching John Winfield. How so similar in terms of good looking guy, physique everything.
You could almost be cloned.
You two men.
Knowing John the way I knew John, I'm like, God, you know, these guys are just on the same path.
Well, I was really glad that you're ope.
I didn't want to overset my mark and push anything when it's up to the family that kind.
Of agree with that sort of thing.
So I'm just so frustrated by the fact that this beautiful woman who was a good friend of mine is no longer with us, and possibly at the hands of her husband.
And the fact that the two girls had grown up without their mother. They've got kids of their own that she never got to meet. And Bromwe was a very caring, very loving and beautiful person. She was a great mum.
And this is why, in regards to what you've just done with the dows In case, when I heard the story about her, she's almost identical.
To how problem was.
And there was no way she would leave those kids.
And I know that, and that's the thing that I kept saying to the police in the initial investigation.
Married this is Headley.
Yeah you too.
How are the waves today? Wasn't that good?
That I went out the wrong spots?
Stars?
I should have off the point I went bubbles Bach. I got smashed a bit right, quite fun.
Yeah, I've been here about half an hour just going through some of the events.
Yeah, she's a nice lady.
You know, if you're sick, she brought you out some shit.
Because I remember when I had Dale.
She came down with lasagneas and that's the sort of person.
She was.
A class two sex is a class A really nice neighbor, beautiful lady.
Murray Nolan still goes to Boulders Beach for a look and often a surf most days, and he usually sees his former neighbor John Winfield down there. Sometimes they paddle for the same wave. At other times they'll look out over the water from the car park and talk about what the weather might bring. Murray liked bromwin a lot. He cannot avoid what he believes is the truth, but it's not in his nature to avoid and ostracize John.
John is perfectly civil and friendly to you. Yes, I'll still see him every day. I spoke to this morning. Oh John, how I am a bit windy, swells up, beautiful surfing sort of talk. But I see him now, I reckon probably nine days out of ten, I seene, where did you see it?
This morning?
He was just checking the surf.
We're all went surfing. But does John know what you suspect he has done?
Yes, I threw him under the bus with the currency quarry.
My role is to sell the truth. And he's never raised that with you.
No, and you just get out and talk to each other as if nothing's happened.
Yeah, he's fine with me.
Strange, isn't it.
Yeah, like we're quite friendly.
It's a funny, says situation.
And what's your level of confidence that he did in fact kill.
Robin nine point nine?
How about you?
Dd one hundred? See, Murray has a nicer nature than I have. I'll steer him down. I won't speak to him.
DEBI is spreading documents and photographs across the table for me to read and copy.
Yeah, there's a fabis here I've got that's my statement.
Oh that was Brian there.
That was in a very good shot.
That was one of my children's birthday party.
A service of Thanksgiving.
Yeah, so this has dated July two thousand and two.
Andrew wanted to have a bit of a memorial before her.
There was certainty that she wouldstend. I might photograph all these.
It's a small community relatively, yes, but he stayed here the whole time.
Yes, yes, What do you think of that? Does that suggest that perhaps he's got nothing to hide? He's not running away.
He loves this place.
He knows he's done nothing wrong. I also think that he's very instillent as well. He doesn't speak to that many people.
I don't know what the outcome of all this will be.
What's your hope.
My hope and the hope of many who knew and loved Bronwin is that new and illuminating facts emerge as a result of this podcast series, something that might finally resolve this sad cold case. If Bromwin went away, as John Winfield says, where and with whom did she go? If Bromwin has been dead all these years, as a former deputy state coroner ruled, how did Bromwin die and who, if anyone bears responsibility for her death? And where is her body? I have approached John Winfield and asked him
for an interview. John's side of the story is very important. John has always emphatically denied any role in any foul play. So far, John has declined to speak to me on the record or on background. I'm going to keep trying because he hasn't ruled it out. 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 Bromman'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 on the eve of the release of this episode, 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.
Now. Kim Marshall in Tasmania was the first member of Bromman's family to contact me. That was back in twenty eighteen. Kim has been a terrier with the help of her half brother Andy Reid, in finding decades old documents and evidence from the case.
And Andrew has a box packed away, and Christal has a box packed away. Andrew has got masses of stuff, boxes that are in ceilings and boxes that are stacked, all that type of business. And I love rummaging and getting everything together and putting in some type of chronological order for you. So I've asked them both to try and get access to their boxes, but I dare say it's going to be me physically being the hunter and gatherer, getting there and going about my business.
Well, that sounds really good, Kim. Missing police statements, which I had been asking members of the family about from the start of our contact, finally materialized. Bronwin's eldest daughter, Crystal had them.
Crystal has all the original statements in full, which is what Andrew's been looking for for a very long time. Crystal actually has them.
I didn't believe that material would become available, So having that makes a very big difference.
Yes.
Andy Reid, a builder and a popular community figure in Sydney's Sutherlandshire near Qunella, sought the blessing of his niece Crystal to press forward with a podcast investigation. Roman's daughter is in her early forties. She's a single mum with mixed and complicated views about what happened to her own mother when Crystal was ten.
She just said to us, it's just time that she finds you out, and she wants to know what happened. Endeavor to do whatever's needed to be done to try and find out the truth.
She is terrified as losing the small relationship that she has with her sister Lauren. Lauren doesn't believe that John did it.
In June twenty twenty three, I asked Andy about the status of police investigations into Bromwin's disappearance.
Have you heard any more from the police?
No, we haven't heard anything. Unless something turns up, we're basically at a dead end.
You know.
They weren't willing to investigate anything that was presented to them any further than what they.
Already had they haven't bothered.
To reach out or contact or anything for a long time now. The last detective at Newcastle was the last person that I used.
To liaise with.
So every twelve months just ring and asked a couple of questions and see if he's heard anything into it's just that the same response.
Now that's been no.
Activity on a cards, no activity on a bank account, blah blah blah. Well it can't be anymore anyway, because the bank account was closed down.
When I spoke to Andy in June twenty twenty three, before I could start a reinvestigation of the case early the following year, he confirmed his strong view about who had killed his older sister.
Oh, nothing's changed, nothing's changed after the corral inquiry.
How do you reckon he would be viewing the development of these true crime investigations, particularly with podcasts into the disappearances or murders unsolved of women.
He'd be raddled.
I'm sure he'd be rattled.
Yep, which is good.
Unless she sleeps at night, the better off we all are.
Although Andy and other members of the family have been angered that police did not do much more soon after her disappearance, they have only praise for the first detective to seriously suspect foul play.
Did you speak to Glenn Taylor, Yes.
I interviewed him. That would have been two and a half years.
Ago, just after we first met when I put you onto him here.
Yeah, but I drove down and saw him at his house. There.
He had a little bit of paperwork and I took copies of that.
I probably interviewed him for about two hours and I've got that audiophile.
He's always been very helpful with us too.
It was always so apologetic about how badly it was handled by the police in the first case, and I always said to him, no, no, for you to apologize, You've only been part of getting it over the line of the Corona inquiry.
Later in this series you'll hear from Glenn Taylor again about the work that he did to get a brief of evidence to the coroner. Glenn's efforts to get to the bottom of Bromin's disappearance are ongoing. Glenn vented his frustrations in a letter he wrote to Andy and Michelle in two thousand and three, one year after the inquest.
Now that I'm out of the New South Wales Police, I can get my opinion. Regarding the original investigation, one word describes it disgraceful. The house in Sandstean Crescent should have been subject to an intensive crime scene investigation. The same for the Ford motor vehicle. There is nothing in the running sheets to indicate the vehicle was either looked at.
There was not one single statement taken from any witness, and more importantly, no statement or interview was taken from John Winfield.
Now, some things have changed since June twenty twenty three, which was when Andy told me that homicide detectives were doing nothing about Bromin's case and that it had gone completely cold. It seems the police, after years of inactivity and now getting active again, Is that right?
This whole thing sort of stirred back up with us talking.
To you, and we were very curious, and we contacted the police.
Myself and Kim went and had a meeting.
A senior officer in the police Unsolved Homicide Unit told Andy and Kim that Bromin's case was being reviewed the request of another veteran detective, George Radmore.
He put a very strong case forward upon his retirement and a request to have Borman's case looked at they're in the process of doing a complete review that I'll give them.
The benefit of doubt because they're trying to get up to speed because they're still looking for their documents.
Shortly before the release of this first episode, Andy went to see top detectives from the Homicide Squad's unsolved unit. They had asked Andy to come to a meeting for an update on how their review of the case had gone.
Basically said, well, their hands are tried. We can't do any more than what we've done, and we don't have any new evidence.
As it stands.
Yeah, okay, he said.
Going Look, I cannot apologize enough for how badly the original investigation was handled. They've got no intention of putting any more work into it.
I'm aware that today is the anniversary of Yeah, can you believe it?
Thirty one years.
Let's see where we get to after the podcast.
Then is it named?
Yeah, it is? What do you reckon we're calling it?
Yeah?
I don't know one word Bromwin. Oh lovely. You know a lot of people will start talking about Bromwin. This case never got any publicity.
Not really. No.
The Northern Star and that was it.
And that was on a milk cart and once she was on a milk cut.
We won't have that problem this time. It'll get a lot of attention. That's the game change that encourages people to come forward. We'll hear from people we've never heard of before who listen and know something that helps. I don't want to over promise, but I really hope it makes a difference. Yeah, same with me and and Kim. Bromwyn's siblings are adamant that they want the podcast to go ahead. They have been disappointed by official them too many times.
There is a lot more that the police could do. They've got the wrong mindset from back in the day. They've looked at the wrong things, and there's so many pieces of evidence that have never been presented.
Before Bromwin vanished. She was planning to welcome Kim to Lennox to the house at Sandstone Crescent for a rare visit.
I spoke to her every day on the phone about my plane flight, what time my plane would arrive, then I'd be getting on the Greyhound bus. We found the buses out together, what time the bus would arrive in Ballina. It's going to be so exciting. I'll be able to show you all my dresses in my wardrobe because I've never had an adult experience with Bonnie, if that makes sense. It was always as the youngest child, but this time it was going to be adult to adult, and so
we had all these wonderful talks. And it's only now that I could talk to someone about this.
It was Kim who first alerted me to Bromwyn's storytelling her writings, and it was Kim who appreciated how the words Bromwyn had left behind on those A four pages were used against her early on, when she no longer had a voice.
Letters that Bromwin wrote to Mum saying that she was scared for her life. There's enough circumstantial evidence.
Were those letters that she wrote to your mother.
The police won't give them back to me. They never ever ever ever find them or send them the story that she was writing. They've got the wrong idea about what's actually happened there. Bromwyn wrote a beautiful story of her history. Okay, this big large pad which some people have copies of it. The police never gave me mind back. She actually wrote this beautiful chronological list of her history
of everything. That is a story about Bromwyn and then she says, when I come back, the real Bromwyn will be back, so watch out. That statement has got nothing to do with Bromwyn going away on a three to five day respite rest. That is her writing a story. And John has used that paragraph to say that Bromwin has lost her marbles and has actually decided to act on what she was writing. And he goes, she's unstable, she's like a mother, blah blah blah.
Kim insists that in the weeks and months after Bromwin first disappeared, police in Balina, who has showing her writings, were persuaded that she wanted to leave her children, that she planned to go away.
They thought brom would have gone away for a rest because of this story that she'd written. The detectives asked us all these questions, but they asked the questions with a bias or a perspective already in place. They didn't actually investigate with an open mind.
Now I need to explain a little of the family history of Bromwan, her brother Andy Reid, and their half sister Kim Marshall. It is going to become more relevant later in this podcast series. You heard Kim make a fleeting reference to her mother, Barbara, being unstable. Barbara had postonatal depression, and in an extraordinary coincidence, Barbara disappeared too. Bromman was a toddler aged two, and her little brother Andy was six months old. Kim had not yet been born.
The circumstances were very different in Bromwin's mother's case because Barbara came back after getting treatment for her her mental health challenges. And while Barbara was away, some in her family knew where she was, they were in touch with her. But as you'll hear, a sad chapter of family history revolving around Barbara would directly influence the initial investigation into Bronwin's disappearance three decades later.
Good to meet you, missus, reed Leah Cleia, Hi, come on in.
I've come to the Sydney home of Bromwin's aunt Leah Reid and her husband John Reid. They know the family history because they lived it. Bromwin's father Philip and Bromwin's uncle John were brothers.
Thomas and I said, Jimmy's going to expect his lenks to go on, but no, no, he won't have a walking sticks.
A lovely photos here three children and grandchildren.
We've got a videotype there with Broma with a father at the hospital.
We could never understand why she didn't try modeling because she was tall and blonde and good looking.
You knew Bromman's mother, Yes, what do you recall about her?
Well, when he met her, she was a nurse in the local hospital and he had tom slatis, wasn't it And he said the first thing he saw when he woke up was Barbara's face. And everyone thought, you know, what a marvelous match because she was a real country girl. She made pickles, she knitted, she did everything, and it seemed like, you know, a marriage made in heaven. And then she had Bromwin. We noticed after that she became strange.
She'd come and stay with us in Sydney, and I noticed, don't be talking to her, and suddenly she just get this vague look on her face and stopped talking and then come back into the conversation. I don't know how long, you know, it might have only been five minutes, but it seemed like a long while. And they started taking her to various different doctors and specialists, and they said that she was just a housewife and needed to get
out more. And then we went to visit them in Wollongong and we were invited to dinner, and I noticed that Philip was the one that was cooking the steak. He was bathing the kids, and she dropped sugar all over the floor, and so he had to clean that up. And I said to him, you know what's happening, And he said he couldn't rely on her to do anything, and that he didn't know whether the kids would even be fed. I didn't come home from school at lunchtime to feed them.
We've been joined by a young woman, Madison Walsh, who helped arrange this interview between her grandparents and me. She's very curious about Bromwin's case and has been doing her own research, reading police statements and talking to relatives. Maddie is closest to Bromwin's eldest daughter, Crystal, and they are related, of course, and you're going to hear a lot more from Maddie in later episodes.
Barbara was there and then she wasn't.
Sounds like she was really struggling.
She was struggling.
She must have been.
It also sounds like a bit of like postnatal depression, which is very prevalent these days. But back in the day, you would have just been labeled as.
Well, Hey, an postnatal depression, so I know what that was about.
These sorts of issues were not as well understood.
They didn't know about it. I mean, the poor kids had a dreadful, dreadful doing.
She just took off.
We didn't know where she was.
And then she got in touch. She rang up and said that she couldn't cope with Andrew, come and get him. She just disappeared.
I think they reconnected from what I've seen in her bron was eleven and Andrew was around nine, and then they maintained contact ever since.
Then.
Barbara didn't have custody of them, which she says is why she wanted to have another child, Kim.
And then many years later Bronwan disappeared. Did the family suspect that Roman was just doing what her mother had done.
No?
Really, I didn't, well no, because she wasn't like nothing like Barbara.
We didn't ever think about it being like.
No.
I never thought it was, oh, you know, here we.
Go again, Barbara all over. Nothing happened to make us think that, and certain on me anyhow.
I think if we thought there was anything wrong with Roman, we probably would have thought it was just because of her dramatic childhood.
Brommin was an exceptionally caring and loving mother. But when she disappeared in nineteen ninety three, the actions three decades earlier of her mother Barbara, who was suffering without appropriate treatment, were raised and relied upon to so doubt to impune Bromwin and suggest that she had abandoned her kids.
And did the police, who were alerted to Broman's disappearance in nineteen ninety three contact you in that time?
No, I don't remember any police coming to us until that must have been nineteen ninety eight, and.
That's the first time you heard from police.
Yeah, hello, Hello?
Is that Meghan? Another family member who will be prominent in upcoming episodes is Bromwin's cousin, Megan Reid, the daughter of John and Leah. Meghan played a significant role in Bromwin's life, and they were in close contact before she disappeared.
Right from the get go when she was born, she used to stay with my family. We're only sixteen months apart, and we were as close as close.
Her relationship with John.
I knew what it was like.
I knew I'd seen the bruises. She showed my father's news statement to me.
It's just so shocking because I used to speak to her when she was on that phone and I could hear him yelling and screaming and being on the door.
I mean, surely other people heard it.
Now.
She was terrified of John, absolutely terrifying of him. If he had made it incredibly clear that she would never get that house. The last thing she said to me was that the best and she ever did was to move out and get away from him. She had asked my parents for money she needed to retain a solicitor.
I just can't believe the timing.
I don't understand to this day how Jonathan's walking around the streets. It just astound me as the incoonfidence.
Of the police.
They've lost a lot of the evidence.
They can't even find it, can in believe it.
They've bungled this so barely they really have.
I've lived with it for thirty years.
Bronwyn has 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 email 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 Amiot, Joshua Burton, Bridget, Ryan Bianca, far Marcus, Katie Burns, Liam Mendez, Sean Callen and 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 bromwyin 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 Story, Shandy's Legacy and The Night Driver, go to the Australian dot com dot Au and subscribe