After breakthroughs and bombshells, Bronwyn podcast nears its conclusion

The series was only ever intended to be one season of about 10 episodes, but now spans more than 30 episodes over three seasons.

Bronwyn Winfield. Picture: Supplied

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The Australian’s investigative podcast series Bronwyn – about the unsolved disappearance and alleged murder of Lennox Head mother Bronwyn Winfield – is nearing its conclusion more than a year after it premiered.

The podcast – created by The Australian’s national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas – was only ever intended to be one season of about 10 episodes, but now spans more than 30 episodes over three seasons.

Bronwyn vanished from her home on Sandstone Crescent in Lennox Head on the NSW far-north coast on May 16, 1993.

Police investigations conducted over the past three decades have largely failed to shed any light on Bronwyn’s fate, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has declined to prosecute her husband, Jon Winfield, for her murder.

Mr Winfield has always maintained Bronwyn left the family home in Lennox Head voluntarily and vehemently denies he played any role in her disappearance.

The Australian’s national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. Picture: Britta Campion

“We are definitely bringing the series to a conclusion now because we’ve covered so much ground and spent (several) episodes reconstructing really important parts of the evidence,” Thomas told The Australian’s daily news podcast The Front.

“We’ve interviewed so many dozens of witnesses from back in the day, but also new people who have come forward. There isn’t much more that we can do.”

Thomas said it was now time for the NSW Police Unsolved Homicide Unit and NSW Coroner Theresa O’Sullivan to consider new evidence brought to light through the investigation.

“In December of last year, (Bronwyn’s brother) Andy Read wrote to the Coroner Theresa O’Sullivan and … set out all of the very compelling reasons why … a search beneath an existing property in Illawong in the Shire south of Sydney is now something that really should be seriously considered,” he said.

The Bronwyn podcast revealed new evidence about the timing of concrete pours at a home in Illawong, where Mr Winfield was working as a bricklayer around the time his wife vanished. That information wasn’t previously available to investigators.

“That’s one of the very significant new pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing to something that could possibly resolve this long cold case,” Thomas said.

Michelle Read, Andy Read and Madison Walsh in production with The Australian’s Hedley Thomas and Claire Harvey.

The Bronwyn podcast series is the product of thousands of hours of research, production, and collaboration between The Australian’s journalists, audio and video experts, as well as listeners and volunteers such as Karina Berger, who’s now working with the team on an ongoing basis.

Karina Berger.

Cumulatively, the team will have produced more than 40 hours of audio, equating to around 450,000 words – or enough to fill around five longer-than-average books.

“Andy and his wife Michelle, and other loved ones of Bronwyn, wanted to ensure that a podcast would, where possible, leave no stone unturned.

“We obviously do not have the powers of police to be able to do certain things that involve, say, surveillance and telephone intercepts, but we have gone very deeply with this case,” Thomas said.

His 2018 podcast The Teacher’s Pet – which revealed former high-school teacher and rising rugby league star Christopher ­Michael Dawson murdered his first wife, Lynette Simms – has been downloaded more than 100 million times globally.

“That’s what I find with these podcast investigations: when they go deep and broad and wide, they are amazingly effective – more effective than any other journalism I’ve been involved in before, and that’s why people talk about the power of these productions.”

Hedley Thomas with members of Bronwyn Winfield’s family. Picture: Britta Campion

New episodes of Bronwyn – the first of which was released on Friday – will examine a decision by the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions not to charge Mr Winfield with Bronwyn’s murder, despite a finding by former deputy state coroner Carl Milovanovich that he was responsible.

The series will also look at previous cold case reviews conducted by NSW Police in the years since Bronwyn vanished.

“And I’m hoping to sit down with the people who have been most important throughout the investigation, because I first started talking to Andy Read, Bronwyn’s brother, in 2018, and to his sister Kim Marshall a little bit earlier than that, during The Teacher’s Pet,” Thomas said.

“It’s taken this long to get to this stage but … hopefully we can regroup at some stage if some announcements are made, some actions taken, but that’s not a matter for us. It’s really a matter for the police.”

Subscribers listen to Episode 33 of Bronwyn now at bronwynpodcast.com.

If you have information that may help solve this case, you can contact our team confidentially at [e-mail]