Bronwyn podcast: Doctor backs account of key new witness
A New Zealand doctor has backed as ‘honest and truthful’ an account by a retired nurse of seeing what she feared was the body of missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield wrapped in sheets in the back of a car.
A New Zealand doctor has backed as “honest and truthful” an account by a retired nurse of seeing what she feared was the body of missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield wrapped in sheets in the back of a car.
Winsome Aroha has spoken publicly for the first time on the Bronwyn podcast about her dealings with Judy Singh, a potentially key new witness in a case that has remained unsolved for almost 32 years.
Dr Aroha confirmed she went with Ms Singh to Byron Bay police station years ago to report the sighting.
Ms Singh has said that on this and an earlier occasion when she went to police she was ignored.
“It was just honest and straightforward. I’m used to listening to people and trying to figure out whether they are telling the truth,” Dr Aroha said.
“Quite often patients don’t tell me the truth. But I knew she was telling me the truth. It was the truth that she’d experienced.”
Ms Singh came forward on the podcast last year with a chilling account of seeing a figure that “resembled a body” being transported in the back seat of a Ford Falcon late at night in mid-May 1993.
The car was being driven by Bronwyn’s estranged husband, Jon Winfield, Ms Singh said.
According to her recollection of the timing, it was the night Bronwyn vanished from Lennox Head on the NSW far north coast, leaving behind two girls, aged 10 and five.
Ms Singh lived close to the Winfields and said she tried to report what she saw from her balcony to local police within weeks, and at Byron Bay station years later when she was accompanied by a doctor she had told of the sighting.
The police she dealt with were “hardly interested” and never got back to her, Ms Singh said.
Mr Winfield, now 70, has always emphatically denied any involvement in his wife’s disappearance.
Dr Aroha was contacted by The Australian before Ms Singh’s bombshell interviews were published, and verified important details.
She had not wanted to be publicly identified at the time, but has now waived her request for anonymity.
Work colleagues at a regional NSW hospital, Dr Aroha and Ms Singh were sharing lunch one day when Ms Singh discussed what she had seen.
“She’d just seen something that was really bad. She was perturbed about it. It was clearly weighing on her,” Dr Aroha said.
“I didn’t say, ‘Hey, it sounds farfetched and ridiculous’, because it didn’t.”
Ms Singh had been “hesitant” when the pair went to Byron Bay police station.
“I was encouraging her because, you know, we’ve come this far, let’s do it. I feel that I spoke to somebody there. But just gave a very brief synopsis,” Dr Aroha said.
“I said ‘a person may have witnessed a murder’ or something like that. And she was the one who had the information.”
Eight months after Ms Singh’s bombshell interview, NSW police have been in touch with Dr Aroha after requesting her contact details from The Australian.
But unsolved homicide team detectives are yet to take a statement.
Dr Aroha is still trying to establish precise dates she worked at a NSW hospital where she met Ms Singh.
“If I can corroborate anything that she’s trying to say then I’m happy to do that. She was a straightforward medical woman and certainly not a drama queen,” Dr Aroha said.
“She was a sound person of sound mind. We had a rapport and there was no way that I wouldn’t take it seriously. I trust my instincts with people like that.”
Do you know more about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas on bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
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