Bronwyn podcast: Focus turns to building site concrete pour in search for missing mum

Relatives of Bronwyn Winfield are zeroing in on a house in suburban Sydney as a possible location of her remains as council records show concrete was poured there at the time she vanished.

Bronwyn Winfield's remains could be under a suburban Sydney home, her relatives believe.

Relatives of Bronwyn Winfield are zeroing in on a house in suburban Sydney as a possible location of the missing mother’s remains, as council records show concrete was being poured at the property about the time she vanished.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy Read, has long suspected her body may have been driven from Lennox Head on the NSW north coast to Illawong and buried at a building site where her estranged husband, Jon Winfield, was working 31 years ago.

Mr Read and Bronwyn’s cousin Madi Walsh have tracked down and obtained the building application file for the Illawong house, the latest episode of The Australian’s Bronwyn podcast reveals.

Three days before Bronwyn disappeared, builders were given approval to proceed with a garage slab incorporating a front porch, the file states.

Concrete was poured at the Illa­wong house in the days after Bronwyn went missing, leaving time for her remains to be interred at the property, Mr Read believes.

“The garage slab inspection was signed off on Thursday, 13th of May (1993),” said Mr Read, a builder himself. “The garage and front porch slabs were given the tick of approval to be able to pour, which we believe from conversations (with the builder) was poured on Tuesday or the Wednesday the following week.”

If the timeline is correct, concrete was poured two or three days after Bronwyn went missing, and after Mr Winfield had returned to Sydney following a rushed trip to Lennox Head the day Bronwyn disappeared.

Mr Winfield, now 69, has always emphatically denied involvement and has never been charged.

“The garage slab would have been backfilled with dirt. You would have needed to detach the top layer of mesh in a section – the reinforcement,” Mr Read said.

“There was no need for footings or anything because the footings were already poured.

“(The person) would need to lift up the mesh in some way. Lift back the plastic. Dig down.

Dig a trench long enough to put someone in there. Roll the body in underneath there. Put the dirt back down, spread the dirt around, put the plastic back down neatly. Lower the mesh back down.”

The front porch beside the ­garage was part of the same pour, and the same scenario applied, he said. The soil would have been loose and easily dug up.

“It wasn’t as if you were digging into virgin ground. The block of land slopes backwards … could have been 600mm, 700mm, two or three foot, of loose fill.”

The long-time police suspect in Bronwyn’s alleged murder, Mr Winfield was helping to build the two-storey family house at Illawong for Sydney builder Glenn Webster.

After hearing that Bronwyn had moved back into the former matrimonial home in Sandstone Crescent at Lennox Head with her two girls while he was working away, Mr Winfield flew to Ballina on Sunday, May 16, 1993.

After going to the home that evening, he said Bronwyn made some phone calls before being picked up in a car driven by an unknown person.

In a spontaneous decision, he told police, he then loaded Bronwyn’s daughter from a previous relationship, Chrystal, 10, and their daughter Lauren, five, into the family Ford Falcon sedan in the middle of the night and drove to Sydney. Bronwyn, 31, was never seen or heard from again.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr Webster, who has said that during the Illawong house project, “Jon suddenly left”.

Mr Winfield was allegedly anxious and agitated on the Monday when he arrived back in Sydney, saying “there’s a concrete pour, it’s coming”, the podcast revealed.

Ms Walsh said she was “very intrigued to know if the owners of this house follow the podcast” and if they had heard of Bronwyn.

“Obviously, it’s awful to think that place could be her resting place. And they’ve been living there for however long,” she said.

“You can’t really sugar-coat it. It’s shitty regardless. Whether she’s in some body of water, whether she’s on the side of the road or under a slab of concrete, it’s terrible. We can only hope that maybe we’ll find her remains.”

Earlier this year, a search was organised by the Bronwyn podcast of the tannin-stained Lake Ainsworth in Lennox Head as another possible location of her remains.

Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas at [e-mail]