Bronwyn podcast: Jon Winfield said Beverley Brooker wanted a quiet funeral. Her brother says he’s an ‘absolute control freak’
Only eight people showed up to the Ballina funeral of Beverley Brooker, a woman born and bred in the northern NSW town and who worked there her whole life, but it was still too many for Jon Winfield.
Only eight people showed up to the Ballina funeral of Beverley Brooker – a woman who was born and bred in the northern NSW town and worked there her whole life – but it was still too many for Jon Winfield.
Mr Winfield had tried to lead an extremely low profile life since the suspicious disappearance of his wife Bronwyn decades ago, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He’d done some work for the 71-year-old Ms Brooker when she was terminally ill with cancer and living alone, and she’d suddenly changed her will.
Almost everything in Ms Brooker’s multimillion-dollar estate – which had included a big, ocean-facing townhouse, savings and two brand new cars – was left to Mr Winfield, leaving her relatives shocked and confused.
Seemingly wary of attracting wider attention to his mystery relationship with Ms Brooker, Mr Winfield took total control of her service at a funeral home in the northern NSW town in 2022.
“He was telling us that it was Bev’s wishes that it was all done on the quiet,” Ms Brooker’s brother, Geoff Outerbridge, tells a new episode of the Bronwyn podcast.
“So he said, ‘there’s nothing for you to organise’. He’s a control freak. An absolute control freak.”
Mr Winfield brought to the service a young woman he introduced as his daughter. She took notes throughout the funeral, the podcast reveals.
“She would look up and observe us and then go back to writing on the notepad. And she was observing our reactions and emotions,” Mr Outerbridge said.
“And I said, ‘that’s very strange. No one does that at a funeral service. Why would they do that?’”
Ms Brooker’s family later identified Mr Winfield’s guest through photos as Lauren Winfield, the daughter he had with Bronwyn.
On a Sunday night in May, 1993, Bronwyn, 31, vanished from the family home that she had shared with Mr Winfield and their daughters at Lennox Head.
Lauren was just three at the time. Bronwyn’s daughter from a previous relationship, Chrystal, was 10.
The couple was in the process of divorcing, and Bronwyn was entitled to as much as half their assets.
Mr Winfield, now 70, has for years been the only known police suspect in Bronwyn’s disappearance and suspected murder. He has always categorically denied any involvement.
There is no suggestion he harmed Ms Brooker, who had an uncanny resemblance to Bronwyn, but relatives of both women hold suspicions about his motives in befriending her, as well as her capacity to make sound decisions.
No ad was placed in the newspaper about Ms Brooker’s funeral.
Notably, there was not one photo at the service of Ms Brooker with Mr Winfield, the man she had named prime beneficiary and executor in her final will and testament.
Ms Brooker’s father was a Ballina shopkeeper. She went on to work in the town for more than 50 years in the same job with the NSW government’s roads and maritime service.
“She was heavily involved with all her work colleagues. She had a lot of good close friends at her work,” her brother Geoff said.
She had once been married, adopting her ex-husband’s name, and he had remained on good terms with family members.
But the only people at the funeral who had been invited by Mr Winfield were her brothers Geoff and Paul, and Paul’s wife Sarah.
Mr Winfield was unhappy that Ms Brooker’s nephew Luke from the Gold Coast turned up at the funeral, Geoff told the podcast.
Nor had Mr Winfield welcomed an elderly couple from an Alstonville church that Ms Brooker used to attend.
“We didn’t run it by Jon to get permission that they could attend. They turned up on the day, and it was a bit of a shock to Jon because he didn’t know they were going to be there. So he wasn’t happy,” Geoff said.
Ms Brooker’s older 2011 will left everything in her estate to a cousin in Victoria she was close to. But in March 2022, with her health rapidly deteriorating, she changed her will and left everything to Mr Winfield.
The only exception was $200,000 bequeathed to the cousin who was originally the sole beneficiary. Even that cousin was not at the funeral.
It was a shock to her brothers when they later found out the will’s terms, because Ms Brooker had never spoken of Mr Winfield or there being anyone significant in her life.
She had mesothelioma, it spread to her brain and she died in St Vincent’s Hospital in Lismore in September 2022.
Looking at the decisions she made just before she died, her brothers are convinced she was not in her right mind.
Mr Winfield had been helping renovate her townhouse at Skennars Head, where he had his own home a short walk away.
Geoff stayed in regular contact with his sister, and for a time they visited their elderly mum in an aged care home together. Mr Winfield was never mentioned.
“Mum knew nothing about him. I knew nothing about him. And my brother knew nothing about him.”
It was only after Ms Brooker’s funeral that her family found out about Mr Winfield’s missing wife. “My sister-in-law said, ‘do you know who this is? Have you looked him up on the internet’,” Geoff said. “I said, ‘no, I don’t know. Never heard of him before’. And that’s when she showed me on her laptop the story of Jonathan Winfield. I was stunned. I thought ‘how can this be true?’
“My sister was a very clever lady and I said, ‘well, what was Bev doing mixed up with this guy?’ Like, didn’t she know who he was and what he was all about?
“I’m sure Bev would have known the story of Jonathan Winfield, and I can’t understand why she ended up mixed up or had anything to do with him. She didn’t live under a rock. She was a very intelligent woman, up until the last little bit of her life when she obviously was affected by the cancer. I don’t know why she put so much trust in this guy and let him do what he wanted to do.”
Geoff went to see a solicitor and was told it was “going to be financially impossible” for him to challenge the will.
His brother Paul “went and got his own counsel” and was also advised not to go down that path.
“I wish I had known more about him at the time. We could have included ourselves much more in the funeral service. My sister wasn’t like that. Even when my mum passed away and there was a service held for my mum, she brought along all her work colleagues with her as back-up and help for her at my mum’s service. But there was no Jon.”
Since the funeral, Mr Winfield had gone silent. “I’ve phoned him a couple of times. He won’t return my calls. I have not heard from him since the day of the funeral.”
Do you know more about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas on thomash@theaustralian.com.au
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