Bronwyn Winfield podcast: Sister’s evidence blows apart ‘proof of life’ claim

Crucial evidence debunking a claim that missing mother Bronwyn Winfield returned to her family home and left a Medicare cheque has been ignored, her sister says.

Bronwyn Winfield, right, and her sister Kim Marshall.

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Crucial evidence debunking a claim that missing mother Bronwyn Winfield returned to her family home and left a Medicare cheque has been ignored, her sister says.

Kim Marshall said she saw the cheque bearing Bronwyn’s purported signature when she stayed in the home in Lennox Head on the NSW far north coast in June 1993, several weeks after Bronwyn disappeared.

Her account directly contradicts a claim by Bronwyn’s estranged husband Jon that the cheque suddenly turned up at the house later, when he was in Sydney with his stepdaughter, Chrystal, 10, and daughter, Lauren, 5, over the July school holidays.

Mr Winfield told police and Bronwyn’s worried family and friends that she must have quietly returned to the home and left the cheque while he was away, and that it was proof she was alive.

Ms Marshall says police have never taken a statement from her about the cheque, and that it is significant because it shoots a hole in a key part of Mr Winfield’s version of events.

If she is right in her recollection, it shows the cheque was already in the house before Mr Winfield claimed Bronwyn must have returned to the property and left it there while he was away in Sydney in July.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy Read, has questioned if the cheque was already in the house when Bronwyn disappeared and was later falsely used by Mr Winfield as “proof of life” when he came under pressure over her disappearance.

“Jon’s saying that Bronwyn’s returned to the house and she’s signed it. The whole piece of evidence that is missing is that I was in the house at week three after Bronwyn going. That Medicare cheque was already there,” Ms Marshall told the Bronwyn podcast.

Ms Marshall said previous police investigations effectively sidelined her, and as a result her first-hand knowledge of the Medicare cheque was not put into a formal statement.

“I’ve been always discounted and dismissed. In this instance, it’s happened again, and I just don’t understand why it’s not a significant piece of evidence,” she said.

Bronwyn disappeared from her family home on the night of Sunday, May 16, 1993.

Mr Winfield was the last person to see or hear from her, and said she had made a phone call, and was then picked up in a car by an unknown person.

He has always denied any involvement in her disappearance.

Ms Marshall lived in Tasmania and her visit to Lennox Head was planned before Bronwyn went missing.

“I spoke to her every day on the phone about my plane flight, what time my plane would arrive, when I’d be going to hair expo, then I’d be getting on the Greyhound bus,” she said.

“We found the buses out together, what time the bus would arrive in Ballina.

“Because I’d never had an adult experience with Bronnie – 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.”

Bronwyn was excited about the visit, and told Ms Marshall, then aged 20: “I’ll be able to show you all my dresses in my wardrobe”.

When Bronwyn disappeared, neither Ms Marshall nor their mother Barbara suspected Mr Winfield harmed her.

Ms Marshall went ahead with her trip and stayed in the Lennox Head house with Chrystal, Lauren and Mr Winfield in June, just weeks after Bronwyn went missing. She said the Medicare cheque was “in full view” and that she discussed it with Mr Winfield.

Bronwyn and Jon Winfield with their daughter Lauren.

Dated May 1, 1993, 15 days before Bronwyn went missing, the cheque was for $40.80 and was made out to a doctor who treated her. At the time, the federal government issued cheques in a doctor’s name to cover medical appointments, but sent them to patients to pass on.

Strangely, Bronwyn’s purported signature was on the cheque when it was meant to be signed by the GP it was made out to, Dr Francis Hughes.

“I had a conversation in detail with Jonathan about it, because I love the fact of all the letter-writing that’s happened over the years, that Bronwyn’s printing is so beautiful … like my mother’s running writing and my own writing,” Ms Marshall said.

“I made the comment of how … all of us ladies in the family have the most beautiful writing.”

Police sent the cheque to London’s Scotland Yard to compare the signature to Bronwyn’s known handwriting, she said.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy Read, said police believed the cheque was forged. Bronwyn’s cousin, Megan Read, told the podcast that “Scotland Yard said it wasn’t her signature”.

Ms Marshall doesn’t rule out the possibility it was forged, but believed her recollection of seeing the cheque before Mr Winfield went to Sydney was “crucial and very, very serious”.

Police kept her and her mother away from a 2002 inquest that concluded with a coroner recommending Mr Winfield be prosecuted over Bronwyn’s alleged murder, she said.

Then-NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery KC declined to prosecute Mr Winfield, citing insufficient evidence.

“My brother and my sister-in-law (Andy and Michelle Read) followed the police’s directive orders to keep my mother and myself out of any type of involvement in Bronwyn’s missing person case or the inquest,” Ms Marshall said.

“Am I being ignored because I was young? Am I being ignored because of (issues with) mental health? Am I being ignored because I’m a female? They’re the questions that I live with every day, for many, many years and they’re destroying me.”

Mr Read said he remembered Ms Marshall raising her Medicare cheque observations with him during the inquest. He did not know why a statement wasn’t taken from her about it.

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