Bronwyn, her cousin and the ‘phantom’ phone-in to cops
It’s a source of tension among Bronwyn Winfield’s family. Who was behind a damning police memo that painted the missing mum as a drug user and money-grabber? Megan Read is emphatic: It wasn’t me.
The cousin of missing Lennox Head woman Bronwyn Winfield has repeated her denial that she spoke to police in early 1993.
Megan Read maintains an impersonator claiming to be her spoke with Detective Sergeant Graeme Diskin in the weeks after Bronwyn was last seen at the Sandstone Crescent home she shared with her estranged husband Jon Winfield.
Her unsolved disappearance is the subject of The Australian’s podcast, BRONWYN, investigated and reported by National Chief Correspondent Hedley Thomas.
Sergeant Diskin recorded details of the phone call in a long memo disparaging of Bronwyn, who was – at that stage – being treated as a missing person, rather than a potential homicide victim.
“Megan stated that she had twice spoken to the missing person only days before her disappearance … (and) the missing person was talking a lot of rubbish, but did not seem to be affected by drugs or alcohol,” the memo states.
It also appears to divert suspicion from Jon Winfield as potentially being responsible for Bronwyn’s disappearance and alleged murder.
“Megan stated that she has no fears about Jon Winfield being involved in anything untoward, so far as his wife’s disappearance is concerned … She believes that Jon is a great father and carer of the two children involved, and would do nothing to upset the children.”
The memo goes on to paint Bronwyn as a drug user and money-grabber who was motivated to find a new, rich husband.
But Ms Read is emphatic: she never spoke to Sergeant Diskin.
In episode six of BRONWYN, she tells Thomas that she believes someone was pretending to be her.
And now, in posts made to the investigative podcast’s official discussion group on Facebook, she has repeated the claim.
“Why would I be upset at my cousin Andrew for not allowing me to speak to (Diskin) all of these years if I had spoken to him?” she wrote. “Makes zero sense.”
This call is a point of tension among the Reads.
Early in the initial police investigation, Bronwyn’s brother Andy Read told police to stop talking to Megan. She was still in regular contact with Jon Winfield at that time and Andy was concerned she might have inadvertently shared information relating to the investigation with him, allowing him to allegedly cover his tracks.
Thomas clarified this point with Megan in a response to her post. “Andy has confirmed that his request about that to Diskin came ‘several months after Bronwyn disappeared – possibly well into September 1993 or later’,” Thomas wrote. “In all that time before Andy asked for the exclusion, it would have been normal for you to have talked to police or Diskin in Lennox, wouldn’t it?
“If you weren’t talking at all to Diskin, then why would Andy have needed to ask for a termination of contact?”
Thomas added it was possible Ms Read believed she was helping the investigation by speaking with Sergeant Diskin in 1993, but she wouldn’t have made such disparaging comments about her cousin.
In episode 12 of BRONWYN, available exclusively for subscribers to The Australian, Bronwyn Winfield’s second cousin, Madison Walsh, pointed out that Sergeant Diskin’s memo is not a signed police statement and Ms Read’s name is spelled incorrectly.
But she notes the phone number recorded is consistent with the landline held in Megan’s name in 1993.
“We don’t know if she had a phone call with Diskin and things were said, and Diskin took them out of context and put them in his own words to make it seem like Bronwyn had run away … and he created this unofficial statement of sorts,” Ms Walsh said. “But the fact is, it’s Megan’s phone number. I mean, unless someone was in her house – I don’t know.”
Responding to her aunt’s Facebook post, Ms Walsh said her belief Megan had spoken with the investigating detective was based on the evidence available. She recently graduated from a forensic science degree and is assisting Thomas with the investigation into Bronwyn’s disappearance and presumed murder.
“It was, in my view, an unbiased opinion that you spoke to Diskin in ’93,” Ms Walsh wrote.
“It’s an unsigned statement, so I have never claimed it was your exact words put on paper. I merely suggested that, in your discussion with Diskin, he took your words out of context, wrote down (in his words) what he wanted to hear, and made a running sheet.
“I work hard to stay true to the evidence and (give) my honest views, regardless of how they are perceived, which is what I promised to do from the beginning.”
In her post, Ms Read again expresses her belief that the person she claims impersonated her in the phone call with Sergeant Diskin also called the Sydney salon where Jon Winfield’s daughter Jodie worked as a hairdresser in the weeks after Bronwyn vanished. In that instance, the caller identified herself as Bronwyn and asked that a message be relayed to Jodie the next time she was at work: “Tell Jodie I’m OK. I’m in Queensland and I’m not coming back.”
“I believe I was with my husband and children at our family’s apartment in Surfer’s Paradise as we had our last family holiday ever (got divorced) that September in Queensland and I have all the photos,” Megan wrote.
“Jon knew I was in Queensland … and knew it would be a good time for someone to impersonate me and say they were calling.”
Referencing debate about the origin of the call, she wrote: “There was no caller identification back then. If (Diskin) had called back, I would have been away.”
In a previous post, Megan said she provided phone records from April 1993 to November 1994 to former deputy state coroner Carl Milovanovich at a 2002 inquest into Bronwyn’s disappearance – and notes the detective’s phone number is not listed as one of the long-distance calls recorded.
Ms Read ended her post by vehemently denying she spoke to Sergeant Diskin in 1993. “I am as certain of this as I am that the sun rises each day. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever. There was nothing in that statement that I would ever have said … This is bulls …! Makes me very angry.”
