NSW Police tight-lipped as Bronwyn Winfield investigation continues

A police investigation into Bronwyn Winfield’s suspected murder remains ‘ongoing’, as one of the state’s top cops conceded updates may instead be first aired on The Australian’s investigative podcast.

Jon Winfield at Sharpes Beach, Ballina. Picture: Liam Mendes

NSW Police’s investigation into Bronwyn Winfield’s suspected murder remains “ongoing” as one of the state’s top cops conceded updates may instead be first aired on The Australian’s investigative podcast.

Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty, commander of the state police’s homicide squad, said there also remained “insufficient evidence” to lay charges against Bronwyn’s estranged husband, bricklayer Jon Winfield, who denies any wrong­doing and has never been charged in connection to her disappearance.

Speaking on Thursday in Sydney, Superintendent Doherty declined to provide an update on the investigation after police requested material from The Australian’s Bronwyn podcast in August, including “raw and unedited” video and audio recordings, documents, emails, text messages and other material.

It followed the chilling account of a new witness and a search of a tannin-stained lake for her body.

“(Bronwyn’s suspected murder) is a current investigation, and it’s well documented in The Australian’s podcast,” Superintendent Doherty said on Thursday.

“But in terms of the unsolved homicide team, they have that investigation as current and (it is) ongoing.”

Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty, commander of NSW Police’s homicide squad, on Thursday. Picture: Alexi Demetriadi

Superintendent Doherty added: “(You’ll) probably read about it in The Australian or (its) podcast … that’s probably the way some people would like to get their news”.

A 2002 coronial inquest found Bronwyn died at the time of her disappearance, with deputy state coroner Carl Milovanovich then recommending that her husband be prosecuted over her alleged murder.

Retired nurse Judy Singh came forward on the podcast in August to reveal she saw a “mummy-like thing” that “resembled a body”, wrapped in what looked like bedsheets, in the back of a car.

NSW Police’s Unsolved Homicide Team sought mat­erial relating to Ms Singh and three other potentially corroborating witnesses, all women she spoke to about the alleged sighting: Kerry McLean, Virginia Beves and a New Zealand doctor.

On Monday, The Australian revealed how Mr Winfield told police he was “dead against” any media coverage to help raise awareness of his estranged wife’s disappearance, saying that there had already been plenty of media in the past.

“Like I said, it’s, I’m really dead, dead against any more media because of what, the kids, you know,” he said in an interview at Ballina police station in August 1998.

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