Breakthrough lands with emotional hammer blow for Bronwyn Winfield’s loved ones
Before now, Bronwyn Winfield’s brother and sister-in-law have endured three decades without any answers about the fate of their loved one: ‘This is sickening’.
The news might have taken 31 years to be delivered, but it landed with an emotional hammer blow.
Andy Read, the brother of missing Lennox Head mother Bronwyn Winfield, and his wife Michelle sat in the lounge room of their home in Sydney on Thursday night and learned – through the latest shocking episode of The Australian’s investigative podcast, Bronwyn – that a neighbour just may have seen their loved one’s body on the night she disappeared in 1993.
Nearly a month into the new Hedley Thomas podcast series on Bronwyn’s disappearance, retired nurse Judy Singh’s explosive allegations that she saw a body in the back of Bronwyn’s estranged husband Jon Winfield’s car prompted police to move swiftly to contact Ms Singh, two hours after her claims were revealed on Thursday.
“It’s mind-numbing, mind-numbing,” Andy said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know how to put it, really. It doesn’t even feel like relief. I’ve always known something happened in that house that night.”
The Reads, sitting side by side on a brown leather sofa, listened to the new allegations from Ms Singh and couldn’t contain their anger, frustration and sorrow. The couple intermittently gasped and held their palms to their foreheads, patted each other’s shoulders and embraced. At one point, Michelle brushed a tear off her cheek.
Ms Singh, now 69, told the Bronwyn podcast that late on Sunday, May 16, 1993, she witnessed the Winfields’ white Ford Falcon drive slowly down Granite Street in Lennox Head, a short cross-street from Sandstone Crescent and the Winfield family home. The car, with its interior light on, contained what looked like a body wrapped in a sheet in the back seat.
Soon after, Ms Singh reported the chilling sighting to Ballina police, but nothing was done.
For the Reads, who have endured three decades without answers about the fate of their beloved Bronwyn, 31, a devoted mother of two small daughters – Chrystal, then 10, and Lauren, 5 – the claims were difficult to digest. Michelle was flabbergasted.
“She (Judy Singh) is 100 per cent telling the truth,” Ms Read added. “Why would anyone make that up? She didn’t even know Bronwyn was missing at the time and she’s seen something on the night that nobody else knew about. Not even us.”
For Mr Read, the fresh information rekindled his disgust at the inadequate initial police investigation into his sister’s disappearance.
“No (police) running sheet, no nothing, no notation … f..k they’re hopeless,” he said, red-faced. “You tell someone you saw a body in a car, and they just do nothing.”
Ms Singh told the podcast she had been on her front deck in Granite Street, just 50m from the Winfield family home, when she saw the car with its interior light on cruise past her house. She identified the driver as Bronwyn’s husband Jon. Ms Singh attempted to report to police what she’d seen in 1993, and again more than a decade later to Byron Bay police. But detectives never took a statement from her and showed little interest in the sighting.
Mr Read said: “This poor lady, to have to live with this, to go to the police station twice … and they discount it and don’t take a proper statement? What’s wrong with them? It’s unbelievable this poor lady’s had to live with that. Has breast cancer … thinks she’s going to take it to her grave.”
“Poor lady,” Ms Read reiterated. “She would’ve felt she’d done the right thing … this is sickening.”
The NSW police’s response to Ms Singh’s allegations was swift.
Episode 7 of the Bronwyn podcast – Did Judy See Bronwyn’s Body? – went live on The Australian’s website and app at 5pm on Thursday. Shortly after 7pm, a NSW police media representative contacted The Australian seeking assistance in contacting Ms Singh.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner and commander of State Crime Command Michael Fitzgerald then emailed podcast creator Thomas at 7.20pm requesting Ms Singh’s contact details. Thomas passed them on.
Ms Singh has said she will fully co-operate with police.
“The investigation into the 1993 disappearance and suspected murder of Bronwyn Winfield remains under the responsibility of the Homicide Squad’s Unsolved Homicide Team,” a NSW police spokeswoman said on Friday.
“In 2022, Strike Force Chelmsbrook was established to reinvestigate the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. The investigation remains ongoing, and detectives have recently been provided information regarding a potential witness and are in the process of making arrangements to speak with that person.”
It has been a long road for the Reads. In March 1993, just prior to her disappearance, Bronwyn (who had spent part of her childhood and teenage years in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire) had separated from Jon, a well-known surfer in Lennox Head and a respected bricklayer, and she was living in a rented flat on the road out of town. It was her second marriage, his third.
To make ends meet during that difficult time, Bronwyn had taken a part-time job working at a local takeaway food store, Edens, near the Lennox waterfront. Then in April she had begun speaking with solicitors and was facing an impending custody and matrimonial assets dispute with her husband.
Jon at the time was working on a job in Sydney and Bronwyn made the decision, in his absence, to leave the cold flat and move back into the family home in Sandstone Crescent.
Her husband had changed the locks but she called a locksmith and gained access to the property. On hearing Bronwyn was back in the house – a place Bronwyn had referred to as “his castle, my prison” – Winfield flew to Ballina on May 16, and was back in Sandstone Crescent by evening.
Jon later told police his wife told him she needed to take a few days break from the children and later that night she was picked up at the house by a person unknown and was never seen again.
He said he then bundled Chrystal and Lauren into the white Falcon and drove through the night to Sydney, arriving on Monday morning. That Sunday night, however, Ms Singh, now 69, was worried about her personal health and family finances, and was up late, sitting on the deck of her house in Granite Street. The high-set house, built on a steep incline, had a clear view down into the short thoroughfare.
“I was having trouble with my pregnancy,” she recalled. “I was worried about miscarriage, actually, and just sitting up. My children had gone to bed. I just couldn’t sleep worrying about it all. I saw the car pull out at the end of the street and the light was on in their car. It was fairly squeaky brakes on that car. He drove very slowly along the street, but he had left the car light on and I could see directly into the car. I had a small lantern on the balcony rail, and he kind of looked up this night, and I saw this … what looked to be like a mummy in the back of the car.”
She added: “The head of the mummy was in the corner. Pressing up against the door. She was quite upright.”
Ms Singh was working as a nurse at the time. “I know that he had something in that car that resembled a body,” she told the Bronwyn podcast. “Just made me feel sick. Just a body shape in the back seat. Without a doubt in my mind, it was him (Jon). He looked up when he saw me. And I could see this mummy-like thing. I hate saying mummy because it is somebody’s Mummy, but it was a long white (thing) with a rounded head right in the very corner of the back of the car as it went past.”
She also saw a surfboard in the back seat of the vehicle, the point of the board crossing into the front seat through the centre console.
Having been unable to get police to take her seriously over more than 30 years, Ms Singh reached out to Thomas and his podcast, Bronwyn.
Halfway through listening to the bombshell podcast episode for the first time, Mr Read texted a member of the NSW Unsolved Homicide Team, saying: “You need to be listening to this now.”
One police officer who did listen back in the day was retired detective Glenn Taylor. Taylor had transferred from Newcastle to Ballina in late 1996 and was completely unaware of the Bronwyn case. When he looked at the file he was “shocked” at what little work had been done on the investigation. He resuscitated the case in 1998 and took dozens of statements. The case, he said, had “several red flags” from the outset.
Taylor, 65, said on Friday from his home in Ballina: “I was astounded at this extraordinary news coming out. I was very excited, first of all, that we may be able to finally move this investigation forward.
“I was particularly excited that there’s a possibility that Unsolved Homicide will have a further look at this matter, and that could lead to further developments. I also had a touch of sadness for Bronwyn’s children, to hear this extraordinary information come out. I was sad for the family.”
Police on Friday reiterated that a $100,000 reward remained on offer for information that might lead to the arrest and conviction of the person/s responsible for Bronwyn’s death. “As investigations under Strike Force Chelmsbrook continue, detectives urge anyone who may have information that could assist to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000,” police said.
In 2002, deputy state coroner Carl Milovanovich recommended Mr Winfield be prosecuted over his wife’s alleged murder. Then DPP Nicholas Cowdery KC refused on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Mr Winfield has always strenuously denied any involvement in the disappearance of Bronwyn. He has never been charged in relation to the case. He still lives in Lennox Head. When a journalist from The Australian tried to approach him at his home in South Lennox on Thursday afternoon, he immediately drove away again. He was nowhere to be seen at the property on Friday morning. His rubbish bins had not been put out for their Friday morning pick-up.
Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
