Bronwyn podcast: Jon Winfield linked to Bronwyn hippie claim

A discredited claim that missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield was alive and living in a hippie community may have originated from her estranged husband, murder suspect Jon Winfield.

Jon Winfield with daughter Jodie.

A discredited claim that missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield was alive and living in a hippie community may have originated from her estranged husband, murder suspect Jon Winfield.

On the opening day of an inquest into Bronwyn’s disappearance, Mr Winfield’s daughter from a previous relationship, Jodie Main, came forward with startling information.

Ms Main told the lead investigator and the police officer assisting coroner Carl Milovanovich that Bronwyn was known to be somewhere near Nimbin.

She said she was informed of Bronwyn’s purported whereabouts in a phone call earlier that morning from a woman named “Kaylene”, who had been told about it by another woman named “Joanne”.

Detective Glenn Taylor followed up during the day, tracking down Joanne, who denied ever making the claim to Kaylene about Bronwyn being in Nimbin.

The claim came up again on the second day of the inquest, held in Lismore in 2002, and is examined in forensic detail in a new episode of The Australian’s investigative podcast, Bronwyn.

Called to give evidence on the second day, Ms Main was questioned about the Nimbin claim by Matt Fordham, the officer assisting the coroner.

Mr Fordham appeared suspicious of the late emergence of purported evidence of Bronwyn being alive after vanishing from her home in Lennox Head on the night of May 16, 1993.

Bronwyn Winfield disappeared in May 1993, leaving behind two daughters, 10 and 5.

Mr Winfield was the prime police suspect in Bronwyn’s dis­appearance by the time of the inquest. Now 70, he has always denied any involvement in the 31-year-old mother of two going missing.

According to Ms Main, Kaylene phoned the Winfield family home in Lennox Head asking to speak to Bronwyn’s daughter, Chrystal. Kaylene had photographs to share of Bronwyn and Chrystal’s biological father, Mark Davis. During the call, she was said to have claimed that her friend Joanne was confident Bronwyn was around Nimbin.

Ms Main took notes about the call and handed them to police, writing: “Joanne says she’s out Nimbin way, they know.”

Kaylene Jones and Bronwyn were close friends as teenagers growing up in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. Ms Jones was called to give evidence and confirmed she spoke to Ms Main, but her version of what was said had important differences.

Bronwyn and Jon Winfield.

“I told Jodie that I got a phone call years ago from Joanne saying that Bronwyn was supposedly in the Nimbin area,” Ms Jones said.

“I’ve lived around Nimbin for 11 years and said if she was around there, I would have seen her, and I hadn’t seen her. And I knew she wasn’t there, basically.”

Ms Jones has been following the Bronwyn podcast and sent The Australian an email with a 16-page letter attached.

Her letter states Ms Main “said the inquest was to paint her father black and Bronwyn had just walked out on them”.

Significantly, Ms Jones said she remembered telling Ms Main in the call that it was Mr Winfield who first suggested Bronwyn could be in Nimbin.

“What I said was that Joanne had heard years ago through Megan, Bronwyn’s cousin, that Jon had alleged that Bronwyn was out Nimbin way,” Ms Jones elaborated in a separate interview with the podcast.

She said she didn’t tell the inquest this key detail because she gave evidence at short notice and did not have a chance to expand on her answers.

Joanne Guthrie, the woman nominated by Ms Main as having information about Bronwyn being in Nimbin, has also shed light on where the suggestion originated.

“My recollection … was that Megan contacted myself and said that she had heard that Bronwyn was living out near Nimbin way,” Ms Guthrie told the Bronwyn ­podcast.

It was possible Megan heard of Bronwyn’s purported location from Mr Winfield.

The Bronwyn podcast is recreating crucial evidence from the five-day inquest.