Bronwyn podcast: the strange detail neighbours noticed after Bronwyn Winfield’s disappearance

A neighbour who entered the house of missing mother Bronwyn Winfield the morning after she disappeared was struck by its state, at odds with its usual permanent showroom-level cleanliness | LISTEN

Playmates Lauren Winfield, Aymee, Keira and Mel Taylor and Chrystal Winfield in the early 1990s; Mel Taylor today, inset.

A neighbour who entered the house of missing Lennox Head mother Bronwyn Winfield two days after she disappeared was struck by how strangely lived in it was, at odds with its usual state of almost obsessive cleanliness.

Mel Taylor lived next door to the Winfields in Sandstone Crescent, in south Lennox on the NSW far north coast, and was best friends with Bronwyn’s daughter Chrystal when Bronwyn, 31, went missing in 1993.

She, her parents Deb and Murray, and other friends and acquaintances of Bronwyn and her husband, Jon, were always struck by the house’s permanent showroom-level cleanliness.

Stories about Jon’s compulsion for perfection were legion.

“Any mess whatsoever he would just go crazy,” Mel recalled. “If the girls had eaten any food and made a mess on the floor with the food, and he had seen it, he would be very angry. We’re talking minimal, like crumbs.”

When Mel and her parents went into the suburban house 48 hours after Bronwyn vanished, they observed the usual lived in status of any normal family – dishes in the sink and unmade beds – a far cry from the exacting demands of Jon Winfield.

Bronwyn’s daughters – Chrystal, then 10, and Lauren, then 5 – were great mates with Mel, who was 12 at the time. The girls often played together in the steep street overlooking the The Coast Road and Boulders Beach, and in a nearby park.

Bronwyn and Jon separated in March 1993. She and her two daughters moved into a small townhouse on the road out of Lennox village, but in mid-May she and the girls returned to the family home in Sandstone Crescent while Jon, a builder, was working on a job in Sydney.

On Sunday afternoon, May 16, 1993, Bronwyn, who had been working a shift at Edens Takeaway downtown, returned home and spoke to Mel. Her parents had become good friends with Bronwyn.

Mel was intimate with what was happening in her friend Chrystal’s family life. She’d even helped the family move boxes from the townhouse back to Sandstone Crescent. Bronwyn had had to call in a locksmith to gain entry to the property.

Bronwyn had also sought legal advice on her impending divorce and was due to meet a solicitor to discuss custody and financial settlements.

Mel said she was wary of her friend’s father, Jon, and tried to stay out of his way.

“He used to frighten me,” she told The Australian’s podcast Bronwyn. “The way he used to treat the girls. His demeanour.”

On that fateful Sunday, Bronwyn got home from work around 5.30pm. Chrystal and Lauren were still playing in the park.

“I came home before the girls came home,” Mel told the podcast. “Bronwyn came to our door and she’s like ‘Hey, is Lauren and Chrystal here?’ I’m like ‘No, they’re at the park.’ And she said to me ‘Can you go get them? Because her (Chrystal’s) father’s coming home’.”

Jon Winfield, on hearing that his wife had moved back into the Sandstone Crescent house, had organised a flight from Sydney to Ballina. His plane was due to arrive that Sunday at 6.30pm. The drive from Ballina airport to Lennox was less than 20 minutes.

That night, Bronwyn dis­appeared. Jon told police she said she needed some time out from the relationship. He said an unknown person then picked her up at Sandstone Crescent and took her away. It was the last time she was seen alive.

Jon Winfield subsequently packed up the car and drove all night with Chrystal and Lauren back to Sydney. Both he and Bronwyn had family and friends in Sydney’s Cronulla shire in the south.

On Tuesday afternoon, almost two days after Bronwyn vanished without trace, Jon telephoned Mel’s father, Murray, and asked him to break into the back door of the house to see if Bronwyn was inside.

Murray seconded a neighbour, Lloyd, and they entered the property. Mel and her mother, Deb, were with them. They didn’t find Bronwyn, but they did find a family home frozen in situ.

“I noticed the house, what it looked like,” Mel told The Australian’s Hedley Thomas for the podcast. “The state it was left in. I think it was strange because I had a feeling. There was the washing in the laundry. The dishes.

“The girls’ beds were stripped. There were no sheets on the bed, they were … they were gone.

“I have been in the house and it was very neat, like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) neat.”

Mel believed there was “no way” Jon would have left the house in such a dishevelled state given “the way he was as a ­person”. She questioned why he left the house so quickly that night.

Deb Taylor recalled that Bronwyn had left behind her jewellery, toiletries and clothes. Only her handbag was missing.

Jon Winfield has always strenuously denied any involvement in the disappearance of Bronwyn. He has also never been charged in relation to the case of his missing wife.

Still, after all these years, Mel remains puzzled by that singular Sunday night back in the late autumn of 1993.

“What I find strange about the whole thing is for Jon to come all the way up here … to have the argument with Bronwyn,” she said.

“And then leave that same night in a hurry. Why don’t you stay till the next morning? Then go back to Sydney?

“Like, why do you leave in such a hurry?”

Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at [e-mail]

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