Bronwyn Winfield mystery: your burning questions answered
What happened to the kids' bedsheets? What else do we know about Jon Winfield? What about the clairvoyant? So many burning questions. Today - some answers.
The petrol receipt. The dark lake. The Lotto phone call. If you're one of the millions obsessed with our podcast Bronwyn, these are the questions keeping you awake at night.
Today - some answers.
Season one of The Australian's smash hit investigative podcast Bronwyn has wrapped with Episode 10, and now we are in pre-production of Season 2, which will pick up loose threads and dig into the parts of this three-decade mystery that still have us baffled.
Here, we answer some of the burning ones raised by our subscribers in the podcast’s Facebook group.
Has Lake Ainsworth ever been searched?
Not by police. But The Australian assembled a team and got out on the lake in Episode 9. Read about it here.
What do Bronwyn's family think now?
Family and friends have not discounted a theory Bronwyn's body could have been buried three decades ago under a building site in suburban Sydney.
Was there any forensic evidence?
Bronwyn's disappearance wasn't properly examined by Homicide at the time of her last sighting - but at a much later date bone fragments were sent to a US lab for DNA testing.
What else do we know about Jon Winfield
Jon's first wife claimed he choked and threatened to kill her in the 1970s, in a remarkable revelation contained in Episode 10.
What happened to the children's sheets?
This is one of the enduring mysteries of Bronwyn's disappearance, covered in detail in Episode 7. Eyewitnesses who visited the home shortly after Bronwyn's disappearance said the children's bedsheets were missing. But Bronwyn's family members in Sydney don't recall seeing any linen when John arrived with the children after driving through the night from Lennox Head. Neighbour Judy Singh said she saw what looked like a body - wrapped in what looked like a sheet - in the back of Jon Winfield's car. We know police have spoken to Judy: the question of what happened to the sheets will no doubt form part of their investigation.
Why was Jon showing the fuel receipt?
When Jon arrived at Bronwyn's brother Andy and sister-in-law MIchelle's house the day after her disappearance, he showed Michelle a fuel receipt for petrol purchased the night before. This adds some complexity to the timing of events on the night before Jon made the big drive to Sydney, as the fuel was purchased close to the Winfields' home in Lennox Head shortly after 11pm. There are two witness accounts of Jon leaving the family driveway in his car that night - once when seen by Judy Singh around midnight, and once when seen and heard by neighbour Murray Nolan, earlier in the evening. To join the discussion on this topic, search 'fuel' in our Facebook group.
What's the story with the alleged sighting of Bronwyn's body?
Since The Australian revealed a new eyewitness who claims to have seen missing mother Bronwyn Winfield’s husband Jon driving with something that looked like a body in the back of his car around the time of her 1993 disappearance, the response has been swift — from NSW Police, Bronwyn’s family and our audience.
Naturally, the revelations made by former neighbour Judy Singh — and stunningly recreated in episode seven of the podcast investigation — have raised more questions about Bronwyn’s fate.
Was forensic testing done on the car?
The Winfield family’s 1987 Ford Falcon XF sedan is integral to Judy’s account.
Haidee Fullard referenced another notorious Australian cold case, which was solved in 2016 – the Claremont serial killings.
In that case, forensic evidence was discovered in a car owned by the killer, almost a decade after the crime.
Group member Haidee asked if the 1987 Falcon sedan is still owned by Jon Winfield, or if its location is known.
The short answer is no. The initial police investigation in the immediate aftermath of Bronwyn’s disappearance was lacking, so we do know a thorough forensic examination of the vehicle was never done.
We don’t yet know how the NSW Police investigation will progress, but it’s possible they’ll attempt to track down the Ford Falcon for testing.
Date discrepancies?
Colleen Hancock clocked a discrepancy between Jon Winfield’s own account of that night and what Judy and others – like next-door neighbour Murray Nolan – remember.
According to a report written by an unnamed detective senior constable in July of 1993 – almost two months after Bronwyn was last seen – Jon Winfield said he travelled to Sydney for work on June 26 and returned to Lennox Head on July 11.
That report – which was based largely on Jon’s version of events – has mostly been debunked by alternate witness testimony and other contemporaneous evidence.
We know from a statement given by Jon’s oldest daughter, Jodie, in 1998, that Jon Winfield flew back to Ballina from Sydney on the afternoon of Sunday, May 16.
“I told Dad and he made arrangements to fly to Ballina the following day,” Jodie said. “I felt that I was out of the situation then – when Dad was going back home to sort it out, so I left it to him. I cannot recall whether I tried ringing the following day. The following afternoon – Sunday, May 16, 1993 – I drove Dad to the Sydney Airport so that he could catch the plane to Ballina.”
The car ‘rolled down the hill’
Others have queried how Judy Singh’s account fits into the timeline of events from May 16, 1993.
Bronwyn returned to the home at 60 Sandstone Crescent on the afternoon of Friday, May 14. She called a locksmith to get back into the house because the locks had been changed while she and the girls were living at the townhouse in Byron Street.
After hearing from Jodie that Bronwyn had moved back to the house, Jon Winfield returned to Lennox Head on the afternoon of May 16 – that was a Sunday.
He swung by the Ballina Police Station, then collected one of Jodie’s friends – 22-year-old Becky McGuire – who accompanied him to Sandstone Crescent. In her police statement she said Jon collected a couple of suitcases from the house and drove her home.
“Jon must have had a set of keys to the car because we then got into the car and he drove me home,” Becky said. “I remember both Chrystal and Lauren were standing at the window inside the house watching as we reversed out of the driveway. Jon didn’t go inside the house at all whilst I was at the house with him. Whilst we were driving back to my house, Jon thanked me for coming with him and told me he was sorry for getting me involved.
Later that night, about 10.40pm, Bronwyn and Jon’s next-door neighbour, Murray Nolan, was watching a movie at home when he heard the Winfields’ Ford Falcon exit the driveway.
“Well because I didn’t even know that John was back, and it was so late,” Murray told Hedley Thomas. “Yeah. The car backed out with no lights on. Bottomed out on the road. Dug a big groove in the road and rolled down the hill. Down the bottom hill. Meet down here with no lights on. Turn the lights on. Stop the engine and drove around the other way.
When he got to Sydney, Jon showed Bronwyn’s sister-in-law, Michelle Read, a receipt that showed he’d bought fuel at a petrol station in Lennox Head at 11.06pm.
Judy Singh doesn’t know exactly what time she saw Jon Winfield drive past her home with what she believes was Bronwyn’s body in the back seat of the car.
But one listener has raised an intriguing theory:
“What if Jon drove the car down the road with Bronwyn in the back and the interior light on — and realised this was a problem when he looked up and Jude saw him, so went somewhere quiet, and put her body in the boot and decided to drive her down to Sydney with the girls. Then went home and picked up the girls and had to go down the driveway quietly as he knew he had her body in the boot?” Karen Mastro Battista asks.
“Jon didn’t go straight to Andy’s place, he went to Jodie’s Mum’s. No one checked the boot there.
He was then gone five hours. Could he have been disposing her body then?
This is just so awful I feel quite ill, but am so glad the truth is coming out.”
Jon Winfield denies any wrongdoing.
When will Season 2 begin?
September.
Investigative journalism takes time and we are following trails of evidence to explore some intriguing new possibilities.
To ensure you're the first to know - and you get to hear the episode before everyone else, download The Australian's app and go to the Podcasts section. Click on Bronwyn and hit 'follow show'.
All our app users will get a special alert direct to their phones when Episode 11 drops.
Where can I meet other Bronwyn superfans?
Our Bronwyn Podcast Official Discussion Group on Facebook is the best place to discuss all your big questions - and The Australian's team are actively involved in the group, keeping track of tips and theories and moderating posts and comments to ensure they meet our community guidelines.
What can I listen to in the meantime?
We have a suite of outstanding investigative podcasts for you.
THE FRONT: If you are interested in crime and news, make sure you're subscribing to our daily news podcast The Front on The Australian, on YouTube or via Apple or Spotify. This is where you'll also get the first drop on breaking stories in our true-crime sphere.
THE TEACHER'S PET: This is the OG. If you haven't listened already - ooh, we're jealous. You're in for a treat. It's here on The Australian's app and Apple. This is Hedley Thomas' first podcast, with more than 80 million downloads worldwide and counting. The Teacher's Pet explores the murder of mum Lynette Simms - and (spoiler alert) if you keep listening through subsequent seasons The Teacher's Trial and The Teacher's Accuser you'll hear Lyn's husband Christopher Michael Dawson being convicted for Lyn's murder and the unlawful carnal knowledge of a 16-year-old girl, who was his pupil.
SHANDEE'S STORY: A whopper of a podcast on our app or Apple and Spotify, investigating the unsolved 2013 murder of a 23-year-old Shandee Blackburn. There's a second season in the same feed called Shandee's Legacy which covers not one, but two giant judicial inquiries sparked by the mindblowing revelations in the original Shandee's Story.
Plus, you'd be crazy to miss Hedley's podcast The Night Driver, a wild conman tale in Who The Hell is Hamish?, our brilliant investigation into the effects of head trauma on kids and elite athletes in Head Noise and our exploration of who killed Australian rugby: The Breakdown.
I know something about Bronwyn's disappearance. How can I contact Hedley and the team?
Please email us at bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
Catch up on the full investigation and listen to every episode here.
Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
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