Bronwyn

The Teacher’s Pet creator Hedley Thomas returns with a new podcast investigation for The Australian.

Subscribers to The Australian and registered users hear episodes of ‘Bronwyn’ first at theaustralian.com.au/bronwyn. Plus, you can read more about this case and see exclusive stories, maps, timelines, graphics, video and more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Analysis of police internal running sheets and other files from 1993, when Bronwyn disappeared in Lennox Head, reveals remarkable red flags – yet local detectives still didn’t treat the case as probable foul play.

After making fundamental errors with key evidence on the timing of phone calls, documents show that the cop in charge suggests Bronwyn has left the house voluntarily and returned to Sandstone Crescent to make a call at 2.13am to check lottery results.

Bronwyn’s sister-in-law Michelle Read discovers an extraordinary police failure. Women who were questioned back then express their frustration at the tone and conduct of the 1993 investigation. Other informants come forward after hearing the podcast.

Meanwhile, rallies across Australia raise a national crisis of domestic violence and the murders of women.

Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.

If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing [email protected]

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As celebrities from Hollywood stars Chris Hemsworth to Simon Baker wax lyrical about Lennox Head, locals like Scruffy speculate about Bronwyn and the whereabouts of her remains.

Analysis of a missing person report made to police by her estranged husband Jon Winfield in late May, 1993, strongly suggests that Bronwyn is alive and telephoned Jon’s daughter Jodie to say she had moved to Queensland and would not be coming back. Bronwyn’s brother Andy Read describes it as a lie to try to show proof of life.

In her absence, Bronwyn is described in the missing person report filed by Jon as having come from a ‘deranged’ family. The dedicated mother of two girls couldn’t defend herself against lurid claims that she was like her mother, Barbara.

Bronwyn’s cousin Megan emphatically rejects suggestions that she unwittingly helped Jon.

Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.

If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing [email protected]

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new witness emerges with a chilling account of seeing what she fears was Bronwyn Winfield's body wrapped in sheets in the back of a car, in a development that could change everything in the 31 year mystery.

Retired nurse and former Lennox Head resident Judy Singh lived about 50m from the Winfields and says she tried to report what she saw from her upper level balcony to local police within weeks, and at Byron Bay station years later when she was accompanied by a doctor from New Zealand. The doctor verifies the account of going to the station.

And Bronwyn’s daughter Chrystal speaks to police as a 16-year-old in 1999. Chrystal tells investigators she fell asleep to the sound of her Mum crying and arguing with Jon on the night Bronwyn vanished six years earlier.

Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.

If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing [email protected]

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Distressing evidence from Jon Winfield’s first wife, Jennifer Mason, was part of the police brief which the then-Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor believed would result in a prosecution over Bronwyn’s disappearance.

A dispute over the identity of her first daughter’s father resulted in Jon challenging one man to have his DNA tested.

At Lake Ainsworth, on the northern edge of Lennox Head, locals joined with volunteers and Bronwyn’s brother, Andy, to try to find her body beneath the dark, stained waters.

Bronwyn’s half-sister Kim helps to discover what Bronwyn meant when she wrote that she was going “on a short break”.

Read more about this case and see photographs, maps, timelines and more at bronwynpodcast.com.

If you have information which may help solve this cold case, you can contact our team confidentially by emailing [email protected]

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.