Bronwyn

A surprise message opens a long-closed door to Jon’s secret past.

Sonia Lee has been listening to every episode in the Bronwyn podcast series while weighing the right time to come forward for the first time. She made a promise to her grandmother on her death bed to tell the truth about her biological father when the time was right.

A man she has never known— but is now hearing so much about.

In a remarkable interview with Hedley Thomas, Sonia Lee reveals her biological father is Jon Winfield, and his then-girlfriend was 15 and left heartbroken when Jon denied being the father. He refused to help her or his baby.

Bronwyn’s sister-in-law, Michelle Read, recovers an historic document from the files of the police Unsolved Homicide unit, confirming Jon’s conduct. Sonia Lee says Jon needs to stop lying. She hopes her truth can help solve Bronwyn’s cold case. 

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.

An update from the Bronwyn team: Listen to a taste of Episode 15, the latest in Bronwyn's second season.

The full episode is live now at bronwynpodcast.com, where you can also see subscriber-only content like photographs, maps, timelines. 

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.

An update from the Bronwyn team: Listen to a taste of Episode 13, which kicks off Season 2.

The full episode is live now at bronwynpodcast.com, along with episodes 11 and 12.

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.

In this episode of The Australian's daily news podcast, a family ‘curse’, an audacious scam, and a remarkable young woman helping to solve the mystery of Bronwyn Winfield’s likely murder. 

Find out more about The Front podcast here. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian’s app.

This episode of The Front is presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet, and edited by Lia Tsamoglou. Original music is composed by Jasper Leak.

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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.

A short walk from the sandy northern beaches of Lennox Head is a lake loved by locals and visitors alike.

It is deep only in a few places, but nobody can see the bottom - the waters of eerie Lake Ainsworth are always dark because of staining from the leaves of the Tea Trees which flourish on the foreshore.

As a result of Judy Singh’s disclosures, Andy Read and locals including Murray and Scruffy fear Bronwyn’s body has been at the bottom of the lake since May 1993.

Madi has been doing her homework on the possibilities and she wants to start searching. But a house block near bushland in the ‘Shire’ south of Sydney, where Jon was bricklaying immediately before, and after, Bronwyn’s disappearance, is also under a cloud of suspicion.

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.

Bronwyn’s friends and loved ones reel as the revelation of Judy Singh’s sighting of what appeared to be a body wrapped in a sheet, being driven away by her estranged husband Jon Winfield in 1993, is understood.

Detectives fly north to take a statement from Judy. They drive her to her old home in Lennox Head as part of a renewed homicide investigation.

Former neighbour Murray Nolan admits deep regret about his handling of potentially game-changing information he withheld from detectives in 1993 when he regarded Jon as his surfing mate.

But as Bronwyn’s family looks forward to a possible resolution of this 31-year-old alleged murder, tensions boil over. Back in the Shire, Andy is confident he’s solved a puzzle which might provide a powerful clue to the whereabouts of Bronwyn’s body. Jon denies wrongdoing. 

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.

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.

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.