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Cautious optimism as Bronwyn podcast nears conclusion · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, July eighteen, twenty twenty five. The locations of
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  Speaker 1: two possible future Orchus submarine bases have been snapped up
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  Speaker 1: by the son of a prominent Shanghai businessman. It comes
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  Speaker 1: after Beijing warned the Albanizi government not to rescind Chinese
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  Speaker 1: ownership of the Port of Darwin. That exclusive story is
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  Speaker 1: live right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: The family of missing lennox Head woman Bronwyn Winfield are
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  Speaker 1: optimistic the police investigation into her disappearance and presumed murder
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  Speaker 1: is making progress. New episodes of The Australian's investigative podcast
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  Speaker 1: Bronwyn are out now today. National chief correspondent Hedley Thomas
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  Speaker 1: joins us. The Australian's investigative podcast series Bronwyn, about the
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  Speaker 1: unsolved disappearance and alleged murder of lennox Head mother Bronwyn Winfield,
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  Speaker 1: was only ever intended to be one season of about
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  Speaker 1: ten episodes. Bronwyn vanished from her home on Sandstone Crescent
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  Speaker 1: in lenox Head on the New South Wales Far North
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  Speaker 1: Coast on May sixteenth in nineteen ninety three. That night,
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  Speaker 1: the young mum tucked her two little girls into bed
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  Speaker 1: and vanished. Police investigations conducted over the last three decades
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  Speaker 1: have largely failed to shed any light on Bronwyn's fate,
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  Speaker 1: and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has
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  Speaker 1: declined to prosecute her husband, John Winfield for her murder.
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  Speaker 1: He's always maintained Bronwyn left the family home in Lenox
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  Speaker 1: Head voluntarily and vehemently denies he played any role in
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  Speaker 1: her disappearance. Launched in May of twenty twenty five, the series,
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  Speaker 1: investigated by The Australian's National Chief correspondent Headley Thomas, now
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  Speaker 1: spans thirty three episodes and three seasons. It's a far
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  Speaker 1: cry from what Headley told Bronwin's brother Andy Reid and
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  Speaker 1: his wife Michelle in the days before the series launched.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we're talking about a series of maybe eight,
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  Speaker 2: nine or ten episodes, so it's not going to be
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  Speaker 2: over quickly. We are definitely bringing the series to a
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  Speaker 2: conclusion now, Kristen, because having covered so much ground and
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  Speaker 2: spent maybe nine ten episodes reconstructing really important parts of
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  Speaker 2: the evidence, and we've interviewed so many dozens of witnesses
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  Speaker 2: from back in the day but also new people who
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  Speaker 2: have come forward.
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  Speaker 3: There isn't much more that we can do. Podcast listeners
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  Speaker 3: might recall it. Back in December of last year, Andy Reid,
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  Speaker 3: who is Brohman's brother, wrote to the state coroner there
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  Speaker 3: Israe Sullivan, and in his letter he set out all
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  Speaker 3: of the very compelling reasons why, in Andy's view and
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  Speaker 3: in the view of police who have been talking to us,
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  Speaker 3: and quite senior lawyers who have been giving us advice,
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  Speaker 3: a search beneath an existing property in Hillawong in the
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  Speaker 3: Shire south of Sydney is now something that really should
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  Speaker 3: be seriously considered. That's one of the very significant new
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  Speaker 3: pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing to something that could possibly
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  Speaker 3: resolve this long cold case.
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  Speaker 1: Several bombshell revelations have been made over the course of
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  Speaker 1: Hedley's investigation into Bronwyn Winfield's disappearance. There was the emergence
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  Speaker 1: of a secret daughter fathered and then abandoned by John
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  Speaker 1: Winfield as a teenager, sharing her story for the first time.
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  Speaker 1: Sonia Lee, said she hoped to assist the investigation and
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  Speaker 1: show John Winfield's other children, who he really is.
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  Speaker 3: What do you believe is a good outcome.
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  Speaker 4: For the girls? Them knowing what happened to bronwin include
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  Speaker 4: the bad, the ugly, whatever it may be they deserve
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  Speaker 4: to know, has got to be the heaviest load for
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  Speaker 4: them to carry.
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  Speaker 1: There was also the revelation John Winfield was the sole
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  Speaker 1: beneficiary of the estate of a reclusive woman living in
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  Speaker 1: Lennox Head after his wife vanished.
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  Speaker 2: The solicitor brought up his name and said to me,
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  Speaker 2: missus John and his is Bev's partner, which was.
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  Speaker 5: A shock, total shock, because.
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  Speaker 2: They've never mentioned anything about anybody in her life.
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  Speaker 1: And in recent episodes, The Australian's production team recreated five
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  Speaker 1: Days of Inquest proceedings, featuring a host of voice actors,
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  Speaker 1: many of whom came from the papers newsrooms around Australia.
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  Speaker 3: Broman's brother Andy and his wife Michelle, and other loved
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  Speaker 3: ones of Broman. They wanted to ensure that a podcast would,
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  Speaker 3: where possible, leave no stone unturned. There is an enormous
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  Speaker 3: amount of material that you can cover and that does
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  Speaker 3: demand a huge amount of work. I was talking to
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  Speaker 3: Michael Drury and he was a former top detective in
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  Speaker 3: New South Wales until his retirement to Northern New South Wales.
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  Speaker 3: But more infamously, Michael Drury was targeted in a shooting
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  Speaker 3: that was ordered by Roger Rogerson, the corrupt cop, and
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  Speaker 3: he wanted Michael Drury out of the way. Michael Drury
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  Speaker 3: was doing such an amazing job fighting organized crime and
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  Speaker 3: he contacted me because he had been following very closely
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  Speaker 3: this podcast series and when we met for a cup
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  Speaker 3: of tea recently, he told me that with a podcast
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  Speaker 3: you have tens of thousands of potential sources and armchair
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  Speaker 3: detectives who can make their own inquiries and possibly make
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  Speaker 3: a difference, as well as the people you reach who
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  Speaker 3: know something but have not been prepared to come forward before.
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  Speaker 3: And as Mick Drury said, that is one hell of
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  Speaker 3: a team that you can draw on. And that's what
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  Speaker 3: I find with these podcast investigations. When they go deep
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  Speaker 3: and broad and wide, they are amazingly effective, more effective
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  Speaker 3: than any other journalism I've been involved in before, and
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  Speaker 3: that's why people talk about the power of these productions.
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  Speaker 1: And what should listeners expect from these final episodes of
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  Speaker 1: the Bronwin podcast series.
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  Speaker 3: No spoilers, Chris and I won't go too deeply into
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  Speaker 3: the detail, but we are going to look at the
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  Speaker 3: Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and it's consideration
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  Speaker 3: of this case and of cases generally, and what oversight,
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  Speaker 3: if any, there is in situations where there may have
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  Speaker 3: been a misunderstanding in that office of the evidence. We're
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  Speaker 3: going to look at one of the cold case reviews
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  Speaker 3: that police did in Bromin's case, and listeners will hear
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  Speaker 3: from some other witnesses who we believe are important in
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  Speaker 3: understanding this case and contextualizing it. And I'm hoping to
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  Speaker 3: sit down with the people who have been most important
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  Speaker 3: throughout the investigation. Because I first started talking to Andy Reid,
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  Speaker 3: Broman's brother in twenty eighteen, and to his sister, Kim
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  Speaker 3: Marshall a little bit earlier than that. It was during
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  Speaker 3: the Teacher's pet It's taken this long to get to
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  Speaker 3: this stage, but we're hopeful that something could happen at
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  Speaker 3: the end of the series. We'll end up with more
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  Speaker 3: than forty hours, perhaps forty five hours of audio. We're
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  Speaker 3: talking there about four hundred and fifty thousand words. That
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  Speaker 3: is about five largish books on one case. So throughout
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  Speaker 3: the time that we've been working together, there have been
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  Speaker 3: highs and lows and a lot of hard work, and
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  Speaker 3: it's important I think that we just get together and
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  Speaker 3: reflect on those things and have a good talk about it.
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  Speaker 3: Hopefully we can regroup at some stage if some announcement's made,
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  Speaker 3: some actions taken, but that's not a matter for us.
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  Speaker 3: It's really a matter for police.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. While bron and Winfield's loved ones are feeling
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  Speaker 1: optimistic after more than three decades, more than thirty years
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  Speaker 1: after Ron win Winfield vanished, her brother Andy Reid told
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  Speaker 1: Headley Thomas he's feeling quietly optimistic about the progress of
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  Speaker 1: the investigation underway at the new South Wales Police Unsolved
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  Speaker 1: Thomicide Unit.
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  Speaker 2: You got back to some news from Nigel Warren.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I was a little disappointed that I didn't want to
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  Speaker 3: have a face to face because they were at a
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  Speaker 3: it's what seemed to be a sort of a delicate
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  Speaker 3: stage of their investigation. I don't want to read too
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  Speaker 3: much into it. What did you take.
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  Speaker 2: From It's got to hope that the judy diligience has
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  Speaker 2: been followed and the right things have been followed up.
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  Speaker 1: Detectives have previously acted on new evidence surfaced in the podcast,
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  Speaker 1: like Judy Singh's claim she saw John Winfield driving with
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  Speaker 1: a mummy like figure in the backseat of the family's
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  Speaker 1: Ford Falcon And.
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  Speaker 5: This night I was sitting out and I could see
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  Speaker 5: directly into the car and he kind of looked up
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  Speaker 5: this night and I saw this what looked to be
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  Speaker 5: like a mummy in the back of the car, and
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  Speaker 5: I thought, well, if he was taking out belongings, you
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  Speaker 5: wouldn't make it look like a body.
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  Speaker 1: Hedley Andy has previously expressed his frustration at the slowness
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  Speaker 1: of the police investigation into Bronwan's disappearance over the years,
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  Speaker 1: but he's told you in this latest episode of the
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  Speaker 1: podcast that he's feeling quietly optimistic about the direction of
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  Speaker 1: the investigation that's underway. Now. What's changed.
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  Speaker 3: I asked Andy and his wife Michelle about that, because
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  Speaker 3: I've got a sense that they were just less frustrated
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  Speaker 3: and a bit more philosophical about how things were unfolding,
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  Speaker 3: even though it has been thirty two years since and
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  Speaker 3: his sister disappeared. And what they indicated to me was
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  Speaker 3: that they had become more aware of the need for
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  Speaker 3: police to go through a certain, very deliberate process, and
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  Speaker 3: that process is designed to make sure that everything is
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  Speaker 3: air tight, and he feels like he has been let
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  Speaker 3: down at different stages by police and others in the
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  Speaker 3: criminal justice system. In fact, shortly before the Bromin series
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  Speaker 3: launched in May last year, and he was told by
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  Speaker 3: the head of the Unsolved homicide unit that they didn't
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  Speaker 3: believe they could take things any further in the absence
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  Speaker 3: of new evidence. Now there has been new evidence that's
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  Speaker 3: come out as a result of people coming forward in
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  Speaker 3: the podcast, and police have gathered new evidence. We don't
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  Speaker 3: know what use they'll make of it, but Andy and
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  Speaker 3: Michelle now accept that something might happen, that these things
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  Speaker 3: are being taken seriously, and I think they're just a
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  Speaker 3: bit more patient.
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  Speaker 1: Headley Thomas is The Australian's national Chief correspondent and the
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  Speaker 1: creator of the Bronwyn Podcast. Subscribers can hear new episodes
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  Speaker 1: of the series now at bronwynpodcast dot com, and for
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  Speaker 1: all the nation's best news, sport and politics, visit The
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot AU