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Police move on Bronwyn witness · The Front

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  Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker
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  Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play
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  Speaker 1: the news from The Australian. From the Australian, I'm Claire
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  Speaker 1: Harvey a special bonus episode off the Front for you today.
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  Speaker 1: New South Wales police have responded swiftly to a fresh
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  Speaker 1: revelation in our investigation into the disappearance of mother of
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  Speaker 1: two Bromwyn Winfield. On Thursday night, The Australian published revelations
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  Speaker 1: from Headley Thomas that a new eyewitness claims to have
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  Speaker 1: seen Bromwan's husband John driving with something that looked like
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  Speaker 1: a body in the back of his car around the
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  Speaker 1: time of her nineteen ninety three disappearance. In today's episode,
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  Speaker 1: what the police are saying and how Bromwin's family and
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  Speaker 1: our audience is responding to this big news.
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  Speaker 2: What's wrong with him?
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  Speaker 1: That's the stunned emotional reaction of Andy Reid, the brother
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  Speaker 1: of Bromwin Winfield, to startling new evidence presented in the
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  Speaker 1: Australians investigation into this thirty one year old mystery.
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  Speaker 3: This poor lady to go the to have to live
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  Speaker 3: with this, to go to the police station twice in
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  Speaker 3: ninety three, and they discount, and they go and take
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  Speaker 3: a pop statement.
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  Speaker 1: After three decades of frustration, sorrow and anger, Andy and
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  Speaker 1: his wife Michelle have lots of questions, and so do
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  Speaker 1: our listeners. What was in the back of John Winfield's
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  Speaker 1: car on a late night drive in May nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: three after the disappearance of his wife, About other witness
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  Speaker 1: accounts of the car's movements that night, What have police
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  Speaker 1: been doing? And why hasn't this cold case been solved?
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  Speaker 1: Those are just some of the big questions raised by
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  Speaker 1: our revelation thanks to Headley Thomas's podcast Bromwin, of fresh
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  Speaker 1: eyewitness allegations that have never formed part of a police
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  Speaker 1: brief and have never been put before a court. Today,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to dive in answering some of your questions
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  Speaker 1: a little later in this episode, but first there's been
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  Speaker 1: a rush of listeners to episode seven, released on Thursday evening.
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  Speaker 4: This is the most important episode in the Bromwin podcast
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  Speaker 4: series so far. It is going to disclose a major
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  Speaker 4: new development in this investigation into Bromwin's disappearance. It is
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  Speaker 4: so serious it should prompt Senior Detective Nigel Lawren or
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  Speaker 4: another member of the Unsolved Homicide Unit in Sydney to
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  Speaker 4: beat a path to the door of a woman from
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  Speaker 4: whom you'll hear shortly. Her name is Judy Singh. She
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  Speaker 4: is sixty nine years old, a Korean nurse who retired
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  Speaker 4: a few years ago, and she now lives with her
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  Speaker 4: daughter's family in northern New South Wales.
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  Speaker 1: And among those listeners and the subscribers reading and watching
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  Speaker 1: us stories and video on the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: a U are the New South Wales Police. Just hours
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  Speaker 1: after the stories broke, police reached out to our National
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  Speaker 1: Crime correspondent David Murray indicating they wanted to speak to
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  Speaker 1: eyewitness Judy Singh directly, and then New South Wales Police
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  Speaker 1: Assistant Commissioner and Commander of State Crime Command, Michael Fitzgerald
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  Speaker 1: emailed Headley Thomas requesting Judy Sing's contact details, which Headley
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  Speaker 1: passed on. Judy sing who is sixty nine, had already
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  Speaker 1: told us she is willing to do anything she can
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  Speaker 1: to assist police. Headley passed on her contact details on
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  Speaker 1: Thursday night. So what have police been doing all these years?
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  Speaker 1: Back in nineteen ninety three when Bromwin first disappeared, it
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  Speaker 1: seems according to Headley's reporting, to have been a lackluster
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  Speaker 1: and low energy investigation. John Winfield told police back then,
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  Speaker 1: Bromwin took a phone call, then a mysterious car pulled
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  Speaker 1: up in the driveway and she got in, never to
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  Speaker 1: be seen again. Nearly a decade later, a local detective
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  Speaker 1: took another look at the case, speaking to witnesses and
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  Speaker 1: looking for new leads. A police brief went to the coroner,
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  Speaker 1: and after a hearing, Deputy State Coroner Karl Milvanovitch found
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  Speaker 1: Bromwyn was dead and recommended that a known person, John Winfield,
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  Speaker 1: should be charged with her alleged murder, but the then
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  Speaker 1: Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowtery Casey, declined to take
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  Speaker 1: a prosecution forward, telling the family there was no evidence
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  Speaker 1: John Winfield had anything to do with Bromwin's death. John
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  Speaker 1: Winfield has always denied any wrongdoing and has never been charged.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what Judy Singh told The Australian her words from
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  Speaker 1: episode seven of Bromwyn.
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  Speaker 5: And This night. I was sitting up and I saw
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  Speaker 5: the car pull out at the end of the street
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  Speaker 5: and the light was on in the car. There's very
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  Speaker 5: squeaky brakes on that car, and he drove very slowly
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  Speaker 5: along the street, but he had left the car light
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  Speaker 5: on and I could see directly into the car, and
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  Speaker 5: I had a small lantern on the balcony rail and
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  Speaker 5: he kind of looked up this night and I saw
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  Speaker 5: this what looked to be like a mummy in the
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  Speaker 5: back of the car, and I thought, what are you
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  Speaker 5: going late at night with something that looked like I
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  Speaker 5: just called it a mummy. And I've said this to
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  Speaker 5: my son so many times about this, and I thought, well,
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  Speaker 5: even if he was taking out the longings, you wouldn't
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  Speaker 5: make it look like a body, do you know?
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  Speaker 6: I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, we address some of our listeners questions about
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  Speaker 1: this big twist. If you have any information about Bromwyn
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  Speaker 1: Winfield's disappearance, email Headley Thomas at Bromwyn at Beaustralian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au. Naturally, the revelations made by Judy singing
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  Speaker 1: episode seven of the podcast have raised more questions about
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  Speaker 1: Bromwyn Winfield's fate. We wanted to take this opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: answer some of the points raised by our subscribers. In
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  Speaker 1: the podcast's Facebook group. You can find it and join
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  Speaker 1: the conversation by searching Facebook for Bromwyn Podcast official discussion group.
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  Speaker 1: The Winfield family's nineteen eighty seven Ford Falcon XF SADAN
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  Speaker 1: is integral to Judy's account. Hadi Fullard dire frienced another
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  Speaker 1: notorious Australian cold case which was solved in twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: the Claremont serial killings. In that case, forensic evidence was
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  Speaker 1: discovered in a car owned by the killer almost a
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  Speaker 1: decade after the crime.
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  Speaker 6: The long wait for justice for the families of Jane
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  Speaker 6: Rimmer and Kira Glennon is over, with Claremont killer Bradley
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  Speaker 6: Robert Edwards sentenced to life in prison.
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  Speaker 1: Haiti asked if the nineteen eighty seven Falcon Sadan is
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  Speaker 1: still owned by John Winfield or if its location is known.
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  Speaker 1: The short answer is no. The initial police investigation in
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  Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of Bromwin's disappearance was lacking, so we
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  Speaker 1: do know a thorough forensic examination of the vehicle was
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  Speaker 1: never done. We don't yet know how the new South
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  Speaker 1: Wales police investigation will progress, but it's possible they'll attempt
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  Speaker 1: to track down the Ford Falcon for testing. Nicoleen Hancock
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  Speaker 1: clocked a discrepancy between John Winfield's own account of that
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  Speaker 1: night and what Judy and others like next door neighbor
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  Speaker 1: Murray Nolan remember. According to a report written by an
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  Speaker 1: unnamed detective senior constable in July of nineteen ninety three,
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  Speaker 1: almost two months after Bromwin was last seen, John Winfield
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  Speaker 1: said he traveled to Sydney for work on June twenty
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  Speaker 1: six and returned to Lennox Head on July eleven. That report,
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  Speaker 1: which was based largely on John's version of events, has
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  Speaker 1: mostly been debunked by alternate witness testimony and other contemporaneous evidence.
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  Speaker 1: We know from a statement given by John's eldest daughter,
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  Speaker 1: Jody in nineteen ninety eight, that John Winfield flew back
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  Speaker 1: to Balliner from Sydney on the afternoon of Sunday, May sixteenth.
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  Speaker 1: Jody's words are being read by a voice actor.
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  Speaker 7: I told Dad and he made arrangements to fly to
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  Speaker 7: Baliner the following day. I felt that I was out
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  Speaker 7: of the situation then when Dad was going back home
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  Speaker 7: to sort it out, so I left it to him.
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  Speaker 7: The following afternoon, Sunday, May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, I
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  Speaker 7: drove Dad to the Sydney airport so that he could
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  Speaker 7: catch the plane to Ballina.
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  Speaker 1: A handful of other group members queried how Judy Sing's
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  Speaker 1: account fits into the timeline of events from May sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. Here's a quick recap. Bromwin returned to
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  Speaker 1: the home at sixty Sandstone Crescent on the afternoon of Friday,
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  Speaker 1: May fourteen. She called a locksmith to get back into
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  Speaker 1: the house because the locks had been changed while she
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  Speaker 1: and her girls were living at the townhouse in Byron Street.
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  Speaker 1: After hearing from Jody that Bromwin had moved back to
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  Speaker 1: the house, John Winfield returned to Lennox Head on the
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  Speaker 1: afternoon of May sixteen, that was a Sunday. He swung
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  Speaker 1: by the Ballener Police station, then collected one of Jody's friends,
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  Speaker 1: twenty two year old Becky Maguire, who accompanied him to
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  Speaker 1: Sandstone Crescent. In her police statement, Becky said John collected
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  Speaker 1: a couple of suits cases from the house and then
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  Speaker 1: drove her home. Becky's words are being read by a
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  Speaker 1: voice actor.
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  Speaker 2: John must have had a set of keys to the car,
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  Speaker 2: because we then got into the car and he drove
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  Speaker 2: me home. John didn't go inside the house at all
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  Speaker 2: while I was in the house with him. While we
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  Speaker 2: were driving back to my house, John thanked me for
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  Speaker 2: coming with him and told me he was sorry for
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  Speaker 2: getting me involved.
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  Speaker 1: Later that night, around ten forty pm, Bromwin and John's
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  Speaker 1: next door neighbor, Murray Nolan, was watching a movie at
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  Speaker 1: home when he heard the Windfields Ford Falcon exit the driveway.
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  Speaker 1: Here's how he described it in episode six of Bromwyn.
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  Speaker 5: Because John was back there.
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  Speaker 6: Lay yeah, the car backed out.
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  Speaker 5: Put no lights on, bottom down on the road, sug
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  Speaker 5: a big groove in the road, and arrivaled down the hill,
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  Speaker 5: down the bottom the hill. You're down here with no
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  Speaker 5: lights on. Turn the lights on, start the engine and
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  Speaker 5: go around.
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  Speaker 3: The other way.
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  Speaker 1: When he got to Sydney, John showed Bromwyn's sister in law,
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  Speaker 1: Michelle Reid, a receipt that showed he'd bought fuel at
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  Speaker 1: a petrol station in Lennox Head at eleven six pm.
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  Speaker 1: Judy Singh doesn't know exactly what time she saw John
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  Speaker 1: Winfield drive past her home with what she believes was
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  Speaker 1: Bromwin's body in the backseat of the car, but one
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  Speaker 1: listener has raised an intriguing theory. Karen mastro Battista asks
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  Speaker 1: what if John drove the car down the road with
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  Speaker 1: Bromwin in the back and the interior light on, and
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  Speaker 1: realized this was a problem when he looked up and
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  Speaker 1: Jude saw him. So went somewhere quiet and put her
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  Speaker 1: body in the boot and decided to drive her down
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  Speaker 1: to Sydney with the girls. Then went home and picked
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  Speaker 1: up the girls and had to go down the driveway
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  Speaker 1: quietly as he knew he had her body in the boot.
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  Speaker 1: John didn't go straight to Andy's place. He went to
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  Speaker 1: Jody's mum's. No one checked the boot there, Karen goes
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  Speaker 1: on he was then gone five hours. Could he have
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  Speaker 1: been disposing her body?
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  Speaker 3: Then?
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  Speaker 1: This is just so awful. I feel quite ill, but
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  Speaker 1: I am so glad the truth is coming out. That's
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  Speaker 1: the end of Karen's Facebook post. Of course, John Winfield
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  Speaker 1: denies any wrongdoing. This story is moving fast. For all
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  Speaker 1: the latest updates, visit the Australian dot Com dot a
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  Speaker 1: you and join us subscribers