Pain and hope for Bronwyn’s family

Published Sep 4, 2024, 5:00 PM

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.

You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from the Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, September five. Jim Chalmers says the government is keeping Australia out of recession after the economy recorded its weakest growth since nineteen ninety one. The Treasurer says the Reserve Bank is wrong to say the economy is running hot. It's all part of a barney between the Bank and the government about who's to blame for the rising cost of living. Talk of a family curse and an audacious scam. Those are the new twists in our blockbuster podcast investigation Bronwyn, led by Hedley Thomas. Journalism can help solve crime, but it can also expose the pain and grief buried within families. Today we meet a remarkable young woman walking both sides of this story. How does the stack of gold bullion become a box of cement? That's not a joke or a riddle, it's the reality. For Crystal Winfield Neil, a single mum living in Sydney, Crystal is the eldest daughter of Bronwyn Winfield, who disappeared from Lennox Head on the New South Wales North Coast just over three decades ago. The bungled initial police investigation and Bromwyn's suspected murder of the subject of The Australian's investigative podcast series Bronwyn, created by our national Chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. Growing up without her mum has been hard on Crystal. Recently, she turned to a spiritual teacher, a self described soul doctor for guidance.

Crystal has been searching for a way to bring permanent positivity into her thinking and into her daily life.

That's Crystal's aunt and Bromwin's half sister, Kim Marshall.

She was approached by a strange person unknown to her in the street a number of months ago, and she has this understanding that this person who sat down with her understored and knew what she was going through.

Kim's talking in one of two special new episodes of Bromwyn, which are available now exclusively for the Australian subscribers at bromwynpodcast dot com.

And she thought meeting these people which were in numbers and different types of people that they would help her on a spiritual path to actually no longer having this weighted burden.

At first, Crystal's financial contribution to the Soule Doctor's cause was modest, just a couple of hundred dollars. They told her they provided charitable assistance to people in India. But fast forward a couple of months and Crystal has been scammed out of more than three hundred thousand dollars, her entire life savings.

She believes that by her giving them the seventy thousand dollars, they were going to take it away and bless it and then they would return it to her, But apparently that is no.

Longer the case.

But then there's the other act of kindness that she did is where she was asked to purchase a large number of gold.

And that gold.

Bullion is no longer gold bullion. It is now actually a container full of cement.

At some point, the gold bullion Crystal purchase to be blessed by the Soul Doctors was switched with an identical container full of cement. Crystal recently opened up about being scammed in the podcast's official discussion group. A voice actor is reading her posts.

Honestly, our family has been through a lot. Both Mum and I were very trusting people, and as a result, I was recently scammed my entire life savings by strangers.

It's the first time we've heard directly from Crystal in this podcast series. She declined to be interviewed when Headley first started investigating, but she's recently found her voice in our lively Facebook group, where nearly twenty thousand listeners are chatting and crowdsolving as the investigation unfolds.

And Woul prised me if she trusted the wrong person, someone she has just met, and they were responsible for her disappearance. I also have other theories, but this seems likely to me as I know she never would have left us for long.

In episode eleven, which is live now exclusively for US subscribers, Heavily, Thomas and Cristel's cousin Mattie Walsh, who's been working with Heavily on the podcast, discuss these developments. In episode twelve, also live now for subscribers, Heavily answers some of our listeners burning questions. Crystal Winfield Neil trusted the Soul Doctors because of an old bit of family law.

I heard about this curse when I actually went to Sydney last year, and I may not be fully accurate on it, but apparently there is what is known as a read curse.

Members of Crystal's extended family, like her Auntie Kim and uncle Andy Bromwin, Winfield's brother, say the curse is just a bit of a joke, but the told Bromwin's unsolved disappearance has taken on her extended family is no laughing matter.

Well, it's been like opening up old wounds. Before the podcast, I didn't really understand the depths of a lot of these family issues and what Bromwin's disappearance did.

Madison Walsh is Bromwin's cousin on the Reed side. She was born a decade after Bromwin disappeared and has been working with Headley on the podcast investigation.

And it's also a really tough subject because someone so close to them has gone missing. Watching it unfold, you have to keep in mind that this is the furthest we've ever gone with Bromwin's case. This is the thurthest of the investigation has ever gone. So you, in a way have to sacrifice a little bit of your personal information and let it out there so that people can feel something towards the case, so they feel more connected to it, so they know that we're not always a joint family unit, and we all have good days and bad days, and not everyone agrees with each other's opinions, and there's moments where family members aren't communicating because it's just too hard, and it causes more arguments and it does good discussions.

It's tough.

It is tough to be in the middle of that, and things like the curs come up, and most family members think, oh, it's just tongue in cheek, it's just a funny thing that we like to bring up every now and then as a joke. But then other family members take it a bit more seriously and maybe do you think, hang on, is there a curse? But at the end of the day, it's all based on opinion. It's all based on how you feel, and everyone has a right to have their own opinions and feel how they want. And at the end of the day, not everyone's going to agree with you. And that's basically been the biggest lesson to learn.

Mattie's connection to bromwin Winfield inspired her to pursue a career in forensic science when she graduated in May. She never expected her first gig out of UNI to be a true crime podcast investigation.

It was about a year ago and my aunt was being interviewed by Headley at her home not far from mine, and she said that Hedley was coming over to interview her and asked if I wanted to come and join, because she knew of my forensics background and knew of.

My interest, and I went.

I just sat there, and at certain points he asked for my import and he discovered that I at that point was still studying forensic science, and he asked me if I wanted to help him out and work with him on the podcast. And I was quite shocked that he was asking me because I was twenty.

And it's been going really well ever since.

Maddie had heard of Hedley. Of course, he's the creator of the global Juggernaut podcast The Teacher's Pet, which resulted in the arrest of Christopher Michael Dawson over the nineteen eighty two disappearance of his wife, Lynn Simms. Dawson has now been convicted of murder and child sex offending, and he's in prison thanks to Headley's work. One of the interesting developments in true crime of journalism is the advent of audio. These big, long form podcast investigations, and they really are form of entertainment journalism packaged up in this very easy to consume form. Has been the subject of a podcast like this changed your perspective on how serious all of this is.

Yeah, definitely seeing the inner workings of a podcast and seeing how much work goes into it and how many conversations and how many interviews don't make it to the final cut is in because there's so much work that goes into creating a condensed episode that everyone will find.

Entertaining and want to listen to.

It's definitely interesting to witness. And now when I listen to podcasts and I hear family members speaking and hearing certain opinions and certain ideas, you have to also keep the perspective that that's not everything. That's just one opinion and one thought, but there's still more to the story.

Coming up. What it's like when highly invested true crime fans start obsessing about your family. Bromwin is an investigation that's only possible thanks to the subscribers of the Australian who get to hear episodes first and to read all our amazing stories about this cold case. Join us at Bromwan podcast dot com. We have a very lively Facebook group with nearly twenty thousand people in it who are discussing this podcast every day. They're very frank with their opinions and they can be harsh. How have you felt watching them discuss this very real life story in that way?

Look as a family member.

It's interesting to witness because with a Facebook group, everyone is sitting behind a screen.

They can say what they want, and some.

Opinions are harsh and some are just the truth, and you can't really delete every comment you don't like and criticize people for saying what they think. They are so invested in this podcast, it's almost like I feel some people are searching for the perfect murder in a way. So often they ask questions or they have opinions that really will never know the answers to. So it's often hard to look at that and go, why are we being criticized when.

We will never know that?

Why are we being criticized when in hindsight everything is twenty twenty vision In hindsight, everything is different. You have to look at it and take it with a grain of salt, and they can share their opinion and it's a discussion group. It's open to people to say what they think and give their perspectives on the episodes and give their perspectives on what they think of certain characters within the podcasts. At first, it was very like I was like, Oh my gosh, they're very honest. They don't care that you're sitting there also looking at this Facebook group and you read everything that they say. It's been challenging to step back a little bit and understand that they're not as connected as I am. They really are just looking for entertainment.

You can hear episodes eleven and twelve of From and Now by subscribing at rom one podcast dot com.

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