The Watch Stopped at 7:26: A 1973 Australian M*rder Mystery That Took 48 Years to Reach a Coroner’s Findings

On a busy Friday evening in October 1973, 17-year-old Bronwyn Richardson disappeared from a well-lit street in Albury, Australia. She had finished work at a supermarket and was waiting for a ride home. People were nearby. Shops were open. A hotel was doing business just a short distance away.

Then, in the space of minutes, she vanished.

Two days later, searchers found her body beside Horseshoe Lagoon, around six kilometres from the city. Her wristwatch had stopped at 7:26 p.m. Its damaged mechanism would become one of the most haunting pieces of evidence in a case that remained unresolved for decades.

Sixteen years after the killing, an anonymous caller contacted police and named several men he claimed were involved. That call appeared to offer investigators a breakthrough. Instead, it sent the investigation through years of disputed testimony, failed prosecutions and conflicting accounts.

More than four decades after Bronwyn’s death, a coroner finally identified two men who, on the balance of probabilities, had been involved in her abduction, assault and death. But there was a devastating limitation: the findings did not amount to criminal convictions.

The case had reached an official conclusion of sorts. Justice, however, remained elusive.

A teenager disappears from a busy Albury street

Bronwyn Ann Richardson was 17 and lived in the nearby town of Corowa, in New South Wales. She had been crowned her hometown’s showgirl and was working at a Coles supermarket in Albury.

On Friday, October 12, 1973, she finished her shift and walked towards Smollett Street, near St. Patrick’s Church. She was waiting for someone to collect her.

It was an ordinary urban setting, not an isolated country road. The street was illuminated, businesses were operating, and a nearby hotel was attracting its usual Friday-night customers.

Several people later confirmed seeing Bronwyn in the area between approximately 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

One witness, Stanley Thompson, provided investigators with a particularly important account. At around 7:15 p.m., he saw Bronwyn leaning towards the driver's window of a car and speaking with two men inside.

Thompson later explained that he could identify the time because of a television program he had noticed while passing nearby. He gave police a statement on October 19, just one week after her disappearance.

His account became the last reliable sighting of Bronwyn alive.

There was no confirmed public disturbance. No reliable report of a struggle on the street. She appeared to be talking to people inside the vehicle.

What happened after that brief encounter would become the central question of the investigation.

The wristwatch that stopped at 7:26

When Bronwyn’s body was discovered on Sunday, October 14, searchers found her at Horseshoe Lagoon, near the Murray River and approximately six kilometres from Albury.

Her wristwatch attracted particular attention.

The watch had stopped at 7:26 p.m. Its mechanism had become damaged, with abrasive material interfering with its internal workings. The mechanism was found loose near the lagoon bank, while the watchband remained fastened around Bronwyn’s wrist.

That detail gave investigators a possible clue about the timing and violence of the attack.

Thompson had placed Bronwyn at the car at approximately 7:15 p.m. The watch had stopped eleven minutes later. The evidence suggested that a serious assault had occurred by the time she reached the water.

However, the stopped watch did not establish the exact time of death. The post-mortem examination indicated that Bronwyn had suffered a prolonged assault and that she likely died during the early hours of the following morning.

The autopsy identified pressure to the neck and drowning as contributing causes of death.

The watch therefore became more than a personal possession recovered during an investigation. It was a physical clue connecting the final confirmed sighting to the events at the lagoon.

Yet it could not identify the people responsible.

The first investigation failed to produce an arrest

Bronwyn’s disappearance and death devastated her family. She was one of six children, with parents Stan and Noel Richardson, and had been building an ordinary young life before it was violently interrupted.

The first coronial inquest took place on March 18, 1975. It found that Bronwyn had died from strangulation and drowning, but it did not identify anyone responsible.

Investigators had several important pieces of evidence: a final sighting, a location where her body was recovered, forensic findings and a witness who could place her at a vehicle shortly before she disappeared.

There was also another potential eyewitness.

Wayne Leech later said that he had seen something relevant on Smollett Street and had approached police in 1973 to report it. According to his account, officers did not consider it necessary to take a formal statement.

Decades later, a coroner criticised the failure to pursue this apparent eyewitness and noted that no satisfactory explanation had been provided for the decision.

That missed opportunity became one of the troubling features of the case.

For Bronwyn’s family, the years that followed brought no arrest and no clear explanation. Her father, Stan, later battled cancer and died without learning who had killed his daughter.

The investigation remained unresolved for sixteen years.

The anonymous phone call that changed everything

On October 9, 1989, a television program hosted by journalist Derryn Hinch revisited Bronwyn’s murder. It raised the possibility that convicted serial killer Raymond Edmonds, known publicly as “Mr. Stinky,” might have been connected to the case.

The following day, an unexpected call reached Murray Bridge Police Station in South Australia.

At approximately 12:23 p.m. on October 10, Constable Paul Friend answered the telephone. The caller refused to identify himself but claimed to have been present when Bronwyn was abducted.

He said that four men had been travelling in a green-and-white Holden station wagon associated with a property called Red Bluff. He named the property owner and identified three other men using nicknames or partial names.

The caller also claimed that he had been only 14 years old at the time and had been inside the vehicle without participating in the crime.

Around fifteen minutes later, he called again to correct an important detail. The vehicle, he said, was registered not to the man he had initially identified but to that man's wife.

Police traced the calls to a public telephone booth on Kintore Avenue in Murray Bridge. By the time officers arrived, the caller had disappeared.

For investigators, the information seemed potentially significant. The caller appeared to know details about a vehicle and a group of people connected to the period of Bronwyn’s disappearance.

But there was a fundamental problem: nobody knew who had made the calls, and the claims had not yet been independently established.

The anonymous account would influence the investigation for years, even as its reliability came under increasing scrutiny.

Three prosecutions, but no conviction

One of the men named in the call was Jeffrey Brown, who had previously been Bronwyn’s boyfriend. Their relationship had ended badly, and reports indicated that he had harassed her afterwards.

Brown was charged with murder in 1990.

However, at the committal hearing, the expected witness evidence did not support the prosecution sufficiently. The charge was withdrawn.

In 1993, police charged two other men named in connection with the anonymous call, Ross Eames and Kevin Newman, with concealing knowledge of a serious offence.

That prosecution also failed. The judge directed the jury to acquit.

The three prosecutions had produced no conviction.

Investigators increasingly suspected that Eames had been the anonymous caller. He was 14 in 1973, matching the caller's claimed age, and his foster parents, Les and Janice Murphy, were connected to the vehicle registration detail mentioned during the second call.

But Eames denied making the calls.

His circumstances also raised questions about whether he could have participated in the crime as described. Evidence placed him at the Red Bluff property with his foster family on the evening of October 12, where he was involved in farm work.

Les Murphy later testified that Eames could not drive.

These details became important when the investigation was reviewed decades later. The anonymous caller's story was no longer treated as a straightforward account of what had happened. It had to be tested against witness statements, travel times, vehicle records and the known movements of the people involved.

A major contradiction: Was the car yellow or green?

One of the most consequential problems with the 1989 phone call concerned the vehicle allegedly used in the abduction.

The anonymous caller described a green-and-white station wagon.

But the two witnesses who had reported seeing a vehicle on Smollett Street in 1973 described something different.

Stanley Thompson described a yellow Holden sedan with a white detail. He explained that the street lighting may have affected how its colour appeared.

Wayne Leech also described a yellow four-door Holden sedan.

Neither witness described a green station wagon.

This contradiction mattered because the station wagon had become a central part of the investigation after the anonymous call. For years, investigators had pursued information connected to that vehicle.

The later coronial findings concluded that the stronger evidence supported the possibility that a green station wagon had not been involved in the abduction at all.

The coroner considered that part of the anonymous caller’s account false.

It was a significant setback. A detail that had shaped the investigation for more than three decades may have sent investigators towards the wrong vehicle.

The case demonstrated how a single unverified account can influence a major criminal investigation, particularly when the original crime has very few surviving witnesses.

The investigation reopens after decades

In June 2008, the Southern Region Unsolved Homicide Team reopened the case under Detective Sergeant Stephen Morgan.

Investigators revisited old statements, contacted witnesses along the New South Wales–Victoria border and examined information that had emerged since the original inquest.

The work continued into 2009.

In 2010, the reward for information increased from $50,000 to $200,000. A second coronial inquest followed in late 2011.

That hearing brought several conflicting accounts into focus.

Ross Eames denied making the anonymous call. A detective gave evidence about what he described as an admission by Eames. Another witness claimed that Colin Newey had privately boasted about making the call himself, allegedly disguising his voice with a handkerchief.

The evidence did not resolve the dispute.

The 2011 inquest returned an open finding, meaning the available evidence was insufficient to reach a conclusive determination about the circumstances and responsibility for Bronwyn’s death.

But attention had begun to move away from the original group of men named in the 1989 call.

One person in particular was becoming increasingly important.

Colin Newey’s changing account raised new questions

Colin Newey was Bronwyn’s second cousin and had known her since childhood.

His connection to the case was significant because he had been at the Coles supermarket where Bronwyn worked on the afternoon she disappeared. He had asked her to dinner that evening.

That made him one of the people who had seen her on the day she vanished.

Yet investigators later found that his earlier statements had not disclosed this meeting.

In a 1976 statement, Newey reportedly said he had not seen Bronwyn for a week before her disappearance. Accounts he gave from 1990 onwards acknowledged that he had seen and spoken with her on October 12, 1973.

His explanation of his whereabouts also came under scrutiny.

Newey had previously maintained that he was away at an army bivouac with the 8th/13th Victorian Mounted Rifles at Chiltern State Forest during the relevant period.

Investigators later examined that claim against other evidence.

Accounts placed him at a house on George Street in Albury that evening. Newey himself acknowledged being there before leaving at approximately 7 p.m., close to the time Bronwyn was last seen.

Other evidence placed him in Albury the following day, including at his sister’s birthday gathering. Questions were also raised about his claim that he had been wearing military uniform, with a witness disputing that account.

The differences between his early and later statements became an important part of the eventual coronial examination.

In 2014, Newey was arrested in South Australia, extradited to New South Wales and charged with Bronwyn’s abduction, sexual assault and murder.

The case appeared to be approaching a decisive moment.

But once again, the criminal proceedings would not deliver a verdict.

The prison witness and the account that became central to the case

While Newey was on remand at Parklea Correctional Centre, another development emerged.

In February 2018, a fellow inmate, identified as Witness M, approached State Crime Command with an account of conversations he said he had had with Newey.

According to notes attributed to Witness M, Newey had described Bronwyn getting into a vehicle willingly. He allegedly said they travelled to an area near the water, where they spent time together while she skipped stones.

The account then described a confrontation. Newey allegedly said that he had returned after stepping away, found Bronwyn missing, grabbed her when she screamed and struck her.

Witness M reported that Newey had said she was already dead by the time he placed her in the water.

The inmate also said he had asked Newey about the vehicle's colour. He claimed Newey indicated a towel, from which Witness M later cut a small piece and handed it to police.

The coroner subsequently described this material as the most compelling new evidence to emerge in the investigation.

However, there was an obvious reason for caution.

Witness M was a serving prisoner. His evidence could potentially have been influenced by personal incentives, including the possibility of a reduced sentence or a financial reward.

The coroner therefore had to consider not only what the witness claimed but also his credibility, the circumstances in which the account emerged and whether other evidence supported it.

In a case that had already been shaped by disputed memories and conflicting statements, that assessment was especially important.

Maxwell Martin was also named in the final findings

The later investigation also examined the movements of Maxwell Martin.

Martin had been released from Goulburn Gaol on the morning of October 12, 1973. He consistently maintained that he had gone directly to his parents’ home in Wagga Wagga.

But other evidence challenged that account.

Several witnesses placed him at the George Street house with Newey on the evening Bronwyn disappeared. Newey also placed him at Coles that afternoon, while further accounts connected him to the birthday gathering the following day.

During a 1990 interview, Martin denied having any association with the Newey brothers. The coroner later considered that denial significant because evidence showed a connection between them.

Martin was never charged with Bronwyn’s murder.

He died in 1995, long before the final coronial findings were delivered in 2021.

The case therefore presented an unusual and deeply frustrating situation: the coroner would eventually identify people considered likely to have been involved, but neither of the two men named in the final findings would face a trial over Bronwyn’s death.

Why the 2019 television program complicated the evidence

Charges against Newey were withdrawn in 2015. He died in 2019.

That same year, a television series, Murder, Lies and Alibis, broadcast an episode about Bronwyn’s case. By then, the reward had risen to $1 million, and a third inquest was scheduled.

The program brought renewed attention to the disappearance and generated further public interest.

But it also created a serious evidentiary concern.

During the later inquest, the coroner examined how the broadcast may have affected witnesses’ memories. One witness who claimed to have heard Newey discussing the anonymous call gave a more detailed account after the program aired.

Another witness identified a suspect after being shown images on a laptop connected to the television production.

Witness M’s later statements also differed from his original account.

The coroner concluded that the 2019 broadcast had a contaminating effect on the memories of important witnesses.

This did not mean every account was false. It meant the evidence had to be assessed carefully because information from television, public discussion and other sources may have influenced what people believed they remembered.

For investigators examining a decades-old cold case, that distinction is crucial. Memories can change, details can be unintentionally absorbed from outside sources, and a confident recollection is not automatically an accurate one.

The 2021 findings finally identified likely involvement

On October 25, 2021, Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes delivered an 86-page set of findings at Albury Local Court.

The findings provided the most detailed official account of Bronwyn’s death since the original inquest.

The coroner found that Bronwyn died on October 12 or 13, 1973, after being abducted and physically and sexually assaulted by a group of men. Her death resulted from a combination of pressure to the neck and drowning.

On the balance of probabilities, the coroner found that Colin Newey had made the anonymous telephone calls in 1989.

She also found that both Newey and Maxwell Martin had some involvement in Bronwyn’s abduction, assault and death, although the evidence could not establish the precise role played by either man.

The coroner cleared Ross Eames of involvement. She also found it extremely unlikely that Jeffrey Brown had participated in the crime, based on the available timeline evidence.

As for Kevin Newman, the evidence did not allow a finding either way.

The findings were a major development in the historical investigation. They addressed longstanding questions about the anonymous caller, the men named in the original account and the evidence that had emerged over several decades.

But they did not produce a criminal conviction.

Why a coroner’s finding is not the same as a murder conviction

One of the most important distinctions in the case is the difference between a coronial finding and a criminal verdict.

A coroner examines the circumstances surrounding a death and may make findings about how a person died and who was likely involved.

The standard used in coronial proceedings is generally the balance of probabilities. That means the conclusion is reached when something is considered more likely than not.

A criminal prosecution operates under a much higher standard: proof beyond reasonable doubt.

That difference matters.

The 2021 findings did not establish criminal guilt in the way a conviction following a trial would. They did not send anyone to prison, and they could not replace the legal process that would have been required to secure a murder conviction.

By the time the findings were delivered, Newey had died in 2019 and Martin had died in 1995. Other central figures had also passed away.

The result was an official account of likely involvement without the criminal justice outcome that Bronwyn’s family had waited decades to see.

A family left with answers, but no conviction

For Bronwyn’s family, the case was never simply a collection of witness statements, vehicle descriptions and forensic details.

She was a daughter, a sister and a 17-year-old with a life ahead of her. She had finished a supermarket shift and expected to get home.

Her mother, Noel, had spoken about the family’s inability to find peace while nobody had been held responsible.

The 2021 findings finally placed important conclusions on the public record. They identified people the coroner considered likely to have been involved and rejected several theories that had dominated the investigation.

Yet the family never received the certainty of a criminal trial and conviction.

That is the painful distinction at the heart of the Bronwyn Richardson case: an investigation can reach a significant official conclusion without delivering the kind of justice a family has spent a lifetime seeking.

The final clue remains frozen at 7:26

Two television programs, separated by thirty years, played major roles in the investigation.

The 1989 broadcast prompted an anonymous caller to contact police and provide names that shaped the case for decades. The later program renewed public attention but also complicated the reliability of some witness recollections.

Between those broadcasts were failed prosecutions, changing statements, disputed vehicle descriptions, reopened investigations and multiple coronial hearings.

And through it all, one small object remained central to the story.

Bronwyn’s watch stopped at 7:26 p.m. on October 12, 1973.

It could not reveal who had taken her from Smollett Street. It could not explain every movement between the car and the lagoon. It could not identify the people responsible or restore the years her family lost.

But it preserved one terrible moment in a case that took nearly half a century to reach its final coronial findings.

Bronwyn was 17. She had been seen talking beside a car on a busy street. Eleven minutes later, the watch had stopped.

The clock never moved again. The questions surrounding her death continued for 48 years.

Editorial note: This article summarises coronial findings and reported evidence. The 2021 findings were made on the balance of probabilities and are not criminal convictions. No person should be described as criminally guilty on the basis of those findings alone.