Listen to this story being read by Adrienne Tam, here. Harrison accepted that Dawson had become infatuated with JC before she left Cromer high school. I thought he was going to wipe the glass with it, but he didnt. 'I think Paul would do anything for his brother, but I didn't mean he would kill.'. [16], Chris Dawson applied to have the case stayed on the basis that there had been an "inordinate delay" in prosecuting him, and that there was a risk that members of the jury could have prejudged his guilt due to widespread publicity about the case. There's a reason why the Australian podcast "The Teacher's Pet" has been a hit around the world. She said when Chris asked to use it, she had said 'Yes', and then agreed not to tell Lyn or anyone else about it, as Chris and the babysitter had secretly returned to Sydney after going away to Queensland together. A year later, the backyard of the Dawsons home in Bayview was excavated. "We didn't get much sleep, it's hard to try and process the verdict," Greg says. Before long they had two children and Chris began winding down his rather successful rugby career. After almost 40 years of questioning, it seems answers may finally be around the corner. Greg remarks that he has goosebumps. Today her name has been cleared she loved her family and would have never left them of her own accord. What could have possibly caused a mother of two to leave her young family behind? That was the judge's reasoning. When Ms Longhurst asked about that first wife, she said JC told her she and Lynette's daughters 'just call her fatty and we dont talk about it'. But she just had such love for this little child, a real bond. Speaking from the witness box, JC claimed she drove with Dawson to a building somewhere south of the Sydney Harbour Bridge where he tried to hire a hitman to get rid of his wife. For the next three years, the investigators gathered evidence, and in April 2018 they had enough material to bring to prosecutors. She can leave whenever she likes," says her sister, Pat. January 1982 - Lynette "Lyn" Dawson, 33, disappears from her home at Bayview on Sydney's northern beaches, leaving behind two young daughters. Instead, her trust was betrayed by a man she loved.. You know, she didn't have to do that. "We've always remembered Lyn with such love. The family's babysitter, a schoolgirl who can only be identified as JC, moves into the home within days. Her husband Chris Dawson was suspected of killing. When JC tried to leave him, Dawson became so "distressed, frustrated and ultimately overwhelmed" that he resolved to kill his wife to get her out of the picture. 'It's still possible in the end to realise why you are here and why you have endured, and why you might have suffered so much,' the poem continues. [9] She planned to meet her mother and family at Northbridge Baths the following day, but never arrived. That makes it very weak, he said. I try not to dwell in self-pity, but I guess I do sometimes dip in there, especially on Mothers Day when I see everybody out with their mums, she told 60 Minutes. Verdict that took five hours to be delivered ended a 40-year wait for justice, The Teachers Pet: hit podcast thrust Lynette Dawsons 1982 disappearance into the spotlight. None of the circumstances considered alone can establish Mr Dawsons guilt, the judge said. Now, a journalist's podcast may have finally solved the mystery of her disappearance. 'So that in the end, you could witness love, miraculously arriving from nowhere, crossing bravely as it does, out of darkness, from that great and spacious stillness inside you. Chris began an affair with a student at the school, 16-year-old Joanne Curtis before Lynette disappeared. Lyn and Chris Dawson were childhood sweethearts. It's a bleak afternoon at Clovelly Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs, the sky is a screen of opaque grey, and the drizzling rain has become a steady downpour. Dawson's legal team has argued the witnesses' testimony has been contaminated because they had talked about the case with each other and had listened to The Teacher's Pet podcast about the mystery surrounding Mrs Dawson, arguing it was broadcast with an assumption that her husband was guilty. Just a few years ago, the family were thrilled when they were sent a photograph from a former nursing colleague of Lyn's. Shanelle accepts that the evidence is stacked against her father. They were married from 1954 to 1978 until Jacqueline passed away at the age of 41. Her siblings believe the police took Lyn's disappearance more seriously after that. EXCLUSIVE: The daughter of wife-killer Chris Dawson speaks out | 60 Minutes Australia 60 Minutes Australia 5.12M subscribers Subscribe 7K Share 397K views 4 months ago #60MinutesAustralia. It is in my view fanciful to suggest that conversations as lacking in content and pregnant with cliches ever occurred, Harrison said. We just want to find her now and lay her to rest, but we're doubtful that will ever happen. On the morning of January 8, 1982, Dawsons mother called to plan an outing to the Northbridge Baths, a local beach on the Sydney Harbor. A pink cardigan and a wrapper dated 1981 were discovered, but nothing related to Lynette Dawsons disappearance was found. Harrison has spent the time since deliberating on his verdict. He taught us tennis and played in the pool with us, she said. These are the four lies Chris Dawson told that, eventually, meant he was jailed for murder. They were married for 12 years, and had two daughters Shanelle and Sherrin. Speaking after she had been interview by police in 1999 about the possibility Lynette had been allegedly murdered, Marilyn Dawson said of the Dawson twins, 'I know they have boys' talks, but they wouldn't be plotting murder. Lyn Dawson's family says they will 'never forgive' former husband Chris Dawson over lies, murder, There is an emergency bushfire warning in place for Maintongoonin Victoria. The only rational inference [is that] Lynette Dawson died on or about 8 January 1982 as a result of a conscious or voluntary act committed by Christopher Dawson.. He turned her young daughters memories against her - tarring her as a cowardly, unloving mother who just "went away". [1] Her whereabouts are unknown, but two coronial inquests found that she had been murdered. Harrison accepted the timeframe of the case given by the prosecution: that around 22 December 1981, Dawson and JC travelled to Queensland, but the attempt at starting a new life failed after JC became unwell, and said she missed her family. Both Chris and Paul are alleged to have regularly engaged in illicit sexual behavior with female students at their respective schools; Chris is further alleged to have been one of six male teachers who preyed on students at Cromer High School. Candace Sutton for Daily Mail Australia, 'I couldn't breathe, he could have killed me': Friend tells murder trial Lyn Dawson's exact words after she allegedly had her face pushed in mud during FIGHT which made her fear for her LIFE, How Lynette Dawson had a 'grapefruit-sized bruise on thigh' weeks before alleged murder - as another babysitter describes accused's furious outbursts if their home wasn't kept PERFECT. They were both colour blind, played football together, both became PE teachers - and their wives even had the same baby doctor, 'Dr John Murray our obstetrician'. And then they took him towards the doors at the back of the dock.". But for the people who loved her - her daughters Shanelle and Sherryn, her sister Pat, her brothers Greg and Phil, her niece Renee, her friends - today's verdict will bring something beyond the satisfying conclusion to an intriguing zeitgeist plot point. She would even wear Lyns jewellery and her clothes. Chris Dawson and his twin brother Paul posing for a Levis ad. After leaving her marriage to Dawson in 1990, JC would stay with Ms Melrose-Mikeska when she brought her daughter with Dawson up for 'visitation rights' stays with him. A friend of Joannes, Michelle Walsh, told A Current Affair her friend believed Chris had killed Lyn. The story of Lynette Dawson's disappearance has sparked interest around the world after it was featured on a podcast called 'The Teacher's Pet', produced by The Australian newspaper. Chris began teaching physical education at Cromer High School in this year. [21], On 30 August 2022, Justice Harrison took five hours to deliver his reasons for finding Dawson guilty. Without a body, without knowing first of all whether in fact she is dead, without knowing secondly if she is dead, how she died, its very hard to mount a case of a reasonable prospect of conviction just on motive and the undefined existence of means and opportunity. She was last seen in January. The podcast, created by investigative reporter Hedley Thomas, was listened to tens of millions of times. THERE was a culture of male teachers trying to have sex with female students at a school where the husband of suspected murder victim Lyn Dawson worked, a former student says. She also received recognition for her starring role as Julia Meade in the action spy film . Marilyn described the very close relationship Paul and Chris Dawson had, wearing the same or matching clothes, having the same favourite drink, Coca Cola, living in the same house as they built new houses in the same street, 400m from each other. The comments below have been moderated in advance. He found that although Lynette Dawson had confronted JC with the paradoxically genteel observation that JC had been taking liberties with her husband, she had remained hopeful of reconciling with Dawson. [4] Chris was arrested in Queensland in December 2018, extradited to New South Wales, and charged with the murder of his first wife. For the next 13 years, not much headway was made in the case. A young Joanne Cutis pictured witht he Dawsons' daughters, Shanelle (right) and Sherryn A Current Affair/Nine Now Interest in the disappearance of 33-year-old Lyn has magnified in the past few months due to the popularity of The Teacher's Pet podcast, which has surpassed 14 million downloads. In his heyday, Chris Dawson had been a rugby star, playing alongside his twin brother Paul for the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Union Football Club, and later the Newtown Jets rugby club and the New South Wales championship rugby club. Dawson, 74, faced a judge-alone trial during which his lawyers argued it was possible Lynette abandoned her young daughters and the family's Bayview home in January 1982. ChrisDawson, 73, is accused of killing his wife Lynette Dawson and disposing of her body in January 1982 so he could have an unfettered relationship with one of his former students, known as JC, while holding onto assets including the family home in Bayview, Sydney. 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