Lyn Dawson vanished. 40 years later her husband was found guilty of murder | Australian Story

[Music] the day after the verdict we've come down here to clavelli to put these flowers on the memorial seat to mum and dad and lynn just in recognition of their lives [Music] we did it we never gave up when we went to buy the flowers this morning the florist was in tears and she was telling us about her network of friends who followed this story all these years and it's just huge when this is all over we'll always remember lynne as the beautiful person she was gentle and caring calm funny the first one to ring for birthdays if she could give one gift she'd give three gifts she's just so generous [Music] she was like the center of things happening in the family margaret suggested to go out to dinner we've always over 40 years remembered lynn with such love but there was one time that um i still get into trouble about from chris i was coming off duty nursing everyone has a theory about what happened to lynette dawson she was a nurse a loving mother and a loving family person oh let people are connected to it because they were just such a normal suburban family and then suddenly it all went wrong an older man a very attractive man a young school girl an infatuation a wife and the possibility that she was murdered to make way for that relationship to flourish i think that's what i would call the eternal triangle and that's why it captured the public imagination one of the country's most high profile trials is underway it was one of the most anticipated murder trials in recent years the teacher's pet podcast really catapulted it into the public consciousness are you happy that finally it's it's underway now yes yep very happy i was very nervous of course but at last we were there the decision of the judge is the finish for us there's nothing else we can do the most important thing to us is to find her where she is to lay it to rest [Music] if you have someone missing of course it's always there [Music] it's just like walking down the street and seeing the back of a person and you think that's lynn and you walk up the person and it might look like her from the back but it's not her at the front i can remember after a year had passed i decided i couldn't dwell on it all the time because it wasn't fair on my children my daughter once said to me mum why can't we be like a normal family [Music] our whole family has lived with this trauma for 40 years [Music] it's very difficult to put into words the depth of grief you feel when a a loved member of the family just drops out of your life [Music] mum didn't drive so she'd take the train up to the central coast because that's where chris had said that lynn had run from [Music] my mother never stopped searching for len we all were searching for lynne she's never gone overseas she's never applied for a passport she has never applied for a medicare card a credit card she doesn't bank with anybody she's a registered nurse she's not registered in any state or territory in australia [Music] and she's just basically been taken off the planet never to be seen again [Music] lynn and chris both went to sydney girls and sydney boys high and that's where they met they were both prefects in their final year they were a good looking couple they used to dress beautifully he didn't drink he didn't smoke he was very physically fit and he always looked good pringle playing it dawson chris dawson and his twin brother paul both played for the newtown jets from rugby league and later both played in rugby union both good looking men both modeled on occasions playing it to dawson he's going straight down the middle do you ever resent that very close relationship between them no no no the first question that people ask them well you must have a lot of fun swapping and changing around and they've never done it i think they've been accused of doing it on the football field where are you gonna get the landscaping started somebody a couple of years ago said what is it like sharing a husband and to me it was just seemed so silly because i haven't put anything you just join in happy birthday boys may have many happy birthdays we were aware during the year 1981 that things didn't seem to be quite right [Music] i just thought it was a bit of a rough patch and things would sort themselves out none of us knew how bad things were [Music] i think liam covered up many of the problems i think she had this image that wonderful children a happy family and i just think that she just couldn't face the fact that perhaps this image wasn't the real thing [Music] lynn dawson and i worked together at warrior children's center in the occasional care she lives not very far from you she was the nurse and i was her child care worker yeah really well she loved a girl yeah she was a probably girl her workmates were her her main friends and the people she spoke to so we were very close to her well they were having marriage difficulties i mean she used to to talk to me about it when because my office was the staff room as your girl's name lynn kept her marriage problems close to her chest i suppose she didn't give specifics lin did tell me that chris was looking after one of his students she had home problems and that chris wanted to move her in to their place because she had nowhere else to go i remember saying to lynn if you're having marriage difficulties i don't think it's a good idea to bring a young student into your home try to keep your legs straight she was a student at chris dawson's high school i think all the muscles i'm going to build for you for summer and the girls chasing along the beach through that they formed a relationship she babysat for the dawson family we all knew that chris was having an affair and she just said nothing you know chris my chris always my chris my chris i trust my chris all the time before christmas day glenn had gone home and found the note on the bed and he said don't paint too dark a picture of me to the girls chris left to go to queensland unexpectedly i knew he'd left but i didn't know he'd left with the babysitter chris moved back to the family home and then with lynn decided to seek counselling which they went to on friday the 8th of january 1982. they came in in the afternoon into the centre and i think it was annette and anna two of the girls in the occasional care room had seen them and um lynne was very positive she was smiling they walked actually they do come down hand in hand down the alleyway and uh the girls felt very positive about it they were they were pleased fully and they thought well you know maybe this might um help them and they can resolve their problems yeah now we had a good day today that evening mum wrangling in about half past eight good day yeah she's fine got chris on the phone and she had a talk with him and he said to mum that uh everything was fine they'd been to a marriage counsellor and everything was going to work out and mum said can i speak to lynn the first thing mum said is you sound a bit sozzled she said to mum my husband's poured me a lovely drink and everything is just going to be fine and she said it with a slurred voice mr sims thought that unusual because lynn and chris weren't drinkers [Music] lynn had organised to meet her mother the following day at the north bridge bars at northbridge chris was working as a holiday job as a lifesaver and mum was going to meet lynn and the children and they were going to have a picnic there shortly after mr sims arrived at the pool chris receives a phone call and comes back a short time later and tells mrs sims that it was lynn on the telephone saying that she needed some time away to sort things out well mama is absolutely devastated and shocked i mean she's spoken to lynne just the evening before i think the shock was that lynne had left it all because it was just so unexpected so out of character uh lynne who just loved her children loved the whole family [Music] just the day before i had seen her walking hand in hand with him and she was looking forward to a positive outcome from seeing the marriage guidance counsellor and then the next day she went missing her name was this one's name and i remember thinking no way there's no way she'll ever ever have left her daughters um she just loves them dearly i think she might want to go to school today she was looking forward to seeing her daughter start school it was a big event in her life black shoes yeah and what mother would ever leave their daughter on the first day of school you would never ever do that [Music] looking back at the time of lynn's disappearance we just couldn't understand we were absolutely dumbfounded that she would leave all the information that we did receive in lynn's disappearance was coming through chris he would bring up mum and say oh lin's rung me she needs more time to think or he'd ring up and talk to mum and say oh she's been seen at gosford we had no reason whatsoever to doubt him because he was a part of the family never seen her anywhere some weeks after lynn disappeared we became aware that the student was now living in the home with chris and the girls obviously in a relationship two years after lance's appearance chris dawson divorced lynn in her absence and he married the babysitter then they subsequently went to queensland [Music] lynn's disappearance was always treated as a missing person and whenever inquiries were made the family was always told she's an adult she can leave whenever she likes she can walk away from the family home i think a lot of that was because uh chris dawson was a celebrity at the time he was a first grade footballer i had been a first grade footballer he was on television ads he was a teacher in the in the local community i feel that they believed him we expected police officers to turn up to investigate or to ask us some questions about when was the last time we saw lynn but that never happened and i said to barbara i'm writing a letter when i first wrote my first letter to the ombs businessman it was three years after she went missing [Music] the detective came out and interviewed me then that was the police but all they said was well have you got any new evidence and i thought well i'm not the police chris dawson and the babysitter they had a daughter and in 1990 the marriage had fallen apart and his wife his second wife came back to sydney and reported to police her suspicions that chris had been involved with lynn's disappearance [Music] i believe the police took glenn's disappearance more seriously after that this is a record of interview between detective sergeant paul mager in 1991 police interviewed chris dawson about the disappearance of lynette on the back of an interview with his second wife jc he denied having anything to do with his wife's disappearance [Music] there were two inquests into lynette dawson's disappearance one in 2001 and one in 2003. both coroners referred the matter to the dpp saying that charges should be considered for her murder the dpp on both occasions declined to lay charges saying that there was not enough evidence it was it was like how much more do we have how much more evidence do we have to and do we have to go through how much more pain do we have to go through we're at a pool area of these premises where we intend this morning to uh dig um with the possibility of a body being buried in this area the dawson case was characterized by lots of stops and starts and kind of bursts in activity and investigation and for a long time detective damien loon took carriage of the case and was investigating it in 2015 he handed that over to detective daniel poole they went through everything you know sort of like passport not being used bank accounts not being used lynn's glasses you know she never went back to get her her contact lenses we were on the verge of um just saying that we've been going looking for answers for lynn for so many years maybe we should just let it lie now and hedley came forward and saw my sister pat and um he convinced us to um he wanted to do a podcast and i actually said to my daughter what's a podcast i was riveted by lynne dawson's story in 2001. the story was stunningly sad it was tragic i think you have to get a bit obsessed with the story as a journalist to really do it justice and i really wanted i really hoped that the dpp would reconsider its earlier decision to not prosecute i decided that it might be possible to find evidence information witnesses who hadn't talked before few people know more about the case than journalist hedley thomas of the australian newspaper he's documented nearly a year of exhaustive investigation in his hit podcast the teacher's pet the reason why she left him headley having the podcast was massive for us because it opened up a whole avenue of people who came forward as witnesses she contacted police for the first time within several years of lingoing missing the podcast gave us all hope and it really pushed the whole story out there and everyone was talking about it and people were finally taking notice of her story we're very grateful for the work the police have done and we're very grateful for hedley in the podcast that was very powerful and after that we felt as if something might happen the former husband of missing sydney woman lynne dawson was today arrested at his gold coast home i know i jumped in the air when i heard that he'd been arrested because this is what we aimed for for you know all those years by christmas 2018 chris dawson had been charged with murder [Music] and he's always maintained his innocence but the journey for all of us from the arrest through to the trial was really long and arduous because the defense did everything they could to appeal against going to court his legal team swung into action trying to have the case stayed they argued that there was no way he could get a fair trial they said witnesses would have listened to the teacher's pet podcast what he's done in my understanding has been to impact upon the reliability of witnesses [Music] they started out with the supreme court they took it up to higher courts it ended up in the high court in the end it did get to trial but in her judgment justice fullerton spoke about the potential for podcasts about true crime like this to undermine legal processes the trial was delayed and in the end chris dawson faced a judge alone trial because it would be very hard to find a jury that would not have heard of this podcast or the media storm surrounding this particular case i'm looking forward to justice being served and the truth coming out the next few weeks tonight on trial for murder a court hears that former teacher chris dawson wanted his wife dead so he could have a relationship with a schoolgirl [Music] by the time the trial did go ahead in 2022 there was a huge amount of interest in it the courtroom itself was at capacity i'd seen him on tv a few times but it was sort of strange sitting in court and looking straight across at him yeah so i tried to actually move my gaze a little bit chris dawson's case was quite a difficult one there wasn't any direct evidence murder no body circumstantial case the case of this kind i i think is is relatively rare but they do go to trial the crown case in a nutshell was that chris dawson on or around the 9th of january in 1982 murdered lynette dawson in order to pursue a relationship with the family babysitter known as jc he was infatuated with her the prosecutor said he repeatedly asked her to marry him the defense case was that he had no motive to kill his wife although he cheated on her and and took up with a new girlfriend that didn't make him a murderer and there was no actual proof that she had been even murdered that she was dead [Music] at the start of the trial lynne dawson's family and friends painted a picture of a marriage that might be going wrong that it was teetering that the couple were arguing the crown suggested that chris dawson could be physically violent at the time of the alleged murder julie andrew lived next to the dawsons in bayview on sydney's northern beaches julie andrew spoke about one incident late in 1981. she could see into the dawson's yard chris dawson had backed lynette up against a trampoline and was towering over her and holding her by the shoulders and bellowing at her and that lynette was crying defence barrister pauline david suggested that she had exaggerated the story that she told the court they tied that to julie andrew's involvement in the teacher's pet podcast but she really stuck to her story [Music] i was badly affected by the by the trial especially the way the questions were asked by the defense barrister people would be accused of lying [Music] annette leary's evidence in the trial was really distressing the day before lynn disappeared she came back from marriage counselling and apparently she had marks around her throat and when annette questioned her what it was she explains that uh in the lift going up to counselling that chris had put his hands around her neck it was brutal in respect of all this information coming out and trying to take it all in it was quite emotional in their cross-examination often at leary the defense really went hard and they also intimated that her memories were colored by those of others involved in the teacher's pet podcast this idea of the the podcast being really problematic for the recollections of witnesses was a strong thread through the trial [Music] it's been a day of explosive testimony at the chris dawson murder trial as the babysitter who became his new wife took the stand the dawson's former babysitter jc wasn't in the podcast and had never really spoken publicly about their relationship jc characterizes her relationship with chris dawson as one that was essentially subject to a huge power imbalance she said that often after biology she would come back to her bag to find a note from him he was her date to the high school prom jc painted a picture of a teacher who was obsessed with her infatuated with her and she didn't know what to do after she finished year 12 in the new year of 1982 she went up the coast with friends and she wanted to end the relationship with chris dawson but his response was to drive up the coast and collect her and move her into the family home and this was just a couple of days after lynn had disappeared jc gave evidence that he was controlling that he told her what to wear what to do were you trying to destroy crystals the defense case was that she made up a lot of that evidence because when her marriage with chris dawson broke up there was a bitter custody dispute but jc was a really compelling witness who spoke with a lot of conviction and she didn't make things easy for the defense chris dawson's murder trial has heard claims his wife lynette was alive and well two years after she was reported missing a big part of the defense case rested on alleged sightings this included things like neighbours seeing lynette standing at a bus stop or working in a hospital or standing at a fruit market for the defence it was very important that these proof of life sightings were established because throughout the trial the court heard that the only person who ever claimed to have heard from lynette since she disappeared in 1982 was her husband that fact hung over the trial because you would imagine if she'd contacted chris dawson she would have contacted someone else in her family and the crown pointed that out often the marathon murder trial for former sydney teacher chris dawson has finally come to an end the judge will now consider his verdict so 20 years ago since we sat here and spoke about it oh my god the weather had gone i have to be honest i didn't actually ever think it would get to this point no did i judgement day tomorrow and i'm very excited about going this is the finale this will be the end of of a long long road so are you going i'm going and my families my children who have been listening to me rave on about this yes holiday lives yes i am going i'm going to be there but it's going to be very crowded so i don't know how we're all going to fit him he was flanked by his closest family and friends do you think he'll walk out of freeman's room we knew there'd be a lot of press but we certainly weren't prepared for the barrage trying to get into court there that was just overwhelming even though i've been retired for 10 years i cannot help but listen in to or watch recordings of judgments in important cases and this was an important case always said the queen and christopher michael dawson for judgment because it was a judge alone trial was necessary for the judge to go through virtually every witness i want now to deal with mr dawson's telephone calls with lynette dawson he had to go through every proposition advanced both by the crown and the defense i'm unable to accept that the version of events at the northbridge baths suggesting mr dawson received an std call from lynette dawson on the afternoon of 9 january 1982 could reasonably be true it was a pretty damning start the judge found that chris dawson had told lies about his wife contacting him after her disappearance and then the next part i am reinforced in that conclusion as well by reason of other circumstantial evidence that leads me to conclude that lynette dawson did not leave her home voluntarily at that point of time i think there wasn't much left of hope for the defendant however then people would have heard the judge say but none of that means that chris dawson is guilty of murder at that stage they may have thought the judge was going in a different direction what i propose to do is to take half an hour for lunch i must say i was surprised that when lunchtime arrived the judge announced that he was only halfway through his decision [Music] it has been an absolute marathon sitting day in court who can describe it ups and downs from uh judge harrison with his um summation one minute you've got your hopes up in the next minute no it's not going to happen the first half i thought oh yeah we're going really well and then after the a half an hour break we went down again and i thought oh no after the break there were a lot of aspects of the evidence that the judge rejected the arguments that chris dawson had engaged in physical violence against his wife was thrown out the window a lot of the crown propositions that were central to the motive argument were thrown out the window the judge was really trying to hone the case down to its simplest basis one that chris dawson told lies after her disappearance which in his mind were lies told from a consciousness of guilt and secondly he was possessively infatuated with the young girl i'm satisfied that the prospect that he would lose so distressed frustrated and ultimately overwhelmed him but tortured by her absence up north mr dawson resolved to kill his wife christopher michael dawson on the charge that you did murder lynette dawson i find you guilty you may sit down i was just stunned it just happened so quickly that the judge announced he was guilty mr dawson it will be necessary for you to be taken into custody the handcuffs going on the judge sayings to dawson you have to go now wow yeah breaking news now and a judge has found a former teacher guilty of killing his wife in 1982 [Music] right at the end after five and a half hours it was just amazing i think we're all in a bit of shock um it was really hard right to the very end to even know which way it was going to go i would think that the verdict uh did clearly bring comfort to the family but it is a tragic situation whether it be lin's family or whether it be chris dawson's family it's a tragedy i thought well holy cow he's had 40 years of a lie he's been found he'll be murdering the sister why couldn't he just walk away we'd still have a sister [Music] having a murder verdict brings a conclusion to one part of the story but there's still another part of it is where is she [Music] clovelly is part of the sims family this is all the kids brought up so if we ever find lynne i believe that she deserves to have her ashes scattered off here at cleveland with mum and dad we were sent a photograph from a nursing colleague at the children's hospital she was very attached to a little girl who was sick maybe she come from the country and didn't have family there but lynn used to go down she'd be there comforting her and visiting her when she was off duty it's a very special photo for us because it just shows the sort of person she was [Music] lynne was a loving caring person loved life loved the children i was just full of life [Music] [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 877,214

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, Australian Story, Lyn Dawson, Chris Dawson, lyn dawson chequerboard, lyn dawson australian story, Lyn Dawson murder, teachers pet, teachers pet podcast, lyn dawson daughters, Greg Simms, Pat Jenkins

Id: 8bNEqyFNi68

Length: 34min 43sec (2083 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 05 2022