Criminology - Lynette Dawson

Episode Date: September 25, 2022

Lynette Dawson disappeared in Australia in 1982. Her husband Chris came under suspicion, but the authorities couldn't put together enough evidence against him to charge him and take him to trial. Damaging information came out about Chris Dawson over the years. His relationship with Lynette was extremely troubled, and through his role as a physical education teacher, he groomed a young female student. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Lynette Dawson. Though Lynette's body has never been found, the police did finally charge Chris with Lynette's murder. Without Lynette's body, they would need a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Chris Dawson to get a conviction. The big question became would they have enough? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what is going on with you, man? Looking at storms, watching weather patterns and the fun of living here in Florida, hoping that next week we can dodge one that goes out into the golf. So as the temperatures are nice and warm, we have to deal with that. What's new up north? No, weather's nice, starting to cool down a little bit.

It's football weather, right? Up north, I always call it football weather. When it starts to cool down a little bit, you get that sense of, you know, it's Friday night football time. I mean, I don't go to high school games anymore, obviously, but it's just, it brings back memories for sure. Are the leaves changing yet? Um, I, they're starting to. It's hard for me to answer that question because I don't leave the studio all that often as much as I would like. That's one thing I do miss about north, being up north is that cool, fresh morning air. You come out, take that big deep breath of cool air and you see the leaves changing. I'll always miss that part. Yeah, there's something great, really, if you think about it, about everywhere. You know, there's pros and cons and things you'll miss and things you'll love when you go new places. all right buddy let's go ahead and give our patreon shoutouts we had clara eichler jillian luther

amy and hithy valentino so some great support there we really appreciate it yeah thank you so much for taking the time to support the show we can't thank you enough and for anyone that would like to support criminology you can do so by going to patreon dot com slash criminology all right morph let's go ahead and jump into this episode and we're discussing a case that like many others we've discussed should have been solved many years ago, decades even. A podcast has even been credited with helping reveal information to investigators that finally aided in a push forward towards a prosecution. And we've seen this a few times so far as podcasts have gained more credibility and popularity in the media. And I think people are starting to understand

the power of podcasts. But the case we're talking about in this episode is, is the 1982 disappearance of Lynette Dawson in Australia and the subsequent murder investigation. Chris and Lynette Dawson, who was then Lynette Sims, met in high school when they were both 16 years old. Chris went to Sydney Boys High School in Sydney, Australia, and Lynette went to Sydney Girls High. But they went to the same joint high school function once and hit it off. Five years later, on March 26, 1970, they wed at St. Jude's Church in the Randwick suburb of Sydney. They were both 21 years old at the time. The Dawson's had trouble conceiving, but Lynette had fallopian tube surgery, and eventually they had two daughters,

Chanel and Sharon. The Dawson family lived together on Gilwinga Drive in Bayview, Australia. They bought the land while it was empty and custom built their family home. Lynette, a nurse, worked at the Warywood Child Care Center and Chris was a professional football player. Chris had a twin brother Paul. They both played professional rugby together on the Newtown Jets. Chris and Paul, along with their wives, even appeared on an ABC program called Checkerboard, talking about how being twins impacted their lives together. The Dawson seemed like the ideal family, with a lot of good things ahead of them. After his football career was over, Chris Dawson worked at Kromer High School near Sydney as a physical education teacher. His brother Paul was a gym teacher

too at a different school. It was while working as physical education teachers that both Chris and Paul would be accused of having inappropriate sexual relationships with female students. One of those inappropriate relationships would lead to tragedy and a mystery that would endure for years casting a shadow over Chris Dawson. In 1980, Chris Dawson began a relationship with a 17-year-old student of his at Cromer High School named Joanne. He was her physical education teacher and he took a special interest in her. And as it would become a parent, he began to groom her. Chris had actually noticed Joanne the year before and switched his class schedule around so that he would have her the next year in his class. Joanne would sometimes babysit the Dawson's two young

girls coming over to the home on Gilwinga Drive to watch them. She would also confide in Chris, her trusted teacher, about her unhappy homelight. Chris would write Joanne love letters and leave them in her bag each time she attended her biology class in her 11th grade year. So I think more if already we know we're getting into some really nasty territory here. but what I want to focus on specifically is this term grooming. We've heard this more and more over the last number of years. There's been more and more documentaries on it.

It's a very scary thought, especially, you know, when you think about someone in a position of power and we'll call a teacher someone in a position of power as it. relates to minor students. And this person takes an interest. I don't know how to say it any other way in one of his students and begins to groom her. And it's this grooming, this kind of, you know, setting things up, setting someone up for something bad to happen in the future that to me is just a really scary thought. Yeah, I know we're both, you know, 50 year old. range. So I think when we were younger before social media, we didn't hear about this stuff very often, but now it's hard to watch a week's worth of news without hearing some kind of story along

these lines where a teacher has an inappropriate relationship with a student. And I wonder how common, has it always been a thing? We just didn't hear about it because we didn't have social media or news that traveled at the speed of light. This could be something that's been going. on just for a long time and it's not really new. Oh, I'm sure it has. I don't know that it's a new thing. Does it happen more now than it used to? I have no idea. As if he had set up a regular schedule, every Friday night Chris would pick Joanne up and drive her to a convenience store. He'd buy her chocolate and then drive the manly point where they would have sex in the car. They even had sex at the Dawson's home on multiple occasions when Chris's wife Lynette was home

asleep. Seems pretty risky, right? For Chris to do you. do something like this while his wife was sleeping so close by. But Chris usually did this after he had applied Lynette with a few alcoholic drinks, which she didn't regularly partake in. So when the alcohol kicked in and Lynette fell asleep, Chris took advantage of it. According to court documents, it was around this time when Joanne recalled Chris calling Lynette Fatso and singing songs with cruel lyrics directed at her. Lynette's older sister Patricia Jenkins, remember that Chris and his brother Paul would constantly criticize Lynette over how big her legs were. In October 1981, Joanne attended the Cromer High School former ball with Chris Dawson

serving as her date. He would intimidate male students who showed any interest in Joanne. One of those young men, a rugby player who Chris coached, had asked Joanne out on multiple occasions, remembers the time when Chris approached him while he was at work, put away the carts at the Coles grocery store. It was in a dimly lit underground car park. And Chris shoved the surprised young man who was only 16 years old at the time up against a wall and told him to stay away from Joanne. This kid stopped asking Joanne out after that as instructed by his coach. So more if this is something we have to talk about. How does Chris Dawson,

a married man, a teacher show up to a school formal ball as the date of one of his students. How does that not raise a litany of questions? Yeah, it definitely seems like that would be the talk of the event if a teacher showed up as a date for a student. When I read that, I was shocked that it didn't cause some kind of controversy. Yeah, the gossip mill, the rumor mill. It's what everybody would be talking. about to me, I'm thinking about school administration officials. There has to be someone there right in charge. Are they not hearing about it? Do they not see that one of their teachers is on a date

with a minor student or just any student. Doesn't matter how old they are. How do they not jump in and say what in the world is going on here? Yeah, at least. look into it and see if there's anything there, and maybe that would prevent something awful from happening down the road. Another young man, around the same time the formal ball happened, went to Cromer High School with Joanne and had a paper route in the neighborhood she was living in. As were revealed in court documents, he remembered being potentially interested in Joanne that year. He was also a rugby player who had Chris Dawson as his coach and physical education teacher. This young man confided in Chris as his coach and mentor, letting him know.

that he had a crush on Joanne and wanted to ask her out. Chris helped him to make a plan to ask her out at her house. But when the young man showed up, Chris was there and he told him the plan was off and to leave. And you have to feel sorry for this 17-year-old girl, Joanne. She was groomed. She was manipulated by her teacher. And apparently life at home wasn't going great for her in the fall of 1981. due to problems she was having at home, Joanne was allowed to move into the Dawson home. Lynette felt sorry for Joanne and told multiple friends and neighbors

who thought the arrangement was a bit suspicious that Chris would never do anything wrong or inappropriate. Unfortunately, Lynette had no idea what was already going on right underneath her nose. According to court records, it was soon after Joanne moved in at a family gathering at Lynette's parents' house. Chris was talking to Lynette's brother Gregory

and mentioned his two darling little girls. Gregory asked him, what about your darling big girl? Referring to Lynette. And Chris replied, she can get in the bloody kitchen where she belongs. So even in front of Lynette's family, it was clear just how cold and nasty

Chris had become towards Lynette. I think it's pretty troubling because he has this inappropriate relationship with her. And now she's living under the same roof as him. So that really opened up things for him to take advantage of her and abuse her. Yeah. And I want to talk about Lynette for a minute. You know, she made this statement. Chris would never do anything wrong or inappropriate.

And I think most wives would say this exact. same thing about their husbands. Nobody wants to believe that their spouse would do something like this. This person that you've known for a long time, you love them, you chose to marry them. You don't want to think bad things about people. And, you know, I see Lynette as this person who can have learned that Joanne is going through a really rough time at home and being a good person wants to help her out, not realizing what's going on. During a phone call between Lynette and her sister-in-law, Marilyn Marilyn Sims, Gregory's wife, Lynette told her explicitly, I doubt that we'll be having any more family.

She described how angry Chris was and how often. They were never intimate anymore, which was completely unlike them. Lynette said that she confronted Chris, and he said he wasn't cheating on her, but they just weren't communicating anymore. Lynette was unhappy that Joanne had moved into their home before she and her husband had solved their relationship issues. Chris had become so cold and distant with Lynette that when Chris had to have some kind of operation on his nose, he told Lynette not to visit him while I was in the hospital. Lynette's mom, however, did go to visit Chris. And when she arrived, she saw Joanne there at Chris's bedside wiping his nose.

It was clear even to neighbors how bad things were between Chris and Lynette Dawson. Julie Andrew, the Dawson's next door neighbor, heard crying coming from the Dawson's yard one day. She could tell it was Lynette. So she started to walk over and saw her standing near their trampoline. Chris was in front of her, pushing her up against the trampoline. He was yelling at her. But Julie couldn't hear what he was saying. But she could see that Chris had his hands on Lynette's shoulders.

She heard Lynette say something like, what are you doing to us, Chris? While he was shaking Lynette and yelling, pushing her backward onto the trampoline, one of their young daughters came outside. That's when Chris stopped and went back inside the house. Julie heard the Dawson's daughter say, gosh, what's daddy doing to us?

Julie visited Lynette when Chris wasn't home and told her that she had seen her crying. Lynette confided in her that Joanne's move into the home was permanent and that, you know, at this point, she was not happy with it, particularly because she had come home early one day due to a migraine and found Chris and Joanne in bed together. Now, Chris told her that Joanne was sick and he was taking care of her. Julie asked Lynette, how can you talk your way out of that? But Lynette assured her that everything was fine.

This was the last time Julie ever saw Lynette. By November 1981, the jig was up. Lynette confronted Joanne over the affair. According to court documents, she said to Joanne, you've been taking liberties with my husband. That night, Joanne moved out of the Dawson's home and in Chris's brother, Paul Dawson's house, where she stayed until December 22nd. Joanne got a Christmas card from Chris, addressed to the initials J.M.D., not JMC, which were her actual initials. He was essentially referring to her as Joanne M. Dawson. around December 23rd, Chris and Joanne went on a vacation together.

And it was while they were getting ready to leave for this getaway that Chris told Joanne they were going to start a new life together. Chris and Joanne packed up all their stuff. Chris even packed his pillow in trash bags and packed everything into the car. Chris took Joanne to Queensland. Meanwhile, Lynette had no idea that her husband had left. She had expected Chris to pick her up from work, like always, because she didn't drive, but he never showed up.

She had to take a taxi after waiting for hours and realizing that he wasn't going to come. When Lynette got home, she found the note from Chris, letting her know he had left. The note read in part, don't paint too bad a picture of me to the girls. So, I mean, obviously this was shocking to Lynette. She was extremely upset. that, you know, I feel for this woman more, you know, what she is going through at this part in the story. This young girl has entered her life, her family's life. At one point, she finds her husband in bed with this girl. He tries to talk her way out of it. But she can tell by the way he's acting

that something's not right. The marriage is falling apart. Now all of a sudden, it's apparently clear that he's leaving her for one of his students. And I think it's really upsetting to sort of watch, as we're looking back now telling this story, to watch her life sort of implode and come apart. I think maybe some of us have seen relationships where you might try and give advice from an outsider's perspective and say, hey, you can do better than this person. they're really treating you badly. And it's clear that Chris was doing this to Lynette.

But I think sometimes even at this point, Lynette was trying to hold on to that relationship she had. I mean, this is her husband. They share home together. They have kids together. So I think it must have been a very difficult situation for her to just walk away and say, okay, I can do better than this scumbag. Yeah, relationships are tough.

We know that walking away from relationships can be extremely difficult. for a number of reasons. You mentioned kids, a home, a family. You have invested a number of years into this relationship. And I think for a lot of people, you know, there's always something in the back of your mind saying, you know, we can get back to where we were when things were good. And sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't work.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that both people, have to want it. And in this story that we're talking about here, it's apparent that Chris doesn't want it. He wants Joanne and another life with her. Lynette called her sister Patricia, who she talked to regularly on the phone with. Lynette said that since she didn't drive and didn't have a lot of money, she was worried about how she would take care of her daughters alone. That night, Lynette tucked her girls into bed and told them that Chris had to leave for a while, but they had sent them each a kiss. Patricia offered her to her. to let Lynette and the girl stay at her house for Christmas, so they wouldn't be alone.

But let Nett declined the offer and said she wanted to stay home, quote, in case Chrissy came home. Lynette's brother Gregory also offered to let them stay over for Christmas. But Lynette also told him she wanted to wait at home for Chris. So it was clear that even after what Chris had done, as cruel as he had been to Lynette, that she was hoping somehow their marriage could be saved. For his part, Chris was content to never go back home. He had put down a few hundred dollars as a down payment toward a rental home in North Manley and was ready to stay there. But Joanne started to feel sick on the trip.

And at the same time, she was feeling homesick, missing her family. On Christmas, the two returned to Sydney, where they went to Chris's brother Paul's house to visit him. That night, they slept in the gym at Cromer High School. soon after returning home Joanne and her stepfather got into an argument so Chris drove her to neutral bay where she stayed with her sister for about a week

while she was there Chris visited her almost every day on New Year's Day in 1982 Patricia talked to Lynette on the phone again she was shocked to hear that Chris was back but as suddenly as he had returned he was gone again having gone off to a yachting party alone

and he refused to take Lynette or either of their daughters. He also refused to take the girls to the park, despite their repeated pleas. But it turns out that Chris wasn't at a yachting party. He and Joanne were actually together sleeping in his car that night. On January 2nd, Joanne went to Southwest Rocks to take a vacation with their sisters. At Chris's urging, Joanne called Chris every day from a pay phone, in which he would accept the charges. And it was more evidence of Chris's control over Joanne. Chris canceled the plans he had to move to North Manly with Joanne because he had. he had been advised by another of his brother's Peter that if he left the home in Bayview,

he would be at a disadvantage in court during any separation or divorce. Chris tried to get Lynette on board, was selling their home, but she refused. Chris was frustrated and angry with Lynette, and it got worse for him. Joanne told Chris, she didn't want to see him anymore. The breakup angered him. And that first week of January 1982 would prove to be an extremely eventful one. On Friday, January 8th, Lynette's mother Helena called Lynette and they chatted for a while. The two made plans to meet up with family on the 9th at Northbridge Baths, a beach to spend some time together.

And I think for a lot of us, a day on the beach in January may sound chilly, but in Australia, the weather is a lot different. It's hot on Christmas, and it's actually colder in June. Lynette didn't show up for a day at the beach to see her family. This same week, Chris drove up to Southwest Rocks and picked Joanne and her sister up. Despite Joanne calling off the relationship with Chris, he was still their ride back to Sydney. The day before he drove there to pick them up, he and Joanne talked over the phone. And Chris said to Joanne, Lynn's gone. She's not coming back.

He begged Joanne, saying, come back to Sydney and help. me look after the children and be with me. And once they got back to Sydney, Joanne moved into the Dossin home. Joanne asked him where Lynette was and he told her that he and Lynette were separated and that she had called him the day after she was last seen on January 9th to tell him she was never coming back. You know, more for me, there's a, there's a part, at least one part in every story where things just don't make sense. They don't. add up. This is one of those situations. And it actually comes up in quite a few missing persons cases, murder cases, where you have a mother. In this case, Lynette, who's going through a really

difficult time with her husband because, let's face it, he's being a jackass, but all of a sudden, Lynette's gone. And Chris is telling people she's not coming back. And my mind immediately goes to, okay, this is a mother who loves her children. She's just going to up and leave without her kids. No, probably not. That doesn't make sense. Not that it doesn't happen. It just doesn't make sense in the majority of situations. And it doesn't make sense here. Yeah. And on one hand, it seems odd that Joanne would just say, sure, I'll move in with you and not have more questions. But on the other hand, I wonder if she didn't ask more probing questions because she was young. She was naive.

She was controlled by this guy. So she didn't think, you know, there could be something going on here, something shady. She just agreed to moving in. And I think it was just further proof that he had some kind of control over her. Yeah. And we don't know every single. detail of the grooming, but we have seen in other cases, especially laid out in some of the documentaries that, you know, this grooming can be so extensive, so powerful that at a certain

point, the person being groomed pretty much just believes everything that the groomer is telling them as fact. Moving comes with a lot of questions. Do you pack first? How do you move the fridge? Did you rent the right truck? That's why so many movers choose United Van Lines for their first big move. With experienced professionals handling packing, loading and transport, you don't have to guess

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We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. On January 12th, Chris received bank statements that purportedly showed Lynette had purchased a cardigan and a pair of jeans at two different stores in Narabine, Australia. On February 11th, Chris gave Joanna a birthday card that read to the most beautiful girl in the world on her 18th birthday.

A week later, on February 18th, Chris Dawson reported Lynette missing. This was a full six weeks after Lynette had last been seen or heard from by anyone. according to Lynette's mom who spoke with Lynette the day before she went missing, Lynette seemed fine and everything was normal during their last conversation. In fact, Lynette told her mom that she and Chris had gone to a couple's therapy session and that Lynette actually sounded upbeat. So you hear that from Lynette's mom. And to me, that's just further evidence that, you know, this was not a woman who was on the verge of just running away,

running away from her kids. Nobody thought that. Nobody said that she sounded despondent. Now, obviously, she was going through a rough time. But it's the kids that I always come back to. The last day Lynette was seen, Chris had dropped her off at work, and he and Lynette were holding hands and smiling.

People found it odd that she would have suddenly left Chris when she was trying to work on things and had seemed to be getting along with him just fine the day before. Family, friends, and even neighbors refused to believe that Lynette had abandoned her children. Again, just like me, that's the thought that I keep having. According to court documents, one neighbor said of Lynette,

she had such a tough time becoming pregnant and having her babies, and she was just so connected to them. She would never have been parted from her children. Police discovered that Lynette had never contacted any of her friends or family members. There were no phone calls or letters from her. There was also no activity on Lynette's Australian passport, meaning she couldn't have left Australia. Police did find one coworker who did notice the signs of something bad, though. When Lynette had returned from the couple's therapy session, she had a bruise on her neck. Lynette confided in her colleague that

Chris had choked her in an elevator on the way to the therapy session. He told Lynette, I'm only doing this once, and if it doesn't work, I'm getting rid of you. For his part, Chris denied this since it never occurred. According to court documents, he said, I strongly dispute that because that sort of visit, that particular day was starting with the hope of saving something which after 13 years was very much floundering. Floundering. That word seems to be quite a euphemism coming from Chris, in my opinion.

If anything, it seems like he took a wrecking ball to the relationship. The Dawson's former babysitter, who Joanne replaced, recalled an incident around 1980 when Lynette was washing the dishes and Chris got a cup from the cabinet, looked at it, and decided it was dirty, and grabbed the teetowel. The babysitter was surprised when instead of cleaning the cup, he flicked it across Lynette's back before storming off. Lynette was crying quietly, but at 16 or 17 years, old, the babysitter didn't know what to do. So she didn't say anything at the time. According to news.com, a.U on March 27th, 1982, Chris placed an ad in the Daily Telegraph.

It was a message to Lynette that read, Lynn, I love you, we all miss you. Please ring. We want you home, Chris. On one hand, Chris was making it seem that he missed his wife. And on the other hand, he carried on his relationship with you. Joanne. Chris taught Joanne how to drive, and she was able to get her driver's license in 1982. Chris didn't get rid of Lynette's jewelry or clothing. In fact, he even let Joanne wear Lynette's clothes. Her belongings were in trash bags that were supposed to go to Lynette's mother, but they didn't make it over to her house for quite some time. As court documents revealed, Joanne said,

I was allowed to go through Lynn's clothes and keep anything I wanted. It wasn't just Lynette's clothing that was left behind. Her nursing badges, which she would need for work, and even her contact lenses were still in the Dawson home. And that's something that you and I talk about in quite a few of these cases, right? If someone made the decision to voluntarily leave, there are certain things, and this is completely separate from the conversation about leaving her kids, but there are things that people would need to take with them. Contact lenses, glasses, prescriptions, all of that you have to take into account. When you're trying to make the decision,

did this person really leave voluntarily and just decide, enough is enough, I've got to go on my own. In August 1982, Chris filed for dissolution of the marriage. He claimed that their marital problems were due to Lynette's excessive spending habits. Two months later in October,

the marriage between Chris and Lynette was officially dissolved. That month, when Chris did take the trash bags filled with Lynette's belongings to her parents' house, Lynette's brother Gregory found a sales inspection report and selling agency agreement in the belongings for Lynette's and Chris's home. It was signed on December 21st, 1981, by Chris Dawson, but not signed by Lynette. Gregory remembered talking to a sister about Chris's plan to sell their home. And she specifically mentioned not signing the inspection report because she didn't want to sell the house. On April 29, 1983, Chris Dawson gave a sworn affidavit in family court saying that he and Joanne had started their relationship in April of 1982. On January 15, 1984, Chris Dawson finally married Joanne.

He had asked her several times to get married in the past. He had practically been begging her since she was 16 years old. And the wedding was actually held at the Gilwinga Drive home. Chris had Lynette's rings resize for Joanne so that she could wear them. Joanne would later say that on their wedding day, Chris grabbed her throat for no apparent reason. All right. So there's a lot of messed up stuff in this story. And, you know, we can seize on this thing or that thing.

Right now, I want to talk about. getting remarried and resizing your ex-wife's rings for your new wife. I don't know many women that would be like, oh, that's great. Please do that for me. I would love that. It's almost as if he completely replaced Lynette with Joanne. And that must have felt weird, I would think, for Joanne to say, hey, now the new version of Lenet using all her clothes and her jewelry.

and, you know, he's just phased me right into her place. Well, and she's probably being asked to take care of the kids. And yeah, it's just so very strange. But we also get a glimpse of Chris on their wedding day grabbing Joanne's throat for what she said was no apparent reason. And that glimpse is, okay, we have a guy here who seems to have anger issues, trouble controlling his anger. Not long after they got married, Chris and Joanne moved to a remote property in Queensland with Chris and Lynette's two young daughters. In January of 1985, Joanne gave birth to

her own daughter. Joanne favored her daughter over Chris's older daughters, and it caused issues in their relationship. At the same time, she wasn't allowed to punish the girls in any way and would get punished herself by Chris for any attempt to discipline his daughters. He wanted her to mother his girls, but he would punish her for trying. It didn't take long for Joanne to grow tired of this type of treatment. Joanne eventually came to call their home the compound due to its rural area and six-foot chain link fence surrounding the property. Chris eventually stopped letting Joanne take their two-year-old daughter to any appointments. playdates or playgrounds.

Other moms at the playdates had talked too much about their happy relationships for Chris's liking. And he was worried that Joanne would soon begin to question the quality of her relationship with him. So it seems like this is a real wake-up call for Joanne recognizing that, hey, this isn't normal, this relationship, our home life, something's off here. And I think it's pretty clear, pretty clear. evident from what Chris was doing trying to keep her isolated from people and trying to keep her

at home like that that he had some bad intentions. Well, it's another little window, right, into how controlling this guy really was. You know, it's a first whiff of Joanne hearing about other people's relationships and how good they are. Okay, we have to shut that down. Or I should say, has to shut that down because he has to control. He has to limit the access that Joanne has to other people. Because to your point, Morf, at what point is she going to find out that my relationship is not as good as what other people's relationships are? It's not what it should be. And I think it's proof that Joanne finally did realize that because in March, 1990, Joanne and Chris Dawson separated. Chris ordered her to destroy all the love letters he had

written to her when she was his student, but she kept them instead. Their marriage was dissolved the same year. Police at this time were still looking for the truth about what happened to Linda Dawson. Chris Dawson was interviewed by the police on January 15, 1991. He called his vacation with Joanne, time away from home, to try and clarify how he felt. He also told investigators that after they went to the couple's counseling session, Lynette had seemed disturbed by the results. This is in direct contrast to the witnesses at her workplace who saw them that same day. Chris told police that he dropped Lynette off the morning of the ninth at Mona Vail bus stop. She was planning on shopping that day and he was going to take their daughters to the North Bridge

swimming pool baths where he had a part-time job. Chris claimed that Lynette had taken $500 cash with her that day. she was supposed to meet them at the bass after she was done shopping. When he saw Lynette's mother, Helena at the North Bridge Bass, he thought she would be with her. But when she wasn't there and her mother didn't know where she was, they figured she was still out shopping. Chris claimed that Helena called him there at the baths and spoke to him. After this, he asked his friend that was with him to drive Helena and the girls to Helena's home, by Lynette's request.

According to Chris Dawson, his missing wife Lynette did call home a few times. Each time Lynette would call and tell him she needed more time away, and he would tell her to take all the time she needed. After all, he had taken his own time away, but Chris claimed that he missed Lynette, and that after she disappeared, there were many nights when he lay awake crying his heart out,

hoping for some contact from her. In 1991, both Chris and Paul Dawson's phones were tapped by the authorities. The brothers never said anything outrightly incriminating, but it was clear by some of the things they said in their calls that they may have been aware of the wiretap. In January of 2000, a small area of the backyard around the pool at the Dawson's previous home on Gilwinga Drive was excavated, pieces of a pink cardigan with slash marks on it as well as a pauper container, which we think refers to either a soda can or juice box, with an expiration date from 1981 where the only things found. They were determined to be unrelated to Lynette's disappearance. A year later, in February of 2001,

Coroner's Enquest was held a family friend of the Dawson's, Philip Day, gave a statement describing the winter of 1981. Unlike other years, Philip didn't get a Christmas card from the Dawson's. In early January, Chris called and apologized for not sending a car and explained that he and Lynette had been having trouble in their marriage. The two made plans to meet up at Northbridge Pool on January 9th.

On January 8th, Philip called the Dawson residence to confirm that he and Chris were still meeting the next day. Lynette answered the phone and told him about their marriage counseling. She also confirmed the meeting, saying she would tell Chris to meet him at the pool the next day. So I think based on this phone call that Philip made to the Dawson residence that Lynette was there. She answered the phone. He talked with her. So we know as of that date, according to him, she was okay. By 2001, investigators came to believe that Lynette had been the victim of foul play. It was the opinion of Deputy Coroner Jan Stevenson. The Lynette had been murdered by someone close to her. There was no body to exhume. So the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowper,

determined that they didn't have enough evidence to go forward with charging anyone for Lynette's murder. Two years later in February 2003, a second inquest was conducted, this time by State Coroner Carl Milovanovitch. Just as Deputy State Corner Stevenson had recommended two years earlier, Milovanovich recommended that charges be brought against Chris Dawson for the murder of his wife, Lynette Dawson. And once again, Cowdery felt that there was insufficient evidence for prosecution, and he refused to charge Chris Dawson. And for years, the case stagnated. In September 2010, the New South Wales Police Department announced a $100,000 reward for information that led to a conviction in Lynette's disappearance.

In December 2011, one of the Dawson's neighbors, Coral Clark, gave a statement to police that before Lynette disappeared, she was upset because Chris had called her a quote, quote, fat and ugly bitch because she still hadn't lost all of the weight she gained with her second pregnancy. It was just one more confirmation of how mean Chris had been to Lynette. But it still didn't lead to the case being solved. In January 2014, desperate for leads, the reward for information was doubled to $200,000. In April 2018, the New South Wales Police requested another review of the case. In May of that year, a podcast about the case was released. Journalist Headley Thomas had begun an investigation of his own, interviewing friends, family members, and colleagues of Lynette Dawson.

The podcast, The Teacher's Pet, was a hit, and suddenly, the international public, too, wanted justice for Lynette. In September 2018, investigators dug up more of the yard at the Dawson's former property on Gilwinger Drive, but again, nothing of significance was found. but perhaps pressured by the publicity of the case, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions finally brought charges of homicide against Chris Dawson. In December 2018, he was arrested in Queensland and extradited to New South Wales. In court, the defense argued that the teacher's pet

had made it impossible for Chris Dawson to have a fair trial with an impartial jury. The Australian, the newspaper behind the teacher's pet, suspended publications of new episodes of the show, and all 16 episodes that were already out were taken down in Australia, even though the trial had technically already been delayed for 40 years. It was delayed even further to give time for publicity from the podcast to go away. The passage of the last four decades meant that at least a dozen witnesses had died, including Philip Day, some potential.

witnesses that died were never interviewed and never gave a statement. Whatever they knew has been completely lost. Due to the publicity of the case, Chris Dawson didn't have a jury trial. Instead, he had a bench trial where one judge decides your fate. If you're guilty, the judge has to lay out exactly why, where a jury can just vote and leave everyone to wonder why they decided one way or another. In May 22, the trial began and three months later, on August 30th, 2022, Chris Dawson was found guilty of the murder of Lynette Dawson. Lynette's brother Gregory told the New York Times of the guilty verdict. Today, her name has been cleared.

She loved her family and would have never left them of her own accord. Instead, her trust was betrayed by a man she loved. And I want to take a second to analyze that statement because to me it's very powerful. Her name has been cleared. I took that to mean, along with the second part of his statement, She loved her family. She would have never left them, just like we talked about. That would have been a big deal for the family.

People thinking that their loved one, their relative would just run off and kind of shirked their responsibility, leave their kids behind. They knew she hadn't done that. And now a judge has essentially validated that. But this last part, her trust was betrayed by a man. man she loved. Man, morph, how many times has that happened throughout history? But specifically, in just the episodes that we've covered. Yeah, it seems like an all too common theme where you see people in these relationships that hang on to them, they trust someone and then that trust is

betrayed and, you know, we get these horrible outcomes from it. For five hours, Justice Harrison painstakingly laid out the reasons why he found Chris Dawson. and guilty. In short, he laid out three motives that drove Chris to kill his wife. He resented her. He was obsessed with Joanne and he wanted to avoid losing assets or custody in a divorce and having to pay any child support. The resentment had been festering for a long time. It was revealed that in late 1975. Chris had approached a man named Robert Silkman and asked him if he knew anyone that could get rid of Lynette. It's believed that Chris was upset that Lynette was unable to have children up to that point. Judge Harrison concluded that towards the end of 1981, if not, in fact, before this, Mr. Dawson considered that his marriage to Lynette Dawson was in a state of incipient,

failure. The judge called Chris's version of events simply absurd, further stating that it defies common sense. And he went on to say, I do not accept that Lynette Dawson, a woman allegedly determined to abandon her home and family and to disappear from sight and all that she had, would at one in the same time continue to remain in contact with the very person who was on this analysis, the reason for her departure. Chris said he contacted all of Lynette's friends and coworkers, but only two ever talked to him about Lynette's possible whereabouts. Not only had he not really been looking for her, Chris was the only person to claim that Lynette had contacted them in any way,

but he was the person she was supposedly trying to get away from. It just didn't make sense to the judge. Well, and it didn't make sense to us either. And so, you know, I'm glad to hear that the judge kind of laid all of this out. It's important. Chris claiming that he wanted to work on the marriage certainly seemed untrue. The note he left, telling Lynette not to make him look bad to the girls is clear. His absence was going to be permanent.

He also tried to minimize his role in the relationship with Joanne, telling people, I didn't ask Joanne to come and live with me. Whenever he could, Chris left Joanne out of the story entirely, trying to hide his involvement with her. Chris claimed that he traveled north by himself to be alone and that he returned to their home on Boxing Day, saying, having missed my wife and daughters, and hoping to resolve our differences. Chris claims that the day before she left him, Lynette threw her youngest daughter on the bed and had what he called a bit of an emotional breakdown. Even if this did happen, it's unlikely

that Lynette would have left over it. Lynette wanted to be a mother more than anything in the world than it showed. Justice Harrison stated that, standing alone, the passionate, incredible evidence of the strong relationship between Lynette Dawson and her children is arguably completely at odds with the proposition that she would voluntarily and without explanation have decided to leave them. Despite the finding of guilt against Chris Dawson, there are still unanswered questions. Did Chris Dawson kill his wife alone or did he have help? And how did it all happen? And where are Lynette's remains? Unless Chris Dawson chooses to shine more life. on these questions, they might not ever be answered. Chris Dawson is set to be sentenced on

November 11th, 2022. So morph as we wrap up this case, you know, one of the things that really jumped out at me was how long it took for police to finally get to the point where they felt they could charge Chris Dawson with Lynette's murder. It took a very long time. And there were points in the story that we talked about where prosecutors, I felt, thought it was him, wanted to charge him, but they made the decision that they just didn't have the evidence. And, you know, on the one hand, you want these people to be put away as quickly as possible. On the other hand, I don't want prosecutors to rush to charge people. We've seen really bad things happen. when they choose to go that route, you know, people get wrongfully convicted or a jury could acquit

someone of murder and then what do you have left? You know, you need to have that really strong case before you take it to trial. Yeah, and I think in the past we've talked about no body cases, it's definitely a tougher battle for prosecuting someone. But I think at the end here, they finally felt they had enough and went forward and the judge agreed. We talk about this case. When I look back over it, one thing that I think is sort of tragic is the warning signs, the grooming, the things we talked about. He moved her into his house.

He went to a date with her at the function. It seems like there could have been an opportunity someplace for someone to put the brakes on this guy. And maybe Lynette would still be alive and maybe this wouldn't have happened. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think there were a lot of signs that either people didn't see or they saw and they dismissed them and thought, well, it's not my place. I don't know exactly. But, you know, it wasn't like the entire time he was hiding this relationship.

Some of it was very out in the open. So, you know, to that point, there had to have been people. And we talked about people who saw it, thought it was to. didn't like it, but what happened? Nothing. You know, the other thing that I think you'd have to say about this case is that this really isn't kind of a smoking gun case. And it's probably why they waited so long to actually charge him and try him. Number one, they still have not found Lynette's body. They don't know how she died. We didn't talk about like a ton of evidence, forensic evidence. There was a lot of circumstantial stuff that this case really came down to. And it's probably a good thing that it

went before a judge. Because I could see myself on a jury saying, yeah, this guy is a terrible human being. But where is your proof that he was responsible for Lynette's death? Now, I think the judge looked at everything in its totality and made the decision that Chris was responsible. Well, hopefully when he's sentenced, you know, her family gets justice. Her daughters get justice and he's put away for the rest of his life. Yeah, because what if he is not? Let's say he's out in, I don't know, pick a number of years. Is this a guy because of his track record who is a immediate?

going to go searching for another victim to groom, much like he did with Joanne, and something terrible is likely to happen. Well, he's 74 years old right now, so assuming that he gets some decent amount of time, he's not going to, he's most likely not going to get out or at least not be young enough where he can go around grooming people. Yeah, but maybe he takes a different tact. I don't know. I'm with you, though. I would prefer if this guy never sees the light of day. And then the last thing that I wanted to bring up is, you know, in the very beginning and then towards the end, we talked about podcasts. And there was a podcast that kind of spurred things on somewhat in this case.

It's timely because of the news on the Adnan case that came out this week, his conviction being overturned, being released. Now, he may or may not be retried, but you would have to say that at least in some part, the popularity of cereal and the millions of people that listened to that podcast played a big role in at least putting that case, uh, you know, in the forefront. Now, could a good attorney have done what ultimately happened anyway? Sure. We see that all time. But I just thought it was very timely because of that news that kind of just broke earlier this week. That makes me proud to be a podcaster, knowing that people are out there doing good work. Yeah. I mean, you know, we do what we do. Could something ever come from it like what

has happened in some of these cases? Maybe. I'm not expecting it, but we do shed light on quite a number of unsolved cases. Could somebody listen to it and think, you know what? I have some information. Maybe it's time for me to alert the authorities. Maybe it's something. Maybe it's nothing. And it turns out to be, you know, what police need to break a case wide open. Who knows what could happen. But that's it for our episode on Lynette Dawson. If you love the show and haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star You can leave a review. Keep telling your friends. That word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. And if you happen to be in a Facebook group where someone asked for a podcast recommendation, please recommend criminology to them. So that's it for another episode of Criminology. but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.

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