RedHanded - Episode 324 - The Vanishing of Lynette Dawson - Part 1

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

When Lynette Dawson vanished without a trace in January 1982, her husband played the heartbroken victim. He was an abandoned father of two, with no choice but to move a 16-year-old student into the family home to help him out…This is part 1 of the strange Australian tale. Expect shocking police corruption; rampant sex abuse running wild in the high schools of Sydney’s Northern Beaches; a man who thought he could get away with anything; and his strangely close relationship with his identical twin brother.Follow us on social media:InstagramTwitterVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to a very sunny Red Handed because we are off to Australia, but not in the way that everybody seems to have thought. Because there is a lot of hoo-ha going on on social media that we somehow very casually announced an Australia-New Zealand tour. And I was like, when did we do that? And then I went for dinner with my friends last night and they were like,

it kind of did sound like that. And I was like, oh, well, that is not what we meant, guys. I thought that. What we meant was you Antipodeans go and tell all of your friends to listen to Red Handed so we can get the listener numbers up. So then we can go and do an Australia and New Zealand tour. We are in conversations. We just need to figure out timelines, etc. etc yes but please do tell your friends because i really don't want to fly for 30 million hours to come and do a show for as lovely as you are like 30 people in a venue somewhere exactly so

please go tell your friends spread the good word about red-handed and then before you know it we might be on a long-arse plane to austral New Zealand. So stay tuned, but this is not an announcement of an Antipodean tour. We're sorry if we got anybody's hopes up. Yeah, tell your friends. But it's not never going to happen. We just don't want to do it and then be like, oh, we have to cancel it because there's not enough people coming. Yeah, exactly.

It would be very embarrassing for everyone involved. Though two lovely ladies in Melbourne last year did dress up as us for Halloween. They did. Which if that's not a sign that we should come on tour I don't know what is so anyway we may not be yet there physically but over the next two weeks we are going to metaphorically that's not the right word we're going to I don't know I think you can say metaphorically. Yeah. We're gonna be in Australia in our mind. In our hearts and our spirits. And our eyes because of the scripts.

So yes, we are doing the much requested ginormous fucking case that is the murder of Lynette Dawson. And I still cannot say it in Hedley Thomas' Australian accent. Lynette Dawson. Lynette Dawson. The probable murder of Lynette Dawson. Lynette Dawson.

The probable murder of Lynette Dawson. I don't think I can say probable murder. That's good. That was good. Of Lynette Dawson. Yes, Lynette Dawson. I'm just motoring into an Africana accent. Look, you're not here for the impressions.

You're not here for the accents. You're here for the damn good storytelling that we're about to do. And this is one hell of a fucking case. So in early January 1982, in Sydney's northern beaches, 33-year-old Lynette Dawson vanished. She left behind two daughters, four-year-old Chanel and two-year-old Sharon, and handsome, former rugby league star husband, Chris. To this day, four decades on, Lynn has never been found. But in 2001, and then again in 2003,

two coroners, in two separate inquests, found that she had died in January 1982, and that she had been murdered by her husband, Chris Dawson. And when this news was revealed, a lot of people were seemingly unbelievably shocked by this. And I say that because two days after Lynn vanished, 34-year-old Chris Dawson openly moved his 16-year-old lover into the family home on Gilwinger Drive in Bayview. So yes, the fact that anyone was shocked that two magistrates

both recommended putting Chris Dawson on trial for murder is beyond shocking. And can I just clarify something before we move on? I know I'm calling the 16-year-old in this his lover, and some people might take issue with this. I am not skirting around the fact that there is grooming, there is abuse, there is all sorts of stuff going on, which we will come on to. But at that point, the two of them were engaged in a very, very open relationship that everybody, including this girl's parents knew about. And again, there's nuance to this. I'm not going to say he wasn't tying her up in the house. She could leave. She couldn't. She was really stuck in this relationship. But that's how he and she viewed this relationship at this time. Right. What is actually shocking about this story is that when Lynette went missing,

basically nobody looked for her. She was a devoted mother and a beloved daughter, sister, friend. But when she just disappeared nothing happened that is the most shocking thing about this entire story because this isn't a case like say scott peterson right where you're like here are these people who for some fucking beyond my wildest imagination reason think that this man is innocent yeah and then here are these people who rightly think that he is guilty this isn't that story it's like when Lynette goes missing it's like everyone is just awash with like apathy and like well you should just mind your own business like whatever even though he's moved a 16 year old girl into his house and

into his bed and the only people who say that they think Chris Dawson is innocent are his family and I'm not even going to say who think he's innocent I'm going to say who say he's innocent right because I do not even think that they think he's innocent, but they stand by him. There really isn't like a contingent of people on Chris Dawson's side, apart from the other Dawsons. Right. What is shocking about this case is how he got away with it for so long,

given how much fucking evidence there is that he killed her. Even the police just accepted the stories that Lynette's husband Chris spun. And those stories included mysterious religious cults, and they were like, fine. And the police also completely ignored the blindingly obvious motive that Chris had to get rid of Lynette. And in the decades that followed Lynn's disappearance, Chris Dawson shut down even the slightest accusation that he had indeed killed his wife. He painted himself as a poor, abandoned husband left to raise two young daughters all on his own by a selfish wife who only cared about herself and some sort of mysterious cult. This is a strange tale of police corruption, rampant sex abuse running wild in the high schools of Sydney's northern beaches, a man who thought he could get away with anything,

and his strangely close relationship to his identical twin brother. I think that is, yes, weird that no one looks for Lynette. His relationship with his brother is so fucking weird. It's so fucking weird. And I love, like, I know I'm jumping the gun here, but like at one of the inquests, his brother Peter, who was not his identical twin, but his older brother, is a lawyer. And so he defends Chris at one of these inquests.

And one of the detectives, who is like the fucking, the only guy who did anything, this guy called Damien Loon who comes into our story much later he's on the stand and he's pointing out how weird the relationship is between Chris and his identical brother Paul because it is pertinent to this case as we'll come on to see later and Peter's like to Damien what would you understand about the closeness of identical twins and Damien Loon detective Damien Loon is like I am an identical twin it's such a great moment sick man I also think that when Chris was signed to a rugby team he refused to do it unless they signed his brother too and he's the worst player is it

the other way around so Paul is the good player okay and Chris not so much and when they were shopping around to find like a professional rugby team so they could start getting paid for it, all of them were like, we want Paul, we don't need Chris. And then they go to Newtown Jets, as we'll go on to discover, because they're like, all right, we'll take both of you. We'll take the dud. Yeah. But anyway, we're jumping all over the place. Let's get back to the timeline. So before we get started, have to of course mention the global

phenomenon that is the teacher's pet podcast in over 20 hours of content investigative journalist headley thomas picks this case apart piece by piece delivering up what i think is one of the most compelling podcasts that i have ever listened to and And not only is The Teacher's Pet an example of exemplary journalism, it led to real-life action being taken in the case of Lynette Dawson after 40 years of crickets. 40 years of absolutely nothing. So if you haven't already, go and listen to The Teacher's Pet. If you have already, then go listen again, because Hedley interviews everyone. And while we are going to delve into this case as a two-parter

over the next two weeks, we just cannot tell you this story in the same level of detail that Hedley does, because everyone that you need to hear from is interviewed in that podcast. It's produced by The Australian, isn't it? Yeah. I think The Australian do fucking phenomenal work. Yeah. No, it's outstanding. It's outstanding. And yeah, when I say global phenomenon, I'm not kidding. Like, it got just millions and millions and millions of downloads worldwide. And you cannot get away from the fact that it is one of those podcasts that fundamentally changed the direction of this investigation. Without it, we would not be talking about lynn and we would not have chris dawson where he is today the only other podcast i have listened to that has made me feel the way teachers

pet did where you feel like it's unraveling as you're you feel like you're a part of it the only other time i have experienced that is surprise hannah's talking about south africa again my only story dion wicket have you not listened to it no oh my god i'm dion wicket Africa again. My only story, Dionne Wiggett. Have you not listened to it? No. Oh my god, I'm Dionne Wiggett and thus it's my only story. The problem with calling it my only story is it makes season two quite difficult but you know it's about his being abused by a teacher at his school and then he finds him. It's really good, really good. Okay, all right, well there you go. You have got your summer listening. So, with all of that out of the way, let's get going. Lynette was brought up in Cow Valley, a suburb in eastern Sydney. And there's not much to say about her upbringing.

It was totally and utterly normal. She had a loving mum and dad, two brothers and a sister. They were all close and in Lynne's early life, everything was pretty much perfect. In 1965, when she was 16, Lynn, who was a student at Sydney Girls High, met Chris Dawson from Sydney Boys High at a mixed high school function. And we do have to stress, because it does play an important role in the story, Chris Dawson was, in his day, in a very home-and-away kind of way, exceptionally attractive. He is, like, Mr Conventionally Attractive.

Very, very Australian man-looking. Yeah. Everyone who knew him and his identical twin brother gushed over how good-looking they were. They were tall, striking, athletic, and just overall boiling. Yeah. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry.

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Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two

minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. And Lynn, 16-year-old Lynn, was smitten, and the two of them began dating. Five years later, on the 26th of March 1970, the pair got married, and it looked to everyone, including Lynn, that this would be the start of a beautiful fairy tale life. Lynette worked as a nurse,

and Chris played rugby union for eastern suburbs. Then, in 1972, Chris and his brother Paul switched things up and went to play rugby league for the Newtown Jets for five seasons. While they were there, they were even part of the 1973 New South Wales Rugby League Club Championship winning team, making them both celebrities in the local area. I don't know the difference between union and league, and I don't care. I knew it was going to come up, and I did ask. I did ask the question.

And I asked ACD Face, and he told me, and I was like, I don't care, and I didn't write it down, because it doesn't matter. The most important thing you need to know on why we bring it up is when they go to Newtown Jets, that's what makes them celebrities, and they're getting paid for it they're professional they are winning championships and everybody in the area knows who they are so not only are they attractive they're also like sports celebrities right in an area that really prizes that got it and soon after the new town jets signing chris and lynette bought a plot of land on Gilwinger Drive, a well-to-do area in Bayview, a suburb in Sydney's northern beaches.

There, the couple built their dream home, spending 100,000 Australian dollary dues, which is the equivalent of 900,000 dollary dues in today's money. Yeah, like, it's a lot of money back then. It's a lot of money now. Yeah. So they definitely seemed all in. And the icing on the cake was that Paul, Chris's twin brother, who's better at rugby, and his family lived just down the road. But there was one difficulty that the couple faced. They'd been trying for a baby for years, and they'd had no luck. Finally, in 1976, they decided to apply for adoption, when suddenly, after six years of trying, Lynette discovered that she was pregnant. And their miracle baby Chanel was born in July 1977.

Lyn was on cloud nine. Two years later, with his rugby career petering out, Chris got a job at Cromer High, a local school. There, he was a hit with the students and with the staff. Again, going to keep hammering on about this, but Chris was handsome, he was a former rugby star, he was charismatic and fun, and no doubt it would have been a coup for the school that they got this local celebrity to come be their PE teacher. And probably geography because it always works like

that. And the attention that Chris got from the teenage girls at Cromer High was absolutely well and truly there and also absolutely 100% reciprocated. There was a weird insidious culture at Cromer High back in the 70s and 80s. One where adult teachers openly groomed and had sexual relations with girls and boys in their mid-teens. It is not just Chris Dawson. They are all fucking at it. And they go into more detail in it in The Teacher's Pet. We're not going to go into a huge amount of detail in it here, but it's basically like, it's not just the men, it's also the female teachers grooming the male students. It is a fucking shit show. It's absolutely mad. So yeah, we will come back to this later, because through the eventual investigation into the disappearance of Lynette Dawson,

a lot more of the sordid goings on from back then have more recently come to light. But the important thing to note here is that nothing these teachers were up to was a secret. Pupils from Cromer High would go to a local pub where their teachers would hang out and buy their students alcohol. And these kids are like 16. I mean, having worked in safeguarding conferences for schools, my mind is like melting. This is so bad. And everyone's just like, whatever. Hey man, it's the 70s. So during these nights out, Chris met a 16-year-old student named Joanne Curtis.

And if you listen to the Teacher's Pet podcast and other documentaries made on this case years ago, they will always refer to her just as JC. They never use her name. And we are going to use her name because at this point, Joanne has been in the public eye for years. She testified at his inquest. She testified at his trial. Spoilers.

And there's no reason to keep her identity a secret anymore. Soon, Chris developed an infatuation with Joanne. He even swapped his PE classes over so he could teach her specifically. Chris then started to give Joanne driving lessons. And it was during one of these that he parked up in a remote spot and kissed her. Jail. Yes! Immediately! He's 34, 35 at this point, maybe a little bit older.

And she's 16 years old. And he's her teacher. Right. Then Chris Dawson took the 16-year-old Joanne to his parents' house one night after school, and there they had sex for the first time. Rumours were swirling around Cromer High about Joanne and Mr Dawson. And for Joanne, who wasn't a particularly outgoing or confident or popular girl, there was a thrill to knowing the teacher everyone had a crush on fancied her.

And that's probably why he picked her. Oh, 100%. 100%. He picks the girl that he knows is going to be vulnerable to his manipulations. So the two began spending more and more time together. And everyone at the school knew exactly what was going on. Chris was told on multiple occasions to stop closing his office door when Joanne was in there. But he just carried on. And the headteacher at the time,

interviewed by Hedley Thomas, now says in the podcast, what could I do? Quite a lot. Quite a fucking lot. Your school was an absolute fucking pig fest. It's disgusting. And it's really, really heartbreaking in the podcast because again, like you should go listen to it for in-depth analysis of like what was going on at the school at the time. But like, like I said, it was female teachers, male teachers, female

students, male students, everyone. And like the male students in particular who were groomed by female adult teachers were completely kind of ignored even when this kind of thing did come out there's interviews with them and they were like it ruined my entire life at the time i was like yeah woohoo and now i'm like it ruined my entire life it's kind of reminds me of um joyce mckinney Where like the police were like, oh, well, I wouldn't give. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it's like these boys are like, it made me depressed. It made me suicidal. I have major, major issues with everything in my life.

And it all comes back to that. So, yeah, fucking gross. And the fact that he's still like, what could I do? Call the police. Yeah. Well, as we'll go on to find out, the police didn't give a fuck. But basically, the teachers at this school were plying the kids with not just booze, but drugs, and having sex at school. At school.

Unlike fucking gym mats in the school. It was depraved, and nothing was done to stop any of it. No, everybody knew. Word even got back to Joanne's mum, who's called Margot, about the relationship between her teenage daughter and her adult PE teacher. But Margot didn't do anything. But that's not really a surprise because Margot was never going to win any Mum of the Year awards. Joanne's home life was a chaotic mess. Her mum was an alcoholic and married to a violent man called Ray. Joanne was trapped and Chris became her lifeline. And he knew exactly

what he was doing. He listened to her. He supported her. He told her that he could help her. And so when Chris offered Joanne a job babysitting his two daughters, because yes, by this point Lynn had had miracle baby number two, Joanne jumped at the chance. And so, every day after school, she started going up to the Dawsons' big house on Gilwinger Drive. Chris really paints himself as a hero now. He tells Joanne it's to help her escape her hellish home life, and he tells his wife Lynette that it's to help this poor girl,

but also to support her in looking after the two girls. Because by now Lynne was also working, part-time, at a childcare centre. Really can't get enough of the kids, can she? No. That's the last thing I'd want to do if I'd had two kids of my own. And that is the thing about Lynette though, she is like, I fucking love kids and I fucking love being a mum. And that is again a very important part of this story.

And this is also the point at which the wheels start to fall off the picture-perfect Dawson marriage. Lynette began telling her colleagues how her husband was always angry at her, how he had started to become violent, and all about the 16-year-old babysitter who Lynne had spotted on several occasions swimming in the family pool without a top on.

Obviously, all of Lynn's friends told her, you have to get rid of this girl. But then, one night in October 1981, Ray, Joanne's stepdad, hit her in a drunken rage. And it's at this point that Chris uses that as an excuse to move Joanne into the Dawson home permanently. So yes, I think there you go. Highlight exactly how vulnerable Joanne is.

She's 16. Her home life is a fucking mess. And look, I'm not going to be like sympathetic to Margot. She might be in an abusive relationship, but you need to protect your child first. And she allows this man, Ray, to stay in her life and to stay in Joanne's life. And she consistently picks Ray over Joanne. So it's easy for Chris.

He just comes along like a fucking child catcher and scoops Joanne up into his home. But this is also a point where we need to pause and discuss the sheer insanity of this situation. People have affairs. People cheat. That is something that happens. But to move your teenage lover into your home with your children and your wife is beyond the pale. I think it really shows the extreme depths of Chris's narcissism. He isn't satisfied by just having Joanne at school where he sees her every day, having her when he takes her out on driving lessons, all that. He's like, no, no, no, I want you with me all the time. And I think it also points to the fact that he wanted it all. He wanted to have control of the entire situation. He wanted to have control of Joanne and nothing was going to stop him even the fact that this was completely like from a socially

acceptable perspective not okay even back then and i also think that chris dawson was probably getting off on the drama of it all the sneaking around behind lynn's back 100 apparently him and joanne would have sex while Lynn was like in the shower or busy cooking. Like I think that absolutely fed into his little like fantasy about the whole situation. And I think again the extent to which he is willing to go to get Joanne and keep her and this huge risk he took. I think it shows the level of obsession he had with Joanne as well. Joanne's dad, John, says that he was furious about the whole thing. He says he took Joanne to the police station after Ray hit her, but that nothing was done. Why don't you do something more, John? This is the thing,

it's like Joanne and Lynn are very different, but their lives end up kind of mirroring each other in the way that everyone in Joanne's life when she's a teenager fails her and allows her to be predated upon by this man, Chris Dawson. Everyone fails her. Her mum, the school, her head teacher, her fucking father, like everybody fails her. And everybody fails Lynette after she goes missing. John claims that when he found out about Chris Dawson, he told Joanne to put an end to the whole thing or he would just never speak to her again. Great. Top notch.

Top notch parenting. She's a child who is being abused, who has no safe home to go to and you're turning your back on her as well. Why don't you take your fucking child, put her in your car and drive her to your home? Because she clearly can't be at home with Margot because Ray is a piece of shit. And you are allowing her

by not taking her in with you to fall into the hands of this fucking predator. John was actually friends with high ranking local police officers so he could have very easily reported Chris and he didn't. And also, he didn't go to Chris's house and threaten him or tell him to back off. He just leaves

it. He tells Joanne to end it. Why didn't he go tell Chris to end it? Or he would punch his fucking face in. And despite John giving it the big I am now, he did absolutely nothing at the time. Except stick to his word and just not speak to his own daughter, who is in way over her head. So Joanne moving into the house sent Chris and Lynette's already difficult marriage into total meltdown. Chris's already quick temper only got worse. He'd berate Lynne for the tiniest issues like a dirty glass left on the side.

Again, Lynne told her colleagues about this and they even saw bruises on Lynette's arms. But she always excused it away saying that yes, Chris had hit her, but that she must have done something to provoke him. And it wasn't just Lyn's friends, because you could say when they come forward and sort of say all these things later that they're just trying to point the finger at Chris. No, other people saw the bruises too. For example, a dressmaker who Lyn was going to to get an outfit made for a wedding

saw dark, nasty bruises on Lynn's thighs. She noted them, but again, she said nothing. It really does seem that it was this sort of culture at the time to mind your own business. And still even now, it's very hard to be like, your husband is beating you up,'t he like that's such a difficult conversation to have and some of them even did have that conversation with lynn and she was like yes he is but i've done it to provoke him what i mean is after she goes missing they

don't come forward and scream from the top of their lungs he was fucking beating her up everything that happens up until the point that lynette goes missing i think everybody's kind of like i don't really want to get involved yeah like she's a grown woman like i don't want to get involved it's none of my business it's a domestic i can understand that that would have been part of the culture at the time it's after she goes missing and how do these people not look back and think oh yeah she told me he was hitting her and she was covered in bruises so she wasn't even just making it up i saw the evidence but they do nothing so yes like this

all happened and we do also have to say that there was a neighbor who also even saw chris hit lynn i mean maybe not hit but like be violent with her. Because one day Lynn's friend and next door neighbor Julie Andrew says that she saw Chris violently shake Lynn in the garden as she was holding one of the little girls. And Julie said that this scared her. And she's the actual only witness to like physical violence between Chris and Lynn. Nobody else saw it, but they all saw the aftermath of it. And Lynn admitted it to them. But again, she always qualified confessions of Chris hitting her with, but I deserved her. Lynn even told her mum Helena about Chris's temper, but her mum, being a loving but old-fashioned woman, told Lynn that if her husband wasn't happy, she needed to work harder to make

things right. So Lynette kept trying. But there was just nothing she could do. As slowly her role in her own home was being upended, she was devastated and confused as she watched Joanne and Chris play with the girls, while she was relegated to the kitchen to cook and clean up. Chris didn't go anywhere near Lyn anymore. He and Joanne had sex in the house at every opportunity, right under Lynn's nose. Lynn even went to go and speak to Margot, Joanne's mum. But she was absolutely no help, unsurprisingly. And Margot still says today,

if Joanne wanted an affair with Chris, I couldn't have stopped her. She's 16. And you also didn't try, did you? Margot, you didn't try. You didn't try one second to stop her. If anything, i think it was probably very convenient for you that your daughter was no longer at home because your husband ray hated her so great yeah it's like she's talking about a grown-up friend of hers who's making a

bad relationship decision not her child who has already been subjected arguably at Margot's hands to a life of instability, violence, chaos. And now she's just living with a married man more than twice her age. Yeah. And Margot's just like, well, if she wanted to do it, I couldn't have stopped her. It's exactly, it's like she's saying about her like 35 year old mate. I don't think it's a good idea, but if you want to sleep with that married man, that's your business. Fuck off, Margot. So I think Lynn going to Margot does tell us one thing. It tells us that Lynn knew what was going on between Joanne and Chris, but she didn't have the confidence to tell Chris, you need to stop this.

Everybody knew what was going on. And it was unbearable for Lynn after 12 years of marriage and two kids. But like we said, she and some of her family were definitely, while they knew what was going on, in denial about the whole situation and like how serious it was. Yeah, and she blamed herself. However, it was now that there was a turning point when even Lynn's mum, who had always loved Chris, besotted by his charm, saw him for what he really was. One day in late 1981, Chris was scheduled to have some surgery on his nose, and he'd expressly forbidden Lynette from coming to the hospital.

But Lynn's mum decided that she'd go and check in on her son-in-law. And when she got there, she was horrified to see Joanne laying in Chris's hospital bed with him, tenderly wiping his face. And after this, you'd think that her family would be encouraging Lynn to leave Chris. Take the kids, get out of there, divorce this guy, leave.

But no, Lynn's mum and dad just told her, you have to get rid of Joanne. As if she's the fucking problem. Yeah. And, you know, we're not going to pour blame onto Lynn's parents. There's no way they could have anticipated what was going to go on to happen because it is just so, it's unbelievable. They were old fashioned and they wanted what was best for their daughter. But let's be real, Joanne is not the problem. If Lynn succeeded in getting rid of Joanne,

then Chris would just find someone else. And, you know, it also doesn't solve his temper and violence problem. But Lynn wanted to save her marriage. As Saru said, she loves being a mum. She loves having the family, having the house. She's willing to do anything to save it. So she took her parents advice and that night she confronted joanne saying to the teenage girl you've been taking liberties with my husband

and i want you out putting it quite lightly and i can just imagine from because there's a lot of videos of lynette out there and a lot of like tapes that are included in the teacher's pet and just the way she speaks the way she is she is exactly the kind of person that you would think of being a nurse and being somebody who works at a child care center and being a loving mother she's very very softly spoken she's very very calm I don't mean this in a derogatory way but she's very meek right and I think that she probably had to psych herself up to an unbelievable degree to even have that one-sentence confrontation

with a teenager. I'm sure. And she says it. I wish she'd said it to Chris, but she doesn't. She says it to Joanne. And that same night, when Lynn was asleep, Joanne packed up and left the Dawson house,

only to end up at the other Dawson house, just down the road. Chris, we told you it was weird, Chris had got Paul, his brother and his wife Marilyn to let the 16-year-old Joanne stay with them until he could figure things out, he says. Again, it's the obsession, it's the possession. Like, if she leaves, where is she going to go? I can't have her going back somewhere else. I'm going to put her somewhere where I can keep an eye on her. And this feels like a good point to pause this little story and take a look at the rest of the Dawson clan. All right, let's start with the relationship

between Chris and his identical brother, Paul. They were close. I don't even know if there is a word to describe how close they are. Very close. Weirdly close. Freakishly close. And this is commented upon by multiple people who knew them. They were always together, joined at the hip, even as adult men. They built their houses just minutes apart. They dressed alike.

They even had the same job as PE teachers at high schools. And another example, which is just like peak toxic codependency, is what Hannah brought up earlier, is the fact that both of them played rugby, but Paul was the better player. And so when both men wanted to play professionally, they ended up going to Newtown Jets because it was the only team that would also agree to take Chris.

And it seems that this weird closeness has always been the case. As children, the boys actually had to have speech therapy because they had developed a language in which they only spoke to each other and they needed help learning to communicate with other people. And maybe you're thinking, that's not that weird. Well, you'll be eating your maybes. Because other than having the same job as high school PE teachers, the brothers also both engaged in grooming and having sex with their teenage pupils.

And sometimes they would do it together. Because yes, something Marilyn didn't know when she agreed to let Joanne stay at their house was that Paul had had sex with Joanne already. Joanne would later tell police that Paul had started acting cold towards her, and she didn't like it. So when Chris suggested that the two of them have a threesome with his brother, although shocked, Joanne went along with it. Just the Western Mark effect is just not doing the work here, is it? You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life.

You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And a couple of days later, the brothers did have a threesome with Joanne at Bayview High School. And according to Joanne, a few days later,

Paul turned up at the house when she was living with Chris, wanting to have sex with her. And she admits that she did it, but that Chris was furious and told her that it could never happen again. Though Joanne also did later tell police that she, Chris and another teenage girl had all had sex again at Bayview for Chris's birthday. Chris told Joanne that these things were just part of a normal adult sexual relationship

and that it was no big deal. But if we come back to the twins for a second, Paul and Chris had even taken Joanne and another girl away with them on a work trip to sit some teacher's training exams. Paul has always denied this, but the other girl's story corroborates Joanne's version of events. So yes, Paul and Marilyn knew all about the affair between Chris and Joanne, and they went along with it. You could say that Paul just loved his brother and wanted to help him out even though he thought he was being stupid because although Paul is also at it with his pupils and by at it we mean flagrantly abusing his power, he's never stupid enough to throw his home life and mask of respectability

into chaos. We think Paul goes along with it because Chris had something on him. And before anyone feels too sorry for Marilyn, Paul's wife, because yes, like Hannah said, Paul was absolutely at the exact same thing. He was grooming, abusing and having sex with his teenage pupils. Don't feel sorry for her because Marilyn is a fucking moron and a class A bitch and I hate her. There is a police interview recording of Marilyn that was given years later, so after Lynette had vanished. And in this recording, bearing in mind her sister-in-law has vanished, these are some of the things that Marilyn says. Lyn didn't fight for her marriage, she just kept giving Chris opportunities to be with Joanne. Naturally, because we're married to twins, people compare us all the time.

But it never really bothered me because I was the lucky one. Paul and I had three kids before they'd even had any. My husband played first team and is definitely the more dominant personality. Played first team? Grow up! Shut up, Marilyn! You are a grown dominant personality. Played first team. Grow up. Shut up, Marilyn. You are a grown fucking woman. And the fact that she was comparing herself to being like,

well, we had three kids before they had any. Lynette was trying and struggling to have children and you are such a lacking in empathy, callous woman. I hate her. Like, ugh, she's just hideous. And she also goes on to say, though they, Chris and Lynne, did have some highlights they went to america how shallow and vacuous a person do you have to be and then this is the proof that marilyn also

knew damn well what paul was up to and didn't say anything because she says whatever her husband meaning lynn was doing mine was probably doing it too. But I fought for my relationship. Jesus fucking Christ, Marilyn. Get in the bin. It's just one-upmanship. All the Dawsons in the bin. And she says this when Lynette is missing. She can't even be like, oh, you know, I'm terribly worried about her.

She's just like, no, I'm better than her. Yeah, she's like, she didn't fight hard enough. She didn't fight hard enough for her marriage. But having said that, Marilyn was right about Paul being the dominant twin. There was a lot of video footage of the brothers together because they took part in a documentary about twins. And in this documentary, Paul makes fun of Chris a lot. It's weird and it's definitely a power play.

They also say weird things like, we're close, really close, but not in a homosexual way. Which, like, why would you need to say that? Why would you say that? No one's thinking that. No one was thinking that. Why would you say that? He literally goes, yeah, we're really close. We've always been really close.

Like, we're just really close, but not in a homosexual way. I'm like, what? The Lady Doth protest too much. I think the Lady Duff protests too much. I think the Lady Duff. It's so fucking weird that he says that. And yeah, like, their whole relationship is so strange. But it comes back to what you said.

Paul is definitely smarter and definitely more dominant. They're both at the same thing. But Paul always holds down his relationship with Marilyn. He does whatever he wants, but he holds that relationship down. He keeps this mask of respectability. Like, I'm the family man. I've got my kids. I've got my wife. I'm not going to fuck with that. Chris is just, like, out of control.

He's, like, obsessed with Joanne. He's like, I'm going to move her in, and fucking who gives a fuck about anything else? And although Paul was more dominant, Chris isn't a pushover. He's got a very strong personality, as we've already seen, and he was an excellent manipulator. The school he worked at knew what he was doing with teenage pupils, and even they couldn't stop him. So what chance did the 16-year-old Joanne have? So yeah, the Dawsons are weird, from Chris to Paul to Marilyn, and the rest of the family is just as bad.

To this day, they all 100% stand behind Chris and say that he is totally and completely innocent. I don't believe that they think that, but they definitely say it. And you don't have to look very far to see where the level of narcissism that Chris displays may have come from. His and Paul's mum, Joan, was obsessed with her tall, strapping rugby boys, calling them Joan's twinnies. Hate it. Joan in the bin, in the bin, locked in a prison cell. I hate her. She was their number one fan. I think, I mean, getting a dog has absolutely put me off the idea of having any children,

but someone actually stopped me the other day and they were like, oh, it's great training for kids. And I was like, well, it's training me right out of ever wanting them. And they're like, you know what? Kids is actually easier because they go to school. And I was like, thank you. But if I had twins, right, hypothetically in a parallel universe where A, I can find someone to shag me and B, I decide that I want to have children. And third, I magically have twins because there's absolutely none of it in my family i would probably dress them the same it's just easier yeah i mean and like adorable cool but like joan too much joan's twinnies

shut up joan and yeah she was absolutely their number one fan she was absolutely enthralled by them they could do no wrong in her eyes and she made this damn clear at every single rugby game that she attended and she was at all of them. She'd stand on the sidelines whooping and cheering her boys on and she would boo the opposition at any decisions

that didn't go her son's way. That is some fucking toxic parenting right there. The whooping? Great. The booing? other kids and other players. Joan, shut up. You're such an embarrassment. And again, this is classic. How many times have we come across the same archetype?

Chris Watts, I'm always going to go back to him because he's the perfect example. Scott Peterson, another man whose mother was obsessed with. Ladies, if you have a son, do not, for the love of God, tell him that he is the best thing every single day, because this is what you're going to get. Like, obviously, they have to have the predisposition for it. But it's the level of narcissism that the first woman in their life told them, you're perfect, you're perfect, you're perfect, you're perfect. And you create a little monster. But let's leave Joan on the sidelines, booing children, and get back to Chris and Lynn's home. As you can imagine, Chris was absolutely furious with Lynette.

He went after Joanne and he decided it was time for the two of them to be together properly. So, in December 1981, Chris found a flat in North Manly for him and Joanne to move into. But before they could move in, Chris phoned his brother Peter, that's not the twin, that's the other one, to get some advice. And this wasn't just some brotherly advice. Peter, as we said, solicitor. Chris needed legal advice. Joanne would later say that during this call,

Chris was asking Peter what would happen to his money and his house on Gilwinger Drive if he and Lynette divorced. And Peter told Chris, if you leave that house, you're taking a risk. You could end up losing absolutely everything altogether to Lyn. And Chris just wasn't going to let that happen. So he gave up on the manly flat and went home. When he came back, his temper was worse than ever. And Lyn was struggling because he was on school holidays and around all of the time. On the 17th of December, Lynn, no doubt desperate to get out of the house, went to play tennis with her friends.

These friends saw bruises on her, but again, Lynn brushed it off. At the end of the game, one of the ladies gave Lynn a lift home. And Lynn all but begged this woman to come inside and stay a while, probably because she didn't want to be around Chris on her own. A few days later, on the 21st of December, Chris presented Lynn with a document. It was paperwork to sell the house on Gilwinger Drive, and he wanted Lynn to sign it. But Lynn wanted to stay. Chris was getting frantic now. Joanne was out of the house and she seemed to be drifting away from him. He couldn't risk losing her.

Because he was absolutely obsessed with Joanne. In later interviews, Joanne said that she really wanted to step away from her relationship with Chris at this stage. She found the whole thing way too intense. It was too adult. It was too much. And after moving out of Gilwinger Drive, she'd reconnected with her friends and her sisters. And while she didn't have a stable place to live, she was moving farther away from Chris, and he could tell, and he couldn't stand it. So in a grand gesture, he asked the 16-year-old Joanne

to marry him and run away. Joanne says later on that at this point in her life, everything was an absolute mess. She really felt like nobody else wanted her and while she was having major doubts about this relationship with Chris, she didn't feel like she had many other options. So, on the 23rd of December 1981, Joanne and Chris went to the Dawson house while Lynn was at work and they packed up all of Chris's belongings, filled the car and hit the road for Queensland. When Lynn finished her shift she waited for Chris to pick her up like he

usually did but he didn't show up and Lynn cannot drive so she's just standing there waiting for her husband to come and he's pissed off to Queensland with 16 year old Joanne. So then Lynn gets a taxi home only to discover that all of her husband's things were gone and she finds a note on the bed that read I've left you please don't paint too dark a picture of me to the girls. Lynn who had been in denial up until this point about the seriousness of chris and joanne couldn't believe it and this is the thing that's important it's like much like marilyn in a way but lynn is in a total dickhead i think lynn thinks i know what my husband is doing but he'll never leave me yeah we are married we have two children together maybe he's having a midlife crisis at 35 years old but like he's not gonna leave me

and yeah that's when this situation when he runs off with joanne and leaves that note is a slap in the face for her so with chris gone now lynn was totally fucked she barely made any money working part-time and she couldn't even drive like said. So she had absolutely no idea how she was going to survive. That terrifies me. Isn't it just, it's just like, she thinks that she has it all. And then in one minute, it's gone. And she's like, what am I going to do? I bet he wouldn't let her learn to drive.

No. And he probably also maintained it that she only worked part time. And he took the money and gave her pocket money. No surprises that things weren't going much better on the 1,000 mile plus drive to Queensland because Joanne's doubts had started bubbling back up to the surface. And by the time they got to the border of New South Wales, Joanne was completely freaking out. And I think this is really important because in other cases like this where the man, say like in the Chris Watts case or Scott Peterson, the person that they're having an affair with was an adult. So that's immediately different.

But that person wanted that relationship, wanted to pursue it. They didn't understand that that person was married. Although Chris Watts' girlfriend did know, but she thought they were separated. But in this case, Joanne is really like, she's not all in. She's not all in. She's like, i don't know where else to go she doesn't have anywhere else to turn no and chris has already spent such a long time over a year by this point grooming her and manipulating her and making himself an important

person in her life who she has to be completely dependent on so she's scared to leave him but she really doesn't want to be with him joanne didn't want to leave everyone that she knew. She wanted to go home. So, like angry parents on a road trip to Disneyland, Chris turned that car around. No illegal fucking relationship shack-up for anybody. We're going home. Except it's Joanne that wants to go home.

Chris was furious. He'd finally left Lynn, he'd left his kids, he'd left his house, everything. And now they had to go home. Chris was furious. He'd finally left Lynn, he'd left his kids, he'd left his house, everything, and now they had to go back. Chris and Joanne turned up at Paul's house on Christmas Day and they slept there while Paul took his family to their parents' house. The next day, Boxing Day, Chris took Joanne to Paul's high school where they showered and slept on gym mats. It's all so depressing and this is absolutely, again, reconfirming things for Joanne, where she is like, is this the life I want? She'd had enough.

Joanne wanted to go home. So Chris took her to her mum's house, but Margot and Ray were still the absolute messes of people they were before. So Joanne went to go and stay with her sister instead, and Chris went home. And naturally, things were worse than ever. He was angry with Lynne for everything, so much so that she had even suggested that he go to the doctor to talk about his anger problems. Eventually, Lynette, desperate to save her marriage, even managed to convince Chris to go to couples counselling.

Their first session was booked for the 8th of January 1982. But Chris's behaviour, despite agreeing to go, wasn't exactly reflective of a man who was sorry and trying to fix things. According to what Lynn would later tell her friends, on the way to the counselling session, Chris had snapped, shook her and said, I'm only doing this once. If it doesn't work, I'll get rid of you. Now, there's no way to know exactly what happened. It's what friends of Lynn recount years later. But what does he mean if it doesn't work? How is this counselling going to

save the fact that you're a fucking pervert? Like, what does he mean? I don't know. But whatever he meant, there is no doubt that Chris was in a state of rage before going into the counselling session. And it's probably because Joanne, who had been staying with her sister in Manly, had gone off on a holiday with her friends and sisters to South West Rocks, which is about 300 miles north up the coast.

Chris clearly couldn't handle it. The longer Joanne was out of his grasp, I think he felt like she was slipping away. And here she is, like, doing normal teenage girl things with her friends and her sisters, getting freedom again for the first time, and she's 300 miles away. He is seething.

And this trip's really important. Joanne says later that it was there on that holiday that she felt free and happy. She wasn't stalking Chris, trying to get him to leave his wife. She wasn't doing any of that. And she just says that she wanted out. And the fact that she starts doing normal teenage girl thing and going on holiday, I believe her. This is it.

If she had been hanging around outside Gilwinger Drive, trying to get Chris back into her thrall, get him to leave Lynette, that's a different thing. She was still groomed and still a fucking kid, so I'm not saying it puts more culpability on her. But this is very important because it shows that she is okay with getting on with things and moving away. Although Chris had made Joanne promise to call him every day while she was away, and she did do that.

And she's been groomed for a really long time. And she doesn't have anywhere else to turn, she doesn't have a safety net. So severing ties completely with Chris was probably terrifying. Lynette, who didn't know about these daily calls, thought the fling between her husband and his pupil was over. And she was optimistic that things would work out in the end. In fact, after the first counselling session, Chris and Lynn walked into the childcare centre where she worked, holding hands. Her colleagues were taken aback. They had, after all, heard so much about the issues in the Dawson marriage. But Lynn now told her friends and her colleagues that

she was happy, Chris was trying and everything was going to be okay. But in reality, Chris didn't give a fuck about his marriage to Lynette. He wasn't there to work on his marriage. He was fully focused on getting Joanne back. I think he does the counselling sessions to show the rest of the world, look, I'm trying. Because he has no choice. He left that bloody note and left saying, I'm leaving you. He can't just deny it anymore he

has to show willing and I think it's just a facade because he was pursuing teenage Joanne hard and despite her actively trying to get away from him Joanne had so few options that Chris was always able to reel her back in this trip to southwest rock gives her that taste of freedom but I think in the back of Joanne's mind she also knows it's a holiday and when it comes to an end I once again go back to a situation where I don't have a safe and stable home to go back to. He even asked the 16 year old like we said to marry him and he does this repeatedly all while his wife thinks that things are working out and this is very important. He asks Joanne to marry him before Lynn vanishes and before there is any talk of divorce, anything like that,

while he's going to counselling sessions. And now, after the botched runaway together to Queensland trip and the failed manly flat idea, Chris was running out of options. And this, I think, is like the crux of Chris's personality, right? He's not willing to compromise on anything. He wanted it all. He wanted Joanne, he wanted his daughters, he wanted his house, and he wanted his money. But for all of that to be his, Lynn had to go. So how very convenient when just a week into

January 1982, Lynette Dawson simply vanishes off the face of the earth. And two days later, Chris Dawson moved Joanne back into the house, and this time into his bed for good. So that's it. That's where we have to stop this week because there is a lot to this case. And next week, we will be back where we're going to look at the hours leading up to Lynette Dawson's disappearance and the bizarre and botched police investigation that followed and everything else that went on for the next four decades. So be there or be square. Exactly.

So we'll see you guys then. And yeah, go listen to Teachers Pair, but also come back and listen to part two of this because we have some thoughts do you know why not coming to something makes you swear why Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.

But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.