Chris Dawson, a suspect in one of Australia’s longest-running cold cases, was found guilty of killing his wife Lynette. The 74-year-old was arrested in 2018 when authorities reexamined the evidence, according to the case as described in the well-known “Teacher’s Pet” podcast.
The court heard evidence gathered over four decades by police investigating Dawson’s interference
According to the podcast, when Dawson’s wife vanished in January 1982, he was having an affair with a 16-year-old student. He insisted that she left him and his two children and that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. In February 1982, he filed a missing person report. Dawson had also pleaded not guilty to one charge of murder.
The podcast examined the police investigation and gathered new evidence. It included testimony that Dawson had been having sex with the student, known as JC when his wife disappeared.
During the judge-only trial, multiple witnesses claimed to have seen Lynette Dawson in the years after 1982. However, one by one, Justice Ian Harrison dismissed those sightings as mistaken or false.
Harrison said that while the verdict was unsupported by direct evidence, he was satisfied by the Crown’s submission that Dawson had become infatuated with JC. The infatuation was to the extent that he saw no other way to be with her than to kill Lynette.
I’m satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt: Justice Harison
“The whole of the circumstantial evidence satisfies me that Lynette Dawson is dead. That she died on or about 8 January 1982, and that she did not voluntarily abandon her home,” Harrison said. “Her death was a result of a conscious and voluntary act. Mr Dawson committed the act with the intention of causing her death,” he added.
“I’m satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. The only rational inference that the circumstances enable me to draw is that Lynette Dawson died on or about 8 January 1982. It was a result of a conscious and voluntary act committed by Mr. Dawson with the intention of causing her death.”
He further said that despite the case getting huge publicity, with several TV programmes and the “Teacher’s Pet” podcast talking about it, no one ever came forward with any information on Lynette.