In the weeks before she disappeared, Lynette told her sister, Patricia Jenkins, that Dawson “was always so angry with her” and described her as “glowing black eyes.”
With Lynette’s whereabouts still a mystery 40 years after she left her Bayview home, her brother Greg Simms said in his test, “I’d like an answer to my sister’s disappearance.”
Lynette’s last contact
On her last day as a nurse at the Warriewood Children’s Center on January 8, 1982, Lynette went hand in hand with Dawson after marriage counseling. She hoped they could “move forward and work together,” her classmates said.
The Crown alleges that Dawson killed Lynette on or around that date, alone or with others, and disposed of her body, motivated by her desire to have an unrestricted relationship with JC.
Dawson, now 73, says he left his wife at a Mona Vale bus stop on Jan. 9, and instead of meeting him as arranged at Northbridge Baths, she left him. call to tell him “I wouldn’t be home that day.” .
Dawson’s attorney, Pauline David, said Lynette made subsequent phone calls before denouncing the disappearance of his wife on February 18, 1982.
An ad in the newspaper, published on March 27, the day after her wedding anniversary, said, “Lyn, I love you, we all miss you. Please call. We want you home, Chris.
Annette Leary, who worked with Lynette, said that a couple of months after her disappearance, she had seen Dawson with JC and the two girls in a mall.
“She said she had a letter from Lyn and she was in Queensland, and she didn’t know when she would be back,” Leary said. She denied that she had been wrong with the letter and said she had also received a call.
Loading
Dawson told police that on Lynette’s calls she said she “needed a while out.” He also mentioned that a man from a “religious sect” was in the house.
Her lawyer claims the failures affected the police investigation, including delays and lost records, and there was “no consistent vital evidence with Lynette Dawson alive after Jan. 8-9.”
The Crown is trying to disprove Lynette’s sightings after Jan. 9, including Kulnura on the Central Coast, Curl Curl, Gladesville and Macquarie Street in the city.
The defense argues that Lynette had reason to disappear.
Chris Dawson and the babysitter
Dawson, who played rugby league with the Newtown Jets, met JC in 1980 when she was 11, and he was her physical education teacher. She began caring for her children around July of that year.
A card that babysitter and former student JC says was given to him by Chris Dawson.
“He told me that he had seen me in the yard the year before, when I was 15, and he decided that he would like to get to know me better because I was attractive to him,” said JC, now 57. his four years. days at the stand. He said that as long as he had biology, Dawson left love notes in his backpack.
JC moved into his Bayview home in October 1981 amid what the court has heard was a “horrible” family life while he was finishing his HSC. Lynette’s classmates said she told them Chris was “pressing” her and that because she was the “person she was,” she wanted to help.
“Lyn wasn’t happy about it because she felt they had problems that they had to solve between themselves before taking anyone else home,” said her sister-in-law Merilyn Simms.
Neighbor Julie Andrew said she watched the teen walk in thong bikini pants, while Strath said Lynette had once told her to go home and find JC naked in her pool.
Childcare worker Anna Grantham said Lynette looked “very sad” one day after going home to find Dawson’s swimming trunks and JC’s bikini pants on the line.
“I think she felt like her husband had lost interest in her,” said Barbara Cruise, Lynette’s ex-boss.
JC said he usually only wore bikini pants while swimming, as “then it was fashion.”
Loading
In November 1981, JC had moved in, after she said she confronted Lynette, who said, “You’ve been taking liberties with my husband.”
JC said that at some point in those two months, Dawson took her somewhere west, possibly inland, and parked outside a building with a chain link fence. , while he was in the car in his uniform.
“I went looking for a hitman to kill Lyn, but then I decided I couldn’t do it because they could hurt innocent people.”
In the days leading up to Christmas 1981, JC, then 17, and Dawson left Sydney to start a new life together in Queensland. But JC said they didn’t get it and came back because she was sick and unhappy.
“Chris left Lyn and two girls alone,” Lynette’s mother, Helena Simms, wrote in her diary. In a letter to Jenkins, her eldest daughter, Simms, said it was the “saddest Christmas I’ve ever had.”
“Lyn wants Chris to go see Doc … to see what makes him so angry with her,” he wrote.
Jenkins said he last spoke to his sister on January 1, 1982, when “Chris had gone to a yacht party” without his wife and children. “She said they had such a sad Christmas, could she drive them to the park and be able to sit and watch the boats? And she said ‘no.'”
Asked by the Crown what his plans were for his future with Dawson, JC said, “There was a lot of pressure to stay with him, and I was just a kid.”
In early January 1982, she traveled to South West Rocks to spend a vacation with her sisters and friends, calling Dawson’s home number every day by public phone “because she asked me to,” she said.
“He said I missed him so much that he couldn’t live without me.”
Dawson told her, “Lyn is gone, she won’t be back. Come help me take care of the kids and be with me.”
Transfer to Bayview
JC said Dawson picked her up around Jan. 10, 11 or 12 and moved her “directly” to her home, which was “bursting” with clothes and still had Lynette’s underwear in the drawers.
The defense questioned her about her first police statement, in which she said it happened on January 15 and 16. JC said the dates had been “corrected” and denied he was cheating the court.
Chris Dawson and JC on their wedding day.
JC said the topic of Lynette’s whereabouts didn’t come up in the conversation unless she got “so spoiled” for taking care of the girls and learning to cook and clean up, when “I wanted to be an 18-year-old with my friends doing what they were doing ”.
“[I was] having to learn to be the surrogate mistress, the sex slave, the stepmother, the nanny. Slave, just a slave, “he said.
JC and Dawson were married in January 1984.
“The wedding ring was made from scratch to match what was left of her first marriage,” JC said. “The diamond ring was made with the diamonds from Lyn’s engagement ring and the eternity ring she left behind.”
When she separated from Dawson in 1990, JC met with Lynette’s brother and his wife and told them about the “assassin” charge.
When asked at his trial if he had found Dawson guilty, Greg Simms replied, “I think so, yes.”
A school friend, who met JC after the breakup of their marriage, said JC had told her that Dawson parked once and that he “took something out of the glove compartment,” which he believed they had state “money to pay someone to kill Lyn”.
“The substance of what she [JC] he said he believed Lyn had been murdered, “the woman said.
In cross-examination, JC denied being on a “mission to destroy” Dawson.
Loading
“He’s going to destroy himself for what he’s done to people, me and Lyn,” he said.
In addition to recalling memories of decades, witnesses have been filled with defense questions about the discussions shared over the years and their participation in The Australian’s podcast, The Teacher’s Pet.
David said it was “totally understandable” that Lynette’s loved ones wanted an answer, but the answer was not in Dawson’s prosecution.
The trial before Judge Ian Harrison began on May 9 and has an estimated six weeks.
The morning edition newsletter is our guide to the most important and interesting stories, analysis, and insights of the day. Register here.