Cold case arrest: How police swooped on Chris Dawson
The prime suspect in the cold case murder of Lynette Dawson has been arrested over her death. This is how it went down.
It’s taken almost four decades, two Coronial inquests, several police investigations and an internationally acclaimed investigative podcast series to arrive at this moment.
Chris Dawson, the husband of Lynette who disappeared from Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982, has today been arrested in Queensland and will be extradited to New South Wales and charged with her murder.
Ms Dawson was 33 when she went missing, leaving behind two young daughters, almost 37 years ago. Her body has never been found.
Dawson, a former Newtown Jets rugby league player and physical education high school teacher, moved his schoolgirl lover into the family home just days after his wife went missing. He has long been a suspect in the case - which recently became the subject of The Australian's award-winning investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet - but has always maintained his innocence.
But today it all came to a head just before 8am when detectives from the Queensland Police Service’s Homicide Squad and NSW Strive Force Scriven investigators, swooped on a property in the sunshine state’s Biggera Waters, and carried out the arrest. A police spokesperson told news.com.au the house was not Dawson’s place of residence but that of a friend or family member’s. Dawson was reportedly found in a granny flat at the back of the property, The Australianreports.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller this morning told reporters that Dawson “came quietly” when approached by authorities.
Detective Superintendent Scott Cook said he was told that Dawson “was calm and a little bit taken back”.
“But other than that there’s no other commentary I have around that,” he said.
It’s understood the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) advised police on Monday that they had sufficient evidence to charge Dawson. Following further inquiries, a warrant was subsequently issued in NSW, before homicide detectives travelled to the Gold Coast last night.
Ms Dawson’s family was advised of the arrest after it took place but before police made the information public. The family has requested privacy at this time, according to police.
Dawson was taken to Southport watch-house and appeared at Southport Magistrates Court wearing a grey T-shirt and shorts late Wednesday morning, local time. He did not look at the gallery packed with media as NSW police sought an extradition. The 70-year-old reportedly blocked his ears as magistrate Dennis Kinsella read out the facts of the alleged murder charge he will face before he was refused bail. During the bail application, duty lawyer Rachael Barnes told the court he was willing to live with his brother in NSW and hand himself into authorities. The court was told Dawson had “co-operated” with authorities, was not a flight risk and was willing to surrender his passport.
NSW police plan to charge him with murder after his extradition. He could appear in Parramatta court as early as Thursday.
Supt Cook said investigators were confident in the strength of their case even though Ms Dawson’s body has not been found.
“There are other examples in policing history and history of the courts where people have been convicted of murder without a body,” he said.
In 2015, detectives from the Homicide Squad’s Unsolved Homicide Unit established Strike Force Scriven to reinvestigate the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and suspected murder.
The DPP has been accessing the taskforce’s new brief of evidence since April this year. The file included two key statements obtained “by the media” from witnesses not previously interviewed, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told reporters this morning.
The major breakthrough in the cold case follows revelations in the The Teacher’s Pet podcast series by The Australian’s Hedley Thomas.
The commissioner said police had “dropped the ball” during the 1980s investigation but that new evidence had helped to “tie pieces of the puzzle together”.
“There was additional evidence that was identified and … that has seen the DPP make a positive decision in prosecuting an individual for the murder of Lynette Dawson,” Commissioner Fuller said.
Two coronial inquests, between 2001-2003, found Ms Dawson was murdered by her husband. But he was not charged, with the NSW DPP ruling there was insufficient evidence.
Dawson — who took six weeks to report his wife missing — has maintained that Ms Dawson told him she wanted time away and had left on her own accord. Ms Dawson, who was a nurse, has previously been remembered by friends and family as a kind and generous soul.
During the 1970s, Dawson was a professional footy player with the Newtown Jets in the NSW Rugby League, playing alongside his twin brother, Paul. He became a teacher at Cromer High School when he retired from the sport. By 1980, he had started an extras-marital affair with 16-year-old student and his daughters’ babysitter, Joanne Curtis.
The Teacher’s Pet, a podcast series about the case by News Corp’s The Australian, has had tens of millions of downloads and recently won investigative journalist Hedley Thomas and Slade Gibson a Gold Walkley.
The podcast was launched in May this year and has since been downloaded more than 27 million times. In September, police dug up the backyard at the Bayview home the couple had shared but didn’t find remains or items of interest.
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