Hedley Thomas expands podcast into The Teacher’s Pet book

Hedley Thomas still has the first notebook he ever used to take notes about Chris Dawson. He will tell the whole story in a new book.

Do you know that Hedley Thomas found in one of his many old and dusty storage cartons the other day? He found his first notebook.

OK, maybe not his first ever notebook, but he certainly found the first notebook he used to take notes about a mysterious case involving a cocky footballer called Chris Dawson, from Sydney’s northern beaches.

Thomas, who is The Australian’s chief correspondent, suspected even 20 years ago that Dawson must have murdered his young and beautiful wife Lyn.

Only last year, after Thomas’s podcast about the case had been downloaded more than 100 million times, was Dawson convicted.

Thomas says he always had enough information to write a book about the murder, which is precisely what he has now done.

The Weekend Australian proudly reveals the cover today.

The Teacher's Pet. Hedley Thomas wanted the cover to feature the beautiful wife and mother, Lyn, and not her killer.

“I wanted the cover to feature Lyn, and not her killer,” Thomas says.

“I wanted the title to be The Teacher’s Pet because that is the name of the podcast, but in truth, when I was doing the podcast, I was running so fast, trying to keep up with the information that was flooding in, that I didn’t do what you can do as an author of a book and step back and convey all of the incredible side stories, and amazing karmic coincidences in this saga that helps convict the killer of a murder that he had gotten away with for 40 years.

“I’ve now got a vehicle to reach right back into another time, and another era, where a crime like this could go unsolved.

“Even at that time, there are ­serious questions about how so much evidence was lost, and how much of that was helpful to Lyn’s killer.

Preorder your copy now, using this QR code.

“I have 100 gigabytes of interviews including interviews that police have done over the years with witnesses, who gave me old-fashioned cassettes, and when you go back and listen, with distance and reflection, you can pick up so much. I have found myself saying: ‘Oh God, why didn’t I put that in episode 4?’ ”

Thomas’s colleague Trent Dalton describes the book as “monumental. If you think you know this story, think again. No Australian, alive or dead, has given more to journalism than Hedley Thomas. True crime storytelling as we now know it begins with The Teacher’s Pet.”

Thomas has won eight Walkley awards, including two Gold Walkleys.

One of those awards was for his work on the story about a star rugby player who murdered his wife, the loving mother of two small children, before moving a student, who was his teenage babysitter, into his house.

How did he get away with it for years? The truth is that he would still be getting away with it were it not for Thomas, who chipped away at the story, not for days or weeks or months, but for decades.

“When I look back on my original notebooks, from when I was much younger reporter, from when my wife was heavily pregnant with our second child, who is now an adult, I can remember everything,” Thomas says.

“I can remember my first feature for Brisbane’s Courier Mail, going to Sydney and meeting a copper who was, like me, a bit ­obsessed, and seeing the brief of evidence. I wanted to write a book back then, and I held the idea for ages, and kept all my material, and I’m so glad I did.”

Now that Thomas has finished his book, he can reveal that, yes, he is working on a new podcast for The Australian. It’s another unsolved crime. More than that he can’t yet say, but he hopes to again be involved in turning the wheels of justice, which tend to move slowly – until he puts his mighty shoulder down.