Lyn Dawson ‘crazy to leave Chris with teen’, says friend

A family friend of Chris and Lyn Dawson laid out her fears about a teenage babysitter who had moved into the couple’s home.

Elva McBay gave evidence in Chris Dawson’s committal hearing in Sydney this week. Picture: Seven News

A family friend of Chris and Lyn Dawson laid out in a handwritten letter her fears about a teenage babysitter with a “crush” who had moved into the couple’s home.

Elva McBay, now 101, wrote in the undated but signed letter that she had warned Lyn she was “crazy” to leave her husband alone with the babysitter, and had told her to “get the girl out of her home”.

Ms McBay was the first witness to give evidence at Mr Dawson’s committal hearing at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court this week for the murder of his wife, Lyn.

Her four-page letter, tendered to the court and released to The Weekend Australian, also tells of an alleged threat by the babysitter against Lyn’s life.

Chris Dawson leaves the Downing Centre Court in Sydney, on Friday.

Mr Dawson’s alleged sexual relationship with his babysitter Joanne Curtis, a student at the school where he was a PE teacher in the early 1980s, is central to the murder case.

“Lyn said that there had been frequent disagreements and ­arguments between Joanne and herself and that during one of these arguments Joanne had threatened to kill her,” Ms McBay’s letter reads.

Mr Dawson, 71, was on Thursday committed to stand trial in the NSW Supreme Court on the charge of murdering his wife, who vanished from Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982.

Ms McBay writes in the letter of being “surprised and a little concerned” when she learned a teenage girl from Mr Dawson’s school had moved into his family home, but was told Joanne would help with the couple’s two young children, Shanelle and Sherryn.

Mr Dawson was going to “help Joanne with her studies”, the letter says. “However during several conversations with Lyn during 1981, I realised that things were not going smoothly. Joanne was spending more and more time with Chris and showing her ­intense dislike for Lyn.

“I urged Lyn to get the girl out of her home before the situation worsened and caused trouble with her marriage.”

Chris Dawson with his wife Lyn on their wedding day. Lynnette went missing in 1982.

Lyn is said to have told her: “Chris and I love each other and I trust him implicitly.”

The letter says that while Ms McBay was visiting Marilyn Dawson, wife of Mr Dawson’s twin brother Paul, Lyn “called in to see me”. Lyn was taking her two children to Shoalhaven to stay for a while so her husband could study without being disturbed.

“Both Marilyn and I were amazed at this and I told her quite frankly that she was crazy to go away and leave her husband and a teenage girl who obviously had a crush on Chris alone in the house.’’

Lyn said she loved and trusted her husband. A short time before Christmas 1981, Lyn phoned Ms McBay for advice on buying a camera for her husband as a present.

“She seemed so bright that I assumed things were back to normal, so it came as a great shock to learn that she was missing in the following January,” Ms McBay’s letter says.

During the committal, Ms McBay could not recall when or why she wrote the letter, and could not recall Joanne’s alleged threat against Lyn.

The court also released to The Weekend Australian the police statement of Jill Breese, who told the committal hearing she recognised Ms Dawson working as a nurse more than two years after she went missing.

Ms Breese and husband Peter owned a Bayview home that backed onto the Dawsons’ northern beaches residence, with only scrub separating the two.

Her police statement says she and her husband “weren’t particularly close” to the Dawsons, “very rarely saw them” and spoke to Ms Dawson once only for about 30 minutes. She had “no idea” the Dawson family babysitter had moved in.

The only other personal interaction involved the Dawson pets. Ms Breese said when Mr Dawson was moving out her son asked if the Breeses could “take” his cat and two dalmatians, Remus and Greta. He was given Greta but was told Remus and the cat had been “put down”.

While Ms Breese said neither she nor her husband knew Ms Dawson was missing when they allegedly spotted her at a private hospital in mid-1984, she ­acknowledged being close to other people who were aware of the disappearance.

Ms Breese said she knew Paul and Marilyn Dawson very well.