Teacher’s Pet: brother’s birthday thoughts turn grim

The Teacher’s Pet crime investigation series returns with more revelations about the 1982 disappearance of Lyn Dawson.

Lyn Dawson's brother Greg Simms. Picture: Liam Driver

Greg Simms’s thoughts are never far from his missing sister, Lyn Dawson, but that was especially the case when he turned 66 this week. “That was mum’s age when Lyn went missing,” Mr Simms said yesterday.

“Lyn was planning Mum’s 66th surprise birthday at her place and had sent all the mud maps around to the relatives, and invitations.”

The party for their mother, Helena Simms, was to be held in late January 1982.

A handwritten note from Lyn Dawson explaining how to get to her house for her mother's 66th birthday party.

Lyn, who lived at Bayview on Sydney’s northern beaches with her two young children and husband, the former Newtown Jets rugby league star Chris Dawson, vanished that month, before the celebration could go ahead.

For her family, Lyn’s plans add to their belief she did not disappear of her own volition.

“For someone who was planning such a big event and having all the relatives there, which was Lyn’s way of doing things, celebrating things, why would she go missing?” Mr Simms said.

Lyn’s presence will again loom large this week with the return of The Australian’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet, examining her suspected murder at the hands of her husband 36 years ago.

An episode will be launched tomorrow featuring new witnesses and interviews, after a three-month break that allowed time for leads to be explored by police and The Australian, working separately.

Relatives say they are braced for developments.

“We don’t know what’s going to come out,” Mr Simms said.

Two coroners found Lyn’s husband should be prosecuted for her murder. He was not charged after NSW prosecutors cited insufficient evidence. Mr Dawson, now 70 and living in Queensland, denies killing his wife. The NSW Office of the ­Director of Public Prosecutions has been assessing a new police brief of evidence since April.

“I just hope they’re taking everything into account,” said Mr Simms, a former policeman.

“It’s a matter of them looking at the whole contents of the brief and all the new evidence that has come in. As far as the police are concerned, they’ve got the jigsaw puzzle virtually solved.”

Pat Jenkins, Lyn’s sister, said the family believed they now had their best chance of solving the case, but they had waited for the DPP before only to be told there would be no prosecution.

“I don’t think we’ll hear anything from the DPP until they make a decision,” she said. “I was hoping (that) would be before Christmas, but I don’t think it will be. The wheels grind slowly … they are being very thorough.”

Since the podcast’s last episode in August, police conducted a dig at Bayview in search of Lyn’s remains, but no trace was found.