The Teacher's Pet

Chris Dawson was interviewed by police in 1991, and then never again. But Sue Strath, Lyn's loyal friend, kept agitating for a further investigation, and in 1998 Detective Damian Loone was assigned to the case. Curiously, the earlier investigation notes had vanished.

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After six difficult years, the volatile marriage was over. JC felt she had become ‘disposable’, as Lyn had been years before, and feared for her life. She fled back to Sydney, telling friends she was convinced Chris had murdered his first wife. In this episode, you'll hear what Chris Dawson told detectives when he was interviewed in 1991. 

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Leaving the dark shadow of Lyn’s disappearance behind, Chris moved his young new wife and children north to Queensland, into a home on acreage near the newly-opened theme park, Dreamworld. Isolated behind high fences, JC lived the life of a 'Stepford wife', and was expected to meet all of her husband's demands ... including continuing to look like a school girl. 

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Lyn Dawson had been missing for three years when her worried friend Sue wrote to the Office of the Ombudsman - an independent government watchdog - about the lack of police action in the case. We go looking and recover a long-forgotten file after decades in storage, and the contents highlight the hopeless responses of police to a probable murder - and raise more questions, as public anger grows. 

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On January 15, 1984, Chris and JC wed at Bayview. With no veil, and in a non-traditional dress, the young bride looked like a flower girl. On her hand, she wore Lyn's rings. Chris's brother Paul and his wife Marilyn were witnesses.

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In the days and months following Lyn's disappearance, Chris Dawson put forth a range of suggestions as to her possible whereabouts. Perhaps she had gone north to think about their marriage. Maybe she'd joined a cult, or a religious group. But whatever he said, he clearly believed she was never going to return, as he promptly moved JC back into the family home where she became the new mother to his two children. 

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In January 1982, as most Australians enjoyed a carefree holiday season, Lyn Dawson was trying to pick up the tattered threads of her marriage. JC was taking tentative steps to extricate herself from her affair with Lyn's husband. And Chris Dawson was desperately seeking solutions. In this episode, a damning piece of evidence - once thought lost - is recovered, and it is something that should be vitally important to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

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Humiliated and broken by her husband's affair, Lyn finally asked JC to leave the Bayview home. The teenager walked out, and into the home of Chris's twin brother, Paul, a few hundred metres down the same street. Tensions continued to rise. And then suddenly, Lyn vanished. Years later, JC suggested Lyn's remains were buried at Bayview, in the 'soft soil' - outside what were her daughters' bedroom windows. In this episode, a surprise new witness speaks publicly for the first time about something he was told in 1987, indicating the possible whereabouts of a body.

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As Chris brazenly moved his teenage lover into the family home, Lyn saw the cracks in her marriage widen. It was crumbling all around her. Unable to believe the worst of her husband, she responded with denial, but to her family and friends Lyn's suffering was clear. And the toll was not just emotional. In this episode, a former babysitter for the Dawsons speaks for the first time about the violence she witnessed in the home.

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Cromer High School's pin-up sports teacher Chris Dawson pursued high school student JC with the sort of relentless determination he showed as a star of rugby league. Chris had model good looks, an easy charm, and students looked up to him.

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