BREAKING: Former teacher and rugby league player Chris Dawson has been found guilty of murdering his first wife Lynette Dawson. | Sarah McPhee
Former teacher and rugby league player Chris Dawson has been found guilty of murdering his first wife Lynette Dawson, 40 years after the mother-of-two vanished from Sydney’s northern beaches.
Harrison began delivering his judgment at 10am in Sydney on Tuesday, when he said he was satisfied Lynette Dawson died on or about January 8, 1982, and that none of the alleged sightings of her in following years were genuine. Shortly before Christmas 1981, Dawson and JC left Sydney intending to start a new life together in Queensland, before the teenager wanted to return.
He said he did not accept that a woman allegedly determined to abandon her home and family and “disappear from sight” would have contacted the very person who was claimed to be “the reason for her departure”.Harrison said he had reached the conclusion that “Lynette Dawson did not leave her home voluntarily”.
The defence argued there was the possibility that Lynette “abandoned the home of her own accord”, and relied on several phone calls Dawson claimed he had received and multiple reported sightings. Crown prosecutor Craig Everson, SC, had argued that one of the dominoes in Dawson’s plan was to have family friend Phillip Day and Lynette’s mother Helena Simms as witnesses to his receipt of the alleged phone call and someone to mind his two daughters that night who had also been at the pool.
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