Husband Spots Murdered Wife On Antiques Road Show: The Strange Case Of Lynette Dawson
IS that Lynette Dawson on the Antiques Roadshow, that mainstay of the BBC TV schedules in which people have their goods appraised and valued by experts? She went missing in Sydney in 1982. Her ex-husband Chris Dawson, father to their two children, says it is her on the show broadcast from Padstow, Cornwall in 2006. Thanks to the wonders of repeats, the show was just broadcast in Australia. (First we give them cricket, now they get our antique antiques shows).
He sent an email to his children:
“The show was filmed in Padstow, Cornwall, in England, and the likeness to your mum is uncanny. It has given us a strong sense of hope that at last her whereabouts may be known.”
So. Is it her? Is it the woman Mr Dawson reported missing on February 18 1982?
Lynette’s sister, Patricia Jenkins, takes a look. She concludes:
“There is no way this is Lyn. Just the clothes tell me it’s not her. She would never wear anything frilly or lacy.”
Interesting stuff. And more interesting still when we learn that coroners decided that, given all the circumstances and details, Mrs Dawson was most likely murdered. They also “recommended a known person be charged with an indictable offence”.
In 2003, the Sydney Mornting Herlad published news that Mr Dawson was an allegedly “abusive husband”.
The charming devil and his missing wife
We are told:
Her husband, the former Newtown Jets football player Chris Dawson, is the man police believe killed her to make way for his burgeoning relationship with a schoolgirl.
Go on:
In a week of disturbing and often salacious evidence, the court heard that Chris Dawson and his twin brother, Paul, shared sexual encounters with their students.
Twenty-one years ago, Chris Dawson was the PE teacher at Cromer High School on Sydney’s northern beaches.
He was married to his own school sweetheart Lynette. They had two young daughters and had built a house at Bayview.
But Chris and Paul Dawson, also a married PE teacher who had been a rugby league star, were involved in numerous sexual activities with students, according to the detective who investigated Lynette’s disappearance, Sergeant Damian Loone.
“These sexual activities included both Christopher and Paul Dawson having sexual intercourse with a female student at the same time,” he told the court last week. One of those encounters turned into a full-blown love affair between Chris Dawson and Joanne Curtis, who was 16 years old in 1981.
Mr Dawson would later marry Joanne Curtis.
No-one has ever been charged with any wrongdoing concerning Lynette Dawson’s vanishing. On September 21, 2101, a $100,000 reward was offered for information.
The coroner heard that, some time in 1981, Mr Dawson spoke of killing Mrs Dawson after he drove Ms Curtis to a Sydney hotel. She waited in her school uniform in the car while he went upstairs.
“He wasn’t there for long. When he came back he told me, ‘I wanted to get a hit man to kill Lyn, but I couldn’t do it because innocent people would be killed,'” she said.
Mr Dawson must be presumed innocent. He denies any claims made against him. No criminal charges have been brought against him. But, it’s a compelling case. So much granny’s old plates. Here’s the story waiting to develope…
Posted: 31st, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
