January 9, 1982: Mr Dawson says he dropped his wife at a Mona Vale bus stop so she could go shopping at Chatswood. Mrs Dawson fails to turn up to meet her mother, husband and children at Northbridge Baths.
Mr Dawson says his wife rang him and said she needed some time to herself.
Chris Dawson's teenage lover and babysitter will take centre stage as star witnesses against the former first-grade footballer after revealing fresh evidence that led to his arrest
Did this call really take place? If a person really did phone the Northbridge Baths that afternoon, and another person answered the phone first, the person phoning would have to have been a female. So have they ever found out who took that phone call? The only person who would probably have made that call would have been Marilyn Dawson. If a man (such as Paul Dawson) actually made the call, it could have been planned for a definite time so that CD could have been waiting for the call and been near the phone at the time to answer it himself. Has this mystery ever been solved? Or did Chris just pretend he had taken a call from Lyn but there was no actual call?
Another red flag was when CD took six weeks to report Lyn as a missing person joining a religious cult when her mother she was not religious and had moved his 16 year old lover into the marital bed two days after Lyn "went missing" and gave her Lyn's rings to wear!
I did a search on this thread and found some more information on what happened at the Northbridge Baths.
Australia - Australia - Lynette Dawson, 34, Sydney, Jan 1982 *Arrest*
From the podcast and inquest: Phil Day was Chris’s close friend from Sydney Boys High, now deceased. Phil was a groomsman for the Dawsons when they wed in 1970. Phil gave evidence at the second coronial inquest in 2003, saying that a few days before Lyn disappeared, Chris called and asked him to come to Northbridge Baths for a talk. Phil witnessed the interactions between Chris and Lyn’s mother Helena when Chris said that Lyn had phoned and needed some time away.
Chris then asked Phil to drive Helena, Shanelle and Sherryn home to the Simms’ residence in Clovelly.
So IMO this murder was premeditated as CD called Phil a few days before and asked him to come to Northbridge Baths on the Saturday for a "chat". IMO this was planned by CD so that Phil could hear about the phone call from Lyn, witness the interactions between CD and Lynette's mother and then drive Lyn's mother and her two granddaughters home to her house at Clovelly so that he had time to pick up Joanne and install her into the family home while the daughters were not there. Also it is not stated that Phil was actually there when the phone call came in.
I also read on the above link that the phone call was an STD one to give it more credence perhaps. Apparently, Paul and Marilyn were at Toowoon Bay which is only a one and a half hours drive away from Bayview so they could easily drive home when needed by CD. I also predict that they had all the timings planned about when Phil would arrive and when I suspect that Marilyn was asked to make the call. Phil possibly lived in the eastern suburbs so Clovelly could have been on his way.
So Chris' story was that Lyn supposedly left home early in CD's car (as she did not drive) without giving the children breakfast and was dropped off at Mona Vale to catch a bus to Chatswood to do shopping. If she wanted to buy food she could do that locally and she would not want to have to carry them all the way to Northbridge on a bus. So why Chatswood? For clothes? Lyn was due to meet her mother for lunch at the Northbridge Baths at 12 noon.
From Chatswood station, you have to catch the 267 bus to Fourth Avenue off Edinburgh Road which takes 37 minutes then walk 2 kms to
2 Widgiewa Rd, Northbridge where the baths are which would take about 30 minutes. So the whole trip would take over one hour and Lyn would not want to be carrying anything heavy.
So Lyn would have to have left Chatswood before 11am to be able to get there at the appointed time. So if the shops opened in those days at 9am that would give Lyn less than 2 hours to shop. Did Chris say what Lyn went shopping for?
I predict that Chris suggested that Lyn invite her mother there that Saturday so that she would be there ready to take the girls when he suggested it. But did he pack a bag for the girls with other clothes, nightwear, underwear, shoes, hats, toothbrushes and swimming costumes, etc. so she did not bother him later for them? That would be too telling, wouldn't it? Otherwise, did she have clothes, etc. for the children in her home already or did she have to buy more? That got his mother-in-law and the girls away from him for a few days so he could perhaps bury Lyn and pickup Joanne. What a planner this Chris was!