Still Missing Australia - Lynette Dawson, 34, Sydney, Jan 1982 *Arrest* #3

[TootsieFootsie]

And so it ends, not with a bang but a flu-ridden cough

And so it ended. Not with a bang, but a gentle collapse, in the way burning campfire logs eventually fall in on themselves before being reduced to ash.

amp.theaustralian.com.au

It is anticipated he will come to his decision within two months.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Forty years after Lynette vanished this Sydney mystery could soon have some answers

 

[Cliff Hardy]

It's going to be a long, frustrating wait for that verdict and we aren't even facing 20 years jail like Chris Dawson is.

C'mon Hedley, get that next episode up.

 

[Kemug]

Defence argued CD was a man of good character

RSBM
Yeah, yeah. Let me count the ways.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

Assuming this is where the law will be focused after Chris Dawson's verdict has been delivered, I wonder what Hedly will call the associated podbcast?

 

[Mamasleuthin]

What’s everyone’s theory? Mine is that he had help from someone very close to him to this day and they are very confident Lyn will never be found.

 

[musicaljoke]

What’s everyone’s theory? Mine is that he had help from someone very close to him to this day and they are very confident Lyn will never be found.

I'm not convinced that he would need help, but my theory is that someone who sits very close to him knows exactly what happened and also knows where Lyn can be found.

 

[musicaljoke]

View attachment 353938

Assuming this is where the law will be focused after Chris Dawson's verdict has been delivered, I wonder what Hedly will call the associated podbcast?

Cliff, do you have a link for this? I'd like to read the article.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Cliff, do you have a link for this? I'd like to read the article.

I think this might be where it's from, the same pic is there. But it is behind a paywall

‘They did girls in groups’

A podcast about a missing woman was determined to unearth new evidence on a probable murder. What no one expected was that it also would open a Pandoras box of secrets and lies and cover-ups of sexual misconduct and abuse at high schools in Sydney and beyond.

amp.theaustralian.com.au

 

[Cliff Hardy]

What’s everyone’s theory? Mine is that he had help from someone very close to him to this day and they are very confident Lyn will never be found.

There's no reason why Chris Dawson couldn't have done it unassisted.

He spikes Lyn's drink the night before and suffocates her while she is out to it. Or just straight poisons her.

The next afternoon, after returning from the pool and with the kids off with grandma and JC out of the way playing schoolies, he has plenty of time to do whatever he chooses with Lyn's already dead body.

Chris Dawson is a big guy and he would have been quite capable of carrying Lyn's body to his car concealed in the garage and then driven her to a burial location of his choice. Equally, he could have put her in a wheelbarrow and moved her to somewhere closer by and buried her.

Killers tend to dispose of bodies in places they are familiar with. So places Chris had frequented or holidayed at are logical locations for Lyn's body.

That Chris Dawson is said to have repeatedly returned to the house for years after he sold it, even talking to the owners on one occasion, has me wondering.

If somebody helped Chris in any way, logic points to Paul. Who else could he trust unconditionally? If it had been someone else they would have struggled not to tell someone over the course of 40 years and that's how most cold cases finally get solved. I have no doubt Paul knows something but how much I don't know.

 

[Podcast Tragic]

I believe that CD once having murdered Lyn concealed her body in the garage . Then called Paul for assistance with the next step. Question is were P&M D actually away on their holiday on the 8th- 9th .Is there any proof they were away then? Was there a phone in the caravan they were supposedly holidaying in on those dates. Also there was plenty of uninterrupted time for CD to dispose of Lyn's body the next afternoon /night. IMOO

 

[Cliff Hardy]

This one isn't news as such. In fact, it is from one of the older 'Australian' articles.

But the repercussions of this sort of behavior may not be too far away - with any luck.



Have to wonder what MD might have given PD for his birthday that year. Hardly likely to have topped CD's 'generosity.'

Wonder what MD thought of CD's 'generosity'?

 

[Bats]

...some light reading....

Circumstantial evidence

www.judcom.nsw.gov.au

 

[Anony678]

That is interesting reading! So the judge must first be satisfied that Lyn is dead, then the rest can be considered. The prosecutions evidence on this was detailed and supported by 2 inquest findings - I don’t think the defence did a good job of refuting the inquest conclusions.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

...some light reading....

Circumstantial evidence

www.judcom.nsw.gov.au

There is a lot to digest there but the very first point is quite pertinent :

'Where the Crown case rests substantially on circumstantial evidence a jury cannot return a guilty verdict unless the Crown has excluded all reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence.'

Has the Crown in Chris Dawson's case 'excluded all reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence?'

A good question that one and we can only form our opinions based on what has been reported from the trial.

Far and away the most logical explanation for Lyn Dawson's disappearance is that she was murdered. It is hard to make a case for any other alternative, as Pauline David found.

Chris Dawson had motive and the Crown seem to have made that abundantly clear to the judge.

Are there any other 'reasonable hypotheses' for who might have murdered Lyn Dawson? Death at sea? Ivan Milat? Perhaps the bus driver? No, all the logic points in one direction and one direction only.

The finding in the Baden-Clay case was obviously ground breaking and this one will likely be too.

 

[Bats]

I found the second paragraph interesting. Whilst CD hasn't exactly been "silent", i think it is still relevant in this case...moo

Where an accused with peculiar knowledge of the facts is silent, “hypotheses consistent with innocence may cease to be rational or reasonable in the absence of evidence to support them when that evidence, if it exists at all, must be within the knowledge of the accused”: The Queen v Baden-Clay at [50] quoting Weissensteiner v The Queen (1993) 178 CLR 217 at 227-228, which was cited with approval in RPS v The Queen (2000) 199 CLR 620 at 633.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

1/ Removed the wife he no longer loved from his life.
2/ Saved him having to move out because Lyn and the children would have rightfully been awarded the house.
3/ Allowed him to pursue his relationship with his teenage lover.

That's just for starters and surely more than enough to demonstrate motive.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

The article below is dated 16th September 2018 but it is very comprehensive and provides an excellent summary - complete with some very interesting quotes :

The weird world of the creepily close Dawson twin brothers

Chris and Paul Dawson are identical twins but their bond goes beyond being brothers. Both declined to appear at inquests into the disappearance of Chris's wife Lyn from Sydney's northern beaches in 1982.

www.dailymail.co.uk

The question of whether Marilyn Dawson knew about Paul's infidelities with schoolgirls has come up a few times here and I think this article provides an answer to that.

From the article :

Police discussing an interview with Paul :
'Paul did, however, admit to having had a relationship for some months with a former student he had taught at Forest High. Paul said he had sex with this teenager in 'various places' including once at his home...'

Marilyn's statement to police :
'I would've fought and in a way I did fight for my marriage because my husband was his twin and, you know, whatever Chris was doing my husband may have been doing too, and so I fought for my husband, and I wish Lyn had.'

Reading the above I have no doubt Marilyn knew of Paul's infidelities with schoolgirls.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Marilyn's statement to police :
'I would've fought and in a way I did fight for my marriage because my husband was his twin and, you know, whatever Chris was doing my husband may have been doing too, and so I fought for my husband, and I wish Lyn had.'

I don't really call that fighting for your marriage.

 

[DRT]

I don't really call that fighting for your marriage.

It is bizarre but listening to it 4 years after hearing it the original time when Marilyn Dawson said it somehow it seemed more genuine albeit naive. I think Marilyn actually thought that Lyn had a chance of saving her marriage.