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Who is Chris Dawson, the Australian Former Pro Rugby Player Who Killed His Wife?
Chris Dawson was not only found guilty of killing his wife Lynette, but of having sex with the 16-year-old student he moved into the family home just days after Lynette disappeared.
On July 21, 1998, then-New South Wales police detective Damian Loone was stunned when he was ordered to open a missing persons case for a mother of two who had disappeared from her Sydney, Australia home in January of 1982.
“I sat there, sort of thinking, ‘Why hasn’t this been investigated? Why are we hearing about it now — 16 years later?,’” he explained on Peacock’s World’s Most Notorious Killers, a five-part unscripted series focusing on infamous international crimes.
When the brief initial search for the missing woman, Lynette Dawson, went cold, friends and family were upset.
“How can someone go missing and no one looks for them? That’s dreadful,” Sue Strath, Lyn’s friend, said on World’s Most Notorious Killers, which is now streaming.
But that wasn’t unheard of in the 1980s, according to Kris Illingsworth, a former New South Wales Police Force detective, and the first Australian woman to become an FBI-trained criminal profiler.
"Police culture in the 1980s was a very misogynistic environment,” she said on the Peacock docuseries. “Very chauvinist, sexist and biased against women. The worst thing a woman can do is to leave her children. So, Lyn is made to look like the villain.”
It took about four decades and the popularity of a podcast for police to finally arrest and prosecute Lyn’s husband, former professional rugby player Chris Dawson, for her murder.
In the process, detectives didn’t just unearth evidence of murder — but found buried secrets of a husband having affairs with his underage students, and even sharing the girls with his identical twin brother for sex.
Who are Chris and Lynette Dawson?
Lyn and Chris Dawson met and began dating in high school.
“Lyn loved Chris Dawson. There was no two ways about it,” Barb Cruise, Lyn’s friend and boss at the time she vanished, said on World’s Most Notorious Killers. “And she thought the sun shone out of him. The way I figured it, he could do no wrong.”
Chris went on to become a pro rugby player for the Newtown Jets, part of the Australian rugby league.
“They had to have been one of the most popular football teams in Australia,” reporter Tiffany Genders said on the Peacock series. “Everybody knew his name. And everybody loved him.”
Chris and Lyn had two daughters together.
“From what I understand, my parents were very much in love,” Shanelle Dawson, one of Chris and Lyn’s daughters, said on World’s Most Notorious Killers. “Had a good life. It’s hard to know what happened.”
But behind closed doors, the couple was in marriage counseling.
“We were aware that things didn’t seem to be quite right,” Pat Jenkins, Lyn’s sister, said in a 2003 interview. “I just thought it was a bit of a rough patch and things would sort themselves out.”
Lynette Dawson disappears in January 1982
Lynette never showed up for work on Monday, January 11, 1982. Her husband told friends and family that she was fine, and he’d been in contact with her — but many didn’t believe him.
“I got a call from Chris Dawson to say that Lyn had gone away and needed some time out,” said Cruise, Lyn's boss at the time. “It was totally out of character for Lyn not to turn up for work or not to contact me if she needed some time away.”
Lyn wasn’t reported missing by Chris until six weeks later.
“My little 4-and-a-half-year-old self was really confused,” Shanelle said of her mom vanishing. “I guess I didn’t understand the sadness as a child. I also really believed that she was going to be coming back one day.”
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Although friends and family believed something had happened to Lynette, police believed Chris to be a grieving husband with a missing wife.
“He really came across as a devastated husband that lost his wife,” Genders said. “[The police] believed every word that Chris Dawson said.”
Chris Dawson's predatory past with teen babysitter uncovered
As detectives reopened the missing persons case of Lynette Dawson in 1998, they discovered Chris had a relationship with a then-16-year-old girl known in court as “JC.” She had a troubled home life, and Chris was a teacher at her high school.
“I particularly remember a day ‘JC’ was on his lap,” Michelle Walsh, a former Cromer High School student, said on World’s Most Notorious Killers. “And he was laughing. They were laughing. It wasn’t normal for this married man with children to have a school girl on his lap. But we thought it was normal.”
He invited “JC” to move into his family home and babysit his daughters. She told police she and Chris had sex in the car, or at home when Lyn was gone or asleep.
“Clearly Lyn was no longer an object of sexual desire to Chris,” Illingsworth said. “He had his own desires laying with teenage girls. And Lyn’s pain and humiliation, and degradation of Lyn in front of someone else, and that is done for his own gratification. So, in my view, Chris Dawson displays the behavior of a sadist.”
After Lyn came home and found “JC” swimming naked in their family pool, she asked her to leave. “JC” then moved in with Chris’ identical twin brother, Paul, and his wife. She later claimed in a signed statement to police that she was shared for sex between the brothers.
“Chris would often attempt to please his brother with gifts, sometimes gifts of schoolgirls, sex — that was part of their relationship,” said Hedley Thomas, journalist and host of the Dawsons-focused podcast, The Teacher's Pet. “It’s unthinkable.”
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“JC” shed more light on the timeline of Lyn disappearing. She told police that Chris once went to see a hitman about killing Lyn, but couldn’t go through with it. On December 23, 1981, “JC” and Chris took off together — but eventually came back. After January 8, 1982, Lyn was never seen or heard from again. “JC” said she spoke to Chris the day after his wife went missing.
“Chris states, and these are words that will never leave me, ‘Lyn’s gone and she’s not coming back,’” Det. Loone said on World's Most Notorious Killers. “How was he so sure that she wasn’t coming back?”
Despite this, “JC” and Chris took their relationship a step further.
"Just days after Lynette Dawson went missing, Chris Dawson moved his babysitter into the family home,” reporter Mark Burrows said. “That is such an extraordinary thing to do.”
In 1984, Chris divorced the missing Lynette, and married then 18-year-old “JC.”
“Looking back on that, I have to question how someone could step into a mother’s home, take over mothering their children and be wearing their clothes and not be questioning, ‘What the f--k happened to the wife?,’” Shanelle, Chris and Lyn's daughter, said.
“One of the most disturbing things about this case is that Chris gave her Lynette’s wedding rings to wear on their own wedding day,” Genders said.
“JC” and Chris eventually had a daughter together, but in 1991, “JC” left him. In 1998, she spoke to police.
“She was in fear of Chris,” Thomas said. “He had become increasingly angry and threatening towards her. I believe she had started to work out that he probably murdered Lyn, and she started to feel like she could be murdered herself.”
Police dig up Dawson family pool in search of Lynette
After police asked the public for help in 1998 in Lynette's missing persons case, several anonymous tipsters suggested she might be buried under the pool at the family home, which by then had a new owner. It had been repaved shortly after Lyn disappeared. When digging, police found pieces of a pink cardigan with cut marks in it, but they were unable to continue the dig because of monetary issues. In 2018, The Teacher’s Pet podcast debuted, and renewed public interest in the case.
“A man who I interviewed told me Chris Dawson went to the house years after he had sold it,” Thomas said. “He asked the owner, ‘Where are you digging?,’ during the renovations and the landscaping of the property. The owner said that it was such a chilling thing. He was completely spooked by it at the time.”
With so much public pressure, police dug up more of the former Dawson yard in 2018, but never found Lyn’s body. Still, seven months after the podcast debuted, and nearly four decades after his wife’s disappearance, 70-year-old Chris was arrested for her murder.
“This podcast, I believe it changed the course and the decision making of the [prosecutor]. [They] couldn’t ignore the Lyn Dawson case any longer,” Loone said.
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Chris Dawson found guilty of wife Lyn's murder
On August 30, 2022, a judge found 74-year-old Chris guilty of his wife’s murder. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Dawson appealed his conviction, but in June 2024, a panel of three judges unanimously dismissed the appeal, The Guardian reported.
In June of 2023, Chris was also convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with his 16-year-old student, “JC.”
“You’ve got almost a glamour couple, two beautiful little girls, living in a good part of Sydney, and yet behind closed doors in the household was violence, coercive control, degradation, humiliation, pain, inflicted upon Lyn,” Illingsworth said. “Chris Dawson has a lack of remorse for what he does. A lack of empathy. He’s cunning. Conniving. And uses deception and lying, and these are all traits consistent with a psychopath.”
Lynette’s body has never been found.
To learn more about the case, watch "The Murder Down Under" episode of the five-part true crime docuseries, World’s Most Notorious Killers, streaming now on Peacock.
