![]() ![]() "We were on the verge of just saying, look, we've been looking for answers for Lyn for so many years, maybe we should just let it lie now," Greg says. When journalist Hedley Thomas - transfixed by the story since he'd first covered the coronial inquests - published the hit podcast The Teacher's Pet in 2018, public interest reached fever pitch. But with no body or definitive proof of her death, the case was seen as something of a legal quandary.ĭespite two coronial inquests in 20 finding that charges against a known person should be considered for her murder, on each occasion the DPP declined to prosecute on the grounds that there was not enough evidence. ![]() Her siblings believe the police took Lyn's disappearance more seriously after that. "And the suspicions I'd had in relation to not seeing my sister again had come to fruition really, and I knew then that I would never see my sister again." "I suppose you could say I was in shock at the information she'd told us," Greg said. Having left Chris Dawson, she was keen to reveal her suspicions that he was involved in Lyn's disappearance. Nearly a decade later, Greg received information that made him "turn white". "So we wanted to come here to put these flowers on the memorial seat, to pay our respects to my sister.Ĭhris Dawson married the babysitter, identified in court as JC, in 1984. "Clovelly is part of the Simms family, it's in our blood," he explains. "Nanna, Pa, we did it - we never gave up," echoes Merilyn. On it is a simple plaque, its inscription a touching tribute to Lyn and her parents, Helena and Len Simms, who both passed away in 2001 never knowing what had happened to their beloved daughter. To the untrained eye, it is just a regular wooden park bench, but to Lyn's family it has always been a very special place. ( Australian Story: Sarah Grant)Ĭlothed in pink, Lyn's favourite colour, they place a bouquet of pink flowers on a bench near the ocean, situated less than 100 metres from the Simms family home where Lyn, Greg and their siblings Pat and Philip spent their carefree childhood years. The memorial bench is one place they can come to remember Lyn in lieu of a grave. "That door closing was so final," adds Merilyn.Īlthough overwhelmed by the magnitude of what has just transpired, Greg and Merilyn's presence at Clovelly Beach still creates a bright splash against the otherwise muted landscape.Ĭlovelly holds a special place for Lyn’s family. And then they took him towards the doors at the back of the dock." ![]() The judge saying, 'Mr Dawson, you have to go now'. When Justice Harrison finally pronounced the "guilty" verdict in court last week, Greg couldn't quite believe it was all over. When JC tried to leave him, Dawson became so "distressed, frustrated and ultimately overwhelmed" that he resolved to kill his wife to get her out of the picture. His relationship with JC, a teenage schoolgirl (who he first met in his PE class), and who subsequently became the couple's live-in babysitter, was an obsession that became "more and more intense", the judge said. It was "possessive infatuation" that drove Dawson to murder Lyn, Justice Harrison said. "Why couldn't he just bloody walk away? We could have had our sister." "I think having a murder verdict brings a conclusion to one part of the story but it's extremely hard to think of …" His voice trails off. "We didn't get much sleep, it's hard to try and process the verdict," Greg says. In a marathon five-hour hearing, Justice Harrison laid out in painstaking detail the evidence persuading him that the 74-year-old former rugby league star and high school teacher had killed Lynette in January 1982 to have "unfettered" access to his teen lover, known to the court as JC. Just 24 hours earlier, the Simms family were left stunned when Justice Ian Harrison SC confirmed what they had long suspected - that Greg's sister Lynette Dawson, who disappeared 40 years ago, had been murdered by her husband Chris Dawson. Their emotion is palpable and the extent of it is difficult to comprehend. "I think the world is crying," says Merilyn Simms, standing close to her husband Greg. It's a bleak afternoon at Clovelly Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs, the sky is a screen of opaque grey, and the drizzling rain has become a steady downpour.
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