According to a judge, Christopher Michael Dawson’s babysitter and later wife threatened his first wife Lynette and had cause to see her killed.
An intercepted phone call between Dawson and his twin brother Paul dated March 1999 was shown to the court in the continuing murder trial of Dawson, 73.
In that call, Paul Dawson is overheard claiming that the babysitter, who goes by the moniker JC, had motive to murder Mrs Dawson, who vanished in January 1982.
‘JC had the motive if Lyn had been murdered. ‘(JC) had more to gain from their relationship, and (JC) did gain more than Chris ever did,’ Paul Dawson told the NSW Supreme Court.
In January 1982, Dawson is suspected of murdering his wife and disposing of her body so that he may have an unrestricted connection with JC. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge, claiming that Mrs Dawson had left the house at the time owing to marital problems and never returned.
Dawson and JC married in 1984 and divorced in 1990.
At a birthday celebration for one of Mrs Dawson’s daughters, JC threatened to throw her out if she got in her way, Paul Dawson told Justice Ian Harrison.
After the marriage, JC was a terrible mother to Dawson’s two kids, refusing to pick them up from school, prohibiting the use of the word “family” when referring to them, and pulling their hair back so tightly that their scalps bled, according to the court.
Paul Dawson recalled, “She treated them like outcasts in their own house.”
Police assertions that Dawson had anything to do with his wife’s suspected murder were absurd, he argued.
He said in court that media allegations that his brother was violent were false since he was the least violent person he’d ever met.
He also scoffed at accusations that his wife Marilyn Dawson was spotted practicing forging Lynette Dawson’s signature after she vanished, calling it “total and utter nonsense.” Mrs Dawson’s signature was forged on a life insurance policy carried out in her name, according to the court.
He told the court that he didn’t mind Mrs Dawson taking a break from the marriage because his brother had done the same thing in December 1981, when he drove north with JC to Queensland.
Dawson drove up to the Central Coast numerous times after his wife vanished, according to the court.
Mr Dawson acknowledged that when his brother’s connection with JC began in late 1981, he was not fond of it.
Mrs Dawson was a nice mother, he claimed, but she wasn’t excessively affectionate with her children. Because her husband was hands-on and would take care of much of the mothering and fathering, she thought they didn’t require her as much as the children she cared for as a nurse and childminder.
On Thursday, Paul Dawson’s babysitter from 1980 and 1981 testified. During automobile journeys in Sydney, the woman, who may only be identified as SO, claimed she overheard Chris Dawson refer to his wife as a bitch and tell her she had to leave.
She claimed that during a car drive with the Dawson brothers and JC, Dawson got out of the car, passed a package to a man outside a building, and then returned to tell that something had been “taken care of.”
Dawson had attempted to hire a hitman to kill his wife, but had changed his mind, JC told the court last month. Only Dawson and her were in the van in that rendition of the story.
SO said that Paul Dawson told her at the end of 1981 or the beginning of 1982 that his family would have to move to Queensland immediately.
“He stated he was moving and that something terrible had happened and that he wanted to go right away.”
When Dawson’s lawyer, Pauline David, pointed out that the Dawsons had only moved to the Gold Coast in 1984, OS replied they were able to wait because nothing happened despite police investigating the disappearance.
The trial will resume on Friday.