Lynette Dawson commissioned sketches of her two girls but never got the chance to collect before her disappearance, which were displayed at Chris Dawson’s murder trial.
Lyn ‘was quite excited’ about the portraits after approaching her at the Narrabeen High School Christmas market in 1981, according to Kristin Hardiman, the artist who drew them.
She’d made plans to visit the Dawsons’ Bayview house in Sydney’s northern beaches to photograph the ‘children dressed in exquisite… broderie anglaise outfits, and their hair was nicely done.’
Ms Hardiman claimed she called Lyn Dawson’s house in mid-January to inquire about the completed sketches, but Chris Dawson answered the phone.
‘(He) claimed she’d left and doesn’t want them any more.’ It was weird to say the least. Chris responded “no” when I asked whether he wanted to see the drawings because they were of his children.
‘I remember it well because it was so strange.’ Ms Hardiman went to the police about Lyn’s disappearance later.
On Wednesday, the trial heard taped phone conversations between the accused’s sister-in-law and her sister in which they referred to Lynette Dawson as a “bitch,” “a terrible woman at times,” and “a vicious woman at times.”
In a filmed 1999 interview with Marilyn Dawson, the wife of Chris Dawson’s twin, Paul, Kay Luschwitz claimed, “I feel she was an unsatisfied person, accumulate, accumulate but it didn’t give her any pleasure.”
‘I know they have boys’ discussions, but they wouldn’t be plotting murder,’ Marilyn Dawson claimed of the Dawson twins after being interviewed by police in 1999 about the likelihood Lynette had been reportedly murdered.
‘I believe Paul would go to any length for his brother, but I don’t believe he would murder.’
In the phone discussion, Marilyn stated that Chris Dawson was “not capable” of murdering Lyn Dawson and that he was a “upstanding citizen” who “works hard, lives well, is extremely kind to his family, and is courteous.”
Chris Dawson, 73, is accused of killing his wife Lynette Dawson and dumping of her body in January 1982 so that he could have an unrestricted connection with one of his former students, known as JC, while keeping the family house in Bayview, Sydney, and other assets.
He has entered a not guilty plea to the accusation of murder.
A taped phone conversation between Marilyn Dawson and the twins’ parents, Joan and Sid, was also played in court on Wednesday.
Marilyn and Paul had just been ‘interrogated for an hour and a half’ apiece, and they were furious at the ‘nasty’ and’shocking’ interrogation in which she said police had suggested Chris killed Lyn to avoid paying child support.
‘He’s had to pay maintenance to (JC) for eight years,’ Marilyn informed Joan. ‘On your viewpoint, he should have knocked off his second wife as well… he should have killed (JC) as well.’
Marilyn Dawson claimed that she was aware of Lyn’s marital issues before to her disappearance and encouraged her to ‘fight’ for her’very unstable’ marriage.
‘By the end of 1981, we realized things weren’t looking good.’ ‘I wanted (Lyn) to stand up and be counted about her house, her children, and her marriage because she was such a strong girl,’ Marilyn added.
‘I assumed she was heartbroken… and mentally unable to cope.’ She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw what was happening.
‘I suppose she was in a lot of pain and was struggling, so I tried to encourage her by saying, ‘Come on, you have to fight.’
Marilyn responded, “Chris and (JC) since they asked if they could stay at my home,” when questioned by crown prosecutor Craig Everson SC who used her bed on Christmas Day, 1981.
She said she said yes when Chris wanted to use it and then agreed not to tell Lyn or anyone else about it because Chris and the babysitter had returned to Sydney secretly following a trip to Queensland together.
Marilyn characterized Paul and Chris Dawson as having a very close relationship, with them wearing the same or similar clothes, sharing the same favorite drink, Coca-Cola, and living in the same house when they built new residences on the same street, 400 meters apart.
When both twins relocated to the Gold Coast, Chris with JC as his new wife, they built residences 500 meters apart, each with a swimming pool and tennis court, separated by wire gates.
They were both colorblind, played football together, and both went on to become PE teachers. Their wives even had the same baby doctor, ‘Dr John Murray our obstetrician.’
JC – who eventually became Chris Dawson’s teenage bride – allegedly informed her best friend on the Gold Coast that he had’murdered his first wife’ and pushed her to ‘go to police’ if she ‘didn’t make it out,’ according to earlier testimony on Tuesday.
Toni Melrose-Mikeska met the former babysitter turned Chris Dawson’s second wife in 1987 at Dreamworld, where she was performing as Coo-ee the Gumnut Fairy in the Kenny Koala show with ‘JC’ and her little daughter.
Every week, JC and her daughter went to see her perform, and the young girl even had her own miniature gumnut fairy costume created.
JC warned Ms Melrose-Mikeska about’mental abuse,’ and Dawson had a’short fuse temper,’ according to the evidence.
But she hadn’t really talked about her marriage to Dawson until the night she left him, when she slept at Ms Melrose-Southport Mikeska’s home with her daughter before fleeing to Sydney.
‘She said she was going to the police and if she didn’t make it, I was to go to the police and tell them some information she’d relayed to me,’ Ms Melrose-Mikeska said over video link from Tweed Heads.
She claimed JC recounted Dawson going to a tavern to see a man and hand over an envelope just before his first wife Lyn vanished.
JC told Ms Melrose-Mikeska on the night in Southport after leaving Dawson, ‘I think he murdered his first wife.’
Another acquaintance, whose family constructed Dreamworld and met JC on the Gold Coast, told the court that JC told him that if something happened to her, he should go to the police. She believed (Dawson’s) first wife had been murdered “..
‘Chris used to go around the house singing songs (such) “I don’t love you any more,”‘ Karen Longhurst said JC had said Dawson had ‘taunted’ his first wife.
When Ms Longhurst inquired about the first wife, JC told her that she and Lynette’s daughters “just nickname her fatty and don’t talk about it.”
Ms Longhurst also recalled inviting JC and her daughter to accompany her and her son on a trip to Pacific Fair shopping centre, where JC spent no money and brought her own lunch to eat in the car.
She stated she was “very taken aback” when JC informed her she would have to provide Chris Dawson “the shopping list and the change to demonstrate what she bought” after she bought goods.
Ms Longhurst further claimed that JC was rushing before Chris arrived home to make sure there was Coca Cola in the refrigerator since he had gone ‘crazy’ after drinking it once.
When Ms Melrose-Mikeska brought her daughter up for ‘visitation rights’ with Dawson after quitting her marriage to him in 1990, JC would remain with her.
She claimed the daughter would shrink from her mother after each visit and cling to her like a koala.
(JC) “s daughter) was terrified of her, and (JC) found it quite upsetting.
The prosecution’s witnesses have attempted to portray Dawson as an aggressive, controlling, and abusive husband, with testimony revealing that Mrs Dawson had been seen with a black eye, as well as bruises on her arms and thigh.
Witnesses said they saw him stomp his wife’s face in the ground, swing her into a doorframe, and insult her with words like ‘fatso.’
From the witness stand, JC said that she traveled with Dawson to a building south of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where he attempted to hire a hitman to kill his wife.
In January 1982, she said she was relocated into the Dawson family home and used as a housekeeper, babysitter, and sex slave.
Dawson and JC married in 1984 and divorced in 1990.
Dawson is also accused of threatening a high school student who asked JC out and of telling different explanations about his wife’s location after she vanished, according to the court.
The witnesses’ testimony was tainted, according to Dawson’s legal team, since they had discussed the matter with one another and had listened to The Teacher’s Pet podcast about Mrs Dawson’s mystery, which was presented with the presumption that her husband was guilty.
They’ve also contended that the testimony offered now isn’t a honest depiction of what transpired because the events occurred four decades ago and recollections have faded over time.
Dawson alleges JC’s assertions are lies motivated by a bitter custody dispute that erupted following their 1990 break-up.