League star who seemed to have it all
HE was the star footy player, turned schoolteacher, with blond hair and a fitness fanatic’s physique.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Chris Dawson was a handsome, successful and charming man, liked by men and women alike.
He would use those looks and charm to woo a schoolgirl from Cromer State High into his bed in the early 1980s.
That relationship and the subsequent disappearance and suspected murder of his wife Lynette Dawson, is the subject of the number one podcast in the country, The Teacher’s Pet.
In the 1970s Dawson was a professional footy player with the Newtown Jets in the New South Wales Rugby League, playing alongside his twin brother, Paul Dawson.
Their coach was Paul Broughton, a founding father of the Gold Coast Titans.
In his playing days Dawson was known as ‘Cranky Chris’, due to his temperament on the footy field, while his brother was known as ‘Passive Paul’.
Dawson was also a parttime model for jeans and corn chips during his playing days.
The Dawson brothers were well known in the northern beaches of Sydney, a pair of athletically handsome, identical twins who would go on long runs together.
It appeared he had it all going for him, a decent sporting career, marrying his high school sweetheart Lynette Simms, having two kids and transitioning into becoming a schoolteacher.
Following his retirement from professional footy in the late 1970s, Dawson became a physical education teacher at Cromer High School, where he would meet Joanne Curtis, a Year 11 student.
Curtis became the family babysitter and Dawson’s manipulative and physical relationship with the schoolgirl began. The sneaking around would continue through to when Joanne graduated from high school in 1981.
Lyn disappeared shortly after, between January 8-9, 1982. Just days later, Joanne Curtis had moved into the Dawson home.
Dawson and Curtis would marry, have a child together and move to the Gold Coast by 1985, where he would go on to teach at Keebra State High and Coombabah State High School.
He was followed in tow by his brother Paul, also a PE teacher, and his wife and kids.
Between 2001 and ’03, two inquests were held into the disappearance of Lynette Dawson, with the coroner’s finding on both occasions that Lyn was murdered by Chris Dawson in 1982.
No charges were levelled at Dawson, with the Director of Public Prosecutions ruling there was insufficient evidence. Mr Dawson has always maintained his innocence.
Now living in Noosa with his third wife, Chris Dawson is known to attend Gold Coast Titans training and games when he comes to visit his twin brother on the Coast.
Dawson declined to take part in the Teacher’s Pet podcast. In episode four of the Teacher’s Pet a person who has never spoken before comes forward with information that may point to a location of Lyn Dawson’s body.