NSW police to apply for extradition of former rugby league player from Queensland

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Chris Dawson was “calm” but “a little taken aback” when he was arrested in Queensland on Wednesday morning in connection with the death of his first wife, Lyn, police said.

Just before 8am on Wednesday police arrested Dawson, 70, a former teacher and rugby league player with the Newtown Jets, at his home in Coolum on the Gold Coast.

He has been taken to Southport in Queensland where New South Wales police will apply for his extradition. Once he returns to NSW he will be formally interviewed by police, and is expected to be charged with her murder.

Lyn Dawson was 33 years old when she vanished from her home in Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982, leaving behind two daughters. Her disappearance and suspected murder were returned to prominence through the Australian newspaper’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet.

Lynette Dawson: police find no trace of remains in search at former home Read more

Dawson’s case was reopened in 2015 when detectives from the homicide squad’s unsolved homicide unit began reinvestigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and suspected murder.

On Wednesday the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, said that investigation had uncovered “additional evidence” in the form of witnesses statements, which were provided to the Department of Public Prosecutions in April.

Describing it as a “voluminous” evidence brief, Fuller said the additional evidence – including two discovered through podcast – had “helped us tie pieces of the puzzle together”.

He thanked the public and the media for the “partnership” in investigating the case.

“I spoke to the family of Lynette Dawson this morning,” he said. “They’re certainly relieved to hear this result.”

In September investigators spent almost a week digging up the Dawsons’ former Bayview home but found no human remains and no significant clues.

“That dig didn’t provide any additional information, unfortunately, and, look, from our perspective we would have dearly loved to have found the body of Lynette Dawson not just for the brief of evidence but for her family,” Fuller said.

But he said the case could be run successfully without finding her body. “Certainly we have solved homicide cases before without identifying the body,” he said.

“Ideally, in this case we will not give up on trying to identify the whereabouts of Lynette Dawson but, from our perspective, it is not crucial to finalising the matter.”

The commander of the NSW homicide squad, Detective Superintendent Scott Cook, said he was “confident” in the case. “I wouldn’t have written to the DPP otherwise,” he said.

Cook said the two additional witnesses interviewed as a result of the podcast were “not crucial, but they are corroborative”.



