The Teacher’s Pet: what really happened to Lynette Dawson?

Police in Australia have arrested the husband of a Sydney woman whose disappearance more than 35 years ago has recently attracted global attention.

Chris Dawson, 70, is to be charged with murdering Lynette Dawson, New South Wales authorities said.

The 33-year-old mother of two young children “vanished without a trace”, says the BBC.

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Her PE teacher husband had long been a suspect, after two coroners’ inquests found that she had been killed by a “known person”, but he has always denied murdering his wife.

The case was reopened earlier this year after a podcast about the case, called The Teacher's Pet, led to a resurgence of interest.

Dawson appeared in a Queensland court following his arrest on Wednesday. Bail was denied and “a request to extradite him to the neighbouring state of New South Wales was approved”, reports CNN.

New evidence including witness statements was presented to prosecutors in April and helped investigators “tie pieces of the puzzle together”, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told reporters today.

Although Dawson's body has never been found, Fuller said he was confident that justice could be done, adding: “We've solved homicides before without identifying the body.”

Dawson's brother, Greg Simms, said he was “ecstatic” about the development.

“We've always been determined to find the truth and that's the reason why we've fought to keep Lyn's name alive,” he told Australia’s Nine News.

Who was Lynette Dawson?

Lynette Dawson, a 33-year-old mother of two girls, was last seen in January 1982.

Dawson spoke to her own mother on the evening of 8 January, while at home with her husband, and made plans to meet her for lunch the following day at the Northbridge Baths fitness centre.

But Dawson failed to show up for their date.

Her husband, a former professional rugby league player, told friends and family that “she needed time away”, reports ABC News. “A few days later, he moved his schoolgirl lover into the family home,” adds the Australian broadcaster.

He did not report to police that his wife was missing for nearly six weeks.

Following two coronial inquiries, in 2001 and 2003, no one was convicted of her suspected murder, although both inquests recommended that murder charges be laid against a “known person”, says The Guardian.

Nicholas Cowdery QC, who was in charge of the New South Wales prosecutions at the time, told ABC News this week that he had good reason not to prosecute.

“Without a body, without knowing first of all whether in fact she is dead, without knowing secondly if she is dead, how she died, it’s very hard to mount a case of a reasonable prospect of conviction just on motive and the undefined existence of means and opportunity. That makes it very weak,” he said.

In 2015, detectives from the Unsolved Homicide Unit established a strike force to reinvestigate the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

What about the podcast?

The Teacher’s Pet is a podcast produced by The Australian newspaper and hosted by the publication’s national chief correspondent, Hedley Thomas. Released in May, the series has been downloaded more than 17 million times in Australia and overseas.

The podcast “investigates and places a hefty dose of suspicion on her husband”, says Australian culture website Junkee.

It has also “highlighted the bungled handling of the case by police in the early years after Dawson’s disappearance, prompting a recent apology from the state’s police commissioner”, adds the BBC.