The twin brother of a 74-year-old Australian man on trial for the murder of his first wife 40 years ago suggested that his brother’s second wife is the real assassin. Chris Dawson is accused of the 1982 disappearance and presumed murder of his wife Lynette Dawson, with whom he had two children.
Dawson went on to marry the couple’s babysitter, known in court only as J.C., who was also a student at the school where he taught and with whom he had a child. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Dawson killed his wife to conduct an “unfettered relationship” with the babysitter. The two married in 1984 and separated six years later.
Thursday, the court heard from Dawson’s twin brother Paul, who said his second sister-in-law had reason to “get rid of” his first sister-in-law and had, in fact, once threatened to do so. “If Lyn had been murdered, J.C. had the motive, J.C. had more to gain and J.C. did gain more than Chris ever gained from their relationship,” Paul Dawson told the court.
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The defendant’s twin also recalled for the court a conversation he had with family friend Elva McBay, according to ABC Australia News. McBay, who did not testify in person, had told Paul Dawson that the missing wife, whose body has never been found, was once confronted by the babysitter. Upset, Lynette Dawson told her how the babysitter threatened her that if she “got in her way” she would “get rid of her.”
The court earlier heard from a friend of Lynette Dawson who recalled how her husband Chris Dawson had “gripped her throat” while they were in an elevator on the way to couples counseling. The friend, Annette Leary, told the court that “If this doesn’t work, I’m getting rid of you.” Other friends testified seeing abrasions on Lynette Dawson’s arms in the weeks before she went missing.
Chris Dawson insists his wife left the family on her own accord, and that she is likely still alive.
The court also heard an intercepted conversation between the twin brothers in which Paul said, “You’re not the sort of person to do this. Anybody who knows you knows that,” Paul can be told telling his brother. “If anyone had a motive, [J.C.] had a motive,” according to reporters in the courtroom.
Paul Dawson also testified how J.C. treated the older children (who she had once babysat) badly, refusing to pick them up from school while coddling the child she had with the now murder suspect.“She made Chris and Lynette’s daughters put their laundry in a different basket,” he told the court. “They had to get out of the pool if her daughter wanted to go in.” He also said that the babysittter-turned-second-wife would pull the older daughter’s hair while brushing it so tightly “their scalps would bleed.”
J.C. testified in court that in fact her husband would not allow her to discipline the girls she used to babysit. “I was only allowed to treat them like little princesses,” she told the court, according to press reports. “If I did discipline them, he would discipline me, and they came to see that I really had no authority.” She has not been accused of any crime.
She previously told the court that Dawson had abused her as well. “He groomed me and abused me and insisted that I marry him,” she said.
The trial is expected to continue for several weeks.
