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An Australian man was convicted of the chilly case homicide of his spouse Tuesday after a real crime podcast introduced widespread consideration to the case in 2018.
A decide discovered that Christopher Dawson, a 74-year-old former highschool instructor, killed his then-wife Lynette Dawson in 1982.
On the time of his spouse’s homicide, Dawson was concerned in an extramarital affair with the 16-year-old babysitter of their two daughters, ages 2 and 4 on the time, in keeping with a 2003 courtroom continuing referred to as an inquest. She was a former scholar – and days after Lynette Dawson’s disappearance, the teenager moved in with Christopher Dawson. They married after she turned 18 and cut up 4 years later.
Hedley Thomas, an investigative reporter for The Australian newspaper, chronicled the case on his podcast, “The Trainer’s Pet.”
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Australian courtroom information present Dawson, a former skilled rugby participant who turned a highschool instructor, had requested for a trial by decide, giving up his proper to a jury, citing the podcast’s massive viewers.
Thomas didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday afternoon – the early morning native time.
The conviction was “40 years overdue,” he wrote in an essay revealed after the decision.
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“It was a hopelessly one-sided spectator affair,” he wrote of the proceedings. “Nearly everybody there wished Dawson in handcuffs earlier than lunch.”
The podcast attracted a world viewers of roughly 60 million and forged renewed scrutiny on the case. Australian police arrested Dawson at his Queensland residence in December 2018.
Dawson reported his spouse lacking on Feb. 18, 1982, in keeping with New South Wales police. However her final identified contact got here greater than a month earlier, when she spoke along with her mom on Jan. 8. They made plans to for lunch the subsequent day. She did not present up.
Her physique has not been discovered.
“The entire of the circumstantial proof satisfies me that Lynette Dawson is useless, that she died on or about Jan. 8, 1982 and that she didn’t voluntarily abandon her residence,” Choose Ian Harrison stated in courtroom, in keeping with the Related Press.
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He stated that Dawson had lied about receiving telephone calls from his spouse following her disappearance and referred to as the argument that she might have run out of her household “ludicrous.”
Dawson faces as much as life imprisonment.
Fox Information’ Katherine Lam and The Related Press contributed to this report.