Lynette Joy Dawson (born 1948) was an Australian missing person who disappeared on 9 January 1982, leaving two daughters and her husband, former rugby league footballer Chris Dawson. Her whereabouts are unknown, but two coronial inquests found that she had been murdered. On 30 August 2022, Chris Dawson was convicted of Lynette's murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Background Lynette Simms and Chris Dawson, both aged 16, met at a high-school function in 1965. They were married in 1970 at St Jude's Church, Randwick, in Sydney and later had two children. Between 1972 and 1976, Chris and his identical twin brother Paul played professional rugby league football for the Newtown Jets. In 1975, the Dawson brothers and their spouses appeared on the ABC documentary program Chequerboard to discuss how the twins' close bond affected their lives. After ending their rugby careers, the Dawson brothers found employment as physical education teachers, with Chris working at Cromer High School near Sydney. Both Chris and Paul are alleged to have regularly engaged in illicit sexual behavior with female students at their respective schools; Chris is further alleged to have been one of six male teachers who preyed on students at Cromer High School. In 1981, Chris groomed and slept with Cromer student Joanne Curtis, who temporarily moved into the Dawson family residence in Bayview at Chris' invitation. She permanently moved into the residence on 10 January 1982, two days after Lynette's disappearance. Lynette was phoned by her mother on 8 January 1982, the last time they would communicate with each other. She planned to meet her mother and family at Northbridge Baths the following day, but never arrived. Chris didn't report his wife as missing until six weeks after she had vanished. He claimed that she left after marital problems caused over her Bankcard spending. In a statement to police, Chris suggested that she had joined a religious organisation. He finalised divorce proceedings against Lynette in 1983, and married Curtis the following year. Investigation After investigations by the New South Wales Police proved inconclusive, the NSW State Coroner conducted two coronial inquiries into Lynette's disappearance. At the first inquest held in February 2001, the Deputy State Coroner Jan Stevenson determined that Lynette had been murdered and that her killer was someone she knew. The coroner recommended charges be laid; however Nicholas Cowdery , the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, assessed that