When Shanelle Dawson was simply 4 years old, her mother and father have been on the centre of a suburban tragedy when Lyn Dawson abruptly went lacking. Her mom’s disappearance wouldn’t be categorized as homicide till 2001, along with her father finally held liable for the crime in 2022.
Just hours after her mom disappeared from her life, Shanelle’s teenage babysitter, Joanne Curtis (whom she refers to as “J” in her new e book) moved into her mom’s mattress, wore her mom’s garments, and (from 1984), her mom’s wedding ceremony ring.
“I felt unloved by J,” Dawson writes of her reluctant stepmother, who was her father’s scholar (at Cromer High School on Sydney’s northern seashores) once they started their relationship. “She didn’t want to be my mother and she certainly wasn’t.” Curtis would divorce Chris Dawson in 1993.
Shanelle didn’t confront her father about his function in her mom’s loss of life till September 2018, 5 months after the podcast The Teacher’s Pet, by investigative journalist Hedley Thomas, was launched.
Her younger sister Sherryn, who was simply two years old when their mom disappeared, stays loyal to their father. She and Shanelle are actually estranged.
Review: My Mother’s Eyes – Shanelle Dawson with Alley Pascoe (Hachette); The Teacher’s Pet – Hedley Thomas (Pan Macmillan).
In her e book, My Mother’s Eyes (written with journalist Alley Pascoe), Shanelle Dawson writes:
In these pages, I’ve capitalised Mum and Mother as an indication of respect. I haven’t achieved the identical for dad and father.
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These blunt however highly effective phrases set the tone for a story that’s compelling, if tough, studying. Dawson’s journey has been removed from straightforward. She left home at 17 and spent 15 years travelling the world, from the age of 18. She additionally misplaced a companion she described as her “soulmate”, when he was discovered lifeless in his hammock whereas travelling with out her in Brazil. In 2014, she turned a single mom.
Some of her coping mechanisms – like working with psychics to assist tie up unfastened ends – might come throughout as confronting, or no less than unusual. She writes, for instance, that it was a psychic who first made her realise the reality about her father.
“Please don’t judge me,” she implores in her foreword. She notes that whereas she has been lucky in some ways, the e book is a chance to provide her mom a voice, and it’s an try and exorcise her personal trauma.
In some ways, Dawson’s work is about worry. The worry of not having the ability to bear in mind, worry of by no means discovering her mom’s physique, and worry of how crimes of home violence proceed to be dedicated. Fear is rarely easy; it’s layered – and right here it’s inseparable from grief.
Dawson explains:
I’ve had psychics inform me that my Mother’s treasured physique isn’t in a single piece anymore. […] I don’t suppose we’ll get the closure of burying her physique entire. That’s a brutal factor to attempt to come to phrases with.
For Dawson, there was additionally a worry of the reality, certain up with what the conviction of her mom’s assassin would imply. She writes that:
The world sees a monster, however I see my dad. Despite all of it, I nonetheless love him.
Dawson’s father will not be her “Father”, however he’s nonetheless a person she has liked for her entire life.
Read extra:
True crime leisure like The Teacher’s Pet can shine a light-weight on chilly circumstances – however does it assist or hinder justice being served?
The Teacher’s Pet
Thomas launched the primary episode of The Teacher’s Pet in May 2018. After 17 episodes, which uncovered new proof and new witnesses, one trial for homicide and one other trial for carnal information of a schoolgirl, Chris Dawson is now incarcerated.
Dawson, a former bodily schooling trainer, now 75, was sentenced to 24 years for homicide in 2022 with a non-parole interval of 18 years, and three years for sexual offences in 2023 with a non-parole interval of two years. An attraction towards the homicide conviction has reportedly been lodged.
Dean Lewins/AAP
True crime podcasts of immediately owe an awesome debt to Sarah Koenig’s compelling long-form journalism in 2014’s Serial, with The Teacher’s Pet main the growth of journalistic true-crime podcasts in Australia. Stories on this format are actually ubiquitous. But simply as many true-crime books fall wanting readers’ expectations, many true-crime podcasts don’t meet the calls for of discerning listeners. The easy recounting of occasions is inadequate, particularly in the case of chilly circumstances.
Consumers of true crime need accuracy, consideration to element and compelling theories that may be examined. As human beings, we’re instinctively curious. We need solutions. In quick, we regularly obsess over chilly circumstances as a result of there’s a tantalising feeling {that a} crime simply would possibly be solved.
The motivation of the podcaster can be essential. As Thomas has said:
I believe the perfect podcasts in all probability come from a objective that the storyteller feels. And I believe listeners hear that. They hear the authenticity, the righteous indignation, of the storyteller as they’re going by way of it. You have to be pretty invested.
In Australia, the justice system could be perceived as a wheel that’s painstakingly sluggish to show, whereas the media is often fairly chaotic and rushed, pushed by punishing reporting deadlines. Yet every is deeply within the different – and infrequently eager to exert their energy.
Pan Macmillan
For instance, Thomas was subpoenaed to provide proof when Dawson was tried for homicide. His podcast turned unavailable in Australia, and he was unable to cowl the trial as if he have been simply one other journalist. The e book’s epilogue, titled “The Murder Trial”, is written by journalist and writer Matthew Condon, who, along with his colleagues, was in a position to cowl the proceedings.
Thomas is conscious about how shut reporters go to the legislation’s edges. Almost a whole paragraph in his acknowledgements is devoted to numerous legal professionals. In pushing again towards the authorized fraternity, Thomas asserts:
Although that they had no perception into the workings of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions within the case, Lyn’s household and lots of of my authorized and police sources have been assured Chris Dawson wouldn’t have been charged and prosecuted if it weren’t for The Teacher’s Pet.
This is an enormous declare, however there’s something to be stated a couple of podcast that has attracted practically 30 million listeners around the globe. It has had way more consideration than the 2 coronial inquiries that preceded it – in 2001 and 2003 – into the disappearance of Lyn Dawson. The Teacher’s Pet introduced widespread consciousness to the case, and an unlimited quantity of public strain “for authorities to take action”.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Both inquests discovered that the lady born Lynette Joy Simms was lifeless and {that a} “known person” was liable for her loss of life, but neither of those outcomes prompted the laying of legal costs.
The Teacher’s Pet, as a podcast and now a e book, highlights most of the points that surrounded the formal investigations into Lyn Dawson’s disappearance. Thomas opinions transcripts, conducts new interviews, follows up deserted leads and finds new proof. None of that is straightforward work, and every part is sophisticated by the passage of time. He writes:
The longer it goes, the tougher it’s to depend on folks’s reminiscences about what they noticed or heard. Telephone information, bank card information and CCTV footage – all the data you’ll usually depend on in a homicide investigation – are all misplaced or destroyed.
Chillingly, Thomas notes:
For far too lengthy, investigative companies didn’t countenance the chance {that a} vital variety of lacking person circumstances have been in truth well-concealed homicides.
Readers can expertise Thomas’s investigation firsthand on this e book. We acquire insights into his processes: how he collates info, builds timelines and talks to folks linked to the case.
We additionally see how a way of urgency noticed Thomas acquire a field of paperwork from the 2001 coronial inquest, tear it open in his automobile and sit parked on the aspect of a street for hours whereas he reviewed materials in search of treasured clues. Disappointments and triumphs are laid naked.
Read extra:
A legal report: ladies and Australian true crime tales
Should we or shouldn’t we?
The nexus between Thomas and Shanelle Dawson is sophisticated. Dawson is overtly appreciative of Thomas’s efforts to seek out justice for her mom and people who liked her. She likes him “immensely as a person” and has enormous “respect for him as a journalist”.
Thomas additionally uncovered particulars of the mom who was misplaced for thus lengthy, together with footage from ABC tv’s Chequerboard, through which an episode on twins included an interview with Chris Dawson and his twin Paul and in addition featured Lyn Dawson. He returned uncommon maternal moments to a daughter routinely swept up in what she describes as “familiar grief”.
I used to be on a panel with Thomas (alongside Felicity Packard and Paul Barclay) for the Canberra Writers Festival in 2019, to debate True Crime in Australian History. He was assured however unassuming; he didn’t look like a brash reporter in search of a fast headline. There was an urgency in his voice.
I may additionally hear a light-weight layer of exhaustion, reflecting the impact on his work and home life as he labored arduous on a case many individuals thought would without end keep chilly. This comes by way of in his e book.
In her e book, Shanelle Dawson shouts and swears on the web page. Her anger is a testomony to her honesty. For instance, when she lists a few of her father’s explanations for her mom’s disappearance – from “She ran away with a religious leader” by way of to “She didn’t love us anymore” – Dawson writes: “Bullshit”.
Dawson doesn’t begrudge the popularity Thomas has obtained for his work. Making a revenue from it’s one thing else, and she or he is uncomfortable that the rights for a miniseries primarily based on Thomas’s podcast have been bought. He has, although, made a distinction and helped give a household what they wanted most: closure. It is inevitable that somebody, someplace will make money from it.
Dawson additionally admits umbrage on the title, The Teacher’s Pet, which, she argues, makes the story much less about her mom and extra about Joanne Curtis. It is simple to aspect with Dawson, however it is usually arduous to disregard what Curtis was going by way of, as she was abruptly elevated from a part-time babysitter to a full-time father or mother. There are, merely, so many victims on this case.
Read extra:
The Clearing’s investigation of The Family invitations us to ask: what is the attraction – and danger – of crime tales primarily based on actual occasions?
Yes, we should always
Chris Dawson waited six weeks to report his spouse lacking to police. He waited seven months to assert abandonment, so he may apply for the dissolution of his marriage to Lyn, permitting him to maneuver on and remarry.
For Lyn’s household, their wait was for much longer. It was greater than 40 years between Lyn’s loss of life and listening to the phrase “guilty” uttered by a choose within the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
Lyn Dawson’s story – and the 1000’s prefer it – deserve our consideration. We stay in a society that routinely fails to guard its residents. So many individuals have fallen by way of the cracks everyone knows are there, but by no means appear in a position to fill.
As people, we would not really feel we will ship on main structural change, however we will shield the reminiscences of those that have been misplaced. We also can study to be extra conscious of the indicators of various kinds of abuse, together with coercive management and bodily violence. We can supply assist and, maybe, handle to assist one person at a time.
If victims and their households wait a long time for justice then, absolutely, we may give a couple of hours of our time to have interaction with these tales, particularly if we now have access to “good” true crime. Thomas and Dawson each give us books which might be value our time.
The analysis achieved by Thomas is meticulous. This is mirrored in his e book’s finish matter, which presents a timeline, a abstract of the story’s central figures and a dozen pages of endnotes.
Dawson has chosen to spherical out her work differently. She affords an inventory of sources for individuals who need assistance, and a plea to assist disaster centres for ladies. A portion of her e book’s proceeds will go to Women’s Community Shelters, a registered charity working to supply emergency lodging for homeless ladies in New South Wales.
The last phrases in Dawson’s e book supply a observe of because of her Mother:
I’m sure you’ve been with me whereas I write and presumably even whispered in my ear. I hope I’ve honoured you effectively and reclaimed our story in the absolute best manner.
You have, Shanelle. You have.
