Shanelle Dawson reveals she saw Chris Dawson with a shovel and mother Lynette slumped over in car

The daughter of convicted killer Chris Dawson has revealed she remembers seeing her mother ‘slumped’ in the front seat of a car and her father ‘digging’ near the family pool on the night Lynette Dawson died. 

Shanelle Dawson said her memories as a four-year-old returned when police placed her under hypnosis in a desperate attempt to piece together what happened to her mother on the night she vanished back in January, 1982.  

She told 60 Minutes that she saw her father pulling shovels out the back of the car and car headlights shining a spot near the swimming pool.

Shanelle believes her mother was buried by the pool that night before Dawson moved her body elsewhere the following day when he was alone. 

Shanelle told 60 Minutes that while under hypnosis she had been able to experience her feelings as a child as well as her mothers.

‘It was really pretty profound. I believe I saw my sister and I in the back of a car, and my mother slumped in the front,’ she said. 

I believe I saw him digging in that spot for that night, and then the next day, when he didn’t have us kids, he moved her somewhere else.

‘And I guess people could question how much is that created? How much is that actual memory?’

Steinfort asked Shanelle if she believes that what she saw while hypnotised were true memories to which she replied: ‘I think they are, yes’.

The revelation comes after Dawson was found guilty of murdering his wife Lynette at a judge-alone trial at the NSW Supreme Court that began in August. 

Shanelle began to suspect her father was guilty after the weight of evidence against him swayed her but said it had still come as a shock when Justice Ian Harrison found Dawson had ended her mother’s life in January, 1982. 

‘”Chris Dawson, I find you guilty,” I heard them say, and I was just in shock,’ she said. 

‘I just couldn’t fathom it really. This Dad that I love actually did do it and that is now recognised by our justice system.’

Shanelle said moving to the United States for nine years gave her distance from Dawson and his ‘abusive’ and ‘toxic’ dynamics. 

‘I could see that he was gaslighting us all the time. When I came back into the family that relationship changed quite drastically,’ she said. 

‘My father embodies the survival of the fittest and f*** everyone else to get what you want. I feel an anger and rage towards him for being that way, but I simultaneously feel compassion and sadness that he is that way.’

Shanelle revealed her last correspondence with Dawson was over text back in 2018 on Fathers Day just three months before he was arrested in Queensland.

She asked her father to take responsibility for the pain he caused the family when he ‘selfishly’ ripped Lynette, then 33, from their lives.

Dawson’s ‘breathtaking’ response suggested Shanelle was lonely and depressed because she had a child and no partner. 

He said that unfortunately everyone had to live with their ‘poor choices’ and asked that Shanelle didn’t remind him of his.

‘That’s how he takes responsibility, by deflecting it on to other people,’ she said. 

‘I was actually very happy in my life except for that big thing called my father murdering my mum.’

Shanelle said she doubted her father would ever reveal what happened on the night he killed Lynette because he believes his own lies. 

‘It won’t be anytime soon. Truth for me is what brings peace,’ she said. 

Shanelle said if she could speak to her mother she said she would tell her that she was sorry, that she loved her and thank her for the first four-and-a-half of her life. 

She became emotional and said she wished she could see her mother read a book to her daughter and that people take having a family for granted. 

‘I always thought, I wish I had one of those,’ she said. 

‘I hope anyone listening to this will go and appreciate their mums just that little bit more and tell them what they love about them and all the things they do.’

60 Minute’s reporter Tom Steinfort also became emotional. 

‘You got me there,’ he said while wiping tears from his eyes. 

‘It comes after Dawson’s trial was told police received ‘a lot’ of anonymous phone calls from people who said Lynette’s body was buried under the swimming pool. 

Former detective Damian Loone told the court police had considered this theory because the pool had been paved shortly after Lyn vanished.

Asked under cross-examination how this idea had arisen, Mr Loone said it was during an interview with JC, the schoolgirl babysitter who had replaced Lynette as Chis Dawson’s partner and later his wife. 

The trial had earlier heard JC swam topless and naked in the pool while living at the Dawson house at Gillwinga Drive in Bayview in Sydney’s northern beaches, and babysitting the couple’s two young daughters before Lyn disappeared.

‘She was going for a swim in the swimming pool and when she went to get out of the pool and put her hands on the pool to get out and it was dirt, and sometime after it was paved,’ he said.

In 2000, police conducted a major dig near the swimming pool at the Bayview home and uncovered pieces of a pink cardigan with slash marks. 

However, forensic analysis was unable to link the material to Lynette.

Dawson has lodged the paperwork for an appeal against his conviction for her murder and remains in Sydney’s Silverwater Jail awaiting sentencing. 

The 74-year-old former Newtown Jets rugby league star has always professed his innocence over any involvement in Lynette’s disappearance.