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 Lynette Dawson slumped’ in the front seat of a car and her father ‘digging’ near the family pool on the night her mother died. 

Shanelle Dawson said her memories as a four-year-old resurfaced when police placed her under hypnosis in a desperate attempt to piece together what happened to Lynette 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 at a spot near the family swimming pool.

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

Shanelle Dawson (pictured) 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 reporter Tom Steinfort that while under hypnosis she had been able to revisit 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 under hypnosis 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. 

Lynette Dawson (above with Shanelle) was never seen again after vanishing in January, 1982

Shanelle said she saw her father shining headlights at an area near the pool (pictured) while under hypnosis

Shanelle had suspect her father had killed her mother for years before the trial but said his conviction had still come as a shock. 

‘”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 living in the United States for nine years gave her distance from Dawson and his ‘abusive’ and ‘toxic’ family 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.’

Chris Dawson was found guilty of murdering his first wife Lyn. Her body has never been found

Shanelle revealed her last correspondence with Dawson was on Father’s Day in 2018 – just three months before he was arrested at his Queensland home. 

In the message, she asked her father to take responsibility for the pain he had 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 daughter and no partner to support her. 

He told his daughter that unfortunately, everyone had to live with their ‘poor choices’ and said Shanelle didn’t have to 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.’

Chris Dawson (pictured) lodged the paperwork flagging his intention to appeal the murder conviction

Justice Ian Harrison found it was beyond reasonable doubt that Lynette Dawson (above with Chris Dawson on her wedding day) did not leave her home in Bayview voluntarily

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

She said she would only have closure when she received these details.  

‘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 would tell her that she was sorry, that she loved her and would thank her for the first four-and-a-half years of her life. 

She became emotional while admitting she wished she could see Lynette spend time with her daughter and said people take having a loving 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, tell them that they love about them and thank them for 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. 

Lynette, pictured with her husband Chris and one of their daughters disappeared without a trace in January 1981

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Shanelle’s revelation comes after Dawson’s Supreme Court trial was told police received ‘a lot’ of anonymous phone calls from people who claimed Lynette’s body was buried under the swimming pool at the home in Bayview. 

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

Asked under cross-examination how this idea had come about, Detective 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 Sydney’s northern beaches, and babysitting the couple’s two young daughters before Lynette disappeared.

Chris Dawson arrives at the NSW Supreme Court in his last moments of freedom before Justice Harrison convicted him of murdering his wife Lyn in 1982

‘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 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.

Last week, Dawson lodged the paperwork for an appeal against his conviction for his first wife’s 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.