The Dawson twins projected a “perfect” image to the world.
Handsome, athletic (they were once professional rugby players) and successful models. Chris and Paul Dawson also appeared to have storybook marriages complete with children.
That image was obliterated two years ago in a tangle of sex abuse and murder.
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The Dawsons grew up in a suburb of Sydney, Australia where they were the apple of their mother’s eye. The blond brothers were pre-surfer dude surfer dudes.
Both were blessed with looks and athletic talent to burn and played for Australia’s Newtown Jets in the professional league where they were popular teammates.
“They looked entirely the same,” former teammate John Lindon said. “They didn’t drink, they didn’t smoke, the impression I had was that they were pretty much model citizens.”
School pal Robyn Courtney added: “They were just the princes. The boys could do anything.”
When the pair hung up their rugby cleats, they became respected gym teachers in suburban Sydney. Paul married Marilyn and they had three daughters, while Chris married Lynette and fathered two kids.
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But the brothers’ white picket fence idyll was shattered in 1982.
On Jan. 8 of that year, Lynette — Chris’ high school sweetheart — vanished. He did not report his wife missing until six weeks later.
He told detectives the couple had been experiencing marital woes over her credit card spending. Lynette had run off, he claimed, to join a religious cult.
What he didn’t tell cops was that he had been living a secret life. In 1981, he started grooming and having sex behind his wife’s back with a 16-year-old student from the school where he worked named Joanne Curtis.
The brazen horndog even moved the teen into the family home “temporarily” to “care for his children.” Of course, Lynette must have noticed the teen frolicking topless around the family pool.
Chris Dawson filed for divorce from Lynette in 1983, while she was still thought to be missing. Two years later, he married Curtis.
Fellow students later revealed that Curtis would sit on her teacher’s lap in the playground and their raunchy sexual antics were an “open secret” at the school.
One former fellow teacher revealed that he was invited to join in for group sex with the teen. He torpedoed the offer.
“Chris approached me and said, ‘Paul and I are thinking of getting eight guys together and having a gang bang, would you be interested?’ I was shocked and astounded,” the former teacher said. “I politely said no.”
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Astonishingly, the antics of the now 76-year-old remained a secret until a 2018 podcast series entitled Teacher’s Pet pulled back the curtain on an alleged sex ring — and Lynette’s disappearance nearly 40 years before.
The podcast exposed teachers at Cromer High School where Chris taught as twisted sex fiends. The ring was allegedly comprised of male and female educators and the victims were also of both sexes.
Now, a new documentary entitled Twisted Twins on ITV digs even deeper. It alleges that brother Paul took part in the group sex on school premises, including with a 15-year-old girl.
Once, the documentary claims, the twins allegedly engaged in a three-way with Chris’s soon-to-be wife when she was just 18. The documentary also alleges the brothers stocked their high school harem with student “babysitters.”
“There would be times when we [with Paul] would be in the store cupboard together and his brother Chris would be there. We’d be sexually intimate,” former student and sex toy Shelley Oates-Wilding claims in the documentary.
Former detective Damian Loone alleged Paul made proclamations of love to one 15-year-old alleged victim. The girl claimed Paul told her “I love you” and asked, “Will you kiss me?”
Four women complained about Paul having sex with them when they were underage students. He has denied wrongdoing.
At least six teachers — both sexes — were allegedly part of the vile after-school club that sexually abused girls and boys. At least two have been convicted of sex crimes in the intervening years.
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By 1981, Chris Dawson was infatuated with his young plaything. The teen had a troubled home life and Chris was acting as though he was being selfless letting her live in the family home.
For her part, Lynette initially ignored the red flags, even when pals expressed concern. And when she finally wised up, Chris Dawson murdered her. Joanne? She started wearing the departed woman’s jewelry.
“He told us she ran off with religious people, that she didn’t love us anymore,” one daughter later said.
But Joanne also wearied of Chris Dawson.
“JC told me Paul had cooled to her when she was 18, Chris suggested if they had sex together it might be a lot better. The three of them had sex together,” former detective Damian Loone said.
Joanne eventually went to the cops in 2001 about Lynette fearing she could be next. It would take another 17 years for an arrest.
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In 2022, Chris Dawson was convicted of murdering Lynette, along with having unlawful sex with former students.
Lynette’s body has never been found.