Chris Dawson’s judge-only murder trial has aired a recording of the accused’s brother-in-law, who claimed that he spotted Lynette Dawson several months after she disappeared back in 1982.
A police interview that was conducted between Dawson’s brother-in-law Ross Hutcheon back in 2019 was played in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Mr Hutcheon claimed that he saw Lynette at a bus stop opposite Gladesville Hospital up to six months after she disappeared.
“She looked just like the Lyn that I knew — same colour hair, same hairstyle, same glasses. No obvious attempt to disguise herself,” he said in the recording.
“The other thing that convinced me … was the fact that it was opposite the hospital and she was a nurse.”
Mr Hutcheon, who died six weeks ago and was married to Dawson’s sister also called Lynette, had claimed to have told her about seeing the missing mother that day.
However, it was reported that Mr Hutcheon had instead reported the incident to police years later in 1999 stating he had “no contact with Lynette Dawson since her disappearance”.
“I had visual contact with Lyn Dawson, not verbal contact,” Mr Hutcheon responded.
Ms Hutcheon appeared in court on Tuesday and was questioned why she hadn’t discussed the possible sighting of her sister-in-law.
She told the court that other people she knew had reported sightings of Lynette Dawson months after she disappeared and it didn’t cross her mind.
“My husband had seen her and I had heard that other people had seen her. I thought she had been seen by people that knew her,” she said.
Chris Dawson has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Lynette, who went missing from the family home in Sydney’s Northern Beaches in January 1982.
The trial continues.
Images: Nine News
This article first appeared on OverSixty.