Throughout her life Shanelle Dawson has felt abandoned by her “runaway mum”.
She was just four years old when her mother, Lynette Dawson, vanished.
She would be told that her mother had turned her back on her family to join a religious cult.
Thirty-six years on, Shanelle is facing the daunting possibility that her mother’s disappearance was at the hands of her father, Chris Dawson.
On 60 Minutes, Shanelle sat down for her first television interview with reporter Allison Langdon.
She told of her deep conflict over the allegations her own father killed her mother so he could be with his 16-year-old schoolgirl lover.
“It's kind of unbelievable,” Shanelle said.
“It's a murder mystery. It just happens to be my family and my life.”
Shanelle revealed she has no memory of her mother.
There were no photos of her in the family home and her mother was never spoken of following her sudden disappearance.
“I try not to dwell in self-pity, but I guess I do sometimes dip in there, especially on Mother's Day when I see everybody out with their mums,” she said.
Childhood sweethearts Chris and Lynette Dawson married in 1970 before having two daughters, Shanelle and Sherryn.
Lynette was a nurse and Chris was a famous footballer who also worked as a high school sports teacher.
They appeared to be the perfect family.
However the reality was far from it.
Chris was having an affair with one of his students, 16-year-old Joanne Curtis.
“Joanne is such a troubled victim in all of this,” journalist Hedley Thomas – the man behind the internationally acclaimed podcast investigating Lynette Dawson’s cold case, ‘The Teacher’s Pet’ - said.
“She was 16 years old when she became involved with Chris Dawson. She loved him. He was a protector.”
Chris went on to employ Joanne as Shanelle and Sherryn’s babysitter, before eventually moving her into their Bayview home full-time.
When Lynette discovered the affair, she kicked Joanne out of her home and desperately tried to keep her marriage and family together.
But on January 8, 1982 she suddenly disappeared - never to be seen again.
“I remember looking out the front door, probably waiting for her to come back,” Shanelle told 60 Minutes.
“It breaks my heart to think of my sister and I at such a young age losing our mum.”
Within two days of Lynette’s disappearance Chris moved Joanne back into the family home.
She would do go on to wear Lynette’s clothes and wedding rings.
According to Lynette’s family, Shanelle and Sherryn were told Lynette was “just a pretend mum” and Joanne was their new mother.
It took six weeks for Chris to report his wife missing to authorities.
To this day he maintains Lynette ran away to join a religious cult, despite having no evidence to support his claims.
“She wasn't religious. She didn't go to church,” Thomas told Langdon.
“She just wanted to be with her husband and her girls.
“She wanted to hold it all together.
“I think her biggest mistake was believing that it was possible.”
In the early years, police wrote Lynette off as a runaway wife.
Thomas told 60 Minutes he believes the police failed Lynette Dawson.
“They didn't talk to any of the neighbours. They didn't try and talk to Joanne,” he said.
“They made very cursory calls to Lyn's parents. They didn't go to the school.
“As I went through the case, I realised there'd been these misunderstandings, missed opportunities, evidence that hadn't been properly considered, witnesses who hadn't been contacted.”
A year of investigation by Thomas has revealed new evidence and witnesses including Bev McNally, another school student who was the family babysitter in the year before Joanne Curtis arrived.
McNally told Langdon she has witnessed violence in house.
“A couple of times at their house, I did see him turn quite nasty and it shocked me,” she told Langdon.
It would be many years before she contacted police about what she witnessed, but they never called her back.
Bev feels deep guilt that she didn’t do more to make police listen.
“(Lynette) would never have left those children of her own accord. They were everything to her. Everything.”
Joanne and Chris would have a daughter of their own.
After 12 years of turbulent marriage, Joanne left.
“Joanne says that she was concerned that she could be murdered herself,” Thomas said.
“He had become increasingly angry and threatening towards her. She started to feel like she was becoming the next Lyn.”
It was then she went to police who were starting to take Lynette Dawson’s disappearance seriously.
In 2000 a small area surrounding the family pool was excavated.
Police found a cardigan with multiple cut marks consistent with stabbing.
Although the search didn’t uncover a body, two separate coronial inquests found Lynette was dead and the only suspect her husband Chris.
For Shanelle, the suggestion that her father killed her mother is deeply troubling.
“There is huge conflict in that. Especially people who are quite angry, and rightfully so, wanting answers about my mum,” she told Langdon.
“Yet, there's still that part of me that really loves my dad, and feels protective of him.
“If they do find my mother's remains, then my father murdered my mum, and that's inconceivable for my mind to fathom that that's possible, really.
“I hope that they find what happened to my mum, however they need to do that.”
Chris Dawson denies killing his wife and has never been charged.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has always maintained there isn’t enough evidence to go to trial.
However many believe that is a clear miscarriage of justice.
“It's just common sense that tells you that a man who had already been violent towards his wife, who was in love with a schoolgirl, who had already moved her into his house - all of those things added up with the motive that he had, his propensity for violence,” Thomas said.
“To me, it's just outrageous that the system hasn't concluded this case.”
Now a mother herself to four-year-old Kialah – the same age she was when her mother vanished – Shanelle feels compelled to honour the mother she was denied and once and for all find out what happened all those years ago.
“Our last discussion was more just him declaring again that he's never hurt my mum, and he doesn't know where she is,” she told Langdon.
“Apparently the police have some new evidence, who knows what that is, I'm curious to find out though. It's not looking good for my father, I will be honest to say.”
To watch ‘The Lynette Dawson Mystery’ and more of 60 Minutes, head to the official website.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2018
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