Image copyright SUPPLIED Image caption Lynette Dawson, a mother of two, was last seen in 1982 
 
 Australian police have begun digging at the former home of a Sydney woman whose disappearance in 1982 has recently attracted global attention. 
 
 Lynette Dawson, a mother of two, vanished without a trace. Her husband, Chris Dawson, said she had left the family - perhaps for a religious group. 
 
 Mr Dawson has denied murdering his wife after two coroners' inquests found she had been killed by a "known person". 
 
 A popular podcast, The Teacher's Pet, has brought wide attention to the case. 
 
 On Wednesday, police said they had begun a five-day forensic search of the couple's former home in the suburb of Bayview. 
 
 "This is all about getting justice for Lyn," said Supt Scott Cook from New South Wales Police. 
 
 Supt Cook said police would pursue charges against Mr Dawson regardless of the outcome of the search. 
 
 Previous investigations 
 
 Detectives set up a taskforce in 2015 to re-investigate the case. 
 
 In April, they sent a brief of new evidence to the state's Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether criminal charges should be laid. 
 
 Prosecutors have previously said there was insufficient evidence to lay charges. 
 
 Image copyright SUPPLIED Image caption Lynette Dawson's disappearance has been given wider attention by a popular podcast 
 
 An inquest in 2003 found Mr Dawson, a former rugby league star and high school teacher, had had sexual relationships with teenage students. 
 
 One 16-year-old girl moved in with Mr Dawson within days of his wife's disappearance. The pair later married, but have since separated. 
 
 Two separate inquests recommended that murder charges be laid against a "known person". 
 
 Public show of action 
 
 Hywel Griffith, BBC News, Sydney 
 
 The satellite-equipped vehicles parked along Gilwinga Drive, Bayview, tell you this is not a run-of-the-mill investigation. 
 
 This leafy street of multi-million-dollar properties may yet provide the answers to a decades-old mystery which has caught the attention of millions of people around the world. 
 
 With the sound of drills and earth cutters buzzing in the background, police announced their new search in front of news cameras. 
 
 This isn't the first time the police have dug here. But it is a very public display of what officers say is their commitment to give Lynette Dawson's family answers, and a way to apply even more pressure on the man they believe was responsible for her death. 
 
 Police say they have previously discovered "anomalies" in the ground at the property. This time, they plan to excavate four sites. 
 
 "What's different about this dig is it will be more extensive. We will go until we hit rock," Supt Cook said. 
 
 Since May, more than 12 million people have downloaded The Teacher's Pet podcast, which is produced by The Australian newspaper. 
 
 It has highlighted the bungled handling of the case by police in the early years after Mrs Dawson's disappearance, prompting a recent apology from the state's police commissioner. 

 Police are “absolutely” confident they could proceed with murder charges against Lynette Dawson’s husband, Chris, even if they don’t find her remains during a search of her former Northern Beaches home. 
 
 Homicide detectives today renewed a search for evidence in the suspected murder of Ms Dawson, who vanished in 1982 not long after her teacher husband started a relationship with his young student, Joanne Curtis. 
 
 Mr Dawson moved the 16-year-old schoolgirl into the family home only days after her disappearance and has always maintained his wife abandoned him and their two young daughters. 
 
 The Department of Public Prosecution claimed there was insufficient evidence to implicate Mr Dawson in his wife’s alleged murder despite two separate coronial inquests finding he had killed her. 
 
 Police dig at the former Dawson home today. (AAP) 
 
 Chris Dawson has denied any involvement in Lynette's disappearance. (60 MINUTES) 
 
 Chris Dawson has always maintained his wife abandoned him and their two daughters. (60 MINUTES) 
 
 Today, homicide squad commander Scott Cook said police had commenced an “extensive” search using new technologies at the missing mother-of-two’s former Bayside home this morning. 
 
 That search is expected to take at least five days. 
 
 Forensic officers will focus on several of areas of the Gilwinga Drive property where “anomalies” had been detected in a bid to “get justice for Lyn”. 
 
 “Today we are digging in four areas; a small area at the back of the house between the rock and the building, another area in the back yard near the clothes line, another area a little further up in the back yard and around the pool area,” he said. 
 
 Lynette Dawson was described by her friends as a dedicated mother to her two daughters. () 
 
 Police searched under the paved area around the pool at the Bayview home in 1999. (60 MINUTES) 
 
 Commander Cook wrote to the Director of the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) earlier this year seeking a review of the evidence against the missing woman’s husband Chris Dawson, who has denied any involvement in her alleged murder. 
 
 He said Strike Force Scriven had obtained a lot more evidence since their 2015 probe into Ms Dawson’s disappearance and hope to build on that during this week’s search. 
 
 “This is all about getting justice for Lyn.” 
 
 Commander Cook said officers will dig to the bottom of the pool, but not underneath it as it was installed before Ms Dawson disappeared. 
 
 Joanne Curtis was in a sexual relationship with Chris Dawson before his wife vanished. (60 MINUTES) 
 
 A tent has been erected over soil at the side of the house. (9NEWS) 
 
 “In terms of the other parts of the yard we will go until we hit rock,” Commander Cook said. 
 
 “It is a complex block of land because it is largely rock and so digging is not easy.” 
 
 READ MORE: 'Fair game': Rogue teachers at Chris Dawson's school 'pursued students' 
 
 READ MORE: Lynette Dawson's daughter speaks on infamous cold case 
 
 He said officers will likely only get between 300 and 400mm deep in most locations. Power tools are being used to rip up concreate surrounding the pool. 
 
 Officers will dig by hand, with dirt being sifted through machines. 
 
 “Where we can do it through machines, if we can't, it will be by hand,” Commander Cook said. 
 
 “We just want to be sure … I don't want to be coming back here again in three months. I don't want to be coming back here again in 12 months. We want to make sure that we can put this to bed about the examination of this property.” 
 
 Mr Dawson – a former rugby league star – suggested she had left to join a religious cult. 
 
 (9NEWS) 
 
 Mr Dawson told A Current Affair that he welcomed the DPP’s decision to review the case once again. 
 
 Police have been in contact with Ms Dawson’s family to advise them of intentions to search the former Dawson property, which has been accessed with the current owners’ permission. 
 
 The cold case has been thrust back into the spotlight by a podcast, Teacher’s Pet, which has been downloaded by millions around the world. 
 
 The search continues. 
 
 © Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2018 

 Prosecuting Chris Dawson for murder in connection with the 1982 disappearance of his wife Lynette does not depend on finding her body, police say. 
 
 Thirty-six years after the Sydney mother vanished, police on Wednesday announced a five-day "forensic search" at the Bayview home she and her husband shared in the 1980s. 
 
 Since the release of The Teacher's Pet, a podcast by The Australian newspaper about Lynette's disappearance, there has been significant renewed interest in the murder on Sydney's sleepy upper northern beaches. 
 
 A senior police source told Fairfax Media that "100 per cent" of the reason for the new dig was public pressure that had come about following the podcast and subsequent media and public interest in the case. 
 
 READ MORE: 
 
 * Husband takes his own life after police tell him his wife was likely murdered 
 
 * Murder victim's former boyfriend knew the truth all along, Australian police say 
 
 * Police empty septic tank in search for toddler William Tyrell 
 
 But the source warned that the interest in the ongoing and active police investigation had come at a cost. 
 
 Witnesses have told police and the podcast two different versions of events, the source said, and some of the information used in the podcast came from a clairvoyant. 
 
 Police remain hopeful that investigators from Strike Force Scriven, which was formed in 2015 to re-investigate Lynette's disappearance, will secure enough evidence to prosecute Dawson for his wife's murder. 
 
 Previously, the state coroner twice found that Dawson most likely killed his wife, but the then-director of public prosecutions declined to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. 
 
 Dawson was never charged and has maintained he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance. 
 
 SUPPLIED/THE SYDNEY MORNING HERA Lynette Dawson on her wedding day. 
 
 "In April, I wrote to the director ... since then, we've found a lot more evidence and I've put that to the director," Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Scott Cook told reporters on Wednesday. 
 
 When asked how the new dig differed from previous ones, Superintendent Cook said: "Today we're digging in four areas. It'll be more extensive; we're using new technologies. 
 
 Superintendent Cook said there was "a lot of work to be done" by detectives. 
 
 "It is a complex block of land because it's largely rock and so digging is not easy; digging about 300-400 millimetres down is about as far as we're going to get in most areas." 
 
 The strike force had copies of the house plan, as well as detailed information about subsequent renovations and additions, he said. 
 
 Superintendent Cook said Lynette Dawson's family had been kept updated on the police investigation. 
 
 Her nephew David Jenkins said it was "hard to describe how I'm feeling" about the news of a fresh dig. "A mix of apprehensive and hope", he wrote online. 
 
 LATEST IN A SERIES OF INQUIRIES INTO DISAPPEARANCE 
 
 The first coronial inquest in 2001 to look at what happened to Lynette Dawson recommended charges be laid against a "known person", but the then-NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, declined to prosecute due to a lack of evidence. 
 
 A 2003 coroner's inquiry into Lynette Dawson's disappearance led to then-deputy state coroner Carl Milovanovich recommending that a "known person" be charged with murder. 
 
 The inquest revealed Dawson, then a teacher at Cromer High School on Sydney's northern beaches, had sexual relationships with his students. 
 
 One affair was with Joanne Curtis, then a 16-year-old student who moved into the family's home two days after Lynette went missing and later became his wife. 
 
 Again, Cowdery declined to prosecute. 
 
 Cowdery told the ABC's Australian Story the case against Dawson was "weak" without a body. 
 
 "Without a body, without knowing first of all whether in fact she is dead, without knowing secondly if she is dead, how she died, it's very hard to mount a case of a reasonable prospect of conviction just on motive and the undefined existence of means and opportunity. That makes it very weak," he said. 
 
 "Lyn Dawson disappeared, and that really is as far as I can take it in my own mind." 
 
 Strike Force Scriven was established in 2015 by detectives from the Homicide Squad's Unsolved Homicide Unit to again investigate Lynette Dawson's disappearance. 
 
 High school sweethearts, Lynette and Chris Dawson married after meeting at Sydney Boys High and Sydney Girls High and went on to have two daughters and build a home at Bayview. 
 
 Just weeks before her daughter was due to start kindergarten, Lynette Dawson simply disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since. 
 
 Dawson did not report his wife missing for almost six weeks. 
 
 In the interim, one of his teenage students moved into the family home the day after Lynette Dawson's disappearance. 
 
 The ABC reported he used Lynette Dawson's eternity rings and engagement ring to make a new engagement ring for Curtis. 
 
 He later moved to the Gold Coast with Curtis, where the pair had a child together. Curtis left Dawson after six years of marriage. 
 
 Dawson now lives in Noosa with his third wife, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported. 

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 (CNN) Police have begun searching a Sydney home for the remains of Lynette Dawson, a mother of two whose disappearance 36 years ago became the subject of a popular true crime podcast. 
 
 Dawson, 33, vanished from her home in the suburb of Bayview in January 1982, and while her husband Chris Dawson has long been a suspect in the case, prosecutors haven't had enough evidence to charge him. 
 
 Chris Dawson has denied any involvement in his wife's disappearance, despite two coronial inquests that concluded he killed her, according to CNN affiliate Nine News 
 
 It's not the first time police have searched the Bayview home for the mother's remains, but this time they're using new technology. 
 
 "Today we are digging in four areas; a small area at the back of the house between the rock and the building, another area in the back yard near the clothes line, another area a little further up in the back yard and around the pool area," said New South Wales Police Homicide Squad commander Scott Cook. 
 
 Read More
– The disappearance of an Australian mother more than 35 years ago is getting renewed attention thanks to the case being featured on a popular true crime podcast. Police in New South Wales on Wednesday began what they say will be a five-day forensic search of the former home of Lynette and Chris Dawson, the BBC reports. Lynette disappeared in 1982 when she was 33 years old, leaving behind two young daughters, per CNN. Her husband has long been suspected in her disappearance. In August, the Australian newspaper released "Teacher's Pet: The Unsolved Murder of Lyn Dawson," a 14-episode podcast that takes a deep dive into the case. Right before Lynette Dawson disappeared, her husband, a former rugby player and teacher, moved one of his 16-year-old students into the family home. He was reportedly in a sexual relationship with the girl (they later married but are now separated). Two coronial inquests found that he had killed his wife; however, prosecutors at the time said there was not enough evidence to implicate him, 9News reports. Chris Dawson denied having anything to do with his wife's disappearance, saying that she left of her own volition, possibly for a religious group. In recent months, authorities have "found a lot more evidence," police official Scott Cook told reporters Wednesday, per Stuff. And, while police have investigated the couple's former home before, this time will be more extensive and involve newer technologies, Cook says, adding that investigators will dig "until we hit rock."