Explosive True Crime Podcast ‘The Teacher’s Pet’ Has All Its Episodes Pulled
It's an unprecedented move, influenced by Chris Dawson's forthcoming trial.
The Teacher’s Pet, a true crime podcast hosted by Hedley Thomas, is something of an anomaly.
Sure, like a lot of other contemporary podcasts, it’s a sprawling, multi-part investigation into a mysterious crime — in this case, the disappearance and presumed murder of Lynette Dawson.
But unlike much of the barrage of true crime infotainment hitting our eyes and ears, The Teacher’s Pet has begun to move out of podcasting circles and into the real world. Like Making A Murderer before it, the show has had real legal implications, spurring investigators into renewed focus on an old crime.
In the case of The Teacher’s Pet, the implications have been the arrest of Chris Dawson. Chris, the subject of two separate coronial inquests that concluded he was most likely responsible for the death of his wife Lynette, was apprehended in December last year. He is currently pending trial.
In response to the arrest, Thomas and the other masterminds behind the podcast have taken an unusual move. Not only will they not be producing any further content for the show at this stage, they will also take down every one of the 16 episodes already uploaded, so as to not influence a potential jury.
“In early December last year, detectives from the unsolved homicide squad of the NSW police force made a surprise morning visit to a house in a quiet street in Runaway Bay,” Thomas notes in a bonus episode of The Teacher’s Pet that explains the decision to pull the episodes.
The Australian, producers of true crime podcast Teacher’s Pet, is to remove all episodes of the podcast now that Chris Dawson has been charged with murder. Quite an interesting move and potentially precedent setting for other podcasts where legal action is taken as a result?
— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) April 5, 2019
Thomas then goes on to point out that Chris “emphatically denies” any role in the disappearance of his wife, and protests “the serious charge of murder.”
For the sake of Chris’ fair trial, Thomas explains, experts advised him and his fellow creators to make the prior episodes unavailable for Australian listeners.
“We are not sure how long these episodes will be offline,” Thomas says. “That’ll depend on Chris’ trial.”