Former NRL player and teacher Chris Dawson has swapped his Sunshine Coast home for a Sydney jail cell after being convicted of murdering his wife Lyn more than 40 years ago.
Dawson, 74, murdered his wife and disposed of her body on January 8, 1982 because of an obsession he had with his then teenage lover, known as JC, and his fear of losing her, Justice Ian Harrison found on Tuesday.
Dawson was cuffed and held at Surry Hills police station soon after Justice Harrison found him guilty of murder.
Outside court on Tuesday, his lawyer Greg Walsh flagged that an appeal was on the cards.
"Mr Dawson has always asserted and he still does his absolute innocence of the crime of which he's been convicted, and he will continue to assert that innocence and he'll certainly appeal."
Speaking to Newcastle radio station Hit106.9 on Wednesday, Mrs Dawson's niece Renee Simms said she would push any prospective appeal out of her mind.
"I think for now, we just take the guilty verdict and get that to sink in."
She said the family hadn't exactly celebrated the verdict, but said they had offered up a toast to her aunt's life and the fact that what they believed had happened had been agreed upon by the court.
"I don't think that any of us took any joy in seeing Chris Dawson taken off in handcuffs. That's not something that is enjoyable for us to have seen. There's no real winners here," she said.
Justice Harrison found that after a plan for Dawson and JC to start a new life in Queensland crashed and burned in late 1981, JC started to have mixed feelings about whether she wanted to continue a relationship with her former PE teacher.
After she holidayed with friends on NSW's mid north-coast in January 1982, Dawson became overwhelmed at the thought he would lose her and murdered his wife for standing in the way of his desires.
The former Newtown Jets rugby league player maintained he was innocent but Justice Harrison found Dawson had lied to police and family members to deflect attention away from himself and his crime.
These lies included that he had taken phone calls from Mrs Dawson after her disappearance.
He also claimed he was no longer romantically involved with JC and wanted his wife to return despite moving his former student into his home days after the murder.
The case against Dawson succeeded despite Lyn's body never being found and the absence of a murder weapon.
During Budgets Estimates at the NSW Parliament on Wednesday, Deputy Premier and Police Minister Paul Toole said the case showed the state police force would not stop pursuing criminals.
"It's a horrible story when you watched that yesterday, but I think it also goes to remind me and many people across the community that people like our police, they don't give up," he said.
"It's been 40 years and that's a hell of a long time."
