Chris Dawson's eldest daughter has pleaded with him to "finally admit the truth" and reveal where her mother's body is during an emotion-charged court hearing.
Shanelle Dawson delivered a victim-impact statement before the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney today, where her father faced a sentence hearing.
In August, Justice Ian Harrison convicted Chris Dawson of his wife Lynette's murder, after one of the country's most high-profile trials.
Dawson pleaded not guilty to murder and has always maintained his wife walked out on their family in the early 1980s.
Chris Dawson was not charged over the murder until 2018.
Shanelle fought through tears as she told the court she had endured "41 years of deceit, silence, trauma and gaslighting" at the hands of her father.
"The night you removed our mother from our lives was the night you destroyed my sense of safety and belonging in this world for many years to come," she said.
Speaking to her father, who sat silently in the dock, she said he had "no right" to take away her adoring mother: "You are not God".
"I had to explain to my beautiful, innocent daughter why her grandfather killed her grandmother," she said.
"She kept asking, 'Why did he do that?' The same question which tortured me for years and years.
"Why didn't you just divorce her? Because of money? For God's sake."
Shanelle was four at the time of her mother's disappearance, and her sister was two.
She said the thought of Dawson spending the rest of his life in jail "hurts me deeply", in that she had not only lost her mother, but her father too.
"Please tell us where she is," Shanelle said. "I hope you will finally admit the truth to yourself and give us the closure we need."
Statements were also read to the court on behalf of Lynette's brother, Gregory Simms, and sister, Patricia Jenkins.
Mr Simms wrote that Dawson had been accepted into his family but "repaid us by committing the ultimate betrayal".
Dawson's years of lying to the Simms family and his own daughters showed he was a "conniving monster hell-bent on ... getting what you wanted at any cost", he said.
"To see you sitting there during the trial, showing no remorse or accountability ... confirmed in my mind that you are a coward and can only see things from your own perspective and gain," Mr Simms wrote.
"We ask you to do the decent thing and allow us to bring Lyn home to rest, finally giving her the decency she deserves."
Ms Jenkins remembered the initial confusion of learning her sister was missing and described the "black cloud" hanging over her family for 40 years.
She had watched Dawson reduce her sister from a "vibrant, caring, funny and intelligent" woman to one without confidence even before her death, the court heard.
Justice Harrison found Dawson was motivated to kill his wife due to an "obsessive infatuation" with the family's teenaged babysitter, known in court as "JC", who he would later marry.
Dawson was "tortured" at the prospect of losing "JC" — who was also a student at the high school he worked at — while he remained "shackled with a wife" he wanted to leave, the judge said.
The case was the subject of a popular podcast, dubbed The Teacher's Pet.
During a marathon judgement, Justice Harrison ruled Ms Dawson had died on or about January 8, 1982, and was satisfied her husband's claims of having contact with after that date were "lies".
Today, Crown prosecutor, Craig Everson SC, argued Dawson had planned his wife's murder for at least six days.
"The death of Lynette and the offender's subsequent campaign of disinformation left her parents and siblings in a state of anxiety and uncertainty for decades," he said.
Dawson's lawyer, Greg Walsh, has previously said his client maintains his innocence and would appeal.
On sentencing, he submitted the murder was an "isolated" and "precipitous" act, pointing to Justice Harrison's finding that there was no evidence of ongoing domestic violence.
Mr Walsh said Dawson was receiving death threats in jail, where inmates called him "The Teacher's Pet", and suffered from cognitive and heart issues.
Justice Harrison reserved his judgement and will hand down Dawson's sentence on December 2.
