The family secret that inspired 'The Teacher's Pet'

Journalist Hedley Thomas grew up knowing that his grandmother Gladys had vanished in the sea off Sydney in the 1950s when she was just 35 years old. Decades later, her story spurred him on to begin a new life as a hugely successful true crime podcaster

Hedley Thomas has had a storied career in journalism, which has seen him win many Walkley Awards and expose a lot of corruption and dodgy dealings.

But it has also placed Hedley and his family in harm's way. 

In 2002 Hedley and his wife Ruth were at their home when bullets were fired into their bedroom, missing their heads by just centimetres. The shooter was never found, and Hedley grappled with PTSD after the event.

A couple of decades later Hedley decided to begin a podcast about a story which had stayed with him for years.

It was the about a woman named Lyn who 'went missing' from her home in the Northern Beaches of Sydney in the 1980s, and was never seen again. 

Hedley's podcast, The Teacher's Pet, became a huge hit. Five years after it began, Lyn's former husband Chris Dawson was convicted of her murder and sentenced to 24 years in jail.

Just recently, Hedley has started speaking out about how his commitment to Lyn's story, and to finding justice for her was partly inspired by a tragedy in his own family which occurred decades earlier, just a few kilometres from where Lyn vanished.

This episode of Conversations touches on family dynamics, true crime, femicide, domestic violence, family origins, life story, secret family, ancestry, parenting, PTSD, Donald Trump, Hong Kong, London, New York, Australian expats, foreign correspondents, police corruption.

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