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True Crime: Tales of Betrayal, Escape, and Justice

2025 PROGRAM

True Crime: Tales of Betrayal, Escape, and Justice

DATE: 

Saturday 29th March

LOCATION:

Darley Smith Building

COST:

$22

Step into the world of true crime with Michael Adams and Rebecca Hazel, as they explore two extraordinary stories of betrayal, escape, and the pursuit of justice.

Michael’s second true crime book, They’ll Never Hold Me, deals with the case of Kevin John Simmonds, who established himself as an anti-hero to many following a never-before- accomplished escape from Long Bay Gaol, and despite being accused of the murder of a prison warden. He led seven carloads of police and tracker dogs on a chase for more than five weeks until he was eventually re-captured.

Rebecca is a lawyer who got talking to a colleague at a women’s refuge in Manly in 2007, who confided to her that she thought her ex-husband, Chris Dawson, had murdered his first wife, Lynette. With the woman we now know as ‘JC’ as her initial source, Rebecca’s book, The Schoolgirl, Her Teacher, and His Wife, recounts the story of Dawson’s behaviour in plain sight for more than 40 years with meticulous care and rich research.

Host: Lia Harris

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

The Manly Writers' Festival acknowledges and thanks the original storytellers on the lands on which our events take place, the Gameraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their continuing connection and culture, and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present, as well as emerging leaders.

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