Shelagh Dawson was accused of trying to poison her partner when she took her own life. Detectives were also asking how the doctor’s seemingly healthy husband had died of a “medical misadventure” eight years earlier. With never seen before interview transcripts and a remarkable police summary report, crime reporter Sam Sherwood investigates.
Stephen Lewis was lying in his hospital bed with an IV line in his left side and a catheter when he felt a tug on his luer.
The then 48-year-old builder looked across and claimed he saw his partner, medical researcher Dr Shelagh Dawson, wearing blue surgical gloves, with a syringe containing yellow liquid and her thumb on the plunger.
He yelled out for the nurses to come, and alleged the retired epidemiologist dropped the syringe and scrambled to find it before the nurse entered the room.
Four months later he went to police alleging Dawson had attempted to murder him on three occasions.
Operation Medway was then launched with Dawson interviewed for three and a half hours.
The Herald on Sunday can now reveal the contents of the interview in which she denied poisoning Lewis at various points calling the allegations “ludicrous” and “spiteful”. She was also questioned about the death of her first husband, which she said was the result of “medical misadventure” after a routine colonoscopy.
Nearly five months later the 60-year-old took her own life.
Police were in the process of preparing the investigation file for formal review by the Crown Solicitor prior to her death.
A police summary report, obtained by the Herald on Sunday examined the case, revealing Dawson was believed to have attempted to change Lewis’ $500,000 life insurance policy into her name and made a number of curious internet searches.
The hospital admission
Dawson met Lewis following her husband Graham Dawson’s death in 2009. At the time of his death, the couple had almost finished work on their home. She tried finishing it herself and amputated her thumb while using a table saw. She then arranged for Lewis, a builder, to help finish it off.
After she sold her house she went to live in Perth for a couple of years. Once she returned she and Lewis went to the cinema together. Their relationship began in 2015 when he moved into her home on Medway St, Christchurch.
Lewis first thought something was astray in January 2017 when he arrived home to find Dawson “passed out” in bed. She claimed she had been hit by a car outside her home while she was bending down to look at a cat.
Police spoke to Dawson, but were unable to establish whether any such cars had been on her street at the relevant time, despite her providing information about the vehicle and the name of the company that owned it.
A search of her devices in 2018 revealed that on the morning of the incident, she had used her computer to search “how much do you get for being run over in NZ”.
On July 15, 2017, Lewis was first admitted to Christchurch Hospital after Dawson phoned emergency services advising he was falling over and unable to walk.
According to the police summary report, when the ambulance arrived, Dawson told the staff Lewis’ abnormal behaviour began about 2pm that day, and he had been working with a new product or chemical. The paramedic did not believe this was consistent with Lewis’ symptoms.
His initial thoughts were that Lewis had ingested drugs or had a head injury.
Lewis was treated for presumed inflammation of the brain, although there was no confirmed diagnosis. He was discharged on July 21, 2017.
Three days later Dawson called emergency services again to say Lewis had fallen out of bed and was unconscious.
The paramedic noted he had a bruise on his right eye and described him as agitated, confused, babbling, and displaying symptoms of someone who needed urgent antibiotics as she believed he had sepsis.
Dawson said she had been home all day checking on him and when she found him he was unconscious and his condition had come on rapidly.
Lewis was admitted to ICU in an induced coma. His last memory was of the afternoon of July 22.
A nurse who cared for Lewis in ICU said after intubation Lewis was initially confused as to the date, however, this resolved quickly and was a “common side effect of sedation drugs”. The nurse said Lewis was not delusional or hallucinating when he was transferred to Ward 23, and said he had asked if it was possible he had been poisoned.
One of the nurses in Ward 23, said her assessment of Lewis was that he was drowsy, but orientated and noted no confusion, other than to say at one stage he was forgetful and did not remember getting up for dinner the previous night.
The syringe
Lewis told the Herald on Sunday that once he was released from intensive care his suspicions grew. He asked his sister to get him some bottled water as he didn’t want to drink water that Dawson had access to.
“I was very conscious of staying awake while she was there because I didn’t trust her, I didn’t know what she’d been up to.”
At one stage in the evening he saw Dawson standing beside a biohazard bin. When asked what she was doing she replied she was throwing out some receipts.
Later, while lying in bed he felt something tug on his luer.
“I looked over and questioned her: what are you doing? She said she was just checking it.”
About an hour later he felt it again.
“I looked over and she had a syringe three-quarters full of yellow liquid with her thumb on the plunger ready to go. I yelled out to the nurses; she pulled it out and dropped it on the ground.
“The nurses came running - she was scrambling around on the ground trying to pick up the syringe, and I actually even had the foresight to say to the nurses she’s got blue gloves on.”
A nurse would later tell police that when she entered the room Dawson was sitting on the chair beside the bed.
Dawson said she “was just reaching for a pen on the ground and he thinks I have put something in his IV line”. The nurse checked his IV line and did not see anything out of the ordinary. She also did not see any pen.
The nurse suggested to Dawson that she leave. She did not search Dawson’s possessions for a syringe or pen. The nurse noted that Dawson was wearing gloves.
The following day, Lewis said, his sister came to visit him in hospital and he told her what had happened.
“[We] decided to brush it off with Shelagh and say to her that oh yes I was probably hallucinating considering I’d just come out of intensive care… I didn’t want her to think I was on to her.”
Lewis was discharged from the hospital on August 3 and went back to Dawson’s home.
“I went back because I didn’t actually believe she’d do it again. I had nowhere else to go. I was like go home, get fully recovered, and sort this out.”
Three days later, on August 6, Lewis’ sister visited him and found him unwell and he was once again admitted to hospital.
A drug urine screen was taken on August 9, showing he had several controlled drugs in his system.
He was discharged from the hospital on August 10 and went to Golden Bay to spend time with family.
After a couple of months, he returned to Christchurch, got his hospital records, and went through them.
“I had to get my ducks in a row, I had to make sure that my suspicions were founded and I had to present the police with something.”
On November 21, 2017, he went to the Christchurch Central Police Station and told them what he thought had happened.
‘This is your time to tell the truth’
About a month later two police officers went to Dawson’s home.
Dawson, who was in her dressing gown when the detectives arrived, said she was not surprised when confronted with the allegations and said Lewis had been vindictive. She then got dressed and agreed to go with the police officers for a formal interview.
Shortly after 10am on December 20, 2017, Detective Kelvin Holden began interviewing Dawson at the Christchurch South Police Station.
Holden said police had spoken to Lewis who had given his version of events. The purpose of the interview was to give her a chance to respond.
“This is your time to tell the truth… and just get everything off your chest you know just… tell us everything.”
Dawson wanted to know when the allegation was made, Holden said he believed it was made a couple of months ago.
She said to the best of her recollection Lewis was taken to the hospital three times. The first time was after he came home from work one day feeling unwell.
Lewis spent several days in hospital, with tests indicating he had campylobacter, she said.
Dawson said Lewis was still not well when he returned home and was “unsteady on his feet”.
She then went through what happened in Ward 23. She said that when Lewis came out of intensive care he was having hallucinations.
On his first night in the ward, Dawson claimed she was sitting by his bed reading a magazine and doing some crosswords.
“I will say at this point that I had a yellow pen in my hand because that later came back to haunt him,” she began.
“He started screaming ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ he tore his drip and pulled it... he turned around to me because his back was to me at this point and said ‘What are you doing, what are you doing’, but he was screaming it.”
Some nurses then ran into the ward as Lewis said “she’s interfering with my drip,” Dawson said.
“I said I’m not, I’m not Steve, I’m not doing anything. I’m just sitting here.”
She said Lewis continued accusing her and asked what was in her hand. She said it was the pen.
“He said that I was trying to inject him with a syringe... I said where, where is there a syringe? The nurses looked everywhere in the bed, on the floor, under the chair, and said to Steve there isn’t, there isn’t any syringes here anywhere. ...at no point at this time did he, did he intimate anything yellow.”
Dawson then went home. The following day she phoned the hospital and was told he did not want to see her.
She said Lewis saw a hospital psychiatrist to “try and make him understand about hallucinations”.
“He certainly said that he could understand that while he thought that’s what he’s seen that might not have happened, which is often how hallucinations are.”
Dawson said once Lewis was released from hospital and back living with her he was behaving “quite neurotically”.
“He would only eat anything that was packaged and out of the supermarket and that his sister had bought…”
The pair were also sleeping in separate rooms, as Dawson did not feel comfortable sharing.
Following the third hospital admission she called Lewis and said he should move away to be with his sister and “just recover”.
She claimed that when Lewis did visit the house to get his belongings he “threatened” her, saying he knew there was something yellow in the syringe.
“He never mentioned yellow before but the pen I had been using, which was still in the handbag that I was using at the time, was a yellow pen,” Dawson said.
Dawson said she became “frightened” of Lewis, alleging he told her “if you don’t give me something I will make your life miserable, so miserable you will wish you were dead”. Lewis told the Herald on Sunday he denied threatening Dawson, and said he never made the comments.
She told Holden she had had a stroke on October 24 and broke her arm in the process, and was discharged from hospital a couple of weeks later.
About a month after the suspected stroke, Dawson claimed Lewis came to visit her again. She said the pair had an argument and he left.
“The last thing I remember was him being there and then when... he had left I was so upset I just thought I’m just going to go to bed, have an early night, I got a vicious headache.
“The next thing I know I was waking up in hospital with these horrific hallucinations.”
Dawson’s son had found her unconscious on the kitchen floor and called emergency services.
After the incident, she said her children contacted police and she was assisted in implementing a police safety order and got a trespass order against Lewis.
“The two times he’d come round and threatened me… both times I ended up in hospital after having a stroke or a potential stroke and collapsing…”
The tranquiliser
About 40 minutes into the interview Dawson told Holden about some “veterinarian needles” and a “syringe of tranquiliser” for animals she found in her garage.
“I have absolutely no access to veterinarian stuff and the fact that it was a syringe and needle really upset me and worried me,” she said.
“To find it in my garage was to me an indication that he was trying to prove his hallucination was right.”
Lewis told the Herald on Sunday the tranquiliser and syringe were not his.
Dawson said she had not done anything about her discovery, but still had them at her home. She believed Lewis was making the complaint because he knew she still had the syringe.
She’d “bent over backwards” to store his belongings at her house after he moved out, calling the allegations “ludicrous”.
“If I’d poisoned him with something they would have picked it up; you know there’s nothing I could poison him with that they wouldn’t pick up cos they were looking for any cause to his illness.”
Dawson told Holden she found handprints on her arms after she collapsed at home for the second time and had to be hospitalised.
“Did he push me? I don’t know, did he grab me? I don’t know, did I wake up with fingerprints on my both arms yes I did... had he ever been physically violent? No, so I chose to go with that and give him the benefit of the doubt,” she said.
“It… just shows you my personality compared to his personality.”
Lewis told the Herald on Sunday he did not assault Dawson.
The husband
About an hour into the interview Dawson told Holden how Lewis came into her life after her first husband, Graham Dawson died from a “medical misadventure”.
She said her husband was a “very fit 52-year-old”, who was going to hospital for a 50-year-old check-up.
“He was supposed to have a scan at the hospital just to check prostate and that the scan was fully booked so they said... we can get him into a colonoscopy.”
Following the colonoscopy she alleged Graham was sent home after 10 minutes, rather than the recommended two hours.
She said he became “very unwell” and went to bed. He was sicker the following day and she called the hospital only to be told she was “paranoid”.
After calling her own doctor an ambulance was called and Graham was taken to hospital. He died 48 hours later of multiple organ failure.
She said she thought her relationship with Lewis was “very loving”.
“But really, basically that was my own delusion because he was interested in a place to stay and stay free and a place where there was enough bedrooms that he could have his children come to visit,” she said.
Lewis disputes he lived there for free, and told the Herald on Sunday he was paying $400 rent a week into a joint account.
Dawson told Holden her whole life had been dedicated to looking after people.
“My kids will tell you I couldn’t even hurt a bird, couldn’t even hurt anything… even when I was a child... if you found a mouse and it had a broken leg I would put it back together with a matchstick and look after it.”
Holden then began asking Dawson more about Lewis’ health and her own.
She said Lewis had always had issues with his back, would regularly complain of headaches, and was “always very tired”.
Lewis had tried some of her medication in the past, she said - mainly painkillers for his back, and anti-inflammatories. She said she would never give him her stronger ones.
“He would know definitely that I would be quite angry if I found him taking my more serious medication,” she said.
As for her own health, she said it was “quite poor”, and she had suffered from depression since Graham’s death.
She had damaged discs in her neck from working in nursing, she’d also had a number of operations in hospital that led to further complications and the occasional backache after damaging it a few years earlier when she slipped on some ice.
Dawson said she was on several medications, all of which she took orally. She said she had no access to syringes or needles.
Asked if she had a good relationship with her doctor, she said she could tell him anything.
“The direst circumstances, the most horrendous things I’ve gone through we will end up laughing about because of the way I’m telling him and he just cannot believe the misadventures that have happened to me. I could write a book and nobody would believe it that has happened to me… the mistakes that people have made on my body... over the years.”
The post-mortem
The interview eventually shifted focus to Dawson’s life and her upbringing.
She trained as a nurse in Kent and met Graham Dawson, at the time a fireman, who was the brother of one of her fellow nurses.
The couple eventually moved to New Zealand in about 2001 and she went on to work for the University of Otago in Christchurch from 2004 to 2009. She then worked in Australia before retiring.
Holden asked Dawson about Graham, and what his health was like before he died.
“He had the records at school that have never been beaten,” she said.
“He was the captain of the football team, the rugby team, the field events, he was captain of everything by the time he was 12.”
Graham was “just shy of 6 foot” by the time he was 13 with “muscles everywhere”.
“Extremely fit person, which is why it was such a shock.”
Holden asked what the post mortem into his death said.
She said there was no post mortem, and that his death was initially put down as a virus being the lead cause before the coroner changed the death certificate -- after Shelagh disputed it being a virus- - to say it was from the colonoscopy.
Dawson claimed the coroner called her after Graham’s death and told her the hospital was not going to do a post mortem and if she was okay with that.
“I can’t remember what I said but I must have said well... what difference does it make, it won’t bring him back you know.”
Holden said he was struggling to understand why the post mortem wasn’t carried out and asked whose decision it was.
Dawson said she believed it was the hospital’s decision, but again mentioned her call with the coroner. Holden asked why she didn’t insist on a post mortem.
She replied “in hindsight, I should have”, but said the idea wasn’t discussed with her until the coroner called.
“By the time he did ring me I was just reeling from the whole shock of him being dead that I didn’t... really even think. In my mind it was always the colonoscopy, it was never anything else and because I hadn’t seen a death certificate I didn’t think there was any question about it,” she told Holden.
Dawson said it wasn’t until she saw the initial death certificate stating a virus as the cause that she got on the phone to the hospital who said she needed to speak to ACC.
However, it was “too late”, as Graham had been cremated.
‘Are you charging me with something’
Nearly three hours into the interview Holden’s colleague knocked on the door, signalling he had something to discuss with him.
Holden left the room briefly and when he returned told Dawson her daughter had got a lawyer to contact the police and asked Dawson if she wanted to speak to them.
“Are you charging me with something?” she asked to which Holden said no. He told her he could contact the lawyer if she wanted.
“Yes I should have asked for a blimming post-mortem of Graham but yeah, hey we all do dumb things and think ‘wish I’d done that’; hindsight’s a great thing. Um, do I feel, if I’m being charged with something then obviously I need to don’t I?”
Dawson said she was “at a loss” as to why they were talking about Graham. Holden responded that she had earlier brought it up during the interview.
Holden then asked where the pen she said she was holding when Lewis made the allegations was. She looked through her handbag but was unable to find it.
“It’ll be in one of my handbags,” she said.
She went back over the moment that Lewis said she had a syringe and the nurses came into the room with torches.
“They’re looking everywhere and they’ve got his bed light on … and throwing back the covers and saying look there’s nothing here, looking under the bed, looking under the chair: ‘there’s nothing there Steve it’s her pen’.”
Lewis’ bed was in a double room, with another patient on the other side who had a nurse in the room with her at all times.
“One: where would I get a syringe, two: what, what would I be injecting that a hospital wouldn’t pick up on and three: why would I do it with a nurse right there in the room or how would I do it with a nurse right there in the room?”
Lewis does not recall there being a nurse in the room at all times as described by Dawson.
Holden asked whether Dawson and Lewis had a life insurance policy for each other.
She said she had life insurance since she was 19. The couple had also taken out a policy together in November before going on a cruise.
He later asked where the syringes were that she had found when cleaning out the garage. She said she still had them and they were in her walk-in wardrobes.
Holden asked Dawson about some comments Lewis had made about seeing her rummaging through a sharps container, used for the disposal of needles and syringes.
Dawson said there were no sharps containers in the room,
“This is just fabrication, go and have a look at the room; I really don’t think there is,” she said.
“No I wasn’t rummaging, literally was sitting there with a magazine and a pen in my hand, and in fact, he had his back to me.”
Holden asked if she was wearing gloves at the time. She didn’t think she was, but said she could have been. She recalled the nurses were wearing masks and gloves because they thought Lewis could have had influenza. She was unsure whether she was wearing a mask but didn’t think she was.
Holden then said he’d confirmed Lewis went to police on November 21.
“This is just spiteful… honestly if he thought that why didn’t he complain earlier? This is just because he’s been phoned by the police and told to stay away from the house.”
Holden told Dawson the allegation was “very serious”, and that police would soon execute a search warrant at her home.
“So [her daughter] was right. I shouldn’t have actually said anything to you,” Dawson said.
Holden explained police would’ve searched her home regardless of what comments she made during the interview.
The interview ended shortly after, three and a half hours after it began.
‘Poisoning for dummies’
After the interview detectives visited Dawson’s home. The police summary of the investigation said a “large number of prescription medication” was found, including Tramadol and Amitriptyline, which were both found in Lewis’ drug screen.
Inside a shoebox in a plastic bag was a vial of Phoenix Xylazine along with a syringe, scalpel, and blow dart.
A doctor who reviewed the results of Lewis’ urine drug screen said it looked for 150 common drugs and narcotics as well as 20 cathinones. He said Xylazine was not a drug that would be detected in a urine screen.
No yellow pen was found at Dawson’s home.
Police also looked through Dawson’s internet history.
On April 10, 2017, there were internet searches on how to make the poison Ricin: “Poisoning for Dummies How much skill does it take to brew up a batch of ricin?”
On July 5, 10 days before Lewis’ first admission to hospital, there were a large amount of medication internet searches including overdosing on medications, such as “how much does it take to overdose on oxycodone”.
On August 9, 2017, there was a search “what does air bubbles in an iv line do”.
Cigna New Zealand confirmed a life insurance policy for $500,000 in Lewis’ name was taken out around November 14, 2016.
“The same day, it is believed Dr Dawson attempted to change the policy into her name by portraying herself as Mr Lewis via email,” the police summary report said.
“This would enable her to be the policy owner and have full control of any amendments, and be the beneficiary of any policy.”
Lewis denied knowing a life insurance policy existed when interviewed by police, but later said he had signed a form he believed was for health insurance for their holiday in 2016.
The policy had a non-suicide clause for 13 months.
In January 2018, a detective searched Ward 23 at Christchurch Hospital. The detective confirmed saline syringes were situated outside the room and blue surgical gloves and face masks were also available. Sharps containers could also be seen.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) also received information that resulted in Dawson’s benefit entitlements being investigated.
In early February, Dawson spoke to police again about the incident in November when she was hospitalised. She said her memory had “returned”, and claimed she had been assaulted in her kitchen.
The inconsistencies
The police summary looked at what information had been corroborated and what inconsistencies there were.
The summary said both Dawson and Lewis had access to the medication found in his urine screen. According to Lewis’ sister-in-law, Dawson told her she found her medications which would have given him the symptoms he was presenting with in his toilet bag. However, Dawson had not been formally advised that any of those drugs had been located in his system.
During her interview in December, she also said Lewis was found unconscious during the night when he was admitted the second time. However, the call to emergency services was not made until 10.51am.
“Dr Dawson could have been mistaken regarding timings, however, it would be consistent with Mr Lewis having no memory of the days leading up to his second admission.”
The summary also references the Google searches in relation to drugs and symptoms prior to and at the time of Lewis’ hospital admissions “which on the face of it”, were consistent with Lewis’ symptoms.
“In terms of any likely premeditation and planning, Dr Dawson obtained a life insurance policy in her name for Mr Lewis, she removed him from her power of attorney documents in May 2017 and was searching a dating website. There was also a significant argument logged in her phone on 1 July 2017.”
While Lewis was unconscious in ICU, Dawson advised medical staff he did not want to be left in a vegetative state, which he said was against his personal wishes.
Dawson was interviewed by MSD on May 1, 2018. The MSD investigator told the coroner Dawson said she had a very short relationship with Lewis, and that they were then flatmates.
A week later, on May 8, she had a second interview with MSD. The investigator said Dawson “flatly denied” receiving pension payments from the United Kingdom, despite being told they had confirmation she was.
About 6.30pm that evening, Dawson spoke with her son on the phone. He said she did not say anything about any health issues but wanted to discuss Lewis.
“[He] told her they could talk about it the following day when he was to drive her to hospital for a carpal tunnel procedure.”
The following morning, Dawson’s son found her dead in her dining room.
A coroner’s report, earlier released to the Herald ruled Dawson’s death was self-inflicted.
When the Herald approached Dawson’s daughter for comment on the case, she questioned reporting “on the conjecture of one person, against someone who can no longer defend themselves and where an investigation was never completed and will never be able to be completed”.
‘As close to being dead as you can get’
Lewis recalls getting a call from a detective asking if he was in town. He confirmed he was and the detective asked if he could pop over.
When they arrived the officers “grilled” him about his movements in the prior 24 hours, before they told him Dawson had been found dead.
“It was very upsetting. I don’t and I never have had any animosity towards her. I see this as a mental illness and I said to the police I always wondered how I was going to feel if this happened because if I didn’t go to you guys then she wouldn’t be dead, and one of them turned around and said to me ‘if it wasn’t her, it was going to be you’.”
Looking back at the illnesses he suffered he says he was “as close to being dead as you can get”.
Six years on Lewis remains convinced that Dawson had tried to kill him.
“You look at the evidence, there’s not any other conclusion you can come to.”
The CIB investigation file was in the process of being prepared for formal review by the Crown Solicitor prior to Dawson’s death. She was not aware this step had been taken.
Lewis said he was “a bit pissed off” initially when he read the coroner’s report in which the coroner said the veracity of the allegations made were “outside the scope of the inquiry”. But after a thorough read, he was happy with the extensive report.
The ordeal had “hugely” impacted on his life, he said, adding he suffers from PTSD.
“It’s been an absolute mindf*** and this still goes on now, six years later. It just goes on and on,” he said.
“Initially I felt privileged to have gone through this for what I’ve learned about myself and about life. You go through a near-death experience, you do a lot of questioning… for the first sort of four to five years I felt privileged; that’s starting to waver now, it’s really taking its toll.”
Sam Sherwood is a Christchurch-based reporter who covers crime. He is a senior journalist who joined the Herald in 2022, and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.