Forensic Australia: The dingo killed my baby!

Australia reopened 32-year-old mystery of whether a dingo killed a baby.

THE CASE IN A NUTSHELL:

The mystery of Azaria Chamberlain's disappearance in the Australian Outback in 1980 became the most notorious, divisive and baffling legal drama in the country's history. Had a wild dog really taken the baby? Or had her mother, Lindy, slit her daughter's throat and buried her in the desert?

 

Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, their two sons and their nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, were settling in for the night at a campsite near the rock. Azaria was sleeping in a tent and Lindy and Michael making dinner nearby when a baby's cry rang out. Lindy went to check on her daughter and says she saw a dingo slink out of the tent and disappear into the darkness. Azaria's bassinet was empty, the blankets still warm.

There was an intense search, but Azaria was never found.The Chamberlains insisted the dingo snatched their daughter.

But police and the public doubted a dingo was big or strong enough to drag away a 10-pound baby. Nobody could find documentation of a dingo killing a child before.

The prosecution said there was no dingo saliva on Azaria's jumpsuit, which Lindy put down to the jacket she had been wearing over it. But the jacket was missing, and police said she was lying.

Australians didn't like the Chamberlains.it was all wrong for a grieving mother. Australians didn't understand her stoicism and recoiled when she spoke of graphic evidence clinically and without tears. Lindy — heavily pregnant with her fourth child — was convicted of murder, accused of slashing her daughter's throat with nail scissors and making it look like a dingo attack. She was sentenced to life in prison with hard labour. Michael was convicted of being an accessory.

Three years into Lindy's prison sentence, Azaria's jacket was found by chance — near a dingo den. Days later, Lindy was released from prison. A Royal Commission, the highest form of investigation in Australia, debunked much of the forensic evidence used at trial and her conviction was overturned.

As the evidence shifted in favor of Lindy's innocence, public guilt grew. Three decades later, it remains.