After 32 years, coroner rules dingo snatched baby
A nation that was once bitterly divided on whether baby Azaria Chamberlain had been dragged away by a wild dog or murdered by her mother now largely agrees the parents deserve the vindication a coroner’s court has given them.
A day after Azaria Chamberlain would have turned 32, a coroner found a dingo had taken her as a nine-week-old baby from a tent near Ayers Rock, the red desert monolith now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. That is what her parents had maintained from the beginning.
The eyes of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, welled with tears as the findings of the fourth inquest into the disappearance of their daughter — whose body was never found — were broadcast from a courtroom in Darwin around Australia.
The first inquest in 1981 also blamed a dingo. However, a second inquest a year later charged Ms Chamberlain-Creighton with murder and her husband with being an accessory after the fact. She was convicted and served more than three years in prison before that decision was overturned.
A third inquest in 1995 left the cause of death open.
The case became famous internationally through the 1988 Meryl Streep movie A Cry in the Dark.
Many in Australia did not believe that a dingo was strong enough to take away the baby. Public opinion swayed harshly against the couple; some people even spat on Ms Chamberlain-Creighton and howled like dingoes outside her house.
At the time, no similar dingo attack had been documented, but in recent years the wild dogs have been blamed for three fatal attacks on children.
Few doubt the couple’s story today, but the latest inquest — which the family had fought to get — made it official that Azaria was killed in a dingo attack.
The news was welcomed by many in Australia.
Yvonne Cain, one of the 12 jurors in the 1982 trial that convicted a then-pregnant Lindy Chamberlain of murder, was thrilled that a dingo is now on the record as the culprit.
“The dingo has done it. I’m absolutely thrilled to bits,” said Ms Cain. “I’d always had my doubts and have become certain she’s innocent.”
Brad Purcell, an expert on dingo behaviour, said he was not surprised a dingo would enter a tent and take a baby while older siblings slept.
Mr Purcell suspects many people blamed Ms Chamberlain-Creighton for leaving the baby in a tent where a dingo could have been attracted by her crying.
“She was almost being condemned because she wasn’t acting as a responsible parent,” said Mr Purcell.
Not all Australians accept the latest ruling. A policeman who was at Uluru the night Azaria disappeared said he still believed the first coroner’s finding that there was some human intervention.
Frank Morris, who has since retired from the police force, said while he was not trying to blame the parents, he thought someone played a part in moving clothing Azaria wore that night. “We don’t know who. That is the $64,000 question,” he said.
Azaria’s parents and three siblings, including sister Kahlia, 29, who was born in prison, yesterday collected her new death certificate.
“We’re relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,” a tearful but smiling Ms Chamberlain- Creighton told reporters outside the court.
Coroner Elizabeth Morris said she was “satisfied that the evidence is sufficiently adequate, clear, cogent, and exact and that the evidence excludes all other reasonable possibilities”.
Azaria’s father Michael Chamberlain said: “This has been a terrifying battle, bitter at times, but now some healing and a chance to put our daughter’s spirit to rest.”
He said his quest for a death certificate that acknowledged his daughter had been killed by a dingo had seemed to be a “mission impossible”.
“This battle to get to the legal truth about what caused Azaria’s death has taken too long. However, I am here to tell you that you can get justice even when you think that all is lost. But truth must be on your side.”
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