Australian Coroner Agrees Dingo Took Baby in 1980 Case - ABC News ABC News Australian Coroner Agrees Dingo Took Baby in 1980 Case By CAMERON BROCK WATCH Coroner Says Dingo Did Take the Baby 0 Shares Email One of the most highly publicized missing-child cases in history, which led to a mother's wrongful imprisonment, has finally come to an end after an Australian coroner officially ruled that a dingo killed the woman's baby. Lindy Chamberlain has been haunted for 32 years by public doubt of her version of events about how her 9-week-old daughter, Azaria, died. Chamberlain shocked the world when she reported that the infant had been snatched by a dingo, a wild dog that lives mostly in the Australian outback. "We're relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga," Chamberlain said Monday. Her former husband, and Azaria's father, Michael, added, "this battle to get to the legal truth of what happened to Azaria has taken too long." Coroner Elizabeth Morris said, "Please accept my sincere apology on the death of your special and loved daughter and sister Azaria. I am so sorry for your loss.

Time does not remove the pain and sadness of death of a child." There have been 27 dingo attacks on humans, three of them fatal, since Azaria's death in 1980.But such fatal attacks by the dogs who frequent the Uluru camp areas were unheard of before the 1980 case. Plausibility is crucial for testimonial evidence in Australian courts, and because nothing like it had ever happened, the judge was hard pressed to accept the dingo story. Thanks to the awareness created by her case, the story of what happened to Azaria Chamberlain now fits that requirement, according to the coroners office. On Aug. 17, 1980, Chamberlain and her now ex-husband took their three children camping to Uluru, then known as Ayers Rock, in the Australian desert. After Chamberlain put the newborn to sleep in a bassinet in the couple's tent, she returned to a nearby barbecue area with friends. Soon after, witnesses heard a "menacing growl" and a baby crying. The mother of three ran back to the tent, she says, and saw a dingo dragging her daughter away.

The initial coroner's inquiry found that the Chamberlain family had no responsibility in Azaria's death; but for many, their story was just too unbelievable. In October of 1982, amid rumors the Chamberlains sacrificed their daughter in a religious ceremony, the case was re-opened; and Lindy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. It wasn't until four years later, when a child's jacket was found in a dingo den, that Chamberlain was re-tried and acquitted. Eventually, the family faded into obscurity while their story would become a joke and punch line in movies and TV shows. Meryl Streep portrayed Lindy Chamberlain in the 1988 film "A Cry in the Dark," and was nominated for an Oscar for the role. Now, after Monday's ruling, the Chamberlains can finally end their three-decade fight to have Azaria's cause of death officially recognized on her death certificate. 0 Shares The Dingo Took My Baby: Lindy Chamberlain Case History SHARE Russell Mcphedran—AP An Australian wild Dingo dog Oct.

29, 1982: An Australian woman is convicted of murder after courts reject her claim that a dingo took her baby For years, whether or not you believed Lindy Chamberlain’s story depended on which nightmarish scenario you found more plausible: that a wild dog snatched her sleeping 9-week-old baby from a tent in the Australian outback, or that Lindy herself slashed the infant’s throat and then invented the farfetched story to cover up her crime. Thirty-two years ago today, on Oct. 29, 1982, a jury went for the latter interpretation and convicted Chamberlain of murder. She was sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. The case gained international notoriety, inspiring the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, in which Meryl Streep, as Chamberlain, shouts the words that would become a morbid punch line: “The dingo’s got my baby!” The couple was exonerated after the baby’s knit jacket appeared in 1986, partly buried next to a remote dingo lair. Chamberlain was freed and the guilt was redistributed to those who had vilified her.

A mere two years earlier, 77% of Australians polled had believed she was guilty, and not just because of the outrageous story. One source of suspicion was her religion. Her husband was a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, then little-known in Australia. Rumors swirled that the church was a cult that practiced infant sacrifice, and that Azaria — the name of Chamberlain’s late daughter — meant “sacrifice in the wilderness” (it means “blessed of God”). Another strike against Chamberlain was the way she carried herself. Stylish and stoic, she never erupted in hysterics in court. She was called cold and calculating. As journalist Julia Baird wrote in a New York Times op-ed , “She was, we were told, more interested in looking pretty than in the death of her child.” Compared to Chamberlain, dingoes were viewed more warmly, at least initially. In the early 1980s, TIME reports , dingoes had never been known to attack humans — or at least, such cases hadn’t been publicized.

“On television, footage from the Chamberlains’ trial was often accompanied by images of the wild dogs looking more affable than aggressive,” TIME’s Marina Kamenev wrote. Since then, however, dozens of dingo attacks have made the news, including a 2001 mauling that killed a 9-year-old boy. Those attacks were considered in the most recent inquest into Azaria Chamberlain’s death — the fourth in three decades — which resulted in a 2012 ruling that a dingo had indeed killed, and likely devoured, the baby. When that final report was released, Australians expressed remorse for having jumped to the wrong conclusions, according to Baird. “Comedians issued public apologies for using Lindy Chamberlain as a punch line; TV hosts were grave and emotional,” she wrote. Chamberlain, meanwhile, felt vindicated. “No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and will only attack if provoked,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald .

“We live in a beautiful country, but it is dangerous.” Coroner rules dingo to blame for Australian baby's death - CNN.com Coroner rules dingo to blame for Australian baby's death By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Updated 7:37 PM ET, Tue June 12, 2012 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. JUST WATCHED Mother's reaction to coroner's ruling 03:18 Story highlights Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a tent more than 30 years ago Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton claimed her baby had been taken by a dingo Prosecutors convinced a jury she was guilty of murder; conviction later quashed Mom's reaction: "Relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga" A coroner ruled Tuesday that a dingo, a wild dog native to Australia, caused the death of a baby more than 30 years ago. Azaria Chamberlain was just 2 months old when she disappeared from a tent during a family holiday to Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, sparking one of the country's most sensational and enduring murder mysteries.

"The cause of her death was as the result of being attacked and taken by a dingo," Elizabeth Morris, coroner for Northern Territory, announced to Darwin Magistrates court early Tuesday. "Dingos can and do cause harm to humans." The girl's mother, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, long maintained that a dingo took her baby, even as she was sentenced to life in jail for her daughter's murder, a conviction that was later quashed. During the trial, a witness recounted the then 32-year-old mother's cries of a "dingo's got my baby," which was immortalized in the 1988 film "A Cry in the Dark" starring Meryl Streep, who earned an Oscar nomination for the role. Outside the court Tuesday, Chamberlain-Creighton said she and her family were "relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga." Photos: Photos: Court rules dingo took baby Photos: Photos: Court rules dingo took baby Court rules dingo took baby – Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton shows reporters Azaria's death certificate outside a Darwin court Tuesday after coroner Elizabeth Morris rules that a dingo caused her baby's death 32 years ago.

Hide Caption 2004 on CNN.com: Child staves off stalking dingo "No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and will only attack if provoked," she said. Evidence produced at the fourth inquest into Azaria's death in February included reports of attacks by dingoes and dogs assumed to be part-dingo or crossbreeds. The coroner heard that in 2001 a 9-year-old boy died as a result of a dingo attack on Fraser Island in the Australian state of Queensland. Years later, two girls, each around two-years-old, died in separate attacks by dogs believed to be part-dingo in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. In her findings, Morris said no other disappearance exactly like that of Azaria had been recorded. However, she said, "it is clear that there is evidence that in particular circumstances, a dingo is capable of attacking, taking and causing the death of young children." It is a scenario that was unthinkable in 1980 when mother-of-three Lindy Chamberlain, then married to Michael Chamberlain, sparked a frantic search of a remote campsite in central Australia after claiming that a dingo took her baby.

So unbelievable was the idea that dingo would enter a tent to snatch a two-month-old that suspicion soon turned to the couple. The mystery was compounded by the lack of a body. Azaria's was never found, although her heavily blood-stained singlet, jumpsuit and nappy were discovered near the campsite one week after she disappeared. Overheard on CNN.com: 'Shame it took so long' for dingo ruling to be reached The first inquest into Azaria's death in 1981 found that the baby died as a result of being taken by a dingo. However, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory quashed the finding later that year and ordered a second inquest into Azaria's death. At the second inquest Lindy Chamberlain was committed to trial for murder. Her husband Michael was charged with being an accessory after the fact. The prosecution alleged that Chamberlain slit her daughter's throat with a pair of scissors before hiding her body, possibly in a camera bag, before she and her husband Michael buried her somewhere in the vicinity of the campsite.

The 35-day trial created a media frenzy in Australia as commentators picked apart the intricacies of the case, while a fascinated public speculated wildly as to how and why Azaria had died. The jury returned its verdict in 1982; Lindy Chamberlain was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in jail. Her husband Michael was given a suspended sentence. Chamberlain served four years of her sentence before the Northern Territory government ordered her release in 1986 after the discovery of new evidence; a baby's jacket, believed to be Azaria's, found half-buried near a dingo lair at Uluru. In 1988, a Royal Commission set up to review the evidence formally quashed convictions for both husband and wife. Despite the finding that the couple was not to blame, a third inquest into their daughter's death returned an open verdict in 1995. It was that verdict that the couple sought to overturn with a fourth inquest this year.

Dingo took baby in famous Australian case - World - CBC News Dingo took baby in famous Australian case New death certificate for Azaria Chamberlain acknowledges cause of death The Associated Press Posted: Jun 11, 2012 9:35 PM ET Last Updated: Jun 12, 2012 8:31 AM ET Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton has spent decades defending her story that a dingo took her baby daughter, Azaria Chamberlain, in 1980. Chamberlain-Creighton is pictured in 2012, left, and in 1982, right. (Getty Images/Associated Press) Related Stories Live coverage: ABC's Azaria Chamberlain inquest (Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.) Settling a notorious 1980 case that split the nation and led to a mistaken murder conviction, an Australian coroner ruled that a dingo took a baby from a campsite in the Outback, just as her mother said from the beginning.

Tuesday's ruling in the northern city of Darwin is from the fourth coroner's inquest into the disappearance of 9-week-old Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 from a campsite near Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the Australian desert now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. The child's mother, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, was convicted and later cleared of murdering Azaria and has always maintained that a wild dog took her. Azaria Chamberlain in a 1980 family photo. (Getty Images) She and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, were in Darwin Magistrates Court to hear the finding. "No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and only attack if provoked," Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters outside the courthouse. "We live in a beautiful country but it is dangerous and we would ask all Australians to be aware of this and take appropriate precautions and not wait for somebody else to do it for them." "The truth is out" Coroner Elizabeth Morrison stated the evidence that wild animals took the child is "sufficiently adequate, clear, cogent and exact" and that it excludes all other reasonable possibilities.

"[W] hat occurred on the 17th of August 1980 was that shortly after Mrs. Chamberlain placed Azaria in the tent, a dingo or dingoes entered the tent, took Azaria, and carried and dragged her from the immediate area," wrote Morrison in her assessment. The new death certificate for Azaria Chamberlain now acknowledges the cause of the baby's death, which was previously said to be "unknown." The document holds great significance for a family that has endured a 32-year saga. "The truth is out," the baby's father told the media. "This battle to get to the legal truth about what caused Azaria's death has taken too long," "This has been a terrifying battle. Bitter at times. But now some healing and a chance to put our daughter's spirit to rest." Fourth inquest considered new evidence The findings mirror those of the first coroner's inquest in 1981, which found that a dingo took Azaria. But that inquest found that somebody had later interfered with Azaria's clothing, which was later found relatively unscathed in the desert.

Family harassed Many Australians initially did not believe that a dingo was strong enough to take away the baby. Public opinion sway harshly against the couple; some even spat on Chamberlain-Creighton and howled like a dingoes outside her house. No similar dingo attack had been documented at the time, but in recent years the wild dogs have been blamed for three fatal attacks on children. A second coroner's inquest ended with Chamberlain-Creighton being charged with murder and Michael Chamberlain being charged as an accessory after the fact. Chamberlain-Creighton, accused of slashing her daughter's throat with nail scissors and making it look like a dingo attack, was sentenced to life in prison with hard labor. She was three years into her sentence, after evidence was found that backed up her version of events: the baby's jacket, found near a dingo den, which helped explain the condition of the rest of the baby's clothing. A Royal Commission, the highest form of investigation in Australia, debunked much of the forensic evidence used at trial and her conviction was overturned. A third inquest could not determine the cause of death.

The fourth inquest heard new evidence of dingo attacks, including three fatal attacks on children since the third inquest. Morris noted that dingo experts disagree on whether a dingo could have removed the clothing so neatly and without causing more damage. "It would have been very difficult for a dingo to have removed Azaria from her clothing without causing more damage than what was observed on it, however it would have been possible for it to have done so," she said. "I think it is likely that a dingo would have left the clothing more scattered, but it might not have done so," she added. Dingo caused baby Azaria Chamberlain's death - coroner - BBC News Dingo caused baby Azaria Chamberlain's death - coroner 12 June 2012 Read more about sharing. Close share panel Media captionCoroner: "The cause of her death was the result of being attacked and taken by a dingo" An Australian coroner has made a final ruling that a dingo took baby Azaria Chamberlain from a campsite in 1980 and caused her death. The decision was made after Azaria's parents presented new evidence to try to clear their names.

After the eight week-old baby went missing, they were charged with her disappearance. Her mother was convicted of her murder. She was released when evidence matched the dingo story but doubts lingered. They have long argued that the open verdict recorded after an earlier review of the case left room for doubt about Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton's innocence. 'Truth is out' ''Obviously we are relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,'' Ms Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters outside the courthouse. ''No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous,'' she added. ''We live in a beautiful country but it is dangerous.'' Media captionLindy Chamberlain-Creighton: ''We are relieved and delighted'' Speaking after her, Mr Michael Chamberlain, the baby's father, said ''the truth is out''. He was with his ex-wife at the Darwin courthouse for the verdict. ''Now, some healing and a chance to put our daughter's spirit to rest.'' The Northern Territory coroner Elizabeth Morris delivered an emotional verdict, asking baby Azaria's parents to accept her ''sincere sympathy'' for the loss. ''Time does not remove the pain and sadness of the death of a child,'' Ms Morris said.

She added that a death certificate was now available for the parents and the final findings could be found on the coroners office website. Famous case Azaria Chamberlain case 17 Aug 1980: Baby Azaria Chamberlain disappears from a campsite near Uluru (Ayers Rock) - her parents say she was taken by a dingo 1982: Mother Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton convicted of murder; father Michael Chamberlain found guilty of being an accessory 1986: Police find a piece of the baby's clothing in area of dingo lairs - case reopened 15 Sep 1988: Both Lindy and Michael Chamberlain cleared of charges 1995: Open verdict recorded following another inquest 24 Feb 2012: Fourth inquest opened Ms Chamberlain-Creighton has campaigned tirelessly to have dingoes officially blamed for the death of her child, says the BBC's Duncan Kennedy. Earlier this year, the Chamberlains gave evidence to a coroner in Darwin recording a series of other attacks by dingoes on humans.

Virtually ever since Azaria vanished from her tent near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in 1980, Australia has been engrossed by the question of whether she was taken by a dingo. In 1982, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of her baby's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, while Mr Chamberlain was found guilty of being an accessory. Both were later exonerated on all charges, after the chance discovery of a fragment of Azaria's clothing in an area dotted with dingo lairs. It was a case that divided Australians and was even turned into the film A Cry In The Dark, starring Meryl Streep. Three previous coroner's inquests proved inconclusive. A Cry in the Dark (1988) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.

Error A Cry in the Dark ( 1988 ) Evil Angels (original title) A mother whose child was killed in a Dingo attack in the Australian outback fights to prove her innocence when she is accused of murder. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 26 titles created 08 May 2014 a list of 25 titles created 23 Jul 2014 a list of 21 titles created 22 Feb 2015 a list of 42 titles created 26 Dec 2015 a list of 22 titles created 9 months ago Title: A Cry in the Dark (1988) 6.9/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 11 nominations. See more awards » Photos The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant who was purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing blatant worker safety violations at the plant.

Director: Mike Nichols A young Englishwoman spends 20 years to make whatever kind of life for herself at the expense of others around her in post-World War 2 England. Director: Fred Schepisi An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his home town of Albany, NY after returning there for the first time in decades. Director: Hector Babenco A film is being made of a story, set in 19th century England, about Charles, a biologist who's engaged to be married, but who falls in love with outcast Sarah, whose melancholy makes her ... See full summary » Director: Karel Reisz A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she is forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment. Director: Mike Nichols A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother. Director: Carl Franklin Story of a schoolteacher's struggle to teach violin to inner-city Harlem kids. Director: Wes Craven After spending time with his new neighbors, an aspiring writer realizes they are harboring deep secrets that will forever change him. Director: Alan J. Pakula Two parents deal with the effects when their son is accused of murdering his girlfriend.

Director: Barbet Schroeder An autobiographical look at the breakup of Ephron's marriage to Carl "All the President's Men" Bernstein that was also a best-selling novel. The Ephron character, Rachel is a food writer at... See full summary » Director: Mike Nichols A Manhattan psychiatrist probes a patient's murder and falls for the victim's mysterious mistress. Director: Robert Benton In an afterlife way station resembling a block of hotels, the lives of the recently-deceased are examined in a court-like setting. Director: Albert Brooks Edit Storyline Based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain. During a camping trip to Ayers Rock in outback Australia, she claimed that she witnessed a dingo stealing her baby daughter, Azaria, from the family tent. Azaria's body was never found. Police noted some apparent inconsistencies in her story, and she was charged with murder. The case attracted a lot of attention, turning an investigation into a media circus, with the public divided in their opinions. Written by Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au> A family torn apart. A public filled with outrage. A woman accused of murder.

Genres: 11 November 1988 (USA) See more » Also Known As: A Cry in the Dark See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia Lindy Chamberlain refers to a case in which expert testimony wrongly sent three boys to prison. She's referring to the 1972 murder of 26-year-old Maxwell Confait in southeast London. Confait was strangled, and the building he lived in was burned down. Eighteen-year-old Colin Lattimore, 15-year-old Ronnie Leighton, and 14-year-old Ahmet Salih were arrested and charged with murder and arson. All three had alibis, but three prominent forensic pathologists testified to the time of death. One, Dr. Cameron, changed his mind on the stand and said Confait could have died at a time when the boys were not covered by their alibi. The boys were convicted and sentenced to prison. Two years later, the convictions were overturned. It turned out that Confait had been dead more than 48 hours before the fire, and the forensic pathologists were wrong about the fire speeding up the onset of rigor mortis.

In 1980, Douglas Franklin was found to be the true murderer. See more » Goofs In the end credits, the movie's copyright year is 1988. In Roman numerals, it would be MCMLXXXVIII. Instead, the year is MCMLXXXIII, 1983. See more » Quotes Michael Chamberlain : No, you're right, it's exactly the same model as mine. Les Smith : Have a look at what Webber found under the dash! (Hamilton, Australia) – See all my reviews If there is any Australian that I feel sorrier for, it would have to be Lindy Chamberlain. Her compelling story is one of the more famous court cases in Australian history. Also known as A cry in the dark', Evil Angel' shows how divided the Australian public really were towards this case and how the media can manipulate a story, by favouring just one side of a story that they believe is the whole truth. When I hear the cry The dingo's got my baby', it brings back memories from along time ago. During a camping trip, an infant disappears from her family's tent.

When the child's mother spies a dingo nearby, authorities launch a frantic search, but all they find is a torn, bloodied garment. The press, distressed by the mother's seeming "lack of emotion", and suspicious of her religious beliefs, begin to accuse her of murdering the baby. The sentiment against her begins to grow, and soon the whole continent is talking about the case. Despite the lack of evidence, the woman is imprisoned; although investigators eventually re-examine her story, the damage is done: the innocent mother's relationship with her husband has been irreparably destroyed. This is the documentary style film adaptation of the true story of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain. This film has some truly amazing performance in it. Meryl Streep is a wonderful actress, but in this film she does so much that you just have to like. She really becomes Lindy' and embodies what she actually went through. I remember reading that Streep had to have speaking classes, so she could sound Australian', which she does very well. But it is her persona I like the most.

Streep performance as Chamberlain is so flawless, as she shows no emotion when she is going in and out of court, which is what the real Lindy Chamberlain did. It is understandable that the general public would think that Lindy is guilty of murder, which is again testament to Streep's masterful performance. However in court Lindy is visibly upset, when she has to recall the night a dingo took her baby. The other performance which is most noteworthy is that of Sam Neill. While Neill has gone on to do many big performances in Hollywood blockbusters such as Jurassic Park' and the Aussie favourite The Dish', this is one film I continue to remember him from. I like how we see that Michael is visibly distressed by the whole court case scenario, with him stumbling through the interrogation when he is on the stand. It is also most taxing on the couple's personal life, with Michael the first one to crack. Yet there are some famous Australian cameos from many actors in Evil Angel'. Look at these for names; Maurie Fields, Charles Bud' Tingwell, John Howard, Frankie J.

Holden, Mark Little, Mark Mitchell, Glenn Robbins and Kym Gyngell. All of them are well known personalities in Australian TV, and it is of great significance to this story to have such great fame among the cast of this film. Director/Screenwriter of Evil Angel' Fred Schepisi does justice to this story in many ways. Firstly, Schepisi and co screenwriter Robert Caswell stuck very close to the story written by John Bryson. Then Schepisi directs this film in quite a unique way. He points the story in many ways, showing the Chamberlain's in one shot, then to the media, then to the general public. This amount of change gives the film great variety, which is good. If it was fixated with just the Chamberlains, this movie could have had major problems. I also like the many shots of Australia that this film shows off. Having this tragedy take place in the Northern territory, certainly gave that state and its famous attraction Ayers Rock (Uluru) some sort reputation, as this film does too. Yet there are some excellent shots in Alice Springs, Darwin and in the Chamberlain's home-town (for some time) of Mt. Isa in Queensland.

This is good work of cinematographer Ian Baker. So with all those factors taken into consideration, this film looks deep into what it must be like to go through the loss of a baby child, taken by a wild animal. It also a fascinating insight into what the media can do to turn a story and how merciless people can be towards someone that in all possibility could be innocent'. Although it is 22 years since this horrible event has happened, I realise that Chamberlain's lives were, and probably never will be the same again. Michael and Lindy had to go through the most painful of divorces, and their children had to go grow up with a large amount of innuendo attached to their lives. I am thankful that Lindy Chamberlain was released from prison, after serving three and a half years of a life imprisonment sentence for a crime which she did not commit. CMRS gives Evil Angel': 4 (Very Good Film) 25 of 28 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes After 32 Years, Coroner Confirms Dingo Killed Australian Baby - The New York Times The New York Times Asia Pacific |After 32 Years, Coroner Confirms Dingo Killed Australian Baby Search Continue reading the main story Thirty-two years after Azaria Chamberlain, 9 weeks old, disappeared from a campsite in Australia , the coroner in the fourth inquest into her death announced on Tuesday that the baby died as a result of being taken by a dingo, an Australian wild dog. The ruling signified the end of three decades of struggle for the Chamberlain family. At first, Azaria’s mother, Lindy Chamberlain, was convicted of murdering her daughter and was sent to prison. That verdict was later overturned and Ms. Chamberlain set free, but subsequent inquests were unable to reach a determination on how Azaria died, despite growing evidence that Ms. Chamberlain was truthful in her statement that a dingo was responsible for the death at the campsite in central Australia.

Photo Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, with her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, right, spoke to the media after a coroner ruled that their baby, Azaria, was taken by a dingo in 1980. Credit Patrina Malone/European Pressphoto Agency The coroner, Elizabeth Morris, with tears in her eyes, addressed the Chamberlain family in a courtroom in Darwin, Australia. “Please accept my sincere sympathies on the death of your special daughter,” Ms. Morris said. “I am so sorry. Time does not remove the pain and sadness of the death of a child.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story She said of Azaria, “The cause of her death was the result of being taken by a dingo.” The death of Azaria and the arrest and conviction of her mother became an international saga with the making of the 1988 movie “Cry in the Dark,” in which Meryl Streep played Ms. Chamberlain. Photo Lindy Chamberlain's tent, where her daughter Azaria went missing in 1980 near Uluru, Australia.

Credit European Pressphoto Agency At the time of the death, many Australians could not believe a dingo, a small wild dog, would attack a human. Many Australians also turned against Ms. Chamberlain because, some suggested, she had not shown the kind of grief expected of a mother who had lost her child. The strain on the family was enormous, and she and her husband, Michael Chamberlain, divorced. But she never stopped pursuing vindication in a coroner’s ruling. In recent years, a dingo attacked and killed at least one victim, a young boy. When testimony was being given in the inquest in February, Australian observers noted a change in the nation’s attitude toward the dingo. Adrian Peace, an honorary associate professor of anthropology at the University of Queensland, said, “The demonization of Mrs. Chamberlain has been replaced by the demonization of the dingo.” After the ruling was announced, Ms. Chamberlain smiled and cried and hugged friends and family members, including her ex-husband.

“Obviously we are relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,” she said, adding, “No longer will Australia be able to say dingoes are not dangerous and only attack if provoked.” Michael Chamberlain said afterward, “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.” Christine Kenneally contributed reporting from Melbourne, Australia. A version of this article appears in print on June 12, 2012, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Coroner Says Dingo Took Baby. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe The Trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain: A Commentary by Douglas O. Linder (2012) "The scientist shouldn't become too adventurous, too competitive. The trouble is, we're all so human. I've never seen a case more governed by human frailties." --Dr.

Tony Jones, government pathologist in the Chamberlain trial On August 17, 1980, at a campsite near Australia's famous Ayer's Rock, a mother's cry came out of the dark: "My God, my God, the dingo's got my baby!" Soon the people of an entire continent would be choosing sides in a debate over whether the cry heard that night marked an astonishing and rare human fatality caused by Australia's wild dogs or was, rather, in the words of the man who would eventually prosecute her for murder, "a calculated, fanciful lie." A jury of nine men and three women came to believe the latter story and convicted Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her ten-week-old daughter, Azaria. Three years later, while Lindy dealt with daily life in a Darwin prison, police investigating the death of a fallen climber discovered Azaria's matinee jacket near a dingo den, and the Australian public confronted the reality that its justice system had failed. "A Cry in the Dark," a movie starring Meryl Streep, carried the story of Lindy's wrongful conviction across oceans. What went wrong?

Convictions of the innocent usually result from inaccurate eyewitness testimony (generally the least reliable evidence in a trial because of biases and the tricks of memory), but Lindy Chamberlain was convicted by flawed forensic evidence and by investigators and prosecutors unwilling to reconsider their assumptions in the face of contradictory evidence. The trial of Lindy Chamberlain, and her husband Michael, is a cautionary tale that everyone who practices forensic science should carefully consider. Azaria Disappears Improbably shaped Ayers Rock rises 348 meters out of the dry Aboriginal heart of Australia. The monolith, called Uluru by natives, lures tourists drawn by its imposing shape and colors that migrate from gold to red in the changing sunlight. On August 13, 1980, the Chamberlain family left their home in the northern Queensland mining town of Mount Isa, heading west and then south to see central Australia's most famous natural feature. At the time of their trip, Michael Chamberlain served as minister at Mount Isa's Seventh Day Adventist Church, a denomination much misunderstood Down Under.

He and his wife of ten years, Lindy, looked forward to several days of tenting and exploring with their three children, Aidan (age 6), Reagan (age 4), and Azaria (ten weeks). The Chamberlains arrived late on the night of August 16 at the Ayers Rock campground. The next morning, Michael and the two boys climbed portions of the rock. Lindy, cradling Azaria in her arms, explored a formation called Fertility Cave. Just outside the cave, she looked up uneasily to see a dingo staring at her. She would later tell a detective that she had the feeling that the wild dog was "casing the baby." After sunset, the Chamberlain family gathered with other campers around the barbecues near their tent site. Lindy held her Azaria in her arms as she and Michael chatted with Greg and Sally Lowe, another young couple also vacationing with an infant. Around 8:00, as Sally Lowe walked to a rubbish bin to dispose of items left from the evening meal, she turned to see a dingo following four or five paces behind her.

Minutes later, Michael entertained his son Aiden by tossing a crust of bread to a dingo that appeared near their barbecue bench. Lindy remonstrated, "You shouldn't encourage them" about the same time as the dingo pounced on a mouse that young Aiden had been chasing. Lindy announced "It's time I put Bubby down" and retreated to the Chamberlain's tent to make a suitable bed for Azaria. Ten minutes later, having left Azaria with her sleeping brother, Reagan, in the tent, Lindy rejoined the rest of the campers by the barbecue bench. A baby's cry from the direction of the tent soon sent Lindy racing back to investigate. Then came her cry: "My God, My God, the dingo's got my baby!" Frank Morris, the first investigator to arrive, shined a light across the floor of the Chamberlain tent, where he noticed blood on one of the rugs. Paw prints led away from the tent entrance, but faded as they hit a road.

Meanwhile, six-year-old Aiden wailed to Sally Lowe, as he showed her the empty bassinet, "The dingo has our Bubby in its tummy." Soon campers were locating flashlights ("torches," in Australian) and heading out into the dark scrub land. Nearly 300 men, women, and teenagers formed a human chain to look for tracks or pieces of clothing. Michael, who did not join the chain, had already assumed the worst, telling a fellow camper, "She's probably dead now." Then he added, incongruously, "I am a minister of the gospel." The main search turned up dingo tracks, but nothing more. Away from the chain, tourist Murray Haby had better luck, following the tracks of a large dingo under a sand ridge, Haby noticed a depression in the sand where the wild dog seemed to have laid down something it had carried. Called by Haby to investigate, ranger Derek Hoff and native tracker Nuwe Minyintiri studied the depression. The imprint in the sand suggested a knitted weave of some sort. The men looked for dingo tracks leading on from the depression, but the task proved hopeless.

First Doubts The four law men first assigned to the Chamberlain case talked over drinks at the Red sands Motel. Inspector Michael Gilroy accepted the Chamberlain's story, while Frank Morris kept his own counsel. John Lincoln, according to John Bryson's account in Evil Angels, doesn't buy the dingo story: "Not a chance. Never happened before. There's a fact you can't beat. Never ever happened." Gilroy noted that, even though none before had been fatal, there had been a series of recent dingo attacks in the park on children. Lincoln scoffs at the possibility that a dog could lug a ten pound baby over hundreds of yards. To prove his point, he leaves the room and returns with a pail filled with ten pounds of sand, which he succeeds in supporting by his mouth for less than a minute. He challenges the other officers to see if they can do better. One week after Azaria's disappearance, Wally Goodwin set out for a gully at the base of Ayers Rock, with plans to photograph wild flowers along the way. While walking along a densely foliated animal path, Goodwin spotted shredded clothes resting near a boulder.

Upon closer inspection, the proved to be a torn nappy and a jumpsuit. Goodwin reported his discovery and Constable Morris arrived to collect the evidence. On August 28, Detective-Sergeant Graeme Charlwood took over the Chamberlain investigation. While subordinates checked vehicle registrations of August 17 campground visitors, Charlwood could ponder Inspector Gilroy's initial report on the case, which included suspicious tidbits of information. Gilroy reported that when Lindy had brought Azaria in for a medical check up, the baby was dressed in all black. The examining doctor is said to have been curious enough about the name "Azaria" to look it up in a Dictionary of Names and discover that it meant "Sacrifice in the Wilderness." (Actually, it means "Whom God Aids.") Gilroy also commented that Azaria's clothes were found close to where the family hiked earlier in the day. He noted that the people who observed her that evening "assumed she was holding a baby when they have seen her holding a white bundle to her breast." In places around Australia, ranging from laboratories to wildlife parks, investigators conducted experiments to test the veracity of Lindy's account of Azaria's disappearance.

Blood, vegetation, and hair samples found on Azaria's clothing were examined. Dead dingoes shot in the Ayers Rock region following the disappearance were dissected by veterinarians looking for either human bone or human protein. Tears in the fibers of Azaria's clothing were studied--Did the tears appeared to be caused by a dingo's teeth or by some human instrument? At Cleland Park wildlife reserve in Adelaide, dingos were tossed meat wrapped in a baby's nappy, so that the nappy could be studied and compared to Azaria's. From these various efforts, investigators began to build a case for murder. Newspapers fueled suspicions that the Chamberlains killed their baby, possibly as a religious sacrifice. Stories reported rumors that the Chamberlains were somehow linked to the Jonestown mass suicide two years earlier, or that Azaria might have been killed to atone for sins of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Reporters frequently observed that the many Australians concluded from televised interviews with the fatalistic Chamberlains that the couple's demeanor didn't match what they would expect from a couple that had just tragically lost a child.

On October 1, 1980 in Mount Isa, Charlwood conducted a several-hour long separate interviews with Lindy and Michael Chamberlain. His questions took her along the timeline from their departure for Ayers Rock to the days following Azaria's disappearance. The interview was relatively cordial, but Lindy expressed repeated frustration with leaks to the press of forensic tests that seemed to cast doubt on her account of events. Charlwood took particular interest in Lindy's unusual reaction to his suggestion that she be hypnotized in an effort to pull out additional details concerning her sighting of the dingo around the tent. Lindy immediately rejected the idea saying, "The church wouldn't allow it and I wouldn't do it. God slew Saul for that. Do you know Saul and the Witch of Endor?" First One Coroner's Inquest, Then Another It fell to the magistrate and coroner of Alice Springs, Denis Barritt, to conduct what would eventually turn out to be the first of three coroner's inquests into the death of Azaria Chamberlain. Journalists crowded into Barritt's no. 2 courtroom, with its high ceilings, polished furniture, and landscape paintings.

The inquiry opened on December 16, 1980 with Ashley Macknay for the Northern Territory laying out the case for human intervention in her death. The evidence suggests that the clothes were put in place, not dragged by a dingo and the clothes show signs of being removed from the baby by a human, Macknay argued. Moreover, he added, the damage to the clothes is inconsistent with being caused by a dingo. Macknay questioned Lindy Chamberlain, but generally failed to show her as a mother with either the will or motive to kill her own child. Television cameras were live when Barritt announced his findings.

Barritt concluded his discussion of the voluminous evidence by finding that Azaria "met her death when attacked by a wild dingo whilst asleep in her family's tent." Neither of her parents were, Barritt found, "in any degree whatsoever responsible for her death." Still, the number of oddities concerning Azaria's clothing convinced Barritt that "the body of Azaria was taken from the possession of the dingo and disposed of by an unknown method, by a person or persons name unknown." Coroner Barritt's findings might have been expected to discourage investigators bent on proving Lindy Chamberlain a murderer, but they did not. On September 19, 1981, officers of the Northern Territory police conducted a four-and-a-half hour search of the Chamberlain's home, seizing over three hundred items ranging from items of clothing to scissors to the yellow Torana that they had driven to Ayers Rock. Detective Charlwood revealed to Lindy that the search had been prompted in part by the findings of British forensic expert James Cameron, who concluded from examining the baby's clothes that no dingo had been involved in her disappearance.

Lindy reacted coolly: "I didn't know there were any dingo experts in London." In November 1981, Chief Minister Everingham, as attorney-general for the Northern Territory filed a motion to quash the findings of the first inquest based on newly discovered evidence. What finally convinced authorities to push for a second inquest was the presence of large quantities of blood in the Chamberlain's dismantled automobile. The second inquest into the death of Azaria opened in Alice Springs on December 14, 1981, before Coroner Gerry P. Galvin. Des Sturgess, the barrister assisting the coroner, made clear from his questioning of the Chamberlains his belief that Lindy Chamberlain took Azaria from the campsite on the evening of August 17, 1980 and murdered her in their yellow Torana with a sharp instrument, probably a scissors.

Many of the questions directed at the Chamberlain concerned the presence of blood in the family automobile: "Did you notice any blood staining inside or outside the car when you cleaned it?", "Do you recall cleaning blood off the seats?" Sturgess called biologist Joy Kuhl, who testified that she found fetal blood beneath the passenger seat of the Torana. James Cameron claimed in his testimony that the tear found on Azaria's jumpsuit could hardly have come from a dingo--"It's more consistent with scissors." A reporter from Sydney, Malcolm Brown, offered a concise comparison between the two coroners' investigations. "The first inquest was about dingoes," Brown said, while "this one is about blood." The blood evidence persuaded Galvin. He charged Lindy Chamberlain with murder and Michael as being an accessory after the fact. The Trial Despite the lack of a body, the lack of a motive, and the lack of any eye-witnesses, the Northern Territory opened its prosecution of (a now pregnant) Lindy and Michael Chamberlain in a modern two-story courthouse in Darwin on September 13, 1982.

Justice James Muirhead, in crimson robes and a gray wig, sat on the bench in the crowded courtroom as attorneys for both sides worked to select twelve jurors from a panel of 123 all-white Territorians. When the selection process was completed, nine men and three women took their seats in the jury box. Defense attorney John Phillips was pleased with the group, telling his co-counsel Andrew Kirkham, "I think we've done well." Ian Barker opened the case for the prosecution, telling jurors Azaria "died very quickly because somebody had cut her throat." Barker added, "The Crown does not venture to suggest any reason or motive for the killing. It is not part of our case that Mrs. Chamberlain had previously shown any ill will toward the child." Barker called Chamberlain's story about the dingo attack "a fanciful lie, calculated to conceal the truth." The Crown's first witness, Ayers Rock tourist Sally Lowe, offered as much support for the defense as for the prosecution. Lowe described Lindy as being away from the barbecue only "six to ten minutes," a very short period in which to have committed the murder and temporarily disposed of the body, as the Crown claimed.

Lowe also damaged the Crown's case by insisting, "I heard the baby cry--quite a serious cry," shortly before Lindy went to the tent and reportedly saw the dingo slinking off into the dark. On cross-examination, Lowe confirmed that she was "positive" she heard a baby cry--a cry that was suddenly cut off--and that the cry "definitely came from the tent." She also described Lindy before the incident having "a new-mum glow about her." Testimony from others who were at the campground that August night generally presented a version of events that also seemed to aid the defense more than the prosecution, whose witnesses they were. Greg Lowe, Sally's husband, was asked on cross whether he saw any if the Chamberlains cleaning blood from their Torana at the time when, according to the prosecution timeline, they would have had to have done so. "No, I didn't," Lowe answered.

"There were quite a lot of people around at that time at the tent-site, and I'm sure if anything like that happened it would have been noticed." Judy West reported she heard Lindy cry "The dingo's got my baby!" just "five to ten minutes" after she heard a dingo growl--"low" and "deep"--outside the tent. She also testified that earlier she had been forced to shoo off a dingo that had grabbed her twelve-year old daughter by the arm and pulled. Witness Amy Whittaker, however, provided jurors with evidence of the seemingly odd behavior that had turned public opinion against the Chamberlains earlier in the investigation. Whittaker testified that minutes after the alleged dingo attack, Michael Chamberlain had appeared at the doorway of her camper and announced, "A dingo has taken our baby, and she is probably dead by now." Whittaker also reported Lindy saying, as she tried to comfort her, "Whatever happens, it is God's will." She also described Lindy and Michael walking alone together into the the bush for "fifteen to twenty minutes:--a time during which the prosecution later argued the Chamberlains might have buried their baby.

Because the prosecution case depended heavily on convincing jurors that the blood that turned up in the Chamberlain's car belonged to Azaria, the Crown called to the stand Keyth Lenehan, a bleeding hitchhiker picked up by the Chamberlains who the defense maintained might account for the presence of blood. Barker wanted to establish that Lenehan did not carry unusually high levels of fetal hemoglobin in his adult bloodstream. Still, the prosecution's calling of Lenehan prompted one journalist to tell an assistant prosecutor, "So far all you've done is convince everybody that Lindy is innocent." Reporters saw the tide beginning to move a bit in the Crown's direction when a parade of forensic experts took the stand. Dr. Andrew Scott, a biologist from Adelaide, testified that his study suggested that the blood on Azaria's singlet flowed downward, from what appeared to be from the cutting by a sharp instrument, in the area of the neck. Barry Cocks testified that the jumpsuit seemed cut, not torn by a dingo.

Professor Malcolm Chaikin, Australia's leading textile expert, demonstrated for the jury how cutting the jumpsuit produced small loops of toweling, much like those discovered by investigators in Michael Chamberlain's camera bag, where police suspected Lindy might have temporarily hid her dead baby. On cross, the defense got Chaikin to admit that the loops might also have come from a new, unwashed suit. (The Chamberlains said that they sometimes used the camera bag as a place to stuff Azaria's clothes.) Biologist Joy Kuhl, the prosecution's thirty-fifth witness, presented what the Crown saw as some of its most damning evidence. Kuhl told jurors that her tests proved that the blood found on the dash support bracket in the Chamberlain's Torana belonged to an infant. On cross, Defense Counsel Phillips forced Kuhl to admit all the plates she used in her actual blood tests "have been destroyed"--a practice she called "standard procedure in our laboratory." Phillips also raised questions about the accuracy of her test results, suggesting that the blood--if that's what it was--might well have come from the bleeding hitchhiker picked up by the Chamberlains in 1979.

Crown witness Bernard Sims had investigated about two dozen attacks by dogs on humans in his job as a London ondontologist. Sims saw nothing consistent with a dingo attack in Azaria's clothing, claimed that a dingo attack would cause "copious" bleeding, and indicated that a baby's head could not fit into the jaws of a dingo. On cross, Sims reaffirmed that a the opening of a dingo's "mouth wouldn't allow it to get [over a baby's skull." Kirkham then surprised Sims with a photo of a dingo with the head of a baby-sized doll taken, crown first, with the canine teeth reaching to the doll's ears. Sims, staring at the photograph, could only concede that his earlier supposition might have been mistaken. James Cameron was the final witness for the prosecution. Cameron, a professor of forensic medicine, testified that Azaria was killed by "a cutting instrument across the neck, or around the neck" held by a human. He exhibited to the jury slides of Azaria's clothing taken in his laboratory with ultra-violet light which he believed showed the pattern of bloodied fingers.

Cross-examination focused attention on previous cases in which Cameron's pro-prosecution testimony had helped incriminate what turned out to be innocent suspects. On October 13, the defense began its case. John Phillips ended his opening statement by pointing to the witness stand and saying, "I call Mrs. Chamberlain." Tears slid down Lindy's face as she described the clothing her daughter was wearing the last night she laid her down: "She had a white knitted Marquis jacket, with a pale lemon edging." Phillips asked Lindy to place her index finger next to Cameron's exhibit which, the professor claimed, showed bloodied fingers. The point became obvious, when spectators realized that the print made by so-called bloodied fingers showed four phalanges, while Lindy Chamberlain, and virtually every other human on the planet, have only three. Much of Ian Barker's cross-examination of Lindy was devoted to poking holes in her story about seeing a dingo in the vicinity of the family tent. He asked her to explain how a dingo, shaking a bleeding baby, would not have left large quantities of blood in and around the tent.

He also challenged the defendant to account for the fetal blood which his experts claimed to have found in the family car. Lindy resisted saying, "I'm not going to speculate how it got there." Near the end of his long cross-examination Barker began asking "questions" that were really just statements for the jury. "Mrs. Chamberlain," the Queen's Counsel said at one point, "may I respectfully suggest to you that the whole [dingo] story is mere fantasy?" More than two dozen defense witnesses followed Lindy to the stand. Several testified as to the Chamberlain's fine character and their grief over the loss of their daughter. Other witnesses told either of their own frightening encounters with Ayer's Rock dingoes, or testified in general about the aggressiveness of the region's wild dogs. In addition, eight defense forensic experts would attack the dubious tests or conclusions of the prosecution's experts, on subjects ranging from fiber to blood evidence. The defense saw Professor Barry Boettcher as one of its most important forensic experts. Boettcher attacked Joy Kuhl's conclusions that the Chamberlain car contained significant quantities of fetal blood.

In complicated testimony that might have flown right over the heads of the jurors, Boettcher tried to explain why Kuhl's testing method might have produced false positives for fetal blood. Later, another expert, Richard Nairn would also pile on Kuhl's results, arguing that the sheer number of Kuhl's tests was irrelevant: "Two hundred bad tests are poorer than one good test." Some of the most riveting defense testimony came from defense dingo expert Les Harris contended that a dingo after prey the size of Azaria would "make seizure, which would be of the entire head, and it would close its jaws sufficiently to render the mammal immobile." It would be most unlikely to "hang around" with its prey, Harris contended. Harris said dingo kills in the field produce "very little" blood and that they characteristically shake their heads after taking prey "to break the neck." Except for one recalled expert, the last defense witness was Michael Chamberlain. Ian Barker, in his cross-examination of Michael, focused heavily on the his actions in the first hours after Azaria's disappearance.

Barker suggested that Michael's failure to ask Lindy certain questions, or to go running off into the brush in search of his daughter, was because he already knew Lindy had killed his daughter: "Could it be because you knew that the dingo did not take her, and that she was dead at the hands of your wife?" Michael answered, in a low voice, "No." Barker pushed hard: "The whole story is nonsense, and you know it." "No, Mr. Barker," Michael insisted again. Courtroom observers concluded that Chamberlain's testimony lacked spirit; it seemed both weary and inappropriately nonchalant. When his long hours on the stand finally ended, he took a seat in the courtroom next to his wife, and held her hands. Phillips, in his summation, stressed that the prosecution failed to provide even a remotely plausible explanation as to why Lindy Chamberlain would want to kill her own child. "The prosecution has had two years and three months to think of a reason," he said, and "they can't." Barker, summing for the Crown, admitted that no motive had been proved, but insisted that was neither the prosecution's intent or its job.

"All the Crown says is that you should find the murder happened," Barker told the jury. He turned the tables by asking the jury to consider the lack of evidence that might suggest the dingo was guilty. "How could you possibly convict [the dingo] on this evidence?" he asked, noting the lack of dingo hairs or drag marks by the tent, the fact that no one saw it carrying a baby, and the relatively undamaged condition of Azaria's jumpsuit. "The case against the dingo would be laughed out of court," Barker concluded. On October 28, 1982, Justice Muirhead instructed the jury--in a manner that generally pleased the defense. He reminded them that Sally Lowe distinctly remembered hearing a baby's cry coming from the Chamberlain's tent, and that if she was correct about that, then the prosecution's assertion that Azaria was at the time lying dead in the Chamberlain's car with her throat cut could not be true. Most journalists left the Darwin courtroom expecting an acquittal. On October 29, at 8:37 pm, the foreman of the Chamberlain jury announced its verdict.

The jury found Lindy guilty of murder, and Michael guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Across Australia, the jury's verdict was greeted mostly with approval and, in places ranging from a speedway in Perth to a bar in Darwin to a convention of dentists in Newcastle, with sustained applause. Reports later indicated that the jury was initially considerably more divided that its verdict indicated, having first split four for conviction, four for acquittal, and four undecided. (One juror later told the press, "It came down to whether you believed it was a dingo or not.") Justice Muirhead sentenced Lindy to life in prison, but suspended Michael's sentence. "I consider it not only appropriate, but in the interests of justice to do so," he explained. The Trial Aftermath One month after beginning her sentence at Berrimah prison outside of Darwin, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to a second daughter, which she Kahlia. "Let them try to make something out of that," she said. Lindy regained some freedom, temporarily, when she was released on bail pending her appeal. Her appeal to the Federal Court was rejected, 3 to 0, in April of 1983.

Ten months later, Australia's High Court also refused to set aside her conviction, on a 3 to 2 vote, and Lindy found herself back on Block J of Berrimah Prison. As Lindy passed her days in a fortress on a ridge near Darwin, new reports casting doubt on the prosecution's scientific evidence helped spur a growing Free Lindy movement. Most damning of all the new reports was one showing that what the prosecution had claimed was the blood of a murdered child in the Chamberlain vehicle was in fact not even blood at all--it was paint emulsion. Well over 100,000 Australia's signed petitions calling for her release. The country remained, however, deeply divided on the issue, with one poll showing 52% of the nation's residents believed her guilty of murder. An English hiker named David Brett would, quite unintentionally, succeed in gaining Lindy's release after so many before him had failed. He did so in January 1986 by falling off Ayer's Rock during an evening climb and killing himself. Eight days after his accident, Brett's body was discovered below the bluff where he had lost his footing, in an area full of dingo lairs.

As police scoured the area, looking for missing bones that might have been carried off by dingoes, they discovered a once white jacket of a baby: Azaria's missing matinee jacket. Given the skepticism prosecutors had expressed for Lindy's story about the missing matinee jacket, there seemed little choice now. The Chief Minister ordered Lindy's release from prison. Wearing a pink frock and sunglasses, Lindy climbed into a limousine at the gates of Berrimah prison on February 7, 1986 and tried to begin a second life. A judicial inquest followed Lindy's release from prison, and in this one former prosecution witnesses had a lot of explaining to do. In May 1987, Justice Trevor Morling issued a 379-page report critical of the investigatory techniques of Joy Kuhl, James Cameron, and other key prosecution witnesses in the trial. He put great weight on the credible accounts offered by the Chamberlain's fellow campers, noting: "It is extraordinary that the persons at the barbecue area at the time of and immediately after Azaria's disappearance accepted Mrs.

Chamberlain's story and noted nothing about her appearance and conduct suggesting that she had suddenly killed her daughter." Morling concluded, "I am far from being persuaded that Mrs. Chamberlain's account of having seen a dingo near the tent was false" and that "if the evidence before the Commission had been given at the trial, the trial judge would have been obliged to direct the jury to acquit the Chamberlains." On September 15, 1988, the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously quashed all convictions against Lindy and Michael Chamberlain. A month later, the Chamberlains held a victory feast for invited guests at the Avondale College cafeteria. Among those invited by the Chamberlains were defense witnesses and lawyers, a couple whose daughter was taken from their car by a dingo, and journalists and politicians who had supported them during their long ordeal. Lawyer Ken Crispin, in a speech, praised the Chamberlains for being remarkably free of bitterness or self-pity.

The Chamberlains traveled to Sydney to see a preview of the movie based on their experience, "A Cry in the Dark." Lindy, in her book "Through My Eyes," called the movie, based on John Bryson's fine account of the case, 95% accurate and said that "no other actress would have been able" to play her better than Meryl Streep. Lindy Chamberlain wrote in the last pages of her 1990 book, "And now we wait, we wait for the Northern Territory to pay us what they owe." That day finally came two years later when she received $1.3 million in compensation from the Northern Territory government for wrongful imprisonment. The Final Chapter? In February 2012, a fourth coroner's inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain was opened by Territory Coroner Elizabeth Morris. Morris considered new evidence concerning dingo attacks on humans, including three fatal attacks on children since the third inquest, before concluding in an opinion announced on June 12, 2012, that a dingo did indeed kill Azaria.

Morris wrote,"The evidence is sufficiently adequate, clear, cogent, and exact" to "exclude all other reasonable probabilities" than that a dingo entered the tent where Lindy and Michael Chamberlain's young child lay resting on that August night thirty-two years earlier. Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton stated the obvious when she said, "This battle to get the legal truth about what caused Azaria's death has taken too long." Still, however, she took consolation in knowing "you can get justice when you think all that is lost." Lindy hoped that her baby's death helped convince Australians that dingoes are dangerous animals.

"We live in a beautiful country," she said, "but it is dangerous and we would ask all Australians to take proper precautions." Even with the cause of death on Azaria's death certificate changed from "unknown" to "dingo attack," the Chamberlain's attorney, Stuart Tipple, wondered whether any amount of evidence would satisfy some Australians who still blame Lindy: "I could show them a video of the dingo taking the baby and it wouldn't convince them." Australian dingo baby case to be reopened | Australia news | The Guardian Australia news Australian dingo baby case to be reopened Father of Azaria Chamberlain who disappeared in 1980 'confident' new inquiry will officially rule a dingo took his daughter The tent from where Azaria Chamberlain went missing at a campsite near Uluru in Northern Territory, Australia.

Photograph: AAP/EPA Associated Press Monday 19 December 2011 03.45 EST First published on Monday 19 December 2011 03.45 EST Close This article is 5 years old The father of a baby who infamously vanished in the Australian outback more than 30 years said he is confident a new inquiry into the tragedy will officially rule that a dingo took his daughter. The disappearance of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain on 17 August 1980, from a campsite near Uluru (Ayers Rock) divided Australians with some believing a native dog known as a dingo killed her and others who thought she was murdered by her mother, Lindy Chamberlain. Northern Territory coroner Elizabeth Morris announced on Sunday that a fourth inquest into the tragedy will begin in February to review the open finding of the third inquest that in 1995 failed to determine a cause of death.

The tragedy and the legal drama that ensued became the subject of the 1988 movie A Cry in the Dark with Meryl Streep earning an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Lindy Chamberlain, who has since remarried and taken the name Chamberlain-Creighton. Chamberlain-Creighton received a life sentence for her daughter's murder and spent four years in prison in the 1980s before the conviction was overturned. Morris said in statement that she would examine new evidence provided by Azaria's parents that dingoes attack children. Michael Chamberlain, who was given a suspended sentence in 1982 for being his wife's accessory in his daughter's murder but has since been cleared of any crime, said he is confident that the legal process would turn full circle by reaching the same conclusion as the original coroner Denis Barritt did in 1981 – that a dingo took the baby. "I don't think people open inquests without thinking there's good reason for it and that means there'd have to be a change from the status quo of the open finding that was in 1995," Chamberlain told The Associated Press.

"It's now looking at dingoes, not people, as to the cause of death," he added. But Chamberlain said he was prepared to ask the Northern Territory supreme court to overturn the 1995 coroner's finding if Morris had not agreed to reopen the case. "I am pleasantly surprised and very grateful that at long last there's a meaningful attempt … to determine the proper cause and truth about how my daughter died," he added. John Lawrence, a senior lawyer involved in a separate federal government inquiry that in 1987 exonerated both parents over the tragedy, agreed that the new inquest would be a final legal chapter that concluded a dingo was responsible. Previous inquiries were provided with no record of dingoes ever attacking children. But in 2001, a nine-year-old boy was mauled to death on Fraser Island, the last wild habitat of purebred dingoes off eastern Australia, and two girls aged three and four have since survived dingo attacks on the same island. "I think that the void will be filled by the new evidence on the dingo," Lawrence told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

"The inquest will come to a conclusion very much similar to Mr Barritt's … and that should really put it to bed," he added. Chamberlain-Creighton could not be immediately contacted for comment on Monday. But last year on the 30th anniversary of Azaria's disappearance, she pleaded in an open letter posted on her website for her daughter's death certificate to state that a dingo was to blame. "She deserves justice," Chamberlain-Creighton wrote. John Bryson, a lawyer who wrote the definitive book about the tragedy Evil Angels upon which the 1988 movie was based, said the new inquest showed that the Northern Territory legal establishment was moving beyond lingering biases against the parents. "They're entitled to their verdict," Bryson said of the parents. "They've been through a nightmare."

Question: What was the name of the woman in the Australian dingo baby case?
Answer: Lindy Chamberlain