The Lindy Chamberlain Case: ‘The dingo’s got my baby’

On 17 August 1980, Alice Lynne Chamberlain (or ‘Lindy’ as she became known) raised the alarm on finding her baby, Azaria
Chantel Loren Chamberlain, gone from a tent at the public campsite at Uluru. Azaria’s disappearance and the subsequent trial
and imprisonment of her mother for her murder became the focus of the most intense and sensational media coverage of a
suspected murder in Australian history.

Azaria was nine weeks old when Chamberlain saw a dingo leaving the family’s tent on a camping trip at Uluru. On going into
the tent, Chamberlain discovered that Azaria was missing. Although 300 people searched the area throughout the night,
Azaria was never found. A week later, a tourist found Azaria’s blood-stained singlet, jumpsuit and nappy near a dingo lair.

Never before had there been such widespread public reaction to what began as an inquest into an accidental death and
became a murder trial. The media reported the unfolding legal inquiry with ghoulish dedication and, in many instances, with
limited attention to accuracy. The exhaustive media coverage provoked vicious and often ignorant outbursts from the
Australian public, to which Lindy later commented:

“How do you think we felt knowing most of you, our fellow Australians, were often maliciously discussing us over
morning coffee? … The media often misquoted me. They made up all sorts of dreadful stories. That Azaria was a sacrifice. That we always dressed her
in black. One of the media misquotes was that Azaria meant sacrifice in the wilderness. It actually means Blessed of God.”

The trial of the decade

On 20 February 1981, an initial coronial inquiry with magistrate Denis Barritt pronounced that it was most likely that a
dingo had killed Azaria Chamberlain. Adding to the already significant public interest, this inquiry was broadcast in the first
live telecast of Australian court proceedings. The Northern Territory Police and prosecutors were dissatisfied, however,
and a second inquest was held in September 1981.

The circumstantial prosecution case alleged that Lindy had cut Azaria’s throat in the family car and hidden the body. In the collection of papers in the National
Library of Australia that refer to the Chamberlain case are trial exhibits—including photographs of the family car which was tirelessly analysed by expert
witnesses looking for blood—and photographs of Azaria’s jumpsuit and singlet which it was claimed had been torn by scissors rather than the teeth of a
dingo.

Based on the presence of what was presumed to be foetal blood that was found in the Chamberlain’s car and associated other evidence, the Chamberlains
were charged with murder. A guilty verdict was delivered on 29 October 1982 and subsequent appeals to the Federal Court of Australia and the High Court of
Australia were unsuccessful. Chamberlain was sentenced to life in prison with hard labour while her husband Michael was found guilty as accessory to the
murder and given an 18-month suspended sentence in October 1982.
The evidence of witnesses at the campsite, the testimony of experts in dingo behaviour and verification from an Aboriginal man whose wife had tracked the
dingo and found marks on the ground, which were consistent with a baby’s body having been placed there, were all ignored by the jury.