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Tuesday, Jun 12, 2012 2:15 AM UTC

Aussie coroner agrees dingo took baby in 1980 case

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Topics: From the Wires,

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Settling a notorious 1980 case that split the nation and led to a mistaken conviction, an Australian coroner ruled Tuesday that a dingo took a baby from a campsite in the Outback, just as her mother said 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 9-week-old daughter, Azaria, were announced in court. Lindy Chamberlain had been convicted and was later cleared of murdering Azaria, and has always maintained that a wild dog took her.

“We’re relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,” a tearful but smiling Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters outside the court in the northern city of Darwin.

Azaria disappeared from a campsite near Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the Australian desert now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. The case became famous internationally through the 1988 movie “A Cry in the Dark.”

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.

“No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and only attack if provoked,” Chamberlain-Creighton said before leaving the court with her ex-husband and their three surviving children to collect Azaria’s death certificate, which states the newly confirmed cause of death.

“We live in a beautiful country, but it is dangerous and we would ask all Australians to beware of this and take appropriate precautions,” Chamberlain-Creighton said.

Coroner Elizabeth Morris said she “satisfied that the evidence is sufficiently adequate, clear, cogent and exact and that the evidence excludes all other reasonable possibilities” than that the baby was taken by one or more dingoes.

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.

A second coroner’s inquest ended with Chamberlain-Creighton being charged with murder and Michael Chamberlain being charged with being 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.

More Rod Mcguirk.

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