October 10, 2019 • 31 mins
The Chamberlains go on a family road trip to the Australian Outback. Within hours, their lives are ruined.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the
following program may contain the names of people who have
died a perfect storm. The true story of the Chamberlains.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There were certain people within the Northern Territory police who
were determined to get her.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
People were saying to me, oh, you're going there to
see that woman who killed a child.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Bad things happen to good people.
Speaker 6 (00:29):
He asked the foreman, have you reached a verdict? He said, yes,
you're honor guilty.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Episode one, A Family Holiday.
Speaker 7 (00:43):
Hello. My name's John Buck. I work in the development
group here at seven Studios, where we create new TV
shows and podcasts for broadcasting and streaming around the world.
I started making a documentary late last year about a
miscarriage of justice, one of the worst in this country's history.
An innocent mother went to jail. But before I explained
(01:06):
her case to you, I have a question. Have you
ever taken your kids on a holiday road trip and
have you ever imagined that one of your kids would
die on that holiday? That you go home without one
of your kids? Probably not right. You're on a holiday
(01:27):
and your child dies. But imagine that it gets worse.
How is that possible? Well, imagine that your child was
killed by a wild animal. Police are critical of terrorists
in the Rocky area who've encouraged wild dogs to their camps.
Imagine that you and hundreds of others searched in Vain
to find your child, but nothing. Baby disappeared after dark,
(01:51):
but it was some time before the little girl's parents
became concerned. And then you have to leave. You have
to leave the police to search for your child and
go back to your hometown. You have to get the
kids who survived back into school and somehow try and
(02:13):
resume some kind of life. You keep going to work,
you keep going to church, and you keep hoping for
any news of your missing child. Eventually you're summons to court,
where you relive the worst night of your life.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Mister McNay said it was believed the remains of the
baby were supposed over and over again.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
TV crews and newspaper journalists follow you every move, as
do lies and death threats. But in the end, witnesses
support your story, as do experts and the police. The
coroner finds you and your partner not guilty and that's
the end of it. That should have been the end
(03:02):
of the Lindian Michael Chamberlain story. Two.
Speaker 8 (03:09):
You have not only suffered the loss of your beloved
child in the most tragic circumstances, but you have all
been subjected to months of innuendo, suspicion, and probably the
most malicious gossip ever witnessed in this company.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
Bazaria's parents should be remembered for being not guilty, rather
than for being retried and going to jail, rather than
spending their lives looking for justice. Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
took their three kids on a family road trip to
Oolaroo or as Rock as it was called then. Their
(03:52):
daughter Azaria was tragically killed by a dingo, but they
were cleared of any wrongdoing within two years, though Lindy
was in jail guilty of murder. I set up to
make a documentary on the chamberlains to coincide with the
fact that it's almost forty years since Azariah died. I
(04:14):
reached out to a few key journalists and asked them
to retell their stories for the documentary. Malcolm Brown had
started at the Sydney Morning Herald in nineteen seventy two
as a cadet on police rounds, and he stayed for
forty years. He covered the entire Chamberlain case and after
(04:35):
swapping some emails, we worked out a good time to talk.
Malcolm lives in Sydney Suburbs, a train ride from seven Studios.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
My name is Malcolm Brown.
Speaker 7 (04:50):
We started by talking about the chamberlains Well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They were just an anonymous, harmless Seventh Day vetter's pastor
and his wife and three children. And Lendy was very
bright and probably brighter than Michael, but very very happy
to be the wife of a Seventh Day Inventors pastor.
(05:13):
She herself was the daughter of a Seventh Day Inventist couple.
But had this event not occurred, they would have disappeared
into the anonymity of Seventh Advented Australia and never been
heard of.
Speaker 7 (05:26):
Of course, the event he's talking about is the death
of their daughter, Azaria, but as it turns out, we
could just as easily have been talking about Amanda. Malcolm
explained that there'd been a history of dingo attacks around
Ularu Ezra. He told me about Amanda Cranwell.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Six weeks before Azaria disappeared. A little girl from Victoria
was attacked by a dinga in the family car and
dragged out of it, and the parents sort happened and
had to intervene to drive the dingo of the Chamberlains
drove into an area where dingos were known to have
harassed or even attacked children. Rangers had nevertheless put up
(06:13):
signs and the toilet saying do not feed the dingos,
which was later regarded as a mistake because it cut
out the food supply that the dingos have become accustomed to.
Speaker 9 (06:23):
The dingo is Australia's top order predator. It will eat
everything through from a grasshopper to a wallaby.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
I asked Bill Beallard, one of Australia's top dingo researchers,
what he thought would happen if a dingo's food supply
was suddenly stopped.
Speaker 9 (06:42):
A dingo has to respond to the circumstances, and any
wild animal has become accustomed to actually being given a
food source over a slow period of time that then
could be removed in a very short period of time
and that would cause.
Speaker 10 (07:05):
Problems.
Speaker 7 (07:08):
As Rockhead ranger Derek Roff would have had to have
dealt with that problem. Mister Roff had worked as a
policeman in Kenya and in the National Parks before moving
to Australia in the late sixties. He'd been awarded an
MBE for services to wildlife in the weeks before the
Chamberlains arrived, but he'd also just written a report warning
(07:29):
his superiors about the dingo problem. He wrote in part
children and babies could be considered prey. With help from
the team in the Northern Territory Archive Service, I found
this rare interview with the late Derek Roff.
Speaker 11 (07:45):
As tourism took place dingoes around the Rock and one day,
who responded very much as wild animals all over the
world respond to increase numbers of humans, and that is
they tend to develop the population. They tend to feed
off the york and the human beings. And we were
giving it a great deal of thought, and eventually I
(08:06):
determined that we'd really have to get rid of some
of the dingos, that the becoming more and more of
a problem, and I requested permission to get some some
high powered rifle bullets. We did have a rifle on
the plot belonging to one of the rangers, but we
needed bullets and we were going to shoot a number
(08:26):
of dingos discreetly, but nevertheless we were going to shoot them. Well,
I was not back. I didn't get the I didn't
get the bullets and whatever you and a fortnight later,
as already had disappeared.
Speaker 7 (08:44):
And while it sounds less threatening, there was another problem
in our back Australia that helped send Lindy Chamberlin to jail.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
It was a long way from anywhere that during the
day the radio telephone connection cut out because of the
applissary conditions, and any complicated police inquiry was always going
to involve a huge delay in getting resources there. And
(09:13):
that was one of the problems with the investigation.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
As Rock is at least five hours in any direction
from a major town. If you have an injury, you're
a long way from an experienced doctor, and in nineteen eighty,
if your child was killed, you were hours from experience police.
This would prove critical in the weeks ahead. During the
(09:43):
train ride back to the office, I realized that like
most classic tragedies, the Chamberlain story has three parts, and
most of us only remember two. Part two, when Lindy
and Michael were found guilty of killing a Zara.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
Have you reached a verdict? He said, yes, you're honor.
What is that verdict? How do you find Alice Lynn Chamberlain?
The foreman replied, guilty? And how do you find the
co accused, Michael Chamberlain. The foreman again replied guilty?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
And Part three when the police eventually found a zarias missing,
matne jacket and Lindy was released from jail.
Speaker 12 (10:27):
Good evening, I'm Ross Simons. Well, for those of you
who may have missed the news earlier tonight, the word
from Darwin is that missus Lindy Chamberlain is free from
jail on license.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
It seems we've all forgotten Part one, when Lyndy and
Michael were innocent parents.
Speaker 8 (10:45):
I further find that neither the parents of the child
nor either of their remaining children were in any degree
whatsoever responsible.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
So what change between February nineteen eighty one and October
nineteen eighty two. I spoke with Linda Scott, an experienced
court reporter who'd covered the case for seven News.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
There was already a lot of talk sensational reporting. People
were saying to me, oh, you're going there to see
that woman? Who killed a child. There was a totally
preconceived idea that she was guilty and a murderer, and
I just don't know how people made that jump. A
lot of the evidence pointed to the guilty, and the
Australian public seemed to want to find her guilty, so
(11:29):
they found her guilty. It just seemed like justice gone crazy.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Who'd moved the guilt from a dingo to a pregnant
mother who convinced the media, a jury and the whole
country that Lindy Chamberlain was guilty.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I've often reflected back that if you were writing a
novel about what could happen in out back Australia, the
whole sinna couldn't have been better scripted.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Philip Castle as a retired crime journalist and university lecturer
three decades I asked him what was going on in
the years between innocent and guilty.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Whether there was a malicious intent or not? I could
never work out. But there were certain people within the
Northern Territory Police who were determined after a while to
get her and felt it with a slight on the
Northern Territory that a dingo could be blamed. There was
also another agenda running, which was that the Northern Territory
(12:35):
were trying to promote tourism and this would have been
was a very significant negative about people traveling to outback
Australia in the Northern Territory, and I think there was
a financial factor involved as well.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
Philip was one of the very few to have visited
and interviewed Lindy while she was in jail.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I was brought into a room with the table against
a wall and I sat down, got out my pen
and paper. She sat down opposite me. The most important
one for me was to ask her point blank who
did she murder Azariah?
Speaker 9 (13:12):
When she got quite.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Upset actually, and I thought, see that's pretty close to
the bay, and I may or may not have blown
this interview.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
I'll play that amazing story in this podcast. I've worked
with seven since nineteen eighty four when I started as
a film editor in the newsroom, so I know we
have a massive collection of news stories and camera material
in our archives. Announcement of the outcome investigation has been
delayed because the were forensically. With the help of Stephen,
(13:43):
the manager of our National Library, I started looking through
all of the interviews and all of the footage from
the Chamberlain case. Pretty soon we found material that was shocking.
Here's an interview by Marke Darcy from Brisbane news Room.
He's talking with Mayra Fogerty, the junior police forensic officer
(14:06):
who been given the job of investigating Azaria's death.
Speaker 13 (14:09):
I have a lot of sympathy for the Chamberlains.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
There.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
They were in effect accused of murder and put under
the pressure of two parents put under the pressure of
being accused of killing their own child.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And in a roundabout way, you were a part responsible
for that.
Speaker 13 (14:38):
In a roundabout way, yeah, I don't think I was responsible,
but I think that the police force certainly helped in
prolonging that impression, that pressure.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Because of allowing an inexperienced.
Speaker 13 (14:54):
For allowing me to do something that I had no
idea of how to do.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
He had only been working in police forensics for three months. Unintentionally,
she helped seal the fate of the Chamberlains based on
what she had read in local newspapers.
Speaker 13 (15:13):
You know, I wasn't sure about the case, so I
didn't I had nothing to guide me apart from what
I did in the newspapers, and so you.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Had to rely on the newspapers to carry out your
forensic investigation to write a report.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Yes, for the Northern Territory Police Force.
Speaker 13 (15:29):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Fogui also claimed that she was told by a senior
police officer not to check the Chamberlain's bloodstained tent.
Speaker 13 (15:38):
I was told not to do something that I thought
should have been known.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
And that was not check the turm.
Speaker 13 (15:43):
That's right, I was. I was annoyed at the because
I didn't get any reasons why apart from the fact
that it wasn't necessary and therefore, you know, put it
away some idea.
Speaker 7 (15:59):
Why would she be told at disgusted? And who told
her that? Stephen rang to say he'd found an interview
with one of the indigenous people it searched for Azaria
in nineteen eighty Nipperwin Marty and other trackers told the
inquest that they had found Dingo paw prints leading away
from the tent and they had no doubt on who
(16:22):
was responsible for Azaria's death.
Speaker 13 (16:25):
When they said Linda Barry the baby, they couldn't find it, Uh.
Speaker 14 (16:28):
That that happened happened believe in Dingle, Yeah, Lindy's Kelly
Kelly Dingoes, Keldy of course, because I've been seeing track
and around in the tent and for nothing.
Speaker 13 (16:52):
Linda's in jail for nothing.
Speaker 14 (16:54):
Oh yes, Lindy's good girl.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
The Angle people have a deep understanding of the dangers
around the heirsrog Ruleroo campsites. They have coexisted with Dingoes
for around four thousand years, So why was their evidence dismissed?
Then I got an email from the Chamberlain's lawyer, Stuart Tipple.
Hit heard that I was interviewing people about the case
(17:21):
and that I was asking the same questions he's been
asking for thirty years. How did Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
go from innocent to guilty?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
So just sort of outline to me what we're going
to do and where we're going to start.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
And Stuart recalled the story that had convinced the jurors,
the public and the media.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
The Crown was able to propose that, well, this is
where the baby had been killed. Lindy had taken her
to the car, she'd sat on the seat, she'd cut
a throat or cut her head off, and in the
last act of her dying Asaria, this little spray had
sprayed from Azaria and sprayed the underdash area, while probably
(18:08):
she was putting the baby in a camera bag, which
the police seized when they had raived the Chamberlain's home.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
Hearing that story made me feel sick, and I wondered,
for how did he feel after all of these years.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Everybody is often faced with any trial thinking about the
last moments of someone's life, and in this case, you
couldn't help but conjure in your mind the graphic picture
of a beautiful little nine and a half week old
(18:45):
baby dying, and that was the image that the Crown portrayed.
That she just wasn't dying, that she'd been killed brutally
by a mother and callously stuffed into a camera bag,
and her last act was there for all to see.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
I spoke with Stuart for more than an hour, and
I'll play more of that later. But here's something you
need to hear now.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Most people don't realize that there's this independent witness who's
always said I heard the baby cry at a time
that the Crown said the baby was already dead. Because
if on the Crown scenario, Lindy had killed the baby
when she'd left the barbecue and before she returned, the
(19:35):
baby wouldn't have cried out, and Sally would not have
heard the baby cry.
Speaker 7 (19:41):
Obviously, I needed to talk to Sally, Sally Shaw, the
independent witness. You've probably never heard Sally Shaw speak, even
though she gave evidence at both the trial and inquests
and at public rallies held for the Chamberlains. That's because
people didn't believe her, so she stopped talking. She tried
(20:05):
to get on with her life, so I thought it
was unlikely that she would respond to my request. While
I waited for her reply, I created two lists. One
was questions who would benefit from a guilty verdict? Who
was involved in the investigation? Why were the Chamberlains so disliked?
(20:30):
Could a dingo really kill and carry away a child?
And then a list of the people who may be
able to answer those questions. And there was one other
factor I needed to research. Could this happen again? Could
it happen tomorrow? Then I got a text message. Apparently
(20:52):
Sally Shaw hates email. She wanted to talk and tell
the story of that night in August nineteen eighty, We'll
return to a perfect storm in just a moment with
Sally's amazing interview. Sally flew herself to our studios in
Sydney and we sat down one night after everyone had
(21:15):
left the building.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And where are you from.
Speaker 15 (21:21):
My name is Sally Shaw and I've lived the majority
of my life in Tasmania.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Sally Shaw grew up in Tasmania as one of nine kids.
It was a big family, and she knows all about
kids and all about kids crying.
Speaker 15 (21:36):
And I guess there's one thing that's instilled with me
right from an early age. You know, you always tell
the truth, you always do the right thing, and all
that sort of thing. The very ingrained.
Speaker 10 (21:49):
Just a natural part of my life.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
Sally had worked as a law clerk in Devenport before
starting a family with her husband Greg. Sally and their
young daughter Chantelle made the same camping trip to as
Rock as the Chamberlain's. They climbed the big red Rock
like the Chamberlains, and they took photos like the Chamberlains.
Speaker 15 (22:12):
We came back and by the time we came back
another family had also set up. There was two barbecues
in the shelter and they'd also set up to do
their evening meal. So as you do when you're camping,
you saylo and have a chat and we got talking
and Lindy was there with the baby in her arms
(22:32):
and trying to settle it down. And we had a
good look at the baby and a chat and everything
like that, and she was really cute and we were
thinking about having another child looking at this cute little bubby.
Speaker 10 (22:44):
And uh oh.
Speaker 15 (22:48):
And somewhere along then, I'd been to change my daughter
snappy and went to the bins, and we're now standing
near the bins. I felt a presence, you know, like
you just thought that I was someone's right behind me.
And I turned and there was a dingo there and
I just I don't ask me why, but I just
felt really wary the way it was looking at me.
(23:09):
And Chanteau was on my hip, and it followed me
back to the barbecue area, and then that disappeared into
the scrub.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
After I heard Sally tell me that I wondered how
many dingoes were there around the campsite at airs Roch
in late August nineteen eighty. So I looked at the
research papers that experts had presented in court, and the
number is staggering. They were between thirty and forty pure
or hybrid dingos around as Rock and a dozen of
(23:45):
those dingoes were near the barbecues.
Speaker 15 (23:50):
And we just got on really well. I mean, I
didn't know he was a ministry religion or anything.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
We just we chatted.
Speaker 15 (23:58):
Linda and I were talking baby stuff at course, as
you do. Greg and Michael were talking. Greg was studying
UNI at the time. Markl had been doing some study.
I think they'd lived in New Zealand. We traveled to
New Zealand, so we had a lot of things in common,
just in general stuff. So it was just a nice,
(24:21):
pleasant camping chat going on, you know. And of course
the world would change within about twenty minutes half.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Na of that night. That their chambers were totally relaxed.
They were on a holiday. They were they did not
anticipate any danger and they thought it was quite safe,
and they the put they had put the baby and
(24:51):
one of the children in the tent. There are on
the tent entrance, and they had no idea that a
predatory dingo would come in and sees a child. There
be no other stories around that they knew about it.
They had no anticipation of it.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
As well as Sally and her family, there are at
least four other families nearby, including the habies and the wests.
The west had scared away at Dingo the previous night
when it tried to attack.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I think it does reach a threshold where the dingoes
were taking morble liberties, and I think that inevitably a
dingo would go further, just as animals themselves take greater
and greater liberties, and then one try something even more
extravagant than the others.
Speaker 15 (25:41):
Follow We were having a meal and that was still
cooking some tea, and Lindy went to put the baby
down because she'd finally the baby had finally settled down,
and Aiden went with her. So I saw them going
walking out the tent, and Greg said he saw them
(26:03):
coming back. And I picked her up when she's coming
back along the bath and she hadn't been back there
very long. And I heard the baby cry and I
didn't say anything, but Michael said that's Bobby or something,
you know, to check, and then he goes, I can't
hear anything, and I said, ah, that was definitely the
(26:25):
babies cry. And it was like a short, sharp cry.
I mean, looking back, when you put everything together, you
realize that's probably her last breath. But at the time
I'm just thinking you know, my child had a lot
of wind. They can cry out in pain in her
Maybe it was something like that, I don't know. And
(26:48):
she went back to check on the baby and.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
That's when she let out the cry and it was
just I keep it still forty years since then.
Speaker 15 (27:05):
It was.
Speaker 10 (27:07):
Garaging, It really was.
Speaker 15 (27:10):
It just really it was like someone put a knife
through the cry that you heard.
Speaker 10 (27:15):
It was really really horrific.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The dingoes were around, the tent was left undone. Momentally,
the dingo saw its opportunity, went in, grabbed the baby
by the neck of the head and took it.
Speaker 15 (27:36):
I think it took us a few seconds to react.
We just weren't. We're just like it was just too
unreal to to take it on board. Boys went running
over to it straight away. They went tearing off in
the direction where we thought they didn't go gone.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes
because she was dragged away by the dingo, who left
its footprints there and at one stage put the baby
down to change its grip, leaving imprint of the jumpsuit
on the sand.
Speaker 15 (28:15):
There wasn't much that Lindy and I could do, really,
because without a torch. We were a bit hampered, so,
you know, Lindy was really shaken and upset, and another
lady came to comfort her, and Aiden got really upset,
and I thought, I'm useless.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
You know, what can I do? So I took him.
Speaker 15 (28:37):
I talked to him about putting him in the tent,
not thinking God, I'd see and I got he was
on the left and my daughter was on my hip still,
and I just sort of poked into the tent, and
that's when I realized that that.
Speaker 10 (28:53):
There wasn't going to be any hope.
Speaker 15 (28:56):
When I looked in the tent, on the right hand
top corner, blankets were just yanked out.
Speaker 10 (29:02):
It looked like they were ripped. I couldn't tell.
Speaker 15 (29:04):
They were sort of yanked out of the little bassinet
in the back corner and unearly knelt in a pool
of blood in front of me, and I thought I
shielded Aiden from it, but I didn't. He must have
seen it, and he started to get really upset. I
realized there was a child in the sleeping bag there,
(29:25):
and Aidan was getting upset. Such shook and shook and shook,
and eventually Reagan stirred. Later I found he was too
frightened to move because he thought he was going to
something was going to happen to him. So I got
Aiden out of there, and another lady was I think,
took over caring for him as well, because by this
(29:46):
time more campits were coming around. The first person to
arrive on the scene then was the ranger and tracker.
Speaker 11 (29:57):
Thought when the alarm went up that night was God,
it's happened, you know, and everybody I think on the
park I thought that, right, this is without a doubt
the dinger Wash taking the baby.
Speaker 15 (30:14):
You've got the impression that they weren't shocked that it happened,
that this has happened, and this is what we need
to do to try and you know, find out what's
happened to the baby. They were sort of busy in
the throes of working it out, you know, to try
and try and find a baby. The fact that the
(30:36):
cry was cut off like it was a sharp cry
and it just seemed to stop mid cry. I just
in my mind as soon as I saw the blood
and associated with a cry to me, that child.
Speaker 7 (30:47):
Was Dear Azaria Chamberlain has been missing for less than
half an hour. Hundreds of people are searching for her,
but mistakes and actions in the next few hours were
result in her mother going to jail. In the coming weeks.
I'll lay out all of that for you. Normally there's
a promotion of soundbites from the next episode in here,
(31:11):
but I just thought it's better to say this. What
happens next in the story will shock you and it
will anger you. If you subscribe now, you'll get an
alert the moment we release the next show. I'd like
to say thanks to Nicky, Simon and Stephen who helped
create this episode, and a shout out to Georgina, Michael
(31:31):
and Therees, and thanks to you for listening.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the
following program may contain the names of people who have
died a perfect storm. The true story of the Chamberlains.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There were certain people within the Northern Territory police who
were determined to get her.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
People were saying to me, oh, you're going there to
see that woman who killed a child.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Bad things happen to good people.
Speaker 6 (00:29):
He asked the foreman, have you reached a verdict? He said, yes,
you're honor guilty.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Episode one, A Family Holiday.
Speaker 7 (00:43):
Hello. My name's John Buck. I work in the development
group here at seven Studios, where we create new TV
shows and podcasts for broadcasting and streaming around the world.
I started making a documentary late last year about a
miscarriage of justice, one of the worst in this country's history.
An innocent mother went to jail. But before I explained
(01:06):
her case to you, I have a question. Have you
ever taken your kids on a holiday road trip and
have you ever imagined that one of your kids would
die on that holiday? That you go home without one
of your kids? Probably not right. You're on a holiday
(01:27):
and your child dies. But imagine that it gets worse.
How is that possible? Well, imagine that your child was
killed by a wild animal. Police are critical of terrorists
in the Rocky area who've encouraged wild dogs to their camps.
Imagine that you and hundreds of others searched in Vain
to find your child, but nothing. Baby disappeared after dark,
(01:51):
but it was some time before the little girl's parents
became concerned. And then you have to leave. You have
to leave the police to search for your child and
go back to your hometown. You have to get the
kids who survived back into school and somehow try and
(02:13):
resume some kind of life. You keep going to work,
you keep going to church, and you keep hoping for
any news of your missing child. Eventually you're summons to court,
where you relive the worst night of your life.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Mister McNay said it was believed the remains of the
baby were supposed over and over again.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
TV crews and newspaper journalists follow you every move, as
do lies and death threats. But in the end, witnesses
support your story, as do experts and the police. The
coroner finds you and your partner not guilty and that's
the end of it. That should have been the end
(03:02):
of the Lindian Michael Chamberlain story. Two.
Speaker 8 (03:09):
You have not only suffered the loss of your beloved
child in the most tragic circumstances, but you have all
been subjected to months of innuendo, suspicion, and probably the
most malicious gossip ever witnessed in this company.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
Bazaria's parents should be remembered for being not guilty, rather
than for being retried and going to jail, rather than
spending their lives looking for justice. Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
took their three kids on a family road trip to
Oolaroo or as Rock as it was called then. Their
(03:52):
daughter Azaria was tragically killed by a dingo, but they
were cleared of any wrongdoing within two years, though Lindy
was in jail guilty of murder. I set up to
make a documentary on the chamberlains to coincide with the
fact that it's almost forty years since Azariah died. I
(04:14):
reached out to a few key journalists and asked them
to retell their stories for the documentary. Malcolm Brown had
started at the Sydney Morning Herald in nineteen seventy two
as a cadet on police rounds, and he stayed for
forty years. He covered the entire Chamberlain case and after
(04:35):
swapping some emails, we worked out a good time to talk.
Malcolm lives in Sydney Suburbs, a train ride from seven Studios.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
My name is Malcolm Brown.
Speaker 7 (04:50):
We started by talking about the chamberlains Well.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They were just an anonymous, harmless Seventh Day vetter's pastor
and his wife and three children. And Lendy was very
bright and probably brighter than Michael, but very very happy
to be the wife of a Seventh Day Inventors pastor.
(05:13):
She herself was the daughter of a Seventh Day Inventist couple.
But had this event not occurred, they would have disappeared
into the anonymity of Seventh Advented Australia and never been
heard of.
Speaker 7 (05:26):
Of course, the event he's talking about is the death
of their daughter, Azaria, but as it turns out, we
could just as easily have been talking about Amanda. Malcolm
explained that there'd been a history of dingo attacks around
Ularu Ezra. He told me about Amanda Cranwell.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Six weeks before Azaria disappeared. A little girl from Victoria
was attacked by a dinga in the family car and
dragged out of it, and the parents sort happened and
had to intervene to drive the dingo of the Chamberlains
drove into an area where dingos were known to have
harassed or even attacked children. Rangers had nevertheless put up
(06:13):
signs and the toilet saying do not feed the dingos,
which was later regarded as a mistake because it cut
out the food supply that the dingos have become accustomed to.
Speaker 9 (06:23):
The dingo is Australia's top order predator. It will eat
everything through from a grasshopper to a wallaby.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
I asked Bill Beallard, one of Australia's top dingo researchers,
what he thought would happen if a dingo's food supply
was suddenly stopped.
Speaker 9 (06:42):
A dingo has to respond to the circumstances, and any
wild animal has become accustomed to actually being given a
food source over a slow period of time that then
could be removed in a very short period of time
and that would cause.
Speaker 10 (07:05):
Problems.
Speaker 7 (07:08):
As Rockhead ranger Derek Roff would have had to have
dealt with that problem. Mister Roff had worked as a
policeman in Kenya and in the National Parks before moving
to Australia in the late sixties. He'd been awarded an
MBE for services to wildlife in the weeks before the
Chamberlains arrived, but he'd also just written a report warning
(07:29):
his superiors about the dingo problem. He wrote in part
children and babies could be considered prey. With help from
the team in the Northern Territory Archive Service, I found
this rare interview with the late Derek Roff.
Speaker 11 (07:45):
As tourism took place dingoes around the Rock and one day,
who responded very much as wild animals all over the
world respond to increase numbers of humans, and that is
they tend to develop the population. They tend to feed
off the york and the human beings. And we were
giving it a great deal of thought, and eventually I
(08:06):
determined that we'd really have to get rid of some
of the dingos, that the becoming more and more of
a problem, and I requested permission to get some some
high powered rifle bullets. We did have a rifle on
the plot belonging to one of the rangers, but we
needed bullets and we were going to shoot a number
(08:26):
of dingos discreetly, but nevertheless we were going to shoot them. Well,
I was not back. I didn't get the I didn't
get the bullets and whatever you and a fortnight later,
as already had disappeared.
Speaker 7 (08:44):
And while it sounds less threatening, there was another problem
in our back Australia that helped send Lindy Chamberlin to jail.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
It was a long way from anywhere that during the
day the radio telephone connection cut out because of the
applissary conditions, and any complicated police inquiry was always going
to involve a huge delay in getting resources there. And
(09:13):
that was one of the problems with the investigation.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
As Rock is at least five hours in any direction
from a major town. If you have an injury, you're
a long way from an experienced doctor, and in nineteen eighty,
if your child was killed, you were hours from experience police.
This would prove critical in the weeks ahead. During the
(09:43):
train ride back to the office, I realized that like
most classic tragedies, the Chamberlain story has three parts, and
most of us only remember two. Part two, when Lindy
and Michael were found guilty of killing a Zara.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
Have you reached a verdict? He said, yes, you're honor.
What is that verdict? How do you find Alice Lynn Chamberlain?
The foreman replied, guilty? And how do you find the
co accused, Michael Chamberlain. The foreman again replied guilty?
Speaker 7 (10:18):
And Part three when the police eventually found a zarias missing,
matne jacket and Lindy was released from jail.
Speaker 12 (10:27):
Good evening, I'm Ross Simons. Well, for those of you
who may have missed the news earlier tonight, the word
from Darwin is that missus Lindy Chamberlain is free from
jail on license.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
It seems we've all forgotten Part one, when Lyndy and
Michael were innocent parents.
Speaker 8 (10:45):
I further find that neither the parents of the child
nor either of their remaining children were in any degree
whatsoever responsible.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
So what change between February nineteen eighty one and October
nineteen eighty two. I spoke with Linda Scott, an experienced
court reporter who'd covered the case for seven News.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
There was already a lot of talk sensational reporting. People
were saying to me, oh, you're going there to see
that woman? Who killed a child. There was a totally
preconceived idea that she was guilty and a murderer, and
I just don't know how people made that jump. A
lot of the evidence pointed to the guilty, and the
Australian public seemed to want to find her guilty, so
(11:29):
they found her guilty. It just seemed like justice gone crazy.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Who'd moved the guilt from a dingo to a pregnant
mother who convinced the media, a jury and the whole
country that Lindy Chamberlain was guilty.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I've often reflected back that if you were writing a
novel about what could happen in out back Australia, the
whole sinna couldn't have been better scripted.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Philip Castle as a retired crime journalist and university lecturer
three decades I asked him what was going on in
the years between innocent and guilty.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Whether there was a malicious intent or not? I could
never work out. But there were certain people within the
Northern Territory Police who were determined after a while to
get her and felt it with a slight on the
Northern Territory that a dingo could be blamed. There was
also another agenda running, which was that the Northern Territory
(12:35):
were trying to promote tourism and this would have been
was a very significant negative about people traveling to outback
Australia in the Northern Territory, and I think there was
a financial factor involved as well.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
Philip was one of the very few to have visited
and interviewed Lindy while she was in jail.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I was brought into a room with the table against
a wall and I sat down, got out my pen
and paper. She sat down opposite me. The most important
one for me was to ask her point blank who
did she murder Azariah?
Speaker 9 (13:12):
When she got quite.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Upset actually, and I thought, see that's pretty close to
the bay, and I may or may not have blown
this interview.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
I'll play that amazing story in this podcast. I've worked
with seven since nineteen eighty four when I started as
a film editor in the newsroom, so I know we
have a massive collection of news stories and camera material
in our archives. Announcement of the outcome investigation has been
delayed because the were forensically. With the help of Stephen,
(13:43):
the manager of our National Library, I started looking through
all of the interviews and all of the footage from
the Chamberlain case. Pretty soon we found material that was shocking.
Here's an interview by Marke Darcy from Brisbane news Room.
He's talking with Mayra Fogerty, the junior police forensic officer
(14:06):
who been given the job of investigating Azaria's death.
Speaker 13 (14:09):
I have a lot of sympathy for the Chamberlains.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
There.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
They were in effect accused of murder and put under
the pressure of two parents put under the pressure of
being accused of killing their own child.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And in a roundabout way, you were a part responsible
for that.
Speaker 13 (14:38):
In a roundabout way, yeah, I don't think I was responsible,
but I think that the police force certainly helped in
prolonging that impression, that pressure.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Because of allowing an inexperienced.
Speaker 13 (14:54):
For allowing me to do something that I had no
idea of how to do.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
He had only been working in police forensics for three months. Unintentionally,
she helped seal the fate of the Chamberlains based on
what she had read in local newspapers.
Speaker 13 (15:13):
You know, I wasn't sure about the case, so I
didn't I had nothing to guide me apart from what
I did in the newspapers, and so you.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Had to rely on the newspapers to carry out your
forensic investigation to write a report.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Yes, for the Northern Territory Police Force.
Speaker 13 (15:29):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Fogui also claimed that she was told by a senior
police officer not to check the Chamberlain's bloodstained tent.
Speaker 13 (15:38):
I was told not to do something that I thought
should have been known.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
And that was not check the turm.
Speaker 13 (15:43):
That's right, I was. I was annoyed at the because
I didn't get any reasons why apart from the fact
that it wasn't necessary and therefore, you know, put it
away some idea.
Speaker 7 (15:59):
Why would she be told at disgusted? And who told
her that? Stephen rang to say he'd found an interview
with one of the indigenous people it searched for Azaria
in nineteen eighty Nipperwin Marty and other trackers told the
inquest that they had found Dingo paw prints leading away
from the tent and they had no doubt on who
(16:22):
was responsible for Azaria's death.
Speaker 13 (16:25):
When they said Linda Barry the baby, they couldn't find it, Uh.
Speaker 14 (16:28):
That that happened happened believe in Dingle, Yeah, Lindy's Kelly
Kelly Dingoes, Keldy of course, because I've been seeing track
and around in the tent and for nothing.
Speaker 13 (16:52):
Linda's in jail for nothing.
Speaker 14 (16:54):
Oh yes, Lindy's good girl.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
The Angle people have a deep understanding of the dangers
around the heirsrog Ruleroo campsites. They have coexisted with Dingoes
for around four thousand years, So why was their evidence dismissed?
Then I got an email from the Chamberlain's lawyer, Stuart Tipple.
Hit heard that I was interviewing people about the case
(17:21):
and that I was asking the same questions he's been
asking for thirty years. How did Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
go from innocent to guilty?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
So just sort of outline to me what we're going
to do and where we're going to start.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
And Stuart recalled the story that had convinced the jurors,
the public and the media.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
The Crown was able to propose that, well, this is
where the baby had been killed. Lindy had taken her
to the car, she'd sat on the seat, she'd cut
a throat or cut her head off, and in the
last act of her dying Asaria, this little spray had
sprayed from Azaria and sprayed the underdash area, while probably
(18:08):
she was putting the baby in a camera bag, which
the police seized when they had raived the Chamberlain's home.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
Hearing that story made me feel sick, and I wondered,
for how did he feel after all of these years.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Everybody is often faced with any trial thinking about the
last moments of someone's life, and in this case, you
couldn't help but conjure in your mind the graphic picture
of a beautiful little nine and a half week old
(18:45):
baby dying, and that was the image that the Crown portrayed.
That she just wasn't dying, that she'd been killed brutally
by a mother and callously stuffed into a camera bag,
and her last act was there for all to see.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
I spoke with Stuart for more than an hour, and
I'll play more of that later. But here's something you
need to hear now.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Most people don't realize that there's this independent witness who's
always said I heard the baby cry at a time
that the Crown said the baby was already dead. Because
if on the Crown scenario, Lindy had killed the baby
when she'd left the barbecue and before she returned, the
(19:35):
baby wouldn't have cried out, and Sally would not have
heard the baby cry.
Speaker 7 (19:41):
Obviously, I needed to talk to Sally, Sally Shaw, the
independent witness. You've probably never heard Sally Shaw speak, even
though she gave evidence at both the trial and inquests
and at public rallies held for the Chamberlains. That's because
people didn't believe her, so she stopped talking. She tried
(20:05):
to get on with her life, so I thought it
was unlikely that she would respond to my request. While
I waited for her reply, I created two lists. One
was questions who would benefit from a guilty verdict? Who
was involved in the investigation? Why were the Chamberlains so disliked?
(20:30):
Could a dingo really kill and carry away a child?
And then a list of the people who may be
able to answer those questions. And there was one other
factor I needed to research. Could this happen again? Could
it happen tomorrow? Then I got a text message. Apparently
(20:52):
Sally Shaw hates email. She wanted to talk and tell
the story of that night in August nineteen eighty, We'll
return to a perfect storm in just a moment with
Sally's amazing interview. Sally flew herself to our studios in
Sydney and we sat down one night after everyone had
(21:15):
left the building.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And where are you from.
Speaker 15 (21:21):
My name is Sally Shaw and I've lived the majority
of my life in Tasmania.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Sally Shaw grew up in Tasmania as one of nine kids.
It was a big family, and she knows all about
kids and all about kids crying.
Speaker 15 (21:36):
And I guess there's one thing that's instilled with me
right from an early age. You know, you always tell
the truth, you always do the right thing, and all
that sort of thing. The very ingrained.
Speaker 10 (21:49):
Just a natural part of my life.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
Sally had worked as a law clerk in Devenport before
starting a family with her husband Greg. Sally and their
young daughter Chantelle made the same camping trip to as
Rock as the Chamberlain's. They climbed the big red Rock
like the Chamberlains, and they took photos like the Chamberlains.
Speaker 15 (22:12):
We came back and by the time we came back
another family had also set up. There was two barbecues
in the shelter and they'd also set up to do
their evening meal. So as you do when you're camping,
you saylo and have a chat and we got talking
and Lindy was there with the baby in her arms
(22:32):
and trying to settle it down. And we had a
good look at the baby and a chat and everything
like that, and she was really cute and we were
thinking about having another child looking at this cute little bubby.
Speaker 10 (22:44):
And uh oh.
Speaker 15 (22:48):
And somewhere along then, I'd been to change my daughter
snappy and went to the bins, and we're now standing
near the bins. I felt a presence, you know, like
you just thought that I was someone's right behind me.
And I turned and there was a dingo there and
I just I don't ask me why, but I just
felt really wary the way it was looking at me.
(23:09):
And Chanteau was on my hip, and it followed me
back to the barbecue area, and then that disappeared into
the scrub.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
After I heard Sally tell me that I wondered how
many dingoes were there around the campsite at airs Roch
in late August nineteen eighty. So I looked at the
research papers that experts had presented in court, and the
number is staggering. They were between thirty and forty pure
or hybrid dingos around as Rock and a dozen of
(23:45):
those dingoes were near the barbecues.
Speaker 15 (23:50):
And we just got on really well. I mean, I
didn't know he was a ministry religion or anything.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
We just we chatted.
Speaker 15 (23:58):
Linda and I were talking baby stuff at course, as
you do. Greg and Michael were talking. Greg was studying
UNI at the time. Markl had been doing some study.
I think they'd lived in New Zealand. We traveled to
New Zealand, so we had a lot of things in common,
just in general stuff. So it was just a nice,
(24:21):
pleasant camping chat going on, you know. And of course
the world would change within about twenty minutes half.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Na of that night. That their chambers were totally relaxed.
They were on a holiday. They were they did not
anticipate any danger and they thought it was quite safe,
and they the put they had put the baby and
(24:51):
one of the children in the tent. There are on
the tent entrance, and they had no idea that a
predatory dingo would come in and sees a child. There
be no other stories around that they knew about it.
They had no anticipation of it.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
As well as Sally and her family, there are at
least four other families nearby, including the habies and the wests.
The west had scared away at Dingo the previous night
when it tried to attack.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I think it does reach a threshold where the dingoes
were taking morble liberties, and I think that inevitably a
dingo would go further, just as animals themselves take greater
and greater liberties, and then one try something even more
extravagant than the others.
Speaker 15 (25:41):
Follow We were having a meal and that was still
cooking some tea, and Lindy went to put the baby
down because she'd finally the baby had finally settled down,
and Aiden went with her. So I saw them going
walking out the tent, and Greg said he saw them
(26:03):
coming back. And I picked her up when she's coming
back along the bath and she hadn't been back there
very long. And I heard the baby cry and I
didn't say anything, but Michael said that's Bobby or something,
you know, to check, and then he goes, I can't
hear anything, and I said, ah, that was definitely the
(26:25):
babies cry. And it was like a short, sharp cry.
I mean, looking back, when you put everything together, you
realize that's probably her last breath. But at the time
I'm just thinking you know, my child had a lot
of wind. They can cry out in pain in her
Maybe it was something like that, I don't know. And
(26:48):
she went back to check on the baby and.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
That's when she let out the cry and it was
just I keep it still forty years since then.
Speaker 15 (27:05):
It was.
Speaker 10 (27:07):
Garaging, It really was.
Speaker 15 (27:10):
It just really it was like someone put a knife
through the cry that you heard.
Speaker 10 (27:15):
It was really really horrific.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The dingoes were around, the tent was left undone. Momentally,
the dingo saw its opportunity, went in, grabbed the baby
by the neck of the head and took it.
Speaker 15 (27:36):
I think it took us a few seconds to react.
We just weren't. We're just like it was just too
unreal to to take it on board. Boys went running
over to it straight away. They went tearing off in
the direction where we thought they didn't go gone.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes
because she was dragged away by the dingo, who left
its footprints there and at one stage put the baby
down to change its grip, leaving imprint of the jumpsuit
on the sand.
Speaker 15 (28:15):
There wasn't much that Lindy and I could do, really,
because without a torch. We were a bit hampered, so,
you know, Lindy was really shaken and upset, and another
lady came to comfort her, and Aiden got really upset,
and I thought, I'm useless.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
You know, what can I do? So I took him.
Speaker 15 (28:37):
I talked to him about putting him in the tent,
not thinking God, I'd see and I got he was
on the left and my daughter was on my hip still,
and I just sort of poked into the tent, and
that's when I realized that that.
Speaker 10 (28:53):
There wasn't going to be any hope.
Speaker 15 (28:56):
When I looked in the tent, on the right hand
top corner, blankets were just yanked out.
Speaker 10 (29:02):
It looked like they were ripped. I couldn't tell.
Speaker 15 (29:04):
They were sort of yanked out of the little bassinet
in the back corner and unearly knelt in a pool
of blood in front of me, and I thought I
shielded Aiden from it, but I didn't. He must have
seen it, and he started to get really upset. I
realized there was a child in the sleeping bag there,
(29:25):
and Aidan was getting upset. Such shook and shook and shook,
and eventually Reagan stirred. Later I found he was too
frightened to move because he thought he was going to
something was going to happen to him. So I got
Aiden out of there, and another lady was I think,
took over caring for him as well, because by this
(29:46):
time more campits were coming around. The first person to
arrive on the scene then was the ranger and tracker.
Speaker 11 (29:57):
Thought when the alarm went up that night was God,
it's happened, you know, and everybody I think on the
park I thought that, right, this is without a doubt
the dinger Wash taking the baby.
Speaker 15 (30:14):
You've got the impression that they weren't shocked that it happened,
that this has happened, and this is what we need
to do to try and you know, find out what's
happened to the baby. They were sort of busy in
the throes of working it out, you know, to try
and try and find a baby. The fact that the
(30:36):
cry was cut off like it was a sharp cry
and it just seemed to stop mid cry. I just
in my mind as soon as I saw the blood
and associated with a cry to me, that child.
Speaker 7 (30:47):
Was Dear Azaria Chamberlain has been missing for less than
half an hour. Hundreds of people are searching for her,
but mistakes and actions in the next few hours were
result in her mother going to jail. In the coming weeks.
I'll lay out all of that for you. Normally there's
a promotion of soundbites from the next episode in here,
(31:11):
but I just thought it's better to say this. What
happens next in the story will shock you and it
will anger you. If you subscribe now, you'll get an
alert the moment we release the next show. I'd like
to say thanks to Nicky, Simon and Stephen who helped
create this episode, and a shout out to Georgina, Michael
(31:31):
and Therees, and thanks to you for listening.
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