No Caution - 3

The worst possible scenario is that Azaria has been wilfully murdered. The parents are taken in for questioning.

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Episode Transcript

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 (00:15):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
There were certain people within the Northern Territory Police who
were determined to get her.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
People were saying to me, Oh, you're going there to
see that woman who killed a child.

Speaker 5 (00:28):
Bad things happen to good people.

Speaker 6 (00:30):
He asked the foreman, have you reached a verdict?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
He said, yes, you're honor guilty.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Episode three, No Caution.

Speaker 7 (00:43):
Hello. My name is John Buck.

Speaker 6 (00:45):
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 and one of the
most famous. An innocent mother, Lindy Chamberlain went to jail.

(01:10):
I'd worked in the seven Yews room through the whole process.
I was sure I knew the Chamberlain's story, but I didn't,
and neither do you. Michael, a thirty eight year old
pastor in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and his thirty
four year old wife Lindy, decided to take their three
kids on a road trip. They went to one of

(01:33):
Australia's most famous tourist destinations, Oolaroo or airs Rock as
it was known in nineteen eighty, but their nine week
old baby, Azaria was snatched from a tent by a
hungry dingo and killed.

Speaker 7 (01:48):
He had been found of the meeting.

Speaker 8 (01:50):
Wild I just in my mind as soon as I
saw the blood and associated with a cry to me
that child was dead.

Speaker 6 (01:58):
Sally Shaw, her husband Greg and baby daughter Chantelle. We're
also on a camping trip to Azrak.

Speaker 8 (02:03):
And Lindy and I searched low lying shrub there. I
mean the baby could have been dropped. That was their
hope that the baby would have been dropped somewhere near.

Speaker 6 (02:14):
Despite a search by police, park rangers and hundreds of volunteers,
nothing was found of the child. Someone rings in and
says little missing kid.

Speaker 7 (02:26):
What happens in.

Speaker 9 (02:27):
Next first thing that the coppers do is get to
the scene as fast as possible and have a look
and see what's happened.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Duncan McNabb is a former detective and private investigator of
twenty years. I asked him to explain to me what
happens in real life, not on TV shows. When a
child goes missing.

Speaker 9 (02:47):
The coppers are trained to do some very physical things. Stop,
take a deep breath, look around, see what evidence is there.
Now that could be a crime scene in the street.
It could be, in the case of the Chamberlain cases,
an encampment with tents in the middle of the outback.

Speaker 7 (03:04):
Incredibly different geography.

Speaker 9 (03:05):
But this what should have happened, should have been the same.
Go there, talk to the parents, immediately, assess what is
the fastest way to find the child?

Speaker 6 (03:14):
Follow an Malcolm Brown is a retired newspaper germst of
forty years. He covered the entire Chamberlain case the police.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I don't think the police did a bad job. That
they were stuck with an unprecedented situation. They did their
best on the night.

Speaker 9 (03:30):
You look around, you've only got a small group of people.
First of all, by all mates, get them out searching,
that's the priority. But when they come back, do a
list of who they are, put the cast on stage
where they should be.

Speaker 7 (03:41):
That's how this thing works.

Speaker 6 (03:43):
But the Northern Territory Police didn't do that. They didn't
put the cast on the stage. Despite witnesses like Sally
Shaw wanting to give a statement.

Speaker 8 (03:53):
The police didn't take a statement from us. They didn't
really establish with the people who were there on the
night happened. And I understand they might have been intent
on finding the baby and that was their priority, but
they did not talk to the people who were immediately
camping next to.

Speaker 9 (04:11):
The chamberlains almost the next step, almost in the same breath,
you're also looking and thinking, what the hell's happened here?

Speaker 7 (04:17):
You stand back and you assess.

Speaker 9 (04:19):
You look at what might be a crime scene in
the most perfect of worlds. Copper should always prepare for
the worst. I hope for the best, which is finding
the trial.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
At that stage, there was no suggestion that Lendy had
killed the baby. It was an odd event, a strange event,
and a lot of people it never happened before in
common knowledge. There was a police we're inclined to believe
there's nothing to contradict what Lendy had said.

Speaker 9 (04:44):
Do you know that the trial doesn't have mobility, not
going to walk away or crawl away on its own,
so it has to be taken so you look at
a question of abduction, if so, by whom You've got
a very small group of people there that night, so
that immediately reduces a number of suspects to look at
whether or not there's been some sort of incident death
by misadventure which someone either the parents, cares, people close

(05:08):
in that immediate type circle have done something which is
a result of the child dying or been gravely injured,
and they decided that rather than fess up, they're going
to try and cover up that happens. And the worst
possible scenario is that the child has been wilfully murdered,
in which case, who done it?

Speaker 7 (05:29):
Where is the child, where is the body? Where is
the evidence?

Speaker 6 (05:34):
Dingoes were shot and guttered. Line searches were conducted, but
nothing was found inside the dingoes or in the bush
around the campsite. Expressed with no evidence to report, the
media and police turned their attention to the grieving parents.

Speaker 10 (05:52):
Say Lindy Chamberlain said her family had been accused by
Mount Isaac townsfolk of doing away with the child does
a bizarre religious sacrifice. Rumors were also ripe that Asaria
was spastic.

Speaker 6 (06:04):
Michael Chamberlain spoke to seven.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
News why we should be accused, for instance, of her
being linked with satanic activity. This is completely bizarre to us.

Speaker 6 (06:16):
Somebody actually suggested, did they that the baby might have
been sacrificed?

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Oh? Yes, And we have no idea where this could
have come from.

Speaker 8 (06:27):
It was sort of the beginning of the seed. I
think of people thinking those, you know, weird things that
they ended up thinking.

Speaker 6 (06:36):
Sally Shaw and her husband Greg, who weren't interviewed at Azrak,
had now returned home from the camping trip.

Speaker 8 (06:44):
So I finally convinced my husband we should make a
statement and we went to the local police station. They
took a statement together. Not long after that, came back
and they asked me more questions about the blood in
the tar, and I'm drue what I could remember of
what it looked like. That was sent off to the

(07:05):
Northern Territory, but it never appeared anywhere and what happened
to it. We checked with the local police and it
was definitely sent to the territory, but it never seemed
to have been used submitted as evidence at any any
time that I'm aware of.

Speaker 6 (07:21):
When Sally told me that, I didn't yet know that
the Northern Territory police had a secret. There are more
than one hundred and sixty boxes of evidence from the
Chamberlain case stored in Darwin. Her statement will be there,
hidden away from public view, with photographs and forensic tests.

(07:42):
And I've discovered this by accident. During my interview with
Stuart Tipple, the Chamberlain's lawyer, he explained his dealings with
Detective Sergeant Childwood.

Speaker 5 (07:53):
I later found out that every conversation Charlwood had with me,
in fact every conversation they had with anybody, was recorded,
and recordings were made of by Childhood of his conversation
with me. He had also taken Lindy in a car
and had had a conversation with her. Any conversation of that,

(08:17):
particularly in those circumstances, a police officer is obliged to
warn the subject that they what they say would probably
be recorded or taken down and used against them in
a court of law. In a case like this, recording

(08:39):
somebody without their.

Speaker 7 (08:40):
Knowledge is illegal.

Speaker 5 (08:41):
It was illegal then and it continues to be illegal now.

Speaker 6 (08:45):
I'm sure you're like me, you want to hear those tapes.
I'm negotiating with the Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency
Services to get inside their evidence fault. In the meantime,
I asked Malcolm around the Herald journalist what he knew
about the first evidence discovered by a tourist.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
The police did a thorough search after a Zara disappeared
for several days and there was no sign of the
baby until a week afterwards, when the baby's jumpsuit was
found at the base of airs Rock. Good have contacted
the police. Frank Morris arrived and with good when watching,
he approached the jumpsuit and he lifted up to see

(09:27):
what was if there's a body in it.

Speaker 10 (09:29):
There grew some bloody clothing collection which bore teeth marks.
Included a white jumpsuit singlet.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
The jumpsuit, booties, nappy and singing had been found near
a dingo den and were heavily bloodstained. They had cuts
and tears in the fabric. The baby's clothes were also
covered in small seeds and plant pieces.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
No body was ever found, and it was a sin
that it would have been devoured that the dinger would
have taken the clothes off, unpeel the body and eaten
the what was it ten kilos or whatever it was
of flesh.

Speaker 6 (10:08):
Now I know that description by Malcolm is really confronting
and we could have left it out, but we didn't.
The Dingo got my baby is not a joke.

Speaker 7 (10:21):
It's a fact.

Speaker 6 (10:24):
Azaria was never found and her matinee jacket was still missing.

Speaker 7 (10:32):
At that time.

Speaker 6 (10:33):
Detective Sergeant Graham Childwood took over the Azaria Chamberlain investigation,
and he sent the baby's clothes, vials of dingo saliva,
and hair samples from the Chamberlain's tent to forensic labs,
as well as examining the nature of the bloodstains and
if there were any dingo fluids present. He was no

(10:55):
doubt interested in the nature of the damage to the jumpsuit.
I asked former detective Duncan McNabb to explain what typically
happens next.

Speaker 9 (11:06):
A really good detective should keep their mind pretty clear and.

Speaker 7 (11:10):
Literally let the evidence take them.

Speaker 9 (11:12):
When you do an investigation, it's a jigsaw puzzle and
everything goes into place because you know it fits.

Speaker 7 (11:18):
Now.

Speaker 9 (11:18):
Sometimes in criminal investigation, we don't know whether that happened here.
In a lot of other cases, they try and make
pieces fit.

Speaker 6 (11:26):
The forensic labs now had most of the pieces of evidence,
despite a lack of specific expertise in hair analysis caned
biting techniques or any way to test for dingo saliva.
The laboratory almost immediately came to conclusions. It all but
dismissed the possibility that a dingo had caused the damage

(11:48):
to the jumpserit. The head of the lab said that
they looked more like cuts than bites, and were likely
to have been created by a person with some kind
of blade, As was the case throughout the Chamberlain story,
information quickly leaked to the press.

Speaker 10 (12:03):
The saga of the Azaria Chamberlain mystery re emerged today
and his snowballed. The most startling point was summed up
in an Adelaide newspaper headline reading forensic report suggested, dingo
I have.

Speaker 9 (12:15):
From a police source, being told that there is no
way a dingo could have taken your child.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
The forensic tests show that what's your reaction to that?

Speaker 7 (12:27):
No comment?

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Is there some other story?

Speaker 9 (12:30):
Could an aboriginal lady have your child?

Speaker 5 (12:33):
No?

Speaker 11 (12:36):
Having competed in the early days and having an open
mind on Lindy Chamberlain and Michael Chamberlain, you would ring
on his home number. He'd put on a strange voice
and make out it wasn't him, and you'd say that, Michael,
I know it's you, I know your voice.

Speaker 7 (12:52):
I'm ringing on your number. Who else would it be.

Speaker 6 (12:55):
Mike Smithson is a senior journalist for seven News. He'd
been on the chain Embeland's story from the very start.

Speaker 11 (13:02):
His suspicion with the media, probably very well founded, was
I want to know who I'm talking to and what
line of story they are going to take before I'm
going to commit to giving any information or show any
cooperation at all.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
It horrifies us to think that people could really honestly
believe such things, you know, after a tragedy, such as
as how could people turn so quickly?

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Will probably never know when the police moved their focus
from a dingo to a person, but they did, and
it changed everything. I asked former detective Guncle McNabb. Where
does an investigation into the death of a child normally focus.

Speaker 9 (13:50):
The first person you look at is the closest. You
will immediately look at. The last person. People with a child,
parents care as babysitizens, the last person to had custody
the child with a small child. That's quite easy, because
someone's got to be looking after the poor kid. So
they're for there, absolutely top of the suspect list, and
then you come down slightly to include other family members,

(14:11):
but it's a last person.

Speaker 6 (14:14):
Forensic scientists couldn't find dingo saliva on the jumpsuit, despite
the fact that the missing matine jacket had probably absorbed it.
They thought the hair in the tent was most likely
from a cat, but they weren't one hundred percent sure,
and a series of bite tests with zoo animals were inconclusive.

(14:36):
The police knew that the Chamberlains had visited other parts
of Airsroch on the day before the disappearance. They were
entertaining the idea that the parents had killed their child
and buried her near a dingo lair. If that was
the case, that Azari had been killed on the Saturday,
who was the child that Lindy was holding in the

(14:57):
famous photo on the Sunday? Was it really Azaria? But
most of all, the police just plain doubted that a
dingo could kill and carry a nine week old child
away from the tent and then remove it from the
jumpsuit without sharding saliva. The initial forensic tests had gaps

(15:18):
in their veracity, gaps that lined up with the possible
murder storyline the parents were guilty of something. The police
now wanted to know why there were seeds inside the
jumpsuit when it was found, if Azaria had been wearing it,
had a dingo carried Azaria's body through the bush, or

(15:40):
had the parents faked the whole thing. Detective Sergeant Childwood
returned to Airsrock with forensic scientists to conduct tests with
an effigy of a baby dressed in a jumpsuit. I
asked Stephen, the head of our National Video Library, to
see if we had any store is of the test

(16:01):
from October nineteen eighty. He found this report by Ross
Cameron from seven News.

Speaker 10 (16:08):
Detectors dragged the effigy through scrub much as they believe
a dingo would have if indeed one did carry off
the baby.

Speaker 6 (16:16):
Stephen also found an interview with Detective Sergeant Graham Childhood.
Because he's one of the main characters in the story.
It was really interesting to see and hear him for
the first time. He's in his late twenties, dressed in
white overalls and standing in the bush near Ezrach and
he looks confident.

Speaker 12 (16:37):
Well, we have up here from Adelaide, the forensic botanists,
and they're collecting various samples of plant matter from around
the area of the tent areas which we searched previously,
and also from the areas where the clothing was found.

Speaker 5 (16:52):
Do you really expect to find anything at this stage?

Speaker 7 (16:54):
Anything new?

Speaker 12 (16:57):
What as far as the frenzy botanists go, as far as.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
We concerned, well as far as evidence is concerned.

Speaker 12 (17:01):
Generally, I think we'll probably find perhaps not something new,
but more to substantiate what we've already got at the moment,
just to reinforce.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
What we have.

Speaker 6 (17:13):
What did child Wood mean by reinforce? It sounds like
a decision has been made and needs support. I put
that to veteran New South Wales detective Duncan McNabb.

Speaker 9 (17:25):
Some people have the genuine belief that they know what's happened.
I reckon, you've actually got it. You have to torture
yourself as a detective and bring yourself back on track again.
It's metaphorical this type. Stand back and have a look
at what you've done. I think, is there something I've missed?

Speaker 6 (17:45):
Detective Sergeant Childwood now had all of the reports in
from the forensic labs, expert opinions on puncture marks, cuts, tears, seeds,
saliva and the blood samples from Airsrael. He flew to
Mount iSER and visited the local TV station where he
watched the interviews made with the Chamberlains. He studied their

(18:08):
body language and noted their story.

Speaker 7 (18:12):
Not bad research.

Speaker 9 (18:15):
Yees see who they are, watch how they react. It's
fascinating it. Police aren't experts on body language, but they
know it. You tend to get any instinct for who's
lying to you and who's not. And if so, if
they're lying to you, how big is the.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Child.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Wood then drove to the Chamberlain's house with a local
police sergeant. They chatted to Lindy and went through all
of the items that they didn't already have in the
forensic lab.

Speaker 9 (18:42):
You've got your evidence together and you then get to
a point where you think, Okay, you're a good suspect,
and this is why you're a good suspect. I've done
my background. I know everything I can find out about you.
There's a power game played out here as well.

Speaker 6 (18:57):
Child would then request it from missus Chamberlain to sit
for an interview by herself at the Mount Azer police station.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
We found some scissors in the car that.

Speaker 6 (19:08):
Even though he was not yet involved as their lawyer.
In the Stuart Tipple recalls the reaction that the Chamberlain's
had to the ongoing investigation.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
But most innocent people have an inherent belief in the system,
as I did too.

Speaker 6 (19:24):
The Chamberlains had complied with requests for clothing and for
the police to search their vehicle.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
All of those things are so consistent with people that
are not only innocent, but have nothing to hide and
have this great innocence and belief that the system's going
to safeguard them.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
We'll hear more from Stuart later. Detective Sergeant Childwood drove
Missus Chamberlain to the police station for the interview.

Speaker 9 (19:56):
If you're going to do a formal interview, which is
I presume where they were heading with us, then it
he should be done in a police station because the
end of the formula inter view there's a reasonable chance
of your set of handcuffs, So you don't want to
have to then buddle them into the car. So they
sit down with the person and their lawyer, if their lawyer,
if they've asked for a lawyer, if they don't ask
for a lawyer.

Speaker 7 (20:14):
That's the problem.

Speaker 6 (20:15):
Lindy Chamberlain was alone without a lawyer or her husband.
For the next two hours, Childwood methodically checked the details
of the family holiday.

Speaker 9 (20:27):
You need a typewriter with three sheets of paper and
some carbon because back in those days a record.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
Of interview was typed in the room with Childwood, John Scott,
another detector from Alice Springs, and Sergeant Morris at the typewriter.

Speaker 9 (20:40):
So at that point it's quite informal until the paper
goes in the typewriter. The standard interview question is once
you get them started, happened, what happened then, and it
goes on for pages of what happened? Then if in
the middle of our our pleasant discussions, you're just giving
me evidence as someone who's potentially a witness, and that

(21:02):
could be in this case, is could mean Lindy Chaveman
could have just been a witness.

Speaker 7 (21:06):
What you heard, what you saw that night.

Speaker 9 (21:08):
It's fine, and they're talking away and suddenly something is
said that you think, oh, my goodness, at which point
you have an obligation stop the interview, and Saylor, I
think I have to caution you at this point anything
you do say will be maybe written down newsed against you.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Detective Sergeant Chilwood did not caution missus Chamberlain during this
session or when they returned the next day, a caution
being the requirement to advise a person of their legal rights.
In nineteen eighty it was not mandatory in all states
and territories to offer a caution before an interview. Detective

(21:46):
Sergeant Childwood was asked months later in court if he
suspected during the mount eyes of interview that Lindy Chamberlain
may have killed her child. Childwood answered no. When when
he was pressed for more information, he added, I felt
she may have known more about the death than she

(22:07):
had told.

Speaker 9 (22:09):
When you're interviewing a suspect for crime, it is very
seldom that they tell you everything. They will tell you
as much as they think you should know, or as
much as they think you know. Even the most honorable
person will tell you as much as they want.

Speaker 6 (22:25):
Will return to a perfect storm in just a moment
for a development that even I didn't see coming all
In all, Graham Childwood asked Lindy Chamberlain one hundred and
sixty five questions, then he showed her the forensic reports.
No dingo saliva on the jumpsuit, cat hair in the tent,

(22:45):
not dingo cuts, not bites in the collar of the jumpsuit,
and the fact that her blood type was found near
a dingo lair. Then Detective Sergeant Childwood showed her Azaria's clothes.
It was the first time Lindy Chamberlain had seen them
since she disappeared, and she wept. Childwood had a final question,

(23:10):
do you know what happened to Azaria?

Speaker 7 (23:14):
Missus?

Speaker 6 (23:14):
Chamberlain replied, I feel certain within my own mind that
it was a dingo. Detective Sergeant Chilwood then called for
Michael Chamberlain. The Seventh Day Adventures pastor had driven the
family car to the police station so it could be searched.
While he was being interviewed. He handed over his car

(23:37):
keys and sat down. Then something very odd happened. Detective
Sergeant Childwood cautioned Michael Chamberlain immediately, something he had not
done with Lindy Chamberlaine. I asked Duncan McNabb what he
made of that.

Speaker 9 (23:57):
The premise of that you can guess what was going
through them. The premise of that from me would have
been based on what she had said and the other
evidence they'd garnered. They believed that Michael was in fact responsible.

Speaker 6 (24:13):
I'm still stunned by this. Michael Chamberlain as the prime suspect.
There's only one person who knows if this is true.
So I will reach out to Graham Childwood and see
if he will break his silence of decades and sit
down for his own interview.

Speaker 10 (24:36):
Azaria's mother, Lindy Chamberlain, confirmed today she had given fresh
statements to police. Police say the new statements.

Speaker 6 (24:42):
Which comes within hours of their questioning, news reports emerged
that the Chamberlains were suspects in the disappearance of their
daughter azarition of.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
The campsite from which the little girl disappeared.

Speaker 11 (24:54):
The formal hearing and Ada Springs actually gets on the
way next week.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
There was already a lot of talk sensation reporting. People
were saying to me, oh, you're going there to see
that woman who killed a child.

Speaker 6 (25:07):
Linda Scott arrived in Alice Springs to cover the coroner's
inquest for seven She had moved to television from the
career male newspaper.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
We had pretty good training at court reporting. We spent
three months with the court reporter who taught us the
rights and wrongs and how to report a court story.

Speaker 10 (25:26):
The feelings now about the publicity, I have.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
No comment to macademical stage.

Speaker 7 (25:30):
Are you concerned of the publicity which is surrounded this case.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
There was already suspicion growing around Lindy Chamberl and I
found it difficult to understand why people were being so
negative toward her. I think partially it was because she
was a Queenslander, but even worse, a Queenslander who came
from New Zealand and in that era Queensland was looked

(25:53):
down upon.

Speaker 6 (25:54):
Journalist Malcolm Brown was also in Airs Rock.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Oh, it's a big story because it's blowing up, because
it's a it's an exotic location. It's like death on
the nihile of an exotic location. This beautiful, sexy young
woman and this and a hapless husband and the whole
the world is focusing on that. So it was a
huge media present, television, radio, everyone and everyone was there

(26:22):
and I'll or even then there's a fast bit of
skepticism and senators of the story.

Speaker 11 (26:30):
This is a landmark media versus the legal system case
in Australia.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
Mike Smithson from seven News recalls the first inquest because
never before had we had the portability of camera equipment
and videotape equipment.

Speaker 11 (26:49):
The sudden jump in technology and what was available, and
the clarity of the pictures that you could get from
a scene very quickly out of an investigation scene added
to a competitive nature and not necessarily a healthy one.

Speaker 13 (27:08):
It's believed a great deal of this case hinges on
police forensic evidence, and the first of that evidence is
expected to be given tomorrow from Alice Springs Linda Scott
reporting for seven Nationals.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
And I've covered court cases where there've been child rapists
and murderers, and I can understand the people outside there
with the noose and saying hang them. But this couple
had lost their child and at that stage, you know,
primer face, the evidence was it that it Dingo did it.

Speaker 6 (27:36):
While it was not yet involved. Stuart Tipple shared something
that few people know about the Chamberlains.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
They arrive there without even obtaining any legal advice.

Speaker 7 (27:47):
They hadn't even been to a lawyer.

Speaker 5 (27:49):
People said to them, hey, you realize here in the
gun you know people are saying awful things about you.
You better go and get some legal advice.

Speaker 6 (27:59):
When I heard that from Stewart I realized that I
also needed some legal advice, so I reached out to
a former judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia,
Kenneth Rafael. I asked him what he remembers from mid
December nineteen eighty.

Speaker 14 (28:15):
Woman killing a baby or a baby being killed in
some way is not something that would attract the attention
that this case attracted.

Speaker 7 (28:25):
It was a dinger, that's what got everybody into it.

Speaker 6 (28:29):
Then I asked mister Raphael to explain just what was
the role of a coroner and what made an inquest
different to say, a trial with a jury.

Speaker 14 (28:40):
The coroner has a duty to do two things. To
make inquiries about the cause of a death and to
make inquiries about the cause of a fire. Those are
the two major CLOBs of a coroner. The police will
report to the coroner that a car that's vanished and
that they suspect he might be dead, and the coronel

(29:02):
eendercides whether to hold an inquest, and that is an
inquiry into whether that person is dead or not, and
if so, how he died. It isn't a trial, it's
just an inquiry. So there's no there's nobody's been accused.
It's an inquiry into death where there isn't no known
cause of death.

Speaker 6 (29:23):
So the fact that there is no body that's an
obvious reason for the coroner have become.

Speaker 7 (29:27):
Involved in this case. It would be because if they had.

Speaker 14 (29:30):
Found the body, they would know immediately the cause of death.
When an inquest commences, they say this is an inquest
touching the death of X, and then it proceeds as
an inquiry.

Speaker 7 (29:46):
In quest touching the death of Azaria Chamberlain.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
The court itself was a modern premises and that the coroner,
Dennis Barrett, was a genial, good hearted former policeman, well
suited to being a magistrate of the North of.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
Territory, and he was very very kindly towards the Chamberlain's
and he frequently pointed out to the media and to
the public, you know, to be on their best behavior,
that they'd lost their child and they needed to listen
to all the evidence not to come to any preconceived
ideas about what had happened.

Speaker 15 (30:24):
First in the witness box was Azaria's mother, Missus Alice
Lynn Chamberlain. Missus Chamberlain wore dark sunglasses in court, was
softly spoken and frequently broke down.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
She was trying to be composed, but it must have
been very difficult for her. But there were TV cameras
thrust in a face, reporters chasing her up the street.
I just felt some sympathy toward her, even though there
was a chance that maybe she was responsible. But I

(30:56):
also her eyes were very telling. If you looked in
her eyes, you could see that she was in some.

Speaker 16 (31:02):
Sort of shop.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
It was like what we'd probably call PTSDs today, but
in those days that wasn't recognized. So her reactions to
questions cross examination weren't what you'd typically see from somebody
in court. I've never seen anybody like her before giving evidence.

Speaker 6 (31:22):
Former Detective Duncan McNabb.

Speaker 9 (31:25):
People do react very, very differently, and it's it's a
problem I've always had that there is an expectation that
we as the public, how that a person will react
in a certain way, and in part we're probably programmed
by what we've seen on TV, own.

Speaker 7 (31:37):
Films or we're read in books.

Speaker 9 (31:39):
I always take a deep breath because I don't know
how person is going to react, so you've give them
that benefit of the doubt. It's lovely to assume that
a parable have done expos out not necessarily, and there
are lots of cases of which I'm aware and have
worked on over the years that people react very, very strangely.
Sometimes some people react by watch how you'd expect them

(32:01):
to react, but for God's sake, don't judge them.

Speaker 6 (32:04):
From the moment that Lindy and Michael left airs Roth
the Seeds of Doubt group at the sight, Linda Scott
had reported on dozens of court cases, and she'd been
sympathetic to the Chamberlains throughout the inquest, but even she
was now starting to wonder about Azaria's parents.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
An interesting thing happened after she gave her evidence. We
were packing up our camera gear at the end of
the day and heading off. Michael Chamberlain came running down
the footpath toward me and he said to me, how
do you think Lindy went in the witness box today?
And I was quite taken, Aback. This wasn't a typical

(32:45):
grieving father or husband of a woman who'd just given evidence.
This was very unusual, So I was so taken Aback.
I was really honest with him. I said, I'm amazed
that her child has just been killed, and she could
just give such incredible will find detail without apparently showing
a lot of emotion. But the detail she went into
was just amazing. I just don't it doesn't compute. And

(33:09):
he said, you have to understand something about Lindy. She's
her mind works like that when she pegs close out
on the clothesline, she makes sure that the pegs are
the same color on the item of clothing she's pegging up.
Her mind has to be ordered and everything has to
be very clear.

Speaker 6 (33:26):
After weeks of hearing evidence, the coroner was ready with
his findings.

Speaker 11 (33:32):
And Dennis Barrett, who was the coroner, had agreed to
deliver his coronial finding on live television.

Speaker 7 (33:40):
Good bonding.

Speaker 16 (33:40):
I'm Frank Worwick. We are standing by a nart to
cross live to the Alice Springs Courthouse. But the findings
of the inquest into the Disappearance of baby Asaria Chamberlain
last August. I have the picture from Alice Springs coming
through in my monitor here. This is an historic television event.

Speaker 6 (33:53):
Being me, there's one regret that I have from the show.
I wasn't able to meet and talk to the late
coroner Dennis Barrett. But thanks to Linda's persistence and professionalism.
His findings have been saved for all of us to hear,
and you'll hear them in the next episode. Normally there's
a promotion of soundbites from the next episode, but I

(34:16):
just thought it's better to say this. Lindy and Michael
Chamberlain should have left Barrett's Courthouse and disappeared, but that's
not what happened. You'll be shocked at what happens next.
If you subscribe now, you can alert the moment the
next show drops. I'd like to say thanks to Nicky
Simon and Stephen who helped create this episode, and a

(34:37):
shout out to David h and the team at a cast,
and thanks to you for listening.