Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is not suitable for children to listen to
or overhear. It may contain course language, adult themes, and
graphic descriptions. 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
(00:21):
the Chamberlains.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There were certain people within the Northern Territory Police who
were determined to get her.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
People were saying to me, Oh, you're going there to
see that woman who killed a child.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Bad things happen to good people.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Episode nine, The Worst Day.
Speaker 6 (00:44):
Hello, I'm John Buck. The Chamberlains had lost their child,
Azaria to a dingo attack. They'd been convicted by a
jury of murder or as an accessory, and then failed
in the Federal Court and High Court, and yet Michael
spoke calmly to a wasting media pack.
Speaker 7 (01:06):
I am firstly bitterly disappointed at the decision that has
been made here at the High Court.
Speaker 8 (01:13):
I would like to affirm that Lindley and I are.
Speaker 7 (01:16):
Innocent people, and that we will not stop fighting to
clear our names and the names of our family. Finally,
I would just like to say that this case is
not over yet.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
I do feel very much for Michael. I think in
some ways he got the worst sentence.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Stuart Tipple is the Chamberlain's longtime lawyer.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
He's the one that's on the outside. He knows that
his wife's innocence. He's got the ability and capacity to
do something about it, and so in that situation, he
was under a lot of pressure and I don't think
people sort of realize the pressure and trauma that must
(02:07):
have caused to him.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
It's against the law in Australia and most countries to
publish material or communicate material which may interfere with the
administration of justice. With the High Court decision made, Michael
Chamberlain was no longer restrained in speaking to the media
in fear of being in contempt of court. He decided
(02:30):
to give a one on one interview with Severn's Terry Willersey.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Is there anything particularly you wanted to say?
Speaker 7 (02:37):
My wife is an innocent woman, and it'll be virtually
over my dead body that she'll stay in jail. I'm
going to fight for her exoneration. I believe she's been
wrongly convicted, and I'm going to do my utmost to
clear my family's name and to see that she is
(02:59):
freed in the rightful way she ought to be. How
is she accepting and coping with prison life? I think that, uh,
she's coping us best as anyone could in the situation.
But deep down she is a very distressed woman, extremely upset.
(03:19):
She doesn't really know why she's there, and uh, she's
just doing the best she can from day to day,
coping and trying to remain a human being.
Speaker 9 (03:30):
What about your children the effect on them? Have you
explained to them or do they know what has happened?
Speaker 7 (03:36):
I think they know only too well what has happened.
We don't like talking about it too much because it's
so painful for us.
Speaker 10 (03:43):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
I know Reagan has had, on the odd occasion, some
rather unfortunate dreams. I guess you'd call 'em nightmares about
the night and Aiden is very unhappy, very angry at times.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Reagan's nightmares.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
What sort of things did he dream about?
Speaker 10 (04:02):
Did he tell you?
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Yes, he talked about the dog walking over him on
the night of having dreams of feeling the dog actually
walking on him, over him to get to Azariah, and
that really shocked me. It maybe wonder whether, in fact
he may have been awake at the time and was
(04:26):
too frightened to do anything.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
I'm sure many of you would like to hear all
of that interview with Michael Chamberlain, so we'll make it
available as a bonus episode soon. Now you probably remember
Les Smith from the last episode.
Speaker 11 (04:42):
Well, my focus has always been to find the most
incriminating piece of evidence and deal with that, because if
one can give an innocent explanation to the most incriminating
piece of evidence, then it's worth looking at other pieces
(05:04):
of evidence too, because they might similarly be incorrect.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
Smith volunteered his skills to investigate the evidence used against
the Chamberlains. He's systematically tested and then disproved the validity
of the so called underdash spray.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
After Les solve the problem of the underdash spray, he said,
if you got any other projects for me? And I said, well,
I've got one, And I never expected that he was
ever going to resolve it. So I showed him the
Chakeen evidence and the damage and the jumpsuit and I said, look,
Chakin says this material has to be cut and that
(05:42):
dingoes could not produce that damage. See what you can do?
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Smith tested various biting techniques of his own dog to
see if he could disprove the work of the Crown
expert Malcolm Chaikin. Chaikin had told the jury that a
bladed instrument had caused the damage to Azari's jumpsuit.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
The results he got were unbelievable. Not only could this
dog cut this material like a pair of scissors, but
it produced the cotton tufts in the damage areas, just
like Chaiken found in the Azaria jumpsuit.
Speaker 12 (06:24):
When the Chamberlains were found guilty, I was shattered. I
didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Professor Barry Botcher had discovered the flaws in the Crown's
blood tests, but he'd struggled as a witness in the trial.
Speaker 12 (06:39):
I knew that the test solution was faulty.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
Professor Butcher reminds me a lot of my own father.
He's humble and honest, and he's persistent because he knows
the facts are on his side.
Speaker 12 (06:55):
There was something going on with the test solution that
the manufacturers knew about.
Speaker 8 (07:02):
There was only one thing to do.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Stuart Tipple and Butcher traveled to Bearing Worker a pharmaceutical
company in Germany. Bearing Worker made forensic test kits used.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
Around the world, and we went to Bearing Worker.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
They met with mister Siegfried Baldia, the production manager.
Speaker 12 (07:20):
Dr Bawdner said, Oh, it's very unfortunate, but I have
none of that batch two four five six left.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
If Botcher had used a different batch of the test solution,
then his results could differ from Missus Cool's and their
validity could be questioned. Without a matching solution, the trip
to Germany was wasted and.
Speaker 12 (07:46):
I withdrew from my pocket a brand new, unopened bottle
of batch two four five six of the company's test
solution for fetal hemoglobin. And only one batch had ever
come to Australia. So Missus Cool and I had both
been using exactly the same test solution, and it was
(08:07):
agreed that we would.
Speaker 8 (08:09):
Set up a test.
Speaker 12 (08:11):
Dr Bowder said, oh, a technician will set up We
will leave it for twenty four hours, and then we
were worried the results.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
When Professor Butcher was telling me this story, I was thinking,
what you're thinking now, this sounds like a bad movie script.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
And when they come back in the morning.
Speaker 12 (08:32):
When we returned to the laboratory next day. The test
had been stopped. The test plate had been put into
salt water. I then shuddered, thout.
Speaker 13 (08:44):
Not have.
Speaker 12 (08:47):
Ruined the test.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Luckily, someone in the lab had taken a photo of
the result before it was placed in salt water.
Speaker 12 (08:56):
I said to Stuart Teple, We've got just what we wanted.
The test solution would react with that old heeamoglobin and
with fetal hemoglobin. Now we had what would collapse the
crown case.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
So now we had proof that you couldn't rely on
missus cool and that the underdash spray was not fetal
blood and wasn't blood at all. We also had Chaikin's
evidence destroyed. And one of the other things that Lev
suggested was, hey, what about hair evidence. There were hairs
that were found on the jumpsuit and in the tent,
(09:32):
and the crown expert said, look, I think that cat.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Is The Crown had relied at the trial upon the
fact that no dingo hairs were found on Azari's clothing
and that no such hairs were found and the items
recovered from the tent. Hans Brunner was an expert on
the hair of mammals and he developed a technique for
identifying them. He traveled with Stuart Tipple to the High
(09:58):
Court evidence vault.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
In the hairs were brought out, were mounted and a
slide hands brought was there with these microscope and I
tell you, in less than five seconds he had these
slides in and he said all Dinger hairs.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
Of course, all of these developments made their way into
the press and to the Northern Territory capital Darwin.
Speaker 14 (10:22):
No doubt about that.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Journalist Poor White remembers.
Speaker 15 (10:25):
You know, you'd say Darwin's different now, like every city
is different now. But Darwin back then was pretty wild
and they wanted to be treated with respect, and they
didn't think they were being treated with respect. But it's
a bit hard when you've destroyed you haven't. You've destroyed
the crime scene, you've ignored the finding of the first
(10:49):
in quest, you've come up with a second in quest,
you've charged her, convicted her, and then.
Speaker 14 (10:54):
All the blood evans.
Speaker 15 (10:55):
It starts unraveling, and I mean they're going to be
on the defensive for a long time.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
I think it's a state affair.
Speaker 16 (11:05):
One They talk about how.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
Just when we thought we'd found all of the material
about the Chamberlain's. In the seven video vault, Stephen found
an interview with Missus Joy Cooen. It was made by
Chris O'Connor, a reporter who is not on the main
computer system here at seven. So this interview had gone
unlogged for thirty five years.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Well, recently Professor Barry Butcher of Newcastle University said he'd
come up with new evidence the test carried out by
Missus Coole was inaccurate. Such comments of angered Missus Coole.
Why then, do you think he's come up with his
theory knowing that it probably can.
Speaker 17 (11:41):
Be shot down to vindicate his evidence in court. I
don't really know. I don't understand it quite frankly, Geor.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Do you think Professor Butcher is in a position to
criticize you?
Speaker 17 (11:53):
Well, I don't believe he is. He's not employed in
a forensic laboratory of any type evidence that he's given,
and then other courts indicate that he's had a very
limited experience in working on bloodstains, let alone old bloodstains.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
The very next day I kind of filed another story
for seven years, this time with Detective Superintendent your plan.
Speaker 14 (12:17):
Time for them to come up now three years later,
and start making brand new revelation have never been mentioned before.
I find him credit.
Speaker 18 (12:27):
Are you absolutely certain that you made no serious mistakes
that prior to the trial and during the triumph.
Speaker 14 (12:34):
The investigation that I was involved with, which was prior
to the second inquest and then the trial, know there
were no serious mistakes made at all.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So you're convinced that Lindy Chamberlin was guilty of the
charges that you brought up.
Speaker 14 (12:48):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Do you think that this will ever go away?
Speaker 14 (12:54):
I've spoken to mister Tipple, the Chamberlain's solicitor, and he
assures me that the pact.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
You can hear it already right.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Both sides of the Chamberlain story are going to be
debated on television, radio.
Speaker 8 (13:12):
And in the newspapers.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
Even though Lidi and Michael had lost court appeals, there
was an outside chance that the Attorney General of the
Northern Territory could be convinced to order a royal commission.
A royal commission generally inquires into, say a past event
like a lethal bushfire, to find ways to prevent a
repeat of such an event. Or a royal commission might
(13:37):
look into improper conduct in a profession, say like banking,
and Royal commissions are often used to address social problems
like Indigenous deaths in custody. I asked former Federal Circuit
Court judge Kenneth Raphael how a government wrestles with legal
ways to deal with a problem that doesn't have an
(14:00):
obvious solution.
Speaker 19 (14:03):
The government isn't entirely sure what to do about. It
is able to hand off a decision making requirement to
the commission and then it can get a report and
decide whether or not it wants to accept the report
or accept all the recommendations in the report.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
Does it take the politics out.
Speaker 19 (14:27):
Of Yeah, I think it does takes the politics out
of it, out of the problem.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
I knew then that the only way that I was
going to get a Royal Commission was to go where
no one had gone before and had to really have
a well orchestrated media campaign. The media had been our enemy.
It had to become our friend.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
They came from all around Australia, from all walks of life, academics, housewives,
brought together by the belief that.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
This man and the good thing is the media realized
it's a better story for them to actually become my friend,
because it kept the story bubbling along. I mean, if
Lendy had been properly convicted, that was the end of
the story. So very much in their interest to say, hey,
there's another side of this.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Stuart Tipple and the Chamberlain's supporters reached out to journalists
across the country.
Speaker 20 (15:26):
The damning evidence of bloodstains in the Chamberlain's car, said
to be fetal blood, has now also been discounted by
the Chamberlain Committee and Senior lect Allison.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
Fan has been a reporter in both the print and
electronic media since nineteen sixty three and she's spent more
than forty years reporting.
Speaker 20 (15:43):
For seven years was invalid.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
She's also a former colleague of mine.
Speaker 20 (15:50):
I see their recording.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
We worked in the same Perth newsroom with the same
boss at the time of the Chamberlain case. But she
has a connection with the story that I didn't even
know about until I called her this week.
Speaker 20 (16:04):
Lindy Chamberlain and her husband were devout Seventh Day Adventists.
After she was jailed, this committee was set up mainly
by Seventh Day Adventist supporters around Australia, and because my
parents were Seventh Day Adventists, not very very devout ones.
But because they were and used to go to the church,
(16:26):
my name came up because they trusted somebody who had
some links with the church. A growing number of judges, politicians,
lawyers and scientists have joined the Mushrooming Housewife committees in
pushing for a judicial inquiry, people like former Victorian Supreme
Court Justice Sir Reginald Shoal QC and former New South
(16:47):
Wales Justice. This committee that started up started to prove
that in fact a dingo had taken Azaria. But then
they've got other scientists involved, something like about forty of
them to try to pinpoint errors that they believed were
given in evidence, mainly the so called bloodstains that were
in the car that everybody took at face value were
(17:07):
later found out to become something completely different.
Speaker 10 (17:11):
The committee says it's gathered thousands of signatures and with
meetings like this plan for other capital cities.
Speaker 15 (17:17):
They had serious doubts about some of the scientific evidence
given to the Chamberlain trial. They're concerned centers around the
identity of the blood.
Speaker 19 (17:24):
With quite her evidence backing up the presence of poor Prince.
Speaker 12 (17:26):
Missus Conti was never asked to make a statement.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Lindy Chamberlain is guilty of murdering her baby and the
numbers to call If your answer is yes, phone one
one said now says it has hard evidence to show
that the chemical used to test fetal blood during the
trial was unsuitable the German manufact.
Speaker 20 (17:43):
Without all of that coming forward, without supporters bringing forward
this new evidence or pointing out that the evidence was
wrong in the first place, and you have relationships between
the police and their their investigators which were questionable. All
of that doesn't come up unless you've got a lot
of money and a lot of lawyers working on it,
or a very very strong committee, which is only then
(18:05):
that when it's in the public space, that the politicians
might buy into it, and then there's another investigation.
Speaker 15 (18:12):
I believe there ought to be an inquiry.
Speaker 9 (18:14):
I think the inquiry should be carried out by the
Northern Territory government.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Astute politicians like Philip Ruddick could see a change in
the Australian public opinion.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
And I hope that they will come to the view
that on reading that evidence, that that is the way
in which they ought to go.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Allison has been the aja Journalist of the Year and
she's won too many awards to mention. While she sympathized
with the Chamberlains, she'd also covered hundreds of major court trials,
so she knew the law inside and out.
Speaker 20 (18:47):
The judges can only go on the evidence before them,
and they do have to trust their officers, the police,
who say at that stage that this happened, and that happened,
and it was bloodstains that was afterwards that these things
were found to be factually wrong and evidence was wrong.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
The Northern Territory's top legal men were in Canberra today
amid mounting speculation that Lindy Chamberlain was about to be
released from Darwin's Barrowmer jail. Other experienced journalists like Malcolm
Brown knew the law and politics and what was likely
to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Next now this huge efforts were put onto the Northern
Territory government, which bunkered down and said, well, look we've
gone through the process. We cannot let popular mob appeal
overturn a conviction which brought about as a result of
the operation judicial process. The Chamberlains have had gone right
(19:43):
through the appeals process. They went through the Federal Court,
they went through the High Court. But we're going to
go and do this. Who else has been convicted, who
has not had the mob supporting them? What's their position?
So this is what's happened. They've been they've gone through
the appeal process. We can't go and disturb that.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
Marshall Perrin was the Attorney General of the Northern Territory.
Speaker 18 (20:08):
And I think that the community should in fact realize
that it's not simply a matter of me sitting down
and saying has the sense of community justice been achieved?
Speaker 8 (20:18):
And that's all there is to it.
Speaker 10 (20:22):
I mean, I'm not religious, but you can see that
her religion helped her through it. You know, her beliefs
have obviously given her. I mean she still have to
have strength within yourself, of course, but that would would
have helped her.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Sally Shaw had been with the Chamberlains during the tragic
events of August seventeen, nineteen eighty. It's really one of
the highlights of my working career to have been given
the trust and respect to record an interview with her
on a quiet winter's night at seven Studios.
Speaker 10 (20:59):
Well after the appeal failed, I got this phone call
out of the blue from someone saying I need to
ask you two questions. Do you think Linda Chamberlain is innocent,
And I said, well, I know she's innocent. I was there,
and then he said, would you be prepared to talk
at a rally? And yes, not a problem. Within a
couple of days, I was on my way to speaking
(21:25):
in my first public speaking I think I ended up
on the front page of this starl and crying. And
part of that was the emotion of retelling the story,
and part of it was I had to overcome my
fear of speaking in public. But because it was something
I knew was the right thing to do, it gave
you that impetus and that energy to do that.
Speaker 21 (21:47):
Organizers of tonight's at ZERI rally say they won't rest
until Lindy has proven innocent. Three people who were camping
near the Chamberlain's when a zeria disappeared gave their accounts
of that night's events to the meeting.
Speaker 10 (21:58):
But when we were there that rally, we had made
arrangements to try and see Lindy in jail, and we
had to go through the various red tape and processes
and everything, and someone else gave up the weekly visit
so we could see her, and so there was a
mad trip out to the jail. I mean, I'd had
(22:25):
a miscarriage between my two children, and I mean that
was devastating. I couldn't imagine what it would be like
to have firstly one snatched literally snatched from you, and
then the second child, saying, as you know the same
thing that the territory literally took two children from her,
(22:46):
and you can't you know, that time that she spent
in jail, You can't get back those years with that child.
You know, you can't replace that time that you would
have had with your child. That would have to be
up there as one of the saddest days of my
life because I had to walk away and leave an
(23:09):
innocent woman in jail who shouldn't be there. And it's
just so wrong. You know, why, why is this innocent
person in jail. I mean, she's been through enough, she's
been persecuted. You know, she's had a children taken away
from her, and she's sitting here in jail when she's innocent.
(23:31):
It's just so wrong. They shut the gates behind us,
and it was just terrible. It was just Yeah, it
was a wordsday.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
How has the last three and a half years since
Azaria's disappearance affected you both.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
It was in August nineteen eighty that I was called
that helophone and Lindy told us those that her little
baby had been taken by Dingo. Well, since that time,
it seems as though a robber has come and taken
years out of our lives.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
Stephen, the head of our video library, found this interview
with Lindy's parents, Cliff and Avis Murchison.
Speaker 16 (24:22):
We've been through absolute hell this last three and a
half years. I could never begin to tell you what
it's done to us. If you could imagine how I
felt to have to tell two little boys that their
precious mummy wasn't coming home anymore, you might understand.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
We need to take a quick break and we'll return
to a perfect storm in just a moment.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
Lindy Chamberlain had been in jail for three years.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Her husband Michael looked after their sons while Carlia lived
with foster parents. As supporters gathered signatures for a free
Lindy petition, Betty Hocking, a local government member, pressured journalists
to stay interested in Lindy's case.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Betty came into the newsroom and her argument to me
was she's a Christian, she could not possibly have murdered
her daughter.
Speaker 8 (25:24):
Philip Castle worked at the Camera Times.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
And I said, well, I know the Bible well enough
to know that King David was a murderer. You know
there are Christian people who have committed murder. That doesn't
make her innocent. That's not an argument that stands up
in my opinion. And we had this not heated but
fairly intense discussion, and I finally said, Betty, if you
can get me in an exclusive with Lindy, I'll do it.
(25:49):
But I'm not making any commitments about guilt or innocence.
I'll just do the interview now. I thought that would
send her on away and if I got one, great.
If I didn't get one, she would stop harassing me,
so to speak.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
Within days, Castle was parked outside Berrima Jail in Darwin.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I had a short little prayer. I remember sort of
thinking basically, God, don't let me stuff up. I went
in and I had to be briefed and interviewed by
the jails superintendent. But he did a couple of things
which has never been done before or since in an interview.
He said, you will all the instructions of the staff,
(26:27):
and he said do.
Speaker 8 (26:28):
Not touch her.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I was brought into a room with the table against
a wall, and the prison officer woman went and got
Lindy and she came out, and the prison officers said again,
you can't touch her. So I just said, oh, you know,
good morning, the need lovely to see you. I thank
you for giving me the opportunity, and I sat down,
got out my pen and paper. She sat down opposite me.
(26:53):
But I did have some pre arranged questions. The most
important one for me was to ask her point blank
did she murder Azariah? And I was watching her very
carefully when she answered that, and I'd have to say
I believed her. She said no, and she got quite upset. Actually,
(27:14):
I think she said, lots of people keep asking me
that and they don't believe what I say. And that
was her strongest emotion. She said, very few people have
acknowledged or accepted that I lost my daughter. I've never
had my daughter, And she said, all of this, they've
just treated me as a thing, as a story in
(27:36):
new media have done that more than anyone else. She said,
I lost my daughter, and I think that's something which
hasn't come through very often. That she did suffer an
enormous tragedy losing her first daughter. What she did say
to me, which came a little bit later in the interview,
(27:56):
I'm only in jail because I refused to lie. I
am not a liar. I will not lie. And I said, well,
what are you talking about? What do you mean? And
she said, well, if I had pleaded guilty to murder,
they would have used and she quoted this a postnatal
depression argument, that she had murdered her child in a
(28:18):
state of postnatal depression. And I said, who offered that
to you? And she said the Attorney General, Marshall Parent.
She said, so I could get out of here if
I agreed to lie. And then the prison officer said, look,
Lindy has to go now. And we parted really well.
One of the things that I don't mind admitting, being
(28:40):
a person of Christian faith, I struggle with that at times.
But I said, would you like to pray, Lindy? She
said no, I won't pray, but you can pray for me.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Castle left the jail and called Marshal Parent's office from
his hotel. He wanted to interview the Northern Territory Attorney
General as soon as possible.
Speaker 14 (29:00):
What community service can be furthered by Missus Chamberlain's staying
in jail. That's point number one point two.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
Colin Mason was elected as an Astralian Democrats senator at
the nineteen seventy seven election. Mister Mason used private member
bills to bring many issues into the Parliament, a majority
of which dealt.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
With environmental issues.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
But in nineteen eighty five he spoke in parliament about
and I quote, circumstantial evidence was being increasingly used to
convict people of major crimes unquote. Mason intended to introduce
a private member's bill to set up a Commission of
enquiry into Lindy Chamberlain's conviction.
Speaker 18 (29:44):
Because if there were an inquiry, that felt that some
Northern Territory policeman would be embarrassed, to say the.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Least, Graham Childwood isn't and wasn't embarrassed.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Hello, Hello Graham.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
John.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Yes, John would was the lead police investigator of Azaria
Chamberlain's death.
Speaker 13 (30:04):
I'm quite comfortable talking about it, but it's not something
that I've actively pursued. After the you know, after after
the matter was over, I'll call it there's ever going
to be over. But anyway, we started today is to
track down the history of the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
I've listened to ours Graham childhood in operation, ocre phone calls,
in brief appearances and news reports and standing outside the
court and Alice Springs.
Speaker 13 (30:33):
Yes, John, So it.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Really does feel odd to hear his voice talking to me.
Speaker 13 (30:41):
I'm quite open about it. I mean it comes up
in social conversations less so now than it did ten
years ago. Also, but I've never been showy about talking
about the case to the extent that I could. Obviously,
there were certain certain things that I wouldn't talking in
the social conversation about.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
While he's appeared at subsequent coronial inquests and at the
jury trial that convicted the Chamberlain's, He's never spoken at
length publicly, and I had so many questions to ask
about the case and about him, I thought the best
place to start was August nineteen eighty.
Speaker 15 (31:27):
The mother did recall just prior to that, I realized.
Speaker 11 (31:36):
It was no good and as soon as I called
out to my husband, the Dingo's got my baby and
he came running.
Speaker 13 (31:49):
Can't recall why now, that's a long time ago that
I was asked to become involved. Wasn't a lot of
records kept or made by the initial team that went
out to Airs Rock. They went out there on the
basis that the child had been taken by dingo, and
(32:09):
I think that was the focus of their work out there. Subsequently,
other things emerged which indicator that might not have been
the case.
Speaker 14 (32:20):
Done there. I'm just thinking whether that you would go
to Adelaide as well as the rest.
Speaker 13 (32:24):
So whatever we gathered in the way, evidence that needed
forensic testing was sent to Adelaide, and we'd had a
long standing arrangement and relationship with the lab in Adelaide.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
When a coroner's inquest and then a Royal Commission looked
back the quality of forensic tests conducted on evidence taken
from the Chamberlains and around oolarou As Rock, they found,
in legal terms, deficiencies and in plain English that's what
we'd call mistakes. But they were mistakes that saw Indy
(33:00):
Chamberlain go to jail for life. I wondered if Graham
child Wood had any apprehensions given that the lab in
the South Australian capital of Adelaide had probably never investigated
a dingo attack before.
Speaker 13 (33:16):
Now, I had no apprehension about that that they from
previous work they've done for us, my mind, were competent.
They had access to one of the wildlife parks down
there where subsequently there was some work done with dingos
and relations I call it dummies and you know, collecting
(33:40):
saliva and dingo hairs for comparison, etc.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Graham child Wood says he had very straightforward questions for
the lab.
Speaker 13 (33:48):
Was there any blood on the clothing? Was there any ding'
goo dogs, aliva on the clothing, any didn't go hairs
on the clothing. When you get answers to that, I.
Speaker 20 (33:57):
Know now and no.
Speaker 13 (33:59):
Then I suppose it started to raise some issues for
us in terms of was the initial story that we
had correct. I had the baby being taken by dingo.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Armed with the initial lab reports, child Wood traveled to
the chamberlain's hometown of Mount iSER.
Speaker 21 (34:21):
When I saw the dingo come out as a teent
and then found the baby's carry basket empty.
Speaker 13 (34:30):
We went there to look at footage of interviews that
the chamberlains had done, obviously to I suppose assess what
they said in those interviews versus what they said in
other interviews.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I asked Graham child Wood to compare the Chamberlain's reaction
to the death of their child with other.
Speaker 8 (34:48):
People he had met as a police officer.
Speaker 13 (34:52):
It varies depending on the individual. Some individuals are very
called media savvy respond well to to media interviews. Chamberlains
had done a lot of interviews, so they were novices
at that point. Nothing sort of jumps out at you.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Childwood then visited the Chamberlain's at their home.
Speaker 13 (35:14):
We were trying to gather all of the material that
they'd taken had with them at a Israel. Obviously, much
if not all of it had been subject to washing,
et cetera, but we still wanted to gather that.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Was there any reason why that wasn't done earlier, why
someone didn't go around there and scoop everything.
Speaker 8 (35:33):
Up the day they got back.
Speaker 13 (35:35):
Well, the suspicions, I suppose hadn't been raised at that
point the day they got back from Israel. That came later. Well,
Ideally all of that material should have been seized at
the time of the event was reported, but it wasn't.
So you work with what you've got.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
Graham Childwood and Detective John Scott then drove Linda Chamberlain
to the Mount Isa p for a formal interview.
Speaker 13 (36:02):
Well, we interview her first because she was the priory
businesses she liked. She was the one who said she'd
gone to the tent and saw the dinger found the
child missing, So it was logical that we start with
her and then we followed on with Michael.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
So what was your recollection of the interview with her.
Speaker 13 (36:21):
I'd have to be honest and say that she was cooperative.
There was no reluctance on her part to participate.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
You said later that you thought she may be hiding something,
but you didn't suspect her.
Speaker 13 (36:40):
I suppose I'd formed a view at that stage that
there was more to the story than was being told,
But what I.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
Didn't know, and you didn't offer her a.
Speaker 13 (36:50):
Caution, so I didn't have reasonable cause to believe that
she'd committed an offense. There was no need to caution her.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
My interview with Graham Child would win for more than
an hour, so I'll edit down the rest and share
it in the next episode. You'll also hear Philip Castle's
visit to the Attorney General's office. I'd like to say
thanks to Nikki, Simon and Stephen who helped create this episode,
and a shout out to Alisha, Phil Damien and the
(37:19):
team at Emi and thanks to you for listening.
This episode is not suitable for children to listen to
or overhear. It may contain course language, adult themes, and
graphic descriptions. 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
(00:21):
the Chamberlains.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think Azaria would have lasted a matter of minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There were certain people within the Northern Territory Police who
were determined to get her.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
People were saying to me, Oh, you're going there to
see that woman who killed a child.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Bad things happen to good people.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Episode nine, The Worst Day.
Speaker 6 (00:44):
Hello, I'm John Buck. The Chamberlains had lost their child,
Azaria to a dingo attack. They'd been convicted by a
jury of murder or as an accessory, and then failed
in the Federal Court and High Court, and yet Michael
spoke calmly to a wasting media pack.
Speaker 7 (01:06):
I am firstly bitterly disappointed at the decision that has
been made here at the High Court.
Speaker 8 (01:13):
I would like to affirm that Lindley and I are.
Speaker 7 (01:16):
Innocent people, and that we will not stop fighting to
clear our names and the names of our family. Finally,
I would just like to say that this case is
not over yet.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
I do feel very much for Michael. I think in
some ways he got the worst sentence.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Stuart Tipple is the Chamberlain's longtime lawyer.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
He's the one that's on the outside. He knows that
his wife's innocence. He's got the ability and capacity to
do something about it, and so in that situation, he
was under a lot of pressure and I don't think
people sort of realize the pressure and trauma that must
(02:07):
have caused to him.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
It's against the law in Australia and most countries to
publish material or communicate material which may interfere with the
administration of justice. With the High Court decision made, Michael
Chamberlain was no longer restrained in speaking to the media
in fear of being in contempt of court. He decided
(02:30):
to give a one on one interview with Severn's Terry Willersey.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Is there anything particularly you wanted to say?
Speaker 7 (02:37):
My wife is an innocent woman, and it'll be virtually
over my dead body that she'll stay in jail. I'm
going to fight for her exoneration. I believe she's been
wrongly convicted, and I'm going to do my utmost to
clear my family's name and to see that she is
(02:59):
freed in the rightful way she ought to be. How
is she accepting and coping with prison life? I think that, uh,
she's coping us best as anyone could in the situation.
But deep down she is a very distressed woman, extremely upset.
(03:19):
She doesn't really know why she's there, and uh, she's
just doing the best she can from day to day,
coping and trying to remain a human being.
Speaker 9 (03:30):
What about your children the effect on them? Have you
explained to them or do they know what has happened?
Speaker 7 (03:36):
I think they know only too well what has happened.
We don't like talking about it too much because it's
so painful for us.
Speaker 10 (03:43):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (03:44):
I know Reagan has had, on the odd occasion, some
rather unfortunate dreams. I guess you'd call 'em nightmares about
the night and Aiden is very unhappy, very angry at times.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Reagan's nightmares.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
What sort of things did he dream about?
Speaker 10 (04:02):
Did he tell you?
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Yes, he talked about the dog walking over him on
the night of having dreams of feeling the dog actually
walking on him, over him to get to Azariah, and
that really shocked me. It maybe wonder whether, in fact
he may have been awake at the time and was
(04:26):
too frightened to do anything.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
I'm sure many of you would like to hear all
of that interview with Michael Chamberlain, so we'll make it
available as a bonus episode soon. Now you probably remember
Les Smith from the last episode.
Speaker 11 (04:42):
Well, my focus has always been to find the most
incriminating piece of evidence and deal with that, because if
one can give an innocent explanation to the most incriminating
piece of evidence, then it's worth looking at other pieces
(05:04):
of evidence too, because they might similarly be incorrect.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
Smith volunteered his skills to investigate the evidence used against
the Chamberlains. He's systematically tested and then disproved the validity
of the so called underdash spray.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
After Les solve the problem of the underdash spray, he said,
if you got any other projects for me? And I said, well,
I've got one, And I never expected that he was
ever going to resolve it. So I showed him the
Chakeen evidence and the damage and the jumpsuit and I said, look,
Chakin says this material has to be cut and that
(05:42):
dingoes could not produce that damage. See what you can do?
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Smith tested various biting techniques of his own dog to
see if he could disprove the work of the Crown
expert Malcolm Chaikin. Chaikin had told the jury that a
bladed instrument had caused the damage to Azari's jumpsuit.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
The results he got were unbelievable. Not only could this
dog cut this material like a pair of scissors, but
it produced the cotton tufts in the damage areas, just
like Chaiken found in the Azaria jumpsuit.
Speaker 12 (06:24):
When the Chamberlains were found guilty, I was shattered. I
didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Professor Barry Botcher had discovered the flaws in the Crown's
blood tests, but he'd struggled as a witness in the trial.
Speaker 12 (06:39):
I knew that the test solution was faulty.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
Professor Butcher reminds me a lot of my own father.
He's humble and honest, and he's persistent because he knows
the facts are on his side.
Speaker 12 (06:55):
There was something going on with the test solution that
the manufacturers knew about.
Speaker 8 (07:02):
There was only one thing to do.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Stuart Tipple and Butcher traveled to Bearing Worker a pharmaceutical
company in Germany. Bearing Worker made forensic test kits used.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
Around the world, and we went to Bearing Worker.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
They met with mister Siegfried Baldia, the production manager.
Speaker 12 (07:20):
Dr Bawdner said, Oh, it's very unfortunate, but I have
none of that batch two four five six left.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
If Botcher had used a different batch of the test solution,
then his results could differ from Missus Cool's and their
validity could be questioned. Without a matching solution, the trip
to Germany was wasted and.
Speaker 12 (07:46):
I withdrew from my pocket a brand new, unopened bottle
of batch two four five six of the company's test
solution for fetal hemoglobin. And only one batch had ever
come to Australia. So Missus Cool and I had both
been using exactly the same test solution, and it was
(08:07):
agreed that we would.
Speaker 8 (08:09):
Set up a test.
Speaker 12 (08:11):
Dr Bowder said, oh, a technician will set up We
will leave it for twenty four hours, and then we
were worried the results.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
When Professor Butcher was telling me this story, I was thinking,
what you're thinking now, this sounds like a bad movie script.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
And when they come back in the morning.
Speaker 12 (08:32):
When we returned to the laboratory next day. The test
had been stopped. The test plate had been put into
salt water. I then shuddered, thout.
Speaker 13 (08:44):
Not have.
Speaker 12 (08:47):
Ruined the test.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Luckily, someone in the lab had taken a photo of
the result before it was placed in salt water.
Speaker 12 (08:56):
I said to Stuart Teple, We've got just what we wanted.
The test solution would react with that old heeamoglobin and
with fetal hemoglobin. Now we had what would collapse the
crown case.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
So now we had proof that you couldn't rely on
missus cool and that the underdash spray was not fetal
blood and wasn't blood at all. We also had Chaikin's
evidence destroyed. And one of the other things that Lev
suggested was, hey, what about hair evidence. There were hairs
that were found on the jumpsuit and in the tent,
(09:32):
and the crown expert said, look, I think that cat.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Is The Crown had relied at the trial upon the
fact that no dingo hairs were found on Azari's clothing
and that no such hairs were found and the items
recovered from the tent. Hans Brunner was an expert on
the hair of mammals and he developed a technique for
identifying them. He traveled with Stuart Tipple to the High
(09:58):
Court evidence vault.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
In the hairs were brought out, were mounted and a
slide hands brought was there with these microscope and I
tell you, in less than five seconds he had these
slides in and he said all Dinger hairs.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
Of course, all of these developments made their way into
the press and to the Northern Territory capital Darwin.
Speaker 14 (10:22):
No doubt about that.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Journalist Poor White remembers.
Speaker 15 (10:25):
You know, you'd say Darwin's different now, like every city
is different now. But Darwin back then was pretty wild
and they wanted to be treated with respect, and they
didn't think they were being treated with respect. But it's
a bit hard when you've destroyed you haven't. You've destroyed
the crime scene, you've ignored the finding of the first
(10:49):
in quest, you've come up with a second in quest,
you've charged her, convicted her, and then.
Speaker 14 (10:54):
All the blood evans.
Speaker 15 (10:55):
It starts unraveling, and I mean they're going to be
on the defensive for a long time.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
I think it's a state affair.
Speaker 16 (11:05):
One They talk about how.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
Just when we thought we'd found all of the material
about the Chamberlain's. In the seven video vault, Stephen found
an interview with Missus Joy Cooen. It was made by
Chris O'Connor, a reporter who is not on the main
computer system here at seven. So this interview had gone
unlogged for thirty five years.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Well, recently Professor Barry Butcher of Newcastle University said he'd
come up with new evidence the test carried out by
Missus Coole was inaccurate. Such comments of angered Missus Coole.
Why then, do you think he's come up with his
theory knowing that it probably can.
Speaker 17 (11:41):
Be shot down to vindicate his evidence in court. I
don't really know. I don't understand it quite frankly, Geor.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Do you think Professor Butcher is in a position to
criticize you?
Speaker 17 (11:53):
Well, I don't believe he is. He's not employed in
a forensic laboratory of any type evidence that he's given,
and then other courts indicate that he's had a very
limited experience in working on bloodstains, let alone old bloodstains.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
The very next day I kind of filed another story
for seven years, this time with Detective Superintendent your plan.
Speaker 14 (12:17):
Time for them to come up now three years later,
and start making brand new revelation have never been mentioned before.
I find him credit.
Speaker 18 (12:27):
Are you absolutely certain that you made no serious mistakes
that prior to the trial and during the triumph.
Speaker 14 (12:34):
The investigation that I was involved with, which was prior
to the second inquest and then the trial, know there
were no serious mistakes made at all.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So you're convinced that Lindy Chamberlin was guilty of the
charges that you brought up.
Speaker 14 (12:48):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Do you think that this will ever go away?
Speaker 14 (12:54):
I've spoken to mister Tipple, the Chamberlain's solicitor, and he
assures me that the pact.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
You can hear it already right.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Both sides of the Chamberlain story are going to be
debated on television, radio.
Speaker 8 (13:12):
And in the newspapers.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
Even though Lidi and Michael had lost court appeals, there
was an outside chance that the Attorney General of the
Northern Territory could be convinced to order a royal commission.
A royal commission generally inquires into, say a past event
like a lethal bushfire, to find ways to prevent a
repeat of such an event. Or a royal commission might
(13:37):
look into improper conduct in a profession, say like banking,
and Royal commissions are often used to address social problems
like Indigenous deaths in custody. I asked former Federal Circuit
Court judge Kenneth Raphael how a government wrestles with legal
ways to deal with a problem that doesn't have an
(14:00):
obvious solution.
Speaker 19 (14:03):
The government isn't entirely sure what to do about. It
is able to hand off a decision making requirement to
the commission and then it can get a report and
decide whether or not it wants to accept the report
or accept all the recommendations in the report.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
Does it take the politics out.
Speaker 19 (14:27):
Of Yeah, I think it does takes the politics out
of it, out of the problem.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
I knew then that the only way that I was
going to get a Royal Commission was to go where
no one had gone before and had to really have
a well orchestrated media campaign. The media had been our enemy.
It had to become our friend.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
They came from all around Australia, from all walks of life, academics, housewives,
brought together by the belief that.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
This man and the good thing is the media realized
it's a better story for them to actually become my friend,
because it kept the story bubbling along. I mean, if
Lendy had been properly convicted, that was the end of
the story. So very much in their interest to say, hey,
there's another side of this.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Stuart Tipple and the Chamberlain's supporters reached out to journalists
across the country.
Speaker 20 (15:26):
The damning evidence of bloodstains in the Chamberlain's car, said
to be fetal blood, has now also been discounted by
the Chamberlain Committee and Senior lect Allison.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
Fan has been a reporter in both the print and
electronic media since nineteen sixty three and she's spent more
than forty years reporting.
Speaker 20 (15:43):
For seven years was invalid.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
She's also a former colleague of mine.
Speaker 20 (15:50):
I see their recording.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
We worked in the same Perth newsroom with the same
boss at the time of the Chamberlain case. But she
has a connection with the story that I didn't even
know about until I called her this week.
Speaker 20 (16:04):
Lindy Chamberlain and her husband were devout Seventh Day Adventists.
After she was jailed, this committee was set up mainly
by Seventh Day Adventist supporters around Australia, and because my
parents were Seventh Day Adventists, not very very devout ones.
But because they were and used to go to the church,
(16:26):
my name came up because they trusted somebody who had
some links with the church. A growing number of judges, politicians,
lawyers and scientists have joined the Mushrooming Housewife committees in
pushing for a judicial inquiry, people like former Victorian Supreme
Court Justice Sir Reginald Shoal QC and former New South
(16:47):
Wales Justice. This committee that started up started to prove
that in fact a dingo had taken Azaria. But then
they've got other scientists involved, something like about forty of
them to try to pinpoint errors that they believed were
given in evidence, mainly the so called bloodstains that were
in the car that everybody took at face value were
(17:07):
later found out to become something completely different.
Speaker 10 (17:11):
The committee says it's gathered thousands of signatures and with
meetings like this plan for other capital cities.
Speaker 15 (17:17):
They had serious doubts about some of the scientific evidence
given to the Chamberlain trial. They're concerned centers around the
identity of the blood.
Speaker 19 (17:24):
With quite her evidence backing up the presence of poor Prince.
Speaker 12 (17:26):
Missus Conti was never asked to make a statement.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Lindy Chamberlain is guilty of murdering her baby and the
numbers to call If your answer is yes, phone one
one said now says it has hard evidence to show
that the chemical used to test fetal blood during the
trial was unsuitable the German manufact.
Speaker 20 (17:43):
Without all of that coming forward, without supporters bringing forward
this new evidence or pointing out that the evidence was
wrong in the first place, and you have relationships between
the police and their their investigators which were questionable. All
of that doesn't come up unless you've got a lot
of money and a lot of lawyers working on it,
or a very very strong committee, which is only then
(18:05):
that when it's in the public space, that the politicians
might buy into it, and then there's another investigation.
Speaker 15 (18:12):
I believe there ought to be an inquiry.
Speaker 9 (18:14):
I think the inquiry should be carried out by the
Northern Territory government.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Astute politicians like Philip Ruddick could see a change in
the Australian public opinion.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
And I hope that they will come to the view
that on reading that evidence, that that is the way
in which they ought to go.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Allison has been the aja Journalist of the Year and
she's won too many awards to mention. While she sympathized
with the Chamberlains, she'd also covered hundreds of major court trials,
so she knew the law inside and out.
Speaker 20 (18:47):
The judges can only go on the evidence before them,
and they do have to trust their officers, the police,
who say at that stage that this happened, and that happened,
and it was bloodstains that was afterwards that these things
were found to be factually wrong and evidence was wrong.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
The Northern Territory's top legal men were in Canberra today
amid mounting speculation that Lindy Chamberlain was about to be
released from Darwin's Barrowmer jail. Other experienced journalists like Malcolm
Brown knew the law and politics and what was likely
to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Next now this huge efforts were put onto the Northern
Territory government, which bunkered down and said, well, look we've
gone through the process. We cannot let popular mob appeal
overturn a conviction which brought about as a result of
the operation judicial process. The Chamberlains have had gone right
(19:43):
through the appeals process. They went through the Federal Court,
they went through the High Court. But we're going to
go and do this. Who else has been convicted, who
has not had the mob supporting them? What's their position?
So this is what's happened. They've been they've gone through
the appeal process. We can't go and disturb that.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
Marshall Perrin was the Attorney General of the Northern Territory.
Speaker 18 (20:08):
And I think that the community should in fact realize
that it's not simply a matter of me sitting down
and saying has the sense of community justice been achieved?
Speaker 8 (20:18):
And that's all there is to it.
Speaker 10 (20:22):
I mean, I'm not religious, but you can see that
her religion helped her through it. You know, her beliefs
have obviously given her. I mean she still have to
have strength within yourself, of course, but that would would
have helped her.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Sally Shaw had been with the Chamberlains during the tragic
events of August seventeen, nineteen eighty. It's really one of
the highlights of my working career to have been given
the trust and respect to record an interview with her
on a quiet winter's night at seven Studios.
Speaker 10 (20:59):
Well after the appeal failed, I got this phone call
out of the blue from someone saying I need to
ask you two questions. Do you think Linda Chamberlain is innocent,
And I said, well, I know she's innocent. I was there,
and then he said, would you be prepared to talk
at a rally? And yes, not a problem. Within a
couple of days, I was on my way to speaking
(21:25):
in my first public speaking I think I ended up
on the front page of this starl and crying. And
part of that was the emotion of retelling the story,
and part of it was I had to overcome my
fear of speaking in public. But because it was something
I knew was the right thing to do, it gave
you that impetus and that energy to do that.
Speaker 21 (21:47):
Organizers of tonight's at ZERI rally say they won't rest
until Lindy has proven innocent. Three people who were camping
near the Chamberlain's when a zeria disappeared gave their accounts
of that night's events to the meeting.
Speaker 10 (21:58):
But when we were there that rally, we had made
arrangements to try and see Lindy in jail, and we
had to go through the various red tape and processes
and everything, and someone else gave up the weekly visit
so we could see her, and so there was a
mad trip out to the jail. I mean, I'd had
(22:25):
a miscarriage between my two children, and I mean that
was devastating. I couldn't imagine what it would be like
to have firstly one snatched literally snatched from you, and
then the second child, saying, as you know the same
thing that the territory literally took two children from her,
(22:46):
and you can't you know, that time that she spent
in jail, You can't get back those years with that child.
You know, you can't replace that time that you would
have had with your child. That would have to be
up there as one of the saddest days of my
life because I had to walk away and leave an
(23:09):
innocent woman in jail who shouldn't be there. And it's
just so wrong. You know, why, why is this innocent
person in jail. I mean, she's been through enough, she's
been persecuted. You know, she's had a children taken away
from her, and she's sitting here in jail when she's innocent.
(23:31):
It's just so wrong. They shut the gates behind us,
and it was just terrible. It was just Yeah, it
was a wordsday.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
How has the last three and a half years since
Azaria's disappearance affected you both.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
It was in August nineteen eighty that I was called
that helophone and Lindy told us those that her little
baby had been taken by Dingo. Well, since that time,
it seems as though a robber has come and taken
years out of our lives.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
Stephen, the head of our video library, found this interview
with Lindy's parents, Cliff and Avis Murchison.
Speaker 16 (24:22):
We've been through absolute hell this last three and a
half years. I could never begin to tell you what
it's done to us. If you could imagine how I
felt to have to tell two little boys that their
precious mummy wasn't coming home anymore, you might understand.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
We need to take a quick break and we'll return
to a perfect storm in just a moment.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
Lindy Chamberlain had been in jail for three years.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Her husband Michael looked after their sons while Carlia lived
with foster parents. As supporters gathered signatures for a free
Lindy petition, Betty Hocking, a local government member, pressured journalists
to stay interested in Lindy's case.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Betty came into the newsroom and her argument to me
was she's a Christian, she could not possibly have murdered
her daughter.
Speaker 8 (25:24):
Philip Castle worked at the Camera Times.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
And I said, well, I know the Bible well enough
to know that King David was a murderer. You know
there are Christian people who have committed murder. That doesn't
make her innocent. That's not an argument that stands up
in my opinion. And we had this not heated but
fairly intense discussion, and I finally said, Betty, if you
can get me in an exclusive with Lindy, I'll do it.
(25:49):
But I'm not making any commitments about guilt or innocence.
I'll just do the interview now. I thought that would
send her on away and if I got one, great.
If I didn't get one, she would stop harassing me,
so to speak.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
Within days, Castle was parked outside Berrima Jail in Darwin.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I had a short little prayer. I remember sort of
thinking basically, God, don't let me stuff up. I went
in and I had to be briefed and interviewed by
the jails superintendent. But he did a couple of things
which has never been done before or since in an interview.
He said, you will all the instructions of the staff,
(26:27):
and he said do.
Speaker 8 (26:28):
Not touch her.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I was brought into a room with the table against
a wall, and the prison officer woman went and got
Lindy and she came out, and the prison officers said again,
you can't touch her. So I just said, oh, you know,
good morning, the need lovely to see you. I thank
you for giving me the opportunity, and I sat down,
got out my pen and paper. She sat down opposite me.
(26:53):
But I did have some pre arranged questions. The most
important one for me was to ask her point blank
did she murder Azariah? And I was watching her very
carefully when she answered that, and I'd have to say
I believed her. She said no, and she got quite upset. Actually,
(27:14):
I think she said, lots of people keep asking me
that and they don't believe what I say. And that
was her strongest emotion. She said, very few people have
acknowledged or accepted that I lost my daughter. I've never
had my daughter, And she said, all of this, they've
just treated me as a thing, as a story in
(27:36):
new media have done that more than anyone else. She said,
I lost my daughter, and I think that's something which
hasn't come through very often. That she did suffer an
enormous tragedy losing her first daughter. What she did say
to me, which came a little bit later in the interview,
(27:56):
I'm only in jail because I refused to lie. I
am not a liar. I will not lie. And I said, well,
what are you talking about? What do you mean? And
she said, well, if I had pleaded guilty to murder,
they would have used and she quoted this a postnatal
depression argument, that she had murdered her child in a
(28:18):
state of postnatal depression. And I said, who offered that
to you? And she said the Attorney General, Marshall Parent.
She said, so I could get out of here if
I agreed to lie. And then the prison officer said, look,
Lindy has to go now. And we parted really well.
One of the things that I don't mind admitting, being
(28:40):
a person of Christian faith, I struggle with that at times.
But I said, would you like to pray, Lindy? She
said no, I won't pray, but you can pray for me.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Castle left the jail and called Marshal Parent's office from
his hotel. He wanted to interview the Northern Territory Attorney
General as soon as possible.
Speaker 14 (29:00):
What community service can be furthered by Missus Chamberlain's staying
in jail. That's point number one point two.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
Colin Mason was elected as an Astralian Democrats senator at
the nineteen seventy seven election. Mister Mason used private member
bills to bring many issues into the Parliament, a majority
of which dealt.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
With environmental issues.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
But in nineteen eighty five he spoke in parliament about
and I quote, circumstantial evidence was being increasingly used to
convict people of major crimes unquote. Mason intended to introduce
a private member's bill to set up a Commission of
enquiry into Lindy Chamberlain's conviction.
Speaker 18 (29:44):
Because if there were an inquiry, that felt that some
Northern Territory policeman would be embarrassed, to say the.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Least, Graham Childwood isn't and wasn't embarrassed.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Hello, Hello Graham.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
John.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Yes, John would was the lead police investigator of Azaria
Chamberlain's death.
Speaker 13 (30:04):
I'm quite comfortable talking about it, but it's not something
that I've actively pursued. After the you know, after after
the matter was over, I'll call it there's ever going
to be over. But anyway, we started today is to
track down the history of the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
I've listened to ours Graham childhood in operation, ocre phone calls,
in brief appearances and news reports and standing outside the
court and Alice Springs.
Speaker 13 (30:33):
Yes, John, So it.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Really does feel odd to hear his voice talking to me.
Speaker 13 (30:41):
I'm quite open about it. I mean it comes up
in social conversations less so now than it did ten
years ago. Also, but I've never been showy about talking
about the case to the extent that I could. Obviously,
there were certain certain things that I wouldn't talking in
the social conversation about.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
While he's appeared at subsequent coronial inquests and at the
jury trial that convicted the Chamberlain's, He's never spoken at
length publicly, and I had so many questions to ask
about the case and about him, I thought the best
place to start was August nineteen eighty.
Speaker 15 (31:27):
The mother did recall just prior to that, I realized.
Speaker 11 (31:36):
It was no good and as soon as I called
out to my husband, the Dingo's got my baby and
he came running.
Speaker 13 (31:49):
Can't recall why now, that's a long time ago that
I was asked to become involved. Wasn't a lot of
records kept or made by the initial team that went
out to Airs Rock. They went out there on the
basis that the child had been taken by dingo, and
(32:09):
I think that was the focus of their work out there. Subsequently,
other things emerged which indicator that might not have been
the case.
Speaker 14 (32:20):
Done there. I'm just thinking whether that you would go
to Adelaide as well as the rest.
Speaker 13 (32:24):
So whatever we gathered in the way, evidence that needed
forensic testing was sent to Adelaide, and we'd had a
long standing arrangement and relationship with the lab in Adelaide.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
When a coroner's inquest and then a Royal Commission looked
back the quality of forensic tests conducted on evidence taken
from the Chamberlains and around oolarou As Rock, they found,
in legal terms, deficiencies and in plain English that's what
we'd call mistakes. But they were mistakes that saw Indy
(33:00):
Chamberlain go to jail for life. I wondered if Graham
child Wood had any apprehensions given that the lab in
the South Australian capital of Adelaide had probably never investigated
a dingo attack before.
Speaker 13 (33:16):
Now, I had no apprehension about that that they from
previous work they've done for us, my mind, were competent.
They had access to one of the wildlife parks down
there where subsequently there was some work done with dingos
and relations I call it dummies and you know, collecting
(33:40):
saliva and dingo hairs for comparison, etc.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Graham child Wood says he had very straightforward questions for
the lab.
Speaker 13 (33:48):
Was there any blood on the clothing? Was there any ding'
goo dogs, aliva on the clothing, any didn't go hairs
on the clothing. When you get answers to that, I.
Speaker 20 (33:57):
Know now and no.
Speaker 13 (33:59):
Then I suppose it started to raise some issues for
us in terms of was the initial story that we
had correct. I had the baby being taken by dingo.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Armed with the initial lab reports, child Wood traveled to
the chamberlain's hometown of Mount iSER.
Speaker 21 (34:21):
When I saw the dingo come out as a teent
and then found the baby's carry basket empty.
Speaker 13 (34:30):
We went there to look at footage of interviews that
the chamberlains had done, obviously to I suppose assess what
they said in those interviews versus what they said in
other interviews.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I asked Graham child Wood to compare the Chamberlain's reaction
to the death of their child with other.
Speaker 8 (34:48):
People he had met as a police officer.
Speaker 13 (34:52):
It varies depending on the individual. Some individuals are very
called media savvy respond well to to media interviews. Chamberlains
had done a lot of interviews, so they were novices
at that point. Nothing sort of jumps out at you.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Childwood then visited the Chamberlain's at their home.
Speaker 13 (35:14):
We were trying to gather all of the material that
they'd taken had with them at a Israel. Obviously, much
if not all of it had been subject to washing,
et cetera, but we still wanted to gather that.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Was there any reason why that wasn't done earlier, why
someone didn't go around there and scoop everything.
Speaker 8 (35:33):
Up the day they got back.
Speaker 13 (35:35):
Well, the suspicions, I suppose hadn't been raised at that
point the day they got back from Israel. That came later. Well,
Ideally all of that material should have been seized at
the time of the event was reported, but it wasn't.
So you work with what you've got.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
Graham Childwood and Detective John Scott then drove Linda Chamberlain
to the Mount Isa p for a formal interview.
Speaker 13 (36:02):
Well, we interview her first because she was the priory
businesses she liked. She was the one who said she'd
gone to the tent and saw the dinger found the
child missing, So it was logical that we start with
her and then we followed on with Michael.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
So what was your recollection of the interview with her.
Speaker 13 (36:21):
I'd have to be honest and say that she was cooperative.
There was no reluctance on her part to participate.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
You said later that you thought she may be hiding something,
but you didn't suspect her.
Speaker 13 (36:40):
I suppose I'd formed a view at that stage that
there was more to the story than was being told,
But what I.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
Didn't know, and you didn't offer her a.
Speaker 13 (36:50):
Caution, so I didn't have reasonable cause to believe that
she'd committed an offense. There was no need to caution her.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
My interview with Graham Child would win for more than
an hour, so I'll edit down the rest and share
it in the next episode. You'll also hear Philip Castle's
visit to the Attorney General's office. I'd like to say
thanks to Nikki, Simon and Stephen who helped create this episode,
and a shout out to Alisha, Phil Damien and the
(37:19):
team at Emi and thanks to you for listening.
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