"A DINGO'S GOT MY BABY: THE NIGHT THAT DESTROYED A FAMILY - PART 1"

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Saturday, January twenty fourth, twenty twenty six. On Monday, Australians celebrate Australia Day. So this weekend and next we're crossing the Pacific to examine two cases that defined modern Australia, two cases that changed laws, sparked national debates, and left permanent scars on the Australian psyche. This weekend, Azaria Chamberlain, a nine week old baby who vanished from a tent at Oolaru in nineteen eighty. Her mother said a dingo took her. Australia didn't believe it sent the mother to prison for murder based on forensic evidence that turned out to be completely catastrophically wrong. Next weekend, Port Arthur, April nineteen ninety six, a gunman killed thirty five people at a historic site in Tasmania. Twelve days later, Australia had new gun laws.

0:58 They still work. It's the massac her America refuses to learn from. But today we start with a mother's scream in the Australian Outback. August seventeenth, nineteen eighty Ooluru, then known as Ayr's Rock. The most sacred sight in the Australian interior, a massive sandstone monolith rising from the desert floor, colors shifting from gold to red as the sun moves across the sky. The Chamberlain family had been camping there for two days. Michael Chamberlain, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, his wife Lyndy, thirty two years old born in New Zealand, their sons Aiden six and Reagan four, and their baby daughter, Azaria, nine weeks old. That evening, around eight o'clock, Lindy went to check on the baby in their tent. What she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life.

1:50 A dingo, Australia's wild dog, leaving the tent something in its mouth. Lindy screamed six words that would become the most misquoted phrase in Australia history. My God, My God, the dingoes got my baby. What followed was the largest search in Northern Territory history, hundreds of people, Aboriginal trackers, police volunteers, searching through the night through the following days. They never found Azaria's body. What they found instead was a blood stained jumpsuit, a singlet, and eventually, years later, a tiny matinee jacket that would prove Lyndy Chamberlain had been telling the truth all along. But by then she'd already spent more than three years in prison for a murder she didn't commit. I'm read Carter. This is celebrity trials today, Part one. The Dingo attack that nobody believed, the forensic evidence that was completely fabricated, and the trial that sent an innocent mother to prison. This is the Azaria Chamberlain case. To under stand what happened to Lyndy Chamberlain, you need to understand who she was and why Australia turned against her. Alice Lynn Murchison was born March fourth, nineteen forty eight in Wakataine, New Zealand. Moved to Australia as a child. Met Michael Chamberlain when they were both young.

3:18 Married in nineteen seventy became deeply involved in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Now for American listeners, Seventh Day Adventists are a Protestant denomination. They observe Saturday as the Sabbath. They emphasize health, often following vegetarian diets. They believe in the imminent return of Christ in the United states there are over a million members. It's mainstream. In Australia. In nineteen eighty, not so much. Seventh Day Adventists were viewed with suspicion, considered a bit odd different. Some Australians lumped them in with cults, didn't understand their practices, found them strange. This will matter later, trust me. Michael Chamberlain was pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Mount Isa, a mining town in northern Queensland. He and Lindy had three children, Aiden born nineteen seventy four, Reagan born nineteen seventy six, and Azaria born June eleventh, nineteen eighty in Mount Isa.

4:19 Azaria the name would later be twisted by the media. Rumors spread that it meant sacrifice in the wilderness, that the Chamberlains had named their baby for some sinister religious purpose. The truth Azarea is Hebrew. It means blessed by God, nothing more, nothing sinister. August nineteen eighty, the family decided to take a camping trip drive from Mount Isa across the Northern Territory to Ooluru, see the famous rock camp under the stars, a family holiday. They arrived at the Ayrs Rock campground on August sixteenth, nineteen eighty, set up their tent. The next morning, Mike took the boys to climb part of the rock. Lindy, carrying baby Azaria, explored a formation called Fertility Cave. Just outside the cave, something caught her eye, a dingo staring at her. Watching, Lindy felt uneasy. But dingoes were everywhere at Ooluru, part of the landscape. Tourists saw them all the time. What tourists didn't know. What Lindy didn't know, was that Oolaru's head ranger, Derek Roff, had been writing to the government for two years warning them the dingoes were becoming aggressive, approaching humans, sometimes biting people. He'd been urging a cull, predicting that someone would get seriously hurt. Nobody listened. That evening, August seventeenth, the Chamberlains joined other campers at the communal barbecue area.

5:51 Families cooking dinner together, children playing, adults chatting, the kind of scene you'd find at any campground anywhere in the world. Lindy, he had put Reagan and Azaria to bed in the family tent, came back to the barbecue, sat with Michael and the other families. Around eight o'clock, they heard Azaria cry. Lindy went to check on her, and then came the scream. Let me paint you the picture. It's around eight pm August in the Southern Hemisphere is winter cold in the desert at night dark. The Chamberlain tent is maybe fifty meters from the barbecue area. Lindy walks toward it. As she approaches, she sees something in the darkness. Movement near the tent entrance, a shape, four legs, something in its mouth, a dingo running off into the night. Lindy runs to the tent, looks inside the basinette where Azaria had been sleeping, is empty, blankets, disturbed. Baby gone, My god, my god, the dingoes got my baby. Everyone at the campground heard her.

6:57 The other families, the campers, they dropped everything, grabbed flashlights, started searching. Michael Chamberlain ran into the darkness, calling for his daughter. Other men joined him. They searched the scrub land around the camp site, looking for any sign, any trail, any hope. Aboriginal tracker Nui Mignontiri was brought in, one of the best trackers in the region. He found dingo tracks leading away from the tent, found dragmarks consistent with something being carried, but the trail went cold on rocky ground. Police organized a massive search, hundreds of people combing the area around Oolaroo, searching caves, searching dingo dens, searching everywhere a wild dog might take its prey. They found nothing.

7:43 Witnessed Sally Low, another camper, told police she had seen a dingo near the Chamberlain tent that evening, described it lurking around the barbecue area, said she had seen it earlier acting strangely aggressive. Witness Judith West, camped about thirty meters away, testified she heard a dog's low, throaty growl coming from the direction of the Chamberlain tent, the kind of sound she said that her husband's dogs made when he was slaughtering sheep. Other campers supported the Chamberlain's story. Everyone who was there that night believed them believed a dingo had taken the baby, believed Lindy was telling the truth. One week later, August twenty fourth, a tourist named Wallace Goodwin was hiking near the base of Oolaroo, about four kilometers from the campsite. He found something in the rocks a baby's jumpsuit, black with white trim, blood stained around the neck, a singlet inside Azaria's clothes. No body, just the clothes. The jumpsuit had been photographed at the scene.

8:48 The blood stains were concentrated around the collar, consistent with a predator grabbing the baby by the neck. Canine hares were found on the fabric. But here's the critical detail that would matter. Years later, Lindy Chamberlain insisted that Azaria had been wearing a matinee jacket over the jumpsuit, a little knitted cardigan, white or cream colored. She had dressed her daughter in it because it was cold. The matinee jacket was not found with the jumpsuit. Police noted this, questioned Lindy about it. She was adamant Azaria was wearing the jacket. It must still be out there somewhere. Some investigators believed her, others didn't. If there was a jacket, where was it. Why would a dingo remove a jacket but leave the jumpsuit. The absence of that jacket would become central to the case. Police began to doubt Lindy's story.

9:38 If she was lying about the jacket, what else was she lying about? Make it make sense. A mother's daughter is taken by a wild animal, she remembers exactly what her baby was wearing, and because that item of clothing isn't found, people assume she's a liar, assume she's covering something up. The jacket existed, it would be found six years later, exactly where a dingo would have dropped it, but by then Lyndy Chamberlain would already be in prison. December fifteenth, nineteen eighty Alice springs the coronial inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain begins. Coroner Dennis Barrett presides his job determine how Azaria died, whether anyone was responsible, whether charges should be filed. For two months, Barrett heard evidence, witness testimony from the campers who were there that night, expert testimony about dingo behavior, forensic analysis of the clothing, police reports. February twentieth, nineteen eighty one, Barrett delivered his findings.

10:47 He ruled that Azaria Chamberlain had been killed by a dingo, that the wild dog had entered the tent, seized the baby, and carried her off into the night, that Lyndy and Michael Chamberlain were not responsible in any way for their daughter's death. In an unprecedented move, Barrett allowed his concluding remarks to be televised live, the first time an Australian inquest had been broadcast to the nation, and what he said should have ended the matter. You have not only suffered the loss of your beloved child in the most tragic circumstances, but you have all been subjected to months of innuendos, suspicion and probably the most malicious gossip ever issued in this country. He criticized the police investigation, called out the rumor mill, defended the Chamberlain's publicly. The family should have been able to grieve in peace, should have been able to move on, should have been able to remember their daughter without the world questioning whether they killed her.

11:49 But some people weren't satisfied with Barrett's findings. Forensic odontologist Kenneth Brown had given evidence at the inquest about the damage to Azaria's jumpsuit. He believe believe it was consistent with dingo teeth, but some of his conclusions had been questioned. His professional reputation, he felt, had been challenged. Brown sent Azaria's clothing to Professor James Cameron at the London Hospital Medical College, a British forensic pathologist, an expert witness who had testified in major cases around the world. Cameron examined the jumpsuit and he saw things that nobody else had seen. He claimed the damage around the neck wasn't from dingo teeth, it was from a blade a cut throat. He said he could see in ultraviolet photographs of the fabric the imprint of a small adult hand, as if someone had gripped the baby while cutting her throat. Cameron's analysis was explosive.

12:48 It suggested murder, not dingo attack. It suggested Lyndy Chamberlain had killed her own daughter. The Northern Territory Supreme Court agreed to quash the findings of Barrett's inquest. A second inquest was ordered. Here's what you need to understand about James Cameron. He was a highly credentialed expert testified in courts around the world. His word carried enormous weight. He was also wrong, catastrophically wrong. His evidence in the Chamberlain case would later be thoroughly debunked, and this wasn't the first time Cameron had given crucial evidence in another case. In England that was later overturned when his expert testimony was proved incorrect. But in nineteen eighty one nobody knew that yet. All they knew was that a famous British forensic expert said Lindy Chamberlain cut her baby's throat the tide began to turn. This is where the Chamberlain case becomes a masterclass in junk science, in expert testimony that sounds convincing but is completely provably wrong, in a justice system that put faith in forensics over facts. December nineteen eighty one, the second coronial Inquest opens in Darwin. New forensic evidence is presented, evidence that will convict Lindy Chamberlain of murder. Let me walk you through what the prosecution

14:18 claimed and then let me show you what was actually true. First, the blood in the car. The Chamberlains drove a nineteen seventy seven hold in Toronto hatchback. After Azaria's disappearance, police examined the vehicle. A forensic biologist named Joy Cool tested various stains found inside. She used a test for blood found positive reactions in multiple locations under the dashboard, on the floor, carpets, on the seats on the zipper of Michael's camera bag. Then she performed a test she claimed could detect fetal hemoglobin. That's a type of hemoglobin found in babies under six months old. Azaria was nine weeks. If fetal hemoglobin was in that car, it could only have come from her. Cool testified that she found fetal hemoglobin under the dashboard, a spray pattern consistent, she said, with arterial blood spray, as if a baby's throat had been cut and blood had sprayed across the underside of the dash This was the smoking gun. The prosecution argued that Lindy had murdered Azaria in the front seat of the car, hidden her body in the camera bag, and later disposed of it somewhere in the outback. The blood evidence proved it, except it didn't because it wasn't blood.

15:32 Years later, during the Royal commission that would exonerate the Chamberlain's scientists examined that spray pattern under the dashboard. They identified it conclusively. It was a sound deadening compound, a bituminous spray applied during the manufacture of the car. Standard automotive material found in twenty three percent of Holden Tarantas from that era, not blood car coating. The test joy cool used for fetal hemoglobin. It wasn't specific to blood at all. It could react with numerous substances, and it did react with the sound deadening compound, giving a false positive that sent an innocent woman to prison. But wait, there's more. The ortho tolidine test cool used to detect blood throughout the car. That test reacts with copper. The Chamberlains lived in Mount Isa, a mining town in central Queensland.

16:22 Their car was covered in dust from the copper rich soil, dust that had accumulated over years of driving through mining country. Every blood stain in that car was either sound deadener or copper dust. None of it was human blood. None of it came from Azaria. Second, the cutthroat theory. James Cameron examined the jumpsuit and saw blade marks, a deliberate cut around the neck, the imprint of a small adult hand gripping the fabric. Other experts disagreed. They looked at the same photographs and saw nothing. No handprint, no blade marks, just fabric damage consistent with animal teeth. Here's the thing about K nine teeth. They're incredibly sharp, as sharp as scissors in some cases. The damage to Azaria's jumpsuit was later shown to be entirely consistent with a dingo's bite.

17:12 The tearing, the punctures, the pattern of damage all matched what you'd expect from a wild dog carrying a small prey animal. Cameron saw what he wanted to see, what the prosecution needed him to see, and he testified to it with absolute confidence. Third the cat hair. A forensic scientist named doctor Harding examined hairs found on Azaria's jumpsuit. He identified them as cat hair. The Chamberlains had owned a cat before Azaria was born. This suggested the clothes had been in the Chamberlain home, not taken by a dingo. After the trial, doctor Hans Brunner, an expert in animal hair analysis, examined the same samples using proper scientific methodology.

17:56 His conclusion the hair was canineither dog or dingo, impossible to distinguish between the two, but definitely not cat. Harding had misidentified dingo hair as cat hair, basic forensic error. Fourth, the missing jacket. Throughout all of this, Lindy maintained that Azaria was wearing a matinee jacket. Police insisted no such jacket existed, that Lindy had invented it, that her insistence on the jacket proved she was lying about everything. The jacket existed. Lindy was telling the truth, but nobody believed her. Let me be clear about what happened here. The forensic evidence that convicted Lindy Chamberlain was not just flawed. It was fabricated, not intentionally perhaps, but catastrophically wrong at every level.

18:47 Blood that was car coating, handprints that didn't exist, cat hair that was dingo fur, tests that proved nothing being presented as conclusive evidence of murder. Michael Chamberlain would later call it one of the the worst perversions of forensic science in Australian history. He wasn't wrong. September thirteenth, nineteen eighty two, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory Darwin, Lyndy Chamberlain stands accused of murder. The prosecution alleges she cut her daughter's throat in the front seat of the family car, hid the body in a camera bag, rejoined the barbecue, fed her son Aidan a can of baked beans, then returned to the tent and raised the alarm. About a dingo attack. Michael Chamberlain is charged as an accessory after the fact. The prosecution claims he helped dispose of the body. The trial is a circus media from around the world, daily coverage in every Australian newspaper, Television crews camped outside the courthouse, the whole country watching, and the whole country had already made up its mind. See Lindy Chamberlain didn't behave the way people expected a grieving mother to behave. Didn't weep publicly, didn't collapse in front of cameras, She wore sunglasses, seemed composed, even made dry jokes when answering questions. To many Australians, this made her look cold, heartless, guilty.

20:14 What they didn't understand was that Lindy had been grieving privately for two years by the time of the trial, that she'd already cried every tear she had, that she was exhausted, traumatized and trying to hold herself together while the entire nation called her a murderer. But the public didn't see a woman holding herself together. They saw a woman who didn't seem sad enough, and that, more than any forensic evidence is what convicted her. The religious angle made it worse. Seventh day Adventists fast, they don't drink alcohol. They observed Saturday as the Sabbath. They have dietary restrictions. Australians who didn't understand these practices found them sinister. Rumors spread.

20:57 Azaria's death was a religious sacrifice. The name meant sacrifice in the wilderness. The Chamberlains were part of some kind of cult. None of this was true, All of it was believed. Prosecution counsel Ian Barker presented the forensic evidence, the blood in the car, the cut throat, the handprint on the jumpsuit. He painted a picture of a calculating murderer who had planned and executed the killing of her own child. Defense counsel John Phillips challenged the evidence presented. Witnesses who had seen dingoes near the tent presented expert testimony that the damage to the jumpsuit was consistent with animal attack. Reminded the jury that every camper present that night believed the Chamberlain's story, but the forensic evidence was overwhelming.

21:44 To the jury, it seemed scientific objective beyond dispute. The campers who believed the chamberlains just witnesses, possibly fooled, possibly lying. The British pathologist who saw handprints and blade marks, an expert credentialed trustworthy. October twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two, the jury returns nine men and three women. They'd heard weeks of testimony, examined, the evidence, discussed and debated guilty. Lindy Chamberlain guilty of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor. Michael Chamberlain guilty of being an accessory after the fact, sentenced to eighteen months suspended. Lindy stood in the dock as the verdict was read. She was pregnant seven months along with her fourth child. She would give birth in prison.

22:37 The judge ordered her taken into custody immediately, no bail pending appeal, no time to prepare. Lyndy Chamberlain, pregnant, mother of three, convicted murderer, was led away in handcuffs. Her sons Aiden and Reagan would grow up visiting their mother in prison. Her unborn daughter, Kalia would be born behind bars and immediately taken away. The appeals failed. Federal Court of Australia dismissed. High Court of Australia dismissed every legal avenue. Exhausted, Lindy Chamberlain would spend more than three years in prison for a crime she didn't commit, Convicted by junk science and public opinion. Separated from her children, her marriage crumbling, her life destroyed, all because a dingo took her baby and nobody believed her. Tomorrow on Celebrity Trials, Part two of the Azaria Chamberlain Story. A dead climber, a matinee jacket found near a dingo's lair, a royal commission that dismantled every piece of evidence, Meryl Streep winning awards for playing Lindy on screen and thirty two years for one simple truth to be written on a death certificate. Plus Next Weekend port Arthur thirty five Dead. Australia's gun laws changed Forever. That's part one of our Australia Day Weekend

24:08 special on Azaria Chamberlain. August seventeenth, nineteen eighty A baby vanishes from a tent at Oolaru. Her mother says a dingo took her. The first inquest agrees. Then forensic experts see blood that's actually car coating, handprints that don't exist, cat hair that's actually dingo fur. October twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two, Lyndy Chamberlain convicted of murder, sentenced to life, pregnant with her fourth child, taken to prison immediately. The evidence that convicted her was wrong, all of it, every piece, the blood tests, the fabric analysis, the expert testimony wrong. But Lyndy Chamberlain sat in a cell anyway, gave birth to a daughter she wasn't allowed to keep, watched years of her life disappear, while Australia called her a monster tomorrow.

25:02 How a dead climber's body led searchers to the jacket that proved everything. How a royal commission tore apart the prosecution's case. How Lyndy Chamberlain walked free but had to wait thirty two years for the truth and next weekend poort Arthur April twenty eighth, nineteen ninety six, thirty five people murdered in ninety minutes. How one massacre changed a nation's gun laws in twelve days. The story America refuses to learn from Azaria Chantelle Lauren Chamberlain born June eleventh, nineteen eighty died August seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine weeks old. She would have turned forty five this year. Would have had a life, a career, maybe children of her own, grandchildren for Lyndy and Michael. Instead, a dingo took her, and then the Australian justice system took everything else. Someone has to say her name. I'm read Carter. See you tomorrow for part two. This is Celebrity Trials.