Coroner reopens ‘Dingo’s got my baby’ case

Published: February 24, 2012 8:48 PM

By KRISTEN GELINEAU. The Associated Press
 

SYDNEY — A coroner on Friday opened the fourth inquest into the most notorious and bitter legal drama in Australia’s history: the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say a dingo took her from a tent in the Australian Outback.

Azaria Chamberlain’s mother, Lindy, was convicted and later cleared of murdering her and has always maintained that a wild dog took the baby. She and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, are hoping fresh evidence about dingo attacks on children will convince Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Morris and end speculation that has followed them for 32 years.

Anne Lade, a former police officer hired by the court to investigate the case, told a packed courtroom that since 1980 there have been numerous dingo attacks on humans, some of them fatal. Rex Wild, a lawyer assisting the coroner, described several of the attacks and said he believed the evidence showed that a dingo could have been responsible for Azaria’s death.

“Although it [a dingo killing a child] may have been regarded as unlikely in 1980 . . . it shouldn’t be by 2011-12,” he said.

Morris adjourned the hearing without saying when she would release her findings.

Azaria’s death certificate still lists the cause of death as “unknown.” The Chamberlains say they want to set the record straight on behalf of their daughter.

“It gives me hope this time that Australians will finally be warned and realize that dingoes are a dangerous animal,” Lindy Chamberlain said outside the courthouse in the Northern Territory capital, Darwin.

Azaria vanished on Aug. 17, 1980, during a family vacation. Upon seeing her child was missing, Chamberlain screamed, “The dingo’s got my baby!” — a line made famous by the Meryl Streep movie, “A Cry in the Dark,” based on the case.

Azaria’s body was never found, though her torn and bloodied jumpsuit turned up in the surrounding desert.

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