Hello everyone! I'm Xiao Wu, welcome back to brain hole utopia.
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When you think of Australia, you may think of the clear sea, the blue sky. But friends who live here know that the sparsely populated Datu'ao is not only the home of local residents, but also a paradise for a variety of wild animals.
Walking by the beach eating a sandwich and being attacked by seabirds, or waking up to find a snake circling in their backyard, these have become the daily routine of The Native Australians. I remember a few months ago, I was getting ready to go to work, and just when I was about to put on my shoes, a spider the size of a palm crawled out of the shoes, scaring me and almost returning to the west that day. The case I want to share with you today is related to a wild animal in Australia. The case not only sentenced a mother who had just lost her daughter to life in prison, but also became one of the most controversial and thought-provoking cases in australian forensic history. That's the Azaria Baby Girl case.
The protagonists of the story are the Chamberlain family. The hostess, Lindy Chamberlain, was born in New Zealand in 1948 and immigrated to Australia with her parents in 1969. The Lindy family were all Seventh-day Adventists. This religion is not a mainstream belief in Australia and has always been highly controversial. It was its controversial nature that later more or less influenced the public's judgment of the case. Shortly after immigrating to Australia, Lindy met a Sabbath priest, also born in New Zealand and later immigrated to Australia. Chamberlain. The two soon fell in love and started a family. For the first five years of their marriage, the couple lived in Tasmania, Australia, and later moved to the pleasant climate of Mount Isa, Queensland. In 1973, the Chamberlains welcomed their first son, Aidan, and in 1976, their second son, Reagan. But according to some of Lindy's friends, Lindy has always wanted to have a daughter. Finally, on June 11, 1980, Lindy got her wish and hoped to see the little princess of the family, Azaria.
When Azaria was two months old, the Chamberlain family decided to take a family trip to Uluru in Australia's Northern Territory. Uluru is a very famous tourist attraction in Australia, also known as the Ayers Boulder.
It is a huge brownish red rock 348 meters high and 3000 meters long, and it is also the largest single rock in the world. In the middle of a desolate, flat desert, the Ayers Boulder is illuminated by the sun, and different colors appear at different moments. The local aborigines even say that the Ayers boulder can refract the soul of a person. This magical stone attracts thousands of tourists every year.
On 13 August 1980, Chamberlain's family of five set off from north Queensland and drove to enjoy the beauty of the road. On August 16, we arrived at the Uluru campground. The tired family slept well in the tent that night. During the day on August 17, Lindy and Michael took three children playing near the Ayres Boulders and taking several memorable photos. What Lindy didn't know was that this was the last time she and her youngest daughter, Azaria, had been photographed.
At ten o'clock in the evening, the tourists returned to the campground. A campfire was raised near the tent to prepare a barbecue. Lindy held little Azaria in her arms and sat by the campfire with Greg and Sally, another couple who had come on a tour with their children. Lindy's two sons are running around the neighborhood. At this point, Lindy's husband, Michael, discovers a dingo near the fire. He teasingly threw a small piece of bread at the wild dog. Lindy told her husband not to feed them casually, it would make them feel like they could always get food from you. Apparently, at this time, no one noticed the aggressiveness of this wild animal that looked like a Shiba Inu and was not very large.
At about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, Lindy said, "It's time for me to put little Azaria to sleep." She went back to the tent and made Azaria's bed. Leaving his daughter Azaria and his sleeping young son Reagan in the tent, he returned to the barbecue heap. At this time, the eldest son, Aidan, 6 years old, was still playing near the fire. Lindy thought it was finally her turn to indulge in her meal. But soon after, the crowd heard the cry of a baby coming from the tent. Lindy hurried in the direction of the tent, and when she ran nearby, she suddenly saw something that looked like a wild dog retreat from the tent, as if holding something in its mouth, and then quickly disappeared into the night. Lindy rushed into the tent and found blood everywhere, her youngest son Reagan still asleep, and her 2-month-old daughter Azaria next to her. Lindy cried out in horror, "God, the wild dog took my child!" ”
The police were quickly called, and the first officer to arrive at the scene was Frank. Morris. He entered the tent to check and also saw the footprints of some wild dogs near the campground. Unfortunately, according to the information I checked, the police did not carefully collect evidence of the march of the Chamberlain family's camping tent, and did not even leave a photo of the interior of the tent. On the night of the crime, nearby campers, police officers, and some local aborigines spontaneously joined the search. The entire search squad consisted of more than 300 people who followed the footprints of the wild dogs near the campground, but never found Azaria. One of the searchers found a depression in a dune and suspected that the wild dog might have put down something in his mouth there and had taken a short break. It is worth mentioning Azaria's father, Michael. Chamberlain was not involved in the search. After the incident, he had been pessimistic that Azaria might have died.
After a week of fruitless searching, a desperate Lindy and Michael drove back to their hometown of Queensland with their two sons. When I left, there were 5 people together, and when I came back, there were only 4 people left, which was undoubtedly heartbreaking.
On the family's way back, on August 24, 1980, a tourist found torn diapers and a pair of baby jumpsuits on a leafy path near Uluru.
Tourists quickly informed the police. Frank, who was the first to rush to the scene of the crime. Officer Morris came to collect evidence. The baby's diaper had been torn to shreds, but the jumpsuit was almost intact, with a lot of blood on the collar of the jumpsuit, many holes in the left sleeve, and a V-shaped crack in the collar on one side. The clothes were quickly confirmed to be the ones Azaria was wearing on the day of her disappearance. The location where the clothes were found was 4.8 kilometers away from the camping tent. In addition, Mother Lindy claimed that her youngest daughter was wearing a white knitted jacket when she disappeared. But this knitted jacket was never found.
● Media Judgment The nightmare is coming
Soon, the major media in Australia began to report on this bizarre wild dog attack, and it was the media reports that gradually changed the taste of the case. The media and the masses would rather believe in wild dogs than the Chamberlains. Everyone thinks that wild dogs eat people, which is really ridiculous. To know that the size of wild dogs is not very large, how can it have the ability to take away a 10-pound baby? And even if it is really a wild dog attacking people, it is impossible to leave even the bone slag. How come the baby's remains were not found?
Some dog experts point out that wild dogs never store food. They eat everything they find the moment they find food. When preying on birds, even the feathers of birds are eaten. Dog experts say 10-pound babies are not a problem for adult wild dogs. There have been records that a wild dog can take away a wallaby weighing up to 25 pounds.
Dingo, the English name is Dingo, it does not mean that the domestic dog runs wild outside and becomes a dingo. They are a completely different species from dogs, taxonomically attributed to wolves, and belong to the descendants of wolves. These seemingly harmless dingoes are actually the top predators, from rabbits and rats to calves and kangaroos. But even so, Australians still believe that the story of a baby's mother killing her daughter is more convincing than a wild dog eating a man.
On August 28, 1980, Inspector Graeme Charwood took over Azaria's case. Calwood firmly believes that Lindy murdered her daughter and then made up a story of a wild dog attack, which also greatly affected the direction of the next investigation.
On the other hand, the populace began to make a fuss about the Chamberlains' religious beliefs, believing that their church was dedicated to the sacrifice of children, and that the Uluru tour was part of their sacrificial activities. Some people say that the name "Azaria" means "sacrifice in the wilderness", implying that Chamberlain and his wife are going to sacrifice their daughter.
But in fact, we can easily find out in the dictionary that Azaria means "a man who has been helped by God" and has nothing to do with any sacrifice. When the winds of the media pointed the finger at Lindy, some of the couple's friends began to stand up and say that they often dressed their children in dark blue or black clothes, which also implied that they were going to do dirty work to sacrifice their children. But dark blue and black were the colors of children's clothing that were very popular during that period.
On October 1, 1980, Inspector Charwood interrogated the Chamberlains for hours. Toward the end of the interrogation, Inspector Charwood proposes that Lindy go to hypnosis in order to help her recall the memories of the day of the crime more clearly. But Lindy rejected the offer on the grounds that her religion did not allow her to do hypnosis. The refusal also reinforced the Inspector's conviction that Lindy was suspicious.
On December 15, 1980, the Alice Springs Court in the Northern Territory of Australia officially began its hearing.
A forensic expert named Kenneth Brown came forward and said he had conducted a series of tests, throwing the flesh-wrapped jumpsuit in a wild dog pen and finding that the bite marks left on the jumpsuits were all irregular. It does not match the V-shaped damage left on Azaria's jumpsuckles.
In addition, the hole in the left sleeve of the jumpsuit is more likely to be caused by a sharp tool, such as scissors or knives, than the teeth of a wild dog.
Even so, Harris Springs Magistrate and Coroner Dennis Barrett accepted the Chamberlains' claim that Azaria had been taken by a wild dog. But because Azaria's body was not found, the judge also thought that the wild dog could not have eaten a baby so that there were no bones left, so the first hearing investigation came to a very strange conclusion. On February 20, 1980, on live television, the Alice Springs District Court pronounced a verdict that Azaria had indeed been dragged away by a wild dog and attacked to death, but that her body had later been taken away from the wild dog and disposed of in an uncertain manner. What is this conclusion? Who will be the person who disposed of Azaria's body?
At the same time, the Australian masses are not buying the results of the first instance. They already had a deep-seated idea in their minds that Lindy had killed her daughter Azaria. The previous forensic expert also flew to the United Kingdom to seek his mentor James because he was dissatisfied with the results of the first trial. Cameron's help.
Cameron's subsequent new findings also forced Australia's Supreme Court to reopen the case and hear the case. In September 1981, Inspector Charles Wood of the Northern Territory of Australia, who had previously believed that Azaria was the real murderer, led several police officers to search the Chamberlains' home for several hours, confiscating more than 300 items, from clothes scissors to the yellow car they had driven to Uluru before.
As soon as the second trial began, British expert Cameron quickly grabbed the heart of the jury. He raised multiple questions about the conclusion that wild dogs attacked people. In addition to the different bite marks on the jumpsuit, Professor Cameron also pointed out that a bloody handprint could be faintly seen on Azaria's jumpsuit, and the blood was still flowing around the neck. However, wild dog attacks generally come from different sources. The most important point is that the jumpsuit is complete, how did the wild dog pull Azaria out of the jumpsuit? No wild dog saliva was detected on the jumpsuit. The few questions raised by Professor Cameron are not without merit.
Coroner Dennis Barrett and Lindy's lawyer said that first, the so-called bloody handprints on the jumpsuckles could not be seen at all. Secondly, it is entirely possible that the wild dog bit Azaria's neck in one bite, and while dragging, the jumpsuit was pulled down, which explains why the jumpsuit was complete and the blood stains were concentrated near the neck. Finally, in court, Lindy repeatedly retorted that the lack of wild dog saliva on the jumpsuckle was because Azaria was wearing a white knitted jacket at the time of the accident, and it was the knitted jacket that absorbed the wild dog's saliva. But this so-called knitted jacket was never found. Lindy's rebuttal was also used as a pretext for exonerating himself.
The ironclad proof that convicted Lindy was the blood stain test of the yellow car they drove.
The results of the investigation showed that the car was covered with blood, the front seat, the foot pads, and the seat panels. Traces of spurting blood from suspected arteries were also found at the location of the foot brake. On the day of the trip, there was also a large amount of blood on the zipper of the camera bag they were carrying, and the forensic team led by Cameron believes that Lindy once used the camera bag to transport Azaria's body.
In this way, the forensic doctors sketched out Lindy's entire crime process based on their test results. On the day of the crime, she did not put Azaria back in the tent, but in the car. Lindy then took advantage of the fact that everyone was not paying attention to the car, cut Azaria's throat, and killed her. Transfer the remains to other places for burial with a camera bag.
Although there are many people who camped at the same location that day said they heard baby cries coming from their tents. Greg and Sally, who had been having a barbecue with the Chamberlains that night, even testified in court, saying they had seen Lindy walking toward the tent with the child in her arms. But forensics were more convinced of the so-called evidence they detected.
Finally, on October 29, 1982, Lindy was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Husband Michael was convicted of harboring the killer and sentenced to 18 months' probation. After losing her daughter, Lindy lost her freedom again. It is worth mentioning that at the time of her imprisonment, Lindy was 7 months pregnant again. Her second daughter, Kahlia, was born in prison. Less than an hour after birth, her daughter Kalia was forced to separate from her mother.
After their sentencing, the Chamberlains never gave up their appeal, but each appeal was ruthlessly dismissed.
● Remove the clouds
Although Lindy was in prison, the case did not fade from the public eye. According to a poll at the time, 77% of Australians believed that Lindy was the real culprit, and the court ruled fairly. But there is still a small group of people who support Lindy and her husband's claims, and they have signed a petition calling for Lindy's release.
In the midst of a huge controversy, at the end of January 1986, things took a surprising turn. On this day, a tourist named David Brett was climbing rock in Uluru and unfortunately fell and disappeared. Police searched for 8 days and finally found the body near a dingo kennel.
Near the body, police also found a white baby knit jacket. Yes, it had never been found before, but what Lindy had repeatedly stressed in court was the knitted jacket that Azaria was wearing on the day of her accident. Saliva from wild dogs and several canine hairs were found on the knitted jacket. On 7 February 1986, the Government of the Northern Territory announced the release of Lindy, but further investigation into the case was pending. Beginning in May 1986, the Royal Commission of Inquiry, led by Judge Trevor Molin, began to re-collect evidence.
An employee of a food company in New South Wales named Les Smith thought Lindy had been wronged from the start. He repeatedly experimented with his own shepherd, throwing pieces of meat wrapped in knitted towels to his dogs, and found that the bite marks of dogs were sometimes irregular. However, it is also possible that a clean V-shaped crack may occur. He did not understand why the court had determined that the hole in the jumpsuit must have been caused by sharp tools such as scissors.
In addition, the prosecution scientists had agreed that the yellow car driven by the Chamberlain family had sprayed blood near the foot brakes in the car. And this so-called blood stain is actually a residue of a silenced material injected into the wheel arch with high pressure. To that end, investigators also specifically inspected 40 cars of the same model as the Chamberlains' vehicle. It was found that 5 of them had the same jet-like marks at the brake position.
Finally, the ironclad evidence that had convicted Lindy was that the so-called blood stains found in the car were nothing more than chocolate milkshakes and some patina. Investigators on the prosecution only did an ortho-toluidine test that year, and concluded that there was blood in the car based on its weak positive response. In fact, ortho-toluidine testing can only reveal peroxidase reactions. In addition to blood, milk and many vegetables also have this reaction.
Chamberlain's family lives in a mining area where fine particles of copper metal float in the air all year round, which also produce the result of peroxidase reactions. After reopening the investigation, the Victorian Forensic Laboratory conducted a re-examination using a highly sensitive reagent capable of detecting the slightest trace amount of old blood. Since the hemoglobin in the blood is extremely stable, if there is indeed blood in the Chamberlain family's car, then the test result should also be positive. However, experiments confirmed that not a single trace of blood was detected in the Chamberlain family's car.
On May 22, 1987, after a year-long re-examination, Judge Trevor Morin published a 379-page analysis stating that the evidence previously presented against Lindy's guilt was unfounded.
On 15 September 1988, the Northern Territory Government dropped all sentences against Lindy and her husband Michael.
The law returned Lindy's innocence, but in the eyes of the public, she did not clear her suspicions. Many people think that Lindy's performance in court is too calm and calm, even dressed in fashionable and glamorous, not at all like a mother who has just lost her child. In an interview afterwards, Lindy said that whether she was crying or laughing, she would be accused by the public, laughing, and of course scolding her for being cold-blooded. Crying, will say she is acting. No one could have predicted how they would behave after losing a loved one.
Although the case is over, after all the experiences, Lindy and Michael's marriage has come to an end. In 1991, the Chamberlains divorced. Now they all have their own families. In 1992, Lindy received $1.3 million in government compensation. Lindy said she hoped the Northern Territory government would issue a formal written apology. But this formal apology has not yet been waited for Bye.D.
In 1988, with the release of the movie "Evil Angels", more people learned about Lindy's case. The original intention of the film I believe is good. It shows how Lindy was wrongfully imprisoned, how she was exonerated and released. Unfortunately, the film did not change the perception of many Australians on the case. There are still many people who think That Lindy is guilty.
After people in other countries have watched the movie, few people are willing to delve into the real case behind the movie. Even "wild dogs eat your child" is used as a terrier, which is repeatedly applied to different film and television and entertainment works.
As everyone knows, this sentence "The wild dog ate your child" is like a sharp blade stuck in Lindy's heart again and again. This is perhaps the saddest part of the whole case.