After 32 years of waiting, Lindy finally waited for her child's death certificate in 2012:
The dingo was the culprit who killed his own child.
When she walked out of the courthouse, she smiled relievedly, and then cried and hugged her family.
But could you have imagined that she had been unjustly saddled with the infamy of being a "female demon head" for decades.
The crime was that she killed her own child with her own hands and then married an innocent wild dog.
This mysterious and mysterious case is the most famous "media trial" case in history, and it is also a forensic frame-up.
Before the unsolved case was settled, the fierce public opinion brewed the disaster first.
Over the years, there have been several film novels and films adapted from this case.
One of the most famous is Meryl Streep's "Cry of the Night".
Ayers Boulder, beating red heart
Ayers Rock, in northern Australia, attracts countless travellers every year.
Because it can show different colors according to the sunlight, the indigenous people also believe that it can refract the human soul, calling it "Uluru".
On August 17, 1980, Lindy Chamberlain and her husband, Michael Chamberlain, and their three children also came to the Holy Land.
But no one expected that this journey would become a nightmare for the whole family.
In the evening of the same day, the couple began to make a fire to cook.
Their 6-year-old eldest son sat next to him playing, while the two youngest children slept soundly in a tent not far away.
At 20 o'clock in the night, a cry came from inside the tent, and Lindy immediately rushed over when he heard it.
Baby Girl Azaria
Everything in front of her was shocking, and she saw a dingo exit from the tent where the children slept.
It shook its head as it walked, as if it were holding something in its mouth.
Lindy had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but the wild dog soon sneaked into the night.
When she caught up to open the tent, Azaria, the nine-week-old daughter in the cradle, was gone and the quilt was disturbed.
The park manager, who arrived at the news, soon began a search.
One of the women who had come to camp heard the cries of their children, while two others heard the howling of wild dogs.
In addition, wild dog footprints were found around the Chamberlain family's tent.
At the wild dog kennel 2.5 kilometres from the camp, the baby's clothing was also quickly found: a bloodstained and torn jumpsuit, a shirt and a pair of sweaters.
After only a few days of searching, they still couldn't find the baby's body and lost a lace tunic.
Based on these current circumstances, it has been basically determined that the baby has no hope of surviving.
But losing a child is really just the couple's first nightmare.
In fact, the tragic encounter between the two in the future has just begun.
Because the media and the public do not believe in the "Dingo stealing babies", this is too absurd.
What kind of existence is the Dingo?
We all know that dogs were domesticated by wolves by humans over 10,000 years.
The dingo, on the other hand, is the product of the re-feralization of domestic dogs.
Although the customary name is Dingo, they are actually between wolves and dogs, and belong to a separate species of canine family (Canis dingo).
They are similar in appearance to domestic yellow dogs, but they are thinner and longer, and their movements, hearing, smell, etc. are more agile.
In addition, the bark of the dingo is not a bark of "whining", but more like a wolf howling.
About 3,000-5 years ago, Asians brought dogs to the Australian continent to exchange supplies with local aborigines as a commodity.
In the case of the many cute animals in Tu'ao, they played with wild survival and effortlessly climbed to the top of the food chain.
They are more adaptable in the wild than domestic dogs, have an extremely wide range of recipes, and eat almost whatever they catch.
Records show that a dingo once snatched a 25-pound sand kangaroo.
Although it is chilling, in the eyes of Australians, the Dingo is still interesting, but it is afraid of humans.
Having lived together for thousands of years, the dingo has always kept its distance from humans and has not clashed.
As of the 1980s, there were no reports or rumors that wild dogs would attack humans.
So, no matter how the officer shows people in front of the camera what the baby has blood on.
The Australian media and the masses still prefer to believe in wild dogs, but are full of hostility and distrust of the Chamberlains.
Azaria's bloodied jumpsuits
"Why aren't the clothes directly torn to shreds?" "How can a wild dog have the ability to take away a 10-pound baby" "How come any of the baby's remains have not been found?" "Where did the baby's short coat go?"
All of these questions go straight to the Chamberlains.
They believe that this is not a simple accident, but a murder case, the couple killed their own flesh and blood with poisoning hands.
The reason is that there have indeed been no wild dog killings in history, but cases of parents killing their own children are not uncommon.
Although the first round of investigations has determined that the wild dogs took Azaria, a "media trial" has begun in this way.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Lindy, far from shedding a tear in public, remained rational.
This is incompatible with the image of a "desperate mother" in the eyes of the public.
So in some crazy reports, the unusually calm Lindy has also become an "indifferent devil".
In addition, the religion of the Chamberlains is not mainstream, and there are many indigenous religious legends near the Ayers Boulder.
It was only natural that the crowd suspected that their motive for killing their daughter was related to some kind of cult ritual sacrifice.
And the wild dogs only cover up the fig leaf of crime.
At that time, a forensic dentist, Dr. Kenneth Brown, also took the initiative to stand up and conducted a series of verifications.
He concluded that the marks on the jumpsuit were not caused by the teeth of wild dogs, but more like scissors or knives.
The evidence is a similar experiment he did.
He once wrapped the meat in his jumpsuit and threw it into a wild dog pen.
In the end, he found that the irregular bite marks left on it were completely inconsistent with the smooth V-shaped marks on the evidence.
Torn marks on Azaria's jumpswear
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the first instance, Dr. Brown flew to England with the evidence to seek help from his mentor Cameron.
The new appraisal results that Cameron then brought to Australia also forced the Supreme Court to reopen the case and open the case.
In this way, the Chamberlains were sent to the dock.
At the first hearing of the second trial, the identification of foreign expert Cameron quickly captured the hearts of the jury.
For example, in addition to the bite marks, the blood of Azaria's jumpsuits still flowed around the neck, while the attacks of wild dogs generally came from different aspects;
In addition, Cameron held up his hoodet and said that there was a faintly visible bloody handprint on it.
It's just that the lawyers and coroners at the scene said that the messy marks were completely invisible as handprints.
Even more convincing evidence comes from another of Dr. Brown's forensic friends, Joey Kuhl.
She focused on the Chamberlains' yellow car.
The "blood stain test" analysis showed that the car was full of blood: the front seat, the foot pads, the seat plates...
In particular, blood was found on the zipper of the camera bag, and investigators have always suspected that the camera bag was once used to transport Azalia's body.
But the most fatal thing was that Kuhl found evidence of blood spurting from suspected arteries above the driver's seat foot brake.
So the final conclusion of the forensics was that "at least Azalia's throat was cut, but it does not rule out that her entire head was cut off"
So in October 1982, Lindy was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Her husband, Michael Chamberlain, was sentenced to 18 months' probation for harboring the killer.
Stills from Aunt May in Crying in the Dark Night
After losing her child, Lindy also completely lost her freedom this time.
She was pregnant at the time of sentencing.
The following year, she also gave birth to her fourth child in prison.
But in fact, after two years of investigation and trial, there are still too many conditions for conviction.
No witnesses, no murder weapons, no remains, no motives, no confessions...
Lindy in 1982 pregnant
But since he was imprisoned, Lindy has not given up defending himself, appealing to the Supreme Court at every opportunity.
In the face of this unfair judgment, some scholars are willing to stand up.
Leslie Smith was a key figure in helping Lindy fight back.
Although not a scientific star, based on his knowledge, he is deeply disturbed by Lindy's guilty verdict.
He spent months repeating Dr. Brown's experiment countless times—wrapping meat in a terry cloth and feeding it to his pet dog.
The torn openings in the canines in the experiments were very close to the openings in the one-piece shirts
The results showed that sometimes the canine teeth would bite through the cloth, and sometimes there would be a very clean and neat V-shaped incision.
This trace is highly consistent with the evidence found at the scene.
In addition, Smith was never able to create the same damage with scissors or other knives.
With the help of animal hair expert Hans Brenner, they also found 6 dingo hairs on key evidence baby rombots.
So how to explain the "blood stains" on the vehicle?
In fact, the so-called "blood trace detection" can only reveal the peroxidase reaction.
In addition to blood, this reaction occurs with a variety of substances such as milk or vegetables.
For the invisible traces in this case, without further testing, it is impossible to conclude that human blood is present in the sample.
The reason why Kuhl's experiment produced a large number of peroxidase reactions is most likely because Chamberlain's car was covered with a layer of particles containing copper metal.
Because there is a copper mine in Mount Isa, where the Chamberlains live.
In order to find out the most critical "blood spurting from the arteries," Smith also inspected 40 cars of the same model as the Chamberlains.
The results showed that 5 of them all had the same jet marks above the brakes.
This is actually a residue of the silencer material "Dufix hn1081".
Thanks to the efforts of these experts, the case took a turn for the better.
With divine help, the only baby lace coat that was missing in early 1986 was accidentally found in a wild dog kennel near the Ayers Boulder.
Taking this as an opportunity, the Royal Commission of Inquiry also began to intervene in the case and re-investigate.
The final findings were also surprising: not a single trace of blood was detected in the Chamberlains' car.
As the prosecution's chain of evidence fell apart, the Chamberlains were acquitted in 1987 and Lindy was released.
By then, she was in her fifth year in prison.
Lindy is free again
Although Lindy was cleared of the crime, in the eyes of the public, the couple did not clear the suspicion.
Because the baby's body has not yet been recovered, the judge has only ruled that the cause of death is unknown.
So people still believe that the cause of death of the child cannot be a wild dog, and they still publicly condemn Lindy.
Some of the local residents who were mad even ran to Lindy's house to learn dog barking.
And Lindy himself also regards removing the label of "female devil's head" as his lifelong goal.
She has repeatedly applied to reopen the investigation into the case, hoping to clear her grievances once and for all.
Dingoes like to hunt other animals in groups like wolves
In April 1998, the claim that wild dogs would not attack human babies was also shattered.
The wild dog attacked a 13-month-old baby girl at the time and tried to drag her away.
Fortunately, the father reacted in time and ran to the wild dog to force it to let go of the injured baby.
Since then, there have been more and more incidents of wild dogs injuring people, with 400 wild dog attacks on humans recorded on Fraser Island alone.
And people's attitudes towards wild dogs have changed dramatically.
Some have summed up this change as "the demonization of Lindy has been replaced by the demonization of the dingo".
A large number of wild dog carcasses are hung from trees, which has a deterrent effect on other wild dogs
In February 2012, the case was finally decided by the Supreme Court.
The judge finally declared: "There is sufficient evidence that the wild dog was aggressive under certain conditions and that it was the wild dog that killed Azaria".
The Chamberlains also received $1.3 million in compensation.
They waited for 32 years for this result, and "justice and truth will finally come."
It's just that time can indeed bring the truth, but it can never erase the harm.
The "Dingo Baby Killing Case" can be said to be the most bizarre and concerned case in Australia.
This 32-year-long farce has also become a typical case of "media trial" in history, and it is also an out-and-out forensic shame.
Science is a powerful bulwark against emotion.
However, under prejudice, it can also become a powerful thrust of public opinion and public opinion to affect judicial justice.
*References
Colin Evans. Bi Xiaoqing. Evidence: The Most Controversial Forensic Science Case in History [M].2007
Murderpedia:Lindy CHAMBERLAIN
Wikipedia:"Death of Azaria Chamberlain""Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton"