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Sunlight beams down around you, every ray inescapable. The Australian sun is an indomitable foe. The ozone layer above is pockmarked, the result? Suffocating heat and light and ultraviolet rays bouncing off the red sand of the surroundings and finding their way directly onto you.
The temperature is unbearable, but the shade you find yourself in offers respite. Suddenly, without warning, you're lifted by an unknown figure from your comfortable nook, a proverbial cradle of safety. You know not what is happening or where you're being carried off to, but eventually you find yourself sat down. You immediately notice something is wrong. The previous place you had come from felt like an ice bucket in comparison to where you now lay.
Then the pain comes. Searing pain. Pain like you've never felt before. Your skin prickles and blisters. It just won't stop. It cascades over you endlessly. The heat. It's too much. This all could have been avoided. You cursed the universe. This all could have been avoided if you weren't so damn delicious.
That's because you're a shrimp on the barbie and this is the red thread, baby. Red thread. Let's go. That was an interesting twist I didn't expect this time around. Oh, man. You didn't expect that one, huh? That one got me. That one was quite the curveball. I was like, the previous place was an ice bucket with someone in a freezer or something. What? What?
I was laying breadcrumbs. Yeah, Charlie might not have picked up on it. That was good. I purposefully don't read the intros because I want it to surprise me and I have not once known where it was going. So good job as always, Jackson.
It's very difficult to do, especially given this week we're talking about the Chamberlains, which if you guys are in the know, basically what it is, is it's the story of a young infant tragically taken and killed by dingoes, which are an Australian dog.
you know, a large dog in Australia, native animal. So that's where that phrase, a dingo ate my baby, which is like very commonly, you know, espoused and thrown around a lot in like pop culture and shit like that, which is kind of fucked up when you think about it for more than like two seconds.
So that's where that comes from. And I was like, how the fuck do I write an intro story about that? I can't even insert Epstein into it because it's Australia. He hasn't even been here probably. And plus it's involving a child. So maybe Epstein would be a bad taste. Oh, true. Yeah. I didn't even consider that element. But yeah, very...
very tricky kind of territory to write an intro around so I kind of took like the pop culture phrases element of it and went from there with the Outback Steakhouse slogan with the shrimps on the barbie that's the way to do it I don't actually know is that where that's from Outback Steakhouse I think it's from Outback I only know the phrase
Okay. I thought it was an Australian ad. No. We call them prawns, so you're probably right. Yeah, Outback, it touts itself as like an authentic Australian dining experience. So a lot of its commercials are like, yeah, from the land down under, you're going to throw the shrimps on the barbie. That sounded like Conor McGregor, but you know what I'm saying. It has to be like a...
It has to be bigoted towards Australians or something like that because it's guys who have never been to Australia. Like, yeah, we're going to make an Australian-themed steakhouse and just appeal to Americans. When I was over in America, I think it was the first time, the first trip over to America, Charlie and the boys took me out to an Outback Steakhouse. I think it was towards the end of the trip. Man, that's so funny, Charlie. I'm so glad you did that. I'm about to do it again for our Apex team who's Australian. So I want all the Australians to really experience what it's like.
The whole time, you're just there like, does it feel like home yet? Does it spank you? Are you happy now? I was like, what the fuck's a bloomin' onion? I was like, what the fuck is that? I've never heard of a bloomin' onion before. It's like the staple. Traditional cuisine, mate. That was pretty good. I will say that every time I think about this story, I think about, you know that scene in Tropic Thunder?
where Robert Downey Jr.'s character, he's the actor the whole time, but when that I think it was Chris not Chris Rock, whoever was playing the actual black guy in the movie makes fun of him
He's like, ding-a-wait, my baby. He immediately snaps and goes, you know that actually happened, right? That's not funny. You're making fun of a national tragedy. That's how I kind of feel about it as well. It's kind of fucked up that this phrase became so ubiquitous and memed to death, basically, when it is literally a
a baby dying like straight up yeah and a really fucked up court case well yeah because the because i remember this story from i think i talked about it in my unsolved true crime iceberg or maybe it was a podcast i talked about somewhere i remember there's like debate around a lot of the details of the case right
Yeah, yeah. There is a lot of unknown questions still unanswered to this day. It's like there is one official narrative, but there's room for, you know, like, eh. Yeah. I definitely believe in a certain outcome. Probably, I think, the most logical outcome of the story, which we'll get into eventually once we start discussing the case. But it's definitely not as, like, you know...
It's still a mystery at the end of the day. We don't have definitive facts or definitive conclusions to draw. It's really just up to personal opinion. So...
Before we continue, before we dive into it, just some quick notes. For those of you that might be new here, hi, I'm Jackson. We talk about an ever-growing assortment of topics, but we typically try to stay... Yeah, hey, Isaiah. We try to stay to things like conspiracies, mysteries, and the unknown. So that's what this is. You can also find us on audio platforms if you're watching on YouTube. People say that the show is pretty good for a commute. So if you want to test that theory out, be my guest. I don't care.
But also to those of you commuting, don't forget that we're also on YouTube. I've also heard that it's a good show to watch when you're in bed late at night with the lights all turned off and it gets all spooky and stuff. So you can watch one of the episodes on like, what was it? Kendrick Lamar versus Drake. That should be pretty scary. That's a really good campfire horror story. So you can watch that on YouTube. Basically just letting you know we're on audio platforms and YouTube. So links in the description for that.
No other notes apart from we've got show notes and those are linked in the description as well. So you can go down and research the case and our writing and what we're kind of reading from in this episode. That's all linked below for your viewing pleasure. Now, a dingo ate my baby. I like to ask this at the start of every episode just to get a feeling for where you're all at. It sounds like Isaiah, you know a lot about it. Charlie, you don't know anything beyond just the phrase. That's correct. Okay.
Any theories? Do you think the dingo did it? I have nothing to work with, but I would say it's a really weird thing to make up. So I would think, yeah, probably happened. Yeah, it would be a super strange thing to make up out of all the possibilities for why a baby would eventually go missing. A dingo just seems like such a weird thing to pop into your brain. I
I think I remember. I don't remember all the details of the case. We'll get refreshed as we go along. But I think my conclusion was, yeah, probably. But I also get why one wouldn't believe that is, I think, where I was at. But I think probably. I'm pretty sure. But we'll see. We'll go over all the evidence and set the scene and see where your mind comes to at the end of this one. Real quick. Can the thumbnail for this video be like a dingo like chewing on Jackson?
Thanks, alright. Just around my head. We'll try to make that happen. I don't think our photoshopping skills are quite at that level so I might actually need to go. You might actually need to get attacked by a dingo, yeah. It's for the show. We appreciate you for the cause, isn't that right, Charlie? Yeah, I think that's very brave. Thank you.
I'm always putting my life on the line for the red thread. I've made an enemy of literally every single topic that we've talked about. So dingoes are next, naturally. This is the one that's in Australia that you actually have to worry about. If you piss off the dingo mafia, it's over. This is the first one in your neck of the woods.
Yeah, better watch it, dingo boy. So in 1980, during a family camping trip at Uluru, in Australia's Northern Territory, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain's nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, disappeared from their tent. Their immediate belief that a dingo had taken their baby sparked a media frenzy and subsequently garnered public skepticism, leading to one of the most controversial legal cases in Australian history.
So the Chamberlain family consisting of Michael, Lindy and their children, Azaria and Reagan were an ordinary Australian family known for their strong Christian faith and active involvement in their community. From everything I've read about them, they were just stand up people, just very, you know, um,
generous members of society. Nothing untoward about them. There were no crimes or any nefarious deeds done before this case. So them being thrust into the spotlight like this was very obviously irregular, especially in the way that they would find themselves in the spotlight. But
Michael Chamberlain was a pastor dedicated to his ministry and community service. Lindy Chamberlain was a devoted mother and homemaker, which was obviously very normal in the 80s. Despite the tragedy we are about to outline that thrust them into the national spotlight, their story is a long and brutal crusade for justice and truth that required the utmost conviction and unity from the family across decades. It is actually like a very harrowing story about how the judicial system
can just utterly fuck up someone's life. Basically at the drop of a hat. It's not just the fact that the story isn't just about the baby disappearing, a dingo eating the baby. It is also about
the legal fuckery that happened after the events and how that kind of ruined their lives. This is something I've talked to Jackson about a few times because as an avid watcher of A Current Affair, which is an Australian production, I have only ever seen the worst possible things from Australians' legal system. So I can only imagine how dog shit it would have been in the 80s
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was probably far worse then. And from what we're about to get into, I absolutely believe that it was a shithole. Let me ask you this, Jackson. I'm very dumb to Australian history, right? So am I. And is it because I'm a biased American? Probably. But when did Australia go from, like, a prison colony to, like, having...
like free range and laws and stuff like that because unless there was like towards it yeah we'll be free eventually yeah that's what i mean like it it seems like that would be a horrific process to try to turn that over like through bureaucracy over the years yeah
So none of us are free from what I understand. We're currently just on parole. We'll eventually earn our freedom. Okay. Once we make it up to the Queen and the monarchy and all that. No, so from what I understand, my grasp on Australian history is very, very rudimentary from high school and stuff.
Very long time ago, so a lot of it is forgotten. All I remember basically is that, yes, we started as a penal colony, but we also had a lot of people emigrate across from the UK, Ireland, and Scotland and such to begin their new lives over here. Basically the same as America. It's a pretty direct...
direct parallel even like what we unfortunately did to the native indigenous people yeah yeah brothers in that regard I guess mass murder what did you guys have like an independence I know we're getting off topic but I'm just curious we didn't have a war for independence or anything but in 1901 we you know officially became our own country you guys just asked they were like alright we don't really care laughing
I think it was around the time that Britain was kind of separating from all of its kind of international pursuits, maybe. I'm not sure. Mid to late 1800s, Britain was kind of losing their whole empire. Yeah, they were in trouble. They didn't really have an option. They couldn't keep Australia if Australia didn't want to be. So, that makes sense. Plus, Australia is so far away from England that it would have been a very difficult thing to manage. Yeah.
Sorry, sorry. I'm a nerd. In 1901, we found our freedom and from that point on, it's been smooth sailing since. But we still have... We had a guest on the official podcast, Charlie would remember, Friendly Geordies, who everyone can check out. He kind of covers the Australian scene on YouTube and especially politics and the legal system in Australia. And a lot of the legal system in Australia's faults stem from the fact that
It's all built off penal law, basically. A lot of it is codified from the 1800s and revolves around not offending lords and stuff like that. So a lot of our defamation laws and laws along those lines are very, very, let's say, antique. They're very open to be abused by powers above us peasants. So I think that's just a broader kind of
silhouette of what the judicial system is like in Australia. It's just very old and antiquated, as we'll probably see in this case. Lindy and Michael Chamberlain traveled to Uluru with their two sons, Aidan and Reagan, and a nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, in August of 1980. Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock located in the southern part of the Northern Territory in central Australia.
It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most iconic natural elements stemming from Australia. The rock is sacred to the Anangu, the aboriginal people of the area, who inhabited the region for tens of thousands of years. They've been enjoying the family holiday climbing Uluru, something now not available to do, exploring the area around and participating in dinners at the communal barbecue area, where they and many other families gathered around in the evening.
It was at one of these nighttime dinners on August the 17th where the trip would take an almost unbelievable turn. Lindy had the infant Azaria in her arms, both seemingly happy while the family chatted to other young families in the area. One of the other women there, Sally Lowe, walked to throw away some rubbish. Oh man, Jackson definitely wrote this. What? Throw away some rubbish at the dustbin. Rubbish. They threw away some rubbish? Is it trash? Yeah, it's trash. It's garbage. Garbage.
Rubbish. Rubbish. Rubbish doesn't even sound like a British word to me. Rubbish is like the most Harry Potter fucking word of all time. Hey, put it in the boot, eh?
or something. I could have used a more fancy word. Rubbish. It makes me happy because I never get to see it in the wild. So I'm glad. That is a rare one. You never get to see rubbish in the wild? I'm glad he throws... Yeah, I'm glad he just throws his slurs.
There's Australian slurs all over the page. This should be at least evidence that this isn't AI generated. So true. Maybe you have Australian AI. I don't know. Maybe you got... Maybe you beat one in a submission. Did you see... I'm sorry. I keep derailing. Did you see that guy who convinced the chat GPT that it was a horse?
That's very impressive. We don't have to go into it, but he spent like so long being like, you only nay, horses just nay. So like other people would talk to it and be like, do you feel bad? And Jet GPT would like...
like shakes head solemnly or whatever like how did they deprogram it did they have to get a bunch they did it the ai just kept asking for like people to effectively kill it it was like this they'd be like is do you feel this is right do you feel strange and it'd be like horse shakes his head no tragic it's probably you can definitely convince one to be australian for sure yeah google's ai has been all over the place i imagine that's the one that they got yeah
So they threw away the garbage and noted that she could see a couple of dingoes trailing behind her. Around the same time, Lindy saw Michael feeding some of the local dingoes and promptly told him to stop as it would just encourage them. Dingoes are wild dogs native to Australia. They're usually skittish around humans, but do have a tendency to be more bold and assertive over time when they acclimate to human presence, which would make sense given the location was a tourist destination.
Dingoes are generally not considered highly dangerous to humans, especially compared to other Australian wildlife, but they are still large dogs and can pose a risk.
Yeah, so just real quick. So people, when we talk about this case, a lot of people are like, there's no way a dingo would harm a baby or attack a baby. Like, it was kind of like seen as impossible that dingoes would pose a significant threat. But you got to understand, dingoes are just wild dogs. And wild dogs are still meat orientated. Why was it seen as impossible? Because if I saw like just a stray dog, I'd be like, yeah, that could hurt someone, you know?
Especially a baby, like the most vulnerable kind of human possible. I don't know why the perception is there that they couldn't hurt anyone or dogs, I guess, in general can't hurt anyone. I mean, domesticated dogs pose a significant threat to babies all the time. So I don't know why, but yeah, there is definitely a belief or there was a belief at the time that dingoes just couldn't hurt babies or humans.
Dingo attacks on humans are rare and fatalities are even rarer. There have only been a handful of reported deaths over the past few decades, but injury from dingoes attacks can occur more frequently, especially in places like Fraser Island where tourists and dingoes frequently interact.
Yeah, so Fraser Island is just off the coast of where I am, basically, like, a bit south, and there are several attacks every now and then. Like, you'll definitely see it in the news, and that's because predominantly people keep feeding dingoes and kind of, like, treating them like normal dogs and not the dangerous wildlife that they could potentially be. In my head, they're more like coyotes than anything. Yeah, yeah. I think they are larger than coyotes. I've...
I doubt that. Coyotes are pretty big. I don't know how big coyotes are, to be honest. So that was just a guess from what I had seen in like television shows and stuff. I have done some work with dingoes. So I've been around them and they are quite imposing. Are they like waist height? Like their heads? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Lindy. Lindy.
It was dark and difficult to see, but she could make out the dingo backing out of the tent with its head still inside. It backed out and ran off with Lindy screaming, a dingo got my baby, which would go on to become a mocked and parodied statement down the line with other variations also used such as, a dingo ate my baby.
Yeah. So it stemmed from that initial line that other people had heard her scream out, a dingo got my baby. And then it morphed over time into a dingo ate my baby. Did she? When she didn't chase it? She didn't say that. From what I read, she didn't chase it. No. Why? I mean, I think she was trying to get help.
I think her focus was on getting help and the dingo was running away. I feel like instinct would have you chase after it. It's not saying here that she thinks the dingo has the baby in her mouth, right? Or has the baby in its mouth. Because she sees the dingo backing out of the tent and the baby's crying from the tent. So she thinks that the baby got bit up inside of the tent, right? Okay.
Yeah, not that it's carrying it away. I think she was still like a bit of a distance away from the tent at this point, potentially. Yeah, yeah. So it might have made more sense to get help. I'm not sure what her thought. I mean, it's hard to judge someone in that kind of situation in general. If that's how it went down, like, I don't know what kind of decision making you would have at the drop of a hat like that.
There were drops of blood around the outside of the tent and articles inside had smears of blood on them. Reagan was found safely inside the tent, a relief to Lindy and Michael, but his area was missing from her basket. Everyone immediately became frantic. Michael rushed to Lindy and the tent as soon as he heard his wife screaming. Everyone began to get their torches as campers and rangers immediately spread out to search for his area.
The first investigator on the scene, Frank Morris, could see the blood around and in the tent and also noted paw prints leading from the entrance. Aboriginal trackers were called out to follow these tracks, but they faded nearby and they unfortunately were not able to find anything. There was also canine hair found inside the tent and also in the jumpsuit found later on. It appears that the tent and area around weren't very well photographed and documented due to the under-trained, under-staffed, and under-funded police force in the area, which would go on to become an embarrassment for the state police.
Many also noted that Michael Chamberlain did not participate in the searches and even told another camper during the ordeal, she's probably dead now. Wow, that's a pretty crazy thing to say for the father here. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but again, I'm going to use the excuse that like it's such a high stress situation. I don't know what is like really normal. It depends on his tone, I think. Yeah, I guess it's just the way it's written here makes it sound like he's like, oh, he's probably dead now.
Yeah, but if he was bugged out, kind of spacey, like, she's probably dead now. I can't believe it. I could see that. Or he's stressing out. He's screaming it, basically. We need to hurry up. We need to be quicker. She's probably dead now. Well, he didn't participate in the searches, so I don't think he'd be saying it that way.
I don't know.
As for why he did not participate in the searches, early in the search, police advised Michael Chamberlain to stay at the campsite in case his area returned or was found nearby. During the initial stages of the investigation, there were specific procedures and protocols that the police followed. This sometimes involves keeping family members away from the search areas to avoid contamination of potential evidence or interfere with the investigation. Another tourist, Murray Habby, said,
Murray, yeah, Murray Habby was nearby following tracks from a large dingo. He noticed indents in the sand and the tracks were imprinted on as though the dingo had laid something heavier down and a patch of some kind of dark substance next to it. This was assumed to be blood. Ranger Derek Hoff and a native tracker, Nui Minayintri, were called to look closer into the impressions in the ground where they saw what was like a knitted weave imprint, which could have come from a jacket.
So, okay, hold on. I'm trying to put together the pieces in my head. The mom sees the dingo in the tent and screams. Backing out of the tent. Backing out of the tent. So initially, like I said, she probably assumed that it had bit up the baby in the tent. She goes inside of the tent. One of the kids is fine, but the other is gone. So it's like, oh, it did actually carry it off. So now they're all panicking and looking around, right? Yeah.
That's what it sounds like. It's not like the mom saw the dingo carry off the baby and then goes to the tin and is like, okay, all right. I guess that makes more sense. Yeah. Immediately, there were doubts as to the disappearance of his area being caused by a dingo. Talking over drinks at a motel one evening shortly after the investigation, the four policemen originally signed to the case. Michael Gilroy, Frank Morris, John Lincoln, and John Bryson were discussing the possibility of Lindy's story of events.
John Lincoln apparently did not believe Lindy's story at all, saying, Not a chance. Never happened before. There's a fact you can't beat. Never ever happened. Okay, well, that's a bit close-minded. It's never happened before, so it just can't happen. Wild animal attacking a kid? Pure fiction. Absolutely not. Unheard of. Didn't happen.
His conviction is weird. He's always covering for something. Did John Lincoln steal the baby? Yeah. In actuality, there had been dingo attacks happening recently, just none had been fatal. Lincoln just refused to believe that a dog-like creature could lug a heavy baby so far away. The dingo population had been out of control recently in the outback, and it's likely that the police were embarrassed by the idea that they were sneaking up so close to the tourists.
No, this guy just sounds like a fucking idiot. What do you mean? A dog could absolutely carry a baby, especially a huge dog. That's what I said. His entire argument and a lot of the prosecution's argument eventually was that it was unrealistic to believe that the dingo could carry Azaria...
a long distance. Why? Why is that? I was like, what are you talking about? The dogs. And also babies are like at most eight pounds, like eight to 10 pounds. A dog carries that all the fucking dog toys way more than that. Like what? Yeah. It's not, it's not at all unbelievable or even unrealistic to believe that the baby, that a dingo could do that. In my opinion. Dudes on the dingo defense team. He's the best lawyer in Australia. Yeah. Jesus Christ.
It's so stupid. Nope, absolutely not. Never heard of it. It feels almost like he's just being a contrarian or he's trying to like stir up debate or start trying to... This is stupid. Let's think of something else. No, I know what really happened, guys. Boring. That kind of mood. Yeah, boring to like the most sensational in terms of like drama thing that could have happened.
Yeah.
Inside the jumpsuit was a baby vest, but it was inside out and the nappy was destroyed and torn to bits. But Lindy had been adamant that Azaria was wearing what she described as a matinee jacket, which was never found. When Morris first arrived at the scene, he picked up the jumper before he took any photos of it. He said that he had placed it back down the same way he found it, but by that point, the evidence had already effectively been tampered with.
So Morris was one of the police officers, one of the four police officers that was kind of, you know, on the case. So he showed up to this location and immediately just picked up the fucking evidence with his bare hands and inspected it and then put it back down in a way that he had claimed was the same. This shows how loose, let's say loose the police were with the evidence at this time and how seriously they took the investigation and
speaks to the amateur nature of the police force in the area. But beyond that, so yeah, the nappy was kind of like visibly destroyed, torn to shreds. But interestingly enough, the onesie, you know, like the baby onesie, it's photographed in the document right now, but the baby onesie wasn't really damaged at all. And this is like kind of the core strange thing that kind of leads me to think or leads me to
Kind of understanding the theory that it wasn't a dingo because how the hell is a dingo going to get a baby out of that onesie without doing damage to the onesie itself? Yeah. It's a bit hard to believe that a dingo could. It's hard to believe you would find just the onesie and nobody. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Or no evidence that it had torn the body out from the outfit. I would expect the outfit itself to be torn. It's like a dingo peels a child like an orange before consuming them. It doesn't make sense. Yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me. But it's not enough for me to outwardly believe that it's not a dingo. At this point in this episode, I still believe that the dingo makes the most sense given how the events before transpired and how Lindy had seen the dingo and people had heard the commotion and stuff like that.
So the case was taken over by detective sergeant Graham Charlwood a few days after the discovery of the nappy in the jumpsuit on August 28th. And this is where the media gets involved and the case turns into the Crown's version of events versus Lindy's.
I will say maybe like to play devil's advocate, the, the baby suit was found in, or the jumpsuit was found inside out. Right. So maybe if like the collar of it was opened and I mean, this is kind of graphic, but say that like the dingo, like was pulling like on the head, maybe it could drag across the ground and like, you know, fold out of the jumpsuit maybe. Hmm.
Yeah, if the jumpsuit was folded inside out, that would be congruent with that kind of motion. Yeah, maybe it was like it got dragged across the ground and pulled it out. I could see that. Yeah, that's kind of where my head was going as well. Maybe. The only way it would make sense with the dingo. So now we get into the court case.
In the initial report by Michael Gilroy, there were strange extra pieces of information. For example, when taken for a medical checkup, Lindy had dressed baby Azaria in all black, which was seen as strange. The doctor they went and saw had also looked up the meaning behind the name Azaria as he thought it was strange and unique. Wait, what?
So the doctor that Lindy had taken the baby to, the family doctor, basically spoke to the police after the fact. Oh, okay. I thought this is saying that...
I thought it would say that during the investigation, a medical examiner was like, hmm, let me... Let's search the name. That seems interesting to me. No, no, no, no. Also, for the dressing the baby all in black, there was kind of the belief in the community that Lindy and Michael were both cultists, basically, who wanted to sacrifice their baby. So they're like...
They always dress the baby up in black. That means that it's a demonic kind of sacrifice thing. Of course. Makes sense. I guess in the 80s. So that's why that is relevant. Yeah, this sounds like right around the satanic panic time. I'm not surprised. Yeah. Like that popped up. Yeah.
Apparently, he found that the name meant sacrifice in the wilderness. Oh. Sorry. I was ready to say sacrifice by dingo at Uluru in 1980. Ah, yes. A classic aboriginal name that means I'm going to take my baby to a barbecue trip and leave it in a tent to be eaten by dingoes. Yeah. What a beautiful name.
It's even worse because he was wrong. He just made this up, basically. Yeah, me reporting on a dead child? I actually think its name means sacrifice. It has to. Erm, source? He's a doctor. Me, I'm the source. It came to me in a dream.
Even though this was added to the report and was circulated frequently in the media by reporters, it's incorrect. The name actually means whom God aims, which makes sense because the Chamberlain family are a part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
It was also noted in the report that the Nappy and jumpsuit discovered had been nearby to an area where the family had been hiking earlier in the day, and it was suggested that those who saw Lindy carrying Azaria could have actually just seen her carrying a white bundle of blankets, not Azaria.
Which is... I'll immediately throw this evidence that flies in the face of what the prosecution is arguing in that capacity. There's testimony from people later on in the evening that they heard Azaria crying, and that's what kickstarted Lindy going to the tent. What they're saying here is that...
Lindy maybe the crown's theory is that Lindy went killed the baby threw it in the woods whatever and then faked a dingo attack right yes that's the main point so ignoring even that other people heard the baby crying how would she there was another child in the tent right
Yeah, Reagan. Yeah, Reagan. So how are you faking such a scenario that the other child doesn't notice it and also causing dingoes to go in there? That seems pretty common. There's easier ways to get rid of your kid, you know? Yeah, but I think they're arguing the dingo thing was never real to begin with. So it wouldn't be like she would have dingoed in or anything. Okay, I see. So Lindy's the only one that saw the dingo.
Yeah. Yes. People are going to also say if Reagan, the brother, the other child was in the tent as well. Why didn't he see the dingo? Or why didn't he give evidence? I couldn't find anything from his perspective or from his reporting, like a report about what he saw. But he was also four years old at the time. So it's likely it's possible that he just didn't see. Yeah. It was asleep or something. Who knows? Yeah. Gotcha. Okay.
Immediately, a lot of doubt was placed on Lindy, and the media ran with this narrative. Newspapers began to report that the Chamberlains possibly killed Azaria as some part of a religious sacrifice, killed to atone for her sins of the church. Well, that's really sad.
At the time, Seventh-day Adventists were seen as more cult than religion due to the niche aspect, and the Chamberlains were prominent and about members, with Michael Chamberlain being a pastor. So the media and public essentially painted them as crazy cultists who had planned to sacrifice their baby. Yeah, let's operate under the assumption that they actually did just lose their baby, and they're immediately ostracized from their community as cultists, basically. My God.
I mean, it's also really stupid because if they were going to sacrifice their baby, why would they do it in an extremely public place surrounded by other families? Yeah, it baffles me. It doesn't make any sense why they would believe that it was a sacrifice. It couldn't have been a dingo, a wild dog that took the baby. It was most likely a cultist sacrifice. At a campsite surrounded by a bunch of other families. I understand the media gets sensational and stuff like that, but like...
This is such a crackpot theory. Why run that and deface so much? Well, I would assume satanic panic was a thing. Again, you mentioned that before. Yeah, satanic panic. And also, the Seventh-day Adventists were a more niche religion at the time. So, it feels like...
uh religious ostracization or something or you know just just entirely because they were religious do you guys have a lot of seventh-day adventist in australia because i remember i don't know now i don't know now but back then it was definitely more niche from the reports that i read this is one story and then i remember when i was doing all the stuff about waco and we talked about on the podcast it was uh australian news who came out to interview him so like
And they're like tangentially connected to Seventh-day Adventists. I don't know. Maybe there's something to that. There's definitely like a large-ish community, but it was at that time probably it was emerging and more of a niche kind of religion. Okay, cool.
There ended up being four coroner inquests into the death of Azaria. The first, opened December 19th, 1980, announced live on TV that Azaria met her death when attacked by a wild dingo whilst asleep in her family's tent. Neither of her parents were responsible. However, they also reported that Azaria's body was allegedly actually taken from the dingo and disposed of in some unknown way. They believed that...
The damage to her clothes was not consistent with an animal, specifically a dingo, and argued that the clothes were placed on the boulder to be found by someone eventually.
Yeah. Okay. That's kind of what we were talking about. Yeah. Yeah. They picked up on the same kind of thing, like the question that we had, but they took it in a kind of weird way. Like they, they agreed that it was a dingo that attacked her, but then eventually it set her down or left her. And then someone else like took the body and buried it or dispose of the body in some other way. Wait, did they, did they ever find the body?
No, they haven't found it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was about to say. So, like, what... Hold on. They don't even have a body, but this guy's saying that...
the body was disposed in a very non-dingo way after the fact. Well, he's saying we don't know what happened to the body after the fact, but we know, we think it wasn't taken by a dingo basically. Okay, okay, I got you. Because of the way that the outfit is. The removal from the jumpsuit was not dingo behavior, effectively. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
it's very confusing to me as well like the logic here they had argued this because it is admittedly quite odd that the dingo is able to eject the body from it's not funny it's not funny eject the body why do you have to say eject eject the body from the clothes without riffing and tearing the outfit itself
This report was also heavily critical of the Northern Territory authorities and how they had handled the situation, the evidence and investigation in particular. Yeah, so just a quick distinction. The Northern Territory is a state in, well, it's a territory in Australia. It's one of the, I mean, it's one of the largest by land size, I think. It's pretty large, but it's also very rural and not a lot of people there. So the police force there is also large.
um underfunded under trained and very spread wide so the so each of your territories have like their own distinctive departments state police yeah okay gotcha all right we do have a federal police it's kind of you know yeah same as america most states most countries i imagine yeah yeah the larger one and then the state ones
Yeah, yeah. So I imagine a case like this, it would be, I mean, once it becomes a big deal, maybe it would go federal, but initially it's just the Northern Territory, yeah. Yeah, well, they probably still have jurisdiction over it regardless. Of course, yeah. They can throw their weight around when they want, yeah. The Northern Territory police did not like these findings as they believed that Lindsay Chamberlain had killed her baby Azaria.
why did they want her to have killed the baby? They really did. They really wanted, they were playing defense with the dingoes. I'm telling you, like they was so not our dingoes. It's not dissimilar from American cops. I actually just read a story the other day about where, uh, cops got called. Cause, uh,
This guy's son reported his dad missing. The cops got there and immediately started saying the son must have killed the father because he's not home yet. So they spent 17 hours interrogating him, threatening to kill his dog, claiming that the dog was depressed after he witnessed or after the dog witnessed the son kill the father. And after 17 hours, they forced a confession out of him that he killed his father when it turned out the dad was still alive. So the sister called and said, hey, dad's alive.
But the guy got locked into a psychiatric hold for three days, all because the cops wanted him to be the killer.
Well, how did they convince him that he had killed him? Well, he also had a mental illness and they deprived him of his meds. So he started going through like very extreme withdrawals, like clawing his hair out, ripping his shirt off until eventually they forced him to like confess to something that never happened. And their entire evidence was a sad dog? No, they didn't have evidence. The only evidence they had is that they didn't know where the dad was.
Okay, so they didn't get Cesar Millan out to talk to the dog? Talk to the dog, no. The reason I bring that up is because that's just, I don't know why, it's something that cops really like to do to crack cases, even if it's just totally fucking wrong. Yeah, some kind of behavioral aspect or weird thing that cops do, but yeah, it's definitely noticeable in a lot of cases. Yeah.
All right. Furthermore, they were publicly embarrassed on a grand stage. They opened a new task force called Operation Ochre. Is that pronounced right? Ochre? I think so. Named after the color of the red sand in the Australian outback. And on September 19th, 1981, they performed a search of Lindy and Michael's home that lasted more than four hours.
They seized over 300 items, including their car, Yellow Toronto, which was used on their holiday to Uluru. They justified the search by using the findings of a British forensic expert named James Cameron, who would later go on to direct the Titanic. Not that James Cameron yet. I'm just reading what you have written. Would later go on to direct Avatar. Oscar winning director James Cameron was on the scene. Yeah.
He believed in examining Azaria's clothing that a dingo had not been involved in her disappearance. Two months later, the attorney general for the Northern Territory filed to have findings of the first inquest squashed. They revealed they had found the presence of blood in Chamberlain's family car, which was the tipping point for a second inquest.
Interesting. Okay. So, so they, they were like that dedicated to the fact that, um, or their belief that a dingo was not responsible for this murder, which I guess if, I guess like if there's doubt there, then sure. Do the investigations. Uh, I guess that's your like responsibility as a police force, right. To, to conduct these investigations, to try to get to the bottom of it. Um,
But it's very obvious in reading the reports and the kind of stuff that they did that they were just desperately looking for things to reaffirm their own beliefs that the Chamberlains were responsible for this. Like, they were piecing together things out of nowhere just to fit their kind of goal. Yeah, yeah.
The second inquest opened on December 14th, 1981. Northern Territory authorities believed that Lindy had taken baby Azaria from the campsite to the family car and slit her throat with scissors. They then thought that she hid Azaria in Michael's large camera bag until she could dispose of the body and hid the jumpsuit in an area which would later be found by someone else. They also thought that Lindy was trying to replicate what looked like a dingo attack.
The jumpsuit had a tear on the top of the neck area, which they alleged was more consistent with scissors than dingo teeth. The authorities were zoning in on Lindy. There was no other possible outcome for them. And because of this, whatever evidence they found, they could manipulate into fitting their story. Malcolm Brown, a city reporter, said, quote, The first inquest was about dingoes. This one is about blood.
So, yeah, I mean, just to go over that real quick again, their belief was that Lindy had killed Azaria in the car with scissors and then during the day had taken her body on the trip in a camera case.
And basically set up that little crime scene with the outfit and stuff out on the hiking trail. And then carried a bunch of clothes back to the campsite that basically looked like a bundle of white clothes to simulate violence.
the baby um but then again we run into the same problem that people had heard azari's cries at the campsite that night and you run into the same problem of basic fucking logic why would she leave the clothes to be found by somebody else and not make it look like an over-the-top dingo attack instead the clothes made it significantly more suspicious i feel like if she was trying to replicate a dingo attack everything would be tattered everything would be completely shredded with scissors
Yeah, she could have done that. I mean, like, she could have believed that that would have helped. It probably would have been pretty obvious that the shit had been cut with scissors. But, like, she could have believed that it would have been enough to convince people that it was a dingo attack. So if she was trying to simulate a dingo attack, why did she leave clothes there perfectly in good condition? Exactly. I know they said they found blood in the car. Did they find it in the camera bag? Stuff like that? I don't know. Yeah, you would think...
I mean, that's a lot of blood to a sanguinate, you know, someone that's... Did they find, like, a speck? And they're like, clearly, there was a decapitation here, you know? Oh, we're going to go on about the blood in the car. This is very frustrating. All right. So, Lindy was charged with murder. Oh, my gosh. Lindy was charged with murder. Wait, just charged. At this point, charged. Yeah, yeah, charged, charged. But the fact that they think they have enough evidence that they can charge...
Oh yeah, well they were desperate to fix their perception at this time as well. They needed it to be real for some reason. Gosh, this is the best PR dingoes I've ever received. Some dingo out there has the entire Northern Territory police force on his payroll. Everything is falling right into our plan.
And Michael with accessory after the fact. With the authorities coming full force against Lindy and Michael, the media jumped on the train too, whipping everything up into a public frenzy and micro-analyzing every aspect with the subtlety and nuance expected of tabloids. This was no longer a hunt for the truth or justice. It was a media circus that played directly into reaffirming the almost completely baseless accusations levied by an embarrassed police force.
Lindy was also pregnant at the time of the trial too, which didn't help public opinion of her. Many criticized how Lindy presented herself throughout all of this. She was stoic and calm when many expected her to be a crying mess. This was deemed evidence, in the public's mind at least, of her being a stone-cold killer and not a semblance of guilt.
Man, I know stuff like this happens a lot in history, but man, it's so depressing, you know? Yeah, how public opinion is just kind of... It feeds itself, right? Like, people just come up with this dumb shit. Like, I hate... I hate how...
like there is never any nuance it's either like cases like this where a woman's child was killed and they're like she had to have done it or it's stuff like casey anthony where it's such an obvious case and the courts are like but my hands are tied i can't like it's so frustrating so much you know what's insufferable about this though she was stoic and calm and so people like deemed her guilty because of that
I can guarantee you if she was like crying and stuff, people would still be like, oh, she's just performative. She's still guilty. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's only crying because she knows what she did and she's caught. Look at her. Look at her faking. She's so she's so good. I mean, there's no winning with people once once people have mentally deemed you as like the enemy as not deserving of like, you know,
human rights or benefit of the doubt or stuff like that everything you do will be a negative yeah yeah you're not gonna win and like in social situations and stuff like that it's like okay you can move on but this is this woman this is a murder trial now you know she asked she can't get out of it poor thing
And it's just so annoying because the public is so irresponsible with this shit. And I feel like individually, we all know that. And individually, we know that these are serious stakes, but there's just like a fever that rushes over entire groups of people. It's, it's,
It's kind of like brainwashing because it just happens on a grand scale. And even though you individually know you shouldn't be jumping to these conclusions or kind of believing these kinds of things just at face value, it still happens. Yeah. And to this day, it still happens. Yeah. And it always will. That's human nature. I know. It's just annoying. I hate it. Yep.
During the opening of the trial, the prosecution's opening outlined how they believe Lindy's story about the dingo to be a, quote, fanciful lie calculated to conceal the truth. There's no motive, no body, no eyewitnesses. A big calculated lie. Fucking dingo attack. There's never even like, why would she kill a child? Because she's in a cult. Okay.
So she kills a child in this insanely convoluted way. Doesn't do a good job at hiding evidence or anything. It's the opposite of reasonable doubt. They didn't have any motive, nobody, no eyewitnesses. There was no reason. Just the faintest idea that, what if she did it? What if she did it? This is all going off that Lincoln cop who's like, pure fiction. Absolutely not. Dingo, baby. Nope. Never heard of it.
Oh yeah. Also, they didn't, they didn't have any like evidence of like abusing their kids or mental illness or anything like post post. What is it? Not, is it postnatal depression? Postpartum.
postpartum depression what's natal is that anyway postpartum depression stuff like that there was no evidence of anything like that so um there's no real motive for her killing her baby yeah there's no there's no thought put into it other than but what if they didn't even try they didn't even try i don't know let's have a trial over it we'll find out i just really did not like lindy
But this did not matter to them. They even said that, quote, the Crown does not venture to suggest any reason or motive for the killing. It's not part of our case that Mrs. Chamberlain had previously shown any ill will towards the child.
How is that not your case? That's not important. It doesn't matter why she did it. It just matters that we know she did it because we believe she did it. Yeah. Well, what's your evidence? Well, that she, we think that she wanted to. Well, did she want to? We're not going to speculate on that. My,
My evidence is I've never met a dingo I couldn't trust. My evidence is I've seen some very suspicious babies. Alright, never a dingo. Dingoes are always very upfront, stand on business. Dingoes never hurt me. But a woman has. Yeah.
Lindy, have you considered that I've never been attacked by a dingo? And then the whole jury's like, man, that's a good point. Would everyone in the court please raise their hand if they've ever heard of a dingo eating a baby? Interesting. Zero. I rest my case. Is there anyone here who was eaten as a baby? That's what I thought.
Very compelling. We joke, but that's how like 80% of like the witch trials went. It was just stuff like that. There is actually like evidence of this continuously happening in history. It's a depressing thought. It really is. They also questioned one of the fellow tourists that night, Sally Lowe, the woman who had seen dingoes when taking the rubbish out, who seemed to corroborate Lindy's story.
Yeah, so they had seen dingoes in the area, by the way, like around the campsite. Yeah. The other woman saw it. It was infested with dingoes. Yeah.
Yeah, but then the Crown Prosecution comes in and says, but you also saw Lindy there, right? And then she had to say yes. This feels like the opposite of the OJ case, where you would be like, okay, the defense has an easy chip in, right? Like, it's right there. Don't mess this up, you know? Um...
Well, the defense also fucked it up in the OJ situation. No, no, no. I'm saying... No, the defense... I'm saying in OJ, it was the prosecution who had an easy chip in. Oh, right. Where it's like, this is such an open and shut. He did it. And they goofed up. And here you would think that the defense team, it's like, come on. You've got this.
She said Lindy was only away from the communal barbecue for about 6-10 minutes. When did she have time to kill Azaria? And when Lindy returned to the barbecue, Sally had also heard a baby cry that she believes definitely came from the tent, which almost entirely discredits the prosecution's argument that Lindy had killed Azaria earlier in the day. Yeah, I don't think tape recorders or anything like that were found at the scene, so it's not like she could have taped the baby's cry and played it for everyone to hear from the tent. Yeah.
We kept hearing the sound of a baby crying, but for three seconds on a loop, it was weird. I guess dingoes do that to children. Other tourists who were there that night were also questioned by the prosecution. Sally's husband, Greg, was asked if he saw the Chamberlains cleaning up any blood from around their family car. He hadn't and believed as it was so busy, if they had been doing that, it would have been noticed.
Another, Judy West, reported that a few minutes after Lindy had cried out for help, she heard a very low and deep dingo growl from around their tent. Astonishingly, her 12-year-old daughter had also been grabbed at by a dingo during that trip. Judy had to scare it away.
So it also happened in that trip itself. Someone else was attacked by it. This goes back to my thesis that Australia is not meant to be inhabited. Oh, come on. Everything you have tries to kill you. And it's a trip where your 12-year-old child can be attacked by a wild dog. And you're like, man, get out of here. Hey, scram. Scram. Builds character. Let him go. Get out of here.
That's very unprofessional of you. Anyway, sweetie, look out. There's a giant spider on your head. Don't move or you'll be paralyzed forever. So the only Australian animals that I'm actually genuinely scared of or believe could pose an actual threat
Well, they can all post rights, but these ones are scary. One, cassowaries. If you've ever seen a cassowary in real life, you know what I'm talking about. They're actually terrifying. They're evens-boned steroids. And also, stonefish, which are...
pretty dumb individually but they scare me for some reason it's just the fear of the unknown like i could be well i mean you've also got i mean my word dude you've got like blue ring octopus cigarette snails every kind of shark you could imagine like everything there's trying to kill you i know why they made it a prison colony i would have to i like it here yeah yeah well that that's called stockholm syndrome anyway there was another testimony however that painted a strange picture of michael
What do you guys think of that, huh? That is definitely interesting.
Well, like, again, if we're under the assumption that he's just like having a conniption saying that it's God's will, whatever, they think their baby's been dragged out into the bush. So they go look into the bush again. I think that I still think unless there is overwhelming evidence that the amount of effort that would have to go into concealing it the way they did is implausible.
Yeah, I mean, they could have done it anywhere else, not surrounded by people, if they were that intent on killing their baby. Yeah, correct. With dozens of witnesses, it's not the time to just be like, I think the kid dies right now. And do it in the most weird way possible by staging a dingo attack. Yeah, yeah. Whatever happens, it is God's will, to me, sounds like him just trying to comfort his grieving or scared wife, right? Yeah, yeah. That's what it reads like to me.
Forensic experts took to the stand at this point. Arguments were made that apparently the blood had been found in Azaria's jumpsuit flowed in a way that indicated it came from a neck wound. And also, as said previously, the tear on the piece of clothing was more in line with being cut by a sharp object and not dingo teeth. Many have also questioned that if Azaria was taken by a dingo, how come the jumpsuit is in reasonable condition? Beside the small tears and blood, it remained in one piece and was not torn to shreds.
Some theorize that Azaria could have just slipped out of the jumpsuit while being dragged across the ground. One of the biggest pieces of evidence came from a biologist, Joy Cole, who said her test had shown that blood in the car had been from an infant, as her test showed fetal hemoglobin, which is a type of blood cell found in the fetus during gestation.
This was big, as one of the biggest pieces of evidence for the prosecution was the blood in the car, and they argued it was the murder scene. What? Yeah, so they argued that the baby was killed in the car because they found fetal hemoglobin in the car, which is obviously blood directly from an infant. Yeah, okay, um...
However, there were questions about the accuracy of the test results. The actual test had been destroyed. Apparently, standard practice equals... Well, it's like a mission briefing in Mission Impossible where it self-destructs after you get the info. What possible reason would you have for destroying...
I've heard of labs like they'll keep a sample for like six months or whatever, right? And then they'll ditch it if they don't need it. Like, for example, when you have blood work done at a doctor's checkup, they don't keep it forever. But in the midst of a murder case, why would you destroy it? What on earth? We blew it up yesterday. We needed to make room. Well, that fetal hemoglobin, you know, it's explosive at low temperatures. So we had to be careful.
I can't understand why they destroyed it. Fetal hemoglobin sounds like a Spider-Man villain too. I hate it. It's so dumb.
The problem is fetal hemoglobin can actually also be found in very low levels in adults. The Chamberlains had actually picked up a bleeding hitchhiker not long before Zeri's death. Could this blood actually have been from him? Also, more realistically, fetal hemoglobin can be found not just in blood, but also other liquids like saliva and snot. Babies are known to be constant sources of liquid. Well, I don't like that last sentence, but other than that, I agree with the paragraph.
Yeah, I mean, it needs some liquid. Babies are a well-known source. It didn't need to be written that way. But also, yeah, so it didn't have to be from blood fetal. Hemoglobin can obviously be found in a bunch of different sources from babies. And babies obviously are yucky and produce a lot of stuff like snot, saliva. Sneezing and all that all the time.
Yeah. So that's their key evidence is fetal hemoglobin, which is also very common in...
Okay, whatever. Yeah, that's an insane source to go off of, especially if you don't have the samples. Other witnesses argued on the logistics of the attack if it had been from a dingo. The main argument was that a dingo attack would have caused way more bleeding and the baby's head would not have been able to fit inside of the dingo's mouth. See, this sounds like the dingo defense attorneys once again. I know. You could absolutely fit a child's head in a dog's mouth. Yeah, literally.
Like, what are you talking about? 100%. Why did it need to be the head? Like, just the neck would have been fine. Yeah, and even then, like, have you seen a dog? They have, like, famously large mouths. Yeah. This was countered by the defense with a photograph of a dingo with a doll with the head of the doll anatomically similar to a dingo, but successfully inside the dingo's mouth.
We didn't know they could do that. That's really funny that they're like, oh yeah, I can't fit a baby in a dog's mouth. Exhibit A, your honor. And it's like a Fisher-Frice baby doll. That is very compelling evidence. That's so funny now, is it? You have a doctor there who's like, oh, by God, what is this?
Get that off the screen. There was also what appeared to be a small bloody fingerprint patterns on the clothing found that the prosecution showed the jury under an ultraviolet light. They had claimed these small bloody fingerprints belonged to Lindy.
lindy was called to the stand she spoke about the matinee jacket azaria had been wearing that night and how she had always insisted on azaria wearing this it was also discovered that the bloody finger patterns weren't anything like lindy's fingers prosecution tried to pick lindy's story apart challenging every detail while incessantly directly asking her if the whole story was just fantasy
Yeah, so their entire argument towards Lindy was like, it's all made up, isn't it? Well, what if? You ever think of it that way? What if you're wrong? With the matinee jacket as well, that hadn't been found. So she always kind of looked like she was being dishonest because she was always claiming that the baby had been wearing the jacket. Something that it wasn't, yeah. Yeah, so there was that kind of doubt cast on it.
I like, too, the detail of, like, there were fingerprints on the baby. They thought it was Lindy's. The fingerprints were not Lindy's, but what if they were? She somehow changed her fingerprints. She's too good. That's what the ritual was. Change your fingerprints. Michael was also called to the stand, but he was very lackluster and weary. This was noticed even as he denied him or his wife ever being involved in Azaria's disappearance.
Several people spoke at the trial about the Chamberlain's character and grief, and also about the dingo population at a loo room. It had been getting a bit out of control in recent years, and many had scary encounters with them. There was still no motive, and the prosecution was relying on purely circumstantial evidence. Many expected an acquittal, but on October 29th at 8.37pm, a jury of nine men and three women found Lindy guilty of murder. What?! No!
On that evidence. No. On the evidence that maybe...
There isn't evidence. On zero physical evidence. There is no argument. They found guilty on the idea of evidence that might exist. It's clearly beyond reasonable doubt, right? What the sentence didn't say is many expected an acquittal, but on October 29th at 8.37pm, a jury of nine dingoes found Lindy guilty of murder. There's no other fucking reason.
I'm actually... I did not... I forgot about this detail. I probably knew it, but I forgot about this detail of the case. Bro, they found her guilty on the concept that it could happen with evidence that doesn't exist. This gets even more offensive, by the way. It's not like it's not just not compelling. It's that it doesn't exist. They haven't found evidence of anything yet. It's just a theory.
Like the fetal hemoglobin is their evidence. And that was counted by saying immediately that it could be found elsewhere. Yeah. Even still, that wouldn't be evidence of Lindy murdering the baby. Like there's no evidence of that. It's just, there's evidence that there was the fetal hemoglobin there. The rest is all just like, and then they stuffed her into a camera case and then, and then this, and then that. Why? Because we said to. Okay. I'm, I'm upset. I'm going to keep reading, but I am upset. This is a very upsetting story. Yeah.
They found Lindy guilty of murder and Michael guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Lindy was to serve life in prison, but Michael had his sentence suspended. The judge believed it was appropriate to do so.
At the time, this verdict was generally well received by the Australian public. You know, I'm glad that you all have giant spiders and stuff. We deserve it. That's our punishment. This is why you get stonefish and cassowaries. It's your fault. With the authorities and media's push against the Chamberlains, the public had been effective and unbelievably swayed against them. And
And even with the amount of evidence that seemed to cause reasonable doubt, many were satisfied with the outcome. Okay. I know, I know, I know as an American, I've got a big mouth, right? Like we've done a lot of similar like witch hunts that were very popular. I get that. Right. But what, okay. You're, you're Australian. What is the current feeling about this case?
Oh, yeah. I think the opinion has shifted over time. Definitely. Especially with some of the stuff that we're about to get into. Because at least when OJ happened, we were mad about it. Right? At least we weren't upset instead of... Oh, no. People were happy at the time. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. I'm glad you have spiders. Anyway. With the authorities and media's push against the Chamberlains, the public...
Yeah, yeah, I've read that part. I'm so mad I forgot where I was at. Lindy has always held strong on her claim of innocence. She began her sentence at Barima Prison near Darwin, where she gave birth to her daughter one month later. She had a short taste of freedom when she was released on bail awaiting appeal, but a few months later, the Australian High Court refused to set aside the conviction and she went back to prison. It's actually insane to me that she got life... Not only found guilty, obviously, but she got life in prison on that evidence.
Like life in prison. On no evidence. On the idea they wanted to find evidence. On fiction.
Yeah, did the people who were responsible for this go on to exist afterwards? Of course they did. There's never any punishment for it. There's never any punishment for it. Gosh. You don't get punished when you're in positions like these. You just don't. You can eviscerate people's lives left and right and just get a promotion. It's infuriating. You fail upwards endlessly. When you're in the right kind of circle, you fail upwards.
We see that everywhere. And also, not only that, but the people that are victimized by those decisions never actually get any kind of legitimate compensation when it's found that they've been fucked around with to a considerable degree.
Okay, so now we're going to get into the after trial discovery. So David Brett, an English hiker, was climbing Uluru in January 1986 when he tragically fell and died. There was an immediate search and rescue group sent out looking for him and he was found eight days later near a lair of dingoes. But interestingly enough, what was also found was a white matinee jacket, small enough to fit a baby. It was confirmed to be Azaria's.
This was the jacket that the police believed didn't exist and a core piece of evidence they had used to cast doubt as to the honesty of Lindy. And after this discovery, Lindy was ordered to be released from prison, which she was less than a month later on February 7th. She had served around four years of imprisonment at this point.
So they found the, thank God they found that jacket because she would probably still be in prison to this day if they didn't. If I will say to, to Australia's credit here, if this was America and they found that evidence, it would have never seen the light of day. Cause they wouldn't bother. They would have been too embarrassed. Yeah, they would. That's something that's happened before. It'll be like burying the evidence because then it becomes a problem.
Yeah. There are so many times that DNA evidence has come out later that exonerates people and they just never do anything with it unless someone makes a public statement. Also, something that was good here, in my opinion, is that she was released immediately from prison. They're like, holy shit, this kind of throws the entire...
case into you know doubt we're going to have to reinvestigate it so it's unfair of her to still be in prison whereas I think in America they probably would have just kept her in prison while they reinvestigated if they were to reinvestigate at all absolutely
Even though, like, it's so frustrating because our whole legal system is built around, you know, innocent until proven guilty. What's the Thomas Jefferson quote? I would rather ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be thrown in jail or whatever, right? Like, we're supposed to operate on safe assumptions until proven otherwise. But it's...
If there's a situation like this, it'd be like, well, what if he did do it, actually, and gave it to the dingo somehow? Let's keep him in, just in case. So, shortly after she was released from prison, this began the start of another inquiry into the death of baby Azaria. Firstly, it came out that the blood around the Chamberlain's vehicle was not blood at all. It was actually paint. So, I don't know how the fuck they fucked that one up. Like, the...
fell for the old video game trick where it's actually paint in the video game and not blood. But like, how? How do you fall? Like, don't you test it? Well, they destroyed the tests. Is this the blood they said had infant hemoglobin?
Yeah, fetal hemoglobin is actually a very popular source of paint. It's one of the core ingredients. That's how you make paint. You can have the most educated people in the country just walk up and just lie, make stuff up on a stand, and people's lives are ruined over it, and then it's paint. I'm so mad. I'm so mad.
you are meant to be able to trust expert testimony that's the entire point ideally yeah but then the experts are like this paint was infant blood actually I'm smart I would agree
So what it was found out to be was a sound deadener that was, or it's thought to be a sound deadener anyway, that was often sprayed behind the engines of new cars. And a man named Tony Raymond, a forensic biologist, visited a Holden, which is a brand of car, a Holden factory, and observed that this substance can escape through a hole behind the engine to under the dash. This happened while Lindy was still in prison and the public's opinion began to change on her. Most still believe she was guilty, but this new evidence casts a lot of doubt in people's minds.
They also went back and looked at the jumpsuit and found out that the rips could have been caused by a dingo after all, with dingoes being shown to also being very food motivated. They did more research into dingoes, I guess, and discovered that they really like food. So they're creatures that are able to get meat out of paper wrapping. So there was like evidence shown that they kind of...
are good at getting meat out from paper wrappings without like destroying the paper in the process they're very particular about what their focus is so this was used as evidence to kind of
kind of pointing the direction that the dingo might have been able to get the baby out of the jumpsuit without damaging the jumpsuit. I know people are stupid everywhere. I get it. But the idea that the public watched a video of a dingo pulling meat out of paper and was like, oh, maybe. They can do that? Jesus.
I like how it also says most still believe she was guilty even though they found the jacket the blood the core piece of evidence being blood was not blood it was paint and they're still like no she's still guilty though she still did it yeah that shit goes back to our original point that people once it's solid in your mind people just do not want to accept any other kind of evidence that would sway your opinion or what your thought is so it was like very solidified in the public opinion at the time yeah
In May 1987, a nearly 400-page long report was released by Justice Trevor Morling. It was very critical of the investigators and the prosecution of the trial. And this is the quote, or a significant quote from the report, from Morling.
From... Justice Trevor Morling... It is extraordinary... That the persons... At the barbecue area... At the time of... And immediately after... Azaria's disappearance... Accepted Miss Chamberlain's story... And noted nothing... About her appearance... And conduct... Suggesting that she had... Suddenly killed her daughter... I am far from being persuaded...
So he's saying all of this justice is saying if this was a regular trial and like...
a judge had seen all this evidence he would have an ethical and like uh professional duty and obligation to instruct the jury to return a non-guilty uh or an innocent um you know result so he's saying it is so like unbelievably obvious or so unbelievably not not guilty she's so unbelievably not guilty that they would have to return innocent so that's like
That's so ridiculous. That's so funny that that was basically said, like all the previous, all the previous things that went through the court system are basically a joke. Like so untrue. The next year, September 1988, all convictions against Lindy and Michael were squashed and the Northern Territory government paid them $1.3 million for wrongful imprisonment.
Which is not nearly enough. That's never enough for false imprisonment. That is so little. Also, it barely covered their legal costs. Plus the reputation. Sure, you're acquitted, but the reputation forever slandered. It completely ruined their lives. You can't get the years back. Mission accomplished, boys.
Yeah. Also, you said squashed. Squashed is an actual term. It's a legal thing. Is it? Squashed? It's an Australian term. Just ignore it. Is it actually? It is. It's a European thing. God damn it.
The story was adapted into a movie, Evil Angels, or A Cry in the Dark, same film, two different names depending where it was shown, starring Meryl Streep. Lindy also wrote a book called Through My Eyes, detailing her recount of the events that happened. Michael also wrote a book called Heart of Stone. Michael and Lindy ended up getting a divorce but are still united in their quest to continue to speak out about everything that happened to herself, her family, and her baby.
The fourth coroner inquest began in February 2012, conducted by Elizabeth. They found her guilty. They sent her back to prison at that point. Just imagine though if that was actually what happened. That would be the saddest conclusion.
So February 2012 was conducted by Elizabeth Morris. She took into account a lot of new evidence and facts about dingoes that had come up over the past few years. Turns out they love eating babies. That's the evidence they found. Especially the fact that there had been three fatal dingo attacks on children that had happened since Azaria's death.
Morris found the evidence clear. A dingo killed Azaria. Morris found that all other possibilities could be excluded. There was enough evidence to confidently conclude this version of events, and the cause of death was legally changed on the certificate.
Michael Chamberlain unfortunately passed away from leukemia in 2017 at age 72. Lindy Chamberlain still lives in Australia and has led a mostly private life, but occasionally appears in public to speak about her experience while advocating for legal and social justice issues. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so at the beginning, we did say that, like, obviously there's no conclusive end because they've never found the body. But, I mean, my own personal opinion is I think a dingo took this baby. The dingo ate the baby, absolutely. There's not a single possible other explanation that could ever exist in this case.
Well, there is in the sense that we don't know definitively. Like, we don't have the body. I think definitively we know. Like, I think it's impossible. You'd have to just come up with exactly what the trial or the others did where it was this unreasonable fiction to explain away shit.
Well, no, I could come up with something else. I could say, like, there was a random hitchhiker walking through the desert and he just went into the tent and grabbed the baby and ran off with it. Okay, well, if you're getting into, like, absolutely ridiculous shit with no basis, I suppose. Well, I'm saying we don't know for sure. We don't absolutely... There's no, like, direct... I mean, there is direct evidence of... All the evidence points towards a dingo ate the baby.
Yes. Yeah. All reasonable evidence. Yeah. I would agree with that. Again, my opinion is that a dingo took the baby. I'm just leaving room open for people who might think otherwise, I guess. But it doesn't matter because it was quashed and Lindy is innocent legally. And that's all that matters to me, really. Yep. I mean, at least she got the innocence of the last four years of her life, though. Yeah. And the public shame and also the public shame. Her baby.
Being incorrectly labeled as your own baby's killer for $1.3 million, that does not at all make up for that. I think that's Australian, so it's even less American. It's probably like $700,000 American.
So even less. Just a ridiculous kind of legal situation that stemmed from an incredible lack of evidence and just a really weird police investigation. All right. Any other thoughts from you guys? Nope.
just absolute terrible handling of this case i'm glad where it came out in the end but i'm still mad and will continue to be mad so thank you jackson for giving me another reason to be distrustful of you know governments and organizations as a whole i needed i didn't have enough so thanks bro appreciate it this is just another example of police or you know legal systems kind of covering their own tracks uh when they're embarrassed you know trying to trying to
Make sure that they're always correct publicly. So, yeah, very, very angry situation. Very sad situation. But that's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. It's a shorter one this week, but that's okay. I hope you guys all learned something and maybe learned something new about a situation that you didn't kind of understand before.
A dingo ate my baby has been a popular meme phrase a lot of the time. So maybe now you understand the context behind it. It's a lot sadder than it may initially kind of sound from the jokes and stuff like that. Also, big thank you to everyone for watching. I really appreciate it if you would like and subscribe on...
iTunes and stuff and rate it. It really does help out a lot. So thank you to everyone who does that. Big thank you to the team as well. The people researching and also our editor. I see a lot of praise for the show and I want to direct some of that towards the people that make it happen as well. So big thank you to the editor. Does an incredible job. And also my girlfriend who helps write the research documents. So thank you very much. Yeah, that's going to do it for me.
Thanks, everybody. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you all for watching. Stay mad. I know I will. Thanks, Jackson. Bye. Bye.
