there was anything inside it. In hindsight, a lot of controversy would have been avoided if the area had been sealed off and everything photographed before it was touched or moved. Morris must surely have wished he had done that. To be fair to him, the suggestion there had been a murder was a long way off. After examining the clothing, Morris laid it out in the way he thought he had found it. Goodwin did not agree with the way Morris did it. He said the description of the clothing, “neatly folded”, was not accurate. Morris claimed the jumpsuit was basically open except for a couple of studs at the bottom which he undid. Goodwin heard Morris ask Roff whether there were other dingo lairs in the area and Roff had said there were three. The second safeguard, preserving scientific evidence of a dingo attack, was failing.
Back in Mt Isa, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain started to hear the first poisonous talk about them, which was to rise to a crescendo. There were stories floating around that the SDA church practised black magic, or child sacrifice. The national mood itself became darker when on 29th August, Dr Eric Milne, brother of Lindy Chamberlain’s doctor, Dr Irene Mile, rang the police and told them that “Azaria” meant “Sacrifice in the Wilderness”. It was enough for the NT Police to send Constable Jim Metcalf, to the Mitchell Library in Sydney to research the meaning of the name. He came up with nothing but the rumour persisted.
The stories kept coming – that Azaria had been kidnapped by Aboriginals, or for that matter aliens. One extraordinary story was that Lindy had spear-tackled Azaria in the Mt Isa Supermarket, that a blood transfusion had been ordered on the baby and the Chamberlains had refused because the SDA church did not believe in blood transfusions, and that the baby had died and the dingo attack at Ayers Rock had been a charade, with SDA accomplices at Ayers Rock to back up her story. There was not a scrap of truth in this, though Azaria had had a tumble from a shopping trolley. The Chamberlains were at a disadvantage because of their religion. When questioned on television about the supposedly neat state of the baby’s clothing, Lindy said: “If you’ve ever seen a dingo eat, there’s no difficulty at all. They never eat the skin. They use their feet like feet like hands and pull back the skin as they go – just like peeling an orange.”
If only she had not said that! It caused audiences across the nation to recoil, at the supposedly clinical way in which she spoke about her lost baby. What Lindy said was accurate enough. Anyone who has ever owned a dog would know that dogs do not eat like pigs. They are quite delicate, even fastidious, eaters. But such was the developing hysteria that Lindy’s remarks did not go down well. There were other suggestions being put about, that the mother had done away with the baby, that it had been buried in the sand, dug up and reburied, and the jumpsuit placed near where dingoes were known to be. The Chamberlains were not helped by the findings of David Torlach, an agricultural scientist, called by the police to analyse soils at Ayers Rock to find the source of sand found in the jumpsuit. He found that soil in the campsite area had the same acidity as sand in Azaria’s jumpsuit and was different from the sand at the base of Ayers Rock.
The rumours escalated. When Malcolm Brown, as a reporter on the Sydney Morning Herald, rang Lindy at Mt Isa on 3rd September 1980, Michael had resumed his ministerial duties and was on a four-day conference for SDA ministers at Townsville. She said Aidan had come home crying from school, after receiving cruel jibes from other children. A friend’s phone had been “running hot” with unsympathetic inquirers. “The latest rumour going around is that my husband has been charged with murder, and that the baby was a sacrifice for our religion,” she said. “People say this memorial we want put up to Azaria at Ayers Rock is part of this sacrifice thing.” When she went shopping, and was unrecognised, she heard the gossip. “They’re liking the case with the Jonestown massacre and with the Spear Creek murders at Mt Isa 12 months ago,” she said. “I think three people were killed then. We were not even in Mt Isa. People say Azaria was sickly. They even say she was spastic. She wasn’t.” In October 1980, police conducted an interview with Aidan Chamberlain at Mt Isa. While they were doing that, Constable Barry Graham searched the Chamberlains’ car using a Big Jim torch. He reported: “I examined the interior of the vehicle, including the front and rear sections, seats, console, dashboard, glove compartment and hood. I did not find any suspicious staining in those areas.” He later admitted that he was also looking for a possible weapon and found none, not even scissors. His report would not be disclosed till years later. Neither the Chamberlain’s nor their legal team were told of this search until the Royal Commission years later.
Michael and Lindy Chamberlain gave statements on 1st and 2nd October. On 15th December, represented by an Alice Springs solicitor, Peter Dean, and later Phil Rice QC, from Adelaide, they appeared at the coroner’s inquest before Denis Barritt. Barritt was a genial 54-year-old former Victorian detective, then barrister, who had come to the Northern Territory 2-1/2 years before as a magistrate and coroner. He was from several perspectives the right man for the job. He had taken pains to educate himself in traditional Aboriginal law and culture. Interviewed by Malcolm Brown, he said that on one occasion an Aboriginal youth had stolen a car in Alice Springs and driven out towards an outstation in the desert. When he was a long way out, he had heard a noise in the back seat, had a look and found a little boy had been sleeping there. The youth brought the boy back to Alice Springs. He tried to get away but was caught. Barritt said: “The rules of the bench prevented me from stepping down and hugging that young man! He could have just ditched the boy somewhere. But he did the right thing.” Barritt did not say what penalty he had imposed for illegal use of the car, but it would probably have been a good behaviour bond, possibly with no conviction recorded. Barritt had a similar common-sense view towards the evidence that was now presented to him.
Appearing in the witness box, Lindy Chamberlain was well aware of rumours and suggestions that she had been involved in the baby’s death. She told Ashley Macknay, counsel assisting the coroner, that she could not entertain a scenario other than a dingo taking the baby. She said: “To consider that it was done with something other than a dingo brings in such a range of coincidences with split second timing that it seems impossible.” Greg and Sally Lowe gave evidence of what they had seen and heard, all exculpatory of the Chamberlains. Bill and Judith West gave evidence of hearing a dingo growl before Lindy raised the alarm.
Six-year-old Aidan Chamberlain’s statement totally supported the account his mother gave. He said he had been with his mother during the entire period from Lindy Chamberlain being at the barbecue area with Azaria and the moment she had raised the alarm. He said: “While we were in the tent, mummy put bubby in the cot and then I went to the car with mummy and she got some baked beans. I followed her down to the barbecue area. When we got to the barbecue area mummy opened the tin of baked beans and daddy said, ‘Is that bubby crying?’ and mummy said, ‘I don’t think so’. Mummy went back to the tent and said, ‘A dingo’s got my baby!’.”
All the evidence was pointing to a dingo attack. Aidan’s evidence, together with that of Sally Lowe, provided a barrier to any suggestion that there had been foul play. But the ugly rumours would not go away, and the yobbo mentality had been stirred. When the inquest resumed on 9th February 1981, after the Christmas break, it was decided, in the light of a number of anonymous telephone threats that had been made against the Chamberlains, that they should have a bodyguard. The man assigned to the task, Constable Frank Gibson, might have been under instructions to pick up anything about the Chamberlains that could be used in evidence. Whether that was true or not, Gibson became very positive in his attitude towards the couple. Others never became positive. The fact that the Chamberlains were “different” became the focus of national attention. Pastor Wal Taylor, the SDA Church’s legal liaison officer, said: “Had this involved the Methodist or Baptist Churches, there may not have been the same misunderstanding. There are the mainstream and fringe churches and many people have tended to put us on the fringe.”
In the resumed inquest, the focus was on scientific evidence. From the start, the Chamberlains were at a disadvantage. A South Australian forensic biologist, Andrew Scott, confirmed there been a spray of blood on the tent wall. That was critical evidence that the baby had been attacked in the tent. By the time Scott tested the area he failed to get a positive result, possibly because the material
