National Park After Dark - The Dingo Did It: Ulru Kata-Tjuta National Park

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Forty-one years ago, the Chamberlain family went on holiday to the Australian outback. Their idyllic getaway turned to tragedy when their young child was taken in the night from their tent. What ensued was a modern-day Australian witch hunt, one in which a mother was vilified – and painted by the media as a monster. For thirty years Lindy Chamberlain and her family stood firmly in their account of what happened on August 17th, 1980, maintaining their innocence – maintaining that their hands were clean … because the dingo did it.To learn more about how the dingo cull and fence are affecting the Australian landscape, learn more here For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Athena: Silky smooth razor kits. 20% off your first order with code NPADAway: Start your 100-day trial and grab some thoughtfully designed luggage of your own by using the provided link Simplisafe: 50% off your home security system using the provided linkFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday.com. Relax. As AI does the manual work, while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice you're limitless.

Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Have you ever been blamed for something that you didn't do? Take a moment to think about it. Many of us can pull one of those memories up pretty easily from the recesses of our minds. And depending on the severity of the situation you're reflecting on right now,

you may even feel your chest tighten and your heart race as you recall the, no, I swear, it wasn't me, situation at hand. The feelings elicited when being falsely accused are memories. They stick with you. A memory that can be felt throughout your entire body. Trying to convince others of your innocence can be difficult, but attempting to defend your innocence for decades against the world is unimaginable. Forty-one years ago, the Chamberlain family went on holiday to the outback. But on their second night, their idyllic getaway turned to tragedy when their young child was taken in the night from their tent.

What ensued was a modern-day Australian witch hunt, one in which a mother was vilified and painted by the media as a monster, who was desperate to cover up a horrendous crime. For 30 years, Lindy Chamberlain and her family stood firmly in their account of what happened on August 17, 1980, maintaining their innocence, maintaining that their hands were clean, because...

The dingo did it. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hey everybody, welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name is Cassie. And my name is Danielle. And we are so thrilled to be doing this episode today because it is the first time we are venturing to Australia. And we have a few listeners in Australia, too, that have been like, are you going to come to Australia? Are you going to do an episode here?

And yes, yes. Here we are, our first time. But before we get going with all of that, we have a couple of announcements. First, of course, the most exciting thing ever is we have our very first digital live event through Moment House coming up on December 9th. And we're really, really excited for it because we are going to be together in California. And we're going to tell some really wild stories that happen in Joshua Tree National Park. The best part about this, we are doing it December 9th at 7.30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. If you can't make that, it's going to be streaming for 72 hours after. And we're going to have some exclusive merch that's also involved in it as well. Yes. And it's going to be Joshua Tree themed because that's where our stories are taking place. And then we do have a meet and greet set up after the show. So if you want to get in on that, make sure you select.

to meet and greet when you're purchasing your tickets. You can find those on Momenthouse.com slash NPAD. You can find them on all our socials, our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It's Daniel's birthday, you guys. We got to celebrate. We're doing it the day before her birthday. Come wish her a happy birthday. What better present than to talk to all of you for our first live show. I can't wait to be in California, Southern California. I can't wait. Do you see how pasty I am right now. I need some son, okay? Your girl needs some son. And I am ready. Oh, last thing, before we start, we have a Black Friday sale coming up. We're going to add a couple new products in there that you can buy that will start on Black Friday. And we're going to throw some cool sales at you guys.

So keep that in mind and look out for it. You can find it on our website and p-a-d-d-podcast.com. New virtual live show, new merch, big things happening. coming up at the end of this year and we're really excited for them. But I'm excited to share this story with you today because it is one that I have been familiar with. Growing up, I've heard about this case. And when you hear about it at first, when you hear the names, you may not have a bell kind of dinging in your mind, but as soon as you hear the key phrase that's going to be coming up a lot in this case and in this episode, you're going to know. that you have heard of it before.

So we are going down under, we are going to Australia, heading down under for the first time. So here we go. Without further ado, we are going to Uluru Katta Juta National Park. So we are headed to Uluru Katta Juta National Park, and this national park is a protected area located in the northern territory of Australia. It has a desert landscape. So of course, as we know with deserts, it's super scorching hot during the day, but it can get super

chilly at night. So during the day, it can get over 45 degrees Celsius, which is about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And it dips down to about negative 5 degrees Celsius, which is about 22 degrees Fahrenheit. So we have a lot of extremes. The park is home to a wide variety of trees and shrubs, flowers, and grasses, as well as many different animals like the black-footed wallaby, the bush-tailed possum, lizards, kangaroos, emus, fox, monga snakes, and dingoes. The park covers 1,943 square kilometers, which is about 512 square miles, and includes two natural landmarks for which it is now named, Uluru and Katajuta. So we're going to go to Uluru first, because it is recognized.

by many as Australia's most famous natural icon. And if you haven't seen a picture of it yet, I would pause and look it up because it is absolutely stunning. It is a 500 million year old massive sandstone monolith. And a monolith is a geological feature that consists of a single massive stone or rock. So it is just one giant rock. And it towers over the landscape at 300 48 meters, which is over 1,100 feet. And it's just desert, ground, and then boom. Got to look this up now. Oh, wow. This is like not Devil's Tower. It looks a lot different than that. But it's just reminds me of that because it's flat landscape. And then it's just like this huge. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's way bigger than it's, it doesn't look like it's way taller. Maybe it's way taller. I'm not sure. I don't know the exact scale.

It's way bigger than Devil's Tower. Yeah, well, its circumference is nine and a half kilometers, which is almost six miles. Oh, my gosh. So it is giant, and it takes hours to walk around it, which a lot of people do when they go to visit. Can you climb it? You can. However, the local indigenous tribe, the Anungu, do not do to spiritual beliefs. And because just like Devil's Tower, it's funny you bring that up, because.

the local people that have lived there forever, they regard it as a sacred place and they don't participate in climbing. So over the millennia, the rock has consistently changed. Erosion and weather, including waterfalls caused by the precipitation in the rainy season, have created large caves, gorges, and pockmarks throughout the stone. And what you can see of it, obviously, is massive, but that's literally just the tip of the iceberg. Because similarly, compared to icebergs, what you see at the surface is just a fraction of its actual size. So this rock continues deep underground.

And while it's unclear just how deep the rock actually goes, the estimates are placed to a distance of about five kilometers, which is an additional three miles. Wow. It's just huge, this whole thing, three miles. So like I kind of alluded to before, Uluru is an important cultural site for the local Aboriginal people. Archaeological evidence places the Anungu living in the area around Uluru for at least 22,000 years, and they hold the rock as an extremely sacred and spiritual place.

Ancient art depicting ritual ceremonies and creation stories can be found in the caves of the rock as well. Nearby is Katajuta. This is another sandstone formation, but it's a little different than Uluru. Because it's not just one rock, it's actually 36 large sandstone domes. And it covers a larger area, and its highest peak is also taller than that of Uluru. But same as Uluru, it's also a very sacred space for the Anungu.

The first European explorers in the area actually came in the late 1800s, and they named Uluru Ayers Rock, and Katajuta, they named, the olgas. So similar vibe to here in the United States. They kind of nixed the original names and I didn't get too into it, but they named it after some people over in Europe that had nothing to do with the landscape itself. Okay. So by the 1900s, the Australian government declared ownership of the land and tourists and miners made their way to the area by the 1950s. As tourism grew, the local Anungu were pushed out and scattered across Central Australia. Sounds familiar.

Ayers Rock Mount Olgas National Park was officially established in 1958. So the park was handed back to the Anungu, so its traditional owners in 1985, who then, in turn, leased it back to the parks of Australia. So ever since, the park has been jointly managed by the Anungu and the the Australian government, and they have placed a heavy focus on maintaining Anungu culture and heritage throughout the park, and they protect the ecological integrity of the park, all while providing opportunities for visitors. So they have gone through a pretty similar history when it comes to how the Europeans came, pushed the local tribes out, kind of took it over, and then started a National Park, but what happened is they changed the way they handled things. And now the

Anungu have just as much say in what goes on in the national park as the Australian government does. There are actually Anungu members on the board of management for the park and their traditional law philosophies and their knowledge of the landscape guides everything that happens within the park. Very cool. That's awesome. I thought that was really unique. And special, and the management of this park isn't the only thing that has seen changes over the years. The park once offered options for tourist accommodations directly next to Uluru in the 1950s, but after adverse environmental impacts were noted, by the 1970s, accommodation infrastructure was moved outside the park. However, the campground adjacent to Uluru remained open to visitors

for a handful of years after that, until that too was shut down. in 1983. But today, our story began in that campground before it was closed on a summer night in 1980. During a single night set aside by a young family for a relaxing evening in the Australian bush that would soon take a drastic turn for the worst. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. Your thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sun dress. Those sandals you can wear

all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. This episode is brought to you by

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Watch only on Prime. Uluru was the Chamberlain family's holiday destination in August of 1980. Michael Chamberlain, his wife, Lindy, and their three young children, Aidan, who was was six, Reagan who was four, and Azaria, who was only nine weeks old. The group arrived to the park on August 16th of 1980 in set up camp. They spent the following day exploring, hiking, and taking photos. And that evening, all was well at the campsite, directly in the shadow of the giant rock. The campsite was by no means remote or removed from other people. This campground was a public area that was shared with a lot of different visitors. The Chamberlains were friendly with another

young family nearby. Greg and Sally Lowe, along with their young child, chatted over dinner the night of the 17th. The two groups arrived to Uluru as strangers, but got along well and warmed up quickly to each other. Michael was cooking on the barbecue, occasionally tossing scraps to the dingoes who lurked at the edge of the glow of the campfire, searching for an easy meal. The group chatted through the early evening and Lindy broke away briefly to settle in Reagan who had fallen asleep early. Aiden was still up with the adults. He was chasing mice scurrying around the campsite and just doing, you know, typical six-year-old things. And he didn't want to go to bed early. He wanted to stay up with everybody. Typical. So Lindy broke away once again and this time she had Aiden with her

and she had Azaria as well, and she made her way back to the tent where Reagan was sleeping. She bundled up her infant daughter and settled her into bed right near her already dozing brother. Aidan, still full of his energy, was not ready for sleep, so he did not want to go to bed. So he actually followed his mom back to the campsite. They returned to their evening and chatted away with their new friends. But then their peaceful night took a turn. Sally heard a baby cry coming from the tent nearby, and Lindy excused herself to check in on Azaria, but what she found, or didn't find, changed her life forever. She approached the tent and witnessed a dingo exiting it, seemingly carrying something heavy.

Next, the cry they heard was that of Lindy. My God, my God, the dingoes got my baby, she screamed. Michael ran over to his wife and was horrified at the site. The tent was missing a person and was splattered with tiny drops of red blood, and Azaria had been taken. Oh my God. Word of Azaria's disappearance and the panic it caused traveled like wildfire throughout the campsite. As the Chamberlains looked desperately throughout the immediate area, a group of fellow vacationers went to the nearby police station to sound the alarm. Frank Morris, head of the station at the time, lived nearby, and made it to the campsite very quickly.

He was led to the tent and noticed two things right away, droplets of blood within the tent, and dingo tracks leading to and from it. Just to be clear, dingoes are, they're similar to coyotes, right? We'll get into dingoes. Okay. And what they're about, yep. But to me, they look like large Shiba Inus. Oh, God. That's a nightmare.

For anyone working in veterinary medicine. You know Shibas. I mean, maybe they're great dogs outside of the vet hospital, but inside them they're like these little balls of terrors. Yeah. So at this point, baby Azaria had been missing for half an hour and panicked trickled into fear as thoughts of the cold temperatures and presence of predators nearby began to rise. Chief Ranger Derek Roth arrived and was brought into the loop. He quickly organized a large group of 300 volunteers who formed a chain and were given flashlights and were dispatched to find his aria.

Meanwhile, he and an expert Aboriginal tracker followed the dingo tracks leading from the tent. They noted a depression in the earth nearby. The men concluded, looked as if an object wrapped in a knitted material had been set down for a brief amount of time. Then they continued to follow the tracks until they became lost and jumbled in the tracks of members of the initial flurry of activity. The search continued and Ranger Roth spoke to the family. He recalls their initial interaction as odd. He described Lindy and Michael as having a strange sense of calm and a relatively numb and emotionless reaction given the circumstances.

And to top it all off, Michael said that they had come to terms with the fact that they would never see Azaria alive again, but wished to recover her remains. Well, how do they expect them to react? I mean, I hate that every single tragedy you're supposed to react by like screaming and wailing and whatever. And it's like they've already done that. Like they were called you for help now. Now, and they know that their daughter has been taken by a dingo. Like, they're being realistic, I feel like, is my thought in this. Well, you have to think that this is half an hour after it happened.

This isn't like we have been searching for weeks. There is no sign. There is no way that she could be alive. This is less than an hour after the event happened. So to him, it was kind of like a what? you've already come to terms with your infant daughter being dead. Like, don't you hold out any hope? I think the timing is what makes me more understandable because I agree.

The reaction, like everyone has different reactions to tragic situations. And I fall in the numb and emotionless category myself. So I understand that. I think it's just more of like the initial timing. He's like, okay, what are you talking about? This just happened. Yeah, and they're already like, she's dead. We know she's dead. But I don't know. Like, if I saw, if my child had been gone for an hour and it was a baby and there was already blood in the tent and I knew anything about dingoes, which I don't know that much, but I'm just assuming, like, I probably wouldn't be super hopeful either. Yeah, and I can see that as well. So midnight rolled around and the volunteers still hadn't found. anything. The Chamberlains were offered a room at a local motel for the night, and they spent

the remaining hours before dawn restless in that room, oblivious to what was to come. A knock on their motel door came at 7.30 the next morning, and it was a reporter. The media had already caught wind of Azaria's disappearance over the previous night, and were eager for the first interview with a family. Lindy and Michael had just finished informing their own family. Lindy and Michael had just finished informing their own family members of the tragic circumstances and agreed to an interview. Their hope was to raise awareness about the potential dangers of camping in wild places with small children. When their faces flashed on the screens around the area, they were familiar ones to many, especially to those from their town of Mount Isa in Queensland.

Michael was a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and their family was very very very, very well known, and very well liked. They were a religious family, they abstained from alcohol, followed a vegetarian diet, and were all around very nice people. During the interview, the couple recounted the previous night's events, including the dingo activity around the campsite prior to Azaria's disappearance. But what Michael said during that first interview set the tone for what followed. He said, quote, the loss of our baby is the will of God. Oh, so is that why they're so calm? I think a lot of it has to do with their religious beliefs. And I'm not going to get too into the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and all that. But I'm not saying that they

came to terms with it and were just okay with it day one. But I think their faith really helped carry them through the circumstances that they were experiencing. Okay. Because when I hear like it was the will of God, my first thing that I think of is like some weird ritual like sacrificing your baby kind of stuff, I guess. Interesting you say that because that'll come up later. So a week passed and there were no leads of the whereabouts of Azaria. But then a park visitor named Wally Goodwin discovered something that pushed the investigation

forward from its standstill. He had been out photographing the area, about three and a half miles west of the campsite when he stumbled across baby clothing. The initial search had not covered this area, as they focused primarily to the east, where it was thought that the dingo had ventured. What he found was a baby-sized white jumpsuit, laid neatly on the ground, seemingly untouched, other than dirt stains. It was inside out and the next. line was red with blood. He reported it immediately to the police who confirmed with the Chamberlains that it was in fact Azarias and it was what she was wearing the night she disappeared. They claimed that she was also wearing a knitted overcoat, but that had not turned up.

New spread of the new finding and the media storm intensified and began to take a turn on the chamberlains. The media began to plant seeds of doubt in the public's eye. and the condition of the jumpsuit added fuel to the fire. How, everyone wondered, could her clothing be so well preserved after an alleged attack by a wild dog? Lindy had an answer to that. During another interview, she was asked if she was surprised by the condition that the jumpsuit was found in, and she said no, and continued by saying, quote, dingoes peel the flesh off their prey like an orange.

Her mom said that? Yeah. Oh, God. About her child? And that's your reaction right now is how the public reacted. Well, like how could you say such a thing in regards to your young infant child that was just taken by a wild animal? Well, when you describe the clothing being dirty and a ring of blood around the neck, I'm just picturing this tiny little article of clothing for a baby. And it's just heartbreaking. That's absolutely heartbreaking to just hear about. And then her mom talking about her like that peeled skin like an orange.

Oh. Yeah. It's rough. And whether or not that's accurate, I feel like that information maybe should have not been shared in that regard. So she's, her and her husband are just really not helping their care. in the public's eye. But then again, to their credit, they didn't think that there was a case against them. Like, their baby was taken by a dingo. It was a tragic accident. Like what? They, in their minds, have nothing to defend. Like, they're not thinking out of the gate. Like,

we need to defend ourselves. Because in their mind, this is what happened. And there's nothing else to it. So just like the reaction you had, the public completely balked at her words. How could she be so cold. And plus, this is the 1980s, and this is a time where no one on record had ever been killed by a dingo in Australia. So this is a bold statement. So this is just everything about this case is weird, suspicious. Dingoes have never killed a person before. You're wild and your statements. I don't know. I'm kind of leaning towards the suss side. I mean, they're really not selling themselves here. So let's learn a little bit about dingoes before we move on because obviously they are a main suspect in this whole situation. Dingoes are wild canines that are primarily found in

Australia, although small groups of them have been found in Southeast Asia as well. They're about the size of a medium-sized dog. So they're about 1.1 to 1.2 meters, which is about 3 and a half to 4 feet long. and they range from about 20 to 30 pounds on average, and they have a tan reddish-orange coat. So they're not big dogs, but they're still wild dogs. And as we know, a chihuahua can do some damage. Chihuahuas do the most damage. So not to say that small dogs can't do some significant harm. Dingoes live in western and central Australia in a large range of habitats, including plains, forests,

deserts and mountainous rural areas. And quite like wolves, they are social animals and live in packs of about 10 or so, although there have solo dingoes out doing their own thing as well, not part of a pack. Okay. They are actually the largest land predator on the continent of Australia and are also apex predators. Their diet consists of small to medium game, so think rabbits, birds, squirrels. but they're not opposed to the occasional fruit or berry, and they are excellent scavengers as well. They are currently listed as vulnerable as hybridization with domestic dogs pose a significant threat to the long-term survival of their species. So over time, more and more wild dingoes are mating with feral dogs, and it's kind of just diluting their genetic pool. Okay.

What didn't pose as a significant threat, though, at least to some, were the dingoes themselves. At least, that was kind of the general feeling from the public at the time of Azaria's disappearance. Dingoes were kind of viewed more like an annoyance versus an actual threat, and they were treated as such. Tourists would chew them away from their camps or even toss them some scraps like Michael was doing that night when he was cooking. or they would just be ignored. And I just have to say, does any of that sound familiar to you? It reminds me of Black Bears or the Night of the Grizzlies episode. Well, it reminds me of the Grizzly episode and then how people think of Black Bears now.

Because now we all have accepted that grizzly bears are very, very dangerous. But Black Bears were still like, yeah, you know, like they're pretty docile. They don't attack. and less provoked and usually they jump into a tree and we found out recently that that's not so true. I mean, and near the Smoky Mountains, there was that girl that was just sleeping in a hammock that got attacked and she died. Yeah. So we're starting to learn more and more that black bears have the potential to be really dangerous too. Yes, exactly.

So kind of like how this is the black bear subject, everyone has different features. feelings on it, there are people that aren't so lax about it. You know, like, there are some people that really do heed warnings. Like, if you're in bear country, you're in bear country. Yeah, there might be grizzlies, but even if you're in the Great Smokies, like, there are still a bear presence and you want to be prepared. Same thing went with the dingoes, but overall, the general public just didn't view them as much of a threat. One of the people that was not so lax about them was Chief Ranger Roth, and he was concerned about the mounting danger that they were starting to pose. Derek Roth was the chief ranger from 1968 into 1985, and he had his eye on these wild dogs.

Two years prior to the Chamberlain's visit to Uluru, he had actually sent a memo to his superior outlining the threats that the dingoes pose and proposed a dingle coal, which went largely unacknowledged. So he actually wrote to his bosses and said, you know, they're getting braver and there are some circumstances mounting here. And I think that we should call them like, AKA, you know, I think we should kill some of them. But his request went unacknowledged and nothing ever came of that. So they were kind of just like, no, they're fine. They're just annoying. Like, yeah. We're not worried. Essentially, yeah. So it wasn't completely acknowledge. though. There were tours in the area that if you went on them, the locals would warn against feeding

the animals, but over time, they kept getting bolder and bolder. He stated that the animals were becoming conditioned to human behavior and were losing their healthy fear of people. As time passed, they were coming closer and closer to tents and campsites, sneaking food, and hoping for a handout. Rangers responded to a handful of incidents that occurred. where the dingoes had bit children. Blood had been drawn in these circumstances, but they weren't true mallings or attacks, so there was cause for concern, but nothing that ever made national news. The Rangers may have had a different perspective on the dingoes, but the public wasn't buying it. The Chamberlains found themselves in a trial by media. John Lincoln, who was a police officer at the time,

even held a bucket, filled with 10 pounds of sand in his mouth, to demonstrate how difficult it was to carry an attempt to dismiss how a relatively small dog couldn't possibly carry off a baby with that great of ease. Which is so ridiculous to me. What? Are you a dingo? Like, why are you doing this? But your jaw is not the same.

You're so physiologically different than a dingo. Like, how does that make any sense? Like, even the muscles in your neck are different. your entire bones, your what? Yeah, it was weird. That just sounds painful. That's just like, it kind of hurts my teeth a little bit thinking about it. Yeah, it was a very odd demonstration. Were people like, okay, please sit down? Or did they like really buy into it? I think I'm not too short, but I would imagine that it did kind of persuade some people because as we know, sometimes ridiculous acts get a lot of national attention.

I guess when an authoritative figure is presenting something, people accept it as fact, because they assume that the people who are supposed to be in these authoritative roles know what they're talking about. Right. Exactly. And then here comes the religion aspect. So kind of like you mentioned earlier with the cults and religious sacrifices, that made news as well. So the media started tossing around this rumor that Azaria was killed because of a cult activity, pointing to her name as evidence. They had received a tip that Azaria meant sacrifice in the wilderness, and they ran with it.

Does it? No. Her parents were very quick to correct that because her name actually meant whom God helps. But it was no use. the media already had the first word and obviously that really sells a story. Then began the harassment. They were all over the news. They were receiving death threats. Their children were being bullied in school and people would stand outside of their home and taunt them with belting howls into the night.

Which is so not right at all. Oh my gosh. So I still haven't decided which side I'm on like if I think that, I think that I, I feel like they didn't have anything to do with it, but then they're saying this weird stuff. So I still need more information to decide. But if they really lost their baby in this horrific way, and there's people driving by their house making dingo sounds at them, that's horrific. That is horrible. I can't even imagine losing a child and then having that happen to you. Yeah, they're taunting them and making fun of them and it's just it was too much for them to bear. So as a result, they actually moved and

they didn't just move over towns. They moved 2,000 miles away to escape the relentless attacks on their family. And of course, I mean, it was national news, so they couldn't escape it fully, but they just wanted to physically get out of the immediate area. So the media just, latched onto the story and wouldn't let go. And because, in part, by the media's sensationalism, the Australian government opened an investigation into the story surrounding Azaria's death. And in December of 1980, the magistrate Dennis Barrett, who was also a coroner, presided over a preliminary trial. And it's important to note that no one at this point had been charged with a crime. The entire purpose of this preliminary hearing was to determine if there had been any human involvement in Azaria's death.

Okay. So the prosecutor described the damage clothes and argues that the small rips on it had appeared to be made by scissors and pointed to the way that it was found, as if it was placed very neatly and intentionally, rather than being dragged and kind of discarded and left by a wild animal. But no clear motive for the murder and no definitive proof of human interaction was presented. And although his presentation did add more doubt to the circumstances, there was no concrete evidence and the case was dismissed and ruled that the Chamberlain family was telling the truth about the dingo. Despite this ruling, investigations continued. James Cameron, a forensic expert, was contacted by the police for a second opinion. and he stated that there was no dingo hair or saliva on the jumpsuit and claimed that the blood pattern found within the tent was not consistent with a dingo attack.

And with this new information, the police obtained a warrant to search the family's home. In September of 1981, which is now over a year after her disappearance, Lindy and Michael's home was searched over the course of several days, and soon after, the case was reopened. Did they find something there? They did. Yes. So a second inquest was opened in December of that same year, in which Lindy was formally charged with murder, and her husband was charged with as an accessory after the fact.

So this time around things are very different. The prosecution was arguing to a jury and not just to a coroner, and they have been formally charged with crimes. This white jumpsuit comes into play again. and was actually one of the main focuses of the trial. So there was emphasis placed on the lack of blood on the clothing. All of the blood was located on the collar of the clothing, which the prosecution argued was due to her throat being slit.

They also pointed to a smudge on the jumpsuit, which they argued was a dry, faded, bloody handprint. And the defense reasoned that the jumpsuit was largely absent of blood because the white-knit jacket Azaria was wearing over it. That jacket had not been found, but would have been the reason that there was no overt, obvious signs of dingo activity on this white jumpsuit.

And the prosecution basically said that they are lying and that there was never any other piece of evidence and they're just trying to cover their asses. They've come up with some really horrific details with no evidence. Like I know there's blood, so something happened, but how do you come up with such horrifying, detailed descriptions of what happened to this poor child? And you don't even have a body.

You don't have anything. You're just making things up at this point. It's just that doesn't sit well. So you asked, did they find anything at the Chamberlain's home? And I said, yes. This is a significant point in their case. And that was that they found blood residue inside of the family car. And the prosecution argued that it was discovered in a pattern that was indicative of an artery being severed.

But isn't this a year later? This is a year later, yes. But it's blood residue. It's not fresh, obviously. Okay. The prosecution is kind of all over the place. So let me just break it down to what the prosecution is alleging that happened. Okay.

They argued when Lindy left the campsite to put her kids to bed, she took the baby to the car, killed her and stashed her body. Then she went back to the tent to stage the entire dingo attack scene. And remember when she went back the second time, this time that they're describing, Aidan was with her. And Aiden returned back to the campsite with her after she put his Aria to bed. So the prosecution is saying, well, she forced him to stay silent about what he saw. And he just listened to his mom.

And he was young and impressionable. And he had no idea what was going on. Okay. But how do you fake dingo footprints? Because I saw those. They saw blood and dingo footprints leading into the tent. Yes. So the defense countered this whole story and pointed out a couple key things.

First, the first person who heard Azaria's cry was Sally. When they were all around the campsite together, Lindy was next to her. Oh, yeah. So that is big. And secondly, yes, Lindy did leave the fire that night. But when she left, she was gone for less than 10 minutes. So they're alleging that she had time to go to the tent. Then go to the car, kill her infant, go back to the tent, stage the entire scene after stashing

her kid's body, and then just go back to the campsite like nothing happened in less than 10 minutes with another child that she now needs to convince didn't see anything. Right, in 10 minutes. Right. Takes me five minutes just to go to the bathroom. Like, I can't imagine. I couldn't murder someone in 10 minutes. Right.

So the timeline is also a little odd. Then another woman took the stand, and her name was Judith West. Judith was also there that night. She wasn't part of the group that was hanging around the fire, but she was close by. She was camping about 100 feet away. And she testified that she heard a low, guttural growl coming from the tent. And Lindy made statements to the court that she witnessed a dingo emerge from her tent, carrying something which appeared heavy, and shook its head back and forth,

violently. So all these little pieces of testimony and is coming together that kind of paints a similar picture. Yeah. This is so sad because it's a baby. Yeah, I know. It's really hard. Yeah. So the defense addressed the bloodstains in the car as well. A year prior to Azaria's disappearance, the family had picked up a hitchhiker with a bleeding leg. That man was found and tracked down and brought to the stand to testify to confirm whether or not that was true and whether or not that blood could potentially be his. And he said, yeah, I was there that happened. It could potentially be remnants from that injury. But the prosecution countered, stating that the blood traces they found within the car were a fetal hemoglobin, which exists only in humans six months and younger.

Oh, well, that's a twist right there. Mm-hmm. Scientists Dr. Andrew Scott testified next, and he said that the blood pattern in the tent was consistent with a dingo carrying a bleeding baby and did state that dog hair was found in the tent and on the jumpsuit. So we have different people saying different things about the same piece of evidence. It did have dog hair. It didn't. There was blood stains in a consistent pattern with an animal attack.

No, there weren't. Like there's just so many conflicting testimony, especially coming from expert witnesses, too. It can get really, really confusing. Next up, we have Lee Harris, who was the president of the Dingo Foundation. And he stated that he believed a dingo could absolutely be capable of fitting a child-sized head into its mouth. And to illustrate the point, he even presented photos to the court of the animals carrying around baby-sized dolls. while on the other side of the argument, a forensic expert argued that based on plaster casts of dingo skulls, that it would be impossible for them to unhinge their jaws wide enough to pull off such a feat.

So kind of like, again, confusing. I don't know. I kind of like, at least he had a real dog, like holding this and not a person with a bucket. That was a step in the right direction. Like, at least we're, yeah, at least we're. Yeah, at least we're heading somewhere into the right direction here with our investigative strategies. Absolutely. So there's a lot of back and forth, and I definitely condensed that significantly, but you get the gist.

Yes. So on October 29th of 1982, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain were found guilty of their charges, and the court pointed out that the most damning evidence was the blood found within the car. At this point, Lindy was pregnant at the time of her sentencing with her fourth child, but was given life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge ended up suspending Michael's sentence so he could care for the children at home, so he never served time in prison. Lindy gave birth to her fourth child in November of 1982 behind bars,

and three years dragged on full of different appeals and court proceedings, but no headway was made. As time were on, the public, which at first seemed very dedicated to locking Lindy up and throwing away the key, kind of became more divided in their opinions. It was becoming more and more clear that most of this trial was based on circumstantial evidence. Then, in 1984, a scientist by the name of Leslie Smith examined photos of the supposed blood evidence found within the car. Further investigation found that the blood was a blood. Further investigation found that the blood was not blood at all. What? It was actually emulsion, a sound deadener that is applied to automobiles during manufacturing. How would you not know it's not blood doing this? And what type of,

you said that there was something found in it that was only found in infants? Yes. So they stated that, so the prosecution stated that it was fetal hemoglobin. They never sent out, it was never sent out to the lab. because there wasn't enough sample to send out to the lab. So how did they come up with that? It was fetal hemoglobin. I don't know. But that's what they presented to the court. And that's what most of the case was hinged on.

Yeah. So now this whole case has to fall apart, right? It's starting to. So what's more is, remember, they said that there's a dried, bloody handprint on the jumpsuit. Like, there was definitely human intervention here. Yeah, well, that was just dirt. there was never a bloody handprint. How are they mistaking blood and dirt?

Like, I know this is years ago now. Was this before DNA testing was a thing? This is in the 80s. So the DNA advances that we have made and we've grown accustomed to now was not the same back then. So they did have DNA testing to some degree, but obviously there's a lot of, miscalculations and or mistakes or just the ball is being dropped. They're just saying everything's blood. Right.

There's blood here, there, everywhere. Her throat was slit, her artery was slit, like her mom did it. It's just wild. So armed with this new evidence, there was a free Lindy movement that mobilized. And over 100,000 people petitioned to free her from prison. But their efforts did not prove successful. What ultimately turned the tides for Lindy was another tragic death. In January of 1986, nearly five and a half years after Azaria's disappearance, a hiker

named David Brett made his own journey to Uluru. He was attempting to climb the giant sandstone monolith when he took a fatal fall. Rangers searched for David after he was reported missing, and approximately one week after his fall, his remains were discovered near several dingo dens. And it was very clear that his remains had been scavenged by the wild dogs, so the recovery team members searched the area to collect his bones and his belongings. While searching for his scattered remains, they found a jacket. A small, white, baby-sized, knitted jacket, clearly crumpled and partly deep,

deteriorating due to exposure to the elements. No, the same jacket that was her daughters. This was the mysterious jacket that Lindy and Michael were adamant about all along, but the prosecution said that they were making it up. Wow. The jacket was quickly identified as Azarias, and the chief minister of the Northern Territories ordered for Lindy's immediate release. And a lot of money, I hope.

Yes, I would. would a lot of sorries, maybe? Yeah. So on February 7th of 1986, she was granted release and returned to her family. But that was not the end of their journey. Once again, the people of Australia were torn in their opinions. But in 1987, the Royal Commission examined the case against the Chamberlains,

as well as the science behind key forensic evidence in that initial trial was now challenged. The following year, the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously overturned all convictions against Lindy and Michael Chamberlain based on the rejection of the alleged blood evidence in the car and on the bias and invalid assumptions made during the initial trial. Here comes the money. The Chamberlains ultimately were paid $1.3 million in damages and were reimbursed for their car,

which was largely damaged, throughout the investigation as they were looking for evidence. Wow. Lindy and Michael divorced in 1991, but continued to stand as a united front in the face of public scrutiny. The closing of the 90s and the dawn of the 2000s brought a change in the tide regarding public opinion about the relative safeness of dingoes. Between 1997 and 2012, there has been a minimum of 100 reported attacks on humans. by dingoes on the mainland of Australia and nearby Fraser Island.

In April of 2001 on Fraser Island, which is a World Heritage Listed Island north of Brisbane, and is very popular for its ecotourism, a family was on a holiday. Three children, aged 7, 7, and 9 were on a walk and noticed several dingoes following them. They became frightened and started to run. The oldest boy, Clinton, tripped and fell and was killed by the animals. And then, more recently, in June of 2019, again on Frazier Island, a 14-month-old boy named Hunter Alistair was dragged off by his head from his family's camper van as they were all sleeping. And he has survived and has since recovered.

He survived that? He's pulled from a camper van? Yes. So there's actually a, I think it's a... It's a 60 Minutes interview episode on YouTube that I watched on it. It's only about 25, 30 minutes long if you want to look into it. And it's all about Hunter Alistair and his experience. His parents are being interviewed.

And there's reenactments of what happened. And there are some pretty graphic pictures on there as well. But essentially, it's kind of like, so the island is beautiful. And it has, it's known for its beach camping because you can go off road. there's a lot of cool off the beaten path campsites that are kind of like right on the beach. And they were camping. And they had, it looks like a pull behind camper that, you know, it's flat, but then it pops up. And there's two sides that have two beds.

You walk in and there's two little sections. So in one section, if you walk into the camper, on your right, there's a little pop-out section for a bed. And on your left, there's another. And in the middle, it's like a little. kitchenette. So super simple. It's not like an RV, but it's also not a tent that you just put on the ground. Yeah. Their son Hunter was on one bed and the couple was sleeping on the other when they heard Hunter starting to scream and then from inside the camper tent, but then it was

his screams were getting quieter because he was being taken away into the forest. So they freak out. The dad goes out. And what he sees is a dingo that has his son, his son's head in its mouth, and he's dragging him backwards. So the dad is looking directly into the eyes of the dingo and runs up to him, screams at him. As soon as he approaches it, it lets the son go and runs away. And they were able to get their son immediate medical attention and he survived. but he had like a fractured skull.

He has, there's pictures on the, on the interview. There's tons of punctures and laceration marks in the back of his head and back of his skull. But it sounds exactly like what happened to Azaria. Yeah, and shows how strong their mouths are. Yeah. Because this is not a nine-week-old baby. This is a 14-month-old. This child is now over a year old.

Yeah. And much larger than Azaria would be, would have been. Gosh. But Azaria went missing prior to all of these things making the news. So as far as the public was concerned back in that time frame, they didn't pose this type of threat. And there was no danger. They were just kind of nuisance animals. It was wild to even think that they could be capable of something like that. Exactly. In June of 2012, three decades of legal proceedings later, an end finally came. for the Chamberlains. A fourth and final inquest was opened, in which coroner Elizabeth Morris officially determined the death of Azaria was caused by a dingo, stating, quote, Azaria Chamberlain died at Uluru, then known as Ayers Rock, on the 17th of August, 1980,

the cause of her death was a result of being attacked and taken by a dingo. It is clear that there is evidence that a dingo is capable of attacking, taking, and causing the death of a young child. She went on to address the family, saying, quote, Please accept my sincere sympathy on the death of your special and loved daughter and sister, Azaria. I'm so sorry for your loss. The time does not remove the pain and sadness of the death of a child. And it was then that Azaria's death certificate was amended,

and her cause of death was identified as, death by dingo. In 2014, the family's car, a yellow hold in Tarana, the same one that was subject of intense forensic scrutiny, was donated to the National Museum of Australia by Michael himself. So I mentioned that it had been returned to the family kind of in pieces and disarray, but Michael took some of the finances that were reimbursed back to him, like about, I think it was about 1920 grand just for the car, he took that to restore the car back to its original glory because to him it was very special. He said that the car, quote, represents a gross injustice and it also symbolizes freedom as the result of the proper and independent revision of

forensic science, which eventually saw Lindy and I exonerated in 1988. To me, it is a testament a peace de resistance to one of the worst provisions of justice in the forensic science of Australian history. So to him, this was a very important piece of his life and something that represented a big miscarriage of justice and one of the most famous fuck-ups,

essentially, in all of Australian forensic science history. Wow, so now you can go see it. on display? So it was on display in August of last year, so August of 2020, which was the 40-year anniversary of Azaria's death. Michael actually passed away in 2017 after a battle with leukemia. So he never saw the car on display, but what he did do was kind of a little jab that I thought was quite interesting. So he donated the car and he allowed it to be put on displays for everyone to see, but he changed the license plate. And the license plate says the number four and ENZIC.

So it says forensic. Okay, that's kind of funny. I thought you were going to say like his baby's name or something like that. So the story of Azaria's death and the drama that unfolded in its aftermath has been the subject of countless movies, television shows, books, and even operas. Most notably, the film A Cry in the Dark starring Meryl Streep and the autobiography Through My Eyes by Lindy Chamberlain, which has since been made into a TV miniseries. Most famous of all, however, is the words uttered by Lindy herself.

A dingo's got my baby. The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Fraser, Family Guy, Tropic Thunder, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have all poked fun at this phrase. So the next time you hear those words in a little bit of the same, parody, now you'll know the true story of Azaria Chamberlain, her short life, and tragic death, and the years of public persecution her family endured to clear their name. And that is the story of Azaria Chamberlain. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I know you said that I would know what you were talking about once I heard the phrase and I don't still. And I had never heard this

story before. I can't believe that. Like I literally, I can't. And And it's so funny you say that because at work I was, because I knew I had this story planned. And every once in a while, my coworkers will be like, what story are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to cover the story of a dingo's got my baby. And everyone kind of just looked at me like, I had three heads. I guess I just, yeah, I guess I just don't watch enough TV or I just never noticed it. I forget. Like, I'm not one of those people who can remember lines from movies or anything either.

So maybe it just totally bypassed me. But I had never heard of the story before. I didn't know any of this information. So I'm glad you told this because there has to be other people who are listening right now who are like, I had no idea that this happened. That's not really the end end of the episode. I just have a couple more things. And I wanted to add it at the end because I came across it during my research, but there was no real place to put it within the episode. that really made sense.

But as someone who really loves wildlife and conservation and just different implications of different wildlife management tactics, I thought that these little things were really interesting. So I'm going to tell you about them. Okay. And they're literally bullet points. Like we don't have to have a huge conversation about them. First, in the early 20th century, Bushman made a living from collecting government

bounty on dingo skins. These men were called doggers, and they would rely on the skills of native aboriginals to hunt and track the animals. They would pay them for their knowledge with goods like tea and clothing and tobacco, and in exchange for the best ways to find dingo so they can hunt and kill them, and then sell them to the government to collect on the bounty. and it has been known as dingo scalping. And I thought that was pretty interesting with, based on the connection that I made with wolves here in the United States.

Like we had a bounty on wolves for a very long time. And although I don't know if there was many bounty hunters out there that were relying on native groups to give them their ins and outs of the best ways to hunt them. That's obviously different, but there was a big bounty program for wolves for a very long time in the United States. And that's essentially how they were extirpated from the lower 48. So I thought that was really interesting. Also, there is a thing called the dingo fence. Have you ever heard of this? No, definitely not. Okay, so the dingo fence is obviously in Australia, and it is one of the largest structures in the entire world. It was finished in 1885, and it was constructed to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile southeastern portion of the continent and to protect farm animals from predation.

It is 5,614 kilometers long, which is just about 3,500 miles long. A fence. I'm looking at it right now. I had to Google it. It's literally a fence. Yep. Just a fence. Like it's just wooden poles with wire. Going across almost 3, almost 4,000 miles of Australian land. And this is just supposed to keep dingoes out? It doesn't look that high. Well, dingoes are small. Dingoes are small. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm picturing them being bigger, I guess. And it's actually patrolled by the wild dog barrier. fence staff, which sends out teams to inspect large swaths of the fence line about once a week to monitor for damage and holes and just different places where it's been compromised and that dingoes could get through. And the fence has been an overall success with its initial goal of protecting farm animals and keeping dingoes away from certain areas of the land. But the

environmental implications of this fence have been astounding. On the north side of the fence, kangaroos and emus are found in way smaller numbers because dingo presence reduces their population. So on the north side, dingoes are present. Therefore, kangaroos and emos and different things that they eat, their numbers are down. Where the dingoes are absent, though, so on the other side of the fence, the prey numbers are much higher. And because of that, it has triggered an increase in what's called pasture competition. So essentially, there's all these animals with no predation happening. So the vegetation growth patterns are significantly altered between the two sides of the fence because there's way more prey animals that are competing for food. So there is actually some satellite

images that you can look up that shows clearly one side of the fence where they're not present have way sparser vegetation and where they are present the vegetation is much denser, lush and healthy. Because there's no balance. Yeah, they removed an apex predator and a keystone species, yeah. It's funny that you say that because one of the first images that pop up when you Google what a dingo fences is there's this lone. kangaroo just looking through the fence, like trying to go to the other side but can't.

Isn't that sad? I just think that is sad. Like, I see what they're doing. Why don't you put a fence around your farm animals and not the whole continent? It seems a bit extreme. Yeah, and like money costs a lot of money. And also, like you said, the environmental factors, you're taking away a key component to the balance of the wildlife. in that whole area. Yeah. Yeah, there's a map of where it covers, too, and it's like almost the entire bottom right corner of Australia. Yeah. And last thing about this fence, or an implication of the fence at least, is this giant fence isn't the only control method that has been dispatched

to control dingo numbers. Like I said, there were bounties placed on dingoes at one point, the most recent in 2011. Like this is not a thing of the past. There have been bounties of $200 per dingo. But another thing that has started to be used prevalently is poison. Another thing that was happening with wolves in the lower 48.

Poison has proved to be a cheaper alternative than maintaining a fence. Sodium monofloroacetate has been placed in bait and thrown out and hoping that the target species, which is dingoes, will eat it and die. Of course, there are other animals that scavenging are affected by the poison as well. That's a whole other thing. I was going to say,

but when you do that, when these dingoes die and other animals eat them, those animals must be getting poisoned as well. There's that, but there's also non-intended animals. You know, you throw a piece of meat out there. A vulture, a hawk, or a fox comes along. Like, you know, it's not discriminatory. It's just going to kill whatever it. It ingests it. So this compound was introduced into practice in the 1960s and 70s. And interestingly, I mean, it's horrific and we're not even going to get into the whole ethical dilemma of poisoning wildlife. But when we're looking at the science of it, it has actually resulted in a change in dingo physiology. Research released just this last year indicates that as a result of human intervention, like through this poisoning, scientists have noticed an increase in size of the dingoes, only in the areas in which they are being poisoned.

Michael Letnik, who is an ecologist at the University of New South Wales, has been studying the effects of the poison on the dingoes. So to explain this a little bit, kangaroo numbers increase when dingo populations are controlled. like we mentioned. No dingoes, kangaroo numbers skyrocket. So the combination of extra prey available to the remaining dingoes that are there and reduced competition within the population of dingoes make it much easier for those dingoes that aren't killed by the poison to find food and to grow. So by reducing the dingo population, we are changing the environment that dingoes are growing up in. bigger dingoes may then, in turn, be more tolerant of the poison's effects because their body size is outpacing the relatively constant dosage of poison over the years. Basically by poisoning the dingoes, yeah, we're getting rid of some of them, but the ones that are surviving are thriving.

And they are starting to evolve in a way in which the poison is maybe not going to affect them in the same way that it did before. for. And now we have giant tingoes. Now we have giant dingoes. No, we don't have giant dingoes. But I mean, the changes are not significant. It's not like we have a 20 pound dingo normally and now it's a 50 pound dingo. It's not like that. They're slight changes, but they're there and they're being studied. And I just think that it is so interesting. The changes that human intervention has on not only wild places. Like we talk a lot about what we do to the landscape of parks and wild spaces, but what also we do in turn to the wildlife as well. So that was totally off topic of Azaria's story, but because it had to do with dingoes and I'm really interested, I wanted to tell you about it.

I like it. Yeah. I just thought that was really interesting. And I actually like deleted an entire page of notes on dingoes because I'm like reel it in Danielle reel it in um so I contensed it to that but I hope everyone learned something interesting today about not only dingoes but also know now the true backstory of Azaria and the tragic circumstances that her family had to go through like it was just a nightmare so yeah I think your story had a lot of lessons in itself as one um just dingo safety for sure. And another one is just judging cases so quickly off of nothing. You know, I think the media, I think this is really relevant to today as the media takes things

and they really, really roll with it a lot of times, especially when it comes to murder cases or any type of high profile case, they kind of take these really crazy titles and they throw it on there to get you to read it. And a lot of times things are completely false. So just doing your own research and things in general, I think is a good idea. And then, of course, tying it into conservation. Yeah. There was also a lot of resounding themes. I mean, I know we touched upon habituating animals to people and what can happen when you feed wildlife and things like that. So everything has a consequence. And I think that it's just really important to recognize that. And there can be good consequences and bad consequences.

And bad consequences are giant dingoes coming in 2014. Well, if we would just cut the shit and stop poisoning them, maybe we wouldn't have these giant dingoes. Just nature is perfect on its own. Just let it be and it will take care of things the way that nature intended to take care of things. There's, that's a pipe dream. We're far past that, unfortunately, I think, but we're not getting down that rabbit hole. Okay, thank you everybody for tuning in again this week. We are fast approaching our live show. So again, if you would like to buy tickets to our virtual, digital live event, doesn't matter where you are in the country or in the world, you can tune in and be

there with us. Grab your tickets at momenthouse.com slash NPAD and check out our merch for Black Friday because we have some special deals and new items in the store for you. Yeah. So in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at NPAD podcast at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Come hang out with us on Patreon for monthly bonus episodes and exclusive content. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more. Visit our website at npadpodcast.com.

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