Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Did a Dingo Really Steal Her Baby? - The Story of Lindy Chamberlain

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is the story of Lindy Chamberlain, the Australian woman whose baby was stolen by a dingo.

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My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So one night this English backpacker goes hiking. He's in Australia in the outback.

And it's nighttime, and he really wants to go climbing. So he starts climbing up the wall of this bluff. And so he climbs up and up. And when he's a ways up there, suddenly, boom. He loses his footing and he starts to tumble down the bluff. And bam, he hits his head. And then bam, he hits his head again. And then finally he slams into the ground.

And then, as if that isn't bad enough, a pack of wild hungry dogs approach him. And they... Actually, I'm not ready to talk about this guy yet. We'll get back to him. I actually want to talk about this woman who will call Alice, because that's her real name. And Alice is about to experience the worst night of her life because her baby is about to get eaten. So one night she's on a camping trip with her family, her husband and her three kids.

And they're at a popular camping spot with a bunch of other families, and they got tents pitched and they're all hanging out and making dinner. And then Alice's youngest daughter, a baby, she gets tired. And so Alice has to put her in a little crib inside the tent. And then she just goes back to making dinner. And then a little time passes and suddenly they hear the baby cry. And Alice notices some movement in her tent. And then a dingo runs out of it. So Alice rushes over to check on the baby.

But the baby is not in her crib. So then Alice yells, My God, my God, a dingo has my baby. She then runs out into the darkness, chasing after the dingo. But unfortunately, it's too late. The dingo is long gone. Now Alice's husband is this guy, Michael. And Alice and Michael and the rest of the families, they start searching for the baby.

And eventually local police arrive. And this kicks off a huge manhunt. And soon over 300 campers and other people are combing through the campgrounds, looking for this baby and the dingo that took it. And they form a human chain to cover as much ground as possible, but still they find nothing. So sadly, Alice and Michael return home without their baby. and they are absolutely devastated. I mean, they don't know what to do. And then, about a week later,

a random tourist just happens to be wandering around the area. And he stumbles across the baby's jumpsuit and diaper. But still, there's no sign of the missing baby. And unfortunately, at this point, it's clear that the baby is no longer alive. And so this story, it starts to blow up in the local media. Like, a family's baby got eaten by a dingo? Like, that's wild. And people are just captivated.

And so Alice and Michael, they think it would be helpful to do some interviews, because they want to warn other parents out there about how dangerous dingoes are. And this is where they screw up. Because every time they get on camera, people feel like they don't come across as two parents who just lost a kid. They feel like they come across as a bit cold and uncaring. I just gelled, there wasn't time to go and tell people I just yelled out. Has anyone got a torch? Dingo's got my baby.

And so pretty quickly, the public starts to get suspicious. Like, they think Alice and Michael don't appear sad enough. And so the news media, they just run with this story, and they start to question Alice and Michael's version of events. Like, this isn't typical dingo behavior? Why would a wild dog steal a baby? And so to make all this worse, police, they start to develop a new darker theory. That maybe this baby wasn't stolen by a dingo at all.

That maybe this baby was unalived by her own mother. And as evidence for this, they say, start to point at the baby's jumpsuit that the tourist had found out by the campsite because they had run tests on that jumpsuit and there was no dingo saliva on it. So then how could the baby have been in a dingo's mouth? And Alice, she explains this by saying, well, actually the baby was wearing a white cardigan over that jumpsuit. So that white cardigan, which is now missing, probably would have had dingo saliva on it. But unfortunately for her, that explanation isn't good enough for police. Prosecutors, they accuse her of lying about the white cardigan, and then boom, police arrest her.

And they arrest Michael, and they charge her with the murder of her own baby, and they charge him with being an accessory to that murder. Now, police, they have no body, no murder weapon, and no witnesses. But what they do have is circumstantial evidence, including what they feel is a large amount of blood in the family's car. They, of course, believe this is the baby's blood. So anyway, they all go to trial. And in the trial, the prosecution argues that Alice unalived her own baby, possibly with scissors, and then hid the body in the family car, and that Michael later helped by trying to cover up the murder. And let me tell you, this trial blows the fuck up in Australia.

It becomes the biggest media circus anyone has ever seen. Like the tabloids are all over it. Every moment of it becomes newsworthy. And so sadly, after a month of hearing all the arguments, the jury deliberates, find Alice and Michael both guilty. And Michael, he gets a suspended sentence because he had already spent time in jail waiting on the trial. But poor Alice, she actually gets sentenced to life in prison. Now this is where our English backpacker comes in. Because three years later, after Alice gets sentenced to life in prison, the English backpacker, he takes a trip to Australia. And he goes out

to this popular camping spot, he goes for a climb at night, he loses his footing, he tumbles down the mountain, he dies, and some wild dogs approach him, and they start to eat him. Eight days later, another hiker passing by, he finds the backpacker's body at the base of the bluff. So police come and investigate, and this happens to be in an area surrounded by dingo dens. And nearby, police finds some of his clothing and his backpack. But then, a ranger finds a piece of clothing half buried. He pulls it out of the ground, and it happens to be a baby's white cardigan. The same white cardigan that prosecutors had accused Alice of lying about.

And this corroborates her whole story. And then only five days after finding this cardigan, pow! The court orders Alice to be released from prison. And suddenly the government launches a new investigation into the baby's death, and ultimately they find that the baby's blood that they thought they found in the family car wasn't actually baby's blood. It was actually soundproofing spray that the car manufacturer sprays on when they built the car. And also, potentially, fruit juice.

So the good news is, eventually, Alice and Michael are completely exonerated, and here's what they look like in real life. And then Hollywood goes on and makes a movie about the whole thing, starring Meryl Streep and that guy from Jurassic Park. And of course, the movie has got the famous line, Which has then, unfortunately, gone on to become a pop culture punchline. The dingo ate your baby. So basically, this woman's baby was eaten alive,

and now pop culture just makes jokes about it.