Mothers Who Murder

by Xanthe Mallett

  A huge search was initiated, comprising over 300 people, but Azaria was never found. Aboriginal and white trackers followed the dingo prints found outside the tent as far as they could, until the tracks mixed with human shoe prints on the road. Murray Haby, a fellow camper, found drag marks in the sand, which were also witnessed by the trackers, and two shallow depressions that appeared to show areas where the dingo had set Azaria down to rest. The depressions contained the imprint of a knitted garment, and next to one there were dark patches in the sand, which the trackers took to be the child’s blood. The expert tracker stated that the dingo was walking as though it was carrying an additional load, and that he was sure the dog was carrying the baby. A week later, on 24 August, Azaria’s torn nappy and terry towelling jumpsuit (covered in a considerable amount of blood and heavily torn), booties and singlet were found by a tourist, near a boulder at Uluru. The find was reported to the police and the evidence recovered.

  No other sign of Azaria was to be found until February 1986, when police, investigating the death of a tourist named David Brett, found evidence that would lead to Lindy’s release. Brett’s body was discovered eight days after the Englishman accidentally fell to his death following an evening climb on Uluru. When police searched the area looking for Brett’s missing body parts as he had been predated by the dingoes (there were lots of dens in the area) they also discovered Azaria’s matinee jacket – which for years the police had denied existed – not far from the site where the other clothes had been found near the dingo den. This was five and a half years after Azaria’s disappearance. As Lindy got used to life in prison, the Australian public had to wake up to the fact that Lindy Chamberlain might be innocent. This evidence proved crucial in supporting Lindy’s appeal case. Seven days after the jacket had been found Lindy remained in prison, until media pressure was brought to bear and she was released, her life sentence remitted and an inquiry into the case was announced by the Northern Territory Government.

  THE INVESTIGATION: THE HOW AND THE WHY

  A number of police were involved in the Chamberlain investigation over the years. Initially, Inspector Michael Gilroy, Frank Morris, James Noble and John Lincoln were assigned the case. On 28 August 1980, Detective Sergeant Graeme Charlwood took over the investigation.5

  When investigating missing persons’ cases such as this, suspicion will always fall on the person who saw the missing person last – and that was Lindy. There were, of course, other suspects, including everyone at the campsite the night Azaria went missing. All had opportunity, as the baby was left alone with no one around, except for her sleeping brother, four-year-old Reagan. However, no one at the campsite had motive, and no one was seen with a baby or leaving the tent cradling anything that could have been a baby. The police would have interviewed everyone in the immediate vicinity at the time regardless, checking the potential for any alibis, and later interviewing all campers there that night.

  As the Crown prosecutor stated at the Chamberlains’ trial, in reality there were two simple alternatives to consider – either Lindy killed Azaria or a dingo did. It appears the police favoured Lindy over the dingo hypothesis from the beginning. When a child has gone missing, and the family is under suspicion, investigators will consider a number of motives. Recent research has indicated that males and females are equally capable of killing their children, but the reasons behind the acts differ. Fathers are more likely to kill to take revenge on their (normally ex) partners, to make them suffer emotionally.6 Mothers, on the other hand, are sometimes incentivised to kill their children if they intend to commit suicide and cannot bear the thought of leaving their children without a mother. Obviously, that motive did not apply in Lindy’s case, as she had two older children who remained unharmed.

  Azaria was very young, so another reason investigators may have considered is post-natal depression. The arrival of a new baby is normally a happy time, but research has significantly increased our understanding of the emotional effects of giving birth, showing that for some mothers it can also be an incredibly stressful time when a lot of adjustments are taking place. Mood changes are common and range from mild to severe. We now know that in the year following a child’s birth, a woman is more likely to need psychiatric help than at any other time in her life. The first stage is known as the ‘baby blues’, occurring a few days after birth and suffered by around 80 per cent of women. This is a transient condition which manifests in tearfulness, irritability and mood changes, which in most cases passes without further problems. When things don’t improve, mothers can develop post-natal depression, which can occur any time within twelve months after the birth, to women of any age. Again, symptoms can be mild to severe. Causal factors are varied, and each woman’s experience of post-natal depression will be unique, but it can be brought on or made worse by psychological factors, a difficult or traumatic birth, an abusive childhood, unrealistic expectations of motherhood, and difficulties in communicating effectively. Social factors also influence a woman’s likelihood of developing post-natal depression, including lack of family and community support, a difficult relationship with a partner or family member, and social isolation and lack of close friends, particularly those with children. In the worst cases, mothers can develop post-natal psychosis, which affects around one in every 500 mothers, a much higher percentage than most people imagine. Normally occurring in the first four months after birth, this is a serious condition, partly because the mother may not know she is unwell as she has a reduced grasp on reality. Symptoms vary and can include mood swings (both elation and depression), inexplicable thoughts and inappropriate responses to the baby. It is now recognised that there is a risk to the life of both the mother and the baby if the symptoms are severe enough but remain untreated. However, with appropriate help, women suffering from post-natal psychosis recover fully.

  So, looking at this case from the investigator’s perspective, and with a view to determining potential motives, we have to wonder if this was a possible reason for Lindy harming Azaria. The police talked to everyone at the campsite on the night Azaria went missing, as well as everyone who was with the Chamberlains on that fateful day or who stayed with them during the vigil that night as they waited for news of their daughter. They were all in agreement that the Chamberlains were a close, loving family, and that they reacted as would be expected of a family experiencing the trauma of having lost their daughter and sister under terrible circumstances. Lindy showed obvious signs of stress and was extremely emotional, but only after Azaria went missing. Prior to the child’s disappearance, Lindy’s mood was relaxed and she showed no signs of post-natal depression or psychosis. She also did not fit the profile of a woman suffering from these conditions, and none of the causal factors were there. Far from it. Lindy and Michael were very close – both to each other and all of the children. The family had close relationships with members of the church, so Lindy had a good support network, which included other mothers. She was not isolated and showed no signs, either at the campsite or previously before the family holiday, that would have alerted anyone to there being a psychological problem that could put either Azaria or Lindy in danger. Therefore, it would seem that post-natal depression or psychosis could not be a cause.

  However, Lindy’s response to being questioned seemed strange to the investigators, as she was feisty and defensive. What we should recognise about innocent people when they are questioned is that they often respond boldly, depending on their existing personality, as they fully believe the police will recognise their innocence. They are, as a result, more likely to waive their right to silence, thinking they don’t need it. They wonder why an innocent person would need a lawyer.

  So if Lindy did not fit the profile of mothers who murder their children for psychological reasons, does the story of a dingo taking the baby seem likely? First, let’s look at the eyewitness testimony in relation to the likelihood that a dingo took Azaria. A number of people reported seeing dingoes in the area around the time Azaria we
nt missing. One of these was Michael Chamberlain, who fed a crust of bread to one of the wild dogs. Another was fellow camper Sally Lowe, who reported to police that dingoes had been loitering around the rubbish when she had been disposing of food scraps. Other witnesses, William (Bill) and Judith West, testified that they had heard a dog’s low, throaty growl coming from the direction of the Chamberlains’ tent. Judith stated that it was a noise she associated with the sounds dogs make when they are slaughtering animals – familiar to her as she had heard her husband’s dogs killing sheep. Critically, Mrs West also testified that earlier she had shooed a dingo away from their twelve-year-old daughter, after it grabbed her by the arm and pulled. Mrs West also testified that during the evening of the 17th, she asked six-year-old Aidan if the dingo had taken Azaria and he said yes.

  Dog hairs were also found on Azaria’s clothing as well as inside the tent, although the Chamberlains had not owned a dog for a number of years. Add to this that there had been a number of (non-fatal) dingo attacks on children and adults in the park in the weeks immediately preceding Azaria’s disappearance, and that the chief ranger for the Ayers Rock area, Derek Roff, had written to the government, imploring them to sanction a dingo cull after a dingo had dragged three-year-old Amanda Cranwell from the family car and proceeded to make off with her, just weeks preceding Azaria’s attack and disappearance. Roff had been warning of an imminent human tragedy, due to the fact that the dingoes were becoming bolder, and were increasingly confident in approaching and sometimes even attacking people.

  THE ALTERNATIVE WHO: THE DINGO

  The dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is an iconic Australian species. For non-Australians, including myself, the dingo seems to represent everything Australian – the wild, the outback, survival. Everything we love Australia for. A free-roaming wild dog, the dingo is found only in Australia, although it is skeletally identical to the white wolf of Asia. The relative of the Asian wolf arrived in Australia between 4000 and 18,000 years ago. As the largest terrestrial predator in Australia, the dingo is currently recognised as a sub-species of the grey wolf (Canis lupus), and is an apex predator – meaning it is a predator at the top of its food chain, with few or no predators of its own. The dingo is protected in Australia and is considered at risk of extinction, as some sub-species are almost extinct, while other varieties flourish. In conflict with this view is the fact that the dingo is the only native species to be labelled as a pest throughout most of the country and is only protected in certain areas, such as national parks. Dingoes regularly attack farm livestock – particularly sheep and cattle – as well as rabbits and kangaroos. They are equivalent in size to a large domestic dog, with an average dingo weighing around 17 kilograms, and large ones weighing in at over 20 kilograms.

  As a result of hybridisation with introduced domestic dogs, cross-bred dingoes are getting bigger. It is thought that in a significant number of populations, less than 25 per cent of Australian dingoes are purebreds and that in parallel with the gene flow of additional alleles between sub-groups, the genetic ‘enhancement’ of the dingoes’ gene pool has provided a stimulus for the evolution in some areas of larger wild dogs. As a result, there has been a 20 per cent increase in average body weight over the last four decades, with 40 per cent of adult dingoes in some areas weighing more than 17 kilograms. The increase in size leads to a coinciding increase in the efficiency with which wild dogs kill prey, as well as their capability to kill larger prey.

  We must also consider the dingo’s teeth as they are a key piece of evidence in this case. The prosecution’s expert witness claimed that the tear in the neck of Azaria’s jumpsuit was likely caused by a sharp implement, such as a pair of scissors, rather than a dingo’s teeth. However, if we look closely at the dingo’s dentition, we will see that the front teeth – in particular the canines – are long, sharp and serrated. And they are strong, their primary function being to grip and tear. The lower canines specifically have evolved to tear meat, but anything that comes into contact with them – including cloth – could easily be ripped. I would hate to be the expert giving evidence that canine teeth could not create a clean slice, similar to that produced by a knife; the sand in the diet of the desert dingoes keeps their teeth filed to razor sharpness.

  In terms of their behaviour, my aim was to determine if a dingo would take a baby. That would of course depend on a number of factors, including for example how easy the prey (in this case a human baby) was to access, whether the tent was within the dingo’s hunting range, and whether the dingo was confident enough to enter human territory to access food. Recent research has taught us a lot about dingoes’ behaviour and indicates that many of us are now living in close proximity to urban dingoes, which have been found to be wary of humans but unperturbed by human presence. In an area such as a campsite, this wariness can be further diminished through repeated positive experiences – for example, being fed by humans. Known as ‘habituation’, which is the reduction in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure, in terms of dingo attacks on humans, frequent episodes of feeding (both intentional and scavenging) of an intelligent, dominant species such as wild dogs can make them react more aggressively towards humans when their food source is restricted or they feel challenged. Known as shameless thieves, wild dogs will scavenge any chance they get. In the wild, you will see dingoes watching fishermen, waiting for a free meal. Sometimes dingoes will keep campers company, sitting just out of the range of the fire. But they are not pets; they are wild dogs – and they can certainly be unpredictable.

  The question in the Chamberlain case rested on whether a dingo was: 1) capable of taking a nine-and-a-half-week-old baby, weighing approximately 4.5 kilograms; and 2) behaviourally likely to take the risk of entering human territory in search of food. And, if it could carry the weight, could it have the jaw span to physically lift the child in its mouth? Anyone who owns a large domestic dog, such as a Rottweiler, mastiff or German shepherd for example, will have seen firsthand what these dogs can do with their mouths; the power of their jaws is incredible. As a dog owner, I have no doubt a large dingo (weighing around 20 kilograms) could take a baby. As a forensic scientist, I would need to test the possibility that a dingo was physically capable of taking a baby. To do that I would morphometrically7 assess the dingoes available for study, and consider the fact a dingo’s jaw is not like that of a standard dog – in that it can dislocate in the manner of a snake – and review their physical characteristics in light of what we know about the behaviour of these predators.

  So the question is – could a dingo physically take a child of Azaria’s size? The defence said yes, the prosecution said no. I’m coming down on the side of the defence. Importantly, Lindy described seeing the dingo ‘shaking’ something in the entrance of the tent. This is consistent with the evidence the rangers found with the front tent pole knocked out of alignment, with blood splashes on it. Later the trackers found indications of drag marks and indentations in the dirt, possibly suggestive that an animal had put its burden down, resting. To me, it’s clear: dingoes have the capability, and can be incentivised, to attack and kill children.

  THE HOW

  There is a recognised problem of potential bias within the criminal justice system where the police undertake the selection of evidence to be analysed, and then often perform the forensic analysis themselves. The police’s role, after all, is to collect evidence for potential presentation in court. But by and large they want a verdict of guilty returned, so how can we ensure that the evidence they collect is representative and not predisposed towards proving guilt – thereby harming the defence’s case – sometimes before an arrest is even made? It has been argued that all forensic examiners and labs undertaking analyses should be entirely independent of the police, to ensure the objectivity of the criminal justice system from beginning to end. Unfortunately, although many forensic examiners are now civilians and not sworn police officers, the links to the police still make it difficult to ensure the collection and evalua
tion of the evidence is always objective and impartial. Certainly, the evidence in the Lindy Chamberlain case was not analysed in a fair and unbiased manner. Worse, key results – which appeared to call into question Lindy’s account of a dingo taking her baby – were leaked to the media, feeding the media frenzy and reducing Lindy’s chance of receiving a fair trial.

  The prosecution’s theory was based on Lindy killing Azaria; the why was, apparently, unimportant. The Crown case was that in the few minutes Lindy was away from the other campers at the barbeques and putting Azaria to bed, she returned to her own tent, changed into tracksuit bottoms, collected Azaria and took her to the car. Then she climbed into the front passenger seat (important for the evidence used against Lindy later) and used scissors to cut Azaria’s throat, then waited for the child to die. Lindy was then accused of hiding Azaria’s body in a camera case already in the car, cleaning up all of the blood (including that on the outside of the camera case), and removing her now bloodstained trousers which she had changed into to carry out the murder. She then, according to the prosecutors, collected some baked beans for her eldest son from the car and – leaving Azaria’s body there to collect and bury later (with Michael’s help) – calmly returned to the tent. She then faked the blood spatter and headed back to the other families at the campfire – all in the company of her son, Aidan, who was with her, but without attracting his attention or the attention of anyone at the campsite. There was the added problem for the prosecution that camper Greg Lowe testified that he had watched Lindy at all times as he was curious as to where the Chamberlains were camping.