Mothers Who Murder

by Xanthe Mallett

  What evidence was there that Lindy had achieved this incredibly difficult task without raising any suspicion? There were no eyewitnesses claiming to have seen anything strange, there was no motive or pre- or post-incident behaviour that caused alarm bells to sound. No one saw any blood on Lindy that night. If she had slit her daughter’s throat, as hypothesised by the Crown – leaving arterial spray in the car – surely it would have been impossible that there was no sign of blood on her. Also, there had been very little opportunity for either of the Chamberlain adults to clean up the blood before the risk of it being seen by one of the hundreds of searchers. Maybe her tracksuit bottoms had blood on them, but they had been in the tent, and in any case were drycleaned and no blood was found on them afterwards. And no one saw either Lindy or Michael at any point carrying anything with which to clean up or to dig Azaria’s grave. Lindy was not really out of sight long enough to have snuck away and buried the baby.

  However, Michael’s movements are more difficult to pin down. That’s why the Crown had to also implicate him, as Lindy simply could not have killed Azaria and disposed of her body without help. But with so many people around, on high alert and probably jumping at every shadow thinking a dingo might snatch another child, it would still have been incredibly hard for him to sneak away that night to bury her. Perhaps Azaria had been left overnight in the camera bag in the car. However, that would have been extremely risky. To do this Michael would have had to have possessed incredible self-control, as he later invited Mrs Elston, a trained nurse stationed at Uluru and sent to the scene by police to administer first aid should anyone need it, to accompany him in the car when he left the campsite to go to the motel for the night. Mrs Elston travelled in the front passenger seat, where the Crown insisted that Lindy had cut Azaria’s throat, and then helped unload the Chamberlains’ belongings from the car when they reached the motel. She did not notice any blood.

  The eyewitness evidence at the trial did little to prove Lindy’s guilt. Quite the opposite. There was simply the absence of Azaria, and Lindy’s claim that she had seen a dingo exiting the tent. But the tide of opinion began to turn against the Chamberlains when the prosecution’s expert witnesses took the stand. The forensic evidence used against Lindy consisted primarily of blood spatter patterns on Azaria’s jumpsuit, ultraviolet photographs of which were analysed by James Cameron, a professor of forensic medicine from London Hospital Medical College, as well as purported blood from inside the Chamberlains’ car. Cameron stated that the cut mark on the neck of the jumpsuit was consistent with a sharp implement rather than a slit caused by a dingo’s tooth. However, as described earlier, dingoes, like all carnivores, have very long, sharp teeth, evolved specifically for cutting and gripping meat. And a carnivore the size and weight of a large dingo – anywhere up to 25 kilograms – would have large canines, capable of inflicting significant damage on a human adult, let alone a defenceless nine-and-a-half-week-old baby. As noted by the appeal court judges in the High Court of Australia in 1984, it was ‘a matter of opinion rather than scientific demonstration, the blood that soaked the baby’s jumpsuit around the neckline had probably flowed from a wound or wounds inflicted to the baby’s neck by a sharp instrument’. Cross-examination consisted primarily of discussion of previous cases in which Cameron had given pro-prosecution expert testimony that had helped incriminate what later transpired to be innocent suspects. Cameron also gave crucial expert testimony in another trial in England, which was later overturned when his expert opinion proved incorrect, and subsequently his cases worldwide were reopened.

  The other key expert witness at the trial was biologist Joy Kuhl, who gave evidence that the ‘blood’ found on the dash support bracket of the car originated from an infant, due to the high levels of foetal hemoglobin8 found, as did ‘blood’ found on a pair of scissors located in the console of the car. This was convenient for the prosecution, who added the two pieces of forensic evidence together – Kuhl’s ‘foetal’ blood on the scissors with Cameron’s evidence that the cut on the neck of the jumpsuit was consistent with a cut from a man-made object. My question of the experts would have been: was Cameron aware of the scissors in the car covered in the alleged foetal blood, and was Kuhl aware of Cameron’s assertion that the jumpsuit neck had been cut before they wrote their own reports? In essence, I’m wondering if one expert’s findings supported the other’s because they were already aware of them and, consciously or not, they were corroborating each other and adding additional value to their evidence. Defence counsel forced Kuhl to admit that the samples could not be re-tested, as Kuhl had destroyed them – apparently standard practice in her laboratory. The defence hypothesised that the ‘blood’ may have come from a bleeding hitchhiker that the Chamberlains had helped by giving him a ride in the car in question in 1979.

  Bernard Sims, a Crown witness who had investigated about two dozen dog attacks on humans in the UK as a London odontologist (a dental specialist), stated he saw nothing consistent with a dog attack on Azaria’s clothing. Importantly, he stated that a dingo was not capable of opening its jaws widely enough to accommodate a baby’s head. When presented with an image of a dingo with a life-size doll’s head in its mouth, crown first, with the canine teeth reaching the area around the doll’s ears, Sims simply sat staring at the photograph, after which he conceded that his conclusion that a dingo is incapable of fitting a human infant’s head in its mouth may be wrong. He had also never examined clothing damaged by an animal before, or seen a dingo at the time. The defence called a witness to further discredit Sims’ evidence, in the form of dingo expert Les Harris, although his evidence was later rejected by the Crown. Engineer Harris stated that a dingo’s carnassial teeth could shear through fabric as thick and strong as car seatbelts. Harris also stated that the dingo would attempt to render the prey immobile as quickly as possible. In all likelihood it would have taken Azaria’s head in its mouth, shaking its own head to break the neck of its prey. He added that dingo kills produce very little blood.

  Every dog owner has seen their own dog ‘playfully’ tossing their toys around. One Christmas, my mother smiled and said how cute it was when our mastiff-cross bounced around, happily tossing her new cuddly toy in the air and catching it, shaking her head wildly. I didn’t have the heart to ruin my mum’s sweet image of our gentle family pet by telling her that the dog wasn’t really ‘playing’ at all, but instead acting on her natural urge to immobilise and kill her prey as quickly as possible – by breaking its neck.

  THE INQUESTS

  On 15 December 1980, the first inquest was opened into Azaria’s disappearance, in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, in front of Coroner Barritt. On 20 February 1981, supported by the Chamberlains’ statements, Coroner Barritt found a dingo took – and presumably killed – Azaria. Nevertheless, rumours began to abound. Members of the media and police helped spread the stories, possibly encouraged by the fact that Coroner Barritt was critical of the police, suspecting that some investigators did not believe a dingo took Azaria, and that some of the police’s evidence against Lindy and Michael was weak.

  The Northern Territory police and prosecutors were dissatisfied with this result and investigations into Azaria’s disappearance – and Lindy’s possible involvement – continued. Perhaps as a further result of the criticism levelled by Coroner Barritt, some involved with the original investigation vowed to ‘put things right’. In September 1981, after further investigation, ‘Operation Ochre’ was authorised, and Northern Territory police searched the Chamberlains’ home. A large number of items were taken, and the eyewitnesses were contacted and asked for additional information about what happened. During the collection of these statements, the police were reluctant to hear about a dingo’s involvement and focused instead on a murder investigation. The intent therefore seems clear, and the investigators forgot the golden rule – let the evidence lead you; never pre-select your evidence to suit your theory.

  The police were telling the witnesses that they
expected Lindy to confess, that the case would not go to trial. I wonder if this was an attempt to encourage the witnesses to believe Lindy guilty. If so, in my opinion this could have been prejudicial against her as their perception of what they remembered could have been affected by this. Lindy did not confess. A motion tabled in November 1981 by Chief Minister Everingham, the Attorney-General for the Northern Territory, to quash the first inquest’s findings on the grounds that there was new forensic evidence was successful on 18 November, when the Supreme Court complied and ordered a second inquiry. It was the ‘large quantity of blood’ in the Chamberlains’ Holden Torana that finally convinced the authorities that a second inquest was warranted. The second inquest opened on 14 December 1981 before Coroner Gerry Galvin. The questioning levelled at Lindy by Des Sturgess, the barrister assisting the coroner, made it clear that he believed Lindy had murdered Azaria on the evening of 17 August in their car with a sharp instrument. Many of his questions focused on the presence of blood. Had they noticed blood inside the car? Had they washed blood from the seats?

  This second inquest failed to make a finding, and on 2 February 1982 Coroner Galvin committed the Chamberlains for trial. Lindy was accused of Azaria’s murder and Michael with being an accessory after the fact; he was accused of helping Lindy cover up their daughter’s disappearance and murder. Although the coroner noted that the evidence was largely circumstantial, he was moved to write a letter to Peter Tiffin, Crown Prosecutor, Department of Law, that was marked ‘Personal and Confidential’. The conclusions given in that letter were very damning for Lindy:

  The evidence in relation to the clothing is consistent with an attempt to simulate a dingo attack on a child by person or persons who recovered the buried body … Such deposition is indicative that the deposition was made with the knowledge that dingoes were in the area.

  In addition, there is no evidence to positively support the involvement of a dingo in the taking of the child, the carrying of the body some four kilometres and removing the body from the area where the clothes were found.

  This needs to be balanced against the comments made at the Royal Commission into the convictions of the Chamberlains, which was finalised in 1987, during which Justice Morling stated:

  About 20 minutes before Azaria disappeared Mr Haby [a fellow camper] saw and photographed a dingo which walked towards the Chamberlains’ tent. A few minutes before the alarm was raised the Wests heard a dog growl.

  On the night of 17 August dog tracks were observed on the southern side of and very close to the Chamberlains’ tent. The same night Mr Roff and Mr Minyintiri, both experienced trackers and familiar with dingo behaviour, saw tracks of a dog carrying a load which they believed to be Azaria. It was within the bounds of reasonable possibility that a dingo might have attacked a baby and carried it away for consumption as food. A dingo would have been capable of carrying Azaria’s body to the place where the clothing was found …

  There was a dingo’s den about 30 metres from the place where the clothing was found. There is no evidence that the existence of the den was known to the Chamberlains, or for that matter, to anybody else and in fact it was unknown to the chief ranger and his deputy.9

  This information was available throughout the Chamberlains’ ordeal and, if nothing else, should have at least raised questions of probable doubt – had anyone been looking. Despite the lack of a body and lack of a motive, Lindy and Michael’s trial opened in Darwin on 13 September before Justice James Muirhead; the defence case began two months later. Ian Barker opened for the prosecution, telling the nine male and three female jurors that Azaria died quickly, as a result of having her throat cut. He added that the Crown would not be suggesting a motive, nor would they be providing evidence that Lindy had ever shown any violent or negative inclination towards her baby. Barker dismissed Lindy’s claim that a dingo had taken her baby as a lie, designed to conceal the truth. This, even though another camper, tourist Sally Lowe, stated at trial that she had heard a baby’s cry coming from the tent, a cry that was then cut short, insisting that she was positive about what she had heard. She gave further evidence as to Lindy’s demeanour that evening, saying that she had a ‘new-mum glow’.

  A great deal hung on the condition of Azaria’s clothes, which, apart from the matinee jacket that the Crown claimed was a myth, were all found together after her disappearance, as these comprised the only real evidence relevant to the possible cause of death. Her jumpsuit was found a week after she went missing, and as a result of the forensic examination, the Crown asserted that a dingo could not have caused the damage shown. Added to that, the prosecution said that the Chamberlains had damaged the clothes themselves, hoping to make it look like a dingo attack. The Crown’s case rested on the fact that a dingo could not grasp a baby without producing damage that could be mapped to the four carnassial teeth. Simply put, as there weren’t four holes where the canine teeth would have lifted the baby, then the marks could not have been made by a dingo. I have an issue with this assertion as large predators with huge carnassial teeth can also be gentle – for example, they move their own young by picking them up in their mouths to change location if they think their den’s safety has been compromised. Of course, where prey are concerned, a large carnivore is not attempting to be gentle, but it is incorrect to say that a large dog is incapable of carrying something in its mouth without leaving marks made by the large canine teeth.

  Crucial to the outcome of the trial were two expert forensic witnesses. Biologist Joy Kuhl, who testified (as she had done previously) that she had found foetal blood underneath the passenger seat, and James Cameron, who gave evidence that the tear found on the neck of Azaria’s jumpsuit was consistent with a cut made with scissors, as opposed to a dingo’s teeth or claws. The Crown was quite clear:

  Nothing in the dentition of a dingo is capable of making a mark which can be possibly confused with the mark made by a pair of steel scissors.

  This was a conclusion that fitted with the evidence of Dr Andrew Scott, a forensic biologist, who said that the volume and pattern of blood on Azaria’s jumpsuit was consistent with an injury to the major blood vessels of the neck. Another witness for the Crown, Dr Jones, a pathologist, told the court that the most likely injury to have left those patterns was a lacerated or incised wound to the front of the neck, although he agreed that the pattern was also consistent with very serious head injuries, which can cause massive bleeding as the skull and brain have an excellent blood supply.

  Dr Scott also analysed the pattern of blood found on the bracket supporting the dash of the Chamberlains’ car, saying the pattern was consistent with arterial bleeding, leading the prosecution to announce to the jury that the spray pattern came from Azaria when she was murdered in the front seat of the car with the scissors. The defence counteracted this assertion, presenting evidence of a spray pattern from a bracket removed from another Holden Torana (the same model as the Chamberlains’). Dr Jones examined the bracket and noted that the spray pattern was similar. An examination of around forty Holden Toranas later showed that approximately 10 per cent had a similar spray pattern on the bracket in question, corresponding to the pattern found on the Chamberlains’ car, and rather than consisting of ‘foetal blood’ as alleged, it was in fact a sand and bituminous sound deadening compound sprayed underneath the car during manufacture.

  Regardless, on 29 October the case went before the jury, with both Lindy and Michael being found guilty as charged. Lindy was sentenced to life without parole with hard labour, and Michael was given a three-year suspended sentence. Lindy was separated from her sons, Aidan and Reagan, as well as from her husband. On 17 November, Lindy gave birth to their second daughter, Kahlia, who was born in custody and taken away from her. The Chamberlains weren’t giving up – and two days later Lindy was released on bail pending an appeal. The appeal was heard by the full bench of the Federal Court in February 1983, but in a unanimous vote of 3 to 0, the court rejected the Chamberlains’ appeal and Lindy was retur
ned to prison. In November 1983, after several other appeals, the Chamberlains sought leave to appeal their convictions in Australia’s High Court. They were successful in securing their appeal, but voting 3 to 2 the High Court upheld the Chamberlains’ convictions. The High Court is the highest court in the Australian judicial system. This was, in essence, the end of the legal trail for the Chamberlains; there was no one left to appeal to.

  In 1986, the Honourable Mr Justice Morling was commissioned to inquire into the reliability of the Chamberlain convictions, a process that was to result in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the convictions, as well as the Morling Report.10 In support of this inquiry the Chamberlain Evidence Committee put together a very thorough analysis of the forensic evidence. Experts preparing the report looked at the sprayed material on the bracket from the car’s dash, as well as the damage found on Azaria’s clothing. The additional evidence put to the Northern Territory’s Attorney-General stated that the marks on Azaria’s jumpsuit were consistent with canine teeth and that it was not possible to cause the full range of damage found with scissors. As important, an experiment showed that a canine tooth could penetrate a fabric (terry towelling) covered rabbit carcass up to the dog’s gumline, without permanently deforming or otherwise damaging the cloth. The evidence in the report presented to the inquiry was clear – a dingo’s teeth could absolutely have caused the damage found on Azaria’s jumpsuit. The report did not forget the alleged foetal blood either. Although it was impossible to re-test Kuhl’s sample as it had been destroyed, another expert was able to demonstrate that the antiserum used by Kuhl was not suitable to identify foetal or infant blood, or in fact adult blood. Moreover, nor could she tell the difference between foetal or any other kind of blood and copper on a sample taken from the camera bag, sound deadener from under the dash, or milkshake found on a ten cent coin (which she claimed was her strongest evidence). Kuhl also declined to use controls of Azaria’s actual blood, offered to her by Dr Scott.