Following Azaria's death, the Chamberlains were perceived as too calm, too dispassionate to be uninvolved in her death, and besides, could dingos really take the fall for the death of a 2-month-old child? Police garnered testimony from forensic experts like James Cameron of the U.K., and Australian forensic biologist Joy Kuhl, who gave the courts reason to believe that the Chamberlains were not as innocent as initially surmised.Īfter a second inquest, it was determined that evidence like " infant blood.in the Chamberlains' car, in a camera bag in the car, on a pair of scissors, and elsewhere," as well as "the bloodied handprint of a small adult on Azaria's jumpsuit" suggested that Lindy Chamberlain had cut her own daughter's throat, then staged the entire dingo scenario as an elaborate cover-up.įollowing a controversial conviction, yet another inquest found that there was no blood in the car, and that much of the so-called proof used to imprison the Chamberlains was circumstantial and unreliable, and Lindy and Michael were fully exonerated, compensated and pardoned in 1987. This is a question that the family has likely asked itself for years. Though she was later released, it took another 32 years to fully exonerate Lindy from her daughter's death, when an official death certificate was finally amended to reflect a coroner's report that Azaria died as a result of a dingo attack. And yet, both she and her husband were ultimately convicted for the murder of their baby, and Lindy subsequently spent three years in prison for a crime she did not commit. There was no motive for Chamberlain, who was described as " a respected member of the community" and the wife of a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, to commit such a heinous crime. Her body was never found, and the only evidence ever recovered was the jumpsuit she'd worn at the time of her death, with bloodstains around the neck. While the story was immortalized in American pop culture by way of Meryl Streep's flawless performance in A Cry in the Dark and was later turned into a joke by shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons, the Chamberlains have lived an ongoing nightmare since August 17, 1980.īaby Azaria's death was a nearly inexplicable situation. According to her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, dingos were to blame for the tragedy, but prosecutors advanced a different story - it was Linda, not wild animals, who had killed the child. More than three decades ago, Australia was rocked by the bizarre case of 9-week-old Azaria Chamberlain's death.