Case of Azaria Chamberlain transfixed Australia in 1980 and years that followed as parents were convicted and then acquitted

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Michael Chamberlain, the father of Azaria, who was snatched by a dingo at Uluru in 1980, has died aged 72.

More than 30 years after being thrust into Australian folklore as a central figure in one of the country’s most notorious murder trials, Chamberlain still railed against the “gross injustice” that shaped his life.

He died of acute leukaemia in Gosford hospital on the New South Wales central coast on Monday.

Michael, a pastor in the Seventh-Day Adventist church, and his wife Lindy were put under the spotlight when their nine-week-old daughter Azaria was snatched from a tent during a family holiday at Uluru in August, 1980.

They were ultimately convicted, Lindy for murder and Michael for being an accessory after the fact. The prosecution alleged that Lindy Chamberlain had cut Azaria’s throat in the front seat of the family car and hidden the baby’s body in a large camera case. Lawyers presented controversial forensic evidence, later discredited, to support their case.

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Lindy served more than three years of a life sentence imposed in 1982 – giving birth to the couple’s fourth child Kahlia in Darwin prison. Michael was handed an 18-month suspended sentence for being an accessory.

In 1986, the chance discovery of Azaria’s matinee jacket – an item of clothing her mother had always said her baby had been wearing at the time of the attack – reopened the case. After a royal commission in 1987 the Chamberlains were pardoned and their convictions quashed, but Michael remained bitter at their treatment.

After divorcing, remarrying, earning a PhD in education, becoming a teacher and writing several books, he still lamented the case as a “gross injustice”.

“It was one of the worst perversions of justice and forensic science in Australian history,” he said in 2014. “We had gone as babes in the woods. A Catholic lawyer described us as lambs to the slaughter.

“We had lived by the credo that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. It was dead wrong.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael and Lindy Chamberlain leave court in Alice Springs during the second inquest into the disappearance of Azaria, in 1981. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images

He also believed the time Lindy spent behind bars had damaged her. In 1990 the couple’s marriage fell apart. Michael married Ingrid Bergner in 1994, with whom he had daughter, Zahra, in 1996.

Lindy Chamberlain also remarried, becoming Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton.

The disappearance of Azaria prompted one of Australia’s longest-running legal sagas, one that captivated and polarised the nation. It was the subject of the 1988 film Evil Angels, starring Meryl Streep as Lindy. The film was released as A Cry in the Dark in territories other than Australia and New Zealand.



Despite the release of the Chamberlains from jail, a coronial inquest into Azaria in 1995 delivered an open verdict. The fourth coronial inquest into the case, held in 2012, ruled that a dingo was responsible for the baby’s death.

The was what the first inquest, back in early 1981, had also concluded, and what the Chamberlains had steadfastly said since Lindy yelled the famous words: “That dingo’s got my baby.”

After the 2012 verdict Michael Chamberlain stood on the courtroom steps in Darwin and said: “I am here to tell you that you can get justice even when you think that all is lost.”

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But he said he still had plenty of questions he wanted authorities to answer.

“I have peace and gratitude in my heart that Azaria’s spirit now lies rested, and I have gratitude and peace in my heart because justice has been done for us,” he said in 2012 on the release of his book Heart of Stone: Justice for Azaria.

“But why did this happen to us? Why did it take so long? And why were there consistently a whole lot of mistakes made?

“It was systemic; it just wasn’t one or two. It wasn’t isolated and I have to ask the question, was it by accident?”

Chamberlain made a tilt at state politics in 2003, running as a Liberal party candidate in the seat of Lake Macquarie in NSW. He didn’tachieved a 5.2% swing against incumbent MP Geoff Hunter but was not elected.

He then taught at an Aboriginal high school in Brewarrina, NSW, for three years before returning the central coast where he taught at Gosford high school until 2008, when he retired.

The University of Newcastle last year appointed him a conjoint professor at its school of education.

Chamberlain wrote three books, including Beyond Azaria: Black Light White Light, which detailed his feelings following the death of his daughter and the severe public scrutiny he and his family were placed under.

He became Ingrid’s full-time carer after she suffered a stroke in 2011.

Chamberlain had three other children with Lindy – Reagan, Aidan and Kahlia – as well as Zahra.