With those panicked words, the mystery of Azaria Chamberlain’s disappearance in the Australian Outback in 1980 became the most notorious, divisive, and baffling legal drama in the country’s history. Had a wild dog really taken the baby? Or had Azaria’s mother, Lindy, slit her daughter’s throat and buried her in the desert?

SYDNEY - The growl came first, low and throaty, piercing the darkness that had fallen across the remote Australian desert. A baby’s cry followed, then abruptly went silent. Inside the tent, the infant girl had vanished. Outside, her mother was screaming: “The dingo’s got my baby!’’

In this Feb. 2, 1982, file photo, Lindy Chamberlain appears outside Alice Springs courthouse. The Northern Territory coroner is opening a fourth inquest into the case of Chamberlain's 9-week-old daughter Azaria, who vanished from her tent in the Australian Outback in 1980.

Thirty-two years later, Australian officials hope to finally, definitively, determine how Azaria died when the Northern Territory coroner opens a fourth inquest on Friday. Lindy Chamberlain, who was convicted of murdering her daughter and later cleared, is still waiting for authorities to close the case that made her the most hated person in Australia.

To the rest of the world, the case is largely known for its place in popular culture: countless books, an opera, the movie “A Cry in the Dark’’ starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill, and the “Seinfeld’’ sitcom’s spoof of Lindy’s cry, “Maybe the dingo ate your baby!’’


But to Australians, the case is about the guilt or innocence of a nation that prides itself on the concept of a “fair go,’’ an equal chance, for all. Did Chamberlain get a fair go? And so Australia will once again try to get to the bottom of one of the most painful chapters in its history.

“It’s a bit like a really bad war,’’ said Tony Raymond, chief forensic scientist in an inquiry that debunked much of the evidence used to convict Lindy. “You’ve got to learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.’’

Michael Chamberlain, who was divorced from Lindy in 1991, is now an author in a small town north of Sydney. When asked about the case, he is both weary and wary, carefully limiting what he says ahead of the inquest as he waits to see whether the system will give him a chance.


Lindy Chamberlain declined an interview request, but in an open letter on the 30th anniversary of Azaria’s disappearance, she wrote that she was fighting for her daughter.

“She deserves justice,’’ Chamberlain wrote.