8

The seeds of suspicion

ON THE SIDE OF THE ROCK opposite to that facing Katjitilkil, the scene of Kurrpanngu’s savage attack on the Mala men, lies the site of another legendary incident from the Dreamtime.

Two bellbird brothers had been hunting in a region known as Wangka Arrkal near the border between the Northern Territory and South Australia. They came across an emu, but it caught their scent and fled north towards Uluru. There it was intercepted by two blue-tongue lizard men named Mita and Lungkata. The lizard men killed the emu and cut up the body with a stone axe. On the southern side of Uluru are two features which remind the Pitjantjatjara people of the lizard men’s kill. Towards the eastern end there is a spur of rock named Kalaya Tjunta, which is said to be a buried thigh of the emu. About a kilometre and a half to the west lies a fractured slab of sandstone adjacent to a fissure in the rock known as Mutitjulu. The pieces are said to be large joints of meat from the emu transmogrified into stone.

The bellbird brothers had been outdistanced by the emu, but in due course they, too, arrived at Uluru. They were met there by the lizard men, who handed them a small portion of the emu meat and told them that no more was left. Infuriated by the loss of their quarry, the bellbird brothers set fire to the shelter of the lizard men, who were forced to climb the side of the rock. It was to no avail; they fell back and were burnt to death. About two-thirds of a kilometre further west from Mutitjulu is the site of this legendary catastrophe, Mita Kampantja. There are two boulders half buried in the red sand, which are said to be the bodies of the lizard men. Above them, lichen on the rock soars hundreds of feet above the plain. There are two separate sections of lichen; but, if viewed from the right angle, they seem to merge and form a giant arrow.

It was under the tip of this arrow that Wally Goodwin found Azaria’s clothing on 24 August 1980. A superstitious person unaware of the lichen’s age might have thought that God himself had intervened to point it out.

Running down beside the two sections of lichen is a depression in the rock which becomes a natural watercourse when it rains. The watercourse runs down into a gully adjacent to the rock. Wally had been sightseeing with his wife and children when he came across an animal track. He followed it into the gully. Whatever had left the clothes there had travelled more than four kilometres from the Chamberlains’ tent, passing Kalaya Tjunta and Mutitjulu on the way.

He stood looking at them for a moment. Then his son came running up behind him for a look and he pushed him away. His wife, Margo, also wanted to look, but one glance was enough for his daughter. She became hysterical. He asked his wife to take both children back to the car.

The disposable nappy had been torn, and there were fluffy white pieces of cotton wool strewn over the jumpsuit and the ground nearby, but it was the jumpsuit itself which caught his attention. There was heavy staining of what appeared to be blood around the neckline and it was open, the press studs unclipped down the front and the right leg. The feet were not flat like the rest of the jumpsuit; they protruded up into the air. He was struck by the disturbing thought that the feet of the baby might still be inside. He later recalled that the singlet was still inside the jumpsuit, though this was to be disputed by Constable Morris. He also thought that it might have been inside out, though he was uncertain about this as he understood that some manufacturers put labels on the outside of babies’ singlets. He studied the clothes for several minutes and then left to get the police.

Some time later, he returned to lead Morris along the track into the narrow gully. He was later to give evidence that Morris told him that the trackers had picked up paw prints going in and out of the tent and that they could tell the difference between the paw print of a dingo, a camp dog, and a normal dog. When they reached the clothes, he was surprised to see Morris simply pick up the jumpsuit. There had been no photographs taken or any detailed examination of the clothing whilst it was still on the ground. Goodwin was still wondering about the wisdom of this when he noticed the tremor in Morris’ hands. He assumed that he shared his apprehension at the prospect of finding the baby’s feet still in the jumpsuit. Morris felt gingerly inside, but to the relief of both men there was nothing there.

Morris put the jumpsuit back on the ground and attempted to reposition the clothing. He then took a photograph. They later disagreed about whether this accurately reflected the position of the clothing when it was found.

This discovery was to spark a series of disputes spanning a number of scientific disciplines and embroil dozens of scientists, many among the most eminent in the world. Of all the countless millions of garments manufactured throughout the centuries since man first wrapped the skin of an animal around himself for warmth, it is probably only the Turin shroud that has excited more scientific debate than this tiny terry towelling jumpsuit.

Some members of the Northern Territory police had already expressed scepticism about the Chamberlains’ account of Azaria’s disappearance. They felt that it was inherently implausible — that dingoes didn’t enter tents, let alone make away with children. Others believed that no dingo could have carried the weight of a baby for any significant distance. These suspicions were strengthened by the discovery of the clothing. Detectives felt that they were found too far from the campsite, and that the clothes were grouped too closely together. A dingo would have been expected to scatter them over a wide area. Furthermore, some of the damage to the jumpsuit did not appear to have been caused by the tearing action one would have expected from a dingo’s teeth, but looked as if it had been cut by a sharp instrument. This was no longer an inquiry into a tragic accident, but a murder investigation.

The police did not inform the Chamberlains of the discovery of the clothes. They found out the next day only when they turned on the 7.00 p.m. news and saw Sergeant Sandry displaying the jumpsuit for the television cameras.

Lindy’s parents, Cliff and Avis Murchison, had arrived in Mount Isa on 22 August 1980, but several days passed before Avis saw the marks on one of the green-and-silver space blankets which had been in the tent. She was ultimately to give evidence that:

I was in the kitchen in the Chamberlain home and Lindy came out and she had a space blanket folded over her arm and she stopped there to talk to me. She was on her way downstairs and just stopped in the kitchen to talk. While she was talking, she noticed a little nick in the blanket and she seemed disappointed about it. I took it that it might have been a new blanket and then she noticed another one and, for some reason, I suggested she hold it up to the light so that she might see better, and there appeared to be a little trail of nicks across the blanket. She was looking at it and then she exclaimed, ‘that thing’ meaning the dingo ‘must have walked right over Reagan to get to bubby’. The space blanket apparently was covering Reagan who was asleep alongside Azaria’s cot. With that I went around to have a look, too. We were looking at that and then I noticed down underneath there were two large paw prints, muddy looking paw prints, and that was how we found them there. When we realised what they were, Lindy went and rang Alice Springs and told them what she had found and asked would they like to have it for the inquest, and they said yes, that they would send someone around to get it.

Lindy’s brother and sister-in-law were also shown the marks.

There was a subsequent dispute about who had collected the blanket from the Chamberlains’ home. Detective Sergeant Brown from the Mount Isa CIB gave evidence that he had picked up the blanket from Michael Chamberlain, but that there had been no marks on it. On the other hand, Lindy and her mother said that the blanket had been collected by a young, fair-haired uniformed policeman. Lindy had pointed out the marks to him and he had exclaimed, ‘Oh, yes there’s no d ….’ and then cut himself off in mid-sentence. Avis later wrote to the premier of Queensland, Sir Johannes Bjelke Petersen, who in due course interviewed Sergeant Brown personally. When questioned at the royal commission, Brown claimed that he had made notes of the conversation with Michael when he collected the blanket, but that his notebook had been lost since the trial. The accuracy of his account was the subject of vigorous cross-examination.

‘Was there some young constable that you wanted to keep away from the inquiry because he had a distressing streak of honesty?’ he was asked.

‘That’s rubbish,’ he replied.

His account of the incident received some support from Superintendent Grey, who said that, after having received a telephone call from either Gilroy or Charlwood, he had asked Brown to collect the blanket, and that when Brown had subsequently shown it to him he had not seen any marks on it. This was also challenged in cross-examination; but even if accepted, Grey’s evidence could not have excluded the possibility that Brown had arranged for a young constable to collect the blanket for him

In the end, the controversy was probably of little significance, since the marks could easily have been abraded from the smooth surface of the blanket between the time they were first seen and the time it was collected.

Shortly after the discovery of the paw prints, Avis encouraged Lindy to resume jogging. She thought it would do her good to get out of the house. Two of Lindy’s friends subsequently arrived to pick her up, and she was changing when, as Avis later recalled, she ‘just burst into uncontrollable sobbing’. The door opened and she came out holding her running shoes. ‘Even my runners have blood on them,’ she said.

Meanwhile, rumour and speculation were continuing to mount. At first, most people were sympathetic. It was only the odd crank who was willing to assert that he knew what ‘really happened’. But, as time passed, the rumours became more widespread, more imaginative, and more vicious.

On 29 August 1980, Michael and Lindy appeared on a television program in Mount Isa. They thought that the best way to deal with rumour and suspicion was to tell people exactly what had happened. Surely, if people could see and hear them, they would understand. They also had in mind Lindy’s conversation with Jenny Ransom. Perhaps God was giving them the opportunity to demonstrate the reality of their faith, to show a cynical world that, no matter how great the adversity, a Christian could always turn to God and draw new strength and comfort. As Michael was to explain, even in the midst of tragedy one could know ‘the peace that passes all understanding’.

Many found the interview deeply moving, but others reacted negatively. Many Australians find sanctimonious people insufferable, and anyone who appears to be ‘too good’ is likely to be relegated to that category. Perhaps we all feel a little uncomfortable around saints. There were many who saw the Chamberlains’ demeanour not as evidence of a triumph of faith over adversity, but as evidence of callousness — the callousness of a couple who may well have murdered their child.

On 30 August 1980, Inspector Gilroy received the report from police at Mount Isa. It included a number of serious allegations:

It is reported that she appeared not to have cared for the baby, and at one stage did not feed it for over eight hours. Registration of the baby was never completed.

When bringing the baby in for a check up she astounded the sisters by having the baby dressed completely in black. A doctor who treated the baby said she did not react like a normal mother.

The same doctor said that he looked up the name Azaria in a dictionary of names and meanings and found that it means: ‘Sacrifice in the wilderness’.

Doctor Milne was to deny having made the comment that Lindy Chamberlain did not care for her baby or that she did not react like a normal mother. The reference to the name meaning ‘Sacrifice in the wilderness’ did not emanate from her, but from another medical practitioner who had not looked it up, but had simply relied upon what he had overheard. In fact, the suggestion was completely misconceived. Azaria means ‘Blessed of God’. Yet word of this damaging misconception swept through the community like wildfire.

In late September, a task force of police arrived in Mount Isa. A youthful Detective Sergeant Graeme Charlwood had taken over from Inspector Gilroy as the officer in charge of the investigation. He had approached the matter with characteristic thoroughness, immersing himself in the statements of various witnesses and the available scientific reports. He had replayed the tape of Lindy’s interview with Inspector Gilroy, and had listened intently. He had examined each of the items of clothing and camping gear taken from the Chamberlains, and had spent some time at Uluru studying the camping area and the area where the clothes had been found. And he had arranged for the Chamberlains’ sleeping bag to be seized from the drycleaners. All in all, he had learned a great deal about the matter — and what he had learned left him with grave suspicions. He was at pains to keep those suspicions from the Chamberlains. He was, as he later explained, ‘a secretive person’.

Upon his arrival at Mount Isa, he went to the television station to watch the videotape of the Chamberlains’ interview on Today Tonight.

On 29 September 1980, he interviewed doctors and other medical personnel, seeking any information that might reveal a possible motive for the murder of Azaria. The Chamberlains had not been asked to authorise any disclosures concerning their medical history, and were not told of the inquiries.

Later that day, Charlwood called to introduce himself to Lindy. The discussion, which continued after Michael arrived home, was surreptitiously recorded. Charlwood asked for and was given various items of bedding that had been in the tent when the baby disappeared. He then made arrangements for Lindy to be interviewed more formally at the Mount Isa police station on the following day.

The interview took most of the next afternoon, with Charlwood seeking to explore each detail in the narrative of events. As the hours rolled by, the strain began to take its toll on Lindy, and at about 5.30 p.m. he broke off his questioning and asked her to return the next day.

The interview was resumed on 1 October, the day that Liz Hickson’s article was published. After further exploring the sequence of events, Charlwood referred to the results of ‘certain forensic tests,’ and asked for Lindy’s comments. He went on to say that no dingo or dog saliva was present on the clothing, and that the holes had not been made by either a dingo’s or a dog’s teeth.

‘Are you trying to say that somebody murdered her?’ Lindy demanded.

‘I am just putting to you the facts I have. I am looking for answers,’ he replied.

When Lindy asked about the space blanket, he told her that it was still being tested. He then referred her to a report from a forensic biologist, Dr Andrew Scott, who had analysed bloodstains found in the Fertility Cave several hundred metres from where the clothes were found. Scott found that the blood was of the same grouping as Lindy’s, a grouping confined to 14 per cent of the population. Subsequent testing was to show that it was not her blood, but as she sat across the table from Charlwood she found the combination of scientific conclusions deeply disturbing.

‘The findings almost seem incredible to me. Am I to consider that it was done by something other than a dingo? That brings in such a range of coincidences with split-second timing, that it seems impossible. Reading about the blood group on Ayers Rock, the same as mine, almost sounds like a well-planned, well-thought-out, fantastic plan to set me up.’

‘If that is the case,’ Charlwood asked, ‘do you know who would want to do such a thing?’

‘I have no idea,’ Lindy replied.

The subsequent interview with Michael followed a similar course. Late in the evening, Charlwood asked him, ‘Do you know what happened to Azaria?’

‘No,’ Michael said. He was now as puzzled as Lindy. ‘Except on the evidence we have given you, I do not know.’

‘Is there anything at all that you would want to tell me in relation to the disappearance of your child?’ Charlwood persisted.

‘No, except for my continuing observation, and strong feeling, that she was killed by a dingo or wild animal. What other alternatives? God only knows.’

Whilst Charlwood was interviewing Michael, another officer, Detective Sergeant Scott, was interviewing Aidan. Whilst Reagan had been asleep, Aidan had been awake and with his mother during the most crucial moments of the incident, and the police were anxious to obtain a statement from him. Lindy was permitted to remain in the room during the course of the interview; but both Scott and Senior Constable Graham, who was also present, were later to confirm that most of his answers had been spontaneous, and that he had been confident and clear in responding to the questions. On one or two occasions he had consulted with his mother about some point of detail, but she had not sought to influence him, and he had not asked her about the crucial portion of his account. Scott concluded that there had been nothing to cause him to doubt the veracity of his answers, which were recorded in the form of a statement:

Daddy went to the barbecue and got some tea. There was a man, a lady and a little girl there, too. Me and Reagan were watching Daddy cook tea and Mummy was there holding bubby in her arms. I think Reagan had some tea and then he went to bed in the tent. I think Mummy took him to bed. After I finished my tea I said that I wanted to go to bed and Mummy said that she would take me and bubby up to bed. I went up to the tent with Mummy and bubby and I said to Mummy, is that all the tea that I get. Mummy said that I could have some more tea. While we were in the tent Mummy put bubby down in the cot and I went to the car with Mummy and she got some baked beans and I followed her down to the barbecue area. When we got to the barbecue area Mummy opened the tin of baked beans and Daddy said, ‘Is that bubby crying’ and Mummy said, ‘I don’t think so’. Mummy went back to the tent and said, ‘The dingo has got my baby’. Mummy shouted, ‘Has anyone got a torch?’ and Daddy went around and asked if anybody has got a torch. When Mummy saw the dingo come out of the tent I was behind her, but I didn’t see the dingo come out of the tent. I went back to the barbecue and got Daddy’s torch and I gave it to Mummy or Daddy. After I gave him the torch, I stayed with a lady and then I went to bed. Before I went to bed, there was lots of people there searching.

Graham had also been allocated the task of searching the Chamberlains’ car. There was to be some confusion over just when he carried out that search. He maintained that he started to examine the car late in the evening; but the police running sheets, which offered a contemporaneous record, suggested that the search had been undertaken before the interview with Aidan, apparently beginning between 6.00 and 6.30 p.m. In any event, he approached the task with the aid of a ‘Big Jim’ torch. This is an advantage even in the daylight. The interior of a car is full of shadows, and the beam provides a circle of brightness which stands out in sharp contrast to the surrounding area, even on the sunniest day. The added clarity is of great assistance if one is conducting a meticulous examination. Graham’s examination occupied two to two-and-a-half hours but, despite the thoroughness of his search, he found no trace of any blood.

Throughout this period, the volume of rumour and gossip had been steadily building. The black dress assumed sacrificial connotations. The varnished wooden coffin in the garage which had been used as a prop for smoking classes now became a small white coffin in Azaria’s bedroom. There were claims that the clothes had been found neatly folded, that Azaria had been hideously deformed, that the Chamberlains had a history of child battering, that they belonged to a bizarre sect which believed in human sacrifices, and even that a four-year-old child had disappeared mysteriously whilst in the care of Lindy’s sister some years earlier. And still more were emerging as the days unfolded into weeks and the level of sardonic spitefulness escalated.

The tone of the articles in the press also changed. Initially, it was largely a matter of phraseology. The Chamberlains’ account of what had happened was no longer reported as fact, but as ‘allegations’. The involvement of the dingo began to be described as ‘the dingo theory’ or ‘the dingo story’. Various experts were quoted, but their views always seemed to point to the unlikelihood of a dingo having taken the child. There was also a rash of dingo jokes. Many of them were told simply for their amusement value, but a message was being subtly conveyed: the dingo ‘story’ was a ridiculous lie. By the time Liz Hickson’s article appeared, the climate of public opinion had begun to turn against the Chamberlains. But as the weeks passed and public scepticism mounted, things became much worse.

The Chamberlains themselves were besieged by abusive phone calls and letters. People openly spoke of Lindy as the woman who had murdered her child. The boys were harassed on the street, and Aidan was taunted at school. ‘Dingoes don’t come into our house and steal babies,’ he was told. There had been other cases that had aroused great public indignation and anger, but none of those cases had produced the spate of destructive rumours that left this already distraught family reeling. The climate of hate which built up against them as time passed was unique in Australia’s history.

And some of the more vociferous moral vigilantes vented their spite even on the children. Picture, if you will, a little boy trudging despondently down the street: the baby sister he had been so excited about is dead, his parents are often unhappy, and it seems that the whole world is full of accusations and hate. His friends have turned on him, and he is anxious and bewildered. How could this all have happened? Suddenly, a man is towering over him, his face contorted with fury. He spits into the little boy’s face. ‘“Murderer!’” he screams. Too shocked to run, the boy can only stare in horror at such naked hostility. He stands there, unable to move, with spittle slowly trickling down one cheek until somewhere, deep within, the sobs begin to rack his slight frame.