I’ve just been out at lunchtime and I noticed that Lindy Chamberlain (famous for the plaintive cry - a dingo’s got my baby) was signing books at one of the city bookshops. She was drawing quite a crowd too.
Wasn’t she arrested, tried and convicted of killing her own baby?
Then released and paid a large sum of money?
Who actually took and killed the baby?
Her conviction was quashed, as there never was enough evidence that she killed Azaria, and evidence emerged that she did not do it.
No one knows who or what killed Azaria, or indeed if Azaria is dead. The body was never found.
Did the dingoes ever sue for slander?
Defamation of character it was… blaming those poor harmless dingos!
Am I being whooshed? Please say yes.
Yes 
Thank goodness, because I wouldn’t want to have to send a dingo over to your house, I know a few…
Wasn’t there a skeleton of a baby found somewhere not far from where baby Azaria was taken from?
What became of that?
I’ve read of this case for years, so of course I know who Lindy Chamberlain is… but for some reason I got a picture of that goofy little soldier who mistreated the prisoners when I saw this thread, and wondered if she had already cashed in her story and had a book ghost-written for her. What the hell is her name? Lindy, right? I’ll think of it when I post.
Sir Rhosis
I doubt that the other Lindy, whatever her name is, would be flogging her book in a Sydney bookshop. Nobody here would know who she is.
I was thinking of Lynndie England.
Anyway, back to the OP, sorta. How do Autralians view her story? Honestly, we Americans probably know the famous misquote, “A Dingo ate my baby” which is just a punchline here.
Sir Rhosis
At the time of Azaria Chamberlain’s disappearance (back in about 1980 I think), public opinion in Australia was strongly polarised between those who believed vociferously in Lindy’s innocence and those who were equally certain of her guilt. Lindy was convicted of murder (or it may have been manslaughter - I can’t recall now). Eventually, after lots of appeals and inquiries, her conviction was quashed. Even now though, I think there are quite a few Australians who still have their doubts about the overturned verdict.
There was an article in the Sunday Mail recently about a guy who claimed to know what happened. My memory is sketchy but I think he claimed that he and some friends were on a shooting holliday and saw the dingo with something in it’s mouth - they shot the dingo and realised the object was a baby… they were afraid of contacting the police and so one of them took it home and buried it in the back yard. Only one of them is still alive and told his story - however he doesn’t know where his friend was living at the time and so can’t lead police to the body. Supposedly he went to Lindy Chamberlain and told her his story and she requested that he held off going to the media until the latest movie was released so they wouldn’t have to change the ending. That’s what I recall of the article… maybe someone can confirm or clarify it…
There’s a guy saying the body is buried under a house in Melbourne.
There is another theory that the baby was killed by a tame dog kept at a nearby Aboriginal camp, and that it was hushed up for political reasons. A former senior Northern Territory police officer has written about this at some length. His theories do seem to have some weight to them.
But all in all, nobody knows (or is saying).
Can any Australian speak to the allegation in A Cry in a Dark (the movie with Meryl Streep, I think it may have had another name internationally) that much of the opinion against the Chamberlains was based on misunderstandings about and prejudice against their Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs?
There may have been an element of that lurking in some people’s minds. Personally, I think people’s suspicions were fuelled more by Lindy Chamberlain’s rather unemotional reaction to the whole thing.
Yes, that was a big deal at the time. As Cunctator has pointed out, her first appearence on television threw public opinion wildly against her as she was relatively dry eyed and lucid. She was probably simply emotionally drained. However, this led people to look critically at her and Michael’s religious beliefs and that is where the wild theories started to gain legs - such as the child’s unusual name Azaria meaning “death in the wilderness” and the baby was killed by the parents sacrificially. Experts later found such etymological connection for that name.
Oops. That should read “Experts later found no such etymological connection for that name.”
If this is true, she is rather a cold fish.