Lindy Chamberlain exonerated - a dingo did it.

a_unique_person

Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
a_unique_person
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I couldn't understand the hatred of her at the time. A dingo is a wild dog, they eat things.

When the forensic evidence came up saying that there were holes in their story, I accepted the evidence, but wasn't completely convinced.

When it turned out the forensic evidence was pile of horse ****, I accepted that too.

What I don't get is why, even before the crap forensics, people hated her so much.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/comedian-sorry-for-azaria-jokes-20120612-207qy.html

Harmer today said she was ashamed of herself after she performed a stand-up comedy routine in the 1980s that posed the question: "What if they made Lindy Chamberlain The Musi-cal?"
As part of the performance, she re-wrote The Association song "Everyone Knows It's Windy" to "Everyone Knows It's Lindy".
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But in light of today's finding by the Northern Territory Deputy Coroner that Azaria Chamberlain was snatched by a dingo, Harmer said satire was no excuse for her comments.
"In pursuit of a laugh, I too carried a burning stick. What was I thinking?" she wrote.
"Such was the firestorm of hatred, all rationality was lost."


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/comedian-sorry-for-azaria-jokes-20120612-207qy.html#ixzz1xZPdR2Lc
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It really was amazing, how much hatred there was.
 
dingos and dresses

a_unique_person said:
It really was amazing, how much hatred there was.
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a_unique_person,

Thank you for the quote and link. I think some people objected to the fact that she wore a different dress each day to court. Strange why this should be taken as evidence of guilt.
 
I heard this earlier this morning. The thing that I could never comprehend was that while there was little or no evidence that the baby had been taken by a dingo, there was equally little or no evidence that Lindy killed her, and yet that was the conclusion that not only the public but the courts went with. Perhaps it was because the dingo story seemed less plausible, but the problem with that is that it was justice by false dilemma. Disproving or discounting one doesn't prove the other. There were other possibilities, too, such as the Azaria being abducted by another person at the camp, etc. Let's face it, just as much evidence for that, or aliens for that matter, as for anything else. I also never understood where the idea about Lindy slitting Azaria's throat with scissors came from. Did they just make that up? Every time I see that mentioned, there is never any hint as to how that originated.

How awful to not only have to deal with the uncertain disappearance and death of your child, but to have to spend four years in prison and to be vilified for the next 32 years of your life.

This whole case vividly illustrates the critically important need for EVIDENCE.
 
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a_unique_person said:
I couldn't understand the hatred of her at the time...It really was amazing, how much hatred there was.
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Mob behavior. Rent "A Cry in the Dark" (1988) and watch a self-congratulatory media and an ambitious prosecutor use an attack on a member of an umpopular Christian sect to flatter themselves. There's a lot of that going around, still (consider the treatment of Sarah Palin, and what's going to happen to Mitt Romney).

Meryl Streep's portrayal of Lindy Chamberlin suggests one reason for the unsympathetic press teatment; she did not respond to the loss of her child as critics imagined a normal human would respond.

A Cry in the Dark
Fred Schepisi directs.
Photography, especially of landscapes, at the usual (very high) standard of Australian films and Australian directors (Peter Weir; Picnic at Hanging Rock, Witness; Bruce Beresford: Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies, Black Robe).
Schepisi also directed the beautiful and wrenching "The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith".
 
Wow, 30 years. What took them so long? It was established years ago that dingoes are dangerous, will attack and kill children.

I know they had been trying for this result for awhile. I'm sure they are relieved
 
scissors

Psi Baba said:
I also never understood where the idea about Lindy slitting Azaria's throat with scissors came from. Did they just make that up? Every time I see that mentioned, there is never any hint as to how that originated.

How awful to not only have to deal with the uncertain disappearance and death of your child, but to have to spend four years in prison and to be vilified for the next 32 years of your life.

This whole case vividly illustrates the critically important need for EVIDENCE.
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The forensic worker (Joyce Kuhl) thought that she had found blood on the scissors, but her methodology was flawed. There was also speculation that scissors had been used to cut Azaria's clothing. "When asked whether the scissors found in the car had been used to cut the jumpsuit during the testing, he admitted that they had not, as their first attempt to do so had caused the scissors to fall apart. They had in fact used a larger, sturdier pair of scissors."
 
Sadder still is that she'll forever be thought of as a murderer by much of the populace regardless of any formal exoneration process. People don't change their minds very easily.

What's the deal with those dogs anyway? Are they like coyotes are here, vermin that you can kill when you find them?
 
Sir Robin Goodfellow said:
Sadder still is that she'll forever be thought of as a murderer by much of the populace regardless of any formal exoneration process. People don't change their minds very easily.

What's the deal with those dogs anyway? Are they like coyotes are here, vermin that you can kill when you find them?
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After all this time and after all this evidence, I think the consensus is that she was entirely innocent and wrongfully imprisoned. The baby's elder brothers (4 and 6 yo at the time of her disappearance) had also been suspected (their early school years must have been quite unpleasant), and are now similarly (and very belatedly) regarded as innocent.

As for dingoes, they are protected in national parks, but elsewhere they would be shot on sight. (Note that I have read that 'modern' dingoes have a lot of feral dog in them; i.e. wild domestic dogs have interbred with them.)
 
The 'law' gets fixated upon a certain person and will go to any lengths to produce evidence to convict while hiding or even destroying evidence that may be proof of evidence..

Those who 'investigated' the crime (what ever it was) should have to serve the same amount of time in prison as their victim....
 
I think part of it is that many people thought it a ridiculous scenario.

As if you told me right now in the USA that an opossum had carried off an infant.

The animal was not seen as capable of the act.

Everybody was wrong, as it happens, but the anger was because they thought this woman had concocted a ridiculous story.
 
Sir Robin Goodfellow said:
Sadder still is that she'll forever be thought of as a murderer by much of the populace regardless of any formal exoneration process. People don't change their minds very easily.

What's the deal with those dogs anyway? Are they like coyotes are here, vermin that you can kill when you find them?
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A lot of Northern Territorians will always consider her a killer, but not so much in the more civilized parts of Australia

As for dingoes, they can make great pets.
 
BenBurch said:
I think part of it is that many people thought it a ridiculous scenario. As if you told me right now in the USA that an opossum had carried off an infant. The animal was not seen as capable of the act.
Everybody was wrong, as it happens, but the anger was because they thought this woman had concocted a ridiculous story.
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Maybe. I expect religious bigotry and mob piling-on had something to do with it. Dingos are medium-sized dogs (think, a lean Labrador retriever). A nine-week human infant might weigh ten pounds.
 
I always believed it was the dingoes and I always felt sad for the mother.
 
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BenBurch said:
Unaware of the religion angle; Were they Scientologists or some similar thing?
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Seventh Day Adventists. There was a ridiculous rumor published in the tabloids that "Azaria" meant "sacrifice in the wilderness" or something similar.

The religious angle played a part, but so equally did Lindy's cool, carm behavior to the media. She didn't play the hysterical, bereaved mother role expected of her. The hatred of her at the time was certainly media driven.
 
BenBurch said:
I think part of it is that many people thought it a ridiculous scenario.

As if you told me right now in the USA that an opossum had carried off an infant.

The animal was not seen as capable of the act.

Everybody was wrong, as it happens, but the anger was because they thought this woman had concocted a ridiculous story.
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I never understood why it was ridiculous though. I discussed this with an Aussie guy some years back and he said the dingo is a really small dog. He wasn't sure about the case, but he had a lot of his doubts because of the size of the dingo. We had golden retrievers that retrieved ducks. Some of those ducks were quite large and wouldn't have weighed that much less than a baby.


The dingo looks more like a coyote size to me. I don't see a baby's size being a real struggle for them.

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Golden retievers seems to be about the same size.

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Magic 9-Ball said:
Wow, 30 years. What took them so long? It was established years ago that dingoes are dangerous, will attack and kill children.

I know they had been trying for this result for awhile. I'm sure they are relieved
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The sad fact is that it didn't, the first inquest shortly after the event came to the conclusion based on the evidence that a dingo had taken her. It wasn't until the incorrect forensic evidence was introduced that it became a murder. What was even sadder was that the third inquest judge didn't have the balls to do what this one has, and so left it as an open verdict. Now with evidence of over 200 dingo attacks since 1990, three of them fatal, this case can finally be laid to rest.
 
We now have the death certificate stated that a dingo took the baby. Truth took 32 years to be done. The first inquest stated clearly the TRUTH Yet the highly paid people of this world got this woman 3 years in prison.
It is time that these people paid for their errors instead of have the tax payer pay.
 
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