Michael and Lindy Chamberlain standing on the steps of Alice Springs courthouse at the time.(Supplied\/ABC News Graphics: National Museum of Australia\/Jessica Henderson)<\/p>\n
Four decades ago, “an ugly episode in Australia’s legal history” drew to a close after the chance discovery of a baby girl’s jacket in the outback. It unravelled Lindy Chamberlain’s murder conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, the ABC has been granted special permission to view that evidence, along with numerous other artefacts linked to the infamous case.<\/p>\n
A tea towel stands out in a collection of murder trial memorabilia preserved at the National Museum of Australia (NMA).<\/p>\n
Emblazoned on linen are two dingoes atop a rocky outcrop, scouting an iconic Central Australian landscape.<\/p>\n
At the time, public opinion across the world weighed up the chances of a dingo attacking the infant girl.(ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
A stamp in the top right-hand corner of the macabre merchandise reads: “Azaria Chamberlain trial, Darwin Australia, 1982.”<\/p>\n
The tea towel was sold during one of Australia’s most infamous murder trials, where mother Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to life in prison for killing her nine-week-old baby girl Azaria.<\/p>\n
Mrs Chamberlain was eventually exonerated.<\/p>\n
A court found her baby had been taken by a dingo from a campground at the foot of Uluru, during a family road trip in August 1980.<\/p>\n
It’s a case NMA senior curator Sophie Jensen has spent 30 years capturing through a library of objects.<\/p>\n
She says, in addition to the dingo tea towels, T-shirts were also sold throughout the murder trial.<\/p>\n
This shirt suggests Azaria Chamberlain’s clothing had been cut by scissors, rather than being torn by a dingo.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)
This shirt references the baby girl’s clothing, including the jacket that was found in Central Australia years after the initial search for Azaria Chamberlain.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)
Some merchandise points to conspiracy theories about what happened to Azaria Chamberlain, which circulated among the public after she went missing.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)<\/p>\n
“[It’s] so difficult to imagine now, that kind of thing could occur,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
Veteran journalist Tony Eastley, who covered the case for the ABC, remembers how the murder trial played out to a full Darwin courtroom \u2014 and how locals queued up early to secure a seat in the public gallery.<\/p>\n
“There was memorabilia left, right and centre,” he says.<\/p>\n
“The notoriety of the case was worldwide.<\/p>\n
“People were running gambling books on the likely outcome.”<\/p>\n
Decades on, the phrase “dingo’s got my baby” has become entrenched in Australian pop culture \u2014 referenced in television shows, satirised in international comedy, and immortalised in films like A Cry in the Dark.<\/p>\n
“It was a huge moment \u2026 to have Meryl Streep coming to play Lindy, which remains an iconic moment in Australia’s cinema history,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
More than 600 items related to the case are now sitting in storage at the NMA \u2014 some deemed too sensitive to exhibit.<\/p>\n
To mark 40 years since Mrs Chamberlain was released from prison, her conviction remitted, the ABC has been granted special permission to view part of that collection, including the clothes infant Azaria was wearing when she died, and the number from Mrs Chamberlain’s prison cell door in Darwin.<\/p>\n
There is also a lock of hair from the baby she gave birth to just weeks after the guilty verdict, Kahlia, who was removed from Mrs Chamberlain’s care while she was incarcerated.<\/p>\n
Sophie Jensen has spent decades gathering items related to the case, with the full collection stored at the National Museum of Australia.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to another child while incarcerated \u2014 this is a lock from Kahlia’s first haircut, which her mother received while behind bars.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
Azaria Chamberlain was photographed wearing this pink outfit, now stored in Canberra, during the family trip to Uluru.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
Lindy and Azaria Chamberlain visiting Uluru on August 17, 1980.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)<\/p>\n
“We have items that come from the campsite itself; we have mattresses, sleeping bags, the children’s parkers, the bottle warmers \u2026 torches used to search on that dreadful evening,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
“[It] is almost a complete archive of the material culture around this particular episode in the Chamberlain family’s life.”<\/p>\n
A map shows Azaria Chamberlain’s matinee jacket was found near a dingo lair.(Australian Parliament: Morling royal commission report of inquiry into Chamberlain convictions)
This was the door number that was on Mrs Chamberlain’s prison cell.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)
This photo from the campsite was featured in a royal commission that later probed the Chamberlain convictions.(Australian Parliament: Morling royal commission report of inquiry into Chamberlain convictions)The court of public opinion<\/p>\n
Following Azaria’s disappearance, Mrs Chamberlain was instantly in the public eye and became a polarising figure.<\/p>\n
“She was quite a startling kind of black-haired, good-looking woman who was quite diminutive but had a presence about her,” Mr Eastley recalls.<\/p>\n
“She was the most recognised woman in Australia at the time.”<\/p>\n
The handmade outfits Mrs Chamberlain wore sparked so much public opinion, they are also preserved as part of the NMA collection.<\/p>\n
“She would appear walking into the courtroom and people would comment on her dresses, just as they would comment on Princess Diana’s dresses,” Mr Eastley says.<\/p>\n
Lindy Chamberlain was pictured wearing this black dress at the police compound during the second inquest into her baby’s death. Photo taken at the National Museum of Australia collection in Canberra, 2026.(Supplied\/ABC News: National Museum of Australia\/David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
From the museum’s storage, Dr Jensen unpacks one strappy black dress that offended more than most.<\/p>\n
This little black dress was part of a matching mother-infant set Lindy made to wear with her children.(ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
It was part of a matching black-and-red mother-infant set that Mrs Chamberlain designed to wear with her son, before handing it down to her daughter.<\/p>\n
“It became such a central piece,” Dr Jensen explains.<\/p>\n
“People were horrified at the idea a mother would dress their baby in black.<\/p>\n
“It did become another kind of way in which the Australian public judged Lindy to be an unnatural mother.”<\/p>\n
Lindy Chamberlain was wearing the black dress when members of a second inquest inspected evidence from the family’s car.(Supplied: Dr Michael Chamberlain)<\/p>\n
The Chamberlain family was subjected to an unprecedented level of “malicious gossip”, according to Coroner Denis Barritt, who handed down his findings into Azaria’s death at the first inquest in February 1981.<\/p>\n
At that time, the level of superstition was so intense, his official findings included a line stating the name Azaria did not mean “sacrifice in the wilderness”.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Barritt took the unusual measure of televising his findings in an attempt to stem the swirling public hysteria.<\/p>\n
He criticised the police investigation for failing to show impartiality, and also took aim at the Northern Territory government, claiming it had set “hidden traps for decent people” in letting tourists camp alongside dangerous animals without adequate warnings.<\/p>\n
“The death of this babe in an area where previous attacks causing bodily injury, or potential bodily injury, is too high a price, and a totally unnecessary price to pay,” the judge said.<\/p>\n
The findings sparked outrage, and by November 1981, the NT Supreme Court quashed them.<\/p>\n
A second inquest, launched in December that year, recommended Mrs Chamberlain be charged with murder and her husband Michael Chamberlain with accessory after the fact.<\/p>\n
A matinee jacket and the yellow Torana<\/p>\n
Both parents were charged and faced a gruelling six-week trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frame by frame, court sketches held by NMA show the key moments.<\/p>\n
A park ranger giving evidence on the dangers of dingoes.<\/p>\n
Mr Chamberlain taking the stand to defend his wife.<\/p>\n
Mrs Chamberlain, with her chin raised and eyes set to the ground, as a jury of her peers finds her guilty.<\/p>\n
Ranger Derek Roff told the court he hadn’t “the slightest doubt a dingo would enter a tent if the situation arose”.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)
Both parents took the stand to give evidence before the jury.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)
A sketch shows Lindy and Michael Chamberlain sitting inside a prisoner dock at court.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)<\/p>\n
The defence relied on Mrs Chamberlain’s account that a dingo had taken her baby, but jurors weren’t convinced.<\/p>\n
Azaria’s body was never recovered and the jumpsuit she was wearing at the time of her death didn’t have dingo saliva on it.<\/p>\n
Giving evidence before the court, Mrs Chamberlain argued the animal’s DNA would have been contained to the matinee jacket her child had been wearing.<\/p>\n
This knitted matinee jacket was worn by Azaria Chamberlain on the night of her disappearance, and was only found years later, during a 1986 search around Uluru.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)<\/p>\n
But the jacket had not been found, and the prosecution questioned its existence.<\/p>\n
It was a freak accident in January 1986 that unravelled the conviction.<\/p>\n
That, and the revelation some evidence used to convict Mrs Chamberlain was shoddy.<\/p>\n
A British tourist fell from Uluru during a climb, and in the search for his remains, Azaria’s matinee jacket was discovered in sand dunes near a dingo lair.<\/p>\n
“Everything hinges on this one moment,” Dr Jensen explains.<\/p>\n
“That the right person was somehow in the right place at the right time to find that matinee jacket, is just an incredible moment of chance that changed the whole course of the case.”<\/p>\n
That discovery came alongside growing discontent from scientists that the forensic tests showing blood inside the Chamberlains’s family car \u2014 a yellow Holden Torana \u2014 were flawed.<\/p>\n
“Samples taken from the car [were] supposed to be foetal haemoglobin and ended up being sound-deadening spray that was put on the Torana when it was made,” Mr Eastley says.<\/p>\n
Like the matinee jacket, the car has since transitioned from evidence to artefact at the NMA.<\/p>\n
Lindy Chamberlain pictured in August 1980, when she was visiting Uluru with her daughter Azaria and sons Aidan and Reagan.(Supplied: Dr Michael Chamberlain)
Sophie Jensen says Michael Chamberlain hoped handing the items over to NMA would serve as a testament to the triumph of justice.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
Once forensic testing was complete, the Holden Torana was returned to the Chamberlain family.(Supplied: Dr Michael Chamberlain)<\/p>\n
Dr Jensen says Mr Chamberlain, who died in 2017, rebuilt the hatchback after police returned it to him in boxes.<\/p>\n
When he handed it over to the museum, he said the car was a testament to complete forensic failure and the triumph of justice.<\/p>\n
Mrs Chamberlain was released from prison on February 7, 1986, and years later Coroner Elizabeth Morris determined Azaria Chamberlain had been killed by a dingo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A media frenzy quickly formed after news broke of Azaria Chamberlain’s death.(Supplied: National Library of Australia’s Trove)<\/p>\n
Now retired, Mr Eastley flew back to the Northern Territory to cover the fourth and final coronial inquest in 2012.<\/p>\n
“It was a breakthrough for everyone involved and I must say I was quite moved,” Mr Eastley says.<\/p>\n
“I said to Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton afterwards, ‘I’ve stuck with this case for so long, I would like to apologise for the way the media has treated you in that time’.”<\/p>\n
He says, while the ABC wasn’t part of that poor treatment, it was important to acknowledge the “extraordinary tale of woe and torment for the family”.<\/p>\n
The coroner determined it was “obvious, not just from these findings, but from other injuries and deaths since, dingoes can and do cause harm to humans”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Azaria’s death certificate was officially updated to reflect the fatal attack, but the Chamberlain family has never received an apology from the NT government.<\/p>\n
‘History will and can repeat itself’<\/p>\n
While individual items in the Chamberlain collection are sometimes brought out for display, the vast and raw nature of the artefacts has made dedicated exhibitions difficult.<\/p>\n
“We work really closely with Lindy as to when and how she is comfortable with those items coming out and being viewed,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
Some believed Lindy Chamberlain at the time, arguing no murder weapon was ever found and she had no motive to kill.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
A variety of merchandise was sold throughout the 1982 murder trial.(ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
The first exhibit the NMA held in 1994 drew a “dreadful” response from audiences.<\/p>\n
“It was felt to be ‘in bad taste’ \u2026 ‘ghoulish’, and people still were very divided,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t mean the collection goes unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton sharing her story, alongside Sophie Jensen, at an event in 2007.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia)<\/p>\n
“Lindy regularly interacts with the collection,” Dr Jensen says.<\/p>\n
“She speaks to it very directly, she brings her story to it during lectures, during debates, for access for different particular groups who have interests in the material.”<\/p>\n
Parts of the collection are also used for training by professionals like members of the Australian Federal Police and are accessible to the public online.<\/p>\n
Dr Jensen says she hopes the important archive “will serve to really help Australians remember, rather than try and forget, what was a pretty ugly episode in Australia’s legal history”.<\/p>\n
“[We share] the lessons that were learned, the dangers that we can observe, because history will and can repeat itself,” she says.<\/p>\n
“One day, I do hope that it’ll be the right time to bring much more of the collection out for people to actually enjoy as an exhibition.”<\/p>\n
Credits<\/p>\n
Reporter: Laetitia Lemke<\/a><\/p>\n Camera operator: David Sciasci<\/p>\n Digital producer: Gemma Ferguson<\/a><\/p>\n