"A coroner initially found that a dingo, a type of wild canine, had taken the 9-week-old baby, but that ruling was overturned and her mother was charged with her murder.
Chamberlain-Creighton was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released after four years when a piece of Azaria’s clothing was found, supporting the mother’s claim that the baby was taken by a wild dog.
A Royal Commission exonerated the Chamberlains in 1987, but another coroner’s inquest in 1995 was unable to make an official conclusion on what had happened to Azaria Chamberlain.
Chamberlain-Creighton, who has remarried, didn’t disclose in the letter whether she had taken any formal steps to have the case reconsidered. Messages seeking further comment Tuesday weren’t immediately returned.
“She deserves justice,” she wrote. “In light of all the evidence before the Commission, this should be reflected on her death certificate and not the open finding that is there now. . . . It makes one wonder are they really after the truth, or just too stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made?”"
REPORTER TANALEE SMITH: ASSOCIATED PRESS;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA—The mother wrongly convicted of murdering her infant after the baby infamously disappeared in the Australian Outback 30 years ago pleaded Tuesday for her daughter’s death certificate to state that a dingo was responsible," the Associated Press story by reporter Tanalee Smith published on August 17, 2010 begins under the heading, "Mother of baby lost in Aussie Outback 30 years ago wants death certificate to blame dingo."
"Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton published an open letter on her website Tuesday — the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of her daughter while the family camped near Uluru, the red monolith in the remote Outback," the story continues.
"“Our family will always remember today as the day truth was dragged in the dirt and trampled upon,” she wrote. “But more than that it is the day our family was torn apart forever because we lost our beautiful little Azaria.”
The case is one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries and became international with the 1988 film “A Cry in the Dark” — for which Meryl Streep earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Lindy Chamberlain.
A coroner initially found that a dingo, a type of wild canine, had taken the 9-week-old baby, but that ruling was overturned and her mother was charged with her murder.
Chamberlain-Creighton was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released after four years when a piece of Azaria’s clothing was found, supporting the mother’s claim that the baby was taken by a wild dog.
A Royal Commission exonerated the Chamberlains in 1987, but another coroner’s inquest in 1995 was unable to make an official conclusion on what had happened to Azaria Chamberlain.
Chamberlain-Creighton, who has remarried, didn’t disclose in the letter whether she had taken any formal steps to have the case reconsidered. Messages seeking further comment Tuesday weren’t immediately returned.
“She deserves justice,” she wrote. “In light of all the evidence before the Commission, this should be reflected on her death certificate and not the open finding that is there now. . . . It makes one wonder are they really after the truth, or just too stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made?”
Chamberlain always maintained she saw a dingo slinking from the tent into the dark before she discovered Azaria missing. But she could not see what was in its mouth.
In her lengthy letter, addressed to “open-minded Australians,” Chamberlain-Creighton said she had forgiven all of those involved in “creating the fiasco of the last 30 years and the public so willing to believe the worst and spread nasty rumours.”
Barbara Tjikatu, a traditional owner of Uluru, which is also known as Ayers Rock, and the only surviving Aboriginal tracker who searched for Azaria the night she disappeared, told Ten Network television news on Tuesday that she had no doubt that a dingo took the baby.
Tjikatu said in her Aboriginal dialect that she saw dingo tracks outside the family’s tent leading away over a sand dune and saw Chamberlain-Creighton crying for her missing daughter."
The story can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/848774--mother-of-baby-lost-in-aussie-outback-30-years-ago-wants-death-certificate-to-blame-dingo
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
