Name dingo as baby's killer, mother pleads
Chamberlain-Creighton wants record to state wild canine caused her daughter's death
Last Updated: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 | 10:30 AM ET
The Associated Press
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The mother wrongly convicted of murdering her infant after the baby infamously disappeared in the Australian Outback 30 years ago has asked that a dingo be named the responsible party on her daughter's death certificate.
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, also known as Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the remote Outback.
"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 the mother.
A coroner initially found that a dingo, a type of wild canine, had taken the nine-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 in prison. She was released after four years when a piece of Azaria's clothing was found, supporting her claim that the baby was taken by a wild dog.
A royal commission exonerated the her in 1987, but another coroner's inquest in 1995 was unable to make an official conclusion.
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."
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