Innocence Regained: The Fight to Free Lindy Chamberlain

Abstract

In October 1982, after the most sensational trial in Australian history, a jury reached a wrong verdict and convicted a young mother, a pastor's wife, of the murder of her baby daughter. Confronted with a choice of the mother or the dingo, the jury exonerated the animal. And Lindy Chamberlain entered both gaol and Australian folklore. This book is the story of the successful campaign to overturn the jury's verdict. Norman Young shows how the fight was fought, the battle won. At one end the lobbying of politicians, the reactions of the media; at the other, the patient scientific work on blood and on textiles which resulted in the Crown case being dismantled and discredited. And, finally, research on the characteristics of dingoes and the evidence of Aboriginal trackers, which pointed the finger of guilt directly at the dingo whose tracks circled the tent where the baby Azaria slept. [from back cover of book].