'Dingo baby' mystery deepens

2004-07-06 07:36

Sydney - Another expert who investigated the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain 24 years ago has demolished new claims by an elderly man that he had found the baby in the mouth of a dingo he shot in August, 1980.

Pensioner Frank Cole, 78, told a Melbourne newspaper at the weekend that he shot the native wild dog while hunting near Uluru national park in the Northern Territory and retrieved the body of baby from its mouth.

Forensic scientist Dr Kenneth Brown, who originally examined the bloodstained and torn jumpsuit worn by Azaria when she disappeared, said the claims by Cole could not possibly have been true and his story was probably a fabrication.

Two other experts, Barry Boettcher, a pathologist, and John Bryson, author of a book about the Chamberlain case called Evil Angels, as well as former police officers who investigated the mystery, have also expressed reservations about Cole's story.

Azaria's disappearance in 1980 created one of Australia's most celebrated mysteries and led to her mother Lindy Chamberlain being wrongly jailed for life for murder in 1982, although she had insisted all along that a dingo took the her baby.

Chamberlain, whose tragic story subsequently retold in a movie starring Meryl Streep, was later exonerated and freed after new evidence emerged backing her claims.

Cole claimed he shot at what he believed was a rabbit on a camping trip near Uluru, but found it was a dingo with baby Azaria in its jaws. He claimed the baby had four puncture marks to her head, was missing an ear and was covered in blood. Cole also claimed he had tried but failed to remove the clothing from the baby because of buttons on the jump suit.

He said he and his three friends, who have since died, decided not to take the body to police immediately, fearing they would be punished for illegally using a firearm in a national park. He said the group later agreed to take the body to authorities, but never did and he believed one his friends might have buried the body in a Melbourne backyard.

But Dr Brown told ABC radio the jumpsuit had press-studs not buttons and there was no evidence of any attempt to remove them. "They were all intact," he said.

He said there were cuts to the clothing but they were inconsistent with Cole's story, adding: "It sounds to me as though it's probably a fabrication."

Tony Cavanagh, producer of a new television mini-series about Azaria, denied speculation the fresh claims were a publicity stunt for the series, saying he also found the claims by Cole "difficult to believe".

- AFP