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Dealing with Deception in Writing 299

a sobering example of injustice stemming from prejudice, incompetence, misplaced zeal and
excessive confidence in the certitudes of science’. The Chamberlains were released.

AVINOAN SAPIR’S ANALYSIS

In 1990, Mr Sapir published a clever analysis of Mrs Chamberlain’s statement and concluded
that police theories were based on two propositions. The first was that the murder was a con-
spiracy by the husband and wife for reasons unknown. The second was that the wife, acting
alone and without extensive premeditation, murdered Azaria and that her husband helped
conceal the crime.

Mr Sapir concluded, primarily from the ‘mathematical equations’ in her statement, that
her relationship with her husband was not amicable and that a pattern could be seen in the
way she referred to him, sometimes as ‘Michael’ or ‘husband’ or ‘their father’. Mr Sapir’s drift
was to the effect that when Mr Chamberlain was doing something that pleased her, she re-
ferred to him as ‘Michael’ and when not as ‘my husband’ or ‘their father’.

He also noted a possibly strained relationship between Mrs Chamberlain and Azaria: only
once did she refer to her daughter by her given name. More usually she labelled Azaria as ‘the
baby’ or ‘it’. Even more significantly, Mr Sapir noted, that after Azaria’s disappearance, Mrs
Chamberlain only referred to her husband as ‘Michael’.

Mr Sapir’s conclusion was that: ‘before the baby vanished there was tension between the
couple and after it vanished the crisis brought them together. This causes the prosecution’s
first scenario to fall down because if there was no way that the couple could have had a meeting
of minds before the baby vanished, how could they reach a decision to kill their baby?’

During the search for Azaria, Mr Sapir continued, Mrs Chamberlain rated her husband’s
performance badly and effectively accused him of incompetence. He concluded: ‘And if we
feel that Mrs Chamberlain feels that her husband didn’t search properly after the baby, can
we say that the prosecution’s second scenario (that the husband was an accessory after the
murder) has any validity?’ The bottom line, therefore, was that Mr Sapir concluded that Mrs
Chamberlain’s story was consistent with her innocence.

We do not agree with all of Mr Sapir’s conclusions, but before presenting the edited tran-
script, for you to review, there are two points to note. The first is that Mr Sapir’s analysis was
made over 12 years ago and his methodology has made great advances since then. The second
point is that SCAN treats the narrative as a self-contained object and disregards content and all
external factors. To that extent it is a ‘pure’ method or, as he says, a ‘mathematical equation’.
Our approach is much more holistic and incorporates content and other case facts.

THE INTERVIEWS

Lindy Chamberlain and her husband were questioned separately on the night of Azaria’s dis-
appearance, but unfortunately the police kept no notes, which was a critical omission. Mrs
Chamberlain was formally interviewed in the Mount Isa Police Station on 30 September 1980
and on 1 October 1980 by three officers.6

Detective Sergeant Charlwood did the questioning, while Detective Sergeant Morris typed
the answers and Detective Constable J.E. Scott observed. In total the interviews lasted around
six hours.

6 This is not something we would recommend