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Dealing with Deception in Writing 327

No. Question or response Comment

Q ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

8 ‘No, I haven’t have I?’

Q There was a pause as Charlwood brought the car
to a halt in the police driveway and Lindy got out.
Meaning there was a significant delay before she
responded

9 ‘No, of course I never killed my child!’, Lindy said A profile of murderers is that

with feeling. they seldom refer to their family

relationship with the victim. It would

have been more convincing if she had

said ‘daughter’ or ‘Azaria’. However,

her choice of words may have been

influenced by the detective’s question

when he used the word ‘child’

On the face of it, this is a very telling conversation, but Detective Charlwood was never
subject to cross examination on it and therefore its reliability has not been tested. For our
purposes, however, it is useful background information; no more and no less.

COMMENTS ON MR SAPIR’S ‘PURE’ ANALYSIS

Mr Sapir’s finding that the relationship between husband and wife was fractious is a smart
conclusion. In fact, the syntax suggests that they may have had an argument at breakfast
(because she was still in bed when he returned from his first walk) that continued through
the rest of the day. The fact that he went off by himself, leaving her behind with the baby, is
understandable, but their separation while he changed films, walked by himself around the
outside of the Fertility Cave and so on could indicate that they were barely on speaking terms
and did not want to be in each other’s company. An alternative explanation, if they planned
to kill their baby, possibly for what they had agreed was a good reason, is that Mr Chamberlain
simply wanted time and space to think.

Also Mrs Chamberlain’s relationship with Azaria appears poor. Most mothers of ten-week-
old babies are preoccupied with two tasks and their day centres around them: these are feeds
and nappy changes. Her account includes only three feeds during the day of 17th August 1980
and no nappy changes. Given the stress Mrs Chamberlain was under in recounting the tragic
events, it is possible that she failed to recall these motherly tasks. But the fact that nothing is
mentioned about Azaria being fed immediately before being put to bed on 17 August 1980 may
be very significant: especially if the intention was to murder her or if she was already dead.

We have highlighted where Mrs Chamberlain refers to ‘Michael’ or ‘husband’ and where he
is doing something that she should like we have inserted the symbols ‘+++’. You will see that
the correlation of labels for, and her happiness with, her husband are not linear and we can
find no pattern in them. The one exception, as Mr Sapir correctly identified, is her consistent
reference to him as ‘Michael’ from the moment Azaria went missing. Mr Sapir appears right
in his conclusion that the tragedy drew them together but we seriously question his second
conclusion.