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328 Deception at Work

This is that Mrs Chamberlain was not happy with the way her husband conducted the
search and therefore he could not have been involved. Her explanation about the torches and
her husband’s clamour to get back to the car and tent is incredible. But during and after the
search she only refers to him as ‘Michael’ indicating that he had been in her favour at this time.
This would, of course, be understandable if she had murdered her baby and did not want the
body found, because under such circumstances the more useless the search, the better.

‘HOLISTIC’ CONCLUSIONS

Possible limitations and benefit of the doubt

Any analysis of Mrs Chamberlain’s discourse is limited because it is not a true freestyle version
although there are freestyle elements within it. We also have to give her the benefit of any
doubt and no-one could really profile how they would react in the face of her tragedy.

Three areas of concern

That aside, we are concerned about three areas. First, the things that Mrs Chamberlain did
not say, her attitude and the absence of any explanation of the things she and her husband
did that put their daughter’s life at risk. Secondly, the emotional and factual inconsistencies
in her reactions and, finally, the syntax of her replies.

Things not said and attitude

Imagine yourself in the position of an innocent parent whose baby had been killed by dingoes
because of your negligence. You would be burdened with remorse and are likely to express
this and try and justify or rationalize your actions at almost every opportunity. In this case
this might include why:

• it was necessary for you to take a nine-week-old baby into the wilderness
• you pitched your tent in an exposed area that was obviously on a dingo run and adjacent to

sand dunes where they hunted
• you had specifically assured your four-year-old son that the baby was safe: that dingoes

would not come near, when you fully believed the opposite
• minutes after giving warnings about dingoes to the parents of an 18 month old child you

left your tiny daughter exposed in a flimsy tent, which you carelessly did not close
• on 16 August you fed the baby and put her safely to bed in the car, yet on the following

day you did not feed her at bedtime and laid her down in a tent which you had failed to
secure.

Mrs Chamberlain made no attempt to explain any of the above and her omissions are suspi-
cious unless, for some reason she felt the baby’s death was justified.9

Emotional and factual inconsistencies

Mrs Chamberlain’s inconsistent emotional reactions and factual recollection when suppos-
edly discovering the dingo coming out of the tent with something in its mouth are also
disturbing:

9 For example, if the baby was seriously ill or deformed