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330 Deception at Work

Dog instead of dingo
As far as the syntax is concerned, among the most worrying sentences are those that relabel the
threatening ‘dingo’ as a ‘dog’ (see frame 148) and these are both where the dangerous animal
is supposed to have her daughter in its mouth. Her terminology is in stark contrast to the way
she described the ‘mangy dingo’ when one had run off with a mouse the previous evening.
The change to a ‘soft’ label at the point of maximum anxiety is highly suspicious.

‘In the tent’ or ‘where’
The sequence at frames 128 and following is interesting:

• She yelled go on get out at the dingo: she did not yell for help from Michael.
• She paused then ran towards the tent.
• She called ‘There is a dingo is in the tent’.
• She ‘dive’ into the tent but did not shout or yell and searched for the baby without yelling

for help. The change to present tense, at this precise point, is suspicious.
• As she backed out of the tent, she called to Michael ‘the dingo has got my baby’.
• Michael said ‘What?’
• ‘I cut across to where it was heading’.
• I answered Michael’s question and said ‘the dingo has got the baby’.
• Michael had run straight from the cooking area. He called ‘which way?’ as he ran I pointed

and said ‘in there’.

If Michael had heard the call that the dingo was ‘in the tent’, his assumption ‘which way’
would indicate prior knowledge and a plan to distract searchers away from the tent and car.

Is Azaria an ‘it’ or a ‘her’?
Also the sentence (frame 157 and following) appears very significant. Mrs Chamberlain said
‘We told them to try and keep the dog on the move so that it would either drop it and run or
keep carrying her so that we could catch it and get her back.’ This could be rephrased without
altering the meaning … ‘try to keep the dingo on the move so that it would either drop [the
inanimate object it was carrying and run away] or keep carrying [my daughter, which would
slow it down] and we could catch it and get her back.’ You can take different views of this sen-
tence, but the inconsistent use of pronouns appear to suggest that she knew the dingo had not
got her baby. It may have removed something else, like her husband’s shoe, with the baby lying
dead in the tent or in the camera bag. It is also possible that the baby could have been murdered
and the tent left open to encourage a dingo to enter; thus supporting the false story.

Before the police arrived
Note the statement at frames158 to 159 to the effect, ‘Michael asked me if I was sure she wasn’t
in the tent. I said I was positive but come with me. She wasn’t there before the police ar-
rived. As we were coming out of the tent we checked it together.’ This suggests that
the reason for going into the tent was not to check for Azaria, because they only did this as
they were coming out. Is it possible that their reason for going into the tent – ‘before the police
arrived’ – was to remove Azaria’s body into the camera bag or to clean the scene?