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Dealing with Deception in Writing 331

Aiden left in the cold
Her explanation for Aiden’s leaving the tent (frame 103) contains what must be viewed as
excessive and apparently unimportant, detail. The sequence was obviously very important to
Mrs Chamberlain, otherwise she would not have covered it in such detail. She says that Aiden,
just having eaten his tea, was in the tent with her and that she raced him to the barbecue area
to give him some more beans. Her explanation is unconvincing and she does not clarify why,
on a very cold night, he was dressed only in his pyjamas. The possible answer is that his parka,
which was in the tent, was already heavily bloodstained and that she stopped him from wear-
ing it or did not tell him to put it on.

Didn’t see the baby in the dingo’s mouth
Of course, the big question is, if she was a murderess, why didn’t she say that she had seen
the baby in the dingo’s mouth? Nearly every time questions were leading to that point she
prevaricated or backtracked, possibly unconsciously, to avoid addressing the critical issue.
We can draw no conclusions from this, because prevarication would be justified whether she
was guilty or innocent. However, if she did kill her daughter, the only explanation for Mrs
Chamberlain not claiming to have seen he daughter in the dingo’s mouth was that it was a step
too far, requiring too much falsification. If she had said she had seen the baby in the dingo’s
mouth she would have been open to detailed further questions and required to tell barefaced
lies, like how the baby was being held, was she crying, etc. If she was the killer, her safe course
was to answer as she did, blaming emotional turmoil for the lack of recollection. However,
such an emotional blackout is not consistent with the raft of conscious thoughts supposedly
going through her mind at the time: a classic example of Incongruency.

THE POLICE THEORY

The police, theory put forward, during the criminal trial was that:

• Mrs Chamberlain killed Azaria in the car in the 6 to 15 minute gap between leaving the
barbecue area (frames 101 to 108).

• She hid the body in the camera bag or cot and returned to the barbecue area to give Aiden
his second helping of beans.

• She (and not Michael) raised the alarm and encouraged people to search well away from the
tent and car.

• She told her husband what she had done sometime later. He agreed to help her with the
cover up.

• During the search one of them buried Azaria’s body.
• On Monday 18 August 1980 they dug up Azaria’s body and removed the clothes (including

the matinee jacket), accidentally turning the singlet inside out before cutting it with scissors
to simulate canine teeth marks.

The prosecution made no attempt to offer a motive for the murder, but there was a great deal
of speculation and prejudice including:

• A religious sacrifice (‘Azaria’ was falsely said to mean ‘death in the desert’), based on a com-
plete misunderstanding of Seventh Day Adventists.