Lindy Chamberlain: ‘They say I’m a victim, but I’m a survivor’
In a raw interview, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton reveals how the story of Azaria Chamberlain’s death and the subsequent courtroom saga changed her family, why she has chosen now to speak candidly - and the peace that, at 72, she has fought hard to earn.
Stellar
Don't miss out on the headlines from Stellar. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Adam Goodes: ‘It’s a chance to put a black person’s face on a busy street corner’
- Jackie O and Sophie Monk open up about their 20-year friendship
No-one would blame Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton for regarding her life as one of loss. She not only had her baby daughter Azaria stolen from her, but so too several crucial years to raise her three other children.
She also lost her marriage, her freedom, her privacy, her faith in the justice system and the ability to walk down the street without facing prejudice and judgement.
Even now, 40 years after a dingo snatched her baby at Uluru in the Northern Territory, Chamberlain-Creighton is still taunted by strangers who mockingly howl like a dingo as she passes.
But she refuses to see herself as a victim. “If you know you’re innocent, then it’s not about you,” she tells Stellar ahead of a new two-part documentary on the case that polarised the nation.
“People say I’m a victim, but I say I’m a survivor. Victims die, survivors live. I’m a survivor and a conqueror, and that’s a choice I made, not somebody else.”
Some will wonder what more there is to say about the death of nine-week-old Azaria on August 17, 1980, after a dingo dragged her from a tent during a camping trip.
Her disappearance would prompt a series of court cases and coroner’s inquests that led to her parents’ murder convictions, with Lindy receiving a life sentence and Michael sentenced as an accessory.
It would become arguably the greatest miscarriage of justice our nation has seen. But with ex-husband Michael Chamberlain passing in 2017 and Lindy now aged 72, the Queensland-based grandmother of three wanted documentary-makers to tell not just her story, but also reveal the profound impact it had on everyone – from her own children and witnesses at the campsite, to the lawyers and journalists who covered her case.
As she says, “A number of those involved are dying off or have dementia. If it’s not done now, then when?”
To ensure Lindy Chamberlain: The True Story is as much a journal of record as a retelling of a story that will forever more be part of Australian history, the family’s home movies and a recently unearthed recording of Azaria as a four-week-old baby feature among the interviews.
“I wanted to go through the tapes now rather than later because I don’t want to leave my kids with unfinished things to deal with,” Chamberlain-Creighton says matter-of-factly. “My kids have had to deal with enough without my leaving them with unsorted stuff.”
Bizarrely, among the cassette tapes that she found was a series of chatty recordings she’d sent to her mother where she mentions the black baby dress decorated with red ribbons that had falsely convinced many Australians she was involved in witchcraft and had killed her baby.
As she tells Stellar, “I’d always said I’d made it for Reagan [her second son and Azaria’s older brother], but there was no proof that was the case. But in this tape, recorded years before Azaria was born, I talk about how I’d made the black dress for Reagan and how much I liked it and how much Michael hated it.”
For a woman whose looks and demeanour positioned her in the national psyche as cold and hard-hearted, Chamberlain-Creighton, in her eighth decade, is a study in resilience and empathy.
Buoyed by an unswerving faith in God and the solidity of her 28-year marriage to Rick Creighton, she says her lasting regret is not the three years she spent in prison, but rather the impact the case had on others.
Some of the witnesses remain traumatised that they were not believed by a zealous police force and a flawed legal system. She says, “It makes me sad that they feel responsible that I went into prison.”
She also bears the pain the case had on her other children, Aidan, now 46, Reagan, 44, and Kahlia, 37. “Reagan took it hard when Azaria died because he saw her as his baby. He’s had quite a few problems growing up, but he’s got a warm heart,” she says.
As for Kahlia, who she raised for the first five months of her life before she was sent to live with foster parents, Chamberlain-Creighton still regrets missing the milestones, including crawling, which she achieved days after her mother was sent back to prison.
Kahlia, who now lives in Western Australia near her two brothers, previously struggled with the thought that she was a replacement for Azaria.
Chamberlain-Creighton tells Stellar that was never the case. “As I’ve always told her: ‘You were wanted, which is why we had you. No-one ever replaces another.’” Fortunately, all three of her children are close. “If anyone is in trouble, they’re all there like a shot.”
As for Azaria, Chamberlain-Creighton says she doesn’t dwell on sad memories or painful times. Sometimes she won’t think of her firstborn daughter for several days, then she’ll find herself remembering things about her for several days in a row. Meeting Aidan’s daughter Milly – now aged six – as a baby for the first time was a shock; she looked identical to Azaria as a baby.
Chamberlain-Creighton has also learnt to process the anger. Her wrongful conviction cost her three years of freedom and it was only eight years ago that a fourth coroner’s inquest finally found that Azaria had died “as a result of being attacked and taken by a dingo”. But she knows that bitterness doesn’t serve her well.
Reflecting on her time in prison, she says it taught her patience and to learn to like the things she had to do. “In the early days they tried to break me by giving me extra nasty jobs, but I would whip through anything and they soon realised it wasn’t working,” she recalls.
“There are many things in life you just don’t want to do, but instead of making yourself miserable, see how fast you can do it and then go back to something you want to do.” As for the dingo howlers: “I choose not to take on board their bad behaviour.”
Asked if she thinks she’s had a good life, she responds with a hearty laugh. “Absolutely. As a minister’s wife I did counselling before all this happened and I wasn’t as effective as I can be now. Thinking you understand and knowing you can empathise is a whole different ball game.”
Occasionally, she’ll have a mischievous dig. When coroner Elizabeth Morris brought the painful saga to a close in 2012 by declaring that a dingo was responsible for her daughter’s death, Chamberlain-Creighton quipped that “it would have to be a woman to put it right”.
While the Chamberlains have never received an apology, Lindy refuses to seek one. “I’m not asking, because if it’s not voluntary, it’s not worth anything,” she tells Stellar. “Am I going to run with this nastiness and let it affect my life or am I not going to go there? I have peace. There is nothing left to fight.”
Lindy Chamberlain: The True Story airs at 7.30pm on September 27 and 28, on Network 10.