<p>I feel for the family, tragic case.
I always believed the story,Meryl Streep wouldn’t play a murderer!
( well, unless she was complex…)
[Dingo</a> took Azaria Chamberlain, coroner finds | News.com.au](<a href=“http://www.news.com.au/national/dingo-took-azaria-coroner-finds/story-e6frfkvr-1226392715293]Dingo”>http://www.news.com.au/national/dingo-took-azaria-coroner-finds/story-e6frfkvr-1226392715293)</p>
<p>I am happy she has been vindicated after all this time.</p>
<p>Me, too. I read the book the movie was based on long ago. It was clear that a major reason for her conviction, in the press and in court, was because people found her unsympathetic and cold. How unfair it was to have the heartbreak of losing a child and then to be wrongly accused of murder.</p>
<p>I saw the movie years ago. What I can’t remember is what the prosecutors said the motive was. Why would a nursing mother with other small children murder her baby and then have the time to hide it so well that it was never found?</p>
<p>I don’t think they had a motive, but they didn’t think she was exhibiting the “proper” reaction.</p>
<p>I only vaguely remember the story and the article doesn’t go ever the events. Did they find the baby soon after the disappearance? Why are the coroner reports only coming out now?</p>
<p>As I understand it, the body was never found. The family was camping and the adults were outside of their tent when the baby was taken from inside. Lindsay Chamberlain saw a dingo carrying the baby off, people ran off in that direction, but it escaped. I don’t think anyone else testified having seen it.</p>
<p>I recall that a key piece of evidence was a little jacket that Lindsay Chamberlain said she’d put on the baby. When it was finally found some years later, it was considered proof of her innocence though I can’t remember exactly why. Some years ago she received a settlement from the Australian authorities.</p>
<p>This case frightens me, as it so effectively demonstrates how “proper” reaction is such a heavy consideration in criminal cases when there is no proof that some committed a crime. Just circumstantial evidence, and the possibility. There are a number of cases like this out there, some of them high profile where the social media has turned the public into a pitchfork and torch wielding lynch gang before the evidence is weighed and assessed in a court of law.</p>
<p>I read today that a scrap of the baby’s clothing was found in a dingo lair. There is no happy ending for the family; what a lifelong nightmare. As far as the public goes “bad mother” hatred is always in vogue, I agree cptofthehouse. A few days after that terrible fire during the holidays that killed a NYC executive’s young daughters and parents in their home, my local hags were talking about how the mother obviously did it to get away clean and start a new life. Such ignorance and nonchalance about other people’s pain…</p>
<p>OH no, they didn’t really say that, did they?! That story was haunting; I can’t get the image of the grandfather trying to rescue the little granddaughter when the roof broke through, out of my mind–I can’t believe anyone would say that! Truly appalling.</p>
<p>Interesting to revisit this story, when Casey Anthony did show the “proper reaction” either, but was acquitted.</p>
<p>The “proper reaction” issue always bothers me, too. There is a Texas woman named Darlie Routier on death row, convicted of slitting her two boys’ throats. Yes, her “story” sounded unlikely, but the “improper reaction” is what did her in and what they kept showing on TV. A short while after the deaths, it was one of the son’s birthday. Darlie and her husband went to the grave site and had a little party, complete with Silly String. I’ve heard that after a traumatic death, the immediate family members are in shock, so I could see a couple of young, uneducated parents in shock, doing something inappropriate like that. I didn’t understand how that was proof that Darlie was the murderer.</p>
<p>It’s always the mother’s reaction (lack of hysterics) that is suspect. Stoic, stoney-faced fathers are just fine.</p>
<p>And haven’t they ever heard of people withdrawing because they can’t handle reality?</p>
<p>I think after any sudden death even if it wasn’t violent, you could have that response. My father died suddenly when I was 17, and it took me a long time to process it. At first I just shut out the whole idea.</p>
<p>Casey Anthony was acquitted despite not showing proper reaction, but that was the least of her sins and should not have been a focus point at all Her lack of proper reaction was given waaay too much attention when there should have been focus on other issues.</p>
<p>The “proper reaction” discussion reminds me of Amanda Knox. It’s interseting to compare American sentiment about that case to British and European.</p>
<p>I’m really alarmed whenever I hear the “proper reaction” argument, as someone on the spectrum. I hear it a lot, in the media and just in casual conversation. People think they can read SO much in a persons behavior, but we really don’t know everything we think we do.</p>
<p>missypie - I think the party at the grave response is not uncommon. Many years ago I was an auditor and one of our clients was a cemetery. One of our tasks was to make sure that the graves, crypts, niches that were shown as available for sale were actually still not makred as being occupied. This task always occured near year end. Many children’s graves were decorated with christmas decorations and had wrapped gifts stacked next to them. Some of the children had passed recently, for many it had been years.</p>
<p>Everyone has a different way of dealing with grief. I hated that task more than anything else I did…very depressing.</p>
<p>I dont find the party at the grave inappropriate or even that unusual.</p>
<p>I find it impossible to judge the behavior of any parent who has lost a child, or for that matter the behavior of anyone who has lost a loved one. My father died a few years ago at almost 80, after several years with serious medical problems. Every time I was with him for the past few years, I would look at him as we drove away and wonder if I would see him again. So it was not unexpected, but at the funeral I completely blanked out. Later, I would not be able to remember talking to certain relatives, or even remember that they were there. It was all unreal and I’m sure I was not having the “proper” reaction. I was sleepwalking.</p>
<p>The party at the grave seems well within normal bounds to me, too, sistersunnie.</p>
<p>I grew up near a NYC cemetery that was used by many immigrant families. On Sundays, when my family would solemnly visit the family plot, we would see tens of families having a regular ol’ picnic at the gravesite</p>