Dingo Killed Baby in Australia: Mysterious Case Brings Attention To Dangerous Wild Dog
A coroner in Australia ruled that a Dingo, or Australian wild dog, took 9-month-old baby Azaria Chamberlain in 1980, giving closure to the mysterious disappearance of the girl.
The case, which inspired the movie "A Cry in the Dark" with Meryl Streep, had divided Australians and hunted the baby's parents with public doubt for decades.
"We're relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga," Azaria's mother Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters Tuesday.
Lindy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the dissappearance of the baby. She was jailed for four years until a child's jacket was found in a dingo den and she was acquitted.
Since Azaria, there have been reportedly 27 dingo attacks on humans, three of them fatal, according to ABC News.
Some dingoes might regard humans as prey, especially children.
On August 17, 1980, Chamberlain and her husband went camping with their three children to Uluru in Australia's desert.
Chamberlain put the baby to sleep in their tent and went to a barbecue nearby. But she was disturbed to hear a "menacing growl," and when she returned to the tent she saw a dingo drag her daughter away.
The most recent attack occurred in 2011 when a 3-year-old girl was attacked by two dingoes on Australia's Fraser Island, where the wild dogs are known to be most dangerous.
The todller received serious puncture wounds to the leg.
On April 2001, a 9-year-old girl was killed by two dingoes.
