Coroner: Dingo took baby in notorious case

Patrina Malone / EPA

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, speaks with media, as her ex-husband Michael Chamberlain (right) watches on outside the Darwin's Magistrate Court in Darwin, Australia, June 12.

By msnbc.com staff

An Australian coroner has ruled that a dingo was responsible for a baby?s disappearance in a notorious 1980 case that later became a major motion picture.

A Northern Territory coroner told a packed courtroom Tuesday that a dingo or dingos took Azaria Chamberlain from a campground, ABC News Australia reported.

The baby?s mother, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, was convicted of murder, and the father, Michael Chamberlain, was given a suspended sentence for being an accessory, the Brisbane Times reported. Both were exonerated in 1987.

The coroner report stated that the cause of Azaria's death was "the result of being attacked and taken by a dingo."

The finding means that Azaria Chamberlain?s death certificate will be changed to reflect the new report, the Herald Sun reported.

After the hearing, Chamberlain-Creighton said, "we are relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga," the Brisbane Times reported.

The case was made into a major motion picture, ?A Cry in the Dark,? starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain, in 1988.

AAP via EPA

A handout photograph made available by the Australian news agency AAP showing the camping area, including Lindy Chamberlain's tent, where her daughter Azaria went missing, near the Uluru sandstone rock, Northern Territory, central Australia, Aug. 17, 1980.

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