Chamberlain Case: Baby Azaria mystery deepens

Perth, Western Australia, Australia | 19.07.2004 | AAP/Sunday Times | International

By Sheree Went

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton is reportedly examining a claim that a "fair-skinned woman" aged in her 20s is living with a group of Aboriginal people in the remote Western Desert.

Lindy investigates theory Azaria living with Aborigines Journalist Ray Martin said last night Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton was looking into the claim, made by a Seventh Day Adventist minister.

Martin, who made the claim on Channel Nine's A Current Affair, did not elaborate, and there was no comment from Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton included in the program.

Azaria disappeared from a campsite at Uluru on August 17, 1980, but her body was never found.

The mystery was rekindled earlier this month when a 78-year-old Melbourne pensioner, Frank Cole, claimed he shot a dingo which was carrying a dead baby in its mouth at Uluru on the night Azaria disappeared.

Last week, Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton told the Woman's Day magazine she was "100 per cent certain" Mr Cole's claims were wrong, and said she was investigating other theories.

She did not elaborate on what they were.

Northern Territory police are continuing to investigate Mr Cole's claims, which also included his belief that two men he was travelling with buried Azaria's body in a Melbourne suburban backyard.

A Current Affair last night also flagged a second Melbourne address as Azaria's burial site.

But the house that once stood there was levelled and replaced with a large unit development years ago.

Northern Territory police would not confirm whether they were interested in the former house site on Blyth Street, in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick.

Citing a "credible source", A Current Affair said the house was owned by Bob Farmer, one of the men Mr Cole said took the baby's body back to Melbourne in 1980.

Mr Farmer, a truck wrecker, died 15 years ago and the house was subsequently demolished with a large scale unit development built in its place, it said.

A single-storey Victorian cottage on Manningham Street, Parkville, was earlier named by Mr Cole as a possible site.

The program also said two NT police officers visited Mr Cole last Friday to discuss his story but NT police refused to confirm whether this had taken place.

"All we are saying is that Northern Territory police hope to get a statement from Mr Frank Cole," the spokesman said.

NT police told AAP last night: "We can't confirm that the (Brunswick) address is one that is being looked at. It is an ongoing investigation."

Ms Chamberlain-Creighton was jailed for life in 1982 for Azaria's murder but was freed from jail in 1986.

She was officially pardoned in 1987 and her conviction quashed the following year.

(C) 2004 AAP/ Sunday Times Perth, Western Australia, Australia 6000.

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