Jacket ‘vital to Chamberlain case’

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 1

Jacket ‘vital to Chamberlain case’

NZPA-AAP Ayers Rock A pathologist describes the baby’s jacket found at Ayers Rock as a vital piece of evidence in the Lindy Chamberlain case.

Professor Vernon Plueckham arrived at Ayers Rock yesterday afternoon to oversee excavations oh behalf of Chamberlain’s defence.

Chamberlain was sentenced to life imprison-ment-in 1982 for the murder of her daughter, Azaria, aged 9 weeks, in August, 1980, at Ayers Rock.

Professor Plueckham said that if Azaria had been wearing a matinee jacket it would counter claims made at the trial that Chamberlain had put a blood-stained hand on Azaria’s jumpsuit It was not surprising

that the jacket had been found intact, he said. If if had been found buried in dry soil it could Well have been preserved. If the baby’s.body had been buried there it was likely there would be some remains such as hair still in the soil.

Two Alice Springs botanists specialising in arid-zone flora spent five hours yesterday mapping vegetation at the site of the jacket find. Mr Peter Latz said they had collected eight or 10 different species of plants which would be pressed and dried at Alice Springs. They had taken some woody samples also which could give some indication of ageing. The police .would not say why the samples were being taken.

The president of Australia's National Freedom Council, Mrs . Betty Hocking, has called for new forensic testing of a jumpsuit and car bracket used in evidence at the Chamberlain trial.

Mrs Hocking said the discovery of the jacket dealt a further blow to the Crown case against Chamberlain. . “Lindy described the jacket in detail during the trial, yet was accused by the Crown prosecuter of deliberately lying about a garment which did not exist,” she said. Mrs Hocking said that while the jacket and soil content were being tested by independent forensic scientists, the jumpsuit and car bracket in the custody of the High Court should be tested also. To page 5