(Report of Inspector Michael Gilroy of the Northern Territory Police)
August 30, 1980
Azaria Chamberlain was born at 1.16 p.m. on Wednesday the 11th of June 1980 at Mt. Isa Hospital, at a weight of 2880 grams (6 pounds 5 1/2 ounces). The mother was reported to have repeatedly complained about the child being sick, stated that she was suffering from pyloric stenosis, a ailment which closes the sphinctum and causes vomiting. She would not heed hospital staff when they told her the baby was completely normal.
She allegedly told the staff that her other children suffered form the same complaint and that she had cured it herself when she had fallen down a hole carrying them as babies.
It is reported that she appeared not to have cared for the baby, and at one stage did not feed it for over eight hours. Registration of the baby was never completed.
When bringing the baby in for a check-up she astounded the Sisters by having the baby dressed completely in black. A doctor who treated the baby said that she did not react like a normal mother.
The same doctor said that he looked up the name Azaria in a Dictionary of Names and Meanings and found that it means ‘Sacrifice in the Wilderness.’
On visiting the library on Saturday morning, I found that this book is in stock but has been mislaid. It is believed is should be available on Monday.
The parents appeared on the TV show ‘This Day Tonight” on Channel Seven, on Friday evening, 29 August 1980. Mrs. Chamblerlain allegedly made the comment that the blanket which covered Azaria was a strong one and difficult to cut with a knife. (The blanket which we took possession of at Ayers Rock had numerous small cuts in it which, even to the layman, looked more like cuts from a sharp instrument than punctures one would expect from a dog’s teeth.)
To date we have actually not one witness who can say they saw the baby at Ayers Rock, but people who have assumed she was holding a baby when they have seen her holding a white bundle to her breast.
The impression given in her statement to me was that the two boys climbed the Rock with their father, and she was left at the bottom with the baby in the car. Later on in her statement, she states when she was at the Fertility Caves with the baby (when the dingo ‘cased’ it). The two boys were with her but the husband was not. They would appear to have descended by themselves. Where the clothes were found was not more than four hundred metres from there. Constable Morris was instructed to check out the floor of the caves for patches of soft earth, etcetera. Many tourists have been visited them since, and he has, no doubt, contacted them. He is also reinterviewing the ranger who saw Mrs. Chamberlain at the bottom of the climb that Sunday afternoon, who saw her holding the apparel of a baby.